Woman's Hour - Emily Atack, Baroness Catherine Ashton, Sophie Duker

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Actor and comedian, Emily Atack has decided to stand up against the men who cyber-flash her daily. Having received unsolicited, unwanted, abusive messages, dick pics and crude images for years she has made a documentary “Emily Atack: Asking for it?” for BBC 2. Emily joins Nuala to discuss why men do this and why she's chosen to speak about it publicly and call for change. Baroness Catherine Ashton is a Labour peer who served as Europe’s most powerful diplomat between 2009-2014, a turbulent period by anyone’s standards. It was her job to co-ordinate and lead on the EU's response to international crises, including the Arab Spring, Somali pirate attacks, the Iran nuclear deal and the Ukraine uprising followed by Russia’s annexation of the Crimea. Behind the scenes and in front of the cameras she criss-crossed the globe trying to get lasting deals done. Catherine has documented all of this in a new book called And Then What? Inside Stories of 21st Century Diplomacy, and joins Nuala.What comes to your mind when you think of the word 'hag'? The comedian and recent Taskmaster champion Sophie Duker is on a mission to reclaim the term in her new UK stand-up tour of the same name. She tells Nuala about growing up with ‘the princess myth’, embracing ageing and why it’s so important to be open about sex and sexuality.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Emma Pearce Credit: BBC/Little Gem Productions/Richard Ansett

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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, you're very welcome. Glad to have you with us today. Joining me also is the actress, presenter and comedian Emily Atack. She has made a new documentary that really pulls back the curtain on the online abuse and trolling that she and so many others have had to endure. Emily is with us in studio. She's going to tell us about how her life has been affected by the hundreds of vile graphic sexual messages that she receives every day. So we're going to speak to her in just a moment. Also in the studio today,

Baroness Catherine Ashton. She will tell us about becoming the EU's top diplomat practically overnight and how she managed the steep learning curve that was involved. We'll hear what it was like behind closed doors, particularly when leading the Iran nuclear deal that was a decade ago and also being the only woman in the room. Now, Baroness Ashton also talks about the challenge of being the first woman in a role and that the challenge is to make sure there's a second. Have you done that? Have you been in a position to ensure that another woman follows you?

In big ways or in small, I want to hear your story. And the way to do that, the number is 84844 and text charged at the standard message rate. We're at BBC Woman's Hour as well, or email us through our website. And for the WhatsApp message or voice note, that number is 03700 100 444. Now, if you were with Woman's Hour yesterday, you'll know we spoke about hag horror films. Well, today, comedian Sophie Duker

will explain why she has decided to reclaim the word hag. It is the title of her new tour. So that's also coming up a little bit later. But let's turn to Emily. We know the internet isn't always a particularly nice place to be a woman, especially a woman with a high profile. You might know Emily Aitak

from starring as Charlotte in the Channel 4 series, The Inbetweeners, or maybe from hosting her sketch show on ITV called The Emily Aitak from starring as Charlotte in the Channel 4 series The Inbetweeners or maybe from hosting her sketch show on ITV called The Emily Aitak Show. And tonight on BBC 2 you'll see Emily in a different, an altogether much more serious programme as she

presents a documentary on this huge amount of unsolicited, unwanted, abusive and graphic messages that she has received every day for years. They include rape threats, dick pics, crude images and we're going to get into some more detail on that in a moment. Cyber flashing, online indecent exposure.

It is an offence included in the online safety bill which reaches the House of Lords tomorrow. And Emily has been campaigning for the offence to be made law, which would give police and the Crown Prosecution Service greater ability then to bring perpetrators to justice

with a maximum jail sentence of two years. And Emily, however, also wants to understand what motivates the men who target her and where the responsibility lies in trying to prevent cyber flashing from happening in the first place. It's the subject of her documentary tonight, Emily Attack, Asking For It?

Let's listen to a clip. Every morning when I wake up, I see a man's penis I haven't asked to see. This morning I've had... Does I Want To See Your Tits count? 31. 37. This man sends me pictures of him doing handstands all the time. Eight o'clock this morning.

There's a lovely, big, veiny penis there. That did put me off my scrambled eggs to be fair. It's the ultimate disrespect. It's the ultimate thing of going, I think you're easy access and you're up for it. As I mentioned, Emily is here. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Good morning. Thanks so much for having me. Well, I mentioned a little about your motivations, but tell me more about why you wanted to make this documentary. Well, it was during lockdown and I wrote a column for Grazia magazine.

I've got a good relationship with Grazia and they sort of said, you know, do you want to write about being in lockdown as a single woman and how that's kind of how you're coping with that. So I started writing articles about that. And then one day I, I said to them, can I write, can I write about something else? They said, yeah, sure. And I decided to open up about something that, to be honest, it's been going on for, since I've had social media for about 10 years. But I noticed a particular surge in the sexually aggressive and sexually violent messages in lockdown. They were just getting worse and worse and worse and worse um to the point where you know it ranged from pictures to threats and the threats and the violence of it is what kind of uh i mean i was i started fearing for my safety and um there was a different there was a different tone i mean it's horrible enough

being flashed out online and having men say all kinds of things but there was a different tone I mean it's horrible enough being flashed out online and having men say all kinds of things but there was something about the sort of the sexual aggression of it that made me really want to speak out about it um I started to and as you sort of you can hear in the clip I use humor to to kind of as a defense mechanism really and I I did that with the screenshots that I started putting up on my social media just to get a kind of gauge of what people thought about this kind of behavior. And I started screenshotting the stuff and, you know, putting fun, silly little captions next to it. And it was my way of saying, look, this is what's happening. But we were also in a pandemic.

So I didn't want to kind of, you know, negate the severity of that pandemic and have people say, think I'm just moaning about something that's not really that much of a problem. But is it not much of a problem? I thought if I throw humor at it, people will engage with it in a way that it's not looking like I'm going, poor me, poor me. But it was a, it was my way. It was a cry for help, really. It was my way of communicating this with everybody. And I hadn't seen my family in a long time.'t seen my parents I was missing home I was on my own I felt particularly targeted because I was on my own which is what some of the messages say um

and I just felt the need to speak out about it and the reaction was just it the reaction actually is what made me realize how big a problem this is, because I had people telling me this happens to them every day. I had some people so shocked by it, they'd never seen anything like that before, a message like that. So it's like a mix of reactions. And then that's when I decided to kind of delve into it more and possibly do a documentary. You mentioned a couple of the messages you received there in the clip that we played. But I want to go into more detail because I really want to try and get it across to our listeners what it is that you have to endure. I will read a little kind of to give a flavour, not of the messages, but describing them. So there are messages about men wanting to ejaculate on parts of your body.

There are people saying they want to rape and kill you. There are men fantasising about grabbing, smelling, violating intimate parts of your body. They also detail what they would like to do to you sexually and some of it so violent. And I'm wondering what the impact is for you, for example, today receiving those messages, as you you say over the past 10 years but in particularly this different tone or more threatening tone I think is what I'm hearing from you since the pandemic it's honestly I I mean and delving into it as I have done with the documentary it's been so much harder than I thought because I've kind of I'm revisiting trauma that I've realized I've been going through since I was a child.

And it's these normalized behaviors that as young girls, we're sort of made to think are of a societal norm, you know, being flashed out in the street or being grabbed in a shop when you're shopping with your mom or having your bum pinched. You know, it's like, it's just this, it's this behavior that we have always grown to think is normal. And we've normalized, internalized it. And I think, well, I'm speaking, you know, personally here. This is kind of what I've done. But I just, these messages, I kind of grew up knowing that this was going to happen to me in real life every now and then. But there's something about this online space that people think people are getting away with it more. So they're doing it constantly constantly every second of the day message message message I wake up in the

morning I get dressed I have a message um whether it's an ejaculating penis or a video I walk to work I have another message um I'm on the I'm on the tube I get an airdrop. You know, it's constant throughout the day. And I think me talking about this now, it's because I slowly realised, especially during lockdown, it was just chipping away and chipping away at who I was as a person. And I was questioning all my choices, my life choices, down to my dress sense, my hair colour. I was Googling how to get a boob reduction you know no it's and I I started to look around me and kind of go well is this why I'm on my own is this

am I a particular type of girl that men want that men are kind of quite wary of but think that they can just kind of you know project their sexual frustrations out onto me and um I seem like an easy target to men I was questioning everything and thinking what I could do to change this and the sad thing is to everybody around you that hears of this behavior tries to change you as well so let's talk about that but I very much hear that you say you're blaming yourself can I ask you kind of went through a regular day for yourself what about today uh today I have to be honest I put this up there last night the the messages have got worse since uh I started talking about it a few

since the promo for the doc basically um I've had some horrible messages over the last few days um I just I'm now scared that I'm in a new sort of level of fear now where I'm worried that men are now trying to be sort of get my attention with it because now I've highlighted this particular thing um and so I last night I put up a clip but you know I did BBC breakfast yesterday and I put up a clip of it on my Instagram. And seconds later, I said to my sister, I said, I have to take it down. I just can't. I can't deal with the influx of messages and how I'd never thought it could be worse. And it was it was worse last night. I was very depressed last night and very emotional and very low.

And it's really, really hard, really hard. I'm really sorry to hear you're going through that and worse in the sense of the amount that are coming and also the type of message Yeah and involving my family too, I didn't tell my mum this but if she's listening she'll know now they were saying things about my mum

sending me messages saying what they want to do to me and my mum and sorry mum if you're listening I didn't tell you that but um yeah I now that my I'm now I've now got this huge fear about the documentary my family are now in it and now I'm worried for their safety too um but this has been going on for years every single every every time I put up an episode of my show my sketch show I was having conversations with producers last

minute going, we need to take that out. We need to take this out. I remember I because I'm watching it going, I know what's about to come out of my mouth. And I know what the repercussions of that are going to be and the consequences of that. And so I'm constantly say, I'll film something and I'll create something. But then I think, no, I have to change it. I have to take this out, take that out, because I know the consequences of that. So you're censoring yourself. Yeah. And you've also been blaming yourself.

Completely. And I'm trying really hard to not. And it's, you know, I try and fly this flag for strong, independent women. And, you know, but it's really tough and I find it really hard. And there are some days I do just want to delete Instagram. And let's talk about that because we alluded to people asking you to change your behaviour when you highlight what is happening to you. What do people suggest? They say block and delete. And I was talking about this yesterday. The block and delete method is just completely redundant to me. It's asking me to turn a blind eye to it all. Saying block and delete is saying ignore the problem, ignore the problem and that those messages would still be

sitting there is that what's in your head absolutely and also the not just the message but the person who has built up the uh there's kind of three stages of a to send a message like that i think it's the thought the intention and the actual act act. And if a man has decided to do that, and he's gone through those stages, he's already there. In my opinion, that is a dangerous person. And the fact that that person can then go off and do that to maybe somebody else, or that behavior can escalate into something worse. You know, look what happens when we do turn a blind eye. Awful, awful things happen. And we turn a blind eye to this normalized behavior that we see as societal norm. And that behavior, we see how that develops and escalates and we see the devastating consequences of that.

You know, I can't I can't block and delete because that's turning a blind eye. Can you imagine your life, say, I don't know, your work doing your sketch being an actress without any of those messages there I I don't know a life without um sexually aggressive abusive there's an undertone to my life and it's and it's it's sexual aggression there's sexual aggression there's a sexual aggression thread thatone to my life and it's sexual aggression. There's sexual aggression. There's a sexual aggression thread that runs throughout my life and has done since I was a child. And I don't know a life without that. And that is now in your phone.

Yes. Yeah. And I don't, yeah, I don't know a life without that. You know, I found it really interesting in your documentary when you went to speak, you spoke to lots of different people about this. You did ask men who you can trust, who are your friends, and also there was a group of guys you got together to talk about why do they think men can send these messages or do send these messages? They, that power and control,

it's power and control. And one man simply just said the words because we can. And I think that says it all. I think that says it all I think that you know since the beginning of time men have run the world you know we all we all kind of know that and I think they're very threatened by well certain men are very threatened by a particular movement that's happening now with you know more female empowerment I think that really angers a lot of men but yeah this has been happening since the beginning of time. It's because they can. There was one of the gentlemen

that was there who said, I think he was a gentleman, he said that what needs to change in society is that the ideal man is not a man who gets away with things and has no consequences for his actions. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's it. Going into this, I thought that it was massively about changing the law.

But actually what I'm discovering is that there are so many threads and so many layers. It's about changing attitudes. And, you know, this whole the subject of toxic masculinity, maybe looking at male behavior, looking at men's mental health in a, you know, in a better way. Yeah, it was really interesting talking to them. They were a lovely group. And they, it was it was lovely talking to a group of men who want to be better, who want to better themselves. And this is what I'm trying to say to men, I'm trying to say, let's have this conversation together. We're not trying to exclude you out of this conversation and label you

all as monsters. That's not what's happening. And I want to come to the men that you got in touch with directly by messaging them back but I want to read some messages that are coming in for you too Emily. Tell Emily she is lovely. None of it is her fault and don't be afraid of the weirdos. None of them would dare ever say anything of sort

in person. It's wrong but that's life. Let me see this hyacinth saying, I'm so angry on your behalf, Emily. We need legislation to track the perpetrators and name shame and punish more power to you. Vicky says, I'm hearing so many ways in which women are discriminated against physically, sexually, financially. It's so sad and shocking. I hope we can make a change. Let's talk a little bit. I also just want to get across to our listeners, some of these people, the way they write you, it's as if they know you or as if they have, I don't know, I don't know. As if they've had a sexual experience. I was about to

say as if they had a sex, I was about to say as if they hired you as a sex worker, but no sex worker should have to go through what you have gone through. But it is like a personal, explicit, often violent fantasy, but as if you are in some way a consensual partner within it. Absolutely. Do you know what? That angers me more than anything, because that's the violation I feel. I feel like when somebody sends me a photograph and says, even when they call me names like baby and sweetheart and I can't bear it, that that makes my skin crawl more than anything, because that's what a partner should be calling me. You know, it's like and when a stranger is calling me that, that's why that's why men have to be careful with their language, even if they're just saying off the cuff, calling someone babe, sweetheart. It's like it's it's a it's an invasion of privacy. It really is and let's talk about you

decided to message a couple of the regular messengers um we could call them a lot of names I'll call them messages for now yeah uh back what happened I so there was one particular guy who just blocked me straight away um I I reached out and I said look I I would like to know the I would like to know why you send me messages like this uh he blocked me straight away but there was one particular person who has been just relentless with me for years who I reached out to and said I want to know why you send me these kinds of messages and uh at first he said he was going to stop and then and then he just went back to his old ways and carried on. But he actually explained to me why he sent me them.

And he said, your reputation is bad. You seem to go through a lot of boyfriends. And he basically saying to me that I was easy access and that I seem like I'm fair game and up for that kind of thing. And that's heartbreaking because I can't, that's gone in. I can't unthink that. If men, if somebody has given me a reason as to why they do, why they say those things to me, that is his reason.

And so I can't, then I do go back to blaming myself and going, well, it is me. But let's talk about the 16-year-old schoolgirls who you met, all of them that had had experiences of cyber flashing. They also said generally older men that had cyber flashed them. And this bit really stuck with me, that they said they felt most vulnerable when they were in their school uniform. That honestly broke my heart. I was very emotional that day.

And they say it so calmly. They were just the most lovely group of girls. And I chatted with them for a long time. And one of them, yeah, she she said to me, she said, you know, when I'm walking, I could be walking home, I could be walking to school, I could be in my bedroom, you know, after school doing my homework, I am more vulnerable when I'm in my school uniform, if whether I put put a picture up or if I'm walking home and a van drives past me and says something out the window she says that to desexualize herself she puts up photographs of herself not in her school uniform but she gets the abuse anyway and she also said that she said you know I'm a young girl my body's going through a lot of changes. My hips have changed and they've become awful. My breasts are swollen. I'm on the pill. My body's changing.

And she said, I feel like I'm being told constantly that I'm flaunting this body. The way that men project their kind of sexual deviant thoughts onto me, it makes me feel like that I'm in some way flaunting this at them. But she said, I'm just trying to be a child. I'm just trying to be a child I'm just trying to be a child and you know you can totally sympathize empathize with that child which I wonder whether you can do it yourself I was very struck by your mum Kate and I know she was so upset um about what is happening because you hadn't really shared them uh so um what would I say intently with them exactly screenshots of exactly what you're getting.

But Kate did say in the documentary that it's not your fault. You must never, ever blame yourself. Have you come to accept and believe that now? I'm really trying. There are moments where I do and I feel really empowered. But then there are moments where I just,

and I've got to be honest about this, I think there's this perception that if you're in the public eye you sort of have to have it all together and you're kind of a bit of a role model and there's no I think actually to be a role model you've got to be honest about how you're feeling and I don't always have it all together and I do sometimes just want to put the duvet over my head delete Instagram and and not be tough about it all and just cry to my mum you know know. It's a work in progress. I think it always will be. And I'm still finding out the ins and outs about it.

There are so many complexities, so many threads to it. And yeah, I will try my best to keep that faith. Okay. Well, thank you so much for not getting under the duvet, for coming into to us today. Emily, and I just want to let people know, of course, Asking For It will air on BBC Two and also iPlayer on Tuesday the 31st, so this evening at 9pm.

We wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much. You are listening to Woman's Hour and I do just want to read a little from the Metropolitan Police that what they said that they know online abuse can have a real impact on the lives of those targeted that they take every report of violence against women and girls in all forms seriously and that officers will support

victims and investigate the circumstances. I want to turn now to Baroness Catherine Ashton. She is a Labour peer who served as Europe's most powerful diplomat between 2009 and 2014. It was a turbulent period by anyone's standards. And it was her job to coordinate and lead on the EU's response to the international crises, including the Arab Spring, Somali pirate attacks, the Iran nuclear deal and the Ukraine uprising, followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea. Now, behind the scenes and in front of the cameras, she criss deal and the Ukraine uprising, followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea. Now, behind the scenes and in front of the cameras, she crisscrossed the globe, I'd like to know how many miles, trying to get those lasting deals done. And the legacy of which is very relevant today. She has documented all of this in a new book called And Then What?

Inside stories of 21st century diplomacy. And Baroness Ashton joins me in the studio now. Good morning. Good morning. Great to have you with us. I want to talk about taking on the role first, really, because you say at the beginning of the book that being a woman helped with becoming the first high representative of the European Union

for foreign affairs and security policy. I could just quickly call it the EU's top diplomat. How so? Well, when they were looking to fill the jobs that came up because of something called the Lisbon Treaty that had kind of created new structures, they had men in all of the other top positions. So there's no question that one of the things they were looking for was a woman. I often say to people, you know, the Brits needed a really important role.

They needed a woman and they needed somebody who wasn't from the Conservative group because they held all the other positions. So woman, Brit, not Conservative. That was me. That was you. But you offered to turn the job down when Gordon Brown offered it to you? Why? I did because it was important to me that my own government, it wasn't about the politics of that particular government, but simply that you want your own government to feel you're the right person for that job. And there were other candidates that had been put forward. So it was important to me to make it clear that although it had kind of happened to me, if that was not where the UK was, then I was happy to stand aside. It wasn't in other words, it wasn't something I had campaigned for or sought. Far from it. But stand aside, you did not. Instead, you were not a diplomat by training.

But my goodness, you had to learn a lot and become one overnight some would say what did you feel was the biggest learning curve the biggest challenge as you began to realise the size of your portfolio? I think the Iran negotiations I can still remember very specifically the moment

when somebody came into the office I think it was the next day, and said, oh, by the way, because of the way the UN Security Council have set up the Iran negotiations, the person who chairs it, who sort of leads them, is you. And I couldn't quite believe it. I mean, I'd kind of sort of got to grips in my mind with the breadth of the portfolio, which was to bring 27 and later 28 countries together to build a new foreign policy service, to do all the things that the EU wanted to do.

But then on top of that, there was this additional role in an area that was, of course, such an important, extremely crucial policy issue. And so you were a couple of years in at that was, of course, such an important, extremely crucial policy issue. And so you were a couple of years in at that stage, but when you came to the role, the reaction to your appointment was mixed. Is that fair to say? Very. OK, because you hadn't been elected or no foreign policy experience. Did that cause any doubt in your skills? For myself, I mean, anyone who sees that

a lot of people don't think it should be you. And I often say it's a bit like when you read a book and then you see the movie and the person in the movie playing the lead character doesn't look like the person you thought it was going to be. I know that feeling, yeah. That's how it felt, was that I wasn't what they were expecting. And there were plenty of foreign ministers around with oodles of experience who I think would have liked to have been invited to do the job. And there were plenty of others who felt, well, why her? And so you had this sort of combination,

plus inevitably a degree of anti-European feeling in the press here that translated into, well, who's this person? And why? Why is she doing this? There's lots and lots of stuff. And I took the view that it was really tough. But I was very conscious that if I felt I couldn't do it, I would simply stop doing it. I loved reading about the Iran nuclear deal. I've done it over the years as a news presenter, but I've always wanted to know what happens in those back room or behind closed doors. So this was my entry into it. Do you think when you were leading those talks that world leaders that you were dealing with, that have worked differently

or treated you differently because you were a woman? I don't think so. I wasn't aware of it. You know, it's quite interesting because I always maintain that the best team of diplomats to work in any negotiation is a mixed team, men and women. It's true in every walk of life, economic, political, whatever, because you get the benefit of lots of different experiences that mix together to give you the best possible team to get a good outcome. And of course, for the Iranians, there are a lot of highly educated women in Iran. They were used to dealing with highly educated women as they would see them. And therefore, having a woman in that position, I didn't feel was a disadvantage. And in terms of the politicians I was dealing with, no, I never got that real sense of, in those circumstances, that that was a problem. One thing I was learning from your book is the importance of seating plans or how to characterise a meeting.

But in chairing the negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme, you happily moved one time to make way for John Kerry, the US Secretary of State at the time, so he could sit next to the Iranian foreign minister because it made it a better photo opportunity. And I was just wondering, would all guys have done that as, I don't know, kind of happily or without ego? I don't know. I mean, for me, it was so obvious when the US said to me, look, we need this photograph out the way i was sitting beside them and i think i joke in the book that in the papers in britain i was chopped off and in america i'm still in them so what does that tell you um so it is you know you do what you need to do to make it work they would tell me i mean things like you know putting your feet flat on the floor sitting in a particular position people scrutinised the photos of exactly who sat where

and what they were doing in ways that you don't imagine until you start doing a job like that. Going back to those talks, so we're talking about 2013, we're talking about Geneva at this point, and you discovered that parallel talks, while you're trying to get six countries speaking to one another and coming to an agreement, that parallel talks had been going on between the US and Iran, behind your back, I suppose. How do you manage that? Is that frustrating or part of the job? I was delighted because, you see, the other five countries

had the ability to talk to Iran whenever they wanted to. They could go to Tehran, the Iranians could visit them. That was kind of traffic that was really important when you're building with a team to try and get serious negotiations. But the U.S., who were crucial, were not able to do that. The politics on both sides prevented it. So finding out, as I'd hoped they were doing, that they were actually sending some brilliant people to sit together in Oman and actually have some conversations was fantastic. The challenge, whenever you have a kind of backroom in the shadows set of talks, doesn't matter where they are, is bringing them into the light because you're trying to then, in this case, join the other five countries to these talks or join those talks to the other five,

who are not best pleased, of course, inevitably, and to make sense of it. So you end up with one set of talks going forward. And it's a big lesson in thinking about how when talks are inevitably very often going on quietly, you actually can bring them forward and get everybody up to speed at the same time. So interesting. It's excruciating. That's all I'm going to say. When you read about what you had to go through in the back and the forth and various texts and misinterpretations and hard feelings and resentment and touchiness. But I did wonder, how do you, as a person, take away the professional for a moment, how did you manage with the lack of sleep, the lack of food at times, you know, these overnight meetings that went on for days when, you know, when bring up children, you don't sleep, you don't eat, whatever. But more true is that you run on a level of adrenaline and you're very conscious of the weight of what you're doing.

There were moments when, plenty of moments, when you think, am I doing this right? Could somebody else do this better than me? You know, am I kind of working this in the right way and so on. So you are heavily aware of what falls to you. The great thing is that you're never on your own. Whatever anyone says about negotiations, there are plenty of brilliant people that you're working with all the time. And they're very often unsung heroes. It's partly why I wrote the book, is to celebrate diplomats and diplomacy. They're not in the front row of the picture. So the ones behind who will have been the real experts doing

the work. I'll come to the only woman in the room in just a moment. But how difficult then was it to see so much of what you negotiated, you know, and by no easy task, as we've heard over those years, to see it torn up in the case of the Iran nuclear deal by former US President Donald Trump. It was extremely difficult, I think, for everybody because it's a really good deal. Its purpose was to make everyone have confidence that Iran was not building a weapon and it wasn't. And we had all of the monitoring in place, all of the things that we needed to be confident that if they changed their minds and wanted to do it, which we didn't think at that time with that government that they would, then we'd have so much notice we'd be able to move on that. So it really did do that job. And it allowed for what was also important, which was to carry on

talking about other issues. Somehow, it all sort of stopped a bit, when actually there was a lot more to talk about, as people quite rightly would say to me, from regional issues to human rights to lots and lots of questions about Iran. And by ripping it up, you simply went back to square one. Now what we have is a much more dangerous situation than even the one we were dealing with then. And I know many are talking about that perhaps being the foreign policy issue of these years, be it this year or next year. But I do want to talk about Only Woman in the Room and this line that you had in the book, that the job of the first woman in any given role is to ensure there is a second. Expand on that.

So if you're the first woman, it's really difficult, of course. There's nothing to go on. You are sort of creating the role and everything from how you speak to what you wear to what you do is up for scrutiny and will be scrutinised. But you are in danger always of becoming the aberration. We've let a woman do the job, so now we'll go back to the norm, which is it should be a man. And for me, it's always been really important to make sure that maybe not the next one, but down the track, another woman takes that role and another woman after that.

And if you're the second, it's still an amazing achievement and we sort of don't celebrate that as much. But I do think it's really important that we recognise it's one of the things we have to try and do. Well, I am actually throwing that out

to our listeners today. Catherine Ashton, 84844. Have you been the first woman in a role, big or small? Did you bring that second woman along? I want to hear from you. At BBC Women's Hour is another way to get in touch. Catherine Ashton, Lady Ashton's book is called

And Then What? Inside Stories of the 21st Century Diplomacy. Thanks so much for coming in to visit us on Women's Hour. Thank you. Now, it's been an incredible year for women in sport and that's why the Women's Hour Power List is looking for 30 women across the UK who are making a significant contribution to sport. And we want your suggestions,

whether they're elite athletes, coaches or those sitting on boards or maybe women in your local community that are doing amazing things to promote being active. We want to know all about them. So you head to the Women's Hour website for more information and to make being active. We want to know all about them. So you head to the Woman's Hour website for more information

and to make your suggestions. I'm going to turn to the Princess of Wales. Did you see Kate Middleton has launched a campaign about early years development, which has been described as her life's work. Now, she launched the project

called Shaping Up alongside the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood. And as part of the campaign, a short video will be screened in cinemas later this week. Amanda Berry is the chief executive of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales Foundation and said that a recent survey showed a deficit in public awareness with less than one in five people understanding the unique importance of the first five years of our lives. Earlier, I spoke to Robin Walker, Conservative MP and chair of the Education Committee, which is holding the first session of its inquiry into support for childcare and early years this morning.

And I began by asking him whether that lack of awareness concerned him. Yes, it does. And I think this is something where awareness has been growing. And I think our understanding of what works in the early years has been growing. But there's very strong evidence now to show the value of the first thousand days and the first five years and the importance of development at that age. And it is really important, therefore,

that the government gets its policies right when it comes to investing in this area. Well, some have said that the Conservative Party, your party, have not announced anything meaningful about childcare policy. What are you planning to do? Well, our party have, of course, introduced the two-year-old offer,

the 30 hours rather than just 15 hours childcare for three and four-year-olds. So there have been a number of steps already taken. But I think what we want to do now is take a look at the whole piece and see about the coherence of the offer, see about how it looks and works for parents and also how we support the sector that is out there,

particularly the voluntary and independent sector that delivers the vast majority of childcare in this country, how we support that to grow and to invest in its staff. I think, as we discussed, the importance of the right approach in the early years is absolutely vital. And so from that perspective, making sure that they have good retention and CPD to support staff in that space is also really important. So what would you do? Because according to Ofsted, the number of providers, you talk about staff there, in England dropped by around 4,000 between March 2021 and March 2022. An Early Years Alliance survey of 2,000 early years providers in March found 30% were operating at a loss. 34% said they expected to be in 12 months time. And the Social Mobility Commission, this is from 2020, showed that one

in eight nursery workers earned less than £5 an hour. I mean, you need something quite radical to turn that around. Well, you do, but you also, I mean, I think you have to recognise this is a sector that traditionally has had a lot of people working on or close to the minimum wage. That has increased very substantially and that has created some competitive pressures for a sector. But it's also a good thing if it means that people are being paid more and paid to be retained. So what we need to do is we need to look at how the government support works. Look at how parents can make their contribution alongside that. Look at things which on paper look very good, such as the tax-free childcare policy,

but in practice don't seem to be working as well as they should, don't have the take-up or the engagement that the Treasury perhaps expected from them, and try and make those work more effectively. But I think we do also need to look at the questions about funding, take evidence from the experts in terms of what is needed to make this sector sustainable and grow. And there's a number of people out there, whether it's the industry bodies or whether it's the think tanks, who've already come up with suggestions on that front. Things like looking at the fact that nurseries pay business rates, whereas other

education institutions don't. I think all of this should be on the remit for the Select Committee to look into. And I'm looking forward to taking evidence from the experts so that we can make strong recommendations for government on the way forward. But when it comes to funding, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the IFS, they say that the prices faced by those earlier providers had increased more quickly than those faced by households or the economy even as a whole. And you kind of allude to that. But with expected inflation, it was actually set to undo any recent gains in funding. So is there anything concrete that the government is prepared to propose

on how it would turn that around or indeed help some of those providers? Well, I think what we've seen over the last 10 years, the government has raised the investment in the early years above the rate of inflation consistently. And actually, we've seen that with the IFS have confirmed that. When I asked the Prime Minister for liaison committee, did he expect that above inflation investment in the early years to continue? He was very clear that he did. And the reason that he did is because he sees education as a silver bullet.

I think the key question for us as a committee is how do you achieve that? How do you make sure that the money that is being invested in this area is being well spent? And also when it comes to the tax free childcare, some of the money being set aside currently isn't getting spent. It's a real concern that half the parents who open an account for tax free childcare never actually use it. So we need to make sure that these things work more effectively. We also need to look at the whole piece and work out what is the best approach to supporting the sector, which is doing such vital work in stimulating early development in children.

Labour are pledging to guarantee childcare for all parents of children aged nine months to 11 years. Is that something your party should adopt? Well, I'd certainly like to see, and of course, there is the tax-free offer does extend over that range. But I think it's important that we look across the whole piece, and particularly at that under three, under two age bracket, where traditionally there hasn't been as much investment from the government. Clearly, the government has announced its programme of family hubs, and they can play a role in this in supporting those younger age groups. But I think what we do want to see is the investment consistent with the

understanding of the enormous value of the early years. And I think as a former schools minister, I have to say, this is something I feel very strongly about, because I heard from so many schools that were concerned about more pupils arriving who weren't ready to engage with school and pupils arriving at a lower standard than perhaps they had in the past. I think with the pandemic, that's going to be an even greater problem. And actually investment and support for the early years in childcare is a really vital part of the solution to that problem. Have former Prime Minister Liz Truss's reforms been completely ditched. She proposed to relax teacher-child ratios, which comes up again and again, particularly with those younger years,

as you speak about, and also increase the 30 hours free entitlement. I don't know, and I'm looking forward to hearing from the government in terms of what proposals they are working on. Clearly, there was a consultation on the childcare ratios, particularly for the under threes. And I think from what I've seen of the response to that consultation in terms of the engagement I've had with industry bodies and with parents, there's a huge degree of scepticism that that is the way forward. I think what we need to make sure is that we are bringing parents with us in any reforms in this space. And I think there will be a huge burden of trying to win over parents to any

change in the ratios at that phase. I think there are probably other reforms which are simpler and more straightforward to deliver, which could bring more benefit, like more investment in the sector in general, like making the offers simpler and easier to understand, like avoiding the need for upfront payments on the tax-free childcare or the universal credit childcare offers. I think all of those things are levers which it's probably easier to pull and more straightforward for government to pull, which would mean that existing money went further. But I do think as part of this, we do need to look at the under twos

because the offers which have been built up over the last 15 years, we've seen the three- and four-year-old offer, which is very, very popular amongst working parents, the two-year-old offer, which is targeted towards deprivation. But at the moment, there really isn't anything other than the tax free childcare for people under the age of two. And that is where a lot of the benefit of early years will come. So I do think that's something for the government to consider. And it's certainly something that we'll be looking at as a select committee and taking evidence on. We did see today that the UK is expected to be the only major advanced economy to shrink in 2023. That was according to the IMF. But it's also one of the top three most expensive countries within the OECD for childcare. How do you understand it? We've done a piece of research on this, which suggests that while for three and four year olds, we invest comparable amounts in the childcare,

we invest significantly less for the age groups under three than other countries from the state side of things. And that is a concern. I think that's one of the reasons why parents are finding childcare so expensive. I think that's definitely why we need to take a long, hard look at the policy in this area and make recommendations. But the Treasury will point out that they've increased the funding very significantly for the early years. That has been above inflation. I think our concern as a select committee is that it's still too unaffordable for many parents. And as you said at the beginning of the piece, there's not sufficient awareness, really, of the value of strong early years activities for children. That's something we need to continue to work on and put pressure on. Make sure that the profession that works in

this sector is held in the right esteem. And that also means investment to support both retention of staff and training and CPD. That was Robin Walker, Conservative MP and Chair of the Education Committee. A conversation we're going to continue about childcare here on Woman's Hour over the coming weeks and months. Now, what comes to mind when you think of the word hag? Maybe you heard our discussion yesterday about hag horror,

hag-sploitation, quite like that word, and also how actresses were pigeonholed into playing these grotesque roles as they got older. Well, the comedian Sophie Duker is on a mission to reclaim that term in her new UK stand-up tour of the same name.

You might recognise Sophie from many appearances, whether it's live at the Apollo, 8 Out of 10 Cats, she does Countdown, The Last Leg, and is the latest champion of Channel 4's Taskmaster. Try and get that out. Sophie, welcome. Hello. Good morning get that out. Sophie, welcome. Hello. Good morning.

Good morning. Why did you name the show Hag? I feel like when you, bear with me, when you turn 30, you stop being in your princess era and you enter your villain era. Like the world changes around you. The way that people act toward you changes. You're not a dewy-eyed debutante. You're like living that spinster life. You're past it. You're too old to be a viable

girlfriend for Leonardo DiCaprio. And I think that kind of like framing of the villain era of being left on the shelf is actually like the beginning of the best part of your life is something that I really wanted to speak about in the show. It's so interesting. This conversation we were having yesterday was like women were middle-aged in Hollywood in the 60s when they hit 30 or mid-30s. And it's so interesting that you're reclaiming that now in the year 2023.

But the princess myth, tell me more about that, how you understand it or what that part of life is that you're leaving behind. I think for me, it is very much a phrase I made up, but I really hope it gets coined and used in academic literature at the back of this interview. I feel like it's sort of a myth which is sold to lots of different types of people, lots of different communities, and especially women,

that if you're good and polite and you work hard and you wait, crucially, that things will happen for you so you wait for your partner to find you or for your life to turn out the right way and you end up being kind of very passive and compliant a lot of your life uh doing the things that other people have done before you but not really asserting the things about you that make you unique or different and no shade to any existing or listening princesses. But I think that kind of getting away from that and being, how can I be Maleficent? How can I curse the baby at the wedding?

Or just kind of enact that change in my own life is something that you only really start to comprehend how to do when you get a little bit older. What was it? Was there any particular point that you found yourself evolving away from the princess to the hag? I think it's just the relentless passage of time. I don't think it's necessarily a voluntary thing,

but I think what's amazing is that a lot of women, while it's still really sad that my friends who are still in their 20s do have this kind of inexplicable fear about getting older or a sort of distaste for disclosing their real age and talking about how old they are. One of my Emma shout out about to turn 30 was like I'm not scared to turn 30 at all I feel like the fears are myth that they tell women to break them in their prime and I think that's absolutely right like every sort of insecurity we have about being too old or past it um it's just it's just holding us back i read an advice column from a woman who said that she'd

wasted her life uh that the uh that shantay jay shared and it said i've wasted my whole life and the woman was 35 wow do you think people still lie about their age i mean i'm talking about people in your generation yeah definitely i definitely think people but I think it's more a sense of like people don't want to bring it up because I think there's more of a sense now of how you're marketable within a certain bracket right and for me I think uh because I do a lot of comedy panel shows with very lovely occasionally crusty old white men a lot of people would remark on how young I was which is also a bit coded when you're like uh a melanated woman like people would always on how young I was, which is also a bit coded when you're like a melanated woman. Like people would always be like, oh, you young people, you young person. And I was like,

I am an adult. I am grown and sexy. And I'm also not going to be able to cling to you for my whole life. That can't be something that I allow to define me just because it's the apple that people are willing to give to me. Let's talk about hag. You talk about being Hansel and Gretel. What does that mean? Hansel and Gretel. Okay, it's basically a great parenting scheme where you sort of tell your kids like any sort of like, there's basically a ruse. It's like a surprise birthday party, but it's just to get your kids to go somewhere that they might not necessarily want to go. So when I was very young, my parents Hansel and Gretel to me and took me to live with my grandmother, the OG hag in Ghana. So I think I got told I was going to Disneyland. That might be a comedic embellishment.

But, yeah, sort of got lured into a place of discovery. Let's talk about grandma. What was she like? She was amazing so my grandmother and I think a lot of people have whether or not they're directly related to them really strong matriarchal figures that we do not see in popular culture in fiction but just women who I think sort of explode the another myth that femininity is somehow like or like the virtues associated with femininity are like a necessary part of womanhood because my grandmother was like a hustler she was like I call her like Don Corleone in the show she was like an original gangster granny and she was so

loving so powerful and just is someone that kind of draws everyone in by their orbit and for me was always old like I was like single digits she was in her 70s when I met her um she's now passed but I think there's a sort of fear of the hag there's a sort of like older women being shut away or being distrusted or not included in conversations when they're really like the richest resource that we have and the best templates for how to be full people so you talk about her, I believe she wore a fedora. Have I got that right? She wore a fedora.

Like her walking stint was like a pimp cane. She had like so much style. There's that poem about when I am old, I shall wear purple. Yes. And I mean, we don't need to wait until, I think there are so many women, so many people that prove that 70 is not old 80 is not old you don't need to wait to get to a sort of um unres uh uh unrespectable age in order

to act out I think that just being a stylish fabulous woman that gets things done is something that my grandmother really showed me how to do but my little my little princess brain couldn't even compute it at the time but now it's there it's hag brain instead you did come out to your family via one of your comedy shows can you tell me about that yes I'm probably coming out to more of my family as I speak okay um so I came out to my mother via a comedy show I think the main reason I did that was because I knew I would be able to speak for at least an hour and she wouldn't be able to interrupt but also because I think there's a certain amount of like performance with everyone whether you're a comedian or an actress or not

in terms of especially when you're feeling younger or less sure about something in terms of being the person you want to be like I've got this job I'm going to act like the woman I saw or the person I saw doing this job and I was like I'm going to act as if I'm completely confident and okay with everything and my mum's going to be in the room so I invited her to a show in which I talked a lot about quite um I guess not very like entry-level queer topics I talked about lesbian pornography, which is a whole, a whole wonderful world of many, many problematic things. And I talked about relationships that I'd had and she sort of sat there for all of it and just absorbed my words.

And afterwards? So full disclosure, she didn fully uh understand because she didn't know what the word pansexual meant so she had to look it up on a podcast but afterwards it was just a great response really like I'd so scared I was really scared actually because culturally and generation generationally you feel like queerness or your queerness is not something that your elders are necessarily going to understand but I think that when there's like a foundation of love and willingness no matter how long it takes to get to the place where you're comfortable with I think

that coming out will always be the start of that journey and pansexual so people don't have to look at an attraction and attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity. That be fair? Yeah, anyone basically who isn't a Tory. I will leave that out there. But I want to turn to something. I was just curious. Sophie, we had Emily Atack on

at the beginning of the show and she was so candid and open about the abuse that she receives online you have a large online presence um have you had any experience of that oh yes definitely I don't think it's possible to be a woman on the internet and experience that um I yeah I have had I don't yeah I've had the um sort of uh the dick pics in the post I've had uh kind of like racially motivated insults and stuff i've had like men feeling like you were mentioning that they have some sort of pre-established contract with me yes or relationship with me some entitlement to my time um i think it's sadly

that a universal experience for women who are in any way visible that they will be approached or solicited or harassed in some way if they have an online presence. I'm sorry to hear that. Just in our last minute or so, you've been in the business for over a decade. I was listing all the things you've done, but you've only recently, I think maybe since the pandemic, started calling yourself a comedian uh why I think so yeah uh since the pandemic in which I did very well I was like a cockroach I thrived in the apocalypse I think it's sort of in the timing of the pandemic entering my 30s um becoming more visible and successful in my career I think it's it's sort of and in some of the stuff you're talking about about making it easier for the second person or the next person to fill the role same role that you did I think that you do marginalize minoritized other women a disservice if you don't accept who you are if you don't proclaim who you are and talk about the things that are undeniable and that you've worked

so hard to achieve like we're all trying we've all got imposter syndrome unfortunately or a lot of us do but I think it becomes sort of disingenuous to not be open say about your pay or your struggles or the fact that you do work and live as a comedian which also I maybe didn't talk about because it's not as glamorous as being like a rock star or a politician. Oh, I don't know. It's so good to have you on, Sophie Duker. You can see Hag on tour around the UK until the 29th of April. Wonderful to have you on for all your thoughts, both on being a hag and reclaiming that word, which I really, really like. I just want to end quickly with some comments coming in. Somebody saying, I'm so sorry,

talking about Emily Atack, to hear the level of abuse she has had to endure every day. It's not OK. And as a man, I feel so disappointed in the level we have sunk to in general. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

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