Woman's Hour - New chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, Tracy Chevalier, France rape trial

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

The newly elected Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, Labour MP Sarah Owen, joins Anita Rani on the programme to discuss the remit of her new role and what she hopes to achieve. Tracy Chevalier’s new novel The Glassmaker follows a Murano glassmaking family through hundreds of years of Venetian history. Time plays strange tricks as it follows Orsola Rosso, who is nine in 1486, all the way to the present day, when she is in her late sixties. Tracy joins Anita to discuss her love story that encompasses centuries of passion and longing. 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot has been testifying in court against her husband, Dominique. He is accused of drugging her repeatedly over the course of a decade and inviting men to the house to rape her while she was unconscious. This was only discovered because he was caught by the police for upskirting in 2020. To get the latest updates on the case, Anita speaks to BBC Correspondent Andrew Harding. She is also joined by campaigner Gina Martin, who helped to make upskirting illegal in the UK.A new play, The Lightest Element, which has opened at Hampstead Theatre, explores the life and career of astronomer Cecila Payne-Gaposchkin, the first person to work out what stars are made of. Anita is joined by actor Maureen Beatie, who plays Cecilia, and the playwright Stella Feehilly. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Emma Pearce

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. Good morning. Welcome to Woman's Hour. On the programme today, I'll be joined by Sarah Owen MP, who last night was elected as the new chair of the Women's and Equality Select Committee. Essentially, her job will be to hold the government to account and draw their attention to the rights of women and minorities. So we think it's really important we hear from you this morning.

What are the issues and concerns you have that you would like the focus to be on and why? Based on your own experience of giving birth, maybe you think the government need to be pushing for change in maternity within the NHS. Is it women's safety because you're afraid to walk down the street at night? Have you faced sexism at work, online abuse, domestic violence, housing, education? When it comes to your day-to-day life, what should the government be prioritising and what should they

be held to account most strongly on? Get in touch in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can email us by going to our website or send me a WhatsApp or even a voice note if you like. It's 03700100444 and social media we are at BBC Woman's Hour. Also on the programme, Tracey Chevalier, author of the best-selling Girl with the Pearl Earring, is back with her new novel, The Glassmaker. Tracey will be telling us all about it. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, does that name mean anything to you? Well, a new play tells the story of this remarkable astronomer

who discovered what stars are made of before anyone else, but it took a while for her to be recognised. And we will be hearing about the horrific rape trial taking place in France. Of course, we would like to hear about your thoughts and opinions on anything we talk about on the programme. Get in touch, the text number 84844. But first, as I mentioned, a new woman has taken over the role in Parliament whose job it is to look out for the issues that matter to you and act in your interest.

Sarah Owen MP was elected yesterday to be the chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, which is a group of MPs who will hold the government to account on the issues that matter to women and minorities. Under Sarah's leadership, her select committee will have the power to consider a wide range of important issues and encourage deeper and more effective scrutiny of government. Some of the issues that might be in her in-tray include health inequalities, particularly after a report out this morning that claims that the NHS is in serious trouble. But of course, there are many other issues, some of which we're about to get into. I am pleased to say that Sarah Owen-Mpea is with us now in the studio. Good morning. Welcome. Congratulations.

Thank you. And it's a pleasure to be here. Before we get into the issues, what's the job? What does a select committee actually do? It's quite a strange job. It's a unique one. And it is a real privilege to be able to do it. It is not one of usually the most seen items of Parliament. Usually people see PMQs and it's very adversarial. And I would say that is the opposite of what a select committee is. It is made up of cross-party membership. So you'll have Conservatives, Lib Dems, Labour all sat together. And our job is to scrutinise not just what government's doing,

but you can look at the private sector as well and outside stakeholders. But it's to make sure that we come together and have cross-party recommendations what government's doing, but you can look at the private sector as well and outside stakeholders. But it's to make sure that we come together and have cross-party recommendations put to government or put to the private sector as well. And you're distinct from your Labour colleagues, Education Secretary Bridget Philipson and Minister Annalise Dodds, who share responsibilities for the Women's and Equalities Briefing Government. Are you working with them or holding them to account? I think any good friendship and any good relationship includes honesty and pushing them to do more and to go further. Some of my fiercest critics are also my closest friends.

So it's about the interest of the public and also seeing progress where we've seen quite a lot stall in the last few years. You've talked about health inequalities, that's one area in particular. So what are the big issues that you will want the committee to focus on under your leadership? Well, I think definitely health inequalities. We've seen that gap widen and we heard about that report and anybody who works in the NHS or uses the NHS, that report's findings won't come as any great surprise. And we're looking at tackling health inequalities. We need to look at the issues, not just treating acute issues of health,

but looking at prevention and tackling problems before they occur. I think we really need to look at community cohesion as well. What we've seen in the last few weeks and over the summer shows that there is a real crossroads that we are at and there is an extreme ideology which often is not separate from misogyny as well and we need to look at why it is that this has happened and how we can prevent it in the future. I represent Luton, an incredibly diverse town, and I'm incredibly proud to represent it. It's had its history of the far right,

and I was really proud that we didn't see any of those riots, and that is because there's a lot of work that has been gone on there with faith groups, with interfaith groups, and intercultural work that's happened there. And actually not just looking at what went wrong over the summer, but looking at where we can prevent it and learn lessons about where it's working. And the last one's really personal for me. It's personal and political. And that's miscarriage bereavement leave. I think Theo Clark did some really tremendous work on birth trauma. And actually, we've got a way to go in terms of talking about miscarriage and miscarriage bereavement in

particular. I worked on a private member's bill to try and see to get miscarriage bereavement leave into law. And just before we broke for the election, I was sat on the Public Accounts Committee and the NHS had just revealed that they were offering miscarriage bereavement leave to all of their staff. And that is one of the biggest employers of women in the public sector. I think we should get into some of those, break some of the issues that you've mentioned that are down. We're going to start with health and maternity in particular, because one issue we've talked about a lot on this programme is maternity care. Maternal deaths have increased since the pandemic. What will your committee do about this? I think we need to look at the evidence. This was a problem before COVID and we know it's a

particular problem for different communities. So it's a problem across the board for women and for families but also if you are black woman, black pregnant woman, you are four times more likely to die in childbirth than your white counterparts. And there are similar raises in mortality rates for black Asian minority ethnic women as well. And we need to look at the reasons why that is, because there isn't a biological reason. So there must be a service level reason. The last four to five years, there's been a focus on continuity of care, but there hasn't been a delivery of continuity of care and that's because the vacancy rates have been incredibly high and also because there were barriers due to covid so we need to see where we are with that and how much we can progress

and where we can see progress in particular if it has to be prioritized to certain groups you mentioned a couple of the stats there also your baby's twice as likely to die if you're in the bottom 20% of society than if you're in the top 20% so how are you going to ensure that the work that you do includes everyone regardless of their race and background? I think you mentioned community cohesion so it's obviously important for you so how will you ensure that it's looked at across the board in the NHS? I think in the past we have been guilty of listening to those with the loudest voices and possibly the biggest lobbying power and actually I would really like to hear from the grassroots and that's something that I would like to see the committee do. I'm meeting later

on with the committee clerks, I haven't done that yet since I was only elected last night but I have been concerned that we do tend to hear from the same people in these committees. And actually, I want to hear what people are experiencing at a grassroots. When I was on the Health Select Committee, one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that we ever received wasn't from Dominic Cummings, well, seven hours of interviewing him. It wasn't from him. It wasn't from Matt Hancock. It was from a dementia patient who was talking about his experiences using services. So I think for the committee going forward, I would really like to be able to hear what people are experiencing at a grassroots level. How will you do that?

I will ask for the clerks to ensure that we are getting a wide range of people and evidence submitted, not just putting up calls for evidence on the website, but making sure that we go out into the heartlands and go outside of London in particular to make sure that we get a broad spectrum of evidence so that our committee can actually take a real focus on what people need and not just what we are hearing time and time again. What do you need? I'm telling our listeners. 84844. She's sitting right in front of me. Get in touch with me and we can tell her right now. Actually, talking about grassroots, I actually spoke,

this is a bit of a spoiler for later on in the programme, but I spoke to the campaigner Gina Martin earlier this morning. You're going to hear the interview shortly. She campaigned successfully to make upskirting illegal. She spoke to me about the traumatic experience of carrying the burden of pushing for change when she was the one who actually experienced the trauma. What are you going to do to support people like Gina, campaigners who are on the front line, who actually we talked to time and time again on this programme. I think it's about being able to have, and this is the job of a committee chair, because there will be people of different opinions within that committee, political opinions, but also values as well. And it's about making sure that we can disagree well. I think we have not been good at doing that.

I think that the advent of social media has meant that people either disagree with each other or they agree with each other and there are opposite ends and that they can never meet. And actually, the job of a good committee chair is to ensure that people are safely heard, that they are respected in their opinions and that there is an understanding built because you need to be able to bring that coalition together to see progress. It may not satisfy absolutely everybody. I understood that when I took this role. But it is one that you have to work together and have that respect. But there will always be a burden. After two of my miscarriages, I continued campaigning for miscarriage bereavement leave. I got pregnant again, and I lost that baby. I had to stop and take a step out of campaigning about it because it was too painful.

It was too raw at that time. And now I'm back and I'm campaigning again. But it is understanding that there is a burden on people, particularly on the upskirting. And we saw, I think it was some of the male MPs try and block some of the upskirting legislation. Well, she said she went to the police and they said they couldn't do anything about it.

So what she said to me is, you know, that the institutions that are set up to protect us just aren't able to do the job. She's absolutely right, unfortunately. And I think a lot of what we've seen is this focus on the individuals and the individual groups and the culture wars. And in a culture war, nobody wins. And actually, it's looking at the institutions and how they can best protect us. It's not just institutions, it's organisations, it's business, it's absolutely everything. And we've got a proud history in the UK. A lot of these institutions are decades old, they weren't built or set up with us in mind. And so even with well-meaning people working

within them, small policy changes aren't always going to cut it. We need to see that change much further, much more systematically and institutionally as well. Another big topic is women's safety. Actually, I noticed you didn't mention that, Sarah, this morning. Can our listeners trust that your focus is going to be on this huge issue? Absolutely. It is a huge issue. I mean, we've seen, I have raised this time and time again, and I was actually shouted down in the chamber for raising the issue of women's safety, particularly when it came to recorded rape cases. 70,000 recorded rape cases last year,

only 2.6% were actually prosecuted. When it comes to women's safety, this isn't just a case of what they're experiencing in the street, it's also what they're experiencing in the justice system. And I really welcomed the move to be able to fast-track rape cases and sexual assault cases in the courts because people are waiting up to two years, three years for justice and we know that justice delayed is justice denied. And there's a level of under-reporting

and if people think that it's not going to be taken seriously, like in the upskirting case by the police or the criminal justice system, then even fewer people are going to come forward. And if you're being shouted down in the halls of power. I said that that had, and I was reflecting on Dame Vera Baird's comments, that it was effectively legalising rape. If you are not prosecuting and you are not convicting criminals of rape. I was told by Lee Anderson that I was encouraging men to commit that crime in the chamber. How are any of our listeners meant to have faith in the system? Also, he's not here to give his view on it. No, he's not.

But you can check it out in Hansard. It was pretty shocking. But I was not shocked because that was the behaviour and that was very much the environment of the last government. I think we have seen a real change. You just have to look at the difference of representation in government. One of the proudest moments was when I couldn't find a seat when we first came

back. And I looked at a government benches and I was like, wow, that reflects what our country looks like. And so I hope that we are going to see a much more reflective policymaking and also discourse that is much more respectful and understanding of what people's real life experiences. Talking of division in Parliament, the rights of women and transgender people are often in the spotlight and will form a large part of your remit. This is a contentious topic with strong feelings on all sides. And so some of our listeners in particular would like to know, what is a woman to you? I think it's really sad that we're still at this stage of the debate, to be honest, and that we have boiled down people's fears or concerns

on both sides of the argument to body parts because basically we are so much more than what our bodies are. And what a woman to me is, is somebody that's going to be paid less than their male counterpart, is somebody that's going to be less safe walking down the street, is going to be somebody that faces more barriers in the workplace and in education and in the health sector. These are the issues that are really facing women. And I think when it comes to the trans debate, we need to be able to have that in a kind, respectful way,

absolutely understanding and giving space to people's fears, but also being able to understand that there are a group of people here that have been victimised, that find life incredibly difficult, whether it comes to education, whether it comes to work. And that actually this idea of pitting people against each other and having such polarised views means that we haven't seen any progress and nobody is better off for it. So my committee will be made up of people that have different views and particularly on this topic and it will be my job to make sure that we find a way through which again as I said means that I probably won't satisfy one group or the other but we need to see progress and that progress starts with respect understanding and people being given a safe space to air their views and there's been much debate about how to balance the rights of different groups within society. Much of this has focused on access to women-only spaces such as toilets,

domestic abuse, refugees and prisons. The Conservatives have said they want to rewrite the Equality Act so that protections are based on a person's biological sex. Labour have said this isn't necessary but acknowledge more guidance is needed. Where would you draw the line on single sex spaces? I think the Equality Act already protects single sex spaces so I don't think that there is necessarily a need to open that up again because that will not help I think this debate at all and the protection of women in vulnerable situations. When we look at domestic abuse refuges, for example, they can refuse entry on anybody to anybody, whether it's a woman who was born a woman or otherwise,

if they are deemed to be a threat to anybody else within that safe space. So I think there needs to be clarity on it and refuges and safe spaces need to be given clarity on this and the backing of the government to say if somebody, regardless of who they are and their gender, is not safe within there or is going to be a threat to anybody else in there, then they can say no.

I guess the reason some people care so much is it's impacting their lives single-spec spaces you know so so like just let's boil it down so if a trans woman has been in an abusive relationship where do they go and how do you ensure that women are also protected and that's absolutely where we want to go with the committee and make sure that we see that clarity and have people have those those conversations in a respectful way because we haven't had that the idea that most of this debate has been done without trans women no no conversation about trans men at all either and that whenever anybody raises their concerns about safe spaces for women they're also labeled

as something else actually we, this is very basic, but we need to be able to have this conversation in a much more adult way. And I really do believe that select committees are the best place to have that. I mean, we know it's a contentious topic and one we will continue to discuss. What do you hope to achieve in your first year?

I hope to achieve, first of all, I'd like to get some select committee members so if there are any MPs that are thinking that this is a space that they would like to work in then please do do put yourselves forward for it but I would like to be able to move the debate on I would like to see that health inequalities is right up there that women's safety is improved, but also access to justice and actually delivery of justice is given. And community cohesion is a huge part. And I think that what we saw in summer, we never want to see again.

So we need to really assess and learn lessons from that. Your predecessor, Conservative MP Caroline Noakes was a regular on this programme. Will we see lots more of you? Will you come and talk to our listeners? I'd love to. Thank you so much for speaking to us this morning sarah owen mp 84844 is the number to text now tracy chevalier's new novel the glassmaker follows one morano glassmaking family through hundreds of years of venetian history and when i say one

family i really mean it in the glassmaker time plays strange tricks and so the people in venice family through hundreds of years of Venetian history. And when I say one family, I really mean it. In The Glassmaker, time plays strange tricks. And so the people in Venice and the island of Murano age much more slowly than they do in the rest of the world, which means the same characters experience an enormous sweep of history. The story follows Ursula Rosso, who is nine in 1486, all the way through to present day when she's in her late 60s and tells a love story that encompasses centuries of passion and longing. Tracy, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you for having me. There will be people praising. Finally, there's a new Tracy Chevalier book for them to disappear into. What's going on with time in this book?

Well, when I started the book, I knew I wanted to cover 500 years of Venice's history because it's such a fascinating city. And most people who visit it see it and think, oh, these old buildings, I don't know anything about this. It was very wealthy in the 15th century. And now it's become sort of a tourist destination. So how did that happen over 500 years? I wanted to follow that. But I also wanted to follow one family, a glassmaking family. And at one point I about their care about their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, their descendants. And I thought, well, maybe I just won't have them die. And I thought, you know, if you could do it anywhere, it's in Venice. Because Venice feels so timeless when you're there.

The buildings are old. There's no cars. The world falls away. You get lost literally and figuratively. So it really does lend itself to this time frame. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Can you describe the island of Murano and its glassmaking history?

Yeah, glass has been made for centuries in Venice, but in 1291, they decided to move all of the glass furnaces over to this little island of Murano, which is just a 15-minute boat ride from Venice, because they wanted to control the fires that broke out. They didn't want this big city of Venice to burn down. Little Island, not so important. I think that's how they looked at it. But they also wanted to control the glassmakers. They're very, very skilled, mostly men, all men at the time,

maestros who knew all the secrets of glassmaking. And if they were taken to continental Europe and competition arose as a result, the Venetians didn't want that to happen. And so they said, you have to live on Murano. We're going to control you. Live on Murano. And if you leave, we're going to come after you and kill you. So there was this feeling for centuries, since 1291 until now, there are still dozens of glassmaking families on Murano and absolutely beautiful glass. I mean, terrifying because you're essentially imprisoned, but also it does preserve the arts. Yes, it does. Why did you want to base your book around it? Well, at one of my readings in Italy years ago, a man came up to me afterwards and said, I think you should write about Venetian glass beads because they have really interesting stories attached.

They were used as trade all over the world, and they were mostly made by women back in the day. profession is very male, still is. But back then, women were not meant to work in glass at all, except they could make beads over this little lamp at their kitchen tables. And I filed that one away because it fascinated me that that was how women, you know, women always find ways to get what they need. You know, they back in the back then there was very little socioeconomic or political power. And yet if they wanted to work in glass, as Ursula Rosso does, she wants to help her family. She thought, OK, I'm going to learn to make beads at the kitchen table and see if I can supplement the family income. And that's what happens over centuries. She becomes very skilled at it all the way up to the 21st century.

I'm just thinking how many people come up to you to suggest ideas for books. And it's interesting that you did register one. And now how many more people are going to come to you with ideas? You look like you have an idea. Always. I've got so many. I've got a list, but we'll wait till the program's over. Let's talk about your character then, because the glassmaker follows the life of Ursula, the daughter of a glassmaking family who's a skilled beadmaker. She's passionate and bold, but is constrained by society because she's a woman.

How did you start to create her then? I started when she's nine years old and she's pushed in a canal by her brother, her older brother. And this sets the dynamic for the relationship. Her brother, Marco, becomes a glass maestro. He's the oldest of the family. He's trying to gain his respect because he represents the family. And it's trying to have a woman find her way. She gets helped quietly by the other women in the family who support her, who do the work, other work, household work so that she can make glass, so she can make beads. They never tell on her if she's because for a long time, she does this secretly. And I've had a lot of readers come up to me and say, you know,

that's one of my favorite parts of the book is that there is this quiet support of the women around you without making a big fuss about it in the book, but it's there. Protecting her. Yeah. It covers the book covers a huge period, including the plague, the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, even COVID. Why choose those particular periods and events? I thought at the start I was going to skip over time. I wanted to have each section be a different century. And I looked within that century what affected Venice the most and glassmakers the most. And so things like Napoleon conquering Venice in 1797,

turning it into a republic and taking over, giving it to the Austrians to rule, that really affected the city a lot. And most of us when we visit Venice don't really know about any of that. But once you do know, you think, ah, the Austrians, they hated water. They wanted to bring their horses into Venice. So there are certain streets that used to be canals that were covered over and they made them wider so that you could ride a horse along it. And I had had no idea until I did that research. So it's really, I think I was trying to open up, bring the history of Venice into Venice so that you can see it and appreciate it and understand how the city became what it is now. Yeah, yeah.

Such a, like you say, a place that feels so frozen in time. It is like stepping into a museum. How much fun did you have researching this one? Huge fun. Somewhat affected by the pandemic. I had been hoping that I would be in, I was going to go to Venice and live there for a couple of months and do an immersive Italian language course. That didn't happen. But I did visit several times and spent a long time and got to know it, got to know the people on Murano, made friends, went to someone's wedding. It was really,

really fun. But also some of the research was incredibly poignant. So I was researching the plague of 1575, which killed a quarter of the population. And the lockdown had just ended, the first lockdown, and I was researching at the British Library. They'd opened it up, but you had to sit two meters apart with a mask on. And I was reading about the plague and all of the things that they had done, taking notes on quarantines and tracing people's movements and stuff. And I thought, oh, here we are a few hundred years later, the same things. So that was quite strange. And I make that juxtaposition in the book as well.

Can I talk to you a bit about the writing process? Because I read that you get into a flow state when you write. What's the flow state? I think anyone listening who makes things will know exactly what I mean. It's, you know, whether you're knitting or painting or woodworking or writing, you get into a state where you stop checking your phone. You stop looking up. You stop thinking, I'm just going to make a cup of tea. I'm just going to make that phone call. You're very focused. It flows out of you. The words flow out of you. And sometimes you stop and it doesn't work. And a lot of times when you get into it, I want readers to read the book feeling that it's seamless, feeling that they're flowing through it. And in order to get that, I have to flow as well. It's a little tricky to use several years of flow. So there's a lot of editing that goes on to make that happen. But you want it to feel seamless, and you want it to feel like you're totally focused and immersed in that world.

So you flowing means that we'll flow with you. Yes. We'll sense it. Is it sort of like, is that mindfulness? Is it sort of almost meditative? It is a bit. It is a bit, although writing is hard. And so I don't, I swear a lot when I'm by myself. So I like that thought. But yeah, it is in its best form. It is mindful.

And how's your Italian? Did you even, I know you didn't go there and get to do the language course, which sounds so delicious and dreamy, but did it pick up? My Italian, I can order in a restaurant now and I can say all the right things, but I still depend upon a lot of other people who speak English so well there. It's been a joy talking to you. Thank you. Tracy Chevalier's new novel, The Glassmaker, is out now. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. 84844, lots of you getting in touch about things that are important to you. Women's safety, mental health here. I really want the government to address men's mental health um it's a huge effect on men of course but it also has a massive effect on women their happiness at home the childhoods of their kids women's prospects at

work it impacts all areas of life address addiction violence anger depression and coercive behavior someone else has said the select committee needs much more more to look at much more of the prevention at what men are doing to challenge and change the behavior of other men. I think there have been imaginative campaigns in other countries. How does anyone benefit from violence towards women, says Fiona. services we provide for vulnerable women who become homeless because they form a subgroup known as hidden homeless. They are rarely in formal data and therefore gendered services are rarely funded. Keep your thoughts coming in. Now before we move on to our next story I just want to say that you might find the details of this distressing. You may well have heard by now of 72 year old Giselle Pellico. She's the woman at the centre of a rape trial that has shocked France and has made headlines even here in the UK. Her husband, Dominic Pellico, is accused of having repeatedly drugged her over the course of a decade

and inviting strangers, more than 80 local men, to rape her while they filmed her. 51 men, including her husband, are accused of rape and currently standing trial in Avignon in France. Our BBC Paris correspondent Andrew Harding has been in court. I spoke to him earlier and asked him what we know. So we know that Dominique Pellico, who was a 71-year-old Frenchman has confessed and pleaded guilty to drugging his wife, Giselle, over the course of about a decade, drugging her in their family home so that at night she would fall into a very, very heavy sleep, at which point he would then invite in about 80 men over the course of this decade, local men that he'd contacted online,

who came in and then raped his sleeping wife while Dominique, the husband, filmed that activity. How did this all get revealed? So it got revealed almost by accident, if you like, Mr. Pellico was confronted by a couple of women in a grocery store after he'd been caught upskirting, filming, trying to film up their skirts. And the police got involved and he was cautioned. And in fact, the couple reconciled after that. And it was considered that the matter had been dealt with, that it was an error of judgment on his part. But then the police happened to look in more detail at Mr. Pellico's home laptop, and they discovered on there thousands, about 20,000 images and videos

of these rapes and alleged rapes. And they summoned, or they called Giselle Pellico to the police station one day in 2020, and it was at that moment, she told the court just last week, that her life as she knew it, her marriage as she'd understood it, collapsed. Now, Giselle has said that she's waived her anonymity in this case in order to raise awareness of this sort of crime. What has she been like in court?

It's been extraordinary. It's a small courthouse, a small courtroom, and there she is, facing the cameras, striding in every day, behind sunglasses, but her face absolutely serene, calm, showing no emotion. And she is sometimes surrounded by these men because, of course, 51 men are on trial, including her husband. And they're there every day. Some of them kept behind glass walls because they're the ones already in prison. But others are coming in the same entrance as Giselle. They're walking through the same entry to the courthouse, and they're almost rubbing shoulders with this woman, and she

remains incredibly composed throughout. What do we know about the other men accused of rape? I mean, she would have known some of these people. Well, she says she recognized only one man she'd seen in this small village, but there are a range. I mean, I've sat there in court looking at them. There are a range of ages, the youngest 24, the oldest 74. There are builders, there are truck drivers, black, white, young, old, a real range of society. And this is just, I think, something, a case that stunned France. Stunning. I mean, our listeners, I'm sure, listening to the details of it. Now, yesterday, news outlets were reporting that her husband, Dominique, had been sent to hospital. What's happening with that? So his lawyer insists that Pelico wants to tell his story.

He wants to explain, as she put it, as the lawyer put it, he wants to explain to his wife and his three children why he did what he did. He's already pled guilty. He knows he's going to prison. But he wants to give some context to it. And we suspect that is about his traumatic childhood that he's alleged that he had, that he was raped when he was nine in a hospital and so on. But beyond that, we know that in the last few days, he has complained of some sort of abdominal pains. He's been vomiting and he has not been fit. He's not been judged fit to take part in the proceedings, to testify in the courtroom. And he would normally do so basically facing his wife, who tends to sit on one side of the courtroom.

That hasn't happened. And we wait to see now at what point he will be fit to come in and testify. And they have three grown-up children. Have they been in court with her as well, with Giselle? That's right. A daughter, Caroline, and two sons. Caroline herself has been shown footage recently, pictures that prove that her father also appears to have drugged her and taken photographs without her knowledge. It's not clear whether there was any further abuse but clearly she is dealing with

her own trauma but also seeking to comfort her mother and a family that has just been torn apart by this. Now it's certainly made newspapers and headlines over here, but what's the reaction been like in France? I mean, it's a huge story in France. I think there's been some queasiness initially about the way it was covered just as another sort of drama, another crime scandal, rather than being seen as something much more emblematic and much more worrying about the way some of these issues, not just about upskirting, but just chauvinism, misogyny, and some of the issues that are kind of emerging through this case. And, of course, the issue of rape itself and rape with the use of drugs, which many people, many campaigners, many women feel is badly under-investigated,

under-reported and not treated seriously enough, that the law itself in fact tends to focus on issues of violence connected with rape and doesn't take enough seriousness about the issue of consent as well. And I know you've been to the village where they lived. What are people feeling there? What have they been saying to you? So this is a tiny, very pretty little medieval village just in the shadow of Mont Ventoux, a big mountain that often features in the Tour de France. It's a lovely small village and almost all of the 50 men on trial

came from either the village or the neighbouring villages. But what's, I think, really striking there, and particularly when you talk to local women, is that there are another 30 men that the police say they've seen, they've found on the video footage that they confiscated from Mr Pelico, another 30 men who are at large, who've not been identified. And so people in that village are worried. They're saying, well, who are these men? Could they be our neighbors? Are they a danger to us? So there's that.

But also, I think, a sense of frustration, particularly here from men in the village who say, look, we don't feel our whole village and its history and its reputation should be tarnished by this one event. In fact, the mayor of the village, betraying some really, I think, quite controversial views, said, well, actually, Madame Pellico, of course, had a terrible experience, but she didn't die, there were no children involved, and she wasn't even conscious during the rapes. So it wasn't that bad.

And I reacted with some shock and said, are you really trying to diminish the seriousness of what she'd been through? And he said, well, yes, I am. So an example there, I think of the sort of views that I think a lot of French women still feel are much too prevalent in France. Do we know how long the trial will go on for? In theory, four months. It's supposed to end sometime just before Christmas. But given the delays we've had with Mr Pelico's ill health, it could be longer. Andrew, thank you so much for speaking to me this morning. Thank you, Anita. Now, as Andrew mentioned, the reason that Dominic was first arrested by the police

was because he was caught upskirting in a supermarket, taking pictures of a woman with his phone up her skirt. When the police examined his phone, it was then that they found the thousands of videos and images of his wife. Well, I'm joined now by Gina Martin, author and gender equality activist who campaigned successfully for upskirting to become illegal in the UK in 2019. Morning, Gina. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Can you start by telling us what happened to you? Yeah, I was at a festival when I was 26 with my sister and was waiting for a band to come on stage and a group of guys were hitting on me and my sister, you would say.

And after rejecting their advances, one of them upskirted me and sent it to all the people around me in the crowd. I was able to catch a glimpse of the screen of one of the phones. I took the phone with the picture on it and also the guy, one of the guys that was in that group, and ran to the police and was told that there was nothing they could do about it. And so I decided to campaign to change the law, which I fought for over two years while I was doing a regular office job,

5 a.m. till sort of 1 a.m. every night working with a lawyer and eventually brought in the Voyeurism Act to make it a specific sexual offence in 2019. And then obviously, as we've seen in this case, there was two other countries that followed suit. They obviously messed with the wrong woman, Gina, the wrong woman on the wrong day. What was it about? What is it about you? And what was it about that moment that made you pursue

the change in law? You know, I don't even think it's actually anything about me. I think it's what we feel when we read these stories over and over again, and we layer the feelings of witnessing these types of stories on top of our own experiences which is just this absolute exhaustion and anger and I think that day the upskirting that I experienced was one of many things I'd experienced and was the last one that I was willing to rush off I felt like I'd I mean I'd been to the police for the last two. I'd had a stalking case ongoing for six to seven years that had been dropped. And I was consistently hitting brick walls with the institutions that are there to protect us and just felt like, OK, well, I'll just go as far as I can here because I'm terrified anyway.

So I might as well be terrified, but in motion trying to make change. Now, you wrote on your social media that a law I helped create was the reason Giselle's husband was caught. Can you talk us through that process? Yeah. When I was campaigning to try and make upskirting a sexual offence, it was clear to me that upskirting was a form of sexual violence that was running parallel to or an entryway to more serious forms of violence and sexual assault and repeat forms of abuse. So child abuse, rape, we were seeing this anecdotally in the research that we were collecting, but we didn't have that kind of quantitative research because, obviously, it didn't exist in law at that point. After the law changed in 2019, I worked on our freedom of information request with the CPS, which came out in 2021, which showed that one third of perpetrators of upskirting were also of it. And it's just because for the past seven years, the clearest message I've received from working in this space

is that all sexual violence is deeply interconnected. When someone is radicalized into an ideology like misogyny, where they really believe that exerting power on women is a way to satisfy that horrific ideology and feel powerful. We see them satisfy that in many different ways. And so when I saw that, I didn't really feel any sense of pride. I had a lot of people messaging me like, oh, thank you for your work. And this was just so beautiful and so lovely, but genuinely just felt really sad for her and just really like

I just wish it hadn't had to be used I wish I hadn't had to create it and I think a lot of the time there's maybe an idea that there's this real sense of power that I have about having done that but actually I just I did it because I felt like our institutions weren't gonna and I didn't feel like anyone was listening and so ultimately you end up trying to do something yourself but I never really wanted to have to do that in the first place and I don't want this law to be used because I want this to stop happening to women. You've written a piece in the Guardian that I found really interesting and you say it's what you just said that we shouldn't focus on more prisons and punishment for men but preventing sexual assault so women are safe in the first place. How do we

prevent sexual assault do you think? It's a huge question, isn't it? If we had like six hours together, we'd be able to really dig into it. Something I've learned, I think, through my work coming out of kind of criminalisation and working in law or policy change is the power of changing culture. I think I saw that anyway with the campaign

because we had to get the public in the UK and in England and Wales and Scotland and Ireland and Northern Ireland, really caring about the issue of upskilling to create public momentum to leverage political change, to create political change. So we see time and time again, that cultural change like predicates big legal change and institutional change. And since coming out of that kind of high level work, I've gone into work, which is very much grassroots on the ground. So gender equality workshops where I work with young people, and we give boys and kids of all genders the space to look at the way that the rules, let's say, of their gender tell them they have to act.

So you know, with boys, that's kind of talking about how they can't talk about any of their feelings they have to treat dating as a game um procuring girls is seen as um valuable and they're seen as masculine and they're seen as powerful um violence is a really is the first thing you use to solve a problem these kinds of ideas of traditional masculinity are really trapping boys into situations in which they're both hurting themselves and they're hurting people of other genders and so giving people the space to kind of go and rethink masculinities and then creating really strong community bonds of allyship and accountability and community is something that we see time and time again that really disrupts and prevents like upstream this stuff from happening because the boys that are being

i'm sure you've reported on this so many times, but are being radicalized into misogyny by these misogyny influencers and all of this content we're seeing are going to grow into men. And they're going to be powerful positions and they're going to be men in families and in relationships who have not been able to unpick that misogyny

that has been taught to them. So that kind of upstream prevention really does have a beautiful place in the world and it works. So who's the onus on then parents schools who educates young boys i think this question is one that we um we look for a single answer with and i don't believe that i often see teachers saying this is parents job and parents honestly speaking about all that they're trying to do and they're trying to understand it and they're struggling and all of life's pressures that get in the way of these types of conversations and i

see parents say it's teachers jobs and teachers are so overworked and underpaid and so my answer is it's all of our job every child i come into contact with i'm having honest conversations with um every teacher i work with i'm holding space to find out how we can make it easier for them to do this every parent i talk to or connecting them with teachers so that they can work together as a team to try and solve this older men we create spaces for them in community this. Every parent I talk to or connecting them with teachers so that they can work together as a team to try and solve this. Older men, we create spaces for them in community to talk about their experience,

to unpick the things they've done, to be accountable with their friends. It's really community work. And I think where we get stuck is where we try to silo it. And I know you think that media has a lot to change with the culture of reporting

as well, don't you? I do. We saw even with some of the headlines around Giselle and what's an Arab physical, Giselle, unused her surname because that's her abuser's surname. She's changing her name. But just seeing these headlines that she's getting revenge

as if accountability for violence is revenge, distracting from the real violence that is at play here. I think language is really important and the way that we frame these stories is really important. And I think the fact that we are really good at naming what happened, but we're not doing very well in media literacy of, you know, naming why the root causes male violence. Let's look at the connected dots here. Let's find out why this is happening this much. We're not doing a good job of that. And I think we can do a lot better. Gina Martin there. And earlier we heard from Andrew Harding and if you are affected

by anything you've heard in the interview you can head to BBC Action Line for a range of support links and resources. Now a new play The Lightest Element which has opened at Hampstead Theatre explores the life and career of astronomer Cecilia Payne Kaposchkin, the first person to work out what stars are made of. Cecilia's PhD thesis was described as the most brilliant ever written in astronomy, but she struggled to get the acclaim she deserved. The play follows Cecilia as she's about to be appointed chair of astronomy at Harvard, no less, and the first woman to head a department at the esteemed US college, but she faces challenges along the way,

predominantly the conservatism of her, you guessed it, male colleagues. Well, actor Maureen Beattie plays Cecilia and joins me alongside playwright Stella Frijeli. Both of you, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you very much. Stella, why did you want to tell Cecilia's story? Well, first of all, I just thought she was this amazing British astrophysicist that nobody had ever heard of. And I think it was, first of all, it was a story of vindication that she had discovered what stars are made of. It was so important she overturned the thinking about what stars were made of,

because people thought they were made up of the same elements as the Earth or the Earth's crust. So if you heated up the Earth to the temperature of the stars, that it would shine like a star. So it was just that it was such a revolutionary discovery and we hadn't heard of her. That was really what fascinated me. Maureen, why did you want to play her? Did you know about her beforehand? I had absolutely no idea that she existed, along with so many of these women in so many different fields. And it always comes as a shock and surprise.

She's just amazing. And the thing about her is that she's this, you know, she's not somebody who's just, oh, she was an astronomer and that's it. She's incredibly, she spoke nine languages, including Latin and ancient Greek. She was taught to conduct and taught. She played violin and piano. She was taught to conduct by Gustav Holtz, of course, the composer of The Planets, which is rather nice. And so she was at St. Paul's. At St. Paul's School and then Cambridge University.

Indeed. And he wanted her to be a conductor. She was a great knitter. So she has a lot of my heart for knitter knitting skills. So we've got lots of knitting around the set. We'd like that. And she liked a body. She liked a vodka.

She smoked hugely. Everywhere she went was a trail of ash. She had three kids with this very dynamic Russian husband, hence the second name. So she's this fascinating, completely rounded woman. I think she must have slept three hours a night. I mean, what a character to get your teeth into. Where did her interest in stars and astrology come from then?

She had all these other options. Yeah, yeah. So when she was at Cambridge University, she was studying botany. That was her main subject. But then she heard a lecture by Arthur Eddington, who was talking about how he'd proved Einstein's theory of relativity correct by going to look at the solar eclipse on the island of Prince Seep in 1919. So it made Arthur Eddington's name and it made Einstein a star, this confirmation. And her

world completely changed. She was like, I have to be an astronomer. So she pursued those studies. And then when she was at Cambridge, she realised that, well, first of all, they weren't, they didn't give degrees to women at Cambridge until 1948. She had no way to pursue her postgraduate studies. So she went to America to Harvard. That's where there were women working at the Harvard Observatory. She was only 25 when she went to America. Well, she was 23 when she went to America. But yeah, she was 25 when she presented her thesis.

And this was the thesis stating that stars were actually made out of hydrogen and helium. So what reaction did she get to that? Well, so she presented this thesis where she'd come to her discoveries using this incredible theory in atomic physics she'd learned at Cambridge. And her external assessor thought her thesis was brilliant because she was estimating the temperatures of the stars, but said, listen, you're completely wrong. And she watered down her findings because she knew that to stay in astronomy, she would have to do that. Now, she was crafty enough to keep the data in, but had a line underneath, and I paraphrase, this is probably wrong.

And what did that say? Why was that smart? Well, it was smart because she kept the data so that, you know, posterity would know that she had it there. But she put the line in, which meant that her external assessor, who was a very famous astronomer, who was one of the proponents of the stars are made of the same elements as the Earth,

that it would appease him. So four years later, he came up, he came to the same conclusions as Cecilia, published a paper. Was this Henry Norris Russell? That's right. Henry Norris Russell. Tell us about Henry Norris Russell then.

Henry Norris Russell was a hugely preeminent astronomer of the time. But I think, and I don't know whether you would agree with this Stella, but from the research we've done as a company, he was somebody who, he didn't write on the, yes, I would go as far as saying, I think, good, astronomers are going to be writing terrible letters today, but he would ride on the back of other people's incredible work. He was a great one for sort of gathering

a lot of information from different places and presenting it and being the kind of mouthpiece. So he was almost like in a way, kind of poster boy I think that's the Well he took the credit. Well this is the thing, so he presented his paper, he actually does acknowledge her in a really tiny footnote but I think the fact that he publicly never

said that he told her she was wrong meant that he was the one who got the credit so I think over the decades people thought that well maybe she glimpsed the promised land but he was the one who got the credit. So I think over the decades, people thought that, well, maybe she glimpsed the promised land, but he was the one that got there. And so it's only actually really in recent years that people actually have understood that she made this incredible discovery.

It was in 1956. She was the first female chair of astronomy at Harvard. What an achievement. And remains the only woman to hold that role. So I think we should hear a clip from the play. This is Ronna, Cecilia's assistant, played by Rina Mahoney, talking to Maureen as Cecilia about the chairmanship. Would it matter so much if you didn't make chairman? You have been garlanded with so many accolades throughout your lifetime.

Isn't that enough? Enough? Don't be ridiculous. Would Edmund Hillary have been happy going halfway up Everest and saying, you know what, Tenzing, it's a bit cold. I think this is far enough. Forget it. Forget I spoke. It's just that the chairmanship matters, Rona. I don't seek it because I relish departmental bureaucracy,

nor do I wish to manage colleagues. Listen to their tedious complaints. It's simply that I will do a better job of chair than anyone else. It's logical. How significant was it for, by the way, that sounded great. Oh, thank you. Your brilliant voice. How significant was it for her to get that role?

Well, it's just that, you know, women achieving high office, I suppose. I mean, the highest office would have been director of the observatory, which she couldn't possibly have done because she was a woman. But I think it was, I mean, she was 56. So the men that were getting those positions were in their 40s. So she was quite exhausted by that time. But yes, it was, she was cracking the glass ceiling for sure. What was it like, Maureen? You know, astronomy was a man's world at the time. We've just discussed that. The attitudes towards women were that they were inferior.

How do you play Cecilia, who was such a headstrong person with all that in the backdrop? I think what my attitude is that she is bloodied but unbowed throughout the whole thing. She comes across... Every time she gets another barrier in her way, another barbed wire fence, another person going,

no, this is your office, it's a tiny little cubbyhole. Her courses, which were huge at the university, which were hugely desirable, people were queuing up to get into her classes because she was a great teacher and all of those kind of things were not, when she first started there, were not in the list of when you went there as a student, her courses weren't listed. So you had to sort of find out about it by sort of gossip

and people going, oh, there's a really great woman, you know. There's a line in the play which is, one character said, you know, she basically, she was kept in a cupboard marked, what was it, equipment. I mean, you know, astonishing stuff. But so her whole life from an early age, as soon as she started to be a learner, a student, whatever she was learning was just barrier after barrier.

And I think she just went, right, bring it on. I am going to leap these fences. How much joy has it been writing this play and also bringing it to life on stage? First of all, it's amazing to see it come to life and Maureen's performance is extraordinary, as well as, you know, our other colleagues in the play. But like Tracy was saying that, you know, it always seems really weird to say writing's hard because, well, you're just sitting at a desk trying to think up stuff. But I knew nothing about astrophysics when I started. So it was quite looking at pages for a while, trying to read these treatises.

And my eyes were glazing over. So I had to work with an amazing researcher called Victoria Porter. And you've brought this amazing character to life. Thank you so much for coming in to tell us all about her The Lightest Element is at Hampstead Theatre until the 12th of October Maureen and Stella, thank you so much

Join me tomorrow at 10, we'll be hearing from filmmaker Fawzia Mirza and how gay brown girls can also have an epic Bollywood style romance That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Humanity's journey to understanding the body has been a gory one, littered with unethical experiments, unintended consequences and unimaginable pain.

In The Human Subject from BBC Radio 4, we investigate the stories of the discoveries that came at great human cost, but ones that also saved countless lives. I'm Dr Julia Shaw. And I'm Dr Adam Rutherford. And in this series, we're going to investigate the threads connecting modern day medicine to its often brutal origins. And reveal the untold stories of the people who endured them. Listen on BBC Sounds.

I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.