Woman's Hour - Manipulating body images in ads. National Poet of Wales Hanan Issa . Abortion stories. Nancy Pelosi Taipei visit.

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Last week we talked about the Spanish equality ministry’s summer campaign promoting body positivity on the beach featuring diverse women of different shapes and sizes. But the campaign has received a lot of criticism since as it used multiple women’s images without their permission. We hear from one, Juliet Fitzpatrick who had a double mastectomy, who believes her face was manipulated and put onto the body of another woman - who had only one of her breasts removed.US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taipei in the face of warnings from Beijing. Pelosi has hinted she’d attracted China’s annoyance not for becoming the highest ranking US official to visit Taiwan in a quarter century, but because she’s a woman. Nancy Soderberg is an American foreign policy strategist and former US ambassador to the UN. And we are also joined by Isabel Hilton, the founder of China Dialogue. Good morningPoetry is the space where I go to make sense of the world' - the the words of Hanan Issa an Iraqi-Welsh poet from Cardiff who was recently appointed as the next National Poet of Wales. She joins Jessica to explore some of the themes which influence her work and talk about what the new role means to her.Since Roe v Wade was overturned in the US more women are telling their stories but secrecy and shame still surrounds abortion. In 2019 we asked you ‘have you had an abortion? How did you feel about it then and how do you feel about it now? Over the past few week's we've given you the opportunity to hear some of the stories again. Today in the fourth episode of the series we hear from a woman in her 60's we are calling "Alison".And Chrysta Bilton talks to us about her new book Book - A Normal Family: The Surprising Truth About My Crazy Childhood (And How I Discovered 35 New Siblings) Presenter Jessica Creighton Producer Beverley Purcell PHOTO CREDIT; Sue Lacey

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 Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Welcome to the programme. Now, what would you describe as a normal family? Does the term even exist? Joining me a little later is a writer whose memoir explores her so-called crazy childhood, growing up with a drug-addicted, party-loving mum. She also writes about the shocking revelation that her dad had been secretly donating sperm for over a decade, and she has more than 35 siblings. It's really an extraordinary book,

and the author, Krista Bilton, is here from Los Angeles and will be with me in the studio. I'd also like to hear from you this morning. How in control do you feel when it comes to photos and images of yourself? We live in a world now where the photos can just be uploaded almost without your explicit consent. For example, you could be tagged on Facebook, or maybe you're in the background of a photo that's been uploaded to Instagram. I have to say one of my pet hates is being filmed whilst I'm in the gym, and you don't even know it half the time. Everyone wants to film their workouts apparently in the gym and you don't even know it half the time. Everyone wants to film their workouts apparently these days and they don't really seem too bothered about who they

capture in the background. The last thing I want is to be filmed whilst I'm sweating and grunting. Or maybe, like one of our guests this morning, you've had your photo doctored in some way without your permission. We'll be speaking to one of the women who has complained about a supposed body positivity campaign in Spain because her face was superimposed onto somebody else's body. So how in control do you feel over things like this these days?

Let me know. You can text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website. I'll also be talking to the new national poet of Wales, Hanan Issa. It's at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. I'll also be talking to the new national poet of Wales, Hanan Issa. She says she uses poetry to make sense of the world and explores her Iraqi Welsh heritage, multiculturalism, feminism and identity in her work.

So lots to bring you this morning. But first, China has launched several ballistic missiles into the waters around Taiwan. They're part of live fire military drills, which is China's biggest ever in the region, around the island. It follows top U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taipei in the face of warnings from Beijing. Pelosi has hinted that she's attracted China's annoyance, not for becoming the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan in a quarter century, but because she's a woman. Nancy Soderbergh is an American foreign policy strategist and former US ambassador to the UN. We're also joined by Isabel Hilton, who's the founder of China Dialogue. Good morning to you both. I'll come to you first, Nancy. What do you think was the purpose of Nancy Pelosi's visit? And has it achieved its aims, would you say?

The purpose was to highlight the US strong ties to Taiwan, its strong democracy and the US commitment to self-defense, particularly in the wake of increased Chinese threats, not just to Taiwan, but across the region, and concern that China is watching very closely the Russian invasion of Ukraine to see whether it could run some of that same playbook for Taiwan. And yes, I do believe that the U.S. will not be deterred in defending our interests in the Western Pacific, reiterating our commitment to Taiwan's self-defense. And I think the next crisis is likely to be Taiwan's effort to take over Taiwan in a way that the France ambassador from China is talking about re-educating Taiwan. So it's a real threat. And I think she's right to raise it now. Isabel, do you think it's achieved what she set out to achieve?

Well, I'm not quite clear what she set out to achieve. This was a visit which was postponed because she had COVID and which landed in the middle of a very sensitive political moment for both sides, which has now locked us into a confrontation which neither side will find easy to back down from. I can't believe that was exactly her ambition, but that I'm afraid has been the result of this visit. It's also, I think, given China the impression that the administration itself is divided over Taiwan. There was some discomfort from President Biden in advance over the visit, and certainly the US military seemed to be counselling against it. So if anything, that will have confirmed the Chinese view that

the United States is irresolute and a declining power. And that is the kind of misperception, in my view, that might tempt China into an adventure. Yeah, as you're alluding to there, it feels as though this visit might have been quite provocative, that it poked the bear, as it were. How concerned are you, Isabel, that tensions now can't be de-escalated? It's quite difficult to see how they can be de-escalated, at least until the party Congress in October has passed and until the midterms in the United States have passed, because both leaders are facing nationalist sentiment at home. And that very much narrows the field for any kind of reasonable discourse. And if you add to that the fact that the lines between them are really very thin, you know, in the Cold War after Cuba, the US and the USSR set up, you

know, emergency contact arrangements whereby if there was a crisis, they could at least talk to each other. Now, these are very, very tenuous at the moment between the US and China. And there's every chance that an accident can happen. And an accident in the situation of high tension can quickly escalate out of control. So this is the problem here. It doesn't solve anybody's anxieties about the nature of the Chinese regime, about the fragility of Taiwan, if you provoke a situation for which you don't have a remedy, that is not really helping Taiwan. How much do you agree, Nancy? I fundamentally disagree. I respect the points Isabel's making, but I think it's a bigger

challenge for the U.S. to lay some markers down. I think way too much has been made about the division within the administration. We have a Taiwan Relations Act from 1979. We provide the Taiwanese with massive defense weapons and even more in recent years. And the U.S. is strongly committed to Taiwan's defense and views it as a strong democratic ally. What Speaker Pelosi's visit did was put to the forefront the need to reinforce those messages in the wake of Ukraine, in the wake of increased provocation by China. And, you know, the question is, you know, is the next major confrontation going to be with China over Taiwan or the South China Sea, or can we have a strong U.S. that puts clear red lines in that region and avoids the next

conflict? So I think Speaker Pelosi was right to raise it. Foreign policy is complicated. They've got, you know, the Biden administration has its inbox full with Ukraine, just took out Al-Zarwami in Kabul. We've got inflation, domestic problems, elections. But we have to remember the big picture, which is managing China and Russia. And we're managing a major crisis with Russia. We can't let China fall off the focus here. And so I think the policy, as tough as it is, was right to raise this issue. I'm not worried about the U.S. being irresolute. I'm worried about the

Chinese being irresponsible and provocative, which is what they're doing with these exercises. They need a wall of resistance to these actions across Asia. We've got great allies in Japan who's concerned about China already getting into its economic zone. We've got Australia. So I think what Nancy Pelosi has done is put to the front of the discussion the need to get a strong wall of resistance to Chinese threats to Taiwan. It's a close ally, and I think she's right to raise it.

Yeah, and one of the other things that Pelosi has said about all this, Isabel, and it's a quote, she says that Beijing have made a big fuss out of her trip and hinted that it's because she's a woman. Is that the case? I think that's a rather simple judgment. Certainly, because she's a woman, she has attracted some fairly savage stuff on Chinese social media. But, you know, that's women attract that on social media here, too, as I'm sure we've all experienced.

She's she's conversely on Taiwanese social media. There are memes of her as the Empress Dowager, which I'm sure some will take as a compliment. But the fact is that there is more fuss now, not because she's a woman, but because unlike when Newt Gingrich went, which is a long time ago now, the situation is radically different. China is in a much more truculent nationalist mood. It is testing out Taiwan's defences. You know, this blockade, which we're now going to see for the next four days at least, is partly to demonstrate what China is capable of,

short of a shooting war, but also testing out every exercise like this, tests out Taiwan's defences and they learn a little bit more. The difference between 1997 and today is in Chinese sense of their own military capabilities and their sense of the decline of the United States after the Trump era, with the chronic paralysis that we see in Congress, the fact that Pelosi herself is unlikely to be Speaker after the midterms. All of these are elements that the Chinese will take into consideration as they calibrate their response. And her being a woman is honestly the least of

them. It would have happened if she was a man too. You mentioned there that she celebrated in Taiwan Pelosi, but I wonder about how has she been received in the media in China? Pretty savagely, but you'd expect that. I mean, you know, Pelosi has a long history of standing up for what she believes in vis-a-vis China. She appeared in Tiananmen Square two years after the massacre with a banner commemorating the victims. So her card was already marked as far as the Communist Party goes. That's not the sort of thing that they like. And, you know, it's a sort of thing that also many people will applaud. So it's not that that I think, you know, she is a known entity as far as the Communist Party goes. On Taiwan, I mean, clearly, American support is

absolutely vital for the survival of this, you know It's the only example of democracy in the Chinese world. It's a sophisticated, advanced society. But they're taking the consequences now of this visit. And, you know, it's fine for Nancy Pelosi to argue that she's supporting Taiwan's democracy, but she is not bearing the consequences and won't be bearing the consequences. So I think I return to my point. I too respect Taiwan and very much want to see Taiwan survive.

I'm just not sure that this is helping. I think you have to look at the fact that the Taiwanese very much wanted this visit and they know best what their national security interest is. And I think that, look, misogyny is nothing new to Nancy Pelosi. She's been eviscerated for being a woman. But I agree with Isabel that this is not the case here. She's the third ranked official in the U.S. government, and that's what they're reacting to, not because she's a woman. And the fact that it's been 25 years since someone of her stature has been there is what's triggering this, not the fact that she's a woman. But you need to look at what the Taiwanese are asking for, what they want, what they feel is judged, and they very, very much welcomed this

visit, gave her a hero's welcome, lit up the buildings throughout Taipei. And I think this is going to increase tensions in the short run, but send a very strong signal of U.S. commitment to Taiwan in the not too medium term. And that's what the purpose of the visit was. And I think she's right to have done it. And that the Chinese need to understand that the U.S. stands with Taiwan's defense. It cannot pull Ukraine on Taiwan, much less the Hong Kong either. And I think that's clearly where it's testing, probing, and planning to really try and move on Taiwan in a way that would damage U.S. interests across the region and our allies across the region. So this is the next challenge, and we need to begin to lay very strong markers.

And that's what you saw in the response from the White House, is reiterating their commitment, their interests. This is a longstanding relationship with Taiwan since 1979, and we need to redouble the message that China has to understand the strong US commitment to Taiwan. And I think that's what this purpose of this visit was. And I think it started that discussion none too soon. Okay. Thank you very much for your insights. That was Nancy Soderbergh and Isabel Hilton there. Now, poetry is the space where I go to make sense of the world. Those are the words of Hanan Issa, who has just become the next national poet of Wales. Now, Hanan is Iraqi Welsh and explores themes like multiculturalism, identity, language and feminism in her poetry.

With her roots in two countries, Hanan says she lives with two beating hearts. When I spoke to her, she told me about her reaction to finding out she'd been chosen for the role and what it means to her. I was driving and I had to pull over and just take a moment. And I remember asking Literature Wales, the body who appoints the national poet, I was like, are you sure? Have I made a mistake? You didn't believe it? A little bit, yeah. What does it mean to you sure have it made a mistake you didn't believe it a little bit yeah what does it mean to you to have this title then it's hugely validating to know that a group of kind of arts industry professionals think that your work is perhaps good enough to stand for a

country the thing that I feel most proud of is that it really speaks to like the the progressiveness of the the conversation on on what Welshness is and and identity in general I think really. There's been a lot of kind of conversation lately about how people identify particularly in regards to Welshness and there are a lot of kind of conversations about whether you speak the language or what you look like what Welsh people look like on the one hand there's this kind of harping back to the idea of blood and soil so you know how many sort of far back did your ancestors live here and where and what your relationship is to the place but we're really kind of seeing this renaissance I suppose of looking into Welsh history and how people of

colour how they've always kind of fitted into this landscape and how we're kind of reimagining what Welshness means. Yeah I can really relate to some of those issues you're talking about how have you dealt with those issues around identity and people perhaps questioning your nationality and your Welshness? It's a difficult one. And I think being positioned as a mixed race woman is a kind of unique space itself. But literature has been the place where I found that understanding, where I found that kind of belonging.

Myself and a few other Welsh writers came together and co-edited an anthology called Welsh Plural. And we asked people to look at what Welshness meant to them and also reimagine the future of Wales and I suppose where it took me is to the landscape to our relationship to the landscape but how perhaps we need to reframe belonging and move away from these ideas of aesthetics so a person looks a certain way therefore they belong to a certain place and more towards care and so I took it towards a sense of belonging meaning if you care for a people and a place then that is more to me a more sustainable way of identifying yourself as belonging there. Looking into the writers who I love from both my Welsh and Iraqi heritage, you know, there's, in Welsh literature,

there's a poet called Yolo Morganog and he is known as kind of like a low-key, kind of prankster character. And he wrote so much. And then after his death, they found out, you know, he wrote about the tradition of the Eisteddfod and what the Eisteddfod should include and then they found out he made up a lot of it you know and really yeah and you know from my Iraqi side there are poets like uh Nazaika Maleka

who she was seen as like this very kind of contradictory poet. So I feel like I've inherited this space from people like that, really, this kind of contradictory, not quite fitting into one sort of binary position. Just listening to you there and watching you on your screen talk about poetry and talk about those poets, your eyes are lighting up. What is it about poetry that grabs you that you love so much? It's always been a space that I've found comfort but it really does help me make sense of the world and what's happening. For example the poem I'm going to read for you was my response to the overturning of the Roe versus Wade decision and I think a lot of us were kind of shaken by that and didn't really know what to do, what to think. And I still don't really. But poetry is, you know, where I tend to go to kind of find that small sense of clarity. And if listeners are tuning in, what would you kind

of advise if they wanted to get into poetry? My first sort of advice would be to forget what you learned in school. I think, unfortunately, a lot of us were introduced to poetry in a very kind of narrow perspective of very few poets that maybe aren't as relatable to life today. So I would say spoken word is a good place to start spoken word is I think much more accessible and relatable and you can find amazing spoken word pieces on pretty much anything and everything that will grab you and I think once you start there it just opens doorways to all different types of poetry. And what is it that inspires you to write about certain subjects? And you mentioned how big a theme identity is, but is it from the world around you?

Is it random things that you see and that you experience in life? What is it that you use from the world around you to decide what you're writing about? It's a difficult question to answer. I think what's moving me is usually the question that I ask, what's moving me? Because I think poetry does have to start from a space of passion, of somewhere that, you know, it's touched you so deeply

that you have to write. But I suppose I'm just looking for beauty, whether it's in art or nature or folklore or life experiences, people who've inspired me. It's that's kind of searching for that beauty. And, you know, having fallen in love with language, it's how do I translate what this thing makes me feel like into words that other people can relate to. Okay, now you mentioned your latest poem, The Newer Colossus. And as you said, it's influenced by the overturning of Roe versus Wade in America. Are you ready to give us a little sample? Yeah, sure. If it's okay, I just wanted to explain a bit about the poem. Yes, please do. I'm a bit of a geek about form. And one of my favorite poets is an American poet called Terence Hayes. And he devised this form called the golden shovel.

And he was heavily inspired by another poet called Gwendolyn Brooks. And the golden shovel form itself is a poem in which the last word of every line spells out a sentence so for my poem the newer colossus the sentence that i spell out from the last words is i speak the truth and the truth is savage and dangerous and that's a quote from noel saddawi who was a arab woman's activist. She's like a feminist icon. And it felt kind of fitting for this. And the title, The Newer Colossus, is a kind of nod to the poem that exists at the base of the Statue of Liberty. And I strongly advise,

if you haven't read it, to go and read it, because I think the lawmakers in America need to go and read that poem again and remind themselves what it says. Well, please give us a reading, if you would. Sure. The newer Colossus after Noël Saadaoui. The girl in orange is burning bright. I guess she's about 19. I hear her speak, her mouth joyfully spilling out the signature curved R's of French. There's truth in her laughter. Sparks glitter from her hands and hips. She is moving music.

She's dancing with the sun. Her glowing arms pierce the sky. There's truth in her girl-shaped gift of bursting light. Is she strong enough to stop them swashing her savage brightness? Look closely at her glowing eyes and searing smile. See the world there, dangerous and gorgeous, yearning to breathe free. That was The Newer Colossus, read by Hanan Issa, the new national poet of Wales. Now, last week, we discussed the Spanish Equality Ministry's summer campaign promoting body positivity on the beach, featuring diverse women of all different shapes and sizes.

But it's since received a lot of criticism for using images of women without their permission, even editing out prosthetic limbs, for example, and swapping the body of a woman with a double mastectomy. We can talk now to Juliet Fitzpatrick, who's complained as she believes her face was altered and superimposed onto the body of another woman who had had a mastectomy. Good morning to you, Juliet. Just tell us how you first came across this poster. Well, I saw it last week when it was first issued by the Spanish government.

And I was really happy and pleased that there was a woman who'd had a mastectomy because that's what I do. I do a lot of campaigning around, you know, options after breast cancer surgery. And I thought nothing of it. Then over the weekend, I started getting loads of messages from people that I didn't know asking me whether that was me in the poster. And I dismissed it because I've got no breasts and the woman on the poster has got one. And then I kind of looked a bit closer and had a message from a photographer who I've worked with and who did some photos with me saying that she thought that the head was the face of me in one of her images.

And it had been manipulated and then put onto the body of a woman in another photo of hers. And I looked again and I thought, yeah, that actually could very possibly be the case. And how do you feel about all this? I feel really upset and angry, just disappointed that what could have been a fantastic message and poster about, you know, everybody is a good body, you know, everybody, everybody is a good body, you know, or not a good

body, but everybody is valid. And we all should look how we want has been turned into this complete mess, which has invalidated the whole ethos behind the campaign. I also feel for the other women, you know, Naomi, Nicholas Williams and Sian Green-Lorde, who've also had their images stolen and manipulated and distorted. Have you spoken to them? Yeah, we're in contact on social media and we're all supporting each other and we're all kind of trying to find our way through our feelings and our hurt and upsets and to think about what what we might do together to try and rectify the

situation and i suppose they're feeling very similar to you and that's almost betrayed you've you've had your kind of trust ripped away from you absolutely yeah um the ironic thing is that all three of us do a lot of campaigning on social media about our own different body images and body situations. So Naomi, I know, has done loads of work with the government as well. Sian is a really big advocate for disability rights. And for her to have had her prosthetic leg removed is just shocking. And I've done lots of campaigns where I've been, I've done images of myself topless without my breasts, trying to normalise and get more visibility

and representation for women that don't want to have breast reconstruction. So I think they probably did pick on the wrong women, actually. Is this a step backwards then um yeah i think it is a step backwards because there's been a lot of progress that's been made in terms of um accepting um all of our bodies you know whatever shape they are whatever color they are you know um and for know, for this to have happened, I think is, yes, a massive step back, especially when there was that report this week as well from the Health and Social Care Committee, which which kind of was, I think what they said was that warnings should go on to any social media. Yeah, they wanted warnings and a label put on any images that have been edited or distorted.

And you're right, we were talking about this on Woman's Hour earlier in the week. Do you think that's a good idea? Is that something that would have helped in this case when the artist didn't even ask your permission in the first place anyway? I mean, I don't know whether that would have helped because it seems that the artist is not too bothered about what she does with people's images. But I think it personally, I think it is a good idea for warnings to be, you know, to go on these images because, well, for a number of reasons.

I mean, there are loads of especially young people out there who don't feel very happy with the way they are and you know if they're seeing distorted images of people that they might look up to influencers models or that kind of thing who are changing the reality of their bodies then you know it's possible that it could encourage them to try and have cosmetic surgery themselves or you know that kind of thing so yeah I think it's not good. Yeah we've had quite a few discussions on Women's Hour about consent and the use of women's images. And as you might have heard right at the beginning of the show, I asked our listeners to get in touch whether they'd been in a similar situation like that. And we've had quite a good response. Deborah has said, I was in a Zumba class when at the end of the session, one of the participants said, my son has been secretly filming us for our family WhatsApp.

I objected and was ignored. I escalated the matter only to be attacked verbally at the next class. I've since given up that class. Maria has said the fear of being filmed or photographed and put on social media is turning me into an introvert. My street had a party and one of the girls was dancing, trying to get everyone up to dance. I stood and then she saw all these neighbors with their phones out filming and she said I ran away into my house I feel repeatedly forced into being in photos then see them on social media and cringe again I suppose this just highlights doesn't it Juliet the almost it's almost the norm now to to not have permission over your own image, over your own photo.

Yeah, I think that's very true. Before this all happened, I was really unsure about what the rules and the laws are about images on social media, on Instagram. And I've now since found out that actually nobody has permission to take those photos from Instagram or Facebook without my consent you know it's my consent as to what I do with those images whether they're in the public domain or not and so yeah I think everybody needs to be a little bit more careful about what they put onto social media and you know and and then it might be for totally benign reasons. But, you know, you can't just copy and paste other people's images wherever you fancy.

So what response, if any, have you had from the artist and also from the Spanish Equality Ministry? So I've had an apology from the Spanish Women's's institute which is part of the ministry um they direct messaged me on instagram because i messaged them myself asking um what images had been used they haven't told me that but they have apologized uh they didn't know that the artist was using real women um it seems that i'm the only one that has had an apology. Not sure why that might be. The artist I know did tweet last week that she was sorry about what she'd done. But that happened before I found out that I was probably part of this situation. So I've had nothing directly from her myself. Yeah, we reached out to the Spanish government and had no response.

And you mentioned that tweet from the artist Art Apache, who is an artist and photographer. And yes, you're right. She did issue a public apology. She had to say part of what she had to say was after the controversy around the image rights of the illustration, I've considered that the best way to alleviate the damage

that may have derived from my behavior is to distribute the benefits that derive from this work in equal parts. I hope to be able to solve this as soon as possible. I understand my mistakes, and this is why I'm going to try to repair the damage caused. That's Spanish translated into English. But what's your response to that, Juliet? I mean, I think it's all very well and easy to to put a tweet out saying that I think that it needs more than a tweet and more than an apology on Twitter and you know whilst my motive for sort of speaking out and trying to write this wrong is not particularly financial you You know, I think

perhaps there is some kind of a financial recompense that could happen. I'm much more interested, though, in raising awareness of this, getting a formal proper apology and trying to find ways of not having this happen again. Yeah, I mean, is there anything that you can do to prevent something like this happening? I don't know that's something that I need to look into and maybe the three of us and my photographer Amy can try and work out with the help of people that know more than I do about that. Yeah Juliette thank you so much for sharing your experiences and I hope there's a some kind of resolution for you going forward. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Yeah, we still had quite a few people getting in touch about this because I think it's something that everyone goes through. As I mentioned, I hate it when I'm at the gym and people are filming me unawares. John has said, I'm a classical opera singer and although in major opera houses and concert halls, it's expressly forbidden, some people still think it's okay to photo or video performances and rehearsals as well particularly in a church where there is an afternoon rehearsal members of the public wander in and seem to think it's okay to video part of the proceedings and john says in capital letters it is not continue to get in touch with us about your experiences of this. You can text, you can email and you can tweet or DM us on Instagram as well.

Now, is there a topic, an interview or discussion you've always wanted to hear on Woman's Hour? Or perhaps you've got a personal story, an unusual hobby or glowing achievement you'd like us to highlight? Now is your chance because Annual Listener Week kicks off on the 22nd of August. You can contact us via the website bbc.co.uk forward slash Women's Hour or text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate or on social media it's at BBC Women's Hour. Now as you know we want to hear your stories and talk about things that don't get spoken about elsewhere. In 2019, we asked you, have you had an abortion? How did you feel about it then?

And how do you feel about it now? Well, the response was huge. It was powerful and it was varied. And what became clear was that there were lots of women who have had abortions and have felt unable to talk about it. Since Roe versus Wade was overturned last month in the United States, more women are telling their stories, but secrecy and shame still surrounds abortion. These stories from you, our listeners, were first broadcast in 2019, and the terminology might have changed, but the issues are more relevant than ever. Today, we're going to hear from a woman in her 60s we are calling Alison. She got pregnant on her honeymoon 40 years ago,

and when her contraception failed, she decided to have an abortion. She told Henrietta Harrison how she felt when she discovered she was pregnant. Oh, God. Shock. It can't be. Just horror. Horror. I just got my first teaching job but my new husband had just got a new teaching job very good teaching job we were given a house by the school it wasn't centrally heated we paid a peppercorn rent it wasn't suitable for a child. How did you come to the decision to terminate the pregnancy?

I seem to remember at the time that it was like a back-of-the-envelope job where I wrote down, can I or can't I? I have the child. I didn't involve anybody in the discussion at all. I didn't involve anybody in the conversation, apart from me and a pen and a piece of paper. And I came to the conclusion that it would be something I couldn't deal with, both on a practical level and an emotional level.

It was almost a dispassionate decision. It has to be done. That's it. Job done. You wrote in your email that you remember the day that you went for the termination very vividly. I remember getting the train. It was in Brighton. It was a private clinic. It was a very nice day. Cold, but very clear.

Got to Brighton. And then I remember it was a dingy little waiting room. I do remember that. And the radio was playing Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles. I remember that clearly. What was the procedure like? In those days, it was a complete DNC. And it was the first time, the one thing I do remember is I'd never been in hospital before. And so for for me it was my first experience of being in a medical environment and my first experience of being anaesthetised it was all very clinical. After the termination after the procedure do you remember how you felt when you woke up from the general anaesthetic and subsequently in the next few days and weeks? I mean I thought after I'd wake up after the anaesthetic,

I was going to feel sick and horrible. Actually, I felt absolutely wonderful. In terms of physically, I thought, oh, I feel all right. You know, that second when you wake up and you think, oh, everything's all right with the world. And then everything crashed. And it was raining. The sun had gone, I remember this.

And I got back to St Albans probably around about three in the afternoon must have been because my husband came to pick me up from the train station from work so it was an hour I had an hour of sitting at St Albans station I just remember sitting there and feeling um not very about myself. It was that time of day, so there were children around. I felt kind of relieved on one hand that it was over and done with and that my life could now carry on in its projected path and then just lost. I don't know what I was anymore. I'd kind of done something that I knew was going to fundamentally

stay with me forever. You know, I couldn't put the clock back. I couldn't undo what I'd done. I just felt very lost and very, very alone. Do you think that you got a sense of the gravity of your decision afterwards rather than

before? Yeah very much because I knew I couldn't put the genie back in the bottle and that I had fundamentally done something that was going to be very difficult to come to terms with so yes it was the afterwards definitely afterwards not before. Did you take anybody with you? No. No, I took nobody with me. You were married at the time. Yes. You've actually not mentioned your husband in any of this decision making or indeed on the day that you went for the procedure.

No. He was not somebody that you would confide in. He still is an amazing raconteonteur incredibly funny amusing you know you like being in his company but he's not somebody you share your personal feelings with he would dismiss i'll stop being silly he was not somebody that i could talk to so did you tell him that you were pregnant yes i told him the day before I was going to Brighton to have the termination.

And what was his view then? I think I became soiled goods. You know, I kind of, it kind of rocked his, his world. I've never, you know, we've really thought about it. We never really talked about it.

Even afterwards, we never ever talked about it. Now now I don't know whether I shut down or whether it was just the way of self-preservation it was just I'm not going to talk about it and therefore it it happened but it didn't happen so I kind of locked down on that I think when I when I look back on it. When you say he saw you as soiled goods, I mean, could that just be your interpretation? I felt like soiled goods and I may well have projected that onto him. It's not as if he blew up, he didn't blow up, he just went quiet. I just remember the quietness a bit. Do you think you did the wrong thing?

Do you know, that is an incredibly difficult question. I did the right thing at that time. But I never know, and this is the interesting bit, I never know whether that event triggered in me some of the behaviours that I then went on to enact. Does that make sense? What sort of behaviours? Oh, gosh. You know, the divorce.

Did it lead to the divorce? I had a bit of a wild, not wild, wild lifestyle. No, I don't mean that. But I mean, I was a bit self-destructive. Promiscuous? Yeah. Oh, yes. I had a very healthy interest in sex.

But you're saying you see a connection between making the choice to have that termination and subsequent risky behavior. Is that what you're saying? I'm not sure whether the way, the fact that I did that and then felt so bad about it realized I couldn't talk to anybody about it you know not my parents not my husband you know if you don't have a very good opinion of yourself and I didn't grow up having a very good opinion of myself I don't know whether that act kind of confirmed in me that I was really quite a nasty horrible vile person that could do something like how could somebody do something well that's because that's the person that I was really quite a nasty, horrible, vile person that could do something like, how could somebody do something? Well, that's because that's the person that I am. So I

don't know whether, you know, if I'd not done it and I'd had the child, would it have softened me? Would I have had to meet other women with children and I would have been a state, you know, would I have been a different person? Or, I don't know. You know, that's the unanswered question. I don't know. I only know that when I had my son, three years after the termination, and it was not an easy pregnancy, it was not an easy birth.

It was a plantar cesarean because he was breech and he didn't breathe for five minutes. So when I came round from the section, he wasn't there. I remember screaming at my husband, where's my child, where's my child? Then I just, that was it. I was off on one.

That's being, oh my God, this is my punishment, this is my punishment. And I just remember just crying and then then he was he was all right I kind of believe in that karma you do a good thing you'll be rewarded with a good you do a bad thing you know I had two miscarriages much later both at 14 weeks and that again that was you know the wrath of god that was it you know and anymore and that's exactly how i viewed it you say that you're ashamed of the termination do you think that was related to the fact that you actually married at the time

yes i think it was very much i think it would would have been possible for us to have lived in a nicer house. I could have reached out for support. And I think, had I had the conversation with my husband, I think maybe he would have allowed him to look after me. Maybe I wasn't, you know, maybe I was a prickly little pear. How has your attitude to the termination changed over the last 40 years? Have you come to terms with it? No, because I still don't talk about it.

I still feel ashamed. I still feel it was a very selfish decision that I didn't really allow myself to think it through, that it exposed things that I wished hadn't been exposed I still see it as not something not my finest hour even though when I look at it it was handled I handled it you know there were no histrionics no drama it was all it's all very calm you know I could have had four children four children that's what I regret I think and that's why I think I'm quite hard on myself because I think that being a parent is a very precious commodity it's the most important job in the world why do you want to talk

to women's hour about your experience because I think I just wanted to get it down on paper, send it somewhere, and think, right, no. What happens if they get back to you? Well, maybe it's time. Maybe it's time to just put it to rest. Now, the reporter in that conversation was Henrietta Harrison. And for a list of organisations

offering support, you can visit the BBC Action Line. The website is bbc.co.uk forward slash action line. And in the next few weeks, you'll be able to hear Fiona's story. She had a pregnancy test in one hand and a phone in the other. And she knew immediately that she was going to have a termination. If you want to hear the others in the series, please go to BBC Sounds. Now, what exactly is a normal family? Does the term even exist? My next guest, Krista Bilton, has written a book about her childhood that was

anything but. In it, she talks about her mum, who's a lesbian and really wanted children. She goes on a mission to find a man willing to donate their sperm and she meets Jeffrey. They come to an agreement, have children and all is well. Or is it? Just how much does she know about the man she's chosen to father her daughters? Krista's memoir is called A Normal Family, The Surprising Truth About My Crazy Childhood and How I Discovered 35 New Siblings.

Krista is with me in the studio. Good morning. And I think, Krista, the title of the book somewhat gives away one of the shocking revelations within it. 35 siblings, in fact, more than 35. Yeah, I think we're up to 40 now. Wow. But we expect maybe over 100.

Really? I mean, OK, that's just one aspect of the book. But the book in general, as I said to you when you first sat down in the studio, is bonkers. It's so colorful and so varied. What made you want to write it? Yeah, you know, I, so as you said, I found out in my mid twenties that my father, who already was a complex man, you know, he'd struggled with some mental health issues and homelessness. And, and I hadn't quite realized growing up that my mother had paid him to father me and then, you know, to play a role in our lives. But it turned out after having me that he had become a very prolific sperm donor and that I had all of these

biological siblings growing up over the U.S. So that story is crazy. But then much before even discovering that, I had had a really unconventional upbringing with my gay mom. She was someone who had been a leader or in leadership positions in several cults. She had been, you know, a leader in several multi-level marketing pyramid scams that had led us to living in giant mansions in Los Angeles to being homeless, you know, she really lived the life. She really lived a big life. And she is a magical, incredible woman. So in many ways, the book was a love letter to my mom and also to other kids growing up in homes that, you know, where they felt that something wasn't quite the same as other kids growing up. So okay, let's start with your childhood. There's a part in the book where you write about memory boxes that your mom and yourself would create during your childhood where you collected your stories, your photos and pebbles and things and put them in a box. But when you looked back, you couldn't remember those memories.

Why not? That's right. Well, my mom, you know, she took thousands of photographs and that was a gift because now I can look back and see all different times of my childhood. But she also curated them very carefully. And so I think that often she didn't she left a lot out of our story. And I don't think I understood a lot of what her upbringing was like. And then also, I didn't understand the relationship with my father. And then, you know, the way she told the story was that they had been two best friends who decided to have a kid together. But it was a much more complicated story than that. And so I think the memory box was a metaphor for the way, you know, there was just a difference between the stories that my mother had told us about our life and then my truth and my experience of growing up and trying to reconcile those things. Tell us more about your mother. That might perhaps give our audience and those listening a bit more insight into how this kind of happened, how your childhood came about. Because in the book, you described your mother as looking like an Egyptian goddess who has a contagious enthusiasm for life. Tell us about her. Yeah, my mother, you know, she, well, first of all, she grew up in the 50s and 60s as a gay woman.

And she, you know, when she started having feelings for women, just to give you a sense of how different things are now, she didn't know that the term lesbian existed. She thought she was the only person in the world who had feelings for the opposite sex. So with that comes a tremendous amount of shame and confusion because at the time there were no films, there were no television shows, nothing, you know, everything at that time, portrayed, just, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? It wasn't, it wasn't out there. So she, she had to come to terms with her sexuality. But then when she decided in her 30s, that she wanted to have children, she also didn't know a single gay person who had had kids. So, you know, it's so so different now, but she was really embarking on a completely new experience and making it up as she went along. And so,

you know, growing up, I didn't know a single person who had a gay parent. It's not hard for you. It was hard. You know, at first, when you're in your household, whatever the case is, you think that it's just, it's normal. It's, you know, you don't have anything different. But then towards adolescence, you start realizing when things are different. And I was bullied a lot for it. You know, people would find out that my mother was gay, and then that would become something that they made fun of me for. And hopefully now, kids don't grow up with that, at least not, you know, in London or Los Angeles, where I'm from, which are more progressive places. But, but yeah, so that on national talk shows about being gay or, you know, and then she would she lost a job actually from doing that. And then she would drift back into the closet. So often I think as kids, we we inherit our parents shame about things. So when she was prideful about stuff, I was also prideful about it. And when she was in the closet,

I was also in the closet. And, you know, that became a secret of mine that my mom was gay. But then she also, you know, beyond her sexuality, she was an alcoholic and a drug addict. So there were some years where she was sober and those were beautiful, magical years. And then there were other years when she was using, I think, often to deal with all the pressures of being a single parent, especially doing it in this different way. So the book is also about that. one scene where she's decided that Jeffrey was the man she wanted to father her children.

And in this scene, your mom goes to the restaurant where Jeffrey is working as a waiter to retrieve what she calls a fresh sample from him. He goes into the bathroom and essentially just hands the sperm over in a cup. She puts it under a blouse. She races over to a gynecologist who inseminates her. Were you surprised by this story when you found that out? I was. I mean, there's so much humor in it, too, you know. Yeah, she would she would come meet him wherever he was when she was ovulating.

And once that was in a gas station bathroom and then she'd put it in a little cup like a hen's, you know, and then she'd put it into her blouse and and rush over to the gynecologist's office. But she didn't get pregnant that way. So she ultimately they ultimately did a little ceremony at her house and with a turkey baster. And that's how I came into the world. And now, you know, you're laughing about it now and you're smiling about it now. But when you found out that your mom was essentially paying your dad to be a part of your life how did you feel at the time how did you react you know it was a lot of information to process because i i didn't i don't think i i think discovering that she had paid him for his sperm was one thing and And I sort of understood that. But it was only in reporting the book, actually, that my father told me that he had been paid to be around.

To appear at certain moments in your life. Yeah. A couple of weeks at a time, wasn't it? Yeah, you know, there were times when he was much more involved in our lives when I was younger. And then he too struggled with drugs and other issues. And so he would be out of our life, but then would show up for a birthday party. And so I think that was also why the golden memory boxes were confusing to me, because I would have all these pictures of him at a birthday party for a certain year where I really didn't remember him being around otherwise.

But if you looked at the pictures, we were smiling and happy. So, yeah, but I'm OK with it all now. It is, you know, with time, things become funny that maybe weren't at first. Yeah, I've been there. Time can certainly be a healer. So tell me about meeting all your siblings, because there was a time when you invited them all to your house, didn't you? That's right. Yeah. About 10 years after learning about them, because when I first learned it was just too much to deal with. I couldn't, you know, I thought biology doesn't make family and I don't want anything to do with these siblings. My family growing up was already very complicated. You should actually probably tell people how you first realized that my father had been this prolific sperm donor when the story came out in the New York Times. Wow. Which you'll have to read the book to hear that story.

So she found it in a big way and she decided she would never tell us this story because, yeah, she didn't want to tell us. But then she discovered through another completely crazy set of circumstances that I was most likely dating my half brother. Wow. Yeah. Now that is a shock. And that's, I guess, what happens when sperm donation isn't regulated and you have a lot of half siblings. So that was a shock. I bet it was.

But you got over that. I got over that. Particular hurdle. Yeah, it took me 10 that. And then you invited them all to come and see you at your house. Then I invited them all to come see me at my house. And and yeah, my attitude has changed towards it. And now I see them as this, you know, extended biological family. And it's nature nurture is also another big theme in this book, because I think I grew up thinking nurture was everything. And discovering all of these siblings made me really realize that nature is a lot of it, too, because we have a tremendous amount of things in common. And we grew up in very different circumstances. So that's, that's fascinating. What do you want people to take away from this book? There are so many different stories in there and anecdotes and interesting themes, but

what do you want people to take away? Yeah, I think I hope that people who grew up in unconventional families, whether that's because they had a gay parent, or they had a sperm donor, or they had alcoholism in their family or, you know, I think every family has its stuff. And I think when you read nonfiction stories, especially about families that have struggled in different ways, I think you feel less alone. And hopefully you can let go of whatever shame you might be carrying around that about that and embrace all the good too. Krista, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for coming in.

I know you're feeling jet lagged, but it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining us on Woman's Hour. Krista's book is called A Normal Family, The Surprising Truth About My Crazy Childhood and How I Discovered 35 New Siblings. That's it for Woman's Hour this morning. Speak to you soon.

And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Lucy Worsley I'll speak to you soon. And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. our all-female team of experts, I am re-examining the crimes of Victorian murderesses through the eyes of 21st century feminists. What can we learn from these women and would it be any different today? Listen to Ladykillers

on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.