Woman's Hour - Lady in Blue, Daddy issues, the Sexism of capitalism

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

More than 50 children's charities and parent organisations have written to the Prime Minister, warning that disabled children are being overlooked in the Government's planned reforms to social care. Kylie Pentelow is joined by Anna Bird, Chair of the Disabled Children's Partnership and Chief Executive of the charity Contact to tell us more.The latest artwork for London's iconic Fourth Plinth has been revealed. Lady in Blue, by New York artist Tschabalala Self, is a striking ten-foot-tall tribute to a young metropolitan woman inspired by today's London. The figure is the latest in a series of high-profile commissions that have transformed one of the world's most famous public art spaces. Tschabalala joins Kylie to discuss what it means to see her work take centre stage in the heart of the capital.River Ahmad made history in May when she became the first Afghan woman to climb Mount Everest. She had always dreamed of climbing the mountain with her 20-year-old brother who later took his own life. As a teenager in Afghanistan, she survived a Taliban attack on her bus. River now lives in Australia and she spoke to the BBC's Sodaba Haidare about her inspiration to climb the mountain:The third part in our series "Daddy Issues" where we explore the impact of fathers on daughters. Woman’s Hour listener Carmen grew up on the North Yorkshire coast. Her father was a retired fisherman. When Carmen was eight, her mum was taken into psychiatric care. Her dad looked after Carmen and her sister, and provided a safe haven for them. But things later became more complex. Reporter Jo Morris met Carmen at the beach, where she explained losing him twice, and the impact of this on her relationships.Dutch writer Doortje Smithuijsen joins Kylie to discuss her book, Capitalism is Sexism, exploring everything from work to childcare and the things mothers buy. Doortje asks how free those choices really are and why they still often produce familiar inequalities.Presenter: Kylie Pentelow Producer: Corinna Jones

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of modern Britain. Listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts or watch us on YouTube. Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Thanks for your company this Friday morning. Today I'll be talking to the artist who's created the latest work on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London. It's called Lady in Blue. We'll be hearing from Shabalal herself about the inspiration for her work. Also, have you ever felt that you've been persuaded into buying a product that you thought would improve your life? Maybe help you keep up with the Joneses.

Well, I'll be speaking to an author who addresses that in her book, Capitalism is Sexism. So do get in touch. Let us know what trends you've succumb to. Maybe you feel your insecurities were targeted. Did doing or buying that thing work? Maybe having that expensive hand-wash digmate your home feel that little bit more luxurious. Obviously, this is the BBC, so don't mention any brands, but do get in touch. The usual ways are 84844 for messages, 0300-100-44 for WhatsApp.

On most smart speakers, you can say Alexa Ask BBC Sounds to send a comment. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, and you can also email us through our website, so do get in touch. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on that. And also on the programme, we'll be hearing from a daughter, whose life was turned upside down when she discovered a secret about her beloved father. But first, more than 50 children's charities and parent organisations have written to the Prime Minister, warning that disabled children are being overlooked in the government's planned reforms to social care.

They also say changes to education, health and care plans known as EHCPs could leave many families with less access to vital social care support. Well, in their letter, the disabled children's partnership says social care concerns are now among the fastest growing issues raised by parents seeking advice, and they're urging the government to act before more families reach crisis point. Well, Anna Bird is the chair of the disabled children's partnership and chief executive of the charity contact, and she joins me now. Welcome to the program, Anna. Good morning to you. I want to start by just asking you to explain what are we talking about when we say, social care for disabled children and families?

Yep. So when we talk about social care for disabled children, we're talking about the help at home that many families will need, hundreds of thousands of families up and down the country. It's helped with things like washing and dressing and getting about the home. But it might also be, you know, often looking after a disabled child can be a very exhausting thing. It can be 24-7 care. So it might also be short breaks for the parent. And of course, social care also helps disabled children and young people to get out and about in their community. It might help them join in in everyday activities be part of local clubs and society. So all of that is social care. It's a very broad church of support.

Okay. So why do you believe then that disabled children's social care has been overlooked in the government's reform plans? Well, we know that Andy Burnham is absolutely passionate about reforming social care. And I think he has seen firsthand what the absence, the gaps in adult social care and social care for older people has meant for families like his. I think perhaps the issues that families with disabled children face are less visible. But it's also, you know, it's also the case that social care is run out of the Department for Health and Social Care. And disabled children's social care is looked after by the Department for Education. So it tends to fall between departments, between gaps in teams.

and it seems to be a really overlooked part of the policy landscape. Okay, so how do the education send reforms, that's that special educational needs and disabilities, factor into this subject? Yeah, so I know your listeners will have heard a lot about the reform of education, health and care plans over the past year or so, and education health and care plans explicitly include the seed, the care. So we need kind of really joined up support for disabled children and young people,

and care needs to be a really important part of that process. I think we have struggled to kind of have positive conversations about how to get care in the mix. We need to have representatives of social care round the table. We need to be thinking kind of broadly about how to make sure that social care providers are accountable and held to account so they do deliver the support that families need. But it is, you know, it's a complex picture.

We know the government wants to start to bring all of these agendas together and we know they've sort of asked for more time to do that and we now want to be in the room having conversations, making sure that that change happens positively and social care is not forgotten about. And I wonder what parents are saying about the issues that they're having when trying to access support. Yeah, so as you said at the top,

my organisation runs a helpline for families with disabled children. here all the time, parents who are hitting crisis point before they ever get any access to social care. So we know it's really hard to know whether you might be eligible for respite care. It's really difficult to know whether you might be able to get a package of support for your family. And often, when you pick up the phone and ask for help, you might be kind of blamed. It might be a case that a child protection process is taken forward instead of a process to provide support. So for all of those reasons, it's really hard. for families. And what we're looking for is reforms that create a system where for every family,

it is really clear, am I eligible for support? What kind of support is available for me locally? How do I apply? And that process to be one of support, not blame. We know that the government has missed its own deadline to respond to the Law Commission review. Is that significant, do you think? What message does that send? We are disappointed that there's been a delay. The government has had a year to think about its response to the law commission's report, which set out a really strong blueprint for reform, which we and the, and many charities have got behind and completely support the law commission's recommendations. So it is a shame that there's a delay, but we also, I spoke to the minister this week, we understand that the delay is so that they can make sure

that what they recommend on social care fits in with their plans on send reform. So we now want to just make sure that we make the most of this. additional time and they're talking to the right people. They're disabled children as they go. And when they do publish their response, it is exactly what we want to see, which is a full-on commitment to reforming the legal framework. We asked the Department for Education for response. And a spokesperson said, we know disabled children and their families are too often not getting the social care support they need when they need it. We have delayed our response to the Law Commission report for a short period so that it can be properly aligned with the government's

wider reform program for send and enable a more joined-up approach across health, education, and social care. They go on to say we've also invested £2.4 billion in the family's first partnership program to ensure more families get early help provided by specialist professionals and tailored to meet their needs. So that's addressing the point that you were just making there. I guess the most important point here is that children and families get the absolute care that they need in this situation.

So what would you like the social care system to look like and in terms of access for parents as well? Yeah. So what we're asking for is for the legal framework to be reformed. Some of the legislation dates back to the Second World War. It is really outdated. It's really confusing. And what we really want for families is for them to know,

really, you know, in a really simple way, am I eligible for care? can my child get some support, that the answer to that question should be quite clear, set out in eligibility criteria. It should be really clear how to access that support. Who do I contact? How long will they take to answer my request? All of that can be laid down in the legal framework. So for every family, it is really clear and really straightforward to get the support they need. We know for way too many families it is a battle and it can feel like a blame game. it can feel like a very risky business asking for help,

and we can't have that situation continue. What do you think of long-term consequences for children? So if children get the right social care support, then they can contribute more fully in their environment. They can get to school. They can be part of kind of everyday life in the same way that their peers can. And that makes a huge difference because, of course, children become adults who will also be drawing on social care system.

that Andy Burnham wants to reform. So there is a net savings for sure in making sure that support is available early when people first ask. And that support can really help children with their lives to the full. Anna, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

That's Anna Bird, their chair of the Disabled Children's Partnership. And she is also the chief executive of the charity contact. Thank you very much for your time this morning. Now, yesterday a new statue, Lady in Blue, by New York-based artist Shabala LaSalfe was unveiled on London's fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Now, the bronze and blue figure is the 16th commission since the programme began in 1998

and depicts a striking young metropolitan woman inspired by the diversity and the energy of London. Standing around 10 feet tall, the painted bronze sculpture joins international artworks that have occupied one of the world's most high-profile public art spaces. and we'll remain there for about two years. And Shabalala joins me now. Thank you very much for coming into the studio. So Lady in Blue was unveiled yesterday. How does it feel to have your work displayed on the fourth plent?

It's still a bit surreal, honestly, to see the sculpture there in Chappalgar Square. But it feels great. I think there's been a overwhelming amount of support for the sculpture. And I'm excited to see what her life will be like here in London. Can you describe for people who haven't seen it. It has been featured in a lot of newspapers, I should say today, but can you describe what Lady in Blue looks like for our listeners and describe a bit more about what she's made from?

Yeah, of course. So as you've mentioned, the sculpture stands about 10 feet tall and it's made of bronze. On the sculpture are some adornments, which are basically jury pieces, which are meant to replicate like lapis lazuli jewelry, jewelry and they're made of glass. So it creates a bit of visual contrast, this delicate material on top of this very strong, durable bronze. So the bronze has a patina over the entire skin

tone of the figure and then she is in a brightly painted blue dress. It is certainly bright. I went to see it yesterday afternoon and I was really struck by its color and a woman I spoke to who'd who'd gone to see it and was looking at it. So I asked her what she thought of it. And she said that she thought it brought wonderful color to Trafalgar Square, which of course is, you know, for those who know it, it's quite kind of grey, isn't it? And was it important to you that it stood out in the way it does?

Yeah, I wanted to create a bit of contrast. I wanted it to be striking and I wanted it to feel very contemporary. So using a formal device like the palette to kind of bring that different. to bring that change to the sculpture as an object was important to me. Reviews have started to come out. There are many positive, but of course there has been some criticism. Does that ever bother you? I mean, I think that all audience members are entitled to their own opinion.

So I can't say, I mean, obviously it feels much better if everyone loves artwork, but in reality, especially for an artwork that's on such a public platform, that isn't really a realistic expectation. I wonder what the challenges were in actually making it, getting it up there, because the woman is striding and she's just on, she's got small heels on her shoes, but she's kind of a big sculpture balancing almost on these little shoes. And I wonder what it was like to create that and make that image and then significantly get it up on the plinth.

I mean, it's been a very, very long process between creating the initial design and sketch for the sculpture and the macket and then fabricating it to scale. And then also considering the plinth itself, the plinth is the ultimate substrate or the ultimate device in which the sculpture would be living on. So I really wanted to utilize that, treating it almost like a stage. So all these things were taken into consideration when conceptualizing artwork and then producing it. Yeah, and it does feel like a stage, doesn't it? Because it's so open to everyone who's walking around it and seeing it drive.

around it too. It seems that many of the milestones in your career have taken place in London. We said you're from New York. How does the city inspire you creatively? I've been coming to London quite frequently since 2017 and I've always been invited here. I think that my artwork has resonated first primarily with, you know, art goers here in London. But as I've come to the city more and more is become a great inspiration for me. I find London, I find London. to be a deeply global and deeply diverse, like a metropolitan space. And I've always felt like a great amount of freedom here, especially creative freedom. That's good to hear.

How does your sculpture, do you think, relate to that very old tradition in Trafalgar Square, you know, depicting statues of monarchs and military commanders? Well, I feel like the sculptures of the monarchs and the military commanders, those were sculptures that were built in homage to people who, were considered to have contributed greatly to the society at the time that those works were produced. And my idea was to create a contemporary figure to remind this ordinary people that they have the power to also contribute to society. And I hope that when people look at the sculpture, they feel empowered to make changes or make decisions that they would like to be remembered for as well. I want to talk about the last time you displayed a sculpture in public in Britain back in 2022.

It was a depiction of a black woman who was seated on a chair. Can you explain what happened when it was shown at the Delaware Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea? Yes. So about two days after that sculpture was unveiled at the Delaware Pavilion of Bexel on the sea, this sculpture was the victim of a racialized vandalism. All of the skin on the sculpture was spray-painted white. This was very disturbing to the institution who had, organized for the work to be shown there. And in response to that, they wanted to organize a protest.

I discussed this idea with the institution, but came to the conclusion that it would be more productive to organize a community cleanup day. I wanted to have an event, I believe, would be more cathartic for members of the community who were also very, very disturbed by this event. And, you know, we assumed that it would be around 40 people coming because 40 people had registered for the protests initially. But to my surprise, and to everyone's surprise, hundreds of people queued in line to restore the sculpture. And by the end of the day, the sculpture was essentially, I mean, all of the paint was removed just simply by the public. It was basically nothing left for the restorators to participate in.

And I think that was a really, like, edifying moment for me. I learned a lot about what public art can do. Obviously, the pitfalls, but also the triumphs of being able to have, very complicated conversations within the public realm. And you also learn a lot about what the majority believes. Yeah, I guess that was reassuring that that support came out. Did that therefore lead to any reservations about putting another sculpture depicting a black woman on public display? Ironically, having gone through that experience, erased a lot of my fears around something bad happening.

I guess in one way or another, I already kind of seen like a worst-case scenario. So I can kind of already gauge what a bad scenario would be. And I then had more mental and emotional capacity to imagine what a best-case scenario could be. So I tried to focus on that. Why do you think representation of everyday public figures like Lady in Blue is so important? I think that every person in society needs to believe that they can, be important and that they can contribute and that they deserve dignity and that they can be respected. I don't think, I don't believe a society can really function properly if that belief

is, is gone. So I would like to inspire that belief in my audience because I feel like that is for the better good of all, of the collective, of all people who share a city together, share a nation together, share a world together, essentially. It's going to be there for two years, as we said. You were there yesterday for the unveiling. Are you planning to go back? Yeah, I'm going to visit every single time I'm in the city. I'm curious to see how it looks from different angles.

I'm curious to see, again, how the public respond to the artwork. And, you know, just from our artistic perspective, I want to see in different lighting, you know, different weather conditions. If someone was looking at it, and there's a, there's a little plaque obviously saying, talking about you and the statue. Would you ever say, that's my work? I don't think so. You would just let them think about it.

So just finally then, what do you hope that people take away from Lady and Blue? For me, if I can add, it's the strength. It's the strength of that woman. So I wonder what you'd like people to take away. For me, the sculpture really at its core is about optimism. Another thing that sets Lady Blue apart is that she's not posed and she's not static. She's a movement. She's striding.

She's moving forward. So I really want people to take that confidence away that they too can move forward and it can move forward towards their own personal goals. And they can do so, you know, with the collective in mind. There are some people who've said that it's too simplistic, not radical enough. What would you say to them? I mean, again, I think everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But, you know, my goal with the work wasn't to be didactic in any kind of sense. I truly wanted to present a prompt, not a solution, just a prompt, for people to, you know, ponder on.

And I feel like that's enough. I think you could be quite radical with subtle gestures. Shabalala, it's lovely to speak to you. Thank you very much indeed. And just a reminder that Lady in Blue will be in Trafalgar Square for two. years. Now, for the third part in our series, Daddy Issues, where we explore the relationship between fathers and daughters, Women's Our Listener, Carmen, says she stopped in her tracks when she heard our call out for listeners with experience of an absent father. Now 50, Carmen grew up

on the North Yorkshire coast to the sound of the North Sea. She wrote to us saying, my dad is not a hero or a villain and being both is what I found most confusing. Well, Carmen's dad was a fisherman and he retired from fishing when she was just four. When Carmen was eight, her mum was taken into psychiatric care and her dad looked after her and her older sister.

But things became more complex. Our reporter Joe Morris went to meet Carmen and they went for a walk on the beach near to where Carmen still lives. But first Carmen showed Joe a photo of her father in his fisherman's smock. So that's Dad in his early 50s. And can you remember him like this?

Yeah. I can smell his smock just looking at him. Smell his smock. His smock, it smells like B&H cigarettes and diesel, which I know sounds unpalatable to most people, but to me that is the smell of love. How did that smell make you feel? Just calm, really calm, really safe.

Yeah. And did that change your love for that smell? No. On a deep visceral level, that love is constant. It's always there. I think that's why I got so conflicted as a kid not knowing whether to love him or whether to punish him or he would say to us that our family were protected at sea by a sea god. And mum would take us walking in the sand dunes and she would sing up the area mountain and down the rushy glen. We dare not go hunting for fear of little men.

They were magic. Mom and Dad, they really were. If I had to describe what a family life was like, it was full of magic. Before your mum became ill. How old were you common when your mum was taken into psychiatric care? Eight. I was eight. Good morning, hello there.

Yeah, sounds, yeah. It's really nice and early in the morning. So, but according to my dad, we've already, missed the best part of the day because it's after half seven. Is that what you'd say? Yeah. I can hear to see. Yes.

There she is. There she is. Yeah. When mum was taken away, everything that I knew about our world was rewritten. You just can't process. But Dad kept us children for longer than is conceivably possible. after a trauma like that.

He was always on the go, which meant that I didn't get a chance to sit with fears and emotions. We were moving, not avoiding, moving from the house where my mom had the breakdown where I saw her fall apart, where my sister and I witnessed mum really tried to harm herself, so the horn was no longer a safe place. He took us out into nature. There was a world with Dad that was magical

and a world beyond Dad that was Threat. And inside Dad's world, everything was really simple. It was get up, take a look at the sea, try and catch an eel, come home, eat, clean, work and sleep and prayers before bed. It was a very, very simple, beautiful world where you tired out your body so that your mind wasn't able to frighten you

with what was really going on. He would take us rock pooling and he would show us how to really gently lift up. a rock in a rock pool so nothing was harmed. How did your dad explain her illness to you? He said poorly, but the way you've got to understand the way my dad uses language is, if you imagine the worst storm you've ever seen, my dad would go, well, it's a poor day. And like literally flooding, catastrophe, rescue boats.

Oh, it's a poor day. So when my dad said, your mom is poorly, and that meant mum's in the midst of the worst storm of her entire life, he never said whether she was going to come back. And we never asked. All we could do was have the best day that we could that day. And that's what he gave us. And that might have been on the beach. It might have been a beautiful fry-up with eggy-fried bread. that was what held my dad and my sister and I together in that time. How long was your mum in psychiatric care for before she came home? Six months. That's a long time in an eight-year-old's head, isn't it?

A huge amount of time. Do you know what? I don't think we ever told mum what it was like when she was away. And that's awful because would you have been different to Dad if she'd known? What would you have liked to have said? I would have loved to have told mum that Dad was everything that we needed him to be when she was away. That he made us feel safe and loved and alive.

Yeah, so we might get some wild flowers and some bits of, and some rocks for mum. And mum loved stones. When you were 13, something about the way you felt about your father. What happened? When I was 13, my mom took me and my sister for a walk along the seafront, and she was really edgy. Let's go for a walk and we'll have an ice cream. And that made us suspicious because mom wasn't the treat person.

So we sat down on a bench and she told my sister and I that she was, wanted to explain what made her ill and we always just said the illness and she told us it was because dad had had an affair and I just felt so sick really sad I was 13 and boys were becoming interesting. I couldn't fit the thought inside my head because I just thought, no, he can't. It can't be the same man. Because he saved us when the bad thing happened. He didn't make the bad thing happen. I was just too young. I was far too young to be able to understand. So for a long time, I was just really scared. I was really scared of boys. I was really scared. I was really scared of male attention.

And I just, I wanted nothing to do with men. Any man that you love will do this. Because the man that you loved the most could do this. How did it impact your relationship with your dad as a teenager? I was just furious with him. I mean, God help him. So he's in house now with a menopausal woman and two teenage girls who were all furious with him. I mean, sometimes I'd be nice to him by accident

and then remember, do you know, no, I'm supposed to be angry with this man. I think Dad was just devastated and he went quiet and he retreated. I was 13. I was not only gobby, I was really good at arguing and I was really eloquent. I could just torment him with words. And in teenage brain, that felt good.

I could see in his body language. which he'd sit in the back kitchen with his head and his hands, smoking a cigarette, and he had nothing to say and nothing to come back at me with. Maybe he could have and chose not to. I mean, when I read the letters that he wrote to my mum, he was exceptionally eloquent when he wanted to be. And it went on like that for too long. And at that point, sort of 17 I knew I was going to be going away to university.

First time I came home from university I remember walking home and I could see woman dad in the window because they were watching out for me and dad came running out of the house towards me and he'd never shown like this much open affection for he came running towards me and he's got these giant hands

and he just held my whole head in his hand and held my head to his chest. It was so safe and it was so lovely. I just thought, God, I didn't realize that you missed me. It just dawned on me how much I meant to him and how important it was, that I was home and I was safe. And I would be walking back from college and I'd bump into my dad on the way home

and my dad and I would be walking along the seafront together and we'd just chat. I'd just tell him how we'd just tell him how. college was going and he was annoying me and tell him a little bit about what I was learning. He'd be nodding and I'd think, this is lovely. I didn't know this was possible. I thought I was going to have to be angry with you for the rest of my life. But I only got that for another year because he passed when I was 19. So it wasn't long enough. I just, we never got to know one another as adults. And I think that meant for a long time that

my reaction towards men and love and relationships were frozen in that childhood state of fury and suspicion. But when he went, we were all there and it was really beautiful and it was really peaceful. But it's very hard because those years between 13 and 19, that rigidity of thought, that rigidity of thought, and punishing someone becomes a habit so that it feels like, and keeping someone at bay, that feels like it's normal. I felt like it was normal to me, and it's not. I was so frightened because I knew what that abandonment felt like. I lost my dad twice, and so...

I never got to have that moment of healing with my dad. The really tragic thing is that love became something that I was frightened of. And at the same time, I would throw myself into situations where I'd be loved. And I would expect the hurt and the pain to come. And it did. I would feel anxious and worried. if I felt content because then I would be thinking when is it going to get taken away. If we keep walking in that direction, we'll get cut off.

I can hear my dad's voice in my head going, that's it, that's far enough. It's like he's laid down these maps in my head and it's hard trying to convey that to my son. When you had your son, did things begin to change for you? I found it really difficult becoming a mother was not remotely perfection but it was also a beautiful contradiction because I had this closeness with my son

and it pulled me back to that closeness that I had with my dad and I cried for my dad when I had my son because what I wanted was I needed him to ground me I co-parent now because I feel like I'm exhausted by relationships. From the age of 16 till the age of 49, I have been trying and failing with men to try. understand that dynamic between love and hurt.

And my expectation that someone could love me as deeply as my dad and hurt me as deeply as that felt. And that spiral has just been exhausting. I'm not staying in the past, but I've never stayed with these feelings with it just being me. I want to take the time to work out what that is. When you hear the phrase daddy issues, what does it mean to you? It's reductive about the relationship that women have with their fathers.

It's reductive about the complexity of that relationship. It's an insult to women to say that we're defined by the things that our fathers have done. And it's an insult to our fathers to imagine that they have only ever been fathers and not whole human beings. I think, you know, more than anything else, my dad wanted to teach me to be an independent woman. He wrote me and my sister a letter about fishing when we were kids and it said, I want you to know the role that women played in the fishing, that women would launch the boats as well that weighed waist deep into the sea. He wanted me to have that freedom. He wanted me to have that wonder. He wanted me to be more than a daughter. So I have

to accept him as more than a father. How much do you think about your dad when you're on the beach? I feel like he's with me. When my dad died, he curled his hands like this as though he was rowing. And I remember seeing it

and thinking he's going back out to sea to the rest of his family who were waiting for him. And when I take my son to the beach, I say hi to granddad. And that's what brings me closer to both of them is the stillness of that understanding. Because my mum did forgive my dad.

She loved him with her whole heart. I've been thinking I have to choose sides because I held on to that feeling of being a child. But they didn't, they moved on. That was Carmen there sharing her story with Joe Morris. you can hear the other interviews in this series. Just go to BBC Sounds and to Woman's Hour. Now, we've been asking about whether you have been persuaded by social media

into doing something or buying something that you thought might just improve your life, maybe help you to keep up with the Joneses. It's because I'll be speaking to an author who addresses that in her book, Capitalism is Sexism. And you have been getting in touch with us. Do keep them coming in on 8484.4.4. 4-0-3-700-100-44-4-4-4-4-Wat-Sap. This one here says,

Rekeeping up with the Joneses, I work for a company that sells fancy hand-wash. It's only to show off to their friends and neighbours. It goes down the drain. It really doesn't bring true joy and purpose, just more capitalist longing and filling a hole. In the meantime, she says three charities near us are losing staff and funding. And this message here says,

neither I or my husband usually fall for this, but on a rare visit to an electrical superstore, we watched a stick vacuum cleaner being used. Yes, it's easier than the old-fashioned one, but I can use it on stairs and carry it between floors more easily than the traditional one, but the lithium battery only lasts about 15 minutes. It looks beautifully revolutionary, but it's also revolutionary incompetent

compared to the ancient tried and tested traditional vacuum cleaner. Thanks very much, your comments. Do keep getting in touch. 84844 is a text in 0300-100-444. if you want to send us a WhatsApp message. Now, River Ahmed made history in May when she became the first Afghan woman to climb Mount Everest. She'd always dreamed of climbing the mountain

with her 20-year-old brother who later took his own life. As a teenager in Afghanistan, she survived a Taliban attack on her bus. River now lives in Australia, and she spoke to the BBC's Soda Bar Haydari about her inspiration to climb the mountain. I just wanted to prove that Afghan women can do different things. Afghan women are not powerless as you live in the darkest part of the history. You come from Ghazni province.

It's very mountainous and I've read an interview that you used to go up there with your brother. You had a mutual dream to climb Everest together. I've grown up in a very small village. It was similar like every space camp. Obviously, it was very tough to go climb in Afghanistan or specifically in a village. No one wanted me to climb and mountain was just for man and boys to go to do those kind of stuff. But I just had a very good relationship with my dad when I was very young and I said, Dad, just let me climb these rocks. And when my brother had grown up, We both used to go to the mountain and we used to climb and we used to just laugh.

And we used to just shout on the mountain. You know, you can hear your reflection of your voice. And I was like, I want to climb down to every one. And I was like, okay, we will do that. I don't have my brother with me right now. And obviously, I miss him all the time. And what has been the reaction from your family or have you had any messages from Afghan women? then that was not happy at all.

And when I was at base camp, he sent it a message to me. He said, oh, people are going to the moon and they are being a doctor or engineer. I don't know why you're going to buy them. You're crazy. So when I cried, the story got changed. My dad immediately sent messages to me, my mom, my family, everyone. Oh, I'm so happy. I'm so proud of you.

And also, I got so many messages from Afghan women that they, in a spark by my climbing, they can do something different. How did you mentally prepare? It's a big mountain and obviously different to the mountains of Ghazni where you grew up. First, I climbed a big mountain in my head.

Finally, one day, after three months, I woke up and I said, yes, I feel that I can climb. I just want to mention one specific time I question my decision. Why I put my life in danger to prove something, probably I will die. I will never go back home. There were so many dead bodies

and you see people all coming down, struggling to breathe. I just stand on the rock and I close my eyes. I said to myself, you have chance to try. An Afghan woman in Afghanistan, they don't have this chance. And the moment I said to myself, you can do it.

You survived. Taliban attack, try harder because Afghan women cannot do it and give them hope. In 2014, you had your own experience with the Taliban when the bus you were traveling on was attacked, many were killed, but you survived because you smudged period blood on your face and pretended to be dead. When I finished my year 12, I just wanted to go over to study in Kabul. They stole biases along the way And they just start fire and just with Ghan I had my period

You know women get pressure, got scared The blood is coming quite instantly And I was like, oh, I'm not going to die I love life What should I do? What should I do? They were getting closer And I took the blood and I put it on my face And I just let pretend that I'm dead

They came to me and they just looked And said, oh, this prostitute the lady is dead and then leave the bus. What is your message to Afghan woman? I want them to dream big. I want them to believe themselves. I know it's a very tough time, but they are stronger than they think and they can do different things.

That was River Ahmed there, speaking of her experience of becoming the first Afghan woman to climb Mount Everest. Now, women today have freedoms previous generations fought hard to secure over work, relationships and whether and when to have children. But how free are those choices really? Well, in her book, Capitalism is Sexism, Dutch journalist and philosopher Dorcher Smithausen starts with the details of everyday life, childcare, relationships, fertility, and even things mothers buy to ask why apparently free choices still so often produce familiar inequalities. Well, capitalism is sexism has been

huge success in the Netherlands, becoming a bestseller and sparking a major national conversation about feminism, work, motherhood and relationships. And now it's released in English translation. And I'm delighted to say that Daughtia joins me now. Welcome to Women's Hour. Hi. Thank you so much. It's really an honour to be here. It's great to talk to you. The book is very interesting. It explores the biggest themes, but you deliberately start with small everyday experiences rather than feminist theory, why? Yeah, that's really, that was really the base of the book.

What I really wanted to do was sort of investigate why a lot of women in my own social bubble, so to say, they really do know how to be emancipated, I guess, how to sort of do the feminist things and maybe also think the feminist thoughts. But then also they tend to do quite the opposite. you know, they tend to still get Botox when they turn 35 or something like that, or they tend to take more care of the children when their husband doesn't. And all these things really fascinated me because I thought, if we know how to be feminists, we've read all these books.

We know what we have to do, but then why don't we? And I really wanted to focus on the way as a woman, you are really primed all the time by very small things that you see, like you said, things that you buy, things that people tell you, all these sort of ways society keeps reminding you of the, well, the role you are meant to play in a patriarchal and capitalist society. and all these signs they add up to choices that maybe feel like your own but I am sort of doubting whether they are. So you write about you and your friends, you know, in your 30s, as you were saying, kind of educated, successful, privileged, but what inequalities were you still seeing in your own lives between you and your friends? Yeah, that was really also why I wanted to write about people.

people with choice because, well, for a lot of women, of course, feminism is something that is not on top of their list, you know, because they have to get by. They maybe have to provide for their children. They don't get to read books about how society should be. And that's why I found it so interesting that in my own bubble, where we get to have these privileges, as you say, still a lot of people, well, it was like they knew that they wanted something else, but then they didn't, you know. So they said like, yeah, I know it's not good that I am taking care of the children now. But yeah, you know, my boyfriend, he's not going to do it. So it felt like even if you have the decision, so to say, which is, I mean, I'm sort of not going along with this whole feminism of choice thing. That's another topic. It seemed like they still didn't get to decide.

So does that mean then that your first? friendship group was probably not necessarily as free as they think they are. Yeah, exactly. This is, I think that we were all raised with this idea like, you know, the 90s, early zeros, you know, feminism is done, men and women are equal. You get to grow up and be a prime minister when you're a woman if you want to. And then, yeah, it's sort of disappointed, I guess. And, I guess the last, well, I guess 10 years, there has been this growing idea about feminism of choice, you know, just like, you know, women are now free to decide whether to be a stay-at-home mom or a career woman, and both are fine. You know, that's the idea.

But what I actually saw is that whatever you choose, whether you will be a stay-at-home mom or a career woman, you will always pay a price, always. Whether it's when you're a stay-at-home mom, you are probably dependent of your husband. So you are, I mean, you're free to go wherever as long as you stay in that role as a mother and a wife. And when you choose to pursue a career, you will pay a price in other ways. For example, the way society sees you. There are still a lot of biases about women putting their career first. also a lot of research has been done about the way this sort of trickles down into relationships, heterosexual relationships, I should say, but both women and men being less happy with their

love life when the women is the more successful one, so to say. But of course, also the price you pay when it comes to taking care of fertility. I mean, that's the whole thing. We can say that men and women are equal, but when we still look at women to sort of take care of having babies, raising them, and of course, having a big pay gap because of that, there's also a price pay there. And you share your own experience. Sorry to interrupt. You share your own experience, don't you, of deciding whether or not to freeze your eggs. What did that exploration and that experience tell you about the way we view women's independence? Yeah, well, I feel like this is also such a good example of this sort of hoax that feminism of choice is, I guess, because egg freezing is,

of course, presented as a sort of, well, very modern and freeing thing. You know, now as a, when you are a career woman, you can decide to freeze your eggs and pursue your career and not think about fertility for, I guess, a few more years. But it's so interesting that, I mean, just, of course, egg freezing is quite a heavy procedure. It's not something that you do quite easily, I would say. But it's also super expensive. And that's what I'm, what I'm so interested by, that, I mean, okay, so now we have this new thing that women get to do, but they still have to pay 20, 30, maybe even 40 or 50,000. of euros or pounds to get that done. And it's so fascinating to me that this is just sort of accepted by society because I guess

it has always been women's responsibility to sort of take care of the children and how they come about. And I feel like that is why it's just so naturally accepted. Like, yeah, sure, when you are a woman and because you are pursuing a career, it's maybe harder or more difficult to create a family right now, that you have to pay such a big amount of money to do it. I was really interested to read the section, particularly about motherhood and when you were talking about mum guilt, but you never hear about dad guilt. I wonder how much guilt still determines the choices that women make about work and family. I feel like this guilt thing

is such an interesting thing because also a lot has been written about, you know, the way witches were burned as an example, of course, hundreds of years ago, but as a way to show a woman, like when you don't fit in to the roles that we present to you as society, you will be burned or banned or whatever. And I feel like these feelings,

they still sort of linger in our society, like you said, with Mum Guild, of course. I think mom guilt is really an example of the way you are as a woman primed by all the things that you see around you, whether it is mom influencers or wives or the school that always calls you as a mother and not the father when the child is sick, you know? That society always keeps reminding you like you have to be a good mother, you have to take care of your children, whether they don't do that to men. what I find interesting also when it comes to this mom guilt, I feel like there's more a thing

like women guilt or something. I feel like we feel guilt about so many things all of the time, whether it is not being skinny enough or not being pretty enough or not being a good girlfriend enough. There's all these sort of things you should be as a woman that are being shown to you all the time, the whole day, whether it's on your phone or on television or whatever, that sort of add up to these feelings of, yeah, guilt. Let's talk about one of the things that you address in the book. You write about the pressures on mothers to optimize everything. And you returned several times to your own fascination, I guess,

with a particularly expensive baby carrier. What did that baby carrier come to represent for you? Yeah, this is also quite interesting because this is also one of the ways that I saw myself as being primed in this way, because the baby carrier started popping up in my Instagram when I was about to turn 30. I guess they have like an alarm for women on Instagram, like, you're about to turn 30. Let's get in with the baby stuff. And then I really sort of felt my mind changing by it, like seeing these women carrying their babies on their chest in these beautiful carriages. It was such an ideal sort of look.

And it's, of course, it primed me, like thinking about, okay, so yeah, I'm turning 30. I'm already super old. I must be thinking about having a child. What am I doing with my life? you know, all these kinds of thoughts, they can be triggered by such a, well, a sort of stuck image, so to say. But also what I find so fascinating by these baby carriers and the way they have been growing as, you know, very popular influencer items, is that it's also showing quite a traditional way of mothering, so to say. They have, you know, you literally have your, you literally have

your child on your chest all the time. And most of these brands, they also have these statement like, you know, you should keep your children as close as possible. Don't put them in a stroller. Keep them at your chest all the time. You know, it also is a sort of advocating, they are advocating a way of motherhood that is actually really traditional when you think of it. Just finally, you write amusingly about spin classes and retreats with fellow women. but feeling quite alienated from them. And you kind of end up coming to the kind of conclusion or argument that women need to connect with each other once again,

just briefly if you can. Why is that important? Yeah, I feel like we have been disconnecting so much for the last, well, decade or more. I think social media really is presented to us as a way to connect, you know, maybe even test against certain things. But in the end, I feel like we only get more disconnected because we stay in our own, you know, profile, just like we stay on our own spinning bike while we're in a class with 50 of other women, you know, doing the same exercise and screaming to Beyonce. It's wonderful to talk to you, Dorcher. That's Dorcher Smithausen speaking there. And her book, Capitalism, Is Sexism, is Released on the 24th of Sexism.

September. And once again, apologies for the language used there. Now, on weekend women's hour tomorrow, new plans by the government to introduce legislation to block explicit images on children's phones. Also, do you remember the iconic film Thelma and Louise, who can forget it? Well, we're here from Callie Corey, who wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for it and who has now adapted it for a musical which just opened in London. and also rugby balls. 3% may not sound like a lot, but a ball that's 3% smaller has women rugby players

and fans debating whether it's needed. So if you can, join me tomorrow at 4 for that. But for now, thank you very much for listening. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Join us again next time. A new series of rarely heard tales from World War II. This was a suicide mission, deep into enemy territory.

This was a crazy mission. And by goodness gracious me, these men had guts. I'm Helen Labon Carter and for BBC Radio 4. This is History's Secret Heroes. Anyone who crossed the threshold was immediately entranced by her. She was very sexy. She was obviously close to power. Listen first to History's Secret Heroes on BBC Sounds.

You might drink it every day, but did you know that the history of tea is steeped in skullduggery, colonialism and industrial espionage. I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, we're a comedy show that takes history seriously, and in our latest episode, we spill the tea on tea. Join us to unpack the ancient Chinese origins of the drink and find out how it became the national drink of modern Britain. Listen to Your Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us on YouTube.