Woman's Hour - England Women into the World Cup Semi-Finals

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

England women’s football team are through to the semi-finals of the World Cup. Ahead of the game on Tuesday evening we discuss their chances of winning the competition and the blossoming global love for the women’s game with Sunday Times sports journalist, Rebecca Myers and Patricia Gregory, who worked for BBC Sport and was one of the founders of the Women's Football Association.TUC research found that more than 52% of women – and nearly seven out of ten LGBT people – have experienced sexual harassment at work. Currently there is no duty on UK employers to prevent sexual harassment. A new campaign seeks to close the gap in the law that allows too many workplaces to treat such abuse as a sad inevitability. ‘This is not working’ is supported by unions, women’s rights organisations and charities. We hear from an anonymous case study and Nicola Smith, Head of Equality for the TUC joins Jane Garvey. Anuradha TK is a space engineer and specialises in sending satellites into space. She is the Geosat Programme Director at, the Indian space research organisation. She’s in London to take part in ‘The Engineers: Space Flight', a special event staged by the BBC World Service and the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851 – to be broadcast on 13th and 14th of July.Why are women asked to undergo painful medical procedures like hysteroscopy without adequate warning and pain relief? What are the guidelines, how were they put together, are all hospitals following them, and what is being done to monitor their use? Mrs Caroline Overton is a Consultant Gynaecologist at St Michael’s University Hospital in Bristol, spokesperson for the RCOG, and previously Chair of the RCOG’s Guidelines and Patient Information Committees. She answers these questions and responds to listeners’ emails about their own experience.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Rebecca Myers Interviewed Guest: Patricia Gregory Interviewed Guest: Nicola Smith Interviewed Guest: Anuradha TK Interviewed Guest: Caroline Overton

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Monday the 1st of July 2019. Today, sexual harassment at work. Why is there no duty on UK employers to prevent it? We'll talk again about hysteroscopy. This is the gynaecological procedure that cropped up on the programme a couple of weeks ago. And we had so many emails from you that we've revisited that subject today.

And you can hear from the most senior female engineer at the Indian Space Research Organisation. And she talks with great affection about her six-tonne satellite. So that's all on the Woman's Hour podcast today. But we started with the big sporting story of the week, really. England are in that World Cup semi-final tomorrow night. They play the USA in Lyon. And there's no doubt that women's football is really having its moment in the sun. TV audiences are growing and another viewing record is likely to be broken tomorrow night during that semi-final. Shown, of course, live on BBC One, and you can hear commentary on Five Live as well.

I talked to Rebecca Myers of The Sunday Times, she's in Lyon, and to Patricia Gregory, who worked for BBC Sport and helped set up the Women's Football Association. First, here's Rebecca. There's so much more at stake than just winning a match here. Obviously, it is about winning a World Cup semifinal, progressing to a World Cup final, but actually it's about so much more than that. And I think we all have a taste now for potential, for kind of explosion that could happen if they do get through to the final. And so you just wanted that bit more, I think.

Tell me about the USA, because the backstory going on there is that there's actually real trouble in female soccer and male soccer in the States in terms of the size of bonuses. Yeah, I mean, the USA, I mean, the sort of women soccer team, as they call it in the USA are the most formidable team in women's football. They're extraordinary. They've won three World Cups, four Olympic gold medals. They've got all the trophies in the cabinet. The USA men's team, by contrast, very poor, didn't make the World Cup last year, not a standout nation by any stretch.

But the women are actually taking their federation to court. They're suing them for purposeful gender discrimination. Right now, it's an ongoing court case because basically they're being paid such significantly less bonuses and wages from the men's side you know even the coach it goes all the way through from the players themselves to management the coaches is earning less as well and you know the figures are very stark and in a strange way it's heartening to see a case where the argument is we would say so clear-cut

because this is just absurd that the men earn more when they're not a good team. But it does give you an indication of exactly what they're playing for tomorrow night. Absolutely, and you have to... I mean, they've been quite... They're very hyper-elite, kind of super well-trained athletes who will bash away those kind of suggestions

at a press conference and maybe not engage so much with that side of things. But, of course, they're going to this match with a bigger cause, with a bigger kind of you know, a bigger topic on their minds than just the game. In the same way that our girls, the Lionesses, will be going out thinking

you know, they've got to win to kind of get those massive greetings going at home and get people excited and get people down the pub. Both teams are going out with a greater purpose than just winning a World Cup semi-final. The progress that has been made, we will acknowledge with Patricia in a moment or two, but the

fact that the FA is now planning to roll out girls football across schools, that this will be the game that girls play or are at least offered the chance to play. This is really important, isn't it? It's completely going to change the culture as we know it. or are at least offered the chance to play. This is really important, isn't it? It's completely going to change the culture as we know it.

I mean, when I was a young girl, I wasn't offered football. I wasn't not allowed to play it necessarily, but it was never offered to me. I went to a girls' school. It was not an option at all. The only taste I got of it was when I sort of went to my little brother's birthday party and was allowed a bit of a kick around, but it just wasn't something that was an option for girls and the FA has set out a plan to basically change that I mean that will be an unrecognizable change from from the world that we knew when we were growing

up um and even just little things like I felt a little bit of goosebumps when you said there's little doubt where people will be on on Tuesday night it's amazing to think that people back home are getting behind it like this because four years ago, they also reached the World Cup semi-final and there wasn't this kind of sort of massive public backing. There wasn't this kind of pub screenings

and excitement and everyone talking about it. So it's a huge sign of how far we've come. And just a brief word on the team. Lucy Bronze is the fullback and is attracting an enormous amount of attention, not least because she got that amazing goal the other night. I think she's far

and away our best player. Phil Neville regularly says she's the best player in the world but he's been saying that for a while and I think we finally saw that last week. We finally saw the Lucy Bronze that he's been talking about that we know she can be. And she's a sort of wonderful character as well.

You know, she's quite quiet. She's quite reserved. She's very thoughtful. And she's one of the female footballers who grew up when, you know, you didn't get paid to play. You didn't necessarily have kit provided. You had to travel for hours on end. And now she works for, plays for the best club in the world in Lyon. This is a home game for her as well

in sort of two ways. But yeah, I think she embodies so much of what the women's game is about and no matter how big she gets, she still finds autographs

and stops to have selfies so she's a real role model. Fantastic. The stage is set, the script is written, go Lucy is all we can say tomorrow night.

Rebecca, I hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Patricia, just listening to that, you were nodding along, particularly when Rebecca was talking about the progress that's been made. So how was it? First of all, why your interest in football?

What sparked it? I think that growing up in a household where my father was a Spurs supporter, my brother automatically therefore became an Arsenal supporter, and my father didn't want to take me to football he finally did when I was about 15 so that's a long time ago in the early 60s and I just I don't know I was interested in seeing it it didn't occur to me until we went down to see Spurs bring back a cup in probably 67 which would make it I think the FA Cup went down to Tottenham outside the town hall I was standing in the crowd

and I thought why don't girls play football wrote to the local paper local paper printed it and then girls wrote to me and said I want to join your team problem number number one, didn't have a team. But my father was still definitely not keen. And we had no idea that we were, we just had no idea the 1921 rule, which the FA had passed, existed. This was the FA rule effectively banning women from playing football in stadiums. Yeah, anywhere. 1921 rule banned women from playing football in stadiums yeah anyway um 1921 rule banned women from playing football they said it was partly to do with the fact that they thought it wasn't a game suitable for the female for the feminine form and partly because money ostensibly raised for charity was

not going to those uh those sources anyway we had no idea this existed until I started to try and get training facilities and pitch. And the local council said, no, you can't, you're unaffiliated football. This is all a long way then from actually forming the Women's FA, which you were able to do in the end. How many years did it take you? Oh, no, it all happened quite quickly because my advert in a football magazine for matches, because we had to go to away matches because we didn't have a pitch, this was answered in the main by men's teams, boys' teams, so we used to travel to play them.

And it was also answered by Arthur Hobbs, who became the first honorary secretary of the Women's FA. He was running competition in Deal in Kent and this was our first, we travelled down there to look at the first competition, that would be 1967 and he had got teams from all over the country including Scotland. And so out of this tournament in 68 came the Women's FA. And you um are now well the women's fa no longer

exists because it's all part of the fa yeah but you were knocking on the door there and getting very little response for quite some time oh absolutely it took us probably a year or so to form ourselves into committees endless endless committees And I used to write the minutes. In fact, you can see a set of minutes I wrote in the British Library. We finally became inaugurated as the Women's FA in November 69, and we had 51 clubs. But the...

I've dried. I've completely forgot what I was saying. Just, Patricia, don't worry about it, because apart from anything else, I'm really hoping to tempt you to be part of the Women's Hour podcast a little bit later. But what I really want you to tell me is where you're going to be tomorrow night at 8 o'clock. In front of my television. And did you ever think this evening would come, honestly? Probably. No, just as we didn't think about forming an association. We just did what we thought we needed to do.

We didn't long-term plan, but we gradually got into that by forming a National Cup competition, which started in 1971, and the First England team, which played its first match in 1972. But in 69, the FA actually lifted the 1921 rule. Allowing you. Which meant that I could then go to my local council and get a pitch. It's because of people like you and the hours you put in that we are going to be in this situation tomorrow evening. And I hope people just nod to the efforts that you and others made

because it's been incredible progress. We will talk to you again if that's all right, Patricia. Thank you very much. We wanted to mention the sexual harassment conversation because it's really important this and I think there'll be many of you listening who perhaps now, unfortunately, or in the past have been through something like this. TUC research has found that more than 52% of women and nearly 7 out of 10 LGBT people have been through sexual harassment at work. Now, there is currently no duty on employers in this country to prevent it. Now, a new campaign, This Isn't Working,

aims to close the gap in the law that allows too many workplaces to treat this sort of abuse as just a sort of sad inevitability. Well, Nicola Smith is head of equality for the TUC. I'll talk to Nicola in a moment. First of all, earlier today, I spoke to a woman who'd been assaulted by a colleague at a bank. It was a very motivated, very aggressive corporate culture. In the city?

In the city, yes, in financial services, dominated by type A personalities who are all very committed to achievement. And perhaps sometimes, in fact, quite often that would get in the way of any thoughts around corporate culture, or whether or not it was a pleasant place to work. Really, you had to be hard enough to cope with the working environment as you found it. And there place to work. Really, you had to be hard enough to cope with the working environment as you found it. And there were very little accommodation around, you know, what you might feel whilst working at the organisation. Did you ever feel vulnerable there before the incident? Were there other things that happened?

There was definitely a culture of permissiveness in the bank. And that extended from things around how we would handle ourselves from a compliance point of view with respect to our day to day working and doing the job. But also, there were a lot of comments made around what women were wearing. And I was also subjected to comments from colleagues who would and even people who would sort of put their hands on my leg. There was a lot of accepted bad behaviour in a way that I'd never encountered anywhere else in any other places that I have worked. Would you describe the atmosphere as bountery? I suppose, in other words, I'm asking, did the women give as good as they got in some cases?

I never observed women giving as good as they got. So when these comments were made within my earshot, it was a case of the good old boys club having a good laugh at the expense of a woman usually without her knowledge or emails that I had seen that were exchanged talking about people behind their backs. There isn't a very great spread of age in the type of organisation that I worked in. Most people are relatively young and it happened across different areas and different competencies within the bank. So,

you know, there are things like the trading floor where perhaps I encountered more of that kind of conversation than I would in some of the office environments that were separated from that. So what happened to you? I was subjected to a drug-facilitated sexual assault by a senior manager who worked in the same area that I did at the bank. I was invited by him to an after-work drinks event and over the course of the evening, other colleagues left of their own accord or were asked to leave until it was only he and I who were left at the event.

By the point that he and I were alone, I very quickly lost my understanding and knowledge of what was happening around me. And this occurred in a public place just a few meters from where the two of us worked. And I have short memories of being groped, so my legs and my breasts. I recall him at one point saying that he wanted to take me to a hotel room. I also remember at one point falling out of a taxi, and the taxi refused to take me. And I have very little memory of events subsequent to that until I wake up the next morning, at which point I went to a police station to report the incident. What happened after that?

I was met with a lot of resistance. I was surprised by the amount of resistance that I was met with. So in the immediate aftermath, when I reported to the police, there was quite a lot of hostility. The police officer who interviewed me to take my witness statement tried hard to dissuade me from reporting when I did that. And that triggered a long and very frustrating engagement with the criminal justice system, which ultimately resulted in that officer facing a gross misconduct hearing. She left the force as a result. But the difficulty is that if evidence isn't gathered sufficiently quickly in the immediate aftermath, then that makes prosecution very difficult.

And the man was never charged. And he was never charged, which then had its own implications for pursuing civil actions. If you're not successful in gaining a criminal charge, then there are questions around how likely it is that you would find a judgment in your favour, even on the balance of probabilities in the civil sphere. And in terms of the employer?

The employer initially acted in what I had thought was good faith. So the man that I accused was suspended and asked not to come into the office and I was given the option to work from the office or from home. But I was subsequently able to find out, through Freedom of Information Act requests, that as the initial flawed investigation proceeded, the bank started, it appears, to feel that it was unlikely that this man was going to be charged.

And I was called into an office one day and told that, on that basis, because the bank had been told, I had not been told this, but the bank had been told that it was unlikely that he was going to be charged. They had made the decision to let him back into our mutual place of work. And I said to the HR manager, well, you know, effectively, that means you're making my position untenable. And they said, we're very sorry that you feel that way. And shortly after that, I resigned my position. Did he suffer any professional consequences at all?

I don't believe that he did, other than whatever the rumour mill inevitably would have thrown up for him. But there was no formal investigation by the bank. They hid behind the excuse that there was a criminal investigation, which prevented them from undertaking their own investigation. And I resigned before that criminal investigation was concluded. So I was never able to raise a formal grievance through their grievance procedures. And so they chose not to take any action. Subsequent to the conclusion of the second police investigation, though, I did get in touch with the bank via my employment lawyers to say,

you know, at the time that I left, you undertook that you wanted me to be available for potential investigations. Where are they? And they said that they felt that my account of events and the man I accused's accounts of events were not dissimilar to each other. They characterised the event as a consensual kiss. And they said that on that basis, it was not necessary for them to proceed in any way shape or form to take disciplinary action. What aspect of your account of proceedings might have led them to assume this was a consensual kiss? Why did they think that? No aspect of my reporting of this event at any point would have allowed anyone to characterize the event as a consensual kiss. I was immediately clear the moment I woke up in the morning that there had been some substance introduced.

So it is difficult because secrecy rules around these types of events mean that it is very hard to understand what the chain of events behind closed doors has been. And for privacy reasons and legal reasons, it's difficult for me to discuss also what I believe may have happened. But I think what I can say is that in organisations such as the one that I worked for at the time this happened, individual deals and the fees attached to those

can run into triple-digit millions. And so when faced with what the bank thinks is unlikely ever to come to public attention through other avenues, there is a huge financial incentive for them to side with the rainmaker. Is that person still working at the bank? No longer. Last year in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein reporting and the MeToo situation, and also because there had been a change of management at the bank, we were able through threats of publication via various other news outlets,

to get the bank to finally investigate, eight years after I initially made my allegation. And finally, they did eventually terminate the employment of the last two individuals who they say had knowledge of the incident during the course of last year. Including the man who... Including the man that I accused. Well, we're very grateful to that woman for telling us her story. Nicola Smith, Head of Equality for the TUC. Nicola, precisely what is it that you and the other campaigners want to change? Well, good morning.

What we're calling for is for employers to have a legal duty to prevent these toxic cultures where such awful sexual harassment and innate police at work from happening. That means that at the moment, the only routes people have if they experience sexual harassment at work to recourse are via an individual employment tribunal or individual grievance procedure. The scale of the problem is such, and the scale of underreporting is such, that these routes clearly are not working.

We've just heard about an awful example of sexual harassment at work that clearly arose in an awful culture where such behaviour was permitted across an organisation. Our survey evidence shows that more than 50% of women at work have experienced sexual harassment of some sort. That is much higher for LGBT women and in a situation where the problem is of that scale even if individualized um even if individualized routes were working as a means to address it it's simply not appropriate this is a nationwide problem of very significant impact for very many working women and we think rather than just warm words about the problem we need the government to act and to require employers to act proactively to stop it rather than just waiting for individual

claims to be taken against them. The government has said in due course they will launch a consultation on the evidence base for introducing a new legal duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment. So that's something but how confident are you that that will happen? Well we're still waiting. We hear rumours that the government will be soon launching a consultation but look it's not just us calling for this. The Women and Equality Select Committee, that's a cross-party group of MPs, have twice called on the government to introduce such a preventative duty. We know that there are other countries in the world that do have this sort of legal responsibility placed on employers to prevent sexual harassment and take action when it happens and you know talking about a consultation on the evidence base doesn't fill us full of hope that what the government's actually going to do is require employers to do something and to face sanctions if they don't in short under the current law

employers are indeed liable for harassment carried out by their employees unless they've taken all reasonable steps to prevent it and i guess well, this is a good point made by a listener who tweeted, how do you make it a duty to prevent an offence that hasn't happened yet? Until it happens, there's nothing to prevent it. And once it's happened, surely it's covered by both criminal and employment law. Well, I think there's two problems then. One, we're talking about preventing cultures in which this type of behaviour can arise in the first place. You know, the best place to stop sexual harassment is to stop it before it happens in the first place. That means

having clear policies about what you would do if there was a complaint, making sure that you are committed to, if you do receive a complaint, taking it seriously and responding quickly, having a legal duty to investigate it and to stop the harassment and prevent future harassment from happening. But on the issue of individualised routes, the current routes for enforcing people's rights under the Equality Act to work in a workplace free from sexual harassment, we know that they're not working. Only 20% of women who have experienced sexual harassment at work have reported it.

Sorry, so 80% haven't? 80% of women who have experienced sexual harassment tell us that they have not reported it. And why are they not reporting it? Well, you heard from the case study then, the culture can be extremely toxic. And that, by the way, we should point out, is in a big, big business. I know where that woman was working. It's a huge place. And let me bring in another listener. Employers must understand how vulnerable employees are.

When I was 16, my boss made it clear he owned me as part of the job. When you're young, you are naive and afraid to say no and tell them to get lost. I bet that's not an uncommon experience. I bet it's not an uncommon experience. And I think, you know, it really shouldn't be down to the luck of the draw how you're going to be treated if you find the strength and ability to report the problem that you've experienced in the first place. You know, if you look at the and if you look experienced in the first place. You know, if you look at the, and if you look at what the route is at the moment for an individual taking action, it is through either raising a grievance at work or working with your trade union to resolve

the issue in the workplace, or it's through going down an individualised employment tribunal work. Well, we know that there are big problems with how those systems work at the moment. It puts all the responsibility on the individual woman to take action against her employer and even if she's successful there's no requirement on the employer to do anything else to address the wider drivers of that toxic culture in the first place well we can talk about wider drivers of toxic cultures and workplace environments and all the rest of it the onus ultimately is on an individual not to behave like an idiot isn't it i think the onus is on the employer to make sure that if they have individuals in their employment who are idiots and worse that

they will be stopped and that action will be taken against them and that all their staff are very clear that if they do act in this way they will fail they will themselves face disciplinary action that they are clearly training their staff about how they should behave at work and that they have clear policies that they make sure everybody knows about to stop it. But ultimately, if they don't do that, what this new preventative duty would do is make sure that action can be taken by a regulator against the employer and it wouldn't require individual women to go down individualised claims to get change. Thank you, Nicola. I appreciate that.

Nicola Smith, Head of Equality for the TUC. Any thoughts on that? Of course, you're welcome to pitch in. Now, tomorrow morning on the program, I'm going to be talking to the author of a book called Three Women. There's been a lot of excitement around this book, I think it's fair to say. She's called Lisa Tadeo. The book genuinely is extraordinary. It's about women and sexual desire and relationships and disappointment and it's sad and it's happy and it's very beguiling in places as well, I should say. So that is a really interesting book, which we're talking about on Women's Hour tomorrow. Now, Anuradha TK is one of the most senior female engineers at the Indian Space Research Organisation. She is the first

female GeoSat programme director, and her business basically is sending satellites into space. She's been in London to take part in the Engineers Space Flight. This is an event staged by the BBC World Service and the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851. It's going to be broadcast on the 13th and the 14th of July. I met her last week and asked her how her satellites are helping people here on Earth. These communication satellites, they have been providing the vital link from anywhere to anywhere within India. Most of our programs are related to Indian development. Communication is the basic requirement where you can link all the people together.

So that is how our program started with the television programs. And we moved on to the commercial requirements like banking and scientific institutions, how they can send the data. And then we went to telemedicine, teleeducation using these satellites so that we can bring those applications to the corners of India. And how long have you been working in this sort of field? I had to make the equipments to match the satellites and then test the satellite on ground so that it is all validated before it is launched. Then I moved on and I went into remote sensing, communication satellites, navigation satellites. And today I am director for the Indian Satellite Communication Program. Take me back then to your childhood.

I think you probably, well, you must have seen, was it the moon landings? You watched the moon landings on television and did it ignite something inside you? Actually, yeah, way back we did not have television in India. So it was there in newspapers and the radios and it did ignite many minds, no doubt about that. You were a schoolgirl, presumably.

Yes, yes. Were you interested in science? Was that your thing at school? Yes, I was always interested in science and mathematics. And did it ever occur to you that this might end up being your profession? Well, at that time, it was all fascination. But as I grew up, I knew I wanted to be an engineer. And when I took up engineering, I knew I wanted to join ISRO. ISRO is the Indian Space Research Organization. And how many other women were there?

When I joined, there were not many in the satellite area. Non-technical side, there used to be some ladies. And technical side, I think it used to be hardly 10%. And today it has increased a lot. And were you ever made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome? Oh, no, never, never. I don't know why I'm surprised by that, but I am a bit. But you say there just weren't any issues, you had the ability and you were made completely at home there.

Yes. I think most of the premier institutes in India are like that. I mean, you do not see that kind of thing. We have heard a lot about it. We discuss why does it happen elsewhere. But it's not so in Israel, at least. I mean, I'm sorry in a way that I gave in to the temptation. I suppose it's a lazy assumption, isn't it, to assume that it would be difficult for you. And we also make the assumption that young women and girls are not as interested in

these sorts of subjects as young men and boys. But it's just not true, is it? It's not true. In fact, even my childhood days, I mean, it's not that the girls would be interested in a particular subject and boys will be interested. No, it was never like that. I'm from semi-urban and urban. These are the places where I have studied and grown up and I haven't seen such biases anywhere. And what about your two daughters? What do they do? My two daughters, both are engineers and one of them took electronics like me, second one. The first one took software engineering. Both are career women. And they enjoy their work as well. Oh, yeah. The Indian space program is about, it's going to try to launch something else on the moon,

isn't it? There's going to be... Yeah, we have a second mission coming up. This time it is going to be much more exciting. Last time we had just a satellite which went around the moon in orbiter. This time we are going to have a soft landing. We'll be the fourth country to have a soft landing on Moon. And also we have a rover which comes out of the lander and moves for nearly half a kilometre, three, four kilometre, trying to do some experiments. I can tell you're excited about this. Oh yeah, we are all, yes. When is that likely to happen? July 15th, early morning.

Right. So this is definite. Is it dependent on... Normally when we say a launch date, it will always have a window. What about the progress made in your professional career? Thinking back to the satellites that you have helped put into position, how far have we travelled in your professional life in terms of our ability to do exactly that? Yeah, it has been a very interesting career for me. You know, making a satellite is always multidisciplinary. You'll have all kinds of engineers working with you in various fields,

experts, and that has really opened up Vista. You know, it's great that you understand the entirety of the satellite as you grow up. That is fantastic. It's a really daft question this, but how big are your satellites? The biggest satellites we had are 6 tonne, 5,880 kgs. 6 tonnes? 6 tonnes, yeah. And that's the biggest?

That is the biggest we have made so far. That is G-SAT-11. It's a communication satellite which went last year into its orbit. And it will stay there forever? Not forever. It is a useful life. It's for 15 years. And then we need to de-orbit or we have to re-orbit it. We have to send it to what we call as graveyard orbit, 200 kilometres beyond the nominal orbit where they will be. So it becomes space junk. Yes.

That's actually quite tragic, floating around forever, unwanted, out there in the great wastes. You're not sentimental about it, I can tell. We used to be earlier in younger days, but now that is the way it has to work. Satellites have to work. You don't care. To most of us, this is such a colossal undertaking. What if things go wrong? Yes, things can always go wrong in space. It cannot withstand even the

smallest amount of error or negligence. It has happened in many cases we have seen where human lives are lost, etc. This satellite itself, we ensure that we have sufficient redundancies on the satellite so that even if one part fails, there is another part which takes up. That is at the end. Because the cost of them is prodigious. That six-tonne satellite you mentioned, how much does that cost? In Indian rupees, that is a satellite worth of 600, 650 crores of rupees. Hundreds of millions. Yes, yes. And which part of your fascinating job do

you enjoy the most? The best part is once you have launched the satellite and it starts working the way it is supposed to be. That is the best part and most exciting, the mission part. And the length of time it's taken to achieve that is what? Months? Years? Yeah, it takes years. It takes anywhere from a small satellite, a repeat kind of satellite within a year to a new satellite, which can take four to five years. So much progress has been made in your working life. In terms of satellite and satellite technology, what is likely to happen over the next decade or so in the communication satellite a lot of new things are coming up because the particular orbit geosynchronous orbit getting crowded and crowded well i was going to say other countries

have got their satellites up there too huge huge numbers how many are there floating about now there must be more than 1,000 satellites there. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So now the solutions have to be brought in. For the solution, a lot of technology innovations are happening, including low-Earth communication. Instead of putting it in the 35,786 kilometers, how about putting thousands of satellites around the Earth.

Much closer to Earth. Much closer. It has certain advantages, like you have lower latency, which is coming, because the delay, which takes 250 milliseconds, which is standard for a communication satellite. So there'll be no more delays? Yes, delays will be very, very less. I don't say no delays. But hardly noticeable?

Yeah, hardly noticeable. Isn't this all a bit creepy? Some people might say this is all about surveillance and about governments keeping an eye, an all too beady an eye, on what people are up to. Any technology has two sides to it. You can use it for the societal applications like what we do mostly in India. Or it can go further for defending your country. Defence includes spying. It does. But does that keep you awake at night, that aspect of it? Since we are not into that, I can sleep happily.

Anuradha TK from the Indian Space Research Organisation I'm quite haunted by her reference there to graveyard orbit which I suspect is the place where Radio 4 presenters go when they're no longer required Now from that to this, hysteroscopy the examination of the inside of the uterus this is done by passing a thin telescope-like device which has a tiny camera on the end,

through the neck of the womb, the cervix, of course. Now, this can be, it isn't always, but it can be painful. We discussed this a couple of weeks ago, and your emails really did flood in on this subject. And there are a range, I have to say, from people who say it was awful to those who say it was bearable. So we thought we'd talk about the guidelines, what the guidelines actually say and what sort of information is routinely given to patients who are about to have a hysteroscopy. Caroline Overton is a consultant gynaecologist and a spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and she's a former chair of its guidelines committee. Caroline, good morning to you. Good morning, James.

So very briefly, why would anybody need to have a hysteroscopy? So hysteroscopy, the number one reason would be if you are referred with suspected cancer of the lining of the womb and combined with a biopsy would give you a diagnosis. I see. So it can be life-saving. It can be life-saving. Right. Is everybody about to have a hysteroscopy warned about the pain it might involve? They should be. Women should be given all the options. The procedures should be explained, the choices of anaesthetic available,

and then she should be signposted to where she can get support to make the best possible choice for her. And that is what your official guidelines say is it? That is what the so the outpatient history of the information for you for women undergoing this procedure what says that loud and clear and that was produced in December 2018, the guideline for doctors is in the process of being updated. What do you mean by that? Well, all guidance has to go through update because you get more evidence, it takes time to undertake studies, and guidelines are always in a process of being updated continuously. Technology moves on. Telescopes get smaller. Techniques change.

So this, we should make it clear then that as progress is made, there is a chance that this will be a far less invasive procedure in, say, five years' time. Absolutely. And when was it first carried out? So the earliest ones ones probably before 2000 so relatively new if you think how much our computers have changed during that time and the technology required to be able to see down a telescope the diameter of a matchstick is incredible. So, okay, what percentage of women will have excruciating pain? Well, let's do it the other way. So if we had 100 women who were undergoing this procedure, 78 out of the 100 would say that the pain of the procedure was less than their

period pain. Most women would rate their period pains about four or five. The number of women who rated the pain more than five was 16 out of the hundred. Yeah, but that's quite a lot of women, isn't it? It is quite a lot of women. But we need to bear in mind that the procedure diagnostic hysteroscopy lasts a median of three minutes and with the newer techniques two minutes that's still quite a long time to be in pain and i speak from the perspective of a woman who has i would say rather a low pain threshold let me read you some emails um this is a listener who says i had a hysteroscopy when the gynecologist finished he said, that wasn't so bad, was it? But I couldn't speak

for fear of letting an animalistic sound out as the tears rolled down the sides of my face. It was awful. I genuinely felt traumatised afterwards and I went home and cried. I've had three children without pain relief. I am no novice. What do you say to that?

Well, I would say, Jane, thank you very much for giving these women a voice. Thank you to this lady for sharing her experience. And I'm very sorry that the procedure was so traumatic. I wish we had the evidence to be able to say that we can identify those women who are going to have a worse time, but that doesn't exist. You can't say that women who haven't had children will have a much worse time. It just doesn't follow. You see, though, from my novice perspective, that would be logical. If you haven't given birth, I would imagine this would be painful, very painful, potentially. So isn't it, therefore,

wise to offer everybody general anaesthetic? Well, I think general anaesthetics has its risks. But it's not as bad as being in absolute agony for three minutes, is it? Well, actually, interestingly, in these sort of randomised trials where women were randomised to actually inpatient hysteroscopy with a general anaesthetic or an outpatient hysteroscopy, at the outset, it was difficult finding women to take part because 50% of them expressed a preference to have it in the outpatient clinic and only 25% said that they would prefer a general anaesthetic. So there is a desire with women to avoid a general anaesthetic, to have less time away from home time, is it not true that women are expected to put up with a degree of pain no man would ever be expected to suffer? Absolutely not.

Men and women undergo outpatient procedures. Let's think of cystoscopy, a tube telescope passed down the urethra, the tube to the bladder, colonoscopy, catheterisation, prostate biopsy for men sounds particularly painful. Yeah, but are they doing this without pain relief? This is in the outpatient clinic. So they would not have an anaesthetic? They might have a local anaesthetic,

but a local anaesthetic is an option also to a woman having an outpatient hysteroscopy. And it's always offered, is it? It should always be offered. If you are having a technique called a hysteroscopy without a speculum, so a lot of women find smears and the actual introduction of a speculum very painful, it is more difficult to get the local anaesthetic in. But if in the early stages it's uncomfortable or the cervix is tightly closed, it would be possible to introduce a local anaesthetic gel

through the cervix. But it's not like having your teeth out where you can be completely numbed. You will still get the uterine cramping, and that for some women is the worst. Caroline Overton, so to some of your emails on this subject and there have been more again this morning I should say, very interested says Joss to hear what the RCOG have to say, no woman should be lied to, not given full information or have to

put up with the sheer agony of outpatient hysteroscopy. Matita says it was agony. I was made to feel that an anaesthetic was quite unnecessary. Hardly any patients ever asked for one, I was told. Halfway through the procedure and with tears streaming down my face because of the pain, they had to stop. I went back two weeks later and had it done under general anaesthetic. This, of course, cost the NHS much more, which is why I think they go to great lengths not to offer one or to talk you out of it if you ask for one. From Yvonne, complete information regarding choices should be available to all women prior to this procedure. It is the only experience in my adult life that has ever given me nightmares. Another listener, it was utterly excruciating and I was told it may sting a bit.

My friend heard me scream through two room walls. I've had a child, that was a walk in the park in comparison. And I've dislocated a knee. I would choose either of these above hysteroscopy. You know, I could spend the next 20 minutes reading our emails on this subject because we've had so many. I don't know what to say except, well, apart from anything else, I could spend the next 20 minutes reading out emails on this subject because we've had so many. I don't know what to say except, well, apart from anything else, I'm rather glad I've never had a hysteroscopy. But as many of our listeners have pointed out, it was painful, though bearable, and it may well have saved their life. So I think we really do need to emphasise that, as we did indeed during the conversation on the programme. Now, Patricia Gregory is still here.

Good to see you again, Patricia. You've had a relaxing time in our green room, I hope. Any hospitality offered there? A cup of tea. Oh, that was it, was it? OK, well, you don't sound terribly thrilled by it, to be honest. I'm used to BBC tea. Yes, that is true, actually, isn't it?

How many years did you work for the BBC? In total, 25. Right. Are you over it now? Not taken well to retirement, but yes. Okay. Well, perhaps we could talk about that, because actually retirement doesn't necessarily suit everybody, does it? No, no. I don't think so.

But in truth, I retired at the end of 2011, and then I proceeded to work on five projects, like the London Games and Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Oh, so you've absolutely done other stuff since you stopped. And back in the day, you were one of the people, and I Commonwealth games. Oh, so you've absolutely done other stuff since you stopped. Yeah. And back in the day, you were one of the people, and I used to love grandstand,

you were one of the people who did the typing in the back. Yes, I occasionally did shifts doing the typing in order to get some more time, so days off, so that I could use it for whatever I was doing on the football. So you were working to set up the Women's FA, or working for the Women's FA. Yes. And this was all in your spare time, this was totally unpaid? We were all, in the 60s, we were all honorary, and that went on until we employed somebody in 1980. So yes, we were all honorary doing it in our spare time. I was running a club, a league,

and the association. To start off with, I became the Honorary Assistant Secretary because the Honorary Secretary, Arthur Hobbs, he didn't type, and we needed somebody who could type. So this fell to me. And in fact, it's interesting, in the last couple of weeks with the World Cup, there's been a lot of publicity about the club side, which went to Mexico in 1971 and were portrayed by the media as England, but they weren't.

I was going to ask you about this. Can I just, just to interrupt, I mean, I know some listeners may have heard Broadcasting House on Radio 4 on Sunday, and they did interview three, they were only teenage girls who did play in that game. Yeah. Well, we had the constitution of the WFA at that time. Any club had to have permission to go abroad. And if they did get permission, they could only call themselves by their club name. Right.

This didn't happen for whatever reason. And so they were known by, well, as I say, the media has called them England. But of course, this has upset quite a lot of the England girls from the 1970s because they as the genuine England players feel that they have been overlooked

This I suppose is the trouble with this story, it's social history isn't it really in terms of women's sport what is wonderful from my perspective is that young girls will be sitting down on the sofa tomorrow night with their brothers and their mum and dad or whatever, or their sisters, whatever. And they will assume this has always happened. And of course, it hasn't. This has been a hard fought battle.

Exactly. I mean, in the 70s, when football was starting in the USA, so it's appropriate because our opponents are the USA. In the USA, it never occurred to anybody in America to stop the girls playing football. It just didn't come into it. And it was so different. Their experience was so different then, setting aside that they've got problems now. I've got an email here from, it's a lovely one actually from Kate. My footy mad seven-year-old twin sons are as excited to watch the Lionesses as they were to watch the men's team last summer. They have been practising Lucy Bronze set pieces No, it's lovely. That is brilliant, isn't it? It is lovely.

I saw in the newspaper the other day that there were 11-year-old twin boys in the northeast who were being banned from playing in their local netball team. And that shouldn't happen either. And I thought, my goodness, you know, 50 years later, it's ridiculous. Yeah. Absolutely ridiculous. Can I pin you down and ask you for a forecast for tomorrow night? What do you think? Oh, I think it's going to be very close.

And I have a horrible feeling it's going to be 1-0 to the USA. Cheers for that, Patricia. Well, we've ended on a high note there. We can't tell. Can I just say that if anybody wants more information, they could look at Charles Runcie's article on BBC History. That's a good pointer, actually. There is a lot of stuff, isn't there? It's the BBC History website. BBC History website, yes. OK, and there's loads of good stuff there.

And it's about me and also Mary Raine, who was the first woman to report football. Well, I just want to say, actually, how grateful people like me, we are, to people like you who put in the hard hours all those years ago and have actually brought us to where we're going to be tomorrow night. So whatever the result, it's a fantastic story.

Thank you. Patricia, thank you very much indeed. Tomorrow on the programme, you can hear fantastic story. Thank you, Patricia. Thank you very much indeed. Tomorrow on the programme, you can hear from the Scottish-American composer Thea Musgrave and we'll talk too about an incredible new book, Three Women, which is all about female sexuality. That's on the programme and the podcast tomorrow. Is the daily grind getting you down? Fancy taking a break and going out into nature this summer? Then look for Go Wild and BBC Sounds, a place for some of the best nature programmes from Radio 4. Get some inspiration for your next adventure, no matter how big or small.

Just search for Go Wild and BBC Sounds and set out on your next adventure today. 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.