Woman's Hour - Catherine Allen, Carol Vorderman, Jo Moseley, Mark D’Arcy, Sophia Smith Galer, Mary Portas

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

Stand up Paddleboarding or SUP is fast becoming one of the most popular water-sports in the UK. Jo Moseley was 51 when she started the sport and she tells us why we should all get on a board and start paddling.We’ll be joined by Mary Queen of Shops – that’s Mary Portas – who’s one of the UK's leading voices on retail and brand communication. She is in parliament today calling on the government to amend a law governing how companies are run to better reflect their social and environmental responsibilities. Sticking with parliament, we hear about the government's plan to help regulate content and tech companies with the On Line Safety Bill. The BBC’s parliamentary correspondent sets out what is and isn’t going to be included in the legislation and we hear from Carol Vorderman and Catherine Allen from the Institute of Engineering and technology about their concerns surrounding the safeguarding of young people in the metaverse. And the author and journalist Sophia Smith Galer tells us about her new book: ‘Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century’ which delves into the sex myths that impact the lives of young people and why we should be taking sex education more seriously. Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Tim Heffer Photo Credit: Linn Van De Zandern

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 Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Now, what were you taught about sex at school? Was it useful? Was it relevant? Were you told myths about sex and sexual health that have had an impact maybe on you in later life? Just thinking about back to my sex

education at school and I now realise just how basic and lacking it actually was. We'll be speaking to the author of a new book about the misconceptions around women's sexual health and why we should be taking sex education a little bit more seriously. Also this morning, could we all benefit from businesses being more caring? Retail guru Mary Portis will be joining us to discuss why she wants companies to think more about people's well-being than their profit and their growth. Plus, new research has made a link between obesity and an increased risk of developing womb cancer. We'll be discussing the implications of this and how women can reduce their risk. And what new hobbies have you taken up in later life? Get in touch with us. We'd really like to know.

One of our guests started stand-up paddleboarding in her 50s and has actually really fallen in love with the sport and even set some records as well. And actually, she's not the only one that has fallen in love with this sport because figures show that membership of paddleboarding is up 210%. So let us know what new interests you've taken up. It doesn't have to be a sport. It could be anything. How has it helped you?

Is it something that you do alone or perhaps you do it in a group? Text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us as always through our website. More text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us, as always, through our website. But first this morning, the government is currently discussing how best to regulate content on the internet.

Now, it's something that we talk about on Woman's Hour all the time. The Online Safety Bill will look to hold online platforms more accountable for keeping us safe. Let's talk now to our parliamentary correspondent Mark Darcy, who joins us from Westminster. Good morning to you, Mark. Just give us a rundown of what's actually covered in this bill. Well, good morning, Jessica. Almost everything is the short answer to that. This is a massive bill that's been very long in the making and is still evolving, even now it's starting its journey through Parliament so there's an awful lot of things uh that the bill covers essentially it's it's about uh the social media

platforms that host user-generated content making sure that for example things that incite to threat incite to violence or make threats of violence are stopped it covers hate crime. It covers financial crime, scam advertisements, for example. It covers making porn providers have age verification to stop children from accessing their sites. There's a whole load of stuff. And there are also penalties in there, including very heavy financial penalties. You know, big social media platforms could be fined 10% of their global turnover in severe cases. And there are also personal sanctions against the managers. What someone in Parliament yesterday called the masters of the online universe could find themselves being personally fined or facing criminal charges in this country if they transgress and fail to do what the government wants them to do to sort out whatever problem it is. And as I said, the bill's just evolving all the time. There have been committees scrutinising earlier versions of it, and along the way they've added in, for example, making cyber-flashing a crime and making it a crime to send images designed to trigger epileptic seizures

to people with epilepsy who would have thought that people would even think of doing that, but it's something that's there. And I suspect more things will be added. What you've got to remember about this bill is when they started it, TikTok wasn't even a thing. So it's been going for quite a long time in the drafting. And the thought there is that new providers, new internet services will be appearing all the time. And so the bill has to be designed in such a way that it can be extended easily to cover those. It seems, as you say, that it's very wide ranging. You mentioned their financial penalties for platforms. Does that mean there's a shift then in the thinking here that they want these platforms

to be held more accountable? Absolutely. I mean, that's a very large part of what this is about, is that they're very, very keen to ensure that the tech companies take responsibility, more responsibility for policing their content. In some cases, this is simply about getting them to do what they've already said they want to do and intend to do, just make sure that it actually happens, make sure that offensive images or incitements to violence or racist content or whatever it is are taken down very rapidly, not sort of languishing online for months and months before something's actually done about it, for example.

And you mentioned scam ads. What happens with those? What's going to change? Well, there's going to be a duty to prevent the publication of paid-for fraudulent adverts, which is a sort of gap in the law that was brought to the attention of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as this bill was being constructed. And they've decided to add that in now. And so, yeah, hopefully they'll be able to stop those appearing in the first place so that there'll be a lot fewer scams online. But with all this, this is a very groundbreaking bill. No other country has yet attempted anything quite like this.

A lot of countries are watching very closely to see how it will work. And it's not a done deal that all these powers will work in the way they're intended, simply because it's experimental. People don't really know whether the sort of interlocking network of powers and penalties and duties that this bill is creating will actually in the end be effective on something as kind of fluid and fast moving as the internet. It is. It's so fast moving. And there's even set to be a new offence that comes into play here, cyber flashing. Just explain more about that. Well, that is people sending unwanted pictures of their genitals to other people on the net as a form of sexual harassment. And that is that is something that again was brought to the

attention of the government and then as a result of that built in as a specific criminal offence in the bill and one of the things you've got to remember about this bill is that the minister in overall charge of it the culture secretary Nadine Dorries used to be the health minister in charge of mental health issues and so she's got a very acute understanding of quite how the devastating the effects of all sorts of bad behaviours on the internet can be. We had ministers talking also in the debate in Parliament yesterday about one of the toughest interviews they'd ever had was with someone whose 14-year-old daughter had killed themselves after being lured onto an internet chat room which promoted suicide and yeah they'd taken their own life because an algorithm had kind of directed them that way probably without direct

human intervention and it was the most horrible story and so all these issues are now being taken on board to try and make this bill an effective counter to those kind of issues. Yeah and a lot of this bill will focus on young people and children particularly around them accessing pornography. What's being done to restrict that access? Well the idea is to try and make sure that age verification systems are in place so that young people simply don't get onto those sites. The exact detail of how that will work is something that will come later. What the bill does is it enables ministers to make regulations and issue guidance, partly because from time to time those things have to be updated

and you don't want to have to have an all-singing, all-dancing parliamentary bill to do that. So watch out for the devil in the detail in the regulations and guidance that will follow later on. Okay. And there's also to be new restrictions, isn't there, on what's called legal but harmful content? What does that include exactly? Well, that is, for example, these websites that promote suicide, websites that perhaps encourage eating disorders, those kind of areas, as well as something called breadcrumbing. Now, this is where, if you like, a provider of illegal pornography lays a trail of images to lure people to see the illegal images. So the images that you appear on some sites are legal, but there are links you can follow that take you to something worse. So there are issues like that that, again, have to be defined almost a bit as people go along because, as I say, it's a fast-evolving area. Ministers want the power to deal with stuff that is obviously harmful but isn't outright illegal.

And that's a very difficult area that has got a lot of people quite alarmed because it gives ministers and regulators a level of power over what's theoretically legal free speech that makes them, as I say, uncomfortable. And one thing you've got to bear in mind is that the UK tech industry is now worth over a trillion pounds. And there's a great deal of concern also about stifling innovation, driving important industries out of the country if the regulation becomes too heavy. Mark, thank you for joining us as Mark Darcy, our parliamentary correspondent. And as he was saying there, it's a very fast growing sector. And there's one area of this bill that isn't covered. And that is the metaverse, the so-called metaverse. And you might have heard this word pop up more and more in recent months, particularly if you have young people in your lives.

But what exactly is it? And how do we protect children when they delve into this new, currently unregulated virtual reality? The Institute of Engineering and Technology predict that this new next generation will spend approximately 10 years of their life in this metaverse. They're calling on the UK government to make sure safeguarding rules for virtual reality and the metaverse are actually written into that final online safety bill. Joining us now to talk more about this is Catherine Allen, CEO of Limina Immersive and co-author of the report. And Carol Vorderman, MBE, who has campaigned for online safety for more than 20 years. Good morning to you both. Catherine, just explain to those that maybe aren't aware, what is the metaverse? Well, metaverse is simulated experience, essentially. So we're probably quite used to seeing screens and these rectangles, glowing rectangles. We really situate

our lives around them, you know. But actually, when you think about media, there's actually so much more that's possible. The metaverse allows you to step into these spaces. Mark Zuckerberg describes it as an embodied internet. And I think that really actually does sum it up quite nicely. So it's a simulated bottled experience. You can use a virtual reality headset to enter the metaverse, or you could use an augmented reality device and because the definitions of a metaverse still really really new um very much emerging um some people also would debate that you can use a standard computer or mobile phone to enter it so you say step in Catherine what do you mean by

that so I I could be somewhere physically and be somewhere different in the metaverse exactly yes so if you're entering the metaverse through virtual reality let's say it was a group mindfulness session with a bit of yoga you would pop the headset on go in and you're all experiencing that virtual environment together so a simulation of a forest for instance and you can all sit together um see each other's avatars represented and that's an important feature of the metaverse is often that there are avatars when there's social spaces and also it is it's connected to the internet it's a sort of world wide web really of of immersive okay so just tell us about your research and the dangers you found with this yes so over the course of writing this report and all the research that Verity McIntosh, my co-author from the University of West England and I did,

in our fieldwork, we found there are significant harms that we really feel need to be taken into account in the online safety bill. You know, we have this golden opportunity that our democratic processes right now are currently engaged in what harms online might be, but it has to be future-proof. So the sort of harms we've found, lots of harassment and abuse of women and also other minorities as well. As a woman going into this space,

it is something I personally do experience quite a lot. Also, there's the potential for desensitization. So whilst VR has these incredible powers, for instance, that you could use VR in therapy to maybe address people's phobias, that can also be used, that desensitisation technique could be used potentially as an unintended consequence. Sorry, there's a fire alarm in my building. It should go off in a sec. As an unintended consequence that potentially an experience could be desensitised. And especially we found that particularly worrying around adult content as well. OK, fire alarm going off. I hope you're still safe.

Carol, I'll move on to you because Catherine outlined a number of issues there. Okay. Fire alarm going off. I hope you're still safe. Oh yes, it was just a joke. Okay. Carol, I'll move on to you because Catherine outlined a number of issues there. Are those the problems? Are they why you want the government to include the metaverse in this new online bill? Absolutely. And first of all, I want to say that I fully support the online safety bill. It's the framework into which we can put other furniture and hopefully specific legislation about the metaverse. But it was interesting listening to Mark, your correspondent, say about how there is this pushback on the online safety bill. 20 years ago, when I was actively involved with David Blunkett for around about 18 months to make grooming of children online illegal. There was even pushback on that, surprisingly.

So, you know, none of this should be happening. We should be looking at this in a very sound and very mature way. I find it, you know, remarkable that probably the vast majority of politicians, all of whom will be voting on the online safety bill, have never even experienced the metaverse. And therefore cannot understand the massive difference between this passive interaction that we have now. I am looking at my laptop screen, as are you, Jessica. We all are, and we're seeing each other there. That is what we experience now, and we know the harm that can be done there. When you get involved in immersive technology, it is exactly that. You put the headset on.

You physically, if you like, as far as your brain is concerned, go into the room. All of us here are on Zoom, and we're all watching and so on. I can disappear off. In the metaverse, my brain would be convinced that I would be sitting around a table opposite everybody here. I'd pull out a chair. I would sit down. If somebody punches me, I feel it.

You know, we've got haptic clothing coming on as well, which means that you can feel cold, heat, wind. You can feel everything as well in a physical way. It's like now standing at a sink and washing your hands. That's your experience with water. Immersive technology is like jumping into a swimming pool. So the potential for damage is enormous. It really is all encompassing.

There'll be parents and caregivers listening to this thinking, well, it's hard enough to monitor what my children are looking at online, Carol. So how can they go about protecting their young ones from the metaverse when they can't actually see it themselves? They can't see what the children are actually accessing. Well, there are various spaces, and Catherine has put them into the report, where children really are not supposedly, in terms and conditions of the headsets, allowed to use them under the age of 12 or 13. But as Catherine found, there are many children much younger um going into these spaces and there is abuse happening and the potential we all know how significant a harm to a young child can be we and

there's uh nudity in there there's violence there. There's all sorts. It is the Wild West. And that's why I believe it has to have specific legislation, just as 20 years ago, we had to have specific legislation about grooming children online. Catherine, what are companies doing about this? How are they protecting the users from the harassment, the racism, the abuse? Well, there have been quite a lot of press lately, stories, people coming out with some really horrific experiences that they've had in these shared social spaces. And I should mention often these are like open social spaces where you can meet strangers. And the kind of abuse that happens, say, for instance, it's somebody entering your personal space once you're touching for instance and there's quite a lot of stories about these kinds of um things um sexual advances

harassment etc um the companies have put in place various um at risk all quite recent and various tools very user-centric tools um that you can um use for instance, blocking, muting people, probably borrowed off how social media tends to get moderated. But also now there's this personal safety bubble that Meta have introduced. And they're all very user driven. And often that means victim driven as well. So I think that's something that we should bear in mind that currently the work that's being done doesn't seem to be addressing the culture of these shared spaces where strangers meet. It seems to be addressing what's happening that the individual can do and the kind of tools that they have. It's a bit like, you know, encouraging women potentially to carry around rape alarms. Right. I wonder how are women accessing and interacting with the metaverse? Are they using it? Oh, yes, yes, definitely. There is a gender gap, but there's still a really vibrant community of

women VR users in the UK, internationally. And in the UK, we have a fantastic cohort of women producing virtual reality. So yes, women are experiencing virtual reality of course um but i should mention um there is this gender gap especially in young people so um just give you an example 11 percent um of men aged 18 to 34 were regular vr users in 2021 according to my company liminous tracker that we've ran um that's versus just one percent of women of the same age i would really really encourage women to take up a headset though because there are amazing things that you can do in virtual reality for instance you know the exercise for me over lockdown it really kept me going fantastic for mental health um education field trips all sorts of learning by doing new

skills etc so there's some really great experiences and i would definitely encourage women to you know experience virtual reality but there is a gender gap yes carol how have you interacted with the metaverse have you found it positive have you had positive experiences i have had positive experiences because i have limited myself in uh in terms of the spaces that I go into. But what I can say is it is so convincing that you... There was one tiny experience where I went into... I was standing on top of the Grand Canyon, and it is the Grand Canyon. You know, this isn't... People must understand, it isn't as you see in computer games.

You can put a real environment in there that will convince you that you are there and then I was playing with a dog and doing oh you're just nice stuff and somebody said to me jump off and I went no jump into the canyon no and I knew I was standing on a on a carpet but nevertheless I thought, no, no, no, no. And it really can play with your brain. That was a very innocent experience. But the people who have, since this report has come out and in the week beforehand, who have said to me what they have experienced in spaces is the Wild West.

Things that would be illegal in the so-called real world that are happening in virtual spaces, nothing is addressed about it. And that's the danger. Like what? Well, I was in a TV studio yesterday and there was somebody of Black heritage saying that her friend, male friend, had been effectively beaten up last week in a virtual space who was of Black Heritage too. So, I mean, and that's not illegal. And I keep going back. 20 years ago when this new technology called the internet

started to come online, chat rooms started. That's why I got involved. It was a new tech and it needed specific legislation and that's what we need now yeah and hopefully with this uh online safety bill the metaverse and virtual reality will be included katherine allen and carol vorderman thank you so much for your time this morning thank you for joining us on woman's hour now let's get more on one of the uk's fastest growing water sports, shall we? Stand-up paddleboarding. Some of you might remember seeing the actor Orlando Blue on a paddleboard

naked a few years back whilst he was on holiday with his fiancée, Katie Perry. Now that's one way to enjoy paddleboarding. But for our next guest, Jo Mosley, she took up paddleboarding for physical and mental wellness and became the first woman in the UK to paddleboard 162 miles from Liverpool to Gould, coast to coast. Her book, Stand Up Paddleboarding in Great Britain, gives you tips and tricks to get you into paddling. And she joins me now. Very big welcome to you, Jo. Just explain firstly, what is stand-up paddleboarding? Because, you know, not everyone would have seen those pictures of Orlando, I'm sure. Sure. Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute honour. So a stand-up paddleboard, it looks like a big surfboard and you have a paddle which looks a little bit like an oar.

And basically you move, I'm doing the movement here. You move the paddleboard by using your paddle and you can do it on canals, rivers, the sea, locks, lakes, docks, all over. Now, you got involved with this first when you were 51 years old. How did you get into it? knee earlier in the year and as it started to heal by the September I set myself a little challenge to spend 30 minutes every day outdoors doing something to you know improve my knee and I'd read that it really helped your core strength it helped build the muscles around your joints so I took a paddleboarding lesson in the Lake District on Derwent Water and I literally never looked back it was the first time in months that I just smiled, like being, you know, smiling all the way home. And I said to myself, it's the first time I feel like a warrior, not a worrier. And I feel that every single time I go on a paddleboard.

You're not the only one, Jo. Someone has messaged to say, I took up paddleboarding last year at age 61. It's the best thing I've ever done. After having a few lessons, I've improved my ability and I've been on some all day paddle boarding excursions. I live in Shrewsbury and paddleboard on the River Seven. So when I've seen this being done, it's usually I have to say by celebrities like Orlando Bloom or Jennifer Aniston. And they're usually the women are in a bikini. They're in the sun. They're in California or somewhere equally as hot. What's it like doing it in the UK? It's amazing. So, yes, you have to think about the water

temperature. So I was out on the North Sea yesterday and I was in my dry suit trousers and my cagoule because the water temperature here is about seven to nine degrees. So chilly, chilly. It is it's wonderful. I've paddled on the River Severn. I went there for my book with a lovely chap called Craig. And yes, obviously, as it gets a little bit warmer, you don't have to wear a dry suit. You can just wear a wetsuit or a long Jane or lycra and things like that. But it's there is so much variety in the UK. There's just so many places that you can go and it's so accessible to so many people. I have to say, Jo, you're actually inspiring me a little bit here. You're telling

to me, you're selling it, you're selling it for people that are listening who might want to give it a go. What's the first step? Take a lesson. Get a lesson with a qualified professional instructor who knows what she or he is doing and if you if you feel you want more just take more lessons we have a really amazing body of professional instructors in the UK and yes you can just buy a board and crack on on the beach but my my biggest advice is to put safety first and to have a lesson with a qualified person and it will save you so much time and energy and you'll be learning things which will help you stand up so much sooner so yeah and really enjoy it and learn about the safety as well and there are physical and mental benefits aren't there

yeah it's really good for our core it's a full body workout um but it doesn't you know as i said my knee it's really helped strengthen my knee it's wonderful to be outdoors on the sea or the canal the river you can do it with with friends one of the most memorable um times was just paddling down in cornwall with a friend and we were paddling into the into the glitter path of the late afternoon sun just chatting and then quietly lost in our thoughts. And then I would just turn around and sort of say to her, you all right? And she'd go, yeah, I'm all right.

You know, just checking in on each other, but just having that joy. I know Carol's a very big fan of paddleboarding too. So she just shares that joy. It's great for our physical, mental, emotional, social well-being. There's been quite a few messages from people that have taken things up later in life, Jo. Someone says, I took up BMX racing at 66. Someone else has said, I'm 70 and have taken up building Lego. And there's someone here that says, Catherine, five years ago, I took up ice skating, aged 69.

And these people are obviously, you know they they've taken it upon themselves to improve their fitness their health their mental well-being but there are challenges to women in particular older women in particular when they're trying to improve their health and fitness what are those challenges um i guess it's a fear of i guess there is a fear that you will be too old i think social media can give the impression certainly with paddleboarding sometimes that it's a fear of I guess there is a fear that you will be too old. I think social media can give the impression, certainly with paddleboarding sometimes, that it's it is all the bikinis and young chaps with their abs on show. And actually, the reality. So I traveled the country for my book. And the reality of who is out there paddleboarding, it is it is, you know, older than 20. It's 30, 40, 50, 60, 70-year-old women out there just having a good time.

And I think being open to the fact that you will maybe fall in and then you stand up and you learn. You know, we've been through life. We know that it doesn't just happen overnight. And we know that there is joy to be had if we just keep persevering and believe in ourselves. And the paddleboarding community is a little bit i think like the wild swimming community it's incredibly welcoming it's really positive it's very much like

you know do it for you as long as you've got the safety covered just do it for you do it where you want do it as fast or as slow or as hard as you want um and and so yeah i think a lot of the worries that people have nobody's worrying what you look like like literally nobody cares what you look like as long as you're having a good time and you're doing it safely and I would also say if you could do a bit of litter picking at the same time that'd be really good I'll always say that Carol knows I'll always just add a little bit of litter picking if you can oh there's so many messages coming in someone has said I've started playing badminton in my 60s. I absolutely love it.

I'm not very good, but I'm definitely improving. I don't know most of the other players before, and we all come out smiling afterwards. Someone else has said, I took up the trumpet at 59 prior to retirement. Lockdown then gave the perfect opportunity for daily practice. It seems here that people are doing this and it's empowering for people. Yeah, it is. So I'm a member of the WI, really proud member. And in lockdown, I gave lots of talks about my coast to coast.

And there was a woman that listened and she's 79. And she said to her nephew, sorry, to her niece's husband, I just heard this woman talk about paddleboarding. I'm 79. Do you think that you could take me paddleboarding? And he happened to be a paddleboarding instructor on the River Seven. And he took his wife's aunt paddleboarding on the River Seven, 79. And she loved it. So So yeah, all ages. And I think it just, it just helps us, you know, it helps us mentally if we're learning something as well, as well as physically, it helps us to learn new skills. And that's great for our brain as well.

Jo, thank you very much. Now that the weather's getting warmer, I think you might have inspired me to take up a new hobby. Great to speak to you this morning. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Now we have Mary, Queen of Shops, with us on the programme. That's Mary Portis, one of the UK's leading voices on retail and brand communication. She'll be in Parliament today calling on the government to change a law on how companies are run to better reflect their social and environmental responsibilities. Welcome to the programme, Mary. So tell us about this Better Business Act and what

it is you're campaigning for. Well, right now, our company law says that the role as a company director is to... Oh, I think we've lost Mary there, internet. We're having trouble hearing you, Mary. Let me try that again. Can you hear me now now i think we can hear you now um tell us what uh campaigning your uh what change you're campaigning for okay so right now company law says it's your role as a company director to return as much profit as possible to your shareholders and you may if want, consider other things like the company's impact on employees or the environment. You may, but you don't have to. Well, we at the Better Business Act think you should have to. So what we want to do is to make amends and make it a director's responsibility to protect, quite simply, people and the planet at the same time as pursuing profit.

Why is this important? Well, I think everyone knows we've got a massive climate issue at the moment. And our well-being, our national well-being is a big issue at the moment. We've got so many issues that we need. And we believe that business can make the change and help. And actually, the big question we keep asking is why wouldn't any business want to do this? Why wouldn't we? I mean, we've just seen the issue with P&O, 800 workers fired. Had they had they taken and done things differently like we're asking for, where we're looking and in practice amending the laws so that all stakeholders, not just the shareholders, are of equal importance, they would not have been in the situation those employees that they are in today, or they're no longer employees. to do this or aren't doing this already is because making money and maximising profit is usually

the driving force. Will that stunt this? Will that have an impact on their profit margins? No, we're just asking people to be a bit more decent in business. Actually, not at all. And interestingly, when you see some of the businesses that have joined, they're some of the most profitable and have been doing this. The body shops, Ben and Jerry's, Iceland, Anglia Water. These businesses are highly profitable businesses. We're just saying, let's put integrity, decency, and realistically, this is an emergency we've got at the moment. I mean, for example, there was a big song and dance last year in Glasgow for the climate conference. Businesses all competing for publicity about how their announcements are and what they were going to do to help our climate issue. Let's face that. When you actually look at the numbers, only 46 percent of UK businesses have absolutely no current plan at all to reduce their emissions. So how on earth, I'd be saying to government, which we will be today,

how on earth are you going to achieve the net zero plans when half the businesses are doing nothing? So yes, we can go for short term and go for as high maximum profits, but in doing so, I'm not sure we'll be here on the planet in the next 25 years. Yeah. So you're saying it's totally unsustainable. Where do women come into this? There seems to be a shift, as you say, in people thinking more about their buying decisions and how they impact the planet. Are women driving that shift? You know what? I was looking at the stats and nearly 80% of buying decisions are made by women. And I say this to all women listening today we have the power to make the change we have the power to choose businesses brands retailers whatever we're

buying from that share our value system and that value system has to be a balance of what is accessible in terms of what we can afford to buy but also is this going to be long-term good for me and the future generations? But also on this, when you start to look at stakeholder-governed SMEs, they reported an average gender pay gap of 4% in the past year, compared to estimates of 15% for wider business population as measured by the latest ONS labour market survey. So what we're looking at now is 84% of stakeholder, which I'm talking about, where they're looking, balancing the stakeholders, this is a business

that takes into consideration all stakeholders, not just shareholders. all of those, 84% of the ones who govern like that, have at least one woman compared to 55% for average businesses who aren't governed by stakeholder initiatives. So this is vitally important for us as women to have balances on boards who are making responsibilities that quite frankly, a lot of women will be more caring about what they're doing and how businesses are affecting their environment, what it means for their families and our futures. What do you mean by more caring? How do you feel businesses would change their behaviour if more women were in decision-making roles? I don't care what anybody says on this. The truth of the matter is we know that most of the caring and the social load is done by women in families.

Now, often in the business environment, you push that aside. And though the way that business has been done, that has been set historically by the patriarchy, it's about an individual getting to the top, alpha codes of behaviours. And women have had to readjust and park some of those what are really important, what were called the soft skills. Leave those at home, you're in business now. Actually, that's the worst thing we could have ever done. We need to bring those soft skills, which quite frankly are the most hard skills to do. Empathy, collaboration, listening, actually thinking about the impact of what decisions in business are doing

and it's not just going for profit. So I think we need more women in business, we need more businesses that are actually protecting all stakeholders and not just the profits of shareholders. How far then will this act go in changing that? What about the, you know, on the ground, the cultural change that's needed within a business, regardless of what the law says? Well, that's really what's important here, because actually what you start to do is have different types of governance in a business. Businesses will have to start doing things differently. And specifically, you're going to have all large companies will have to set out in a strategic report every year exactly how they've taken into consideration workers, communities and

the environment, as well as shareholders. And here's the thing that I keep asking, when we've got 1000 businesses that have joined this, we've got hundreds of people waiting to go on stage and go into Westminster to meet their MPs. For all the time you ask, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you as a business do this? Why wouldn't you? And how far off are women from joining those positions of power, being the gatekeepers, making decisions? We've got a long way to go. We've got hundreds of years to change the structures of business

and how it's been run. But we are making it happen. And I think the greatest thing and one of the greatest things that came out of COVID, and it did give us some things, is that we've actually realised the importance of how we are together and the power of togetherness and community. And lots of women have been at the centre of that. We need to shift that into business and we're seeing that happen. It's a little bit slow but I think once you start to make policy change

and we start to look at businesses really starting to do things differently and putting those soft skills that I talked about that used to be left at home or in the HR department, putting those at the head of governance of business, then I think this will open up doors much greater for women in business. Mary Porter, thank you very much. Good luck in Parliament today. Thanks for coming on to Woman's Hour. My pleasure. Being overweight substantially increases a woman's risk of developing womb cancer. Research suggests scientists and doctors have known for some time that being overweight or obese increases the risk of the disease.

Now, researchers at the University of Bristol have been able to shed further light on the link, as well as the extent of the increased risk. Joining me now is Carys Betts, Senior Health Information Manager for Cancer Research UK, who funded the study. Carys, good morning to you. Your study was of 120,000 women. What did you find out? So it was a really interesting study. And it's highlighted again that link between obesity and womb cancer, something that we've known for some time, and something that Cancer Research UK has been at the forefront of trying to find out why that's happening. And what's particularly interesting about this study is they've looked at some of those mechanisms, some of those reasons why this might be happening and have uncovered the action of a couple of hormones, which is really, really important

for future research looking at how we might prevent and treat this disease. Okay, so how does this differ from what we knew already? Yeah, so we've known for some time that obesity increases the risk of actually 13 different cancer types, including womb cancer. But what's new here is how we've started to kind of dig into finding out a bit more about the why. So it's something we've known for a while that it is happening, but it's really hard to work out what's going on at kind of that molecular level, what's happening in our cells, what our hormones are doing. And this study looked at 14 different traits, different hormones, and it's pulled out a couple, insulin and testosterone, and how these might impact what our cells are doing and how cancer might start. So, yeah, you found that for every five extra BMI units,

a woman's risk of endometrial cancer increases by 88%. That sounds like an awful lot. It does sound like a big number. And that's the problem with statistics. You can make any number sound big or small. And often these big numbers sound quite scary. But I think it's important to look at it kind of in the round and take a step back. And as someone gains weight and the more overweight a

person is, that risk is higher. But it also shows that there are things that we can do to reduce our risk. It's not easy in our society. It's not easy keeping a healthy weight or making healthy choices. But there are things that we can do to kind of stack the odds in our favour and help keep a healthy weight. So having a healthy diet and keeping active doesn't mean running marathons. Anything that raises your heart rate, it could be pottering about the garden and maybe taking up paddleboarding like Jo. So there's lots that people can do to reduce their risk. And how easy is this to diagnose? So there is a variance in how easy it is to diagnose in different people

because everyone can have had different symptoms. But what we know about this type of cancer, like with most other cancers, catching it early is really important and will give you the best chance of survival. So, you know, you know your body best. So listen to any of those alarm bells. And if you've noticed a change that's not normal for you or not going away, go and tell your doctor about it. Is this type of cancer common? It's fairly common. So it's the fourth most common cancer in women and it affects one in every 36 women. So it's about 9,700 cases of this type of cancer

are diagnosed a year. I suppose some women might be listening to this and heard that 88% figure and feel a bit worried. I mean, how concerned should they be? I hope this study doesn't add any concern. I think, like I said, numbers are scary and they can do all sorts. And you can move them around in any which way to make it something sound bigger or smaller.

And this is something with increased weight and it's how much one group is increased to another. So it doesn't mean kind of, you know, everybody has double the risk of somebody else. So try and ignore the numbers and do what you can do. You're in control to be able to help make some changes, keep a healthy weight and just be really vigilant and know your body. And if you notice those changes go to the doctor those are the actions you you can take okay well there's still uh positive news there uh caris betts thank you so much for joining us on woman's hour this morning now my next guest has

taken the tiktok world by storm with her storytelling content being viewed by more than 75 million my goodness sovia smvia Smith-Gaylor is a senior journalist at Vice World News and has written a book called Losing It, Sex Education for the 21st Century, which looks into the myths around sex that impact the lives of young people and why we should be taking sex education more seriously. Sovia, welcome to the programme, joining me live in the studio. Firstly, I said at the top that my sex education was severely lacking, and I didn't realise until I've grown up and I've looked back and thought that didn't prepare me at all. But firstly, we'll get into that and people's experiences, because there's been quite a bit of interaction on social media as well. But firstly,

what made you want to write this book? Exactly what you've just described, this kind of reflection that we have as adults, and especially me having this reflection as someone who then goes on to become a journalist and starts thinking about it with a bit more of a journalistic lens. It's three different reasons, really,

that compounded into making Losing It happen. But the first would be that, just like you, I can think of how my sex education was profoundly lacking in preparing me for the real world. When I entered sexual maturity, I started encountering a lot of problems straight away. None that anyone had kind of set me up or prepared me for. I grow up and you hear stories from your friends, your partners or hearsay from popular culture. And you think, is that right? Or is that really what I'm supposed to do? And you have all these questions. And then as a journalist, thinking about how is it that so many people speak so disparagingly of their sex education. I rarely meet anyone who's had a glowing

review of it. How can that be the case when we know there are so many systemic problems from everything from women's health to issues around consent, sexual harassment, abuse? How can we coexist with these two ideas? There are so many problems in society. And yet all of us kind of say, yeah, our sex education was pretty rubbish. Yeah, you've done a lot of research on this. You've spoken to a lot of people about it. So what are the problems that you've encountered from people? What are those myths that are out there? In terms of problems, and in terms of how I plot the book, which is, yeah, I bring in a set of myths, that I try to expose how these myths manifest, how many people endorse them, and then I try and debunk them.

We know already from data that's available, for example, that about 40% of young women in Britain and around 26% of young men feel that their first time did not happen at the perceived right time. We know that one in five young women are not as equally willing as their partners the first time did not happen at the perceived right time we know that one in five young women are not as equally willing as their partners the first time that they have first time sex as it were we we know that the data is telling us that something's up and when I as you said I've done so many interviews with so many different people, everyone from medical experts, sex therapists, to simply ordinary people who either do or don't have sex and have a story to tell. And some of the myths I chart, I mean, I begin with the virginity myth, the idea that we still

even use that word, the idea that there is still this sense of a status that people have that that that your sexual history somehow connotes some kind of value. There's clinics out there that will restore supposedly your virginity. Is that right? Yeah. And what's what's quite disappointing is that in the in the UK, we are we are set to ban this in law. But even from googling this weekend, I can see that several there are several clinics in London and across the UK that still seem to be offering this right up until that bill will finally fully be passed. The idea that our entrance into sexual maturity is on this precipice, this singular moment, normally defined as penetrative. It's one of the first ideas that we're introduced to about sex, which introduces us to so many wrong ideas about it,

that it has to mean penetration, that it has to be one moment and isn't simply a litany of sexual experiences in which we grow and learn and challenge ourselves. And the idea that, oh, what if I don't lose it at the right time? Or who do I need to lose it to? I need to save it for someone special. That is not remotely what sex researchers would tell you shows positive sexual health and well-being in a population what they would tell you when they come in and they try and judge concepts like sexual competence it's got absolutely nothing to do with when and who and

how it's all to do with you it's to do with did you have full autonomy in your decision making? It's did you use contraception? It's were you as equally willing and did this happen for you at the right time? And does that sound anything like how you were prepared for sex as a young person? Because it's not what it's not what I was told. No, and messages have come in from our listeners that have reflected pretty much what you and I have said about our sex education. Kath has said in one sex education lesson

in an all-girls school in the mid-1960s, I came away thinking, that's disgusting. Do I have to do that every single time? I want a baby. Someone else has said, in school, we got kind of one class where we watched a nurse put a condom on a bright blue dildo. We didn't even get to try it ourselves. I mean, how do these experiences when we're younger affect us in later life? How did it affect you? It affected me profoundly. What was peculiar about my sex education was I was exposed to some lessons where I had a bit more open-mindedness than I did in

one particular memorable lesson in which an external speaker came in and said, every time you have sex, you will lose your special glue. And once you've lost all your special glue, no husband will love you. And there's a reason I remember that I think you know my brain knew it was rubbish but but something else in me took it to heart all these ideas that we're constantly exposed to around a guilt and shame around sex I also grew up thinking that it was a very you know I'm a heterosexual woman and I grew up thinking it was a very male initiated, male led experience that I was expected basically to do to do kind of what men said. And that was it. And I wasn't prepared for a lot of things,

including psychosexual problems, which makes me amongst the 47 percent of people in britain uh 47 percent of women in britain it's 42 percent of men who wish they were told more about psychosexual matters what is psychosexual matters psychosexual it's all about um the the the fact that sex for us is a mind body experience um we are it's as much about our mental health and well-being as physical health and well-being and I would have been 18 trying to have sex for the first time and experiencing immense amount of pain every time I attempted I was unable to do it I had no idea what was wrong with me this was first term at uni and everyone else was you know living a life of debauchery and having fun I was there pretending to be doing the same,

thinking, I don't even know what's wrong with me. Maybe I'm not built right down there. Why isn't it working? I went to, eventually I went to the GP about it because I was sort of, I remember my partner at the time telling me, I think you need to see a doctor, which is not something anyone likes to hear. I go to the gp and the first question that i he asked me was have you ever been a victim of sexual abuse and that's when i thought oh my goodness something wow no but something must be really profoundly wrong with me for him to be asking me that and what happened next was months and months and months of him giving me examinations or treatment that didn't work and he was at no point actually able to tell me what may have been wrong with me and during that time you know we don't talk enough about how sexual health and well-being is part of

our mental health and well-being seen as taboo isn't it seen as really taboo and I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone about it I'm there freaking out am I never going to be able to have children um am I never going to be able to hold down a boyfriend because I can't have sex all these ideas that I didn't need when I was that when I was that young and just trying to express myself and be happy eventually I got so tired um and exhausted and I was so unhappy that I go back to the GP and I say can I have second opinion please I'd like to see another GP and instantly she said to me oh you have vaginismus don't worry about it it's a really common psychosexual disorder I'm going to refer you for treatment and it's treatable and the fact that someone had given it a name and said, don't worry about it, it's normal, you're not alone.

I mean, some medical literature, I found quotes that one in 500 women have it. Sexual pain disorders are so, so common and we don't talk about it because of how taboo it feels. And then it was even just being able to have a name on it and being able to Google around it and sort of self-educate, patch up the gaps that my own sex education had left me with, that I was able really to sort of find a cure.

And what support was out there for you? Unfortunately, my referral letter never came, possibly to do with either delays to the system or because when you're at uni, you move house every year. The support and the reading that I did online basically just reassured me that sex didn't have to be penetrative or look like what sex on TV is construed as, which never has full play in it never mind you know anything else so i uh i i changed how i thought about sex and gradually what it did is people with vaginismus um it's the involuntary spasming of the of the pelvic floor that makes you know gives the pain

in the first place and it's about breaking this anxiety loop. You're always scared it's going to be painful. So it is always painful. And you break that anxiety loop by relaxing, by learning more, by getting to know yourself a bit better. And that is how, yeah, that is how I got out of it. It doesn't mean I'm completely cured. I was so scared to get my first cervical smear. When I got it, it was really clear that the health practitioner

did not know necessarily how to deal with someone with a history of vaginismus. But I do definitely feel like I'm in a place now where I feel like I should talk about it because I remember how to be it was. I remember feeling like the only person in the world and the minute I said on Instagram I'm writing this book one of the chapters I'm covering vaginismus so many people in my life messaged me to say thank you because I have this and then I reply and say oh I had it and had that moment not happened so

many people that I know have had it. It's crazy. Yeah. And you're helping countless others just by talking about it with us today on the programme. Someone has messaged in to say, actually, that we should also give credit to the schools that actually do a really good job of teaching sex education in schools. It's so different from previous generations. I was really impressed with the materials I've seen in my teenage daughter's bedroom. What do you make of the way sex education is taught now today in comparison to how we were taught when we were younger? There are really, really fantastic educators out there right now. The flaws in the system are not with these teachers who are doing absolutely everything that they can within limited timetables to deliver sex education the flaws are in uh you know how much funding has been given for high quality

training to make anyone who teaches and delivers relationships and relationships and sex education happy enough and confident enough to teach it uh in a good way i can tell you that i had a father get in touch with me recently to say oh my daughter's come back from school and told me that in class they taught her contraception wasn't real love. So some of the kind of horror story anecdotes that we have, they haven't disappeared. These are still happening in certain schools up and down the country. In other instances, for example, after the 2021 Ofsted review, which found a damning review of sexual harassment and abuse across schools one pupil got in touch a current student at a sixth form got in touch to tell me that we kind of had one really rapid workshop all because the school had been named and the language of the

workshop when she told me about it was very victim blaming and it was very very limiting as well talking about consent there is so much more we could do. It all needs more funding and it all needs more prioritising. Yeah. And your book, Losing It, Sex Education for the 21st Century is out now. Sophia Smith-Gala, thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour. Almost the end of the programme, but we've had such a response from people that have been taking up new activities later in life. Someone has said, I took up tap dancing at the age of 55 and continued until I was 75 when our teacher unreasonably decided to retire at the age of 90. Absolutely brilliant. That's all from Woman's Hour. Speak soon.

And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. in store for you. And I was calling Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, and a ship answered. And I thought, thank goodness, we've got the starboard railings are in the water, we're rolling around, and we're sinking. So he said, what is your position? So I said, we're about halfway between the port of East London and Durban. No, what are your coordinates, he says. So I said, well, I don't know what the coordinates are. And I could hear sort of, what rank are you? So I'm saying, well, I'm not a ranker, I'm a guitarist. And he said, what are you doing on the bridge? So I said, well, there's nobody else here.

You might need a strong brew and some steady nerves for that one. It's quite a story. Honestly, I've been blown away by what so-called ordinary human beings are capable of. Don't miss this series of Life Changing. These stories and these people are definitely going to improve your day. Join us if you can. Subscribe now to Life Changing on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over 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.

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