Woman's Hour - Hygiene Poverty, Hanna Flint, Lumberjills

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

The new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has appointed his team of top ministers but out of 31 members there are only seven women in his team. The BBC’s Leila Nathoo joins Jessica alongside Dr Meryl Kenny. Film critic and journalist Hanna Flint has been covering film and culture for nearly a decade. She's now written a book, Strong Female Character: What Movies Teach Us in which she reflects on how cinema has been the key to understanding herself and the world we live in. She joins Jessica Creighton in the studio.The latest inflation figures show the cost of household items like shower gel, toothpaste and shampoo rose by up to 11% from the same time last year. It's led to 3.2 million people saying they are no longer able to afford hygiene products. Ruth Brock is Chief Executive of the charity The Hygiene Bank and joins Jessica alongside Bryony, a mum from the South of England, who explains how it's impacting her.Flo & Joan are the multi-award winning British musical comedy duo Nicola and Rosie Dempsey. They cover everything from women’s safety to dating apps to mental health through their witty and irreverent comedy songs. Their sell-out 140-date international tour, Sweet Release, has just been extended. They will be performing for us live in the studio.This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Women’s Timber Corps - or ‘The Lumberjills’ as they were affectionately called. During World War Two Britain was so desperate for wood it was forced to step-up home-grown timber production. But with a lack of men to saw, manage and count the trees, meant that women from all over the UK stepped into the roles. Joanna Foat, author of Lumberjills: Stronger Together joins Jessica.Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Emma Pearce

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 Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Now, recent figures show the cost of keeping ourselves clean is rising, with some people struggling to afford products like toothpaste and shower gel. We'll be talking to a woman who is worried about being seen at a food bank and how asking for help makes her feel like nothing. Also, you've heard of lumberjacks, but what about lumberjills? Well, these were the women that were working in forests, felling trees during the Second World War. We'll be finding out

why it took more than 60 years for their vital effort to be acknowledged and even hear from some lumberjills themselves on the backbreaking work that they did. It's a fascinating story. Plus, film critic Hannah Flint takes us through the movies and TV shows that have helped her better understand the world and herself. And this is where we'd like your input this morning. I'd like to know if there are any female characters in films or TV shows that really resonated with you. Someone maybe that helped you feel more comfortable in your skin or changed your view on something, or maybe you just love their style. I definitely fell for a few female superheroes when I was growing up and watching films. You can WhatsApp us on 03700100444. That's 03700100 triple four. You could even send me a voice note if you like.

It'd be good to hear your voice. Remember though that data charges do apply. Might, may apply. So you might want to use the Wi-Fi if you can. You can also text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rates. On social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour and

as always you can email us through our website. And I'm sure that Hannah Flint will have a few of her own favourite female characters that we can ask her about when she joins me in the studio a little bit later. And how about this? The perfect antidote for hump day. Some live music for you this morning from comedic sister duo Flo and Joan. They've performed on Live at the Apollo and you might recognise them from the nationwide TV ad. It's a great thing to bring you on this Wednesday morning.

Flo and Joan will be in the studio with me a bit later in the morning. Really looking forward to hearing them sing in. But first this morning, the new Prime Minister, Richie Sunak, has appointed his cabinet and out of 31 members, seven are women. That's 22%.

There are currently 225 female MPs in the House of Commons. At 35%, this is an all-time high. But in both politics and public life in the UK, women have historically been underrepresented. In a moment, I'll be discussing this with an expert in gender and politics. But first, let's see which women got which jobs in Ritchie Sunak's government. I'm joined now by BBC political correspondent Leila Nathu. Good morning to you, Leila. Good morning, Jessica. 22% seems low.

Can you just talk us through who the new women are in this cabinet? Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the percentage of female MPs currently in Parliament, around 34%. Actually, the representation in the cabinet is actually broadly in line with the representation of women in the Conservative Party as a whole. So 24% of Tory MPs in Parliament currently are women. Labour are doing a bit better on that, 52%. Yes, I think it looks particularly conspicuous, if you like, because we've obviously replaced a female prime minister and a female deputy prime minister with Rishi Sunak as a male prime minister and his deputy, Dominic Raab. So I think that's where it seems particularly noticeable, the absence of women, but actually it is broadly in line with the Conservative Party in general. But yes, we lost a few women from Liz Truss's cabinet. We've still got women in roles,

most notably Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. One of the great offices of state is held by women. We've got Kemi Badenoch as International Trade Secretary, Gillian Keegan as Education Secretary. So we've got a few women in bigger jobs. Therese Coffey as Environment Secretary too, Penny Morden remains as Leader of the Commons. But yes, I mean, because we've lost some female Cabinet Ministers,

it does look what Labour are calling jobs for the boys. And also it seems that there's a lot less representation in the senior roles. Yes, there is Suella Braverman there as Home Secretary, but the Health Secretary under Liz Trust was a woman in Therese Coffey. She's now got a different role as Environment Secretary. So are there fewer women in the senior roles? Well, you've got one of the great offices of state in Suella Braverman. But I mean, if you look at what Rishi Sunak was trying to achieve with his cabinet appointments, he was trying to sort of reach out to various wings off the party, reward some loyalty among his supporters who backed him throughout the summer when he was campaigning for the leadership in the first place, bring back what he would say were experienced people, people he had worked with in government before and try and basically assemble a unity team. And Suella Braverman is a particularly notable appointment because she is seen as somebody on the right of the party.

So her reappointment, despite having resigned from that job barely a week ago, I mean, it seems a long time ago, but it was actually only a week ago that Suella Braverman resigned as Home Secretary because she had breached the ministerial code, because she emailed some government business to somebody outside Parliament and therefore had committed a technical breach. But I mean, I think that is a nod to the right of the party in trying to kind of keep that wing on board. But yes, I mean, if you're looking at the great offices of state, clearly Sweller-Braveman is the only woman there. And there are more junior roles to be appointed a bit later today. Just briefly, can we expect to see some more women appointed there? Yeah, I mean, more junior ministerial roles are a bit more of a chance for fresh blood to come in, as it were.

I mean, a lot of people will be very familiar with the faces that are in the big jobs, because, of course, the Tory party have been around for a long time now in government so many people will be familiar even if they're rotating around different departments but yeah junior more junior roles are definitely a chance for people who have less experience newer MPs who haven't been in parliament for that long to kind of get on the ladder as well so yeah we might well see well see some more women coming through in those roles. But I mean, you know, Rishi Sunak is clearly setting out to try and steady the ship, have a job to do, bring in people he can rely on.

And I think in terms of the more junior roles today, actually the bigger decisions Rishi Sunak would need to make is it will be around the economy and will be around whether he sticks to that economic plan that is originally scheduled for Monday and whether that goes ahead so yes there will be more junior roles announced today but I think all eyes will be on really what he's going to set out on the economy in the coming weeks. Yeah of course it will be interesting to see what he sets out indeed. Leila Nathoo, BBC political correspondent, thank you for joining us on the programme. I'm now joined down the line by Dr Meryl Kenny,

senior lecturer in gender and politics at the University of Edinburgh. You would have been listening to that, Dr Meryl, and you would have heard that seven of the 31 members of Cabinet are women, 22%. What do you think? I think it's disappointing. And I think it's disappointing not only in terms of the bar that's already been set at Westminster, which has been slightly higher than this, but also that there are many governments around the world now that are appointing 50-50 cabinets or better, not only internationally, but also within the UK. For example, Scotland has a parity cabinet. So I think it's, you know, the bar has risen for women's representation in cabinet, and this is significantly below the bar. It has risen. And it seems that Rishi Sunak has chosen people who represent different parts of the Conservative Party. Is that more important, perhaps, than diversity? Or is it just as important as diversity? I think cabinets are appointed for all kinds of reasons, as you say, both around representation, but also around kind of party factions and regional representation, these kinds

of things. But I think it also sends a signal perhaps about what this government is potentially prioritising. We're heading into hard times with austerity, which we know disproportionately impacted women and particularly women of colour, marginalised women the last time around. We also have, for example, one of the most expensive childcare systems in the world. There are lots of issues right now that are really important. And does this cabinet signal that the government is going to prioritise these issues? I'm not sure the appointments do per se at this stage.

But it's difficult to say that just by appointing a woman in a certain role that they are going to then represent the needs of women, right? Yes, I think that's a really important to make. I think we can both make the argument that it is unjust or unequal for men, predominantly from majority groups to be in most of our positions of political power, while at the same time acknowledging that numbers don't necessarily guarantee outcomes, and that success at the top, some prominent women, doesn't necessarily mean that we've tackled systematic change or that we're fixing wider inequalities. And also that gender intersects with things around race and ethnicity, around class, around privilege, etc.,

that are important to think about as well. So what would you have wanted to see, Mara? What changes would have made this better in terms of representation? Again, I think thinking about higher proportions, thinking about the kind of international standards and benchmarks, but also I think coming back to this point about it's not just about who is in cabinet, it's not just about having women at the top, but also who they are, what ideas they have, and what they do once in office. And's not just about having women at the top, but also who they are, what ideas they have and what they do once in office. And again, I think signaling some priorities

about these pressing issues that we know are going to have gendered and intersectional impacts and how the government plans to ensure more diverse voices around the table for decision-making, but also that the outcomes that come out will address these kinds of ongoing inequalities.

And because you've researched this area quite a lot over the years, just give us a sense of how the UK measures up with governments around the world and their female and gender representation. Again, I think the general rule of thumb is the higher you go up the political ladder, the less women there are. So that is a general trend. But certainly also what we've seen at the same time are increasing numbers of women cabinet ministers around the world, prominent examples of 50-50 cabinets. Think of Justin Trudeau being elected and saying, you know, this is just, you know, right now we're in 2022, right? This is the

reality of where we are right now. Women are more than 50 percent of the population. But also you see trends where women are being assigned, and this comes back to early points, to more prominent roles rather than the kind of softer or less prestigious cabinet posts. And that's what I would have liked to see as well. Were you disappointed to see that the UK, you know, had a female prime minister in Liz Truss and to see her leave after just 45 days. I wonder whether having her in post for a significant amount of time might have set the bar a bit higher for women and even beyond politics, women in other industries in the UK as well. Yeah, I think what's important to say there is there's a general trend for women party leaders and prime ministers, for example, which is not only that they tend to come to power in times of crisis, so they're there to kind of clean up the mess oftentimes, but also that they tend to have shorter tenures.

They tend to be kind of kicked out earlier. Why is that? So I think there's a couple of things there, which is one around in times of crisis, for example, some men may decide not to stand and that opens up opportunities for women to stand. It's also expectations around women and leadership and what they're expected to kind of do

when they're in office. But it's also that perhaps they're penalized more harshly for poor performance, right? Not only in terms of in office, but for example, if a party loses votes after elections, and so on. So I think there's something also about, as you say, not only women at the top, what they do when they get there, but also how long they stay there. Yeah. And you've made this point about, you know, that, well, I've made this point that there are women in this cabinet. There are seven women in this cabinet, but they haven't been given senior roles, what's seen as senior roles in the UK cabinet. So is that significant or is that a point that perhaps we shouldn't be pressing on?

The fact that the women are there and represent and representing is is a big enough point or is it important that they are in these senior roles and not just the likes of sue ella braverman as home secretary yeah i think it's a really important point because of course politics is about power so who holds power in the cabinet and i think um what we're seeing reflects a familiar pattern and it's the kind of procession uh to get portfolios where women are often the last ones into the building and getting the lower status ones. It's also about what we see as the really kind of important issues in politics. Right. And that these tend to be the kind of harder portfolios right around foreign affairs, around the economy, and that things like the environment or etc might be seen as softer portfolios or less prestigious so some of it also is about disrupting perhaps what we think

is the most important issues in politics but also making sure that everybody has equal access to power right in the cabinet and that's important as well. Dr. Meryl Kenny, thank you for coming on to Women's Hour. That's Dr. Meryl Kenny, Senior Lecturer in Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Now, film critic and journalist Hannah Flint has been covering film and culture for nearly a decade. She's now written a book called Strong Female Character, What Movies Teach Us, in which she reflects on how cinema has been key to understanding herself and the world we live in. Describing herself as a staunch feminist of mixed heritage,

Hannah says she succeeded in an industry not designed for people like her. And she joins me now. Welcome to the studio, Hannah. Thank you for having me. I'm very interested in the title of this book and what we can expect from it. For people that don't know, just try and give a brief synopsis of what the book contains. Yeah, so it's part memoir, part movie criticism. I look back at my life from childhood through adolescence into adulthood and look at the things that I've gone through, whether it's, you know, periods, whether it's, you know, having sex, first loves, playing basketball, and how watching cinema and watching movies and watching TV shows taught me about women, taught me about myself, but also kind of the positives

and the negatives that come into that. We've had, you know, over 100 years of cinema. But most of the time, it's been cis white men who've been telling us these stories. So what can we, you know, learn from what we've seen? How can it inspire us, especially as cinema is very much a reflection of the world? Sometimes that view can be quite distorted. Yeah, you do go into quite a lot of depth about really important issues about eating disorders, about your sex life when you were younger, about your upbringing and childhood as well. And there's one line that struck me where you say, I am an ethnic minority and the result of a holiday romance that probably shouldn't have progressed further than the summer it took place. Tell us about that. That's you introducing us to

your parents. Yeah, my mum, Carolyn Flint, she was a Labour politician for many years. She met my biological father, Saif, while on holiday in 1985. And, you know, that created the mixed identity that I am. But as a child, they broke up. Well, as a baby, they broke up pretty soon. So I pretty much was raised in a white household and, you know, went from London, moved to Doncaster for work. And I suppose a lot of how I felt about myself and not having a connection to my Tunisian heritage made me very much want to assimilate to whiteness because most of the stuff that I see on screen, most of the female characters, you know, from, you know, rom-coms, you know, even

in Disney princesses, very much most of them were white women and I was, you know, I'm on the lighter end of the melanin spectrum but, you know, I didn't really see many people who are brown and many people who are Arab. And if I did see people who are Arab, there are pretty much negative stereotypes. So it made you not want to identify with your Tunisian side? Yeah, no, there's a very much a lot of internalized racism that I felt towards myself. And, you know, it's as soon as I got to university and got back into multicultural world and started learning about things like reading Edward Said, learning about the melting pot, and then also expanding my film understanding, especially when I went to university and did my master's in how cinema could perpetuate kind of negative stereotypes. I was searching for better representation. And obviously, a lot of the time it takes you outside of the Western kind of tradition of cinema.

You have to go broader. It does. And you realize there's a whole wide world out there and a whole plethora of, I suppose, opinions and thoughts that you haven't had previously. And it helps expand your mind, doesn't it? Absolutely. You know, cinema, as I said, is a reflection of the world, but it's been very narrow-minded. And there's so much we can learn by watching cinema from other cultures, you know, from the Arab world, from Africa, from Latin America, but also within our own world, right?

We are both women of colour. We live in Britain. You know, when do we see ourselves on screen? You know, for me, one of the earliest things, even though I'm not African-American, love and basketball. As someone who used to play basketball, who was a very kind of like tomboyish girl, who's very passionate about sport.

You know, that meant so much to me to see Monica in this movie made by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Seeing her be like, not just the one note, I play sport character, but have this kind of like multidimensional feelings and motives and passions and vulnerabilities, but also striving for something in sport. You know, how often do we see women in sport on screen? It's so rare. And I did do a shout out to our listeners to say, you know, what were your favourite female characters in film and TV? And Monica from Love and Basketball has to be one of mine because I think it was the first time I saw someone that looks like me, a little bit lighter, but looks like me and loves sport like I did and was willing to put everything else to one side to focus on sport. And that was so rare because usually when I'd seen female characters in films and TV shows,

they had been for the attention of men almost. Yeah. And very much focused on getting into a relationship with a man. And that was all that I saw women characters centered on. 100%. I think, you know, when we go from the women's films

and then go into the chick flicks of like the naughtiest nighties, you know, it was going from get yourself a man, but also get a job. But ultimately, at the end of all these films, it's still the same as Dinsey Princess movies, right? Happily ever after. And there's someone I talk a lot in the book about, you know, what being single for a decade from my 20s into my 30s, like what that did for me. And, you know, having characters like Samantha from Sex and the City, someone who is so unapologetically herself when it comes to her sex life, her ambition and her what she wants from life, you know, that inspired me to actually make some demands. You know, I think that as women,

we don't we haven't done that. And because we've seen films on screen where it's saying to us like, yeah, just get the guy, you know, change yourself, have a makeover, right? These kind of perceptions, they kind of condition us into a certain way. And what I like now, I mean, it's slow, but sure, but we are getting films that actually kind of break that spell a lot. You know, I loved Desiree Carvin's Appropriate Behaviour, which is a kind of bisexual woman who's Iranian. And it's a funny comedy about her having a breakup and then working through who she is. She doesn't end up with a person at the end of the film, the worst person in the world recently.

You know, Fleabag. There are so many examples nowadays where once we get more women in the writer's room, more women directing and penning stories, we're going to have a far more diverse experience represented where it doesn't feel like I'm just perpetuating these old standards. And also, if you think, it's not just women watching it's men and actually we can all learn and the intersexual experience of what we are we're not a monolith there are so many different viewpoints

and I can only hope we're just going to see massive expansion of that as we go forward. Yeah and that's the problem with stereotypes they only tell part of the story. Some listeners have been getting in touch about their first and favourite female characters. Further to having strong female characters that are not in heteronormative roles are so important for women and for men, especially growing up, to allow those in very oppressive

family cultural environments so they can imagine possibilities for themselves. Sue has emailed in to say, Sigourney Weaver, a woman who takes command of the military and asserts her authority. Someone else said i really love jodie foster at the time i didn't get the connection that we shared being lesbian in common but i loved her no-nonsense style on film i can think of another one as well in lara croft i'm watching angelina jolie just being particularly badass yes and you know and unapologetic in her strength and her determination.

So there were a few of those characters, but go back to when you were growing up because you mentioned Disney and I suppose a lot of us girls might have been watching Disney princesses and thinking, okay, which Disney princess am I? I could never find one for myself. Did you? Well, I find one for myself. Did you?

Well, I mean, for many years, I was obsessed with, you know, Cinderella. Then it was Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. Then it was Little Mermaid. Then we had Belle from Beauty and the Beast because also the songs are amazing. And Belle had brunette hair and she liked books. So I was like, okay, she's definitely me.

Then Jasmine, Princess Jasmine came along. And I don't remember, I was a kid. I didn't really have the language to talk about the weirdness of this representation. But, you know, she's what Edward Said would call very much an Orientalist construct. You know, the fact that she's supposed to be this Arab princess, but her palace looks like the Taj Mahal. It was actually based on the Taj Mahal. Even the kind of the drawings of it, even the person who penned, who illustrated Jasmine, said they were inspired by Jennifer Connelly.

But it's also the way she's hyper-sexualized in the way that the other Disney princesses are not. I don't know if you can remember the scene where Jafar takes her as her kind of sex slave prisoner, puts her in a red outfit. That would definitely give, you know, Princess Leia's gold bikini a run for its money.

And then she kind of is overly seductive in a way to escape. Now, this is supposed to be a 15-year-old girl who's never really left the palace. Why are we assuming that this Arab young girl would know how to seduce a man? And I think it's that, and it creates this exotic other

what we often use when it comes to Arab Asian women in that sort of world. So, and it was just one of those things where even at the time, I didn't know what was happening, but I did feel a bit uncomfortable about it and then obviously as we progressed and we've seen the live action version which kind of doubled down on this kind of mash-up is it and is she South Asian is she Arab let's just throw everything together white creators behind it as well so yeah it's quite difficult as much as I love Princess Jasmine and for many young girls

who are brown you know depending on whatever their mixed ethnic background, you know, they saw Jasmine and loved her. But she was not given the same treatment as the other white princesses. Yeah. So you're talking there about the women of Arab culture being over sexualized, the men also, you mentioned being vilified. Has that changed or is that representation, that negative stereotype still persistent still persistent it definitely is considering what's going on in the world i mean i think we definitely see the middle east and the kind of issues are going on there we constantly see you know there's three kind of three tropes that we kind of talk about is bombers belly dancers and billionaires so if they're not a terrorist they're an oil shake you know wonder woman 1984 had this example in it you know you have belly dancers where women are basically seen as like harem, you know, women.

They're not really even main characters. They're in the kind of like in the background. We are seeing improvement. But what we're also seeing is erasure. You know, take a movie like Dune, which is very much inspired by Bedouin Arab culture. Frank Herbert, you know, he riffs off the Muqaddamiyah, which is written by Ibn Khaldun, who is a Tunisian philosopher. You know, it's, you know, the Pardesha Emperor,

that's a term that is from the Ottoman Persian lexicon. You know, they speak Arabic, but in Denevil Nerv's, like, massive, expansive film, there isn't one Arab, Middle or north african actor in the cast not even in the the fremens who are very much based on like bedouin arab culture you know we've just had black adam which come out which is the first middle eastern superhero played by the rock who is not middle eastern but we have seen improvements in other ways you know rami is a tv show mo that's just gone on Netflix, which is amazing. We had May Kalamawi, who plays Leila Al-Falhouli in Moon Knight.

She's the first Arab superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a Scarlet Scarab. That's amazing. And we have, you know, other filmmakers. You know, we have Tunisian filmmakers like Kelta Ben-Hania, who did Man Who Sold His Skin, but also this amazing film called Beauty and the Dogs, which is about a woman trying to spend all night to report her rape and have struggling with it. It's super powerful. We have Manel Labidi, who did a film called Arab Blues,

which is, again, like a frothy kind of comedy about a woman who returns to Tunisia from France and sets up a psychotherapist practice. And then we have, you know, other amazing Arab filmmakers like Haifal Mansour, Sally El-Hassani, Shireen Dhabis, who became the first Arab woman to be nominated for an Emmy in a director's category for Only Murders in a Building.

But she did these films called Amrika, which again changed the game for Arab representation. So, you know, there are slow steps, but definitely the kind of wider narrative is to basically malign or erase. And hopefully we can kind of claw back and show that, you know, Arab people are not bad. We're not representative of the few. And certainly when I was growing up, seeing Arab villains like in True Lies and Executive Decision, that created a really negative impression of Arab men, my biological father. So of course, I didn't want to know much about my heritage.

But that has now changed that you've opened your eyes and I suppose been exposed to, to better representations of the community that you belong to. Hannah Flint, it's been such a joy to talk to you. Time is against us. But thank you for coming into the studio. And of course, you can read Hannah Flint's book, Strong Female Character, What Movies Teach Us. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you. And now, how is the cost of living crisis impacting you? You might have heard about people having to prioritise either paying for heating or eating. Another issue that you hear less about, though, is the cost of keeping clean. Recent figures show the cost of things like shower gel, shampoo and toothpaste have risen by up to 11%. That's higher than the same time last year. And a YouGov survey found that 3.2 million people were no longer able to afford many of the everyday hygiene products most of us take for granted. It's being referred to as hygiene poverty.

I'll be speaking to Bryony, who is a mum of two, a mum of a two-year-old boy, I should say, and living in the south of England. And also joining me in the studio is Ruth Brock, Chief Executive of the charity The Hygiene Bank, which offers free hygiene products via a network of community groups across the UK. Good morning, Ruth. Good morning. Thank you so much. Yeah. Could you just firstly, you know, I gave a brief overview there, but what exactly is hygiene poverty and just explain the impact that it's having on people. Absolutely. Hygiene poverty is the hidden crisis facing the UK.

We've normal normalized the conversation about food and fuel poverty but we're not talking about hygiene poverty and we now know from the research that my charity the hygiene bank has just published that there are 3.1 million adults in the UK who are living with hygiene poverty that's 3.1 million people, just like you and I, who are going without the basics that most of us get to take for granted, who don't have access to toothpaste and toothbrushes, don't have enough laundry detergent to wash their and their children's clothes, don't have razors, don't have period products, just can't afford to get those basics that most of us just need to live our daily lives. Bryony, I'd like to bring you in here. Good morning.

Good morning. I know that you've got a two-year-old boy and things are hard at the moment. How are you coping with this cost of living crisis? Yeah, not too bad, actually. We're doing okay. We've obviously managed to get by, so that's the main thing.

Yeah, getting by, I suppose, is the key phrase there. What about your hygiene products? I suppose by the time you've paid your bills and you get to the end of the month there's less money for things like shampoo and toothpaste. Yeah, sometimes we end up having to go for the cheaper options compared to the more nicer shampoos and conditioners and things just to obviously make do. compared to the more nicer shampoos and conditioners and things,

just to obviously make do. And are you finding that you're able to make these products last? Do you have enough of these products? Sometimes, I'd say, but not all the time. Sometimes if we run out, we just happen to dilute a little bit of the shampoo or something just to make it last longer. Yeah, of course. And if they do run out, what do you do if you haven't got the money to buy them? I suppose just wait until the next time we'd get paid. You know, we get our monthly allowances and stuff.

That's all we can do, I think. And there are communities and charities out there that have helped you in the past, is that right? Yeah, so basically, my son's nursery, they've had a few items here, and not so much that we've struggled, but at the end of the month, when I haven't had the chance to go shopping,

I've seen some shampoo and conditioner there, and I've, obviously, because it's free, to be free to be honest I've taken it obviously a couple of bottles with me just to you know use yeah and there are other options aren't there Bryony like food banks and things like that what are your thoughts on those yeah I think they're really good idea and obviously there's a lot you know there's always going to be people like worse off than you. So it might actually help people a lot more than it would do. I've not actually had to use a food bank, but I know there's been family members that would like to use it, but they're not actually sure if they're allowed to just go and turn up. I think they think you have to qualify for these things.

Is that true, Ruth? Yeah, absolutely. And I think sort of what our research has really outlined is that the shame and embarrassment that many people with lived experience tell us they feel because of hygiene poverty is stopping them seeking help. So over 50% of our respondents say they were just too ashamed to go and ask for help. And, you know, by the time you are sort of not turning on your heating, accessing a food bank, you've probably been going without the basic hygiene products that you need for really some time. And yeah, and I think it is that sort of that shame and that stigma that people feel that is preventing them speaking out and that is keeping this as a hidden crisis, which is why it's so important to have conversations like this, so that we can raise awareness of hygiene poverty and turn that awareness into action. Is this affecting women more than men?

It's definitely disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable in society. So you are twice as likely to experience hygiene poverty if you're from an ethnic minority, much more likely if you have two or more children. You are one in five people with a disability are experiencing hygiene poverty. And of that, you know, 3.1 million adults. We know that that is only the tip of the iceberg, you know, because, again, of that sort of shame that people feel that's stopping them admitting to this. But yes, this is absolutely something that is acutely affecting families. You know, and we know that 60% of adults with lived experience are telling us that they are choosing between products for themselves and their children. And women are definitely going to be at the forefront of those incredibly difficult decisions.

You know, making sure, you know, perhaps prioritising nappies and baby wipes, but meaning that they're going without sanitary products for themselves. And if people are going without these products, the likes of toothpaste, of shampoo and shower gel, which seems like basic hygiene products, what are the safety implications? Well, this is definitely a health issue, right? So we know that sort of, you know, admissions to hospital for five to nine year olds one in four is because of poor dental hygiene you know we are helping families where children don't have their own toothbrush and you know we help sort of um one family and it's you know a wonderful story that the children were so delighted to have their own toothbrush for the first time

that they took them to bed with them as if they were a new toy. And that is wonderful that we're able to get them that help, but that just shouldn't be happening. It's simply unjust. Everyone deserves to feel clean. Every child deserves to have their own toothbrush. You know, watering down products is just not safe. Reusing products for different purposes, that's a health issue. So yeah, this is, you know, has really profound implications for people's physical and their mental health. This is fueling the mental health crisis. We know that 50% of those with lived experience are telling us they are increasingly depressed, they're increasingly anxious. This is a huge issue. Now, Bryony, Ruth did mention previously about the shame and perhaps

isolation people can feel because they feel ashamed asking for help is that something that you can relate to is it is it difficult for you to go to groups and say that you need to you need help with these products yeah so I haven't actually had to really do that as such like we've not got to that point really but But I think if it did get that bad, I would be very nervous and embarrassed to go and ask for help. Because obviously it's not something you want to have to admit, that you need help with obviously living and stuff. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

That makes sense. And I suppose that's something you hear often. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's that only single one of us is sort of right on the brink of needing this kind of help. A change in circumstances, a bereavement, losing a partner, breaking up with someone, being a survivor of domestic violence, becoming homeless, getting a long-term health condition or a disability. It could happen to any single one of us and it's enough to push people into these circumstances but also increasingly that this is also affecting people who are in work and that these basics are just becoming inaccessible because of the looming cost of living crisis. So how can we better support people? Sure

and I think there are three things we need to do here. Number one is conversations just like this you know we need to raise awareness and so that people really understand this issue and how it's affecting people just like them. The next thing we need to do is we need to kind of bolster the grassroots movement that my charity, the Hygiene Bank, runs. We need more people to volunteer. We need more people to donate product. And you can do that at over 900 drop-off points across the country. So when you're buying your bottle of shampoo, get an extra one, put it in one of our drop off points and we can get it to a family who really, really needs it. The third thing we need to do is to really, really build a coalition to solve this problem for good.

Everyone deserves to feel clean. It's simply unjust that we're facing this problem in 2022. So we're calling on policymakers and politicians, businesses, people with lived experience, other charities across the sector to get around a table with us and work out how to make this hidden crisis a crisis of the past. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming on to the programme. Thank you to Bryony and thank you to Ruth Brock, chief executive of the charity, the Hygiene Bank. Some of you have been getting in touch about this. It's obviously struck a chord with some of our listeners. Someone has said hygiene, poverty, fuel poverty, period poverty, food poverty, it's all just poverty and has the same cause. Why are we normalising poverty? Someone else has texted in to say, I help run a local food bank. We will supply hygiene products and do not

expect proof of need. I'm sure other food banks would too. Thank you to both our guests for coming into the studio this morning. Now next, we have some award-winning musical guests for you, a comedy duo, sisters, no doubt, Nicola and Rosie Dempsey. Great to have you. You might know them though as Flo and Joan. They discuss everything from women's safety to dating apps to mental health in their songs. They've sung at the Royal Variety Performance. They've been on BBC Two's Live at the Apollo and even in a nationwide ad campaign. And now here you are, ladies, in the Woman's Hour studio. Let's get the names out of the way first, because I mentioned that your names are Nicola and Rosie,

but you sing as a duo known as Flo and Joan how did that come about? Well we when we were first starting doing comedy we didn't have a name for what we were trying and we didn't know if we were any good so committing to a name felt like quite a big thing before we'd written any songs and we our nan and her sister were called Flo and Joan and they were from Liverpool and they used to come down and stay with our family all the time so we'd written any songs um and we um our nan and her sister were called Flo and Joan and they were from Liverpool and they used to come down and stay with our family all the time so we'd always hear our mum saying like oh Flo and Joan are coming to stay or like we're gonna go up and see Flo and Joan so it's just like and it had a nice ring to it we always knew it we were used to it and like kind of thought quite fondly of it um so when we came to doing our first show and

our friend who was hosting it was like do you have have a name? What's your name? And we were like, well, Nicol and Rosie sounds boring as hell. And the Dempsey sister sounds like we're some women from the 20s who are going to like spin plates and do cartwheels. So we kind of panicked and said Flo and Joan. And then it's kind of it's just stuck, really, hasn't it? Yep. Yeah, likely. Yeah. And Rosie, when did you first start performing together? Have you always been a double act? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. We never really got along with each other when we were kids.

Really? I mean, we would stomach each other and we'd sit across each other at the dinner table. We'd be kicking each other under the table. Yeah. And we would ignore each other in the school. What changed? I think, you know, when we went away to uni and I think we... Like separately?

Yeah, separately, we realised that we had quite unique tastes and things that we liked that we couldn't find friends that also shared that. So I think we bonded over that. And then Nicola went to Canada and I went out to visit her and I ended up staying. And then we just thought we'd just try it. I think we were just young and had, we had no, well, we actually, we had. We were unemployed. We were unemployed. Yeah, that's what happened. We had a lot of spare time. So we tried it out there were unemployed. We were unemployed, yeah, that's what happened. We had a lot of spare time, so we tried it out there. Yeah. And it was all right.

And it worked well. Yeah, well enough to be here. So you write together, perform together, travel together. Bath together. But. Sleep together in a bed, not in a, that was awful. We share the same pair of pyjamas. Yeah, we sleep.

You do everything together. Yeah, we sleep in a little bed. And it hasn't got to the point where it's too much for you yet. Yeah, it has. No, it's all right. We've become really good at having our two days off from each other, if we can, a week. We try to treat it like an actual job.

And don't talk to each other if we don't have to. Just to be like human. Yeah. No one should spend that much time with another person, as we all found out over the last few years. I wonder, though, is there actually an advantage to being related and being work partners as well does it help being sisters there's definitely like a there's a shorthand that you can just I feel like we can get things done quicker because you don't have to be

this sounds brutal but you don't have to be nice to each other there's no you sort of in a way protect feelings or like every now and again you might go a little bit far and be like I'm really sorry that I just said that but in general like it is like a shorthand it means that we don't I would never talk to my friends the way I talk to you no but it means we get the job done quicker quicker and hopefully better yeah yeah and you just take it on the chin yeah so what's the difference then when you're performing a song and it's got jokes in and put to just doing regular stand-up i mean it must be difficult in a song if you're telling a joke and no one gets that joke right people always get the you have to continue with the song i feel safer doing jokes and songs than i do in talking we've got a lot more stand-up and

talking in this show which we've grown to really really enjoy yeah but it's safer in a song to put in a joke because if people don't laugh you can just be like well that was what that's what we plan to do and you can just listen to the nice music yeah if you don't find that bit funny yeah if you don't find the jokes funny at least the songs are nice to listen to whereas and if there's any silence from people not laughing at the joke in stand-up it's dead silence whereas in a song if no one laughs at your jokes there's a nice little bit of tinkly piano going underneath so we don't have to hear the silence so much yeah just play on just play on a little bit louder a little bit faster and now your show is called sweet release um what can the audience expect from that then

it's going very well by the way isn't it it's been extended hasn't it yeah we're having a great time yeah we've been on tour since the beginning of February and we were supposed to finish at the end of June and then we did the Edinburgh Festival and then we thought let's throw in an extra 28 dates why not why not why not yeah it's a fun show we're really enjoying doing it so we're gonna we're gonna do it do it until someone takes a walking stick to our neck and pulls enough. And some of the themes in your songs, they're quite dark ladies, aren't they? I mean, they're serious subjects, women's safety, mental health,

but you play them with upbeat music in the background. Why? How did you come about that? How was that decided to be your methodology? I think we just kind of, we gravitate towards those dark subjects. I think there's a catharsis in being able to address how you feel about for us. Other people do it in different ways. But for us, there's a nice there's a playfulness in being able to get those kind of subjects across and how we feel about them that don't feel heavy handed or preachy or like stressful, I think when you sort of this song you're talking about, we have a song about women getting murdered on their way home, walking, like walking home and

that kind of safety, which came from us walking home at night and being like, I'm being followed, I'm being followed, this is horrible. And there's a way to kind of address it. Also, like in a way for us that feels like digestible and fun, and you can kind of sneak the darkness in without people realizing and then part way through they kind of trigger they twig like oh this is this is this is a bad song this is about a bad thing but it allows people to laugh about it and maybe take in the message of it a little bit easier than if we um just screamed down a microphone which is in a different situation is what I would want to do about those things. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm dying to hear a song.

As I said, Flo and Joan are their names. They're a comedic sister act duo. They performed it live at the Apollo. They've even got a nationwide TV ad and they're on their sellout international tour at the moment called Sweet Release. That was musical comedy sister duo Nicola and Rosie Dempsey performing as Flo and Joan. And if you want to catch them on their sellout international tour Sweet Release, they've just released some new dates in the UK. Thank you so much for that performance, ladies.

Thank you for having us. Now, this year marks the 80th anniversary of the Women's Timber Corps. Have you heard of them? Well, they were affectionately known as Lumberjills and played a vital role in Britain's war effort. They replaced the male workers who had left to fight in the Second World War. The Lumberjills often left home for the first time and were posted to forests where they worked felling, sawing and transporting the trees. But after the war, they were expected to hand in their uniforms and return to life as usual with little to no recognition for their service. We'll hear from two of those women in just a moment. But I'm joined first by Joanna Folt, an author who has spent the last 10 years meeting the remaining Lumberjills when researching her book Lumberjills Stronger Together. Joanna Fode, lovely to have you on Woman's Hour this morning. Just explain who were these Lumberjills?

Well, so back in the 1940s, these women were very ordinary women. They worked in traditional female roles. So they were maybe domestic servants. They worked as shop assistants or in factories. And they literally, when the war came, they had this opportunity to sign up to do war work. And so for some of them, when the sign-up papers dropped on their doormats, they would literally, if they were hairdressers, they would literally swap a scissors and comb

for an axe and saw and be sent out into the forest. I mean, it was extraordinary times for them. And they really had no idea what was ahead of them during the wartime. Oh, my goodness. We will come to what they came to experience in just a moment. But first, let's hear from two former Lumberjills. This is Molly and Audrey, who were kind enough to share their experiences with us. I started at 7.30 in the morning after having walked a mile to work. It was hard, very hard work and tough.

The girls were all office girls. They'd been called up, they'd chopped, sawed, and then they had to use the big chains to move the timber by hand and work the horses. I did enjoy my work. I liked the company of the girls and the men as we were all part of a team doing our bit for the war effort. I was nearly 18 when I became a lumber job. It was something I'd never done before and it felt useful to be helping the war effort. After the war I had to send the uniform back. I eventually got 20 clothing coupons and a letter of thanks and that was it. Later I did think we should have had some acknowledgement of the work we did. We went dancing on a Friday night. They tried to teach

me modern dancing and I helped to teach them Scottish dancing and to get there we had to walk sometimes four miles, sometimes two, cross the loch by rowing boat and walk a mile to the next hall and return Saturday morning, then go to work. What a really interesting insight into a community of women that we don't hear from very often at all. Those are the voices of Molly Patterson and Audrey King, who both served as Lumberjills during the Second World War. Now, Joanna, that sounds like a lot of hard work. I mean, there was some fun had. We'll get to that in a moment, but it sounds like a lot of hard work. We'll get to, I suppose, the acknowledgement or the lack of acknowledgement that the women mentioned shortly, but just tell us about the exact work they did because they were lifting, was it three kilogram axes and

felling 10 ton trees? Yeah, I mean, it was really hard work. If they were lucky enough to get any training, they were sent to these women's timber called training camps where they'd be trained for a month in four lines of work. So for a week, they'd be on felling timber where they'd be using a seven or a 14-pound axe, all, you know, by hand. And then they'd be working in pairs with a six foot cross-cut saw

to bring these huge trees down so I mean this was very dangerous work and very hard work very tough on the back and the shoulders and they certainly got muscles where they never knew they had muscles but they would also be working in haulage so they'd be working with tractors and caterpillar tractors and fordson tractors and horses to to transport drag the wood from the forest and then they had to load the trees up onto these lorries and that was certainly a job that was a bit more like weight lifting where they were having to lift the logs onto their shoulders and load them onto the onto the lorries and then they would be driving the lorries down to the station to offload them onto the lorries. And then they would be driving the lorries down to

the station to offload them into the railway wagons to get those pit props off to the coal mines. So there was various other jobs as well. It was quite varied, but there was a group of women who were involved in measuring the trees. And that was really important for working out the wages and how much timber supply the government had for the war effort And that was really important for working out the wages and how much timber supply the government had for the war effort, which was absolutely vital for our war effort. And how did men react? Well, one of the ladies said to me, they really didn't know what to do with us. But there was quite a lot of prejudice against the women. They were regarded as more ornamental than useful.

They were told, in fact, that they were useless. And there was a lot of mockery and laughter about the women. But, you know, they did find it quite frustrating to hear that women were never meant to take over the jobs of skilled men. And so I don't know kind of if other people are like this, but I think they found this kind of inner kind of drive to really prove themselves. So, you know, they would find themselves felling trees in the middle of a snow blizzard in the winter just to prove that they could do this job. And there was one lady called Bella and she heard her foreman saying to her, I really don't think much of these women. And so she said, OK, well, how about we have a felling jaw? You work one end of the crosscut saw, I'll work the other. And so the next day they set to

work. Sometime in the afternoon, Alan Stewart said to her, you know, you can stop whenever you want, Bella. She said, no, I'm fine. And then they carried on working a little later on. He said, again, you can stop now. You've proved proved your point and Bella said she was absolutely exhausted but there was no way that she was going to stop and at the end of the day they had felled 120 trees between them. Wow now despite some of the negative reaction that these women received was it a liberating time I mean lots of them were leaving home for the very first time, weren't they? Yeah, I think at the beginning it was quite frightening for them to be in a situation where it was wartime. They were on their own. They were meeting very different women in a very kind of rugged, very kind of harsh environment, particularly in winter but what working out in nature in the forest with a group of women did for them was I think they had this incredible freedom from the rules of society and how they

thought women should behave so these women could sit with their legs apart astride a log they could make campfires they could fell 10 ton trees and drive huge haulage trucks they could smoke a pipe if they wanted to and there was no one there to judge them on that and they had to assimilate into the job and it gave them incredible strength they had they faced extreme adversity with the pressure from the men the prejudice not just from the men but they were itinerant workers and moved from place to place and faced prejudice wherever they went um that they it brought them to really together as a strong sisterhood of women they became incredible friends that last for life and that was like one of the most wonderful things for me is hearing

them talk about how they'd stayed friends for their whole lives and met up every year for 50 years since the war and um and just had such incredible memories of that time. And they said they just would not have missed it for the world. And they refer to themselves, don't they, as the Forgotten Army, but they have now been officially recognised and acknowledged, haven't they? Yes, better late than never, a lot of them said. But they did get a badge from Gordon Brown, Prime Minister in 2008, in recognition for their war work. It wore the emblem of a wheat chief, not the fir tree or the

crossed axes, unfortunately. But they did get some recognition and there are some monuments up now across the country to celebrate the work they did. Well, Joanna Fort, thank you so much for bringing this story to our attention. It's Fort, thank you so much for bringing this story to our attention. It's been really fascinating hearing so much more about this community that we often don't talk about. Joanna Fort, thank you very much for coming on to Women's Hour. Lots of you getting in touch again about your favourite female character. Someone has said Centrinians was important for us. Girls and young women free to do what they wanted, defying norms, working together, using their power, skills, intelligence and sexuality to get what they want. Someone else

here says, I also love Jo in Little Women. She carved out a place for herself and helped other women too, despite the culture she lived in. Thank you to everyone that got in touch. Thank you for your company this morning. And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.