Woman's Hour - Mary Beard on witches, The Salmond Inquiry, Vulva anxiety in teenage girls

Episode Date: February 17, 2021

Emma Barnett presents Woman's Hour with Mary Beard who talks about her new BBC Two show Inside Culture looking at witches and their enduring presence in culture. We get the latest from the Salmond Inquiry from BBC Scotland's Political Editor Sarah Smith and we hear from Dr Naomi Crouch and Alex Fox about the problem of vulva anxiety in teenage girls.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineers: Donald MacDonald and Matilda Macari.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. Here's one for you. Have you ever been called a witch? If you have, it's not usually a term of endearment, although you tell us otherwise. The broadcaster and academic Mary Beard is joining me today. She is no stranger

to that word being thrown at her, mainly on social media, as an insult. She feels it's done out of fear of older women. What about you, though? Has it happened to you? Perhaps the insults or the words that have been thrown at you in various contexts have changed as you have got older, or perhaps changed status in some way. How have those words changed and how have you felt about them? How do you respond? 84844, that's the number you need to text. Text, of course, will be charged at your standard message rate, I should say, or on Twitter or on Instagram.

We're at BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website. Many messages already in about this. I particularly like Greta's one that's just come in saying, which hag old crone in my book equals a wise woman or a wild woman? None of which I find insulting. I was another one here from Rebecca. I was referred to as the grey haired one in my last workplace by my boss. Charming. Helen says she's looking forward to this conversation with Mary Bird, which is coming up.

It's always an interesting one. So we'll hear what Mary has to say. But please take this opportunity to get involved yourself and tell us how those words have changed over the years and what you do about them, how you feel about them. Can you laugh them off? Maybe they run deeper. Also today, what does the latest in the Alex Salmond inquiry mean for one of the most powerful women in Britain, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon? And vulva anxiety. It is a thing. But how has lockdown impacted those who are struggling with it? But first, last night, the most extraordinary story was uncovered by the BBC's Panorama programme. Entitled The Missing Princess, you may have seen it. If you've not seen it, I'm sure you may have been reading about it. Our colleagues revealed secret video messages from the daughter of Dubai's ruler, accusing her father of holding her hostage. Princess Latifa al-Maktoum say

commandos drugged her as she fled by boat. Her friends released the videos as they haven't heard from her for some time and they're very worried about her safety. This morning, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, says he supports the United Nations decision to raise the detention with the authorities in the United Arab Emirates. The princess accuses her father of holding her hostage in Dubai since she tried to flee the city in 2018. The governments of Dubai and the UAE have not responded to requests for comment from the BBC. They have always said that Latifa is safe and in the loving care of her family. In those secretly recorded videos shared with the BBC with Panorama, Princess Latifa says she feared for her life. Here's a clip of her.

I'm in a villa. I'm a hostage and this villa has been converted into a jail. All the windows are barred shut. I can't open any window. There's five policemen outside and two policewomen inside the house. And I can't even go outside to get any fresh air. One of Latifa's very concerned friends, Tina Yo Hayanun, who was travelling with Latifa when she tried to leave Dubai in 2018, spoke to the Today programme this morning about the idea that her family were trying to rescue her at that time. I think that is a very, very ridiculous claim. Latifa is a grown-up woman and all she wanted to do is lead independent life quietly. She never wanted this publicity that happened.

We are extremely worried that maybe she got caught with the phone and the consequences are very, very bad for her. So we basically had no choice. We are hoping to get the attention of world leaders and some change to happen this way. Nawal Al-Meghafi is the Panorama reporter, a Panorama reporter who worked on this story about Princess Latifa.

And Radha Sterling is also joining us from the group detained in Dubai. Nawal, there you heard from one of her friends saying this morning on the radio, she hopes this now gets the attention of world leaders. What has been the response since your programme's remarkable piece of journalism? I mean, in the Arab world, all the media channels have gone silent.

No one's picked it up. But you've seen that here in the UK, it's gone, you know, it's gone everywhere. But in terms of government response, the only response we've had is what you've already mentioned from Dominic Raab, saying that the videos are deeply distressing and that they will support whatever the UN does. I mean, that's been the only response we've had so far. The only response so far. So your line was just going in and out slightly there, but perhaps there'll be more to come. Of course, fascinating to hear, as you say, in the Arab world, there's nothing about this. Do you think that will change? I don't think so. I think the UAE has such incredible power in the region. And I think

Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum is one of the most powerful men in the Middle East. So I think, you know, I expected this before the story even went out, that they will remain silent. The family claims she's always been safe and she's being looked after. And there'll be some who will be coming to this fresh this morning thinking, why would a father kidnap a daughter? What would you say to that as someone who's worked on this? I think it's really important to mention that what, you know, Princess Latifah's escape, or her attempted escape, isn't the first time this has happened. You know, in the year 2000, her older sister Shams tried to flee Dubai,

and she was recaptured from Cambridgeshire here in the UK and taken back to Dubai. And then in 2002, Princess Latifa tried to escape for the first time, and she was recaptured on the border. And then you also have the story of Princess Haya, who escaped in 2018. Princess Haya is Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum's wife. And she's also the sister of the King of Jordan. And she fled in 2018 with his two children here in the UK. And now she's residing here. But she also fled.

Jane McMullen, we should mention mention also worked very much on this program she's the producer behind it I think it's always good to name some of the people behind this and here on Women's Hour good to mention her by name. Definitely she's been leading this investigation and she's been working on this story for years very closely to it and I should mention that you know they've covered the story of Princess Latifah since 2018. In December 2018, they released that video that you see of Princess Latifah saying, I'm about to escape. If you see this video, it means things have gone badly wrong. And things did indeed go badly wrong.

She was recaptured in the Indian Ocean. And the videos we watched yesterday are the first we ever hear from her since that recapture in 2018. In terms of what you just painted there of a picture of a series of women trying to escape or escaping in part, why is that happening? I think, you know, for Princess Latifa and her sisters, life must be very difficult. Life for Arab women in general in the Middle East is really hard. Even in the Emirates, it's incredibly difficult, especially when you are having to live by these really strict cultural and religious norms, but also having to see, you know,

all these Westerners enjoying the luxury and the glamour that the UAE has to offer that you can't enjoy. I know that for Princess Latifa, she felt like, you know, she was living a very restricted life. She couldn't drive. She couldn't travel by herself. And so that's why she wanted to lead a new life, you know, far away. I think it's so important and stark what you just mentioned there,

that comparison as to tourists coming in or Westerners coming into the UAE. And of course, that's been in the headlines recently with celebrities going to the UAE for work, as they put it, under lockdown and gaining, you know, the ire of the rest of the nation. It's like a parallel universe for people living there, for some of the people living there, women, and versus what they see the Westerners coming in. No, definitely. I mean, if I just talk to you about my personal experience going back home to Yemen, which is also an Islamic country, very religious, similar to the UAE. My life there is completely different as an Arab Muslim woman. But then I don't have to walk out to the street and get reminded of what I'm missing out on on a daily basis.

And that's the reality for women in the UAE. You know, they live a very different life than all these Western women that come to the UAE every year. You know, right now, as a woman in the UAE, you have to have male guardianship. You can't get married without the permission of a male guardian. You can't travel without the permission of a male guardian. You can't take a job without the permission of a male guardian. You can't travel without the permission of a male guardian. You can't take a job without the permission of a male guardian. There was a story that went out about a woman who was sexually abused at work. And the judge ruled that because she didn't have the permission of her male guardian to take that job in the first place,

they couldn't take the case. You know, just stories like this that you hear on a daily basis. And then you go to the mall, and you see all these Western women there enjoying the luxury and the glamour, a completely different world to what Emiratis are living in, in the UAE. And you can see this discourse, you can see why there is this unhappiness. Let's bring in Radha Sterling at this point from the group detained in Dubai. Radha, you are very familiar with the double lives, really, that's going on here. But you also work a lot with Westerners who find themselves on the wrong side of the rules. Yeah, that's right. And I mean, it's very interesting because we see even British nationals and European nationals actually misusing and abusing these male guardianship laws that are in force. And we've seen them take cases against their wives or their husbands that you would never see in a Western nation.

So that just highlights the kind of infrastructure that I think is in the UAE. I mean, as far as Latifah is concerned, she had, you know, a very, you know, a good reason for wanting to leave she'd seen her sister uh be arrested or taken away she tried to escape and then she was forcibly drugged so of course for Latifah seeing her sister being drugged and abused is going to make her very worried about uh what's going to happen to her if she steps out of line and to also want to save her sister so she had very very good reasons from the beginning to try to and sorry just to say to break in there you have spoken to her is that right in the past i was in touch with her in fact during the attack

on the yacht when she called me about hearing gunshots in the background so i mean that was a very traumatic experience and you know and that again, that she's still trying to escape. I think that also highlights the need for some sort of diplomatic intervention, because we're seeing an attack in the international waters, we're seeing kidnappings from British soil. And I have several other torture cases that I've dealt with over the past few years. And in fact, we have litigation in the UK and the US with claims of torture from current detainees. So what we're seeing is this, you know, repetitive situation that no one's talking about. No one's talking about the fact that these unlawful acts are happening. And not just against Emirati princesses and Emiratis, but also British

nationals and foreign nationals. In 13 years of your organisation, you've helped, is it, 15,000 people? Is that right? At least more, more approaching 20,000, yes. And the cases just keep escalating. We've dealt with, as a result of Latifa's actions in trying to escape and really bringing that to the international press back in 2018, we saw other Emirati women looking to follow that same situation because some Emirati women have this public life and they can actually go out and work and they're

having a good time and they're socialising. And they're saying that it's just not possible that these women are suffering in the UAE. But the only reason that they have their freedom and they're living this good life is because it just hasn't been taken away from them at this point. If at any time a male guardian wants to take away their freedom, well, he can. And they have no recourse. They've got no one to go to. They can't turn to the police officers. Usually the Emiratis are, you know, it's a small community and they have influence over the judicial system or they know the head of police, they know someone who knows a royal. And if a woman makes a complaint, even if it's physical abuse or verbal abuse, whatever it is, a child custody issue, they're not going to get heard. And we've seen other shakers since then,

Shaker Zainab released a video of her calling out for help in the middle of an emergency crisis. And what happened again, her phone was taken away. So we have this mass censorship of these women who are calling out for help. Even during Latifah's escape, her Instagram account was cancelled on request of the UAE. Several other emergency accounts that have been set up from women asking for emergency intervention have been cancelled, whether that's on Twitter or Facebook. And that's something that needs to be addressed as well. There's simply no access to help for these women.

Before I go back to Nawal, can I ask you, as someone who's been working for years now on a variety of cases, but all around restrictions and civil liberties being infringed in the United Arab Emirates, specifically detained in Dubai, as your name describes. Would you ever go on holiday there? If I were to turn up on holiday, I think that I would be arrested immediately in violation, not only of cybercrime laws, but also national security instances. And most people who actually arrive in the UAE unknowingly are already criminalised under the UAE cybercrime laws. We've had people arrested for posting or sharing something on Facebook from outside of the UAE several years ago. So they have extraterritorial and retroactive laws that can land anyone in jail.

And I would say 99% of people who arrive in the UAE are already in violation of those laws and they're at great risk. We just dealt with a case last week of a woman who was arrested for a private WhatsApp message. So this is something that's, you know, really hasn't been highlighted. We have Dubai on every other page of every newspaper advertising their, you know, travel groups. You are here on Woman's Hour doing exactly that. So thank you for that and that insight. Now, I'll give you the last word on this, back to the woman at the particular centre of this story.

For instance, lots of messages coming in. I'll read you one from Karen who says, this really is tragic. It shows the courage though equally and bravery of a young Arab woman. What do you think has happened to her or where are you with that as a team? We really can't say.

I mean, ever since that phone that she sent messages on went silent, no one knows what has happened to her. But the public support of this story, you know, we spoke about what has been the government's reaction and what has been the UN's reaction. You know, it hasn't been enough. But the public support has been absolutely extraordinary. And I think that will be enough to do her videos justice

and to put pressure on something to happen this time. Nawal Al-Meghafi, thank you. And there, Radha Sterling from the group detained in Dubai. More messages coming in on that. For instance, I've never understood, says Sam, the Western appeal of the UAE. I visited there several times in the late 80s when my father was working there and the stories he told me

of how the system treated women horrified me. I realised that there is a big culture and a religious difference, but the huge tourism industry that has recently built up seems completely blind to the dark side of the country. Now, you may have seen reports about the Salmond inquiry currently underway in Scotland following the trial of Alex Salmond over allegations of sexual assault. The former leader of the Scottish National Party was cleared of all 13 charges

at the High Court trial last year but the committee was set up to examine what went wrong with the Scottish government's investigation into the initial internal complaints about Mr Salmond's alleged behaviour, which were made by two female civil servants in 2018. The bigger question now is how all of this affects the standing of one of the most powerful women in the UK, Nicola Sturgeon. I'm joined now by the BBC Scotland editor, Sarah Smith. Sarah, what is the latest? Well, we're waiting to hear today whether or not Alex Hammond is going to testify in front of the Parliamentary Committee, which has become known as the Hammond Inquiry. There's been a bit of a legal wrangle. He doesn't want to turn up and

give evidence in person to them unless they publish all the written evidence that he's submitted. But there are legal issues with that, which they're trying to resolve today. So it's possible that next week we might hear from him and the committee want to hear from him first and then take evidence under oath in public from Nicola Sturgeon after that. And in terms of Nicola Sturgeon and the impact this is having on her, either if she's made comment or how you can feel or sense it or perceive it from the public? Oh, well, this is having quite a big impact on her in that she is constantly having to answer questions about it,

whether it's at First Minister's questions in Holyrood or whether it's when she gives media interviews. She wants to be concentrating on the pandemic, of course, and the Scottish government's response to that. And yet all the time she's being dragged into being asked questions about what she knew and when over this whole Alex Salmond issue. And let me explain. The Holyrood Committee is looking into how the Scottish government really badly messed up an investigation

into allegations of sexual harassment against Alex Salmond. They botched it so badly it was found in court to have been unlawful. So not surprisingly, MSPs want to know what went wrong. And that's what the committee are supposed to be investigating. But they have been dragged into the political arena as well. Their investigations have veered off into asking some questions about who knew what when and whether or not Nicola Sturgeon ever misled Parliament when she gave her account of everything she knew about the Salmond affair. And whether or not some meetings that she had in her home with Alex Salmond should have been recorded as official government business. If she is found to have broken the ministerial code or misled parliament, there would be calls for her resignation. That would be very serious, especially when you remember we're only a few weeks away from some pretty crucial elections to the Scottish Parliament in May.

And she has denied those allegations. Absolutely. And she says that allegations which are being leveled by Alex Salmond and some of his allies are nothing but a conspiracy of nonsense, that she will relish the opportunity to appear in front of the committee and set the record straight. She was supposed to be doing that yesterday, but her appearance was delayed because of this legal wrangle with when Alex Salmond might appear. His evidence that he's already submitted to the committee accuses her of basically conspiring to destroy his political reputation. This has become a really, really bitter battle between the two best known, most powerful politicians the SNP has ever produced, who used to be really,

really close friends. He was her mentor. She his protege. She took over from him, obviously, as SNP leader and first minister. Now they're not speaking to each other. They're trading these accusations about which one's a liar, which one of them has been conspiring against the other. It's become a very, very messy battle between the two of them. And there's also a third character in this, Nicola's husband, Peter Murrell. He's the chief executive of the SNP party. He is. And in that capacity, he's had to give evidence to the Salmond inquiry twice. And they wanted to know just last week from him about details of a very particular meeting that happened in the marital home he shares with Nicola Sturgeon.

Alex Salmond had come round to tell her about these allegations of sexual harassment. And Nicola Sturgeon initially said that was the first she ever knew about it when he turned up on her doorstep to tell her all about it. Since then, she's had to revise that story and say, oh yes, there had been a meeting with one of his former aides four days earlier. She'd forgotten about that. That's why she hadn't told Parliament about it.

And then there's this question as to whether or not when she sat down with Alex Salmond, her chief of staff and Salmond's lawyer, whether that was a government meeting or a party meeting. Now, that might not sound as though it matters terribly much, but if it was an SNP party meeting, then it's absolutely fine.

They could talk about whatever they wanted. If it was official government business, it should have been officially recorded, minutes taken of what was said, and the civil service should have been informed that the meeting had taken place. Nicola Sturgeon says, no, it was SNP business. There was no reason why she needed to tell the civil had taken place. Nicola Sturgeon says, no, it was SNP business.

There was no reason why she needed to tell the civil service about it. Her husband told the inquiry initially, well, she didn't talk to him about what happened in the meeting because as far as he was concerned, it wasn't party business. He's the chief executive of the party, remember. It was government business. So you've got a married couple at the top of Scottish politics contradicting each other's stories. When he appeared again last week, he said, oh, it was all speculation on his part.

What kind of meeting it was, he didn't really know. Except that people say it's simply not credible. But she had an important party meeting with a former leader and didn't tell her husband, who's the chief executive of the party, about it. Some have felt she's done well. She's shown strong leadership during this pandemic, not necessarily those in Scotland, often perhaps appearing to be a day ahead of where Boris Johnson is with some of the announcements. We've seen that even with the announcements around the reopening of schools. Do you think this, even if she doesn't get found to have broken any codes or however this plays out, do you think this could have a lasting effect on her? Because I'm just mindful of a message we've just received, Sarah, from somebody called Johnny who says,

why should Nicola Sturgeon be under pressure with regards to a case that doesn't involve her whatsoever? You've just explained some of the ways that she could have been involved in terms of the handling of the process. But do you think this could have longer-term effects? As yet, although it makes headlines in Scotland whenever anybody gives evidence, and certainly when Nicola Sturgeon herself and when Alex Salmond do, it will be very, very big news. But, you know, in Scotland, everybody, like in the rest of the world, is absolutely

looking at the pandemic and her handling of it. And she has certainly come out of that rather well. She has always put forward a consistent message. She looks as though she is in control and in charge. And polling suggests that she has really quite high approval ratings amongst voters in Scotland, certainly much more so than Boris Johnson. So it's possible that that has shielded her a bit from some of the impact that this story could have because probably what most people take away

is that there are accusations being traded that maybe somebody did something wrong, but that the whole thing looks a little bit murky. The Scottish Conservatives say that the whole affair stinks to high heaven, is how they characterise it. And when you have a situation like that, of course, the stink can stick to everybody involved. But you see Nicola Sturgeon out there every single day talking about how she's handling the pandemic. People trust what she's got to say about that, by and large. And that certainly is insulating her a bit from some of the political damage that could come from this. Sarah Smith, BBC Scotland editor. Thank you.

Ever been called a witch then? It seems quite a few of you have. And some of you don't mind it. Some of you have minded it terribly. If you've had it thrown at you, keep getting in touch with us. I'll come to those messages shortly. My next guest certainly has frequently. She believes it's an attempt to discredit her and in particular older women generally. In the latest episode of her Inside Culture TV series on BBC Two, she's exploring dark arts, which includes witchcraft. Mary Beard, good morning. Hello. Thanks for joining us today. Who are you called a witch by? When does this happen? Any typical characteristics of those who like to lob this at you?

Well, you never quite know who people are on Twitter, do you? But you get called a witch or I get called a witch. Often when I open my mouth to say something that the recipient, the other end of the tweet, doesn't much like, you know, so you get, you know, not just shut up, but shut up and get back to your cauldron, you old hag. You know, where's your broomstick, darling? And, you know, you can imagine, you know, there's a lot worse than that. I have to say, you know, I've been called much, much worse than witch on Twitter in my time. But I think the, you know, it is extremely interesting that when we've got an old woman, particularly an old woman who looks like me, that there is a kind of resort to the language of haggery, coronary and witchcraft. Yes, and for people who don't know what you look like, you should say, you know, you have grey hair that's over your shoulders

and that will have associations for people. We've actually had a few messages as people's hair, you know, have changed or whatever that they've then received such messages. We're also, you're doing this in a very good, humoured way and I know you're going to perhaps explain a bit more about the history of this, but does it upset you ever? I know you've been called worse. Has it ever affected you? I don't think it affects me much. But it does make me,

it causes me to think, you know, I think it's, what is it? You know, what is it that, you know, in 2021, we're still going back to those old cliches about witchy women that silly, probably a bit lonely and probably a bit sort of fearful of old ladies. I think you're still saying, what is it? Why? And have you come to any conclusions on that? Have you arrived anywhere? I mean, I think you never answer questions like that completely, but I think there there is something throughout western history and i suspect more widely um which somehow doesn't know what to do with women who no longer have a reproductive function you know that um that

they're past their childbearing years so So what are they for? And I think that sometimes that's a bit clearer to see when I go back to my own specialist subject of the ancient world, where the idea of the crone who can't have kids being a real danger in a culture is very strong. But I think we still haven't got over that quite you know men um can go on um as it were um parading their potency um parading their ability to impregnate whoever they like oh pardon um you know for up to their dying day but But the menopause is something which changes how women are seen and looked at. And I think it is quite odd because you don't notice it happening to you. About 20 years ago, I went through a few years where I thought,

gosh, you know, the lads on the building sites are getting much, much kind of better behaved than they used to be. And then I realised, no, it's just they're not whistling at me. I was going to say, have you noticed in your own life that the insults changed as you got older? What were they and what did they go to? Well, the insults that they start being are things that masquerade as compliments. You know, I mean, I don't know whether you think hello gorgeous is a compliment or an insult.

But the kind of overtly sexualized language that people talk to you or people shout at you when you're under about 45 does change. You don't notice it to start with. And it changes into the crony, wizened, witchcrafty, as generally defined. Well, I think that's what's interesting is that, you know, I'm certainly always inspired by uh older women who who have embraced some of this because I look to you to to try and use it as a power and I I think you know I'm seeing that on some of the messages but I also did just want to ask you how you had

felt but I think with that age can come power if you channel it correctly and I wonder what your take is on that yeah yeah I mean I think that I suppose if I've got an ambition here it's to turn that sort of language on its head and say you know like in the words of one of your tweets you know crones are wild women um crones are powerful and it was very very encouraging a bit earlier in our inside culture series when um I had Evelyn Glennie on. You know, she's also got long grey hair and she was giving me a percussion lesson via Zoom, which was all terribly exciting.

Like you do. Like you do. I thought, gosh, this is the day I was born for, really. But then you found there were loads of tweets from people saying, great, you know, two long haired, grey haired ladies having a great time on telly. And, you know, I think it's not top of my list of great injustices in the world, let's be honest. But I think that if we can say, look, you can turn that power nexus round. You can say, you know, there's great, you know, there's great things about being an older woman.

You know, I do not regret not having periods anymore. I do not regret that. Oh, Mary, you don't know how much I'm looking forward to that day. I know the process to get there is going to be an interesting one. But when you're there, Emma, it's liberating. But, you know, let's get that over. Let's say, let's celebrate this. And that in some ways is what the kind of modern interest,

I think, in witchcraft is partly doing, you know, partly saying that there are different ways of being female and powerful ways. And also, you know, as some have also said, I will read you a couple of these messages that, you know, have come in expressly for you, is that there is a power also with the idea of magic, you know, the idea of being able many people from rabbits out of hats at kids' parties onto the dark arts. But it partly means getting the world to work the way you would quite like it to work. You know, that's magic for me.

That sounds like a very good magic trick that we could all do with remembering and bottling. Jenny says on email, hi, I've been called a witch all my life. As a child, I got called a changeling or one of the fairy children, probably because I was wild. I've been called not normal, various other names, usually by men, but also by women. I really don't care. I see it as a badge of honour. Really, I've just spent my life, you know, doing what I need and noticing things that people don't see. Rebecca says on email, good morning, in one of my previous jobs I was called a witch by one of my colleagues who gave me a customised broomstick when I left. It was meant and taken as a compliment

from someone who considered herself my apprentice witch. It seems she saw me, her manager, as a wise, all-seeing, doesn't miss a trick, eyes in the back of her head, strong, assertive

and with a sense of humour type. What do you make of that? Great. You know, I'm going to buy my broomstick now, I think. I think so. While you're here as a big advocate of getting us to think and speaking freely, I just wondered if I could, because you're a professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, do you have a view on the government's announcement of a new role for a free speech champion to regulate England's university campuses? Oh, slipping that one in, Emma. I think that if, let me just say that all the priorities I have about universities at the moment, that would not be the top of them. You know, we've got suffering students underfunding. We're in the middle of a pandemic. Let's kind of deal with the most important things first. And how are your students doing?

How are they coping? Any word to the wider student population who may be listening? They're being very, very brave, really. I mean, nobody much cares about students. They think that they're young and they're being inconvenienced. But they're sitting at home and they're being taught by Zoom. And we're doing our very best for them and having Zoom seminars and Zoom parties and Zoom lectures. But it's not like eyeball to eyeball.

I want to teach you something. And, you know, they're having, they're having a tough time. And, you know, I don't know, let's hope we can put that right sooner rather than later. And people in your position, I'm sure missing that eyeball to eyeball contact as well. Eyeball to eyeball is, you know, however great Zoom is, it isn't as good as eyeball to eyeball. No, but I'm definitely going to go and check out Evelyn Glennie teaching you on Zoom some percussion tricks. Mary Beard, thank you so much for entrancing us

this morning with tales of witchy and how you could perhaps reclaim that inside culture with Mary Beard is on Thursday, 7 o'clock on the BBC2 or on iPlayer. Now, from witches to female genitalia, it is woman's arm, what should a vulva look like?

There isn't a correct answer because everyone is different. Teenage girls and women in the past wouldn't have been able to compare. But now with the Internet, they can with far greater ease and a far greater number. This has led to something called vulva anxiety and is seeing them referred to gynaecologists from as young as nine. In lockdown, teens, like the rest of us, are isolated and more prone, like the rest of us, to fixating over issues than normal, more than they would do. Plus, non-urgent referrals are also not happening in the usual way. How do we equip girls and women to feel confident about their genitalia? Alex Fox is a sex journalist, broadcaster and educator. Dr Naomi Crouch is the chair of the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology. Good morning to both of you. Naomi, if I could begin with you, tell think is really important. And girls are very much coming along with anxieties, usually about appearance, but they'll sometimes

talk about physical symptoms as well. But the striking thing is that they're unable to get much access to reliable information. So one of the areas I will always ask them about is where they've got any information from. And the vast majority of the time, this will be from cosmetic surgery websites. So girls will be concerned, sitting in their bedroom, probably, like you say, sort of over worrying, very kind of anxious, trying to get some reassurance and looking on the internet. And they'll quite often see before and after photos of surgery.

And the comment I often get is, well, I look like that and that woman had an operation. So there must be something wrong with me. There must be a problem. And now I need to find a solution. And it's very hard when that's built up over a couple of years of worrying girls, plucking up the courage to talk to their parents about it, and then perhaps coming to see a doctor or a gynecologist. It's very hard to reinforce the sense of the fact that their anatomy is normal, they don't need any procedure or anything done, to try and undo that in a 20-minute appointment face-to-face. What specifically are they seeing that they don't like? So it's nearly always the labia minoris, the inner lips,

and one very important fact that often gets missed out is the vulva takes many, many years to develop. And one of the things that's quite interesting in medical schools is we're taught about sort of genital anatomy development using canna stages. And for boys and for men, then this will have penile and scrotal anatomy and it will show all the changes. But for women, then it's just pubic hair changes. There's no comparative information on development of the vulva through many years. And of course, I have to say it's probably been 10 years since I've seen a pubic hair in an adolescent. Most people will choose to remove it completely. So the information we have about normal genital development in women is reasonably useless. And it's very hard to explain the fact that the anatomy changes dramatically over many years, and where labia minora, the inner lips, might appear as though they're protruding through,

then actually as the rest of the vulva develops, the appearance changes dramatically. Alex, to bring you into this, how do you think this has become an anxiety? I totally agree with Naomi. I think these before and after pictures and the prevalence of labiaplasty and the advertisement of of it as something desirable even slang terms like design a vagina are painting the idea of surgically altered bodies as a goal. And it's interesting this, because often when I talk about vulval anxiety, the big old finger of blame automatically goes to porn. And porn is an influence,

but it may not be as big an influence as a lot of us assume. And actually using that as quite a convenient catch-all scapegoat might mean that we are missing other problems that also need attention. The standard argument goes that a lot of images you see in pornography have been digitally altered. The people that you see in pornography may have been surgically altered. And also because neat, petite, discrete labia minora and labia majora, the inner and outer lips, are considered conventionally attractive, that people who naturally have those bodily forms go into porn, become more popular,

and thus perpetuate that idea that that type of vulva is the most attractive. But actually, misogynistic put-downs of women's natural anatomy and the corresponding shame that go along with that have been around for a lot longer than online porn and there's some really interesting conversations and research coming from places like Stanford University and leading voices like the sexual psychologist Silver Neves that suggest that porn isn't this necessarily this primary destructive juggernaut in terms of vulval self-image that we often assume it might be. In fact, anecdotally, I've heard from women who've actually said that they've seen porn that shows a greater variety of vulvas and that they've actually found some reassurance in seeing

bodies that look like theirs in porn. What I would like to see is bodies that look like theirs in education and in other places. So that's a change there that you could see. Naomi, if you're already dealing with this issue yourself or perhaps you're the parent of someone who's going through this, is there anything you could say to them today, because perhaps they can't get an appointment, to try and help that person or help

themselves to diffuse this constant going over it in their head like something is wrong with them yes i think it's really important to acknowledge the psychological distress it's rather than just saying oh for goodness sake you're just normal don't worry about it there are worse things i think it's important to acknowledge that but in terms of trying to find accurate online information there's a leaflet which was commissioned by the british society called think it's important to acknowledge that but in terms of trying to find accurate online information there's a leaflet which was commissioned by the British Society called So What is Evolver Anyway and it was developed with adolescents specifically looking at the the huge variety in normal anatomy and and reassurance and that's available online and also there are websites there's one called the

Labia Library which I think is a fantastic name. And that's very good and also shows women in various sort of sort of standing up as well as sitting down. And again, just celebrating diversity, really. And finally, then I find that often girls are very anxious about what a future partner may say. So these are imagined psychological distresses rather than things that have happened in reality. And so, again, talking to the fact that if anybody, any partner has access to that part of your body, actually, it's an immense privilege and it should be treated with respect. And we occasionally sort of make a little joke about the fact that, you know, if you're worried about that part of your body, you get rid of these six foot of useless flesh, not the one centimetre of flesh. And so we talk about partner selection and self-esteem thank you very much dr naomi crouch chair of the british society for pediatric

and adolescent gynecology mentioning some resources there we'll post those on our website and alex fox a sex journalist broadcaster and educator we received this email from one of you one of our listeners, about this issue. She said to us, and more than adequate, quote, to do the job. Men had also told me that you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire. But that didn't stop me from having surgery. After three vaginal births and many years of ruminating on whether my labia were too large aged 40, I did have a labiaplasty.

It was a huge relief. I was so pleased. I later caught herpes, and I'm convinced that the virus entered through compromised labial tissue after surgery. Since then, I started a sex education business in schools delivering honest, evidence-based, non-biased lessons, empowering young men and women to have healthy sex lives. Thank you very much for that message. Messages coming in about the idea of reclaiming the word witch as an insult. Many of you trying to do so or have done so successfully after Mary Beard came on and said she's been called it frequently. Joan says, my two daughters are going to play ding dong, the witch is dead at my funeral.

Brilliant. And Georgina says, I've been called a witch since I first showed my brain. There you go. Thanks so much for all your messages. We'll be back with you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, the host of the You're Dead to Me podcast, and I have some good news. Now that we're all stuck at home, again, we are bringing back Homeschool History. And if you missed out the first time, you don't know what it is. It's our fun, family-friendly and informative show about, well, you can probably guess, yeah, history. And yes, we're bringing back the obligatory sound effects, of course. This time out, get ready to learn about the Great Fire of London,

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