Woman's Hour - Jane visits the Bike Project

Episode Date: March 15, 2019

Women seeking asylum in the UK often find the expense of travel in their new country prevents them from being free to move around, volunteer and become involved in their community. The Bike Project in London supports female asylum seekers and refugees to develop cycling skills. Jane attended a weekly lesson that was funded by Comic Relief and delivered by The Bike project and Young Roots. Labour MP Rachel Reeves joins Jane to discuss her new book ‘Women of Westminster: The MPs who Changed Politics’. From steering pioneering legislation to the continuing fuss over clothes and haircuts - she’ll be talking about how women MPs have made a difference to our political culture.In 2012 two teenage high school football players from Steubenville, Ohio were convicted of raping a sixteen year old girl. The case attracted huge national attention due to the role social media played as well as outspoken members of the community defending the boys. A film about the case ‘Roll Red Roll’ is being shown tonight and tomorrow at the Human Rights Watch film Festival in London. Jane speaks to the producer and director Nancy Schwartzman about the case and its aftermath. Has your Instagram feed been full of recipes for homemade dishwasher tablets and tips for getting red wine out of carpets? A new wave of influencers are keen to share advice and inspiration for keeping your home spick and span. But why is cleaning suddenly cool? Jane talks to Lynsey Crombie, Instagram's Queen of Clean and author of How to Clean Your House and Tidy Up Your Life, and to Zing Tsjeng, UK Editor of Broadly.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Laura Northedge Interviewed Guest: Rachel Reeves Interviewed Guest: Nancy Schwartzman Interviewed Guest: Lynsey Crombie Interviewed Guest: Zing Tsjeng

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. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Woman's Hour podcast from Friday the 15th of March 2019. On the programme today, you're about to hear an interview with the Labour MP Rachel Reeves, who's written a book called Women of Westminster, the MPs Who Changed Politics. Later in the podcast, we'll talk about a horrific incident

in a place called Steubenville in Ohio back in 2012. The horrific rape of a young girl and the young men responsible for it and the way the community closed ranks around the young people responsible, partly because they were really prominent members of a high school football team. So that case explored on the podcast today. And much less seriously, I'm delighted to say, we talk about cleaning. Some would say extreme cleaning. And it's fair to say there were quite a few people who objected to the whole idea of Women's Hour discussing cleaning, which I understand. But I think it's a fact of life that all of our listeners, women and, yes, men,

will have to clean at some point in their lives. Otherwise, they're all living in middens, which I absolutely refuse to accept. It cannot possibly be true of the people who listen to this show. So let's start then with a conversation with Rachel Reeves. And unfortunately, really, we had to start talking today about the absolutely horrific events in Christchurch in New Zealand overnight. My thoughts and prayers are with all of the people of New Zealand and particularly those who have been affected by the terrible atrocity that's happened. It's a reminder as well though isn't it about what you say the toxicity of politics and the way we conduct debate in

in public life and of course for many of us, it will bring back memories of what happened in June 2016, when our friend and colleague, Joe Cox was murdered by a far right activist and terrorist. And just yesterday, we saw in the Houses of Parliament, Anna Soubry being heckled by somebody calling her a traitor for the way that she had voted in the debate on extending Article 50. And, you know, the debates we're having in politics at the moment are heavily charged. People have very strong views and they're entitled to those strong views. But there is an issue about how we conduct ourselves in public life, both in Parliament, but also in the country as well. And there are lots of people that I disagree with profoundly on issues around Brexit and many other things as well. But you think you need to respect

each other's views and speak to people and conduct that debate in a civil way. And I think that's what we're losing at the moment. I think that's very worrying. Can you tell me, and I don't mean to ask this in a fatuous way, but what is your party's policy on another referendum? Well, our policy that we passed at the party conference unanimously was that if we couldn't secure a general election, that we would support a public vote. And I passionately believe that we should take this back to the country. I think Parliament has failed and that we have not come to a decision on anything, even with just two weeks before our departure. I think it is now right that we take this back to the country.

And I hope that there will be an amendment next week when we, I assume, have another meaningful vote on the prime minister's deal, an amendment to take that back to the people. And I would very much support that. I've been a supporter of a people's vote for some time now. But honestly, Rachel, are you confident that your party's leadership are as passionate about another referendum as you appear to be? Well, Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn reiterated our position this week and I very much hope that the Labour Party this coming week will unite around that position, that we should take this back to the country because Parliament has failed to decide. That is our policy and that was reiterated by Jeremy and by

Keir this week and I would urge Labour MPs and MPs from across the political spectrum to now come together and give this back to the people because we're so far away from the Brexit that people voted for two and a half years ago.

I think it is now time to ask the people are you happy with the deal that the Prime Minister has secured? Or would you rather maintain the relationship that we currently have with the European Union? I think that's the right thing to do at this stage. Okay, well, that's our current, let's face it, rather complicated present. Let's go back in time to the first woman elected to the Houses of Parliament, who was not Nancy Astor, of course, but somebody completely different. It was Constance Markovits, and she was elected in 1918. But she was elected for Sinn Féin. And in the tradition of that party, she didn't take her seat. So the first woman to

take her seat in the House of Commons was in 1919. And that, of course, was Nancy Astor. And it had to be, in a way, well, you can tell me, somebody with her aristocratic connections. That first woman had to be somebody like that, somebody who could operate in this astonishingly difficult environment. Well, in 1918, when women were given the right, won the right to stand in elections for the first time, a number of women stood, but as is often the case, they were selected in their parties by seats that they were unlikely to win

and many stood as independents and so didn't stand a huge chance in being elected. Then in 1919, Waldorf Astor's father died and his son, Waldorf, inherited his seat in the House of Lords and so had to resign as a member of parliament in Plymouth. And he wanted to come back to be an MP. And so he needed a stopgap candidate in Plymouth Sutton and so suggested that his wife took the seat. And so Nancy Astor stood in that by-election in 1919. She was much more than a stopgap. She was there in total for 26 years. And certainly having those connections in politics was very helpful. But she was followed in the years to come by women from very different

backgrounds, including Margaret Bonfield, who was the first woman to serve in a cabinet, who left school at 14 and was a shop worker. So those early women MPs did come from very different backgrounds. And talking of cross-party alliances and better moods and cooperation, these women did work together, didn't they? Yes, and that's been the tradition of women in Parliament over the last 100 years, starting with Nancy Astor from the Conservative Party and Margaret Winteringham from the Liberal Party, working together to secure the equal

guardianship of children. Because as you'll know, before 1925, women had absolutely no rights of custody over their children upon separation or divorce. The children were the property of their father. And Wintering wintering and asta worked together to change the law which they succeeded in doing in 1925 and right the way up until the present day whether that is the work that um harriet harman has done with maria miller and andrea ledson and joe swinson on introducing baby leave so that uh mps can have a proxy vote if they are on maternity or paternity leave all the work indeed indeed that Jo Cox did with Seema Kennedy and others in setting up the Loneliness Commission.

There's been a whole history over the last 100 years of cross-party working, and I think that's something that women have really brought to politics, in part because a lot of them were marginalised within their own parties and so came together to find those common causes. Yeah, so there's no doubt in your mind that women's lives have been improved by women sitting at Westminster, as simple as that. I think that's absolutely the case, whether it was the equal guardianship of children, equal pay, family allowances, child benefit, action on domestic violence

and human trafficking and modern day slavery. All of those issues were put on the political agenda by women MPs and the law over the last 100 years has changed to improve the lives of women across the country. And so I do think that the impact of women in Parliament has been profoundly positive for the lives of women outside. We still need to make huge progress. And you discuss these things on Women's Hour every day. The equal pay gap, the pay gap still exists. The Equal Pay Act came in in 1970, introduced, of course, by Barbara Castle. And still today, there's an 18% pay gap. Women earn less than men. we own less than men,

we're more likely to be the victims of domestic violence but things have improved so much in the last 100 years and I do believe that having women in Parliament has been part of that change and that progress. Now I was a nerdy 14-year-old when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. You were just about born, weren't you? I was three months old, Jane. I can't say I remember it well,

but she certainly politicised me. Well, OK, that was what I was going to ask. It is quite tricky. There's no doubt about this. When Labour sympathisers, members or politicians write books about women in politics in Britain, the towering figure is a conservative, Margaret Thatcher. So what was your view of her before you started writing about her?

Well, to be honest, Jane, it was the hardest bit of the book for me to write, because like everybody, I went in with my mind very much made up about Margaret Thatcher. And, you know, when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, I got involved in politics because I disagreed so profoundly with what she was doing to the country. And, you know, I still believe that the policies that she pursued resulted in greater inequality and the decimation of some of our northern towns and cities. And we're still feeling the effect of that today. But you can't write a book about women of Westminster without talking about her contribution. And, you know, I grew up knowing that I disagreed with what she was doing. But also, I didn't doubt that a woman could be prime minister and lead a country,

because she was there doing that. And so, in a way, she politicised me, but she also perhaps empowered a generation of young women, including me, and maybe you as well, Jane, to think that these sorts of jobs were jobs that women could do and succeed at. And so I do think that that is a positive thing and made all of us think again about our conceptions of power. Now, you're obviously an MP. You're in your constituency now. You're certainly in a studio in Leeds. Yes.

When you meet your constituents, I assume you're having a surgery today. I am. What kind? I mean, honestly, will Brexit feature or will it be practical things? Will it be housing? Will it be issues with universal credit? What are people going to tell you about today? The main issues at my surgery tend to be around housing and benefit issues. So a third of the housing in my constituency is social housing, another third is private rented, huge problems of hidden homelessness and and

overcrowding and often poor quality accommodation especially in the private rented sector but also you know employment is high in my constituency but so many people don't earn a wage that they can afford to live on and so people are reliant on tax credits and universal credit is now being rolled out in my city of Leeds and and that is having a an impact on on people's lives and so those are the main issues I expect that I'll be discussing at my surgery in Bramley this afternoon. So that the febrile atmosphere at Westminster and you know the talk of amendments to amendments which leaves well frankly most of us slightly perplexed that that's a world away from the people you're going to be talking to today, isn't it?

It will come up, you know. You can't go to a public meeting, a community centre, a surgery, without people wanting to talk about Brexit. Because, of course, everyone is seeing it on the news with a huge sense of dismay, I think, amongst most people, whatever their politics, of what is happening in the country, the divisions in our country, but also the seeming failure of politicians to to find a way forward. And, you know, I share that dismay and hope that we can move forward in the in the next week or so because we're desperately running out of time. And I chair in Parliament the Business Select Committee, and I know that businesses are absolutely frustrated at holding back investment. And that is going to affect the competitiveness of our country for years to come. Rachel Reeves, thank you very much. Rachel Reeves is a Labour MP in Leeds.

If you'd like to hear our interview with the Women's Minister and Leave campaigner Penny Mordaunt, you can find that, of course, on our website, bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. It is, as many people know, Red Nose Day today, comic relief. Women seeking asylum in this country can find life pretty tough. Apart from anything else, they are obliged to attempt to live on about 40 quid a week and getting around is expensive. And that can mean that life for them is incredibly lonely. Well, here's where the Bike Project in London steps in. It supports female asylum seekers and refugees to develop cycling skills.

Simple as that. So I went to a weekly lesson this week funded by Comic Relief and delivered by the Bike Project and an organisation called Young Roots. And I spent time with a young woman called Clarence. It's not her real name, actually, and she is an asylum seeker from Nigeria. Everybody's front brakes working? Good. And now the same, we're going to check our back brake. So I want you to roll your bike backwards. OK, Clarencece we've made it onto the track where you normally cycle is this is this it's an athletics track isn't it actually

yes it is an athletic track and it's a lovely clear it's a beautiful evening actually it's a bit cold but it's nice and bright is this where you normally practice do you come on here um not we don't usually get to practice here. The cycling training has stages, so like the first stages in the court and the advanced ones, they go on the road as well. So there are some of the lessons that's given on the road. So Clarence, just tell me a bit about yourself. I should say, as we speak, we're sitting at a place you probably would never have expected to find yourself. We're in a changing room, basically, at a sports centre in London.

So where did you start your life? I started my life back in Nigeria, a family of eight. I'm the last of my family. I'm the last child. And, you know, as a last child, it's believed that you should be the one, like, having the best time and the most love and care. But it wasn't like that for me. It was the other way around. And instead of being the last child, I actually took up the role of being an adult in a very, very young age. And why was that? I came from a very poor family and life wasn't really good with us.

And, you know, in a family like that, you get to grow up fast because you get to look for means of survival. You mean you had to work? It wasn't work. It's more like, you know, back in Nigeria, you get to go sell things. So you go hawking, selling stuff to help support the family. And when did you leave Nigeria? I left Nigeria in 2015. When I left Nigeria, I was just out of a very abusive relationship. I had no means of survival any longer because the relationship was bad. I was pregnant and I had a miscarriage and I almost lost my life. And then someone actually came up and offered me a good and better life in the UK. It was either I stay back in Nigeria and die

or take up the opportunity and stay alive. What exactly did he offer you? You say a better life, but tell me more about that. That when I come to the UK, I'll be able to study, I'll be able to live well and and get more money to survive on and even help my family back in Nigeria but there was a catch to it I'll have to come with the person's younger brother the younger brother would be like a dependent on me. And he was the man that you came to Britain with?

Yeah, he was the person I came to Britain with. The younger brother? The younger brother, yes. And what was he like? He wasn't a very nice person because during the processing time he was asking me out and I made him to know that I wasn't ready for any relationship. And I remember on our flight coming to the UK, he made a statement like I've been running away from him

and now it's just the two of us that I've got nowhere to run from him anymore. So you landed up in a country that you knew nothing about with a man who clearly wasn't a good person and wasn't going to treat you well. What happened when you got here? I panicked and I decided to reach out to someone to help me. So I passed a note to another the on the flight that I need somewhere to stay and that I'll explain everything if the person helps me. And actually as it happened

the person was decent and they did try to help you? Yes it was a man and he called the wife at the airport that he has a lady who actually needs help. And the wife said it's okay then that I can come with the man to their house. And I actually fled from the person at the airport with a stranger that I've never met in my life. And at that point, it was like the safest option for me around April 2017 I was assaulted at the train station and why were you assaulted it was racially I remember getting on the train and there were this Caribbean ladies and I wanted to sit on his seat and one of them came to me that I shouldn't

sit there that the nephew was going to sit there I left the seat and went to another seat to sit down and the same lady came to me that I should stand up that the other nephew wants to sit there at that point I didn't respond I just minded my own business. And that was when she came trying to move me fiscally out of the seat. And so when I came off on the train, that was when one of them walked up to me, removed the wig on my head, and that was how the whole thing started. And they were...

They beat you up, didn't they? Yeah. Okay. You don't need to relive all that, I'm so sorry. The assault, although it was awful, and it really was awful, as a result of that you were put in touch with more help, weren't you? Yes, I was. Tell me exactly how that came about.

After the assault I had a breakdown and I was admitted to the hospital and when I was about to be discharged and I really had nowhere to go, some of the nurses actually helped me to find a charity that could help me regarding my immigration and then a place to stay. And then after that, you found the bike project. And you enjoy it. I imagine that it's given you independence, that you're there, you're not really thinking of much else apart from where you're going and what you've got to do in the traffic.

So it frees you a bit, doesn't it? Yeah, it's total freedom. It saves me money on transportation. I don't have to pay. I can ride to anywhere I need to go, I need to be. When you're going down the hill, it's kind of fun and, you know, it's free. And, you know, cycling is like getting freedom. It gives you wings.

You feel like you're flying. And, yeah, it brings such happiness and joy. You've almost sold it to me, actually. You are at the moment living on less than £40 a week. Yes. It's really, really difficult to live with that amount of money. But the fact that I have a bike that helps me with transportation has actually made it a little bit easier for me to live on.

And I get food from some charity as well to help me live on because the £7.75 is it's nothing to really survive on and especially as a lady you have stuff to to buy all the time and you need to look after yourself. And mostly you just have to rely on some charity to help you live on. You've been, really, you've been through some times. But am I right in saying things seem to be getting better for you? The bike project is like, they gave me a chance to find purpose to my life. They gave me a sense of belonging, like I'm part of a community. I can be someone, I can make changes to my environment.

I just want people to know that you don't just work here. How many hours of volunteering do you do? You were going through it, it's hours. Yes, I do. Putting everything together, it's over 30 hours of volunteering. It helps me to keep going. Okay. I think it's probably a good idea if we go outside and we're going to do some cycling. All right. Well, we're just on the track. And the great thing about this, I don't want to give away too many showbiz secrets,

but obviously this is radio. We're being accompanied by one of my colleagues who can't actually ride a bike. So brilliantly, she's going to run as we cycle, see if she can keep up with us and maybe record some of our conversation. But there's also a question mark over whether I'll be able to cycle and speak at the same time. I've got to be honest. Okay, so Clarence, you start us off. On you go. Okay. This is fantastic. We'll go really slowly.

Yes, well, for my sake, yeah, and indeed for her sake, go quite slowly. How quickly would you normally go? It depends on the road condition. If it's a flat road like this and I can go on the highest gear, and the bike must faster that way. Yeah. Oh, she's tiring, the poor woman's our producer. Keep talking, Clarence, because I'm enjoying this. Go on. But if it's... She's falling away. Bye, see you, see you If it's a healy condition

And with that Clarence and I rode off purposefully into the distance It was so fantastic to spend a bit of time with Clarence, I hope you're listening and I hope you enjoy your weekend, it really was so interesting getting your perspective on life If you'd like to donate to Comic Relief

go to bbc.co.uk forward slash red Nose Day and the whole extravaganza will begin to unfold on BBC One tonight at 7 o'clock. Mary Berry is on the programme next week. She's on Tuesday's show. So too, well the actress

Lupita Nyong'o is going to be on Monday's programme, so that's going to be good as well. Also next week, and this is important if you've got teenagers, we're talking about ketamine and teenagers. So if that is something you're interested in, that will also be on Tuesday's programme. Any questions, you can send them to us via the website or on Twitter, of course,

at BBC Woman's Hour. And on Friday of next week, we're talking to the filmmaker Carol Morley. So there's plenty to look forward to next week on the programme. Now, I wonder how many people listening remember the events in Steubenville in Ohio in 2013, when two teenage boys were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl. Now, this case did attract huge global attention, actually, partly because of the role social media played, but also because

of the way some members of the community in that town tried to protect the boys who were members of a high school football team. Now, a film about that case, Roll Red Roll, is being shown tonight and tomorrow at the Human Rights Watch Festival in London. And Nancy Schwartzman is the producer and director. Welcome, Nancy. Thank you. First of all, tell me about this town in Ohio.

Yeah, well, thanks for having me on the program. So Steubenville, Ohio is a really interesting old town. It's actually, well, old by American standards, 300, 400 years old. And it was an old steel town. So it's a place that most of the men had jobs the second they got out of high school, and they went to work in the mill, and they worked with their fathers. And there was this guarantee that their sons would also have these kinds of jobs. So from the start, there wasn't, you know, a huge focus on secondary education or arts and culture. There was, you know, sports and your

town and you make a family and you have a middle class existence, something that's solid, a foundation. So, you know, about 30 to 40 years ago in the United States, factories moved overseas and created what we call the Rust Belt. And Steubenville was hit really hard by those mills closing. So, you know, this big rift in town and a lot of folks didn't have jobs and lost jobs and and you can see at that point kind of a real focus and obsession with football because it was a way out potentially yeah yeah take us then to the heart of the case what actually happened on the night the the rape itself took place the year before in 2012 what happened right so it was a pre-season football game So the high school team

has an incredible stadium. It looks like a college stadium in a really sort of rundown town. You have a million, multimillion dollar football stadium. So there's a party. There's a bunch of kids hanging out. There's three different locations. And what happens throughout the night and what's detailed in the film is a victim is targeted in advance by some of the boys and taken from party to party and sexually assaulted. And it's documented on YouTube. There's a lot of laughter about it. There are photographs that are disseminated. But what's also really shocking is not just that there was so much bragging on social media about it, and that it was sort of the activity of the night, was that there were so many points of intervention, this could have been stopped

at many, many points throughout the evening. You mean adults or other boys could have stopped it happening? Boys could have stopped it, girls could have stopped it. Someone could have called an adult in the situation. I think what was so shocking was this idea that rape is inevitable in high school culture. And that's something we're all kind of grappling with now on a larger scale. What is rape culture? Rape culture is a way that we laugh at rape, we minimize rape, we just think, oh, this is what happens on the weekends is what happens to girls if they drink, or this is what happens if you go out with a football team. I think this will really shock our listeners, but I just want to play a little clip,

which is also in your documentary of a local talk show radio host. Here we go. Right at 7.45, this is the latest on the incident out of Stoonville. All I can tell you is this. It's a she said, he said right now without a doubt. You know, anybody can make an allegation. These girls at these parties sometimes maybe drink a little bit too much. Sometimes they get a little promiscuous. All of a sudden they're being called, you know, a whore, what have you. And it's real easy to all of a sudden say you were taken advantage of

rather than own up to the fact that, hey, look, I did what I did. It's easier to tell your parents you were raped than, hey, mom, dad, I got drunk and decided to let three guys have their way with me. That's all I'm saying based on who I've spoken to. That is quite incredible. And that takes you right into a world where victim blaming is everything. Yeah, absolutely. It's really chilling, isn't it?

I mean, this is how adults are talking about a child. And this is a man also who was not in the investigation rooms that we were in to make this film. This is someone who's just what we call opinionating all over the place. And it's so callous. And it's so he's so sure of himself oh yeah there is also another element to this that the crime blogger a woman who you feature in the documentary just explain exactly what she did because i think the ethics surrounding what she got up to a slightly questionable but tell me anyway interesting um yeah so alexandria goddard um was uh she's a blogger and she's a true crime sort of amateur expert.

And she's from the town. So she knows Steubenville. And her initial, what sparked her interest was noticing that they actually reported and arrested members of the football team. She said, wait a minute, this town's obsessed with football. If they've arrested, something must be bad. Something's going on. Now, she had the foresight in 2012, because she also is a social media expert,

to go online and start digging around these kids' social media profiles. So what she uncovered by pulling up the roster of the football team and going to their Twitter feeds was just this entire online conversation. Ha ha ha, she's so raped right now. Song of the Night has raped me. Never seen anyone this sloppy, like really awful statements. Now, it's not necessarily criminal evidence, what she found, but what she did found was evidence of this culture. So she documented it.

She also approached the police and said, look, I found a lot of stuff online. And was this at a time, it was some time ago, I suppose, in technology terms. Was this a time before the police were routinely doing that sort of thing? I'm not even sure they're routinely doing that sort of thing now, but absolutely. So she said, I have stuff. You might want it. Nobody called her back. She saved it.

She went back. She knows how to find deleted. Nothing she did was illegal. Find deleted content. And eventually, because people were trying to leave messages on the cities and the police, excuse me, the journalists chat room or whatever, and they comment section was closed. And she said, people have a right to know what's being said and why are adults victim blaming this girl? If they were to see these tweets, maybe they would change their mind. So she published them on her blog. So what happened to the boys who carried out the rape? Those two boys were convicted and served minimal and low sentences through juvenile detention. But what's also important is that there were several other boys

who were eyewitnesses to the rape who were in the room. One of them took photographs. Two of them watched and didn't do anything. And they were given immunity because the prosecution needed eyewitness testimony. And it was important for me to put that element in the story because are we okay with kids, you know, witnessing a violent crime and not doing anything about it? And the community closed ranks around the football team essentially and continues to do so? You know, I think the community, I've spent a lot of time there, I've spent four years back and forth, you know, was on the defensive because the media kind of swept in and told an easy story about them. You know, look at this town and

everyone's terrible in this town. It's a very easy kind of cheap story. And I spent time there and got to know people who felt very attacked. And most people don't condone rape in the town of Steubenville. Of course not. But they're afraid that we're trying to take the football team away from them or that we don't understand what their tradition means. And they are reticent to change. And I know you're passionate about the fact that this film is not centered around the victim, who we should say continues happily to live her life and is doing reasonably well. Yeah. It's about the perpetrators. And you would say, I think, that you want this film

not seen by women and girls, but by men and boys. Absolutely. And that's how we crafted the film, to have that true crime element, have that element of intrigue and kind of intense music and football. It was to really, for me, this is so important that young men see themselves in this film,

where have they witnessed or heard about something? I mean, girls too, but essentially if we can get coaches, and we're doing that kind of work in the United States, activating coaches, activating men who work to teach young men about rape culture and violence prevention. Right. Well, happily, I was going to say, well, happily is the right word, because I think people should see this documentary. It is going to be shown by the BBC at some point in the summer, you think. So that's a certainty or a strong possibility? No, we are going to be shown by the BBC. That is absolutely certain. Transmission date is sometime in June.

Okay. Thank you very much, Nancy. Thank you. Nancy Schwartzman. And the film is called Roll, Red Roll. and it's about that incident in Steubenville in Ohio in 2012. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us Nancy. So to the topic I mentioned right at the start of the program your Instagram feed whether you like it or not may well be bursting with all sorts of ideas about cleaning. There is genuinely a new wave of influencers who are desperate to share advice and inspiration for keeping your house spick and span. Some people don't want to know about this, but to many, many hundreds of thousands of people, this is vital and inspirational stuff.

Lindsay Crombie is with us this morning. Welcome, Lindsay. Morning. You are Instagram's queen of clean. I am. And author of How to Clean Your House and Tidy Up Your Life. I am. Okay. Also with us, the journalist Xing Zheng. Welcome to you you Xing. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. Great pleasure to see you. So Lindsay why do you think because you have over a hundred thousand Instagram followers people love

what you do. Why do you think they do? I think they do because we've made cleaning fun. We've made it sort of bearable. We've took that boredom away from cleaning cleaning is a job that we all have to do you know to live in sort of a clean environment and it's about just putting a spin on it just to say yes you've got to do some cleaning today but let's do this in a fun way let's use natural products and let's just you know have some fun now your ideas spring from all sorts of places but i gather um some older women who you met when you were working in a, was it a care home? Yes, yes. So when my son was born, I ended up working in an old people's home, just doing some shopping, a bit of cleaning and sort of bits and pieces like that. And basically,

I used to take with me a big bag of cleaning products, cloths and all. They used to say to me, Lindsay, please stop bringing this big bag. And I used to be like, why? I need all this stuff. And then they started showing me the white wine vinegar, the bicarbonate of soda and the lemons. And the first trick they showed me, I was mesmerised and that sort of fuelled the fire for me to sort of explore this in a lot more detail. What was the first trick? It was cleaning your plug hole using white wine vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.

Just sloshing it down? Yes, it was a nice big big big heap spoonful of the bicarb white wine vinegar poured on top and then oh my god all this black stuff just rose to the top and started shooting out lord what black stuff it was like all the stuff that's clogged in the drain yeah it was gunk and the lady admitted openly at the time she hadn't had any help for a long time it hadn't been clean for about a year and she really wanted it doing and she couldn't reach up to get the vinegar um it was just like, for me, it was heaven. Yeah. But of course, the combined cost of the white wine vinegar and the bicarb would be nothing.

Exactly. Compared to buying one of those specialist drain things. Exactly. And it's natural. Yeah. Okay. Zing, are you won over by all this? I mean, I find it fascinating because influencers, if you know the phenomena, mostly tend to be younger women, you know, posting sexy selfies, like exotic travel shots. I'm really fascinated by this idea that someone has taken something so mundane, like cleaning, for instance, and actually turned it into a form of influence in and of itself. So that phenomenon itself just fascinates me. So you applaud it?

I mean, I think it takes a lot of innovation to actually look at something like a dirty plug hole and think, you know what, I'm going to put it up on the most image-obsessed social media platform, Instagram, and see what I can do with it. To me, that's some kind of... It's counterintuitive and brilliant. It's counterintuitive, yet it somehow works. It is, can I say to you, Lindsay, it's an explosion of pink it is it is now why that link to pink it's just because i'm sort of

quite a fun happy person and i genuinely love the color pink um and i think if you're having a bit of a low day a color can sometimes just lift your mood it doesn't have to be pink but pink is my color um and it's about cleaning is about lifting your mood as well I always think if you get up in the morning and you're feeling a little bit sluggish and a little bit low if you just suddenly think I'll do a quick vacuum, you're releasing those endorphins and you're using your body and all of a sudden you will feel better

Well, will you? Yeah, a clean space is a happy space and that's what I say. I could just have a chunk of dairy milk Lindsay and I'd be just as elevated. And I would as well. But, you know, I think hover, calories are burning off. You're, you know, your then vacuum lines are so exciting to see. Is it anti-feminist thing?

What do you think? So I think with, as with anything, there are degrees to this, right? So if you go to an extreme and you start telling women, what you have to absolutely do is have a clean home and you must take fun in it. You must have pride in it. And it's where that kind of, you know, dictatorial kind of impulse comes from. That's when it starts getting a little bit weird and a little bit too much for me. think that if people you know took more fun or pride in cleaning you know maybe the university students I used to live with when I was younger might actually have gotten their deposit back

for instance yeah well that's a thought how disgusting was it at its very worst oh it was terrible and you know one of the interesting things that uh when I wrote about this for broadly and I talked to Lindsay about it and other influencers was the number of young people who are absolutely clueless about cleaning and how many people actually reach out to them saying I've spilled red wine on my carpet and I'm afraid my landlord's going to revoke my deposit what do I do let's get a quick one on a red wine on a carpet what do you do Lindsay um a shaving foam shaving that's my go-to product at the moment and I discovered this trick by myself getting mascara all over the carpet upstairs in my dressing room.

And the first thing that I could grab was shaving foam. And it's amazing. It's absolutely brilliant. And it's so cheap. Is that cheaper than specialist carpet cleaning? It's about 45 pence. Right. And a carpet cleaning product would be about five pounds.

So you look at the difference. I see. And it works just as well. Okay. difference and it works just as well okay and and seriously more seriously because there is a link i think between ocd in some forms and and a passion for fascination with cleaning isn't there yeah i mean i'm not ocd diagnosed but i do believe i've got an element of it um and i feel sort of my my cleaning come from a bad situation that I've turned into a positive. And I suppose I'm quite ritualed these days.

I get up, I follow a routine. But that just keeps my motivation going. It keeps my day running well in business life and with my children. So I suppose there is quite a strong element of OCD to it. Now, when I saw you this morning, I first met you, your handbag was, well you were unapologetic about this, bulging with lemons. It was. Now I did say at the beginning, is there anything lemons can't do? Well? Lemons are like the best thing for cleaning. They can clean absolutely everything.

Plus they leave a beautiful fresh smell behind. I tend to cut them in half, add a big spoonful of bicarbonate of soda onto them. And if you give it the tiniest squeeze, you'll get this amazing chemical reaction. And that is pure cleaning power at its best. And it's toxic free. It's good for the environment. And it's just amazing. You also swear by denture tablets. I do.

Pop them down the toilet to get rid of those sort of, you know, you get those brown marks sometimes. You speak for yourself, Lindsay. It's like lime scale that's been there for a while. Good grief. If you pop one of those down and leave it overnight that will be amazing really really honestly i'm so shocked i can't speak i'm gonna use this because i swear there's a toilet and there's a toilet in the place i live in that has exactly those stains yeah yeah a toilet brush won't get them and

bleach will just mask them it will just make it look white for a few days and it will come back right the denture tablet will actually break down that dirt and they are cheap they are cheap they're about a pound for quite a few yeah okay well that's brilliant and one other thing that nobody will have thought of that's in your locker lindsay what's in my locker well i meant your mental locker you know something a little tip that you haven't yet shared with anybody all right you're prepared to tell me oh i've got so many um i'm quite big on recycling at the moment. So the mascara brush,

when you've finished with your mascara, keep hold of that brush. Give it a wash. Keep it in your cleaning caddy. It's really good for like air vents, for getting down to plug holes, to get into those small spaces that you can't often get into.

Can I just read some of our listeners' thoughts to you, Lindsay? Oh, gosh. No, don't look worried. Go on. I have to say, a lot of people obviously object to the idea of us discussing cleaning at all. Why, oh, why, oh, why is Woman's Hour doing a piece about cleaning? The thing is, and also a couple of people mentioning that we didn't mention that men could do cleaning. Well, of course they can do cleaning.

And almost half our audience are men. I was talking to the audience. We were talking to the audience. Of course men can and should do cleaning well of course they can do cleaning and almost half our audience are men i was talking to the audience we were talking to the audience of course men and can and should do cleaning you're being completely honest you enjoy cleaning tidying and making your house perfect don't you i do yeah i i find it just therapeutic i love it but my husband does enjoy it too right on a sunday it's teamwork in my house. We all pull together and we all do a job. And it just keeps everybody happy. Yeah.

Dinah emails to say, my ambition is not to have she kept her house beautifully clean on my tombstone. I'd love that on my tombstone. There we are. The perfect response from Lindsay. I'd like on mine, kept a reasonably tidy house. But although Lindsay has got me really worried because you've rightly drawn my attention to the fact

that I've never cleaned my remote control. You're not alone. And that's taken a bashing over the years, let me tell you. From Leddy, OCD severely disrupts a sufferer's life and causes immense distress what was described by your guest is not ocd as it gives her purpose and fulfillment well um i didn't say i was ocd no you didn't i said i've got ocd traits which i believe i have that's true you absolutely didn't uh i've got a question here from Sally. I've had stains on my quartz kitchen worktop for months that I haven't been able to remove. Oh, it's a tip. I just used lemon and bicarb and they wiped off with ease.

Yeah, amazing. Wow. It's simplicity, isn't it? And she obviously sounds quite satisfied that she's done that as well. She's delighted. She's put amazing in capital letters. Yeah. You have made Sally's morning. Lovely.

Melanie at Lemons. I spent a year in Southeast Asia and nearly every product used limes, which were cheap and worked amazingly well. Yeah. Do you know what? I have heard that actually, but I just don't tend to buy many limes. I just always go straight for the lemons. Does it work with citrus fruits? I wouldn't say an orange can clean though, because orange is more sticky, I think.

But then lots of wood products use orange oil. So maybe there's another sort of avenue for me to explore. That's true. They do, don't they? Like real wood cleaners have all got orange oil in them. And you can use an essential oil with orange in for wood zing you were sharing with us in private but i'm gonna make you do it now um the horrible beard story oh yes so um when i was straight out of university i moved into quite a few shared houses and the biggest one was a six-person house in marland uh where one house mate bless his heart,

if he is listening to this, I'm so sorry for just closing this on the Women's Hour podcast. But he used to trim his beard and just leave the beard trimming scattered all around the sink. And it was disgusting. And nobody knew what to do

because they just had a habit of sticking. And then it became kind of a dirty wall because we would wait for him to clean it up and then he wouldn't and we wait some more and it was like a cold war um so yeah if you're listening to this please don't do that um maybe follow lindsey on instagram and take a little bit of pride in your home surroundings brush your teeth looking at this beard hair yes i couldn't do that no um on the subject of hair, I've got teenage daughters

with long, long hair, quite curly hair as well, and are drained in the shower. I have to go down with a... Do you know what I use? I use chopsticks. Do you? Yeah.

That's a good idea, actually. It's quite satisfying. Yeah, pulling it all out and then putting it up there and saying, look what you've done. I'll be honest with you, Lindsay. That's where I'll be tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow morning.

It'll be about ten past nine. I'll be there with my chopsticks down the shower drain. And I will. See, I use the mascara brush for that one. Oh, do you? You've given me something new to try. Yeah, thank you. It's very rare that I come in handy. But I've got to acknowledge that the people who have objected to this.

I listen to women's art. I feel inspired, says Alison, and part of a bigger world of wonderful women. But I've turned it off because they mentioned cleaning your house. It's just not what I want to hear. Inspire me, please. We are not all keen to clean. And from Judith, my granny in her 90s one day looked at me and said, you'll never regret not having done more housework. Yeah, I do get that. But also I can see Lindsay's side of the story, which is that it's what brings you pleasure. Exactly.

And so it's not really anybody else's business. No. And I think to make cleaning fun is a positive step. You know, to make, you know know you put on a playlist you dance around with your mop you have a few colorful accessories you've got to clean so why not do it in a fun happy way you don't just have to stand there and go do you no it's and if you're cleaning your house it's very different if you work as a cleaner and you can be treated really badly you can paid rubbish money and that's awful yeah i know a lot about that well yeah to be fair you do of course

now i'm seeing the whole idea of this is a trend is it likely to hang around i actually think yes it will because you know it's trying economic times whenever that happens people start wanting to nest i spoke to a trend forecaster for the piece i wrote about people like lindsey and she said you know as economic times become more troubling, people go inward, they want to stay in home, they want to save money. And they start trying to look for little ways to make their daily mundane life more feel more luxurious, because they can't afford to go out. And that might extend to everything from buying a nice candle for themselves, whether you're a man or a woman, lots of men I do, I know love candles to, to making your space look a

little bit neater and fresher. So I do think this is something that's going to stick around. And I do think it's got interesting parallels with the whole wellness thing, because I think when I spoke to you, Lindsay, you said that it made you feel psychologically good cleaning. And there's definitely an element of that with wellness as well. You know, you're doing these things to make yourself feel psychologically good. Yeah. And actually what we're all about on this program uh some of our more um complaining listeners have acknowledged is about inspiring women and encouraging them to get out there and

do their thing and this is how you have made your living it is and i inspire women every single day um so i find you know when people say oh, oh, it's cleaning, it's just cleaning, there is actually a really good side to cleaning. Lots of people these days have got parents that are too busy to teach them when they're young at home to clean and to organise and how to use a washing machine, basic life skills. So they move into their homes with their partners and they are lost. And they come to people like me, how do I do this, Lindsay? My mum never showed me. So I'm motivating, i'm teaching people every single day and i think that's important life skills are key and keeping a house clean and tidy is a vital sort of life skill thank you very much lindsey i'm really

interested to talk to you spring cleaning quick tip on that get busy now we should be doing it now all of us cleaning is the best time of the year. Start at the top of your house, work your way down, plan it, playlist, be organised. And chuck stuff out. Yes, do not hoard. No. Okay. Zing, tempted? Oh God, you know what? I am the worst cleaner ever. So I am listening to all this with a look of fascination on my face. Dental tablets to clean toilets, who even knew?

So yeah, I will be taking one or two tips from this and encouraging my friends both men and women to tune in yeah okay it's the denture tablets I've got dental tablets and the lemons that I'm taking away add them to your weekly shopping list

you've given me that I've given you chopsticks we're quicksand thank you both very much have a very good weekend thank you and join us uh monday morning and on tuesday morning that's mary berry day so make a note in your diary but um on weekend woman's hour of course tomorrow afternoon just after four

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