Woman's Hour - Binner or Flusher, Ms Marvel, Feral Girl Summer

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Are you a 'flusher' or a ‘binner’? We’re talking about getting rid of tampons and towels. What makes you decide whether to flip that bin lid, or just drop and flush? New research is out which says 2.4 million tampons are flushed down UK toilets every day leading to sewer blockages and pollution. We talk to Martha Silcott who's developed a simple product to encourage you to bin and Daisy Buchanan who says more needs to be done to make a product which flushes without causing environmental harm. She's finally arrived! Ms Marvel the latest character from the Marvel universe. What's special about her? Marvel’s first Muslim superhero. Newcomer Iman Vellani, stars as Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel. We speak to Hafsa Lodi, a Pakistani-American journalist and author all about the series. Nellie Bly was the most famous American woman reporter of the 19th century. Her investigation of what was called back then an "insane asylum" sparked outrage, legal action, and improvements in the way that patients were treated. Louisa Treger’s new book ‘Madwoman’ is a fictional reimagining of Nellie's early life and her time at the asylum. We also have Martine Croxall, BBC news presenter who was chose Nellie Bly as her specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind. Last year we talked about "Hot Girl Summer". This year we're talking about "Feral Girl Summer". On TikTok, the hashtag alone has already been viewed more than seven million times. But what's this trend all about, and should we celebrate it? Olivia Petter, relationships writer at The Independent and Lydia Venn, Features Editor at The Tab discuss.

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, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. We begin the show with music today. Music to make you feel powerful. Music fit for a superhero. hero. Now, if you're not one yourself, you will almost definitely know one. I'm talking about Marvel super fans. We are fully nerding out today on Woman's Hour in celebration of a brand new superhero to enter the Marvel Universe. Her name is Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, the first ever female Muslim superhero. Traversing between her average teenage life and saving the planet,

not just an amazing new character to join the Marvel gang, but also a historic cultural moment, destroying not only her enemies, but lazy cultural stereotypes while she's at it. My kind of girl. And that music is from the excellent soundtrack to the show as well. Spoiler alert. If you haven't seen it, it's brilliant. Then this morning, I've got a very simple question for half the population today. Are you a binner or a flusher?

I'm talking about sanitary products. 2.4 million tampons are being flushed down UK toilets every day, causing a lot of blockages and expensive damage to pipes and the environment. So I want you to be honest today. Is it you? But let me make it clear, we're not here to shame anyone today. What I think we should talk about is why we are still flushing sanitary products down the loo. Could it be to do with cultural attitudes that mean

we still think that something as normal as a period is dirty and shameful or is it simply lack of provision how many cramped little toilets have you been in with filthy overflowing sanitary bins that have been the last place you'd want to put your own sanitary products or your hands anywhere near so maybe it's just easier and feels more hygienic to flush it away do you have a bin in your own bathroom at home? What is the situation for you? So, binner or flusher? Get in touch. Maybe you have a few suggestions to make it easier for the flushers to stop flushing. I'd love to hear from you. You can text me on 84844. You can also get in touch with us via our social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can send me an email through our website then we discuss the godmother of investigative journalism nelly bly who puts herself into an insane asylum as they were called just to expose what was happening within its walls

and hashtag feral girl summer apparently it's what we will all be having having over the next few months women are out to drink dance and not care a jot about their social media polished appearance. Sounds like the 90s to me. I will be explaining what it's all about a little bit later in the show. So your thoughts on everything are more than welcome and actively encouraged this morning. The text number once again, 84844. But back to what I was just talking about. Are you a flusher or a binner? We're talking about getting rid of tampons and towels. So what makes you decide whether to flip that bin lid

or just drop and flush? We got thinking about this question this morning because some new research has come out, which says 2.4 million tampons are flushed down UK toilets every day. This leads to sewer blockages and damage to rivers and waterways. But why do some women still feel uncomfortable using sanitary bins? Well, Martha

Silcott takes a keen interest in this area. She's an entrepreneur who's developed a simple product to encourage you to bin tampons and towels. And Martha joins me now. So, Martha, this research was published, we must make it clear, by the PHS group, which is a sanitary bin provider, probably in their interest to promote bin use. They say 4 million tampons are flushed down toilets every day. Are you surprised by this figure? Sadly, I'm not surprised by this figure. I can even add to the woes of that figure by saying that 1.5 million pads are also flushed. But, you know, the problem with flushing starts really early and that's kind of the crux of it. It's we must talk about the education and start that education process about all kinds of period

products that could be used. But when you're focused on the pads and the tampons, what do you do when you need to bin them and get rid of them? Because the packaging isn't really that clear. And we need to have this conversation nice and early at schools, at home, and help to break down the taboo, because it's the taboo around periods that is still making this behaviour happen in 2022. It's really interesting isn't it because it has sparked lots of conversation in the Woman's Hour office, in the car that I was in with a group of women yesterday and I'm sure people are

thinking about it now sitting at home. Why or wherever you are, why do you think women don't know that they shouldn't be flushing? Why hasn't the message got out there? Because when you start your period, you only have this conversation, it seems, once. So you might start your period at 10 years old, 11 years old, and your mum or your friend or your sister, whoever has that conversation with you, they will tell you to do whatever they do. So they will say, oh, it's fine to flush your tampons or pads down the toilet. Don't worry, it's hygienic. And if they're a binner, they'll say, you know, don't ever do that. Wrap it up in toilet roll,

put it in the bin. But you never seem to have that conversation again. It's a once only conversation. And this is where the taboo kicks in. It's really difficult to then educate and change habits once you're set in your habit, which starts so early. I mean, flushes and binners coexist, but they actually don't even realise that each other exists because everybody thinks that everyone does what they do. And what they're supposed to do. And the research suggested that two out of every five people know they shouldn't flush sanitary products down the toilet, but they do it anyway.

Can you explain what the thought process is behind the guilty flusher? Well, yeah, so we find that flushers are either gobsmacked or they're guilty. And most flushers, to be fair, are gobsmacked flushers. They genuinely have never thought about what happens when you flush something down the toilet. And they certainly aren't aware of the environmental damage that this causes because they don't understand. And not many people do, to be fair fair that when you flush something down the toilet it goes into the sewer if you're lucky and the sewers are designed to overflow into rivers to help control flooding generally so this is how a lot of items get into the rivers which then lead to the

ocean so it's this lack of education which kind of helps if you you like, that flushing behaviour to continue. And binners are kind of outraged that flushes exist, and yet flushers on the whole don't realise they're doing anything wrong. You mentioned the guilty flushers. I was quite surprised at how high that was, if I'm honest, in this research. But they do exist because they just can't cope with the binning process. They don't enjoy doing the loo roll wrap. They find it off-putting or unhygienic,

and they just prefer to just flush it down the toilet and forget it's even happened. So we sort of need to kind of make the system easier. The idea that we are still figuring out how to kind of make the system easier how are we you know that the the idea that we are still figuring out how to dispose of sanitary towels when we know that they are so damaging for the environment i'm sure most women don't want to flush them down the toilet of course they don't if you know it's going to be damaging you'd be much more convenient for us to be able to dispose of them properly if it was convenient that's what we need to get to the bottom i'm going to bring lots of people are getting in touch with about this.

I'm very impressed with how open and honest everyone's being. Emma says, I'm a binner, dog poo bag in bathroom at home. Get rid of it all in one go. It's the home, not the public clues, I think is the issue. And that she's right, isn't she? It is the homes that is the issue, Martha. I don't think it's the homes that is the sole issue. I think that it's quite evenly split between what flushers do and where they flush. There is a slight increase in the home, which again, I found quite counterintuitive from the research. But then when I reflected on all the other research that I've done in the last kind of six years or so if you think about the home environment there are a number of different reasons this could happen that could encourage flushing so for

example those with small children crawling around bathroom floors opening up lids of bins or going if there's no lid on the bin for example going straight in there going oh mummy what's this you don't want to necessarily have that happening. Also, I hate to say, but dogs are really attracted to menstrual blood. And there's plenty of examples that I've had along the way of people telling me how, you know, the dog got hold of their wrap top pad or whatever and thought it was a play thing and created havoc. And that is obviously embarrassing but also messy um and then if you have large families with multiple people on their period at the same time then the bin the bin can get full really quickly because it's usually in the bathroom you have a really small bin

or shame or maybe maybe just even shame within your own home you know not wanting anyone else in the household to to know that you're on your period well i i question whether in some circumstances it will be shame and and that's just terrible that we still have shame and link directly with periods but in other cases i think there's a difference between shame and privacy it just because you want to keep your period private and don't want to make an official announcement by having blood-soaked items in the bin doesn't mean to say you're necessarily ashamed of your period. So I think there's a difference.

I'm going to bring Daisy Buchanan in on this. She's an author and a journalist, and I believe you're a binner, Daisy. I am a reformed binner. Reformed. And I say we need to change the system i think we also need to change the system um my mum told me not to flush that was kind of up there with the sort of you know periods 101 here's what you do you know toxic shock syndrome was a big um source of anxiety for me and my peers back in the in the 90s but um I didn't really like the process of binning as a sort of a self-conscious

awkward teenager and I was like well I don't understand why you wouldn't flush these because we flush loo roll and it seems like a product that's in that family um and one very expensive visit from a plumber later and I will now um bin forever but I do believe that um sanitary wear is not really fit for purpose as it stands I applaud you know Martha and the brilliant people you know mainly you know women and people who have periods making these sort of major changes in this industry but also I just I don't think that the way that sanitary wear is designed is effective and I know it's probably very expensive very complicated and I'm not entirely sure sort of how the science would work but I would make biodegradable sanitary wear I think we you know it should be redesigned so that we can flush

it i mean i think our the priorities here in terms of periods and education are about eradicating shame also eradicating period poverty so that everyone who menstruates can do so safely i know that um that's one of the globally one of the biggest causes of disease is sort of you know menstrual hygiene and when you're not able to have access to good menstrual hygiene then you're vulnerable to all kinds of other other diseases and other problems and that's sort of huge all over the world and it breaks my heart to see it in the UK I think you know not to bring everything back to the cost of living crisis but I think that's a real cause of anxiety for people but you know I do I really really resent the fact that it's one of the many environmental issues that is sort of you know laid at the feet of women like

here's another thing for you to feel guilty about and anxious about and worry about like yes of course let's eradicate all the shame um around periods and any anxiety that we have but also I think that we shouldn't feel bad about feeling bad about anything and it's become another thing to to worry about in terms of education that if you do have issues or concerns around having a bin of you sanitary wear in your bathroom and also as you pointed out I think so wisely at the start of the program is you know when we're out and about often the disposal facilities aren't always you know clean or clear or available I think in terms of education the shame is the wrong way around you know as a woman there are so many things I

constantly feel ashamed of and embarrassed about and struggle to get my head around and I think that in terms of being sort of educating people and being open-hearted the best thing we can do is start to understand why some of us want to flush because no that's yet another way in which doing it wrong no absolutely exactly what we're doing oh sorry yes you want to come in there Martha I'm just saying that the good thing is is that um I've you know when I first started um Fugly Bag I felt like a lone voice shouting about periods you know it wasn't really out there and it's been amazing the change that has happened in in a relatively super short time if you think of the decades of zero change um probably the last 50 decades um sorry five decades um the change in the last few years has been huge and I am so happy about that

that now girls starting their period it's not just about tampons and pads. It's about reusable pads. It's about menstrual cups. It's about period knickers. You know, so we are now in a phase of diversification of the options, most of which have a huge environmentally positive impact. It's going to take a while, but at least that's happening now. I think, Daisy, your mum might have been ahead of the game. Do you think, Martha, there's a generational difference between flushers and binners? There is absolutely a generational difference.

So my generation, probably anyone over about 30 now, would be more likely to flush than the youngsters of today. And I think that the last five years of getting rid of the tampon tax, the word tampon being said out loud in House of Parliament, you know, things, just little things like that, and the explosion of organic period products and alternatives and reusables has, and social media and the very nature of social media and that generation being much more comfortable to share personal information online. I think all of this is helping to break down the taboo we still have a huge way to go and uh you know there's lots of

small things that we all can do to really speed that up that's the that's the good news despite the shocker of the extent of flushing and the extent of the pollution and the problems that that causes there is shock out there kelly's messaged in. She said, what? Four exclamation marks, question mark. I cannot believe you just said that people are putting tampons down the toilet. I have a bin in my bathroom with a liner in it. I wrap the tampon in loo roll, pop it in the bin. I've taught my daughter to do the same with her pads. She's 13. If she can do it, anyone can. If I'm out there and there is no bin, I wrap more loo roll around it and find a bin. I'm a sea swimmer. I don't know if that has something to do with my attitude.

Daisy, you are a binner, but you'd rather be a flusher. We need to change the system completely, don't we? But I am a sea swimmer also. So it's really good to hear that. And actually, that's something that I am. And, you know, I remember, I think when I was growing up, there was also, you can't swim when it's your period so it just goes to show isn't it as Martha was saying like attitudes change

all the time and it's so exciting and I do I noticed it in um I'm 37 um that people younger than me are so courageous and open-minded and so keen to talk about it and I think that's so positive and that's so wonderful when it comes to making change happen. Yes, and lots of people listening to Women's Hour wanting to talk about it as well. And I'll come to your messages in just a moment. But for now, Martha and Daisy,

thank you so much for lifting the lid on this topic. And I feel like it's something I'm sure, I mean, it's definitely something we're going to come back to on Women's Hour. A message here from someone saying, I'm a flusher purely for the reason that I'm perimenopausal and my flow is extremely heavy on a couple of days and so there's blood everywhere upon removal no lifting up and wrapping in loo paper and popping in the bin for me i'm afraid donna says i'm a binner and use leftover nappy bags for when i from when i had my daughter not keen on using

the bags because they're plastic but i had them them anyway. I want to move to period knickers to be more environmentally friendly. And Claire says, our household use period pants. So no flushing or binning here. Big smiley face. Hashtag period pants. Keep your thoughts coming in. Let's get hashtag period pants trending, can we?

Or hashtag binner or flusher. 84844, keep your thoughts coming in on what we're talking about today. Binna, Flusher or any of the other subjects that are coming your way, like this one. She's finally arrived. Ms. Marvel, the latest character from the Marvel Universe. What's special about

her? Well, she's Marvel's first Muslim superhero. Newcomer Iman Valani stars as Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel. She's a Pakistani-American teenager growing up in Jersey City. She's an avid gamer and a voracious fan fiction scribe. A superhero mega fan with an oversized imagination, particularly when it comes to Captain Marvel. But the problem is Kamala feels invisible both at home and at school. That is, until she gets her superpowers, like the heroes she's looked up to. And life, as we know,

always gets better when you have superpowers, right? Well, I spoke to Hafsa Lodi, a Pakistani American journalist and author, all about the series. And I started by asking Hafsa to tell me a bit more about Ms. Marvel. Kamala Khan is a Pakistani-American Muslim high school student living in New Jersey. She's 16 years old and she's a diehard Captain Marvel fan. I think she was conceptualized in 2014 by Sana Amanat, who now is, I think, an executive producer on the on the Ms. Marvel series. And Kamala gets these cosmic superpowers after trying on a bangle that was shipped over

from her nanny or her grandma in Pakistan. And so it was like this family heirloom, this big gold chunky bangle. And suddenly she has these superpowers where she can project this sort of energy field in the air. I've only seen the first two episodes, so she's still realizing and figuring out what she can do with these powers. But yeah, it's pretty awesome. She's a 16-year-old figuring out regular high school life, plus throw these superpowers into the mix, and it's crazy.

And only two episodes are out. What did you make of the first two? Did you enjoy it? I really enjoyed the first two. I should probably watch the third tonight, I think, if it's out. Yeah, it's amazing. I loved it so far. Let's talk about the brilliant Iman Vilani, who is the 19-year-old Pakistani Canadian

actor who plays the lead, who plays Kamala. Tell me all about her. Yeah. So she's, there's actually not that much to know. This is her first major role. She's a Pakistani Canadian actress, as she said. She's 19 years old and she herself is a big Avengers fan as well. I think she mentioned that in her audition for the role.

And I think it's amazing that the makers of the series kept the casting really close to the actual background of the character in the show. They chose a Pakistani, you know, Pakistani Western woman to play a Pakistani Western woman in North America. It was almost like she was born to play the role then if she grew up as a massive Avengers fan. And then here she is chosen to be a new Marvel superhero. I mean, what a moment in her life. Yeah, really. And even in the episode that I watched last night, there's a line where the character says,

you would never get a brown, Asian, female superhero. Exactly. I think that's one of the best lines in the script of the first episode. I mean, the whole show is a powerhouse of South Asian talent, not just on screen, but behind the screen. Tell us a bit more about who's involved in this and how significant it is. Yeah, it's extremely significant. I mean, this is the story of a young South Asian woman in America being told by other South Asian women in North America. Pakistani Oscar winning Sharmeen Obey Chinoy is one of the directors. I think each director did maybe two episodes or six episodes throughout the series. So it's a nice mix of

different directors, different Pakistani, Indian, female, male. And I think it's amazing that the entire behind-the-camera team has some familiarity with this demographic that Kamala Khan comes from. And the cast as well is a mixture of Pakistani and Indian talent, which I think is really positive, though this has been critiqued a bit because it's a story about a Pakistani American family. People think the cast should be, you know, only Pakistani. Some people have said that, but I think I don't think that's an issue at all. I think it's by having Indian talent as well. It makes this a win for the South Asian community as a whole instead of just the Pakistani Muslim community. Of course. And there's so many parallels between what happens in a Pakistani family and what happens in an Indian family. I mean, the language, the culture, the food, so many similarities.

Also, big shout out to British Pakistani head writer Bishak Ali, who oversaw the whole project. What does this do for the storyline then? Because you've got South Asian writers, South Asian directors. You see it on screen, don't you? There's the level of nuance and detail that comes across in this family. It's a Pakistani family like we've never seen before on screen. Definitely. I mean, from the first five minutes of episode one, you hear Urdu, you hear Quranic verses,

you see her house, there's like an Arabic decor above her fireplace. You see her brother recite a prayer for her as she's about to go for her driving lesson. He says, say bismillah before you start, which every Pakistani Muslim household will be familiar with this kind of casual banter. It really normalizes this kind of language, which we haven't really seen on television before.

You know, Quranic passages are often, you know, blared from mosque speakers to incite fear about terrorism and extremism. And this is really just bearing it down to this is a normal American Muslim household where Islam is just part of her life and her culture is part of her life. And it's not anything intimidating or alien or foreign. It's very kind of just enmeshed into her identity. Yeah. And all the various bits of her identity fitting in at school, but also the conflict that she has within her, the culture at home and trying to assimilate. And the show addresses a lot of issues within the Muslim community that impact women, doesn't it? Yes. And to be honest, this is my favorite part of the series so far. Not the superpowers or even, you know, anything else. It was the fact that these directors and scriptwriters aren't shying away from these real issues

that affect Muslim women, not only in America, but across the globe, in the West, in the East. This isn't just a teen action sci-fi fantasy. It really takes time to uncover some of these issues, and one of them being there's a scene in episode two, I believe, in the mosque. First of all, I was so excited that, wow, we're seeing a mosque in the, like not just outside, but inside.

There's a, I think it's a Friday prayer, a group prayer. And normally, traditionally women pray behind men in mosques. And in some mosques around the world, actually in most, I would say, this has meant women are often relegated to like separate, smaller prayer spaces separate rooms downstairs upstairs on a balcony somewhere else out of view but in this New Jersey City mosque men and women are in the same larger prayer hall but with a barrier in between them and I love that Kamala and her friend Nakia they're just kind of whispering during right

after the prayer and saying wow the men's area is so pristine and our women's section has mold under the carpets. And I love just that one little dialogue, like it says so much about the reality that of many Muslim women and our kind of, how disgruntled we kind of feel with the setups of mosques and how our access and facilities are often poorer than that of men. So, yeah, I really liked that they kind of shed light on that in a candid, casual, but still serious way. In a real way, in a way that women have conversations in mosques and would discuss that. And that wouldn't have happened had it not been a writing group

that come from the community. It could have come across quite negatively, in fact, if someone from outside of the community had tried to kind of depict this friction. But it came across, as you said, very authentically, very natural. And I even like that they made one of the characters, who is Kamala's friend Nakia, she's a hijabi high school student, and she decides to run for the mosque board so that she can kind of, you know, further her, you know, the women's rights in the mosque in her own way, when all

the other board members are these, you know, elder South Asian and Arab uncles. So yeah, I love that they're giving, they're really empowering Muslim women through this script without sugarcoating it. It is so empowering. And it's really breaking stereotypes about Muslim homes and South Asian and Pakistani characters as well, isn't it? Yes, definitely. There's such a diverse range of cast members. I mean, going back to the mosque in just one in a different mosque scene, we see two teens taking a selfie and in the mosque and then they say, oh, hashtag it mosque life. And then an auntie behind them goes, no Snapchatting in the masjid. You know, like just that scene shows like these different generations and even in Kamala's family, the diversity, like her father is not the stereotypical, uber strict patriarchal head of the family. He's goofy and fun loving and a very relatable character. And her mom is stern, but not overly stern. She's goofy and fun-loving and a very relatable character.

And her mom is stern, but not overly stern. She's allowed to have, you know, a white boy friend, not boy, male friend over at her house, which isn't that common in South Asian families. I mean, yeah, she's not allowed to go to this party unchaperoned or, but still, I feel like the mother is still kind of balanced. And then there's her brother, her older brother, who seems more visibly Muslim than the parents. So he's definitely more, he's perceived to be more pious, but he's also kind of witty and he's an ally to Kamala. He's not kind of holding her back from anything. Yeah, one scene I particularly enjoyed was just, there was a very loving scene between her parents,

which I so enjoyed. You never see South Asian characters who are in a relationship just being in love. It was joyful to watch. And there was another small detail that I picked up on. I'm sure you did as well, Hafsa, where Kamala puts the telly on as her mum walks into the room and there's a snogging scene on the TV. I mean, every Asian kid mortified. And her mum says, what is this you're watching?

Turn it off. Yeah, it's really brilliant how these scriptwriters manage to pack so much detail and so many of these cultural references and nuances into these tight shows, like, sorry, tight time limits of each episode. Yeah, they've done a brilliant job and really important, obviously, for every South Asian person watching

and so relatable, but so important for wider society, which is why it's genius that Marvel decided to create this character in the first place. Definitely. Definitely genius and also risky. I mean, it'll definitely resonate with South Asian viewers, but I can't imagine it resonating as strongly with non-South Asian viewers. And I hope it does, but it's, yeah, let's see how it does. We'll ask our listeners, if you've watched it, let me know what you think.

And what has the reaction been? Overall, I think it's been quite positive from South Asian demographics. Everybody's very proud to see this character that they can really relate to. And it's really attracting people of all generations. You know, it's teens from the demographic, elder women who, and, you know, grandmothers who have not ever seen this on Western television. So I think it's been, I think it's been quite positive so far. And mentioning of grandmothers, one of the other things that they do, which I think is really interesting and important is the bangle that's sent from her grandmother from Pakistan.

The story of partition is brought in as well, the partition of India. Yes, and that's also quite rare. It's not really addressed much. India and Pakistan are kind of often conflated into like, you know, this one South Asian brown community. And they really, and I think sensitively, but realistically bring up the story of partition without kind of alienating India in any way. I mean, I think her first date is at this restaurant called Bombay Spice. I mean, there's Indian references everywhere and Pakistani references. It's very kind of a South Asian community triumph, I would say.

It's so South Asian that even the detail of the soundtrack, the language you've used already, but the soundtrack is excellent, isn't it? Not only is Hindi and Urdu kind of woven into the script, but also the soundtrack. We have like Pakistani track Coco Karina playing in one episode. And then we have a really serious Bollywood moment where, you know, a hunky heartthrob emerges from the water shirtless at a swimming pool and Jalebi Baby is, you know, blaring in the background. So, yeah, there are these Bollywood moments, which which I really appreciated as well.

But also, let's see if if the show gets to Bollywood. That's one of one of the concerns I had watching it. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll find out. Actually, I think we should play one of the tracks because there is one track called Rozzy, which is by Eva B,

who is being dubbed as Pakistan's first ever female rapper. Let's have a listen. I love this song. I mean, Hafsa, come on. This must be a huge historic cultural moment for us all, but particularly for Muslim women. Definitely. It's quite surreal.

And I feel like I haven't really comprehended the gravity of this yet. Excellent. Are you a Marvel fan generally Hafsa I would say I'm a normal fan I'm not a super fan I see the movies when they come out in cinema um but I'm I couldn't tell you all the stories of every character that's fine I wasn't gonna go there I was just gonna say how would you rate Kamala Khan compared to the others where would you her? I would have to rate her highly because of all the similarities we share. She's my number one. She's right up there. Yeah, I have to finish the series. I can't say.

Oh, you're better than me. I've already made a decision, but I'm impulsive like that. Thank you so much for joining me and speaking to me about her. Thank you. Kamala Khan, Miss Marvel, it's out now. It's very exciting.

84844 is the number to text. Angela's been in touch to say, I've worked and visit many schools in my job. Many new build schools have unisex toilets, which are often unpopular with girls. Like many public loos, the bins in schools can often be seen to be overflowing and understandable smears,

not conducive for continued use. Lots of thoughts coming in on the thing we spoke about this morning, which is whether you're a bin or a flusher. But now, Nellie Bly. She was the most famous American woman reporter of the 19th century. Her investigation of conditions at what was then called an insane asylum sparked outrage, legal action and improvements of the treatment of the mentally ill. Louise Trager's new book, Madwoman, is a fictional reimagining of her early life and her time at the asylum and Martine Croxall BBC News presenter who was inspired to choose

Nellie Bly as her specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind joins me now. Welcome to you both. Louisa let me come to you first. For listeners who don't know of her who was Nellie Bly and what inspired you to write about her? So Nellie Bly was America's first female investigative journalist at the end of the 19th century. And to get her first big newspaper scoop, she faked madness and got committed to an asylum off the coast of New York in order to expose the terrible conditions. And I think what got me, what really hooked me, was wondering what kind of person could do something like that, especially in the 19th century when, you know, women were expected to be reticent and ladylike.

And I went away and researched her and discovered that she overcame a traumatic childhood to become a journalist. And in that time, women journalists could only report fashion and society news, theatre reviews, that kind of thing. So to get taken seriously, she had to do something so daring and so extreme. And I could feel that leap of fury and determination that propelled her into the asylum and I couldn't not write about her. And Martine, you were inspired by the same woman, the same story enough to be able to go on Celebrity Masked Man and by the way, smash it out of the ballpark and beat everyone. Yeah, I did.

Thanks to Nellie. Yeah, I did a lot of, it was one of those things you say yes to and then regret it instantly. But I did a lot of swatting up about her and she's an extraordinary character. And of course, Louise's book is very much about this first piece of stunt journalism

as it used to be called, the precursor to investigative journalism. But there was so much more that she went on to do. And that's why for me, she was a really rich character who I'd got to know a little bit because I'm a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. I do a lot of host of events for them. And so she's one of those sort of people in geographical circles who you've probably heard about because she did travel and she traveled well i mean she really did travel because i mean this is much later in her life but uh she she traveled around the world in 72 days 72 days six hours 11 minutes and 14 seconds so she smashed the fictional phileas fog um journey by a week. An absolutely remarkable character.

But let's get back to her putting herself in this situation. As you mentioned, you know, at this time for female journalists, they would have been given fluffy stories to cover.

So first of all, the idea that she decided to do this to make an impact, to prove herself. Is that why she did it? I think she wanted to do a job of work that really made a difference so I think it was partly that you know she had great empathy for the marginalized and victims of injustice and and you know there were lots of rumors about abuses at asylums at that time. So, you know, it seemed to her, you know, like the right subject for her.

But also, I think she wanted to make an impact. And, you know, goodness, she smashed it. How much of what happens to Nellie in your book was research and how much of it was imagined? That's a great question. So it broadly follows the history. But I did take liberties with the characterisation and the chronology. And my desire was to dig deeper into her emotional life.

I mean, for example, I think she wrote her own account of the asylum and she wrote in the tone of this sort of plucky girl reporter whom nothing could faze. But I thought, look, she was immersed in this asylum experience, witnessing this horrific brutality. You know, she was starved. She was put in solitary confinement. They had ice cold baths. And she wasn't sure when she would get out or if she would get out.

And surely it affected her. What was her get out plan? Well, the world newspaper who she did the stunt for said they would get her out. But, you know, they didn't give her they didn't say how or when. They just said, well, just you get in yourself and we'll figure out the rest. Yeah, it was Joseph Pulitzer who owned the newspaper, The New York World,

who gives his name, of course, now to the famous journalism prize. And she struggled to get anyone to commission her to do anything. And it was sort of out of desperation, as Louisa says, that she had to come up with something really mind-blowing.

No pun intended, because she was going into what was then known as a madhouse she had to do something really quite stark to get them to take her seriously but he just said look we'll get you out somehow and then she just went in and it was a leap of faith and once you're in there it's in your head will I get out won't I get most people never did yeah and we must talk about the women who were in these asylums because, of course, they weren't all mentally ill, were they? That's one of the things that really appalled me when I was doing my research. And, you know, some of them perhaps married without their parents' consent or some didn't want to get married at all. You know, some might have not been able to get over a tragedy or postnatal depression, or maybe their husband simply got tired of them. And I think, really, the asylum was a socially acceptable way of dealing with inconvenient women.

Yeah. And she was also, I think this drove her to do some of the other things that she did later on, because her father had died. She was one of 15 children. Her father had died and had not left a will. So her mother was really struggling for money. She ended up marrying a man who was utterly inappropriate and violent. And so Nellie saw that. And she just realised that ideally women would be better off trying to plough their own furrow

rather than having to be dependent upon a man. And she didn't marry until she was 31. And the man she married was in his 70s. He was an industrialist. And then she took over his company when he died. She didn't run it particularly well because she was off doing war correspondence work and things like that. But she did invent products for the oil industry that still are in use and patented them. So she did so many different things. She was more of a suffragist than a suffragette, I would say. And she was quite critical of how some of the feminists of that era, Susan Antony and people like that, how they dressed, because she believed that women had so few weapons in their artillery, but dressing well was one of them. I mean, what a character. I'm just astounded hearing all of this. How long did she spend

in the asylum? It was 10 days. And she wrote her own account of it, which is called 10 Days in a Madhouse, which is available if anybody's interested in reading her account of the asylum time. I wonder, I mean, 10 days, I wonder what the impact was on her own mental health. Well, that's what I really explore in Madwoman because I think it must have been considerably more than she lets on. Because you write quite vividly about her experience in solitary confinement. Yes, yes, which really happened to her. And also when she leaves the island, I have her sort of thinking, well, I had to pretend to be mad to get in, but now I'm out. Can I, you out. Do I have to pretend to be sane? Have I forgotten how to live in the real world?

And of course, that did happen to so many women. When you're institutionalised for a long time, longer than Nellie was, you're not prepared for life in the outside world. And you have to step back out and adapt. Yes. And she did. She did. She went on to have an extraordinary career and she was much mimicked. There were many other women who came after her who wanted to be like her. But she was, you know, the grand went to Nellie of getting around faster than anybody else.

I mean, Martine, as a journalist, you know, she was doing all this radical stuff, really putting herself out there at the end of the 19th century. And it's still so difficult for women now. She was an absolute force of nature. When I was reading about her, I kind of thought, I think I'd probably find you quite annoying at times. You wouldn't want to work with her? Well, no, I think she was very sort of independent to the point where she didn't really,

she wasn't a team player particularly. And I think you need those trailblazers. And she very much did things on her terms. I mean, she upset some of the sort of charitable organisations in New York at the time when she was placing children from families who couldn't cope, couldn't afford to keep them. And she placed them with families, good families, as they were seen at the time, so that they had a better life. But she did it sort of outside the current that the existing contemporary um structures and rules and she she ruffled a lot of feathers she ruffled a lot of feathers but she was also was she taken seriously yeah i don't think they they could do anything but because she did get results i mean one of her quotes is energy rightly applied can accomplish anything and i think

she she showed that she proved that How important is she for investigative journalism? I think some of her tactics these days would raise eyebrows. I don't think she wouldn't fall within BBC editorial policy, Anita. That's what I will say. But there weren't any rules at the time. She was making it up as she was going along

because she was the first. Absolutely remarkable story. I think she paved the way for what women journalists achieved later. I mean, she created the first real place for women in the newsroom. And the first American female war correspondent as well. She just took herself off to Europe and she was on the Eastern Front. Absolutely brilliant to hear all about.

Nellie Blythe, that's the character. Louise's book is out. It's called Mad Woman. Louise Traeger and Martine Croxall, thank you so much for coming in and telling us all about this absolutely brilliant woman, Nellie Bly. Pleasure.

Thank you for having us. Now, you may have heard of Hot Girl Summer, but this year it's all about, wait for it, feral girl summer. On TikTok, you might have seen if you're on TikTok, the hashtag alone has already been viewed more than 7 million times. about wait for it feral girl summer on tiktok you might have seen if you're on tiktok uh the hashtag alone has already been viewed more than seven million times but what's this trend all about and is it to be celebrated well to talk about it i'm joined by olivia petter relationships

writer at the independent and lydia venn features editor at the tab um welcome to woman's hour both of you what is having a feral girl summer then? Hashtag feral girl summer. Well, I mean, she is the girl that is going out every night. She's getting kebabs on the way home. She doesn't really care what anyone else thinks about her. She's having friends with her friends. Might kiss a few strangers on a night out. But, you know, it's about anti-perfectionism, being yourself and really just letting loose and having fun in these next few months. So is it like the opposite?

How does it compare to Hot Girls Summer? Because I remember talking about that last year on Woman's Hour. But that's gone now. I think it's kind of similar. It's just the difference between hot and feral. And, you know, it's about this idea of rejecting kind of beauty norms and really putting yourself first and going out with, you know, unbrushed hair and not shaving your legs and

kind of all of those sorts of things so it's about caring less so is it an antidote to this polished online sort of social media look that's out there is that what this is where does it come from i would say so yeah i think it feels very you know we've been in the wellness industry for so long now and it you know it's just exhausting that perfectionism, always looking your best, always being perfectly manicured. And that girl trend on TikTok is even bigger than feral girl. And that's been around for like two years. And she's this person that is, you know, she does her yoga, she does her Pilates, she has her green juices. She is perfect in every sense of the word. Yeah, we kind of want to be her, but we hate her at the same time. Yeah. And it's nice to be refreshing to have someone that's,

you know, to see on your TikTok feed people that are more like you they make mistakes they slip up they spill stuff they it's just not perfect anymore and I think that's you know no one's perfect and it's really nice to see that on your feed especially for young girls who are on tiktok all the time is it liberating or is it just another trend that is putting pressure on women to be a certain way like now it's not about being polished, it's about being crazy. Yeah, that's the thing. I think the idea of it is really positive and it comes from this really, you know,

it's meant to be an empowering thing. But when you really break it down, it's sort of just a more contemporary version of the kind of LADAP culture that we had in the mid-90s. And actually this idea of kind of going out and going wild and binge drinking and doing whatever you want it's it's not very realistic it's not very sustainable it's not very good for you I was actually there in the 90s it's very realistic and very sustainable for a short period of time until you hit your 40s and then you can't sustain it oh no sorry go on I think also

it's you know it warrants criticism because the thing with the LADEC culture was that, you know, for a while, it was seen as this really feminist kind of movement in a way. But then what became the case was that there was this very fine line between being a LADEC, but then being too much the other way, and then getting criticised for it. And that's what I think could happen with this, because it's this idea of policing women's behaviour. And it's kind of just pigeonholing them into a new type. And so the idea of it, it seems really positive, but I fear that it could actually bring us backwards in terms of feminism. You're right, actually, because I guess what was happening in the 90s,

which I said at the beginning of the programme, this reminds me of basically just what everyone was doing in the 90s, just out having a good time, without the pressure of social media is that I guess magazines and publications gave us this term ladette so which was strange anyway because it's sort of derivative isn't it you know just women being women and shame and used it to shame them yeah I think it's you know you've got a it's that thing it's like you can go to a certain level but you can't go to the full extent like a man would maybe and like it's quite yeah it still is've got to, it's that thing, it's like you can go to a certain level, but you can't go to the full extent like a man would, maybe. And like, it's quite, yeah, it still is another way to kind of restrict you, even in that sort of pigeonhole. You know, you're that girl, then you're feral girl, you can't just be, take a little bit of both. Yes.

In a way. And also, why don't men have to have these hashtags? isn't it? There has never been, you know, last year it was hot girl summer, this year it's feral girl summer. There's never been a boy summer. Also, it's girl, not woman, crucially, which is, you know, a whole other kind of conversation. But I think it just goes to show that male behavior isn't policed in the same way that female behavior is. And women almost need a hashtag in order to have permission to be wild and free. And that's the kind of the problem. Yeah, men are allowed to just be whatever they want to be whereas we have to explain oh even though it's so it's so binary isn't it i mean we are woman can be you can be anything but of course not online you have to explain yeah and i think you know oh god what was i saying

but you know i think taking like elements of it rather than going like the whole way with it you know it's like you can take a little bit of the that girl you can take a little bit of the feral girl and that's's you, you don't have to be everything, like one set girl each day, be who you want to be. Absolutely. And then whilst this trend isn't specifically about dating, Olivia, you say it's another way to shame single women. Tell me a bit more about this. Yeah, so I think, you know, it's not specifically about dating, but it is kind of synonymous with this idea of sexual liberation and doing what you want and not caring. And, you know, dating apps have kind of cottoned on to this and come up with this new term of feral dating, which is about doing whatever you want without consequences, not caring what people think of you on dates.

And I get the idea. And again, it's, you know, sort of an empowering idea, but it's completely unrealistic and very much at odds with the dating experience, which is, of course, bound up with feelings and intimacy and emotion. And I think what ends up happening is that, you know, if someone does go on a date and then, you know, someone lets them down, they think, oh, no, I need to tap into the feral girl somewhere. I need to not care. But then when, of course, they do inevitably care, it will feel really shameful. And, you know, it's similar in a way to the kind of cool girl trope um which is that also that insouciance and kind of not caring what people think of you and sort of behaving like a man and it's just unrealistic and it does just put pressure on

women to be something that maybe isn't really possible i want to figure out how much of this is about what your life is online and how much of it is about like what how much of this is going on in the metaverse and how much of it is actual actually happening yeah I feel like it's the word like feral girl summer is quite a fun thing to say like in like real life with your friends if the friends going through a breakup you don't want to pump them up you're like let's go on a feral girl summer let's have a great night I think that's the way it can kind of creep into your real life but a lot of the time it is yeah hashtags instagram captions tiktok trends but it's you know it's just a way to say it almost in real life but do we think that these social media trends actually consciously or unconsciously influence behavior i think they can do definitely

but you know it's about it i think the aim is to encourage a state of mind rather than actually influence your behavior but what ends up happening is when these things do go viral and they are talked about more and more it becomes that conversation where it does start to seep in and you start to put pressure on yourself to live up to that certain trope or character type and I think it is just another way of just pigeonholing women. In what way is it similar to the recent TikTok trend? I'm going to say this. I have no what goblin mode. What was goblin mode? So goblin mode is similar in the sense that it's a kind of reaction to, like you said, wellness and, you know, kind of really prescribed aesthetics like cottagecore. And it's about embracing depravity. But I suppose the difference between that and

Feral Girl Summer is A, it's obviously gender gender neutral and it's more about kind of being inside your home and festering in your bedroom as opposed to going out and going wild um and I think the difference is that also the the sexuality element and the kind of the promiscuity that's associated with the feral girl summer that you don't have with the goblin mode which is a concern Lydia yes or is it not um I don't know it's hard to tell I think you know like goblin mode is yeah it's not always like the cleanest and healthiest but I think you can kind of take a little bit of the goblin mode like we're all a bit I don't want to say gobliny a bit at times but you know what I mean like no I'm definitely a goblin first thing in the morning I'm just putting that out there yeah and i think you know like it's refreshing to sort of see this like because you know it's been the wellness

industry for so long that i think even if you're getting a bit more you know goblin mode feral got into your brain like even if it's going unconsciously just that kind of like a tiny bit of an antidote to be like actually you know what it's fine to be a slob today yes yeah the balance yeah i think it's interesting that goblin mode is gender neutral though because it's not to do with sex. And then when you bring in female sexuality and all of the shame and stigma that society attaches to that and women who embrace their kind of sexual autonomy, that's where you get the gender specific tropes that you don't get with men. So are you saying tread carefully if you're doing hashtag feral girl summer because you might, you know, might come back to bite you? Yeah, I think just just be aware, just be considerate of what's going on. Do either of you plan to go feral girls summer because you might you know it might come back to bite you yeah i think just just be aware just be considerate of what's going on do either of you plan to go feral this summer

and what will that what form will that take um i think you know have a few feral nights like why not it's been a really hard two years for everyone and you know getting out there if you even it's like on a six pound cheap bottle of wine just to have a few fun nights out with your friends have a laugh like dance until like four in the morning and that's what this is about yeah that to me is the real energy and emphasis of what it should be it shouldn't be about like am I you know a massive slob it should be I'm going out with my friends having the best time and just embracing life because it's been a really horrible two years yeah we've spent two years living through this pandemic and this is the summer the proper first summer where we will be able to go out

and have a good time surely it's time to be a bit carefree and live a little definitely i think you just don't necessarily need to put a label on it i think women have spent a long time being pigeonholed and putting labels on their behavior and i think we should just go out and do what we like and not think too much about what it has to be called on tiktok yeah and james fletcher has just messaged in to say can you imagine someone proposing a feral men's summer? Yeah, it doesn't sound right. I think it should sound more fun when it's feral garland. I don't know why.

Just the idea of men doing these trends is a bit, I don't know. And Miss Varney's been in touch. She says, it seems like us women of the 70s are following our own path while the younger generation are still concerned about what people think and need permission to be themselves. Well, I think I think that's the thing, isn't it? It's a reminder that women do still need that hashtag in order to be free and liberated this summer. And that's the kind of bleak side of it, isn't it? That's why I'm saying we should just live without the labels, because we shouldn't necessarily be encouraging these binary oppositions where women need that,

you know, that trope in order to basically be who they are, whereas men don't. And that's obviously a problem. And surely the whole point of this is if you are a feral girl or a wild child, the last thing you'll be doing is writing hashtag feral girl summer. You'll just be out there living it. Yeah, exactly. You should be out there. Which is what we're all going to do. Lydia and Olivia, thank you so much for coming in to talk to me about that um i fully understood it uh and you will be seeing in fact i have to say already on my instagram i've put hashtag feral girl summer just attached to a random woman's

hour post um oh and also flusher or binner we were talking about um disposing of sanitary towels of what do you think about this? 2.4 million, no, over 4 million tampons are still being flushed every day. Yeah, I mean, I think I really enjoyed what you said about the small toilet spaces that women have, because I know that's a whole separate issue. And then you have the overflowing sanitary bins.

And I think that is becoming a bigger problem and showing how, you know, these spaces for women are just not really provided. And recently I've been to a few restaurants and cafes and bars and there's not even any bins in the loo. And then you're like, well, what do I do? Where do I put it? Like, and that's sort of like, oh, my God, I'm on my own. I can't find a bin. Absolutely. It is about changing the system, as we often talk about here on Woman's Hour. And Sabrina's been in touch. Lots of you got in touch about this.

I'm gobsmacked. I'm a gobsmacked flusher of tampons only, weirdly. Online now, purchasing period pants. No more flushing. Thank you, Woman's Hour. And someone else has said, my daughter just started a period and I'm getting her started on period knickers.

Wondering whether to normalise her rinsing them out herself or will that put her off? Just normalise it. I think that's a good call. Whilst it is good to normalise that it's just part of your body, the rinse can feel like clearing up after a massacre.

And on that note, that's it. Have a lovely weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Uncanny is back. The hit paranormal podcast returns with a summer special that will chill you to the bone.

It was a real dream holiday, really. The family trip of a lifetime becomes the holiday from hell. Whoever was in that room wanted to do us harm. They wanted to frighten us. The Uncanny Summer Special. Out now. What do you think was in that house? Six very frightened tourists and something else that didn't want us there. Subscribe to Uncanny on BBC Sounds. 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.