Woman's Hour - Juno Dawson, Sport Coaches, Frances Ryan

Episode Date: June 3, 2019

Juno Dawson’s latest novel is called Meat Market. It's inspired by her time working in fashion and being in contact with models, editors and agents. It's a story about young girls seduced by money and images of perfection but vulnerable to predators, exploitation and ill health. Juno speaks to Jane about writing Meat Market and her hopes for the fashion industry.This week we’re celebrating women sport coaches. Today we hear from Gemma Lumsdaine who's a wheelchair basketball coach at Dundee Dragons Club. She tells us about the benefits of sport and the confidence that coaching gives her. The journalist and campaigner Frances Ryan says austerity has led to the ‘demonization of disabled people’ especially disabled women. Disabled women and mothers, she says, are more likely to be unemployed, rely on benefits, to be abused, raped, and have their children taken from them. She says austerity has both caused and increased their problems. Frances explains to Jane why she believes austerity has harmed those women most in need. Her book, Crippled: Austerity And the Demonization of Disabled People has just been published by Verso.

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. It is Monday, the 3rd of June, 2019. Today, we'll hear about how austerity has, according to our contributor, demonised disabled people. That's Dr Frances Ryan. You'll hear her in a moment or two. Also on the programme today, the young adult author Juno Dawson, who's written in her most recent book about the modelling industry. And it's called Meat Market, her book. So I guess that tells you a little bit about her view of the modelling industry.

We'll also celebrate coaches in women's sport this week. And we'll hear about what it's like to have a child with Down syndrome in Tanzania. First, though, austerity has led to the demonisation of disabled people. And we'll hear about what it's like to have a child with Down syndrome in Tanzania. First, though, austerity has led to the demonisation of disabled people. This, according to the journalist and campaigner, Dr Francis Ryan, who says disabled people are treated these days as worthless scroungers, a drain on the public purse and they're targeted, she says, to take the greatest cuts. It is worth saying that women are more likely to be disabled. There are around six and a half million disabled women in Britain compared to about five and a half million disabled men. And the Women's Budget Group back in 2018 did find that almost 60% of people claiming personal independence payments are female. So I spoke to Dr Frances Ryan, who's written her new book, Crippled, and I asked her, first of all, how she defines disabled in her book. So in the book, I talk about disability as quite a broad term, and I think that's important.

So it really includes anyone who's affected by a health condition, whether that's mental health or a chronic long-term sickness or a physical disability. And you are speaking from a position of authority yourself as a wheelchair user? Yeah absolutely so I'm a wheelchair user and I've been reporting on disability issues and the impact on cuts for about seven years now for the Guardian. We should say right at the start that we do have a statement from the DWP, the Department for Work and Pensions, and they say, building a society that works for disabled people will always be a priority for this government. That's why we are spending £55 billion this

year on benefits to support disabled people and those with health conditions more than ever before. So that's the DWP line. Your book, to put it mildly, takes issue, I think, with, well, perhaps not with that figure, because that may well be indisputable, but with the way the money is spent. What would you say about that? So I think it's beyond dispute that the last seven years have seen deep cuts across the board we know that austerity has affected anything from you know public libraries and social care system and benefits but when we look at the numbers it's really disabled people who have been disproportionately impacted by those cuts. So research shows that disabled people have been

hit on average nine times harder than other people by cuts. And if you're severely disabled, that goes up to a staggering 19 times harder than other citizens. So, of course, the government will put out those spin lines. But I think it's really beyond dispute that disabled people have taken what are in many ways devastating hits, whether that's through disability benefits or the removal of social care or cuts to housing support. But is this, Frances, a deliberate targeting of the people who are our most vulnerable and the least likely to be able to fight back? Could any government

or society really be that cruel? I think what we saw very clearly around the start of austerity coming in so around 2012 was this shift in in language towards and about disabled people so we saw government ministers start to really openly talking in really disturbing terms about disabled people for example talking about work shy long-term sick the suggestion being that there are these hordes of disabled people who are refusing to work, not because they can't get out of bed in the morning, but because they're just lazy and want to milk the taxpayers' money. And at the same time, we saw this shift in reporting from sections of the media. We saw these sort of front pages dedicated to so-called scrounging disabled people. We saw campaigns about driving out the local so-called scrounging disabled people, which saw campaigns about driving

out the local so-called benefit cheats in your area who was faking being sick for money. So I think we've seen very much this shift in recent years that has taken a suspicious tone towards disabled people that's had a real impact not just in justifying the policies that have come about to take support from disabled people but I think for a lot of people with with health conditions in this country it's they've witnessed a sort of a daily fear if you like I talk to people who are you know yelled the street, in their wheelchair, accused of faking their disability for money. We've seen that shift, I think, in attitudes and that legitimisation of these sort of attitudes. When ministers talk in these terms, when newspapers talk in these terms, it sort of excuses and normalize normalizes this attitude that members

of the public are willing to to um also follow can we just talk nitty-gritty if you like there is a cost as you outlined in the book to being disabled isn't there you need specialist food for example you might need additional heating your travel expenses, all that? Yeah, absolutely. So disability on average costs around £500 extra a month. And if you're severely disabled, that can be as much as £1,000 extra a month. So as well as paying your rent and food like everyone else, as you say, you have to meet additional costs depending on your disability,

anything from extra heating to specialist food to buying your own wheelchair and that has a real impact on people's lives it pushes people into poverty simply because they're disabled which is why the safety nets that the government provides is so so important and why cuts to disability benefits in recent years have had such a devastating effect. Tell me about some of the women you spoke to for the book. Absolutely. So in the book, I talk to around a dozen disabled people as really the heart of the human impact of the policies I'm talking about. And I've been researching this for several years,

and I was still shocked talking to some of these women about just the level of hardship that they're now going through due to these cuts. One woman, Rachel, who uses a wheelchair in the New Forest, and she's been living happily, healthily, independently in her own bungalow with a team of personal assistants provided by her local authorities through the social care system. But when the cuts to social care started coming in a few years ago,

she watched her social care essentially be you know cut cut cuts so she lost the person that helped her cook meals and for her to eat she lost the person that would help her get washed and dressed then she lost the person that came to help her get into bed at night and in the end she had no social care at all and when I spoke to her she had reached the point where her doctor told her she was now clinically malnourished because she was no longer having support to have hot meals she told me that because there was no one to help her into bed at night on her worst days she was sleeping fully clothed in her wheelchair. And I think that story just really stood out for me that that isn't just a little cut,

that's a treatment of disabled people that I don't think you'd wish on an animal, but is currently happening all over the country. You also write powerfully about a Catch-22 situation where a mother might be identified as somebody who isn't, and I'm using, there are speech marks here, but isn't quite disabled enough to get benefits, but is not quite able either to care properly for her children. What about that? So I think whether it's the social care system,

whether it's children's services, whether it's benefits, there's this real difficulty on a disability that so often people find themselves classed by the government as not disabled enough in order to gain support, but at the same time classed as too disabled to be able to do something, whether that's being judged as being capable of looking after their own children or whether they're judged as being able to gain employment. In the book, I look at how that affects disabled mums with children,

which is a real issue that I think we're really not talking about, but is incredibly important the way that social care for example is really important for some disabled mums because say if you find it hard to clean your house because you're in a depressive episode a social care assistant might help you clean that home and therefore your child is judged by social services as being in a happy and healthy home but if that social care is cut disabled women are finding that actually social services are then doubting their ability to look after their children in some extreme cases their children are actually being removed from the home. And that's a real example, I think, of just what an impact funding cuts have.

If disabled people are supported by the state, they can live happy, healthy, fulfilling lives that contribute to society. And presumably... If you pull those standards of support away, then... It's substantially harder to do so, clearly. Absolutely. standards of support away, then... It's substantially harder to do so, clearly. But there must be situations, Frances, in which children, child carers, are obliged these days to pick up the slack. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's another one of those issues

that we know is happening, but we kind of normalise it, I think. You know, we... Figures for child carers are difficult because a lot of families don't want to admit that they're having to live like that but it's estimated as around 700 000 child carers in the country and that is essentially you know we're expecting children to plug the gap of the social care crisis some of these children are as young as five or six

doing things like getting medication for their parents because their parents are in such desperate states that their children are the only ones that are able to do this. You know, I've spoken to teenagers who can barely reach the shelves at the supermarket but are having to do the cooking, are having to learn that the oven will burn them, but they have to make the meals because

if they didn't do it the whole family wouldn't get fed these are loving close-knit families but at the same time have been left in this situation just because the state isn't doing its duty towards them but francis up listeners will point to that figure i mentioned right at the start 55 billion pounds a year of our money, taxpayers' money, spent on this. What are your alternative ideas? What's the solution? I think those sort of figures and those sort of binary taxpayer versus disabled people is actually one of the key issues that we need to address. Because, you know, disabled people are not burdened on the state we pay tax just like anybody else and if we're not able to pay income tax because we're too sick to

work that isn't a negative we have just as much right as anyone in society to lead a healthy and happy life and i think it benefits all of us to have a well-funded safety net. One of the most basic tenets of a civilised society is to say in times of sickness and disability, the state will be there to support us. And I think that we're in a situation where we are seeing that the cost-cutting of the last decade hasn't done any good. It's on a human level pushed people into living in situations that are obscene levels of hardship. But on an economic level,

it's such an incredible waste of money. If you cut the support that, for example, someone needs social care to help them get dressed and go to work in the morning, but you pull that assistance from them, they can't go to work anymore and they can't pay tax. Austerity is short-term economic thinking

that endangers disabled people's lives, but doesn't save money, it just wastes it. Thank you very much. That's the view of Dr Francis Ryan, author of Crippled, Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People. That's the title of the book. Your thoughts, welcome, at BBC Women's Hour on social media. Or you can email us, of course, via the website.

It is, as you'll know by now, a huge summer for women's sport. The Football World Cup starts on Friday. And the big game, I suppose, domestically for us is that Scotland play England on Sunday. And the Netball World Cup is in Liverpool in July. There'll be coverage on Women's Hour of that. But this week, we're hearing from coaches across a range of sports. And we're starting this morning with Gemma Lumsdane, who's a wheelchair basketball coach at Dundee Dragons Club.

Now, Gemma has won numerous awards. She's also a wheelchair rugby player, and she studies at Abertay University. Jack Fillimore met her and some of the athletes she's coaching. Sport and wheelchair basketball has given me so much in my life and I wanted to be able to give back to the sport but also to help

other people experience the same benefits that I've had and basically to share my passion and help to improve people's lives. It's been a natural progression for me through playing and then taking more of a leadership role and then through to like a lead coach as well. I was born 12 weeks premature and this resulted in me having a condition called cerebral palsy and this affects my mobility and my coordination in all four of my limbs. So I first started playing sport in 2013 with the Dragons actually. Sport for me has given me a sense of purpose,

it's given me something to work towards, obviously a sense of identity as well and with the team sport element you've got the social aspect as well and that can be great, especially for young people in terms of making friendships, building confidence and stuff like that. There are so many physical, mental and emotional benefits of sport and physical activity and that's just a really positive thing for people to get involved with the main benefit that I get from coaching and seeing participants come in with low confidence low self-esteem, not believing in themselves

and seeing them grow as people. And obviously you see their skills develop on the court, but seeing them developing confidence, self-esteem, things like that, that's invaluable. And for me as a coach, that's what I work towards at the end of the day. If you're making a difference and an impact on someone's life, that's more valuable than being able to shoot a hoop or, you know, kick a bottle. Yeah.

I'm Jay and I'm 47 this year and I'm with Dundee Dragons Wheelchair Sports Club. I started playing sport when I was about eight years old. I was able-bodied then and I was running around, playing hockey. I was cycling on my own time, running. However, in my 20s I went into the wheelchair and Spina Bifida was the reason that I went into the wheelchair. I was born with it. I started playing sport again in my 40s.

Never too old to take it up again. Started playing basketball and rugby league. A bit of tennis, a bit of badminton, give everything a go. And it's life-changing. I've got friends, I've got a social group. My health is a lot better, my physical health, my mental health, everything. As a player, I would like my coach to realise

if it's a team sport, yes, we are all there together as a team. We support one another, but within that team, we're all individuals. We'll have individual needs. We'll have individual things going on in our lives. A coach that understands, that can communicate well, that is communicate well that is

supportive but is honest hi i'm paula i'm a mum to ben and owen what do you think your boys need from a coach somebody that's dedicated but also knows the individual person jemma's very good at knowing the individual people that play the The coach is a very key part. It's like your mama bear or your daddy bear. They are very good for everybody. My name's Ben. I'm 17. I've been playing wheelchair basketball for about four years. What made you get into basketball?

Well, I had a rare bone cancer in my left leg, and then I used to do judo and football and rugby and all that, but I couldn't do that anymore. And then I started playing basketball on my feet and that, but I wasn't, like, really good at it and I couldn't, like, go any further. Wheelchair basketball was like the... Someone came and showed it and that was it. My name's Owen, I'm 14 and I've been playing wheelchair basketball for about three, four years.

Ben's my brother. When he wasn't able to play basketball, it sort of meant we couldn't really do sports together. And then when wheelchair basketball just came in, it just opened doors for the both of us. When I first started, I found it quite daunting. On a one-to-one basis, I felt quite confident. But when I had to go in front of a crowd

of people and direct and especially within the club that I'm at, quite a lot of the participants are older than me and I was even younger at the time so for me to basically tell people who are you know 20 years older than me what to, and basically try and correct their technique. You know, that's quite a daunting thing in terms of authority-wise and stuff. One of the interesting things about disability sport is everyone's got different impairments, and within the sport you've got to kind of understand how the impairments affect people's ability to play the sport and how it affects their skills.

So as a coach, you've got to be able to adapt to people's strengths and weaknesses. And I would say that's a kind of challenging thing when you first come across it because you don't know what people can do and you don't know how to really adapt things to suit them. So people with my disability, I was a bit more clued up on, but I had to learn about all these different disabilities, and obviously everyone's affected differently. But, you know, everyone has been really great in terms of respect,

and there's that mutual respect between myself and the participants, and that's one thing that I try to make really clear and with anyone that I coach is you know I respect them as much as they respect me so. My name's Nathaniel and I'm 11 years old and I've been playing basketball for two years almost three. I only started using the wheelchair when I got into wheelchair basketball because I'm an amputee and I usually use my prosthesis most of the time. And how have you found taking on this sport? What do you enjoy about it? I enjoy all the leagues and competitions we have. And I enjoy playing with my friends and practising and training with them. What do you think you need personally from a coach? Rwy'n mwynhau chwarae gyda fy ffrindiau a'u hyfforddi a'u hyfforddi gyda nhw.

Beth ydych chi'n meddwl y mae angen i chi fod yn bersonol o ran y coach? Maen nhw'n genedlaethol ac yn hyfryd. Mae Genes yn bob amser yn dda iawn ac mae'n mynd â phethau'n dda iawn. Nid yw hi'n mynd i'w wneud hyn. Yn amlwg, rwy'n femail hefyd. Mae'r clwb rwy'n coach yn ddynol iawn, yn agored ac yn hyfforddiol. Obviously I'm female as well. You know, the club that I coach at is very inclusive, very open and welcoming, but I think a lot of female coaches maybe feel quite intimidated when they're coaching male athletes or participants

or, you know, if there's other male coaches around them. I started coaching my daughter's football team on Saturdays because my husband said, well, hang on a minute, we're both working. Why aren't you sharing the coaching with me? So I started getting up at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning and doing it. And I never realised what it would give me. I just thought it would be, you know, doing my duty. Now I absolutely love it. And he doesn't actually get a chance to go because I do it every week. I'm coaching with other men. And when I made that step, I felt like, am I going to know as

much as them am I going to be listened to as much as them I felt all these kind of niggling. Obviously when you're starting off um it is really daunting but the more that you do it and the more kind of experience you get of different situations the easier it gets. When you were learning the sport did you have many female lead role models? I was quite lucky because my coach and the person who actually got me involved in the sport Tina she's been a great role model for me with more female coaches that's going to encourage more female participation which female participation will then lead to more female coaches. So it's a bit of a cycle, really, and that's super important.

The best coaches that I know are real person-centred people, and they have this sense of belief, and the way that they kind of put that across somehow seeps through into you, and even if you don't believe in yourself, then from then they begin to help you believe in yourself and I think that's really important. You know, obviously everyone's going to have setbacks, everyone's going to have bad days, good days and an important part of being a coach

is being able to support the participants and the athletes through that, you know. If it wasn't for volunteers such as with Gemma a lot of these clubs wouldn't exist because it is usually mums and dads and other people that play in the club that give up their time to help out and be coaches

so it's very important. Because of coaching I'm a lot more confident and I'm able to present myself in a good light and in the way that I want to be presented and also I've had opportunities to present and do bits of public speaking and things like that and I feel without the coaching I probably wouldn't have as much confidence

to get up and speak in front of a whole lot of people really important to acknowledge those people who are willing to give up their time to help other people and they include Gemma Lumsdane who is that wheelchair basketball coach you just heard from at Dundee Dragons Club and that report was by Jack Fillimore and on the programme tomorrow we're going to be previewing the Women's Football World Cup and there'll be more sports coaches scattered throughout the week on Women's Hour. Now, Ellie Kitali is from the East African country of Tanzania and she gave birth to her son Chadron four years ago. He has Down syndrome.

Now, she realised she hardly ever saw other children like him around the town or at social events or at church, and only felt that parents might well be hiding their children. When Ellie started talking to other mothers, they told her about the shame they were made to feel for having a child with Down syndrome. But also, importantly, they told her about their determination to start to change things. This is Jotham. Hi, I'm Jotham. How are you, Baba? You're just like my son.

Today I'm here with my friend Margaret. Neighbours, relatives, how did they accept Jotham? Some of them judge us that we have used our son for money ritual so that we can be rich. In Tanzania, you can go to a witch doctor and ask them to cast a spell for something you want, like money or power. The witch doctor will ask you for a sacrifice. So you could ask the witch doctor to make you rich and sacrifice your own child's mental capabilities.

That's what people who don't know parents of children with Down syndrome think we have done. But of course, we haven't done this. I remember one day I was feeding my baby and the text message came, shame on you people, you have used your son for money ritual so that you can become rich. What did you do? I couldn't even continue to feed the baby. I remember I cried a lot. I called my husband and I told him, someone we know, our friend. I'm sorry. It's okay. I felt so angry. I want the world to know that mothers like us did not do anything to influence whether we have children with Down syndrome.

I was not comfortable to go to the street or public areas with my son because some people, they were looking at me as if I'm a sinful person. But now I came to realize this is my situation and I have to bear it. I'm happy with the way my son is. I don't care how the look I get from outside there. You hardly ever see children

with Down syndrome in public. This is one of the things that make it even harder as a mother. We found one woman whose own husband had accused her of going to the witch doctor. She doesn't want to be identified,

so we'll call her son Baraka. There was a time I just used to keep my child indoors. My husband said the child wasn't his. He said that I had taken Baraka to the witch doctor to make him like this. He stopped bringing his friends to the house. He was ashamed.

His family suggested the Down syndrome came from my side of the family, and he stopped taking us to his family gatherings. She says she had no choice but to lock her son in the house. My husband never pays for anything for Baraka, so I have to earn my own money. I started going to the market to sell vegetables. When Baraka went outside, the neighbors would call him names, saying he was crazy. So I locked him in the house when I went to work.

But I did take Baraka to church every Sunday. One day, on the bus ride home, another mother told me about a special school. He enrolled and is now doing better. Baraka is now nine years old, and this woman's husband still doesn't let her take him to his family's gatherings. Both rich and poor are pressured to keep their children away from social events. I met 19-year-old Samuel. My name is Samuel Philip Edward Monika.

He said his name is Sam Edward Monika. His mother, Sophie, takes him everywhere. How do people react when you take Sam to public events? They're shocked. One day I went to the wedding of one of my friends with Sam. People were just watching at him. My friends asked me, are you comfortable coming to the event like this with Sam?

I said, yes, I'm comfortable. They said, ah said you are very tough woman they told me that there's one of their friends have a son like Samuel they used to lock in the room and they wash him by throwing a water from far away because they don't want even to touch him some friends are telling me you can use these types of herbs to help your son to be better. Have you ever come across such things? What people advised us is to go to the witch doctor. What kind of medicines did the

witch doctor give? So many things like dried tree leaves and to use the oil from the head to the knees, it was so expensive. We believe that Samuel will be healed of Down syndrome, which is not true. It's interesting that Sophie used to think she could cure Down syndrome. Not understanding the cause of Downs seems to be at the root of all the beliefs I've heard so far. It's something Dr. Isaac Morrow has to deal with when parents come to see him. I met him at Dar es Salaam's main hospital. Most people believe that it ranges from a curse to being bewitched to incest. How do you explain it to them that it's not something to do with their beliefs?

It's very easy to tell them that this is not only your child and this is not only in Tanzania. If you see a Japanese child with Down syndrome, they'll be the same as your child. So you cannot tell me that your child has been bewitched by the same person who bewitched the guy in Japan. It doesn't work that way. And I show them the pictures as well.

I usually tell them that. them personally, we wish the guy in Japan. It doesn't work that way. And I show them the pictures as well. I usually tell them that. It's genetical and you can see it has nothing to do with you or you. It just happened. So you don't have anyone to blame. Children with Downs can't learn if they are given the chance and not hidden away. Teacher Eliambuya Shao told me that the villagers have started to notice

the difference education makes, and they have taken action. So she just said that there is a boy who was being hidden by his parents. The villagers saw that the school is making so much difference with these children. So they came up to them and tell them, you know, there's a boy in this house that has been hidden for a very long time. Maybe you should go and look out if you can bring him to the school. So they went there, but the father was strongly rejecting the idea. So they had to even consult the local government to help them. And finally they managed to persuade him.

And he joined and he completely changed when he went to school. The parents have really changed. They accept the child very well. They are very happy that he can do so many things. And they even now teach other parents, please do not hide your child because we were doing that and it didn't work. So they kind of joined the forces with them to change the environment. So the change has been really good.

Bye. And you can hear the full programme, Don't Hide My Son. It's on the BBC World Service tomorrow at 1.30 or, of course, you can hear it via BBC Sounds Now Juno Dawson, the novelist is here Juno, good morning to you Hello there How are you?

I'm very well, thank you for having me Well, you're a young adult novelist That's what you are Is that alright with you, that term? Yeah, I love writing YA fiction I think it's some of the most provocative and current and challenging stuff out there. It's just I think a lot of people are put off by the label and think it's for kids.

But of course, for me, the key word is adult. So it's just young adults. And how do you define that? Yeah, well, how old are your readers? Do you know? Well, I thought they were teenagers, but my last book, Clean, it won a big award with Cosmopolitan. And that was voted for by Readers of Cosmo, which I guess are women in their 20s. And that was about addiction, wasn't it?

It was, about girl in rehab. Yeah, it was pretty unsparing. It was quite unflinching, yeah. And I think, but you know, I'm a huge fan of, you know, books by authors like Louise O'Neill, Patrick Ness, Philip Pullman. And I think, you know, we can get away with a lot when you say it's for young adults. Because today's young adults, teenagers,

have seen and heard so much more certainly than when I was that age. had access to the internet. And so I think we've got to be very careful as adults that we don't put rose-coloured glasses over this mythical state of childhood, because that state, I don't know if it exists anymore. No, I'm not sure anybody's making daisy chains, or perhaps they are, in which case you can tell us, at BBC Women's Hour. So this new one is called Meat Market. It's about modelling. Now, modelling is something we've talked about on Women's Hour before. We've talked about London Fashion Week. I remember interviewing Leomi Anderson a couple of years ago, and she was really, I think, an important voice on how women of colour are treated in modelling. What do you now know about the modelling industry that you didn't know before? So it was funny, it came about this book from when I moved to London, just through my friends and people I was working with. And I had a column in a fashion magazine as well. It was just hearing the horror stories and it was the way they were related very matter-of-factly

about women having burns on their faces and on their heads, having had their hair pulled out, having been told a myriad of ways to lose weight without ever being told to lose weight. You know, you're told to juice or you're told to fast or you're told to tone up. And it was the way they spoke about that as if it was normal. And, you know, it was just from collecting those horror stories that I started to get the idea of, you know, telling a story that focused on one girl from the moment she's scouted up until really the point where something really horrific happens to her. And actually, she struggles to know quite what has happened to her, doesn't she? Which I think is a really important element of the book.

Yeah. So the story is about a girl called Yana she's a girl from southwest London and the pivot point of the novel is where she's sexually assaulted and by a very important man in the fashion industry in a hotel room but right from the beginning I always knew that I wanted to put her in a situation that I'd been in in a situation that a lot of my friends had been in, where you kind of come away thinking, did that just happen? Like, was that okay? Was that legal? Like, should I go to the police about that? And I don't think there's many young women that I haven't spoken to who haven't been in that sort of, I don't even want to call it a grey area,

because it's not a grey area, it's not okay. Except it might be in your mind as an adolescent, you don't know you're not quite sure yeah and I think the way that the media has shown sexual assault and rape for a really long time has we've seen one sort of story and very often it's the narrative of the bogeyman jumping out of a bush and in reality that's often not what rape and sexual assault is like the rapist looks like your boyfriend or your best friend or a friend of a friend or even a family member. And so that's why I deliberately put Yana in a situation where she comes away from it. And initially she blames herself. She thinks she's going to be in trouble with her agency.

Yeah, let's go back a little bit. Yana is, she's a South London girl, I think, isn't she? Yeah, so she wasn't to begin with. In the first draft, I was very keen to make her sort of the girl next door so that lots of my readers could identify with her. But at the time, I was living on the Winstanley estate, right behind Clapham Junction Station. And the best research you can do as a YA novelist is just listening to girls on the bus.

And I started to realise I'd never really seen a lot of girls like the Winstanley girls in a book, and certainly not in one of my books. So about maybe 100 pages in I went back and started again and made her just a girl off the wind Stanley yeah this is why I'm not a novelist because I just couldn't be bothered going back to do it all again Juno to be honest with you I'd just stick with the original uh but you're right she's a she's a very plausible voice and a friendship group seems authentic to me I've got a couple of teenage girls and that all seems

like it would be happening it could be happening her friends are rather supportive of her foray into into modeling and it's important to Yana because it's important to her family they need the money don't they yeah and that so that really changed the book for me as well I started to think you know why is she doing this and Yana she she's she's not nice she's in some ways she's naive but in other ways quite streetwise but I did think at one point, why would she put herself through this? And then I thought, well, it's London. It's really expensive.

And actually, I won't say who the real model was, but one model that I spoke to said to me, can you think of any other job where an 18-year-old girl can earn £10,000 in a day? And they can. And I was like, no, I can't think of any other job. And that's why they do it. Because even if you're a girl who's not making that much money, that's the carrot they dangle over you. Like that big campaign could be just around the corner. Just keep on doing these really low paid jobs where they pay you in clothes or makeup, because the next job might be the big 30, 40 grand campaign with a big major label they are told aren't they to stay thin to keep thin to get thin yes and i think you know what what struck me and the girls kind of laugh about

it is the ways that they're never told directly you need to be skinny how is it phrased it's always like tone up or you know what what the question what are you eating what's your diet like what did you have for breakfast? Who asks these questions? Well, it's a mixture of people. It's kind of, and I think there's a bit of a diffusion of responsibilities, like who should be looking after these girls? So it's the agents. The agents are terrified of casting agents.

The casting agents are living in fear of directors and runway producers. So there's a real hierarchy. And so sometimes I think when I spoke to those people there was none of these people are aware of the damage they're necessarily inflicting I think they all think they're looking after these girls and very often they will say oh these girls are like my sisters these girls like my babies these girls are like my daughters and they always pass the blame to the next person like oh we would never tell you to lose weight,

but that designer will. So you'd better lose weight. So you'd better lose weight. And in the old days, well, the defence was always the clothes look better on girls who are 5 foot 10. And what is it, a size 6? They wouldn't want you much bigger than a size 6 for runway, which is terrifying.

How can you be 5'11 and a size 6? Well, you can't, can you? Not healthily, surely. I mean, that's the other thing as well the girls you know these are girls who are recruited from Siberia and what fascinates me about this career is that you can't choose to be a model you know you either are 5'11 and a size six or you're not and you're never going to be and so you can't really work towards it and all all the girls, you know, to look like that, they are in some way, you know, you can't train to be 5'11". They just are.

But at the same time, it almost feels like there is no such thing as too thin. And when you're in that very high pressure industry where you're being shipped around the world, the one thing you can control is what you're eating. And so there is, and I heard one model say you know there is a real power in skinniness and you know you can't control anything else but you can be the thinnest girl at that casting and that obviously is incredibly dangerous thinking. But Instagram you think might be making a difference can you explain why? I hope so I mean I think obviously I'm sure you've talked about a lot the the whole body positivity movement. And what I love about Instagram is that it's removed some of the gatekeepers, we can be the casting agent, and we can choose what kind of body we want to see in our feed.

And certainly, I made sure when I was working on this book that I wasn't just following very young, white girls that I wanted to look at curvy girls, shorter girls, and girls with disabilities um you know there are those there are role models for everyone there are trans models there are lesbian models you can find somebody who looks like anything you want and that's so I think slightly beauty and fashion has been democratized by social media and have you had criticism I'm not criticizing I'm asking have you had criticism because you haven't got a trans character in this book? You're a trans woman yourself.

Has anybody said it? Not really. I mean, it's interesting. There was a point, and I say a point, it was about a minute, where I did think this story could work with Yana as trans because there are trans models working in the industry. Teddy Quinlivan, Harry Neth, Ariel Nicholson, Maxim Majus, just to name a few. So Yana could have easily been trans, but it would have changed. I wanted this story to be as universal as possible. You know, this isn't an expose.

It's Yana's story. It's about one girl who goes through this horrific experience and about her decision to speak out and the ramifications that has and I knew that Yana's experience in that hotel room is really universal and I think had I made her trans that would have changed her journey through the fashion industry a bit and would have maybe ended up being like a coming out novel and so I wanted to make it as central as possible yeah but um I'm working on the tv show now. In the TV show there will absolutely be a trans character

so we can do that later. Juno, thank you very much. I should say that she has a supportive relationship with her boyfriend Ferdy who just seems like a nice lad.

I love him, yes. Yeah. Thank you very much, Juno. Thank you. Meat Market is the name of the book. Juno Dawson, author of Meat Market

which, as she explains there, is coming to a telescreen near you at some point in the relatively near future. Now to, oh, daisy chains actually cropped up at some point in that conversation. And at least one listener has contacted the show to say, Chloe, my youngest daughter, age 12, stopped me from mowing the lawn during half term so she could teach her friend to make a daisy chain. Her friend is also 12 and had never made one before. There you go. People are still making daisy chains and teaching their friends to do exactly that as well. To your thoughts then on the interview with Frances Ryan this morning.

Ali says, I can totally relate to Frances Ryan's assessment that many women are both too disabled and not disabled enough, so-called for the current government and wider society. A couple of years ago, at almost exactly the same time as my benefits completely dropped away in the move from disability living allowance to personal independence payment, money that allowed me to have and maintain a car, which is my lifeline to my independence,

I was refused to be allowed to adopt a child by my local authority as a direct consequence of having a disability. Both events were extremely distressing and emotionally painful. And if it wasn't for the support of my family and friends and other resources I could draw on, I think I'd have ended up having a much bigger burden on the state in terms of my mental health and inability to earn a living. Both events still hurt a great deal. From Gillian, I have dwarfism and I was awarded lifetime disability living allowance 20 years ago, but now my DLA is being cut and changed to PIP.

I'm terrified they're going to remove this from me. My disability affects me more now than it did 20 years ago, yet I'm likely to get less. I trained as a primary school teacher and did this for five years, but had to give it up as it was too much. I now do a job private tutoring. The costs that Francis Ryan described sound like an exaggeration, but they're not. It's a truly terrifying time for people with disabilities. Claire says, I agree with Francis Ryan's point about the demonisation of disabled people. And I think a fundamental lack of understanding of the varied and complex needs of disabled people who may have multiple disabilities

and health issues is a key factor. My brother has learning disabilities, and at the end of a lengthy phone conversation about his disability assessment, the DWP advisor said, From Kate, I've been on disability living allowance for 27 years, mobility and care. I've just been reassessed for PIP and I've lost my benefit and therefore my blue badge as well. I don't know how I'm going to manage losing around £4,000 a year. I go out about once a week, but now without my blue badge, I can't get to places. I'm too ill and tired and stressed to fight this.

Kate, I'm sorry to hear about that. There is always another side, and let me bring in the other side now. Morag says, that was a very poor interview by Jane Garvey on the subject of cuts to disability benefits. There was absolutely no effort on her part to find out the reasons why disability benefits had to change. When I was in charge of special needs in a comprehensive school in a deprived area, I had parents coming to me regularly wanting me to sign their forms to get DLA. They didn't actually want to hear that their child's reading or behaviour had improved, as that would mean they may not get the benefit.

They were very keen on Ritalin for ADHD, as that meant they would definitely get the benefit. There are some reasons why things had to change, but the BBC failed in its duty to present both sides of the argument. From Brian, Francis Ryan has uttered a diatribe against the current disability policies of the government. I understand there are problems and there always will be. The truth is that however much funding is made, there will be a drain with an ever-expanding plug hole for the money to pour into. Every pound spent on the disabled, and I speak as a person with a wife with multiple conditions

that would be a recipient if we push for it, is possibly 70% funded by working families. Realistically, there is a finite fund of tax and as we've seen with austerity, there'll be losers. However, as I heard on Radio 4 last week, there are recipients who are in care to whom £1,000 a week is insufficient and they need, we're told, over £1,300 to live in a special facility. I am not a taxpayer, only in receipt of pension and my wife's pension, but we live comfortably. I'm also not without compassion. I feel for people who are disabled.

I have certain problems myself that limit my mobility and give pain. But I do trust that this alternative view will be noted. Thanks to everybody who contacted us today. I hope you do feel that's a reasonable representation of the variety of views expressed on this subject. But it's impossible not to feel profound sympathy for people who really are struggling at the moment. I find it very difficult to see why you wouldn't be sympathetic. Thanks to everybody.

We're here tomorrow, of course, and my guests include Nicola Benedetti, the violinist. I'm Simon Mundy, host of Don't Tell Me The Score, the podcast that uses sport to explore life's bigger questions, covering topics like resilience, tribalism, and fear with people like this. We keep talking about fear, and to me, I always want to bring it back to, are you actually in danger?

That's Alex Honnold, star of the Oscar-winning film Free Solo, in which he climbed a 3,000-foot sheer cliff without ropes. So, I mean, a lot of those you know social anxieties things and certainly I've had a lot of issues with talking to attractive people in my life I'm like oh no like I could never do that and it certainly feels like you're gonna die but realistically you're not gonna die and that's all practice too. Have a listen to Don't Tell Me the Score full of useful everyday tips from incredible people on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.