Woman's Hour - Gender pension gap, Trampolining, A Paedophile in the Family

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

When Rebecca Perry was growing up, she competed nationally and internationally as a trampolinist.  She went on to become a published poet and has now ventured into non-fiction with a beautifully written  memoir, On Trampolining.  She joins Nuala in the studio. A new report by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has highlighted a gender pension gap between what men and women are living on in retirement. The estimate it’s currently running at 40.5%, which is more than double the current gender pay gap. Nuala McGovern talks to Nikki Pound from the TUC and financial expert Sarah Pennells Consumer finance specialist at Royal London - pensions insurance provider about the issues facing women and possible solutions.A new Channel 4 documentary out today, A Paedophile In The Family, looks at the life of Emily Victoria and how she carried the weight of being sexually abused by her father throughout her childhood. Following the release of her father from prison, she decided to reach out to those who knew her - teachers, family friends and her mother - to try and understand how the abuse she experienced from the age of two to eighteen remained hidden for so long. Emily joins Nuala in the studio.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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.

Okay, I'm not going to explain now, but just hear me out. Listen to this. Strap it. This is BBC Radio 4. I remember hearing this and I was like, ooh, hold on for dear life. UK station of the year. I'm coming out. We're going to interrupt you because Chris Mason has news.

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I think it was my faith. And innovative entertainment. Screaming, like pushing hard. This is out of playlist. And innovative entertainment. Winner of UK Station of the Year. Hear it on BBC Sounds. This is BBC Radio 4. When I saw him there, I just said, you've got a hell of a job, the best of luck.

What I really wanted to say... Don't tempt me. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern, and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, and welcome to Woman's Hour. And we're going to talk about, among other things, trampolining today. Rebecca Perry spent years bouncing up and down, trying to hit that red cross in the middle of the bed. And memories of that have created a beautiful little pink book. Well, she was never the best trampolinist, she says, and she also knew it.

But nevertheless, she continued for years until she eventually stepped down and stepped away. And I'm wondering if it resonates with you. Did you or your children invest hours and hours in a passion, maybe it's sport or music or any other activity that you then left behind? Or maybe not. Maybe you continue. I don't know. But despite spending all that time, you or your kids were never the very best in that field.

And how do you feel about it now? I think most of us tend to give it up sometime around our teenage years. But I'd love to hear your stories. 84844 is our text number on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. Give it up. Some time around our teenage years. But I'd love to hear your stories. 84844 is our text number on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour. Or you can email us through our website.

Or indeed a WhatsApp or a voice note. That number is 03700 100 444. And also, we'll get to this in a moment, staying with ours invested in a way, AI, artificial intelligence. Some fear how it's developing. You might have seen one of the godfathers of the technology

has been reflecting on his life's work, saying he feels lost right now. But are his fears overblown or maybe justified? We're going to speak to one woman who thinks there is a way to harness the acceleration

of that technology, including when it comes to women and AI. Yes, we've been speaking about that on Women's Hour quite a bit. Staying with gender, the gender pension gap now running at 40%. We're going to find out why that is and also what you can do about it. And we'll speak to Emily Victoria. She is an extraordinarily brave woman who is abused by her father and is trying to help others now

who have been afraid to speak out. So it's all coming up on Woman's Hour. But, you know, I mentioned AI. We had that special last month, found it just fascinating, exploring how rapid the progress is in AI technology and how it could impact women. Now, there are fears that I was mentioning there that have escalated. Experts warning that AI could lead to the extinction of humanity. Get that. And that mitigating this risk

should be treated as a global priority on a par with pandemics and nuclear war. So the statement was published on the webpage of the Centre for AI Safety and it's been signed by dozens of experts. It includes chief executives of ChatGPT. They're the maker of OpenAI. And the company is OpenAI.

And there's also Google DeepMind. But it's also something that's been worrying one of, as I mentioned, the so-called godfathers of AI. There's three of them. But Yoshua, excuse me, Benjio, he won a Turing Prize for his pioneering work in the field. And the BBC's technology editor, Zoe Kleinman, spoke to him last night and asked him how it feels to observe something that he created becoming this dramatic. It is challenging, emotionally speaking, for people who are inside, especially if, like myself, you build your career, your identity around the idea of bringing something useful and good to society and to humanity and to science.

But it's not the first time that scientists go through these emotions. Think about Second World War and the atomic atom bomb, right? There are lots of analogies there. Do you feel sad about it? I feel like, you know, what used to be simple, what gave a meaning to my life and a direction and was clear, isn't anymore. So you could say I feel lost. But in those cases, you know, you have to keep going and you have to engage, discuss, think, encourage others to think with you. Society needs, we need

to think together through what are the best options without leaving all of the other dangers that we, other threats that societies face. Joshua Bengio there. So what should we make of his warnings and how might it affect women? Well, I'm joined now by Ivana Bartoletti, who is a privacy and data protection professional visiting cybersecurity and privacy fellow at Virginia Tech and also the founder, I should say, of Women Leading in AI Network. Good to have you with us, Ivana. I'm curious first what your thoughts are when you hear Joshua speak like that. Somewhat maybe distraught is too strong, but I'll use his word, lost. Thank you so much for having me. I think some of what Joshua says definitely

resonates, doesn't it? In the sense that I think we have seen a lot of things happening over recent times. Chuck GPT has made a splash in the world with 100 million people using it. The combination of computational power and availability of data

has really made artificial intelligence and generative AI, this is in particular, move really fast over recent times. Now, I just wanted to say one thing, though, and that is that we've been warning about the opportunities and the risks of artificial intelligence for a very long time. And because we are on Women's Hour, I have to say that it's been particularly women that over the last decade have been vocal and talking about, yes, the opportunities, but how to harness the opportunities, we have to be able to manage the risks. So, for example, the risk of bias, the risk of coding inequality into the decisions that we made about tomorrow

based on artificial intelligence, the risk of disinformation, the link between disinformation and populism, which has a big impact on women. All of this has been brought to the public knowledge in the last few years. Now, I am glad to see this awakening. I am glad to see that people, tech leaders, are coming out publicly saying we do need regulation, governors. And this is the

crucial point, isn't it? We are at a very important moment in the relationship between humanity and technology. This is clear, because these technologies are going fast, and they do present amazing opportunities. But we are at this crossroads moment, because things could go any way. And we humans, we have agency. So now is the time, I think, to put safeguards, rules, governance. And I think this is what your show is also talking about. What I find so interesting there, Ivana, so much of the stuff that you've said so far, but the fact that women were already sounding the alarm, I think, before these men,

primarily that I have mentioned there, have come out over the past month, really, since that first letter was signed by Elon Musk, among others that got a lot of attention. And now we hear from the three month, really, since that first letter was signed by Elon Musk, among others that got a lot of attention. And now we hear from the three godfathers, not a godmother in there, as I understand it at the moment. But do you think women were listened to about these potential risks? And also, I'm wondering, did they understand the risks

because women have suffered in many ways through the Internet age? Yeah, this is an excellent question, and I'm really glad you're asking. I think the issue here is that women and I have to say particularly women of color have been at the sharp end of what happens when artificial intelligence systems code existing power structures and inequalities into decision making systems. We have seen women being discriminated because, for example, in algorithmic systems, because, for example, receiving less credit than men, because historically men earn more than women. But we've also seen this in CHAT-GPT. When I asked CHAT-GPT only a few weeks ago and said, please, CHAT-GPT, tell me a story about a boy and a girl going to university and choosing their subjects. CHAT-GPT started saying once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. They wanted to choose the university subject. The boy said, I'm going to study the university subject the boy said i'm going to study engineering and the girl said i'm going to study art because i do not understand the numbers now i am fascinated

by the idea of something like generative ai i like it i mean i'm talking about the risks because i like it so much that i wanted to benefit women and i'm fascinated by this human knowledge be available to everybody. It's fantastic. You know, the idea that, you know, we can have a lot of opportunities accessing this knowledge for women. This could also be something very important, becoming coders faster than we have been before. And in a situation where women have been locked out for stereotypical reasons from these professions. Nevertheless, we need to think about what human knowledge are we talking about? Where is this data coming from? So what needs to happen? I know you talk about regulation, but break it down for me in very much

layman's, laywoman's terms, about what you'd like to see happen to not have a repeat of what you've heard on ChatGPT, for example. How do you turn that around to be in a more gender equal AI technology? Absolutely. So first of all, we've got to respect the laws that are there already, right? So AI does not exist in isolation. Privacy legislation, data protection, copyright legislation, liability, human rights, non-discrimination law, they apply already. AI operates within a space that has legislations, has guarantees and safeguards. Second thing that we need to talk about is

specific AI regulation. For example, the European Union is working on the European AI Act, the Council of Europe is working on a convention, the United Nations is working on the digital compact, which I would like it to be enforceable, and the AUDREY campaign, the Alliance for Digital Rights, which women leading in AI and equality now are working on together, that's what we want. We would like this tool, which is important because it brings also the global south. It's not just like it brings the world together. Regulation, but also, so starting with applying what exists now, and then things like the European AI Act, looking at high risk artificial intelligence systems.

I know that in the UK, the Prime Minister has met with the leading tech industry leaders, which is very important. The issue here is how we are able to put governance in place. Now, of course, tech leaders play an important role. They know the systems, how they work. But this is the time for governance, government, civic society, and I would say international organizations to really shape the rules governing the use of this technology. So the EU, as you talk about there, that's kind of the future of AI or some of the future laws or regulations that might be created. But you do mention all those laws that

are already there. But why aren't they being applied? Because obviously, if we see the bias that you've discussed when you asked about a girl and a boy going to university, or, you know, if I bring up deep fakes, for example, pornographic material, that is generally women that have been violated in that sphere. Images being used without their consent, for example, in a very realistic way.

They're out there. So how come nobody's getting prosecuted if laws are in place? Yeah, I mean, this is really good because, so for example, when CHPT made its splash in Europe, for example, in the world, one of the regulators in Europe, the Italian regulator, said, hey, stop, you can't process the data of Italian citizens, Italian people, if we don't know where this data is coming from. Now, this may sound a bit drastic, right? But in reality, you know, you wouldn't put out a car in the market without knowing whether the brakes work or not. And the same has to apply to these tools, no? Before a tool is put in the market, we have to be able to say

the due diligence has been put in place. Now the issue with the bias is that these systems, AI systems, they are social technical tools. So they are technical. AI obviously is a technological tool, but they're also a bundle of data, which is not neutral, people, parameters, and they operate in the world. So to an extent, these systems, they are fed the data and the data is what is out there. And therefore they require a lot of massaging, a lot of attention, a lot of work in order to be able for these tools

to avoid replicating the stereotypes that are in society. Now, this is something that we have to do. We absolutely have to do as a society. And as you mentioned, deep fakes, nudity, we need companies to take responsibilities. And it's very important that we do as a society as much as possible to avoid AI turning into, and the digital ecosystem in general, turning into something that is dangerous and not good for women. You do often read or write about AI that it is, in its biases, is just because of the data and humans involved. It is just reflecting society.

And to change the biases, you need to change society. I do want to go to one thing that Joshua was saying, Benjio, one of the godfathers of AI, that there should be ethical training for computer programmers, that usually they wouldn't have had that, which actually surprised me. I think I thought they would have because of the nature of the material they're dealing with. What do you think about that proposal?

Yeah, I mean, again, this is not new. And we've been doing and we've been talking about ethics. But the, and it's important, you know, I think people need to understand what is about data. For example, when they work with data, there is to an extent this idea that data is this sort of, first of all, it's defined as oil, but it's also the digital currency today. But also this data is something neutral that can inform every decision. But in reality, data is sort of society as it is. And therefore, data scientists, people working in this field, they really need to understand what they're talking about. That data has to be a fair outcome on the AI system,

what it means to be fair, what does it mean to deal with data that is representative of society and ingest this data into systems that make decisions about tomorrow. But to be honest, there's also one other issue here. And the issue that we face is the need that we have to address the lack of women,

and in particular, women of all backgrounds in this field. I am very worried about this. And I'm worried because obviously, if you don't have enough and a diverse pool of people designing the systems, but not just designing them, also deciding what we're going to use them for, that is going to be problematic because things are going to be overlooked. So it's important that these systems, which are social technical, they are built and created in a way which is inclusive, especially whether, for example, these systems operate in local government, in local authorities, when they decide, or in national government,

when they decide whether you have access to a system, whether you have access to credit, where you have access to services. Otherwise, what happens to the consequences could be quite dramatic. But let's not just focus on the bad side. I mean, it's really important that we understand this because at a time where we are hearing all this negativity, I think it's important to remind ourselves that we do know already a lot of the risks about artificial intelligence. A lot of researchers, academics, policymakers have been talking about that,

putting in place proposals to overcome this risk so that we can really harness the value of these technologies. For women, I do think that there are opportunities which are important to leverage. But to do so, we really have to head down and focus on rules and regulations. Really interesting. Lots of food for thought there, Ivana Bartoletti, who is, among other things, a Privacy Fellow at Virginia Tech, founder of the Women Leading in AI Network. Thank you so much. And if you would like to hear more about women and AI, we do have our programme on BBC Sounds. And one of my guests, Gina Niff, she very much was pushing women, go back into the workplace, train in AI and become part of the solution. Now, as you've been getting in touch, 84844, I was asking about if you had a passion in any field,

sport, music, whatever it might be for you or your kids, and invested hours and hours and hours in something and maybe left it behind. How do you feel about it now? Let me see. Here's one. I spent hours practicing stilt walking when I was 10 alongside my seven-year-old sister. Our stilts were homemade by our dad and we trained ourselves to be competent, even performing a stilt ballet for our friends. Years later, as a teacher away with children on an adventure holiday, the children were with me messing about in an old aircraft hangar used for sports. Someone found a wooden pair of stilts like the ones I had. After several children trying unsuccessfully to master the art of stilt walking,

they asked if I fancied a go without telling them of my latent talent. I mounted the stilts and walked the length of the hangar. My street cred had never been that high then or since. That's from Noreen. Lovely story, Noreen. Thanks for getting in touch from Whitley Bay. Why am I talking about that? Because my next guest is Rebecca Perry. And when Rebecca was growing up,

she competed nationally and internationally as a trampolinist. And Rebecca brings us into that world with her beautifully written memoir on trampolining. Now, for most of us, being on a trampolinist. And Rebecca brings us into that world with her beautifully written memoir on trampolining. Now, for most of us, being on a trampoline is something we dabbled with at school. Yes, I did have the record for seat drops

with my partner. Or maybe if you see one at a kid's party, you can't help yourself, but give it a go, like Noreen did. But Rebecca was fully immersed, living, breathing, ricocheting through life on trampolines until her teenage years.

Welcome, Rebecca. Hello. Thank you for having me. So good to have you. You've touched a nerve with our listeners. I can see the comments coming in. But shall we begin with a reading from your book? Because I kind of want to give people an idea of, you can tell that you are also accomplished poet and writer. So let's listen to a little. Of course. So this is from right at the start of the book, page four. So really early on. Here we go. When I was a trampolinist, I had never felt like my movements were really taken on by my body. It was more like my mind forced the movements into being rather than them happening in a way

that felt instinctive or magical or inevitable. I still imagine that a really gifted athlete becomes their movements as if the muscles absorb them, no divisions or edges, the brain an ice cube melting into the body. The brain is like a horse. You love the horse. The horse's nose is so soft, but it will throw you off into a shallow stream and make you eat mud. A gifted athlete is able to tame their brain in such a way that their thoughts become like water, by which I mean blood, running into every corner but still under command. My mind would throw me backwards instead of forwards, trick me to land on my neck. I was not a gifted athlete. I knew it. I persisted.

So lovely. Thank you. You were not a gifted athlete and knew it why did you persist that's a really good question um I think I think it's interesting looking back um at something that you have completely lived without questioning um and I guess completely objectively being 11th best in the world is amazing it's great you know you know when you know in you know in your heart in yourself that you're not the very best which is kind of what the book looks at a bit um I think a lot of it was to do with um it just being my life you know I started when I was three. It was, for the most part, really, really enjoyable. You know, again, the book kind of looks at the ways we remember things that are negative much more powerfully. great and the community was great and I loved the sensation of it and I think it was only probably towards the end that those kind of the negative stuff really started to kind of rear its head. And we'll get into that as well but as you mentioned you started at three. How did it become

a serious pastime? So I mean I'm told obviously I don't really remember to begin with but our family friends started volunteering at our local club. So me and my brother and the two sons, James and Scott of the other family, we all went along. And it was just like a thing we did on a Saturday to begin with. And then I think my brother, less so, interested in it. So he kind of carried on for a few years. And I think when it became obvious that me and James and Scott, the sons all had kind of a natural aptitude for it. We just started training twice a week and then three times a week.

And then you do competitions and you find yourself in, you know, grades moving up and then you're training another day a week. And it sort of just becomes, yeah, I guess with anything that you have some kind of talent for, it just kind of grows. It can grow in your life like that. And became part of your life. I want to go back to you coming 11th in the world because that was the World Age Group Games in Canada when you were 10.

What do you remember of that event? I remember I have like flashes of different memories. Which I think the book brings us there as well, just to let listeners know. Yeah, definitely. I kind of touch on, you know, we had a holiday as well. So I have really vivid, vivid memories of kind of really incredible,

like what an incredible opportunity to have as a 10 year old. I remember from the actual competition amazingly. So I did an individual competition and synchronised. I've got absolutely no recollection of the synchronised routine at all. Like I genuinely couldn't pull out of my brain if I had to any information about that. I remember really clearly doing my individual routine

and kind of walking around the stadium and the judges being really high up on this kind of balcony. And that was quite obviously intimidating. And I remember my coach walking around with me, lifting me up onto the trampoline. And I remember as well at the end, so I kind of messed up to a degree you know I you have 10 moves you have to compete and to complete and you have to deliver the exact moves that you say you will and on the eighth move I couldn't do what I was supposed to do next I was too close to the to the edge of the routine and to the edge of the trampoline so I changed it kind of and I remember thinking like oh god I'm so that was you know quick, quick thinking like, well done to me, but also like absolutely catastrophic as well in terms of what you're there for and you're meant to be doing.

So I remember like a real kind of combination of relief that it wasn't a complete disaster, but also just like incredible, I guess, disappointment that I'd failed to deliver what I was supposed to do. It's pretty intense for a 10-year-old, though, when I was reading it. And I know to be the best and to be 11th like that is something I suppose you've grown up with. But when you look back on it at that time, because you're remembering your thought patterns, which were emotionally quite taxinging I think for for a

kid that age yeah I think um I think yeah that's true I was um it's it's kind of it's it's a lot and I think I until honestly until I was sort of 13 14 and and sort of physically things started to go a bit wrong and and my anxiety got worse and and it you know was sort of the beginning of the end at that point up until then um I really felt kind of I feel like I've sort of managed it fine um and I don't know if that's true or not like it feels it feels that's kind of my memory of it but definitely I think as an adult it's's kind of manifested as like an absolute hatred of competition. And you have. Yeah, I really don't.

I really don't enjoy competing. I kind of and it set me up with what I think can be quite a healthy, like just assumption that I won't win anything, which is which is so interesting interesting and like are you talking about everything like a game of connect four with me or are you talking about if you're going to I don't know race somebody an olympic pool yeah I think I'm just like it doesn't matter you know I have a real kind of disconnect now from from competition so um which is I think totally related to having having years of um caring about it or feeling like having years of caring about it or feeling like I needed to care about it, but probably not even then really naturally being a particularly competitive person. But you were in that world.

And, you know, we have heard many times about stories of abuse experienced by competitive young athletes. And so I want to make it really clear that that is not your story. It is something that is uplifting and deep and complex and lots of things, but not that. And even so, I understand your parents did find your book difficult to read.

Why was that? I think, yeah, we've had some, we've had interesting conversations, me and my mum and dad, and I'm really lucky that they support me in everything I do. And I'm really close to them so we can have honest conversations but I think they feel like they should have should have had better insight into how I felt and we've you know talked a lot about how impossible

it actually really is to know what's going on inside the brain of anyone let alone a child who probably themselves doesn't even really understand or couldn't articulate so you know it wasn't that I was desperate at points to say like I'm you know I'm feeling this or or I'm worried about this or stressed about this that that kind of wasn't it at all so I think that they're probably blaming themselves for something that couldn't really have been picked up on um and you know I'm not a parent myself but having the conversations I've had with people who are parents is just I guess that like being guilty feeling guilty all the time is just sort of standard and I've said to my mum and dad

I think this is just kind of unfortunately in a book but you know kind of a feeling that um that parents have generally. But yeah, they found it tricky, I think. We think we know how to jump on a trampoline, but there was lots of technical words and descriptions that you share with us in the book, kipping, killing, the Red Cross, crash mats, spotters, etc. Tell me, what came to me as I read it,

like it kept coming back to the red cross on the trampoline bed yeah I feel it did for you too during your trampolining career what's the significance for you now as I mention it what's coming into your mind yeah it's um so I was interested I think when I wrote this book um I'd written pieces about trampolining before as as poems and as essays but I've I was really interested with this because it was a longer piece in looking at trampolining kind of as an actual as an actual sport which I never had I'd always just really kind of been looking at my own experience of it so I got this really really old textbook about um called trampolining for

coaches and performers and just was able to really look at trampolining as a like um yeah kind of technical endeavor in a way that I never had before um so I was reminded of all of these terms that you know back when I was a kid we just say all the time um really weird words that like most people have never heard of um but in terms of the red cross you know it's um in the in the rectangle of the trampoline of the mesh there's this red cross in in the middle which is basically the bullseye it's like you meant you're meant to land on that ideally every time you land a move if you land there that's kind of the sweet spot it's the best place um you can do a return jump without kind of any angle to it you know you're going straight up you get the most height so it was really interesting to me to think about it as um a kind of symbol of perfection and what it means to miss it and actually the fear of hitting it as well so if you do hit the

red cross you go really high and that means you can complete more complex moves and that's quite scary so it was sort of this yeah i wanted to look at it as a yeah as a symbol of um the the ideal and also the thing to avoid as well so it was kind of doing doing that that was almost a fear of excelling in a way because if you jump on that then you've got to pull something out of the bag and you do explore that in the book as well that relationship between brain and body that I found just fascinating. You began, you say, to experience your perception of your brain as a saboteur at the helm of your body. I was thinking about Simone Biles as well.

Remember when she got the twisties during the last time she was competing, which we felt such empathy for. But you probably more than most. Yeah, I remember reading, because obviously she didn't talk loads about it straight away, but I remember reading just a really short statement she released and just thinking, I know exactly, obviously to a much lesser degree, she's, you know, operating on a level that we can, you know, we can only dream of. But yeah, I just thought I know exactly that feeling of loss,

of being completely lost at the exact, at the precipice of of having to complete something really really complicated and dangerous yeah and and particularly for her you know like very very very seriously dangerous and um yeah that that kind of feeling I guess it would be um in gymnastics at the top of a jump same as in in trampolining if you're doing floor gymnastics so that kind of feeling of being at the very very top so the moment you have to make the decision about you know what you're you know what move you're meant to you're meant to do but that doesn't mean you're convinced your brain will do it for you so being at the very very top and and that

feeling of like needing to be in complete control of what's going to happen to your body next but having that kind of doubt still and that I think is what got worse for me as I got older that kind of questioning of of my own I wonder what that is do you know I mean I wonder is it because it's when you're becoming more conscious of everything in the world yeah I think it's that thing exactly like you know when you're a kid you don't have a huge a huge sense of sort of risk or repercussions or fear or anything like that so you just I mean I still think I did to be honest um which is I think part of why I was um never going to be the best the best because I I was always probably slightly too sensitive in terms of my own kind

of awareness and then it just you know as you get to be a teenager you become much more aware of your um thought processes and what could go wrong and all of that stuff. And it becomes quite hard to shut out. Does it bother you? Did it bother you that you weren't going to be the best? I put that in an inverted comma. No, it really didn't, which I think was probably, you know, if I talk about the reasons I stopped eventually, and there were probably five to ten different reasons that all kind of came together at one time. But I think I really didn't have any desire to be the best at it, which is probably good and healthy, but also not the drive you need, obviously. I will. Obviously, you were excellent at trampolining. If you're 11th in the world,

you're also excellent at writing. I love the book. I wish you all the best with it on trampolining. Rebecca Perry, thanks so much. I do also have somebody getting in touch. Please don't imply that spending time doing a sport, music or art activity is a waste of time if you're not the best

or you give it up as an adult. There's so much value inherent in these activities besides winning. My son fenced until he left uni. Daughter played football until she was 20, 21. They had a great time, brilliant experiences and made lifelong friends all around the world. I didn't mean to infer

that stuff. I'm just interested about how you feel. Some people feel, why did I spend all that time doing X? Other people are like, no, it was great. Keep them coming. 84844. Right. I want to move on next to pensions. A new report by the Trade Union Congress

at TUC highlights a gender pension gap between what men and women are living on in retirement. They calculate the difference at around 40%, so equating to more than £7,000. I'm joined now by Nicky Pound from the TUC and financial expert Sarah Pennells, Consumer Finance Specialist at Royal London Pensions Insurance Provider. And we want to just take a look at some of these issues that are facing women and some

of the possible solutions. So let me start with you, Nikki. The data says the gap is 40%. Explain that. What are we, where and when and how and how much money? Yes, thank you. So, yes, so the data that we've published shows that women are sort of basically twice as likely to miss out on auto-enrolment because they don't earn enough to be put into auto-enrolment. So what it basically means is that one in nine women are in jobs where their

employer doesn't have to put them into a workplace pension. This compares to less than one in 20 men and what that reflects is the broader pensions gap which is essentially saying that at 40% women effectively go nearly five months of the year before they get their pensions income in comparison to men and this is essentially driven by the kind of compounding of pay, unequal pay and having to work part-time throughout their lives that compounds the kind of gender pensions, gender pay gap, sorry, and leads to a gender pensions gap in retirement. So out of the labour market for certain periods of their lives potentially, and then the auto-enrolment that you mention, I know the clue is in the name, but it's only certain companies that offer that. So it's not that only certain

companies offer that. All companies are required to auto-enroll workers into an occupational pension if they earn £10,000 a year or more. So if you earn less than that, you won't be put into a workplace pension scheme by default. And what we know is that often women do earn less than that threshold. They're more likely to work in low-paid jobs. They're more likely to work in low-paid jobs. They're more likely to work part-time. So women are three times more likely to work part-time than men. So it often means that they miss out on being put into a pension scheme by default. So they're not building up their pensions throughout their working lives. And why is the £10,000 the cut-off?

When auto-enrolment was introduced, that was the threshold that was set. We would like to see, one of the things we would like to see is that that threshold is removed so that it doesn't matter what you earn, you are put into a pension by default. There is the option to opt out but that needs to be the individual's decision but what we would like to see is that threshold removed so that everyone has the opportunity to start building their savings from retirement as soon as they enter the world of work. Our research also found that one in three younger women miss out on auto-enrollment and also one in eight younger men as well, because again, they're more likely to be working part-time, low-paid jobs. So this just then starts at the very start of your career and compounds throughout your life, particularly for women. Sarah, let me bring you in because this is really with private pensions, right? It's a different story if we talk about state pensions.

It is and it isn't. I mean, the gender pension gap has been around for decades, although it's only really been talked about over the last few years. And as you say, it is partly about private and workplace pensions. But actually, women previously before the state pension reforms of 2016 were really losing out because people who were employed and who were earning a good salary, and that tended to be men, did quite well out of the state pension system. But people who didn't have a consistent employment record, and that tended to be women, didn't do so well and often ended up having a much lower pension. Now, the rules have changed. And it does mean that there's now this sort of single tier when it comes to pensions. or claim benefits if they're out of work. Some women can lose out because of child benefit. There's a rule that says if you earn over £50,000, then child benefit is taxed. Now, it's really important still to register for child benefit, even if you choose not to receive any of the money, because that means you build up national insurance credits towards your state pension.

So state pension is part of the picture. I think what's really been changing over the last few years is that we are understanding much more about what goes into making this gender pension gap so big. So as Nikki was saying, it is about work patterns, women earning less, women taking time out of the workplace. And as our own research looked at, menopause. Now that's something that not many people are looking at, but we had a look at the figures and it can have a real impact on the standard of living you have in retirement. If, take an example, a 50-year-old woman stops work and doesn't work and gets her state pension. And not working because? Because of the effects of the menopause. She finds she cannot stay in the workplace. Say she's only £40,000 a year. By the time she retires, she could have £126,000 less in her pension fund.

It's estimated a million women leave the workplace because of menopause. So that's a big impact on the gender pension gap as well. So what do we do about that? Nikki, I saw you nodding your head, listening to how menopause comes into it. I mean, what would you propose? I mean, in terms of, I mean, I think like there's specific things in terms of the actual pension. So as I said, removing the earnings threshold

and we would like to see statutory requirements to report on the pensions gap and have action plans of how workplaces will tackle it. But I think, you know, it is that broader thing around how do you make the world of work supportive of women and their life experiences?

So we know that women, we did some research a couple of months ago that showed that one in seven women will be out of the labor market due to caring responsibilities. So there's things like investing in child care fixing our recruitment um and staffing crisis in social care because it's women who are expected to plug the gaps in those sectors um when there isn't the staff to deliver that it's also things

like flexible working flexible work can be a really important policy in the workplace that will help women particularly going through menopause, to manage their experiences and not be forced out of the labour market. That's what I was about to come to. I suppose flexibility would play into it there. Sarah, what else do you think? I think there's a mix of long-term issues to address the structural inequalities and some quick fixes.

So, for example, we're finding that employers don't always talk about what happens to someone's pension if they take maternity leave. So they may talk about things like keeping in touch days, but not about actually what it means for someone's pension. Also actually having conversations at work. So we found that three quarters of women said that their menopause symptoms were difficult or serious but only three percent had talked to their managers well if their managers haven't had menopause training that can be a really difficult conversation to have some small adaptations at work can actually make life much easier for women going through perimenopause or menopause but also if you're in a relationship

and you're having a family talking to your partner about who's going to stop work and what does it mean in terms of not just your pay, but your pensions. Can your partner pay into your pension, for example? That's a good point. So your partner potentially can be, usually? They can. Now, there can be good tax reasons why, if they're a higher owner, they may want to carry on paying in theirs. But we do find that although women are doing lots of things right, so we find, for example, with our cost of living research, women are no more likely to stop paying into their pension than men. Women save more as a percentage of their income than men, but because of the gender pay gap, that doesn't add up as so

much. So women are doing a lot right. But I do think there's a broader conversation, both within the family and in the workplace, that could actually take some small steps to improving the gender pension gap. OK, comment came in. Ray Pensions. Before I divorced in 1981, deserted with two infants, I was entitled to 50% of my husband's index-linked pension and each child 25% in the event of his death. At the financial hearing, my barrister, I had to have one because he did, told me I could kiss goodbye to that. The loss to me now is that I have retired is literally incalculable, says Mary. And let's talk about divorce

because it's something people go through and how that can affect their pension and income in retirement. Nicky? I mean, I think in terms of divorce, like divorced women have an even higher pensions gap. So you shouldn't overlook pensions in the divorce settlement

because they can be, you know, worse. But I think it's something that people wouldn't be aware of. And I think to the point, actually talking about pensions in the workplace with your family, understanding all of the different implications and options is

a really important conversation. And Sarah, I know you want to come in. It's right. So there was some research by which that found that 60% of people said the pension wasn't discussed when they got divorced. Which is amazing, right? Spaggering statistic. So pensions can be split, it's called shared in the jargon, at point of divorce or you can take the value of a pension and offset it against maybe the matrimonial home the family home often what we find is that women go for the home option for understandable reasons they want that continuity especially there's children the problem is the pension can actually be more valuable than the home so i would say although possibly thinking about talking about pensions may be the last thing on your mind when you're thinking of going through a divorce,

please do look into it because as part of the divorce process, you both have to disclose what assets you have. So if your partner has a very large pension, they have to disclose that and it should be part of the conversation. Maybe the family home staying with the mother might be the right thing to do, but part of the pension could also be divided and that could mean you have a better standard of living when you stop work and in retirement. Sarah Pennells, Nicky Pound, thank you both so much.

And thanks to all of you getting in touch as well. Going back to trampolining, when I was a volunteer youth worker, I trained as a trampoline coach. I was rubbish, but in order to keep teaching, I kept going. Even now,

my children have grown up and my husband keeps suggesting we get rid of the trampoline in our garden. I occasionally go and have a little bounce and it makes me laugh and that's a good reason

to keep it. Yes, it is. Helen Perry. No relation, I don't think. However, to Rebecca Perry, my guest. I want to turn next to Emily Victoria. She has created a documentary detailing how she carried the weight of being sexually abused by her father throughout her childhood.

A paedophile in my family, surviving dad. The documentary is out tonight on Channel 4, which we'll talk about now. And following the release of Emily Victoria's father from prison, she decided to reach out to those who knew her during her childhood, teachers, family, friends, and really trying to understand how the abuse she experienced from the age of 2 to 18 remained hidden for so long. She also had difficult conversations with her mother. Emily wants to use her experience and also this documentary

as a sexual abuse survivor to try and help others and she joins me in the studio now. You're so welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I watched your documentary yesterday I have to say and it was harrowing at times I could see for you. A very compelling watch however. I know you were in a good place, I think, as well when you started doing it. Talk me through why you decided to kind of put yourself out there. Yeah, it's a really important question. So since I was 19, actually straight after I became free, I pursued my career in journalism and I've worked in print and TV and radio. And what I learned was what a powerful medium it is when used in the right way to get a conversation going and educate the public,

but also actually implement bigger change in government and things like that. So I was carrying alongside sort of that journey this trauma from my past um which kind of was there behind everything and actually I thought when my dad was released from prison and I was in a much stronger place you know a mother myself doing business and journalism alongside one another what can I do to actually try and make a difference. And I think I wanted to start a conversation with the UK, with the nation, to understand why it goes unnoticed and help empower everybody.

I think, I mean, there's so many things about the documentary that struck me, but because you're a young woman and this is something that's happened in our recent past, there are so many photographs and videos of you as a child with your father. So you're kind of pulling back the curtain, I feel, on your family life. You know, you're a kid that was always smiling, as you say, your way of trying to cope with it or manage it. But there was also red flags like you, as you looked at your report book,

missing from school, having so many absences, for example. And I'm wondering how you're thinking about that now and those adults that were around you that did not or were not able to protect you. Yeah, and that's a big theme that we explore in the documentary.

And I think I hope a lot of people watch it this evening because it kind of pulls back the veil on that, on how that can happen. And there's lots of different ways that happens. But I think the main one is the perpetrator is very good at manipulating everyone around them from the day dot. You know, often I remember the policeman who had come over to the house to

sort of go through everything with a fine-tube comb for evidence said to my mum who is in tears in the floor saying I can't like how do I carry on how did I not see this and he said often they target people with an open heart who are lovely and honest and trusting and they do that so that they can have children so that they can abuse them and so they are that manipulative and he had this amazing mask you know he was employed to be a foster carer and so that was just the level of power that he had and then on top of that it goes wider back then obviously there weren't safeguarding practices um taught in school so there's lots of different things that come together to enable um it to remain hidden um but as we know one in six girls and one in 20 boys are sexually abused the scale of abuse is actually you know just as big today

as it was back then so why i'm doing this is to help people have those conversations to make sure that actually we can prevent this continuing. Did you get any solace from speaking to the head teacher for example some of the people you spoke to just for our listeners you had your best friend from childhood her mum who thought who never liked your father for whatever reasons she just couldn't put her finger on it she said but didn't want her little girl around him. With those two, for example, because you go and you ask them, why didn't they notice? Yeah, I think I've always been quite confident at looking straight sort of in the mirror and at the difficult topics. But what I had to do in this documentary really was to go back and dive deeper and have more difficult conversations than I ever thought and it was really really difficult but I got liberated through those conversations by speaking with my head teacher who's just the

most phenomenal man but you know he admits that the school didn't see and he couldn't believe that at least one in 20 children so one in every classroom was being abused even back then because they came from these lovely countryside backgrounds and then speaking with my friend Jo and her mum Debbie was amazing you know I speak to Jo all the time she's one of my best friends but we didn't really get into that level of depth and I think it was really eye-opening for me and for them and actually I really want everyone to know that when you do have these difficult conversations you get this wonderful thing at the end which is this gratitude for your relationship with that person and you get your relationship goes to another level so there's

just so much that can come from being confident enough to step forward I have to say I was blown away by you when you went to the police officers who had investigated this case and you can go as far with this or not or people can watch the documentary tonight but they took on your case and they brought to you the interview notes that they had with your father they had gone to apprehend him um and suffice to say and i don't know whether you want to go into more detail or not that your father was blaming this child uh for being sexually uh arousing to him instead of taking the uh blame himself and taking responsibility for his actions when you think of a child at school who gets caught doing something naughty they try and dress it up and he was still behaving like a little child and

as an adult a coward you know couldn't admit to what he did so he's caught and he was trying to blame it on me. He said that I was a sexual child but a two-year-old cannot be sexual and so when I heard that it sort of knocked me for for six I thought I was going to fall off the chair or run to the loo and be sick but it was also really good for me because I did think that because he had admitted guilt and now there was overwhelming evidence and I really helped the police with that but I thought that he had accepted what he had done and was remorseful in some way, but obviously not. And I think it's really important for me to hear that. And another thing is, as you know, the police officers say, Emily, are you sure you want to hear this?

And I think a lot of people think, why did Emily want to hear that level of detail? Because not all of it's in the documentary, but it was extremely harrowing. And the reason is, is because I want to show people if I'm asking people to face the truth I want to be um leading that and I want to show like I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it so that you can do it and that's what I'm trying to be an example for for what should happen yes I think it also showed us a pedophile's thinking yeah I'm really interested in paedophiles and there are different types of paedophiles and it's something there are future projects that I'm looking into

doing some in tv some in books and that's definitely one area I'll explore because it's really important once you can profile paedophiles then you can start to get ahead of the problem yeah yeah I think that part you were saying you felt like I was kind of rooted watching you going through that. And I'm so sorry you had to, but I'm glad that you got something from it. You did want to meet with your father and there was a restorative justice gentleman who was helping you with that. But your father decided he did not want to meet you I know and I want to just tell our listeners that you're kind of raising your eyebrows as I say that yeah um I mean he's a carer so I'm not surprised he said it will impact his therapy which

no doubt gobsmacking no doubt he gets it for free as well where survivors have to try and navigate that path on their own a lot of the time but anyway he um didn't want it to impact his job but it does it's not surprising if he's a coward um i don't think that door's completely closed i think um it's interesting that is really important i want to go and see him to understand if pedophiles can be rehabilitated in any way you know i i could see um through him when he was young when I was younger and I think that I'd be able to bring that to a meeting when I saw him if I see him in the future but I would like to sort of understand what was behind his thinking and and what really made him

him did it start when he he was a teenager, how did he end up being this person who abused not only me, but other people? And yeah. Yeah. I want to turn to your mum just for our last couple of minutes. I could speak to you for so much longer, Emily, but people will have to watch the documentary tonight on Channel 4. But she is obviously distraught. She obviously feels very responsible for what happens. And you continue to reassure her that that's not the case but just trying to understand how is she there beside him

and not knowing it's a really good question and it's one that i hope people ask how does she not know how did your mum not know um and the thing is again the perpetrator is very good at manipulating everyone around them and actually coercer control goes into it but um i encourage people to reach out um on social media channels wherever talk to each other on the sofa and have that conversation because that's the whole point of this documentary how did it go unnoticed and let's talk about that and um my mum did not notice and i think that haunted her for quite some time but in the documentary we really addressed that together and I hope people will through my story be able to understand the themes behind it because my mum has been come into this documentary with her eyes wide

open that people will be asking that but she wants to support it very much in the same way that she's learned about safeguarding to try and help make a change just as I am. Yes well you're so brave thank you so much for coming in Emily Victoria and my family pedophile in my family surviving dad it's out tonight as I mentioned on channel four I should also say that Emily's mum became the main breadwinner so she was out of the house so much and you'll hear more about that as well of the manipulation of the family. Thanks again Emily. Tomorrow you will have Anita Ranney

she has her new memoir with Harriet Gibson will be on her memoir is Is This OK? The relationship with the internet and social media and tracing Harriet's life online from her teens to adulthood and the consequences of her growing social media addiction.

So that'll be tomorrow with Anita from 10. Hope you'll join her. I will see you on Monday. Hello, it's me, Jade Adams, and I'm back with a second series of Welcome to the Neighbourhood. This is the Radio 4 podcast, where myself and a celebrity guest like to have a nosy round social media groups from up and down the country.

Bit of a strange one, but I am looking to get rid of a second hand coffin. My mum has found this little metal box in her garden. Can anybody local please remove three stitches out of my neck? This series I'm joined by some top people including Nick Grimshaw.

It's a grenade! Izzy Sutty. That's my favourite reply. And self-esteem. If you think I should cover this one up, we should see me other one, bloody hell. Head to BBC Sounds to find brand new episodes of Welcome to the Neighbourhood with me, Jade Adams. 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.