Woman's Hour - Girls in Afghanistan, Female entrepreneurs and life editing, Women’s cricket

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Five years on since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, we hear how it has changed women’s lives in the country and beyond. Anita Rani speaks to BBC World Service journalist Mahjooba Nowrouzi in Kabul, and human rights activist Shaharzad Akbar. We’ll also hear from 21-year-old Purvin Juma who left Afghanistan in 2021 and fled to the UK.Pregnancy, motherhood, fertility treatment: why are some female entrepreneurs keeping major life events secret? The founder Eshita Kabra joins us to discuss the culture of life editing and whether women still feel they have to choose between business success and family life. We also hear from Emmie Faust from Female Founders Rise, which supports female entrepreneurs.A chance discovery in an attic has revealed that the Booker Prize-winning novelist Iris Murdoch also had an artistic side. More than 80 of her artworks have been found in a secret room in the attic of her former home, where they had been lying for decades. They include the only self-portrait she is known to have painted, four surrealist landscapes and three sketches of female nudes. Dr Miles Leeson, who made the discovery and is Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester, and Professor Anne Rowe join us to discuss the importance of the art.The Hundred has brought a new audience to cricket with its fast-paced 100-ball format, star players and family-friendly atmosphere. Uniquely, women's and men’s matches are played as double headers at the same venue on the same day, giving equal prominence to both competitions. With this season's finals taking place at Lord's on Sunday, Anita is joined by BBC cricket commentator Alison Mitchell to discuss the growth of The Hundred, the impact it has had on the women's game, and the teams and players to watch as the tournament reaches its climax.PRESENTER: Anita Rani PRODUCER: Melanie Abbott

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service,

Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'DOO.com. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the program. It's been five years since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan. In that time, their control over the lives of women and girls has become stricter and harsher. We'll be speaking to three women to find out how things have.

changed. We'll be discussing life editing in the program today. That's women entrepreneurs who feel they can't reveal their plans to have a family, even hiding their pregnancies in some instances, for fear of not being taken seriously in business. If you can relate, then get in touch 84844. Tell us your story. Cricket, the hundred to be more specific. Commentator, Alison Mitchell, will be bringing us up to speed with the fast-paced tournament ahead of the final this Sunday. and secret artworks found in Iris Murdoch's attic. We'll be going on display today, but what do these works reveal about her life,

the self-portrait and the female nudes? We'll be discovering more about the writer and painter later. I'm also intrigued this morning to know whether you too have discovered any hidden treasure in the attic or any other place for that matter, diaries, poetry, art done by loved ones that reveal a whole new side of them, you had no clue about. If you have got a story about treasure, then get in touch in the usual way.

In fact, if you want to tell us your thoughts and opinions on anything you're here on the program, we would love to hear from you. You can get in touch via your smart speaker. Say Alexa, ask BBC sounds to send a comment. If you'd like to send us a plain old text message, 8444-844 is the number. Or how about a WhatsApp? 0300-100-444. And if you'd like to go really old school and send us an email, then go to our website for details. 84844 is the text number. But first, this weekend marks five years since the Taliban took over in Afghanistan. Life there, especially for women and girls, has completely changed.

UNESCO estimates that 2.4 million girls are now excluded from secondary school education. They believe this could approach 4 million by 2030. The restrictions on women and girls have been. become progressively more extreme. They're barred from most jobs, from parks, gyms and swimming pools and from raising their voices in public. Well, to bring us the latest, I can speak to senior reporter for the BBC World Service, Majuba Naruzi, who is in Kabul and human rights activists and visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, Shahrazad Akbar. Majuba and Sharazad, welcome to both of you. Mujuba, I'm going to come to you first. I just listed a few of the things, really,

that's happened, that means that women's lives are becoming more diminished in the last five years in Afghanistan. What can you tell us about that? Can you list some more? Sure, there's plenty. It has changed the rule women can play in the society, in the Afghan society, with consequences for families and wider country. When women cannot study work or fully participate in public life. You can imagine families lose their income. And Afghanistan loses a large part of its workforce and expertise. So we have seen this clearly in professions, in so many professions, but particularly in the law, the judiciary and public service, where many experienced women have been forced out. Female doctors and nurses are still working. I mean, that's the only profession.

lift for women, but with girls unable to pursue higher education, their growing concerns about who will replace them in the future. For women, the impact is not just financial. It is also the loss of independence, careers, and ability to make decisions about their own lives. So, you know, the focus is on Afghanistan today, particularly as it's five years since the Taliban, regained power. What is the atmosphere like in Kabul?

Well, the atmosphere, I went out to speak to people. The atmosphere is like, I could say, people are generally very cautious about speaking openly. It's difficult to know what people really think because they know there can be consequences for what they say. For example, we can stand somewhere and speak to people for just five minutes. And suddenly a member of the intelligence service or criminal investigation department appears and asks for permission to film and talk to the people. So they can be very intimidating and people immediately become much more careful about what they say. So getting a genuine sense of public opinion and film requires a lot of care

and often speaking to people away from official scrutiny. It's not easy. So making your job quite tough? It does make my job very, very tough. You've also managed to speak to Taliban ministers. So how do they see the country five years on? What are they telling you? I just a couple of days ago, I went to the Ministry of Four Nicarious.

affairs. My colleagues interviewed him and I was just there in the capacity of like a producer because you know that most of them do not speak to women. They do not look into your eyes directly. So as I said, my colleague and I met the foreign minister and he personally is very warm, I must say, and very welcoming. He remembers journalists by name and he had seen me once before and he just treated me really well, often insists that we stay for tea and snacks, but his answers to many of our questions over the past three years have been remarkably consistent.

He talks about economic progress, improved relations with other countries, women working in trade sector, girls are studying in religious madrasas, and a national peace, security, which many people we have spoken to, they appreciate the peace and security. But we have to remember that it was the Taliban who were like creating insecurity in Afghanistan before five years ago. So he says Afghanistan will continue to progress over the next five

years and often tells us that the time will tell. But those claims need to be viewed alongside what ordinary Afghans are experiencing. Many people are struggling with poverty and employment and limited access to education, while restrictions on women have become increasingly severe. So there is a very clear gap between the Taliban's description of the country and what many people tell us about their daily lives. Right, exactly. There's the Taliban description and then there's the reality for women and girls.

And what about those women and girls? that you speak to, what are they saying to you? What's life like for them now? Well, I've spoken girls, to so many girls and women. Girls and women see the situation very, very differently. The restrictions have fundamentally changed. The rule women can play in the Afghan society with consequences for lots of families, as I said, in the beginning. women have, we have spoken to describe a profound sense of loss, their jobs, their independence, their future opportunities. Like, I've recently spoken to female former judges and lawyers, and they lost not only their careers, but also their ability to help other women. So it's very difficult for so many women.

And, I mean, the devastation is as there. We can sense it. but also you can see resilience and they can keep working in some other sectors because at the end of the day they need the income if they're the head of the family. So the resilience is there, but the restrictions are tougher. I'm just going to, I've got a timeline in front of me of how the restrictions came about. I'm just going to read some of these out in September 2021 secondary schools reopened for boys, not for girls. In December of the same year, women traveling long distances must be escorted by a male relative. November 22, women barred from parks, gym, swing pools, public baths.

December 2020, women barred from universities. July 2020, three, beauty salons closed. December 24, women barred from midwife and nursing training. September 25, Afghan women banned from visiting UN headquarters. And in May of this year, a law codified implying legal approval for child marriage. So silence of minor girl can be treated as consent to marriage. We're going to come back, Majuba and talk to you some more. And Sherazar, they'll be coming to you in a moment.

But some families and women were lucky to escape back when the Taliban came to power in 2021. Praveen Juma, who's 21, is from the Hazara minority, which has been persecuted by the Taliban in the past. Thanks to her father's British connections, she and her family got to the UK and have settled in the Midlands. She told me what she remembers from the day they arrived at Kabul airports back in 2021. There was millions of people. I remember I was holding my younger sister who was 10 at that time. I was holding her hand very tightly because I knew if I just let her go, she will be gone forever. It was really hard. I could see moms and people crying for their child because they were lost. So basically we had to go through millions of people in there until we arrived to a pool,

which was about three meters deep, all filled with dirty water, human waste. So all we had to do is wait for my father, hold on each other tight, and my father hold his British passport up and said, look, I'm a British citizen. That was a time when the British army said, sorry, you just can't bring your mother with you because you're allowed to bring only your wife and your kids. So they sent my grandmother off, And that was when we didn't even see her again.

So really chaotic and quite scary scenes from the airport in Kabul. Very scary, very scary. Because it wasn't only rush, it was the heat. It was the hunger, the thirstiness. And Taliban was shooting at people to live the airport because they didn't want the people to live from the airport to go to other countries to save their lives. My youngest sister was one year old at that time.

And my poor mom was feeding her, breastfeeding her, while she was very hungry herself. And we stayed in the airport for two nights, cold nights, hot days. It was summer in Afghanistan, it gets really hot as well. And because we didn't know we were going to stay in the airport, so we didn't take any water or food. Because we didn't even expect to leave the country, we were like, we're just going to give it a try. We might not even go. sitting on that dirt with millions and millions of other people

at the airport. Heartbreaking to see the moms crying for their kids because they were not allowed to come with them to see moms are giving birth on that dirt. You know, seeing people asking for water. It was just a heart-shattering. I mean, I would never forget it and it will be forever in my mind.

And then you landed in the UK. And then you started college pretty, after arriving. What was that like? And I have to say your English is exceptional, considering how quickly you've learned it. So the first month, they opened an English centre for all the refugees who literally just arrived. In that group, we learned like ABC and like, hi, how were you? That was like very basic things. I had to take three different undergrounds, one bus, to get to college. I remember the first time I was taking pictures of the stations to remember to be able to read which one should I just get off.

What a huge culture shock just landing in central London and having to navigate the tube system with no English. And you've just finished your first year of nursing at Birmingham City University. Yes. Enjoying your studies? Absolutely love it. Especially my placements. I didn't have the confidence because when I first chose this course,

I was like, oh God, you know, will I be able to speak like them or just, you know, get the needs of other people and stuff like that. But then the first day of my placement, I went with my patients out. And I was like, this is what I would love to do for the rest of my life. I wonder, Pervin, how you feel when you think about the women and girls who are still in Afghanistan. I still am in touch with all of my friends from Afghanistan, my classmates. We still have a WhatsApp group chat where we share the daily activities sometimes. All they have is their phone.

and it's really even hard to get access to internet at that time because it's quite expensive all of them like married engaged having kids some of them have like two kids and they are my age or younger than me and it's heartbreaking no freedom no education no work nothing nothing for them not even the very basic human rights i don't see the same smiles on their face anymore i just don't see the happiness the shine in their eyes any more. No hope. No hope. And they always tell me, oh, you know, you're very lucky. You've got these opportunities. And I'm like, I wish I could help you guys as well. It's really heartbreaking. No symptom at all. And I've got everything, but they haven't got anything.

How do you feel looking back on the journey that you've had to get you to where you are today? When I look back, especially the experience from the airport and everything, I don't really want to even talk to my youngest sister about it anymore because I really don't want her to recall any of the tiny memories that she could recall. And I actually am proud of myself and especially my mom. She is working really hard and she left her parents, siblings, everyone behind as well, her 38 years of life behind holding everything in a backpack. I really admire her because, sorry, my voice has just gone down a little bit. She didn't even know any. English as same as mine, but for me it was quite fine because I was young and could learn things

quite easily. But for her, I can tell now she's preparing for her British citizenship. She's studying really hard. She goes three days to college, two days with another Afghan man teaching them English. Really proud of her, really. And I want to say a huge thank you to all of their volunteers in Southwell, especially my English grandmother, Jill, who helped. us a lot. I mean, none of them would have been possible without any of their helps. That was Pravine Juma, who left Afghanistan in 2021. I'm going to bring Shahrazad in here. Shahrazad, you also left in August 2021. I just want to start by asking how you're feeling today. Well, Anita, this is a very difficult day and this is a very heavy week. It's half a decade since my

sisters back home have been deprived of all their basic rights. And so, So this heaviness sits with me every day of August, in fact. And I try to hang on to little rays of hope that comes from solidarity that I see from women and people everywhere with women of Afghanistan. And from the carriage and resistance that I see from women inside Afghanistan who are still trying to learn, to build, to stay connected. And you're still recording human rights violations, but now obviously from outside of the country. What are you hearing from the women and girls who you support?

Well, most women that we talk to, they feel imprisoned in their homes. They say we are alive but not living. We are breathing, but we don't really have a life. Their mental health situation is extremely bad. Just a recent union survey showed that seven out of ten women describe their mental health situation as bad or very bad in Afghanistan. There's a mental health crisis because of all the restrictions. that women are experiencing.

The most vulnerable are women victims of violence, which sometimes can be minors, can be young girls, girls as young as 13 and 14, who have been married against their well and are living with abusive husbands or abusive families. And in the current legal framework in Afghanistan, a woman victim of abuse can't even go to court if she's experiencing sexual abuse, rape, emotional abuse,

economic abuse, psychological abuse, all of this are not crimes. She can only go to court if she's being beaten so badly that she has obvious bruises and broken bones. And so imagine this 14-year-old, for instance, I heard about her last week. She wants to go to the judge to claim, you know, to lodge an complaint against her husband.

First, she needs to get a male family member on board to accompany her because she can't access justice without a man accompany her. Then she has to relay her story to this man, be it her brother, her father, to relate to the judge. If she is lucky enough to get her complaints approved, her husband will go to jail for 15 days. This is less punishment than abuse of animals,

which lands you in jail for three months. So the husband will go to jail for 15 days, and then will be returned to live with her because also there are no shelters to take women victims of domestic abuse, no legal support lily for women, victims of domestic abuse. So these are the sort of testimonies that we document, that we try to relay with the UN, with the international criminal court, and try to seek assistance and support and pressure to change these policies.

So women can have access to their rights. I mean, you know, this sort of this gender apartheid that we're watching unfold and we talk about it all the time at Woman's Hour. And I listed earlier, you know, what restrictions have been played. on women since September 2021. What could the international community be doing to help? What more could be done? I mean, it's five years. And the main thing that we have seen

from international community, I think the main reason for lack of impact is that they are quite fragmented on their response to Afghanistan. Taliban like to deal bilaterally, which each country, and then with each country, they prioritise interests of those countries.

In Europe, for instance, now the priority is deportation. EU hosted Taliban in June to discuss deportations. So they are willing to look away from the gender apartheid as long as they can deport a few Afghans back to Afghanistan until their own constituency that they are tough on migration. In the UK, which says that it stands with women of Afghanistan, there's a visa, study visa break in place right now on four countries. That includes women and girls in Afghanistan.

So I know girls who got into universities in the UK or were hoping to come to universities in the UK, having studied under extremely difficult situations at home, but they can't come now because there is a visa break from the UK, for instance. Similarly, other countries as well are prioritizing their short-term national interests. They are not responding to this crisis proportionate to the level of the crisis. This is the worst women's rights crisis in the world. And I wonder if this crisis was happening to Maine, what would the response look like? Would we have the same response from China, from Iran, from UK, from, you know, Germany. Would it be the same level of indifference that we are seeing in lack of action? Another area where the world can move, you know, the

international community can move quickly is international accountability. Germany and three other countries, Australia, Netherlands, Canada initiated a legal initiative. They can potentially take Taliban to international court of justice. Two years later, we see no action. We suspect this is because the Taliban, Germany wants a good relationship with the Taliban because of deportation. It's heartbreaking to see the situation in Afghanistan because of the impact for Afghan women and girls now and because of the future impact, because it's costing us $1 billion a year. It costs the country, the current policies, the economic cost. But it's also really even more heartbreaking to see that despite this, the Taliban are being welcomed.

There is a red carpet reception of them. They are being normalized. and women of Afghanistan are being erased, not just by the Taliban, but by the international community. And what's it like for you watching this unfold? It's extremely difficult on a day-to-day basis because we work with survivors. We speak to survivors, we document their testimonies,

and often they tell us, what's the point? What can you do for me to change my life right now? And why is it getting worse? And often we don't have a lot of answer to these questions. We tell them that we are knocking on every door and that we are trying to do all that we can in our power, but it's really, really difficult. I think what gives me hope, what gives my colleagues hope, why we continue this work is then also we see that the stakes for us are so low because at least we live in safety. You know, the pressure is just the emotional pressure or psychological pressure. But the stakes for women inside of Afghanistan are so high.

And despite that, they continue to mobilize, they continue to protest, continue to run businesses. and that's why we keep doing this work. Shahrazad Akbar, thank you so much for speaking to us this morning and also to you, Majuba Naruzi, who's from the BBC World Service 84844 is the text number. Now, for many ambitious women, becoming pregnant or starting a family is a moment they'd expect to share openly and joyfully, but a growing number of female entrepreneurs say they feel pressure to do the opposite. Some describe hiding pregnancy, delaying motherhood, freezing their eggs or keeping family life out of sight to avoid being seen as less committed to their businesses.

The phenomenon has been dubbed life editing, managing what clients, investors and colleagues see to project total dedication to work. Well, one woman who's spoken about this is Ashita Cabra, founder of the fashion rental platform by rotation. After announcing her pregnancy earlier this year, she says she was inundated with messages. from other women who recognised exactly the same pressures. Well, she's in the studio with me, along with Emmy Faust from Female Founders Rise, which supports female entrepreneurs. Emmy and Ashita, welcome. So, life editing, Ashita, tell me what that term means to you

and how you implemented it in your own life. Thank you so much, Anita, for having me on the show. I think for me, it's really about ensuring that I have the sense of duty an obligation to my stakeholders, you know, be that customers, be that my team, be that my investors, to show them that, you know, my priority is my business first and foremost, especially when you've taken on things like investment, you feel that you've, you know, you've signed up to these targets, to these goals, to these sort of, you know, milestones, which you want to make sure you show your full commitment to, not so much as having your own personal life and starting a family.

So that's where life editing is something that's really come into my own life. I'm going to go backwards to talk about your own starting of the business and kind of how much you'd planned it. And obviously you have to be very good and very smart and very good at planning in order to build a business in the first place. But first of all, congratulations. Thank you. Little baby, five weeks. Yes. Yes.

Well done. So what happened when you became pregnant? How did you feel? Did you instantly tell people like what were the thoughts behind it? Did you plan the pregnancy? Give us more insight. Yeah, I mean, it was, everything was planned. I've been married for six and a half years now, which in my culture, I'm South Asian, is a long time to start a family.

You know, everyone was sort of wondering, is there something wrong in the marriage? Is there something wrong, health-wise? Do they never want to have kids? Like, you know, something seems wrong with this marriage and this relationship. And I was already feeling that kind of personal stigma, probably coming more. more from my community. And then obviously professionally, there was always this sort of, you know, I was always thinking about all these different sort of things I wanted to achieve with the business before taking some time to focus on my personal life for a short span of time. So yeah, it was

planned, you know, down to figuring out the months that it would be, it would be fine to be on a statutory maternity leave, which is July and August, because these are very quiet months in what I do with my business. You know, you see a lot of metropolitan cities in the UK that are very quiet. So I was like, this is a good time for me to take four weeks off. And you're lucky it worked out for you. Yeah. You know, it doesn't, doesn't for everybody, right? No. And that's my privilege as a business owner that I get to, you know, give myself time off too. So were there specific moments when you felt being open about even wanting children? You were aware that it could damage the perception of you as an entrepreneur founder?

I was always brushing it off. Like, yeah, I mean, you know, maybe one day. Like, who knows? I even did this when I was pregnant in my fourth month, which was, you know, someone had asked me to my face. Like, are you think, you know, one of my investors that asked me to my face, are you thinking about starting a family with your husband? And I was like, yeah, maybe, you know, someday.

But I was pregnant then then, you know, wearing my tight jeans. What was your concern? My concern was that I would be seen as less serious, less ambitious and, you know, deciding to veer off the path of all these milestones that I had signed up to when I first, on the investor side of things, when I first sort of pitched for money and took the money on. So timing is really important. Perception is really important. And that's where having a communication strategy for me was really important.

You know, I had a spreadsheet where I was mapping out every single week of my pregnancy for health reasons, but also to decide when would be a good time to share this with each one of my stakeholders. you know, so be that my team, be that my investors, be that customers, our community, you know, it was very much something I managed, which honestly I think most women do anyway. But I think when you're the public-facing founder and CEO, it's something that you have to be very, very careful about.

And you spoke about this publicly and you've had a lot of support. Emmy, I'm going to bring you in here. I mean, look, these women are powerful entrepreneurs, leading companies, leading teams, managing companies, managing cultural expectations and then on top of that having to manage people's whatever their opinions are on their pregnancy. I mean, this is 2026.

How common is this? I think it does happen and that's the problem and you hear the stories and you know we're all founders and we're all entrepreneurs, we're all talking to each other and everyone, you know, not everyone. Obviously some people have brilliant stories to share but there are lots of situations where people maybe have got investment or they've had, you know, clients that think they're not going to be taking

it seriously and they lose clients. So I do know that there are a lot of people that are hiding their pregnancy or not wanting to share that they want to have children or even delaying the, you know, the decision to take to have children for these reasons. And I think not, you know, we're not going to like generalise, but I know for myself, um, I obviously when I first had my business, I didn't have a problem telling anyone I was pregnant because that wasn't the situation. But when I had to do my sort of life edit,

was when I had three kids, three young kids, and I was consulting. And I just knew that I wasn't being taken seriously. I knew that. Why? Because I feel like the feedback or the sort of what I felt very strongly was that some people

were sort of thinking, oh, you know, you've got three kids. So this is a little side project. You're going to be very busy managing them. So you wouldn't be able to have all your eyes on the prize with the client work. And even just when it came to things like pricing yourself, like as women, we underpriced, you know, we tend to underprice ourselves anyway. But you could tell that that people weren't necessarily seeing this as a serious business. I think that's what I really found. So now that I'm running my own community, I'm very vocal about the fact I've got four children. It's a big part of it. But when I was doing my consultancy, I definitely didn't share that I had three kids.

I remember actually sort of trying to not talk about that. What is the concern here ultimately? Like who are we worried about upsetting? We're worried about losing business. We're worried about losing clients. We're worried about not getting investment. You know, it's our livelihood. It's our business's livelihood.

it's, you know, I really deeply believe financial freedom for women through entrepreneurship. If we can be successful in entrepreneurship, we can employ more people, we can be financially free. And actually, if we're making these announcements that prevent us from getting investment, keeping clients, winning clients, that's going to impact our businesses. Let's talk a bit more about investment. You, let's just open everything. Oh, yeah. So I am an investor in a sheet.

Yes. Emmy invested in a sheet. Yeah. I mean, and we know. No, like the stats of women being invested in are absolutely tiny percent. Less than 2%. Less than 2%. Like 20, 0.2% if you're a person of color and a solo founder. Well, first of all, congratulations then on being that 0.2%, but shocking statistics.

Yeah. So how much of it is to do with a lack of women investing in other women? Sorry, do you mean a lack of women investors? In businesses, to understand what needs to happen. Yeah, I think there's lots of different reasons for that 2%. And I sort of was shocked when I found that. And I was like, there's got to be, you know, there's got to be something we can do. So I think there's conscious and unconscious bias.

There's not enough female investors in the ecosystem. And we know that female investors are more likely to invest in women entrepreneurs. For example, 14% of angel investors in the UK are women. So, you know, there's many reasons that this percentage is so low, but it's just not okay. And we need to change that. And there are things happening, but it's very slow, isn't it, Ashita? So, Ashita, how much time off did you take or have you taken? Tell me more.

I mean, I guess I'm here. Yeah. But this might, you know, are you on maternity? Have you taken, like, what have you, when did you go back to work? I mean, statutory is definitely planned. I'm probably going to head back in October. Just seeing how things go. This is my first baby, my first child.

It's a lot, by the way, if anyone's tuning in. I think it's so much more than running your own business. I think motherhood, parenthood, giving birth, we were just talking about it. Emmy's done it four times. It's a lot. It's a lot. And yeah, but I do think, like, you know, it's giving me the sort of, it's already giving me a different perspective on how I want to run the business when I do fully return back.

which is being much more focused, being much more, you know, not saying yes to everything, having priorities and really seeing like what is the end game and ensuring that, you know, the plan is to get there and not add on multiple different things that, you know, might be nice and fluffy things to do. Do you think women in your position are making genuinely free choices about when to have children? Oh. I mean, so I was talking to another lady I invested in, Maine, and she was saying she thinks she's pregnant now,

but she believes she's delayed her pregnancy because she didn't feel like it was possible to do the, you know, she's done a million pound fundraise and she's been building a business and she didn't feel that she could do that. And, you know, looking back, she says that was definitely a decision. So I think I get so many women saying, can I have a chat with you?

Like, you know, you've got four kids. How do you manage it? But more importantly, like I'm feeling like I need to delay. having children or decide between getting investment or running this, you know, successful, you know, I'm ambitious and having children. And I would say like, don't delay it because we were talking about this before. You're like, you're talking. Was it with you someone else anyway?

But, you know, what happens in your business is sometimes out of your control. You know, like you can do your best control, but we can't put things on hold. But is there a reality to that that if you don't delay, you have your children that it could impact. Like, you know, that's what we're. Yeah. I definitely believe that. I mean, you know, for me, I've taken this stance where we are in a much more subtle place as a business, you know, we're profitable. This is actually a good time for me to take some time off.

And I had my, as they call it, ducks in a row. I think that's the same. Yeah, which is, you know, this entire plan as to what would happen if I'm out of the business for, you know, the statutory maternity leave or if I decide that, you know, being a mother is the best thing ever and I just don't want to return to work. And biotation is on its own. So, you know, I definitely had those sort of different scenario planning for what would happen in those instances. What needs to change? I think we need to talk about it more. I think there needs to be a lot more support.

I think there's also, I think the big thing, isn't it, is to talk about it. And women shouldn't have to make these choices, you know. Someone's going to have to give birth. And, you know, it's one gender. would seem that can give birth. And I think there's, there needs to be this sort of like, you know, acknowledgement that we can be smart, brilliant, intelligent, renowned businesses, but also we will have to give birth. And recover from that. Yes, exactly. And I think that's where male allies can be really vocal about the fact that they might also have female partners

and, you know, children and realize that actually, if we want them to succeed, we should probably back women who are also asking for these tickets, investment tickets. Absolutely. And, and, I mean, what changes would you like investors to make when they're assessing women-led businesses? I think we know that from research, there's a lady called Dana Kanzi that investors can often ask preventative questions to women entrepreneurs and promotion questions to men entrepreneurs. Oh, like what? Give us something. We like this. What's a preventative question?

Preventive question is all about risks and things that might go wrong and like what if your business won't succeed, what will you do? It's kind of like diminishing, diminishing things. Whereas with male companies, it could be like, how big could this be? Like, tell me the big vision. And so for investors, it's very much about making sure that they've had that training so that they can catch themselves doing it and reframe their questions. And then for the entrepreneurs, it's about understanding that that might happen.

And when you get a preventative question to try and pivot it and talk about, you know, your big ambitions. And we do know that, you know, well, everyone, you know, the investors always say this, women are very conservative or realistic about what they might achieve. And men go in and, you know, they've got these amazing ground hands.

And therefore investors sometimes sort of discount what founders are saying they believe might happen because, you know, men aren't exaggerating it. I'm generalising, but, you know, there is data to show this. And so as women, we are just being too nice, too honest. Too honest. We're realistic.

We probably are going to do what we say we're going to do. So I think for investors, it's very much understanding that. It's also making sure that they're, you know, actually actively looking for women entrepreneurs to invest in and supporting them on that process of, you know, having children. Well, Ashita, your post clearly struck a nerve and we're delighted that you both were able to come in to speak to us this morning. and best of look both of you and especially with little baby. Congratulations again. Ashita Cabra and Emmy Faust. And 844 is a text number. Get in touch if you can relate. I'm going to read out some of your messages, actually. I had hoped that by now women would not be in this position. Many moons ago, here you go. You might be interested to hear this before you both leave. 35 years. I was a partner then director of a city stockbroking and investment management house. We were in the process of doing a management buyout when I found out I was pregnant. I was very, very careful not to say anything until the legal side of the process was sorted and my share was guaranteed.

Do they ever ask men if they're planning to have a family? That's from Alison, both of them head nodding. And another one here, this is not a new phenomenon. In 1995, when I had my first child, I always introduced my career before I introduced the fact that I was a mother. This has always been a feeling of guilt that I've lived with since then because I felt I didn't honour the beauty of my child. That is so fascinating, but also we need to learn to ditch the guilt. 844-844, it's a conversation I'm sure we will come back to once again, Emmy and Ashita. Thank you so much.

Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's OD-O.com. Now, a chance discovery in an attic has revealed that the Booker Prize-winning novelist Iris Murdoch also had an artistic side. More than 80 artworks by her have been found in a secret room in the attic of her former home where they've been lying for decades.

They include the only self-portrait she's known to have painted, four surrealist landscapes and three sketches of female nudes. They're going on public display for the first time today at the University of Chichester Library. Dr Mike Lieson, who made the discovery and is director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester, joins me now, along with Professor Anne Roe on the line from the 12th International Iris Murdoch Conference, which kicks off this morning. How fortuitous for us to be talking to you both this morning. Miles, tell us more about this discovery. Take us back to the day you went into the attic. Yeah, so this was last summer. I was invited by the Murlake Estate because the house, John Bailey's second wife, had recently died and the estate was looking to sell the house.

And they asked me whether I'd come in and see what was there. And we'd already found some poetry that we published last year. But one thing we found that was amazing were all these new paintings. up in a secret compartment really within the attic that we just didn't know about. How did you know when the paintings were from? What did you discover about them? Tell us more about what you saw. I think the great thing was that on the back of the canvases,

Murdoch had actually dated them. So signs dated and with titles as well. So it's really easy to be able to put those into context in terms of, in terms of the rest of her biography, really. Then we could place them with the poetry and her developing as a very young woman. Anne, Iris died in 1999 at the age of 79. So what do these paintings and sketches tell us about her life? What do they reveal?

I've only seen them for the first time this morning. How exciting was that for you? Really. We cleared out the beginning part of the attic a few years ago and we found all the poems and everything. Miles just discovered the paintings. So they absolutely knew. The one that struck me this morning is a self-portrait that I hadn't seen before.

And it's quite extraordinary. Those piercing blue eyes are looking out onto the world. And the first thing I thought of, it's an objectification of her moral philosophy. She believed deeply that if you wanted to know about the world and your role in it, you don't look within yourself. She didn't like Freud very much. And here she is with those piercing blue eyes looking out onto the world. you know, look at the otherness of other people, she said, if you've got a problem, and you'll find the solutions there not in introspection.

So it's a real, real bonus for us to be able to see articulated in art what she was thinking in her moral philosophy. And what else did you discover? Tell us about the female nudes and what they tell us about her. Yeah, so the female nudes were surprised. We knew that Murdoch had same-sex desires. we found that out really from the poetry that we discovered a few years ago where she's writing poems to other women

when she's a teenager at badminton school to a girl with yellow hair to somebody called MS, we don't quite know who that is, but it's expressing really deep desire. So in 1617, and here she is with these paintings and these female nudes drawing them 2021, and they are very, they are, they are,

I think they are erotic paintings, they all, they speak of that, desire, that look, that gaze that Anne was just talking about. And I think they do, again, add a different dimension to thinking about what murder was actually doing at Oxford when she was, yeah, an undergraduate and sort of discovering her own sort of temperament and her own, her own sort of philosophical position as well. Yeah, tell us, tell us, tell us more, Anne. Like, what do we know about Iris at this time in her life when she might have been painting them? Like, give us some more insight. Yeah, so at this point in time, so she's just arrived at Oxford. The first thing that she does is she joins the Communist Party, which will come back to Biter later on when she's not allowed into America. But yes, she's becoming, she's singing, she's writing for the Churwell, she's publishing early poetry, she's making lots of friendships and connections and developing herself as a novelist. I mean, she's going to, she's going, she's going, she's going,

to seminars and tutorials and really gaining the experience and the sense of character that she'll later bring into all of her fiction from the 50s onwards. Anne, well, both of you, in fact, you've dedicated much of your career to studying and celebrating Iris Murder. What is it about her work and life that's so appealing? Well, I taught her novels for 25 years at Kingston University. and so many of the students would come and say, reading Iris Murdoch has changed my life.

It's the way they think about the world. They open the world up. I mean, there are paintings in the novels. You know, I do a talk at the National Gallery, usually every year, to show the paintings in the National Gallery that appear in the novels. They are looking out onto the world constantly.

And all the philosophy, of course, you study an Iris Murdoch novel, along with philosophical implications within, it. There's just so much there. They think, I mean, she didn't like modernist novels too much. She likes to talk about the world and people and the other people you meet. And it changed students' lives. In that case, then, Anne, for any of our listeners who aren't already across her work,

what novel would you recommend reading? Just give us the one that... The bell. The bell. 1958, the bell. I think that really is the one that will really get you hooked. And Miles, I mean, you know, poetry discovered in 20, Now these artworks, any more treasures do you think that might come? I wouldn't be a talk to surprise, Anita. We may well have more to come at some point.

Brilliant. Thank you so much, Dr. Miles Leeson, director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester and Professor Anro. Thank you both for joining us this morning. And the exhibition is being held at the University of Chichester, Bishop Otter campus, and is free and open to the public until the 10th of December. And I asked you at the beginning of the programme about any stuff that you've found. in the attic. I found my maternal grandmother's diary entry for my parents' wedding day in 1945. Then it says, well, that's over. How it turns out remains to be seen. Obviously,

she disapproved of my father, but she did come round to him. Thank you very much, Julia, for that. 8-4-8-4 is the text number. Now, the 100 is cricket's fast-paced action-packed competition with eight teams, 100 balls per innings, and many of the biggest names in the game. It's also the only competition where women's and men's matches are staged as doubleheaders on the same day at the same venue with teams including Trent Rockets, Northern Superchargers and Southern Brave. The finals take place at Lords on Sunday and I'm delighted to say I'm joined by BBC cricket commentator Alison Mitchell to discuss the standout teams and players and explore the growing popularity of the 100 Ball format. Alison, welcome to the programme. Hello Anita. Thank you very much for having me. It's lovely to have you on Women's Hour. As I just said, it's the final.

on Sunday at Lords, but we don't know who the two teams will be yet. There's an eliminator tomorrow at the Oval. So who's playing and who will they be playing in the final? Yeah, well, the eliminator is today. Trent Rockets are straight through to the final on Sunday. So they've finished top of the group. So they've got their play secured and they've never won the 100 before. So that is really exciting for them. They have been brilliantly led throughout by Ash Garden, the Australian. They've got Nat Sivabrun, the England captain in the their team. Sophia Dunkley, the opening bat. She's had some really good innings as well. But yes, who will join them? Well, that'll be decided today. The eliminators basically

a semi-final. And it is a repeat of last year's final. So we've got Sunrises Leeds, formerly known as the Northern Supercharges, which I'll explain in a moment, against Southern Brave. So they're the 2023 champions, so two teams with bags of experience. And yeah, the defending champions will try to get through to the final to face Trent Rockets, albeit with a different name. and quite a different make-up to the side from last year. Oh, come on. Tell us what's happened. Why the change of name? So the 100 competition has had a huge shake-up from last year to this year. So the teams that have been established since the tournament began in 2021 were part-sold.

So sold to private ownership. So various teams are part-owned by different private groups. Some have taken 100% ownership, some part-ownership. So, for example, if we look at the team that were the Northern Superchargers, they have been owned now by the Sun Group. So they own a team also in the Indian Premier League. So some teams have now got this Indian influence and hence the change in the name for them

because the Sun Group owns the Sunrises team of which there's a team in the Indian Premier League. You'll see teams repeated around the world either in the American League or in the league that takes place in Dubai. So the Northern Superchargers became the Sunrises. Leeds, for example, the Manchester Originals, have been bought out by the same group

that own the look now super giants in the Indian Premier League. They're now the Manchester Super Giants. So it's been quite a big shift anita in the competition. For people to get their head around a change of name and a change of team strip as well, because the colours for some of these teams have changed as well. But I think we've seen, yeah, throughout the tournament, I think those fans are starting to get used to which players now play for their team

and what their new team colour is as well. Well, the Indian Premier League, when that sort of came on the scene, it was all very sparkly and shiny and a lot of, and big mum, money. Exactly. So is that what's happening over here now? That has up. What's the impact?

Well, the big impact was that for the first time this year, there was a player auction. So both men and women went under the hammer, which in the men's game, they've been very used to for a long time. The women have started to get used to it because it happens in the women's Premier League in India as well. But for the first time for the 100, we saw players going for big bucks. It raised the ceiling for the amount of money that was available for a start. and then you've got some quite extraordinary outcomes as well.

So if we look at Sunrises Leeds, their captain, Danny Gibson, who has never had a captaincy role before. First of all, in the auction, went for £190,000. So that is a huge leap for what a woman can earn for this competition. Beth Mooney, who's in the final for Trent Rockets, the Australian, £210,000 for a tournament that is about four weeks long. And then Tilly Cortine Coleman, who's only 18 years old,

she's playing in the Southern Brave and the Eliminator, has leapt from 12,500,000. last year to £105,000 for a month's work at the age of 18. Good. So we're suddenly seeing, yeah, this huge leap in finances. We love to hear it, but just to get some context, how does that prize money compare to the men's game? Oh, there's still a huge disparity.

But even within the women's sector, we've seen a big leap at the top. And the men would probably say this as well. The leap at the top is the biggest. And for those at the bottom end, they have not seen their wage of potential rise the same. So the players at the bottom of the women's game will be earning 15,000 pounds for four weeks' work, which, you know, if we were talking about this, you know, even about three, four years ago,

that would seem like an awful lot of money. So the top end has really risen sharply. The bottom end is rising and it's still good, but less so. Yeah, the men's game, you will get a 300,000 pound signing at the very top end. So the disparity is still there in terms of what they're going for in the auction. The prize money, though, Anita, is the same. That was set. So $650,000 for the winning women's team and the winning men's team.

And then there's also a combined competition this year for the first time, which has been a really nice element, I think, where the men's and women's results count together in a table, which, given that Trent Rockets, men are three to the final and the women are, they have romped that Helix trophy, as it's called. So they'll win another share of £650,000 per team, before they've even played the final. So it's very much a ka-ching moment.

for the domestic game. I mean, you've been doing this for such... I'm not dating you, Alison. I say I mean this in like, you know, you are... I know you've been across... We have known each other for a very long time. You know, just how exciting is this for you? All this change that's happening to cricket.

Well, look, the hundred was controversial when it began because it was sort of thrust upon the scene with seemingly little consultation with the wider game. And for the men's domestic scene and the international calendar, it has had an impact. which is still quite hard to get your head around and a lot of people are still unhappy about it because it means that through the month of August,

peak summer holidays, there is no international cricket when the 100 is on. The flip side of that is that there is a tournament that is on, which is really family friendly. The idea is it's getting kids in, it's getting more women in, and ticket prices might have started at the beginning of the tournament at 14 pounds. It's been fixed at 5 pounds for children, which is great. Adult tickets have certainly been more expensive this year,

maybe 45, 55, up to 75 pound for an adult ticket. So the cost for a family going has gone up, and I think that probably had an impact in crowds being down in the early weeks of the tournament. But, yeah, the domestic game needed it because of the competition with the Indian Premier League with the Big Bash in Australia. The women's game, though, has benefited exponentially

from this tournament and from women's games being staged as double-headers with the men. So from that perspective, it's had an incredible impact. It's been a crazy hot summer. How's the weather impacted the game? Well, I wonder whether sometimes it was almost too hot for cricket and perhaps crowds stayed away maybe because of the heat as well. I mean, it certainly meant that, yeah, we haven't had any rain fills,

which we often find, you know. So that's been a real positive. I mean, yeah, usually good cricket, good weather, big crowds, like it's made for it. And you go to a day of the 100, it can be a bit of sensory. overload even. It's noisy. There's live music. There's fireworks. It is built for a family entertainment package. Sounds great to me. Yeah. I think that's why people do, you know, that they do enjoy it. It is a good day out. Okay. So there may be some people listening of like, 100, what is it? So like give us an, we haven't even described what the game is. What

happens? It's essentially still cricket. But people will be used to cricket talking about overs, where six balls are bowled from one end, that's an over. And then another six balls are bowled from the other end of the pitch, and that's another over. Well, in the 100, it's simply 100 balls are bold. A team scores as many runs as they can, and the other team comes out and tries to get more than that in the same number of balls.

So they get to face 100 balls each, five balls at a time from each bowler. You can bowl ten balls from one end and ten from another. It's essentially cricket, but just a bit shorter. I think it's the simplest. way of describing it. And any different skill sets needed? Well, I mean, because it's such a short game, it benefits batters who can hit big balls. You get a lot of sixes. It benefits bowlers who can really vary their pace, who can, I mean, bowl quick and fast, but then can deceive batters

with slower balls, depending on the nature of the pitch spinners come into play. One thing that we have seen this year is a greater number of overseas players in the tournament, Anita. And that actually has been a talking point for us in the commentary. box because it has actually in the women's game particularly, somewhat limited the opportunity for the domestic players. And that's what you really want this competition to help with. It's getting players to play in front of big crowds, pressure situations. So then when they step up to the England team, they're a bit more used to this kind of environment, you know, real professional, high quality, high intensity. But yeah, with four overseas players per team now

instead of three, you have got a few players who might not get much of a bat and then they don't get an opportunity to bowl. So that might be something to think about. And very quickly, I'm not encouraging betting, but if I did want to put my money on someone tomorrow, who would it be? Or today, Southern Brave got the better of the sunrises when they met in the group stage. So if they can do that again, then you're looking at a Brave versus Rockets final. And I'm not going to make any predictions because in the shortest format, anything can happen. Alison Mitchell, thank you so much. And there's live coverage of the 100 finals across the BBC on Sunday and on BBC 2 from 2pm plus live commentary via BBC

Radio 5 Sports Extra and BBC Sounds app and on the BBC Sports website. We are nearly out of time. I'm going to end with a couple of your messages. I found a list in my mother's attic of the lucky boys. My friends and I are inviting to our first teenage house party in 1979. In addition to the carefully curated guest list, lots of crossings out and reinstatements. We listed food and drink requirements. Clearly we thought that a pound of cheddar and two large bottles of cider, 80p, would make the party go with a swing.

Sounds like my dream. That's it. Join me tomorrow for weekend Women's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. This Cultural Life from BBC Radio 4. I will never go into anything sort of deep like that again. The world's leading artistic figures reveal their creative influences. Disobey, disagree, disavow.

I'm John Wilson, and my recent guests have included the scopter Anish Kapoor, photographer Annie Leibovitz, the actor, Kristen Scott Thomas. It has made me good at telling stories about people have a secret suffering. and former children's laureate Frank Cotterall voice. If art's got one function, it's to point to what's wonderful and say, look, this is your world, it's insane. Listen to This Cultural Life on BBC Sounds.