Woman's Hour - Eve Ensler, White Pearl, White Plimsolls

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues was first performed in 1996 and became a worldwide phenomenon. Her recent book The Apology is an imagined letter from her father apologising to her for a lifetime of devastating sexual, physical and emotional abuse. She tells Jenni why she's written the book from the perspective of her father and why it might provide a blue-print for apologies in the #metoo era.In the European Elections over the weekend nearly half of the elected MEPs were women. Significantly, all three of them in Northern Ireland are now women. We analyse fast-moving politics from a Woman’s Hour point of view with Helen Lewis. White Pearl is a comedy set in a Singapore-based cosmetics company which is having a PR crisis. The play is about an advert for a skin-lightening cream which goes public by accident but the problem is, it's racist. Jenni speaks to Anchuli ‘Felicia’ King, the writer of the play, and Kae Alexander who's one of the six Asian women trying to get the ad taken down as it goes viral. The play's on at The Royal Court in London.White plimsolls are in fashion, so what's their history and why do we love them? We speak to Thomas Turner, author of The Sports Shoe: A History From Field To Fashion , and to Hannah Rochelle, author of the shoe-dedicated En Brogue book and blog.

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 29th of May. 23 years ago, The Vagina Monologues was performed for the first time. The author of what became a worldwide phenomenon is Eve Ensler. Today we'll talk about her latest book, The Apology, the words she hoped to hear from her abusive late father. White Pearl is a satirical comedy at the Royal Court Theatre in London what inspired the themes of skin whitening, corporate culture,

racism, the cosmetics industry and social media. And White Plimsolls, the history of the sports shoe that's become a hot fashion item. Now, you may have noticed that politics continues to be something of a hot topic, as the line-up of hopefuls for Theresa May's job seems to grow day by day. But so far, only two women, Esther McVeigh and Andrea Leadsom, have formally joined the list. It was a rather different scene when the results of the European elections were revealed at the weekend. Nearly half the MEPs elected were women, and the three elected in Northern Ireland were all women. The new European Parliament will assemble on 2nd July, and the MEPs are elected for a five-year cycle.

Of course, their membership will end as soon as the UK leaves the European Union. So what should we read into the gender balance of the 73 MEPs who were returned? Well, Helen Lewis is the Associate Editor of the New Statesman. The new Brexit party has elected three well-known women, Anne Widdicombe, Clare Fox and Anansiata Rees-Mogg, but there were five other women from the party elected. Who are they? Well, the interesting thing about them is that most of them come from these kind of grassroots leave groups that sprung up during the 2016 referendum. So one of them, for example, is for fishing for leave, that's June Mummery. And another one, Belinda Lucy's from a newer group, it's called Ladies for Leave. So there were all these little offshoot groups. And then Alexandra Phillips, who was former UKIP

head of media, is a sign of the other strain that you see through the Brexit Party, which is kind of that it's UKIP 2.0, UKIP in exile. Nice, strange thing that's happened in British politics. We now have two MEPs with the same name, Alexandra Phillips, one a Green MEP, one a Brexit Party MEP. I don't think that's ever happened with women before. It's happened in our UK Parliament with two Stuart McDonalds in the SNP. But we finally hit the number of women that we can get, you know, confusing women now. What's Nigel Farage's thinking when it comes to diversity in his party? Well, I think it's really fascinating this because he said in 2010, famously, he did a tweet that said, the European Parliament in its infinite wisdom

has voted for longer maternity leave. I'm off for a pint. And he got a lot of backlash about that. And he was, you know, if you look at the UKIP 2015 manifesto when he was leader of the party, it's not wildly feminist. There's some stuff in there about childcare. But he has, you know, he said last year, I am not a feminist. He said, if I do, do I believe in gender equality? Yes. But I think, you know, that actually feminism seems very anti-men. But I think that the strain of politics

that he represents, what's interesting to me is that nonetheless, despite it being one that would see feminism as a kind of, you know, dilettante, a bit of social justice and not real politics, he nonetheless feels that he has to have a decent number of female candidates. And the reason that it's always been easy to get women elected in the European Parliament is that it's done through a list system rather than constituencies. And essentially he handpicked

all of those candidates himself. So he was the, you know, he controlled that list. So somebody who's not naturally a feminist nonetheless sees that in 2019 you cannot put up a party of candidates that is heavily, heavily male. But where does the party stand when it comes to policy around gender equality and women's rights? It's a very good question, and it's a question that I can't answer for a simple reason,

which is that it did not have a manifesto. So traditionally parties will put out a slate of policies, and you're able to see them across that. Now they say we're a very new party, and we've got one policy, which is that we want to leave the EU and trade on essentially WTO terms. But it's very hard to see. That's why I say about going back to that UKIP 2015 manifesto, because I think you really need to look at this as the Nigel Farage show. So to ask what the Brexit party thinks about anything, ask what Nigel Farage thinks about anything. How significant is it that all Northern Ireland's MEPs are women and all from different

parts of the community? I think two of them are re-elected but the third, Naomi Long from the Alliance, is very significant because she is from a non-aligned party. It's the sister party of the Liberal Democrats. It's a pro-Remain party. So I think that is significant. Actually both the Republic and Northern Ireland have got a tradition of, in the recent years, of strong female politicians. So Sinn Féin has both Michelle O'Neill and Mary Lou MacDonald. Arlene Foster, obviously, leader of the DUP, been negotiating with Theresa May. So I think that is significant.

What's also just as significant, I think, is we tend to equate woman with feminist in the sense that we think that perhaps this will change the view on abortion rights, for example. But you know, a DUP female MP will, by and large, have the same opinions, i.e. very anti-abortion as a DUP male MP. So I don't think you can make that judgment. But certainly in terms of who's been elected, Sinn Féin's policy on abortion has softened. They had a conference last year in which they expanded the range of situations in which that's allowed. And so the DUP are looking kind of increasingly isolated on social issues in Northern Ireland. And what impact will the third one have, the one who is non-aligned on abortion and same-sex marriage, which of course are the big debates in Northern Ireland? Right, so an alliance

is seen as a much more progressive party on social issues. So again, you have this situation where I actually believe there is now a majority for at least limited abortion reform and for same-sex marriage, yet you have the DUP in a controlling position. Admittedly, there is no power-sharing executive dissolved instalment, so there isn't currently a functional executive there, but they are now increasingly the outliers on social issues. Now, the people whose support remain seem to be the big winners at the weekend.

Jean Lambert and Molly Scott Cato won for the Greens. Nine women won for the Lib Dems. How much will we hear from them and what sort of impact might they have? Well, traditionally, unfortunately, being an MEP has been pretty close to being in a witness protection programme in terms of British media coverage. Both the Lib Dems and the Greens take you know the European Parliament really seriously. It's part is woven into the fabric of their parties whereas I would say that the the women who are going from the Brexit party the main interesting thing about that is that they there are now people who will be able to work full-time for that party you know they'll be able to draw salaries from European Parliament and

devote themselves full-time to organising for that party. The difference, I would say, with the Greens and the Lib Dems is they would hope to do things in legislative terms. And particularly the Greens, we've seen this cross Europe green movement, things like Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg, the Swedish activist travelling by train around Europe. And there are things, you know, there is an acknowledgement there that environmental issues are much easier to tackle at that higher supranational level. So for the months or years that they end up being there, that's the kind of thing I would imagine they would focus on. Helen Lewis, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning.

And I expect we'll be seeing you again for more analysis of what's going on. Thank you very much. Now, it was in 1996 that a play called The Vagina Monologues was first performed off-Broadway. It was funny, celebratory, irreverent and at times tragic. And all over the world, women and some men flocked to see it. A New York Times critic called it probably the most important piece of political theatre of the last decade. Well, the playwright was Eve Ensler, who was inspired to found the V-Day movement, raising millions of dollars for campaigns to end violence against women.

Well, we now learn from Eve's latest book, The Apology, about the personal experience in her childhood that inspired her passionate interest in the subject. It's written in the voice of her abusive father, Arthur. Eve, why did you decide to write The Apology? Well, good morning. I'm so happy to see you. I think there are many factors that catalyzed me writing this book. One was, as you said, I had a very abusive childhood, sexually abused for years from five to 10, and then really violent, violent childhood until I left home. And I think all my childhood, I waited for an apology from my father. I dreamed it would come, then he died. And it's been 31 years since his death. But there's still this yearning that someday this, you know, apology is going to arrive from mana in heaven. And I think the second factor is, you know, I've been working

in organizing for over 20 years to end violence against women. And we've seen men be called out, we've told our stories, we've broken the silence, we've built shelters, we've created against women. And we've seen men be called out, we've told our stories, we've broken the silence, we've built shelters, we've created hotlines. And then with the recent iteration of Me Too, so many more men. But I was in Congo at the end of the summer at our wonderful City of Joy, which is this incredible sanctuary and revolutionary center for women who've been abused and really tortured in the War. And I was again listening to stories. And I suddenly thought, I have never heard a man make a public, authentic, thorough apology for sexual violence. Maybe in 16,000 years of patriarchy, I started asking people, is there a written apology anywhere?

Have we ever heard this apology? And it just started to think, like, we've done our part. You know, violence against women was never a woman's issue, really. I mean, it turns out we don't rape ourselves. This has always been a men's issue. So I thought to myself, well, maybe I could write myself the apology I've always longed to hear, And it would serve two functions. I could feel and experience my father saying the words I needed to hear. And perhaps it could be some kind of blueprint for what an authentic apology would look like. You were five, as you said, when his sexual abuse began. What do you actually remember of that time?

You were so little. Well, you know, it's taken me years to piece things back and doing lots and lots of work. I remember a lot of what's in the book. I remember, you know, my father adoring me, adoring me. It began with this kind of adoration and this, you know, I was it. I was the, you know, the apple of his eye. I was the reason for his existence. And then these night visits began and this invasive touching and this invasive relationship with my body. And I remember the confusion. I remember the strange, both that horrible kind of guilty pleasure where you know on some level this is wrong, but it's your father and the adored one, so the family as a result of it. And I think what I remember is how complicated it was to feel that that adoration was becoming corrupted somehow. He became so violent. He really hurt you. He did. He did. And I think, I think what he had to kind of do was

destroy the evidence of what he had already destroyed. Because I think, after, you know, I got infections, and I had nightmares, and my personality changed. And I was a very depressed and kind of broken child. And I think I was evidence, right? Ongoing evidence of his invasion and his sexual abuse. And so from that point on, from the time I was 10, I remember that first incredible, shocking smash across my face where I went flying across a room. It was like going from the pinnacle of adoration to the depths of erasure. As you tried to enter his mind to write this apology and see things from his perspective, what did you conclude were his reasons

for both the sexual and the violent abuse? Well, I think one of the things that haunts survivors of all kinds is the why, right? You know, it doesn't really what kind of violence you suffer. It's why, why, why would someone drug me as my best friend and rape me on my date? Why would someone attack me on the streets because of the color of my skin? Why would my father try to destroy his daughter? And I think the hard thing about this book was climbing inside him to understand what had made him a sadist,

what had made him a sexual abuser. But I really learned a lot. And part of what I learned is that my father was a late child. He came after all the other children, 10 or 15 years. And he was adored, adored. He was going to be the divine, you know, the divine right of kings, the savior. And adoration is very different than love. Adoration is a projection of someone's idea of who they want you to be that you must fulfill. It's not loving you for your complexity and for your tenderness and for your humanity and for your vulnerability. It's saying you will be this and I will love you for this. It's very conditional. And I think what my father did throughout his childhood is really repress

and bury all that wasn't acceptable in this adored, in this adored projection. And eventually, it metastasized, and it became what he calls shadow man. And I think because he had been deprived of his own tenderness, experiencing tenderness towards himself, when I was born, he felt this overwhelming tenderness, this overwhelming, you know, love, but he didn't know what to do with it because he wasn't prepared for such tenderness. He hadn't ever felt it. And so he had to do something to it, you know, rather than sit with it and experience it and just behold it. He had to hurt it and have it and invade it and rape it. And I think that's true.

I mean, not to that extreme, but of all men, we as boys, we teach them to to not cry we teach them to bury their hearts we teach them to separate from their hearts and their humanity early on and so they become very very dislocated what effect did it all have on your teenage and your early adulthood i can't imagine how you coped with it to be honest honest. Well, I was a mess. I was just a straight up mess. You know, how I lived, I, you know, I was alcoholic, I was a drug addict, I was insanely promiscuous. I was that kind of person who was always jumping off high cliffs into water. I didn't even know what was under it and driving. You know, I was taking heroin in high school before my SATs.

I couldn't function, do you know? And it really messed up my thinking because I think as a child, when something terrible happens to you, you want to erase it and block it out. And so what you have to do in your brain is begin to erase all the memory that's connected to that. So you begin to destroy your memory. So I had a very hard time. So I had a very hard time learning. I had a very hard time remembering things and retaining information, which of course set me on a terrible course in school until later on when people intervened and sort of understood that I really wasn't stupid, that in fact, I was traumatized and people really helped me then.

But I think all of that kind of proved my father's case, that I was this stupid, bad, awful human being. And I think I was on the course to kill myself. You know, I was, you know, not doing it maybe by taking pills and splitting my wrist, but I was doing everything I could to get myself off this planet. And it was a terrible time. Why do you suppose he did not apologize to you? Because I think my father was a pathological narcissist. I think he had that. He never, ever understood. He was always right. You see, men of my father's generation, and I think this is true today, we only have to look to the strong men running many nations in the world, particularly my own, who are always right, right? They're always the victims, no matter what they've done, they turn it on themselves. I remember my father

throwing me and beating my head against a wall, telling me I made him do it. Do you know, I was the reason he did those things to me. My father had an inability to see himself as wrong in any capacity. So why would he apologize? In the book, you imagine him occupying a sort of state of limbo between his death and his apology. Why did you place him very specifically there? Well, you know, I have no idea where all this came from. The writing of this book was really mysterious. And I can't even describe how strange it was, because once I went into it, it was almost like this trance state, where I feel like my father was very, very present through the writing of this book.

And he would literally wake me up at four in the morning and tell me to go to my office and work. And he would tell me things. And the first time he spoke, he spoke from limbo. And where he's been spinning and had been spinning for 31 years, kind of rehashing his crimes and rehashing, you know, no one gets out of here without having done really terrible things without consequences in their soul. And I think if there's any reason for men to make reckonings and make apologies, it's a very good one to clean the slate. What difference has writing the apology made for you? It's made such a huge difference. You know, look, for years and years, I'm 60. I just turned 66 a couple of days ago.

I have fought my way out of this bell jar. Do you know? This book was terribly painful, revelatory, but above all, liberating. I feel at the very end of the book, my father says to me, old man be gone. It was like at the end of Peanut Pan when Tinkerbell just goes, he's gone. And he's gone. I it literally, it's been months. And I feel almost in a new paradigmic reality, like this frame that was my life, you know, being victim to her perpetrator has lifted. There's a suspicion that the vagina monologues, which I know began 23 years ago, which is a long time ago, kind of inspired the Me Too movement finally. Do you think the

apology might persuade abusers to be prepared to confess and apologize for their Me Too experiences? Well, it's certainly my dream. It's certainly my dream. And you know, what's very interesting since the book's come out is not only how many men have been wanting to interview me for their shows and podcasts and journalists, but how many men have been showing up. And now we're beginning,

we have a website, theapologybook.net, where we're encouraging people to send in anonymous apologies and to write what is an apology, and for survivors to write to themselves as their perpetrator. But men are beginning to write in. And I think we need a pathway. We need a pathway now for men to begin to do thorough, deep reckonings. And not, I'm sorry I did that to you, but detailed accounting, because liberation is in the details.

Detailed accounting, what they did, what their intentions were, looking back at their own histories to say, how did I become this man who could rape my girlfriend, who could harass my colleague at work? What in my childhood, what in the culture? And then to feel what your victim has felt, what happened in her life, what was the impact in her life, and then to make such an accounting, an apology that it's absolutely evidencing you're not capable of doing it again. Have you forgiven your father? You know, forgiveness is a weird word. You know, I've always been kind of questioning of it because it feels mandated. Do you know this kind of, what I feel

is there's an alchemy of a true apology that when you hear it and experience it, rancor, rage, bitterness, revenge is released. And if that's forgiveness, my father is released. My father is gone. He's done. He's over. That story is over. I'm older now, but I'm excited even in the years left to see what the next story is. Eve Endler, thank you so much for being with us. The book is called The Apology and we would like to hear from you. If anything Eve has said has really rung true with you, please send us an email or a tweet. We'd love to hear from you. Eve, thank you. Thank you. Now still to come in today's programme White Plimsolls. What's the history

of the white sports shoe and why are they in fashion at the moment? And the serial episode 8 of Gudrun. You may have missed the bank holiday programme on Monday with a discussion about being suitably dressed for work and the difference it can make. Yesterday Professor Kimberley Crenshaw,

she who coined the term intersectionality, and coming out to your parents how to start the discussion. If you've missed the live programme, you can catch up by downloading the BBC Sounds app. Now, a new play at London's Royal Court Theatre is something of a whirlwind of controversy, encompassing the corporate culture, the cosmetics industry, racism and social media. White Pearl is a satirical comedy about a young cosmetics company based in Singapore which has produced a skin-lightening cream. An advert with racist overtones has been leaked on YouTube,

causing a PR crisis. And as the women who run the company try to get the ad taken down, the number of views, of course, escalates. Priya, the boss, and Sunny, her assistant, are panicking. Who can they blame? 22, 23,000! OK, we draft the statement now.

That's what I'm going to say! Oh, this is bad. This is so bad. Priya, chill out. US is hours behind. We've got time left. Find this French clown, get the video taken down, say big sorry. It's gone before American peeps wake up. Easy. The board will want blood for this. Rest assured, my bro, they're going to KPKB. Already think we're bloody inept?

Not us specifically, if you see what I'm saying. What? No, what are you saying? Not us. Oh, you're saying like... Like maybe I'm saying. No, what are you saying? Not us. Oh, you're saying like... Like maybe I'm saying we've got options. Hold on, hold on. So what are we talking here? Are we talking like a sacrificial lamb?

Well, okay, bro, don't be all weird about it. Totally not. You totally are. No, it's not scapegoating if she's, you know, at fault, which... Maybe. We have to... Right. Due diligence.

But we're not talking about that now. No. This first. But, I mean, we're not talking about that because someone's getting fired for this. No, not now, Lai. Now we hustle. Hustle. Yes.

Faza Anadua Alahe as Priya and Katie Leung as Sunny. Earlier I spoke to Kai Alexander, who plays Bilt Tsutikul, one of the six Asian women on stage and the author of the play, and truly Felicia King. What inspired her to write White Pearl? I started writing this play in 2016 and that year a bunch of ads went viral on Facebook,

some of them for whitening cream products, one of them in particular for a Chinese laundry detergent. And they sort of sparked this global outcry for being extremely racially insensitive. And I found it really interesting because having grown up in Thailand and the Philippines, I just found it fascinating that people couldn't make these kinds of ads in a national vacuum anymore. They had to be accountable to a sort of international discourse around race. And so that was really the impetus for me. I started researching whitening creams and the whitening cream industry, interviewing women of color in New York, where I was living, about their experiences of whitening cream growing up, but also getting more interested in sort of

the horrible reality of the cosmetic and beauty industry and the way that it monetizes women's shame, essentially. Kai, what was your reaction when you first read it? So many things. This was basically a play that I've always dreamt that I would be in, just having fun and laughing with the funniest Asian women. It's been a treat. It's been more than just a job. I found the script really funny. And it's just, it's so liberating to be able to be imperfect and to be ugly and to just be wild, you know, because it doesn't happen very often. We don't get those kinds of scripts.

Each of the six characters comes from a different Asian country. Why? Essentially, I wanted to explore the idea of Asian-ness and why we actually group a bunch of very different cultures into a single, like, homogenous grouping. So I really wanted to stage a play where six women from very different cultural backgrounds, with very different upbringings, different relationships to the English language, sort of were trapped together in this explosive environment just to stage actually the tensions between countries like Japan and China and the tensions between westernized Asian countries and westernized Asians

and what we affectionately call our homeland Asians in the play. So I kind of wanted to explode the idea of Asian-ness as a monolith. They are all racist to varying degrees. And it's just a slight worry when you're sitting there in the audience thinking, how dare she stage racism without perpetuating it? How do you do that? I think that the central question of the play for me is, why is that funny? You know, and everything that the central question of the play for me is, why is that funny? You know, and everything that we have framed about this play, which is it's a black comedy and it's a satire. The audience is supposed to be interrogating their own cultural assumptions as they're watching the play and asking, oh, why am I why am I laughing at this? Why am I finding this funny?

And that is a back and forth and evolves over the course of the play so that actually the act of laughing feels dangerous the further that you get on in this play. So I feel like that's my way of sort of making sure that there is actually complexity around the racism that's being staged because it is the central theme of the play. Kay, what have you observed about the audiences as they come to see it and what makes them laugh and what doesn't? Yeah, it's been a mixture. So it's been a very interesting, very unique production and I've never experienced such a varied audience every night. You just never know. But it's just exciting because we are we're challenging comedy, we're challenging voices, we're challenging female characters, essentially for me coming from an actor. and we're so used to laughing at the same stuff. I'm sorry, but I grew up in London, and I faced racism. And finally, we're in this production where we can flip it,

and we can laugh about it. And we can sort of just embrace how ugly humanity is sometimes. And we're very mean, we are mean, you know, and we're laughing at the conditions, right, of what we have to deal with. And so I don't think it's anything obscure as such. It's very normal to me. There is one person who comes off really, really badly, beautifully acted, it has to be said, and that is the young Frenchman.

What's he doing there? Yeah, so there is a character in the play called Marcel, which I won't spoil too much about his function in the play. But he really is the sort of arch villain of the play. And with him, I just wanted to have sort of the grimiest, ugliest version of an ex-boyfriend. But it really he sort of ends up embodying, in many ways, the sort of like ghost of colonialism in this play. And so much of the play is about the ongoing legacy of colonialism, particularly in Asia, and how people are defining themselves in relation to whiteness. So it was important to me to have that presence there through this almost parodic depiction of

this incredibly nasty ex-boyfriend who is like psychopathic. And yeah, it does come off really badly. The play really doesn't shy away from how awful that character is. How recognisable, Kai, were the Indian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese characters to you? Yeah, I mean, every night in our dressing room, we have conversations about castings, especially, and I'm half Japanese, half Chinese. So it's complicated when you're mixed Asian heritage, because in the West, they have an idea of what a Japanese character should be or a Chinese character should be. And they can't quite understand that maybe you're westernized and maybe you're mixed. And there's actually very little representation of that. And then just like the foreign Asians, like the homeland Asians and then the westernised Asians, we have very different perspective of how we fit in in the West and how we belong. It's very close to the characters.

I mean, apart from the bullying side. But yeah, we learn a lot just from the differences. But Alethea, how difficult was it to write? How aware were you of how controversial it might be? Well, I think I don't think about that, actually. You know, I wanted to in many ways, it felt like an exorcism for me personally, and it's a sort of act of catharsis when I wrote it, because, you know, any Asian person can tell you that we do grow up with these experiences of racism. But also, I grew up seeing the sort of horrific racism of Asians

against the black community. And, and all of these things that I felt were true of the world, but didn't get spoken about definitely didn't get represented in the media that I was consuming. So it actually kind of poured out of me, I think I wrote this play in like three days. And I didn't self censor, you know, because and maybe it's sort of the hubris of being a young writer and being inspired by in your face playwrights like Sarah Kane and Philip Ridley, who always just staged this, these horrific acts on stage, but in the attempt to provoke and to show something about humanity. So I felt really, yeah, I felt really empowered to just not self-censor. But having said that, I have been surprised by the response to it. You know, I didn't expect that it would be as intense as it has been. And I think that that actually has a lot to do with sort of like what British audiences have come to expect

of how sanitized language has been on British stages. Because some of the language is very strong. It certainly is. And it is provocative. It's a challenging piece of work. And it's supposed to be confronting at the same time as it's funny. And I think that we haven't seen that kind of playwriting

on British stages since maybe the 90s. So the conversation about it has been quite amazing. I was talking to Felicia King and Kai Alexander-White-Pearl continues at the Royal Court until the 12th of June. Now, wherever you go at the moment, you'll see women and men wearing white sports shoes. Emma Thompson even wore them to the palace when she was made a dame.

Some people call them plimsolls, others call them trainers, and if they're soft and easy to get on, you might call them pumps, as we did for Jim at school. But what's the origin of the white plimsoll, and why in the past year have they become such a hot fashion item? Well, Hannah Rochelle is the author of the blog and book On Brogue,

and Dr Thomas Turner has written The Sport Shoe, A History from Field to fashion. Thomas, terminology, what is a plimsoll? I think a plimsoll is a canvas shoe that has a rubber sole moulded on the bottom of it. And how does it differ from a pump? Well to me a pump is one of those shoes that you would have worn for gym at school for PE that had an elasticated kind of binding thing. And a plimsoll has laces. That would be the way that I define it.

And a trainer? And a trainer. technically advanced and is perhaps kind of something that's made perhaps in the 1970s or the 1980s and you know more recently and has a lot more kind of technical function in it. And what names would you use? I would agree with Thomas a plimp sole is a canvas shoe with a rubber sole but I'd possibly stray into tennis shoe territory as well for that style of shoe. So if it were white and laced up, you'd call it a tennis shoe? Yes, yes. Because to me, a plimsoll you pull on, you see.

You don't tie it up. Isn't it complicated? It is complicated. How did they first emerge, Thomas? This type of shoe, they sort of date back to the late 19th century. And the types of plimsolls that we're talking about, or this canvas shoe with a rubber sole, these are introduced in the early part of the 20th century, when a lot of big rubber companies start producing footwear for people,

linked to the growth in popularity of sport and the kind of ideas of fitness that's going around at that sort of time, in the late Edwardian period. But at what point did they become a fashion item as well as a practical shoe for doing sport? They're a fashion shoe right from the very beginning that you can see perhaps in the 1920s in the US that men and women start wearing shoes which have their origins in sport for purposes outside of sport and they start wearing them in you know everyday situations or perhaps on holiday or in the summer and the big manufacturers start pressing that you see young women particularly in the us in the 1920s and 30s in schools and college campuses wearing uh keds a particular brand of of sort of plimsoll canvas sneakers. And they're very sort of fashionable, very desirable.

Oh, there goes another word, sneaker. How did the white ones become so fashionable recently, Hannah, to the extent that it was OK for Emma Thompson to wear them at the palace? Well, I think a white sneaker or a white plimsoll whether we're talking about the canvas or the leather ones are a really amazingly versatile shoe uh they go with everything you can wear them with tailoring i think they look great with trouser suits on on women and men uh they look lovely with your sort of floaty floral summer dresses and obviously they look great with jeans and t-shirts so

they work with all everybody's wardrobes but they also work on all ages from from young to old so they're a very democratic shoe. And what other notable names have have dared to go somewhere really rather posh? Well in terms of going posh well I can't think of any off the top of my head. But in terms of people who've worn them in the past, everybody from Audrey Hepburn to John Lennon was pictured wearing them, wearing a suit with them. Jennifer Aniston was very keen on them in the 90s when she was in Friends and Marilyn Monroe was also pictured wearing them. So their appeal is really really broad. So Thomas what does the choice of a white shoe say about a person? I think the white shoe is I mean when you look at it as a visual thing it's a almost like a full stop at the bottom of an outfit so it has that you know it's a very kind of stylish

thing I think white in particular even going back in history this is something which shows off your wealth and your ability to um keep these shoes kind of clean or perhaps kind of new ones or have them washed regularly um so you have that it's almost a form of conspicuous consumption it's saying i can wear white i'm not going to get it dirty on the other hand there is a sort of fashion for wearing dirty white shoes, which almost shows the experiences and the fun you've had in your pair of battered old sneakers or your battered old plimsolls. How would you wear yours, Hannah, now? Well, I'm wearing a pair today with a suit, a trouser suit, but I do wear them with everything. So in the summer, I'll wear them with

shorts, I'll wear them with a more sort of formal dress. I've even heard from readers recently who've worn them on their wedding days. That seems to be quite a trend at the moment. So that just goes to show that they can be worn on any occasion. I was just trying to look under the table to see how clean or scruffy yours are. These are quite clean, but I haven't worn them very much yet.

But how do you keep them clean? How do you keep them clean? You wash them regularly. Yeah, but how? There is some debate about whether you have to mix up a sort of soapy mixture and dab it on very carefully. Other people say

put them in a pillowcase and stick them in the washing machine. Yeah, I just whack mine in the washing machine. Do you put them in a pillowcase? Yes, just to protect machine. Yeah, I just whack mine in the washing machine. Do you put them in a pillowcase? Yes, just to protect the machine, really, to protect the drum. And I would also say to not do it too many times because it will start to erode the glue that holds the shoe together and fade any designs that you have on them. But yeah, it works really well.

And how do you clean yours, Thomas? I would put them in a cool wash in the washing machine in a pillow case. A pillow case? On a very gentle setting as well because you don't want to get them too battered around. And don't dry on the radiator. Oh yeah don't dry on the radiator and definitely not in the tumble dryer. Right so you just let them dry in a natural atmosphere in the room yeah slowly. Are they here to stay or will they go out of fashion? I think they're here to stay, absolutely. And particularly as you see a lot of young women on Instagram who are very, very stylish,

wearing the very sort of basic, old-fashioned in a way, plimsolls. And they love them because they're just, they're so versatile and honest and minimalist. So I don't think there's anything not to love going forward and comfortable and yes that does have something going for it doesn't it absolutely yes and you will always wear yours obviously Thomas I will always wear them I've worn them all my life and I think I'll keep wearing them Dr Thomas Turner and Hannah Rochelle thank you both very much indeed and let us know how do you keep your white plimsolls, trainers, sneakers, whatever, clean?

Now, lots of you were moved by my interview with Eve Ensler and got in touch with your own stories. Jackie emailed, Thank you for such a frank portrayal of a strong man ruining a child and then a woman's life. I felt so much resonance with what Eve was saying, even though my father's abuse was only emotional. Joe emailed, There are lots of us out here quietly waiting for an apology from our fathers.

Eve Ensler is just an inspiration, and listening to her confirmed for me that we can live without it. We're going to have to, that's for sure. Someone who didn't want to be named said, It's not just men who need to apologise. My sisters and I have longed for our mother to apologise. We will wait even though she's 93 and has dementia. It will never come.

Amy emailed, Listening from the Netherlands, I've just ordered Eve's book. While I was not sexually abused, I did suffer intense emotional abuse at the hands of my father and, like Eve, yearn for nothing more than an apology. My father died 10 years ago and the yearning is more intense and has caused so much pain in my current life, depression, suicidal thoughts. I don't know how to move on without this apology that the little child in me needs so badly. I hope her book will help me get to a place where I can grant my father forgiveness and move on. Well, thank you for all your emails on this subject. There were many, many more than I've been able to include in this podcast.

On the topic of the recent European elections, Baroness Sarah Ludford tweeted Helen Lewis saying that in the past, media attitude meant being an MEP was like being in a witness protection programme. Yes, in 15 years, I and fellow Lib Dem MEPs did notice being ignored. Time to change. Barbara tweeted, disappointing coverage on Women's Hour of MEP elections. Once again, a disproportionate coverage on the Brexit party and not enough about what real hard-working MEPs have achieved

and enhanced conditions for women. I expected more. And then lots of you got in touch to talk about the terminology surrounding the sports shoe. Kamala Gita tweeted, forget Plimsoll's pumps and trainers in Wales, they're called daps. Jennifer emailed to tell us in Northern Ireland they're called gutties. And Bernard emailed, we called them bumpers when I grew up in the 50s and I still call them bumpers now. Gail emailed, I wore clean white simple trainers to Glyndebourne two years ago with an evening dress. It attracted initially some bemused stares, rapidly followed by envious looks, then compliments.

But Linda had a different opinion. I had to wear white cotton pumps in the summer as a child, but I would never wear them now. Stylish, elegant, not in my understanding of these terms. I have to wear trainer-type shoes, never wide, if I'm doing a lot of walking as my feet are now painful. It may have been the high heels of the past that caused it, but I don't regret wearing the lovely shoes I used to feel so smart in. Now do join me tomorrow when we'll be discussing the terrifyingly class-conscious Pauline in the BBC series Mum, and asking why so many British sitcoms

and novels centre around women who are obsessed with status, from Margot in The Good Life, to Hyacinth Bouquet, from Mrs. Bennet to Becky Sharp. Why are so many of our iconic female characters shameless social climbers? Join me tomorrow

two minutes past ten if you can. Bye-bye. 60 seconds. We choose to go to the moon. 40 feet down, two and a half. Neil said we can't land here. Everyone is sitting there not knowing what has happened. 30 seconds. We might not make it. I'm Kevin Fong, and 50 years on, I'll be telling the story of the Apollo moon landings in a brand new podcast from the BBC World Service. Well, that's just crazy to try and do something as dangerous as that around the moon. 100 feet, three and a half down, nine four.

I thought, wow, what have I gotten myself into? Roger, 1202, we copy. I'm looking at my displays and I am in big trouble. 13 Minutes to the Moon. Available 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 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.