Woman's Hour - Lucy Mangan, Girls & Education in Afghanistan, Sexual Assault, Consent & 'Grey Areas'

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Who does what in your home? Sourcing school shoes? Calling the plumber? Sorting the threadworms? In her debut novel 'Are We Having Fun Yet?' author and columnist Lucy Mangan reveals the comic diary of Liz who is 'outwardly mute, inwardly mutinous' as she does her best to keep the domestic show on the road.In her new book Rough, Rachel Thompson looks at how violence has found its way into the bedroom. A study released this summer set out to gauge the extent of violence against women. One shocking finding revealed that half of respondents had "woken up to their male partner having sex with them or performing sex acts on them whilst they are asleep." Emma discusses these findings and the impact on women with Rachel and Dr. Jessica Taylor, co author: Understanding the Scale of Violence Committed Against Women in the UK Since Birth.For 26 days teenage girls in Afghanistan haven't been able to go to school. The Taliban has banned them from secondary schools. If girls don't go to secondary school, that means they're unlikely to go to further education or university. Under their new government, Taliban officials said that women will be allowed to study and work in accordance with the group's interpretation of Islamic religious law. Emma discusses the current situation with Yalda Hakim, presenter on BBC World; and a teacher in Afghanistan.Presented by Emma Barnett

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to the programme. Today marks 26 days since Afghan girls have been stopped from going to secondary school, this after the Taliban took over the country. Today we speak to one teacher on the ground and our correspondent to get the latest on a reality we must not forget. And sex in the middle of the night with your partner

while you're asleep. Concerns about consent and other aspects of behaviour in the bedroom we seldom discuss. Two experts will be on hand. But the question I want to ask you today is around what's going on in our homes or some of them. Often written off as unimportant, soft, frilly, homes and how we live our lives have been under the spotlight more than ever because of the pandemic. And the poll about equality that we did for Women's Hour's 75th anniversary also told us that the place that 75% of women feel most unequal,

and that was the highest number, I should say, about any other subject, is in the home, with more housework and domestic chores falling to women. And yes, it was also the area women felt least compelled to do anything about or make any changes to. So a bit of a mismatch there. And on the programme last Thursday, the special programme, if you missed it, you can catch up on BBC Sounds.

We got to a bit of that, but we didn't get to all of it. So we're trying to unpack some of these issues in more detail. And my first guest today, the journalist Lucy Mangan, she's written her debut novel, Are We Having Fun Yet? And it's a warts and all story about her character, Liz's home life. It's hilarious. I actually wheezed with laughter and woke my husband up while reading it. So I'm sorry to him. But you know, there you go. It's hilarious. I actually wheezed with laughter and woke my husband up while reading it. So I'm sorry to him. But you know, there you go. It's also maddening, because Liz moans a lot. But maybe Lucy will disagree, does very little to change her day to day, whether that is taking responsibility for fixing the dishwasher, an ongoing theme throughout the whole book, never seen it written about in such detail, through to, you know, at the other end of it, potentially

leaving her husband who she rejoices every time he perhaps gets some time to go on away for work, because she's really happy to have some peace and quiet in the house. What I want to ask you today is, do you think sometimes women can be their own worst enemy? Does moaning get us anywhere? Or is it cathartic? Is it part of just how you have to get on with getting on why do you think more women aren't exercised about making more changes on the home front when so many told us we didn't invent this when we asked those who we polled of course it was only those we polled but this came out top of the areas the domestic front where women still feel there isn't equality between the sexes. Why are more women

not doing more to change more in their home lives? Tell us 84844. You will say I'm sure some of you that's not how I feel. That's not how it is in my home. That's not how I've been brought up. We need a cultural change. But for those who do feel that of which there are many and you might be a silent majority. I've got no idea. What is it like? What do you want to change? Maybe you don't think there should be any changes. Tell me where you come in on this. And I'm going to go there. For some of our male listeners, of which I know we have many, do you think some of the women in your life gatekeep certain jobs? They think they can do it better. They like to do the laundry the way they like to

do it. They like to do the dishwasher the way they like to do it. And you are accused, if you try and do anything, of not doing it good enough. So get away. Sometimes are women making their own lives harder? You tell me. 84844 is the number you need to text on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour or email me through our website. And to those already saying this just really isn't important, I say this, where else are you going to talk about it? And it is very important. If the pandemic showed us nothing else, the way that we live our lives day to day within our homes is incredibly important and perhaps hasn't received the scrutiny it ought to from all sorts of quarters.

But Lucy Mangan joins me now. The book is called Are We Having Fun Yet? Good morning, Lucy. Good morning, Emma. What an intro for you to, I suppose, put this forward, the case for the women of this country. Before we do that, I actually thought, and you've been kind enough to do this, that we should hear an excerpt from the book to give a flavour of what you've been writing about. It lays out in all the boring, messy, comic, enraging detail of a diary of a year in the life of your character Liz, a full-time worker, a mother of two, a partner, a friend, a cat lover. That funny noise coming from the dishwasher which needs sorting provides a soundtrack to her life. Also there's stories of threadworms, the school shoes, avoiding the PTA, which take up Liz's time and patience. Let's have a listen to an excerpt in which her husband

Richard's toe gets very short shrift. I have a sore toe, he says, lifting his foot out of his slipper and proffering it to me as if it was some delectable sweetmeat or trinket instead of a man's foot, which, as everyone knows, is one of the worst things in the world. I don't even want to see Hugh Grant's feet. I glance as briefly as possible at it. It is a bit red around the nail. You've got a sore toe, I say. What should I do? I'd have a full body amputation if I were you, I reply. No, really. Really? Nothing. See if it goes away, like I do with my aches and pains, like I do with much of life. I think for a moment about all the aches and pains I have. My body has enjoyed finding a new way to disappoint me pretty much every day since I turned 35 and ignore on the grounds that A, if I didn't, the entire household would grind to a halt.

B, I'm not dying. And C, I'd be embarrassed to demand attention even if I was. Shall I wash it? Why not? Go nuts, put a bit of Savlon on it afterwards, see if that helps. Will it? I feel I have devoted enough of my precious resources to this subject already. And so turn my attention back to the children. Lucy, I'm already laughing. And that was the bit that already got me or one to the children. Lucy, I'm already laughing and that was the bit that already got me or one of the bits. Yes, a trinket, a sweetmeat. Yeah.

They're so proud of everything they own. It's a wonderful confidence to have. They're almost entirely misguided. So has your husband got a sore toe in real life? It was taken from life, yes. He had a sore toe actually for about two years because he also wouldn't go to the doctor. Well, studies do show it's often women that get men to go to the doctor,

even if they don't then go themselves. Yes, I know, but not in this house because he both knew better than the doctors and me, but at the same time drew on all our resources to avoid the other. It was a difficult, very boring time. A lot of what you write about is quite boring, isn't it, in this book? Yeah, it's the minutiae, I'm not even sure how you say that, of life, really. That's all my life is.

I had nothing else to say apart from laying out, as I went along, I realised I was laying out the inequalities and the unseen labour that we all do. And that basically became the thrust and the bulk of the book. Was that something you knew you were setting out to do or was it coming to you as you were writing it? No, I thought I wanted to write about marriage and motherhood and how difficult I find them in amongst the rewarding bits

and all the nice, you know, the nice bits that you sort of hear about, I thought, am I alone in finding it quite often quite a bit of a slog and quite unnatural? But it wasn't until I really started writing it down that you finally have time, you know, when you've got to sit and write and that becomes your job, you finally have time to analyse it and literally, you might be fictionalising and making it into a narrative,

but you're essentially writing a list of all the things that make up your life and you begin to see what's making it difficult. I mean, we'll get to some of that in a moment, but I just really want to say this to you, and I think as a fellow Northerner, you may find praise difficult to take. I'm going to shut this link down if you start. I'm honestly crying with laughter reading so much of it. I am glad. Thank you.

No, but seriously, just things like the toe, which I'm so happy you could share, because it's so deadpan. And that must be, I mean, are you drawing on that? Do you at least find laughter, I suppose, now? Or are you able to see it more now you've written it down in the slog? Yes, I mean, this is what we all have with our friends, isn't it? And it's what you touched on in your introduction. It's the, you know, you have a laugh about it with your friends because it's the only way you're going to get through the next day without actually going mad with a machete or a

machine gun and and letting that it's a safety valve in a way and maybe that's for your rage and maybe that's not effective but um overall but it does keep you sane and that's not nothing. And the laughter, you know, if you don't laugh, you'll cry, as the saying goes. Yeah, exactly. The character, I mean, I always want to keep saying you. I'm not saying it's all you, but I imagine a lot of it was based on you and your friends.

You talk about your friends, or the friends in this group, I should say, as the coven, that you need that. I'll say it wasn't entirely, you know, made up of whole cloth, the book. There's a lot of what I hope are universal experiences, I hope are universal female experiences in there. But yes, the friends, it helps. And this is, I suppose, what I want for the book to do as well it always helps to know that you're not alone and you're not the only one who feels like like they're doing all the work

you're not alone in the one that feels like it's actually a lot harder and less less joyful than you were always promised um and that kind of thing and i think that's useful and beneficial on a day-to-day basis. But I also think it's probably the beginnings of solidarity and the beginnings of helping us en masse step up and away from a situation that really overall doesn't benefit us at all. We've got quite a lot of messages, as you may imagine, already flooding in. I thought I'd just go to a few of them before we come back to perhaps some of the rage and what one does about

it. I've got one here saying, yes, we do like Amon. I've got a group on WhatsApp. I have a good rant. But since my husband left, I decided to make major changes. So less for me to do. We've embraced family minimalism, not in a weird way, but having less means less to clear up. I've also adopted fly lady routines, standing for finally loving yourself, not heard of that, simple habits that work along the lines of it took years to get to that point and slow and steady getting back to winning at the housework rather than major slogs.

And Gilly, to the point, of course, that message there, no name on it, talking about being single, says, why don't you just call it married woman's hour? Some of us don't have the luxury of delegating jobs. Of course not. But if you live with others, I didn't say it had to be perhaps a partner or someone you're married to, the delegation can also be there. But I accept that some people don't live with anyone at all. And I suppose this points to one of the issues. I just want to read out a couple more and I'll come to that in a moment. Me and my partner stick to a rule, reads this message.

If you want it done your way, do it yourself. If you don't want to do it yourself, shut up and be grateful. I think a slightly more sloppily cleaned bathroom is a small price to pay for the luxury of not having to do it myself. I think many women, reads this message, care about standards of tidy beds, cleanliness, decor, aesthetics that many men don't. My husband really does pull his weight. But when I get irritated with him and others, I sometimes ask myself why I demand that everyone has to dance to my tune. And yet another message here says, have you noticed I've made the bed? My husband yesterday. Have you noticed I've done everything else? Me. So there you go. A bit of a flavour of what's coming in. And of course,

to Jilly's point there, you are never going to be able to say it how it is for everyone. However, I think sometimes, Lucy, perhaps we've gone so far the other way with hoping that we've got to equality that we don't still paint what can be a reality for many. Yes, I think. And also, I think the domestic issue doesn't really show up until you're that bit older so you do you do have this freedom or equity there is you know such a leap in workplace equality from our parents day that we kind of go oh you know up to about 30 35 or maybe you know you could say your first baby um you think problem solved i'm i'm away i'm i'm away. Everything's great. And then as you get older and you're maybe a few years into living with someone or a baby comes along or there's some big change or just a cumulative noticing

or maybe you just get tired when you hit 40, I don't know, you start looking around and thinking, hang on, why do I know that it's this birthday coming up? Why am I renewing the insurance? Why am I thinking of getting a rail card for these journeys we do that would save us money? Why am I thinking in seven dimensions when what he's doing is going to work, coming home, maybe cooking, maybe doing this thing if he wants to. And everything else is invisible to him. And that takes that's the thing that I think comes comes to you with age.

So I think that's maybe where the disparity creeps in. And you relax, you take your eye off the ball you think oh well if work's done obviously the person who loves me and you know the home in which I'm comfortable and safe and is in my control quote-unquote uh you know why would you worry about that and it's and by the time you've noticed something your your routines are set, your dynamics are very set, and it becomes very hard to kind of, A, find the time, the energy or the confidence, really, to engage in a kind of root and branch reform of your domestic setup because it involves your relationship as well. It's not just a matter of saying, oh, God, I'm doing this. I don't want to do that anymore. You should do 50% of the bathroom or you should do the lose

and I should do the whatever. It doesn't work like that because you're dealing with entrenched views and dynamics and the whole relationship. Your character, Liz, consistently doesn't say how she's feeling mute but mutinous, a great way of putting it. But do you think it's a lack of confidence there or the knackeredness? What is it that leads to, which is what I was also driving up, when we got this snapshot back from the 75th poll that we did,

the anniversary poll that we commissioned, it was very stark that there you have right at the top where the greatest number of women has said about inequality was in the home, and right at the bottom, things you'd like to change was how you negotiate what's going on at home why do you think there's inaction there um because i think it's the hardest thing and i think probably to a lot of women and i include myself from in different years and different days of the week in this it it seems immutable it really does and you are best you know a lot of marriage I think sometimes is that you have a kind of Stockholm syndrome you think oh this isn't this must have evolved the best way you know I like this I. I like to have it my way. I'm,

at least I get things done the way I want. And, you know, you don't ever quite admit to yourself that actually, if everything was shared 50-50, your quality of life would be markedly better, because that's a huge thing to admit. Yes. And I mean, I suppose there's also throughout your book, which is what gives it that kind of edge for me, is there's just pure rage. I mean, this sort of simmering rage underneath it is palpable. And I don't about depression was that, or the truest thing that it felt to me is that depression is rage turned inward. And I think that's probably, I wonder if that's possibly true for a lot of female depression and moods as we have you know it's it's a recognition that um life's not fair and it's and it's unfair in the place that it should be fairest

yes have you have you made any different changes or negotiated anything differently on your own home front since doing this because i should say it's written as a diary, just to say that, which was also a practical choice by you in terms of how you could slot it in around your actual life. Yeah, because with a diary, if you've only got half an hour before school pick up, you can do a couple of little entries. And if you know you've got the unicorn three hours uninterrupted time, you can write one of the more immersive bits

or the set pieces. So that was a very handy way of doing it. But yes, any changes on yours? Have I instituted any great changes? No, I have not. For precisely the reasons I find I'm fighting against too much. It's partly the different kind of jobs my husband and I have, where it is a fact that his deadlines or what he has to do are more pressing than mine. Mine is a much more flexible job. So when push comes to shove, mine's the one that has to take the back seat

and I do have to go and do pick up when it's his turn. The saving grace, I think, in all relationships is that I do think and I do know from when he's been unemployed or I've been unemployed, that he would do it if he could. He would do a lot more if he could. My rage comes from the fact that that's not true of all men. And my rage comes from the fact that he doesn't see what I do to enable the running of the house either and if he when I say he's prepared he would be prepared to do much more I still can't I literally can't envision him

cleaning the toilet literally you know in my head I can't I can't see him on his knees with a bog brush cleaning the stains he's left on the bowl off the loop. And I think that's always my kind of go-to image where people say, oh, my husband does a lot. I said, does he clean the loop? They go, no, no, I do that. From one nice mental image to another. Well, no, I'm not cutting that off, but I do just want to make sure we've got time for me to ask you a crucial question as well, Lucy. I've got to ask about threadworms. You have to ask about threadworms tell me tell us

well this people who don't know what threadworms is lucky you they're the little worms children get in their bums because they you know touch touch their nails, they bite their nails and they get worms. And there are two ways you can deal with it. One's the official medically recommended way, which is to take medicine and break the cycle and let the children poo the worms and eggs gradually out over the next few days and weeks. And second, medically in-advised option is the one my mother used to do with me and my sister when we got them on a six week cycle when we were little children,

which is to get a Savlon on a cotton bud and dig them out that way. Go up, get your legs over your head. Come on. Dig them out. It was a bad time. It was a bad time. I'm so happy we could share it together. Thank you for making me laugh and helping wake up my husband in that instance. What's this noise? What are you going on about? Well, Are We Having Fun Yet? is the name of the book that made me laugh by Lucy Mangan. Thank you so much for talking to us today.

And, you know, thinking of Tozer's sweetmeats and trinkets and whether to wash it or not or just stagger on. Let me read this message from David, not his real name. He's got in touch to say my ex-wife notably refused to ever let me do any recycling, claiming I was incompetent at it. I've held a senior management job for over 40 years, got three degree level qualifications and I'm a fellow of a

Royal Society. Well, David, you could have probably argued your way into doing it. I'm sure you could have done. But there you say, your ex-wife. Not an issue anymore, not a live issue, but thank you for telling us all your qualifications. Another one here genuinely wants to hear these messages from men and women. It's impossible to get help. If you ask more than once,

you are nagging. They don't listen and then you're in this situation. They do a bad job. Don't take advice. Learning to smile is key. Because we're tired, Emma, while we don't do more. Rearing our children, keeping our jobs, cooking dinner, having the same argument all the time is tedious,

especially as the other half seems to have forgotten how to clean the toilets. Toilet seems to be a theme here. What product to use, where it is, etc. I don't want to be their line manager all the time.

Mary says, Emma, I think you'll find women don't have the time to mend things like the dishwashers. They're too busy. Again, I remember when Catlin Moran came on

and we had a whole chat about, again, something going wrong with her dishwasher. So these things, these things are the things of life. And we want to encourage us to have those conversations here on Woman's Hour, whatever your domestic circumstance. Have you wanted change? Do you make change? Is there any room for change? And that rage that Lucy speaks of, that palpable, simmering rage,

how do you release it? 84844 is the number you need to text me here on Woman's Hour. Text the charge to your standard message rate, social media app, BBC Woman's Hour, and over on our email you can get in touch with us via the website. Now a new book called Rough by Rachel Thompson looks at how violence has found its way into our bedrooms in some surprising and rarely discussed ways. What some believe to have become normal and perhaps acceptable shouldn't be, Rachel argues. And in a recent study which set out to gauge the extent of violence against

women, one finding revealed that just over half of respondents had woken up to their male partner having sex with them or performing sex acts on them while they were sleeping. The co-author of that study, Dr. Jessica Taylor, joins me, as does Rachel Thompson. Good morning to you both. Jessica, I thought I'd start with you around this particular example. 51% of female respondents with your study, with your survey, found that they had woken up to a male partner having sex with them or performing sex acts on them while they were asleep. That's something that if you've never heard about before, you'll perhaps be very surprised by.

Or if you actually do know about it, you may never have heard it discussed before. Yeah, I don't think it is discussed frequently at all. And I've worked for 12 years with women and girls in rape centres and in domestic abuse services and in the criminal justice system. And actually, it'd come up a lot in counselling, it would come up a lot in therapy, it would come up a lot on the helpline. You know, anonymous women sort of ringing and saying,

this keeps happening, is that normal? And so I think I was surprised that it came out at 51%. And it's worth saying as well that we've recently been asked to replicate the study and we're partway through collecting data and it's coming out at just under that again in a completely different sample in a different area. I should say the study questioned just 22,000 women. So it was a big snapshot, if you like, to get that insight.

And in terms of, you got the response from some of the men involved, didn't you? When challenged, you got some insight. That was actually a different study that I did in 2017. It was the first time that I'd ever seen the question asked. And I'd mixed it in with something else. It wasn't specific about this topic. And so the question was about I'd mixed it in with something else it wasn't specific about this topic and so the question was about victim blaming actually so I'd given a scenario where a woman was fast asleep and a man had touched her sexually while she was asleep and she'd woken up to find

him doing it and the question was simply asking men and women in the British public how much do you think the woman is to blame for this how much do you think the woman is to blame for this? How much do you think the man is to blame for doing this? And the victim blaming of the woman was really high. It was 46% of a thousand UK adults thought that the woman was to blame, despite the fact she was asleep. And then there was a free text bit at the end where anybody who took part could ask questions or leave comments. and that was where men and women left these incredible comments I wasn't expecting so men left comments saying um I do this to my wife or girlfriend all the time are you calling me a sex offender are you saying that you know this is an assault this is disgusting you know um I've done this you know we've been married 25 years I've

always done this and then on the other side there was these you know women in the comments saying like hi i've just filled in the study there was this item about you know being woken up to like having been you know someone sexually touching you or having sex with me that you know my boyfriend or my husband's done this to me for years are you suggesting that that's illegal are you suggesting that that's an offence because if so that's happened to me hundreds of times and that was the first time that you know I'd ever really seen anybody talk about it but just on this then there'll be some also listening thinking how can you sleep through sex I think um in the most in the most part, so for, you know, women listening who are thinking, wow, that's happened to me. My understanding from all of the women I've ever spoken to about this is that you do actually wake up during it.

So it'll be that, you know, you wake up and, you know, your partner is touching you or doing something to you or trying to have sex with you or trying to penetrate you or something like that. And then you're in this situation like you're kind of asleep and you're kind of awake and you're thinking what on earth is happening is this a dream is this real um so oh sorry we've just got a bit of an interruption on the line excuse me for that that's not that's not your issue we'll just make sure we're able to to quieten that down forgive us for that um sorry so so so people wake up is your point and then they find themselves in this situation. I mean, obviously we're putting things together, but I suppose at that point, again, another question, surely if this is your husband or your partner or someone that you're already in bed with,

do you not then awake and say, well, what's going on here? And obviously at that point, in some way, either consent or not. I think from the women that I've spoken to, there is a real mixture of how they respond. So for some of them, you've got to remember that you don't suddenly wake up a lot of the time. You're sort of in REM sleep or you're kind of awake in a sleep at the same time and you're sort of a little bit confused about what's going on.

So some women told me that their partners would say to them, you came on to me and confused them, deliberately gaslight them or sort of say you wanted it. Could that be true, though? I mean, of course, women also in the middle of the night may get urges. I guess so. I mean, there are other academics that would completely disagree with me and suggest that there are so-called, you know, psychosexual sleep problems where people come on to each other while they're fast asleep i don't think that explains why statistically it's much more common for men to do it to sleep in women and girls than it is for women to do it you know um to men um just just to pause on that thought sorry for one moment you say that

could be a problem is it is a problem is it seen seen as a problem to get aroused during one's sleep, whether it's men or women, and begin taking action on that with the person that you're either married to or in bed with? never in my entire life looked asleep in person and thought, I think I'll touch them. I think I want sex with them right now while they're asleep. That would turn me on. Like that's never gone through my head. I don't know why anybody would want that. It doesn't mean if it's not gone through your, I'm just going with this now. It doesn't mean if it's not gone through your head.

So you're saying if a man or a woman starts touching their partner while they're asleep, as in they're also been asleep, they've woken up and they start to kiss them or whatever, obviously in the hope of waking them up to have sex. You believe that's rape or sexual assault? Yeah, yeah, I do. And I know that's a strong view

and there's going to be loads of people that disagree with that. But consent in the law has to be specific to the event. It has to be at the time and it has to be informed consent. You can't consent to anything if you're not fully conscious. But if you wake up and consent, is it still sexual assault that they initiated it? Well, if they started touching you whilst you were asleep, the initial part of it is the assault, isn't it?

So why do you have that view in that way? If some people, as I imagine they will be now getting in touch, would say, I just don't feel like that. They love me. They're my partner. They're expressing their way of coming on to me. And I wake up and I want to do it as well. I just so I just think it's a line that shouldn't ever be crossed. I think if the person is asleep, I mean, so my questions would be, first first of all what if you're not up for it what if you're ill what if you're tired what if you're on your period what if you just don't want sex what about all the things so you'll just say you you because we are talking about in relationships here

and i know there's very i know there's very specific other circumstances but i am just keeping it to that for one moment you'll just say no at that point but is your view then that you've been sexually assaulted by even somebody making the beginnings? Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that anybody has the right to touch somebody else whilst they're asleep. I think that should be really clear. Message that's just come in from David.

He's listening. My experience is most women love to be caressed and made love to while half asleep. Run a poll of your listeners. I think we should then run a poll. I don't think that that's the case. I think that in a lot of your listeners? I think we should then run a poll. I don't think that that's the case. I think that in a lot of cases, women who have had that done to them

have normalised it or their partner have told them that they wanted it or that it's completely normal. And even women that I've spoken to who have said to me, and I agree with you, women will say it's a sexual fantasy of mine.

I really, I want to wake up to my partner having sex with me. There is still the legal issue there of consent no no i understand that consent to it i understand that in a relationship or not it's completely irrelevant because consent isn't based on relationships i understand that and i understand the legal position which is important to to share uh it's just very good to get your your view clearly on that because it will be at odds of course with other people's experiences and when they're perhaps reflecting. And you're recognising that.

Do you know what? I do have the option, not necessarily to run a poll in the way that you would and do qualitative questions, but I can ask people to get in touch with me. 84844 is the number you need to text. Where you stand on this, if you've had a similar experience to what we're just discussing, or on social media, we're at BBC Women'swomans.org email us through our website and a message here saying this is about consent to your point there and what

you're saying Jessica not always do girls women wake up it's incumbent upon a man to secure verbal or sexual consent I fully support you in this reads that message I gave permission to my partner reads this other message to touch and penetrate me while I was asleep. Another one. It is rape. I woke up to find my partner having full penetrative sex with me. I was asleep. I couldn't give my consent. It was a domestic abuse relationship. He did not care whether I wanted to have sex or not. It's hugely common in domestic abuse relationships. Come on, women's eye, this is sexual assault. I just want to clarify that, which I believe I've made abundantly clear, but I will do so again. Jessica, when asking those questions, you were obviously talking to a whole range of people. And we were not only

talking about those in a domestic abuse relationship, as has just been described. No, in both. Yeah, in both studies, anybody could answer who were well in the first study, anyone meant a man or a woman over the age of 18 that lived in the UK could respond. That's the study in 2017, where men said that they were doing it frequently. And women also said that they were waking up to it frequently. And then in the second study, it was just women only over 18 residing in the UK. Yes. So I just, I just, to make that clear who you were talking to as well in this. Let's bring in Rachel Thompson at this point, because Rachel, your book is called Rough.

And you have been looking at things like this in the sense of not only this, but you've been looking at where people perhaps exactly to Jessica's point have thought about something afterwards and realised it wasn't quite what they thought. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, the book for me started, I started thinking about it in 2018. When we started during the Me Too movement, we started talking about grey areas. And people, you know, I heard a lot of conversations with friends and colleagues that was like, you know, I don't feel that this counts. You know, it wasn't as bad as rape or sexual assault, but this thing happened. And then they would describe something that was degrading, violating, that they'd felt scared in.

And they would call it a grey area or they'd use, you know, kind of woolly language to describe it. And so I wanted to, you know, and that also that category kind of fit a lot of my own experiences as well. And I started to really reflect on, you know, okay, well, what exactly do I mean by a grey area? And so I started to really dig into this and explore the kind of violations that we kind of as a society don't consider bad enough to almost give that kind of airtime to. And, you know, what I found was a lot of the things that, a lot of the experiences that fell into the grey area did actually count as rape or sexual assault. And there were also, you know, kind of more nebulous experiences that legally wouldn't class, you know,

you wouldn't class them as rape or sexual assault. And that's because, you know, often the law doesn't actually cover like the full scope of the violations. So, but I wanted to kind of hold space basically for, you know, the grey areas and to kind of properly explore these lived experiences. Let me come back to you, Rachel, in just a moment. Dr. Jessica Taylor, we are getting a lot of messages, as you talked about there, asking for what people think.

Can I share a few of those with everyone and with you? A message here. I agree it's about consent. I don't like it. And I feel your interview gives me that voice to challenge this behavior. That's from Claire,

who's listening, Jessica. Another one saying you can't consent if you're unconscious. This has happened twice to me. Both times I felt very confused and it was not OK. But Jessica, this message here,

this is bonkers. If you're sleeping with someone you really love, I don't see how it's sexual assault. If I didn't trust and love them, I wouldn't be in a long term relationship with them. And another one, I actually love sleepy sex quotes with my husband and I have an agreement. He can wake me doing that. Is that different if she's got an agreement? Not necessarily. I mean, obviously, within people's relationships, they might have their own dynamics, but it still doesn't change the point in law.

And I think considering how common sexual assault and sexual violence is towards women and girls, I'm really I'm really strong on this. I even if my partner, you know, if my wife said to me, I'm all right with this, I would I would quite like you to wake me up having sex with me. I'd be like, absolutely not. It's not happening. Not doing it. No. And so the person who says, if you're sleeping with someone you really love, I cannot see how it's sexual assault. This is bonkers. I would feel like I was sexually assaulting her. She's fast asleep and she doesn't know I'm about to do it. There's no consent there. She's got no prior knowledge of it. It's not happening. Rachel, on this, when you've spoken to lots of different women about various areas, I'm sure we'll still continue to get to get messages in. Thank you for that response, Jessica. Did you come across solutions for people to try and avoid, as you term it, grey areas or ways of thinking about this differently?

I think, yeah, I think the change really needs to come from society. I mean, I find the responses that are coming out of just this topic actually, you know, quite enlightening. I think that we have quite a lot of misconceptions in society about, you know, what constitutes sexual violence. I don't think that we are teaching young people about what is and is not acceptable in sex. And I don't think that, you know, and that's essentially what happened to me. You know, I went to university and I talk in the first chapter of the book, I describe, you know, personal experience where, you know, I was 19. I did not know really what constituted sexual violence. I had ideas in my mind about, okay, rape is something that a stranger, you know, in a dark alleyway does to someone, you know, in the dead of night.

And actually, in reality, sexual assault and rape is most commonly perpetrated by people we know. And, you know, most of the women that I spoke to in the book, it was actually partners. And it was during these, you know, these moments where they're in a relationship with someone and someone, you know, basically does something that they have not consented to. And they go away and they think, I did not like that. That was violating. I did not consent to that. But we should say, sorry, you're not only talking about the scenario we've just been talking about in terms of in bed. You're looking at this on a broader level, as did Jessica, across society. But we picked out that part because it was something that a lot of people haven't discussed or heard discussed aloud.

Rachel Thompson, thank you very much. The book is called Rough. Dr. Jessica Taylor, another message here that's directed for you, if I may just finish by putting this to you from Iona, who says regarding being woken up by a partner in a sexual manner my husband has done this to me and i've enjoyed it i've also done this to him and he enjoyed it we're both happy to instigate and receive this who the hell is this woman to tell me when i'm being assaulted what would you say about that and your position in saying that i think that the law is clear I think in in both cases in terms of legal consent in both cases both the woman and the man in that situation has done something without the other person's consent it's so important that we don't use blanket consent so what with what you're getting here is this

response from people that are in long-term relationships saying well we have these prior agreements we have these ongoing beliefs and sort of preferences and things like that. Or that they love each other as well, you know, that they've sort of got a relationship. I really don't think that's relevant. Well, I'm sorry. I think you can love somebody and you can still do things

that are against consent. I meant I'm just trying to, for you, because you can't see the text message console here and the social media, I'm trying to tell you a theme that's coming through when people are saying the opposite to you. They're talking about that. Yeah, I think that's because the majority of these, you know, situations, because of what we're talking about specifically, is going to happen in long term relationships. Otherwise, we'd be talking about, you know, sexual assaults and rapes that are occurring,

for example, with acquaintances or new partners and things like that. But, you know, in these situations, what we're often finding, what the men were writing to me and what women were writing to me was that these things are happening in, you know, marriages, very long-term relationships where there's a level of trust there already. I just

still think it's on the person that's doing it to not do it. If you're never going to take it to court or if you like, engage the law, as you say, is this almost just an academic conversation for those people who feel like this? Another one here. I love my husband, says Paula, waking me in the night. If I wasn't up for it, I'd just say no. This is too woke and it's undermining women from within. I am outraged. Yeah, I'm sorry, but a discussion around, you know, women waking up to somebody touching them

or having sex with them without consent is not too woke. It's not somebody, it's their husband, she's saying in this instance. It is somebody she knows very well, she's pointing out. Yeah, I still don't think this discussion is too woke. I think that's ridiculous. We've got, you know, considering what, you know, Rachel's just said, and we know that statistically 97% of all sexual violence and abuse towards women and girls will occur within their interpersonal relationships. imagine and i want to sort of make it clear to them that like i if you need to talk about this conversation afterwards please go and talk to somebody because this i imagine this conversation is extremely triggering actually because there's going to be women listening to this thinking yeah i used to think that as well i used to think that was completely normal my partner doing that to me

but i think it's about power dynamics there's a power dynamic there i i suppose it's not sex with a sleeping person i suppose it's where you feel your power is equal. And some people you can't deny will feel it's equal between them. Yeah, I think they absolutely will. Yeah, I agree. And you don't deny that there is equal power between some couples. I'm sure you wouldn't. It's just you have your very clear position on what is the line and where the line should be.

And I think that's very important too here. And of course, if people, as we always say, have found anything very difficult, we'll put all the numbers of support on the Women's Hour website for people to do so. Dr. Jessica Taylor, thank you for your time and to Rachel Thompson. And Jessica, as you say, continuing to do more studies

which people can get involved with. In fact, how do they get involved? What's your organisation? Victim Focus. You can get us at victimfocus.org do they get involved? What's your organisation? Victim Focus. You can get us at victimfocus.org.uk and have a look at what we do. Thank you very much, Dr Jessica Taylor. And Rachel Thompson, the book is called Rough.

Now, I said at the start of the programme, for 26 days, teenage girls in Afghanistan haven't been able to go to school. The Taliban has banned them from secondary schools and that means they're very unlikely to go on to further education or university. The Taliban has said that women will be allowed to study and work in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic religious law, but it's also promised further announcement, keeping girls hanging on. At the beginning of

the week, the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, expressed how worried he is. I am particularly alarmed to see promises made to Afghan women and girls by the Taliban being broken. Broken promises lead to broken dreams for the women and girls of Afghanistan. Since 2001, three million girls have enrolled in school and average schooling has increased from six years to ten. Women and girls need to be the centre of attention. Their ability to learn, work, own assets and to live with rights and dignity will define progress. The Secretary General of the United Nations speaking in New York on Monday. We're going to hear from a teacher in Afghanistan in a moment. But first, let's go to the BBC's Yalda Hakim, who's a presenter on BBC World.

26 days girls haven't been able to go to secondary school in Afghanistan. It's a shocking number. It's a shocking reality, Yalda. Yeah, very much so, Emma. And, you know, it's not just 26 days. We have to acknowledge that actually the last time girls went to school was about 60 days ago. So that's roughly two months ago that teenage girls were able to enter a classroom. I think what I find interesting and curious about what the Secretary General said, the broken promises to Afghan girls and women.

I'm not sure that a promise was ever made by the Taliban directly to girls and women. When they've been questioned by the international community and when teachers or other members of the community have questioned them, they've said simply that they're waiting for the security situation to improve. They've told others that it's a concern because of COVID. That doesn't answer the question about why then all boys are allowed to go to school and why girls under the age of 10 are allowed to go to school. And in terms of then if there's nothing guiding it, there's no promises there, what are women and girls working off?

Well, hope. Hope against hope. They see some girls in the north of the country returning to school. We are aware that there are some provinces and some schools that have opened up their doors to girls, secondary school girls, teenage girls. But that is not a countrywide policy. And the Taliban maintain that their policy hasn't shifted or changed. And don't forget, many of these girls, the only reference point they have is tales from their mothers who may have lived through the period of the Taliban

in the 90s, from 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban did promise that girls could go back to school and women could go back to work, but only when the conditions were right. And the conditions in five years never became right. And so the concern is, will the conditions never become right for these girls now? In terms of then what we can do or people can do, is there nothing that you say living on hope? You know, those who just listen to this. And I think I asked you this the last time you were on about what people can do. And of course, that was with a reference, of course, as refugees were coming to this country. But there is a great debt here that many will feel because of our role and the promises made by our country and by the Western forces. Yeah, Emma, you and I talked about the sense of betrayal and abandonment that many of these girls and women feel who were told to stick out their necks on a

whim, and then they felt betrayed by the very sort of democratic process that was created to protect them in that country. They're now on their own taking this battle to these hardline militants. Effectively, they may be running the country at present, but they, for 20 years, waged a war against girls' education and women. And it's not to say that in some provinces and some parts of the country, girls aren't going to school and there isn't an attempt to have some sort of normalcy. But I suppose what people can do is ensure that the Taliban don't forget that the world is listening and watching. And of course, we had the G20 meeting yesterday, led by the Italian prime minister talking about

the humanitarian crisis. And of course, the Taliban need international aid and they also need legitimacy. And this should be something that is at the forefront of any discussions with the Taliban. So that's perhaps how the international community, through its leaders, can exert pressure. And of course, media coverage reports continuing to shine a light. Your point there about other schools or other efforts to try and educate girls at the moment. The BBC's Lise Doucette in her report has said some schools have reopened in less conservative areas. Is that formal schools, as it were, or is that people trying to educate

in their own homes? What do we know? I think there's a combination of things, and I think it is a combination of some people taking matters into their own hands. I spoke to an educator yesterday from Penpath who's going out to communities in the south of the country, even in some of the most conservative parts of the country and speaking to tribal elders, having religious clerics come and speak to members of the Taliban, as well as tribal leaders, and say to them, look, it's their Islamic right, it's their basic human right to be educated. So it's a combination of two things, Emma. I think some schools have resumed as per normal. The trouble is that there aren't teachers

there to teach them because they're not being paid a salary, of course, because banks are closed and wages haven't been paid. And many teachers have left, especially female teachers who are only allowed to teach female students. So they're grappling with a number of challenges on a number of fronts. Yes. And I suppose, I mean, the other thing to say is, just going back to your original point about living off hope, not knowing when this might change the quality of life overall, how would you describe that under the Taliban as it is right now? Well, we know that, you know, up to 80% of the country before the fall of Kabul and fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban was suffering from poverty and food insecurity.

We're now being told by the UN and various other NGOs and agencies, that that could have gone up to 93%. And of course, we have a harsh winter looming. Anyone who knows Afghanistan's harsh winter, it's very difficult at the best of times, let alone when you're sleeping in open space. And half a million Afghans or more than that have become displaced because of the fighting, because of their homes were destroyed,

their communities were destroyed in the fighting when the Taliban had launched their offensive and the former Afghan government and the special forces were trying to regain provinces and districts. They've now come to the capital or they're in their own districts and provinces and their homes have been destroyed. And so there are various NGOs like the IOM, the International Organization for Migration, trying to assist with blankets and shelter. But the situation is incredibly grim at present. Yada, stay with us if you can. Yada Hakim, who's a presenter on BBC World, giving us the latest on this and what's been going on in Afghanistan.

Let's now speak to a schoolteacher in Afghanistan. I'm not going to give their name, her name, or where she teaches just to try and make sure her safety isn't compromised. Thank you for joining us today here on Woman's Hour. First of all, I wanted to ask about how the sort of average teenage girl is doing at the moment, feeling at the moment in Afghanistan. I understand you've got two of them in your own family.

Thank you for having me, Emma. Yes, the teenager girls, as you are aware, that until 14th of August, they were able to go to school. They were taking their test, test. And there was no interruption from anybody from the government, from the family, even. There was no interruption and they had no fear in their heart. But 15th of August was the day that all teenagers, not only teenagers, but all the women, fear took place in their heart. And they literally thought that we have lost our value. The value that they took in over 20 years, that almost took 20 years for them to gain that value. And it was given for them in the former government.

And that government also did not do any did not support them in any way and that was very devastating for the teenage girls or the school girls even the university students that were going and attending the classes and right after that day universities and school published an announcement that the doors will close for another almost two weeks. But yet, on the other hand, it was after a week, on September, Taliban announced in conference and in Facebook that all the school students, including male and female, can go to school, but only the elementary level. This announcement left the teenagers devastated and started believing that nothing could happen for us. The Taliban will never give us value. The Taliban will never allow us to go to school. We have got this experience 20 years ago that they gained the power in all over Afghanistan in 1990.

Over there, they had at that time, back in those years, they also promised that a female will go. They will go to work. They will go to their schools. They will go to the universities. But we need to provide them a proper environment, an Islamic environment. Yet it didn't happen. This is again, the same phenomena is again happening because people are not trusting them, specifically female are not trusting them because they know that they are not going to give them the ability or they are not going to give them the opportunity to work in this government.

And everybody knows that a society, a country cannot develop if a woman does not work over there, if a girl is not educated, because that woman will educate an entire generation. And when that does not happen... Sorry, I was just going to say, it must be incredibly, as well as upsetting, but incredibly frustrating for people like yourself who have had that education

and now know the power of it. Exactly. We were lucky enough to have that education. But when we see these teenagers being hopeless, I mean, they have totally lost their hope. Me being a teacher, all we do is to uplift their motivation, not to let them lose their hope, not to let them be free at home at least. We have got alternatives. We can use internet to educate ourselves. We had this experience of having online classes in the pandemic when COVID-19 came over here and we had locked in all over Afghanistan. But we had the online classes, so we have got that experience. We are trying to find the alternatives for them but as I said people are afraid. They are afraid that they might get killed. If Taliban get to know that we are finding alternatives, we are educating

ourselves in other way, we might get killed. Our family might get in risk and also this announcement that the girls cannot go to school or the female students cannot attend their classes in universities, it was a good news for those conservative or cultural families of Afghanistan had more power. They had gained a bit of a power and they could at least convince their families that we need to educate ourselves. And they were out of no, I mean, they had no other way to let them go and to tell them, yeah, you can get your education. But again, you have to get married. What are you supposed to do after marriage? You cannot work after you get married. But that was also something that did not stop the female society of afghanistan from educating themselves but yeah right now if we do not see many people many students attending the elementary level is because the families are not letting them because the families cannot afford to pay for their

expenses and most of them do you have do you have any hope that this will change, that girls will be allowed back into secondary schools? Well, I'm a teacher. It's been almost five years that I'm teaching and I cannot lose the hope. If I lose the hope, what will happen with my students? I need to have that hope. I do have the hope because it's a government that has never ruled before. It might have, but there has to be a bit of changes in them. They have lived in different places. They have lived in other countries and other developed countries. We are underdevelopment country. We are underdeveloped country. So when they are coming over here, when they have decided to rule this country, to have the power over this country, they need to have a decision in favor of their people, in favor of the society, both male and female.

And yeah, I have the hope. And the girls over here, I'm not saying that all of them have lost their hope, but most of them still have got the hope that maybe we might receive a positive response from them anytime soon. Thank you so much for talking to us today and for giving us those insights and, you know, an insight into how people are feeling in Afghanistan, specifically those girls who haven't been able to go to secondary school and are awaiting a decision. We will keep a spotlight on it. Thank you so much for your company today and so many of your views still coming in and I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one.

This is Add to Playlist our new podcast from BBC Radio 4 with me Keris Matthews and me Geoffrey Boakye. Ditch the streaming algorithm as we take you on a musical journey of discovery. In each show we'll create a playlist of five tracks chosen by Keris and myself and with the help of a different studio guest each week we'll explore the rich and unexpected web of connections

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