Woman's Hour - Natasha Kaplinsky, Misogynist influencers, Professor Joanna Bourke, Dr Rebecca Gomperts

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Natasha Kaplinsky has become the first female president of the British Board of Film Classification, which is responsible for setting age guidelines for films, videos and DVDs, as well as content on some streaming services. The journalist, presenter and former newsreader for the BBC, Sky and Channel 5 joins Anita for her first broadcast interview about the role since her appointment in November. She'll discuss what drew her to the job, which topics concern parents the most and how she'll judge today's cultural sensitivities around sex, violence and language.Andrew Tate appeared in court earlier this week and is continuing to be held on charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania – charges his lawyer claims have “no evidence.” One of the top ten most Googled individuals of 2022, a kickboxer turned life coach and former contestant of Big Brother, he gained popularity for his online videos which contained misogynistic content. But Andrew Tate is not the only person spreading those views on social media, there are a host of other men who have that space. So who are they preaching to and why are their messages so popular? Anita speaks to journalist Harriet Hall who interviewed Andrew Tate as part of an investigation into misogyny online for Cosmopolitan magazine and Dr Bettina Rottweiler from University College London who specialises in the relationship between misogyny and different types of violence. Professor Joanna Bourke has been looking into the history of breast cancer. How did the one-step radical mastectomy persist as the most common way to deal with the disease until relatively recently? How was breast cancer racialized, with many doctors in the US who believed that black women could not get it? And why are women encouraged to reconstruct their missing breast after surgery? Joanna is the Gresham Professor of Rhetoric, and is giving a lecture on the cultural history of breast cancer this evening, which will also be available to watch online. She joins Anita in studio.Dr Rebecca Gomperts has spent her career providing abortions in places where the procedure is restricted or illegal. Her first venture, Women on Waves, saw her using a converted fishing trawler to travel into international waters and perform the procedures on board. Then she started an online service shipping abortion pills to women, using her Austrian medical license to stay within the law. Most recently her attention has turned to the US in the wake of the overturning of Roe vs Wade. She joins Anita Rani to discuss how her work has changed.

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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Now, before we get into the items for the programme today, film awards season has begun and finally the conversations for women have become more than just about who are you wearing? Although that's still very important. If the Golden Globes are a sign of things to come, older women are finally being celebrated. This morning, Team Woman's Hour would like to give a special mention to Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Coolidge and Angela Bassett, all in their 60s and all winners at the ceremony in LA.

Just goes to show your best days could still be ahead of you. I felt they deserved a shout out this morning. Now, random acts of kindness can actually improve your mental health. A study has suggested that people who perform kind acts for others showed an improvement of their depressive symptoms over a number of weeks. Doing nice things for people, focusing on someone else, may help people with depression and anxiety feel better about themselves. So on this grey Thursday in January,

I would love to hear your real world examples of this. Your acts of kindness, please. What have you done for someone? And crucially, how did it make you feel? Have you helped a neighbour, made someone dinner, helped a stranger in need, stopped to help someone in the street? Or indeed, what has someone done for you? Now, I love going for a run first thing in the morning, as it's great for my mind, body and spirit. But sometimes, particularly if there's a glorious sunrise, I'll remember to smile at people I pass and wish them good morning. Yes, actual strangers, I'll smile at them.

I'm Northern. And the amazing thing that happens is everyone smiles back. This simple act does wonders for my state of mind. So get in touch if you can relate to how acts of kindness can boost your mood. But most importantly, tell me your story. Get in touch in the usual way. You can text me on 84844. You can contact us via social media.

It's at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email me through the website or you can send me a WhatsApp or a voice note. I would love to hear your story. If you can keep it nice and concise, it's 03700 100 444 we may play it out on the program also this morning i'll be speaking to rebecca gompers who's dedicated her career to providing abortions in places where the procedure is restricted or illegal and we'll be learning about the history of breast cancer but of course i would love to hear your thoughts on anything this morning as well as your acts of kindness. That text number once again, 84844.

But first, you may or may not have heard of Andrew Tate. He was one of the top 10 most Googled individuals of 2022. A 36-year-old kickboxer turned life coach and a former contestant of Big Brother. He was born in the US, but brought up in Luton. He's gained notoriety for the blatant misogyny and toxic masculinity he advocates to his followers, mainly young men. Despite being banned from almost all social media platforms last year for his views on women, which include women are a man's property and belong in the home, his popularity has continued to grow.

Andrew Tate was arrested in Romania on the 29th of December, and he and his brother appeared in court on Tuesday over rape and human trafficking charges. Police will continue to hold the group for a 30-day period after the Romanian court rejected their appeal. His lawyer claims there was no evidence to support the allegations against them. But Andrew Tate is not the only person spreading misogynistic views on social media. There are a host of other men who have entered this space. So who are they preaching to and why are their messages so popular? Well, to discuss this, I'm joined by journalist Harriet Hall, who interviewed Andrew Tate as part of an investigation into misogyny online for Cosmopolitan magazine and Dr Bettina Rottweiler from University College London who specialises in the relationship between misogyny and different types of violence. Welcome to both of you.

Harriet, I'm going to come to you first. For anyone not familiar with Andrew Tate's material, can you describe the content? Yeah, good morning. As you said in your introduction, he is the latest in a long line of men operating largely online who present themselves as sort of life coaches or self-help gurus for disaffected and vulnerable men and boys. Among the content that he shares is masculine dogma, conspiracy theories about the media, questionable financial advice, and those traditionalist views of masculinity and women. Much of his content is also a sort of caricature of what an alpha male might look like. So pictures of him next to supercars, smoking enormous cigars, next to guns with scantily clad women. After he was banned from social media, his videos still circulated and they had millions of views. Why was that?

Yeah, so I actually followed him into his underground community as part of my investigation, where he continued promoting his messages and actually cross-sharing the courses, the content of other men who were also teaching this very violent, misogynistic approach to women in dating, as well as their sort of cryptocurrency advice. To a degree, banning him did largely help curtail the spread of his message on mainstream social media platforms. But most of his content was clipped up and discussed and shared on other platforms. That was actually a central part of his business model.

He was effectively gaming the social media algorithms. So one of the kind of key platforms through which Tate connected to his fans was his online course, which was called Hustlers University. That's a subscription only platform through which he and various collaborators would host online courses on all of the things I've mentioned. And he was actually encouraging his fans to record and clip up and share videos of him and then sort of storm social media with these controversial diatribes so that they themselves could then link back to his course and earn themselves revenue so essentially by the time that he was banned from most mainstream social media last summer um he was so widespread that it had become very, very difficult to police. You know, he had around 12 billion views of him on TikTok.

He had almost 5 million Instagram followers. And his content, I think, was shared for two main reasons. The first one is that controversy sells, and therefore controversy means that content is shared by both people who agree and disagree with his content. And on the other hand, his charismatic sort of character that some people found to be aspirational. And we'll talk about what people find aspirational about him in a minute. You actually met him to interview him. What did you make of him? Yeah, we spoke over Zoom. I thought it was important to speak directly to him. We debated long and hard as an editorial team about whether or not that was the right thing to do. By that stage, he was, by most metrics, the most famous man in the world. His name was more searched than Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian on Google.

And so most teenage boys and young men had undoubtedly already heard of him. He was very important for our readership of young women. And ultimately, I felt as a journalist that speaking directly to him was important. I was braced for a hard time. I was expecting a very combative conversation following both having seen his online content, but also his quite erratic email manner. Why? What were his emails like? His emails were, they seemed to be fired off quite quickly. They were typos. There was at one point a threat of litigation. Before you'd even done anything.

Before we'd even spoken. But actually, when we did meet on Zoom, he was on his best behaviour. He was open to having a conversation about his comments. He was praising me for being a real journalist, for speaking to him. And I think that's part of his whole process, appearing reasonable and then sort of slipping into saying these irrational things. It made me see firsthand how he has the power to captivate people who are young, who are vulnerable.

He's a canny operator. And actually, it didn't take long before he was on his soapbox. He speaks in a very Trumpian manner, sort of spouting hyperbole. And then, of course, those very bigoted views on women as well. Some of which is so absurd that it was hard for me not to almost laugh at what he was saying. It was just, you know, utter nonsense. Bettina, I'm going to bring you in because you've been nodding away whilst Harriet's been speaking there. He's not alone in this. He operates in something termed as the Manosphere. What is that? Can you explain what the Manosphere is?

Yeah, so the Manosphere is an online ecosystem. So it's a number of interconnected, misogynistic online communities consisting of blogs, websites and different content creators. And it's really dedicated to nourishing toxic masculinity and misogyny. And I think they're really trying to attract the lonely and the resentful and those people who are dissatisfied with their life, who share certain grievances. So they are very kind of these people are drawn to these pages. And while we know that there are different manifestations of the manosphere, so all of them are rooted in misogyny and all of them share kind of that idea of toxic masculinity

and restrictive and negative gender stereotypes. There is kind of differing or varying degrees of misogyny within the manosphere. So we have different groups, which I don't want to name here. No, let's not give them oxygen. Give them a platform. Yes, exactly. But what they also share is kind of that anxiety over man's loss of status within our society. And that often leads to that perceived sense of victimhood among men. They think they're losing their privileges. And a lot

really, who they are blaming for all of that is like number one enemy, I would say, is feminism. So women's independence is a clear threat to them, but also the media who's complicit. So, I mean, we're seeing like a lot of a toxic mix of like hyper-masculinity and misogyny within these forums. Most people listening to this will be thinking, but what are they saying to them that they are finding so appealing? What is so aspirational? What is drawing them to these messages? I mean, it depends at which kind of type of group or community you look within the manosphere. So we have more extreme forms like, I mean, I can name the group because everyone has heard of them, it's the incels. And also within the incels we have like um what people call just incels and misogynistic incels and we know that misogynistic incels hold these extreme misogynistic

these violent misogynistic attitudes towards women and they're really inciting violence and calling for violence against women but on the other hand there's more like a discourse you know what we more see like within far right or like male supremacist uh forums which is like that um men are losing their dominance they're losing their status within the gender um and also ethnic hierarchy so that the white man is losing out and is kind of losing their status and it's all due to feminism and women's independence but harriet what young men in schools finding appealing about this? You've talked about Incel and the far right,

which is sort of the extreme end. What are young teenagers finding appealing about this or aspirational, as you mentioned, Harriet? Yeah, you know, I think Andrew Tate was a very canny operator, is a very canny operator. In fact, he's um having tweets posted to his twitter account now despite being in detained um i think young men are to a degree there is there is a talk of a crisis of masculinity we know that there are problems of mental health

that young men are suffering. Andrew Tate certainly taps into this with some of the things he said. And when he spoke to me, he said, you know, young men aren't being listened to. Men are underrepresented. Men have always been underrepresented. And he combines these sweeping, utterly incorrect statements with true facts, for example, that suicide is a massive concern among that suicide is a is a massive concern among men that loneliness is a massive concern among young men he is positioning himself as a lifestyle guru as a sort of one-stop shop to cure all ills and you know we've seen this before with these so-called pickup artists that are part of this manosphere you You know, we saw Neil Strauss, whose 2005 book, The Game,

became a massive bestseller teaching men these sort of unscrupulous techniques to landing women. And it's so, you know, common that actually in 1999, Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia saw Tom Cruise adopt this role of this kind of parody of a men's rights activist I really recommend that people kind of watch that on YouTube if they haven't already and it really shows this sort of cult-like ability to empower people whilst peppering in these these very toxic very dangerous views. And much of Tate's following, his fan base includes boys as young as 13.

These are some of the most vulnerable boys on the edge of adulthood looking for a leader of some sort who are effectively being groomed. Bettina, he's got millions of young men following him. Why have these views, not just Andrew Tate's, but the views in the manosphere become so popular? I think it has to do with a lot of changes we're seeing in our society. So what I said earlier already,

women's independence, feminism becoming stronger. We are kind of evolving as a progressive society. And I think it's almost like a backlash towards that. I mean, similar things we're seeing with populism, which we really see as a backlash against our kind of modern neoliberalist society. So I really think that man and everything which comes with it, so patriarchy, so the man is the dominant person, not just in the private life, but also within the workforce.

I think we're seeing changes. And I think that is threatening. So that threat that something is going away. And that leads to that sense of victimhood, that perceived injustice. How much of this is about teenagers being rebellious as they are finding their group wanting to go along with what their friends are into um and or and and that they will work through this naturally as we all do when we grow up and we kind of change our opinions on things so how much of this is potentially dangerous for in terms of changing their views and shaping their views for the long term yes i think um it's very very dangerous so as you said some will just grow out of it and nothing will happen. But I think for some of them, these beliefs and attitudes will really intensify.

And we know from our research that these views can really radicalize young men. And they are vulnerable. Their identities have been formed. They share a lot of grievances. And they kind of have that charismatic leader. And that's why they feel so attracted. I think it can become really dangerous. We've had a text in from Kate which I want to bring him and I'd like your both your opinions on this we'll start with you Bettina Kate says I've tried

discussing um um Tate with views in a calm and reasonable manner with my son but the power of social media is too great and I feel my son is losing all sense of reality. Any advice gratefully received? Yeah, I mean, that's very challenging. So I always say the best thing, try to address these attitudes as early as possible. Try to engage like in a constructive dialogue. Don't try to blame your son or your girl, your child. I think that is very important and be very empathetic because a lot of emotions are involved in that as well. So I think really try to listen and try to understand why they are attracted

to what Andrew Tate is saying or similar people. So I really think understanding the theological needs, why people are drawn to his narratives are really important. So to tackle the root cause of all of it, I think rather than just countering

the narrative is very important. Harriet, yes, please do come in. I was just going to say, talk to Kate, our listener. I just wanted to touch upon first something that Bettina had said about this being a potential backlash to the rise of feminism. Obviously, we've seen this fourth wave of feminism rise since 2011. And naturally, when you have a movement like that you do have a backlash but i think it's really important that we aren't distracted by this messaging that these

men say they say this is because of feminism trying to crush men this is because of women trying to silence us this is not because of feminism this is not the fault of women and it is not the fault of women fighting for equality um there is an incorrect portrayal of incorrect messaging coming from these men that feminism is about silencing men it isn't and you know tate is not an isolated voice in that sense while we talk about him and call out individuals like him i think we need to not let it distract us from targeting the real structural problem here. This is one massive interconnected web

that tries to force women into a position of subjugation. These aren't isolated voices. This is a widespread acceptance of misogyny that we see online but in wider society. And to Kate's comment about her son, I'm really, really sorry to hear that she's going through that. I think she's doing the absolute right thing in speaking to him. I think, as Bettina said, it's about having frank and open conversations.

It's not shaming. It's pointing boys towards one of myriad alternative positive spaces where they can speak to people, whether that's the Samaritans for their mental health or a charity like the White Ribbon Project, which is helping end male violence against women. And ultimately reiterating that one ostensibly innocent share or like or follow can actually be a gateway to this mainstream normalisation of violence against women. Well, let's discuss what the government can actually do about this. The Online Safety Bill, which is a new set of laws to protect children and adults online and to make social media

companies more responsible for their users' safety. It's currently on its way through the Commons. How might that protect people, Harriet? Well, yes, I think there is this sort of cross platform approach that needs to be taken. I mean the online safety bill as you said remains stalled in its passage through parliament and it doesn't do enough to hold social media companies to account for the type of messaging that they are allowing to fester and thrive on their platforms. Charities including the End Violence Against Women Coalition, are asking the government for amendments to the bill, which would add a violence against women and girls code of practice.

And I think it's very important that we don't conflate this legislation with the curtailing of free speech. We need to be very careful to distinguish between free speech and hate speech. And ultimately, social media companies are simply not doing enough to police hate online. They are actually making money from this content and ultimately enabling this type of extremism from being spread. So what more needs to be done? What more needs to be done? Well, we need those amends to the online safety bill. And I think separately from that

and more widely, we need to take violence against women and girls more seriously because that's what this is. This is violence. And we need to address that on all levels. At the moment, it is not illegal to publish,

sorry, material that stirs up hatred against women. I think the government needs to look again at making misogyny a hate crime. Bettina, you're nodding. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think we're not really understanding yet the extent of these misogynistic attitudes and all the harmful impacts they can have. Because I think it's not just like these very extreme content creators like Andrew Tate who can actually have a really harmful effect on women and violence against women.

And we see it's like misogyny. These views are widespread within our society. We see it within extremist ideologies, but also we see it like leading to a lot of harmful behavior. So I think we really need to understand like the extent of misogyny and really to what it can lead and i think we are really not there yet we have taken good steps forward but i think a lot more needs to be done to really understand the whole impact of it and we will be talking about it again on one

at some point no doubt um harriet and bettina thank you so much for joining me and those links that you mentioned harriet we will put on our website for any parents who are listening and want to and are concerned about what their own children are accessing online so we'll put those up on the woman's hour website we have had some statements in um from social media companies meta have said we we banned andrew tate from facebook and instagram in august which includes removing his accounts and continuing to remove new accounts that claim to belong to him. We don't allow gender based hate, any threats of sexual violence or threats to share non-consensual intimate imagery, also known as revenge porn. YouTube said we terminated channels associated with Andrew Tate for multiple violations.

Andrew Tate is no longer able to use, own or create any other YouTube channels. If we're made aware of a channel that is re-uploading content from a previously terminated channel, we may remove that content or terminate the new channel if it's dedicated to re-uploads. YouTube has strict policies that prohibit hate speech and harassment. And TikTok said, Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on TikTok. We continue to remove any such content that violates our community guidelines and regularly evaluates and improve our processes to keep TikTok safe for our communities.

We've also had a statement from the DCMS. They've said, the government spokesperson said, the online safety bill will ensure tech firms stamp out online abuse of women and girls. If a platform does not allow hateful or abusive content, including towards women, they must remove it and they become aware of it or face huge fines. Adult users will get new tools that give them greater control over what they see online, including content that is abusive or incites hatred on the basis of sex.

And platforms will finally have to enforce their age limits to ensure children are not exposed to harmful material. Once again, Harriet and Bettina, thank you so much for joining me um I'm going to move straight on to my next guest actually because I'm sure that she will have something to say about the conversation we have just had I can see that lots of you are getting in touch with your random acts of kindness and I will come to them in in a few moments first, how do you judge if a film is suitable for your children? Well, many parents may turn to the age guidelines set by the British Board of Film Classification, which is now for the first time led by a woman.

Natasha Kaplinsky has become the first female president of the BBFC in its 110-year history, one of the most recognisable faces of TV news. You may, of course, know her from her long career as a newsreader journalist and presenter on bbc breakfast the six o'clock news sky and channel five or even i've got to mention it strictly come dancing she was amazing and i'm pleased to say that natasha joins me now for her first broadcast interview since her appointment welcome to woman's hour natasha um firstly following on from the last discussion and given your role is about safeguarding of children, how do you feel about influencers like Andrew Tate?

Well, I mean, I think Harriet and Bettina spoke so eloquently, didn't they? But what it does, it just underlines how important this upcoming online safety bill is going to be and why it's so fundamentally important. The government have got an ambition, haven't they, to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. And that's, you know, it's going to be a big challenge. But there are plenty of organisations, experts, including, you know, the BBFC that are all lining up to support Ofcom, who are obviously going to be the regulator. But it's a big challenge,

and the landscape's constantly changing. And how face that is is a very big challenge well let's go on to your new role as uh as the first female uh lead heading the british board of film classification tell me what the role involves well you know it's a huge honor congratulations thank you aside for the fact that i get to watch lots of films um i think i'm only supposed to be in the office about 24 days a year, but they can't keep me out because it's just such a wonderful group of people. And I really genuinely believe in the work that they do very, very much. So, you know, aside from signing that iconic black card, which I've never practiced my signature more often, it's quite funny.

So when we go to the cinema and that black card comes up, it will be your name. Exactly. But essentially, I mean, you were very kind to highlight the media work that I've done. But I feel like it's much more an extension of the work that I've been doing outside of the newsroom in terms of, you know, connecting with children's health and their state of mental health. I've been an ambassador for Save the Children for over a decade. I feel very honoured to be the president of Barnardo's and support lots of vulnerable young adults through other charities that I work with. And the classification of films essentially is an extension of that work. In addition, I've got two nearly teenage kids, one teenager and one

nearly 20 year old, although she's only 12. And it's an incredibly tough environment to grow up as a kid. I would hate to grow up again, where they're bombarded constantly with content, as you've just been discussing, and navigating that environment is incredibly complicated. We've always relied on the BBFC film ratings as a family. And now I'm absolutely thrilled to be part of the team. So how exactly do you go about judging the cultural sensitivities around topics like sex, violence or language? Because it's constantly evolving, isn't it?

It absolutely is. I mean, you highlighted how old the organisation is, and it's changed enormously over that period. It used to be the British Board of Film censorship. Well, we've moved a very long way away from that now. And it's about the British Board of Film classification where essentially, you know, there is the fundamental principle that everyone is free to watch or adults are free to watch whatever they like, as long as it's not illegal or poses a credible harm risk.

And the guiding principle of the organisation is to make viewers, well, empower viewers so that they make sensible choices. But it's a very interesting process. Films are submitted to the BBFC. There are a series of compliance officers that all work to the strategy and the guidelines that are set. And over the years, the guidelines are iterated. Every four or five years or so, there's a huge public consultation takes into account, you know, over 10,000 people's

views. And then those classification guidelines shape how films are classified and constantly reflecting public sentiment and cultural values. In addition to those every four or five year classification guidelines, we also do additional research on domestic violence or strong language, racism, discrimination, whatever the key to that is. So what are the main things that parents are concerned about at the moment? Well, interestingly, I mean, we're just about to embark on another set of guidelines this year, and we've just appointed an agency to take that bit of work forward. I'm very interested to see

how views will change post-COVID. You know, I feel that mental health will be a big issue, tolerance to violence, coercive behaviour, and, you know, I feel that mental health would be a big issue, tolerance to violence, coercive behaviour and, you know, that border between 15 and 18 violence. But, you know, if you look back at the guidelines that were set in 2019, there were some real standout issues that the public really cared about. I think on the back of the Me Too movement, sexual violence was a really big issue. We were strict anyway in the guidelines, but actually, you know, things have moved on and various films, for example,

I don't know if you have seen The Duchess with Keira Knightley, that was submitted in 2008. It was classified as a 12 then, but if it was resubmitted, it would be a 15 now because we've got much more culturally sensitive to rape or the sound of rape.

Violence was a big issue in 2019. You know, there's an acceptance of violence of kind of fantasy violence that James, you know, Jason Bourne kind of marvel violence, but real life terror threats, you know, have got people agitated. And so there's a desire that that would be a higher rating. So why would the scene in The Duchess be a higher rating now? Well, I mean, it's a very good film. I watched it as part of, you know, I had a whole long list of films that I needed to watch myself into the role. You don't, anybody who's seen it, you know,

Keira Knightley is a Duchess, she's raped at one point. You don't see the rape's seen it, you know, Keira Knightley is a duchess, she's raped at one point. You don't see the rape, but you hear it. There was an acceptance of that, you know, 12-year-olds might know about sexual violence, but don't want to see it. And it's actually really quite disturbing. And so that now, if it were resubmitted, would be a 15 rather than a 12.

How interesting. But in the same vein, though, audiences have, have they become more relaxed about certain depictions of consensual sex? I'm just thinking in terms of the conversation amongst young people and programmes like Sex Education on Netflix, which is, it's explicit in parts, but very popular because it reflects conversations

young people are having. It is. I have to say, I made the mistake of watching that on a train once. And that, you know, every opening episode. Yeah, be careful what you watch on a train with your laptop. Like, oh dear, she's watching porn. No, not at all. But yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, because it does trigger conversations, doesn't it?

And Lady Jones' Lover, for example, came in again in 2022. It's a beautiful film. But obviously attitudes have softened a little bit, perhaps, to some of the issues raised in Lady Chatterley. And that's now rated as a 15 because, you know, the sex scenes, there are plenty of them, but they're not very explicit. And there's nudity, which, according to the guidelines, we're allowed, you know, permitted and brief nudity.

But the nudity in Lady Chatterley in this certain, the latest film, is rather beautiful. It's playful. It's romantic. It's not sexual. So I think, you know, there are some difficult decisions that are made, and some of the films that are referred up to the Board of Classification that I chair are not always comfortable. And, you know, these wonderful people who I'm now working with we got into some very kind of deep conversations about you know porn very early on which normally you know I'm a little

bit prudish and I wouldn't generally talk about those kind of things with strangers but we've become fast friends. That is your new role. Because we mentioned Netflix there, it'd be interesting for the audience, I think, to hear about your relationship with the streamers because some might be surprised to learn that you actually don't have a responsibility for classifying their content. You're absolutely right. I mean, we've just published some research today

into the attitudes of age ratings. And that's very interesting because I think there is a general assumption, which sadly is incorrect, that there is kind of a uniformity across streaming services that parallels those traditional cinema ratings that we all recognise. But at the moment, for instance, you could watch a 15 in a cinema, you could buy it on DVD. But if that film then appears on a streaming service, because there's no uniformity, that essentially could be passed as a 12. So the survey that we've published today essentially suggests that there is a much stronger desire for consistency with 90% of parents and caregivers wanting that consistency, 80% of teens wanting consistency.

And you're right, we do have a brilliant relationship with Netflix. We've got the statutory obligation of classifying films and DVDs. But beyond that, we've worked with 29 kind of streaming services on a voluntary basis, who choose to work with us including netflix um they uh they they classify their own content using our system and we audit them once a month and so they would have been the ones that uh classified sex education uh but um i'm sure we agreed with their decision um you mentioned your teenagers at the beginning of our chat how do you how do your children feel about your new role well um are they trying to watch the 18 films

when you bring them in? Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, the first thing that our daughter wanted was a reclassification of a long list of programmes that she discussed with her friends, yeah, including Squid Games, but that's an absolute no, I'm afraid. So, yeah, they love that,

but, you know, they think, you get paid to watch films, but it's slightly more important than that. I know, I know. You have got a really nice gig, I have to say. Before we run out of time, I have to ask you, because you and I have some two things in common. We are both lucky people who have done Strictly. But surprise, surprise, Natasha, I'm not going to ask you about Strictly. I want to ask you about your experience filming Who Do You Think You Are? Because for me, discovering my family history had a profound effect on me.

And I remember your story being incredibly powerful. So particularly your father standing up against apartheid in South Africa. I want to know what that experience did for you. Well, thank you very much indeed for that. I mean, that programme was extraordinarily emotional. I know it was for you as well, Anita. I was taken to South Africa.

I was taken to Belarus to follow essentially my father's story. How it's affected me has been enormous. I mean, it's shaped a huge amount of the work that I've been doing over the last kind of decade. The program that I was involved in was, I hate to think, but it was like 15 years ago. It's before our children were born. And I was taken to Belarus in addition to South Africa, as you highlight with my father's background in South Africa and standing up to the apartheid regime. But I went to Belarus and discovered a huge number of our family that were killed by the Nazis. Since then, I've been deeply involved in Holocaust education, interviewing 112 Holocaust survivors who'd never shared their story before. I'm involved in, you know, the big project that we are going to finally pull off, I really hope, right next to Parliament, where we

will be building a learning centre, let's hope, and a memorial, because this country really does need to, you know, pay its proper respects to what happened at that point in history. So it's shaped a huge amount of my work and it'll be interesting to see how it might shape your future as well because, you know, I'm very proud of my background and I feel like it's my responsibility to help shape future generations. I completely agree, it had a similar effect on me. Natasha, I want to wish you all the best in your new role. I don't know, how do you find the time? You must be very, is it all just being very organised, doing everything? Very organised, yes. And yeah, I love it. I live on a

farm. I start the days in Wellingtons and hopefully end in Stilettos and that's the perfect day. Good woman, I like it. Woman after my own heart. Natasha Kliplinski, thank you so much for speaking to me. So many of you getting in touch with quite a few of the things we've been talking about on andrew tate someone has messaged in to say my son was involved in an incident around andrew tate and teenage boys adopting his views my son refused to go along with a couple of the boys in his year at school who were repeating and praising the misogynistic views of andrew tate and demanding that other kids demonstrate their allegiance he He was physically attacked by these boys and some of their friends later in the playground

for speaking up. As a consequence, the school have run sessions for students and staff about Andrew Tate and how to approach this type of online misogyny. Georgina has said, my 12-year-old son quoted to me the other day that Andrew Tate was bringing masculinity back, asking him to describe what this meant

was too much for him to be able to articulate. But what worried me was his knowledge about him clearly discussed within his peers. And someone else has said, as a father of a teenage boy, I worry very much about Andrew Tate, along with various other influences. What does need to be considered is that young boys and men are having their masculinity suppressed. If they aren't strongly feminist, they can often be cancelled and are sometimes considered misogynistic. Boys need to be allowed to be boys as they grow up. This necessary aspect of development can be suppressed and that isn't helpful. Your thoughts on anything we're talking about this morning?

84844. I also asked you to tell me about your random acts of kindness. A study has found that just by being kind actually improves people's mental health. Rupert says, I was at a petrol station in Farnham and noticed an elderly couple looking very confused, asking if they're OK. They said that they were lost. Asking them where they were heading for, they said Wales.

They'd been travelling from North London for three hours and had taken the wrong exit off the M3. Oh, no. To cut a long story short, I told them to follow me and I drove to Winchester up the A34 to the M4 at Newbury and told them to stay on until they arrived in Wales. That is a very nice thing to do. I'll bring you some more of your acts of kindness in a moment. But first, my next guest has dedicated her career to providing abortions in places where the procedure is restricted or illegal. Her first venture, Women on Waves, saw her using a converted fishing trawler to travel

into international waters and perform the procedures on board. Then she started an online service shipping abortion pills to women using her Austrian medical license to stay within the law. And now in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, her attention is focused on the US and particular the 13 states where abortion is now banned. Dr. Rebecca Gompitz, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you so much. I described very briefly there a career providing abortions to women around the world. But what I'd like to know is when you first decided that this was something that you wanted to pursue, let's go back to when you were young and starting out.

When was that moment? Where were you? What happened? Well, I don't think it's one moment when things like this are being decided. The first time that I was encountering unsafe illegal abortions was when I was doing my medical internships in a country in Africa. And I was working there with a French doctor in the Inlands. And there were many women coming in, like severely bleeding. And at that time, I thought it was the result of a bad healthcare system as many African countries have and it was only later after I was also working for

Greenpeace as a doctor on a ship as an environmental activist that I started understanding like political contacts and laws and how they are actually shaping the health outcome of women in countries where abortion is illegal. So it's been a process. It's been a longer process to get to this point. And then because of my Greenpeace experience, I was also talking with women in Latin America and just the violence that's unleashed on women

when they are in a position that they need a health care that is banned and the abuse that takes place was just mind-blowing for me and so I understood that a lot of other injustices are actually also caused by the illegality of abortion it's not just a denial of surface. And so that's how the idea for Women on Waves started. And how did you end up on a boat traveling the world providing abortions? Because Women on Waves made headlines. Yeah, so it was actually on board of the Greenpeace boat that we discussed this topic of the illegal abortions and how in international waters, it's the law of the country of the ship that applies.

And so this was the idea. And it was like, it took a long time to really research, get a proper legal research and advice and to get the money together. And we started doing a trial project actually in Ireland. And that's how it all started. And we've done so far, we have done aid campaigns in several countries. So we started in Ireland, then we did a campaign in Poland and in Portugal,

in Spain, in Morocco and in Latin America five years ago. And now through your organization Aid Access you're focusing on America tell me about your work there. So when through Women on Web we already were getting a lot of requests from women where in the US and we always thought like there is a solution there there's legal services and so we didn't really pay attention to it, but it got more and more. And then we decided, okay, we have to understand why, what is the background? So we did the research and we found that cost was a major issue, why women in the U.S. and distance to clinics couldn't access the regular services.

And that is understandable because if you look at the poverty rate in the US, it's extremely high. It's 50% of the people that are living, you know, that can't spare another $400 per month. So they're living just above the poverty threshold. And then at that time, all the abortions were like $600, $1,200. And so I just decided, I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's a law that prevents you from having access to a service or any other condition. The outcome is the same. If you don't have money, you don't get access to the service either.

Or if you live too far away and you can't find a babysit or child care and you can travel, then the outcome is the same. So that's when I started Aid Access in 2018. But also really with the idea that working with the University of Texas to really produce evidence and data, and hopefully that would change to a law of the practices and a better understanding of the lack of access.

And that all changed. Yeah, Aid Access, this is prescribing medication to women. Yes. So you're posting it. I'm not posting it. What I do is I'm prescribing and a pharmacy in India is posting it, but it's, it's a hybrid system because we,

I, since COVID started, there has been also a team of us doctors joining the platform and they're prescribing for their own patients in the states where they are registered and that is sent by a US-based pharmacy. You are getting emails from women who are seeking abortions. I'd quite like to know the sort of stories that you're hearing and what emotional state some of these women are in when they come to you?

The stories and the emails are very similar. It's desperate looking for help to have access to a much needed health care, which is an abortion. And some of the women even describe how they've tried to enter pregnancy. In another way, we had a story of a woman who actually even inserted a knitting needle. People are really attempting already to do things that are harmful. And so we hope to prevent that by making sure they have access

to the abortion pills, because the abortion pills are extremely safe. Actually, in the UK, it's now standard care. Telemedical abortions since COVID are standard care. And so there's no reason why it couldn't be offered. Now, as you know, Rebecca, there will be some people who think you're being unethical by exploiting a legal loophole in a democratic country or a state. Do you have any self-doubt about that? No, I don't have any self-doubt about it. So an abortion, access to an abortion is a human right and you shouldn't have to use a legal loophole. This right should be protected in every country and every state. Women should have access to abortions on their own terms with dignity and respect.

And there are people who ideologically disagree with you. Do you get much backlash and how do you deal with it? Well, actually, no, I haven't had much backlash. I had it was in only a year after I started. It was the FDA that sent a letter, a cease and desist letter, but I found a really good lawyer who sued the FDA on my behalf and that was it actually. But of course it's hard to say what will happen now the FDA is under the control of a democratic president, but the moment that there are new elections and there would be another Republican president, then there will be another FDA that might really try to stop the telemedical abortions. And not just for me, but for all the other providers in the United States, because there are many telemedical abortion services now.

Dr. Rebecca Gompitz, thank you for speaking to me this morning. You're welcome. Thank you. Lots of you getting in touch about acts of kindness. Kev says, I now do a Tuesday film night for our community pub in Hanwell. I live with anxiety and depression and it does a better job than my medication. And I'm in my mid-50s and sharing a smile with a stranger on the street gives me one of the best feelings. But it's very fleeting, says David. And yesterday, my poor nephew was hit by a cyclist as he left work. As ambulances were on strike,

an off-duty doctor ran into Sainsbury's to get a wheelchair, rushed him to St George's Hospital. He needs complex hip surgery, but very grateful for the quick action that got him help so quickly. That is a good story. Keep them coming in.

84844. On to my next guest. She's been looking into the history of breast cancer. How did the one-step radical mastectomy persist as the most common way to deal with the disease until relatively recently? How was breast cancer racialized with many doctors in the US who believe that black women could not get breast cancer? And why are women encouraged to reconstruct their missing breast after surgery? Well, to answer some of those questions is Joanna Burke. She's the Gresham Professor of Rhetoric. And we will be giving a lecture on the cultural history of breast cancer in London

and online this evening. And I'm delighted to say she joins me now in the studio. Welcome, Joanna. It's really great to be back on Women's Hour. Oh, it's good to have you here. We like having you here. So let's talk about this research that you've done. Why did you want to look into this particular history? I think breast cancer is a really important thing, disease, to sort of look into. I mean, one in eight women in Britain and America will have breast cancer in their lifetime. So it's something that affects all of us. And I think by looking at the history of this disease, we can actually reflect on the present and the future of what we can do to actually make breast cancer something

that is livable and something that we can do something about. So let's go back, back to the ancient Greeks and the Romans. How did they view breast cancer? Did they have an opinion on it? How did they even know about it? Well, breast cancer has been talked about, written about since 3000 BC. It's the first time we actually get an indication of it. So it's always been a major thing for physicians and indeed for philosophers. In the ancient world, the Greek and Roman ancient world, breast cancer, they thought that breast cancer was due to an excess of black bile in the body. So women's bodies, they believed, were sort of spongy and moist and wet, and therefore black bile built up in the body. And if it couldn't be expelled, for example, through menstruation, then it could develop into breast cancer. So it's about an

imbalance, if you like, in what they used to call the humours within the body. But what they also believed was that actually breast cancer was due literally to little worms inside the body. So one of the cures for breast cancer, one of the ways of actually ameliorating the pain of breast cancer, would be to put meat on the breast because then the worms would eat the meat as opposed to eating the person's flesh. So this was one of the, you know, one of the cures, if you like, for breast cancer. I mean, there was also, of course, purging and things like that. But it was some breast cancer is something that has really fired the medical imagination since forever. When did the shift in understanding of this disease really happen?

The real big change, I think, happened, well, there are two big changes. The first big change happened in the 1890s, when, as you've already mentioned, radical mastectomy and the first radical mastectomy became popular and the massive cutting not only of the breast tissue but also of the pectoral muscles surrounding it. And this was a form of radical surgery that was popularized by Halstead of John Hopkins University and it left women really desperately incapacitated. They couldn't even comb their hair afterwards. But they didn't, and also often they didn't have a choice. I mean, I was shocked to read about that.

Yeah, first step, surgery. So what would happen is when a woman was diagnosed with breast, when they found a tumour or something, she would be anaesthetised and then a biopsy would be taken. And while she was still, you know, sleeping, while she was still anaesthetised, they would test and then if it was proven to be breast cancer, they would immediately remove the breast. So a woman would be taken into hospital, operated on,

wouldn't know in advance whether she had breast cancer or not. She would either wake up with or without her breast. So first step, surgery. And this lasted until the 80s? This lasted a long time. I mean, it was partly due to Halstead's great sort of influence as a major surgeon. He wrote a lot of the textbooks. It was also due to the fact that this kind of surgery

really matched the kind of militarism of the textbooks. It was also due to the fact that this kind of surgery really matched the kind of militarism of the period. But it was also due to this idea that if you cut into the tumor, it would actually spread the cancers throughout the body. And it was really only into the 1970s and 1980s that work done, clinical trials done by people like George Kyle and others showed that in fact, this wasn't true. And actually, lobectomy was just as effective as the full radical mastectomy. Now, something I mentioned in my intro to you, which is incredibly shocking, I want to talk about how prevalent it was that the view that black women did not get breast cancer. This was a very, very common view all over the world. It wasn't only breast cancer

they believed black women didn't get. It was also many other forms of diseases such as polio, for example. The reason for it is that there was this belief that breast cancer in particular was a cancer of civilization and black women had more primitive bodies. They had more physiologically robust bodies. They didn't have the sophisticated internal life in order to deal adequately with the effect of breast cancer. Out of that racist view. But Audrey Lorde has a huge role to play in changing that, didn't she? Yeah, Audrey Lorde, she's just one of my great heroines of all times. If you don't know her work, really, she's just incredible. Your face is lit up, yes. She's written so much, but her cancer diaries are so important. She's a black lesbian feminist of the 1970s,

80s. And she got breast cancer and she wrote about it. And she wrote really searingly about the fact that breast cancer was white. Even the prosthetic that she was meant to be wearing was white lamb's wool. And so she wrote about the racism at the heart of this, of breast cancer treatments. But she also did other things, and that is she politicized it. She said visibility is a political issue. And breast cancer is not something that we have to deal with alone. She was great about the difficulties, the problems of the individualization of breast cancer. She said, look, we're a community. And if women can't love their own one-breasted bodies, then we are totally lost. We are alien to each other.

So she was very important in sort of pushing the whole movement about the democraticisation and the politicisation of female beauty. Make a note, everyone, Audrey Lorde. That's a bit of homework for this weekend. Let's all dig into the history of Audrey Lorde. But then moving on, there's so much I want to talk to you about. I'm conscious of time as well. When did we first see breast reconstruction happening? And I'm going to throw in another question there because you talk about cultural fetishization, I can't say the word, of the ideal breast. What did you mean by that? Yeah.

The breast reconstruction, I guess we can really date it back to the 1895 when a surgeon, you won't believe this, a surgeon took a benign tumor from a woman's back and implanted it in her breast. So this is kind of the first real example, but it really took off in the 1960s. And what, you know, this fetishization that you talk about, you know, because when the breasts are being reconstructed, they're being reconstructed according to a really narrow ideal. You know, real women's breasts don't look like Janet Jackson's. They're different shapes, they're different weights, they're different colours. And yet, if you read the textbooks, and it's all about, you know, the precision, the mathematical precision of the ideal, of course, young white breast. And you very quickly criticise what you call the relentless

positivity of the narrative around breast cancer. What do you mean by that? Yeah, I've spent a lot of my life in the past year reading autobiographies and breast, they call it pathologies. So autobiographies based on illness. And one of the things that is really infuriating is this relentless need that, you know, you can't be angry, you can't be afraid, you have to be have guts, you have to have courage, you have to wear lipstick to your mastectomy. So, you know, breast cancer and breast cancer treatments is all about consuming consumer industries. And, you know, if you only have the right attitude, then it'll all be okay. You can just go back to your nice normal home.

So again, individualising, depoliticising the whole movement. It's about consumerism. It's not about fighting, for example, the industrialisation, fighting pollutions in our environment. Oh, we could listen to you all day and if you do want to hear more you can because Professor

Joanna Burke is giving her lecture on breast cancer cultural history at 6pm tonight at Bernard's Inn Hall in London. You can also sign up to watch the lecture online or in person at the Gresham College website. Thank you so much Joanna. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you. So many of you are getting in touch with your messages about

kindness. In my opinion, acts of kindness are essential and lovely, but posting them on social media is completely unnecessary and uncomfortable for the recipients. And Joanne Robinson, my neighbour before Christmas, asked to borrow £10 for her electricity meter. I gave it to her. She needed it more than me.

That was a powerful one to end on. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Another thunderstorm. Lights out. Sometimes I just can't hear difference between thunder or shelling or explosions. Documentary adventures that invite a closer listen. We were willing to put not only our bodies on the line, but our whole being. A documentary podcast from BBC Radio 4. So do you mind... Testing? Yes.

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It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.