Woman's Hour - Met Police, Secrets, Dirty Looks exhibition

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Secret filming by the BBC’s Panorama programme last night revealed evidence of racism, misogyny and officers revelling in the use of force at one of London’s busiest police stations. Panorama’s evidence suggests that a toxic culture still exists inside the Met and that racist and misogynistic attitudes haven’t been eliminated but have been driven underground. Anita Rani speaks to Matt Jukes, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.The secrets we keep reflect the conventions, taboos and laws of the outside world, and women have traditionally had the bigger burden of secrets, often unable to reveal things that could get them or others judged, in society or by law. Anita talks to Juliet Nicolson about her new book The Book of Revelations which explores secrets through social history, her own family and many case studies she spoke to. The conservationist and primatologist Dame Jane Goodall died yesterday, aged 91. According to the Jane Goodall Institute, she died of natural causes in California where she was staying as part of a speaking tour in the US. There has been tributes from around the world. Joining me Anita to remember this ground-breaking conservationist who revolutionised the study of great apes is wildlife biologist, National Geographic Explorer and President of the Wildlife Trust, Liz Bonnin, and Jillian Miller who is the director of the Gorilla Organisation who work to save gorillas from extinction.From gowns buried underground to transforming fabrics with melted bandages, fashion has a history of exploring the aesthetics of dirt and decay. A new exhibition at the Barbican, Dirty Looks, explores 50 years of designers from Vivienne Westwood to Alexander McQueen, who used dirt and distress to make statements about luxury, beauty, class and the environment. The exhibition also looks at waste as fashion is now one of the most polluting industries in the world. Anita is joined by the exhibition’s curator, Karen Van Godtsenhoven, and artist and designer, Michaela Stark, whose work challenges ideas of imperfection.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt

Hi, I'm Nula McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. While you're here, I wanted to let you know about the Woman's Hour Guide to Life, your toolkit for the juggle, the struggle, and everything in between. Life is complicated and often incredibly busy, so whether you're fixing a problem, at one of life's crossroads, or just looking to shake things up a bit, this is the guide you'll need to help you survive and even thrive. Each episode brings together world-class experts with women

sharing their honest, powerful stories, offering real insight and also practical tips that really work. From work and career to relationships and family issues, the focus is on helping you grow, also adapt and overcome life's curved walls. First up, friendship. How to stay connected with friends when life feels like a never-ending to-do list.

Join us only on BBC Sounds, But now, back to today's Women's Hour. Good morning and welcome to the programme. We'll be speaking to the Metropolitan Police about the shocking panorama investigation that reveals sexism, misogyny and racism at the heart of Charing Cross Police Station. The Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes is here.

It's a fashion exhibition, but not as you know it. It's opened at the Barbican in London and it's called Dirty Looks, Desire and Decay in Fashion. What can dirt and decay say about beauty, class and the environment we'll be finding out. And a new book looking at women and their secrets. The author Julietnecelsen will be here to reveal what she's unearthed. We'll be discussing how women are the gatekeepers of secrets.

Maybe you can relate. We're probably more likely to share our deepest secrets with the doctor or a therapist than our nearest and dearest. Well, you could unburden yourself by sharing your secrets anonymously with Woman's Hour this morning or telling me how a secret has impacted your life, whether it's having to keep one or not being told the truth. Were you once carrying a secret, but were finally able to share it? What changed?

Attitudes, society? Or maybe you just gave up caring and wanted to unburden yourself? If you'd like to do that, then do get in touch in the usual way with your secrets, your comments on that, or anything else you're here on the program. The text number is 84844. You can email the program by going to our website, or you can WhatsApp the program. It's 0-3-700-100-444.

But first, the head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, has apologised for the reprehensible and completely unacceptable behaviour of some officers at Charing Cross Police Station. A BBC Panorama documentary revealed evidence of racism, misogyny and officers revelling in the use of force at Charing Cross, one of London's busiest police stations. Following the kidnap, rape and rape, and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Cousins in 2021,

the Metropolitan Police commissioned an independent review into its standards of behaviour and internal culture. In 2020, Baroness Casey concluded the Met to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. Sir Mark Rowley, the Metz Commissioner, rejected the institutional term, but promised change and to restore trust and confidence in the force. But Panorama's evidence suggests that a toxic culture still, exists inside the Met and that racist and misogynistic attitudes haven't been eliminated but have been driven underground. Well, I'm now joined by Matt Dukes, whose deputy commissioner for the Metropolitan Police Service. Matt, thank you for joining us this morning. Now,

the Panorama programme, as I've mentioned, showed misogyny, racism, violent behaviour. After everything the Met Police have promised about culture, surely this is a new low. The behaviour we saw was disgraceful. reprehensible. We knew that when we received a letter from the BBC and read that and it was clear and we took the actions I can go on to talk about. But I was thinking last night about other people watching in the same way for the first time. I watched that documentary for the first time as it became available last night and it was so sickening to see the abuse of power in so many different ways and directed towards women. directed towards people in our custody and our care and to see that we have

still, despite the work that's been done so much yet to do, we I know today have to think about colleagues who feel they have worked with these atrocious bosses and it has been so difficult for them

last night my thoughts really turned of course to them and to victims and to families. And to families families of detainees who want to know that their loved ones are safe in our custody when they're with us and to victims who already fear victims of sexual violence, domestic abuse who already fear their perpetrators and now have to calculate their fear about being safe

and being believed when they come forward to the police and that's a burden that they shouldn't have to carry. So we are determined to continue the work we've already done and determined, of course, to take the really decisive action we have against this network and group of officers and these behaviours, but to do what Baroness Casey stalled us to do, which is to look at this systematically, to look at this structurally

and to look at this in a long-term, determined way. I'm going to get into some of the details because I watch the programme, and you're right, shocking, sinister, everything that's been said about it, but a lot of our listeners won't have heard. So I'm going to bring out some of the The most poignant moments, I think, for us to discuss.

One of those was when a female designated detention officer questioned a decision to release on bail, a man alleged to have raped his girlfriend. She pointed out he'd also been accused of kicking the pregnant woman in the stomach. And a sergeant with many years' service in the MEP said, that's what she says. Absolutely abhorrent to hear. What does that tell us about the Mets culture? We know that a culture of victim blaming attitudes, victim blaming language has been a persistent issue for policing, that that has been a barrier for women to report their experiences and has been a barrier for colleagues who want to do good work and there are many, many people determined to do good work to protect the victims of violence against women and girls and many and more of them. trying to give voice to the perspective you have.

We have worked hard to deal with that victim-blaming attitude and victim-blaming culture. And we do see evidence that we're making a difference. We're compared to three years ago, seeing three times as many cases progressing through arrests, through charges, through victims having the courage to stay with what is a very long criminal justice process at the moment. so we know that that culture is shifting

but what it tells me to be very direct is the work we've set out to do is not done. Or it's not working. I mean, you say you're seeing attitude shift but it's not what we saw in the panorama. We also heard in the program that female police officers said she couldn't call him out. This I thought was very interesting.

And she said it to the investigator, said that I couldn't call him out because of the stripes on his shoulders. So there are two issues here. both rooted in power imbalance, the treatment of the public and also your own workforce. How safe to female officers feel reporting harassment or sexism within the force if they can't call out sexist behaviour towards members of the public? I thought there was a lot of very painful things to watch there for the public

and that as a leader in the police for me was a really painful moment to see a colleague who's had to endure horrible work environment and feel unable because of that abuse of power to do that, to feel so suppressed by that domineering character. And so we take a series of steps to make sure we try to lift confidence of individuals and give them roots to that. And I am so sorry to that colleague that the powerful effect, the abuse of that power by leaders immediately around, have prevented that. We have seen increasing numbers

of colleagues come forward and feel supported. In a separate investigation, I mean, we are grateful to Panorama for their investigation and in our own separate investigation into another part of the Met, we've arrested individuals,

including individuals at rank, officers at rank, because of their interference with or inability to take serious action on reports. So we're being both robust with those who don't tackle these issues. But also we are being really clear that the job is never done until every colleague feels they can access that.

And three times as many colleagues do now, about 1,400 in the last year compared to 400 a few years ago. More colleagues feel they can do that. More colleagues feel supported. But this has to be something for not just the majority, but for everybody. Everybody deserves to feel safe at work. And we're working hard to do that. And one of the ways we're doing that is to take people out the organisation who have no place.

And we've done that in an unprecedented way. We've seen between 14 and 1,500 officers and staff exited from the organisation because they can't live our values. All of that is creating a safer environment for the public and a safer environment for colleagues. It's a journey we're still on, but it is an unprecedented endeavour to tackle this kind of corrosive and corrupt attitude. This investigation, this panorama, was in Charing Cross Station, which is in the heart of London. And it's been the focus of an investigation by the IOPC police watchdog into bullying and discrimination nearly four years ago. It found that some officers had discussed hitting their girlfriends, shared offensive and discriminatory calls. comments and joked about rape in private group chats.

The then Home Secretary, Prithi Patel, said the force had problems with its culture. She told the Commons Home Affairs Committee that examples of appalling conduct by serving officers could not be dismissed as one-off incidents. It feels from the outside looking in that nothing has changed. How does the MET plan to address the systemic failures that allow this behaviour to persist, despite previous scandals? So we're going to continue the work that has started and we're going to, to commit to listening to others about what more we can do.

So the work that is already underway, which has seen individuals exited from the organisation by a more robust approach to vetting. So particularly at that front door, we've doubled a number of people we're screening out at the point of vetting. We've looked back at the history of people who've previously come to attention

because of their misogyny and their racism. And we've pursued those cases and many have left the Met as a result. resign or been sacked. We've been, we've been building a capacity to support victims and we've started in parallel to looking to our better support for victims in the community to our victims internally. We recognise there is police perpetrated violence against women and girls. We now have a dedicated unit that works specifically with the victims of police perpetrated and internal violence against women and girls. One thing we know is there is

there is both evidence of behaviour that took place in relatively plain sight in this documentary but also a conversation about this being driven underground and I think we have to be very clear we are going underground after it so my own background and the commissioners is in counterterrorism we are going to use all of our insights from that work

to use all of the tactics available to us to pursue people if they go underground we are going underground after them yeah so there are two things there so let's start with that so the efforts that you and your other senior leaders of the police, could they have actually driven this underground and not driven it out? So we know that we are dealing with the behavior that's seen,

the behavior that's reported. We have a whole set of measures like monitoring people's work phones. We can use intrusive tactics. We have used intrusive tactics. We've got handfuls of operations that demonstrate that. But there is a reality here that, a bit like an organised crime group

inducting their members, you could see in the documentary that testing of, are you going to be in my group? Yeah. Can I trust you to be part of this and then going further and further and further? And so there is some reality

that there are officers here who fear our professional standards team and we want them to feel that fear. We want the bigots and the racists and the misogynists to know that. But we also, exactly as you are pointing to, we need to know that the consequence of that is that some of this behaviour is driven underground. And we will not be misled or fooled by the idea that less of it is on the surface.

We are going to go after that behaviour as it's pushed underground into networks. And we know that those networks, in custody, for example, a closed door behind a closed door, effectively inside a police station. We need leadership at every level to disrupt that. Sue Fish, former Chief Constable, who featured in the film, said the MET leadership has never grasped the significance and the scale and the impact of this culture. It's always been a rotten apple, not a rotten barrel. And Zoe Billingham, a former independent inspector of police forces in England and Wales,

told Five Live this morning the scale and depth of the culture issues within the MET are breathtaking. And clearly he, Mark Rowley, hasn't got into all of the corners of the Metropolitan Police and describes the Mets cultural issues as breathtaking. What's your response to that? Well, I would acknowledge the common truth and two respected former colleagues. I think both have spoken powerfully and thoughtfully. And I thought Sue Fish gave a thoughtful, precise analysis in yesterday's program, and she's spot on. There are still places we've yet to turn.

There are still places we have yet to shine a light on. We're in pursuit of that. We have not said these issues are fixed. We've not said the work is done. And in terms of scale, you will not hear me, you will not hear Mark Riley talk about rotten apples. If we've exited 1,500 people from the organisation over the last three years, that's not a few rotten apples. That is a systemic challenge, a structural challenge, and it's one we're going to continue to tackle at that scale. I mean, what you're talking about, you know, the culture that's been driven underground is incredibly sinister and shocking.

and it's, you know, to do with Islamophobia and racism and deep misogyny. But I also wonder whether the message has got through to your staff of what is simply acceptable behaviour, sergeants who are in charge of the custody suite day-to-day and upholding the Mets Valleys and standards. Yet there's one particular sergeant that we see repeatedly in the film displaying misogynistic attitudes discussing his sex life, making inappropriate comments about women he's met online,

describing how he gets sexual pleasure from having his nipples played with, despite objection from female colleagues in earshot. I mean, this is sort of page one. I hate the idea that colleagues have injured that works in such a sexualised environment, so misogynistic. And I was with women I work with every day watching the program and I walked to Charing Cross Police at New Scotland Yard, I walked to Charing Cross Police Station afterwards

and talk to colleagues, including women who felt so betrayed and so appalled by that and that has happened not just in watching the program but in the daily experience of some colleagues and we're determined to deal with those individuals to deal with individuals who haven't challenged behaviour like that

when they've seen it and to have leaders at every level there are many different opportunities for us to be in those police stations as I was last night but you know hundreds of leaders and we're with Samark and I will be with 700 leaders in the organisation tomorrow talking about what they have already done but talking about our expectations about what more they need to do to absolutely cut out the cancer of that kind of

behaviour and we've done a lot of that a lot of surgery has been underway but we don't have the overall health of the organisation that we want how did the BBC find this out and not you I think we have seen in the ways I've described Collie coming forward and raising their concerns in a number of places and we've responded to that. We've had our own investigations. The BBC here, I think I would recognise have done a job of

public service. I think the lead reporter has showed personal courage and we are grateful for the material that has been brought forward. We're doing better at detecting this behaviour.

This is a demonstration we've not detected all of it. And it's a demonstration that in some of this behaviour have been driven underground, our determination to tackle this like the corruption it is, like the organised crime it is on occasions, mean we are going to have to use, in addition to the taxes, we're already using some of those covert tactics we've used to go after those threats. I've got a statement from the Independent Office for Police Conducts

from the Director-General Rachel Watson, who said, Like others, I'm appalled by what panorama has exposed. These behaviours are completely unacceptable and have no place in policing. I know there'll be a great deal of concern from the public, many of whom will be feeling a loss of trust and confidence in the police whose job it is to protect them. The IOPC is charged with independently investigating the most serious allegations of police misconduct and our investigation is already underway following the Met, referring the matter to us.

We have served gross misconduct notices on nine officers, one retired officer and a member of staff, one officer who's also been informed they will be criminally investigated. I want to pick up on that idea of trust. There were 120,000 crimes of violence against women reported to the Met in 2024. What message does all this send to women who come into police custody, especially those reporting sexual or domestic violence? And I want to say that it takes a lot to be that one of those 120,000 in the first place, that's not even thinking about the women who are too afraid to step forward.

I've spent three decades watching us do not as well as we should. I mean, terribly, to be candid, do terribly at the start of my career in tackling violence against women and girls. And I've been alongside colleagues and with colleagues as we've endeavored to improve. And I've talked about some of those improvements. And the message to victims today is that there are officers in the Met who are ready to listen, respond, support. who are going to investigate seriously your allegation and are going to put the pursuit of perpetrators of sexual violence at the heart of their approach.

And we've invested an additional 500 people in doing that work. So we are putting our money where that commitment is. We're seeing more results. But I know that there is an extra burden today on those victims. As I said, fearful of their perpetrator and now fearful. of the police. And no doubt there are good police officers. We know that.

But this morning, how do you know whether you're going to get a good cop or a bad cop? We're asking this incredible thing today, aren't we? Which is for the public's trust. And we ask it in many ways every day. And it seems harder to ask that of the public today than on many others.

We've got great colleagues who are delivering better outcomes for victims, working so hard to protect them, I want victims to know that if they come forward, they will meet those officers and that they can access independent advice and advocacy. We are working with a whole range of organisations in the women's safety sector

and a colleague will be speaking to hundreds of representatives of that sector who I know will be demanding the same answers because we're not going to do this alone. And so giving access to our work and to our buildings to people from outside of policing is something we're really committed to do. And that includes making sure we've got advocacy and support for victims.

Some of the strongest advocates for victims have been our officers. And I've watched the... I've been in a service which has gone from people being accepted at the point at which they said, I don't want to pursue this allegation, encouraged to do. take that position to seeing tireless investigations by frontline detective constables

sat determined to get prevention orders determined to support with digital evidence those investigations so I know that and we have to work to make sure of victims know and feel that and that even though I can say I can see that in more cases I can hope for it in the majority of cases it has to be true in all cases and we are going to keep working away there and we're going to keep being accountable. So we will get further independent scrutiny of the approach we're taking. What the BBC investigation shows, and Zoe Billingham and others have been part of this is, you know, we have a job of leadership to do ourselves. We can't mark our own homework. We shouldn't be, you know, we shouldn't be allowed to. And so, access to policing to

ask these questions is so, so important. So important. You're the first port of call. As you say, you're there to protect us. And if this morning we can't trust the police to do that or the women can't, then where do they go this morning? What will happen to the cases these officers have been involved in? Will they be reviewed? They absolutely will. So over decades, we have seen failures, leadership failures, cultural failures, systematic failures. And there are two important things, if I may, in terms of the specifics. We have looked back over the way past investigations have been conducted both into officers and also, into the reports of crime by victims and we know that by reinvestigating some of those we've seen justice so we are going to go we will look at the work of these officers we will understand the impact they have made on the public and on the and on colleagues and the thing which is going to change in the next weeks we hope expect and are driving to is that rather than wait months and years for an investigation we've got the prospects of income

controvertible evidence in front of us of wrongdoing. And we want to see people who are racist, misogynistic, who've abused their power, abused force out of the organisation. Exited, sacked. And we're not, we're

going to ask and work with the independent officers of police conduct that that doesn't follow its historic path of months and years of investigation, but it happens on a fast track and it's really decisive. And then yes, directly in answer to your question, we have to look at what the consequence of these individuals being in the workplace has been for colleagues,

but for the public as well. Both the 1999 McPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the 2003 Casey report concluded that the MET is institutionally racist. Sir Mark Rowley has said he does not accept that description. Why won't the MET police accept that you have an institutional problem? We don't contest any of Baroness Casey's important findings and recommendations the challenges we face are not about rotten apples or individuals. They're systemic, they're structural,

they're the consequence of those decades of shortcomings and failure to evolve that I described. So we're responding to this institutionally. When people ask me, and I've been asked in the last days about the language used to describe that, I know that one of the things people want to hear is that we acknowledge the pain, the hurt and the trauma, and that we are looking at a bigger challenge

than just pointing to a few individuals and that is absolutely true. We have chosen not to use a contested piece of language to describe that but I absolutely know and believe from the commissioner through to many, many individuals working hard on this throughout the Met

that we know this is about systems, we know this is about structures, we know it's about culture and it's about the institution and we're going to tackle it at all of those levels. We're going to bring together the data that tells us that story, we're going to use powerful tools that we've used in counterterrorism to identify the people

who are most likely to harm colleagues and not serve the public. And we are, as I say, we're taking this forward as an institutional challenge. Matt Juke's Deputy Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police Service, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Thank you. 8444 is the number to text.

Now, I wanted to remind you about the Women's Hour a guide to life. It's a brand new series of conversations available only on BBC Sounds. It's your toolkit for the juggle, the struggle and everything in between. Our first episode is all about friendship, how to squeeze in time with our friends despite our very busy lives and why we should be making time with our friends a priority. Here's a clip from a psychotherapist Julia Samuel and one of the reasons why we should prioritise our friends. Can you remember the last time you really laughed a lot and how giggling and laughing are so important. Like we feel so heavy a lot.

All the news, the chores, the tasks, the difficulties. And just going and meeting a friend for a coffee or a walk and really laughing or watching something funny on telly together is completely rejuvenating. I completely agree. To hear more, just go to BBC Sounds. Search for Woman's Hour. And in the feed, you'll find the Woman's Hour guide. Life episode. Now, the secrets we keep reflect the conventions, taboos and laws of the world we

live in. Women have traditionally had the bigger burden of secrets, often unable to reveal things that could get them or others judged in society or by law. Well, Juliet Nicholson's book, The Book of Revelations, explores secrets through social history, secrets of her own or from her own family, but also from the many case studies she spoke to. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Juliette. Thank you. The book is about bad secrets, not fun ones, ones that restrict and eat away at people who are unable or not allowed to tell them, and they're often women. Why did you want to write this book?

I was thinking about my mother, who died many, many years ago now, and I was thinking about my two daughters and about the difference between what we dare tell each other and what I didn't dare tell her and what she did. didn't dare tell me. So it was a way of looking at a generational shift that I think has happened in society, but at first through the lens of my very own relationships with the women in my family. And at the same time, I heard about a woman, a woman doctor called Joan Mallison, who had been seeing her women patients in the 1950s in London and found that although they came to her presenting their female medical conditions that they were worried about and had been referred to her by their GP, they began to very tentatively unload their secrets.

and they were women from every background who, mainly young, often and usually just married, who were frightened of embarrassing their husbands, revealing something that might be considered shameful, their lack of knowledge so poignant. What these women didn't know, though, was that Joie's. Malison was recording them secretly. Oh my goodness. In her desk drawer. She didn't intend these secrets to go anywhere on her recordings.

She was going to... Why was she doing that? It was for herself. It was to go back over them. It was before I player. It was before there was an opportunity to sort of really linger over what people had said. and to see how she might be able to help in the future. She died quite soon afterwards,

but those tapes were saved by her son and given to the Welcome Archive. And for this book, the first thing I did was to listen to them. And what did you find? And what struck you? It was a combination of an incredibly sort of moving experience. it did feel intrusive although none of these women were identified by name

I was back in the 1950s what were they talking about they were talking about they were talking about marriage they were talking about how to satisfy their husband they were talking about what to do with the contraceptive

this is a good 10 years or so before the pill was available and they were talking about how they might somehow or other broach taboo subjects which they had never spoken to their mothers about or even their friends. What's interesting in the book is that you divide it into sections and you look at the 50s and the 70s and how as society changes and laws change, how we can, as women, particularly, unburden ourselves with certain secrets that in the 50s they would have seen as taboos.

So you describe how the 70 saw change in society leading to open expression. How was that? What happened in the 70s? Exactly that. Well, as a women who had survived the Second World War came of age and older, this sense of repression and of the corrosive feeling around keeping things secret billowed at the same time as the woman's movement took off, both in America and here in Britain.

And gradually the laws began to shift in women's favour, in liberating their voices. And so the Abortion Act, the Equality Act, all sorts of acts that took place in the late 1960s and early 17, are dovetailing with this urgency that women were feeling that they must speak out if these repressive conditions. And sometimes you know these secrets aren't so specific. It's not about, oh, I had a child out of wedlock or, oh, I had an affair. It's much more about what those events can trigger the feelings of them,

which being shame, guilt, envy, all of those big judgment feelings, exactly that, yeah. What laws had an impact on secret keeping? Well, the emancipation, if that's the word, the gradual emancipation of women that came in with the Labour government in the 1960s so that, for example, the Abortion Act in 1967 allowed that to take place. Before that, in the 1950s and 60s, I mean, anybody who's watched Cool and Midwife will know exactly what sort of conditions women were having to function under.

There was also a much sort of kind of weakening, if that's right, of the Adoption Act so that it would suddenly possible to begin to inquire who you were, where you came from, what sort of circumstances you had arrived in this world. What is your identity? And so with all of these laws, there were also individuals, a particular woman that I went to talk to now in her 80s, who was a hero even of mine when I was a university called Erin Pitsy. And she was a housewife in Chiswick in London who started the first women's refuge. huge yeah yeah um i want to talk about make it a bit more personal um i found this so fascinating and it's one of those when you start thinking about your own life as a as a south asian indian indian woman there's so many secrets as a woman in particular brought up as the pride and the shame of a family i wrote a memoir and i remember one person who read it said to me it's like we've been carrying

around a secret anita and you've made it okay to discuss it i mean what a relief finally we're living we'll get to where we are now but you started by talking about your mother and the secrets within your family and you described your household as whispery. How aware of secrets were you growing up? Yes. I think I grew up in a sort of cloud of whisperiness. Both my grandparents had had same-sex love affairs throughout their lives. They were very happily married to one another and they were the parents of two children, two boys, my father and his brother, but they also throughout their lives had love affairs with their own sex. And this was not more than tolerated. It was recognized and almost embraced by themselves, but not by society. By law, my grandfather was

breaking the law. The legalization of homosexuality didn't come in until the year before he died. in 67 I think and my grandmother I mean nobody talked about women's love affairs with women they just shuddered if such a suggestion but they were extremely happy together

so there was that secret and my grandmother was also having an affair with her sister-in-law so it was complex it was complex to put it mildly yeah And then my mother, who had left school at 14 during the war, her education came to a stop. And her shame and less thanness about not being educated enough impacted her impacted her on her whole life.

And as a result, she did things to try and feel better. and those things were love affairs and primarily alcohol. And do you yourself say that you see the benefits of unburdening yourself of secrets? It's so good that you played that clip just a bit earlier from Julia Samuel because trust is what matters to me, I think, more than anything. And if I even just have one friend, and I'm fortunate enough, in having several, who I trust with my secrets, and who I know won't enter into the seductive drama of revealing them, there is that thing about a secret. And if you know who you've confided in, and you know they'll keep it, there you're your. they're your friend for life.

I mean, you don't have to tell your secrets, you know, on national radio, even in a book. But if you've just got one person, tell it, because it lifts, it lifts you and liberates you in a way that I myself, having done the same thing, could never have dreamt of. It's changed my life. Oh, Juliet, there's so much more I want to talk to you about,

but we've run after time. but thank you so much, Julietne Nicholson, for coming in. And you can read the book yourselves to see them all the secrets and the revelations in the book. It's called Revelations, Women and Their Secrets. It's out today. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Now, the conservationist and primatologist Dame Jane Goodall died yesterday, age 91. According to the Jane Goodall Institute, she died of natural causes in California, where she was staying as part of a speaking tour in the US. there have been tributes from around the world. Well, joining me now to remember this groundbreaking conservationist who revolutionized the study of great apes in wildlife biologist, National Geographic Explorer and President of the Wildlife Trust,

Liz Bonin and Julian Miller, who is the director of the guerrilla organization who worked to save guerrillas from extinction. Liz and Julian, welcome. So, Liz, why was Jane so significant to so many people? Oh, there are so many answers to that. As a biologist myself, the first thing that struck me as I was becoming obsessed with animal behavior is how this young woman in the 60s absolutely transformed our understanding of ethology, of animal behavior, of emotions. She discovered that they used tools, that their diets were different to what scientists had presumed up to then. And she got a lot of criticism for documenting meticulously all of these behaviors.

and emotions that she was observing. She really immersed herself in the habitat, very much like indigenous people do. Even that was quite different for the time. And she was a young woman in the 60s. So for me, reading that account of her work then absolutely changed my life and really inspired me. But since then, my gosh, Anita,

she's gone on to support young people through her Roots and Shoot initiative. She really connects the dots. She worked multi-culturally and multi- sexually. She was just an incredibly wise, fierce behind the scenes, but kind and compassionate woman who inspired, well, thousands, if not millions of people. I would probably say millions. Yeah, an extraordinary woman. Julianne, I'm going to bring you in. You were also inspired by Jane's work. Tell me why. Jane and Diane Fosse. Diane Fossi was the one who studied the

gorillas. Jane studied the chimps. And another amazing woman, Brutie Galdikas, went to study orangutans in Indonesia. We used to call them Leakey's ladies. They were all young women and they were sent by Lewis Leakey to go and study and they all took this

incredible, like Liz said, this incredible approach. Whereas the Edwardians had gone out like these wild beasts you know and we're going to capture them and take them back to display in museums, they actually got into understanding them. One of the things I like very much about

Jane is that she wasn't an extremist. So although she hated the idea of chimps being kept in laboratories and kept in captivity for various reasons, she knew that she couldn't actually change that single-handedly. She'd go in and she'd say, look, make their lives better. They're bored. They're lonely. They're unhappy. At least give them, and not just a little bit of enrichment, but actually make their lives

better. And she did that, and I thought that was absolutely marvellous. And she had that gentle, gentle personality, a twinkle in her eye. You know, Liz. You've heard her many times, do a pan hoot when she's doing a talk. She'd do this call that the chimpanzees do when they say good night to each other each night. And the whole audience would be riveted. She was a magical woman, really, in her own way.

Liz, tell us about her work with chimpanzees. Well, it's her instincts led her at a time where she knew nothing. about wildlife or wild animals. Leakey was a paleontologist, anthropologist. And as Gillian said, it was a very objective science at the time. Her instinct led her to feel what she needed to do to better understand these animals that she very quickly became obsessed with. And how she documented everything at a time where people were criticizing her

and saying, this is not science, why are you even speaking about emotions that this chimpanzee looks, seems to be sad after one of its tribe has passed away. So she was very strongly encouraged not to document, but her strength of conviction, which is something Jane had for the rest of her life, which is why she was an extraordinary leader for so many people. She was just, I'm going to carry on doing this. It transformed ethology. In fact, ethology became a real science because of it.

Animal behavior, animal sentience, the capabilities of animals. animals on their own terms in their environment. That was, in no small part, thanks to Jane scribbling down everything she observed. I mean, she was in Gombe for the best part of 15 years documenting these behaviors. That kind of long-term immersive research is what transforms science and moves it on in leaps and bounds. And she also learned so much from them. I'll never forget when I first met her. We said, hello, we were chatting away.

We took a picture. And then she just stared at me and bore into my soul. It felt slightly unnerving, but also incredibly powerful and warm. And when I asked Ben Garrett, who's the amazing broadcaster and scientist, who knows Jane very well, I said to Ben, he was there. I said, Ben, what the heck was that about? I felt that was really odd. He goes, oh, yeah, don't worry about that. She learned that with the chimpanzees.

This is how, you know, you really get a cut of another being. You look into their soul. And I was, like, terribly excited by it, but I never had the guts to ask her. Yeah, what did you see? What did you see in me? I was just scared to ask her, but I hope I passed. I think you would have passed in flying colours, Liz. Gillian, you say you admire her because she would also work with people when she didn't approve of what they were doing.

Tell me what you mean by that. Well, she hated the idea of animals being kept in captivity, chimpanzees, in particular, being kept in captivity. She hated the idea. but what could one woman do to change that? Actually, she did change it because she spent the last part of her life touring, traveling the world. She set up the Roots and Shoots program in the schools, millions and millions of children, you know,

grow up learning about conservation. But you know one thing, there's another story that I wanted to mention to you, which is after 10 years, she thought it was time to go home. She thought she'd named them all, She'd studied them all. She knew their relationships. She knew their habits. She really loved them.

And she thought, well, it's time to go back to England now. And I think, I don't know if it was our husband, a filmmaker. He persuaded her to stay. After 15 years, she saw the first chimpanzee wars. Now, people didn't know that chimpanzees are so close to humans that they will go out and they will have wars with each other's groups, with other groups, you know, over territory, over resources and what have you. She would never have seen that if she hadn't stayed.

So I think that was part of her grit and determination. And she's just, she's up there with David Attenborough, isn't she? I mean, she's a national treasure, you know. She also famously said, Gillian, didn't she, that unlike humans, chimpanzees are very good at making peace after conflicts over fruit trees. And maybe it's one of the many things we can learn. We can learn. That's a really good point. I think that's a beautiful, poignant point to end our conversation.

But thank you so much, Liz and Julian for joining us. Liz Bonin, president of the Wildlife Trust and Julian Miller, director of the guerrilla organisation remembering Dame Jane Goodall for her extraordinary work and life. Thank you both. Now, from gowns buried underground to Queen Elizabeth II and Kate Moss's Wellington Boots, fashion has long explored the aesthetics of dirt and decay. A new exhibition at the Barbican, Dirty Lourty, books, desire and decay in fashion, explores 50 years of designers from Vivian Westwood to

Alexandra McQueen, who've used dirt and decay to make statements about beauty, class and the environment. The exhibition also looks at waste colonialism, as fashion is now one of the most polluting industries in the world, with mountains of discarded clothes from Western countries ending up in so-called sacrifice zones in places like Ghana, Kenya and Chile. Well, joining me now are the exhibition's curator, Karen Van Gogh. Gottsonhoven and artist and designer Michaela Stark welcome both of you first of all congratulations I went to see it great and I loved it absolutely loved it so I'm really excited to discuss it so Karen fashion is usually defined by perfection and glamour

why did you want to curate an exhibition that looks at dirt and decay what would people see if they were coming to this exhibition yes indeed when you think of fashion usually you think indeed of glossy surfaces and the sort of glory of perfection. But actually, of course, when you scratch beneath the surface, there are also things that are maybe sort of remain hidden. But I saw in a lot of young designers work, this sort of new openness to these what's called imperfections and to sort of natural, more natural attitudes towards our bodies, towards the earth and materiality in general. So really, I thought it was a good starting point to look at what is dirt from nature, from our bodies, or from the fashion. industry and really look at this idea of what is dirt and how is it in tension with fashion and how does it actually create new artistic I mean how is it a source of artistic creation

in fashion and a lot of young designers work was very inspiring like Michaela yes Michaela tell us I mean I've seen it and I stared at it for a very long time just sway confronting explain to describe your art to explain what people people will see particularly about your work? Right. Well, my work is really about distorting the body and highlighting all those parts of the body that we've, as women, have been pretty much conditioned to hide. Yeah. So that's what my work's about, and I'm sure you could see that in the imagery.

It's quite strong. I took advantage of the fact that this was not online and I could show a strong image of my own body in a way that didn't have to be censored. And then next to it, I presented three couture works. that show all of the makeup and the dirt and that the ripping of the clothes as they morph my flash that there were framed garments next to it. Your work began as a response, Michaela, to body dysmorphia.

So how is transforming your own body into the subject and your own canvas helped redefine your relationship with yourself? I mean, it's definitely allowed me to see the beauty of my body in a different way. I think as women, we're so conditioned to see the beauty of ourselves, externally and also conditioned to see the way that other people see us and and try to squeeze ourselves into this almost linear form of beauty that really is so pigeonholed that it doesn't really make sense to me anymore since I was able to start playing with my body and also literally squeezing my body in ways to become beautiful with corset tree and ribbons

and whatever I think it's allowed me to see I don't know the fat on my stomach is something that's squishy and something I can mold into a sculpture and it is I don't know it's really allowed me to see things in a different light and beauty in a much more expansive mindset it's a really fascinating piece of it and we're going to move on and talk about some of the other stuff but because you're here and I did find myself staring you've kind of wrapped string around your body and and like you can you're I found it beautiful and also entertaining and I don't know just joyful there's a joy for me watching you kind of be so playful with your body. Because I feel like

this particular work I was actually there was there wasn't so much joy for me and usually my work is so colourful and joyous but I was really thinking about the decay of fashion. Yeah. And also thinking about the decay of the way that women's bodies are seen in fashion right now and just generally, it's funny that you had

the Deputy Commissioner of the Met on because I was thinking about the violence against women's bodies and that that I'm feeling on the street and I know a lot of friends who've been attacked on the street as well as women. And the way that that's actually preventing us from creating work like this and how important it is for us to use women's bodies as a subject to create work and talk about the violence when usually I'm so much more fun and Rococo and just playing

with a squish on my belly. This was actually more poignant and more... It is. I've actually did a deep dive into your Instagram as well, which there were moments where I've found and joy. Karen, garments that you've also got garments on display there that, suggest stains, sweat or bodily fluids challenge the idea of policing women's bodies through cleanliness, purity and control. Tell me about that. Yes, the sort of historical

trope of the idea of women's bodies being dirty or the smelly old lady goes back very long in art history and there are really, usually it is expressed by stains or the fear of, you know, stains and being, seeing these traces of bodily fluids on garments, being, you know, cleanliness is next to godliness. And then women having also to take on the labor of making sure the whole family's sort of laundry is clean. And so we are playing with that in the exhibition, especially again, the younger generation of designers are including things like it can be very decorative stains like false wine stains. as well as more confrontational stains, such as period pants, breast leak, I mean, leaky boobs, tops. But there's also this incredible couture gown by Madame Gray, which has been treated by a bi-designer Alice Potts with sweat crystals.

So because these dresses were often worn for cocktail evenings or parties, they are often stained. So many museums don't want to. display them anymore because, you know, they don't have that immaculate couture image. And so we thought of sort of subverting that by actually amplifying the stains and making them into crystals. So you walk through these many different zones and displays and then you get to the moment quite near the end of the exhibition where you watch a video which describes the global inequalities, waste colonialism or the so-called sacrifice zones. Tell us more. Yes, indeed. The sacrifice zones are indeed these places in different places in the global south, like

Chile, Ghana and Kenya, where millions of garments are dumped every week by the West. And we see different designers grappling with that boat from these areas as well as here, repurposing and recycling or upcycling these hoodies or these garments into new sort of assemblages. And for example, there is work by a lot of. based designer with heritage in Lagos and Nigeria. Sorry, in India and Nigeria, Priya Alualia. And her work really looks at these sort of, I mean, she has been photographing the women and people wearing these, yeah, dumped items that are often from, you know, very British brands and very recognizable.

And she has done a photo series of these works. and sort of showing how, yeah, how strange it is to have these, yeah, very British brands being worn by people whose own fashion industries or textile industries have been eradicated by this dirt from the fashion industry. It is such a brilliant exhibition because there is so much to take away from it. And it really does leave you thinking you kind of want to go back to see it again. Michaela, you've spoken up, you mentioned earlier facing censorship in marginalit, Isaiah. and the work that you've chosen to display is because it's not online. How has your body been policed in art and fashion?

I mean, in so many ways, I mean, obviously, the work from the barbican, even the censored version, got taken off Instagram. And Instagram's had this push and pool. I mean, it's kind of funny the way that women's bodies or queer bodies get marginalized online and how so much more dramatic it is. And even we could open up TikTok and see, I don't know, quite a brutal image of someone, like being killed or whatever, that's okay without consent, but a woman's body even censored, so many, so much of the time

just gets taken off completely. Sometimes if I just show my tummy, it will get taken offline for over-sexualization or nudity. I've had my account deleted several times, but I feel like that that attitude is starting to spread offline as well, and that I'm starting to feel a sense that even offline, as we move into a more sort of conservative space, women's bodies and queer bodies are getting censored so much more. So I think it's really amazing for Karen to have given me the opportunity to have such freedom in the work created for this show. How would you redefine beauty then for the next generation of women? I think it's about opening up the sphere of what beauty can be and understanding the human body is something so much more than a single sphere of beauty

and allowing to see the human body maybe the way that we see nature in that we don't have to compare the beauty of the ocean to the beauty of a forest but instead we can appreciate the uniqueness of all different kinds of beauty within the human body and karen what do you hope women visiting the exhibition will take away i agree with my kela there is a lot of joy i think to be found in different types of beauty and just in feeling at home in your body whatever aesthetic you know you prefer and that there yeah there is a lot of creativity and joy in being sort of in harmony with your own beauty. And I'm going to take that away as well, Michaela,

and we should view the body as we do nature. Right. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining me to discuss the exhibition. It's called Dirty Looks. It's on at the Barbican Art Gallery until the 25th of January next year. That's it for me. Tomorrow we have Melinda French Gates in the Woman's Hour studio. Join me then.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Amul Rajin. from BBC Radio 4, this is radical. We are living through one of those hinge moments in history when all the old certainties crumble and a new world struggles to be born. So the idea behind this podcast is to help you navigate it.

What's really changed is the volume of information. That has exploded. And also by offering a safe space for the radical ideas that our future demands. Go to the transfer and say radically cut the taxes. of those with children. Telling our stories is powerful and a radical act. Listen to Radical with Amal Rajan on BBC Sounds.