Woman's Hour - Eluned Morgan, Female right-wing US campaigners, The history of understanding women's bodies

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Eluned Morgan is the first woman in history to be first minister of Wales. She was appointed earlier this summer after her predecessor, Vaughan Gething, resigned. What does her appointment mean for women in Wales? What policies will she be focusing on? She joins Anita Rani to discuss all this and more.From spongy flesh to wandering wombs, there have been many theories about the inner workings of women across the centuries. In her new book, Immaculate Forms, Professor Helen King talks about how scientific theories and religious beliefs have shaped our understanding of women’s bodies, from Ancient Greece to the present day. In the US, a rising number of women are joining a wave of right-wing campaigning on social media. Journalist Layla Wright went to the US to meet three of these women in an attempt to understand more about what has influenced their political beliefs. She joins Anita to discuss what she found.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Laura Northedge

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to Woman's Hour. Sexual fantasies. Most people have them, but how comfortable are you talking about them? Gillian Anderson was talking to the BBC's Katie Razzell about her new book, which is a collection of women's sexual fantasies. She mentions Nancy Friday's book from 1953, My Secret Garden, which brought female desires to worldwide attention. Women still struggle and share in this book about how much they struggle to think about it, to talk about it, was quite an eye-opener because it was evident to me in Nancy Friday's book

and I would have thought there would be less of it today. Well, it got us talking in the Woman's Hour office, so we thought we'd involve all of you in the conversation. How about you? Are you confident enough to discuss what goes on in your head with your partner or friends? Would you never go there because it's your fantasy and yours alone? Have you tried to talk about it and it will go wrong? Have you tried to live out your fantasy or your partner's? Share your tales with

me this morning and you can, of course, remain anonymous. Is this a very un-British thing to do or is it time to shed the shame? Whatever your thoughts, get in touch in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can email me via our website. Contact me on WhatsApp. The number is 03700 100 444. And our social media is at BBC Woman's Hour. Also on the programme, we're sticking with the subject of women's bodies. Helen King has written a book all about them. Well, four parts in particular, The Breasts, Hymen, Clitoris and Womb. And a new documentary has landed on iPlayer. Journalist Leila Wright travelled to America to meet three women who hold right-wing views and have huge social media followings. Leila will also be joining me on the programme. And of course, your thoughts and opinions on anything you hear this morning, more than welcome. That text number once again, 84844. But first, this summer saw a significant

moment in Wales, the first woman in history to be appointed as First Minister. Eluned Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Ely, was formerly Health Minister for the Welsh Government for three years. Her predecessor, Vaughan Gethin, resigned in July this year after just 118 days in the job. She inherits a Welsh Parliament with one politician less than she needs for a majority. The First Minister, Eluned Morgan, is with me now. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Diolch, bora da. Bora da.

When you took on the job, you said you wanted to add a distinctive contribution, perhaps with a vibrant splash of colour. The grey suits are out, you said. What's wrong with grey suits? Grey suits are fine, but I do think that there is a time for us to bring a new vibrancy to the position of First Minister in Wales. And I'm hoping that as a woman there will be a different environment different atmosphere and that we will be doing things differently and I hope that women across Wales will be able to relate to that. I'm gonna tear up the Woman's Hour rule book and actually

comment on what you're wearing because you do look great you've got a bright pink suit on you've got trainers on so it's not just metaphorically they're actually out would you will we ever see you in a grey suit? Well I I do have one, but I am a bit reluctant to wear it now. Now that you've said it, you've gone on record. Now you are, as I said, the first female First Minister of Wales in history. How important is that to you? Well, I think it's significant. And it's not significant for me, it's significant, I hope, for the women in Wales, because for so long they haven't seen a reflection of themselves in power. And, you know, we took a long time to come on the female representation journey.

In fact, I was the fifth woman in the history of Wales ever to be elected to a full-time political position and the first woman to have a baby in office when I was first elected to the European Parliament back in 1994. And the youngest ever person at 27. And the youngest person. So, you know, I've broken a lot of glass ceilings, but really this is the one, I think, where it is important for, in particular, young women, young girls to be able to realise that actually there is somebody that they can look up to and recognise, I hope,

something of themselves in my leadership. Who did you look up to? Well, it was difficult because Margaret Thatcher wasn't exactly somebody that I aspired to be like. It didn't align with your politics. It certainly didn't align to my politics. And it was very difficult. I did actually go into the European Parliament at the same time as Glennis Kinnock, and we became great, great friends. I'm intrigued to know where your first sort of political motivations came from. How young were you? So I was brought up on a very working class housing estate.

So it's the biggest council housing estate in Europe, where my father was a vicar, he was a priest, and we had an open house. And he recognised that he couldn't resolve all the problems of the area through prayer. So he got into politics. Our house became a political hub. And I was exposed to a lot of politics but more than anything I was exposed to people who were just as able as I was just as clever and they weren't getting the opportunities and I realised that what I wanted to do was to try and create the circumstances for people to fulfil their potential and that's certainly something I'm hoping to do in my role as First Minister. Now many people will know that Wales has had three First Ministers in the past six months. You yourself were appointed when Vaughan Gethin, as I mentioned, the previous First Minister, resigned after just four months. He was involved in a controversy over his acceptance of a £200,000 donation

from a businessman who's previously convicted of an environmental offence. He denied wrongdoing. How difficult was it to inherit this situation? Well, it has been difficult. And I think we've got to recognise now as a political party that we went through a difficult time. But I've been really clear that what I want to do is to bring the group together. One of my first acts was to stand on a joint ticket. So I have a deputy First Minister to bring the unity of the group together. So I have a deputy first minister to bring the unity of the group together.

And I do think that actually, I hope that being a woman, I can bring something to the table on that as well. Just the fact we have a deputy first minister first time in the Labour Party, in the Labour group is significant as well. We've talked a lot about this theory of the glass cliff on women's hour. I'm sure you're

aware of it, but it's the idea that women are more likely to get the big break and get the leadership position in order to clean up a mess where there's already been a crisis in politics. I can name check Theresa May and Liz Truss. They're two examples. Would you add your name to that list? Well, it is probably worth considering. I've got three brothers and I spent my life cleaning up after their mess. So I'm quite used to that. What number sibling are you? I'm number two. But I do think, you know, that is also an opportunity. You know, it's an opportunity for you to actually say, actually, women can turn this around. Women have an opportunity. But you're right, the inheritance is a difficult one.

We've been in power in Wales for 25 years, the Labour government, and it's a real challenge to reinvent while you're in power. Does that leave a little bitter taste in your mouth, though? I mean, you have got the position, but, you know, it took a few people to mess up before you were brought in. Look, I'm accepting the situation. I'm looking to the future. I'm not looking to the past.

I'm looking to provide some hope to the people of Wales. People have been through a really tough time, not just in Wales, but across the country. We've been through COVID. We've had inflation. We've got a cost of living crisis. What we do have now is a new Labour government. And I'm hoping that we'll be able to work much, much closer with a new Labour government in Westminster and a Welsh Labour government.

So and already that whole atmosphere has been transformed. How can Welsh people trust your party to do what's best for them? Well, one of the things I've been doing is I've spent the summer listening to people. I've been out on the streets almost every day, just listening to what people have to say. Because I didn't go through a normal selection process, I've asked the people to help me to set out what the priorities should be. And it's been a fascinating exercise. And obviously, the important thing now is to bring that back into government and to make sure that those are the things we focus on. And one of the interesting things that has come up is women's health. That is something significant

and something obviously as health minister I was interested in, but I think there's more we can do in that space. We are going to talk about women's health because we are on Women's Hour. So I think we should definitely lean into what our listeners would like to hear from you. But your previous role, as you've just mentioned, was health health minister you got that job in 2021 in the thick of covid you're obviously not afraid of taking on a tough job well um i think if you're offered an opportunity i think it's really important to demonstrate that women's can women can do these tough jobs and um you know it's been a really good training i think for the position of first minister um actually quite a brutal job, because we do have quite long waiting lists in Wales. And we recognise that we've got a lot more

work to do in that space. So there is, there's a challenge ahead. And certainly health is going to be one of the key focuses. Well, as you've just brought up waiting times, they have hit record levels again last month in Wales. It was one of your targets as Health Minister to reduce them. So what's gone wrong? Well, some of it is about just the constant demand. I mean, it's quite incredible. In Wales, we have 2 million contacts a month in the NHS in a population of 3.1 million people.

I mean, the numbers of people who have in contact with the Welsh NHS are enormous. The other thing is we count very differently in Wales. So we count therapies and diagnostics, so they don't do any of that in England. But there is a challenge. And we are bringing in now some experts to help us to see if we can do more to bring those waiting lists down. How do you reassure the person who is still waiting for that operation who might be listening right now? Well, I can give you assurance that actually they've come down about 70% for the longest waiters over the past couple of years. So we're definitely making significant inroads into the longest waiters. The average wait is about 21 weeks. So, you know, there are obviously some areas where we're more challenged than the others. You mentioned women's health. It's a big issue for our listeners. They wanted it discussed in

the election campaign. The Welsh government are currently developing a women's health plan, but you asked for this in your role as health minister in 2022. So why are women still waiting for a dedicated health plan? So it has taken much longer than I'd hoped, which is why, you know, one of the things I'm hoping to do now is to supercharge that to make sure there's money that is ring fenced, so that we can make sure that that is delivered. Part of what we're doing is trying to get the NHS to own it. So you know, the government don't own it. If the NHS owns it, if the health boards own it, they're more likely to deliver it rather than it being imposed from above. But it is taking too long for that to happen. So maybe we have to take

a different approach. Which will be? Which will be ring fencing money and make sure they deliver. So it wasn't prioritised before? It certainly was prioritised, but it has taken much, much longer than I'd hoped. And it's going to be much quicker under you? Well, yeah, I'm ready to crack the whip. Is that another technique, one of your techniques? I do think, you know, I think I have a reputation as somebody who does try and deliver in certain areas. So obviously, you know, the health challenge was a massive, massive challenge.

And, you know, there's certainly more work to be done in that. But, you know, when I focus on something, I do try and see it through. Let's talk maternity care. Dozens of Welsh parents campaigned for a review into failings at the maternity unit at Swansea Bay University Hospital. Eight months after it was launched, they said they felt ignored and want the review to be restarted. Calls that are supported by Donna Ockenden, who, of course, has led two of the NHS's largest maternity investigations. Will you listen to these women and restart the review? Well, there is an independent review that's going on,

which is being run by the health board, and it is important, I think, that that is carried through. Most of the issues relating to problems in maternity areas are to do with staffing and the need to have more staff on the wards. So one of the things we've done is to increase the number of people who are training as midwives by 40% since 2017. So, you know, we're putting the right things in place. Obviously, some of that takes time to come through, but they are now starting to get onto the wards because we started on that from 2017. But what's about restarting the review?

So the review is actually in the process at the moment. It is a review that, it's not my review, it is a review that is being carried out by the health board itself and it's independent. Women's safety, another big topic for us. How are you going to make women feel safe, not just on the streets, but within their own homes? So we've been clear we want to see an end to all violence against women and girls. And we've got a very clear programme within our programme for government. And that's committed to strengthening violence against women, domestic abuse, sexual violence. and we've got a strategy that is very clear about what needs to be done within what time frame. The latest Welsh Government annual report into violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence between 22 and 23 claim that one of the

most pressing issues faced by victims and survivors is the accessibility and availability of support services. Well, I think that is something certainly that we've been trying to develop and what we're trying to do is we've got a blueprint approach where we're trying to work with non-devolved organisations and just bringing organisations together and of course the other aspect of that is mental health so we've really strengthened our mental health support within Wales. We've got a ring fence budget for mental health in Wales, 10% of our entire budget in health is spent on it. We have a 111 press 2 system so that anybody who has those issues, they just pick up the phone and they do get an immediate response and an immediate support. So we have been strengthening that support and

particularly for we've improved our waiting times for, in particular, children with mental health issues. One of the things that came up during election campaigning this time around was a number of female politicians actually speaking up about their own safety whilst campaigning. Do you feel safe? I haven't felt threatened yet but it's I'm very aware that the kind of noises in particular on social media are quite aggressive and quite violent in their tone but I haven't had that experience but you know I as a principal I just don't read social media anymore because I do think you need to protect yourself from that I'm happy to post things but um you know it can be quite quite difficult to just keep on taking on board uh all the comments from people so you're not on you're personally you're not you so so I'm you have a team I post things um and people are obviously reading it on my behalf.

But I do think it is important to to protect yourself from some of that abuse. Mental health, protecting your own mental health. Well, I think I think, you know, we all need to support ourselves. You know, I'm fairly lucky, fairly lucky. But it's about it's more about, you know, just questioning every decision you make. You know, you have to make decisions in this role. And, you know, if every time you make a decision, people are questioning it,

I think you lose confidence in your own abilities. And I think it's really important that you lead. Some of it is about political instinct and going with the gut and obviously following the evidence where possible but if every time you make a decision people are shouting you down that that's pretty demoralizing we started talking about your uh you're growing up in quite a political household um you went off and you worked in tv for a bit and you worked for an energy company were you always going to end up here were you always going to come back to politics yeah i think i think i probably was i was always quite interested in going into politics from a really

young age um but uh I went to an international sixth form college which kind of broadened my view on politics in the world so I started out my political journey in the European Parliament I was there for 15 years as a euro MP uh and then, yeah, I got out of politics for a while because I wanted to get a sense of, you know, what does real life feel like now? Because actually, I think after 15 years, you're probably a bit insulated from what. So I deliberately went to work in an energy company. I wanted to know how business thinks, why do they invest, why don't they invest? I'm hoping to bring all of that to the table now as the new First Minister of Wales.

And finally, the Senedd opens on the 16th of September, less than two weeks away. You haven't yet announced your cabinet. Any spoilers? No, but it will be soon. Go on, you can tell us. I'll have to make some decisions on that fairly soon. But yeah, I'm excited about what the opportunities are

uh around giving hope to the people of wales uh in terms of being able to turn around after what's been a really really tough time for people elena morgan thank you very much 84844 is the number to text a few of you getting in touch with what we started the program with we're going to be talking about a little bit later um sexual fantasies despite being a long time woman's activist says someone anonymous i have never found it easy to talk about my sexual feelings my upbringing has a lot to answer for um talking of bodies spongy flesh and sewers wandering wombs and virtuous virgins women and their bodies have been described in many ways over the centuries, from the comical to the bizarre to the downright

dangerous. Here to tell us more is Helen King, Professor Emerita in Classical Studies at the Open University, whose new book, Immaculate Forms, looks at how women's bodies have been shaped and understood by scientific theories and religious beliefs throughout history, and often by men. Helen, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you very much. Lovely to be here. Lovely to have you here. The book covers a vast range of time going right back to ancient Greece and coming up to the present day, but you've split it into four sections, breasts, clitoris, hymen and womb. Why did you decide to divide it into these parts? Well, I started off thinking what makes a woman and what are women told to do with their bodies. And I was thinking of all sorts of things like voice and hair and clothing. But then the more I studied it, the more it got down to really

there were these four parts, which historically have been used to talk about women and to tell them what they should be up to. So I go from the breasts inwards. So start with what you can see. Although even there, of course, as we all know, you can enhance your breasts, you can uplift your breasts. It's not as if anything is really as fixed as all that. Once you get to the womb, you're talking about an organ which couldn't even be seen, and which had to be imagined for many, many centuries, with all sorts of beliefs associated with that. So let's start with breasts. One of the points you make about them is that there's often been a tension between seeing them as something maternal for milk and sexual. How far back does that tension go? I think that goes back all the way. So even in the earliest forms of medicine

that we know in Western Europe, there was the idea that breast milk was actually a therapeutic product. And you still find online today people saying you can use it for conjunctivitis. I wouldn't like to recommend anything here. This comes with a health warning. But in the past, it was used for a range of conditions. And there were even ideas like if you were suckling a boy, your breast milk was a higher quality than if you were suckling a girl, so it could cure more things. But then you had the idea of how do you take breast milk? Can you take it direct from the woman? So then you get the situation where you have historical accounts of men actually suckling from their wives as a health thing.

So your face is saying everything, actually. I'm actually just thinking how much fun you must have, the facial expressions you must have pulled whilst you were doing the research. Absolutely true. I think breasts was the most surprising chapter for me in many ways because I hadn't really worked on breasts before. I'd done gynecological reproductive stuff. But to find out that breasts were quite so bizarre.

And then also the fact that men can produce breast milk. You can have a thing called a prolactinoma, which means that your hormones are affected. And if you happen to be a man, it can mean a thing called a prolactinoma, which means that your hormones are affected. And if you happen to be a man, it can mean that you produce milk. Plus, there are things called accessory breasts, which sounds a lot like a sort of Gucci handbag, where you can have accessory tissue, breast tissue, somewhere else in your body, and can have a nipple attached. And you can be male or female and produce milk from this breast tissue on, for example, your leg.

And there are historical accounts of that. And there are ones within the last 10 years. Helen, you've blown our minds already within the first five, three minutes of us chatting. Staying with breast milk, it's led to many scientific and religious debates over time. For a long time, there was a theory that menstrual blood and breast milk were actually the same thing. How did that work? Yeah. So the idea, this goes back to the ancient Greeks, the idea was that your blood is concocted, sort of cooked in your body into other fluids. And if you're a woman, you're colder than men are. And that doesn't mean you actually feel cold to the

touch. It means your innards are working in a colder way. You're not cooking so well. So women could cook their blood a little bit, and it not cooking so well. So women could cook their bralade a little bit and it would become breast milk. So they believed in channels between the womb and the breasts. There's a wonderful image Leonardo da Vinci did of two people having sex, standing up, dissected down the middle, you know, like you do. And you can see the channel going from the womb

right into the nipple, transferring the milk from the womb to the breasts. But then men, because they're hotter, were believed capable of cooking their blood a bit more. So they make semen, which obviously is the most superb fluid of all it has to be, doesn't it? Obviously. And they would use that to explain why some men could produce breast milk. It was that they weren't quite man enough to go the full way to make it into semen. So on to the clitoris. Why do you think it's become the source of jokes about discovering or finding it? It's very strange. When you look at the history of the clitoris, it's clearly there all the time. Ancient Greek texts talk about the little apple or about,

particularly the poet Sappho talks about the apple that's left at the top of the tree and the men can't quite reach it. But dot, dot, dot. And that idea of something that's out of reach and not really known to men has been there a long, long time. Yeah. And there are terms for it like the myrtle berry, which go back a really, really long way. Yeah, the language. You focus on language, how each of these body parts have many different names and like you've mentioned myrtleberry another one for clitoris you mentioned a few the little tongue chickpea chickpea why is the language important i think

it's very interesting when you think about our language we talk about things like vagina as if that's good scientific language but of course it isn't in latin terms it means sheath or scabbard so it's still got the idea that you put your penis in your vagina it's not a neutral term although we think it is but the language for use for women's bodies often flowers and fruits sounds really quite attractive in many ways to think of your parts in terms of you know my little rosebud is it's actually a much more beautiful name than using a Latinate term. But then often that's connected with the idea of fragility, that women's bodies are fragile, women's sexuality is fragile. If you touch your rosebud too soon, the petals will fall off. It's that sort of image. So it's actually can be spun positively, a more richer way of looking at the body.

But also it can be used in a way that makes women very cautious about their sexuality. You talk about a man called Matteo Rialdo Colombo. Ah, yes. Now, he's often credited with discovering the clitoris. Who was he? It's a great passage. So this is a medic, 1559. He published a book on the body and the parts of the body.

And he says in a sort of very confidential way, I found this thing. It's like a little rectangle. And if you touch it, even with just your little finger, women go wild and their seed flows out in all directions. And you think, whoa, you just discovered the clitoris in 1559. I don't think you did. But at the same time, 1540s, 1550s, you've got other anatomists, because this is the era of dissection. And they're saying, well, I've had a look and I can't find it. And one of the most famous anatomists of all, Andreas Vesalius, wrote, well, I found it, but it's just like, it's a sport of

nature. It's a freaky thing. You know, yes, sometimes you find a woman with one, but they're not normal. So to say, wow, I found it, and you just touch it, but then who touches it? Yeah. In his case, this is actually him as the doctor, live, hands on with a woman. This is not modern studies of the body where you use things like MRI to work out what's going woman. This is not modern studies of the body where you use things like MRI to work out what's going on. This is hands-on. So if you touch it with your little finger,

what if who touches it? What if she touches it? And it starts to get a little bit risky in terms of whether women's sexual pleasure depends on men or whether they can have that pleasure on their own. So this is men discussing it in the 1500s. When did it actually, when did they, when did it, was it figured out that it was actually a vast network of nerves? How recent is that knowledge? It's scarily recent. The big discoveries are in 1998 by Helena Connell. Interesting,

it's a woman who gets there. Hang on. 1998. 1998. Yes, that's when she published On the Full Extent of the Clitoris. And that's where you get the image of the clitoris that you often find today, you know, in plush toys and badges as well of a sort of wishbone shaped organ. That's where it comes from. Now, there were attempts to say that before. What was happening before 1998? I know, you just, it was coming and going in medical textbooks.

It was sometimes labelled. It was sometimes not. It's not a linear process of discovery. And I think that's one of my key points in the book. This is not linear. We don't move from ignorance to knowledge. We have knowledge. It goes, it comes.

You think, well, actually, that's not very interesting at this point. It's not mentioned because who wants to talk about women? But it's a woman, Helen O'Connell, who gets there. And she was drawing on 19th century work, but it had never really taken off before. On the other hand, we still don't really know much about the hymen. Why did you want to devote a chapter to it? I think because the hymen was something I was told about growing up. And I sort of imagined it was just a normal part of the body. And the more you study it, the more you realize that

it's the least believable part of all of the four I look at. Why is that? Because women don't necessarily have one. Because if there's a membrane, it could be very, very fragile and break easily. It could be really, really tough. There's a medical condition called imperforate hymen, where it will not not break and your menstrual period sort of backs up behind it and you have to have an operation to get that out. So it can be a really extreme thing, but it may not exist at all. So where did the connection to virginity come from? And is something virtuous,

something to be preserved? The idea with virginity is very interesting. When you look at the earliest texts, so biblical texts and ancient Greek texts about bleeding at first intercourse, they don't necessarily mention a membrane. It could be simply that the pressure is supposed to cause bleeding or the girl is very young and the man doesn't know what he's doing and therefore there's bleeding. But the idea there's an actual organ, an actual piece of membrane, that's all Hyman means, membrane. That is a really dodgy, dodgy idea to base anything on. So you're busting quite a few myths. Finally, we need to get to the womb.

You say that its hiddenness being inside the body has made it a breeding ground for myths about its nature and function. What are some of those myths? Well, you've got some lovely ancient medical papyri, sorry, ancient magical papyri, which talk about controlling the womb and talk about calling it like it's a dog. Don't bite like a dog. What, actually talking to it? Yeah, you can talk to the womb. Of course.

Well, don't we all? Absolutely. Don't we all? So it's like a dog or it's like an octopus because octopuses' tentacles have sort of clingy bits on that they use to move with and the womb is supposed to cling on to a baby and hold it inside so it's like an octopus as well it's it's like a sewer which is letting out bad products from the body but at the same time it's the most precious organ of all it's special it's got extra powers. It can hold. It can push out. It knows when to do things.

It's a really, really potent organ, but it's hidden. So they didn't have any way of knowing. Helen, it's all such fascinating stuff. I've just had my jaw open the whole time. One of the things, and very quickly, because, you know, there's so much to talk to you about, but I'm also very aware of time. One of the things you say about the womb is for so much of history, the greatest fascination of this is laying with those who don't have one themselves, men. That's true of most of the book. Most of the sources are men. How conscious of you, how conscious of that were you when you were writing it? I was very conscious. And even one of the sources, which looks like it's by a woman, 1671, Jane Sharp, the midwife's book, may be written by a man in drag posing as a woman because we know nothing about her, in fact.

So it's quite likely that a lot of these things are basically men talking to other men, reading other men and passing them on. But, of course, women believe that because if you're going to the doctor and you want to know what's wrong with you, you will go along with that theory because it must be right. It comes from the ancient Greeks. Fascinating stuff. We could talk all day, but there is a book that you can read if you want to know more. Helen King, thank you so much for coming in to speak to me. The book is called Immaculate Forms. Helen, thank you. Thank you very much. 84844, that number to text. Coming up on Tuesday, that's the 10th of

September, as the new school term in England gets underway, we're going to be dedicating an entire programme to SEND, how mothers are bridging the gaps in the special educational needs and disability system, as it is called in England. There's going to be so much to talk about, but we want to ask for your help in particular, those of you mums who are in Scotland, where additional support needs, ASN, is the term used for children and young people with additional learning needs what does it feel like to be a mum who's navigating the system in Scotland get in touch with us it's a special program we'll be doing next week on the 10th of September and we would love to hear your input and your stories get in touch in the usual way text number is

84844 you can also email us via our website. 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. Right. Now, on to my next guest. It's just two months until the US 2024 elections. And as you'll no doubt remember from our own election earlier this year, the lead up to an election is accompanied by people promoting a whole range of political views.

But something my next guest noticed about this particular election in the USA is the unprecedented number of women on social media promoting right-wing views, the more extreme of which are traditionally associated with men. Leila Wright is a journalist and presenter. She wanted to understand more about this rise in passionate right-wing women. So to investigate it, she headed over to the USA to meet some of them and understand more about their beliefs. Her conversations with them feature in a new BBC Three documentary, America's New Female Right. Leila, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. I'm thrilled to

have you here. You know, what a great endeavour to take on. You're fascinating. The documentary is fascinating, but you were fascinating to watch as well. But we'll get to that. Let's start at the beginning. Why did you want to make it? So basically, I'm from Liverpool and I was just kind of on my own social media every day. And I kept noticing these kind of ultra conservative girls that kind of see my age, like mid 20s, late 20s, posting these quite, I suppose, shocking videos at first. They were dressed in 1950s housewear and they were saying things like, you know, you don't need to career. We need to, you know, we need to reclaim the times when we were homemakers and we kind of let's go back to that and I thought these are interesting and this was the trad wife content and it's quite new and I

thought wow like what's this it's quite different than you know my scouse mate stuff the other content on my instagram and the more videos I engaged with the more extreme the views were getting like more videos were coming to me, more of these ultra conservative influencers. And the views were ranging right the way to things about how we should go back to household voting where women didn't have the vote. And, you know, let's let the men have the vote again. And I thought, I just kind of need to understand like what's going on over here. These are women in America. Why do we care about them over here? I think it's super important because, you know know like I just said then that I came across these in Liverpool you know back there and I think social media now means that like America I think always reflects what's

happening here obviously it's incredibly important year I think it's you know first time in so long that we've had elections for you know our country and in America the same year and I'm always fascinated in knowing what's happening around the world but like I said if they're reaching my house in Liverpool. It's such a broad spectrum though isn't it right-wing views how did you decide what to hone in on? So I think for me what was like these extreme views have been going on for so long all across the world what was really kind of striking to me was the anti-feminist content that seemed quite new to me you know for me feminism has of course been a blueprint for our progression and yeah and like you know the girl boss culture and we can do it all and then suddenly I was having these girls say um that feminism had been created by global elites to control the world and I thought wow like these aren't fringe views. They're reaching my home in Liverpool

and they had massive platforms. That's the girls that I wanted to focus in on. Yeah, loads of followers. I want to give our listeners an idea of the three women you spoke to. So here's Morgan explaining to you how she became involved with being an influencer on social media for Right Wing Views.

I was one of very few conservatives, if not the only conservative at my high school. I felt very outcasted because there really wasn't any other students that held my beliefs or anyone else that agreed with me. And when I was in college, I was in a sorority until people found out how conservative I was in 2020. And instead of being uplifted and supported by my so-called sorority sisters, I was canceled. I mean, there were group chats made about me. There were girls that would comment ugly things on my social media.

There were girls that, you know, were wanting me to harm myself because of my beliefs. And so I went to one of our Turning Point events in 2021, and I was surrounded in a room of 3,000 other Christian, other conservative women. And knowing that, like, for all those years that I felt so alone, those years that I was crying to my mom because people were so mean to me, you know, it's like I wasn't actually alone ever. And it only made my beliefs stronger. What was it like meeting these women, Leila?

You know, it's kind of shocking, I think, hearing those views in real life. You know, for a while I've been seeing their videos, but to hear these people saying such kind of inflammatory things in front of you, especially one of our characters, 16-year-old Hannah, and to hear her saying these kind of, like, really, really extreme things in front of you is always going to be shocking. But I think for me it's always about trying to understand where their views have come from.

And I think that's, like Morgan just said then in the clip you know for her the fact that she was a conservative young woman in quite a liberal university and the polarization of society about how you know she felt like there couldn't be you know a healthy debate type of thing that for her pushed her towards even more extreme views yeah she talks about that if you're cancelled it just proves that you're doing something right was her point of view wasn't it yeah she was a big believer in that i think i think this this is a thing that i learn out there with them it's like the more that you know maybe modern society with more liberal people go at them quite harsh on social media and in real life the more it emboldens them and entrenches them in their views.

You've mentioned there 16-year-old Hannah. We've got a clip of Hannah as well. This is you sitting at the dinner table with Hannah and her family. The man you hear in the clip is Hannah's father. It's interesting because Hannah, you know, in particular right now, was very independent, way more independent than I was when I was 16. And you've got an incredible career ahead of it, I would say. But I wouldn't have to do all these things... If there weren't problems to fix. Yeah, exactly, exactly. If there weren't problems to fix. So I think, like, in order to get women back in the home,

we've got to get out of the home to talk about these issues, because... Yeah, to get them back in the home. How do you see Ikhana's future? Well, um, she is an amazing cook. Um, she's very good with her money. Um, she's beautiful, she is an amazing cook. She's very good with her money. She's beautiful. She's smart. She's got a great world view that is based out of Scripture. There's been hundreds and hundreds of people telling her

that she'd run for Congress and Senate and be the president and this stuff. I don't think that's her goal. I think her goal is to stimulate society towards God. And what do you think, Hannah? Yeah, I mean, a year ago, I wouldn't have expected to do the things I was doing. So really just doing what the Lord wants me to do rather than what I want to do, but what the Lord has for me and what he wants me to do. So not to over-spiritualize it, but just one step at a time. I'm not trying to over-talk her. I know you're trying to get her to say it, but... No, no, that's exactly right.

Like, yeah, just take the edge. She's not doing all this to try to be a politician. You need to say that in your own words. Yeah, I mean, I'm not doing this to become a politician or to become famous. What was it like filming that scene? Yeah, that dinner table will stay with me for a long time. Me too, watching it.

Go on, tell me what it was like for you. As you can imagine, in the film we can only put 16 minutes in, but that dinner table alone, it was a good few hours of being there. My job as a documentary presenter and filmmaker is to understand where these people come from. So when I first met Hannah, she was kind of on stage saying these really inflammatory things about LGBT community about how feminism was created to destroy America and society and for me it was important to

understand where that had come from and that led me to her dinner table I think there I came away from my thinking okay I can understand you know kind of how these young people are getting these views if they're homeschooled from an incredibly well from forever you know it's kind of these bubbles that happen and yeah like it's hard to hear that because Hannah is quite impressive she can hold a room you know way better than I'd be able to and and things like that but you just think I kept thinking about when I was 16 and since then and the people that I've met that shake my world view and I think I wish maybe that she's she wouldn't meet more people that are different to maybe her kind of really religious and conservative family that might shape that view.

Bring her to Liverpool. I know, I'd love that. I can't think of... Hannah, if you ever want to come to Liverpool, like, let me know. Give me a message. It's important to say, though, isn't it, Leila, that these women you spoke to,

they're not outliers or radicals. These are widely held views, aren't they? It's a really important point that I kind of want to stress. These are not fringe characters that I found online to go and spend time with. These represent the rising, you know, really ultra-conservative women in America. I'm going to bring in the third woman you met, Christy. She spends a lot of her time live streaming on social media from the US-Mexico border. She's slightly different. Here's a clip partly filmed on her phone of when she's come across a group of men who've just come

through the border illegally and are being helped by an NGO. And now we have a whole different type of group of males. They were intercepted by an NGO. They speak a dialect that is known from countries that have terrorist activity, Arabic. And we need to make sure and we need to vet them. We need to make sure that they're who they say they are. They're from where they say they are. So what's your name? Gail.

We're making a documentary for the BBC. Okay. What happened then? They just put their camera in their face. We come to help people. They come to threaten people. And it's really frightening. Ma'am, we don't come here to threaten people.

We're not going to let you have that narrative. We're not here to threaten anybody. Have you seen us threaten people, and it's really frightening. Ma'am, we don't come here to threaten people. We're not going to let you have that narrative. We're not here to threaten anybody. Have you seen us threaten people? Maybe not you, but a lot of them have. Please don't lie. A lot of them do. I could tell you I've dealt with them along the border long enough. I've been here for four years.

I've been here ten. I've been along this wall three days a week since the wall opened. These NGOs are aiding and abetting criminal illegal activity. Murders, rapists come through here. No, they don't know what they're talking about. These individuals, I do know what I'm talking about. I have done this for over four years. I've been here.

The statistics don't go in your favor. Look at the government statistics. Not in the Fox News ones. I don't listen to Fox News. You don't know anything about me. They're not far enough to the right. You don't know anything about me. Closed borders saves lives.

It's really that simple. Christy was perhaps the most aggressive in terms of her speech. What was it like being in the middle of that, just having to observe it? Yeah, I mean, you know, our time on the border, like being there kind of every day with Christy for a few days, like will stay with me for a long time. You know, we have a team of three of us on the ground, director Alana and producer Rosie and I think all three women all three women which is super important and I think a lot of that like we were learning about ourself as well

between you know the drive between locations about what does this mean for women in the future and I feel like I learned so much about myself as a woman during this whole production but our time on the board it was really difficult I think it'll stay with us for a long time and um you know Christy believes it's kind of similar to Hannah that the global elites have created immigration to to destroy America and objectively that of course is a conspiracy but what I what really will stay with me is how that's a seeped offline we're no longer talking about conspiracies that are on the internet and we're hearing on Twitter and Telegram and stuff. This was seeped offline and Christie was using the people at the border

as a backdrop to these videos. Exactly. You bring us back to what these women are all about. They're about posting their views and their beliefs online, on social media, and they have huge followings. Did you get a sense that there was an element of giving their audiences what they want? Do you think that pushes them? I'm thinking about Christy here,

pushes them to more extreme content? That was what I was really worried about and what I had to kind of put to Christy at the end because I kind of, in my short space of time with her, could kind of see things spiralling a little bit and things getting more hostile. And I do think that all these women are ultra-conservative influencers online.

And part of me does think, you know, are the views getting more extreme? Because they've got audience that are waiting there for the videos for the next one. They're getting millions of clicks. And I think how much of this is their genuine beliefs that we need to roll back our rights? Or how much of this is because they're getting a lot of attention from it? How did your experience of filming this change your understanding of right-wing beliefs? I think, you know, when I got back on that plane to Liverpool, coming home, I thought about this a lot.

And I thought, you know, my whole point of this is when I go out there, obviously I fundamentally disagree with everything. And sometimes I think, what have we got in common? Like, you know, me and these girls who are kind who kind of my age were posting these kind of inflammatory stuff and I think a big bit of it as well as I think is some of this an extreme reaction to maybe real societal issues you know this kind of reclaiming this let's be housewives again is it because of society it is maybe so difficult to do it all you know when I was in school it was the girl boss culture we could do everything and then you know the older I'm getting I'm like oh it's quite tricky

to spin all these it's quite tiring yeah and again with Christy you know like I say in the film there is an issue of course you know they do with there always has been but what I think has changed is social media how it's emboldened these people to to go so far with their extreme views and they're not getting counted online. I was watching it in two ways. I was watching the documentary as it is and the characters that you are opening our eyes to, but I was also watching you.

And I wondered, as someone so young, how you were dealing. I don't mean that to sound in a patronising way. It's quite a tough environment to be put into and have to deal with. So I wondered who was the team with you and how how much of you choosing to remain silent in certain times speak out in certain times like how how were you navigating that knowing knowing what to say and what not to say yeah no thanks for picking that up and I mean the team on the ground are incredibly important for me with this

Alana McVerry was my director Rosie Hoff was my producer and again us three girls there all feeling you know very long a long way from home and I think figuring out right this is a story that we need to tell and how do we tell this and I think for me I went into documentaries to try and understand people. It's so much easier to be confrontational you know if I had these views in a pub I might not as be as calm you know in a pub garden I might be like what what did you say then but my job as a documentary presenter I believe is to try and understand where they come from so I allow these people you know the room to speak because I want to understand where they're coming from because I think if we if we keep going at each other

what help is that going to be I'm going to be kicked out the car I'm going to be stuck in the Arizona desert that you know what's the point in that so that's what I try to do with hannah with morgan and with christy is truly try to understand where their views come from because i think that can only help us as a society hopefully well it is a fascinating watch thank you for coming in to talk to me thank you so much come again with your next talk won't you of course thank you at leila right and that documentary america's new female right is available now to watch on iplayer and it is really fascinating stuff. Thank you. Now, would you share your sexual fantasies out loud?

The actor Gillian Anderson has told the BBC's culture editor Katie Razzell that she was surprised by the shame around talking about sex and sharing sexual fantasies while she's been collecting women's stories for her new book. That full interview is available on iPlayer. We wanted to discuss why some women feel the shame around voicing what they like in the bedroom and how to have more open conversations about sex. So to discuss this, I'm joined by journalist and author

of the new novel Gold Rush, Olivia Petter, and Sex and Relationships writer, Rowan Pelling. Rowan, Olivia, welcome to Woman's Hour. We're getting quite a few messages in on this so if you wouldn't mind i'm just going to read a couple out before i before i come to you someone here has said surprisingly anonymous um i'm a 65 year old african woman i still have my copy of my secret garden which i've had for many years it helped me accept that having sexual fantasies is normal in not only men but in normal healthy women as well i feel validated i no longer

felt shame or embarrassed another one here saying i'm a man in my 50s and believe that women should be able to talk about their sexual fantasies with their partners women also need to listen to their partners too my fantasies were rejected my by my then wife and ultimately i left my marriage as my needs were not being met we should all all be free to express our sexual needs. Olivia, let me come to you first. Do you surprise that women feel shame talking about their sexual fantasies? Unfortunately, not remotely surprised. I think there is this long-held belief that women aren't allowed to be sexual beings,

at least not in the same way that men are. And it sounds so ridiculous saying that in 2024. But I think that still really persists today. I think for women, if you talk about sex openly, or if you have a lot of casual sex, there is this kind of underlying fear that you won't be taken seriously, or that people will judge you or that you will be slut shamed. And you know, we see that happening all the time, across popular culture with celebrities online and the messaging is always the same which is that you know it's this wider cultural narrative that sex is not something that women particularly straight women do for themselves it's something that we perform for men

and I think that is such a pervasive and damaging myth for so many reasons but it is unfortunately the cultural script that so many of us grew up with. Gillian Anderson doing her bit to try and change it, push the agenda. But she said, you know, she's been surprised at how much shame there's still around it. Rowan, you've written about sex and relationships the last 30 years. What's changed in the last three decades in sexual fantasies? Yes, goodness, lots has changed. I mean, I did grow up reading My Secret Garden that obviously revealed that women, you know, have transgressive fantasies, which can involve things they may not want in real life or that they may want. But things like coercion and indeed, everyone in my generation probably remembers the octopus that appeared in that book. But now I think things are things um you know there are different transgressions because we're living in a different time so whereas maybe 20 30 years ago you could

have a book like the thorn birds which had a transgression which was lusting after a catholic priest um now you might have and then we had a fleabag do it years later. Yeah, but I think that was more of a joke and off the bat. I don't think anyone thinks it's so transgressive now. But interestingly, what Gillian Anderson's collection reveals is that some of the modern transgressions are actually around, you know, safe sex and the post-MeToo society. So people are having secret transgressive fantasies about being impregnated and breastfeeding and breeding.

And that might be gay women who don't want to have children. So I found that was really interesting. There were also fantasies. Some of them were quite extreme, but some of them were, I just want someone nice and normal to worship me. So, you know, the anxieties of the age are reflected um in these um fantasies and the other thing i'd say it's sometimes difficult to talk about them but sometimes there's also a good reason for that because they do tend to be taboo and secret and

we actually get the erotic hit from the fact that they are transgressive, that they're breaking rules we've set ourselves. So, in fact, if you normalise them and say, well, this is just quite banal and every day, you lose excitement. It's not a fantasy then, is it? Yeah, exactly. So I'm not, I have no problem talking about sex, but I would not tell anyone, probably not even my best beloved, my most secret fantasies. How about you, Olivia? I don't know. I think that we should talk about them more openly than we do, not necessarily to normalise the fantasies themselves, but just to normalise female pleasure, because I think that's the thing that we don't really talk about very much at all. You know, when I was at school, my sex education was learning how to put a condom on a banana

and then being sent on my merry way. There was no sense that sex was something that I was supposed to enjoy or that it was something for me. And I think the lack of talking about female pleasure is part of what hinders women from being open about what they're looking for and what turns them on. I wonder if women have these conversations amongst themselves. You know, we talk about it a lot on Women's Hour and we're very good

at talking but do we talk about this so Olivia what's the difference between men and women talking about their sexual fantasies do you think? I think women are talking about it more among themselves but I do think there is this fear of being judged for what you're actually looking for in bed and I think maybe men don't necessarily have that as much because culturally and societally, they're more likely to be rewarded for being sexual beings than women are. So I think for women, it is a bit more challenging.

For some reason, I really noticed that my single female friends are much more able to talk about their sexual fantasies and their sex lives than my coupled up and married friends, which I think is really interesting and kind of speaks to this like archaic idea we have around marriage and sex within marriage being this kind of sacred, secret act. But I think that's also a problem because, you know, we're all sexual beings. We all need to be able to talk about what we're doing in our sex lives in order to normalise things and help each other get through things.

Oh, 84844 if you want to comment on that one. Do you want to share what's going on between you and your partner with your friends? Let me know. We'd love to hear about it. Rowan, I heard a little titter from you during that. What do you think about that and the differences between talking about our fantasies when we're

in relationship versus when we're single? Yeah, I thought that was a really excellent point. And I did notice that a lot of the fantasies that came in that were submitted to Gillian Anderson's book were from women who weren't married or in a steady relationship, or maybe were in a same-sex relationship where it may be easier to talk to another woman. I'm actually just about to go to Canterbury to go walking with a group of school friends. So we're all in our mid-50s. And I said, I'm bringing the book.

Let's talk about it this evening. We're all just trying to remember what state of marriage or relationshipness we're in, but certainly coupled up. So it will be interesting to discuss that. I do think it's good to be open and have general discussions. Perhaps my only point was that you're very specific in the most fantasy may sometimes have, you know, a rightful place inside you and that perhaps telling other

people makes it lose its power. But, you know, we certainly have evolved. It's better now than it was 30 years ago, but it'd be really good if in schools you didn't just have sex education you did have pleasure and love education for women and for boys and I would just make this point that in my years of talking about sex there are plenty of men who are very ashamed of their innermost desires um and maybe some people say rightfully so but but we're not good across the divine and men find it hard to talk about their feelings too so i think that um better communication as everyone knows is the key to great sex rowan you've been the editor of the erotic review

for a while aren't you tired of hearing people's sexual fantasies yeah actually i no longer edit it someone else does but I have spent 30 years yes yeah I do I do sometimes feel people do tend to tell me everything um really even MPs or people in quite public situations and that's I suppose what makes me realize there's a big divide between how people appear to be um you know it's a cliche about sort of someone looks like a mild-mannered librarian having really wild fantasies but but people find it hard to express their desires and it can take you a lifetime to know them and they're formed by all the strictures and censorship and stuff that's instilled in us as children so i think that takes decades to unwind um olivia there'll be people feeling all sorts and thinking all sorts listening to this.

Some who think there's no way they're going to share their sexual fantasies. Maybe it's too much of a taboo. Maybe they just want to keep it to themselves. But if there's someone who really wants to open up, how do we have more open conversations about what we want? I think you just have to start by thinking about what really turns you on and honestly I mean without getting too explicit but masturbating and thinking about what you're thinking about when you're doing that and communicating that to your partner is the most important thing and I think just having that open line of communication because you know like Rowan said communication

is the key to all of this and unfortunately you, you know, you ask a lot of women, well, what do you actually want from sex? And they don't know the answer. And they rely on, you know, maybe narratives they've seen in porn or, you know, something they've seen in a TV show or a film. And actually, we're just not encouraged to think about, well, what do we really want? And that's the start of all of this. And feeling like you can communicate that with a partner without shame and without being judged. Exactly. Without shame, without being judged. Brilliant. Thank you both of you, Olivia and Rowan. Rowan, I might come and join you on that walk. It sounds like you're going to have quite a good time this weekend with your girlfriends.

That's all from me. Creeper will be here tomorrow from 10. Do join her then. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. It's the 1980s, and a young bodybuilder named William Dillon leaves rural Illinois behind for sun-drenched California in search of a supersized American dream to get absolutely jacked. When you're muscular, when you're big, you get respect. But he's about to discover the secret to why so many of the bodybuilders around him are getting ripped quick. This is the story of the biggest illegal steroid operation the United States had ever seen. Literally hundreds, if not a thousand needles came down like the heavens were falling. I'm Natalia Petruzzella. From BBC Radio 4, this is Extreme. Muscle Men.

Listen first 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 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.