Woman's Hour - Holly Smale, Caroline Dinenage MP, Ursula Le Menn & Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, Proff. Asma Khalil & Dr. Mary Ross-Davie

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

On Woman's Hour today Emma Barnett talks to the best selling author Holly Smale about being diagnosed with autism at age 39. The author of the "Geek Girl" series has said she feels relief that she now has an explanation for why she’s felt she’s never “ fitted in”.We speak to the journalist Rosamund Urwin about her scoop on the Martin Bashir story and also to the Digital Minister Caroline Dinenage MP about what’s in the new Online Safety Bill.In a few weeks, a French woman will stand trial for killing her husband, but she's got the support of thousands of people in France who've signed a petition and want her pardoned. Valerie Bacot was with her older husband for decades. Valerie's now 40, but she knew her husband since she was 12. From then on he molested her, beat her, raped her and used her as a prostitute. We talk to Ursula Le Menn is from Osez le feminisme! a French feminist campaigning organisation and she knows family and friends of Valerie and also to Anne-Elisabeth Moutet a journalist based in Paris.A new UK study suggests having Coronavirus around the time of birth may increase the chance of stillbirths and premature births. Scientists say while most pregnancies are not affected their findings should encourage pregnant women to have jabs as soon as they are eligible. We hear from Professor Asma Khalil who was the co-author of the research paper and also Dr Mary Ross Davie the Director of Professional Midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineers: Bob Nettles, Duncan Hannant.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to the programme. I hope you had a weekend filled with some of the things you used to be able to enjoy. A gallery and a cinema were on my list. I'm very happy I was to be back in them, despite the hand-eye coordination needed to eat popcorn under a mask. A special hello to our listeners in Northern Ireland who from today can also finally enjoy dining indoors and being with others, six people from two households within

their homes. Welcome back to some semblance of normality where you can come offline and begin doing more in the real world. Speaking of which, on today's programme, we will be joined by the Digital Minister, Caroline Dynage, to talk about whether the government's online safety bill will make us just that, safer. We'll also hear about the court case which has gripped France concerning a woman who shot dead her husband. Why do thousands of supporters want her pardoned? And Holly Smale, the author of the Geek Girl books, on finally being diagnosed as autistic last year at the age of 39. But first we're going to hear from the woman who broke the Martin Bashir story, the scoop on the scoop that has rocked the BBC and the Royal Family. Rosamund

Irwin of the Sunday Times, who wrote the first story about those faked bank statements produced to help Martin Bashir land his coveted interview with Princess Diana in 1995 for BBC Panorama. And the only journalist to speak to Martin Bashir this weekend since Lord Dyson published his report into the whole affair, finding the BBC had fallen short of high standards of integrity and transparency. I'll speak to Rosamund shortly. But before I do, what do you make of this story? Have we forgotten the woman at the heart of it? In a sea of male voices, whether it's journalists, executives, it was striking to some that the only female voice

in the BBC's recent panorama about the obtaining of the interview was Diana's. Your thoughts, please. 84844 is the number you need to text. Or on social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour. Or email us your take on this, your thoughts, please. 84844 is the number you need to text or on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour or email us your take on this, your views through our website. Let's now speak to Rosamund Irwin of The Sunday Times. And let's start with your face to face conversation with Martin Bashir. How did you find him in light of this report and what did he have to say to you?

He spoke incredibly quietly. And as the interview went on, he did start to speak a bit more loudly. But he did come across. And of course, you know, there is some scepticism about everything he says now because he has been categorically found to be a liar. But he did come across as a broken man who was crushed by what he had done and crushed perhaps even more that it had come up after all this time and finally come to light. He also made much in your report in the Sunday Times, and I was struck by the photo that was produced with that

of Diana holding one of his children recently born. He made much of his relationship with Princess Diana to put her back at the heart of this. Yes, absolutely. I mean, part of his defence is that, first, that she was actually happy with this interview, certainly that she wanted to give this interview. We do know that.

I mean, there were plenty of other signs that this is something she actually wanted to do and not necessarily, of course, with him originally, but that she'd been in conversations with the BBC um there'd been a suggestion that Sue Lawley might have done the interview I think we might have it might come out quite differently um obviously brilliant journalist Sue Lawley um so I do think that is part of his defense and is important to remember and you know lots of people have well, she is a woman with agency. And I think we've got to remember that, that she, you know, whilst there is a manipulation going on here, and I don't doubt that, at the same time, she's a woman with agency who made choices for herself. She is an adult, well, she was an adult,

she was capable of making decisions for herself. Of course, that all needs to be caveated with the fact that, yes, she clearly was manipulated by him to some degree, and the Dyson report suggests to a rather high degree. Let's come back to that, excuse me, in just a moment, because there was also what you brought up to him about other scoops that he had, not least what had happened with the so-called babes in the wood situation. Can you remind us of that? Yeah, I mean, I didn't cover that story at the time. I asked him because I could find it in the cuts about other stories he'd done. So I looked back and there was a story from about 2004, where one of the mothers of these poor two girls who were murdered absolutely horrific story um had complained completely understandably that he had lost vital evidence so this was the

clothing of one of the girls and it had been handed over to him he they thought for dna testing now what was interesting to me is when I first brought that up with him, he said, Oh, I didn't cover that story. And I said, Well, look, this is all in the public domain that the mothers actually spoke out again in one of the months big out again in 2020. After this all came to light to say, Well, don't forget also this. And what what was telling is he I then said, Well, hang on a minute, they're saying this, are they wrong? You know, there is something, I think there's evidence that he signed out this piece of evidence, and he said, oh, I might have done that, I can't remember, and I just thought at that point,

I thought, well, if I had done that, that would have been the single worst thing I'd ever done in my entire career, by such a long way my entire life um not not to remember that made me feel like he was careless about people and I think he did genuinely care about Diana yes you're completely right she went to the hospital um to see his wife on the day she gave birth to their third child so you know immediately turned up at the hospital went to see the child. Lovely, beautiful photo of her. And I think he did care about her, but I also think he uses people. We've got some messages, one saying, you know, must we continue to go on about an interview that happened a quarter of a century ago to us here at Women's Hour? Princess Diana isn't here to speak for herself and give her side. We'll never know

if she regretted it or not. But another one here saying, why is Princess Diana being portrayed as some kind of airhead who didn't know what she was doing? You know, she and Charles played the press like a fiddle. That comes back to your point about agency. And how important do you think it is? And I was struck by some of your colleagues at the Sunday Times and at the other papers talking about even, you know, the men who are narrating this story now, not least those, I suppose, are her own brother, are talking about this, you know, the men who are narrating this story now, not least those, I suppose, her own brother, are talking about this, you know, as if she she really didn't have in some ways the agency because of the deception. What do you make of who's telling this story now and how that affects it? I'm glad you brought up, Emma, that the panorama was all, because it was exactly what struck me. It did tell you how male the BBC was at the time. And obviously, one of the good things that has started to change,

still need to do more there, as with all media. But absolutely, I mean, everybody was a man in that. It was being, you know, it was being narrated, the whole story was being told by men. What I would say is Princess Diana married and became famous incredibly young. And I know this is this is always said about celebrities rather than, you know, members of the royal family. But there's a theory that you sort of get paused in your age at the time you become famous. I've heard celebrity interviewers say that. So, you know, Justin Bieber will forever be 15 essentially and I think there's something in that

that because of what happened to her in her life I completely accept that she was a woman with agency she knew how to play the media

she was a very intelligent woman and she was a funny woman which I think is often forgotten she had a lot of wit but I do think

there's something in the fact that because of the way she suddenly became one of the most famous women in the world she didn't you know she didn't have the normal sort of 20s where you do mature in a you know in in a way she would have had a very very well an incredibly different experience from the rest of us and I think there's something in that that might have left her a bit

more vulnerable than an ordinary woman would have been. And of course, when you are vulnerable, I suppose you make new bonds. You sort of cleave to those who you have spoken to, which is also perhaps part of that relationship with Martin Bashir. I should say, before I ask you about something slightly different, but linked to our next guest to do with safety online, you're on maternity leave, I believe, at the moment, while breaking this quite major scoop. I am. So slightly frustrating thing as a journalist is that obviously you have to.

Well, it's that stories, you sometimes lose control of them. And I originally wrote the story when I was about seven months pregnant. And clearly I didn't quite want to give it all up. So, yes, I am on maternity leave at the moment. Of those keeping in touch days, as you can have, that's a pretty excellent couple that you've spent there. So I just thought I'd bring that up. We may return to that theme as well about how you handle your job on maternity leave. I know it's a very rich theme of conversation with women, and it's also a big

concern. But the thing I was going to ask you about, because I am speaking to the digital minister, Caroline Dynage, in just a moment, and about safety online. I know you have also spoken out about this, specifically towards female journalists. What's your experience of this? And why does that actually link to the government? So in about 2012, I started being harassed by a man on Twitter. He is not very well. He normally is in a secure unit. Unfortunately, he has escaped this secure unit for the third time in about three and a half years.

So he's currently on the loose, I guess. He is not at all well. And he has attempted to contact me. He has turned up at my office. Thankfully, I don't believe he knows where I live. And he is banned as far as i can tell from twitter um now it took a long time for us to get to that he used to send me very very creepy videos now it doesn't directly link to the government but it has made my experience of twitter and i'm sure there are lots of other women journalists but also women in the public eye in who similar experiences, very, very unpleasant things

happen to them online. And it's made Twitter not feel to me like a pleasant place to be. It's made it very sort of, even when people are not being horrific, you know, but are being a bit nasty, it pains me more because it brings it all back. And I have, like many female journalists, I have been horrifically trolled at various points and one of the things that did happen to me after the last enormous story I did which was that I got the leak of the government documents um about uh the effects of a no-deal

Brexit known as Operation Yellowhammer when that happened and why the context here is obviously Twitter for me is an unpleasant place. Michael Gove retweeted me, which resulted in a massive pile on. And weirdly, it happened to be my birthday that day. And I was having a birthday party. And suddenly, my phone started going off every second with abuse. So it wasn't the abuse from him, what he said was simply critical. But when you have 200 000 twitter followers if you do that what you do is you set them on people and you know i was getting called really obscene words that i don't want to use on the bbc at 10 o'clock in the morning um and i think people with big accounts need to be responsible in that situation for me it was particularly painful because of the context but obviously this has happened with other journalists that ministers and other MPs set people on them. And because they've got such large followings,

I think they need to be responsible and think about that. As I have learned, you know, I don't have nearly as many Twitter followers as he does, but I've learned not to do that myself, because I know what can happen to people and I know how unpleasant it is. Well, perhaps we'll get into a bit more of that. Butamund and Erwin we'll let you get back to your maternity leave and potentially whatever else you're up to but thank you for for giving us some insights there into what it was like to talk to Martin Bashir and also a bit behind that story from your perspective. Your messages are coming in and one here just to say from Chloe I've been thinking about this interview for a while now and I feel that despite the circumstances behind it being highly unethical and immoral, it is still Diana's voice at the heart of it.

It seems as if in the midst of this debate, we've forgotten the words which must have taken so much courage for her to voice again at the heart of it. It's the voices of men that we hear. Yes, the route in which the interview was obtained is wrong. However, erasing it from history and painting her as someone who didn't know what she was doing is a huge injustice. To come back to what we were just starting to talk about there, online safety and how it feels to be online from different perspectives, the government has just announced its long-awaited online safety bill, which it says is groundbreaking and claims will usher in a new age of accountability for tech and bring fairness and accountability to the online world. A third of the UK's internet users are under 18 and do need to be protected from accessing harmful material on self-harm, suicide, extreme pornography. But will this legislation do that?

Campaigners who are concerned about other side of things will say that plans do lead to censorship. Others warn proposed fines, for instance, do not go far enough. Digital Minister Caroline Dynage joins us now to talk about what's in and perhaps more importantly, what's out. Caroline, good morning. Good morning, Emma. Just in terms of a code of conduct there and hearing about how unpleasant those spaces like Twitter can be. What is your response? Do you think there should be rules against cabinet secretaries like Michael Gove from, quote, retweeting things and effectively a digital pylon ensuing? Well I mean people are entitled to retweet things on Twitter that's what Twitter is all about isn't it people you know all the time every day tweet and retweet things that they like

whether that's or dislike whether that's you know commentary on the news or whether that's the outcome of the Eurovision but what we need to be careful on is what Rosamund was talking about, which is this kind of pile on harassment. And separate to but linked to the online harms bill, the online safety bill, which we're working on at the moment is a separate law commission investigation into online abuse, which looking at just that thing of pylon harassment. And when that concludes, if it makes any recommendations that necessitate law changes, we've committed to seeing if those can be swept up in the online safety legislation. The idea for this bill came out of the tragic death of Molly Russell, who took her own life after spending hours of viewing self-harm posts. Are you confident this

bill could stop that happening again? I know every circumstance will be slightly different, but that's where it came from. And I thought good to go back to that. Yeah, it's a really important starting point. I've met Molly's dad and on a number of occasions, and it is the most heartbreaking story. And actually, the story that you can, as a parent, you can imagine impacting any single one of us. And that's why it is so important that the fundamental cornerstone of this bill is about making online companies legally responsible for protecting people, especially children, from the wide range of illegal and harmful content which is out there and we've seen in the last year in particular what a marvel the online world can be helping us to stay connected and learning and

working but equally we also know that there are a myriad of harms out there and it's about time that we put in place legislation that tackles that. And you're obviously confident that this can happen for instance Ofcom the media regulator is being put in place legislation that tackles that. And you're obviously confident that this can happen. For instance, Ofcom, the media regulator, is being put in place, for instance, to look at social media companies if they don't remove harmful content. Big fines will follow. These are some of the details

I'm sure the listeners will be familiar with. But there are concerns around, for instance, a failure to put basic age verification checks for sites. Specifically, let's talk about porn sites. You know, porn sites are now in charge of doing that. Well, so every single online company that hosts any kind of user generated content or interaction will have to look at whether children are accessing their site, not whether their site's designed for children, but whether children are likely to access their site, and they need to put in place protections. Obviously,

the sites which have got much more content that's more dangerous for children or more inappropriate for children will have to do that in a much stronger and more effective way. We are suggesting that they use age assurance technology. We're not specifying what form that technology should take because we need to future proof this legislation. This world is changing at a rate of knots and we need to make sure that we're equipping this legislation with the legs to be able to deal with the threats as they emerge. I understand that. If I may, I understand understand that that you don't want to say which bit of technology they should use which age verification but you're not making them you're suggesting we are making them so any how are you how are you compelling somebody for instance on a porn site to register and give their age so um every every every company that hosts any kind of

user-generated content and um I'm not talking about user generated. I'm talking about professionally created porn films. Well, the vast majority of porn sites host some form of interaction or user generated content. So if you talk about some of those sort of household names, things like Pornhub, you know, alongside the professionally created content, they have a huge amount of user interaction and user generated. All those sites will come under the scope of this bill

and they will have to put in place an age assurance to make sure that it's not being inappropriately accessed by children. And sorry, who will monitor that? It's monitored by Ofcom. Ofcom are the regulator for this. Sorry, but in terms of the ability to ensure that they are doing that, so Ofcom can shut down these porn sites now if they do not make every single person register with their age? Yes, I mean, Ofcom have a suite of powers that they can use at their disposal. And, you know, and if a site is not fulfilling their duty of care to online users, and particularly to children, I mean, this bill is very much designed with children at the heart

of it, then the site can be taken down, or indeed huge fines can be imposed up to up to £18 million or 10% of global turnover, which for some of these sites is a huge sum of cash, as you can imagine. So you're confident that those suggestions and the moderating by Ofcom of those websites will have the necessary controls? Yeah, I mean, we've worked with such a long time member on this legislation. We've spoken with experts from so many different fields. And, you know, this is the consensus is the best way of keeping everybody safe online, but particularly young people and children. Okay, so I think that has been a huge concern. It's good to get clarity on it. But the

other complication is the growth of end to end encryption, which means the ability for people to send messages and content without any tracing apps like whatsapp snapchat that's a key part of their service that is a problem especially when it comes to protecting children isn't it that's the concern yeah end-to-end encryption is a huge concern when it comes to uh when it comes to keeping people safe and and it you know it is a conversation that we've had with the online platforms that already have it and all those that are thinking of introducing it. The bill does include the ability to be able to access

end-to-end encrypted services in extreme circumstances. So if there are extreme worries that have a huge amount of evidence behind them, there is scope within the bill to be able to access those services. Sorry, I don't follow that. So only if you are aware of it, can you access the information? Because the point that I'm trying to make, and going back to, for instance, porn, because that's how a lot of younger people will be seeing this they'll be sharing this sort of content between them you don't have a route into that at the moment and the NSPCC for instance show 54% of cases of sexual communication with children of crimes cited use of these services

you still don't have a way into that. Well we do because private channels will be in scope of the regulation. And so companies can't use encryption as an excuse to avoid protecting their users, particularly children. And, you know, this legislation sets out the obligation for them to do that. So companies that use end-to-end encryption will need to demonstrate how they're managing that risk to their users or face big fines. And Ofcom will be setting out very strict codes of practice as to how they need to do that. But you can't actually see this stuff. That's what I'm trying to say. So how are you going to leave it to the companies to tell you if they've got something that they're concerned about? What if they don't? The point is you won't know. Well, as a measure of last resort, the regulator will be able to require companies to use technology to identify child sexual exploitation and abuse content where there's evidence of a problem on a platform.

Obviously, this power needs to be subject to robust safeguards to protect user privacy. This end to end encryption is there for a reason. But if a company refuses to comply, they could face hefty fines or even face being blocked. I suppose the issue that I'm trying to drive at here, and we should also say big companies can get around just your previous point about user uploaded content within days of an investigation being launched by removing all user uploaded content. And I suppose I recognise that this is incredibly complicated. You have been working on this for a long time. Is there also just a part of you that needs to level with people, especially those who are parents listening,

that you just can't protect children from everything? Even the way we've just been talking, there is a huge concern, just if I may, about that Facebook may move much more towards encrypted messages. It may go completely in that way and you just will not have oversight. Look, you you know this legislation is is huge it's a massive massive uh text and it's trying to tackle a whole range of different threats all at one time but it's also trying to be future proof for the for you know to face the

challenges of the world uh that emerges in the future you know, as I've already said. So in some cases, some of the tools that we might need to identify child sexual exploitation content on end-to-end encrypted channels are not commonly available at the moment, but we anticipate they will be developed in the very near future. There's something called safety tech about which we are one of the world's leading countries at developing this stuff. And we need to make sure that this bill is equipped to be able to harness the potential of that for the future. So you're talking about artificial intelligence, how you actually monitor this or what do you mean by that? Well, a whole range. Yeah, a whole range of things. So, you know, there's one company that's even developing a keyboard that's able to tell how old somebody is by the way that they type.

But I think probably what is important to get back to the fundamentals of this so you know I'm a um I'm a mother of teenage boys and I know that you know if you're a 17 year old boy um wanting to access material online it's very very little the government can do to um to to stop you because you know any um self-respecting teenager is able to sort of find their way around some of these things. What I'm more concerned about is the fact, you know, I've got a five year old nephew and a seven year old niece. I'm more worried about the fact that they are able to stumble across really, really inappropriate content virtually every day on social media. And that is at the heart of what this bill is about. Well, that's a question here. When will sites be held responsible for child sexual abuse being hosted? It's criminal. No one seems to care. End-to-end encryption will make it impossible

for police to find child sexual abuse sent in messages. Yes. So, I mean, as you say, anything that's illegal needs to be taken down. And up until now, the onus has only been on companies to do that at the point that they're made aware of illegal content that's on their sites. That's the issue, isn't it? It's a lot of onus on companies. That's where the bill changes it because now they don't have to be aware. They need to be proactively taking down illegal content. So, you know, it's making a much stronger link between how the law works online to how it does offline.

Can I just ask, as Digital Minister, we were talking about what's gone on with the Lord Dyson report into the BBC. Do you trust the BBC? I think, you know, as a nation, we're all brought up, aren't we, to trust the BBC? I think you know as a nation we're all brought up aren't we to trust the BBC but these recent reports have been very damaging very upsetting you know and as my boss the Secretary of State says it's really important that we take time to reflect upon what's been said that have a

look and see whether any governance changes are needed and but at the heart of this, it's making sure that things like this can't happen again and can't go undisclosed for such a huge period of time. Would you support a criminal investigation? I think, you know, I want to look at this report and see more in detail what it suggests. I think, you know, the current BBC management are taking this very seriously. They have really thrown everything at this investigation to make sure that it is fulfilled in a robust way. And I think now we just need to look very carefully at what would be needed to prevent anybody going through a similar experience in the future. You're talking about being robust. You're talking about getting things done. The online safety bill has taken a great deal of time

and detail that you've talked about. You were care minister before taking on this job. When you left, you said your greatest regret in the job was not getting the green paper through on social care reform. The government has now put a white paper out early in this year, but there was nothing in the Queen's speech. No, but, you know... How could that be the case?

Well, it is a regret that that hasn't come to fruition yet. How many years did you work on that for in total? I was Care Minister for two years. Why is there nothing in the Queen's speech after the year like no other on social care? Well, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that it is one of his absolute priorities to tackle this. What you have to think is that it is a very, very complex issue to tackle.

Successive governments have looked at it and then put it in the too-difficult pile, but this Prime Minister has committed to tackling it. By editing it out of the Queen's speech, hasn't he exactly done that, put it in the too difficult to deal with pile? But he's committed to addressing this issue.

What is he committed to? You'll have to ask him because I'm no longer the Care Minister. Sorry Caroline, to talk to you on a human level, you don't leave that part of your brain out when you take a new beat as the Digital Minister. You can remember this I

remember speaking to you at the time with how frustrated you were it's not you know it wasn't in the Queen's speech. I continue to have those frustrations because you know it's an issue that affects so many people up and down the country but all I can tell you Emma is that the Prime Minister has committed to tackling this it's a massive issue obviously you know a lot of the the bandwidth of the department for health and social care for the last uh 15 months has been taken up with tackling the coronavirus pandemic but once we get to the stage where uh we're on a more even keel with that i'm sure that the focus will go back rightly to tackling adult social care and all the issues that come with it it It's very important. It didn't get dealt with before COVID, though, by the same government.

Well, I mean, we were a long way towards being able to tackle it. Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of suggestions on the table and we had a lot of great thinking on it. So there's a lot of work that's already been done. They won't be starting from scratch. Well, Caroline Dynas, thank you for talking to us across a range of issues there. The present digital minister, but formerly in charge of care.

We didn't want to miss the opportunity to ask a question. A couple of messages here. Many of the porn sites are based overseas, beyond the control of UK regulation. Porn sites ask you if you're over 18. That's it.

Click yes or no. No verification needed. Concerns keep coming in about that. Of course, more detail on that bill as you just heard it. And of course, as it comes in, you can report into us what you think of it. Now, the writer of the best-selling Geek Girls series always knew she felt different. Ever since she was a child and found herself mirroring or mimicking others' facial expressions in the playground to try and fit in. But it's taken the author Holly Smale until the end of last year, at the age of 39, to finally

receive her clinical diagnosis of autism. The psychologist said congratulations to her upon diagnosis, which she says felt right as she embraces the condition, describing autism as the answer to the question she's been asking herself all her life. Holly, good morning. Hello. Hi. How did it feel to be diagnosed? I've described a little there. Yeah, I think, to be honest, it's been a kind of mixed bag. Immense relief. I kind of feel it's like a weight lifted because it's been a lifetime of feeling broken, essentially, feeling like there's something wrong with me. But also an element of grief because, you know, I'm 39. And so I've spent four decades essentially not knowing who I am

or how to interact with the world. And, you know, looking at my child's version of me and just feeling incredibly sad for her, essentially. So it's a kind of celebration and a relief, but also a grief process, I think. Yes, because I also read that you're you're looking forward to almost going back out there as you now you know in all sorts of areas of your life yeah I mean I have no idea um what it's going to be like one of the elements of of um autism especially amongst women and girls is that we mask so we learn very early how to cover up um the

traits that are immediately points out as different, which means that essentially, I've been masking for 40 years, I've been essentially acting for 40 years. So it's a really long and difficult process to learn how to drop that and how to actually be me and how to go into a relationship, not just attempting to be the, you know, the girlfriend that they're looking for, as opposed to myself. I'd love to come back to the relationship discussion in a moment but I thought if we could go back to the playground if we could go back far earlier because that masking is something girls and women socially do but also can lead to things like this being missed yeah um yeah I just wasn't picked up on

um I was seen as a very clever little girl um which uh you know much like Lisa Simpson um that meant that all the other traits that were very very clear you know hiding in cupboards um and you know not being able to eat majority of foods and being overwhelmed and having meltdowns and basically every other quality it was just seen as me being a dramatic clever little girl essentially which meant that you know my my masking had to kind of ramp up over the years just to try and let me survive essentially and you know people can be cruel to people that are different whether or not you're diagnosed or not. And what did that mean when you could see people having a reaction to something and you were trying to learn how to have a reaction as well? What were you wanting to do instead?

To be honest, it's tricky to know because it feels to me, and this is only my experience of autism, is that it always feels like I'm an alien and I'm speaking in a second language. So I'm busy trying to take in everything around me and you know whether it's sound, light, conversation, people, facial expressions, emotions and everything is kind of a jumble and I don't really know how to separate them out so a lot of the time my reaction is is nothing because I'm busy having this incredibly complicated and confusing interaction with the world essentially but I would kind of look around and check the faces of the kids around me like okay they think this is funny so I will laugh

um you know this is a joke and I mean my grandma um realized quite young that I had no sense of humor at all um so she bought me a joke book and I would carry it around with me at the age of six or seven and with a pen and I would go up to people and give them a joke and if they laughed I'd put a tick next to it because that was funny and then I would go home and try and work out what was funny about the joke so that I would understand what sense of humor was um and yeah I mean in a way I respect that enormously because I think some people could do with that maybe you know for figuring out what genuinely does work in conversations and what doesn't.

But it's also, it must have been incredibly tiring. Exhausting. And it's been exhausting for, you know, 40 years. And, you know, especially as an adult and what we find, especially with more I learned about autism and women and girls, is that we internalise that exhaustion and it becomes depression and anxiety. anxiety and you know I was really really ill for a lot of my 20s and 30s with those kind of things because I was

exhausted constantly I was always feeling like I was I was wrong I was broken there was something that was so different and wrong about me that I could never fix it um so yeah shattering it's been a strange process realizing I might actually be able to let go yes well you mentioned your grandmother there yeah were there others in the family who were trying to help you through this did anyone suspect anything no um and I actually discussed with my mom yesterday and she's okay with me talking about it um as a result of my diagnosis my mom has realized that she is also autistic. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So obviously she didn't realise because she just realised,

thought I was like her. So, you know, and if we think looking back that maybe teachers had an idea, I became cupboard monitor when I was nine because the teacher said that the cupboard needed organising every lunchtime. So I would go and sit in a dark cupboard and organise it every lunchtime. But it never occurred to me that actually they were trying to be compassionate because lunchtime was too overwhelming.

So yeah, looking back, it's clear. I mean, this must be such a strange time for you and your mum to be having these conversations. It is, it is. You know, especially when you've had so much of your life and it it's kind of I've kind of likened it to basically being told that you're a duck all your life and you're looking around they're all cracking and swimming and you're like I am the world's worst duck I am a completely broken duck and you do that for four

decades then someone goes you're a frog and And you're like, I'm a frog. I'm actually a decent frog. I'm not a duck, but I can jump and I can catch flies and breathe on water. So you suddenly realise that you're good at the things you're good at, but you're terrible at trying to be someone completely different. I'm not going to take the horrible option that is open to me here for a conversational segue as someone who's studied conversation to say about kissing a prince if you're a frog but so many tell us tell us about what it's been like dating not knowing you have autism um it's been I mean difficult an adventure um I I date usually once every three years for

about two months um and it's so exhausting and upsetting that I don't do it again for another sort of two years. I don't understand a lot of context. You know, I think that perhaps relationships often play out on a non-verbal level that I don't really understand. And I can't process a lot of emotions. So when things happen happen I tend to shut down or melt down or burn out or whatever it is that my reaction is and so they find me quite um yeah not what they expected essentially they think I'm robotic they think I have no emotions they think I'm cold um and they don't last the relationships don't last um do you feel do you feel more sort of optimistic now that that might change because of this because you could be a frog as you put it yeah I just want to be a frog um I hope so because I think

that the more I am aware of myself like for instance I've had periods in the past where a boyfriend has told me that he's uh been cheating on me which has you know I haven't actually worked out what he meant you know famously I've I've been seeing someone else and I went, where? Around town? Had no idea. It took me at least 30 seconds to work out what he was referring to. Because you're being you're being so literal almost about it and understanding what? Basically, when I'm emotional, my brain, all of the learning that I have taken on as an adult just disintegrates and the panic makes me incredibly literal again. And I just see everything as exactly what it said. And, you know, my reaction was, OK, well, thanks for letting me know.

Maybe we should talk about this later. I'm going to go and teach some kids now. And I put the phone down. He was like, you're the scariest robot in the world. But I can't react emotionally emotionally I can't process them um but I think that going forward it's going to really help me to be able to say to someone I'm dating look this is how I am it doesn't mean I don't care it doesn't mean that I'm you know not feeling distress or grief whatever it just means that I need a little bit of time to process, to know how I feel, to identify emotions, essentially. Well, I was going to say, we have a message here for you from Val, who says, I wasn't clinically diagnosed with autism until I was 70. She says, I was actually pleased because I've had a lifetime of upsetting people by saying or doing the wrong things and never understanding

why. My diagnosis was a relief. Much of of it has fallen into place but i do feel that being a victim of others sort of passive aggression has been very cruel i feel like if they had known i might have been a much happier life in many ways so i mean you found out 30 years before her yeah yeah exactly and you know 30 years for my mom um but you know i i agree completely and you know because sometimes it can be especially at school it can be very active aggression it can be being stabbed with pencils which used to happen to me at school um but you know as an adult you can have those kind of microaggressions of like that's a weird thing to say or why would you do that or what's going on with your face or that's

the wrong expression or whatever it is you get those microaggressions of just constantly feeling like you've done something wrong um which gives you a sense of vertigo all the time you're constantly on the edge going am I going to fall off this social interaction into an abyss I don't understand I was just very struck I mean awful what you've just said there about about pencils and the abuse and then also how it's changed but you you do writeek Girl is your creation. You mentioned Lisa Simpson there. Do you think we need to have more characters and more representation of girls with autism to try with this, to try and help? wasn't diagnosed as autistic because I wasn't and I didn't know so I spent 10 years writing a neurodiverse character not realizing she was neurodiverse but you know had I known I mean Lisa Simpson is a canonically undiagnosed autistic girl um who the general public just sees as very clever and a bit annoying um and had I known as when I was younger that Lisa Simpson is autistic then it would have given me so much more knowledge about myself and it would have allowed me to navigate the world more easily and I think that you know by coming out and saying that

my character is autistic I'm adding to the conversation that allows you know young girls especially to feel like they are being seen to feel like they have things that they can see themselves reflected in um which you don't get if you are autistic, essentially. There just isn't. I mean, even Christina in Grey's Anatomy as an adult, I watch it. She's another canonically undiagnosed woman. And I'm like, to see my feelings and story play out as an adult is, I mean, I cried multiple times because you don't see it, you know. Yes.

Well, I have got to tell you, there's this other message that's come in that's remarkable for you from Maxine who's emailed, who says, I read Holly's story and I didn't bother sharing it with my daughter because I've been trying to tell her for years that I thought I was autistic. She called me yesterday morning saying she had just read this article and she thought I should get a diagnosis because she's now convinced I'm autistic. I'm 66 years old and I just felt like crying. It is a relief that someone finally believes me. So now I have to decide whether to get a diagnosis. That's amazing. I've been overwhelmed with messages from you know from grown-ups who have also felt like the light bulb's gone on but also from parents

of children and young girls who have either had a diagnosis or are in the process of getting one and have felt ashamed and like they can't speak about it and like there's you know so much um stigma attached to it that they will never be able to you know hold their head up and it's been incredibly emotional saying you know one person and message saying my you know 18 year old daughter has cut the piece out stuck it on her wall and gone if she's autistic then I'm I'm proud to be autistic too and well I suppose I mean that's the power of writing and also coming on and talking you never know who's going to read it and who's going to listen Holly thank you so much for coming on and uh good luck with the the next stage I'd love to catch up on

you and hear hear how it's going we'll talk again there you go um more messages coming in I hope to come back to as well just talking about perhaps that light bulb going on. But I did say we were going to tell you about a trial that has caught France's imagination. Next month, a French woman will stand trial for killing her husband. But she's got the support of thousands of people across her country who've signed a petition and want her pardoned. Valerie Bacot was with her older husband for decades. She's now 40, but she knew the man who became her husband since she was 12. From then on, he molested her, beat and raped her and used her as a prostitute. Ursula Le Man is from Ossé Le Féminisme, a French feminist campaigning organisation and knows family and friends of Valerie. And Anne-Elizabeth Moutet is a journalist in Paris. Welcome to you both. Ursula, tell us first of all about who Valerie is. Well, as you said, Valerie is a 14-year-old woman. She's the mother of four children. And Valerie is a survivor. Her story is a tale of suffering and abuse, really. So as you

said, when she was 12, her mother began dating a man called Daniel Paulette, who was 37 at the time. As soon as he enters her life, he starts raping her. Every day when she came home from school, he raped her. And as it often happens in incest cases, everyone around them knew or suspected it, but no one said anything and no one helped until someone from Danielle's family reported him to the police and he was sent to prison for two and a half years. But he came back in the family home as though nothing had happened and he resumed, of course, raping Valerie. She got pregnant at 17 and that's when he decided that they were going to live as a couple, and so they did. During the next 18 years, Valérie will be forbidden to work, forbidden to have a social life.

She will be his prisoner. He's going to rape, beat, threaten, abuse, and humiliate her every single day, and as a way of completely destroying her humanity, he's going to prostitute her in their family car on rest areas for 14 years. Twice her children will go to the police to report the situation, but the police refuse to listen to them. And then one night, as a John just raped her inside the car, Danielle arrives screaming, insulting her, threatening her and she finds the courage to grab the gun he often used to make her death threats with

and she kills him. What's she on trial for? Thank you for laying that out. There's a lot there that people will have not necessarily been aware of and it's incredibly distressing to her but it's important to know the detail.

What is she accused of? What is she standing trial for? She's going to be on trial in a month for essentially murdering him, because she did kill him that night. And she's not in prison at the moment, is that right? No, she went to prison for a year, and then she's out now on probation,

awaiting for her trial. And in terms of the defence that the lawyers have put forward, because there will be some people, a different case again, but there'll be some people in the UK thinking of a case of a woman here called Sally Challen, which you may be familiar with, which we could come back to perhaps in a moment. But what have they put forward as her defence? So basically, her defence is going to put forward the fact that the justice system failed her. It failed to protect her and thus a society that failed to protect a victim cannot condemn her. In France, at any criminal trial, we're going to try to evaluate if the perpetrator, so in this case, Valerie, judgment was impaired or abolished

at the time of the crime. And here the expert reports and more importantly the psychiatric report says that her judgment was at the very least impaired due to the years and years of violence and dehumanization she endured. And it is called the beaten wife syndrome and can be shown as, you know, MRI. You can see the part of the brains that are not working anymore. So we can even talk in this case about her judgment being completely abolished at the time of the murder. Anne-Elizabeth, to bring you in,

why do you think this has captured so many people's imaginations in France? I would say because there's a feeling in general that women are too often failed in cases like this. And most of the time, nobody talks about it. And I think that's very important. And also because the case is, it's almost Greek tragedy in its awfulness. The fact that this woman was made to marry, in effect, her father-in-law. And she was constantly failed and people knew. And the book that came out, she wrote a book with a journalist. The journalist interviewed her, was fascinated by how lucid she was and decided to make a book with her. And the book is called Everybody Knew. And that's the whole point is that it touches on something in the French psyche

is when you know that something is happening, but you don't like talking about it. You don't like sneaking about it. And this is it's this sort of hiding behind the door and not interrupting a crime going on, because that was a series of crimes that he perpetrated on Rue. And I would say that that's one of the things. I have a friend who is a préfet, who is in charge of when the government comes off, if you will, in charge of a département. And he tells me that every Monday when he speaks with a gendarme,

he has a briefing of what's going on in terms of crime in the département. And they tell him horror stories of that kind. And if it comes to the gendarme, it means that it's already been denounced. And he says you have no idea how horrible crimes there are in some of the loveliest parts of our country. Well, we should actually say the number of women killed in France has gone down. 19, 20, 20, that's the lowest in the 15 years since the French government began counting, down even on the year before, which saw 146 women killed by partners.

I wonder, but though with what you're saying, you're actually talking about something else, which is people knowing that abuse is going on. So it's not just about those absolute numbers, is it? Yes, it's also the fact that we don't have to meddle. And the feeling, I think, that what happens within a couple, even with everything that's changed in the way it's being reported in newspapers and on television, that it's passion. For years in France, for decades, for centuries, crimes of passion were not treated the way normal crimes were treated,

because it was more than just your understanding being impaired. It also had to do with the fact that love meant also brutality at times. And most of the time it was men on women. And every now and then it was women on men. The wife of the French politician, Joseph Cayo, showed up at the offices of the director of Le Figaro, a newspaper that had been abusing her husband in the immediate pre-Feldwall one time, and she shot him dead. And she was acquitted because it was supposed to be passion and she was defending her husband's honor. But she is the exception and most of the time there are all sorts of cases in which the honour of the man requires, the so-called honour requires that the woman be subservient

and essentially diminished and that's when it happens. And what shocks everyone in the case is that the children of that woman, who are the incestuous children with her father-in-law, took her part and went twice to the police and the police would not listen to them. And Elizabeth Moutet, thank you. Ursula, just a final quick word from you. How is Valerie at the moment? She seems in some of the interviews to have come to terms with the fact that she could go to prison.

Well, Valerie feels guilty because she's been made to feel guilty her whole life. And she knows in this case that she took a life. But it's our job as a society to admit that we failed her and tell her you did what you did because we didn't give you another choice. That trial is happening next month and we will catch up on it on Valerie Bocot. Ursula LeMenn, thank you to you. Now a new large UK study that we wanted to bring to your attention suggests that having coronavirus around the time of birth

increases the chance of stillbirths and premature births although important it is to stress that the overall risks remain low. Scientists say that while most pregnancies are not affected and their findings should encourage pregnant women to have jabs as soon as they're eligible. I'm now joined by Professor Asma Khalil, the co-author of the research paper, and Dr Mary Ross-Davie, the Director of Professional Midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives. Professor Khalil, thank you for joining us.

What are those key findings, to put them in perspective? Well, as you mentioned earlier, this is the largest study that has data from England so far that looked at the outcomes of the pregnancies of women who had COVID. We had more than 340,000 pregnant women, and of those more than 3,500 women had confirmed COVID. When you compare women who had COVID to those who did not, the chance of stillbirth, so that means the baby dying during the pregnancy, was twice in those who had COVID compared to those who didn't. And also the chance of preterm births or going to labor early or premature births was also twice in those who had COVID compared to those who didn't.

I think it's also important that we put things in perspective because we don't want to frighten pregnant women. You know, the numbers were still small. So, you know, if you talk about stillbirths, those who had COVID was only eight per thousand. so still the majority of women who had COVID did not have stillbirths um so yeah the reaction well just let's bring in Mary at this point your reaction to the report and how does that link with the drive around pregnant women to to have the vaccination yeah it's really helpful that we've had this report so that we can understand much more about the impact of COVID during pregnancy.

And I think it's one of the factors that will help women make an informed choice about whether they want to be vaccinated during their pregnancy. Because if they can be really aware of the impact, if they do become unwell with COVID that it increases their risk of these really poor outcomes so stillbirth and pre-term birth they can add that into their thinking. I think it's important that women think about what are

the factors for them so we know that not all women are likely to become really unmoved. Some women, like the general population, can have COVID-19 and not have symptoms. But we know that some women are more at risk. So older women, we know women who live in deprived areas, black and Asian women are also at higher risk of becoming unwell. And women who have a high BMI are also coming unwell and people with underlying medical conditions. So what we'd say is we'd recommend that women talk to their midwives, talk to obstetricians about what their particular individual circumstances are. But this study really helps, I think, with that decision making. And we should say, Asma, to come back to you, that women of the likely pregnant age group

are now being called up as of this week for vaccination. So do you think, how do you think this study should feed into that? I mean, I think the main problem we had when pregnant women, or when you counsel pregnant women about the COVID vaccine, and this is the commonest question that pregnant women ask us nowadays, that should I take the COVID vaccine. And this is the commonest question that pregnant women ask us nowadays, that should I take the COVID vaccine?

The problem that we had is that the initial trials of COVID vaccine did not include pregnant women. And therefore, people argue that we don't have really robust data on the vaccine in pregnant women. Having said that, and there is now, we have data on a large number of pregnant women from the States. So about 10 days ago, a large study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that's the best medical journal, that had data on more than 35,000 pregnant women who received the vaccine. That was the mRNA vaccine, so the Pfizer or Moderna, and there were no safety

concern. Of those, just about under 900 give birth. So we actually, they followed them during the pregnancy and the babies were born. And again, it doesn't seem that they had worse outcomes. So I think more and more, we have more data that's reassuring about the safety of COVID vaccine in pregnancy. Mary, very briefly, if you can, final word on that. If you are pregnant right now, wondering whether to have the vaccine or not, you will have just heard what Asma has just said, but should you go and have a conversation? Is there now guidance that's blanket? What would you say to that? Yes, so find midwives, obstetricians, that on the rcog or the rcm websites i'd recommend that women yeah

access really good robust evidence-based information from those websites and then have a conversation with their midwife thank you very much to to both of you there the latest on that and how it interfaces with the the news around the vaccine professor asma khalil and dr mary ross davy the royal college of midwives or the nhs websites that are being recommended with the news around the vaccine. Professor Asma Khalil and Dr Mary Ross Davey, the Royal College of Midwives, all the NHS websites that are being recommended. Many messages come in off the back of our conversation with Holly Smale, the author who only last year, the end of last year, at the age of 39,

was diagnosed with autism. An exceptionally forthright and poignant conversation. Here's to leapfrogging into new awareness where autism is concerned, thereby alleviating the distress of so many, reads this message. Another one from Ruth who says, Holly's saying everything I wish I could say.

The duck frog metaphor is brilliant. Thank you so much. Another one from Nicola, listening to Holly made me smile. I'm 53 and I never felt in step with the world. It was only when my then 13-year-old daughter was diagnosed that I had a light bulb moment and realised, hey, that's me.

And it all made sense. However, can I add that my daughter now 16 heard so many derogatory remarks made by pupils at the school that refuses to be that she refuses, excuse me, to be identified as autistic. Much more awareness and understanding is needed. Nicola, thank you so much for that messages and for all of your messages today. And I just wanted to end by saying our best wishes here from Woman's Hour to the family and friends of Lisa Shaw, our fellow BBC Radio presenter for BBC Radio Newcastle,

who has died aged 44 after a short illness. She's described by her colleagues as a brilliant presenter, a wonderful friend, a loving wife and mum. And her family called her an amazing person who touched and enriched so many people's lives and made them better just by being in it. So lisa shaw we'll be back with you tomorrow that's all for today's woman's hour thank you so much for your time join us again for the next one

charlie i have been so excited to speak to you hello mana hello how are you joe i'm joe wicks and i'm back for the second series of my podcast that's all about sharing ways to help you live a happier and healthier life. Doing a bit of research and apparently you're into something called inversion therapy where you hang upside down. What's that, like a bat? Exactly. I do it every day. You know, it all just sort of...

Clears your head a little bit. Yeah. I get to speak to some heroes of mine, from the legend that is Sir Tom Jones, who I'm literally obsessed with, to one of our most successful UK athletes, Sir Mo Farah. You have to be smart and control the race in the way that you want to. It just settles me, it organises my brain.

Meditation, I think, is the cultivation of a space within you that if you don't turn to it, life will get in the way. Subscribe now on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. And you can also check out every single episode in video format on BBC iPlayer. The Joe Wicks podcast for BBC Radio 4. 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.