Woman's Hour - Jennifer Hudson on Aretha Franklin; Julie Bindel; Social Care; and Soviet Women in WWII.

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

RESPECT, is the new Aretha Franklin biopic which will be released this Friday. Aretha Franklin handpicked the Oscar Award winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson to play her in the film. Jennifer talks to us about her relationship with Aretha, their parallel life stories, their grounding in gospel music and the guiding force of the women in their lives. The government has announced plans to reform the way social care is funded in England. National Insurance contributions from your wage packet will increase. But it also means that some older people who need to go into a nursing home won't have to sell their own home. Boris Johnson said the tax increase would raise £36 billion for frontline services in the next three years and be the "biggest catch-up programme in the NHS' history". But he also accepted it broke a manifesto pledge. Camilla Cavendish, former Director of Policy for Prime Minister David Cameron, joins Emma. Last year she was asked by Downing Street to write a report on the future of health and social care reform.Julie Bindel has been a radical feminist for over four decades, joining the women’s movement as a working class lesbian teenager from the North East. She has campaigned and written many books about male violence, pornography, and the global sex trade. She is also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, helping women who have been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners, including Sally Challen who with their support won her appeal against her murder conviction in 2019. Julie is no stranger to controversy. Her beliefs that there is a clash between women’s rights and trans rights, and that sex work is not work, have led to her being un-invited from speaking at several universities, and to frequent protests at events where she does speak. For her new book Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation, Julie interviewed 50 young women, she says in an attempt to build a bridge between them and the so-called Second Wave feminists of her generation, which she thinks is urgently needed to tackle a misogynist backlash.Elizabeth Lishmund is the creator of a new upcoming film - 'Fighting Girlfriend' - which tells the true story of Mariya Oktyabrsykaya - a Tank Commander in the Red Army during World War 2. 900,000 Russian women fought on the front line for the Soviet Union. Why do we know so little about women's active roles during WW2? And do stereotypes around Russian women make an impact? Elizabeth and journalist Viv Groskop join us to discuss.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to the programme. As the government announces the highest tax rise since the war in a bid to tackle the health and social care crisis, has Boris Johnson done the right thing? And why has it taken until now to tackle it in this way, if this is in fact the right way? Two themes we'll explore in our first

discussion this morning. But because care is broadly accepted to be a burden that disproportionately affects women, both in terms of who in families shoulders the responsibility and in terms of the care workforce, which is majority female, what is your take on the idea that it hasn't been prioritised because it's seen as a women's issue and therefore of less importance and that it's taken a global pandemic to push it right to the top of the political agenda? I'm asking you that because cast your mind back to the budget in March earlier this year when Marianne Stevenson from the Women's Budget Group joined me on this programme and had this to say about a post-pandemic economy that had women at the heart of it. I think what we need is significant investment to rebuild the economy, and that needs what we would describe as social infrastructure, as well as physical infrastructure. So things like health,

education, the care sector. We've done research that showed that the same amount of money invested in care would create 2.7 times as many jobs as that money invested in construction. We need a care-led recovery. A care-led recovery. Is that what we're seeing now? Is this the right strategy? Why do you think it's taken until now? Of course, we've had the Conservatives in power for coming up to or just over a decade. 84844 is the number you need to text me here at

Women's Hour, social media at BBC Women's Hour or email me through our website. It's also important to note a statistic that was made much of by the Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid earlier today on the Today programme, when he said that 50% of those receiving social care are of working age. It isn't just older people. Something to have in your mind as we go into this discussion. Also on today's programme, the radical feminist Julie Bindle will be here. She wants to reclaim feminism. And Jennifer Hudson on playing the icon and legend Aretha Franklin in a new biopic.

But MPs will be voting this evening on the health and social care levy, the 1.25% national insurance tax rise paying for the NHS coronavirus backlog, and some people also mentioning the backlog we had before the pandemic, and social care reform announced by the Prime Minister at a press conference yesterday. Here's Boris Johnson outlining why tackling the cost of care was now a priority. Today, one in seven of us can expect to face care costs exceeding £100,000 in our later years. And millions, millions more,

live in fear that they could be among the one in seven. Suppose you have a house worth £250,000 and you're in a care home for eight years. Then once you've paid your bills, you could be left with just £14,000 after a lifetime of work and effort and saving, having sacrificed everything else, everything that you would otherwise have passed on to your children, simply to avoid the indignity of suffering. The Prime Minister acknowledged it did break a manifesto pledge not to increase tax, but said the increase would raise £36 billion for frontline services in the next three years and be the, quote, biggest catch-up programme in the NHS's history.

He also pointed out that the Conservative manifesto was written pre-pandemic. It will mean these changes that someone, just to put it in some figures, earning £20,000 will end up paying £130, while a top earner on, say, £100,000 will pay an extra £1,130 per year. Camilla Cavendish is the former Director of Policy for Prime Minister David Cameron. Last year, she was asked by Downing Street to write a report on the future of health and social care reform. She's also the author of Extra Time, Ten Lessons for Living Longer, Better. And I should say we did ask for a member of the government to join us. No one has been made available today.

And we asked a number of Conservative backbenchers onto the programme too. And again, no one was available. But Camilla, you are. Good morning. Morning, Emma. Why has it taken this long to get to this point? You, of course, were looking at this with David Cameron in the era of austerity, as it was known. Yes, and I was looking at it actually even before then. Seven years ago, I went around the country and interviewed social care workers. and they all said that apart

from their union no one had ever asked them their views before. So I think there is a kind of invisible army of carers in this country, unpaid and paid, and as you said earlier they are mostly women but not all. There are some fabulous men as well out there doing this. And it is partly that we as women have not really had our voices heard. A lot of women put their lives on hold to do this work, and that's not really noticed. But it's more complicated than that. It's partly because no one actually wants to pay for this. And most of us don't want to think about getting old. So I mean, there was a survey recently that showed that 80% of the over 75s have never thought about care, planned for it, or spoken to their family about it. And that's

our problem is mentally, we find it very hard to think about getting frail. But it isn't just old people, as I pointed out there, in social care. And if people, you know, don't want to think about it, we totally elect people to do this for us and figure out how to pay it. Why do you think David Crammond kicked it down the road? You know, it's been written this morning by those who have been trying to pressure him. You were inside, Number 10. Yeah. And we did put in something called the social care levy, which raised a bit of money, but not enough. There was a huge battle with the Treasury, as always, over if you put more money into a system, will it really produce anything better?

And so part of the issue, which I know the government will come to in the next few weeks, is how are we going to make the system a lot better? Because obviously you can pour money in at the top, but you've also got to really revolutionise and be much more ambitious for people that we care for. At the moment, it's all about inputs. It's all about, you know, can you spend 15 minutes getting someone out of bed in the morning? I mean, that is just not enough. And many of the best carers actually leave the service because they're so distressed. They can't do the job they want to do,

which is properly caring for people. So we need to start looking at what are the outcomes for both disabled people and the elderly. And actually, the disabled lobby has done really good work on this. If you ask people what they want, very often it doesn't end up costing you more. A lot of what they want isn't always expensive equipment or hours and hours of being looked after, but it's relationships. It's not being lonely. It's actually having friends and family and being treated as a real person, which I'm afraid we've sort of ceased to do in our system because we parceled this up into tiny little bits of 15 minutes here and 15 minutes

there, which is just no good for anybody. What the care is, is obviously key. As you say, a detail that we'll be coming to. But how this is actually paid for, you do accept it needed a large injection of cash. Well, I've always accepted that. But I think the question has always been who is going to pay for it? And everyone in politics on both sides of the aisle has been terrified of asking the British public to pay for something that many of us assumed would be free.

So until you come across social care, you just assume the NHS is going to pay for you. And that is a massive political stumbling block for actually all parties. Well, that's if the money even gets to social care. I mean, this money is going first through the NHS to deal with what's being described as the pandemic backlog. But there was a backlog before, nowhere near what it, or what it is now, I should say. I mean, just before we get to the funding model, because I know you have an issue with that, which I want to want to hear about. How concerned are you that the money raised in this way will even get to social care? I think that's a very legitimate issue. I think it will have to get to social care. Because remember

that one of the reasons you asked earlier, why is it, you know, why are we looking at this now? The problems in social care are now hurting the NHS. So what we've seen is huge numbers of elderly people who have been stuck in hospitals because they can't be properly treated. They were shunted off into care homes. And of course, we all saw the disaster of that in the pandemic. Actually, the NHS and social care are two sides of the same coin. So I think this will get through. Some of it will get through to social care because the NHS knows perfectly well. The NHS is a fiefdom of its own and will want to hoover up all the money,

but it equally knows that it can't afford to look after those people within its own system. You have concerns about this plan, though. Tell us what your issues about who's going to pay for it. Now the British public have been asked to pay for it. What's the issue with that? So, look, I think any solution is better than none. And I've said this for many years. I went to Germany and Japan when I was writing my book.

I looked at their systems. And the only thing I, my only worry about the current use of national insurance is just that it hits younger people harder and it doesn't hit older people enough, in my view. So the German and Japanese systems, which were, you know, built really carefully over many years with public consent, get everyone to pay in. And I think national insurance is really easy for governments Gordon Brown raised it in 2002 because it's less visible we don't kind of feel it in our pocket in the same way and pensioners largely don't pay it so I do think we need to have a solution where pensioners are paying in enough as well. And we're not shielding the wealthy, because if we end up asking low paid staff to shield the wealthy from having to use their homes to pay for care so they can pass it on to their kids, then I don't think that's fair.

But in terms of the alternatives, then what are they? Because this is the plan that we've been served up for now. Well, I mean, income tax is one obvious one. But essentially, what the German and Japanese models do is they do charge workers over 40, similar to national insurance. They also get companies to pay in. And then they charge pensioners about sort of, it depends, but about double that. And then they get in Japan, if you're a pensioner and you're using social care, you're also paying for part of that cost. It's quite complex, but it's just it just means that everybody feels they have a true stake. Because the truth is, we're all in this together.

So why haven't they done that? Because it's much harder to sell to the public. That's it. I think pensioners are very reluctant. I think if Sakhir Starmer made the point yesterday, he said, you know, no one should have to sell their home to pay for care. Boris has been saying that for two years because I'm afraid, Emma, that is where the wealthy middle class have been on this issue for many years. They do not want to have to sell their homes to pay for care. And I'm afraid I think they should. I've just sold my aunt's house to pay for her care in a wonderful care home.

I don't begrudge any of that money. That is money she earned. She has a teacher's pension. She deserves the best she can possibly get. And there's no reason why I should be getting that money. And there's no reason why any other taxpayer should be paying for it, in my view. Is that why you weren't a success in doing anything, really, then? Not you in your job, but the government you were a part of, because you couldn't sell that sort of idea to David Cameron and the people who put him in there? Well, I think, no, it's more the Treasury. I think it's just a very difficult nut to crack. I mean, look at Theresa May in 2017.

She put in her manifesto actually quite a sensible proposition. It's not very far from what the government's doing now. And there was a massive backlash. She had to do a U-turn because the public were furious. And it's back to what I said earlier, Emma. People, we have a long way to go to explain to people what social care is, that actually if you get dementia, unfortunately the NHS is not going to look after you for free.

And I'm afraid every politician has ducked telling the public the truth. So I think now we have an opportunity to level with people and actually bring this out into the open. But do you think Boris Johnson has ducked it again? I mean, even in that clip that we just played from what the prime minister had to say, he talked about you won't have to get rid of your home. Not getting rid of your home is a massive part of what he's saying to the British public as he sells the greatest tax take since the war. And what I'm saying to you is I think he probably, he feels he has to keep saying that, but he is actually finessing it as far as I can judge, because I think a lot of people will still want to pay to sell their home to pay for better care the question is what is the basic care you can get

and is it good enough and you know I've been to Holland I've been to places where they do this really really well in Holland nurses come out of retirement to look after people in their own homes they're looking after a million people in their own homes I've been round with them they decide how to look after people I mean one nurse I went we took her dogs round to certain old people because that was what brightened their day and we have have to be much, much more ambitious about how we care for people. And if we do that, we can actually keep people independent for longer in their own homes. And a huge part of this is not care homes, it's looking after people in their own homes. We're having quite a lot of messages about that. I was saying we're just getting quite

a lot of messages about care in your home. But then just because we're so focused at the moment actually on the politics of this, because a prime minister has gone for something, do you think the politicians need to be finding a way, is there even a way that you can sell to the public that they need to sell their homes potentially? I mean, how do you get people to change a very strongly held mindset

that I've worked all my life, this is my house, and I don't think I should have to sell it? Because we've got, for instance, a message here from Jonathan, let's just read that out, who says, this tax is to enable the Conservative promise that the rich should be allowed to keep their homes, pass wealth onto their children, and to fund the NHS and the reduction in waiting lists caused by the COVID

crisis. It's not about anything else like social care for anyone. That is one message here that echoes a few others. But there will be others who say, I'm not particularly wealthy and I still don't want to have to sell my home. Oh, yeah. And it's double taxation, isn't it? Because you've already paid tax twice. I mean, I understand that. I think you've got to look the other way around, which is how do we want to care for the most vulnerable people in our society? And do we want care workers on minimum wage slogging around the country, some of whom don't even get paid for their petrol? There's 30 percent turnover in the care sector because people, and as you said, a lot of them are women. They get really distressed. The best carers get emotionally drained by the fact

they can't do the job properly. Is that really what we want? Because that's, I'm afraid, I think what we're saying if we don't want to even consider using part of the proceeds of our homes to pay for it. Because otherwise all you're saying is I want someone else to pay. Although what you're saying is even under this plan, people will still end up

selling their homes at times because they want to get better care. And I think that's fine. That's a decision that people can make. I mean, the government today, sorry, I'm just going to clarify why I asked that again, because the government today are saying you won't have to up to the 86 grand threshold that they're saying is the cap. Yeah, I think a lot of detail is going to come out as we interrogate this. The cap of 86,000, of course, is not a real cap. It is a cap on care costs. It's not a cap on bed and board. So if you're in a care home, as my aunt is, you know,

no one is suggesting that her food gets paid for or what's called her hotel costs. And I also think that's really important for people to understand, because if you're trying to plan for your older age or your disability, you need to understand that that is not the cap in the way that a lot of us would imagine. So to be fair to the government, it has a hell of a lot of complex issues to try and get across here. Let's just give voice to Catherine. She says, I've been a full-time unpaid carer for my disabled son for 21 years. I've had to give up my career to care. I live on carer's allowance, £67.60. I'm on my knees, both financially and physically. I feel as if unpaid carers have been

completely forgotten. We are vital in the support we give and we need to have our voices heard. On that point of voices heard, and I know there are a lot of good men working in this industry and a lot of men within families doing their role and playing their part in all of this, but do you think just as a woman who's worked in Number 10 trying to shift the dial on this policy, I don't know if you feel that was a complete failure now in light of what we're hearing today, but maybe reflect on that.

Do you have any truck with the idea that the pandemic will mean that something that perhaps has been overlooked as care, as something soft, as something that is not looked at necessarily as important because of women, and I'm putting that view forward from some people, do you think now that's changing? Is it going to be prioritised and was it ignored because of that? I, as I said, I think there's an invisible army of women, largely women, often unpaid, who just can't get heard. And I'm afraid I do think it is

a women's issue. I think there is a reason why women who are exhausted all day, by the way, and have had to put their lives on hold, don't have a lot of time to campaign on this either, which is why I spent many years campaigning for care workers to have better pay. But yeah, I think ultimately the pandemic not only brought people to realise more about what social care is, but we also saw care workers doing much more skilled tasks, you know, giving insulin injections, actually writing death certificates. So, you know, there were dentists in the NHS retraining as respiratory nurses. There were also care staff who were stepping up to do really complex jobs. And the danger is that we fall back into this notion that everything they

do is really basic. Caring is a really skilled task. And I think that's the one thing if we can try and get through to people that the pandemic should change. It is a properly skilled task. It requires immense maturity and we need to pay for that. Camilla Camerdish, thank you. Former Director of Policy for Prime Minister David Cameron and the author of the book Extra Time, 10 Lessons for Living Longer Better. Many, many messages coming in. I will return to them shortly, but trying to give voice to some of you who certainly don't feel like you often have a voice. But I did promise you an insight into Aretha Franklin's life because Respect is the new biopic of her life. It's released this Friday and Aretha Franklin handpicked the Grammy and Academy Award winning actress Jennifer Hudson to play her in the film. We spoke to Jennifer about her relationship with Aretha, their parallel life stories, their grounding in gospel music and the guiding force of the women in their lives. Jennifer began by explaining how she found out that she would be playing the role.

We first had our initial meeting about me playing her 15 years ago, and it was in New York. And that was just the meeting, you know, initial meeting. But then she called me eight years after that and said, I've made my decision. It is you who I want to play me. And most of the times you get those calls from an agent or a manager. But Aretha was a very hands on person. So she called me herself. We spoke weekly. I felt like she was so wise and informative in so many ways in different capacities. And in that, I feel like she ended up teaching me more about her life, about life while teaching me about her life, you know, even pertaining to my own. And once I started filming, it made it more clear that she was truly speaking from real life experiences, which gave it even more value and meaning to me. Everyone in her life was an icon and a legend in their own right. Every single one of them.

I was born by the river in a little tent. Dinah Washington. Sam Cooke was a presence in her life. Tatum, the piano player. Let's not forget James Cleveland, who is the father of gospel music, who was the one sitting at the piano and teaching her. She gets to learn firsthand from him.

He created the gospel. So all of these musical influences is in your home daily it blows me away you can't help but to be great when in your living room is is these legendary, iconic, world's greatest singers. You know what I mean? In that time, and she was young and a sponge and absorbing it all. For a musician like myself and someone with a quite similar background, I'm sitting here like, oh my God, this is what she grew up under. I mean, you can't help but to be molded by that.

But I know my change has got to come. Oh yeah. The women that she had in her life was very needed and necessary. I feel like the main thing she longed for was the nurturing and the love from her mother because she lost her mother so young. I, like her, lost my mother and I was much older. The scene of when her mother comes to her at the piano, it felt very familiar to me. Singing is sacred, and you shouldn't do it just because somebody wants you to. What's most important is that you are treated with dignity and respect.

At that point, I couldn't tell the reality from the scene, so I couldn't help but relate to her longing for her mother and in that type of way. You know, when you've lost someone, you can, you know, identify with those moments. And I see that part has resonated with a lot of people who suffered the same loss. You know, it's like inescapable. Everyone understands it, relates with it, and knows like where it's coming from. So I think it was like a security blanket when she had her grandmother or her sisters that gave her that fulfillment. On the morning rain, I used to feel so uninspired. She became like that same blanket for me, you know, even going through this process, because that's what gave me the confidence to be able to do it and get through it.

So I feel as though those women were so necessary. And then also within her career, because she was always surrounded by so many men. So she needed that gentleness of the women that surrounded her. You have a key to my peace of mind. Cause you make me feel. You make me feel. You make me feel's a scene in the movie where she's sitting at the table when she's talking about going on tour. And it was a table full of men and just her.

And I was like, oh, my God, this is so like my life. It felt so familiar because it's always me and a table full of men. And it's like, wow, to know that still exists today. You know what I mean? That stuck out to me. A lot of times, a lot of men, especially when they're that close to you, are in a Ted type of situation, or even in her father type of situation of where they're used to being the one in the forefront. Well, what happens when it's now her versus him, you know, and they have to find a new position or a new place if they can. Some people can't deal with that, you know.

Her sisters was musical too. And then that's the other element. Like for me, my, I come from a very musical background and I grew up under my grandmother and a host of singing cousins in that same way. Okay, when you have music in your background like that and it's in her and her family and her sisters and siblings in that way, like all of that musicality comes together

and works together. And like, I can't help but to think of the song, Ain't No Way. ain't no way ain't no way for me to love you Aretha didn't write that song her sister Carolyn did so just think of her legacy that she left with that song in particular that shows her musicianship you know what I mean? Although Miss Franklin took it and brought it to the place that she brought it to and gave it the platform and all of that, let's not forget that Carolyn wrote that song. So that shows her investment in the music as well. If you won't let me give all of me. And her brother Cecil, just to show how deeply rooted music was, or let's not forget about her mother, who was an opera singer and a pianist, which meant, wow, so she may have got her

music gift from her mother, but then her message gift from her father, which gave it so much depth. You know, that's probably where the soul of it came from. And then also from her life experiences, what she seemed to express throughout her music. And being around her, like, sometimes you never knew where you stood with her or how she expressed herself, what emotions she was feeling or anything like, how does she feel? You know, what is she thinking? And so I always wondered how she displayed or emoted her emotions.

And in the film, I learned it was through her songs. It was through her music. It was through her artistry. And I felt as I got to learn more about her in that way from it, because we all have an outlet to display that and release it, which to me makes the music that much more impactful when you really know that's her testimony, that's her emotion, that's her story, that's her, you know what I mean? All of that. And I think that's why it relates to people so much because it's coming from such a real, raw place, from real life experience. Sing Amazing Grace The Amazing Grace album, you know, Amazing Grace. For me growing up in church, it's like, that's where I learned to sing with a purpose, for a higher purpose than yourself.

And I think it's safe to say it was the same, you know, for Aretha, for Whitney. It's the place we come from and been blessed for it to venture out into the world. So that's the root. That's the base. And as they say, if you train a child in the way it should go, it would never part. So even though we ventured abroad, those roots are still there. And that was also something key to me and very, it's the thing that got me through being able to do the film. And then it was the most important element to me to maintain throughout the film in telling her

story. I was like, we must maintain her faith and her gospel roots. No matter what songs we're singing, you got to know the undertone of it all is the gospel. Because that's the base for her, for myself. It's the songs that carry me and that I go back to, you know, when needed. People tend to think that when you're an icon and a legend and you've had success, that it's always been that way. And so, or the saying is we don't like no's but it's like the people who made it is the ones who was able to stand through the no's Aretha went through eight studio albums before she got her first big hit but that took a hard shell and a lot of determination to do it and I, you know, and I think it's needed to see, to be seen

by people to see that. Look at what she went through. We assumed, oh, she always had her way when it's like in actuality, that wasn't the case. You can't help but to be inspired by that and respect it. It's a life changing experience for me in so many ways. It's changed me musically to want to approach my music in the way she did. I feel like she put me back in music school. It's encouraged me to use my platform for whatever I believe in and want to advocate for in the way she did. As a woman, to take ownership of your own voice.

F-U-C-T, take care of CCBI. The racist issues, the people protesting and her advocating for that, during the time of that, you know, when a lot of the Black Lives Matter movements was happening. And I'm like, Jesus, we're still dealing with some of these same things right now. And those moments hit me in the middle of filming,

those realizations. When we all search within ourselves and trust and believe in our own treasure and take ownership of it, you know, what king and queen is under there because it wasn't until she did that we got our queen of soul. You know, so it's the powers within us

when we initiate it so i i'm inspired by that oh music jennifer hudson talking about aretha franklin the film respect is released in the uk this friday many messages coming in about the tax hike the the tax take whatever you want to call it the biggest tax take since the war that Boris Johnson announced yesterday. He'll be at Prime Minister's Questions shortly, taking questions from the opposition and the House of Commons on that, his fellow MPs, and MPs will vote on it this evening. Catherine has written in to say, I was very pleased that my late mother's care costs were paid for through selling her home and using her savings.

Her children had the benefits of good education and opportunities. We did not need inherited wealth, which only serves to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. As a comfortable pensioner, I'm extremely fortunate and would be very happy to add a senior national insurance contribution to my tax bill. Poorer pensioners should not pay. And actually, a message just on that came in saying, please, please stop equating pensioner with wealthy. Many of us are not remotely wealthy. And Victoria says, though, excuse me for mentioning it, but most pensioners have paid 50 years or so of national insurance contributions already. Your message is coming in as well about how invisible at times

you have felt care has been, whether you are a carer or rely on a carer for your family members. Do keep those messages coming in and I shall try to return to them. But Julie Bindle is my next guest. She's been a radical feminist for over four decades, joining the women's movement as a working-class lesbian teenager from the North East. She's campaigned and written many books about male violence,

pornography, the global sex trade. She's also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, helping women who've been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners including I'm sure many of you remember Sally Challen who with their support won her appeal against her murder conviction in 2019. Julie is no stranger to controversy her beliefs that there is a clash between women's rights and trans rights that sex work is not, has led to her being uninvited from speaking at several universities and to frequent protests at events where she does speak. Her new book, which is why she's here to talk to us today, and we'll explore some of those ideas,

Feminism for Women, the Real Route to Liberation. Julie Bindle, good morning. Good morning. Thanks for joining us today. Pleasure. I thought I'd start by asking who stole feminism? Well, what's happened in the last decade in particular is that we have a feminism that benefits men more than it does women. And why I decided to write this book was because droves of young women, maybe those from the universities where I had been invited and then disinvited, where I was going to speak about the low rape convictions,

where I was going to speak about femicide or child sexual abuse, were being told by men in their feminist societies or their LGBTQ societies that I was a swurf, meaning sex worker, exclusionary, radical feminist, and then the maddest made up word ever, whorephobic, as though I was against the women speaking about dismantling the global sex trade and they said to me look you know we want to hear these ideas we don't know whether we'll agree with you or not but what we know is we feel discomfort at the fact that we're being told that pole dancing for exercise is empowering that anything bad for us becomes all of a sudden emancipating such as prostitution but also other things like harmful sexual practices, being choked during sex, being told that pornography is something that they should take part in along with their male partners.

And that is, I think, where feminism has gone. It's gone down a neoliberal route where men have pretty much set the agenda for too long. Women need to take it back as our own movement for us. I suppose when you say it's been taken though, you say it's benefiting men more, but do you think it was men who took it, if you see what I mean? Or how did we end up in the last 10 years with those ideas being there? Do you have a diagnosis for that? Well, I think that partly it's, you know, capitalism on steroids where anything to do with a woman's body has become commodified and commercialised, such as the surrogacy trade, which, you know, we can hold up the kind of blonde, smiling, altruistic surrogate as someone who's doing it as a favour for her gay male friends,

when in fact it is a global trade that preys upon the most marginalised poor and usually women of colour. And then we have the same with prostitution. We're being told that women are choosing this and that it's about their emancipation, their benefits, when in fact it's anything but. So who took it is a very difficult question because, of course, for women, for all of us, myself included, feminism is a deeply uncomfortable issue.

It's a deeply uncomfortable politics because what we're having to do is say to men, we don't need your approval. Sometimes we're even saying to them, we don't actually want relationships with you in the case of lesbians. But what we're also doing is saying that we will no longer collude in our own oppression and we'll no longer excuse men because women are so programmed to worry about men feeling left out, feeling excluded and being criticised in any way. So, you know, when men say, look, I'm a feminist and I'm telling you how it is, we need to be brave enough to be able to say, no, you can be a feminist ally. But feminism is for women. There's some issues there that we can or may come to unpack. We can't unpack it all because there'll be some people already disagreeing with the way that you've termed some of this. But I wonder what qualifies you to say what feminism

is? Because I know that you've done a great deal of work. You've been on this programme with me several times and many times over the years, talking about issues and campaigns that you've been involved in. But there will be people saying, is this Julie Bindle is going to patrol the borders of feminism? I don't need her. Yes, absolutely good point. And, you know, it's not up to me. I have no interest whatsoever in telling women that they are not feminists or that there are feminists. We know from 40 years in my case of active feminism, of actually changing laws, doing things, being visible, of actually doing feminism rather than simply writing about it or tweeting about it. We know what gets things done. We know that how, for example, rape in marriage was perfectly legal until feminists changed it. And then that law

changed in 1992. When I first became a feminist, there were no laws to protect women in domestic violence situations. When I was first a feminist and right into the 80s, women were having their children removed by the family court and sometimes being given to violent men because we'd come out as lesbians. And those women are still around today to tell the story.

So feminism has to be a set of principles. It has to have aims and objectives. And of course, if somebody wants to define Margaret Thatcher as a feminist, or if somebody wants to define any woman, despite her doing anti-feminist things as a feminist, well, that's up to them. But we all know what gets things done. And we all know that we have the right to define our own political movement in the same way that Black Lives Matter does, in the same way that the disability rights movement does. It has to be a movement that not only centres women and girls, prioritises women and girls, but actually benefits all women. But from that, it sounds like you can be the wrong type of feminist.

And are you in the business of telling people what doesn't count as feminism? For instance, you have talked about the fact that having a preoccupation or even focus the programme, Alice Thompson, who's taken her former employers to court. It's taken a couple of years because she requested flexible working and to be able to pick up her child an hour earlier. And her billings were huge for this company. She sees herself and has been painted as a real feminist icon briefly because she decided to take on her employers and won. You know, childcare and women on boards, for instance, are two of the things. Are they part of radical feminism or not? That absolutely is what feminism is,

changing the structural oppression and looking at all of the different institutions, the law, politics, society in general, and looking at oppression and discrimination. And of course, I'm not saying that that isn't feminism. And I don't call myself a radical feminism. It doesn't mention in the book. I just call myself a feminist. And what I mean by that is that you have to look at what unites all women. So when I criticise the preoccupation with women at the glass ceiling, those earning maybe a million dollars a year on

salary and complaining about there being fewer women on boards. I don't mean that that doesn't matter, that that's not discrimination if they're paid less than their male counterparts, but I care way more at the women at the bottom because what do all women and girls have in common globally? We have only one thing in common and that thing is extremely important and central to our lives, and that is the fear and reality of male violence. I want to get onto that because that is at the heart of your work, and that's at the heart of what you're talking about with feminism. You and your partner, the lawyer, Harriet Wistrich, who's also been on the programme a lot over the years and very recently, set up Justice for Women, as I mentioned, worked on, for instance, that very high profile case, but many others, Sally Challen's case. Have you seen a change in the way the justice system or wider society as well views women like Sally? Yes, but we've also gone backwards in recent years. And I just want to

mention the case of Sam Pibus, who killed Sophie Moss. He strangled her to death during sex. He woke up the next day and said he didn't remember strangling her. She was a very vulnerable woman, vulnerable mentally and physically. It was recognised by the court. She had two young children. And Sam Pibus wasn't even put on trial for murder. He was, in fact, his plea to manslaughter was accepted by the CPS and he was given four years and eight months. The reports were in the paper yesterday. Now compare that case with that of Fry Martin, a young woman, a young mixed race woman with two young children who Justice for Women campaigned for when she had, she was strangled by her violent partner, by the deceased. There was CCTV footage of him attacking

her the night that she killed him in self-defence against his violence, which had been ongoing. She was taken to trial by the CPS, this young woman, this young vulnerable woman who had bruise marks around her neck. She was convicted of murder by a jury and she was sentenced by a judge to life. Now, we campaigned for Fry Martin and we overturned her conviction. What did the judge order and what did the CPS do? Another trial while her children were being cared for by her friend growing up without their mother. This woman who was not violent, who killed in self-defence. And on the eve of the trial, the Crown Prosecution Service, the same one that barely ever prosecutes any rapes these days,

dropped the case because it was obvious she wasn't going to be convicted. What did the judge do? In his wisdom, he gave her 10 years in prison. She had to go back to prison that day after she was finally exonerated for murder and accepted a charge of manslaughter. Her children are still growing up without their mother because she's in until the end of the year. Sam Piper's got four years, eight months. Brian Martin got 10 years and went through two trials. What does that tell us about the current state of play in terms of the criminal justice system? And the justice system, of course, as you've mentioned, and we've spoken about with the current rape conviction rate is far from anywhere where it should be, not least the government itself apologising very recently for where that's up to.

So I suppose that's the justice system. I'm actually just thinking back yesterday to speaking to Michaela Cole, the actor and writer, who said of her sexual assault, you know, the justice system is one thing, but she's had to have closure on it because no one was caught in her case. She's had to have closure to that separately. And so there are workarounds happening, I suppose, all the time with how the justice system may or may not be supporting. I'm also aware that 40% or so of our listeners are men listening to this. What do you want to say to them about their role in feminism? I mean, can they be feminists, even if they have or don't have the t-shirt?

Feminism has to be for women and we have to lead on our own movement because it is the only movement on the planet that's for us, even though we're half the population. Men have a very important role to play, which is as feminist allies and supporters. Now, this myth about feminism hating men, feminists rather hating men, we're the most optimistic movement on the planet because we don't think that men are innately programmed to abuse women, and nor do we think that women are innately programmed to become victims. We think that men are perfectly capable of behaving like whole human beings and respecting women. Now, what men can do is, first of all, not be the bystander that allows this sizable minority of men that rape and abuse women or that pay for

sex with very vulnerable women and that otherwise keep us in our place and they can speak out about it and there is a really important role and there are men that I know all over the world you know I've often said I've got a man in every port you know anti-sexist men wherever I travel whether it's East Africa, North America, Europe, who are doing this work. David Challen here in the UK, Tom Farr. Sally Challen's son, for people who do not know. Yes. And, you know, really good men who are doing the right thing and who, you know, we're great friends. We work together. But what I don't want from men is to take the stage and to start leading the movement. And when I hear from young women who contact me on a weekly basis that there are male heads of their feminist societies, I despair.

It's the only movement for us and it has to benefit us and not men. I've been very struck during our interview that you've used the word we. You've talked as a we. And I want to unpack who is included in your we, who might like to be, who definitely might not like to be included. Because how much have the top goals of feminism, do you think, if I could put it like that, been hurt by the row about transgender people and their rights? You know, I only ever started writing about this back in 2003 because of the threat to our single-sex spaces that we fought for because of male violence otherwise we wouldn't need them and I only started to get involved in this because our sex-based rights under the law were under threat and if we lose them then that means that we lose the protection that we have built up with our bare hands with no

funding back in the 60s and 70s, where we built refuges, opened rape crisis centres. And so the issue was never about trans people's right to dignity, fairness, and human rights. It was always about the fact that women have a need and a right to define ourselves as the female sex because of male violence, because we need that protection. And that's what safeguarding is. Of course, I mean, but just for us to need those single sex spaces under the law. But you also just mentioned that you began writing about this. And I just wondered if we should just briefly, but definitely deal with an elephant in your room, because you've been invited and uninvited from universities,

as I say, to talk about male violence, let's put it like that. And it often does stem back to, and on social media, to an article that you did write nearly 20 years ago in The Guardian called Gender Bender Wars, in which, for instance, you refer to trans women as men in dresses. And you also talked about, you know,

you don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it doesn't make them women in the same way that shoving a bit of vacuum hose down your 501s doesn't make you a man. You stand by the views in that article, don't you? Well, that was immature language and I certainly wouldn't write it in the same way. I was a new journalist. You know, it was a particular column. That's no excuse. Some of the language was immature but i absolutely stand by

the sentiments in that column which was about kimberly nixon a trans woman um who you know had intact genitalia who took a the best rape crisis center um and and violence against women advocacy service in in canada to court and tied them up in litigation for two decades and threatened to close them down because Kimberly Nixon wanted to be able to cancel rape victims. And so that is something that we really need to keep an eye on. That isn't what the victims of sexual assault want. Even male victims of sexual assault usually opt for female forensic professionals and police officers to speak to. So, yes, that has dogged me ever since. But it's also about the fact that people don't like, men and some women, don't like a very straightforward discussion of who is responsible for male violence

and how prevalent it is, the answer being very prevalent. Therefore, anything that can be used to kick feminists like me will be used. And it was a long time ago. And there are other political activists that have got rather a blemished record over the years that never get caught. Which is, well, some of them talk about it. Some of them talk about these things that do dog them. And I actually think it's a good opportunity when you are on the radio or in your book, as you do, to actually front up about it, which is why I wanted to ask about it. I mean, some people wouldn't say necessarily immature. They would say it was incredibly hurtful. They may use other words when they've had a very strong reaction to it.

But you talked about also sex-based rights being under threat. Now, of course, the Gender Recognition Act, Gender Recognition Reform Bill is back in the news because of Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon did set out Scottish Government's legislative programme for 2021 to 2022 yesterday confirming, so it's not happening in England, but that this will be a change in the first year of the Parliament in Scotland. What is your reaction to that? Because it is a fight that is ongoing and we know that there are strong protests about that. We can no longer pretend that self-identification where a man, for example, can self-identify as female without any medical intervention whatsoever

or even any legal documentation, that that isn't a clash with women's rights, with sex-based rights, where we need women-only provision. And I'm afraid it is a clash. And what I would say to trans people, to trans women who need services, because, of course, men are the threat to them, not feminists like me, is to build refuges, to build facilities and services where women are not at risk from potential sexual predators or even just the fear of that. And we will support those trans women to build those facilities in the way that we built our own. But it is a clash of rights. And we do need to recognise that it won't work in law for women. Women will be the four guys in this. Of course, when you were referring there to that gender bender article, you were talking about Kimberley, who's of course not here to speak and talk out about that case themselves. But when you're saying this about this particular row and this particular, if you like, the legal row about this, I suppose one of the questions I wanted to ask,

which was broader and coming out from this, and again, you know, those are your beliefs. You've expressed them very clearly. Many in the audience will agree, and I'm getting a lot of messages like that, and many will disagree. But where do you see, just zooming a bit out from that, where do you see this going zooming a bit out from that,

where do you see this going in terms of feminism and how this is going to impact that and your broader goals that you started by talking about? Because what would a victory look like if the type of feminism, as you term it, was successful? Women have to reclaim feminism for ourselves as the only movement that represents us. But we have in my view put male violence and abuse against women and girls at the centre of that and if that means that we do have to recognise there's a clash of rights legally and otherwise if trans women are identifying as women and able legally to encroach upon all of our spaces, the spaces we built because of male violence, then we need to challenge that. But we also need to recognise that there are feminists all over the world in countries everywhere from Saudi Arabia to Sweden, where they are saying enough is enough. We will not be free. We will not be liberated until there is no rape, no domestic

violence and no prostitution. And we have to imagine a world like that in order to fight for it. And young women are at the forefront of this. And we need to give every single bit of support for those young women because their lives at the moment are even harder in many ways than it was for me as a teenager. Julie Bindel, I'm sure we will talk again. I'm sure we will get a very varied response to what you've had to say this morning. The book is called Feminism for Women, The Real Route to Liberation. Thank you for your time. Talking about liberation, do we know enough about the women who fought in World War Two?

I want to bring your attention to this, specifically the hundreds of thousands of Russian women who fought on the front line. In November, Vanguard, the latest version of the game Call of Duty, will be released in time for Christmas. One of the main characters is a Soviet sniper called Polina Petrova, the lieutenant in the Red Army's 138th Rifle Division, and Petrova's inspired by several female sharpshooters who aided the Allied forces on the Eastern Front. Elizabeth Lishman, who contacted us at the programme, contacted Woman's Eyes, also trying to help fill in the blanks

with her new film, Fighting Girlfriend, that tells the true story of a female tank commander in the Red Army during World War II. And Viv Kroskrup is a journalist with Russian expertise. Viv, I'll come to you in just a moment, but Elizabeth, who are you telling the story of and why? Hello. Hello, Emma. Thank you so much for having me on the show today.

Yeah, I'm telling this story on behalf of a tank commander called Mircea Brischkaya, a story of a woman who lost her husband on the front line in World War II and didn't find out for two whole years he'd passed on. all of her belongings and his possessions, raised money and wrote a letter to Stalin asking him to build her a tank with the money and let her fight for him and her husband. Stalin accepted and Maria was put into a tank school for six months. And upon completion, he gave her a tank, which he called Fighting Girlfriend, and went on a warpath along the Eastern Front. Yeah, it's pretty powerful. on a war path along the Eastern Front. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty powerful. I kind of found out from this that a lot of the women who ended up signing up and fighting on the front line

had also lost their loved ones and were all on avenging missions. And let me bring Viv into this for a broader view of why we don't know very much about these stories. Viv, what's your take on that? Well, I think generally war is something in a broader view of why we don't know very much about these stories. Viv, what's your take on that? Well, I think generally war is something in a very sort of cliched, generalised way that we associate with men. It's a very obvious thing to say. And in the Soviet context, although there were almost a million Soviet women who fought on the front line in the Second World War, it was, despite being a communist society, a very conservative

society with a small C, where it wasn't really accepted for women afterwards to be able to talk about the fact that they'd done this. And the person who is the real authority on this is Svetlana Alexeyevich, the Byelorussian investigative journalist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015. And her book, The Unwomanly Face of War, came out in 1985 in Russian. It was translated, came out here in 2017 in English. It sold two million copies worldwide. She spent 20 years trying to persuade thousands of women to tell their stories to her, exactly like this brilliant story that Elizabeth is telling here, I can't wait to see this film, about what they experienced at the front. And many of them

refused to speak to her even decades later under their full name, because they felt a certain kind of shame that although they were proud of what they'd done, it wasn't quite the right thing that you should do as a good Soviet woman. Elizabeth, why were you drawn to her? I believe something was going on in your personal life where you felt like you needed to draw on the strength of a woman who did such an extraordinary thing and got herself a tank. Yeah, this is a quite funny story. Well, it all started, I went through a breakup about 18 months ago and I was feeling very low and very internally destructive. And this might sound weird, but I found sometimes looking at different times in history, when women had overcome their own suffering, gave me a lovely touch of perspective. And I wondered if there were ever stories about

female medics on the front line in the British Army side, who in a moment just decided to pick up a gun and start fighting. Because I imagine I would probably be the kind of person to have done that. And I found a lot of stories about female engineers and medics and espionage spies, but nothing about fighting. So I turned my efforts towards the Soviet Union in this time. And then this whole world just opened up in front of me, discovering that roughly eight to nine hundred thousand women fought on the front line for the red army and as tank commanders pilots snipers soldiers and you know i really feel like this kind of story needs to be told um to so many women because you know like you say we just don't know do we i mean we don't know well come back and tell us when the film is ready we'll go and see it we'll watch it fighting girlfriend is the name of it viv gross cup thank you to you elizabeth lishman thank you for getting in and tell us when the film is ready. We'll go and see it. We'll watch it. Fighting Girlfriend is the name of it.

Viv Groskopp, thank you to you. Elizabeth Lishman, thank you for getting in touch with us for the programme. I know you're fundraising for that at the moment. Just to say before my time is up with you today, in response to our interview with Julie Bindle, I've given you messages on other things. Claire says, excuse me, just to start with this message which came in straight off the bat.

A first of two Claire's. Claire says, listening and nodding ferociously with Julie Bindle and also commenting on what a lovely voice she has. And Jeannie says, what common sense. But Claire says, I'm utterly disgusted

you're allowing airtime to a transphobic and man-hating person. Don't give her a bigger platform. Feminism for women is a way to ensure continued issues.

My brothers call themselves feminists and they know the struggle. And there's a lot of questions about how dare the guests say this. Thank you very much for your views on all sides today.

I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, Woman's Hour listeners. I'm Dr. Michael Mosley. And in my podcast, Just One Thing, I'm investigating some quick, simple and surprising ways

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