Woman's Hour - Margaret Atwood memoir, Cat Burns, Choking Porn Law, Dame Elaine Paige

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

In Margaret Atwood’s 64-year career she has published world-renowned, prescient novels like The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, Alias Grace and Blind Assassin, and now a memoir. Margaret joins Nuala McGovern to discuss Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts and reflect on her life, her work and the power of knowing her own mind.Pornography featuring strangulation or suffocation - often called choking - is due to be criminalised across the UK as part of government plans to tackle violence against women and girls. It follows an independent review which found depictions of choking were "rife" on mainstream porn sites and had helped normalise the act among young people. Gemma Kelly, policy consultant on the review, and Professor Clare McGlynn, leading expert on VAWG and gender equality, discuss. The Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter Cat Burns has also just released her new album, How to Be Human. She joins Nuala to discuss her new album and taking part in Celebrity Traitors. Writer and producer Nova Reid joins Anita Rani to talk about the late Dame Jocelyn Barrow, the race relations campaigner and the first black female governor of the BBC whose story Nova tells in her new podcast, Hidden Histories with Nova Reid. The interview includes a clip of Jocelyn from 2017 sharing her thoughts with The University of Law on what she considered to be the greatest improvements in diversity.Is having a boyfriend now embarrassing? Writer Chanté Joseph recently explored this idea in an article for Vogue and on social media, observing a noticeable shift in how people - particularly heterosexual women - present their relationships online. Instead of posting clear photos of their romantic partners, many are choosing subtler signals: a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses, or even blurring out faces in wedding pictures. But why the change? Anita hears more from Chante. A grande dame of musical theatre, Elaine Paige made her West End debut in the 1960s and shot to fame in 1978 playing Eva Perón in Evita, going on to star in Cats, Chess, Sunset Boulevard and many more. Elaine talks to Anita about her damehood, fostering the next generation of talent and having stage fright. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

Hello and welcome to the program. Coming up, highlights from the Woman's Hour Week. In a moment, the literary icon and feminist Margaret Atwood. If you're missing celebrity traitors, traitor herself Kat Burns talks about the show and shares insights into her brand new album. Is having a boyfriend now considered embarrassing? That's the headline from a viral article.

We'll be unpacking what's behind it. It's 60 years since the Race Relations Act came into force. we hear about Dame Jocelyn Barrow, a pioneering educator and tireless campaigner against racial discrimination, and The Grand Dame of Musical Theatre herself, Dame Elaine Page, reflects on what it means to become an actual dame.

But first, Margaret Atwood is a titan of literature, whether it's dystopian futures or feminist perspectives. She started writing at six, she's now 85, and in that time she's written 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books and two graphic novels. Her latest work, Book of Lives, a memoir of sorts. It charts her relationship with her late partner, Graham Gibson,

and Margaret's own experiences, and also her occasional frustrations with family life. As she explores her past, she reveals more and more about her writing, such as The Handmaid's Tale and Cat's Eye. Nula began by asking her how she remembered so many hours, aspects of her life so clearly after all this time. A memoir is what you remember. A biographer would probably find other things that you've forgotten.

But what is it that you remember? You remember stupid things you've done, stupid things other people have done, bad things you've done, bad things other people have done to you. You have a story that you talk about, very poignant. It's about a period of bullying that had a big impact on you as a child and influenced your work. You talk about this girl called Sandra and you became this victim of constant criticism.

They would suggest improvements from her and other girls. You also credit the resulting lack of trust from that horrible experience of causing you to become a novelist. Well, I don't think it caused me to become a novelist. I think it was very useful. How? So remember, I grew up with depression parents

who'd been through the depression. My early childhood was spent during the war, and what is the rule for that? Never throw out anything useful, including bad experiences. I think cause and effect is very difficult when you're talking about writers. I think lots and lots,

judging from the mail I got about that book, which was Katzai. Lots and lots of people have had similar experiences, and the letters I got were from parents, they were from fellow once upon a time girls. A couple of them, there's an interesting ratio here, were from people who were the bad girls. Were the bullies?

Not many people confess to doing that. But some did. So, yes, I had been brought up amongst trustworthy people, and I was quite gullible. So I think it was quite easy to convince me of things because I'd never had occasion to destroy. Did you always feel that you would be successful as a writer? Oh, no. No, no, no, not at all. This was Canada. So no, you didn't think you were going to be successful. You thought you were going to be dedicated.

It wasn't considered a career. It was considered a vocation like being a priest. But you decided to stay in Canada. There were so many that left the US. I was surprised actually to read in your book that at that stage in Canada when you were. growing up, there wasn't so many bookstores or the cinema or the theater or things that might inspire the arts. There were cinemas and theaters, but the things in them weren't Canadian. And that was the attitude towards writing that if you really wanted to be taken seriously as a writer, you had to go to England, France, or the United States. And why did you stay?

Well, I did go away first. Then I came back. The cultural context was changing. And people were starting little publishing companies, new literary magazines were popping up here and there. I see a lovely poster of Graeme Gibson there just behind you as I speak to you. You talk about being confused about your desire to get married to your life partner. He was confused. You feel he was confused?

Well, for a very funny reason, he said he didn't want to get married again because he knew three Mrs. Gibsons and he did not wish to create another one. So that would be his mother, his stepmother and his first wife. Was there a little bit of conflict there, like that you did want to get married, but you didn't understand why you wanted to get married in a way? No, I wanted to get married because it would make things a lot easier when you're crossing international borders. Romantic.

Very. It's a consideration. Do you think Wibbert are destined to keep struggling against? while at times being attracted to conventions like marriage? Okay, so it's a double-edged sword. Sure it is. On the one hand, it gives you a certain amount of security, and if push comes to shove,

you might get these days custody in the house, which wasn't the case for really a long time. In the 19th century, you didn't get divorced because you would be thoroughly out of luck and also disgraced. So on the negative, you can find yourself trapped and in a situation that you're not enjoying at all. So I think that will always be a problem,

the problem being what are your rights and entitlements versus what are the dangers and perils? And we know there's a lot of domestic violence and it is two-sided. Women throw crockery out the window at other people. But those who end actually being killed are usually women. It all comes down to whether the person is at all, trustworthy, and worthwhile at all, and whether they have, and this goes both ways, deep, dark secrets that you don't know

about. Do you think you need to know everything about your partner? No, but the peaks and caverns, I think it would be wise to know about them, don't you? Yes, I do. I'm just thinking It's so descriptive, the peaks and the caverns. The Handmaid's Tale, your dystopian novel about a patriarchal society in which women are forcibly assigned to produce babies. It was heralded not just as a modern classic, but also prescient in the way that it warned what might happen in the future and that reproductive freedoms could be challenged.

Some say that they are now. We are talking specifically about the United States. Yes. We are talking about the form of, an autocracy would take, were there to be one in that country? So it would not be, hi, my name is Joe, let's all be communists. That would not fly in the United States. What is much more likely to fly, as we are seeing unfold before our very eyes,

going way back to the 17th century when the Massachusetts Bay Colony was set up as a Puritan autocracy, not a democracy. forget that part. That came in the 18th century. So what form would it take? Were there to be one in the United States? And it would take the form of a theocracy, at least in name. People would say they were doing these things in the name of the Almighty.

That's what they would do. And once they got into power, they would get rid of all the other religions. not just all the other non-Christian religions, but all the other Christian religions, because autocracies are autocracies. Do you ever worry about something like that happening? Of course I have a worry, and so do people who live there. But it is my contention that America is a very ornery place

and that people in it dislike being told to line up and do as they're told. And that can have a plus and it can have a minus. But the plus is they're likely to be resistant to tyranny. They're not very deferential. But with the Handmaid's Tale or indeed the year of the flood, people see it as preempting the 2008 financial crash, what do you say to people who say you can read the future? Nobody can read the future because there isn't one future.

The future is multiple. So the decisions we make now will influence the future we get, but there are always going to be unexpected factors. You can make educated guesses. You can say, if we continue doing this, that will probably be the result. But that's all you can do. And the handmaid's tale was based on a theoretical question. if the tendencies that started to become manifest during the first years of the Reagan regime,

if those continue and America deep minds its own past, namely the 17th century, this is likely to be the result. You are a feminist figurehead. In the book you described the impossibility of keeping everyone happy when you were expected to do the right thing for women when there are many different right things, kind of related to your last answer, depending on who you ask. How easy has it been to stick to your beliefs despite criticisms and objections from the same side? Well, I got more or less immunized against criticisms by those nasty little girls when I was nine. I mean, that is a way of

reframing that experience. Absolutely. So I don't necessarily pay any attention to them unless I think they're true. Do you find it difficult to know what's true or what's not true? Like, are you very decisive or are you more kind of, this is gray? I'm not sure where I stand on this. No, I'm not. I'm pretty decisive. I'm sorry to say, which means you can make sort of mistakes.

But you stand by them. Yeah. But because I'm always right, I never do that. so there are about 75 different kinds of feminism and whenever anybody asks me that question I have to ask them what kind are you talking about so my deep past is human rights because that was the big deal in the 50s and feminism is a subset of human rights or let us say women's rights are a subset of human rights so you can't say okay I'm a feminist I think all men should be pushed off a cliff, except for 10% kept for breeding.

I don't endorse that. Right. Good to know. No, I do not. I'm with Margaret Atwood on this one. I can be decisive about that. I'm glad somebody's with me on something. Margaret Atwood's talking to Nula and Book of Lives, a memoir of sorts, is out now.

Now, pornography featuring strangulation or suffocation, often called choking, is due to be criminalized. across the UK. It's a sensitive subject and I just want to give you warning of that in advance. Online pornography showing choking is to be made illegal as part of government plans to tackle violence

against women and girls. It follows an independent review which found depictions of choking were in their words rife on mainstream porn sites and had helped normalise the act among young people. Neula spoke to Claire McGlynn, professor of law at Durham University

and a leading expert on violence against women and girls and gender equality, and Gemma Kelly, who was a policy consultant on that review. What did she make of the changes? Baroness Burton, who wrote that review and undertook nearly 18 months of research and took submissions from multiple charities and other stakeholders, is very happy with the announcement that we have had today in relation to the government bringing in these amendments around strangulation in pornography. The review found. that strangulation, porn is having a real devastating effect offline, and people, particularly

young people, are partaking in strangulation, and it's having some very serious consequences. So strangulation is a very dangerous activity, and pornography has normalized that, which is what the review found. So I think from Baroness Burton's point of view and the rest of her team, this is a good day. It's a first step in lots of the things that Baroness Burton wants to do. And I'll come back to what those other steps might be. But why don't I get your reaction, Claire? Yeah, I think it's a landmark announcement. It could make a transformative difference

to what we're actually seeing online. I mean, the challenge is going to be enforcement, but this is the first step making this announcement and making this change. And the emphasis here being just to echo what Gemma's saying, this is about the actual medical harms of strangulation. And consent, for example, does not protect you from those harms. So we're talking about consensual.

sexual activity, but it being really quite harmful and then normalised in porn. As we think about this, we have two spheres online that we're talking about pornography that people will be seeing there. And then I think as Gemma is saying, how it ends up in the real world or in relationships, be it with consent, there are already laws that are there, standalone offence of strangulation, for example, within the world. real world. Why do you think what's happening in pornography is having such an effect in the real world if there are already laws in the real world to prevent it? Does that make sense? Claire? Yeah, absolutely. So I think the major difference here is that most people are unaware of just how

harmful strangulation can be. So there's also research been done asking young people, not just under 18s, but in their 20s, where do they get their ideas from? And do they think this is a safe practice? And there's that kind of understanding that they think it's safe. So that's one of the major problems. The other thing about the existing law you've got to remember is that's about non-consensual strangulation. So when someone is strangling someone without their consent.

And for me, the issue here is around sexual practices that are including when they're consensual and just how harmful that could be. Yes. when I read into this, it's a little bit muddy in the sense that the law as you talk about it is correct and that it is only an offence if harm comes from it and then, for example, there could be somebody would be considered a perpetrator after that, but if harm has not come from it and it is consensual, then it is not an offence if people are able to follow me. I know it's quite complex. Gemma, let us turn to one example from the review that will give, I think most people,

pause, a 14-year-old boy asking a teacher how to choke safely? Yes. So Baroness Burton received multiple reports from frontline services, schools, people who are working with young people all the time. And the evidence that she was given is that very young boys, some as young even as 10, are asking how to quote unquote choke or strangle their girlfriend during sex. And that obviously is extremely worrying. And as Claire said, this is such a dangerous practice. And yet pornography has normalized it to the point that young boys are actually wondering

and asking how they can do this to girls in their circle, which is extremely worrying. Claire, what are the specific harms? The main message I would want to convey about the harms is the medical evidence that's just emerging over the last 18 months to two years. And this is using MRI scans and blood tests. And what it shows is, and it's predominantly young women, who are frequently strangled four times a month or more, are suffering brain injuries similar to concussions. So it impacts on your brain processing, it impacts on your memory, it impacts on all those sorts of tasks that you might be trying to do. And the thing about this is it's a hidden harm. We don't know that this is happening to us particularly. So that's my major concern because it's so hidden and it's so serious.

But any act of strangulation can give you a stroke, it can cause dizziness, unconsciousness, incontinence, bloodshot eyes, and of course, it can cause death. And that's also because although there's this myth about safe ways to strangle, there's no safe way to strangle. I think that's got to be the key message. I mean, I don't expect the porn industry to put across that message, but they will need to change things, Claire. How do you expect this to be enforced? So under the Online Safety Act, it's really clear. All these platforms, and actually that includes social media like X, are going to have to remove this content.

They've got to prevent us encountering it and swiftly remove it. So the law in that sense is really clear. The government's done their bit. All eyes now have to be on offcom, the regulator. It's up to offcom to enforce this legislation to make those platforms act. Gemma, do you think Offcom has the power they need? I mean, this is vast.

It is vast, yes, but it is offcom's duty to do that. That is their job as mandated by government. And I think that they have all the powers that they need. What Baroness Burton would suggest and has suggested in the review is that perhaps an organisation like the BBFC, which is the British Board of Film classification, who classifies pornography offline, could potentially come alongside Ofcom and help them with that.

But I think what's really important, as Claire said, is that this is really implemented and enforced robustly because the porn industry, as you said, are not necessarily going to want to comply with this particular piece of legislation. And I suppose the other part I'm thinking is how do you quantify that when you think of the amount of sites and places that this could be happening online? Yes, it's not easy.

I don't think anybody would say that it is, but I think it can be done. So what the review would be suggesting is we have somebody like the BBFC who can spot check pornography sites. You can go in, who are used to looking at porn videos and picking out what should and shouldn't be in them, who can then alert offcom to what's happening

and then offcom can follow the steps that they have around enforcement. So it is not by any stretch of the imagination impossible. And as we have said, offcom are mandated to do this by the government. Therefore, they will need to find a way to do it. Claire, coming back to that 14-year-old boy who was speaking to his teacher, I mean, in some ways, at least the conversation was open, that this child felt that he could go to a teacher

and ask this question that he had. But it is a massive responsibility for teachers to have that on their shoulders. Claire? Absolutely. We do need better sex and relationships education across all areas of section relationships. But I think it's also that we need a national campaign around the harms of this sort of practice. And we've seen this in places like Australia. They have a campaign called Breathless. And it talks about the harms and talks about this. And that would help the younger people as well as everyone into their 20s and 30s. So the law is a foundation and it's a really significant step, but we definitely need that sort of raising awareness more generally.

Again, Gemma, because you talked about this being a first step, welcoming it, etc. What are the other steps? What's the next one you're looking for? So Barnace Burton has a couple of amendments put down to the crime and policing bill, and they are the banning of nudification apps. So the software that is used to nudify another person. We are also looking for a. similar amendment around bringing incest pornography into the extreme pornography law. So there is a huge amount of content on pornography sites that depicts incest and that is extremely violent for one thing. And it also normalises child sexual abuse. And yet that is completely

legal online. So that is something that Baroness Burton is determined to have changed in this piece of legislation. We are also looking alongside that for any videos where adult actors dress up and imitate children and partake in sexual acts because again, that's normalising child sexual abuse and then also bringing parity between online and offline pornography regulation. Gemma Kelly and Claire McGlynn talking to Noola. Now, Mercury Prize nominated Singer songwriter Cat Burns has been cunning and inscrutable as a celebrity traitor, winning over audiences with her strategic gameplay, and she's just released her new album, How to Be Human. I spoke to her ahead of the final on Thursday. In case you miss the final, no spoilers here. I'm a massive fan of the show. I've watched every season from every different iteration of it. You're obsessed? Yeah, completely obsessed. So how is the actual experience compared to watching it?

amazing. It's kind of what it says on the tin. It's just a massive murder mystery and it's just so fun to have gone to a castle and played a game with a bunch of other adults. You've played a blinder so far, Last Woman Standing. Yeah. Congratulations. Why do you think this series has become such a huge success? I think the celebrity factor has a massive part to play in it because people already have their ideas of their favourite celebs that are going on it. to see us all genuinely love the game and see us do the missions and the conversations and really take the game seriously, I think, is really fun because it's people you know and love playing this game.

So I think that adds the element of it. Now, for anyone who's been watching, we know that you've played it really well, an absolute blinder, kind of kept your cards close to your chest. You're a very lovely person. You're a very warm. Your album, however, is very different.

we get to see and hear something very tender, very vulnerable, something that you're very happy to share within your music. It's called How to Be Human. Where did the title come from? It essentially came from my granddad passing away and me going through my first breakup at the same time. And I was processing all of it at one moment. And I remember going into a session

and saying I really wanted to write a song about being neurodivergent because I think there is an added layer of grieving and getting through grief that a neurodivergent person goes through compared to a neurotypical person and we wrote the song How to Be Human, which is all about what being neurodivergent feels like for me. And as soon as we wrote the song and had the title for it, I was like, this is the whole album, this is what the album needs to be called because it is just me navigating grief and heartbreak through my lens.

And can you explain how that was? Really difficult. I think losing someone or losing people in two different ways one to someone passing away and another to someone who's still alive they're just not in your life anymore and you don't have access to each other in the same way

or two different things to really process and I think from a neurodivergent perspective the initial is the straight change of your routine you know that person's not in your routine anymore that used to be your safe person that was your person you could unmask around and you can't do that anymore and you now have to rebuild

yourself again and you feel your feelings really intensely. I'm a massive cry. I cry all the time, which I think is very healthy to do. But it was very intense during that period. And I wanted to just make little video diaries of how I was doing because I always thought that people would document. Whenever people go through hard times, they always talk about it once they're out of it.

And they go, oh, you'll get through it. Everything's going to be fine. But they never document the process during and what those specific thoughts you could be having are. That's what I try to do with the album. And you really have. It's really honest. And you've even included voice notes from difficult moments in your life.

Why was it important for you to put those big emotions in it? I think it really helps people realize that what they're feeling isn't wrong. And I think it's really common, especially when you're going through a really hard time, to just want to skip to the part where you're okay. And it's not wishing away your life. It's just wanting to get through the next. few months. What's it like for you to hear that? I think now it's out. It's not strange, but it also just depends on my mood. I think if I'm in a melancholy somber mood and I listen to it, I'll

probably cry too because I'll go, wow, I was really, really going through it. But I also just think it's really powerful for people to hear the hard times and exactly what that looked like for me as someone who feels their feelings quite intensely. I've always believed that art should cost you something and music is therapy and for me music has always been therapy if I'm going through something I love the songs where I can listen to them and go oh my gosh this was written for me because if you're struggling to fill your feelings or know how to process your emotions music can be a great help to do that so I always kind of wanted to be an artist that used music in that way and I didn't have to kind of be as vulnerable as I have been but I just think

especially with the response that it was the right thing to have done and I felt it at the time I just felt like if I'm really nervous to put this body of work out, it means that it's going to help a lot of people and people are going to receive it well. No, I hear you. Music has always been my therapy. So, yeah, thank you for putting it out there. You mentioned your neurodivergent

and a new BBC investigation has been in the news about ADHD services struggling to cope with the demand and people are waiting up to eight years for a diagnosis. You were diagnosed with ADHD and autism. How did it feel and how important was it for you to get that diagnosis? Really important for me to get the diagnosis. How old were you when you got 21? I was 21 when I got my ADHD diagnosis, 23 when I got my autism one. And it was really important for me to get the diagnosis because I think like a lot of women who are later diagnosed

and or struggling if they're undiagnosed, sometimes that you can only feel like you can validate yourself when you get that diagnosis. Some people, you know, are neurodivergent and are like, I'm not going to seek a diagnosis. I understand how my brain works and I'm going to work with it and I get it and I'm going to give myself grace. Other people like me, until you sort of get that confirmation,

once I got that confirmation, I was like, okay, this makes sense. So I do this because of this. And it's easier to put things in place for yourself to make your life more neurodivergent friendly. But if you don't, it's you just continuously invalidate yourself and then you're constantly putting yourself down and beating yourself up about the little things

that you wish you could be able to do because it's all executive dysfunction it's struggling to complete tasks it's a dopamine deficiency for me anyway if I didn't get that confirmation I would still be just like why am I this way this is ridiculous and beating myself out of which is just not healthy

it's something you've been very open about on Celebrity Traitors as well at one of the round tables you spoke about getting tired and overwhelmed in social settings what about when you're performing when I'm performing that's my space to be free I think because it's just me in the band

on stage and it's a real energy exchange with the band. I think we're the only, you know, four or five people depending on who's on the stage that know exactly what everyone, we're all feeling and we can look at each other and have a great time. And I get to sing to the audience and just have a lovely energy exchange of, you know, people who know the words and me looking at them knowing the words and just having a really beautiful moment. The hardest part for me is the socialising that comes after. And the general socialising, I think, of being an artist. You're constantly meeting new people. the music industry is notorious for being last minute, which for me is hell on earth.

But I learnt very quickly. I just have to accept that. So how do you cope? How do you mentally prepared once you're off stage having to go into your dressing room and maybe there's a ton of people there expecting to speak to you and tell you how brilliant you were? I either just go straight to the toilet and just like sit for a second or I tend to psych myself up as I'm walking off the stage. I'm going to standby mode and a bit of autopilot where I'm just like, And now I'm going to have to talk to people,

so I'm just going to have to get through this, and then it'll be fine, and I can just sit in a dark room and not speak to anyone. Really immense year for you. What a huge year. You've kind of risen through traitors. You've got a new album coming out, which is divine. It's going to do so well.

Are you going to take some timeouts, or are you going to go straight into a tour? What's happening next? I rescheduled my tour that was going to be at the end of this month to April, just because me and my team, I guess, we didn't anticipate how hectic this was going to be, and I really, all for my mental health

and making sure that I don't burn out and I want to make sure for this tour especially because I love this album so much that I can give the best performance. Was that your decision? Yeah. That takes a lot of power, right? To be able to turn around and say to a team

like they've obviously planned the album's coming out you're going on a tour for you to take charge someone so young and say I'm not doing it. Yeah, I mean I'm really big on looking after myself and making sure that I don't lose myself or go crazy and have a meltdown. and completely shut down because I know what I'm like when I get really overwhelmed and if I get too overwhelmed with everything, I'm very okay with going wrap up everything.

I'm not leaving my house. So I wanted to make sure that I was looking after myself and I gave myself that time to process everything that's happened and then also be able to really put even more thought into the tour and make it the best it can be. Kat Burns speaking to me on Thursday's program. Still to come on the program, Dame Elaine Page. And remember, you can enjoy. woman's hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week,

just subscribe to the daily podcast. It's free via BBC sounds. Bargain. Now, writer and producer Nova Reid's new podcast, Hidden Histories with Nova Reid, delves into the black women pioneers who are either little known or who've been erased from history. The six episodes include remarkable women, such as the legendary warrior queen Nanny of the Maroons, to the groundbreaking journalist Barbara Blake Hannah. Episode 6 features Dame Jocelyn Barrow, who was an educator and a tireless campaigner against racial discrimination. She was appointed to numerous key roles and became the first black woman governor of the BBC. She was also the founder and deputy chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council, which was replaced by Offcom and the British Film Institute, to name

a few. I started by asking Nova about Dame Jocelyn's background. Well, she was born and raised in Trinidad. She had a lot of high self-esteem. She was in a lot of political activism from a young age, I think sort of around 19, early 20s. And so she already had a very, very solid foundation of worth. And she travelled to England as part of the Windrush generation to advance her studies and to learn English, to study English, I should say.

She was already a teacher. And she was just starting to recognise that there were just these, woeful discrepancies in the ways that middle class white children were being treated in terms of the resources that they had in schools to the ways that black children and particularly black children from the Caribbean were being treated and then that's when she started to use her political prowess to start campaigning and advocating for better. Yeah, because education was a big tool in her activism And she challenged, I mean, it's shocking to even read it out, really.

She challenged the labelling of Caribbean children as being educationally subnormal. Yeah, she was one of many. There was another woman called Gertrude Paul, who was another educational leader around the same time. And she was the first black head teacher in Leeds. And so they would have all been networked into the same things. They used to call the schools, ESN schools, which was for schools for the education and subnormal. And what that meant back then was anybody who we would now describe with people with, disabilities or special educational needs but they were labelling them and branding them subnormal

based on what based on whether they had a disability so very ableist and then also in terms of the discrimination that dame jocelyn barrow was seeing was on caribbean children and they were automatically labelling caribbean children as less intelligent because they were coming from a different country because they were speaking patois and because they weren't achieving the same and they weren't taking into any consideration that some of these children may be dealing with culture shock, maybe dealing with learning differences, and they were branded educationally subnormal.

Or maybe just have a different accent. Or maybe just have a different accent. And instead of being cared for and nurtured and taught, they went into these schools and they were taught to clean. Yes, it's shocking to think about. After being inspired, she had a meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964. And she helped found the campaign against racial discrimination, How did that meeting influence the British race relations movement?

Yeah, so Martin Luther King Jr. was visiting. He was sort of passing through England on his way to win a noble peace price. And he really, really galvanised civil rights activists in the UK that were really struggling with the racial hostility on the ground in the UK. It was legal to discriminate against someone based on race. There were no laws against it at that time. And so Dame Jocelyn Barrow, amongst others, other things including the Bristol bus boycott as well, Dame Jocelyn and Barrow was a founding member of Card

and they were advocating for policy change and to make racism illegal in Britain, which they successfully did in 1965, and the anniversary of that is tomorrow, the 8th of November, to make racism in public places illegal. It was not fit for purpose though, the act. Many people who were arrested under the Act happened to be black or Asian people

who are holding boundaries around the racism they were experiencing from white majority nations and 70% of the people who were arrested under that act fell outside of what are the guidelines that Card and Dame Jocelyn Barry actually set racial discrimination was. So Dame Jocelyn Barry was

paramount in reviewing the act again in 1968 using her political prowess to review the act and get it cleared in Parliament where it was now going to be illegal for people and employers housing to discriminate against people based on race. So what was going around that time, we had things like, we didn't have legal segregation in Britain, not formal, I would say, but we had segregation. So there was a lot of housing discrimination.

We saw signs, no blacks, no dogs, no Irish. People would refuse to rent to people with black or brown skin. Or they would rent and then exponentially increase how much they were charged for people to live in rat-infested squalor. And then people could not get jobs. Racism was rife on Oxford Street. People who were black were not allowed front-facing roles, being told you're going to the back. And Dame Jocelyn Barrow had enough.

She went into Marks and Spences. There was a sign on the door at the time. Yes. That said they were hiring. And so she went in and inquired. And they said, oh, sorry, the jobs have been taken. and she said I would take that sign down

or you hire black and brown people and she did that and got it and got it advocated for them to stop being racist you started by saying she came from a political background she had incredible self-esteem because I was pondering on

what it takes to be that powerful in an age where there is so much discrimination against you just based on how you look to then to go into spaces and hold your own and fight for change says something about her character. She once tried to debate Enoch Powell

after the rivers of blood speech. But tell me the story, what happened? Well, she went into debate with him and he walked out. He wouldn't face her. He wouldn't debate with her. He did not see her as an equal. He probably would not have been able to stand his own against her.

She wasn't afraid. There was a fearlessness to her and there was a fearlessness to many of the women in hidden histories with no read. But she deserved to be here. here. She deserved to take up space. She was a force. She did not shrink herself. And she demanded better for everybody all of the time. We must move on to her becoming the first black woman governor of the BBC as we are in the institution. She used that role to increase representation

and opportunities for black and Asian people. What impact did she have on British broadcasting? I mean, there's a part of me that would like to say it's been exponential, but I would say representation in BBC broadcasting is probably less than what it was in the 80s and 90s when I was growing up. However, she campaigned a lot to get more representation on screen. I think she was paramount in getting more Restuant and just getting more people who were doing brilliant work to deliver our news. And I have no doubt that some of the work that she was doing absolutely helped inform Barbara Blake Hanna, who became the first ITV reporter on what we now know is ITV. news. And so she was paramount. She was in every single institution. I wonder what she'd say about

race in Britain today. I think she'd find it diabolical and she'd probably be turning in her grave. How important has it been for you to make this series? Really important just to let people know about amazing human beings that are doing formidable work that enable me and you to be in the positions that we're in today doing the work that we do today and honoring and acknowledging them and naming them, and also just acknowledging them beyond what they achieved and celebrating who they were as human beings in their humanity. Because quite often as black women, we're seen as strong and stoic and these activists at the forefront of social change.

Nova Read on Dame Jocelyn Barrow. Now, is having a boyfriend embarrassing? Writer Shante Joseph recently explored this idea in an article for Vogue and on social media, noting a shift in how people, particularly heterosexual women, present their relationships online. Instead of posting clear photos of their romantic partners, many are choosing subtler signals, maybe a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses,

or even blurring out faces in wedding pictures. But why is there the change? The article spread far and wide. Was Chante surprised by the reaction? It has been the most insane seven days of my entire adult life. I'm honestly completely overwhelmed with the... response to this. It has gone so viral. It's been insane. I've seen so many comments come in when I threw it out to people. For example, to Women's Hour, as a teenager, I was desperate

to have a boyfriend. I felt I had to have one to be accepted or indeed acceptable. I now know that treating another person as a fashion accessory isn't the best basis for a relationship. It seems the wheel is turned and not having a boyfriend is the fashionable thing. When are we going to forget the fashion of the time and see people just as people? According to some of the reaction to your article so far, Chante, people aren't there just yet. What prompted you to write that boyfriends are embarrassing? And some people might be even wondering about the concept. What does that even mean?

So I think a lot of it came from this idea of the way we post and even talk about our partners online now, whereas it used to be a source of sort of pride, like that listener said. It was like almost an achievement to have a romantic partner, particularly because of the way that we treat single women. Now it doesn't feel that way anymore. And I kind of wanted to speak to women about why they were doing this.

You know, a lot of them spoke about this, like, privacy that they wanted to have just particularly around their romantic relationships. And then some were worried that if they posted their partner and they broke up next week, it would be embarrassing for them because they'd have to delete all of these posts. And then other women were like, it's just embarrassing, period, to have a boyfriend. Why? Well, this is what I wanted to get into. And what I started to understand more was that it's mainly around this idea that when we look at how men are raised. and how they behave in society, the rampant misogyny and sexism,

the hetero patriarchy we live under and how oppressive it is to women. As we start to like rise up, it starts to feel almost like it contradicts our values to be in a relationship with someone because it feels like we are like continuing to support an institution that was never really built for us. And we're stopping looking at like heterosexuality

is something that we just do that we're resigned to and we're starting to think a bit more critically and consciously about the way that we engage with it. One of the things I talk about, about in this piece is heterofatalism, this idea that as straight women, a lot of us complain about men and how they treat us and how they behave. And, you know, people always say, you know, I hate all men or men are trash. These are things that are constantly being said, but we will never refuse to date them. And so I kind of wanted to tap into that idea and express how, oh, this idea is

manifesting even in the way that we present our partners online. And I think it's difficult. I think this has been a very hard conversation for a lot of straight women, especially straight women who are in relationships to have because this one thing that sort of validated them and made them feel like they'd achieve something is now it doesn't have the same clout basically. And then the other side of that, you have a lot of single women who are just overjoyed at this idea that being in a relationship is embarrassing because they've been made to feel horrible about being single for so, so, so, so long. They take this as a win. And so it's been kind of juggling all of those reactions. But at the heart of it, it's about we live in the time where men and women are so

divided politically. Men are way more right wing. Women are leaning more left wing. So it's becoming difficult for us to have these partnerships without really evaluating what they mean and what we have to sacrifice to be in them. And Chante, of course, not all men treat women badly. You're talking about some specific instances that people have talked about. But here's something in relation to some of the points you make. I'm 23. I have never had a boyfriend and have on many occasions been made to feel as if I've already been left on the shelf, whether implicitly by constant conversations about relationships among friends or explicitly with people making jokes about my Bridget Jones-style perpetual singledom. I'm thrilled that Vogue, the custodian of

coolness has decided that it's cool to be single. It is finally been declared a choice instead of a state of neglect or rejection. However, Shante, there have been people disagreeing with you. You will have seen the backlash against the Vogue article. Some say that making singledom cool, in fact, is a jealousy or bitterness about not having a boyfriend. Your response? My response is that so much of what I understood about the heterosexuality, I have read from a lot of very talented and amazing queer academics. One book I've told everyone to read is Jane Ward's The Tragedy of Heterosexuality.

By no means is Jane Ward a very proud lesbian, jealous of heterosexual women at all? In fact, she actually feels quite bad for us. And so a lot of my basis comes from there and I just wanted to share that with a wider audience. Okay. When I was reading your article, then who popped into my head but Ray and her hitch, where the hell is my husband?

So hasn't she just made that cool? His boyfriend not cool, but husband is? No. A lot of women have been saying, you know, it's cool to have a fiancé, it's cool to have a husband. It's not, we need to re-evaluate our relationship with men in this political climate. Shante Joseph there talking to Nula about

boyfriends embarrassing Now it's been quite a week for Dame Elaine Page the woman often described as the first lady of British musical theatre on Wednesday she was at Windsor Castle to receive her Damehood from the King for Services to Music and Charity

Elaine made her West End debut in the 1960s and shot to fame in 1978 playing Eva Peron in Avita going on to star in Cats Chess Sunset Boulevard and many more and she's released more than 30 albums performed around the world and for the past 22 years hosted Elaine Page on Sunday on BBC Radio 2.

Coming from an ordinary background in North London, I asked her what it was like collecting her damehood. A most amazing day. I mean, first of all, it is the most incredible honour and, you know, for being given something as incredible as this, just for doing something that I love and that I've had a passion for and the privilege to be able to do all my life. Well, it's an incredible stroke of luck, really, and I feel a bit like the cat that got the cream, to be honest, because I would never have imagined coming from my background that I could have been at the historic Windsor Castle

surrounded by hundreds of years of history and meeting the king and being bestowed this amazing honour. Nothing will ever top this. And you're also giving back, because you were announced as the vice president of a performing art school, a very prestigious performing arts school in the London Mountview. Why was it important for you to accept that? Well, because, you know, again, my own background,

I know how difficult it is for students sometimes to be able to take up a course at a drama school. And Mountview, as you've rightly said, is one of the UK's leading schools in the country. It's a wonderful place. in this most incredible building where everything is under one roof. So there's tuition and courses for not just performance, but for design and for directing, for writing.

And it's all under one roof. Do you think it's more challenging now for someone from your background to get into acting? I think probably the business is as challenging today as it was in my day. I don't think it's changed much from my time because it's, it's an overpopulated profession, if you like. I mean, there's only a few roles for people. There's less opportunity, I think, now than ever before, because financially, you know, there's cuts all the time to the arts up and down the country. So I think there's less opportunity for people in the business. So you've got to be prepared to know that you are in a very challenging and competitive profession. And then, of course, on top of that, with all that uncertainty, you've also got to know that it's very demanding, both physically and emotionally.

And you have to deal with so many other things, you know, being an actor or being in musical theatre, or whatever it is. It's a very demanding profession. And we'll talk about the challenges and how you overcame them yourself. But I want to take you back to 78. When you got your big break, playing the lead in Avita, how did that happen? Well, it just happened. I auditioned along with thousands of other people all around the world. And I can remember it was a time I was sort of thinking that I might jack it all in and give it up.

Because I'd been, you know, struggling, I suppose you'd say. I mean, I was always working doing bit parts here and minor roles there and television appearances and so on and so forth. But I wasn't really earning a living. and I was beginning to tire of that somewhat. But my father, you know, the way I was brought up, I was brought up that if you started a project, you should finish it and give it your best efforts. And he always used to say to me, you know, perseverance furthers.

That was his mantra. And I sort of hung on to it and sort of stuck with it for a bit longer because I had been sort of playing these minor roles from, I don't know, about 10 years, something like that. And then Evita came along and I thought to myself, oh, wait a minute, for once, being short is in my favour because she was only five foot tall or five foot two. And that had gone against me many years prior. And now here was a role that I knew that I could play, A, because of her physicality, and B, because I knew that it sort of felt that I'd come full circle because at school I was introduced to Mozart playing seriously. Susanna, end of school production.

And that was sort of like, well, an opera. And Evita, in a way, changed musical theatre then. And it was more, it was presented much more as an opera rather than a high-faluting sort of song and dance musical. It wasn't presented in that way. So it was as if everything I'd learned at school was now coming to fruition all these years later. And I knew that it was a role I really wanted to play. And amazingly, I got it. nobody could have been more surprised than me or my dad.

And life changed from that moment. From that moment on, life was very different indeed. Absolutely. It kick-started my whole career, really, that particular musical. Lots of highs, but also, as you've said, the career is relentless and you have to work really hard and your father's advice of perseverance. And in 1993, you suffered a breakdown playing Edith Piaf. What did that period teach you?

Oh gosh, I mean, looking back on that, well, it was the pressure involved. I worked with the wonderful Sir Peter Hall and bought the rights to the piece because I wanted to make sure I could play the role because I couldn't play it initially. I was because I was playing Evita. And I knew that I wanted to do it because I wanted to sort of further my acting career.

And it was a wonderful play by Pam Jems. And there were snippets of Edith's music in the play. And of course, when I started talking to Peter, he said, oh, you're a singer. Everybody wants to hear you sing. Let's sing the whole song in each of these moments. And I sort of went along with it, probably a bit foolish, because it turned from being a regular length play into three-hour musical theatre play. It was exhausting because it was emotional.

I played her from her age of, say, I don't know, 16 when she was singing on the streets right the way through her life to her death. And so it was a very, it was like my hamlet in a way, you know. But it really took it out of you. It really, physically, it was exhausting. And we were touring with it, you see. And what I should have done was once we toured, I should have had a break before starting the run in London.

And instead of which we carried on, straight on. it just became too much. And what it taught me, well, it taught me to not expect quite so much of myself in the sense of trying to do everything. Something that I just want to mention because it surprised me, but I think it's important to talk about because whenever I meet you, you're always so full of energy and your energy is your superpower and your glamour and you're always so gracious, but that you suffered terrible stage fright. Terrible. All my life. I mean, now I'm not really performing anymore. This is one of the things you have to know about being in this business is that it's anxious making. I mean, there's a lot of anxiety involved. Certainly for me

there was. I mean, there are some people that just love to be out there and perform and they could, you know, do it all as a drop of a hat. For me, that was not the case. And so I've had to manage this anxiety for, well, all these years, 60 years, how I managed to do it and face that fear every night of performing. I just don't know. And it gets worse as you get older. I can remember We're asking Vera Lynn in her later 80s, whether she's still got nervous. And she said, oh, Elaine, it just gets worse and worse. The older you get. So I'm not unique in this.

I think all actors feel it, but it's managing it. That's the hard part. Dame Elaine Page. That's all from me, but do join Claire MacDonald on Monday. He'll be talking to the multi-award-winning Canadian crime novelist Louise Penny, who's celebrating the 20th anniversary of her hugely popular Inspector Gamash series. do enjoy the rest of your weekend.