Woman's Hour - Elizabeth Strout, Girls Will Be Girls, Women's safety, Labour women and donations

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has told the BBC it's "right" not to accept donations for clothing now she's in government. This is following reports that she took £7,500 from a donor for clothing between January 2023 to May 2024. Keir Starmer, his wife Lady Victoria Starmer and the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner have also accepted money for clothes, and on Friday, Downing Street said that would no longer continue. To discuss the issue of women and donations, Kylie Pentelow is joined by political journalists Rachel Sylvester from the Times and Eleni Courea from the Guardian.The Sundance award-winning film, Girls Will Be Girls, follows the journey of 16-year-old Mira, who discovers desire and romance whilst attending a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas. But her rebellious sexual awakening is disrupted by her mother, who never got to come of age herself. Kylie discusses the film with the writer and director, Shuchi Talati, and actress Preeti Panigrahi who plays Mira.The Labour Party conference is underway in Liverpool. A topic likely to feature heavily in tomorrow’s speech by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is women’s safety. Joining Kylie to give us their views on what they think needs to be prioritised by this government is director and founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice, Harriet Wistrich, and the campaigner Georgia Harrison. Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer prize-winning author of many novels including Olive Kitteridge and the Lucy Barton books. Tell Me Everything is her latest novel where she revisits several of the characters who appear in her previous work. She joins Kylie live in the Woman’s Hour studio to talk about her characters and themes of friendship.Presented by Kylie Pentelow Producer: Louise Corley

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.

Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. On today's programme, violence against women and girls, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has made a commitment to cut it by half. Is that realistic? We hear from a woman who was a victim of image-based sexual violence. Also, she's a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and has now released her 10th novel.

Elizabeth Strout joins me in the studio. Now, in her new book, she brings many of her much-loved characters like Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton together. And a key theme is friendship, particularly intergenerational friendships. So have you got a friend who's much younger or much older than you? Now, I don't think my friend Rosie will mind me telling you that she's 75 and I'm 45. And I think I can say we both get a lot out of it. That 30-year age gap

means we both have very different experiences to bring to the relationship. So I'd like to hear about your friendships. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website. You can also send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Also coming up, the star of a new coming-of-age film joins me to talk about her very first acting role.

And it wasn't an easy undertaking with intimate moments of teenage sexual exploration. Your comments on any of those topics are most welcome, of course. But first, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has told the BBC it's right not to accept donations for clothing now that she's in government. This is following reports that she took £7,500 from a donor for clothing between January of 2023 and May of 2024. Now, she said the money was from an old friend, but accepted it looked odd and said she would not accept money for clothes anymore. Well, here she is on the Today programme earlier. I can understand why people find it a little bit odd that politicians get support for things like buying clothes. Now, when I was an opposition MP, when I was shadow chancellor of the Exchequer, a friend of mine who I've known for

years, she's a good personal friend, wanted to support me as shadow chancellor. And the way she wanted to support me was to finance my office to be able to buy clothes for the campaign trail and for big events and speeches that I made as shadow chancellor. And I really appreciated that support,

made a big difference to me I declared all of those donations in the proper way it's never something that I planned to do as a government minister but it did help me in opposition. That was Chancellor Rachel Reeves speaking to my colleagues on the Today programme this morning well Keir Starmer his wife Lady Victoria Starmer and the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Ray, have also accepted money for clothes. And on Friday, Downing Street said that would no longer continue. Reeves is speaking to the Labour Party conference at midday, where she'll attempt to deliver an upbeat message, but will rule out any reversal of the cuts to winter fuel payment.

Well, for more on this, joining me now are political journalist Rachel Sylvester from The Times and Eleni Correa from The Guardian. Thank you both very much for joining me today. Just let's start with you, Rachel. How much damage do you think the donations row has potentially done to the Labour Party? Well, at one level, it's incredibly trivial, isn't it? It doesn't matter, really. It's not going to make a huge difference to the way in which the government runs. But on the other hand, it does look like the Labour politicians are different to the rest of the country. So I think they're right to say that they're not going to

accept it anymore. So there's an irony, isn't it? You've got Rachel Reeves, the first female Chancellor. It's extraordinary at the top of the hour. We heard the news headline, the Chancellor will in her speech today. That's the first time that's ever happened. But At the top of the hour, we heard the news headline, the Chancellor will in her speech today. That's the first time that's ever happened. But yet the kind of headlines have been dominated by the row over whether she took free clothes. In fact, she did take free clothes. So I think in the end, it won't matter, partly because they've said they're going to stop the practice. But I think it's silly and embarrassing and they shouldn't have let it overshadow the start

of what should be a celebratory conference for them. Eleni, what do you think about the damage it might potentially have done? Apologies, we seem to have an issue with the line there to Eleni. We'll try to get that back. Rachel, what do you make of what what we just heard there from the chancellor you heard a clip of her a little earlier who was talking uh specifically about those donations what what do you think of what her response has been so she will hate this because she's a kind of she prides herself on

being very serious a girly swat as she once uh described it to me she's a kind of, she prides herself on being very serious, a girly swat, as she once described it to me. She's not interested in clothes. She, you know, she's not a vain person. So it will really irritate her that this has become the sort of dominant theme and she'll be kicking herself that she allowed it to happen, I think. The other thing I think is interesting, though, is when it comes to Mrs. Starmer, so Victoria Starmer, the prime minister's wife, who also accepted donations, there's a real issue there about how we treat first ladies or the effective first ladies. There isn't really a kind of role in the way that they do have in America. And I think in her case particularly, it's a real shame because she should be able to be a kind of showcase for British fashion.

Previous wives of prime ministers borrowed amazing clothes from designers just to show off the fantastic talent we've got. So she should be going out to young designers, going out to the fashion schools and saying, look, what have you got? What could I wear to showcase this amazing talent rather than it being something that has turned into a row about what she's wearing? Eleni, if we can return to you, what do you make of this? Do you think this is potentially damaging for the party? I think it is, but as Rachel was saying, it's fundamentally quite trivial. I think the issue is, basically, this is not the issue that the Labour Party would want to be talking about at this stage in its new government, at this stage at party conference, which, as you were saying, should be a really celebratory, triumphant one.

Instead, it's been dominated by these stories about freebies for the prime minister his wife the chancellor um and as well as well as sort of internal vows in government i mean i think the issue that labor has is that it made such a it really made um a priority and the kind of key campaigning message uh the kind of idea that we should clean up politics get rid of scandals and the sleaze that dogged the conservative governments before so they've got to really try and make sure that they don't that there's no kind of um sense of impropriety or anything like that at a higher level than uh you know than otherwise uh would they would haveeni, how much does image matter?

I think image matters a lot. You know, I think most people don't follow the kind of ins and outs of politics in that much detail. And they'll catch the occasional news bulletin, they'll catch the occasional radio bulletin, they'll see the Chancellor on television, they'll see the Prime Minister, you know, they'll catch a few minutes of a clip. So the way that politicians present themselves and the image they project is really important. And that's part of the reason why this vow has become what it is.

And Rachel, you're at conference at the moment. Are you seeing any change in terms of what politicians, what female politicians are wearing, what they're choosing to present themselves like? They're definitely projecting an image of power. So there's a lot of power suits. You've seen from Rachel Rees, Angela Reina, Yvette Cooper, Bridget Phillips, and we've got a, you know, there's a quartet of powerful women at the top of the government. And they're projecting that image of professionalism.

I think they have done for a few years, actually. But the strange thing about the mood, as Eleni was referring to at this conference, is that one, you know, of course, in a way, it's celebrating their first time in power for 15 years. But on the other hand, there's a sort of slight anxiety about why is it already being not exactly derailed, but distracted by all these things? What are we, Eleni, what are we expecting to hear from the Chancellor? So the Chancellor today is going to, there's going to be a market change of tone from what we've had in the first sort of two months of this government. A lot of people, economists, experts, MPs, even some inside the Labour Party have been complaining that. Apologies, we seem to be struggling with that line there. Rachel, can we come to you? What And what we gather Rachel Reeves is going to try and

project today is more of a sense of optimism that, you know, the best is ahead for Britain, we can do it, we can turn it around. And that's really because a lot of people have been warning. Apologies, we seem to be having a few difficulties with both of our lines there. Let's see if we can go back to Eleni. Eleni, let's talk about another woman who seems to be under the spotlight too, Prime Minister Chief of Staff Sue Gray, who said not to be attending the conference this year amid reports of infighting over her pay. She was found to be earning more than the Prime Minister. Yes, indeed. There was an extraordinary story

broken by the BBC revealing that Sue Gray, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, was earning £3,000 a year more than the Prime Minister. Now, this is information that would have become public eventually, but the fact that it was leaked to the BBC early betrays the fact that some inside government are really unhappy about Sue Gray's influence, everything from her pay to the fact that she wields a lot of power and controls access to the prime minister. And that's another problem that the Labour Party and the Labour government are having, clearly very early into their government. And that's also overshadowed or at least affected the mood at conference a little bit. Do you think that Sue Gray's gender is at all relevant

to the level of scrutiny that she's receiving? I think many people do think so. I was speaking to a cabinet minister yesterday who was saying that Sue Gray is getting a lot of attention, unwanted attention, even when she's on her way to work, being chased down the street, being photographed in a way that many people think wouldn't happen to a male figure. And she's getting a lot of attention that other people in that role in the past haven't

got without necessarily seeking it out um herself she hasn't sought to put herself in the spotlight in that way and yet she has she has found herself very much at the center of attention and at the center of quite a lot of vicious internal briefing um and yeah i think some some of the liver party do think that her gender has played a role in that. Okay, thank you so much for your time. Thank you to Rachel Sylvester and to Eleni Cora. And later in the programme, we will be discussing violence against women and girls because the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has made a commitment to cut it by half. We'll be talking about whether that

is actually realistic. Moving on, a good coming-of-age film shows the pleasure and the pain of growing up. And there's a new one in cinemas now. It's called Girls Will Be Girls and follows the journey of 16-year-old Mira's first love. Top of her class, she's proudly the first female student to be appointed to head prefect at her strict boarding school in the Himalayas. But meeting a new international classmate, Shree, sends her down a road of sexual awakening, which is disrupted by her young mother, who never got to come of age herself. Well, Suchi Talati is the film's writer and director, and she joins me now from L.A. And also in the studio is actress Preeti Panagrahi, who plays

Mira. Fantastic to see you both. I absolutely loved the film, I should say. Suchi, can I start with you? Can you explain why you called it Girls Will Be Girls? Sure. You know, it was a cheeky reference to boys will be boys, which is a phrase that is used often to excuse bad behavior by boys, often in relation to young women. So that was kind of the first sense in which I used the title. But then over time, it came to mean other things to me. You know, in this film, we see Mira, who becomes the head prefect, has a position of power. But through the film, we see how fragile this is, you know, because girls will ultimately be girls and do not have the same agency, you know, that boys do in our society. And in a final sense,

her mom is sort of arrested in her adolescence because she didn't get to come of age. So she still remains in some ways a girl. So, yeah. As I said, it's set in the 90s in a strict boarding school where the girls are very much told to keep away from the boys. We can have a listen to a clip from the film now. This is what it looks like when you climb stairs. Meera, take the other chair and place it next to her. Please climb up on it.

Yes, ma'am. This is the correct length. Uniforms to your knees. Also, girls, be careful with boys. Don't talk to them more than necessary. Oh, dear dick. You're getting older. You need to be careful. You understand? That was the principal of the school telling the girls to avoid boys in no uncertain terms. Sushi, did you draw from your own experiences at school at all? Because it felt extremely realistic. Well, I didn't go to a boarding school, but I went to a school that had exactly the same ethos and if I'm honest everyone I knew went to a school that was something like this you know where as soon as I became a teenager there was so much surveillance and policing around our bodies and sexuality you know I just that don't wear that top it's too tight and that skirt is too short and don't bend over like that. And of course, don't talk to boys.

And there was so much shame around sexuality that when, actually, when I had my high school boyfriend, I didn't tell anyone. I mean, forget the teachers and the parents, but I didn't tell my best friend because I thought she would judge me. And so, you know, I wanted to reflect this environment and this sea of shame that we grew up in. And yet in the storytelling, treat Meera's sexual awakening as normal, you know, mundane, give her agency, let her have fun.

Preeti, let's bring you in. Meera initially follows all the rules. She's very much, we could say, a good girl in the sense that we've culturally understood that yeah but then she starts to question things doesn't she when she meets Sheree what what was that like for you playing that character um well I was very much similar to Meera because I too was the head prefect and And, you know, in high school, I used to follow these rules and I would ensure that my friends are in proper uniforms and they don't have colorful nail color on them. But after getting out of high school and also like towards inching

towards, you know, getting on board with this project, I kind of understood that these rules make no sense. And, you know, I was kind of just following these rules, obeying my teachers, and, you know, always trying to be in the good books. But then at the end of the day, you know, I began to question these things. And through Meera's character, like, all thanks to Shuchi, I kind of got to, you know, answer this and also understand that why there was so much shame around, you know, just being a growing girl and, you know, understanding our own sexuality. So, and Meera, I think, is way more brave than me. And the way she went on to, you know, take agency of her own sexuality, I believe that's very important for young women to understand what's good for them and what works for them and to, you know, place that thing with their partners or whoever they're

exploring their sexuality with. And whoever, you know, watches Meera's character, I hope they take away this message that you are responsible for your own agency and don't let anyone tell you that thing. And I feel like in the film, although Meera is following the rules, I think she's very much a woman's girl. Like she does support, she does dance for her friend and she's not you know supporting her teacher when her teacher is kind of putting all the blame on women she's really just trying hard to bring it on to the boys who are making it an unsafe space for women this was your first acting role wasn't it yeah you you won a special jury award for acting for it. That's pretty incredible, isn't it? Thank you so much.

Well, yeah, it was quite unbelievable. And I was honestly sleeping in my bed when I got to know that I've got the award. And it was really overwhelming. I picked up the call from my family. I was crying. They were crying. Then I got on a call with my producers and my director and everyone was just crying because it was a great moment to get an independent film out of India made by a bunch of women

out here on a global platform and to also win so it's just for all the women out there. Fabulous we can hear a short clip of you actually you're on the phone with Shree and you've managed to sneak in a nighttime phone call. Let's have a listen. No one interested me ever. What about you? I had a girlfriend in Hong Kong. She was a senior. How long were you two together? Eight months. Are you jealous? I don't care.

Meera. Meera. Meera. Coming? I absolutely love that it's all about proper phone conversations, landline conversations as someone who grew up in the 90s. And they have a little code, don't they, to show that it's him calling so that Mira knows. Suchi, there are a lot of moments in the film when I almost found, I almost felt like it was intrusive to watch. And you didn't kind of shy away from any of those moments of sexual awakening or any, there was no kind of feeling of shame around it.

Was that important to you? Yeah, that was really important to me. And I think, you know, it's funny that you say you felt really uncomfortable and it's almost like you're watching something that you shouldn't be watching. And the moments to me in the film that are the most explicit are not when you're seeing some sexual act, you're seeing a touch or a kiss, but the ones that are emotionally revealing. You know, the moment when Meera confesses to having some kind of insecurity about her body. And then she and Sri have to navigate that moment, you know, the moment that she feels a little hurt, that he may know more about sex than she does,

or maybe he's not as turned on as she hopes he would be. And for me, sexuality is so messy, you know, even with a partner, you know, really well, you can so easily hurt each other and people withhold, people punish, people do all kinds of things, you know, when they're intimate with each other. So the thing that I wanted to photograph and explore with this film was not the physical act, but the emotional dialogue that happens when two people are close in that way. The masturbation scene with the teddy was, I just thought that brilliantly captured

the sense of still being a girl, but growing up. And also, if I can say this, it's quite funny. Was that an intention, Suji, to make it lighthearted? Don't ever try to write a funny line or a gag. But what I'm trying to do is write something that feels so truthful that the audience laughs because they're uncomfortable that they're watching this. It's a, I can't believe I'm watching that, a kind of laughter of recognition. That's what I want. Preeti, what was it like to shoot those scenes?

I heard that it was ensured that you had women around you during those. Tell me about that. Well, I can tell you that it was very shoot. Like the shoot was extremely funny when we had the teddy bear scene. Because, again, having so many women is just such a comfortable space on set. And intimacy can go wrong because, you know, actors are not just physically vulnerable, they're also emotionally vulnerable. And it's important to get that, you know, guard off them where they're kind of trying to protect how they're looking.

So Shuchi is also like a head prefect on set, she will make sure that we don't see ourselves on screen. But when it came to intimacy, she would make sure that actors are on board with how they're looking and if they're comfortable. So she would take a picture from the feed and then she would come and show it to me and be like, okay, this is the angle that we are shooting from. Are you okay with it?

And to have that say in a set is incredible, honestly. And every time we went for an intimate scene, it would become a closed set and the boom mics would go in women's hands the clapboard would come on a woman's hands and honestly the kind of special environment it had i don't think i get to see that often on sets so um yeah it was extremely uh safe to be vulnerable with all these people and honestly intimate scenes were the most fun to shoot in this film yeah it there's also a really interesting storyline between the mother and

daughter um i i just i just loved that the the relationship between them it was so complicated as of course mother-daughter relationships are what How did you feel about that and playing that part? Well, for both me and my co-actress, Kani, Anila was a very fresh character. We didn't have mothers like Anila growing up. So for us, it was kind of figuring it out with each other and also taking help from each other to navigate how this relationship is going to be.

When I stepped into the project, I knew that Meera does not really like her mother, she can't stand her. And I have to, as an actor kind of hate this person. But what's so special about this film is that while filming it, I kind of understood where Anilai is coming from. And, you know, when we say girls will be girls, we're talking about not just girls of the same age, but we're talking about girls of every age. And to find that there's a little girl in every woman out there. So for me, it was kind of this entire journey of this Meera being,

you know, this being Meera's love story with her mother. And towards the end of the film, you know, I kind of grew this tenderness, the softness towards Anila. And in the moments where, you know, you, as Meera saw her mother stand up for her. And I really took that from Kani, you know, that that energy from her face. And then I eventually played that out when, you know, in the scene when I'm taking care of Anila. It really just played out. And it really brought out that tenderness, which when you know in the scene when I'm I'm taking care of Anila um it really just played out and it really brought out that tenderness which you know young girls should

have for their mothers and be kind towards them because you know it's their first time being mothers and we kind of don't talk to them and we keep them away from our lives and just hate them but it would help so much if you know daughters and mothers talk and navigate their problems was it important to you suchi to have that um that relationship in there i mean they weren't kind of pitted against each other were they but there was certainly a kind of push and pull between them yeah i mean on the one hand they are pitted against one another because of the world that we live in you know a world that prizes women for their youth and their beauty. So how can an older generation that is losing social cachet not feel some amount of envy? And yet, you know, this mother is really trying to do

her best. She's trying to give her daughter the freedoms that she didn't have. She's trying to enable this young love that would not have been possible for her. And yet at the same time, she feels envious. She feels a little sad. This young boy awakens something in her, you know, this lost youth comes back. And I think it was really important for me to show that these are two women who are essentially both fighting the same thing. They're fighting the constraints that society puts on them. Mothers are not supposed to have desire. Mothers are not supposed to have needs that supersede their husbands and their children.

So I think this two-generational coming of age and the story of female solidarity ultimately was really important to me. Well, it's been fantastic to speak to you both, Suchi and Preeti. Thank you. and the story of female solidarity ultimately was really important to me. Well, it's been fantastic to speak to you both, Suchi and Preeti. Thank you. And Girls Will Be Girls is in cinemas now. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know it was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con

Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now. I just want to read out a few of your messages. We were asking you to get in touch with us about intergenerational friendships. Here's one from Nikki. Nikki says, with my children's tutor. She's a fabulous role model to both me and my kids. Her infectious energy and curiosity for life is inspirational. She's like a member

of our family now. I like to think I bring her some wisdom as I approach my 50s. Another one here. I'm so grateful for the most wonderfully rich friendship

I have with my friend Tess. We met when we worked together as teachers in a primary school in Devon and I now live in Cambridge. Both of us left teaching several years ago, she says. my friend Tess. We met when we worked together as teachers in a primary school in Devon and I now live in Cambridge. Both of us left teaching several years ago, she says, and our friendship has only grown since then. I'm 36, she's 55. And although she thought she was too old for it with a smiley face, she says she also agreed to be our bridesmaid last year.

And we were honoured that she gave a reading too. Just one more here. This one is very interesting. I'm a 65 year old woman and my best friend is 94. She's my old school friend's mother. She supported me through teenage years and motherhood as well as being a generally great friend. We've spent days out swimming and gymming and lunching. We laugh and cry together. Life will be much poorer for me when she's gone. She is my best friend. Isn't that lovely? Thank you very much. Keep all your comments coming in. You can text Women's Hour on 84844 and on social media. It's at BBC Women's Hour. Back to politics now. As at exactly this time tomorrow, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper

will be standing up in front of a hall of people to address the Labour Party conference. Now, a key commitment she's made and is expected to elaborate on is to cut the instances of violence against women and girls by half. That's no mean feat when you look at the statistics. Crimes against women accounted for 20% of all police-recorded crime in the last set of figures. Leading senior police figures call it an endemic. Again, at the top of the news agenda with the news that the Crown Prosecution Service has said that it twice considered bringing charges against ex-Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, but concluded there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.

During the Conservative government's time in office, they made violence against women and girls a national police priority, including the Domestic Abuse Act, and strengthened punishment for predatory crimes, including stalking and harassment. Labour are no longer in opposition, and what the Home Secretary gets up and says tomorrow is likely to shape policy agenda for the next five years. It's a topic that so many of you tell us is a key concern for you. And I should also, of course, say that men can also be victims of violent crime. But today, violence against women and girls is our focus. To discuss this in the studio, I'm joined by Harriet Wisterich,

founder and director of the Centre for Women's Justice, who's dealt with countless cases related to women's safety in her 30-year legal career. Welcome, Harriet. And Georgia Harrison, a presenter and campaigner. Now, Georgia is a victim of image-based sexual abuse. Her ex-boyfriend, Stephen Baer, shared a video of them having sex and posted it online. He was jailed last year. Since then, Georgia's worked closely with the Labour Party to strengthen the law. And you're heading off to the conference this afternoon, aren't you, Georgia? Yeah, I've got my suitcase with me.

Well, we won't keep you too long. Harriet, let's start with you. I want to start with an area that I know you've done a lot of work on the role of police. It's useful for listeners to know that the Home Office sets police pay, regulations, standards and provides half of the police budget. So this is very firmly in Yvette Cooper's entry, isn't it? So what's your assessment on how the police are functioning at the moment as far as women are concerned well I think the the real issue here is that whilst there are a whole range of laws and there have been endless reports and investigations into areas of police practice around violence against women and how it's failed. The problem we see is a failure of implementation. And if the government actually want to achieve the incredibly ambitious target that they've set,

they have to look, they have to drill down particularly into police practice. And we have done work around the investigation of rape, the investigation of domestic abuse and around police perpetrators themselves, which is, as everyone knows now, a huge problem. We brought out a report looking at police perpetrated domestic abuse just last week. And we had previously brought out what's called a police super complaint looking at police perpetrated domestic abuse. A whole series of recommendations were made. We had the terrible story of the Sarah Everard murder and David Carrick and other officers abusing their powers. And a whole slew of initiatives were announced and recommendations for change. But our report four and a half years later, which includes and is based essentially on the accounts of many, many women who came forward to us afterwards, is that very little has changed. And we're seeing the same things again and again. So I think if the police want to achieve change, they need to grasp the nettle. Another initiative, if I just mention as well,

really, really important initiative, which was introduced called Operation Sataria, which is around the investigation of rape. And really, it was a, you know, a very intelligent investigation, a kind of combination of academics, police leads, CPS leads, looking at how we can actually improve improve because we know so many women report right heard about Al-Fayed and yet these cases are not being prosecuted so what the focus of Operation Soterior is is to focus on the investigation of suspects as opposed to focusing on victims credibility now that that is. But and there have been there has been this initiative, but that we're at risk of that falling apart, you know, just as it's off the ground because of the lack of proper resourcing, the lack of specialist police forces

dealing with that those issues. So those are a couple of examples. I could go on about a whole series of other issues. You were talking about police officers accused of crimes and some of the female victims are police officers themselves. Yes, in the recent report we brought out, based on over 200 women who'd come forward to us, 45% of those were either police officers or staff employed by the police who were themselves victims. And there are particular issues for them because you can't actually make a complaint against an officer in your police force. This is one of the issues we've

raised. And that is an issue that government can deal with by legislative reform. So we are asking them to do so, so that they have the right to to make the complaint and have that the misconduct looked at um with their with them being properly informed and involved um we have heard from the national police chief's uh council lead for violence against women and girls uh dcc maggie blythe she says how policing deals with officers accused of violence against women and girls is under the microscope and rightly so we know change hasn't been quick enough and much more needs to be done to ensure women and girls feel safe we've made improvements to root out those who are not fit to wear the uniform and ensure our workforce upholds our

code of ethics and meet the very high standards we'll ensure criminal and misconduct investigations carry out carried out impartially and it's we listen, support and adopt a victim first approach. Georgia, I just want to bring you in. You've got your own experience of dealing with the police as a victim of crime yourself. We aren't able to get into the specifics of your case today. But given your campaigning on this topic, what's your view on how the police are operating in this area? I mean, for me, I always did have a very good on how the police are operating in this area? I mean for me I always did have a very good experience with the police so it's hard for me to see the negative side because

I was handled very well but after it happened to me obviously I have so many victims reaching out to me about their experiences like literally it's like a floodgate on my Instagram and a lot of them don't have the experience that I had unfortunately I think many of them feel a little bit like they get judged or they become the person that's being interrogated rather than being the victim and you know it took me three years to get to court for a lot of victims I speak to it can take up to six years and you know during that time that means that literally sexual abusers rapists are walking the street and it's just far too long and it also means a lot of victims end up giving up before

they get to the courtroom because it's just it takes such a toll on them in the end so I think I think it could be a lot better and I also think it would be really good if people who were involved in domestic abuse or sexual abuse and rape could have some form of legal advice throughout their journey. It's something Sadiq Khan did mention bringing forward and something I think would really help. Yeah, I mean, this is something we at the Centre for Women's Justice have been developing as a model,

which is independent legal advice for victims of rape and sexual offences, to be provided in relation to particular issues and, you know, including disclosure. So what you described from the women that come forward to you is very much what we've seen as well, women having been, you know, asked to provide all sorts of disclosure about their personal life, which isn't necessarily relevant. And, you know, so having a model of independent legal advice for victims who are going through the criminal justice system, on top of any kind of support that they should also have, which is critical given what they're going through, I think is very important. I know the government have indicated that they should also have, which is critical given what they're going through, I think is very important.

I know the government have indicated that they're looking at a model, and again, that needs to be based very much on the kind of experience and the work that we've done and others in terms of bringing that forward. So that's definitely something we would do. I'd also just add in relation to domestic abuse. I mean, there's been a focus on rape over the last few years, but domestic abuse is also that the whole thing is collapsing and also women aren't getting proper protection.

Governments are announcing new protective orders to be rolled out. But the problem is the existing protective orders aren't being implemented. So if you have a whole array of different powers and different laws, but they're not being used, it's not much use bringing in new laws or new initiatives unless you can make sure that they're being used because otherwise you know women who are in danger are thinking they've got some protection from the law but in actual fact often they don't because it's not being applied properly yeah i mean labor announced i think in the last couple of weeks they're bringing in reneemed law so i'm good friends well friends through campaigning with Noor Norris who tragically lost her sister and her niece to domestic violence and now they're going to be putting a domestic abuse specialist in all of the police forces across the UK and I think that's a massive step in helping support violence against women and girls because you know

a lot of police officers may not spot the signs of domestic abuse you know it's very niche and if you don't stop it to if you don't stop it in its tracks that is what it can lead to so I think that will help make victims feel more understood and it will help prevent hopefully some of the some of the things that people are dealing with like porn or in terms of the crime that you're a victim of Georgia it's called image-based abuse you've worked closely with the government both while they're in opposition now in government can you tell us a bit more about your work in this area and what you want to change yeah so at the moment I'm currently filming two documentaries one looking into image-based abuse and one looking into deep fake pornography i think speaking to the main revenge

porn charities um like the revenge porn helpline what would be really helpful for them is if someone is to win their court case and successfully take their perpetrator to court send them to jail and get a guilty verdict that their images and videos that were unconsented should then be deemed illegal so similar to like child pornography, that goes onto a list and the content becomes illegal content. So then when they try and get it taken down, the helpline, platforms have to take it down. It's not just like a could-do, it's legislation and it has to be removed.

And at the moment, unfortunately, that isn't the case. So that would really help the helplines as they're literally flooded with this issue at the moment and it would mean that a lot of the footage gets taken down i still have a lot of stuff out there that they can't remove because of this so that legislation change would really help and with deep fake pornography it recently became illegal to share deep fake pornography however it's not illegal to create it, which sort of blows my mind. So we're actually focusing on people sharing it rather than the people that are making it and monetising off of it. I think unless it's consented, which I think is a very,

very niche thing to be consented, it should just be illegal completely. Can I just ask you both, what's your take on how much these issues are the remit of government and how much it's a cultural issue? For example, you know, I've been saying violence against women and girls, but there have been calls to change this to say male violence or male violence against women and girls. Harriet, would you welcome that? Would you like to see the Home Office call it that? Yes, I mean, we tend to use that term because we know that actually the nature of violence against women and girls comes from something underlying, which is men's attitudes towards women. And to name it is really important to understand who are the main perpetrators of this and where it comes from is really critical. So yes, I think that is

a useful thing. But you know, we do, there is a role for government very much, as well as all the other players. And that also, of course, goes through education and prevention and understanding the dynamics. But I think we need a criminal justice system that is effective in protecting and as well as preventing and effective in investigating and prosecuting those that perpetrate such crimes as well. Georgia, what are your thoughts on the language around it? I mean, I have seen a lot of people commenting that they feel that it should be referred to more of a like male focused terminology but i also think sometimes that can end up being triggering for society as men sort of in they feel like they're being accused rather than you're trying to work with them to change it and i think at the moment you know online across the porn industry everywhere there's a massive rise in misogyny unfortunately i don't know if that's because of the rise of the internet I don't know what's caused it to spike so much you know maybe men being shown things when

they're a very young age of graphic pornography which which involves violence towards women could definitely be adding to it but as you said I think the best way to curve it is education in schools education around men and getting men to speak in a positive way about these situations and the more men you can get on board the more they'll spread it amongst their peers amongst the people they know and that's the best way i think to influence change is to really just try and get men on board and get them working towards a better society in a safer place for women because at the moment it is just it's horrifying the way that things are going Georgia and Harriet I could talk to you about this for much longer but we'll have to leave it there thank you so much for your time and we asked the Labour Party for a statement today and they

pointed us to a speech made by the Home Secretary on Saturday where she said our mission in government is to half the level of violence against women and girls in a decade something no previous government has even tried to do but it's a mission we set ourselves because we cannot ignore this national emergency any longer. A mission championed by our Prime Minister, Kia Starmer, who's worked tirelessly for decades to support victims of violence and their families. And our collective message to the perpetrators is clear.

On our watch, if you hurt and abuse women, the police will be after you. Let's just turn to some of your comments now. We were asking if you had any friendships with people who are much older or much younger than you. We've had so many comments come in. This one here says, I have a wonderful Greek friend who's 23 and I'm 66. We bonded as soon as we met and learned so much from each other. We keep in touch online as she's in Crete and I'm here in England, a treasured friendship. Another one here.

This person says, I'm 48 and my friend Marjorie is 102. We became friends during the first lockdown when I offered to do her shopping. She lived on our streets since 1954 with much in common, including a love of travelling. We went to the same school, her in the 1930s, me in the late 1980s. Marjorie has now moved into a care home, but I try to visit her often. Some wonderful comments coming in. And this was all inspired by our next guest, Elizabeth Strout, who is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of many novels, including Olive Kitteridge and the Lucy Barton books. Now, her latest book is Tell Me Everything. And in it, she revisits several of the characters who appear in her previous work.

And I'm delighted to say Elizabeth is here with me now in the Woman's Hour studio. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me here. It's lovely. Thank you. The storyline that holds this novel together is essentially a murder mystery. But really, that kind of isn't the most important part, is it? No, it didn't turn out to be.

Tell me about the, I mean, you and Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess together and their relationship is is interesting, complex. Just tell me a bit about them. Well, Lucy and and Bob had begun to know each other in a previous book, which doesn't matter if anybody's read anything else, because this, you know, I always write each book as though no reader has ever read anything. But Bob and Lucy are very similar in certain ways. I mean, they're both tremendously good listeners. And that adds to their growing intimacy, that they listen and talk so freely to each other. We were talking a little earlier about kind of that teenage passion, that desire. This is a love story, but it's rather mature, can we say?

It's, you know, it's a will they won't they, I guess, throughout the book. Does that interest you? And maybe love at a later stage, finding love at a later stage? Well, I do think love can be found at any stage. I mean, I think that young people, they just don't have enough experience to realise that this can continue on. You know, there's all sorts of stories of love and retirement homes and things that happen just as long as there's a breath to breathe. Without giving away the ending, can you tell us a bit about the disappearance of Gloria Beach?

Right. There's this woman who just absolutely disappears one evening and her son has been taking care of her for the last 10 years of her life. She's really elderly. And so when she disappears, of course, he is the first suspect. And Bob Burgess comes out of semi-retirement. He's been a criminal defense attorney and he comes out of his semi-retirement to take the case. And I think that their relationship evolves in a very, for me, interesting way, and hopefully for the reader as well. Can you read us a little passage from the book and tell us where you're reading that from? Okay. So Olive Kittredge had met Lucy Barton for the first time, and they were very different characters, as you can imagine. But this is the second time that, okay, just a

paragraph here. Olive Kittredge had been thinking about all the unrecorded lives around her. Lucy Barton had used that phrase when she first met Olive and heard Olive's story about her mother. Unrecorded lives, she had said, and Olive thought about this. Everywhere in the world, people led their lives unrecorded, and this struck her now. She summoned Lucy Barton again. Come in, Olive Kittredge yelled when she heard the knock on the door, and the door opened and Lucy walked in. Hello, Olive, she said. She was more relaxed than the first time she had been there months ago. Olive could see that. Lucy took her coat off and tossed it onto the small couch, then sat down next to it. How have you been? Olive flapped a hand. Who cares? Now, as I told you on the phone, I have another

story to tell you. Olive swung her foot and leaned back in her chair. Go, go. I'm ready, Lucy said. She sat forward, her hands folded on her lap. And they go on to form an unlikely relationship, I guess, which is pretty tender. Yeah, they end up telling each other stories about different people they've known throughout their lives in a way that honours these people whose lives have been unrecorded. It feels a little bit like hearing, overhearing conversations sometimes. Almost, you know, thinking, oh, should I be listening to this? Maybe listening to my friends, you know, having a conversation when I was reading it. It's a kind of, it's kind of comforting, I would say. Is that what you're intending? Yes, I want, I wanted to make the

reader feel heard as they were reading the book. I wanted them to feel seen as they were reading the book. And I always write for a reader. And so this narrator is very inclusive with the reader very deliberately, including the reader as we go through the book. Yeah, I love that. Sometimes she says, I told you so. yeah there's always a little comment from the narrator to let the reader know that they're in safe hands and you just mentioned it there but it it's that it is that thing of when you meet somebody who does really hear you um not many not many people in your life I would say I know I know it was interesting as I was reading this, I mean, excuse me, as I was writing this, and I began to understand, oh, right, there are very few people who actually really do hear us in a certain fundamental way. And that became more and more evident as I was writing about these people who do listen to each other. Do you think that's more the case in female friendships or, you know, that partnership?

I think that, I think women tend, I don't know, I don't like to make many generalizations. I think that women have the capacity to listen carefully. Maybe it's more than men. I don't really know. But it's really both. I mean, both people are, both sexes are very capable of not listening carefully and going through the motions of listening, but really not actually hearing the other person. And that's ultimately lonely making. And that's another feature, isn't it, throughout the book? This is the fourth of your novels that Lucy Barton is in. She's a successful writer.

Is there an element of you in that character? Well, when I wrote Lucy in the first person and then I made her a writer, I thought, oh, my goodness, everybody's going to think she's me, but she's not me, and I just sort of finally let go of that worry. She's Lucy. And it took you quite a while, didn't it, to get your first book published? Yeah. Can you tell me about the process? Well, I always knew from my earliest memory that I was a writer. And so it was quite a long time before I actually had my first book published. But I just kept working at it. I just kept working at it, working at it. And people wonder why I kept going after so many years. But I just always, it's just a funny thing.

I always understood that's what I was supposed to be. And I did go to law school at one point because nobody was interested in my writing at all. So I went to law school and dropped out, went back and was a very bad lawyer for about six months. And I realized, okay, then I've just got to fully devote myself to this. And I did. So were you sending off your manuscripts and people weren't interested? Yes. Since I was 16, I had been sending out stories and just piles and piles and piles of rejections. How do you do, how do you have the strength to keep going then?

Well, I mean, I just, I don I don't know I mean I think that I partly understood that every story I wrote was just a little bit better than the one that I had written before and I thought if I just keep going I can do this but I finally found my own voice instead of trying to write like a writer I finally realized I have to write like myself there are some big fans of your books as well Oprah Winfrey. I saw you being interviewed with her and she seemed like a friend. Yes, she's been lovely. What does that feel like? And how much does that change your success, I suppose, having that support?

Well, I mean, she is certainly a very powerful woman, you know, in terms of books. And she's been absolutely lovely to me a number of times with my different books. But at least I was established by the time she came into my life. So, you know, I wasn't rocked by it. I think as I might have been if I'd been younger. She's been just very lovely, very lovely woman. I was reading that your mother was an English teacher. Yes. Also taught writing. Yes.

And that you didn't watch TV. No, they didn't believe in TV. My parents did not believe in it. So. They were rather puritanical. Do you look back and think that was a good thing? You know, I do. Although I was just saying to somebody, Bob, I wish we'd had a TV.

But anyway, the point is, I do look back and I think that it was good because I did. I certainly spent a lot of time reading and just in my own thoughts and being in a way that I think I do actually think it was a good thing for me that we did not have a TV. Is it true that you'd only watched two films, 101 Dalmatians and The Miracle Worker? Yeah. That's incredible. It was quite incredible. So when you went to college, did you just then consume so much media? Well, I didn't, but it was a whole

new world. It was fabulous to go to college. I loved it. We talked about how you've got bringing some of your big characters together in this novel. When you were on Woman's Hour some time ago, five years ago, you talked about how you thought that you were done with Olive Kitteridge. But then you're away in Norway and she appeared again. So, I mean, it sounds like she's a real person to you in a way. Well, she sort of is. I mean, all these people have become practically real to me. And Olive, I mean, because she's Olive, you know, when she shows up, you have to pay attention because she's Olive.

So I did. And she's getting on in this Tell Me Everything. Would you ever consider a novel where she dies? No, Olive Kittredge will never die on my watch. No, she's not that's interesting yes so people who love her yeah she's not character okay can you tell us what you're working on at the moment oh I'm I'm working on an entirely new character in a whole different new location so that's fun refreshing all right and. And when might we see that?

I don't know. When we stop keeping you doing interviews and you can carry on working. Well, it's fantastic to have you here in the studio. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. So we have been talking about those relationships across different generations. This one here from Mary. She says, I'm 87 and one of my best friends is Annie, who's 18. We're both volunteers at our local food bank. We've learned so much from each other. Both value our friendship. Annie has just started university. She came to see me yesterday and told

me all about what's been happening. It's so exciting. And I feel as if I'm going to be doing her degree with her. Isn't that lovely? Well, that's all we have time for today. Join me tomorrow from 10, where I'll be hearing about why women working in the adult entertainment industry are being put at risk because of debanking. Some banks refusing to allow them to open an account. Thanks very much for listening.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Gabriel Gatehouse and from BBC Radio 4, this is Series 2 of The Coming Storm. There's a divide in American politics between those who think democracy is in peril and those who think it's already been subverted, hollowed out from the inside. In order to understand the deep state, you must understand the organizations within the deep state. As America prepares to elect its next president, we go through the looking glass into a world where nothing is as it seems,

where the storming of the capital was a setup and the institutions of the state are a facade. It's all an illusion. Listen on BBC Sounds. 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 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.