Woman's Hour - Emma-Jean Thackray, Dr Pamela Warner, Charlotte Edwards and Niki Adams, Judith Heumann

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

Anita Rani talks to Emma-Jean Thackray about her debut album Yellow, which has debuted at number one on the Jazz & Blues Chart. Will the young women smashing it at the Olympics in the new urban sports of BMX freestyling, Skateboarding and Sport Climbing inspire a new generation of girls to follow in their footsteps? We talk to skateboarder Hannah Shrewsbury and BMX freestyler Kayley Ashworth.Cricket legend Baroness Rachel Heyhoe-Flint is to be honoured with a gate named in her memory at Lords and we hear reaction from her son Ben Heyhoe-Flint. A drug that has been used to treat critically ill patients suffering from Covid may also help women who struggle with heavy periods. A small trial, in development long before the pandemic, has found that the steroid Dexamethasone, a cheap anti-inflammatory drug, could help reduce heavy menstrual bleeding. We hear from Dr Pamela Warner, the lead author of the research.Sex worker Charlotte Edwards explains how she applied via her bank for the government’s Bounce Back Loan, which is available to small business and the self-employed but she was initially declined due to her occupation. The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation, although profession is not currently a ‘protected characteristic’. We explore the implications of financial exclusion for sex workers with Charlotte and to Niki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes.And we hear from the American disability rights activist Judith Heumann. Paralysed from polio at eighteen months, she has campaigned tirelessly for decades in the Disability Rights Movement, both at home and abroad. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineer: Gayl GordonPhotograph by Joe Magowan

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. Now we've made it to another Friday and Sky Brown, the 13-year-old bronze medal winning skateboarder, has already inspired the nation with her kickflips, ollies, nollies, flip tricks and shove-its. You all know what I'm talking about. But now she's made a statement that we at Woman's Hour HQ fully endorse. You just get out there, you know, you can't let all the boys have all the fun. You got to go and enjoy the time and, I mean, enjoy life and try new things.

Try new things, enjoy life. We'd love to hear about how you have made sure it's not just the boys having fun were you told you were a tomboy when you were young what an archaic and redundant phrase that seems like now were you out playing street cricket with milk crates as wickets were you scoring goals playing football with the lads or out on your bike until sunset with the voice of your mother shouting at you to get home for your tea in the distance and how different is it for your daughters and granddaughters are they out on their skateboards are they break dancing beatboxing djing bmx biking whatever's going on tell us we would love to hear how you made sure that it wasn't just the lads having a good time text us on 84844

text will be charged at your standard message rate. You can, of course, contact us via social media. It's at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website. Also on today's programme, have you seen the brilliant documentary

Crip Camp on Netflix? Well, that's my top TV recommendation for you this weekend. If you have, you will know all about a US disability rights activist, Judy Heumann, who will be telling us

about her remarkable life fighting for disability rights activist, Judy Heumann, who will be telling us about her remarkable life fighting for disability rights in her native US and across the world. We'll also be finding out about a drug used for COVID which may be able to help with heavy menstrual bleeding. We'll be talking to a sex worker who's challenging her bank for refusing her a bounce-back loan because of her profession. And then, as it's Friday, I'm going to take you on a musical trip. Oh, happy days. Well, I'm not taking you on a musical trip. Emma Jean Thackeray

will be. If you don't know her name, you will by the end of'm not taking you on a musical trip. Emma-Jean Thackeray will be. If you don't know her name, you will by the end of the programme. She's a trumpeter, a bandleader, a singer, a multi-instrumentalist, jazz queen, in my humble opinion. So lots to get through. First, you'll have seen some of the young girls smashing it at the Olympics in Tokyo in skateboarding, BMX, freestyling, sport climbing and surfing. Well, these sports have all been added in recent years as part of a drive to make the Games more inclusive,

with the International Olympic Committee President Tom Bach wanting them to be more gender balanced, more youthful and more urban. Well, it's certainly done that. I'm delighted to say I'm joined by Kayleigh Ashley, BMX freestyler, and Hannah Shrewsbury, a skateboarder from Nottingham, to celebrate what's going on. Let's start with you, Hannah, as a fellow skateboarder. Are you loving what Sky Brown had to say yesterday? I really, really do.

I think she's so inspirational at such a young age. It's actually insane to see. I know, so young, so absolutely young. But she started at such a young age. How significant is her win and the achievement of the other girls and the women's skateboarders? As a whole, I think it's just eye-opening to people that don't skate necessarily or don't take part in these sports.

I think the Olympics is going to open up a whole new world of skate spots for us because a lot of the time we get kicked off because it's illegal to skate on certain areas. Police will come and boot us away, but now it's more like accepted, sort of. Yeah, she legitimised it. Yeah, exactly. And for girls, it can be intimidating enough going to skate a spot on your own, let alone having that second thinking like, oh, am I going to get kicked off by police or security?

So it just, it makes things a lot easier for us, I think, as women and skaters. And what got you into it? How did you start? My boyfriend, funnily enough. So I, when I started skating, there was like a few girls skating in Nottingham, but there wasn't like many at all.

And then we went to a girls' night at Fleur Loewe Local Skate Park, big upland then they do like female only non non-male identifying skate nights um and i met all my friends that skate through that and then since then it's just blown up through lockdown it was insane going to all the outside parks and stuff seeing all the girls i coach at flow as well so seeing the children just it's insane there's more girls than boys skating at those beginner lessons and i think watching sky brown is going to have a huge impact and what does that do going to a skate park where they do girls

only events is does that just make it feel safer is it more encouraging is it just easier to skate without the boys all of the above really it's not necessarily like um a skill separation it's definitely it's gendered separation so there's still going to be different people with different abilities skating which is amazing to see from whatever skill you're at at whatever level you're at for example but it just makes it such a vibe like the they have the playlist on that we love. Like it's all girls just helping each other. Like it's just, imagine like a big sleepover,

but no sleepover and you're all skateboarding. Sounds brilliant. I'm going to bring Kayleigh in. I'm sure she'll fully approve of all of this. Kayleigh, you're a freestyle BMXer, different sport to Sky Brown. How much do you agree with her about not letting the boys have all the fun?

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly that this sport is not just for boys. I've been riding this bike now for so long. It helps in many ways, including my physical and mental well-being. You know, you go out there, have a cycle, get the wind through your hair and then find yourself at a skate park and you're faced with all these different obstacles, different sizes, different shapes. And you make that commitment to go down into the ramp and do the trick no matter what peer pressure is around you you still have to make that move yourself and you prove to yourself that you're capable of this and it is so much fun once you've done it you get such

a rush and it is so highly skilled and we we saw the likes of Charlotte Worthington, who won gold. She pulled off a 360 backflip. Oh, isn't that incredible? Amazing. The first ever landed by a female rider in a BMX competition. How exciting was it to see an achievement like that? Well, I woke the entire street up. I screamed so loud because she did crash on the first one.

So we were a little bit hesitant as to whether she was going to commit to the next. You know, we all saw her head hit the ramp as she rolled down there. Injuries do come as part of this sport. But as you know, the commitment was in there and she sent it and she nailed it. And off we went. I was screaming and the run was just complete and she kept going with a front flip. Oh, my mind was blown. I think that it's just, you know, it's just remarkable watching the Olympics anyway,

but there is just something spectacular when you see people doing these incredible tricks and landing them so brilliantly. And Kelly, there's also Bethany Shriver who won gold medal as a BMX racer last week. Different to you, different discipline. But Bethany had to crowdfund her Olympic bid whilst also working as a teaching assistant in a nursery.

Do you think her success will mean that women in BMXing will now get more funding? Well, I hope it is a very good reason as to why they should reconsider the amount of funding that the cycling sport has received so far and skateboarding and surfing and climbing, because there is a strong female participant across the board so if we had a little bit more then maybe we wouldn't be teaching assistants i have three jobs at the moment i'm a cleaner i work within the nhs and i work within the school so in order to make things a reality you do have to take this on board yourself but it only shows the commitment that we already have so if we were to be given some more funding this sport is only going to grow and it's

going to grow at such an exponential rate because we have these huge competitive levels now and this was never a thing before. Hannah you're nodding away there I'm going to bring you in. Yeah definitely I mean it's specifically obviously skateboarding but women in competitions hasn't been a thing for long like a long time I know that I've not seen competitive skating at a big level for women for a long, long time. Hopefully I'll get to the stage where it's just not based on gender. It's just based on how amazing you are.

But that's going to come when more people keep trying it and getting better and better. I think BMXing, I know a lot of BMXers. I don't really know about like freestyle and stuff. That's sick. But I know they get no funding. If you get a sponsorship in riding aers. I don't really know about, like, freestyle and stuff. That's sick. But I know they get no funding. If you get a sponsorship in riding a bike, I don't think you can get paid cash.

I think you only can get paid in sponsorship. As far as I'm aware, I don't know about anyone who's paid big leagues in cash. So I just think it's really sad. Like you say, you're having to work three jobs and continue trying to do this hobby that takes up a lot of your time, your energy. And, yeah, I think it's just something that's overlooked massively well hopefully now seeing all these amazing women

performing at the Olympics is going to change that somewhat um how did how did you get into it uh Kayleigh oh I was quite the hyperactive child um my dad put me through every single sport and every musical instrument that he could get his hands on to get me to play. BMX freestyle was one of those where there were no rules. I didn't have to go to a club every day. I could go to the skate park when I wanted to. Now I first went to a skate park, funnily enough, on a skateboard and it didn't go to plan. I opened my chin after trying to drop into the ramp. So I decided maybe a BMX was best for me so I just attended the skate park and get going my dad got me a BMX from eBay a grand total of 17 pounds so I'm sure there's still smelt there now with a bit of Facebook marketplace hunting to get your first

BMX so it doesn't have to be expensive but it will be eventually so you know get your pad in at the right time get your helmets on at the right time. That is not something that you don't want to purchase for the sake of it. You know, your helmet is really important. Well, Thomas Bach, who is the IOC president, has said that he wants the Olympics to be more gender balanced, more youthful and more urban. I guess he's saying he wants to democratise it a little bit. And what you're talking about, being cheap to get into, makes it easier for people to start.

Do you think that's why these are popular sports at the moment? Because, you know, it's not that expensive to get on a skateboard or to buy a second-hand BMX and just get cycling or skating on your street. Yeah, 100%. There's also the sport of scootering, which, you know, Charlotte actually started on first and is much more portable and smaller than a BMX. And all the skills are transferable. Now, skateboard is also just as small. You can get it in the boot of the car and leave it in there if need be. But it's a good source of entertainment.

You know, you only need a curb. You just need a bit of flat tarmac. You don't need the skate park to begin with. That's always just something that you progress on to. Scootering. Every three-year-old in Britain seems to be on their scooters these days they're starting Hannah do you think um why do you think these new urban sports are particularly good for women I think that obviously the mental side was touched on earlier and the physical side that's just a given there's been reports done about skating specifically a mental health and the physical side that's just a given there's been reports done about skating specifically in mental health and the benefits of it but it's cool isn't it like if you see someone riding by on a bike or a skateboard and you're like that's a girl doing that she looks wicked I'm not going to blow my own trumpet because sometimes I fall off and look not so wicked but like it's just it's freeing it's something that is stereotypically boys and so you're just like well why can't i do

it i'm gonna do it yeah i have to say it's a lot of where we coach there's a lot of kids that are from disadvantaged backgrounds um or like not got as much cash so we give boards away if they've been used like we'll just leave boards at skate parks for kids if needed like it's just it's one of those things that like we will try the communities will try and help wherever you can and we want to like we want to involve as many women as we can in this take over the boys so I'm fully with you like take over from the boys I love it um thank you you're you're right it is totally cool and I've secretly wished I was a skateboarder my entire life and I do cheer the little seven-year-olds skating past my house

when I see a girl on a skateboard. Hannah and Kayleigh, it's been brilliant to speak to you both. Loads of your messages coming in via text 84844. Girls, safe, only space has been a fantastic benefit to my girls to have great fun

and get stronger and able to get out in confidence. Someone else says, as a 53-year-old mum of nine-year-old daughter here, I grew up jumping in streams, den making in forests, making rope swings and jumping in mud and making sure my daughter knows these things are for her too.

And we have just taken up surfing. That's Katie in South Wales. Linda says, my gorgeous granddaughter, age six, enjoyed playing football until two male classmates told her that girls don't play football. I sent her a cutting about a football match against the USA

and that the Lionesses won 6-1 and told her that as well as being mean, those boys were rather silly because they clearly didn't know as much about football as they thought. Keep your thoughts coming in. And sticking with women who definitely didn't let the boys have all the fun, Baroness Rachel Hayhoe Flint is to be honoured for her role as a cricket pioneer with a gate named after her at Lords. The former captain of the England women's team sadly passed away in 2017. Rachel made her debut for England in 1960 and became captain in 1966 when she scored her first test match century against New Zealand. She helped to set up the Women's World Cup in 1973

and led England to victory in the tournament. Well, Rachel campaigned for women to become members of the MCC, Marlborough Cricket Club, and was among the first to be admitted in 1999, joining the club's committee in 2004. Here's a clip of her speaking to the International Cricket Council about how she had seen the game change over the years.

And I hate this phrase when I first played it sounds as though going back to the dark ages well it was last century but the fact that they are it is their job now whereas we would play say you know our one day international here at Lord's rush back home that evening back into work the next day whether whether it was teaching, secretarial, working in hospitals, and then, oops, we've got another international match starting next Thursday. No time for training or preparation or personal development as a player is concerned.

So everything is good for women's cricket now. Well, we're joined by Rachel's son, Ben Hayhoe-Flint. Good morning, Ben. Well, there's your mum basically reiterating exactly what we've just been talking about. I've been sitting here hearing her words, basically, but coming through other people. You know, when she was a youngster, she was saying exactly the same things as Sky Brown. She was stopped for playing cricket in the streets by a policeman saying, girls don't play cricket. You know, he probably wasn't that posh in Wolverhampton. But yeah, I mean, it's amazing

that, you know, that's 40, 50 years ago. And obviously, cricket was so overpowered by the men back in the day. I don't know what it's like for skateboarding or scootering or whatever, but amazing parallels. Amazing. And how are you feeling today? And how do you think your mum, Rachel, would have reacted to this gate? Well, I mean, obviously, it's amazing. As I cornelly said to someone the other day, we're bowled over as a family. And, you know, for mum, I think she'd have almost mixed emotions about it. She was a, you know, a very humble person, deep down. Of course, she was incredibly driven to want fairness and equality for women's cricket to be able to be on the same sort of playing field as the men's game. So, you know,

she would have been incredibly honoured, but at the same time going, oh, are you sure you're going to do, you want to do a gate, really? Why don't we just do a little shrubbery or something you know that would be nice um so yeah very self-effacing and what do you remember of her like you know she's saying that she didn't have time to really go and train and that she's going to work and then coming home and obviously looking after you growing up and what do you remember of her and her cricket fame I mean she was um um a little firefly. That was her nickname in the Girl Scouts. Always buzzing off to do something here, there and everywhere.

I don't know when she slept, actually, you know, looking back at it, because she's absolutely right. You know, she would go off to play a cricket match or, you know, she was England's hockey goalkeeper for a while as well. So embarrassingly talented. And then come back and cremate the dinner and then try and put me to bed. She was a terrible cook. And admittedly as well. And then, you know, file a report for the Telegraph or the Times, you know, somewhere in between all of this. And then she'll be, you know,

writing campaigning letters to try and raise sponsorship again going back to well what Hannah and team were saying earlier um it was it was a full tilt job to try and uh bring the women's game into the spotlight and um you know get it get it the justice it deserved yeah what an absolute legend and we'll allow her being a terrible cook she had a lot of other things going on now there's been a bit of pushback some male members of the MCC have been opposing the gates. What would you say to them? I think, happily, it's a very small minority that are against the idea. I really think that those guys are dinosaurs living in the past. I don't know where they've been for the past few years and seeing this kind of this tide of equality when it comes to any sport, let alone cricket.

So, you know, I think they are the media not blaming yourselves. But, you know, I think someone went looking for the opposing arguments, all of this. And happily, you know, the vote was passed unanimously eventually. So, you know, Claire Connor at the MCC, you know, started to champion the idea. And, you know, she admitted to me that she was mildly surprised that it was unanimous. But I think common sense prevailed here and those negative opinions will soon be pushed into a quiet corner. Absolutely. And we will keep pushing them into that quiet corner. Ben, thank you very much for joining us. 84844 is the number to text. Stephanie in Glossop in

Derbyshire says, I was a tomboy in the 70s and my brother was devastated when the local boys came knocking on the door at our home to call me out to play cricket and football because they were losing and needed his sister to play. I loved it and continue to love sports. Now, sex worker Charlotte Edwards applied via her bank for the government's bounce back loan after being unable to work due to the pandemic.

She says she was eligible as it was available to small businesses and the self-employed. But despite meeting criteria, they initially declined due to her occupation. While the Equality Act of 2010 protects people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation, profession is not currently a protected characteristic. So what are the implications of financial exclusion for sex workers? Well, I'm joined by Charlotte and by Nikki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes. Morning and welcome to Women's Hour, both of you. Charlotte, let's begin with you. So you applied for this bounce back loan after being

unable to work. Why did you feel entitled to it? And what was the response that you got? Hi, good morning. Thanks so much for having me on Women's Hour. So actually, yeah, it's a good question. Of course I'm entitled to it because I am a taxpayer and I am a self-employed person. So I am eligible. But this is down to a morality issue. Banks do not want to offer uh financial services to sex workers um despite your legal occupation um and you know that's that's not fair so i'm a what you would call an out sex worker so i have no problem with speaking about this publicly um to my friends to

my family and also you know directly to Santander and questioning as to why they felt it necessary, well why they felt they could decline the application. But whereas a lot of other people aren't as public as I am and so I don't know if Santander has ever been challenged before about not offering sex workers financial products products so how did you go about getting help for your case what did you do um yeah so i contacted the government the appg which is the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking i'm a member of a union i reached out to sex work organizations so i really did make um quite quite a bit of a storm um and it's

interesting actually because Santander initially did not want to overturn their decline decision and it was only until I pointed out that what they were doing was against the law because although at the moment occupation isn't a protected characteristic of the Equality Act. Actually, gender is, and the majority of sex workers are female. And so we are protected under the Equality Act because the majority of sex workers are female. And so when I pointed that out to Santander, that is when they decided to offer me the bounce-back loan. And what is even more important about this bounce-back loan

is that it's government-funded. So was government funding um to help throughout the pandemic um and actually it took six months for Santander to offer me the loan from the date of application up until um the offer so how were you supporting yourself in that time um so there were other financial benefits available from the government which were in a way of self-employment grants um so these this this grant worked similar to um what is it called the employment where you're the government the government have paid for people's employment furlough scheme that makes sense um so i was eligible for those you get those through the hmrc so those were available and also um yeah universal credit um i'm going to bring in uh

nikki here from the english collective of prostitutes nikki how common is this and charlotte's just said that she doesn't know what's happening with other sex workers well what are you hearing from other sex workers about yeah I mean in fact it's it is actually very common I mean we were really glad that Charlotte brought this case it took a lot of courage I mean to be public like that because the implications can actually be quite far ranging of being public as a sex worker so it was great she brought the case we were really glad to support her and at the time Charlotte got in touch with us, I think there was probably about five other women that were currently fighting similar

and closely related issues. For example, the most common thing is that your bank account just gets closed without any reason. There's no way of appealing. And the justification is very similar to what they said in Charlotte's case, which is that the sex work is associated with gambling and isn't a kind of industry that the

bank supports, which is really outrageous and a really massive misrepresentation, considering that most sex workers are mothers or women working in other ways to support themselves and their families and how it can possibly help. The other justification, actually, in one of the cases is that it was to protect victims, including victims of trafficking. And that is also... Well, I'll read the statement out because we have got a statement from Santander

and I'll let you respond to what they've had to say. They've said, Santander's sensitive sectors policy currently states that we will not offer banking services to businesses operating in a number of different sectors including the adult entertainment industry this section of the policy is designed to protect some of the most vulnerable citizens from risk of abuse including human trafficking departures from the policy are assessed on a case-by-case basis and can be approved when the bank is comfortable that such a departure would not pose harm to that

prospective customer the sensitive sectors policy is in line with the bank's approach to risk and has been compiled following due consideration of the bank's regulatory and statutory obligations, including the requirements of the Equality Act 2010. Isn't what the banks are doing just legitimate scrutiny? They've got strict regulations surrounding money laundering and illegal earnings. Not really.

Sorry, Charlotte, but they don't even give you any warning. They don't look into it. They target migrant women in particular who are in many other areas are falsely labelled as victims of trafficking, regardless of what you say about your own situation. And if they were genuinely concerned about victims, how does it help anyone to cut somebody off from their source of income and to put you outside of a really important service that so many people

depend on in an increasingly cashless society so it's really a scam and it's really as Charlotte actually proved it's really a moralistic and discriminatory judgment that is completely overriding what women say about their own situation. Go on, Charlotte, you wanted to jump in. Yeah, so actually, the idea that you can avoid trafficking by not providing banking services to a specific sector is not based in evidence. And this suggests major concerns about Santander's internal understanding of how trafficking occurs. So the governing process that are in place are the statistics from the national referral mechanism. This is like the UK's framework for identifying the victims of

trafficking actually show that there are more victims in mainstream labour sectors than there are in the sex sector. So this means like farming, construction, cleaning, and there's been good work done by various different um experts and institutions on how banks can identify and wean out the trafficking proceeds um and this is on the financial uh what's it called the analysis tool that's advocated by the finance um and slavery trafficking blueprint and within that blueprint it does not recommend that wholesale exclusion of a labour sector um would benefit um any trafficking victims so basically even if there are trafficking victims do not take away banking facilities because it will leave them in a worse position well Charlotte you obviously know your stuff you've battled them you've got what you wanted you got your loan um

and what next do you want to change the law on this issue and are you getting much support yeah we are getting a lot of support the problem with the law is that um there are many ways that this can be changed however um this is down to the Lord so we are campaigning at the moment to end occupation-based discrimination by UK banks and to guarantee that sex workers have fair access to financial services. This is a campaign that's on Twitter, Instagram. We are liaising with the Liberal Democrats who are in full support of decriminalisation for sex work, which is our main aim. Sorry, Charlotte, just because, Nikki, how brave is Charlotte being? Because, of course, sex workers don't always declare that they're a sex And it actually facilitates this kind of misrepresentation and discrimination.

Because if women, as Charlotte says, most sex workers are women, if we were able to speak out about our situation and stand up for our rights, and people are trying very hard, but even doing it more publicly, it would actually dismantle a lot of the kind of discrimination that we're describing. And we really do are entitled to worker status. It's not because we want to enter an ideological debate about whether sex work is work or like other work or not. The fact is, is that thousands and thousands of women in the country are earning their income this way. And if we had worker status decriminalisation, we would be able to get the

same kind of protections and rights as other workers. Nikki and Charlotte, thank you very much for joining me this morning. Now, Judith Heumann is an American disability rights activist who has campaigned tirelessly for decades in the disability rights movement, both at home in the US and abroad. There's now a book about her life, Being Human, the unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist, soon to be turned into a movie. And Judy also features in the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp and has her own podcast, The Human Perspective. Well, Judy was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York.

She was paralysed from polio at 18 months and her parents were advised to place her in an institution. Why, I asked Judy, did they refuse? I think, you know, my parents were German Jewish and my mother had been sent out of Germany when she was 12. My father, when he was 14, they lost their parents and many other relatives. And I believe that the adversity that they had faced and some of the situations that had been going on in Nazi Germany with the murdering of disabled children first made them just look at me as their oldest daughter. And they were always committed to, you know, raising me

like my brothers and were became very fierce advocates. It's not the way they were, you know, raising me like my brothers and were, became very fierce advocates. It's not the way they were, you know, when they first came over. You know, very first experience of any real magnitude was when my mother took me to school when I was five years old, and the principal denied me admission because I couldn't walk. And while my neighbors started going to school, I didn't get to go to school. I never did kindergarten as an example. And then I was on something that we call home instruction, where a teacher came to my house two and a half hours a week for three and a half years. So, and all along that time, my mother, my father supporting my mother, was really trying to get me into different

programs. So what I was really learning was never give up and that the role of parents is critically important and that they had a vision for me being able to be included in school. And, well, when I finally started going to school, I was in segregated classes only for disabled children. And they continued to move forward, fighting for me to get into, like, regular high school. What was, in the 1950s in the US, what was life like for disabled people and what was the perspective of society at that time? Well, like in Great Britain, we had no laws at that time.

And so, as I mentioned, when my mom took me to school and I was denied the right to go to school, they didn't know any lawyers. There were no laws specifically addressing this issue. And there were many disabled children not in school at all or in segregated inferior classes. In the 1970s, we really saw some very important changes. One was a piece of a provision in a piece of legislation called Section 504. And Section 504 basically said if an entity was getting money from the federal government, it could not discriminate based on disability. That was really very critical across the board. It is an incredible achievement. And you were instrumental in that because you set up a campaigning group called Disabled in Action, and you fought long and hard for Section 504.

So I always want to make sure that the audience understands that. In any activity like that, there are many, many people involved. very proud to be one of the voices, but equally proud about the number of disabled people across the United States who really fought for these 504 regulations to be signed. You write in the book, when other people see you as a third-class citizen, the first thing you need is a belief in yourself and the knowledge that you have rights.

The next thing you need is a group of friends to fight back with. And it seems like you had you need is a group of friends to fight back with. And it seems like you had both definitely a group of friends and this huge belief in yourself. Where does that come from, Julie? I think it comes from a number of directions. One, my parents, I think, obviously were very important. But additionally, you know, both in the book Being Human and in the film Crip Camp, what you see is the coalescing of disabled individuals. Individually feeling like what's going on is wrong. Is it really wrong? Do I really have a right to do something about this? We came together and said, absolutely, what's going on is wrong. And yes, we absolutely have to fight for our rights. 60s, 70s in the United States, there was the growing civil rights movement, which was very powerful, is still very powerful. And it showed us that if you believe something was wrong,

you really needed to act as a community and also try to really instill in families and individuals a right to equality. And so I think there were the women's movement, the anti-war movement, there were all these things that were coalescing at the same time. And in the book, in the film, you see that even as teenagers, we were coming together and beginning to learn how to express ourselves. We were talking about how we had to move away from complaining about problems to resolving them. Judy, I have to ask you, you know, there will be lots of people listening. As I said, we're living through a time where people are fighting for what they believe in and fighting for their rights.

And we're finding a generation who are really outspoken about their beliefs, which is incredible to watch and be part of. You've been an activist your entire life, pretty much. What kind of words of support would you give to young people who sometimes might feel that it's exhausting? How do you keep going? It is exhausting, I guess, but I feel more like it can be very frustrating, making people legitimately angry about the lack of the limited progress. I really want to say

that in countries around the world, definitely there is progress. I don't want to minimize that, but we have to fight too hard to get what we need. But if we don't do it, it's not going to happen. I think it's very important that we continue to strengthen the disability movement intergenerationally because the older people get the higher rates of disability we see. And one of the issues we're dealing with in every country is the stigma of disability. People feeling that they are less valuable as they're getting older and maybe losing vision or hearing or memory or physical issues or mental health, whatever it may be. So I think for younger people and older people and middle-aged people, we need to recognize that disability is a reality of life,

that if systems are in place, that our lives can be quite productive, but that one of the big issues we continue to deal with, which is why I feel media is so important, we need to have appropriate representation of who we are in all aspects of media. If people don't see us, if they don't hear us, if they don't understand the breadth of disability, learning disabilities, depression, anxiety, all forms of invisible disabilities, blindness, low vision, hard of hearing, on and on and on, then they feel sidelined. And I want people of all ages, one, those with disabilities who are younger, to really be able to link up and have mentors and

people they can be speaking with to learn and working together to learn how to get through this. And for me, it's having friends with disabilities and without disabilities, but who I can try to be as authentic as possible with and really, you know, talk about both the good times and the incredible frustrating times that still exist, not using the word disabled, not including disabled people and the work that we're doing, for example, in the United States on voting rights, on housing discrimination, et cetera. We want to hear the word disabled.

We want people to regularly see that we are a normal part of society and we really want people to look at us from a rights-based perspective in any other group that has been fighting for rights, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. That's what people want we are need to be seen we need to remove the barriers and we need to work together and don't feel alone i think that's really so very important the need to be able to have friends with disabilities who keep moving forward uh the inspiring um judy human there we really are hearing from some powerful and remarkable women on Woman's Hour today, aren't we? And your messages are coming in.

Vanessa says, it's so refreshing to hear two sex workers given the space to clearly explain why the financial discrimination they experienced has nothing to do with protecting the vulnerable

and everything to do with moralistic judgment and prejudice. 84844 is the number to text. Now, a drug that's been used to treat critically ill patients suffering from COVID may also help people who struggle with heavy periods.

A small trial in development long before the pandemic has found that the steroidextromethazone, a cheap anti-inflammatory drug, could also help reduce heavy menstrual bleeding. Well, I'm joined by Dr. Pamela Warner, a statistician who for many years has specialised in investigating menstrual problems. And she's the lead author of the research. And very good morning to you. Now, Pamela, what do we mean by heavy menstrual bleeding and what causes it? Well, that could be a very long answer, but it is just what it says on the tin. For some years, the sort of research definition was by a volume of blood lost.

Of course, that definition is meaningless to almost all women. And on top of that, it's very complicated and time consuming to measure. So it was seldom used in clinical care and only used in research. Some years ago, the official definition was bleeding so heavy that it impacts, harms a woman's quality of life. That sounds very reasonable on the face of it. And of course, that's the case with all medical conditions. But of course, that's also very difficult to measure because some lives might be able to cope better with a certain heaviness of period, say a person working at home, an author,

whereas, for example, a woman working on the factory floor where toilet breaks are strictly controlled, a reasonably heavy period could be quite a problem for her. So in this trial, you were looking to see if women with HMB were treated with dexamethasone, would it reduce, if it was, would you reduce menstrual bleeding and did it work? It did work. Yes, it did work. In fact, it worked across all doses. We compared six doses, but as you know, from research, you kind of, what was a significant effect, we found that the heaviest of the six doses we tried, which was still a very low dose, was the one that showed an incontrovertible reduction in blood loss compared to the women who had no treatment at all. Although none of the women knew what drug they were having. That's important in trials to avoid bias. You said that all of this is tied up, the idea that

we don't know that much about heavy menstrual pleasing is tied up with a lack of ready language to talk about periods, which sounds so crazy that we still feel that that's still the case. Is there really still a taboo in talking about this um well i think there is i suppose that a lot of women who currently in heavy menstruation is much more common in the later reproductive years so in your 40s and a lot of women in that age group probably grew up in different times to young women now. And I've been lucky enough to attend some conferences and actually listened to a menstrual slam last night, where young women, young menstrual activists are absolutely stunning in the things they're talking about, the things

they're saying, the things they're doing. Explain what a menstrual slam is. I'm quite intrigued by this. It's just the problem in research world now is, of course, none of us can get together for conferences to talk about our research. So this was, it's a society of menstrual cycle research, which has been going for, I think, since the 80s. And it was a conference I attended two years ago in America that I saw a lot of this in action. But this was young PhD students giving quick presentations on their action, but this was young PhD students giving quick presentations on their research, but it was on Zoom. So it was people in Australia, America,

South Africa, Britain were talking. And, you know, I was just bowled over, but that's not my experience. You know, when I, I mean, I'm past menstrual age now, but when I grew up, it just wasn't, you know, you very quickly picked up, it wasn't talked about. And I think still women coming to the clinics now

have been brought up as something you don't talk about, you try and keep disguised. So there is a bit of a tension, yeah. So how do you feel about this drug that's been trialling and the effects it's had and what are the implications for it? Yeah, so the trial results are not at the stage where we could sort of offer this treatment tomorrow. So it's still a sort of intermediate stage, but it's very exciting. It's exciting in research terms too, because the idea grew out of lab research, looking in detail at what's going

on in the tissue of women who have endometrial tissue, women who had menstrual bleeding. I wasn't involved in that, my clinical colleague was. And that gave them the idea that dexamethasone might compensate for something that was clearly missing in the cells of the women who had heavy menstrual bleeding. And so that's why the idea of the search came about. And then it's a long process to get the funding and the research has taken about five years. So we had this idea long before COVID. COVID's the new kid on the block with dexamethasone.

But, you know, it's really so exciting to see an idea that comes out of such fine detailed research come into practice and actually be of use. But I think there probably could needs to be some fine tuning to make it easier to deliver and when will it and when could it be delivered because i'm sure there will be women listening to this who will be very excited by the prospect of something that could help them with their heavy bleeding so what what's the what are the next stages the next stage i think would be to um try and see if we can find a way but you know there are there are clinical

concerns about dexamethasone it does have side effects but it's used in medicine a huge variety of doses and it's used in a crisis like COVID at a very high dose and for people who have serious asthma it might be used chronically like every day that's a problem but we're only in our trial women took it only for five days and at a very, very low dose. So it's just really trying to supplement something that's in slightly short supply in the body from the lab research. But what could be possible is if it could be delivered vaginally,

then you would need even less because you're not having to get it around your whole body to get it into the endometrial tissue. So that probably would be the next thing to try and make it easier for women. I'm sure we will definitely be coming back to this. Dr. Pamela Warner, thank you very much for speaking to us this morning. Thank you, Anita. Nice to talk to you. Bye. Now, band leader, multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer Emma-Jean Thackeray was born and raised in Yorkshire and started out playing the cornet in a brass band. She now has her own record label, Movement, and has just released her debut album, Yellow,

which has reached number one on the jazz and blues charts. She joins me live in the studio to explain why she wanted the whole thing to sound like a psychedelic trip. Let's have a listen to Sun from the album. The sun encroaches The sun encroaches The sun encroaches Hands up and reach for the sky The sun is life Brighter days are coming

The sun will provide Just let the light inside you Evergene, look, my hands are in the air in the studio. Number one, the Jazz and Blues chap. That's weird, isn't it? It's fantastic. Yellow, right, the album, it's described as a 70s jazz fusion meets P-funk. And you say you wanted the whole thing to sound like a psychedelic trip. Describe the idea and the sounds behind it.

Well, I think it's quite nebulous, isn't it? I mean, it's sort of as much of me as I could put into a record. So all kinds of sounds from, you know, the sort of more spiritual jazz like Alice Coltrane through to P-Funk, through to, you know, the stuff that you hear these days like Thundercat. But everything is in this kind of netherworld of like, you're not really sure what genre it is.

And I think that sort of is me down to a T really. Thundercat, for any of the Radio 4 listeners who don't know, is a brilliant artist. Just Google them all. They're all brilliant, all brilliant. I have to say, it's such a pleasure to listen to an album from beginning to end. And I love that you describe it as a cycle

because you have to listen to it from beginning to end. And I've been listening to you all weekend. You're already a contender for my album of the year. Just going to put that out there. Oh, thank you so much. It was made during lockdown. tell us about how you created this and how much have you done on it well it was all written before and recorded before but I was doing like my overdubs and all the mixing and stuff um so yeah I mean it it's just one of those things

where it's like because I'm doing so much on, it just took so much energy and time and real emotional labour, which is really draining, even just away from, you know, the sort of physical draining side that comes from it. And it's kind of like, I guess it's like when an author puts out their first novel, it's like their life story in a way. So this is a record where it's kind of like, I'm just trying to show you as much of me as possible so I've got the performer side playing a couple of different instruments um producing it and mixing it myself but stuff that I've never really shown before like the the orchestral side is in there as well like my masters is in like you know jazz orchestral composition so that's something that I'd never put on a record before so it's it's like yeah just me in a wax disc yeah in all your glory um so now we've met your present day you're currently number one in the uh jazz blues charts but let's take it back let's take it back to

Yorkshire little Emma Jean and you started off in the tradition of brass bands how did when did you pick up your first musical instrument? I was eight when I picked up the cornet it was um at primary school in my primary school had a really good music program and really good brass teacher there and it was just a really immediate kind of childish attraction to this cornet like my friend had one it was shiny and loud and I just gave it a blow and I'd had a little bit of natural aptitude and it went from there. They're quite hard to play though, aren't they?

Yeah, from doing a lot of teaching myself back in the day as well with kids, it's not usual for someone to be able to get a sound straight away. So it's, yeah. And do you come from a very musical family? Not at all. Yeah, I'm sort of the only one.

Everyone appreciates music. Everyone has a love for it, for their own thing that's special to them. But no one plays anything. Yeah, I'm not really sure where I came from, really. But they encouraged it, obviously, because you had a natural aptitude. Yeah, well, it was more so that they knew that they couldn't stop me so they had to either you know drive me to the rehearsals and support me or I'd just I'd go do it myself I'd walk three hours to rehearsal if I had to that's dedication I think yeah I think

someone has sort of yeah called me stubborn but I think it's it's it's just dedication yeah well yeah stubborn's good too drive whatever you want to say we've been talking about um sort of the democratization of sports I was talking to the brilliant uh uh Kaylee and Hannah the skateboarder and the BMXer about how it's just easy for them and for young people who can't necessarily afford to go and for swimming lessons or whatever it might be to just pick up a skateboard and just use your curb. Just how easy was it for you to get into music? Because often, you know, lessons for music are very expensive.

Was it easy for you? It's not easy, but there are ways that you can go about it. Like the brass band I was part of gave me a cornet to use once I joined. And my parents clubbed together to get me a second-hand instrument when I first started. I was doing group lessons as a small child. When I got to high school, my high school was paying for things. I was going and just doing lots of rehearsals for all kinds of different genres of music. So my education was through being busy and trying lots of different

things and you know for for a birthday I'd try and get people in my family to come together and get me like a guitar from Argos or something and then I taught myself so everything other than the cornet and the trumpet you know which are basically the same instrument I just taught myself from listening to music and playing along and figuring stuff out so there are ways to do it and schools you know they've got loads of old pianos in the corner. Just go give it a bash. So true. There's a lot of dusty old pianos in the country who need someone to play them.

So how did you make the leap from brass band to jazz? It was, yeah, a complete accident. It was the sort of beginning of downloading music online. And I was on one of those platforms where you sort of illegally download tunes but I was really I was young so you know I forgive myself I hope everyone else does too I was gonna say nobody illegally download your album definitely thank you I need to make sure I can yeah keep making more um yeah and I was I was learning this brass band solo piece called Concerto d'Orangeway it's sort of this ubiquitous

brass band solo that a lot of people play. And I downloaded the wrong version and it ended up being the Miles Davis version from Sketches of Spain. And it was like just one of those epiphanies where I was like, what on earth is this? Who is this guy? And in my 13, 14 year old naivety, I thought I'd discovered Miles Davis. Thought no one knew about him. Amazing. What an album to have accidentally downloaded yeah I really do think that that was I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing without hearing that record and that sort of accidental download and nobody in the family was listening to jazz not at all well my my grandma and granddad

are really into Santana this is about as close as they get. Now, I mean, I had a similar moment when I was a teenager listening to that album, Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. It is life-changing, full stop. Now, with playing the brass band, breath is everything. And you had COVID really early on. So how did that affect you and your music?

It meant that I couldn't play the trumpet. I couldn't sing. I think it was for about seven or eight months I'm not sure I did a little bit of trumpet playing on um the squid recent album we recorded that in about August I think and that was a real struggle that was my first bit of playing since um having covered in the March so I mean it's something that's happened before I've had a thing a couple years ago where my my dog had tripped me up and I fell on my face and couldn't play for about a year so these things have happened before and you just adapt I think that's what we're really good at as humans and because I work in lots of different ways I just took on other things so I was you know

producing remixes for people doing stuff for other people and working really hard on sort of overdubbing the guitars and stuff on yellow so I had plenty to do well let's listen to another track from yellow this is specter my house a fake fox around me there's a specter in my heart A black dog is haunting me I mean, it's just epic. Absolutely epic. It just gets you.

Such a beautiful track. Tell me about your musical mantra, Move the Body, Move the Mind, Move the Soul. It's the way I want to approach making music all the time and everything that I want to be released on my label as well. So for the body, so something visceral, whether that's a groove or just some kind of sound that really grabs you physically. For the mind, something that's cerebrally stimulating,

maybe that's a forward-thinking melody or some harmony that's trying to push the boat. And for the soul, so it's music that's got or some harmony that's trying to push the boat. And for the soul, it's music that's got a message, it's trying to explore an idea, it's got some substance behind it, it's not just music for music's sake. And what was the... Tell us about that beautiful piece of music we just heard, tell us about Spectre, because there's a specific story about that. You're telling us something about your life in this album, aren't you?

Yeah, I mean, it's about struggles with mental health whether my own or um you know my friends or my partner is and it's about trying to find a bit of catharsis to i guess expel some of those demons and um you know trying to use this metaphor of like a haunting where either yourself you feel like a shell of yourself or someone you love feels like a shell of themself, that's just kind of haunting the house and almost seems slightly translucent, like a ghost of their former self in some ways, because all joy is just sucked from you. And so I like to write words a little bit more open,

so metaphorical. I'm not, you know, I'm not sort of writing directly, like, with eyes so much. And I'm hoping for you that that people listening can apply their own stories their own journeys and and join in that catharsis as well and you are just now number one uh do your parents and your parents must be so proud do they love do you love do they love your music are they into jazz now they like stuff where I'm singing the stuff that's a bit freer and a bit more mad

i'm not sure they've ever taken the cellophane off those records but it's it's so nice to hear you know mum's singing a record or you know oh i watched your video on youtube and you know searching for stuff and engaging in a way because i think for a long time they were well they've only just started asking well emma jean we think you're absolutely brilliant there'll be lots of people uh googling and spotifying and downloading and all sorts your album it's called yellow it's out now brilliant speaking to you on woman's hour best of luck for the future come back and talk to us again when you win your grammy that's it from me join us tomorrow for weekend woman's hour that's all for today's woman's hour join us again next time

hello i'm pandora Sykes. And just before you go, I wanted to tell you about a new podcast, Pieces of Britney. My attempt to piece together the life of Britney Spears and the forces that have forged it. A huge fan, yeah, absolutely. A fan of not just the performer, but the person.

I think that a lot of people were rooting for Britney to fail, and there's this sort of assumption of, you know, this is what you wanted, this is what you're going to get. In this eight-part series for BBC Radio 4, I've spoken to cultural thinkers, lawyers, psychologists and key players in the entertainment industry to get their perspective on Britney's remarkable story and enduring legacy. I used her as an example of somebody who really got what was required to do that kind of work. We're also using drama to help us look behind the headlines and the conflicting accounts to imagine the woman underneath. Join me for Pieces of Britney. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds.

I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.