Woman's Hour - Crime, Robotics, Narcissism, Flamenco

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Almost half of women in England and Wales don’t trust the police enough to report a crime. That’s according to a recent report from the Tony Blair Institute. How can the police regain women’s trust? What needs to be done to fix the issue of public trust in the police overall? Anita speaks to the author of the report, Harvey Redgrave and the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex, Katy Bourne.As part of the Woman's Hour series about narcissistic mothers, we hear from a mother who is determined to change the patterns set up in her childhood; she wants to parent differently to her own mum, who she considers to be a narcissist. Reporter Ena Miller goes to meet Louise and Ed (their names have been changed), who are trying 'gentle parenting,' an approach that focuses on empathy, respect and boundaries, all of which were lacking in Louise's childhood. Marita Cheng is a roboticist from Australia, who advocates to get more girls into technology. She has written a children's book memoir, where all the images were created using generative artificial intelligence. Marita joins Anita to explain why and how she did it. As the annual Flamenco Festival at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London draws to a close, we look at the enduring popularity of the dance and the wider growth in popularity of Latin music across the globe. Anita Rani talks to Belén Castres White, the technical director of the Flamenco Festival and also to Amaranta Wright who runs the Latino Life in the Park Festival, the largest of its kind in the UK. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt Studio manager: Giles Aspen

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Today we continue our series about narcissistic mothers. Narcissism is essentially having an over-inflated sense of your own importance and in today's episode we'll hear from someone who wants to bring up their own children very differently to how their mother brought them up. So, you know what's coming. My question for you all this morning is about your own parenting methods based on how you were brought up.

What did you decide to reject and what did you decide to embrace? Are you parenting exactly how you were because your parents did everything right? Or have you gone precisely the other way and made a definite decision to do things very differently? Or have you kept the good stuff and ditched the bits that messed you up? Even if you don't have children, how do you feel about this? You can get in touch with me in the usual way. We would love to hear from you. The text number is 84844. You can also email me by going to our website or you can WhatsApp me or leave me a voice note. The number is 03700 100 444. Also on the programme, a children's memoir

illustrated in the most modern way with AI generated images. What is that precisely? We'll be finding out. And it's Thursday, so we're dancing. Get ready to delve into the world of flamenco. And we would love to hear from you about your own parenting styles, but also anything else you hear on the programme. If you have a thought or an opinion about it, get in touch. 84844 is the text number. But first, almost half of women who either witnessed

or were a victim of a crime in the last year did not report it to the police. That's according to a survey carried out by the Tony Blair Institute, which has created a report looking at public trust in policing and what needs to be done. It found that 44% of women did not report a crime compared to 40% of men and states the current police model is broken. In her foreword to the report Baroness Louise Casey who led the investigation into the Metropolitan Police earlier this year says that the results speak to a fundamental rupture in the bond of trust between the police and the public. So why don't women trust the police and what needs to be done to get this trust back? Again that text number if you want to share your experience, 84844. Joining me to talk about this is Harvey Redgrave, who's the Home Affairs Advisor for the Tony Blair Institute and the Executive Director of CREST, who are experts in justice, policing and public safety.

And Harvey wrote the report. And Katie Bourne is the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex. Both join me. Welcome to both of you. Harvey, I'm going to come to you first. Why did you write this report? Why now? I think there was a sense that the police were in crisis. We've had a series of high profile scandals, obviously, with the tragic abduction and murder of Sarah Everard and the multiple rapist Carrick. And Tony Blair Blair who is the chair of the institute is very clear that policing is a

core function of government and wanted us to do an exploration really into what was happening in policing, what were the trends in crime and what needs to change so that was the backdrop to it. So let's get straight into the figures then, 44% of women not reporting crime. What types of crime are we talking about? Well, we're really talking about everyday crime from shoplifting of businesses, burglary, fraud increasingly is a growing proportion of crime. But we're also talking about violence, talking about knife crime, talking about domestic abuse. And increasingly, a lot of that violence is occurring in the home rather than on the street, as is traditional. So it's the spread of crime here that we're talking about.

Why are they not reporting it? What are the reasons? Well, we actually asked people why they weren't reporting it. And the biggest reason given, and this was particularly high for women, 53% of women said that it was because they didn't think the police would treat it seriously. They didn't think it was worth the effort. And of all the findings of the polling, actually, this was the most startling to me because the policing model we have in this country has been a source of pride for a couple of hundred years we have a policing model based on consent we don't have a military model of police in this country the so-called pelian principles are that the public are the police and the police are the public so when that consent starts to break down when people no longer think it's worth reporting crime or that the police are there to keep them safe that is a very serious uh rupture in the relationship, as Dame Louise called it, and something that we ought to be pretty worried about. I'm going to bring Katie Bourne in here. Katie, you speak to people in Sussex specifically about the police as part of your role. Are you surprised by what you're hearing so far?

No, I'm not really. It's pretty depressing reading. And this report and the Baroness Casey review of the Met that came out recently, I don't think it's telling us anything that we don't know because people like me do speak to the public a lot. And I remember after the tragic events around Sarah Everard, which was a couple of years ago now, I held extensive consultation with the public and it was overwhelming what was coming back then. So it was clear that, you know, things had to change and they had to change quickly because we've always done the same thing

over and over again and expecting a different result. And we know what that's the definition of. Coming back to the report, report Harvey let's talk about the women you actually spoke to can you give us a breakdown of the demographics? It was a nationally representative sample so it was done by a polling company called Delta Poll and they would make sure that they get a proper representative sample of ethnic regional breakdown of men and women across the country and young people and older people. And was the picture the same everywhere? The picture was broadly the same there was more concern in London than in other regions which is probably unsurprising because crime is a bit higher in London but there weren't huge outliers when we looked regionally there were

pretty much the same concerns in all parts of the country. And the figure of 44%, was that higher than you were expecting? Yeah, much higher. Yeah, I wasn't expecting that high a number of people. This isn't people saying they wouldn't report crime. This is people who said they had been a victim of crime or experienced crime and hadn't reported it. So they were talking about real experience.

So I was startled by that finding. Can you give us an example of something that jumps out at you? Someone not reporting something. I think there was a story of someone coming to the door. We also held a focus group with some men and women alongside the polling. And there was a particular woman in the focus group who gave an anecdote about a police officer ringing her doorbell and she looked through the the ring doorbell video camera and he was on his own and it was in the evening and she

said she hadn't answered the door and I remember thinking at the time if that's in any way representative of the way women feel more generally about police, we're in real trouble. And unfortunately, the survey would suggest that it probably was quite a representative view. Katie, do you think women are justified in their mistrust? Yes, yes, and no. I work with many police officers, particularly in the area of protecting women and girls who are absolutely incredible and go above and beyond. They'll work past their 12 hour shift. They'll stay on just to make sure they do their best for the victim. And they are as frustrated as we are as members of the public um because you know they they want the public to know that they are there for them um there is a huge amount of work going on across the country in different forces mine included um to try and build back that confidence and regain that trust

and slow but sure it is starting to happen and we're starting to see the green shoots a bit locally what's the what's the work that's being done? Well, we did a huge public engagement exercise, as I said, back in 2020 or 2021. And lots of one-to-one interviews as well with members of public and victims and victim services. And there were some clear things that they wanted out of those. For example, they said, you know, if you're a victim, you have to retell your story over and over and over again to lots of different people each time. So we've brought all our service providers and the police

into one sort of hub where they will look at a case and one of the organisations will take control of that victim and that is the only person they will speak to. So they don't get that re-victimisation. That's one clear area that's come out. We're seeing satisfaction levels really go up. Domestic abuse is another one. During lockdown, the Sussex Police developed an online system

where they could discreetly contact a victim and have that initial contact with them. And it didn't leave any trace technology-wise, so the perpetrator couldn't discover that. And that's been held up as really good practice and is being copied by the forces now. So there is some good work going on, but we do not underestimate this is going to be a long haul.

Harvey, the report, another figure I'm going to pick up from it, it indicates that 17% of crime, that's almost a fifth that takes up police demand now, is domestic violence. Why is that figure so high? It is partly because women have been encouraged to report these crimes more and the police are being encouraged to look for them.

But we are seeing an increase across the board in violence against women and girls. Sexual offences, rape, domestic abuse, are all rising considerably. And I thought it's important to say on this trust and confidence question, there's partly something that's relating to bad faith actors, bad police officers.

But I think just as big, if not a bigger, source of concern amongst women is that these kinds of crimes aren't being dealt with and we asked the public and we asked women about this and they were very clear that they feel under protected that some of these offenses are not being followed up and investigated in the way that they should be baroness casey talks about in her report that if you're a victim of a homicide in london you get the best group of the trained detectives going. You get the creme de la creme of the Met Police.

If you're a victim of a rape, you're more likely to get someone who joined the police service six months ago, a pretty inexperienced officer. It's not treated with the same level of care and attention as other offences are. And I think that is something that we ought to think about for reforming the police, that it's partly about how you prioritise these offences that matters. Katie, how effective is the National Strategic Policing Requirement, which says that violence against women and girls is treated with the same priority as terrorism and organised crime?

Well, I was on the working group that was part of that recommendation, so I'm delighted it's been taken up because it means that every chief constable and every police and crime commissioner has to have due regard to that when they're setting their priorities for policing locally. But, you know, one of the things that's just been recently introduced and my force has been sort of in the second tranche of this is the obseteria. What Harvey was saying about rape is so true. When I first came into office in 2012, Sussex on average would record two to three reports of rape every day. We're now averaging five to six. So that's roughly 150 reports of rape every month coming in to Sussex police

alone and with a with a solved rate of just under two and a half percent it was pretty dire and is it no wonder that women don't have any faith and confidence in coming forwards so obsteteria that all forces are now adopting following some great work in Avon and Somerset Police, will look at this, addressing this. And we've already started to see improvements in the eight months we've been doing it here in Sussex. We've gone from a two and a half percent solve rate up to four percent. It's not as great as I'd love it to be, but at least the trajectory is upwards. And that will help to build some of the confidence for women who are victims of this terrible, terrible crime.

Harvey, one of your recommendations in the report is about replacing the outdated technology that the police use. Tell us more about that. The way the police use technology and procure technology is pretty inefficient. We have a structure of policing which is based on having 43 local forces. They all have their own way of procuring technology, their own standards of technology. There's no consistency across the country.

And for something like digital forensics, for example, an increasing number of investigations now require that kind of skill and capability it's not a niche skill you pretty much need this for all investigations but forces aren't equipped to invest in that kind of specialist capability so one of the things I'm saying is that we should have a national agency that builds that and allows police forces to draw down on that capability because it doesn't make sense to invest in it 43 times. Katie?

Well, there's some sense in that. But one thing that has been established is the Police Digital Service, which is owned by police and crime commissioners. And that actually is a way of helping to drive better efficiency across technology so when forces go out to procure or purchase new systems the police digital service will get a conglomerate together they will drive better prices and they can be a better customer they're one voice to the market as it were. We've also got Blue Light Commercial as a commercial organisation driving better procurement across fleet, uniform and so on. So there are some of those structures already there.

But you're right about forensics. It's a very difficult market. There aren't enough providers, private providers out there as well. And there is still a lot of work to do in that regard. So sort of technology and efficiency to one side, back to the sort of mistrust and how you regain that with the public. In the report, Harvey state that the decline in confidence is linked to the decline in visible policing. So is the answer more Bobby's on the beat, Katie? And I'm actually going to go to a message that's come in

from one of our listeners, Sophia, who says, if there were still local police stations, I'm sure more crimes would be reported. Where do you report a crime now? What would you say to that? Well, if I look at locally, one of my pledges was not to close police stations unless something similar or better was put in its place. Because I absolutely totally agree with the public that visibility matters. And whether that's visibility of a police uniform or visibility of a police structure like a police station um you cannot just say well you've got to shut the station

because not enough people use it because we know that some of the opening times are very sporadic and therefore that doesn't allow people to report but increasingly you know i get over 2 000 reports of um crimes into sussex police on a daily basis. Two-thirds of those will be 999 emergencies or 101 non-emergencies, so via the phone. But increasingly more now, over a third come online, so people are now able to report via the web. And that is becoming the more preferred routine. I want to get your reaction to the story that Harvey mentioned about the woman who wouldn't answer the door because she was scared of a police officer standing there when she looked through to see who was there. What's your reaction to that?

Well, it is really sad. I think it's an indictment on where we are and also in society as well. But I would, you know, I would also say to anybody, make sure you're safe first. And if you're not sure, you can either shout through the window or go upstairs and open the window and look down and ask to see. And then you can phone the police, get their warrant number and phone and recheck if you need to. But I think it is, you know, this is why policing at the local level is so important. Getting that visibility out in our communities, making sure that police do turn up and do some of the basic stuff right, get it right. You know, we know that less than 8% of all crime now that's happening in the retail environment so theft and so on is even gets reported to the police that's that's over 90

percent of these crimes that are happening that you and I see every day when we go out shopping out and about in our high streets and towns they're not even on the police radar and is it any wonder then that the public say, well, the police never come? We don't hear from them. We don't see them. A lot of these crimes, if they don't get reported, then, you know, we are in a difficult position. Harvey, how far, I mean, we talk a lot about violence towards women and girls on this programme. How far do you think your recommendations for change in the policing model will go towards helping prevent the violence? I think the recommendations in the report can make a difference.

In the end, we do need the police to change, but the police are operating in a system. They're operating in a wider criminal justice system. We need courts that work, that aren't stuck in backlogs, and we need a prison system that rehabilitates. And we need government prison system that rehabilitates and we need government to do more the government has been a bit passive if i'm completely honest in allowing this situation to develop they've had a slightly hands-off approach so we need a government that is going to set the framework for change that's around how we recruit officers how we vet them how we train them how we ensure that standards are upheld. Those are things that

government can help and there are lots and lots of good police officers. It's a really difficult time to be a police officer at the moment with all of these scandals and I feel for them but we need government to take up some of these reforms. I think change is possible. Katie, final question. Are we at crisis here? We've got 44% of women not reporting crime, 40% of men. These are not small figures. How are you going to change that and encourage the people to trust the police? Well, I think policing nationally and police leaders are very aware of these polls that are coming back and are working very hard in their local areas to effect some change.

And I would say also it wasn't very fair of harvey to say the government have been inactive in this um we don't forget we've got a huge uplift in police officers we've got more officers now than we had back in 2010 uh when it was always seen that they were at their zenith um we've been because of that it's important we get them recruited through yes we have a younger workforce there's a huge amount of work the College of Policing are doing now to upskill officers, make sure they've got the right training to fit today. And there's been a huge amount of money put into violence against women and girls, tackling that from government, and also their Safer Streets funding,

which is looking at antisocial behaviour, target hardening, improving CCTV in those areas. So I don't think it's fair to say that people are sitting back and their hands off. antisocial behaviour, target hardening, improving CCTV in those areas. So I don't think it's fair to say that people are sitting back and their hands off. But as I've said before, nobody underestimates the journey that's ahead of all of us. It's not going to be easy. But my message to the public is always please do report.

And if you see any crimes or worse still, you're a victim of crime please do come forward the police are there for you. Okay thank you very much Harvey Redgrave Executive Director of Crest and Home Affairs Advisor to the Tony Blair Institute and Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex Katie Bourne. Thank you for speaking to me this morning if you want to share your experiences or some a story that's happened to you that we might be able to pick up on a later date then please feel free to get in touch with us that text number again 84844 or if you fancy dropping us an email just go to our website. Now we've been talking about narcissistic mothers on the program over the last few weeks how it feels to be raised by one and how it feels to be labeled

as one. Well today we're going to hear from a mother who's determined to change the patterns set up in her childhood. She wants to parent differently to her own mother who's determined to change the patterns set up in her childhood. She wants to parent differently to her own mother, who she considers to be a narcissist. Louise and Ed, their names have been changed, are trying gentle parenting, an approach we've talked about before on the programme. The focus is on empathy, respect and boundaries, all of which were lacking in Louise's childhood. Our reporter, Enna Miller, asked her when she decided that her mother was a narcissist and that she needed to be a different sort of parent herself.

That didn't come until I was much, much older, probably 28, 29. So I've put up with a lot and thought it was normal until I had my own children. I had my first one at 21. So obviously I've lived through seven years of thinking that I should parent the way she parented. And then it took me to have my second one.

And I was like, no, this is not right. This is not how a mum treats them because I love mine and I want to hug them and hold them and touch them and kiss them and affection, whereas she never did that. Were there other things that she did now that you look back that you thought, oh? When me and my sister used to be locked in our bedrooms because of listening to shouting,

once the argument was done downstairs, she'd come up and we would just get destroyed verbally. We're dirty children, we don't care, there's no respect. And this is under the age of bait, being talked to like that. Hung on every word my mum said because that's all I knew was law. So I'd do everything she said. Where does that come from? Years and years of putting up with it, growing up with it.

What mum says goes. And then as a teenager, it only got worse because I'd not been parented correctly. Under 10, I had no tools to deal with whatever came at me as a teenager. What's the difference between your mum's word being law and discipline? I was vile. I was a horrible teenager. I was a lot to deal with. But then as an adult, when I dissect it, it's no wonder I acted the way I did. From what I've learned about narcissists is that they try and separate their herd, their children,

away from other people. And they'll say everything negative about everyone else because they want to keep them close they want to keep them on their team on their side like it's a war and did you feel at the time it was like war not when I was so young but as teens I started to notice it when my cousins and second cousins were becoming teachers and hairdressers and they'd go to university and they'd go traveling and obviously I wasn't so she would say bad things about what they're doing at the time I thought oh she's doing to make me feel better because I'm not going anywhere like I'm just going to college like it's nothing and I was like okay she got my back looking back it's really not she did not have my back she was just being nasty and negative and just keeping me on side so that I didn't have anyone so it was

more like a separation so all those cousins and second cousins that I should be close with and you should have like a group support network we're all about the same age doing the same thing I didn't have so and you talk about your siblings they have a different view of your mother than you do why is that I put it down to now with all the knowledge I know I was the oldest and I feel like I protected them I feel like I took all the stick before they got it what do they see they think I made it all up the narrative they were told by my mom was that it was my dad. So they have turned all of this childhood, whatever they have, against my dad. And my dad wasn't there for most of it.

He left when I was 11. It's not great. The relationships have dissipated. There isn't one anymore. It just makes me feel alone. I don't have family. It's okay. It's hard because this is so fresh. It's hard. And what's the bit that's so painful? I love my siblings and I can't have a relationship with them. Can you not? No, I've tried.

They believe so much that my mum has told them. I just can't. I can't see them. And when I do, it's just face value, like talking to a stranger. And it's hurtful because they've got kids that I love as well and I can't see my nieces and my nephews. It's awful. You're willing to lose that part of your life in order, I guess, to sort of move on? Yeah, I can't repeat the behavi behaviors I have repeated onto my children did you know the term

narcissistic mother where did that come from after I had my second child I started doing gentle parenting which is fairly new and I absolutely love it so I've done so much research and on disciplines on how to deal with children, how to understand their emotions, and it just opened my mind because I'd educated myself for the first time in my whole life. I'd listened to someone else, not my mum. I stumbled across these videos and it was just everything this woman was saying and I was like, you're in my head.

You're actually in my head. The woman that did the videos was narrating about a narcissistic mother and how they talked down to this. She was doing like a scenario, like a make-believe thing. And I was like, oh, my God, like that's what I lived through. Like it's not lies. I'm not a liar. And I was like, oh, my God,'m not a liar and I was like oh my god

bombshell so then that was it then it just opened the door to researching found a podcast started listening to it and everything was just ringing so loud in my head and I was like my mum's a narcissist on top of the gentle parenting and exploring your emotions and your feelings that way I was a mess with emotions but I was like they're good because I'm getting it out and now I can parent in the best way possible without repeating my mum and when you said you were for your first child you were repeating your mum what were you doing controlling everything she wore how she had her hair, where she went to school. Obviously, as a parent, you do that.

But my husband had ideas to send her to a certain nursery. And I was like, no, we're going to send her to my nursery because that's where my mum sent me and that's where she's going because my mum will love that she'll go to the same nursery and it's pleasing. And same with primary school. She went to the same primary school my mum sent to me to. In all of this, you say your husband has been

your support you couldn't have done this without him. The minute I discovered that hashtag narcissist he was there with me he was googling and printing things the kids would go to bed and we'd have quiet time and we'd talk and get it all out and I'd cry he'd cry I'd get angry he'd comfort me having him to talk to was huge yeah so all the stories that I've read about children and their narcissistic mums or dads or nans or whoever they don't seem to have a support network maybe they just deal with it on their own majority of the ones that I read they just go to therapy and do it with a complete stranger will we get him bring him down from upstairs can you lock him upstairs in his room edward from everything you've read the podcast that you've listened to what have you got from them

i can be in her head. The talking about how no-one else can see the pain that she's in, I get emotional and upset for her because I think that must be horrible. I've got a sentence here you said. You said, my tongue is so sharp in rage mode. I would verbally destroy, which is what I'm used to hearing, and he would watch me verbally destroy my daughter. And you'd verbally destroy him too?

And I'd verbally destroy him for small things like not sterilising bottles or not putting socks away, something silly. What were you thinking when that was happening? I think she holds herself possibly a bit more accountable and guilty than she actually was. And if I'm honest, the hardest thing to deal with is the fact that five minutes later Louise would act like nothing's happened.

It's shame, isn't it? You cover it with masking and faking. So the minute I know I've done something wrong, it just turns to me being like, oh, let's just go make a cake, something like normal families do. And it almost reverts to a 14-year-old, and I'm not trying to sound like I'm insulting her, but you're not getting through to her.

There's nothing I can do. And I've had conversations with my daughter to kind of make her a little bit aware of this is how mum deals with things. I think Louise has never really been used to being asked, how do you feel? This is where my light bulbs come from, is that I'm seeing history repeat itself. I'm like, I can't have this, this has got to stop.

What's it been like watching all of this evolve? These last couple of years of her being more self-aware of the situation has probably been the hardest because she's not hiding anymore. She's trying to be open and she wants to make a change. There was something I read and it said that narcissists don't know that they're doing it. Yeah.

A narcissist will never see any wrong in what they're doing. Yeah. When you realise what a narcissist is, you're like, oh my God, I am one. I am one as well. And then you do a narcissist is you're like oh my god i am one i am one as well and then you do more research you're like okay no i'm not you start seeing holes in everyone now to a degree and you it's hard when you educate because then you just pick apart everything i feel edward is the first person in your life has said, I believe you? Yeah, the first person to ever see it and understand what I'm going through

because it has to explain how I react. I'm a really affectionate person and I want to tell people what they mean to me or how, you know, if someone does something positive, I praise my children all the time. Our journey as parents has made her realise that, no, this is how I would have liked to have been treated. So before we go, what do you want to tell her?

What do you think she needs to know about herself? Stop being so hard on yourself. Stop expecting the impossible out of people. You're changing. They don't have to. And you're going to be able to get through this with us in this house. You don't need them. I agree.

And as a couple, what happens now? We carry on healing. Well, I carry on healing. You carry on supporting. And we just, hopefully, this ends with the good family unit we've created. Ed and Louise speaking to our reporter, Enna Miller there. And you can find details of all the episodes

in this series on the Woman's Hour website episode page for today. And there are articles there too. And quite a big reaction from all of you listening. A few of you getting in touch to share your own stories. Someone who's remained anonymous says, I can very much relate to this lady's story. She's not alone. She sounds amazing. I believe her too. And another email here saying, my mother is a narcissist, as was her mother before her. In fact, I believe that my

grandmother would have been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. With my mother, it's been manifested as a sense of entitlement, acting like a child and refusing to take responsibility for anything. Her needs must come first above those of her children and grandchildren. She and my late father were married for many years and they had a good relationship, but her demands put a lot of pressure on him. When my husband was diagnosed with cancer, my mother sent me a WhatsApp message saying, you may have your angst, but I need some TLC. You couldn't make it up. I decided to be a very different kind of parent and have a loving and close relationship with my son and daughters. I'm very grateful for this.

My experience of my mother's narcissism has left me feeling responsible for everyone's happiness and made me put mine aside until I wised up. Thank you for that honest email. And Jane has sent us a message saying, I realized in my mid-30s that my mother was narcissistic and with the help of counselling started to make changes to my life to live more positively. I'd never wanted children but hadn't made the connection that this could be partly attributed to my own childhood experiences with my mother. I take care every day to ensure I approach all my relationships with care,

kindness and positivity that was never modelled for me me in my own family I'm glad I broke the cycle of narcissism that could easily have been perpetuated had I had children I'm still very happily childless but have created a loving family with my partner and our miniature schnauzer Jane thank you very much and this from Melissa in Edinburgh who says my mother is a narcissist I follow some aspects of gentle parenting. The bad upbringing I had made me determined to raise my daughter in a loving and responsible way and help her be ready for adult life. Gentle parenting can be difficult,

as it makes you realise everything you never had as a child. The obstacles my mother put up for me has taken me many years to get over, but I'm getting there. Pleased to hear it. Thank you always for getting in touch with the programme. Your honesty and sharing your stories as well. 84844 is the number to text and of course you can send us an email via our website. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning

everybody. Every doula that I know it was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con Caitlin's Baby. It's a long

story. Settle in. Available now. Now, my next guest has written a picture book memoir for children. It's called Smart Girl Books. Brilliant Woman's Hour title there. And all the images in it were created using generative artificial intelligence. Well, Marita Cheng is a roboticist from Australia who advocates to get more girls into technology. And she joins me now from San Francisco. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Marita. Before we get into the book and how you did it, can you explain what generative AI is?

The generative AI is a pretty new term. I think for like the last 10 years or so with artificial intelligence, it tended to mean systems that could make inferences about things. So classification systems such as computer vision systems that could look at an image and tell you what was in there. Is that a dog? Is that a cat? It was also ranking systems that could tell you which movies you wanted to watch or risk classification systems that could tell you whether to give a loan to someone so those are all mathematical models that look at something in the world and then make

a prediction about it but over the past two years uh there's been generative ai that's where you're not just looking at something and making a prediction or classification, you're actually creating something new. So you're creating an image based on a sentence of what image you want, or you're generating some text based on some earlier text, or you're writing an essay based on a one line introduction. So talk us through how you created the pictures for your book then. Sure. So, yeah, with my book, I used the sentence and I wrote in a text prompt in order to generate all of these images. And so, for example, for each of the characters, I would write. So, yeah, one of my main challenges was actually character consistency throughout the book.

I wanted the character to be the same across the entire book so that people felt connected to her. And like they had a hero to champion. And so how I did that is I would. So one of the challenges with AI, with generative AI, is that you can't predict its output. So you can say, I want a cartoon, and it will show you, like, four different cartoon styles. It might show you something in the style of, like, The Simpsons and then in the style of, like, South Park.

Or manga. Or just, like, whatever. It could even be, a real life photo, even if you ask for a cartoon. So like you get that cloud of nonsense. I'm sorry, if I were to try and generate the same character in different poses and different scenarios, multiple times, it would be very,

it would be almost impossible. So your character could look completely different on every page? Yes. So that's what I wanted to avoid. And so what I did to avoid that is I generated a single character multiple times in one prompt. So I'd say, hey, I want this character, front view, side view, back view, sitting on the ground, sitting on a seat. Yeah, just generate like all these different like postures. And then what I did is I would cut that image, cut that character from that sheet of character images, and then paste that in my book against different backgrounds.

So now we know how you did it, right? Describe the main character for us and then tell us what the text prompt was that you said to generate the image, the multiple images that you did. Who's the character? Sure. Yeah. So the character is me because it's like a memoir. Of course. And so some of the prompts that I did would have been like a cartoon of a five-year-old

Chinese girl with long black hair, fair skin, concept art, and then like, yeah, front view, side view, back view, or in other prompts, sitting on the ground, sitting at a desk, sitting, waving arms about, giving a speech in various poses. Looking powerful, looking in control. Exactly. And were you happy with the first result? Because obviously if you worked with an illustrator, you could sit there and kind of critique it and say,

oh, no, I don't think I look like that or, you know, whatever. How does it work with the AI? Did you go through multiple versions before you were happy? I mean, I had to generate over 10,000 images before I came up with the few images that I used in this 45-page book. And so, yeah, there were many, many images that I generated that I wasn't happy with. And I just had to keep prompting and adjusting my prompts in order to get better results. But I think like towards the end, I got into a bit of a groove and I figured out how to do things a little bit faster. But yeah, it took me about eight months to create this book. It took me a long time. Yeah, I first got inspired

when generative AI art first came out, which was in August last year, August 2022. And in September, I thought, I'm going to make this book. And so by October, I started writing my first drafts and I got through about seven drafts by December. And I was also just experimenting with generative AI art and different styles and trying to figure out how I could make this entire book cohesive. So I experimented with things like watercolors because I thought, well, with watercolors, it kind of like blurs out the features and we could pretend that the character was the same

on every single page. But then I thought about the books that I really liked reading as a kid and they're ones that have like very vivid colors and lots of gorgeous detail. And I thought, no, I want something like that where there's like a lot of detail and you can see all the detail. And so, yeah, finally by January this year, I kind of figured out how I was going to do it, which was with the multiple poses in the one prompt. And then I also decided that I'd generate a background

that would suit what uh suit the scenario um and so I um so with like the method that I use this compositing method of character on top of background it meant I had full creative control over the style of the background and the style of the character um and yeah there's two months of like of generating AI art in January, February, before I got my first draft of something that I actually liked. So you basically wanted to write the book because you wanted to use the technology? Yeah, I think that really inspired me to write this book. I thought this is really interesting new technology,

and I want to just work on a project with it in order to learn more about it and be more familiar with it. And why did, what did you want to say about your own life and career? Why did you want to write a memoir? Well, I think, I think, so I was actually Young Australian of the Year back in 2012. That's exactly the kind of information we need here on Women's Hour. Well done you. Young Australian of the Year. That's quite a title.

Yeah. So and I got that title from my work in advocating for more women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And so this book kind of tells the story of like me starting that organization and how I went about it. And, you know, it's global now. It's all over Australia. It's around the UK. We have chapters in Loughborough, London, Bristol, Manchester, Sussex in Aberdeen. So yeah, we were in the US. Brilliant. So tell us that story and then like some of the technologies

that I worked on after that, including building robots and learning how to build robots at university. And it's brilliant. And you're going to inspire a generation of people with this book and you've used your technology to be able to illustrate it. But there are a whole list of concerns around the impact of AI aren't there Marita on data privacy and security the potential of misinformation harmful content I mean there's lots of discussions we've had on this program about it the lack of transparency transparency do you have any

misgivings about its use well I mean I think that we are adjusting as we bring this technology to the world. I mean, just a couple of days ago, I saw that in Australia, the government found out that some grant assessors had been using ChatGPT in order to assess people's grants. And as soon as they found that out, they said, no, you can't do that. That's banned, which makes sense because with ChatGPT, it's grants. And as soon as they found that out, they said, no, you can't do that. That's banned, which makes sense because with chat GPT, it's imperfect. With generative AI, it's imperfect. And you still require that human finesse, that human touch

to figure out what's right and what's wrong and to bring nuances to situations. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned chat GPT there. The US comedian and author Sarah Silverman is suing them as well and developer OpenAI and Mark Zuckerberg's meta for copyright infringement over claims that their AI models were trained

on her work without her permission. Are we going to see more cases like this? I think so. I mean, there's already some cases like this? I think so. I mean, there's already some cases for, like, the various big players. And so I think, yeah, it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out. I think, like, what we're seeing is there's some companies like Adobe, like Meta, who are training on licensed material so that they're creating works that are copyrightable and available for commercial use.

And I think that's a really encouraging step forward. And I also think, yeah, I also think that, like, we will tend towards a future where people will be able to upload their own works and say, this is my style and enable people to create art with their name, but then get licensed for it and get rewarded for that. Still at the very, very beginning of all of this, aren't we? And as it is Women's Hour, you're operating in a very male-dominated field, robotic engineering. How do you connect with other women? Is it important to connect with other women is it important

to connect with other women who are in your field yeah I think it's so important to connect with other women uh so I'm very fortunate uh with my robo gals community that I have all these women around the world who are in a similar position to me um we're all engineers um but I just think yeah that connection um women supporting other women is so important i'm part of a whatsapp group of with other women in ai and it's a really encouraging group where uh we're always like encouraging each other in our careers um and i only joined the group recently but it's been around for a few years and the other girls in it remarked that it's that they've all come such a long way together in the past few years um and they're all starting to you know achieve their career dreams

and so i think yeah and then they also remarked that like it was the support of this group that helped them do that of being able to share their frustrations and struggles in the workplace yeah um and receiving support from that community yeah yeah be able to get your frustrations and struggles in the workplace and receiving support from that community. Yeah, yeah, be able to get your frustrations out in a safe space and like you say, receive support. What's the name of the WhatsApp group? Oh, it's called Lady Angels. I just like the idea. I mean, I think the important thing is to just, yeah, try and like create your own pod of supportive women who are local to you, who live in your area, who you can get support from.

Great bit of advice there. Marita, thank you so much for speaking to me. And the book is called Smart Girl Books. Marita Cheng there. Now, something to get you going on this Thursday morning. Does that everybody just want to be on holiday in Spain right now? That's from the annual Flamenco Festival at Sadler's Wells Theatre. The festival travels to different cities, bringing music and dance from some of the biggest artists, audiences around the world.

And it draws to a close this weekend. But I wanted to look at the enduring popularity of the dance, no least because I absolutely love it. Flamenco is, of course, a traditional folk dance originating in the Andalusia region of southern Spain but like all art it's constantly reinventing itself. Well I'm delighted to say I'm joined now in the studio by two experts in this field performers one in the studio one on Zoom performers who are constantly reimagining the genre to keep it relevant Belen Castres-White the technical director of the Flamenco Festival and also to Amaranta Wright, who runs the Latino Life in the Park Festival, the largest of its kind in the UK.

Welcome to Woman's Hour, both of you. Belen, I'm going to start with you first. For anybody who's never seen flamenco, can you describe it? Well, I think that the most important point here is to talk about the evolution of the flamenco you know that because that is it's a really old traditional dance and music and everything but with the new generations that they've removed everything and they mix now with a contemporary dance with a classic a classical spanish dance you know in fact because it's not only flamen, you know, in fact, because

it's not only flamenco, you know, it's a classical Spanish, the base of all the dancers that they have nowadays. And it's an energy, you know, it's all about passion, you know. But nowadays

that all things change, especially for the women there. You know, we have many, many of the women before. But the old, old ladies dancers, you know, are in during the last 25 years that everything changed. Everything changed. In what way women women are now more uh younger are they more at the forefront no i think that in my i think that the most important is that when you bring education when you bring you know that all the the the

possibilities that the the women can go ahead you know and and in and it's very very special that moment for the flamenco especially for the females because normally that they don't have the chance that in the past to show their own talent

and now during these 25 years, that the evolution and the grow up of everything, because they have more opportunities. It's a question of opportunities, you know. In Spain, they don't have it, that opportunities before, you know. Sure.

Amaranta, you're a flamenco fan as well. What's its appeal? Oh, I love flamenco. I mean, I was born in Argentina and I came here as a child. But from a South American perspective, I mean, Spanish, flamenco and Spanish music and dance in general has had massive influence. I mean, from Spanish guitar.

But I mean, for a long time, Latin America was its biggest audience. So you'd get, you know, all the tours done in South America. And there's always been a, you know, big connectivity between Spain and South America. I mean, cultural interactions. And actually, it's also gone the other way around.

I mean, Latin America has also influenced flamenco and Spanish music. For example, the cajon, you know, the percussion, the main staple instrument of flamenco music that was actually brought by Paco de Lucia. He came to Latin America on a tour in 1977 and he discovered this musical instrument musical instrument and he was like this is perfect for flamenco and he took it back to spain so you know actually not many people know that that cajon is originally a peruvian instrument there you go i know in 1977 not that long ago um i want to talk a bit about the history of flamenco because i've got somewhere in the back of my mind obviously being of indian origin that the origins are are indian is that true yeah is that true india you know that because

are the same roots of the gypsies you know that the gypsies came from from india you know that in fact that when i went to india with with flamen, you know, and it's very same, it's the same, the way they move the feet, you know, everything is exactly the same. All the rhythms, the roots, the roots came from India, definitely, and are the gypsies, you know, that the gypsies are everywhere in the world, but especially in the case of Spain, I don't know when they come, but they

go there. You know that the instruments, the way they play the instruments, and all the staff are very, very, very nowadays, that they keep these these rhythms you know and yeah oh yeah it's fascinating stuff um i want to talk a bit about the outfits as well and the woman being sort of center stage kind of performing so magnificently and the kind of

dresses and i don't know if you could tell us a bit more about the the outfits that you wear when you're dancing uh well I think that uh they they they are really very courageous you know that they have many many staff behind you know that uh they they're working so hard for that that is the first thing you know and they have the the dresses the the uh shoes uh the shoes for the women you know is another thing that is so important for them in the moment that they dance because that is different of the the boys uh they are complete difference and sometimes in fact that some women use the boots like boys, but they have just a special design for that. In Spain, we have, for example, one place that they do handmade shoes.

I mean, still handmade shoes for flamenco. Yeah, beautiful. Amaranta, flamenco is really popular. But I know, as you are the person who brings together the UK's largest Latin music festival, Latin dances are incredibly popular as well. What's the appeal? Wow. I mean, what's not the appeal, really?

Oh, yes. What's not the appeal? I mean, flamenco and obviously the Latin dances are very different because the Latin dances, I mean, there's the theatre of it, obviously, you know, when you, I guess you have the kind of machista imagery of the peacock man and then, you know, the woman calling, that's the kind of traditional idea. And you have that a little bit in tango and salsa as well.

That's the kind of stereotype. But I think, I mean, especially in Latin dances, they're couple dances. And I think the real allure is actually the kind of sense of intimacy you get when you dance with a partner and I suppose you know you you could some may say oh well you know the the the roles are very defined you have the male lead and the and the female being led but actually you know these days um it's very interchangeable and you get men dancing together you get women dancing together so it's very interchangeable and you get men dancing together, you get women dancing together.

So it's really evolved as well. But I think it's really exploring, you know, relationships in a very kind of tight moment. And the power dynamic as well, because often I find, especially in Latin dances, the power of the woman is just, oh, it's incredible to watch. Well, and sometimes when you're in a dance you're kind of going oh is this person a leader or am i a leader and and you're kind of working it out between you i mean my husband makes a joke he says when you go to a latin dance club in london

uh it's the only place where you can touch 20 people and not get arrested so it's you know from both sides but there is I think, the lure of the intimacy of the dance and the connectivity you get is, you know, has the main appeal. Well, it's been wonderful talking about a bit of flamenco on the programme today. I want to thank you both. We've run out of time, as we always do. At some point, it's inevitable. It's going to happen.

We only have an hour. But thank you, Belen, and thank you, Amaranta. Thank you for talking to me. And thanks to all of you who've been getting in touch with your messages very quickly someone about narcissistic mothers why i already know how lucky i am to have an amazing mum but listening to woman's hour just now has reinforced that she endured some hideous experiences during world war ii but was so loving supportive and intuitive to her family and everyone she encountered a wonderful role model. Lovely to hear it. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Ince. Welcome to this very professional trail for the Infinite Monkey Cage Summer Run. And this is just going to be information. We will be talking about wasps, bees, super volcanoes, mushrooms and... Sharks, ancient DNA and are we what we eat? And we'll be joined by Harry Hill. Chris Van Tilleken.

Ben Wilbond. Rachel Parrish. Dr. Nair. And Professor Nair. They're very good. The new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. If you're in the UK, you can hear it all. Right now on BBC Sounds.

Do you know what? We nearly did a really professional trailer, but then that last bit is a spoil tip. I think we're going to get told off again. Yeah. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.