Woman's Hour - Competitive cheerleading, Criminal records, Professor Clare Chambers

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

One in six people in England and Wales have a criminal record. A new campaign #Fairchecks spearheaded by charities Transform Justice and Unlock reveals the experiences of women whose lives have been ruined by minor offences as much as 30 years on. To coincide with the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill, going through the final stages of parliament, they are asking for amendments to shorten the time people must disclose their conviction, helping to give some people’s a fairer chance at a fresh start. Emma is joined by Rachel, now 36, who acquired a criminal record at the age of 19, and by Angela Cairns, CEO of Unlock. Do we change our bodies because we want to or because we are being pressured to conform by society? Cambridge Professor of Political Philosophy Clare Chambers considers this question and concludes that the unmodified body is under attack, particularly for women, who are constantly given the message that their body is not good enough just as it is. Her new book is Intact – A Defence of the Unmodified Body. Last September the Children’s code came into effect in the UK. Its purpose is to protect children's online data. Instagram and Apple are amongst nine tech firms under investigation by the Information Commissioner for breaches of the Code - following complaints lodged by the charity 5Rights which fights for children's digital rights. Emma is joined by its founder Baroness Beeban Kidron. The reputation of cheerleading has changed in recent years thanks to programmes such as Netflix docuseries Cheer and its recognition as an official Olympic sport. Emma discusses its growing popularity in the UK with Team England coach Angela Green and cheerleader (and engineer) Pokuwa Strong.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Shortly, we'll be analysing the role of strongman politics in the escalating situation in Ukraine after Russia ordered troops into eastern Ukraine, as you've been hearing in the news. We'll also be finding out how technology companies could be made to pay if they have been found to have broken the children's code in the UK by speaking to the architect of that code, the crossbench peer Baroness Kidron. But today we have a philosopher also on the programme who

wants us to think about our bodies and how modified they are, from braces on children through to painted nails and surgery. She's mounting a defence of the unmodified body. How have you modified yours? What changes have you made? From those that can be very temporary, I don't know, painting your nails, dyeing your hair, through to, of course, surgery, fillers, Botox, all of that. Why have you made those changes?

Did you make them because you genuinely wanted to? Because of pressures to conform or to perhaps go back to how you used to be or whatever that was? Or to perhaps be a different version of yourself because it did make you feel better? Maybe you've also come to regret some of those changes. I'm minded to mention the actor. Courtney Cox has been speaking about some of those injections and fillers she did in her face. She said to try and stay looking like Monica from Friends, for which she is best known,

almost forever. She stopped doing it now, she said, because they made her look weird. But the unmodified body, what does that mean to you? If you did absolutely nothing with yours, nothing at all, how would you look? What would you be like? Would you go, I don't know, to a wedding or somewhere that you would be expected to dress up completely as you are? Tell me about your changes or lack thereof. 84844. I'm realising as I'm saying this to you, I've got a nail appointment not long after the programme and I'm having my hair dyed because I'm going on holiday, I hope, Covid test permitting on Friday. So there's modifications definitely in my diary. How about yours and why do you do them? Do they make you feel better? or perhaps should we be thinking about

as this philosopher is going to tell us keeping our bodies intact and perhaps a bit of us in the process. On social media we're at BBC Women's Hour should you wish to get in touch that way. I await what you have to say. But first the Russian President Vladimir Putin's late night televised speech from the Kremlin

is making headlines and for further analysis this morning, with reporters describing it as laced with anger, historical grievances and challenges to the West. The BBC's Sarah Rainsford said it was Putin the angry, impatient and directly threatening. It felt like Russia's president was getting 20-odd years of hurt off his chest and hitting back. And the positioning of Russian troops, or what Putin is calling peacekeepers, in the breakaway regions is being seen by the West as further provocation and an escalation of aggression towards Ukraine. BBC News, of course, will keep you up to date

with developments throughout the day. But let's look now at how President Putin has perhaps been using strongman tactics to intimidate and demonstrate Russian power and might, as some would have it and some would put that analysis. And how has that impacted on the likelihood of war? I'm joined first now by the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, who's currently in the Ukraine capital, Kiev. Lise, first of all, just a sense of the mood there at the moment? Well, you know, I woke up this morning and I look out my window and it's a grey, cold winter's day here in Kiev and the buses are running on time. People are scurrying to work and the squares are

full. This is new for many people. Our listeners will see that Ukraine has been in the headlines for some weeks now. But Ukrainians have lived with this, with Russia on their border, Russia on their minds, Russia permeating religion, culture, society for eight years. And there is, you know, can you imagine you hearing President Putin last night in that rambling speech, which was essentially an audio version of a written essay he did last year, about 5,000 words long, in which he essentially said, Ukraine is not a country.

Ukraine is a fake country. Ukraine is part a country. Ukraine is a fake country. Ukraine is part of Russia. Well, you'd feel a bit nervous, but people are really resilient and defiant and have no choice but to get on with their lives. The strongman politics then, what is your view of that in terms of how that plays out politically and how, if you like, the response can be to that? I urge listeners, this may not be something you normally do, but if you Google and look at what was described as live, but we think it was pre-recorded, President Putin addressing a National Security Council meeting last night in Moscow. And it was political theatre at its best or its worst, where he essentially put his top security chiefs in their place. You even had the head of national intelligence stammering and President Putin basically saying, get your words right.

What do you want to say? And while President Putin had said to them, I want to hear what you have to say, it was clear that President Putin just wanted them to snap into line and give him some kind of cover to do what he decided to do. It was an extraordinary spectacle. So strong men preying on others who are supposed to be, well, other strong men and one strong woman who was on that National Security Council. Yeah, I suppose the question as well is in the midst of this, when you have that sort of character, even behaving like that, as you say, to his own, as it were. And then you hear this morning, the West talking about softer things, such as sanctions, how those two go together, and whether that is even a response if he's rewriting the rulebook of how you do politics.

Well, it's his rulebook, isn't it? It's his playbook. It has no rules. It's what he decides to do. And it's his reading of history, which is not the history as others remember it, lived through it. The elderly people who are living in hollowed out streets, in houses without electricity, in places where their grandchildren and children no longer live because it's not a life worth living. They're on the front lines with Russian-backed separatists. They remember the Second World War, the war of all wars. They've lived through the war of 2014 when Russian troops first went in.

And now they're living with the consequences of this war again. Lise Doucette, thank you for talking to us. BBC's chief international correspondent currently in the Ukraine capital, Kiev. Let me talk now to the author and political commentator Ece Temelkuran, who you may remember was on the programme just after she wrote How to Lose a Country, The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. The role of strongman politics in this particular escalation at this time is what to you, Ece, with your analysis?

Well, as we just listened from the field, it is painfully funny what we've been going through. From a certain perspective, the bird's eye view, if you will, what's been happening is absurdly funny. The excuses for war have never been proportionate to the dimension of tragedy inflicted upon humanity, but this one in particular is really absurd. Putin has been mocking the entire world for months in a reluctant, lazy warrior manner, and now he says, well, if you want this war so bad, this is so typical

of strongmen phenomenon. I think they take their chances. They strike a punch at the institutions, the international law, and see whether the tiger is paper or not. So Putin is doing the same thing. This is right from his playbook. That is so true. Yes, well, of course, there's also the analysis that has been coming, not least from Fiona Hill, who was a Ukraine and Russia advisor to both Trump and to Obama, that actually it was Trump who had paved the way, another strongman, as some would see it, for Putin to be in this position in the first place. And I know that you have looked at what you call strongman, as some would see it, for Putin to be in this position in the first place. And I know that you have looked at what you call strongman politics and what happens if left unchecked.

Well, I'm like, to begin with, Trump is the least of the strongmen. He's become too famous, I know, because he was the president of the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, but actually the one who invented the idea of strongmen was actually Putin. He brought this to the world scene, and the others only followed him, including Taipei, Doanmoti, and all the others, Bolsonaro and so on. And Trump is just a very, very bad example of strong men, so to speak.

So this is what they do. If you are polite with them, they go on with their bullying. And we've seen this, you know, in several cases, not only in the last several months, but also throughout his power, you know, throughout his years in power, both with Putin and with his likes. But I suppose what's interesting there, what you're saying about is how you handle them, right? And men and women on the political stage in the West right now are trying to handle Putin, are trying to negotiate, trying to talk about sanctions now and how the response could be there. And, you know, of course, one of the individuals who went forward to represent this country is the UK Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, happens to be a woman at this time. And of course, there was that meeting with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov,

where he briefed the media after the meeting, equating her with a deaf person. And also there'd been a lot of criticism of her grasp of geography. Do you think her gender, her sex plays a part, I should say, in that? Or do you think that's just how it is anyway, for a man or a woman? Oh, definitely. The gender plays a huge role in this because it's that you can humiliate women and everybody would laugh at it the world would laugh at it they are all playing to their uh supporters who are laymen who would be really amused by this you know ostentatiously vulgar uh manners this is what they do they do not only attack the international law or international institutions they also attack the basic good manners. I'm like, we all remember Merkel meeting Putin and, you know,

Putin's dog was there and Merkel was a little bit afraid and that photo was distributed to the entire world media. Or Erdogan, you know, a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen and there is no chair for her and she couldn't know what to do. And she just said, er, mm. But so you don't think those particular scenarios would have played out quite the same if the counterpart, the Western counterpart,

hadn't been female? Oh, yeah. I mean, like female is easier in their point of view. It's absolutely easier to put down, to humiliate, to, you know, to perform this ostentatious act of power. I think it's not only about manners, but it's also an ideological stance as well, because misogyny has always been the wingman of fascism, right-wing populism, totalitarianism, any kind of strongman regime,

because if you put down the female, you can prove your strength. So in terms of that response, it's interesting, just as we're talking, Catherine's messaged in to say, I think Angela Merkel would have been able to negotiate with Putin more successfully than current leaders. She understood communism having grown up in East Germany, post-communism, and the minds of the likes of Putin. I don't know what you make of that, but I was also going to say, and feel free to reflect on what our listener Catherine has to say, but I was also going to say, yes, that might make it easier, an easier punch bag if it's a woman and it's important to shine a light on that misogyny within this strongman

routine. But what should the response be if the rulebook is being written by someone else and you're trying to talk a different language, literally? I think the European societies, European leaders should know that this is another game now. You don't do, you know, hesitant moves or so. I'm like, if you go back to Ursula von der Leyen example and tell what should be done through that example, the response should have been, excuse me, get me a chair and get me a chair now. And then we could have seen how strong men turn into deer at headlights. Because this is how they play and this is how it should be played from now on. They should be shown and told very openly who they are and what they are.

Otherwise, you know, being very, how should I put it, good mannered or polite wouldn't do the trick. I'm just reminding myself of what happened there. And of course, she's the first female president of the European Commission. Afterwards, she said she felt hurt by not having a chair in that particular meeting. And she was left, of course, sitting on the sofa saying she, you know, she would stand up for women's rights was what she said afterwards. But your point is, you have to be impolite or direct at that point. Not impolite, necessarily, but very assertive, confident, self confident, and you shouldn't be embarrassed to show what's going on to reveal the very seed, the core of the game, so to speak. I see the game and I am good enough to play the

game, get yourself together, so to speak. Of course, you know, as a Turkish author and political commentator, not just of Turkey around the the world, but, you know, very familiar and have studied Erdogan and his playbook, as it were. You say now the West needs to deal with the strongman, as you describe him, Putin, and take it seriously, but play the game at the same time. I mean, how do you see this playing out as someone who's written the book, The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship? Quite a tall order for me to ask you that this morning. That is a million dollar question that the world cannot answer at the moment. But if you ask me, the more important thing here is we're going towards a war. And then I don't see many people saying no to war. Let's leave aside what leaders do or how they behave but the societies are quite reluctant to

give any kind of reaction because i remember 2003 no to war coalition the global coalition when iraq invasion happened i don't see such um such enthusiasm to say no to war which is even more worrying than what leaders do at the moment, because leaders act according to what their societies ask them to do. Well, not always is your point, I suppose. But your point is, we need to hear more what from the people of Ukraine at this point, who, I mean, they would say, I suppose, and their leaders certainly said, you know, we're not going to roll over, we're going to deal with this. But I suppose their point is, they have to say they're going to fight or they're going to stand up for themselves.

Well, as we just heard from the field, they have been living in this helplessness for quite a long time. And I think they're wary of the situation. And until yesterday, actually, they were quite surprised that the entire world's hair was on fire. They weren't as, you know, afraid or surprised that this is happening. So now this is, we are, I think, going through the most cynical age of human history because I keep seeing Ukrainians posting messages on Twitter saying, OK, there's a war coming. What should I do now? And then an African guy whose country is in constant turmoil telling him, you know what, first electricity, you have to buy something to keep on electricity, keep it going on and so on.

So the cynicism of the entire situation is so fitting to the strongman regime. You see what I mean? I mean, like these strongmen feed on the cynicism, this lack of faith, this lack of reaction. So either coming from the leaders or from societies or preferably both, we need more reaction because they do what they can do because they can. This is the most important rule in their playbook, I guess. Ece Tamakuren, who spent some time, I think it's fair to say, looking at strongman techniques and tactics. Thank you for talking to us, Turkish author and political commentator.

That book's called How to Lose a Country, The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. A message here as well from Sue, which says, who's emailed to say, it comes to something when my seven-year-old grandson asks his mother at bedtimes, what will happen if Russia invades us after Ukraine? Didn't World War II teach us anything? And your messages have also been coming in thick and fast in response to my next guest's arguments. Let me tell you about who she is. Claire Chambers, Cambridge professor of political philosophy, joins me now with the question, do we change our bodies because

we want to or because we're being pressured to? She's considered this question at length and concluded that the unmodified body, as she calls it, is under attack, particularly for women, because we are constantly given the message that our bodies are not good enough just as they are. Her new book is called Intact, a defence of the unmodified body. Good morning, Claire. Hello. Thank you for joining us today. I have to say, this has sparked quite a response, as you may imagine, in terms of the question of can you imagine being unmodified? Why have you modified?

And Michelle, straight off the bat email to say, can we consider that we may be modifying ourselves for reasons other than social pressure. I've coloured my hair various colours over the years, worn makeup, not worn it, dressed in various outfits, added jewellery and hats, purely for artistic effect. Humans have always decorated themselves, all their surroundings, and sometimes you just want to do it to add colour to your world. I consider it a way of not going gently into the night. It's nothing to do with what society thinks I should look like. Claire, what do you say to that? Well, it's lovely to be here. Thank you. And I nothing to do with what society thinks I should look like. Claire, what do you say to that? Well, it's lovely to be here. Thank you. And I want to say that I hope you do manage to go on holiday and that you feel fantastic when you're there with your nails and your hair done. We'll see. It's not part of my argument to say that everything we do to our bodies is bad and

that we should refrain from any kind of body modification. But we know that we are living in a culture that places huge emphasis on how we look. And this is called what psychologists call an epidemic of appearance anxiety, and it's doing serious harm to our mental health. So many of us live with a permanent sense of shame and inadequacy. So one large study found that 70% of women feel media pressure to have a perfect body, and two-thirds of men feel ashamed of their body. And we see this also with young people and with girls in particular. So the most recent Girl Guiding Survey found that the majority of girls find that images of the perfect look make them feel insecure. So in my book, In Intact, I analyse all the ways in

which our bodies are designated as not good enough. And I think this spans a wide variety of practices, not just hair and makeup, but also I think about examples like bodybuilding and disability and the idea that we should get our bodies back after pregnancy. And the idea of the unmodified body that I think needs to be defended is the idea that we could allow our bodies to be good enough just as they are that's what I mean by an unmodified body and that we ought to be able to say collectively and to say stop not stop to all practices of body modification but stop to a culture of pressure and shame that makes us feel that we have to change our bodies. Getting your body back after having a baby is is quite a good one to take a moment on because I think it allows you into a window and something that you do write about that I thought you put

extremely well is the idea that you've got one body that has to stay the same the whole way through your life where does that idea come from that's right I think that phrase is so interesting so that phrase getting your body back is something I think we can all recognise. We know what it means. It means that after you've had a baby, you have to return your body to its pre-pregnancy state. Or even if you've put on weight, for instance, and you're like, I want to get back to how I was. And I know, you know, weight's not healthy. I'm not, you know, it's not something if you put it on, you necessarily want to keep. Of course, there are lots of people who have the weight and are feeling a lot more positive about that. But it's not always post a baby, you can have any change and still feel you need to get it back. That's right. But the phrase get your body back

isn't you should get slimmer, or you should look better, or you should feel sexier, it's you should get your body back. So the implication is that the body you have is not your real body, not your authentic body. And that your real body is this particular kind of body, which is not your real body, not your authentic body. And that your real body is this particular kind of body, which is, what is it? It's a body that's post-puberty. And in the getting your body back after pregnancy phrase, it's getting the body that you had before pregnancy, but post-puberty. That's a very specific part of a woman's life. For most women who live a full life, that would be a minority of their life. So why is it that that is supposed to be the body that is our real authentic one? And it's an idea, I think,

that makes us feel that any way in which we deviate from that idea is shameful. And I use the word shaintenance to talk about all the ways that we maintain shame around our body. We think that the ways that our bodies deviate from standards are shameful, and we do a lot of work to keep those deviations secret and private. And that ranges from really obvious examples of shame, such as menstrual shame, where we all put a lot of effort into concealing our menstruation and those of others, but also less obvious examples of shame. And one case I discuss in that context is natural makeup, right, which is the idea that we should be wearing makeup, which looks as if we're not wearing makeup. And that idea of

natural makeup, again, gives the implication that how our faces look without makeup is shameful, because our dark circles, our red patches, our wrinkles are things that we should be concealing. So whereas overt makeup, adornment makes it very clear that what we are doing is decorating ourselves. Natural makeup suggests, no, we shouldn't necessarily focus on adornment, but we shouldn't let our bodies be just as they are because there's something wrong with them. Although it's interesting, isn't it? I saw the other day, I think there was a brand for male makeup called War Paint. I was having a small smile about that while reading reports of Ukraine.

But I was thinking, you know, women sometimes feel lucky compared to men that we do get to improve ourselves, quote unquote, that there is that option. And I am seeing, you know, a sort of whole trend of messages here. I mean, the first one we received when I asked the question linked to yours from April said,

Blimey, if I made no changes, I wouldn't feel at my best. Underarm shaved, hair dyed, nails painted. If I was unmodified, people would run away. Now, you know, you can sort of laugh at that and there's good humour in there. But truly being unmodified, I know it's not just about nails painting, but sort of what you're saying there about that natural makeup does lead to some people just not feeling as good. And men sometimes want that option. Absolutely right. And so in the context of all this constant pressure and judgment and ranking of bodies that I've been talking about, it may well be that changing our bodies makes all of us feel better in the short term.

It may be that changing our bodies is better than leaving them alone. And it's the best way to feel good about ourselves and to have others feel good about us, which is why it's not an individual problem to solve. It's not that each of us individually should stop doing what we need to do to feel good about ourselves in this context. But I do think that we, when everybody feels bad about their bodies, we might think that it's not the bodies that are the real problem. It's the social context that makes us feel bad. And I think we have the right to try to change our bodies, but we also have the right to live in a society that doesn't constantly tell

us that the bodies we have are wrong. What would have to not be there to live in that society, do you think? What's that utopia, according to you, if we could be intact? So that's a very difficult question. And it's not part of my analysis to say that I have the full answer of how to get there. But if you were to imagine some things, yes. Yeah. So one thing that seems to make a big difference is actually very simple, which is having a much more diverse range of images of bodies to look at. So, you know, we're all constantly surrounded by images of each other. We are talking to each other in ways that are often emphasising our own image. We are

posting selfies. We are constantly seeing a barrage of images of perfected bodies. And if those images that we saw were much more diverse, that would have a strong effect on undermining the idea that there's only one particular way to look. Because it's a very visual culture that we're living in now. I mean, I'm looking at you, we're doing it over a video call, such as COVID's impact on the programme still. And I mean, do you make any modifications yourself or have you changed something about yourself having answered this question? I respect it's not about the individual, it's about the culture. But have you had an awakening about anything you were doing to modify? Well, of course, absolutely. I do lots of things to myself. None of us could act in such a way that

we don't ever change our bodies. Everything we do, you know, eating, drinking, exercising, not exercising, changes our bodies in some way. One thing actually that I did change in thinking about this was my attitude to makeup. So I was always somebody who didn't particularly use makeup in my, you know, in the academic context, that's quite an easy position to have. And I think I had a view that actually, if you were going to use makeup, you know, that I would prefer to use the natural, more subtle makeup. And in thinking about the ways that that natural makeup actually is about maintaining a sort of secrecy and a shame about the body, I actually felt that if I was going to wear makeup, I might wear it more overtly

and actually have sometimes worn, you know, more bright lipstick and more obvious makeup than I might otherwise have done. So it's not always about thinking that a response to understanding these pressures is to stop doing things. Sometimes it's about recognizing what we're doing and, you know, recognizing that our actions in response to this pressure are just there to be accepted and to be made more visible. I think it's interesting as well. Culturally, recently we've had Sex and the City come back and a Friends reunion. And it's amazing to have seen individual actors that you saw at a certain age come back and some of the responses to how they have looked those individuals haven't been good you know whether it's I'm so surprised she's aged so much well what do you think happens in 20 years if you still you know continue as you

were going and don't modify that much through to I did mention Courtney Cox has spoken about doing injections and stuff to her face that she realised, you know, that she was chasing youthfulness, and she realised it left her looking strange. And, you know, talking about that can only be helpful, I imagine. I think that's right. I mean, for women in particular, ageing is so profoundly fraught, and women are absolutely criticised no matter what we do, whether we do or don't do modifications. And again, that's another part of the problem problem when we have an ideal that we're supposed to meet, but actually it's not possible for any of us to meet it without feeling ashamed. So one of the things I think

about is most people, if I said to you, you know, which body part would you most like to change? I think most people could have a ready answer to that, right? We know what we would say. But then if I said to you, well, imagine that you changed that body part, how would you feel then? Would everything be perfect? And I think most of us probably would then think, actually, then if that was fixed, then I've got the next thing on the list. And it's not that there's any kind of body that we can easily achieve that will then stop us feeling anxiety about our bodies. This anxiety is built in and particularly for women who are aging, that is anxiety is built in. And particularly for women who are aging, that is part of the process. And at some point, we just perhaps need to recognize

that again, as I say, if we feel bad about our bodies, maybe it's not the bodies that are the problem. I'm laughing because I put a swimming costume on in a changing room the other day, having not bought one for a while. And I thought, who's that? Because I saw the behind of myself. And I thought, who's that woman? And it was me. It turns out I don't have a mirror that lets me see that at home. But also I had, you know, just not worn a swimming costume for a long time. I got a surprise of my life to see how it actually looks at the moment. Now, that says more perhaps about my exercise regime than anything else or maybe the choice of swimming costume.

It was bright pink. I'm no shame on the colour front. But I think it's just interesting how you can then see yourself in a different perspective and you just have to get used to it. And that's the thing, isn't it? Getting used to some change is actually quite difficult in any area of your life, not least with how you look. That's right. And in fact, the way we see each other in different contexts is something I think many of us have confronted with this rise of video conferencing context, right, where we are looking at ourselves when we're on a video call and we're seeing how we look when we speak to other people. I think that's why it's more tiring as well, video. That's exactly it. And that's something that most of us are simply not familiar

with. So when the pandemic first started, I had this idea that maybe the fact of thinking about our bodies as carriers of health or illness might take us away from thinking about our appearance. But in fact, I think that's not happened at all because we've transported or increased the extent to which we're constantly looking at ourselves on camera while talking while interacting and we get a real close-up view of of all the flaws and imperfections and of course zoom offers ways to touch up your appearance to add lipstick to add all kinds of things oh yeah definitely I've definitely clicked on that. I mean, just going to be honest about it. Once I was told, I mean, it was also a way of making it less boring,

depending on the call, of course. Claire, thank you very much. A message I thought you'd just like to hear from Lisa, who says, my health visitor talked about getting your figure back in order to encourage us to breastfeed as a prenatal class. So, of course, how it's in the culture as well, within those who are said to be looking after us, is also quite interesting.

But as you say, it's not necessarily an individual point. It's a much bigger point of how the culture is constructed, which you've made us think about this morning, for which we thank you. Claire Chambers, the book is called Intact, A Defence of the Unmodified Body. And plenty of you getting in touch about body modification. One here, just brushing my teeth, all seven of them. I don't go anywhere without my dentures and another one here i love getting

dolled up and pampered it's not something i have time to do every day used to do my makeup on the train to work it's definitely changed a lot since working from home and another one saying what you see is what you get there's nothing modified about me i'm so sad for people who can't go to weddings or otherwise and feel like they can without any changes. So thank you for those messages. Keep them coming in. But I mentioned what we're talking about technology and video calls. Let's talk about those nine technology firms or certainly why perhaps they're now under investigation for endangering children online after complaints against companies including Instagram and Apple for breaching their duty of care. They're being investigated by the Information Commissioner in this country for breaches of the Children's Code,

which came fully into force last September and is designed to protect children from inappropriate and harmful content and suitable for their ages. Those complaints were lodged by the charity Five Rights, the founder of which is the crossbench peer Baroness Kidron, who's credited with being the architect of the Children's Code. She joins me now. Good morning. Morning. What breaches are we talking about? Could you give some examples? Yeah, we're talking about things like insufficient age assurance. So, you know, having a porn site or a site that's deliberately trying to bring people together for dating, but has no age check or has a tick box age check. Or we're looking at things where there's a failure to enforce community standards.

So you say that we're not going to have sort of attacks on people, but then the kids are being, you know, piled on. And things like use of dark patterns and nudges to make their privacy, to make them very public or to introduce adult strangers to children and those sorts of things. So I wrote to the information commissioner talking about 12 thematic ways in which children, that the code was not being actually properly observed.

And in it, I gave a, not in public, but 150 examples of where I had seen it happening. And as a result of that, they added nine investigations to their ongoing investigations, which they already had started as a result of the code coming into force. Users, of course, and I'm sure that, you know, technology companies would say perhaps something along the lines of users self-declare if they're over 13 on certain sites, and they also tick if they've had parental permission. You're saying that none of this is,

of course, enough, or how would you respond to that? Well, one of the very important things in the code is that as many of your listeners will know, childhood does not end at 13. So the code actually goes until the age of 18. It uses the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and it says, you know, a person under 13 is a child. Now, they may need different protections over the lifespan of being a child. We don't want the same protections for a 17-year-old as a five-year-old. But the code actually requires companies to take action for children up to the age of 18. So the first thing is that defence of 13 is gone. The other thing is that we have 42% of 10 to 12 year olds using social media sites

that have an age restriction of 13. And I think we got to flip this and stop thinking about what the kids are doing. Think about what the tech is doing and say, hang on a minute, if it was any other business, the rule is, their own rule is that you can't be 13. But 42%, I think it's about 800,000 children are breaking the rule. You kind of go, I don't think your business practice is fit for purpose. And I mean, the expectation is the Information Commissioner's Office will conclude its investigations into these companies shortly, within the next month or so. Formal action could then stem.

And as I've read it, you tell us, as part of the data protection act, the maximum fines are 4% of the company's global turnover. Emi, do you actually think that's going to happen? I think over a period of years, those people who flout the rules, absolutely those sorts of figures, we will see eye-watering figures. But I think the first point, and I really do feel this passionately, is that the ICO's job is to drive compliance. We don't want these very rich companies who can afford, you know, eye-watering amounts

of money to lose it. They can say, oh, well, that's just the price of doing business. We earn a lot more out of kids' data than we will be when we're fined. What we actually want is for children to have a respectful, you know, and safe experience. And I think I'd like to just quickly go back to the why do we do this in the first place? I mean, I think that it is increasingly clear that the digital world was not built for childhood. It does not take account of the needs of child development. And we are developing a canon of harms, you know, child sexual abuse, pornography, self-harm,

pro-suicide, you know, body dysmorphia, as you've just been discussing with Claire, you know, all of these things are direct outcomes of the design of the services. And they are designed to gather data, to process data and to monetize user behavior. And so what you have to understand is that data protection is a wall of redesign. It's basically saying, let's do this differently by design and default. But you could say from, you could infer from what you've just said that you've given up on parenting

because that's the other side of this. And I just wonder what you would say to that. No, I think this is what you call an unfair fight. You know, I mean, parents go to work, they go to sleep, they cook dinner dinner they have lives of their own they cannot be 24 7 walking behind their child saying oh what are you doing now what you're doing now what you're doing now I mean that's not even an appropriate relationship uh between a child and a parent and I think that you should look at it the other way would you accept a car with no brakes no no wing mirror, no rearview mirror,

you know, no airbag on top, on top of a very steep hill with a kid at the wheel and they're about to put their foot on the accelerator? It's the other way round. And I accept that argument, but I suppose the other side of this is not just how you police your child, but it's how you teach your child to navigate what are incredibly, at times, unfit systems, as you describe it. And perhaps it's, you're saying it's unteachable, but perhaps you also now need to, it's sort of how to do both, isn't it? Make those better, but also navigate. Nothing is ever unteachable. And I have to say, I run a number of youth advisory groups

in relation to the work that Five Rights do. And I am delighted by how the young people respond to understanding they're being nudged by the system. And in fact, they sort of get, they become like warriors as they sort of realise that their behaviour isn't chosen, but is pushed. And actually, young people have a very acute sense of unfairness. So actually, I think we're teaching the wrong things in school. We do ease safety, and a lot of kids then feel if something bad happens to them, that they are somehow responsibleised by by that yeah uh actually you can as a parent make small interventions but again i say we gotta fix the system so that you can parent so that you have meaningful choices so that you can talk about your family values but perhaps that responds to those

well perhaps we'll talk again because i'm keen to also bring you in on the discussion of the online safety but we'll get we'll get you back on if you'd be so kind. But the thing I was just going to finish by saying is, do you actually have any faith that the Information Commissioner's Office can bring these tech giants to book? of like an optimistic picture is that since the code came in, YouTube turned off autoplay, Instagram stopped sending messages from strange adults to young children, TikTok put some restrictions on their notifications through the night, and last week, some colleagues in California introduced the Californian Age-Appropriate Design Code into the Californian Assembly. We'll see how it does. But actually, that is the tech company's backyard. Other regulators, other lawmakers are actually going to help the ICO over the next few months.

You've been on the phone to Nick Clegg. He's got a promotion at Facebook. He, of course, was formerly of the political world that you also know as a peer. I have met with him before, and I hope that he responds to my invitation to meet again in March when I go to California. Oh, well, do invite me along. I can bring a microphone. I think it'll be a very interesting discussion. There you go. I've got myself a date. Not that he's consensual yet, but, you know, we'll see.

Baroness Kidron, thank you very much. Accredited as the architect of that children's code. We'll see how that plays out, and I'm sure we we'll talk again not least because of that online safety bill of course you may have a view on this and uh and how you've been handling it let us know well away from screens what about cheerleading and that well how that's playing out amongst the young in this country and the older people as well because it's not just for the young i should stress if you've been watching the netflix docuseries cheer now in its second season that explores the world of competitive college cheerleading in the states but what of cheerleading here in the UK according to sport

cheer which is the national governing body for cheerleading it is a growing sport here with over 89,000 athletes regularly competing it's alsoleading, gaining prominence on the world stage. Last year, recognised as an official Olympic sport, meaning it may make its debut at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Well, Angela Green is here, Team England coach and Sport Chair England board member, also a coach for Ascension Eagles, a cheerleading youth programme in Newham, London, and Pocqua, otherwise known as PK Strong, PK, excuse me, Pokwa Strong, a Team England cheerleader and engineer as well. A lot going on in her life. And we'll come to that in just a moment. But Angela, some still have the misconceptions about the pom poms and how it all works. Tell us a bit about cheerleading in the modern world if people haven't seen cheer.

Well, there are different types of cheerleading, but what I'm going to talk to you is about all-star cheerleading, which is what myself and PK are involved in. It's a high energy performance sport, which involves gymnastic skills, lifts, which we call stunts. That's a bit like acro, a bit of jumps and some small portions of dance. So it's very high energy, very athletic. And the great thing is it involves young people from all backgrounds, all shapes and sizes. It's a really inclusive sport. Although you have to be pretty strong, don't you, to do this? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You have to be strong. You have to be fit. You have to be flexible. You have to be good on cardio. But the great thing about cheerleading is, like I said, it is very inclusive. So anybody can be strong.

You just have to work on the conditioning to get there. But also the mentality to do things such as tumbles and have that trust and throw yourself around. Because in cheer, you know, some of the most exhilarating moments are also when it goes a bit wrong. Everybody loves a bit of drama, I'm sure. Sorry, human nature as a non-cheerleader. But I suppose the point is, you know, it still has that reputation for a lot of people with the pom- poms and actually cheering somebody on, cheering a football team, which often is not a part of it at all. Absolutely. Well, like I said, all-star cheerleading for us is there's no, we don't cheer for anybody else. The teams work all year round for competitions. The athletes train in a routine and they build their skills. And then they go out of competitions where they're judged and ranked according to how well they perform their skills and what level that they're in.

PK, hello. Good morning. Let me bring you into this. Good morning. What is it? What is it for you? How did you get into cheerleading? What does it give you? I'm extremely passionate about cheerleading. I got into it when I was 15 and I've been doing cheerleading for a number of years now and I got into it initially for friends doing who I did dance with. And they said cheerleading. I went in with the mindset of the sideline cheerleading thinking, oh, it's just a bit of fun to have. And I had a big shock because of how athletic and extremely difficult it was. And the challenge of that's what attracted me to the sport and made me stick to it as long as I have.

What's your role within the group? Yeah, so I'm a base and the role of a base is I essentially create a platform for another athlete to stand on. So they stand on my hands and we do various different stunts which is event it's essentially like acrobatics and so we throw them we have we hold them on one foot multiple feet and we have various different people depending on the level so for team england which is level seven you have two people two layers of people in our pyramids. So I'm the bottom of that layer. And it's extremely difficult and athletic.

Yes. And you've competed at all levels, haven't you? Yes, I have. I've competed at all levels and I've been fortunate enough to compete at the highest standards of cheerleading, which is the World Championships in Florida. That must have been amazing, although a lot of pressure, I'm sure, at the same time. But I love the fact because you are an engineer, you've also thought about it in terms of engineering. Absolutely. It requires, it's essentially physics, because to understand how to use your strength to work with people and against forces and all of those things that come together to build a stable platform, which safety is key for all of those things to come together. Understanding the physics of how forces work is really important to that. And the stereotype of cheerleaders being you know using the word light

and softly ditzy and not really clever it actually works in the opposite because we need to be understanding it requires a lot of intelligence to understand what comes together to form a safe stunt or series of stunts yeah and i love the fact also you know if you're in a situation it might change and you have to then react to also, you know, if you're in a situation, it might change and you have to then react to it because, you know, how it's happening on the day is how it's happening. Yes, it really does require a lot of quick thinking and understanding and a lot of practice and strength

to understand how to react to a stunt not necessarily going the way it does in practice versus what it does on a competition day. Have you had anything go wrong? Oh, yes, several times. What's the one that comes to mind? OK, I think at the World Championships, we had one of my flyers. A flyer is the person who goes up in the air

and you, myself, as a base, I'm the one that holds them steady on the ground and my flyer shoe got loose at the world championships and you have to react to that because if the shoe comes off it can cause safety concern but you all that's your contact with the flyer and what we did then was basically just to squeeze a lot harder than you would do while executing the stunt. And we managed to pull it off and we kept the foot in the air and she executed all her skills and came down and it was like nothing ever happened. And no one would know until we told them that this is what happened on the floor. So you could feel the shoe coming off and you just had to grip a lot tighter. Yes, absolutely.

I feel incredibly nervous just hearing about this uh let me let me go back to you Angela I know that you have seen the impact um not least on your own life but with your youth program in Newham of the Ascension Eagles tell us about that yeah so we work with um kids that are based in the east end of London and like you said we're based in Newham and we have a huge social impact that we're really proud of the great thing about cheerleading is as a team sport it promotes confidence team building and resilience and we are about making the transformational difference the kids that come in they come in around the age of five they grow through the program they often leave us when they go to university and that's that's our success you

know that they've moved on to the next thing, whatever that may be. And the great thing is that we get them through their formative years. So we really see that change from when they come in at age five when potentially, you know, they're hiding behind their parents' leg and they don't want to come into the gym because they're a bit scared to a few months later when they like run in and don't say goodbye. They're just off at the door.

I love also that one parent apparently told you that her daughter was afraid of misbehaving at the weekends because of you that is true she came we had a chat on friday actually and she um she said you know you've really helped me raise my child because if she ever does anything she's not scared of me she's worried of what you will think or the consequences, because we do expect a lot of our athletes. We care about our kids, obviously, more than just cheerleading. Cheerleading is the tool, the vehicle, but actually we're about the life and leadership skills, making good choices, being accountable.

So if you do misbehave... I was going to say, you're like that amazing woman in cheer who's in charge of all those children and no one's going to mess with as well. It's just these very powerful women in charge of lots are boys and girls or mainly girls um we are predominantly female program but there are lots of boys involved in cheerleading our team england teams we have one that's all go and one that's mixed so we do have we do have both a great message from derek he says can you ask please when cheerleaders compete do they have

a team of cheerleaders now cheering them on or absolutely their parents and their coaches are the cheerleaders just finally to you PK I know you recently had a baby congratulations is are you going to take a bit of leave from cheerleading or are you straight back in ideally I'll be straight back in it's a sport that I've struggled to part with I currently am still coaching and I very much intend on retiring as soon as I'm able to because unfortunately Covid

ruined what was going to be my last season so I feel like I've got some making up to do get back in there PK you know you might be a bit busier just a bit but let's see how you go and hold on to those shoes. Thank you very much to both of you. All the best with that.

Thank you very much, Emma. Now, let me tell you this statistic. Take this in. One in six people in England and Wales have a criminal record and between 2020 and 2021, 5.67 million criminal record checks were carried out. Well, from today, a new campaign called Fair Checks is asking for amendments to shorten the time

people must disclose their conviction, helping to give someone a fairer chance at a fresh start. And that campaign's been timed to coincide with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill going through those final stages of Parliament. Well, Angela Cairns is here, the Chief Executive of Unlocked, one of the charities behind this push that supports people with criminal records

to be able to move on positively in their lives. But first, I'm just going to talk now to Rachel, who's now 36. She was sentenced to 15 months at 19 years old for arson. She served just under four months with three and a half months on a tag. Good morning, Rachel. Morning. What have been the long-term consequences of your sentence? I was unable to gain employment for 11 years.

So I was on benefits for 11 years. I was unable to volunteer for the Citizens Advice Bureau because their insurance company refused. I've been unable to go to college, university, so it's had quite a huge impact on quite a number of years of my life, basically. And what happened when you were 19? Basically, I lived in a hostel. I found a very good friend hanging.

She killed herself, I found her. So I sort of went a bit off the rails because I was 18. I wasn't mature enough to deal with the situation that I was in. And then that's when I committed the crime. And you have been in a situation, of course, where you were punished for that and there hasn't been anything else since? No, no.

I've been absolutely no more criminal activity, nothing. And why do you want to talk about this particular campaign today? Why do you want to share your experience? Because I think the system's unfair. I understand that there's got to be a system in place to protect society, if you like. But it needs to change so people like me can have a chance to be rehabilitated and do jobs that we want to do, go into a career that we want to do rather than just settling for a minimum wage job, for example.

Yes, and I know you have been able to find work, but it's not in an area you would like. No, no. The security industry is what I found successful employment from, but I don't like it. I'd love to be able to go into advice and guidance or social care sector, but unfortunately, because of my record record I can't. Thank you for that Maitrelle, thank you very much indeed. Angela let me bring you in at this point. We've got a statement from the Ministry of Justice saying protecting the public is our number one priority those sentenced to the most serious crimes will have convictions on their records for life so that's the most serious. However reformed low-level ex-offenders shouldn't be held back by their criminal records, which is why we have already reduced the time

it takes for their convictions to be spent. Have they? And what are you asking for today? Well, the bill going through Parliament at the moment does reduce the periods of time that people will have to disclose those criminal records for, but it doesn't go anywhere near far enough. People such as Rachel, Rachel's story isn't unique, unfortunately, and often we find people who have accepted, say, for example, a caution and not realising it's going to have a criminal record for them, that that will show up on an enhanced DBS check. It will show up for, you know, jobs that people want to do, such as teaching, working with children. We're talking about childminders. We're talking about any

social care work, the sort of thing that Rachel just talked about now that she would really love to be able to do, but can't and they don't realize and the system is it's it's just unbalanced so yes absolutely we want safety to be in place that's not a question but we also want people to be able to move on with their lives and we know that for a lot of people and you know as we're on women's hour today the the fact that women often are sentenced to maybe a short time in prison, that's always going to show up on an enhanced EBS check, it's going to follow them through the whole of their lives. Whereas actually, they could be doing something amazing, because people change and move on. So we're asking for the system to be reviewed. We have three kind

of key asks within that. And that's that we remove sort of the criminal record element precautions. The new bill introduces a new type of caution, which will give a three-month disclosure period for a criminal record. That doesn't exist at the moment, so we will be further criminalising people for a longer period of time. We also want to have a chance for people who have committed a crime during their youth, during their childhood, for those to be reviewed. So for very minor ones, absolutely, they should be wiped when people get to the age of 18. But if not, for things that are a bit more serious,

you know, we know that young people often get involved with knife crime, with gangs, and those things come with a lot of trauma and things. But actually, they should have an opportunity for those to be reviewed at some point. Do you think, I mean, I think what's interesting here is that an argument against some of what you've said could be that this being a very serious side effect of doing something criminal is that it could act as a deterrent, that, you know, there is this secondary element, if you like, of punishment. But would you say that a lot of people don't know that this is actually going to be part of it, as in it's not a deterrent? Absolutely. So many people don't know. It's not something that we talk about very much.

Rachel has been incredibly brave coming up here. She's actually telling us about difficult things that have happened in her past. We don't want people to have to relive that trauma time and time again. People don't know about it, but equally it's a further punishment. It's making people relive things

when actually they're doing everything that they can to move on, to do jobs, to be part of society, to, you know, the fact that you might get blocked from volunteering, which is something you really advocate. Well, Angela, we will see as this develops. Thank you very much. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. 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'llliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive.

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