Woman's Hour - Biden drops out and backs Harris, Maternal health in Gaza, Female coaches, Sculptor Dominique White

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

President Biden has bowed to pressure and made the decision to drop out of the US presidential race. He’s endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the potential Democrat Party nominee to run against Donald Trump – but is America ready for another female presidential nominee? Nuala McGovern is joined by Kelly Dittmar, Director of Research at the non-partisan Center for American Women and Politics and Kimberly Peeler- Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights, an organisation that works to mobilise black women voters, and which endorsed the Vice President yesterday.The Paris Olympics starts on Friday and it looks like they will be the first Games ever to have equal numbers of male and female athletes – but not of coaches. The figure for female coaches at the last Olympics in Tokyo, was just 13%. So what’s happening to try and shift that dial? Nuala speaks to Dr Elizabeth Pike from Hertfordshire University who leads the Women in Sport High Performance pathway, and Emily Handyside, Head Coach for Wales Netball, and Coaching Performance Pathway Manager at UK Coaching.Nine months since the current Israel-Gaza war began, we look at pregnancy and giving birth in a war zone. Nuala hears from a mum in Gaza who recently gave birth, and also from a midwife trying to deliver care under constant bombing. We also speak to Hiba Al Hejazi from CARE International UK about the humanitarian support available for women in Gaza. Plus, Nuala is joined by Washington Post Middle East correspondent Louisa Loveluck to talk about the wider situation, including the worries of some of the Israeli hostages' families about the passing of nine months since their loved ones were abducted.The sculptor Dominique White has a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. It is four large sculptures made of iron, driftwood and detritus from the sea, lit in such a way to suggest that you are submerged, or looking at a shipwreck on the seabed. It was created during Dominique’s six-month residency in Italy, the time granted to her when she won the Max Mara art prize for women in 2023.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Maryam Maruf Studio manager: Sue Maillot

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Now, as you will have seen and heard, President Biden is quitting the US presidential race and has endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to run as the Democrats' presidential nominee. Now, there is a way to go before she might be confirmed as that. And Vice President Harris might not be the only person who is prepared to take on Donald Trump in November. But as we look at this historically, nor would she be the first person to take him on if she were the nominee.

But we know how that ended for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Some are asking if in 2024, is the US ready for another female presidential nominee, be it Ms. Harris or another woman? That conversation is coming up. But you know, before yesterday's announcement about stepping down, there were a number of political commentators that were calling Joe Biden's insistence on staying as the presidential nominee a classic case study in the sunk cost fallacy. So the sunk cost fallacy describes a cognitive bias

that leads people to double down on failed strategies in which they've invested time, resources and emotional energy. I think we've all been there, whether it's a job, a relationship or a project. Knowing when to quit when you've already committed so much to try and make it work, that can be hard.

And I'm wondering, is something coming to mind for you as I talk about the sunk cost fallacy? When have you had a big rethink over something? You can text the programme. The number is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. Or you can email us through our website. For WhatsApp messages and

voice notes, that number is 03700 100 444. Also, it's just over nine months since Hamas attacked Israel and consequently the strikes by Israel on Gaza. We're going to look at the situation for pregnant women in the territory and also concerns of sexual violence against the women held hostage by Hamas. This hour we'll speak to Dominique White about her new exhibition

Deadweight, which she created after winning the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. Plus, where are all the female coaches? A lot to talk about. Let us begin. You know, it's about 16 hours ago now, I guess, and you heard that President Biden

has turned the US election on its head. So, you know, for weeks he was insisting he would remain that Democratic nominee, but he's decided to drop out. And he has endorsed, as I mentioned, Vice President Kamala Harris as the potential Democrat Party nominee to run against Donald Trump

who is the Republican candidate. Now, she has not been confirmed as the presidential nominee. Many of the party are falling in behind her but we're asking, is America ready for another female presidential nominee? Let's talk about this. Joined by the US,

thank you for getting up early, Kelly Ditmar, Director of Research at the Nonpartisan Centre for American Women in Politics and she's Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. Also, Kimberly Peeler-Allen,

co-founder of Higher Heights, an organisation that works to mobilise women from the voting booth to elected office and endorsed the vice president yesterday. So I need to get that out as well. Welcome to you both.

Welcome, Kelly. Welcome, Kimberly. Thanks for having us. Right. And thanks for getting up early. Kelly, is America ready for another female presidential nominee? To put this in context,

if she's nominated, she would be only the second major party female presidential nominee after Hillary Clinton in that 2016 election. Yeah, I mean, the short answer is yes. Hillary Clinton won more votes than Donald Trump did in 2016. Well, let's be specific about that. You're talking about popular vote as opposed to electoral college. But the electoral college is

the system in the United States that decides the president. That's the way the democracy is set up. Sure, but states don't differ by gender breakdown. And, you know, so in terms of like, is the country ready to elect a woman? Sure. The majority of the country decided to cast their ballot for a woman in 2016. The strategy in terms of the states in which you get that vote obviously matter. And the Harris campaign now will be working on making sure they have the votes in the states that they need for the electoral college. If you look at general statistics in terms of, you know, would you vote for a woman? Nearly 90 percent of those in the United States say that they will.

All of this doesn't mean that there won't be gendered and racialized ways in which Kamala Harris navigates this campaign. But the idea that the country is just flat out not ready, I think is false. I think what it means is that those of us who do this work and voters more broadly need to not be stymied by what we would call the electability bias, which is a perception that she can't win, right? A perception that a woman can't win, a perception that a black woman couldn't possibly win white voters nationwide. And so if we continue to talk about and focus on electability, as I think we've done in past elections when women have been on the ballot, it starts to raise doubts among voters. I think a difference in this dynamic is that we've got a very short on-ramp, a very short time in U.S. context to get to election day.

And what I hope that will mean is it'll really focus voters less on can she win, can she not win and more on how, what is the path to victory for Kamala Harris? But I suppose, as I mentioned, it's just 16 hours. So people immediately ask that question, as they do with all potential candidates. And let me bring you in here, Kimberly. So I'm talking a little bit about gender with Kelly. But what about that aspect? I remember when she was nominated, there was so much conversation about the fact that she was a black woman, the fact that she was Asian American, also in her heritage. Do you think America is ready for a woman of color to potentially lead the country? I agree with Kelly. I think the country is ready and I think it is beyond just her identities, but her qualifications. And she's been in public service for over 20 years. And her record from when she was district attorney in San Francisco to attorney general in California, in the US Senate, as well as serving as vice president, is illustrative of the, I think, from many voters' view, the calm that is needed, the leadership, the proven track record that is needed in this moment. So the fact that

she will be looking at all policies and practices through the lens of her identities is a plus, but it is her accomplishments and her track record that I think really, you know, will galvanize a lot of people to come on board. And we saw the platform ActBlue, which processes campaign contributions, had their largest day, or not even day, 12-hour period. As of 10 p.m. last night, they had raised over $50 million for her, or $50 million had come through the platform for her campaign since the endorsement came out, so that was absolutely unprecedented. And I think that says a lot about the energy. And we're seeing, you know, there were some Nikki Haley, Republican, previous Republican primary candidate Nikki Haley, many of her supporters have come out and said that they are supporting the vice president. So I think this is a galvanising moment. That is interesting. There's a couple of aspects there I'd like to pick up on, Kimberly, with you. One, you talk about people coming behind her

and kind of putting their money where their mouth is. But I do remember with Kamala Harris, particularly with black communities, a lot were angry at her and her prosecutorial record, feeling at times that she was not sympathetic to some of the issues within that community. And I just wonder, will women of colour rally behind her? I think they will. I think there is also the, you know, as Kelly mentioned, the perception bias. This is something that we have never seen before.

And wrapping our heads around it and also thinking about, you know, in a broader context, not just her record and people's feelings about what she did as a district attorney or as attorney general, but looking at the full body of work that she has done and then also looking at the times that we are in right now as a country. And I think there is, you know, it is still very, very new, you know, 16 hours in. And I think folks are wrapping their heads around it.

But as I have been telling my friends, you know, if you say that she can't do it, she won't do it. You have to believe in the possibilities that exist, that this country is ready for Kamala Harris to become the next president of the United States. Now, there were thousands of black women also across the states that joined a Zoom call on Sunday night to throw their support. I was one of them. Were you? What was it like on that call? I mean, I'm trying to think of a Zoom call. Did I see 40,000? Some crazy number. 44,000. Yes, I was one of the 44,000. And it was just a wonderful opportunity for Black women to come together. And it was off the record, so I will not disclose. You sure you don't want to? Overwhelmingly hopeful and just the joy that women all came together. And every probably 20 minutes they said, we've had to increase capacity. It's another 6,000 people have joined.

And the number of people who were texting me saying, I can't get in, I can't get in, just really was energising in this moment. But it was also, you know, as much as it was marking the moment, we were also preparing ourselves for the work ahead, because we have very little runway until the Democratic National Convention. And then it is a sprint to November, and we have lots of work to do. Which is next month. Coming back to you, Kelly, also picking up on some of the points that Kimberly was making there, that there was all these women that Kimberly was talking about. But, you know, when I went back, had a look and let's talk about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as well, as we put this in a historical context, I guess now, white women came out to vote for Donald Trump. And those figures, according to Pew, was 48% for Clinton and actually, I believe it was 48% for Trump and 46% for Clinton when it came to white women. And I'm wondering, where are white

women, do you think, in this demographic? Because some felt they clinched it for Trump. Sure. I mean, white women have historically voted for Republicans. So in 2016, it wasn't so much a surprise that they continued to vote for the Republican candidate. We would have expected that going in. I think the surprise was that you saw somebody who was kind of openly misogynistic. And why would white women stick with them? And there's deep history there, of course, when we talk about the protection that white women have had from white supremacy, patriarchy, etc. I think we've seen some

evolution. So ever since 2016, even going into 2016, we saw college educated white women moving away from the Republican Party, moving away from Donald Trump. That trend has continued. So we've seen that gap continue through 2022 in non-presidential election years. At the same time, though, non-college educated white women have become more aligned and kind of firmly in the Republican Party. So I think that diversity among white women will continue to see. And you'll see that in terms of the targeted messaging and the efforts of campaigns. Which white women, you know, are the Democrats really trying to ensure that they keep going into November? And which white women is the Trump campaign going to continue to try to keep? And that'll shape the types of messages and points

that they're trying to make to these voters. And we keep coming back to the fact that this has just been a number of hours since it was announced and that Kamala Harris is indeed just one of the potential candidates that may become the Democrats nominee. But looking back to when Hillary Clinton ran against Donald Trump in 2016, how do you think, Kelly, the Republican camp might play it this time? Yeah, I mean, look, we just saw an RNC that was so hyper masculine. I mean, he saw a former professional wrestler tear off his shirt. That was Hulk Hogan. Yes, exactly. So, you know, we've been talking about the hyper masculinity of Donald Trump for a long time in politics. And so when he's competing in this case now against the woman, it only amplifies that contrast, right? So it's not to say he doesn competing in this case now against a woman, it only amplifies that contrast.

Right. So it's not to say he doesn't do this against his male opponents, but we're going to see this masculinity approach really at its height as a point of contrast against Kamala Harris. At the same time, we know that beyond sexism, so there's a measure of hostile sexism that was one of the predictors for a vote for Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections. The other major predictor was what we call racial resentment, right? And so those two things are key predictors of support for Donald Trump, which means if you're him and his strategist, you're going to play into those things. So we've already seen him for four plus years position Kamala Harris as the face of the administration, as the one really in charge. And that was strategic because he could cue racial and gendered stereotypes, but particularly

racialized stereotypes that she is radical, she is dangerous. And now you'll see more and more, I'm sure, tropes around her being unqualified to tap into both racial and gendered stereotypes about who's qualified to win. How would Miss Harris's camp then counteract that? And this is all, of course, hypothetical, but you do look at politics deeply. And I've probably seen some of this play out before. And to be fair, she's been pushing back against this right again, because this is what's interesting in this moment is the Republicans. They don't have a hugely new strategy. Right. Because they've been campaigning against Kamala Harris for four years. So you'll see her make sure that she's out there clarifying her positions, obviously her qualifications. But more than that, it's the 40 plus thousand women that that Kimberly was with last night and others who will be out backing and pushing back against the misinformation and disinformation that's being targeted to her.

You know, when I was on X this morning, I noticed that Michelle Obama was trending as some people talking about her wanting her to run. But she is in the news for something else, Kimberly, and that is that President Obama nor Michelle Obama have yet endorsed Kamala Harris. Do you think that is significant? I think it is just a matter of time. Really? I don't. Well, I think there is lots of conversation around, you know, you read it, you go into the corners of X and there's all sorts of theories as to who has come out when and why. I think when all is said and done, you know, we are absolutely an unprecedented territory. This has never happened before. And I think, you know, we will see how it all plays out. I know from, I am not a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, but it is my understanding that they are, you know, all of the delegates in the state parties are rallying behind her and will be, you know, having a, you know, trying to secure all of their votes today.

And I would expect that by the time that happens, by close of business, that you will see the Obamas come on board. OK, we're going to hold you to that, Kimberly. We'll check how it's going later. Kimberly Peeler-Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights, who has endorsed the vice president yesterday. Also Kelly Dittmar,

director of research at the Nonpartisan Centre for American Women in Politics and associate professor of political science at Rutgers University. Really interesting. Thank you so much for joining us and starting off this Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. Really interesting. Thank you so much for

joining us and starting off this edition of Woman's Hour. And thanks to lots of you getting in touch about the issue I was talking about. If you heard it at the beginning, it is sunk cost fallacy. You know when you invest so much time and energy and you just double down because you don't want to give up

because you think, now I've spent too much time on this already. Some people were saying that's what President Biden was doing. He has now stepped down. Let's have a look here. I almost completed a midwifery degree three years ago, but because of poor health due to COVID, I wasn't able to finish the hours at the end of the placement. It cost me three years of hard work. I was devastated and I haven't been able to let it go. You see, so still in that mindset, keep them coming, 8-4, 8-4-4. Now,

the Olympics in Paris, they start on Friday, and it looks like they will be the first games ever to have equal numbers of male and female athletes, but not of coaches. The figure for female coaches at the last Olympics in Tokyo was just 13%. So what has been happening in the meantime to try and

shift that dial? Well, Dr. Elizabeth Pike from Hertfordshire University leads the Women in Sport High Performance Pathway, or WISH, which aims to equip women to coach at elite levels. Emily Handyside is head coach

for Wales Netball, also coaching performance pathway manager at UK Coaching. You're both very welcome to Women's Hour. Let me start with you, Emily. Why aren't there more female coaches? That's a great question. Firstly, thank you for having this conversation. It's really important.

We know that behind every Olympic athlete that's about to perform next week, there's a great team of coaches. So why aren't there more of them? There's a whole range of reasons. Firstly, it doesn't feel particularly attractive to women coaches there aren't many people that look like them in coaching roles so they don't necessarily see themselves fitting there there's a whole range of challenges like um it's particularly demanding role not great work-life balance and we know that women have to work twice as hard to prove themselves and sadly they face a whole range of issues like sexism and misogyny

and coupled with that, you know, level of support. It really does not sound that attractive the way you are laying it out there, Emily. So what kept you in it? Oh, it's obviously a really rewarding role. You help people achieve their goals and their aspirations. You're helping them to make memories and friendships for life.

It's incredibly rewarding for me, feeling like I'm having that impact on people. So yeah, it's the opportunity to care for and support people that hooks you in as a coach. And I'll come to how you became head coach of the Welsh women's netball team in a moment. But Elizabeth, how are coaches normally recruited? Quite often it's through informal networks. So Paris has done a fantastic job of shining a

spotlight on the issue of gender equality by making this claim that Paris will be the first gender equal games on the field of play. But of course, quite a lot of high performance coaches have themselves been high performance athletes first. So if 2024 is the first gender equal games on the field of play, it's going to take some time before those informal networks and those women are then able to transition into the high performance coaching role. So and that is your focus, this elite or high performance level coaches. What skills do you need to develop with female coaches? So what we do on the WISH programme, the programme is designed specifically for high performance coaches,

but it's actually a leadership programme. And what we do is we work with the women on a number of levels. So the first thing that we do is we think about the woman at the centre of this and we work with them on their personal development. Then we look at who they're networking with, who's in their broader network, who do they connect with? Because those interpersonal relationships are absolutely key, both as a high performance coach, but also as a leader. So we're building this global community of coaches through the programme. We also allocate them mentors, both a leadership mentor and also a sport specific mentor. And their personal development, what's in that?

So the way that the programme works, it's the women are on a rolling 21 month programme. So the fifth cohort's going through at the moment. They start with the first week of the programme is a residential week at the University of Hertfordshire, which manages the programme. Then it moves to online sessions and mentoring. And what we're constantly doing with the women is getting them to self-reflect, to decide what's their personal development, their personal needs. And some of that is culturally specific. This is an international programme. They do 360 evaluations

of themselves and get their employers to do it. Very similar to any other business. And no different to men's training for coaching? Yes, it is different. In what aspect? So it's first of all, the WISH programme is deliberately a women only space. And the women say that's really important to them. Of course, they're going to go and work in a mixed gender environment. But to have that safe space where they can talk about issues that are specific to women is really important to them. And that supportive network,

talking about issues like being a mother. You know, Emily just alluded to that. So it is different. And we think the women-only space is crucial. It's so interesting. We had, we're at Lord's Cricket Ground, which I'll tell people a little bit more about it in a minute.

But it was similar, keeping young girls in sport was also creating that space. It's so interesting when they're adult women, that is still needed, I think, is what I'm hearing from you, Elizabeth. Back to you, Emily. How did you become head coach

of the Welsh women's netball team? Well, I did a coaching degree and I've been a full-time high performance coach for my whole adult life. Did a lot of coaching roles with England before moving over to be with the Welsh Feathers as the head coach And when we look at the numbers

overall that you're contributing to the numbers of women coaching isn't that bad 44% in the UK but that's across the board and I suppose not at the elite level that Elizabeth has been telling us about Yeah absolutely so what we see is that although 44% looks quite positive across the board, and I suppose not at the elite level that Elizabeth has been telling us about?

Yeah, absolutely. So what we see is that although 44% looks quite positive, the majority of those women coach children and young people or in school settings and are less likely to coach team sports or in adult or competitive or high performance environments. And also when we start to look at other characteristics like race then we see that 79% of those coaches are actually white so there's a lot of work to do still and particularly when we look at the figures in the high performance space they're improving but they're still a long way to go. I'm also thinking about some of the punishing schedules you alluded to it as well when it comes to elite sport for example in March britain's most successful female olympian cyclist dame laura kenny told us on women's hour that the sacrifice

involved as an athlete was too great she wanted to step back and spend more time with her two children but it must be the same for the coaches in the sense of the grueling nature of it yes of course and particularly when you're coaching at the top level, because it requires you to travel internationally where there's different time zones, etc. So it is demanding for coaches, men and women. But what we're finding and what we're hearing from women and what the research tells us is they actually have to work twice as hard to prove themselves. So work-life balance is an all-round issue. But women, unfortunately, because of stereotypes that exist and the expectations around what a coach is they have to work twice as hard to prove themselves back to the paris olympics which start on friday elizabeth um some of your students will be coaching uh so yes we have um 12 of the women from the um which program will be at the games a number of others will also be supporting their national teams, not in Paris. Many of them have already been to world championships and so on.

And some of them are working at the grassroots level and working in coach education to bring on the next generation of women in high-performance coaching. There seems to be a lot of looking to the future as well. Are there any British women that are coaching at the Olympics? There will be, yes. So Naomi Folkart, who's a five-times Olympian in archery, will be there as a coach for the first time.

How exciting. I'm really looking forward to getting into the Olympics. Right. Also, on to some of the aspects that Emily was talking there as well. I'm just wondering, how unusual would it be for a woman to coach a male athlete or a men's team? We've seen Serena Wiegmann, people have been talking about her as a potential replacement for Gareth Southgate after he resigned from the England men's football. Do you think that throws up any different challenges? I don't.

To coaching a women's team, for example. Yeah, so, I mean, Tom Daley has a female coach, Adam Peaty and so on. One of the things that I find concerning about this is that it is almost presented as if the woman would want to move into coaching the men's team because that's the better job. And actually what we want to do is normalise women's sports so that they're both seen as equally important, equally valuable, rather than thinking that we want to move women into the male job because that's the better role to have. Do we know what percentage of coaches will be female in the Olympics? We don't at the moment because some of them are still being selected. But we hope that given the visibility and given the trajectory there is that it will be higher than the 13% in Tokyo and

certainly higher than the 10% in Beijing. Really interesting. I'll be looking closely. Dr. Elizabeth Pike and Emily Handyside, thank you both so much. The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics is on Friday, as I mentioned, so we're going to have to look out for the women on the sidelines of those events being held over there over the coming two weeks.

And I mentioned Lourdes there briefly because, if you didn't know, last Wednesday we had a special live programme broadcasting from the famous Test Match special box at Lord's Cricket Ground. It was the whole hour dedicated to women's cricket. We were there ahead of the culmination of a five-match T20 international series between New Zealand and England, between their teams, but also to mark the 25th anniversary of women being allowed to become members at the club. Now, one of my money guests was Ebony Rainford-Brent, a World Cup winning cricketer, now term presenter and pundit. She was talking about her work with the African Caribbean Engagement Programme, ACE,

and it creates opportunities for young cricketers to take up the game. She's also trying to break down the perception that cricket is only for white older men. So if you want to listen to the full programme, I have to say it's a cracker. It even has a surprise cake. You can find the episode on BBC Sounds. It's called The Woman's Hour Live from Lord's Cricket Ground last Wednesday.

Also should mention, we had a profile of Kamala Harris on the programme on the 11th of July. So maybe you'd like to learn a little bit more about her if you missed that particular episode. Some of you getting in touch in relation to sunk cost fallacy. Julie emailed to say, I wonder as a woman of 64 who came of age in the more submissive 70s and 80s whether sunk cost fallacy is something

that can be applied to the marriages of many women my age. Yes, it can, Julie, from what I've read. We've invested so much and in a lot of cases find ourselves retired and facing a long time with someone with whom now

we have very little in common and someone who does very little of the emotional heavy lifting. Yeah, people have applied it to relationships, to jobs, to projects.

It's kind of an interesting concept to think about. 8-4-8-4-4 if you would like to get in touch. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Now I want to move on to Israel and Gaza. It's been a little over nine months since the current Israel-Gaza war began. Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas

in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel. That was on the 7th of October, as you'll remember, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. More than 38,660 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by many Western governments, including the UK. And given the significance of the nine-month timeframe,

the Israeli parents of four young women hostages in Gaza have spoken about concerns that their daughters could be pregnant or might have given birth as a result of alleged sexual abuse. For pregnant Palestinian women in the past nine months, many have been dealing with a collapsed health infrastructure and little or no access to hospitals. The charity Save the Children estimates 50,000 babies have been born in Gaza since the war began. And today we'll hear from two Palestinian mums whose stories have been shared with us by the aid organisation Care International UK. First, we're going to hear from a mum who we're calling Zainab, not her real name.

Before the war, she was living in Gaza with her husband and their three-year-old daughter and a warning, some of what she describes is graphic and upsetting. I discovered that I was pregnant on October 4th, three days before the war. I felt happiness and joy like any woman who wants to have a baby and finds out she's pregnant. But when the war started, the nightmare started. The colours of my life changed into grey, sadness and fatigue. I was terrified by the intensity of the destruction and the power of the bombs that were coming down on us. I felt like we were surrounded by belts of fire. I didn't have the chance to go to any hospital or clinic because the situation was really scary. There was the smell of death on the streets. There were days I felt like I was in a horror movie. When I was two months pregnant, the

home I was in was bombed and I had to be pulled out from under the rubble. It would happen to me a few times. There were no safe places. Even in the designated safe zones, there was no safety there. I've seen blown up bodies, severed limbs in front of me. It was really like being in a horror film. And then the war took my husband from me. He had gone out and was killed in a bombing. This has been the hardest grief to deal with. There's a saying in Arabic,

the mud around me became even more dirty. I was really struggling. I felt like I had no one. I felt tired and sad. And we had to keep moving. I remember travelling south to Khan Yunus. I was so scared of the snipers and the tanks. Whenever I moved, I knew I was risking my life,

the life of the baby I was carrying in my womb, and my daughter. This experience of being displaced repeatedly, I don't know how to describe it. The word displacement to me now feels like the dirtiest word I've ever known in my life. Displacement means that everything is temporary. Nothing is safe. Will you stay alive? Will you die?

What gave me comfort is that I would speak to my daughter about the baby inside me. I had a strong feeling that I was carrying a girl inside of me. So I would say, maybe you'll get a beautiful sister. She'll be beautiful just like you. You'll be able to play with her. And it made my daughter happy to think about it. That was a clip of Zainab, a young woman in Gaza who became pregnant at the start of the conflict. And we'll hear a little more from her later.

But I want to turn to Hiba Al-Hajazi, a regional humanitarian advocacy advisor for the aid organisation Care International UK that has provided us with some of this testimony. She joins me in the studio. Welcome. Thank you. So you shared these stories with us and you've done research into maternal health now in Gaza.

I saw you nodding along as you were listening to Zainab. Yeah, it's because you hear a story like Zainab's and you think that it's, as she described it, a horror story and that it would be an anomaly. But the sad situation is that this is not an anomaly. When it comes to speaking of these stories, it's not a question of what, it's which stories we end up speaking on. And the issues and challenges that she faced has become all too common for women inside of Gaza. And I can just give you some general understanding of how difficult it is to be as a pregnant woman there

when you haven't got access to food, when you haven't got access to pre or postnatal care, when you can't even have the needed medicine that you need to be able to give birth in an environment that's safe, hygienic, and an environment which would be perfectly placed for a woman who wants to give birth. Why are you highlighting this research now? Well, highlighting this research mainly because nine months on,

it's easy for people to understand what it means to be pregnant within that nine months course and what it would also mean to give birth during that course. So for us, it's also a monumental kind of a sad timeline and a sad kind of moment to cover at the nine month mark. But that's something that we wanted to kind of highlight, just understanding that full pregnancy breadth of women who are giving birth right now inside of Gaza. And you talk about it being difficult to get to a hospital, to be able to do that

and Zenup said that as well. Doctors and healthcare providers are working under the most difficult situations in Gaza and when they're not on shift they might not have much of a home to go back to. Let's take a listen. So there is a video of a gynaecologist who's currently in northern Gaza. That's Dr. Tagreed.

And you can hear hammering a little bit there in the background. And there's a mother telling her child to get down from a wall and a little boy saying that his ear is hurting. It's a walkthrough of what was once a classroom in what used to be a school. And you see there's a crumbling ceiling, there's burnt out walls, there's makeshift curtains, there's washing that's hanging across the room. But it's where Dr. Taghreed is currently sheltering with her family. And even for a while, she was delivering babies there. Months before the war, she became pregnant. My name is Dr. Taghreed.

I've been specializing as a gynecologist for the last four years. I myself had a C-section on October 27, given birth to my son, Mohamed. And a week later, my home was bombed. I was displaced with my baby son and my other children, and we ended up finding shelter in a school. And when my son was 25 days old, he died as a result of airstrikes and the lack of oxygen. I buried my son, Mohammed, in the courtyard of the hospital.

I couldn't take him to the cemetery to bury him there. It was too dangerous. A few days after that, the hospital where I worked was raided by the Israeli army. Eventually, all the roads leading to the hospitals were cut off and I turned the classroom into a medical room. It was full of women from all over the north. We did medical checkups and consultations with the little means that were available to us. And one night we delivered four or five babies because of the inability of ambulances to move at night. And people were also too scared to travel at night because of the airstrikes. Over a period of three weeks, we delivered about 25 babies in this room.

And then when the army completely withdrew from the hospital, I went back to work there. We didn't have enough equipment and there wasn't any proper disinfectant. It was December and very cold winter. We didn't have enough heaters to keep the new babies warm. We dealt with a lot of difficult pregnancies. There were women who had high pregnancy-related blood pressure. There were also a few hemorrhage cases that we were able to control, thank God. Sometimes we were forced to take some women to other schools because we were being shot at and were in a dangerous situation. Sometimes we would deliver babies in classrooms

because the mothers couldn't walk because of the contraction pains. In May, we had to leave the classroom we were sheltering in because it was set on fire. I lost everything I had brought to this classroom. Now I have been able to return with my family to the same burnt classroom. There is absolutely nowhere to go. That's Dr. Chagrid and she described a raid taking place in the hospital that she worked at and the IDF have also used that terminology.

We did reach out to the IDF for comment about the safety of healthcare workers and the lack of access for women in Gaza to health services but we have not had a response. We heard some of the complications

there Hibba that Dr. Tagreed mentioned. What else are you hearing? I just also want to just put that also into a bit of a perspective. Just before I came into the studio, I just quickly checked what were the percentages of women, for example, in the UK who experience pregnancy, high risk pregnancy complications. It's six to eight percent. Inside of Gaza, pre-war, it was 15 percent. It's now at 40 percent. And this is high risk pregnancies.

But nearly all women are experiencing some complications. So what do they do? What do they do? In all honesty, it's literally just you go back to basics. That's the thing. If you don't have anesthetic, then you do the surgeries without anesthetic. If you don't have the equipment, you make makeshift equipment. It's even gone to a point where something as basic as sanitary wipes,

or for example, hygiene kits are just not available there. So you really do end up having to go back to basics. And it's a sad situation because a lot of women end up losing their kids, suffering complications, and things that could have been easier resolved when you have a full kind of healthcare sector working at the standard that you'd want it to is known it becomes basically unavoidable in these situations. And let us return to the first Palestinian mum that we heard from Zainab. She became pregnant last October. Her husband was killed during the war, she told us, and she was left alone with her three-year-old daughter. When my due date was approaching, my living situation was really

difficult. Pregnant, alone, and living in a tent with my daughter. When my contractions began, I was so tired and anxious and worried for my baby. I was afraid of what might happen to us. The journey to the hospital wasn't easy. The road was really long and there were bombs. I felt unsafe but God stood by me and those difficult moments passed. I had a c-section and gave birth to a baby girl. The first time I carried her in my arms. I felt a calming and beautiful feeling that my daughter had arrived safely. I named her after my mother. And thank God we were both healthy. We're now back in the tents and each new day when I wake up and find both my daughters safe, I thank God a million times that we're still okay what I worry about the most is how will I raise my girls how will I get money to buy nappies and milk for my baby I think about the education

I think about where we might live whether we might even survive I don't really know how to find a place in all of this destruction and havoc I hope to God this war ends and this tragedy ends because we are really tired. I swear to God, we are tired. Zainab in Gaza, not her real name, I should also say with Dr. Taghriid, we voiced up her story as well with a BBC colleague. Ebba, what do you think can be done to alleviate the situation that we hear Zainab and Dr Taghri tell us? It really goes back to exactly what Zainab mentioned

at the end of her voice note. They're all tired. The war needs to end. We've heard governments call for a ceasefire, but more needs to be done. It's not enough just to call for it nine months in. There needs to be leverage and influence put in to ensure that this comes to

a complete and utter halt because the situation is untenable. And it was untenable a couple of months back, let alone now nine months in. We don't hear as much talk of a ceasefire, I think, over the past few days. We did see on Friday that the British government announced they're going to resume their funding of UNRWA. So that's Gaza's largest UN agency. Our listeners might remember that funding had been dropped in January after Israel alleged that 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the October 2023 attacks by Hamas.

The Foreign Secretary David Lamy has said that following an independent review, he's reassured that UNRWA is ensuring it meets the highest standards of neutrality. It's strengthening its procedures, including on vetting. So it'll provide £21 million in new funds.

Will that make a difference? It's good news. At this stage, anything like this, where you have a resuming in funding for an organisation that's integral as UNRWA is great. But the issue we continue to face, and all aid organisations speak to, is you can have funds,

but if you're not able to deliver that aid inside of Gaza safely, and if you're not even able to get that aid across the border, when we're talking about the basic necessities aren't available for women, baby formula is one of those things. There are trucks containing baby formula that are stuck on the border, just waiting to get in. And that's the frustrating thing. And of course, Hiba, as you will have heard, as well as our listeners, when it comes to aid, there is always a war of words as well between been hearing from Hibba about some of the dire conditions that she says pregnant women and new mothers and doctors are facing in Gaza. Is there any hope on the horizon? I mean there's very little despite what we're hearing about the heroic efforts of doctors and aid groups in the absence of a cease

fire of a hostage deal the situation is parlous prenatal care is almost non-existent for most for most pregnant women most of them are giving birth outside of a hospital not outside of one and what I found most striking in conversations with pregnant women and you hear this time and time again today is what a time of dread this has become think about this deep sense of vulnerability that women often feel during pregnancy and multiply it exponentially and of course on top of everything we've heard today while the aid struggles to get in while the war continues most of the women that we're talking about who are pregnant are malnourished even famished and that means they're at increased risk of anemia. What does that mean? It means an increased risk of postpartum

hemorrhage when the time comes. And then if they do have the baby, a lot of women are so depleted that they struggle to breastfeed. But then what's the alternative? It's powdered milk, which for a lot of people is not only prohibitively expensive, but it requires a clean water source. And that is very difficult to find. And so we see the issues. Also, Louisa, we want to speak about the Israeli women who are held hostage in Gaza by Hamas. The parents of some of those women have been speaking out. There's believed to be 16 women in total.

Can you tell us a little of what they've said? Well, there's certain huge worry with the conditions facing these Israeli hostages. People have been released to say they had very little to eat. They lived under constant fear of their captors, of Israeli bombardment. And at least one woman now released has bravely gone public and described terrifying sexual abuse at the hands of one of her guards. Others have described hearing similar stories. And so for the families we've been hearing from who are just waiting, not just every day, every hour for news, that's the unimaginable fear of what they might find out when their daughters or wives are released. And it's

something that the parents we've spoken to say haunts them every day. Yes. And of course, also speaking about that nine months since the attacks began, since they were taken hostage and talking about could their daughters or the women that they know be pregnant due to sexual violence. Is there much information coming out about those women, those 16 women, Louisa? Well, I think the big issue that we have here when we talk about any of this is for those still in captivity, there is very little information. It's not even really clear who is dead who is alive and the families are campaigning tirelessly for any scrap of information not even released just to know is my daughter alive are they dead but without clear political will from the highest levels of the israeli government and from hamas both of which have been lacking at times for a hostage deal at ceasefire. It's just hard to see how these families will receive

any comfort after what has been nine months, as you say, of unimaginable pain. Louisa Lovelock, Washington Post Middle East correspondent in Jerusalem. Thank you very much for joining us on Woman's Hour and also Hiba al-Hijazi. Now you're listening to Woman's Hour 84844 if you would like to get in touch with theazi. Now, you're listening to Woman's Hour, 84844, if you would like to get in touch with the programme. But I want to turn to the sculptor Dominique White. She has a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. And as you step into the space, you enter a different environment.

The room is quite dark, but as you navigate the change in light, your eye immediately goes to four large sculptures that are placed in the room. Kind of gives you a sense of being submerged in the water, maybe looking at a shipwreck, perhaps in parts on the seabed. And Dominique created these sculptures when she won the Max Mara Art Prize for Women last year and then spent six months on a residency in Italy. Welcome, Dominique. Thank you for having me. I loved it. It was down yesterday but I think we need to describe for our listeners what I was looking at. You go first. Kind of like as you said you're on like this seabed looking at these like shipwrecked remains of

yeah maybe boats or kind of carcasses of whales. You're not quite sure what you're looking at but they're kind of these very intimidating objects that you're faced with and you kind of, whether it was not exactly barnacles, but you get kind of that sense that there's things that have been gathered along the seabed as it made its way. Big as well, these three, four metres of twisted metal, wood at times, fabric. And you called the exhibition Deadweight. That's a nautical term. Why that?

I mean, I'm quite obsessed with the sea. I mean, my work is kind of about ideas of futurity, but this understanding that futurity can only exist through the destruction of like the present and the idea of land. So I always look to the idea of the ship and its importance in creating like the new world, essentially. There was a new word I learned.

Am I pronouncing it correctly? I don't know. Hydraki? Yes. Yes? So explain that word, because your work is also that concept. Yes. So it is basically what I just described. It's a term that was coined in 1631 at the kind of emergence of capitalism. So it's about how powerful the ship or sea vessel is in creating power on land and how you can basically, I like to use hydroarchy from below.

So I look to pirates or runaway slaves or those who kind of like defy the status quo. So inspiring rebellion, I saw you want to, yes? Absolutely. I think it's, you know, what's the point in just like standing in line? I've always been taught to, you know, have a loud voice and kind of rebel and swell, especially the work I mean it's I find it quite funny because

I'm always mistaken for a man so like when they when they see well when they see the work they're like oh this must be a man it's so macho it's so heavy but when I watched this lovely video that's also at your exhibition that that shows your journey through Italy as you did this residency and I mean it looked amazing. You're going to Palermo, you're going to Genoa, you're going to Milan. But a lot of the people you worked with, particularly with that heavier metal work,

were men, right? That were like, you know, this Italian guy who's been doing it probably in his family for decades. And, you know, you put on the welding mask and a way to go. How was it being in that male space in Italy? I mean, I'm quite used to it, but it was quite funny,

especially like entering this like really historically very macho industry. And I remember in the beginning when I started welding and they were like, oh, here she is, like this little dainty princess. And like within a week, they were like, actually, she's pretty good, you know, like this is surprising, but also exciting.

I like to kind of, yeah, defy, I guess, the category of what women can do. You also, those sculptures that we were describing, you did immerse them in the sea. I think Genoa was the place that allowed you to do something so crazy. And so unhinged. I mean, administratively, it was a challenge, but also symbolically, it was quite incredible because Genoa was the center of the world for many years. I learned the English flag is actually the Genoese flag because it was so powerful, like as a navy. And also it's where Christopher Columbus comes from. There's so many like layers of history in that city. It's quite bizarre. So to then get permission to sync the work was pretty much a dream come true. It's about pushing the materials beyond their limits.

How long were they in? A month. That's all I had time for. I'd love to leave them in for months, if not years. Maybe the artwork could be, maybe the exhibition could be underwater. Got a whole other idea going on here. You know, I was interested also to see that you don't want to work with bronze because it's too permanent. But also it has such a loaded history, you know.

So talk me through that and also, I suppose, with iron as well and why you were more drawn to that. Well, bronze is like the material of like statues of presidents, of prime ministers. That's the material you see in a street and that will literally last for hundreds if not thousands of years you know we keep finding bronze statues at the bottom of the sea and you bring them up and they're basically immaculate and that idea of like i guess forever really freaks me out i kind of like materials to act autonomously like as if you know in this space they almost feel like they're creatures in their own right they've just stopped as soon as you've moved in and as soon as you leave they might start

i don't know flailing across the space and iron kind of affords that it's it's a yes i guess a completely volatile material as you can see like you know it's rusting it's eating itself in the space and that's a material that i guess other metals but sorry like a yeah it's eating itself in the space and that's a material that I guess other metals well sorry like a yeah it's something that other metals can't really do but you also talk about its connections to slavery because some of your work is also about afrofuturism or afro pessimism yeah um well actually in shipwrecks to when you find like yeah a shipwreck iron is usually at the material that indicates that it's a slave ship and usually the only material that indicates that it was a slave ship. So it's kind of like, yeah, using that material and turning it on its head.

It's this idea that the iron will disappear and therefore you kind of like it's like an idea of true liberation, I guess. Because you also talk about a black utopia. Ish. Yeah. Ish. Yeah. I like to also turn that on its head. It's like, well, you know, usually a utopia is kind of associated with outer space. But as we're seeing, like, I guess, new forms of colonialism, you know, Elon Musk talking about colonizing Mars, the idea of a new planet that you can escape to where, I guess, these rules of Earth no longer exist is basically impossible. But do you think about the utopia possibly under the sea? Well, yeah, because we don't, we know nothing about the sea.

No, we don't. It's such a fascinating space for that reason, right? We know more about space than the sea. And we keep finding these deep sea creatures that are so black that a camera can't even pick them up. For me, it's just such a sight of impossibility for that reason. I loved thinking about that after seeing the exhibition yesterday. And the only thing that kind of came to mind was kind of scuba diving when you'd be above water and there was all noise and craziness and boats, whatever, and the minute you go under, it's silent.

And you enter a different world and a different environment. And a different time zone almost. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've no idea of how time comes and goes. So I thought of that yesterday when I was with your exhibit. Just briefly, you talk about also wanting apart from inspiring rebellion inspiring hope but not with a capital h or h as some people will correct me i'm irish h uh why is that i think it's because hope with a capital h still aligns i guess this with this very narrow idea of what the future can be it's like i don't want the future to be that i'm basically working myself to death like

you know i'm never gonna be able to retire or know, I can't afford to actually have housing or like fresh fruit. I want it to be something that's so different to that. So it's trying to like separate from that very like defined word, essentially. The Max Mara Art Prize for Women, previous, two of the previous winners, went on to win the Turner Prize. How does that feel? Oh, I mean, I wouldn't say no. But it does open a whole other path. Yes, exactly.

And it's actually been great fun, I guess, like working through this the past two years and seeing, I guess, like I'm always so open to change. So, yeah, it's been great fun. I guess, like I'm always so open to change. So yeah, it's been great fun. I mean, if that's a possibility. You're not going to say no. Hope with a capital H. Thank you, Dominique. Quite lovely to have you in her exhibition, Deadweight. I was thinking something completely different with Deadweight, but then I went to see it and opened up my mind. It's on at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and it's on until the 15th of September. In relation to Gaza

that we were speaking about earlier and Israel, I do just want to say that we do have links on the Women's Hour website to Actionline with links to support if you need that. That is where that is. And join me tomorrow. I'll talk to lawyer-turned-author Megan Davis about her experience blowing the whistle on

financial crime and how it inspired writing her new novel, Bay of Thieves, all set in Monica, so get ready for that summer read. And a reminder, Listener Week, with us next month. Start sending in those ideas, 84844, on social media or email us. I will talk to you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

Hello, I'm Brian Cox. And I'm Robin Ince, and we are back with a new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. Robin, in 15 seconds or less, can you sum up the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage? Yes, I can. Do you want to learn how to win at every single board game you ever play, including Monopoly and Cluedo? Do you want to know about alien life coming from Glastonbury? Do you want to know about the wonder of trees with Judi Dench?

And do you also want to know about the unexpected history of science with Rufus Hound and others at the Royal Society? How is it unexpected? I don't know, which is why it's unexpected. It's unexpected to me. It might not be to the listeners. The Infinite Monkey Cage. Listen first on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.