Woman's Hour - Iranian diaspora, Gen Z study, Onjali Rauf

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Conflict continues in the Middle East, but with near total internet blackout in Iran, there's currently very little access to information from within the country. Many women outside of Iran are unable to hear from their own family and friends. To look at the ongoing conflict and how it is impacting women and the Iranian diaspora in the UK in particular, Anita Rani speaks to Faranak Amidi, a BBC Global Women reporter and the presenter of the World Service Languages Fifth Floor programme, Kamin Mohammadi, a writer and journalist born in Iran and based in Britain, and Donya, a 25-year-old British Iranian. A new global survey of 23,000 people across 29 countries has shown an increase in traditional views on gender among younger people. For example, it found that a third of Gen Z men surveyed - those born between 1997 and 2012 - believed husbands should have the final say on decisions, compared to only 13% of Boomer men, born between 1946 and 1964. Anita speaks to Joan Smith, journalist, novelist and human rights activist, and Professor Heejung Chung, Director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College, who led the study.Onjali Raúf’s award-winning novel The Boy at the Back of the Classroom has been adapted for the stage and is currently on a UK tour until the end of May. She joins Anita to explain what originally led her to write this children’s novel tackling immigration and death and what she wants audiences to take away from seeing this production.Big Nobody is the debut novel from Alex Kadis. The main character is teenager Constance Costa whose life is spiralling after the loss of her mother and brothers in a car crash. We see how she uses music, humour, a burgeoning relationship and murderous thoughts towards her father as coping strategies. Alex joins Anita. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.

And all the bizarre ways people are using. the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Nula McGovern and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. And while you're here, I wanted to let you know that the Woman's Hour Guide to Life is back. You might have listened to some of the episodes from the first series, including ambition without burnout, or turning aging into your superpower. Well, we've got six new episodes for you over the coming weeks that will give you practical tips. tips on issues like self-promotion without feeling awkward, caring for aging parents, navigating

infertility with family and friends, and also how to love your face, whatever your age. I'm really excited about this series of The Woman's Hour Guide to Life, so I really hope you'll join us. You will find the episodes in the Woman's Hour podcast feed on Sundays. It's only on BBC Sounds. But now, back to today's Woman's Hour with Anita Rand. Good morning and welcome to the programme. The boy at the back of the class is a beautiful children's book. If you have young children in your life, you may be aware of it. The story is of a young refugee boy whose friends try to reunite him with his parents.

It was a huge success, winning many awards, and now the moving and life-affirming story is touring the UK as a stage production. The author Anjali Ralph will be here to tell us more. debut novelist Alex Cadiz will be here to tell us about her funny and heartbreaking book about a teenage girl growing up in 1970s East London with her Greek Cypriot father who she hates more to come. And a new survey has revealed that almost a quarter of Gen Z men think women should not appear too independent or self-sufficient.

And despite this, 41% of Gen Z men were also the group most likely to believe women who have a successful career were more attractive to men. We'll be unpicking this and discussing it with the person behind the study, Hee Jun Chung and journalist Joan Smith to give her opinion. But I would like to hear yours as well this morning. Are you a baby boomer? Someone who was born between 1946 and 1964.

And have you found that your views seem more progressive than Gen Z? That's those born between 1997 and 2012. Tell me what's happening in your world. worlds. What views and opinions and conversations are you having with the younger generation and how they feel about the opposite sex? Are they more conservative than you? Are you surprised by their opinions? Have your own views changed through your life? Or perhaps you are Gen Z male and want to give your perspective? Or are you parenting Gen Z emails and have a view? All of it, get in touch in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can email the program by going to our website and you

in WhatsAppers, it's 0-3-700-100-444, and that text number once again is 84844. But first, let's turn to the ongoing conflict in Iran and the Middle East and how it's impacting women and the Iranian diaspora in the UK in particular. There's currently very little access to information from within Iran and many women outside of the country are unable to hear from their own family and friends. So to talk about this, I'm joined by Faranak Amidi, a BBC global women reporter and the presenter of the World Service Languages Fifth Floor program, Karmine Mohamedi, a writer and journalist born in Iran based in Britain and Donya, who is a 25-year-old British-Iranian.

Good morning to all of you and thank you for speaking to me this morning. I'm going to start by asking all three of you the same question. I'll start with you, Faranak. How are you feeling today? That's a very weird question that if people ask me. every day and it's, I don't, I can't really say I'm feeling fine, to be honest. I'm not feeling very well. I'm feeling very anxious. I'm very worried. I struggle every day to get information about my family, my friends inside Iran. And all together, I call myself

a ball of anxiety. Come in how about you how are you feeling and hi welcome and how are you able to tell me what's happening within the community right now where you are I echo every word that Faranac said it's it's the weirdest hardest questions that we get asked every day and of course it's people yeah I spend the first three hours of every day just fielding calls him messages from concerned people. And within the community, of course, we all have our groups and we pass around information as much as we can, you know. And I was on a group the other day with Iranian girls and one of them while we were on the group, saw that the Iranian Broadcasting

Corporation was hit and her parents live across the road, right? So this was what was going on on our call. And she couldn't get hold of anybody. She was trying to call. And so another girl on our group said, listen, my auntie seems to be in touch. Why don't you give me your parents' number? And then she can call them. So what is happening is we're reaching across the world and helping each other as much as we can. We pass phone numbers around. If there is one person in Iran who seems to have like a satellite connection, we collect all of the phone numbers, they ring around, they give us news. So it's a full-time job. You know, when people say how you're family, I think, like most people, I have at least at last count, three, four hundred members of my family in Iran,

and they're everywhere. So it's a really difficult question to answer. Faranak, have you had any contacts with family and friends? And how is the news impacting your ability to do your job right now? It's very difficult. To be honest with you, I need to this time around, it's been very difficult for me to get information from inside Iran. at the other times when when people were protesting on the streets they were actively you know contacting me to give information but I guess at a time of war the situation is different people are just really thinking about the safety of their themselves and the safety of their loved ones and family and they hardly find a time to contact you and be like oh this is actually happening if they want to contact anyone it is most probably the people around them that they want to contact and say, oh, you know, this street has been hit. Be careful.

Go here or there. And it's been very difficult for me to also work as a journalist because when you're dealing with this level of anxiety yourself, I mean, I couldn't sleep all weekend. And I actually had to tell my editor in the morning that I need to sleep right now. before coming to work because I was recording actually an interview for BBC Global Women. But I was so knackered and I was just so anxious that I had to actually tell my editor that I need to sleep before I come into the office.

So this is a situation you have. And it's very difficult to also cover what is happening outside of Iran because people are being very emotional. people are scared. And it is very hard to get information that is unbiased and to be able to put your journalist hat on and be like, okay, you know, I'm just going to try and do this story in this way. It's difficult.

It's not an easy thing to do. I'm going to bring Donya into this conversation. So it's really important to get a young woman's perspective because, you're 25. You spend a lot of time online. Tell me how you've been navigating this at the moment and also, you know, how you feel as a young person and what you're seeing in the family and people around you who might be from the next different generation. Thank you. I mean, I'm exhausted. And I think that echoes the feelings and thoughts of many Iranians in the diaspora right now. One of the hardest things to deal with is seeing other people who are the same age as me going through what I,

living in Britain, we would never have to imagine going through. I mean, I can't imagine waking up and having to navigate, did, you know, are your friends okay? Did your friend's neighbourhood get hit? The calls, the check-ins to make sure everyone's okay. There's a huge amount of responsibility on the shoulders of Gen Z Iranians right now. I mean, not only do their families have to rely on them to try and sift through the amount of misinformation and disinformation to try and give them facts. We are in a bit of a disinformation war at the moment as well online. But young generations are being the support networks for older Iranians who they have already seen war multiple times.

I take my mother herself as an example, who was about 15, 16, when the Iran-Iraq war happened in the 80s. This is hugely traumatic for them. They've already seen the destruction of their motherland before. And now for that legacy to have been passed on onto my generation, I see, its impact, not only in my friends living in Iran, but in the circle and community around me and how they're navigating the current affairs. I mean, we heard last night some people in Iran reported it was some of the heaviest strikes going on in Tehran. And I haven't been able to

contact my family today. And I'm sure that the ladies on this call as well also haven't been able to. I mean, we've gone into six days of, as reported by net blocks, a near total internet blackout. I mean, that's ridiculous in war time because the people in Iran, they can't rely on the access to information that I myself have freely. So that destabilizes me. That worries me deeply. I mean, yeah. Yeah, no, carry on. But I also just want to pick up on what you said about how you as Gen Z are having to support the older generation and particularly with your mum. Tell me how you're doing that. How are you managing that? Well, for example, there's a lot of disinformation happening. I mean, to talk about, you know, people like my mother or other members

of people in our community, they have been wanting the regime to fall for a long time. As long as I've been growing up, this is a story that I have lived with. It's a reality. It's not a political opinion. It's a documented fact, the state repression. And in this time, with so much limited information, it's supporting the older community in the rise of AI, in the rise of disinformation, in the rise of, you know, there's little access to internet for regular civilians on the ground. So it's created a vacuum for the state media to come out and have their, have their, you know, spokespeople into the Western media and interviewing. So what's really been critical for me as Gen Z is to try and stay across multiple news outlets, Reuters, live pages, verified accounts and reports, and try and make sure

that, you know, what my family are seeing is across with the actual facts and always telling them to use a degree of caution. We have seen some, you know, tampered videos and things come out. And so that's one of my responsibility. Carmen, I think Donya's picked up on something really interesting, particularly about young women and the sort of younger generation. I'd like to know from your perspective. And feel free to speak to each other, you know, how women are connecting with younger women and how that support and that community and sort of understanding and seeing what the older generation went through and how it's impacting them. I'd like to hear it from from your perspective as well.

Sorry, Ani, were you asking me? Yes, Khamun, yes. Sorry. You know, I'm having very little direct contact with inside Iran, right? So I can't really speak very directly to that. What I can tell you is, you know, I'm part Kurdish, part Khuzis,ani. So both of my parts, both of parts of my family were devastated and displaced during the Iran-Iraq war. So they really, really, really remember that.

And all of their children, so therefore all of them. of my cousins and even the younger generation, the Gen Z, have some awareness of that war because it affected my own family so directly. You know, all of my people who lived in Kazakhstan, which was where Iraq attacked first were internally displaced, you know, so their lives changed completely. So from that point of view, I know that my people have some awareness of war and they've been through the war, and I think this is something that we forget about here. there's never been appetite for war inside Iran, honestly. In terms of generally, I do know, last June were the first illegal attacks by Israel on Iran.

Certainly what people did is they formed a lot of groups and they helped each other because there isn't a lot of help from the state. You know, we don't have air raid sirens. We don't have shelters. With internet being blacked out, there's a lot, as Donya said, there's a lot of information that is not available to them. So people are taking care of each other. They're forming groups.

They're forming networks within their neighborhoods. And they are taking care of each other, you know. And our people are such lovely, beautiful, sweet people. And we are just one of the most gentle, kind, joyful cultures. So this sense of kindness in taking care of each other, first and foremost, it's really, I know that it has been very, very, very, much to the four. Faranak. You know, I just want to echo both what Donia said and coming. I grew up, my childhood was spent during the Iran-Iraq war. And I remembered the sirens.

I remember running to the shelter in the middle of the night. And just knowing that right now, while bombs are being thrown all across the country, there are no sirens. There's no internet. are there no shelters designated shelters when in June Israel attacked Iran I contacted I was able to contact my family and I just asked them if if they hit our neighborhood where are you going to do is there a shelter my parents said no there are no designated shelters but we ourselves have designated this tower near us that has a parking that goes minus four underground and we are going to go there. And just knowing that people are in that situation for me who carries the trauma of an 80-year war within me, it's really, really scary and it gives me a lot of anxiety. I just wanted to say

something about myself. Please. What happened yesterday. I go for my morning walks and I was walking. and all of a sudden, you know, when planes pass by on the sky, I heard the plane and all of a sudden, I was like, it was a plane in London flying through. Yeah, just a normal passenger plane. But I all of a sudden realized the level of anxiety that is within me. Yeah. Because you're kind of like muted because you want to go on with your life.

But when that happened. Yeah. And you work in the field and, you know, it's impacting your job. And I hear you, you know, that that experience really must have caught you off guard to flinch at the sound of just a passenger plane flying overhead. And community is always important to any diaspora. But just back to kind of that sense of connection and how vital that is right now in the UK, but particularly in relation to women, Farinac. How are women forming connections? And how important is that to the community right now here?

I think us women, we have a special way of bonding. We have it in our friendships, in our girlfriend groups, and we have it also in our online communities. And I see that more than ever. I see women in Australia looking out for the Iranian women's football team who are being threatened by the security forces. They're going to their hotel every single day, them chocolates, bringing teddy bears for them, stuff like that.

Online, every single day on my Instagram page, I get messages of love and support. How are you doing? How is your family? I also get, like commune said, women contacting me. I have someone in Iran who has Starlink, who could contact your parents if you want to. It's this whole community and it's from all over the world. It's not only London. I get messages from L.A., from Australia, from Canada.

And us women, I think we have this tradition of storytelling and opening up and not just being political analysts, but sharing feelings, sharing stories. And I find that so powerful at times like this. I put a little box on my Instagram asking women to just share their feelings. And when they started sharing their feelings and I was reposting them, I just felt that all we are just, just one person. That's how similar all our stories are and all our feelings are. We're all one. That's very powerful. Very powerful. I'm going to ask you, but Donya, the same question, just that female connection and the support network in relation to women right now. It's been wonderful. I mean, within hours of the first attack, I received, as Faranak said,

loads of messages from my friends who are non-Iranian who have stayed across the story. I mean, they remember the woman life freedom protests in 2022. And what that meant to us as well and how we fought tooth and nail to bring again information to an international stage amid on and off internet blackouts. They were witnessed to the June bombings in 2025 again and again the lack of access. A lot of my friends in my community, they're aware of what's going on. And again, more recently, the January protests. And I think something that Karmine and Farnak have picked up on rightly is this community inside Iran and outside people where they can, sharing the little information to give each other leads and support. I think it's really important because, you know, Iranians are still under the apparatus of state oppression, even though there is an ongoing bombardment.

And that's extremely important not to forget. And to be completely frank and honest, sometimes I do find myself a little bit. isolated from people outside my immediate immediate community. People who have, you know, really strong stances and rightfully so, particularly in my generation, we are outspoken. I love that we stand up for what's right. But I wish that, you know, at least in the UK community, there was slightly more awareness that, you know, there is an entire population of people cut off from international access and their voices are being purposefully or potentially intentionally cut off from the international stage.

And so when their voices aren't represented in, you know, perhaps the media or out on the streets where, you know, you see people coming out to protest, I sometimes tend to feel isolated. And my, you know, I do my best to try and, you know, reach out to these communities to try and share, you know, verified reports or sources or point them to, you know, places where they can have different opinions and things like that. So it's a bit of a tug of war sometimes. the personal community extremely supportive.

But it's a work in progress to make sure that nuance, because it's not a black and white situation, we are, Iranians are facing a war twofold right now, internationally from the illegal against international law bombardment at the hands of American Israel, but also on the grounds nationally, the state repression. For now, though, thank you so much, all three of you for speaking to me. So honestly, and openly, Faranak, Amidi,

Karmine Mohammedi and Donya, thank you. 844 is the number to text. You just heard from a very eloquent and thoughtful member of Gen Z or Gen Z. And that's what we're going on to talk about now. It's often said that the younger generation are progressive on issues of gender inequality than older generation. But it does look like this might not actually be the case. Because a new global survey has found that Gen...

I'm going to say Gen Z, if everyone doesn't mind. if you give me permission, just because we say Zed here, so I'm going to say Gen Z men, that's boys born between 1997 and 2012, are increasingly adopting traditional views on gender. Researchers from King's College, London, and pollsters for Ipsos surveyed 23,000 people across 29 different countries among their findings.

Almost the third of Gen Z men believed that wives should obey their husband. So what's going on? We're going to hear from Joan Smith, journalist, novelist and human rights activist, and Professor Heijun Chung, who's the director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College, where she is also professor of work and employment, and she led the study. Welcome to both of you. So let's start with what you found, Hee Jun. What did you find in the study? Tell us more. Well, I want to start off with some good news, right? So I want to say first, especially in the state of the world right now,

60% of all of our respondents said it would, you know, things will look better if there are more women of power in positions of power in companies and government. And a whopping 40% have said they identify as feminists. And we're looking at men and women between ages of 18 and 75. So this is actually, I think this is a really great progress that we're making. And if we look at young women, so Gen Z women, that number goes up to 54%. So we're doing really well in those indicators. Having said that, as you could have briefly mentioned, there's a lot of traditional gender roles and backlash, if you want. More than half of all respondents say when it comes to giving women and men equal rights, things have gone far enough in my country.

For Gen Z men, that's 61%. A third of Gen Z men say, when it comes to making really important decisions in the household, you know, the husband should have the final say. So quite a mix of different gender kind of opinions, if you want. It was a global study. So can you give us more about the demographics? How were the people? Who was selected? So it's mostly just, it's a representative sample between the ages of 18 to 75.

In certain countries, because it's an online survey, you may have a slightly higher representation of people who have access to internet. But as you know, in most of the country, you know, internet isn't something that is only limited to a certain number of people. And it's a really wide range of countries. So we have the likes of the UK, Australia, US, but also Japan, Korea, and Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Southern American countries as well. So it's a real mix of a diverse set of countries. But having said that, and you know, some people might think, oh, it's only a very tiny group of countries that might feel this way or not. But you find that looking at country averages, that isn't really nice.

necessarily the case. So how do the views of Gen Z, Gen Z, compared to the baby boomings? And that's people born between 1946 and 1964. Well, this is the really interesting thing. So historically, just dating, like even 10 years back, you always found that, you know, younger people are more progressive. They have more less a transgressive view. So like they try to, they're more liberal, they're more egalitarian. And we definitely find that for young women. So young women have really important. race the kind of notions of gender equality and feminism to really kind of go outside the very traditional roles of women.

Strangely enough, we don't find that for men, that young men are actually more conservative than even not just the millennials or gen X's, but even baby boomers in certain accounts. For not necessarily everything, but in many occasions. So for example, when I was talking about like men should have the final say, it's actually the Gen Zs that were higher than baby boomers, even double the numbers of what the agreements that we find in baby boomers. When we talk about when it comes to giving women equal rights, things have got far enough, it was actually Gen Z men that was by far agreed in higher proportions compared to the other generation. And of course, you know, Gen Z men are like way more and much

more traditional than their Gen Z female counterparts. So what we also find pretty consistent is that there's a big gap between young men and women with regards to what they believe are modern-day gender roles. All right. We're going to come back to you, He-Jong, but I'm going to bring you in, Joan. Welcome. Thank you. What are your initial thoughts on this data? You wrote about this for The Guardian. Yes.

I think in some ways it seems quite shocking. But I also think that it's a reflection of the times that Gen Z grew or Gen Z grew up in. and I'm not surprised that there's a distance between the women and the men because women are much more invested in equal rights for women, obviously. But I think if you look at this generation of young men, so they were children when they were at school during the global financial crisis. And then they start going to, you know, leaving school, going to university. There's the huge increase in school, in tuition fees and so on.

And I think there is kind of insecurity about jobs, and so on. And I think it's always very easy when things are economically difficult to blame other people and to retreat into sort of conservative values with a small sea. So that didn't actually surprise me. I mean, I'm obviously unhappy about it, but it doesn't entirely surprise me. You describe the situation as deeply concerning. So what do you find most concerning and shocking about it? Well, I think the gap between men and women of this generation is really alarming because, you know, you mentioned that, you know, a high number of Gen Z, men actually think, you know, I would say they're attracted to women who are successful at work. But they can't expect women to actually give that up when they come home. So, you know, there's a recipe for a lot of conflict there.

And I also think that, you know, at a time when I think this is the most misogynist period I've ever lived through in my life. And when you look at the levels of violence against women and girls, and particularly girls, teenage girls and so on, there is a sense of entitlement on the part of young men and young men. resentment as well. You know, the idea that women, girls are taking away something that men should have and we can take things from them. And I think all of that is very, very alarming. Why have we got to this state? What's happened with this generation? I think that we're living at a time of incredibly high anxiety. I think there's a return to all kinds of gender stereotypes. You know, I'm a baby boomer. So in the 1970s, we were actually resisting all of this stuff. And, you know, I mean, we were mocked for wearing dungarees and

and braburning and all of that kind of thing. But what we were saying is that women are more than appearance, women are more than the assumptions made about us. And I think what's going on here is that there's a whole number of ideologies. And you have extreme forms of religions saying that restricting women's access to public space and saying that you can't go out unless you actually cover your entire face, not just your hair, but there is this sense of imposing different conditions on women from men when it comes to going out in public.

And at the other end, you have the, you know, you have gender ideology, which is saying that women are defined by their clothes and what they wear. So you end up with the situation of, you know, a man putting on a wig and a dress and we're told that that's a woman. I mean, this is the kind of regressive stereotypes that we were fighting against the 1970s. And we were talking yesterday about just women being just sexualized objects from a very early age. Hejan, you were nodding.

You were nodding to. I think there's. something else that we need to touch upon. And I think, to be honest, one of the things, you know, I want to say was that I just feel like, it just feels like, you know, men are really hurting. And women have been hurting for a very long time, and we know this. But I think during the last kind of couple of decades or more, three to four decades, that I think we have provided women with a very expansive ways of being. Now there's role models for girls of very different ways. And we really support and, you know, celebrate the diversity of, you know, well, girls going into it,

you want previously male spaces. We haven't done that for men. And in the process, I think what's happened was a lot of, as John said, like there's a lot of, especially young men, feeling really, really insecure. They're really realizing that their futures do not look like what their fathers and grandfathers were given and offered. And in that vacuum, there was not been enough expansive male role models to show boys also to embrace femininity, embrace other ways of being a where in that insecurity, a lot of people capitalized on this point to try to say, hey, let's go back to the ways of being in the, of being an alpha high value male. And there's just so much of that that is given to them into their echo chambers.

And I think men also police themselves to become like that. And in a way, like, I think that's what we're seeing. So I, in a way, I feel like a lot of Gen Z men, despite saying, like, you know, what they've said, I don't think that's actually what they believe in. I believe that's what they're saying because they think society wants them to think that way. So if you look at these social, so we've asked people, what do you think and what do you think society thinks? So there are really big gaps between people's own perception and societal view of the world, which is much more traditional. But the gap doesn't exist for Gen Z men.

So Gen Z men literally adhere to what they think is the social norm, whereas everybody else is more progressive than what they think society is, It really highlights the fact that they're just being caged into what they consider as the man box. Joan. And I think social media has a lot to do with this. When you think that, you know, this generation of young men, they then went through a pandemic where people were interacting online, not face-to-face, not in reality. And then they're using dating sites. And I think dating sites encourage really facile judgments about other people.

And I think it makes it easier to objectify other people. And then if you take that into the real world, you know, that you're judging who you might date just by what they look like and what they say their hobby is. And that's a very basic way of looking at human beings. And I don't think it encourages the kind of forming real relationships with real people that we would all really like to see. So should men have the responsibility to educate their peers?

Yes. But also, I think, yeah, I mean, I think it's just, I think we just need to let people know how much of a common ground there as well between young men and women because what is such he said was 41% of Gen Z men find women who have successful curious attractive. 28% of Gen Z women think that. So Gen Z women don't quite even know that Gen Z men think that's attractive, but the other way around, 48% of Gen Z men and 58% of Gen Z women find men who care very, very attractive.

So Gen Z men don't even quite understand how caring can be so attractive. And I think there needs to be more men and fathers especially. coming out to show like the caring masculinity. There's beautiful masculinities that can be out there and to, you know, just role model. Jane. Well, I think you mentioned quite rightly the sexualization of young women and it's incredibly striking that, you know,

female pop stars now think that they have to conform to wearing very few clothes on stage. That would be fine if other people, other women were doing something else. Yet at the same time, you know, one of the most striking things about the survey is the number of Gen Z men who don't think women should initiate sex. So it's like, you know, they want women to be traditional sex objects and available, but not actually, not actually do, you know, the things themselves. So how is this going to affect the dynamic between Gen Z men and women, He Jong? At the moment, if you talk to Gen Z women, who are, you know, I teach a lot of Gen Zs right now.

They were just like wondering, how are you going to do this? Because I'll just show you a really extreme example is Korea. The gender polarization is probably the worst in Korea. And this is where you also see the very, very sharp decline in marriages and childbirth. So people are not dating. People are just deciding they're giving up on each other. And that's not what we want in society. I mean, obviously being single, you know, independence is absolutely fantastic if you want to.

But only because you can't expect more of the other, I think that is a very, very sad place to be. And again, I think we might actually think bad of, more, like worse of each other than people really are. Yeah. So I just think we just need more opportunities to bring those voices together, to have those really difficult conversations about what we really want in the future of gender roles. Oh, it's a fascinating topic and getting some messages coming in. But for now, Hejung, Chung, thank you so much. And Joan, thank you.

But you stay there, Joan. You're going to stay with us in the studio. I'm going to read out some of these messages. My Gen Z boys have been brought up by a mum shouting about equal rights and girl power. Their peers are all girls who seem to have equal rights and all the power. I actually understand why my sons feel resentful.

They have no understanding of the history of women and why should they? They have an impossible task of being strong and soft and earning and child rearing and all the rest of it. They are hurting. We need a society to need to understand the conditions they're growing up in. Oh, Hijung, I'm going to get you.

to come back on that. Oh, sorry. I couldn't hear that. Oh, don't worry. Don't worry. You don't have to. I will leave that hanging in the air and let you respond if you want to. 84844. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm going to move on to my next guest because we've got lots to talk about on the program. But I can see your messages coming through. Keep them coming in. I'll try and read some more in a moment. Author and activist, Anjali Ralph's novel, The Boy at the Back of the Class, has been adapted for the stage and is currently on a UK tour until the end of May. And it's just been nominated for Best Family Show in the 26th Olivier Awards. That was announced yesterday. The story of a nine-year-old refugee's first frightened steps

into a British classroom. It tackles the tricky topics of immigration and death and the production has been lauded for balancing heavy themes of refugee experiences with humour and adventure for children and adults alike. Let's hear a clip. Your Royal Majesty of the United Kingdom of England of England,

England. Please, Miss Majesty, there is a new boy in our class called Ahmed, and he is a refugee boy from Syria, where there is a war and lots of bullies throwing bombs. Ahmed had to get on a boat and walked and swam a long way to come to our school because refugees aren't allowed to go on planes, and we don't really know why. Ahmed had to leave his mom and dad behind, and he doesn't know where they are. They need to get here, and Ahmed needs to find them before they close the gates and stop all the boats. We thought, because you own the country and the police and the Prime Minister has to listen to you,

you could ask them to let refugees come and help Armit find his family. This is an emergency, Your Majesty. Please last know if you can help as soon as you get this letter. Love from me, 9.3 quarters. Tom 9. Josey, 9 and a quarter. Michael, 9 and a half. Okay, guys, I'll post it tonight.

Just think in a few days. Armit will see his mom and dad again. Boom! We heard Sasha de Sousa Wilcox as Alexa, Abdul Malik, Janet as Michael, Petra Joan, Athene as Josie and Johnny Waugh as Tom. And I'm pleased to say that I'm joined in the studio by the author herself, Anjali Ralph. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Hi, Anita. Hello. First of all, congratulations, Olivier nomination.

I can't believe it. I was squealing all night. So my voice may be gone by now. Excellent. So nice new outfit for the award ceremony then. Absolutely. You first, this was your first published. book and it's told from a child's perspective and it's good, it's fun, it's an adventure story and surprisingly funny. For those who don't know it, tell us about Ahmed. Ahmed is a very special boy who is walking into a UK classroom for the first time in his life. He has spent most of his

life running as a refugee. He has spent most of his life in refugee camps. So the book is and the plays an exploration of what it's going to be like for him to walk into a classroom in a safe place where he's not being chased anymore, but doing so without the people he loves, without his mother, without his father, not knowing where they are. And the question that kind of centres the whole, grounds the whole thing is, is he going to meet someone who's going to understand his story ever? Or is it going to be someone who's going to bully him and hurt him for who he is and what he's been through?

Were you surprised by the reception for this book? It has been absolutely mind-blowing. And I think I underestimated just the passion that children have to understand what they're seeing on the news. through the realm of stories and not just that, but also to get up and do something about it. Yeah. Why did you want to write the story? Tell me where the idea came from. So I'm very lucky I get to go out to the refugee camps in northern France quite regularly. I've been doing so now for 10 years, which is a ridiculous thing to say. I never thought it would be that long.

And during my convoys, I meet men, women, children of all ages in different situations, having fled from different countries, which are being bombed. And of course, we're going to have a massive accident of that, you know, a huge influx. that as to what's going on right now. And I get to meet a lot of children of many ages. And I met a baby on my, I would say my 17th convoy, about a year and a half into my works, who was just three days old. And I got to have, you know, him in my arms for a few minutes, took a picture. And, you know, we shouted back to the mum and this baby will be back later tonight to help her wherever we can. Let's go and sort something out. And just as we're doing that, we heard the police raids. We heard the, you know, foot on the ground.

the tractors coming in, there was about to be a raid. And when that happens, refugees run for their lives. So I've never seen that baby since that day. He is the reason for why this book came into formation. I just started to think, okay, what's going to happen to him? If he ever became an eight, nine, ten-year-old, if he was ever going to be able to make it to a safe country, who was going to actually understand what he'd been through.

In the book, it tells the story through the eyes of nine-year-old Alexa. We heard her voice there played by Sasha. DeSuzza Wilcoq. She's the narrator and she's in Amit's class. Interestingly, and I like this, that the character is not identified as a girl or a boy. Having read a little bit about you and growing up, how much of Alexa is you? Oh, I am totally Alexa. I'm that kid in the classroom who

sees the new kid walking in and is desperate to be their friend and will do pretty much silly, stupid things to be their friend. So in the book, you know, Alexa is giving fluffy lemon sherbet that she's got in her pockets that's been sweating in there all day. She thinks there's a nice thing to do. She is trying to give, you know, rubbers and pencils and white mice, pretty much trying to communicate with him that, you know, she's a friend. And I think most of us remember being that kid in class,

wanting to be friends with someone. And if it's someone who you've met who doesn't speak your language, then how do you do that? So she's trying to find her way. And that's where Tom and Josie and Michael Cumber as well with their own wacky ideas. I want to talk about you and your writing journey. And we love talking about people's moms here. Yes.

Your mum was the one who encouraged you to write, despite your dad being the strict one and wanting you to get married. And she thought, even though she said she wanted you to get published and she knew that it might be quite a difficult journey for you. Like tell us more about your mum and her encouragement. So I grew up watching my mum locking on doors.

She worked for lots of organisations, grassroots organisations, helping women. My dad wasn't strict in the sense. He didn't want me to get married or anything, but he was very much concerned about what other people would say if I went off to university if I did things on my own. And I kind of don't hold that against him

because that's first generation migration where you are still trying to find your foot in the world. We were always brought up with a mantra, we are here for you. You will go to university and do whatever you need to do. But with publishing, it was always that kind of, you know, the Asian thing of be an accountant, be a doctor, be something a little bit stable.

What are you doing? What do you mean? You're trying to get an agent for 17 years and you're still trying. And look at us now here on women's saying. I know. That's amazing. But my mum has always been the voice in my ear who's like, we're here for one reason.

That's for you to live out your dreams. We couldn't do that ourselves. Back, you know, my mum grew up in Bangladesh. She was born in Bangladesh. They went through partition. My family lost everything multiple times over. So I know the refugee crisis from that angle very well, losing everything you have and coming to a new country to try and forge a life.

And for her, it was, okay, you have to do the best you can. And it's in you. We started the program by talking. talking to Donya, the 25-year-old Iranian woman, well, she's British, but of Iranian descent, knowing because it's passed down and it's in her blood, so she knows her history, and it informs who you are. And you said you were very aware and political and a feminist from such a young age. Yeah, I declared myself a feminist at the kitchen table at age of seven when my mum had guests over

because I was really angry. My brother had been allowed to play his games and I had to help in the kitchen. I was like, this is not fair. We are going to put an end to this. So absolutely. And she's always, I think it was really wonderful for you to ask about how women are helping in these war zones. It's the matriarchy that comes out and it's them that saves the lives of their families and their children. And it's always been that way.

It will always be that way, I think because women have the, I don't know, they're at the full front of making sure that people are eating, surviving, staying safe. The politics is almost, you know, an entity. Like it has to be, what do we do to keep our kids safe, our moms and dad safe, our loved ones safe. So they're the ones who will forge those communities very quickly on. And my mum grew up with that. I saw my mum struggling with that. You know, we heard about flinching when there's a plane going over. I mean, all of the conflicts that are happening right now is retramatizing our own people as well.

Anybody who's lived or anything like that and being worried about, oh, there might be a war on its way on these grounds here as well. And here you are who's written this beautiful story about a child who needs help. Really innocent, but also it's resonated with children and adults alike. Yes. You wrote, came out in 2018, back on, it's going on a tour, very different Britain to work 2018. So how do you feel about this particular story about a young refugee boy being put out there on the road? Well, it's interesting because we, Nick, Nick Ahard, who is the script writer,

we sat down and actually adapted because, of course, we had the far right marches. We've had refugees being attacked in hotels. We've had a whole diction come out where children are hearing all of this. seeing all of this and classrooms where half the children will have perhaps seen their parents go out on these marches, maybe have gone out themselves, and other half have been told to stay indoors. So it's absolutely crucial that we address this issue of racist language around refugees from certain parts of the world. We adapted it to kind of take on that, to kind of tackle that. And I think the reaction from children and from adults has been so magnificent because it's conversation starting. Well, Nick Ahad, who did write it, adapted it.

He said he's excited that the play is going on a UK tour, but he's sad. I'm sad that it feels like it's howling into a bitter, nasty wind. Yes, I can understand that. But I also want to take the glass half full approach, which is there will be people who don't want to see this play. There will be people who don't agree with their children seeing this play. But on the other hand, you'll have people who come in with no expectations or very low expectations and go away with conversations

and perhaps a more humane lens to look at refugees, especially those fleeing countries where, you know, largely they're not welcomed by people who just don't deem them as humans. I'm very quickly, you were nominated for an MBE, services to women's rights, children's literature. After much debate, decided against accepting it. No, I did want to say no to it. Oh no, you accepted it.

I did accept it based on my mom's threats. Go on, yes. So basically my, you know, this wonderful group of people. The other way around. She's an M.B. But I got the letter on I kind of threw it away, thinking, oh, I've never wanted anything like. that it's not something that I've ever hungered for. I don't like the word empire. You know, I,

my family lost everything multiple times over because of, you know, historical land grabs, etc. And partitions. So I thought, okay, I don't need this. I don't want it. And I threw it away. And I don't know about you, Anita, but do you have a mum who, when she visits you basically tries to clean your whole house? I mean, brings me so much Tupperware of food. I know. I literally feed the entire street with it. But yes, absolutely. So she just came one day while I was out and let herself in and found the letter in. And the bin and had a massive meltdown. And then told me something I never knew, which was she's, she's only here in this country

because of the queen. Because my grandmother said, you know, when she was only 19, the country was had just recovering from a famine. And she said, look, go to a country where there's a queen. You'll be better off there. You're going to be, you'll have more opportunities there. You take advantage of it. So she said, when she found the letter, she actually threatened me, so I'll never pray

for you again if you reject this. You have to accept it for your grandmother, for our family. we are the empire. Everything that we gave, everything that was taken from us, it forged the nations that took from us. So we are the empire. Look at that. That's giving me goosebumps.

My arm hairs are standing on. So I accepted it after bribe. Turn one down. Yes, you did turn one down. You did turn one down. Oh my gosh. I'm going to bring it. I've got to bring Alex in, but pause that thought.

And then we'll come back to why you turned it down, Joan. Because I want to bring, I'm really keen to bring our next guest in. Alex Cadis, because she needs to get in on this chat. Hello. Welcome. You've just published your debut novel. Congratulations. It's called Big Nobody.

Yes. It tells the story of teenage Constance Costa. She's struggling following the death of her mother and twin brothers in a car crash caused. She believes by her strict Greek Cypriot father, aka the fat murderer. She survives through her love of music, playing guitar, talking to Mark Bowlin and David Bowie, who appear on posters on her walls and a couple of sympathetic characters within the Greek Cypriot community. It is tough reading in parts. Yeah. but also lots of humour and survival.

You're a great writer. Thank you so much. How did this debut novel come about? Weirdly, actually. It was towards the end of lockdown. And I work in the music industry primarily. And because nobody could tour, nobody was releasing any records. And I'm a consultant.

I go in and kind of troubleshoot. And there was nothing for me to do. And I just thought, I'll have to do something. You know, there's only so many gin and tonics at 11 a.m. in the garden, you can enjoy it. So I thought, right, I've always wanted to write a book and I opened up my laptop, wrote the first line and it sounds like a lie when I say it, but honestly, it just poured out of me and six weeks later I had the bones of a book.

It doesn't sound like a lie. It sounds like it was time. It was time. And you needed to get this out. Set in 1975. Yes. Why did you want to focus on the teenage years and set it in the 70s? Well, I wanted to set it in the 70s because I wanted it to be. set in a time when people still had cause and moment to be able to look out of windows and dream.

You know, I've got lots of young godchildren. They don't look out of windows anymore. They look at their phone, you know. And to be honest, so do I. You know. And Constance that the main character in Big Nobody is a dreamer, you know, and she also creates a life. She's dealing with a lot of quite serious issues. But she has somehow created a world for herself within her room that exists somewhere between her dreams and her reality. And that's how she copes. She believes sincerely that Mark Bolan and David Bowie are giving her advice on everything

from dating to the school disco to how to kill a father. And that's the way she copes. I mean, it was, of course, we all had that. We did. For me, yeah, we were going to. I'll reveal that. No, let's go there. Actually, you know what?

Actually, my mind is thinking about the parallels between this whole program today and how we are talking a lot about diaspora. Yes. And second generation or third generation. And that's your experience. It is. But also Connie and the community, her community. There's something that you talk about the background of music,

but also something in the Greek Cypriot community, the Freaks Night, where tell us about Freaks Night and the cultural clashes. So Freak Night is Connie's words for, Connie's name for Greek night. So every Friday, she hates Greeks. Yeah. Eventually she comes to love them. I just want to say, just in case the Greeks are getting angry somewhere at home, I do love you. I'm very proud of my heritage.

There's complex and justified reasons for why she might feel that way. That's right, yes. She, you know, she is caught between the push and pull of being a child of a first-generation immigrant. She has a Greek father. She has an English mother. She is immersed in the Greek Cypriot community because that's where everybody communes. You know, that's it, Freak Nights.

But she goes to a British school and she's got white British friends and she's desperate to be like them. She sees that they have a freedom that she can never have. Her future is almost predetermined because of her Greekness and she's desperate for her freedom.

Mark Boland, David Bowie, represent freedom. She's waging a war with her father. She's waging a big war with her father. She's dubbed him the fat murderer. Yeah, and she'll be happy to see him on a slab. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us about that character, that relationship.

Yeah. Well, they have a very toxic relationship. And I think, you know, the father in the book, who wasn't my father, by the way, the father in the book, he's an abuser. He's a very abusive man. He's been an abuser for a very long time. And that's why she believes because of his anger issues and because of his terrible temper and his determination to control the people in his family, partly because of his

own orthodox upbringing and what we learn about his father, but partly because he is that narcissistic, controlling, slightly sociopathic person. And she wants to be free of him, but she believes that it's his character that has killed her family. You know, had he not been angry when he drove, something terrible happens the night before her family are killed. And she feels partly responsible for it and she can't bear that responsibility until much later on in the book. And so she can only blame her father. This is so much to get into it. It's very joyful. But with that, I mean, I don't want to give them any spoilers away, but like Connie, she learns to play guitar and she becomes,

and we meet her 30 years later and she's a session musician. Yeah. But unlike her, you didn't become a session musician. No. But you did go into music. I did. Yeah. I started as a very good classical guitarist. And then about the age of 13, a boy moved across the road called Alan Hans. And he was really good looking. And it was like, oh, hi guitar, goodbye guitar. And that was it.

I left my guitar to just go rusty in a corner. Connie does play guitar. Yeah. And it changes her life. It's the thing that gives her the freedom. Yes. Myself, though, I've always been obsessed with music. Yeah.

What does music? Yeah. Why? What does music do? Well, you know, when I was a child, there were certain things that were quite difficult in my life. There was an incident of sexual abuse in my life as well, which is why I felt I could write about it authentically. And I think that made me feel strange and it made me feel different. Also, coupled with the fact that I was being brought up in a very different community.

And being able to immerse myself in music really sparked my imagination. and it took me to an alternate universe where I was free, where I was not different, where I was a normal person. And that's what Connie in Big Nobody really wants. She wants to be normal more than anything. Yeah, and you found your community in music. And then you got a very successful career in music, not only working as a journalist, writing for various mags,

all the things that I was probably reading. Yeah. But also you went into management. I did, yes. Managing Take That? Yeah, well, I did manage a member of Take That. but I also worked for Take That's Management Company and I toured with them and wrote a book about them and a monthly magazine and, well, that was like literally the best five years of my life ever. We can only imagine, but then you started by telling us that you went into sort of consultancy and a bit of a troubleshooter. So you probably know more secrets than most people.

I do. And people keep saying to me, you've got to write a book. The thing is that once I've dealt with somebody's issues, I sort of forget them. I've got a terrible memory. So it makes you great for the job. Makes me great for the job, not so good for the, you know, highly acclaimed kiss and tail, yeah. Is it true that you did have the opportunity? Like, you've obviously read about you, like, you know, I do a deep dive on all of you. I'm a bit of a weird stalker for my job. But you, you know, you're, what's good about you in your job is that you have discretion. Yes.

And actually not bothered about being at all the celebrity parties. No, I don't go to any of them. I don't have a profile. online, nothing at all. I think you've just got to be very discreet and I never speak about the people that I work with. However, when George Michael says, do you want to come out for dinner with me and my mates? What is the answer? Joan, what would you say? Depends on what the restaurant was like. Oh, very good. Judge Joan. What would you say, Angrily? Yeah, where and when? Where and when. I know. What did you say? I was working with George Michael and Andrew Ridgely and after I'd done my job,

George said, we've got some friends turning up. Please come and have dinner with us. And because I'm such a professional, I sort of turned into Miss Jean Brody. You know, I was like, oh, no, thank you very much. I've done my job. I think I should go home now. I said, I got on a train and I went home and then got home, told a few friends what had happened. And they said to me, are you crazy?

George Michael asked you to come for dinner and you said, no, thank you. I finished my job. I'd like to go home. And I thought, yeah, I think I do sometimes take the professionalism. I need to move the bar. I mean, I maybe need to lower the bar. Well, look, you've kind of been the person in the background now, but now we're platforming you.

It's your time. So, you know, it's very weird. You're stepping out, yeah. How is that? Strange. It's really strange. It's very difficult to talk about something I've created when I've always spoken about things that other people have created.

So I'm enjoying it immensely, but yes, it's odd. We have to bring your mum into this. Yes, because you lost your mum at Christmas. I did. Did she get to read the book? She did, yes. And I made her have her picture taken holding my book up so that I could say on social media that she liked it.

No, she got the first proof and she read it. And, you know, she did such a mum thing. She didn't want to spoil it. So she wrapped it in cling film. So it did get spoiled. Honestly, even now when I... Actually, you can relate. I can totally relate.

Honestly. My mum puts it in foil. Right. Her cling film might get a bit oily, so she wraps it and fall and then puts it in a bedside table. Brilliant. I mean, you know, in my book, I set up all of these great sort of like comedy moments. And my mum missed all of those, you know, and at the end of it, she just said to me, I finished the book. She went, oh, Constance is such a sad little thing, isn't she?

And I said, Mum, what about all the funny bits? And she went, yes, but she's so sad in them. So that's what my mum thought. We love to talk about mum's here. It's been a delightful woman. Thank you so much. All of you for being part of this. And Alex's book, Big Nobody by Alex Cadiz, is out now. And thanks to all of you. Join me tomorrow for weekend, Women's Hour.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft turns out to be flawed? In 1999, four apartment buildings were blown up in Russia. Hundreds killed. But 25 years on, we still don't know, for sure, who did it? It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. Because these bombs, they're part of the origin story of one of the most powerful men in the world. Vladimir Putin. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.

What did they miss first time round? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen first on BBC Sounds. is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.