Woman's Hour - Nova Twins, W series demise, Wealth management, Burning Sun, Author Caroline O’Donoghue

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

The all-female motor racing championship, the W Series, has goneinto administration. The series was founded in 2019 in response to the lack of female representation at the highest levels of the sport - Formula 1 has not had a female driver compete in a race since 1976. The W Series saw three seasons of racing, where it showcased the talents of racers such as three time champion Jamie Chadwick, Alice Powell and Sarah Moore. Rebecca Clancy, motor racing corrrespondent at the Times and Sunday Times explains more. Woman's Hour broadcast live from Glastonbury for the first time on Friday. Ahead of their performance on The Other Stage Anita interviewed The Nova Twins. A feminist band who have destroyed the narrative about who gets to make rock music. Amy Love and Georgia South discuss their love of Glasto, their unique bond and holding the music industry to account.In The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue Rachel is looking back at herself in Cork in Ireland in 2010. She’s in her early 20’s, at University, in love with her professor, working in a bookshop, trying to work out who she is and then she meets her soulmate. But nothing is at it seems and life gets very messy indeed. Caroline joins Krupa to talk about writing sex, gay best friends and what happens when messing about in your 20’s gets very serious indeed.Adored by millions for their wholesome image, BBC investigative journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou talks about her new Radio 4 Intrigue podcast series Burning Sun, which explores the sex scandals of 2019 in Korea that brought down some of the world’s biggest K-pop Stars. She also delves into the world of spy cams and talks about the misogny that some believe is causing a crisis in the country. The UK’s wealth management industry has traditionally been male-dominated, with only 16% of financial advisers being women, and only 5% of advisers having a differentiated strategy for attracting and retaining female clients. Now financial experts are saying that this industry needs to change to better meet the needs of a growing sector of wealthy women. Krupa speaks to Tamara Gillan, who has created a network called WealthiHer, which aims to help wealthy women take control of their financial futures and advise wealth managers on how to better tailor their services women, and to Sarah Roughsedge at Eva Wealth Management for Women. Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Dianne McGregor

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, this is Krupa Bhatti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. I hope you've had a wonderful weekend soaking up that sunshine and maybe those Glastonbury vibes. We brought you some of that on Friday when Woman's Hour came live from Worthy Farm. And whilst the music might have wrapped up, those tents, those stages, they're being packed away, we've still got a bit more Glastonbury to bring you. A conversation between Anita and the Nova Twins coming up.

And what is the best money advice you have for other women? What's the best advice you've received from other women? There's lots of data out there which points to the idea that women are too nervous to invest their money. Earlier this month, data from the platform Wealthify found three in four women are missing out on building their future wealth by not investing, compared to 58% of men, with women's money being left in cash savings accounts instead.

Is this something you recognise in yourself? Two women who specialise in the management of money, four women will join us. Do get your thoughts in, your tips, your advice, and any questions you might have for them as well. Olivia has done just that and writes, make sure you have your own pension. I moved to a female financial advisor

when the local man we consulted when I went self-employed said my husband's pension was enough. You can text the programme, that number is 84844 on social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour. You can email us through our website, you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. All of our terms and conditions are over on our website. Also in the studio with us is the author Caroline O'Donoghue. Her new novel is The Rachel Incident. It's witty, it's insightful, it's a take on love, friendship

and sexual identity of the university student Rachel in Cork. And we'll turn our attention to a new BBC podcast which looks at one of the biggest sex scandals to hit the world of Korean pop. Chloe Hajimathayo presents that podcast and will join us too. So a wealth of guests will be popping into our studio for a chat. And we also want to hear from you. So those details again, 84844 to text us and at BBC Women's Hour over on social media.

But we begin with some news from the world of sporting. Last week, the all-female motor racing championship, the W Series, went into administration. The series saw three seasons of racing where it showcased the talents of racers such as three-time champion Jamie Chadwick, Alice Powell and Sarah Moore. So what happened and what is its legacy? To discuss, we are joined by Rebecca Clancy, motor racing correspondent at The Times and Sunday Times. Thanks for joining us, Rebecca. Good morning. Thank you for having me on. Good morning. First of all, for those of us who don't know much about motor racing, just explain what the W Series was. So as you said in the introduction there, it was the first ever all-female racing series. Its sole aim really was to get a woman into

Formula One. There hasn't been a woman in formula one since leila lombardi in 1976 and people may be familiar with suzy wolf who took part in a couple of practice sessions but never been an actual racing driver competing on the sunday so w series was created it was the brainchild of katherinemure, the founder and CEO. And she spent three years setting it up. And it, quite frankly, gave very talented young women a lifeline into motor racing. They had been very successful in their go-karting days, in the lower series. And they had found that the funding had dried up. Motor racing is incredibly expensive.

To put it into context context if you're in formula three or formula two the category is just below formula one you would have to bring about half a million pounds to race so it's not exactly viable for everyone shall we say yeah um and the women who i spoke to uh in w series they just couldn't get the sponsorship couldn't get the funding and had to go elsewhere and you mentioned there there Alice Powell, a very, very good driver. She was actually went to work for her dad's plumbing company. And I remember speaking to her when she got the call up to W Series. And the day before she got the call up, she was cleaning out urinals. And now W Series has given her a whole new life. And anyone who

watches Formula One probably familiar with her now on Channel 4. And she's done stuff for Five Live. And so it's been absolutely brilliant. But it was the first all-female. And I think you mentioned there about legacy. And I know we'll come on to it. But it was absolutely trailblazing. And I don't think that's too much to say.

Yeah. I mean, what I'm hearing from you is that sponsorship has been a key struggle for these women for the series. Why? It's a really tricky one, because you would think that getting behind a young, talented female would actually be great for a company, but they've been a bit more reserved, maybe a bit more conservative and gone down the let's say more traditional route formula one motor racing in general is still very much a boys club i mean i know from my side i'm still the only woman who does my job on fleet street i'm the first and only um it doesn't feel particularly accessible to women um and as i said there hasn't been a female racer in Formula One since 1976.

Perhaps companies felt it was too much of a gamble. But the women, you know, back in the day, Alice Powell was beating the boys who have now gone on to race in Formula One. So you can't argue it wasn't on talent, but perhaps companies just thought it was too risky. This case that you make about not having an F1 racer, a female racer since 1976, I mean why is that? Surely there's the talent, there are women who want to race? Yeah absolutely and I think it's twofold. There just aren't that many women who are, or young girls I should say, you know you have to get in quite early these days into go-karting and work your way up through the series and there just aren't that many, I should say, you know, you have to get in quite early these days and to go karting and work your way up through the series.

And there just aren't that many, I guess, because there aren't that many role models, perhaps they didn't know that it was a viable option for them. And then those who did make it and were becoming successful in those lower categories just simply couldn't afford it. And I mentioned earlier about Susie Wolfe. She was driving for she was a test driver and reserve driver for Williams but even she couldn't quite crack it

she did a couple of practice sessions over a race weekend but even she couldn't get a drive and so it's the thing with Formula One is it's a bit it's always been this way and so that's how it is sort of thing

and I think that's where the W Series has been so, so important. Because as I said, their initial goal was to get a driver into Formula One. But I think what quickly happened as the 2019, the inaugural season got underway was actually this feeling that actually Formula One isn't the be all and end all. There are other fantastic racing series available available and what we've now seen is okay there still isn't a woman in formula one there were probably five eight years away from that at the earliest but we've seen the likes of jamie chadwick who you mentioned at the start she won all three seasons she's now over in america having a very successful racing career we've seen others

go into the world endurance championship um and so i think i think the the metric of success that w series had did change um and i think that's really important to understand as well because no there isn't a woman in formula one as it stands but i don't think just because w series has gone into administration that we can should consider it a failure i wonder how much the argument that some make that like horse racing and other sports racing motor cars is a level playing field and i wonder how much in your opinion that's contributed to this w series not being taken forward i i do agree with that yeah i think horse racing is a good example. I think, you know, horse power, as it were, in the cars. Once you're in that machine, you have the conversation about man and machine or woman and machine.

And there is no reason in my mind why a woman could not compete on a level playing field with a man in Formula One. It purely comes down to funding and getting that all important super licence. So just to explain in Formula One, you have to have a super licence, you can't buy your way into a super licence. And to get one, you have to earn the points in the lower categories. So for example, in Formula Two, you have to be finishing in the top slots to build up enough points to get that super license um so that that's not straightforward and i know that we have a lot of pay drivers now um and rich fathers buying teams and seats um but um yeah so it's a trick it's a tricky one isn't it um yeah i mean i understand that f1 are also launching an all-female series, the F1 Academy, as I understand it.

I mean, how significant is that going to be for the sport? Huge, actually. And I think one thing to note with the W Series as well is that while it went into administration, it really struggled with funding and getting the money in. What it offered to the female racers wasn't just a lifeline back into racing. The reason it was so attractive was because it paid for everything so I've already mentioned the money earlier and how prohibitive

that is W Series paid for everything so you didn't need to bring any money in the F1 Academy any woman who enters they have to bring half the costs and obviously with the likes of Formula One behind it a huge financial powerhouse. The sport itself is worth probably in the region of about $20 billion. So it won't have the same financial issues. Realistically, when the announcement came last year that F1 were launching this all-female racing series, it was quite clear that the W Series and the F1 Academy couldn't coexist, despite the language that F1

were trying to make us use that they could um it was never going to work that way and it was sad to see W Series they couldn't even afford to finish the season last year they missed out on the last three races they only competed seven out of the ten that's interesting um and I think but I think again with W Series this is another I think the F1 Academy is actually part of the W Series legacy because maybe F1 would have acted at some point but I think perhaps their hand was forced when they saw the success of W Series they saw how brilliant it was I was in Brands Hatch for the finale of the inaugural season back in 2019 and it was a sellout and there were young girls young boys all running up to the drivers getting the autographs it was a sellout. And there were young girls, young boys, all running up to the drivers, getting the autographs. It was a great family event. It was extremely popular. And that was just after one series. And I think then the second season, they were on the undercard of F1 races. So then they had more eyeballs. They were attracting more and more attention. It was becoming more popular. The drivers were becoming becoming stars and I think it forced F1's

hand really and I think that's a good thing I think what F1 have done have perhaps produced a more sustainable model and I think W series wasn't without its faults as well I should say Jamie Chadwick won all three seasons never particularly pushed which wasn't great for the series the F1 Academy has um is seemingly more competitive although I would argue that having it behind closed doors this season I'm sure a lot of people don't even know what's going on um it's not being televised or advertised um which isn't great uh the last race however will be in Austin at the same weekend as the F1 weekend so I think the F1 Academy was sort of the death knell for the W Series.

It's laid the way, yeah. Yeah, absolutely laid the way, yeah. I must ask you, before I let you go, about your experience as being one of the only female, or the only in this country at least, motor racing correspondents on Fleet Street, as you've just told us. What's that experience been like? Has that brought its own challenges?

It's been interesting um i i remember very early on in my career my first full season was 2017 and one of the first events i went to and i was you know these um media events that we have and i was standing around talking to a group of journalists and a senior longtime journalist, male journalist came up to me and asked me to get him a glass of wine thinking I was a waitress. So yes, I have to say it's improved. I'm very much just one of the gang now. I'm not treated any differently. My experience has been very good. I would love to see another woman on Fleet Street or just more women in the media centre generally I'm contacted actually quite a lot

by young women and girls who are interested in getting into motorsport media and I always help when I can and that's really encouraging and I've noticed in recent years that that's increased quite a lot That is very interesting Rebecca and I hope we have you on again to talk at more length about this because it feels like

there is much more to be discussed about the future of female motor racing thank you so much for your time Rebecca Clancy there from the times and Sunday Times the motor racing correspondent thank you for all of your messages coming in on investing your money and your tips and advice I am going to get to them later in the program and we do have a wider segment on investing your money and your tips and advice. I am going to get to them later in the programme and we do have a wider segment on managing your money coming up towards the end of the programme. But next, did you catch much of Glastonbury over the weekend? It was such a joy to see those muddy welly boots

being swapped for flip-flops as the festival goes soaked up that sun. Women's Hour broadcast live from Worthy Farm on Friday. They had a ball. Listen back to the programme on BBC Sounds. Anita Rani also left a treat for us. She spoke to a pair of sassy, feminist musicians who, it has been said, have destroyed the narrative about who gets to make rock music. They received high praise from headliner Elton John

at the weekend, who described them as phenomenal and the energy is so powerful they could light up Sheffield. The Nova Twins are a duo made up of Amy Love and Georgia South. Aside from making very exciting music, they're also looking for a change in the industry that they are a part of. Last year, they successfully lobbied the Music Awards, the MOBOs, which recognise music of black origin, to include a rock category. Writing in an open letter, they describe themselves as two mixed-race girls who shout through distorted mics and play gnarly bass riffs. They played at Glastonbury yesterday and spoke to Anita ahead of that gig. It's an iconic festival around the world.

No matter where you go, it's like Glastonbury is the ultimate festival, really, isn't it? It's so huge, you get lost in it. It's quite a magical place really where you can discover new bands obviously and obviously feel your favorite artists your big headliners at once obviously you have to pick but um yeah it's it's incredible and last year was our first time playing it so we're still actually quite like new to the galasto experience so this is still going to feel just as fresh as the last time, but obviously on the other stage, which is amazing.

It's major. What was that first experience like, Georgia? It was crazy. We played, last year we played three shows, then we just camped there for about four days and had our own little journey, which, yeah, was a lot of fun. So, yeah, excited to be back and play the other stage because we spent quite a lot of time there last year.

Yeah, I know. Imagine that, within a year and you're on the other stage and well-deserved, you belong on that stage. You mentioned there, Amy, going to see all the headliners. No female headliners at Glastow this year and it is actually a pattern we're seeing across the UK. Only 18% of headliners at the top festivals are women what's your reaction to that it's a continuation uh and it just highlights the actual problem we have and face i guess in the industry and so it just

highlights the fact that even though the discussions are being made now even though yet there's more representation at these festivals they're not there's still not enough it's still not even close to half and there are no headliners and it's just just highlights the problem that now we're more aware of it it's like oh yeah that is a problem yeah it's still a problem and you think about especially in like in the rock and old scene, you see older headliners, legends, old guys who are respectfully dying out. And no one's built up any new artists to come through, let alone women. How do you become a headliner in this day and age now when it's so saturated and there's no blueprint that's come before us? It's a, you know, Beyonce had to be superhuman to become a headliner.

And that's why in the positive way, it's amazing that we're on the other stage this year, because years ago that just wouldn't have happened. So it's great on the positive flex to see there are more women doing it. And also there was a whole thing of um women feeling like there's only one spot at the top for one successful female band but women now are like we're all going to band together there's enough space for us all just as there's so many male bands we've all got space there and we're all going to exist together and celebrate each other

and that's what we're fighting for as well and so many of our friends yeah not just fighting for I think you're kicking down doors smashing glass ceilings to smithereens um particularly about you know and especially stereotypes because you've basically destroyed the narrative about who gets to make rock music you're two young black women so where does your love of rock music alt music come from i think i remember being 16 and people showing like me new york dolls and uh stones and you know artists like that like mc5 and like really glam rock and roll bands being like you kind of remind me of this and obviously like and i really took a liking to it, but they were men. And obviously, I discovered them, Skin, Skunk and Nancy. And obviously, they're incredible.

She's a goddess. Yeah, absolute goddess. And it kind of went from there. But also, with coming up on the punk scene, especially like George, you literally were playing punk circuit since you were like 13. So it's just being surrounded by it, being in that atmosphere and just generally loving the music. But we discovered when we first became a band, it was like,

OK, we want to be a band, we want to play music, great. But people's reaction to it was, well, you don't look like Bikini Kill or L7, you don't look like a Riot Grrrl, so we can't put you there and you definitely can't put you there. And you definitely can't be put in the rock scene because you're not obviously white or mouth. So it was an issue for us when we first started and it was a rude awakening. So we then had to navigate slightly differently.

And we decided long ago that, okay, we can either conform and listen, maybe be a bit more hip hop or R&B like everyone told us to be because that made them feel more comfortable. But we didn't. We took the long road and there's been no regrets. We've had such an incredible journey. We're still on it. And it's so nice to see the evolution of music in our time because it's obviously skin would have had the same problem a different way. Polystyrene from x-ray specs would have had the same problem in a different way and so on so it's it's we're kind of all passing the baton and trying to unknot and untangle what's kind of been sewed wrongfully so so yeah absolutely unstitching it um your but your art speaks for itself your

music you know is what ultimately, and the two of you and the way you perform it, everything, all of it, all of it is amazing. I want to talk about the music. Your second album, Supernova, came out last year. You've been touring it nonstop. I want to talk about one track in particular, Cleopatra. Tell us what that song means to the two of you.

We wrote that around BLM and in a time where there was a lot of obviously chaos and uncertainty and we were just you know we we felt a little bit helpless around that time we wanted to inject some positivity and we all like learned a lot I think even if you realize that you didn't know that much about your culture or your history or maybe some of the things you've gone through you realize maybe that's not actually okay and that's why um we all discovered um so much about ourselves at that time and we wanted to really take the chance to just like uplift and celebrate our uniqueness and you know kind of bond together because when we're at these marches there was this sense of unity which just felt so powerful

and so loving and it was just important for us to have a song celebrating it and to lift other like women other people and like you say in some of the lyrics we would say like if you rock a different shade you come under the same umbrella it was like that unity was so important and that message for us to to get that across um because otherwise you feel like you're taking on the world and what we can do is inject some positivity in our area and that's something we try to try to do so yeah and really strong sort of um I mean the really meaningful powerful lyrics is that sort of your punk background and that political background Georgia that's coming through I think we always just set out to you know we want people

to feel empowered listening to us and because you know we grew up loving bands like Beyonce and Destiny's Child and they're like the queens of just making women feel so empowered so we can inject like the rock alt version of that of how they made us feel um you know that means we're winning so we just want people to feel fierce badass and feel like they can do anything you know well you've done it successfully I've got to talk about your friendship and your bond how did you meet so we met years and years ago um through my brother um Amy went to the same college as him so you quickly became you know the sister I never had, part of the family. And we'd do shows together, but in different bands. But we'd always book the kind of same show and move together along the circuit.

This is when I was like starting at 13 and could barely get into any of the pubs. But then one day... How did you get in? Your brother sneak you in? Literally sometimes i had to wait outside until this show was on and then go and play the show then go back outside or like hide under you know a table or something it was fun but um then we decided to write a song together and then everything just clicked we're like why haven't we done this before we're like inseparable anyway um and we did like a kind of secret handshake and was like this is the band let's be a band we're committing we committed to the band it was like a wedding

proposal it was so deep it was real oh my god I feel it I mean we can. And also, I don't know, that just made me think, of course, like boys in the band and the kind of the brotherhood of being in the band. But I don't know. There's just something about sisterhood. Sisterhood is on a whole other level. It goes so deep. And we've been a band for so long and it's just we're together all the time, but we're still so close and connected through sisterhood.

What happens when you disagree? Do you disagree? I'm not asking this question to cause a divide, by the way. I'm just intrigued to know how you work through things. We don't argue and if we disagree, yeah, obviously we'll be like, I think this or I think that but um we have trust and when it comes to like writing if one of us is like look I don't see that but also if you feel really strongly about it then we're going to go with that vision because it's about trust and

the most we ever do is just like we might go quiet for one minute but that's the only time we'll be on tour when you've been in a van for like 10 hours and one of you just go quiet and be like and just zone out in headphones out the window and that's it that's how deep as it gets yeah that's nice that's a little lesson in conflict resolution there just have a bit of time out and then come back come back to it um not Not only is your music empowering and the sisterhood that we feel from the two of you, you are also, and you're smashing stereotypes, you're also doing your bit to change the industry. You insisted that the Mobo Awards have a rock award.

Tell me about that. Yeah, we wrote an open letter to Kenya King and obviously the Mobos just addressing the wider issue that, you know, why black artists are not included in the rock and roll scene and how can we venture together to maybe shine light on the fact that there are loads of amazing artists out there doing it and maybe highlight the heritage of obviously blues rock and roll and where it actually originated from and um and Kanya was so amazing throughout

the whole thing um we wrote the open letter and we had a few meetings and she was just telling us her whole story and just she's such an inspirational woman in terms of how she's had to fight to keep the mobiles going and the certain things that she had to maybe come up against in her career and it was so not similar but we can definitely appreciate each other's journey and understand it you feel so um you understand yeah exactly and it was incredible and you know cut a long story short a year later the category came in and louis ferrou and mahalia read out the awards bob willan willan bob villain won it and that was that and now it's in there and you know it's going to be so exciting for new artists to come through and to highlight artists it's so great to see and skunk and nancy be nominated as well was like you did that the two of you did that it is wild well i feel like yeah

we're all trying to do the same thing so if we all just you know kick a few doors down some of them will open the nova twins they're in conversation with anita rani and if you missed our program from glastonbury on friday you can of course course, listen back over at BBC Sounds. A tweet here from Beth Wright-Stuff who says, the Nova Twins were absolutely superb at Download Festival this year as well and great to see them at Glastow and everywhere. So praise there for the Nova Twins who spoke to Anita over at Glastonbury. And thank you also for the many tweets you are sending in and messages on the best advice you have for women

when it comes to managing their money. Sue's advice is keep a separate bank account. And that is echoed by Rachel, who said, the best money advice I've ever been given came from my great uncle. Always have your own money. The best thing I ever did. My business is 16 years old

and I have my own money to do with as I wish. I spend it on nice food, Lego, and my solo travels. We'll get to that a little later. Do keep those messages coming in. 84844. And over on Twitter and Instagram, we are at BBC Woman's Hour. Next, it was one of the biggest scandals to rock the world of Korean pop. Four years ago, some of Korea's biggest K-pop stars and their friends were found guilty of sharing illegally filmed sex videos and

photos others of sexual abuse with unconscious women. Burning Sun is a new series for Radio 4's Intrigue podcast series and it pieces together for the first time the story that was hidden behind a facade of wholesome pop music loved by millions around the world. The series also explores the misogyny in the country that some believe is causing a crisis for South Korea. It's co-created and presented by the BBC's investigative journalist, Chloe Hajimotheo, who joins me now. Chloe, thanks for coming in. Just remind us how big the scandal was in Korea and beyond. It was huge. I mean, it was dominating the news networks for weeks and weeks in Korea and it was everywhere. I mean, we reported on it here at the BBC.

It was just astounding, really, first of all, to be able to access the private world of these out-of-reach celebrities and also to find this kind of horrific abuse and these terrible crimes being committed by these people who were really selling themselves as very wholesome, very, you know, family friendly, child friendly. These were people that are not doing drugs that in lots of lots of cases, their agencies prevent them from having relationships publicly, at least. And so they had this very, very wholesome image. And behind all of that, there were these terrible crimes going on.

The timing of this is interesting, because this all started to kick off about four years ago. Why did you decide that now was the right time to go over to South Korea and dig a bit deeper? on. The timing of this is interesting because this all started to kick off about four years ago. Why did you decide that now was the right time to go over to South Korea and dig a bit deeper? Well, so I've been wanting to do it since the story broke and it's taken a long time. And part of the reason for that is that it's incredibly difficult for somebody from the UK to go in to a country where very, very few people speak English. And also the people who brought this story out, who shed light on these crimes, very wary because they've received a lot of abuse. They've been trolled horribly, the journalists involved in this.

And of course, the victims have also been trolled, although they've all been anonymous. Stories about these sex crimes were receiving loads and loads of messages underneath, horrific, abusive messages. So everyone involved really was very, very wary. And it's taken a long time to build trust, a lot of trips to Korea, an incredibly brilliant Korean production team, without whom we wouldn't have been able to do this. And it's taken a slow process of building relationships and waiting for these people to be ready to open up to us.

So it's a hard but very important story to share. You talk about trust there and you did manage to speak to one journalist who tried to unveil this story, but it backfired. Yeah. So before the actual scandal broke, about three years before, one of the main perpetrators involved, a woman stepped forward and went to the police and made allegations against him of a very similar nature. She said he secretly filmed me during sex and she wanted to press charges. And this particular journalist picked up the story. She had an exclusive and she printed it. She published it and she was trolled horrifically.

And I, you know, I as a journalist, all of us have received some level of trolling. It kind of comes with the job. But this was on a level that I had never seen before. I mean, she received abuse for almost three years. She was getting five, six phone calls a night. She was being sent dick pics, horrific sexual messages. In that period, she had two miscarriages and she never managed to have a child and she blames the stress. She really, really suffered. And a big reason why she received so much trolling was the woman who had come forward to make these accusations dropped the charges quite quickly. She later said that she felt afraid that she might face counter lawsuits.

Lots of times women accuse men of sexual misconduct. The man can turn around and counter sue for false accusations. And so this woman was very afraid and dropped the charges. So fear are clearly a big factor in all of this. And what about the fans? I mean, was there an element of them just not wanting to believe this to be the case when it comes to their favourite singers? So we, one of the main characters in the series is a diehard fan of one of the main perpetrators, Chung Joon-young. And when this first story came out, three years before the major scandal broke, she didn't want to believe it. But when the final scandal broke, I mean, there was no denying it. The actual messages were printed that were on this mobile phone talking in horrifically derogatory terms. in Korea were horrified. These, you know, beloved stars and celebrities are now pariahs. But I would say more in the international scene, there are these diehard pockets of fans that still very much support these celebrities. And particularly Seungri, who was the biggest celebrity connected to Big Bang, one of the members of Big Bang, one of the biggest K-pop acts in the world. He still has a lot of fans who believe that in some way he was a scapegoat

because he was only ever prosecuted for one crime of one spy cam related crime. But he was prosecuted for a load of other crimes. And so they still really hold a candle for him, I think. That's really interesting. As well as a journalist, there was a whistleblower that you managed to connect with who got hold of a singer's personal mobile and which shed further light on the extent of this scandal. Yeah, that's really what kind of broke the story open, really. And this whistleblower was incredibly brave. They saw this awful abuse on this telephone and they took it to the authorities. I mean, when you think about it, and that's what really got me into the whole thing,

how many times do you get the opportunity? These celebrities are so far out of reach of public and journalists to get a celebrity's mobile phone and be able to look through the messages and to see these terrible crimes on there. So this whistleblower took it to the authorities and also the media was tipped off at some point. And to see these terrible crimes on that. So this whistleblower took it to the authorities. And also the media was tipped off at some point and started investigating. And we follow the trajectory of Kang Kyung-yoon, a journalist from SBS, who went through over a period of months unpicking each of these messages. Months and months worth of messages on a phone, loads of videos, loads of photos, horrific abuse. And she was the one that really brought the story out. And that must have

been extremely difficult for her as well. Because again, that fear factor plays into it, I imagine. Definitely. And you know, these stars in the beginning, there was quite a lot of kind of, you know, these stars were massive, you know, a lot of fear of like, can I really bring these people down? They're huge. She's an entertainment journalist, but it's not kind of frivolous entertainment journalism, because entertainment in Korea is a big business with a lot of money behind it. And so she's really looking for stories about corruption, and, you know, abuse and all of this kind of stuff. She was very, very brave. And she's faced years of trolling as well. She's still being trolled, to be honest, right now. You visited a rehab centre for people who have been spy camming. Can you tell us about

that experience? Yes. So the Korean government for years now has been running this rehabilitation course and criminals... Spy cammers, which is incredible. Well, it's for sexual abuse. So criminals who have been prosecuted for any kind of sexual crime. Of which spy camming is a massive factor. Of which spy camming is one, have to undergo this rehabilitation. And we interviewed one of the women who set the course up, who still delivers it.

And it was really fascinating because that's where you really get a chance to say, what's going on here? You know, why are these crimes happening? And it was very interesting. She said, you know, I speak to men who have raped women because they think that's the way to get intimate with a woman. And I have to explain that's not how intimacy works. And she said to me that she believes that a lot of young Korean men, and this was actually corroborated by some young men that I spoke to, their education, their sex education consists of pornography. And in Korea, pornography is illegal. And a lot of the sites that people reach through VPNs were mainly spy cam illegal pornography. And so that's the way that young men are educated into sex.

And this causes loads and loads of social problems. Thank you so much for shedding some more light on that story. That is Chloe Hajimotheo, whose new series is out on BBC Sounds. It is called The Burning Sun over on Radio 4. And the first episode will broadcast from tonight on Radio 4 at 8pm. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for your time.

My next guest is Caroline O'Donoghue. She's written six novels. First two are for adults, then a young adult trilogy called All Our Hidden Gifts. Her new novel is The Rachel Incident, and Rachel is looking back to herself in Cork in Ireland in 2010. She's in her early 20s at university. She's in love with her professor, working in a bookshop, trying to work out who she is, and then she meets her soulmate. Caroline has just swapped suits with Chloe to chat with me now. Good to have you here, Caroline. Good morning. How are you?

I'm very well. Thanks for coming in with those fab, extraordinary boots that you are wearing half this day. Glowing the dark blue. Sadly, they're under the table even though they are the main event. I need to have a pink. Here we go. Fantastic. Glowing the dark neon blue. Perfect for this weather as well. Exactly. When you're going on Women's

Hour, you need something to give you a little bit of oomph, a little bit of confidence. It doesn't matter that it's radio. It doesn't matter. Look, we talk a going on Women's Hour, you need something to give you a little bit of oomph, a little bit of confidence. It doesn't matter that it's radio. It doesn't matter. Look, we talk a lot on Women's Hour about friendship between women. In this book, the friendship, the key friendship is between Rachel and James. And it's central to this book. Tell us about it. Thank you for asking. So Rachel Murray is, you know, a young woman. It's a flashback novel, really. So it's told from the perspective of Rachel, who's in her mid-30s in the present day,

who has a run-in from somebody from her old college back in UCC in Cork, and who says to her, do you know what's happening with Dr. Byrne, our old English professor? And then the thought that Rachel has that plunges her back into the past is, how can I tell this person that, despite popular myth around Cork at the time,

that I was not sleeping with Dr. Byrne? And so it's kind of, you know, there's lots of novels about what happens when you sleep with your English professor. This is about what happens when they don't sleep with you and they sleep with your best friend instead. And in that case, this is James Devlin, her best mate, who when she meets him during a Christmas temp shift at a bookshop, where they're both working, he's in the closet. He's, you know, he just, he's effervescent and

wonderful and charismatic and magical, but, you know, very clear to everybody around him. Like, yeah, he's, he's obviously gay. And he's, no, no, no, no, very much straight. And they have the first kind of argument about that fact. And then she sort of, you know, they move in together very quickly. They fall deeply in love. And the whole novel is about their mutual kind of burgeoning sexualities and what they do with that and what they do with the shame around that too. And I really wanted to, because you're right, there has been an enormous amount of novels in the last few years

and, you know, TV shows and all that about the power of female friendship. And far be it for me to underestimate the power of female friendship. But I also think that we are used to seeing relationships between gay men and straight women as being, they're depicted very frequently in culture, but not with a great deal of depth. And it's always like a very like, oh, you know, they're sort of accessories to one another

and they'll both ditch each other as soon as the man comes along or whatever. And this, you know, relationship I think is far more worth examining than it is before because I think crucially, sorry, I think crucially straight women have to offer a lot of faces to the world that are masks. You know, it's we have to, to our boyfriends or our love interests, we have to be a certain kind of properness. We can't find ourselves too interesting. We can't find ourselves too beautiful. We have to wait to be called that or declared that. And, you know, we can't be too sort of self satisfied that way or whatever. With gay men, they have to present a face to the world that is,

oh, I know I'm gay, but I'm not that kind of gay man, for their own safety. And sometimes because they feel like they have to uphold a kind of a cultural idea of, OK, I'm bit camp, but I'm not this camp kind of thing. Well, you bring those two personalities together really nicely. The third central character is Dr. Byrne, as you mentioned. I don't want to give away too much, But there is this power imbalance at play there. And there's lots to be said about a

young person who is slightly lost and becoming emotionally attached to an older person who isn't their parent. Yeah, I think it's huge. I think it's a huge moment. And perhaps everybody has it when you first make a friend who you feel like is really of your parents' generation, but they're your friend, you know, and it's a great tradition, sort of the campus novel, you know, in literature. And always there has to be kind of an English professor. It's always an English professor

who's kind of a little bit too involved with their, you know, their students' lives, whether it's conversations with friends with Sally Rooney or The Secret History by Donna Tartt or even Brideshead Revisited or, you know, it's a big tradition. I think a lot of that is to do, those conversations are always about younger generations who are in flux and who are looking ahead to their adult lives and wondering what kind of life they can aim for, what feels out of reach and clinging on to, I think the professor exists as like a stage before parenthood that

feels tangible and real and and touchable and sadly far too many of them it becomes far too touchable. Caroline this book is incredibly open and when I say open it's open about identity about money but also about sex. Rachel talks openly throughout the book about how much she enjoys sex who she enjoys sex with the best sex he's had or otherwise um and that felt refreshing to read almost oh I'm so glad that you thought that that's my takeaway well what I love about Rachel is you know she's six foot tall she's a grand horse of a girl like she's a big big she's a big girl um and you know this year that we're meeting her she's probably I my vision of her in my head is that she's kind of got a bit of a beer belly. She's bursting out of her clothes a little bit. You know, her hair is never cut and probably never washed. Her clothes don't really fit her properly. And she is having the most passionate sex with her life with the man who's from Derry, a head shorter than her and probably has a shower once a week. And I think that's how sex should look and feel

on the page. That's how I remember when I was that age. That's how it sort of looked and felt for me. And it's joyful. And I feel like we are. You know what? I saw that new film with Jennifer Lawrence in it called No Hard Feelings. And in that film, it's comedy, sex comedy. She goes full frontal and it's completely played for laughs. And I remember I wanted to clap because even though it's only a kind of an average movie, I was like, I'm so sick of female nudity and female desire and sex as being played for something for high drama. I feel like the whole generation of creators who have forgotten that sex is primarily had for fun. Like, that's why we do it. Well, you drive that message home well and clear in this book.

You also have a lot of empathy for men in this book. I mean, Rachel has a partner who, in many ways to the reader comes across as an unreliable man, but you dig a bit deeper and make us recognise it's not as simple as that. Yes, his name is Kerry, and I'm a bit in love with him. He's kind of, I'd say he's sort of a pinch of every man I've ever been truly in love with and put in a Nutribullet and made this little pocket rocket of a dairy man. Who he's, you know, at the beginning of the book, it's very easy to diagnose him

as like a ghoster or, you know, sort of a player or whatever because he's, you know, when he's with her, he's present and when he's not, he's absolutely on the wind and she never knows

what he's thinking or what he's doing and he doesn't respond to her texts and all that. And as contemporary readers, we think, oh God, throw him out with the rubbish or whatever.

But the more you get into it, the more you realise that she only depends on her emotional needs for her best friend. She only really cares about what he thinks of her and she keeps all of her true self

back from her boyfriend. And the boyfriend is not an idiot and he feels this distance and he's like, well, she doesn't really want much from me that I don't really want much from her. And then they kind of have this distance. But what I really wanted to highlight there is that I think we're so quick to diagnose men in fiction, and in real life, as psychopaths rather than human beings, you know, people who can sense distance and respond to it.

And multi-layered as well. Carolyn carolyn i know you take issue with the idea that women's fiction needs to be based on either the author or another true life experience and and in in this case it's not entirely drawn from your own life but just expand on that a bit more i find it irks so much it doesn't it doesn't irk me i think this is this um novel quite joyfully i mean if you see the front cover of it and you've seen a picture of my face also, you'll think, is that her? You know, it's interesting. I think novels always play with truth. And I think over the last few years, we've kind of memorised this pat line, which is like, oh, you know, don't assume that novels are drawn from someone's life. And you shouldn't assume that, but also don't discount that some wonderful novels,

for example, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, are drawn from elements of real life. And that is a real skill to take that. So in my case, I really did grow up in Cork. I really did meet my best friend who was in the closet at the time, working in retail during a Christmas shift. And absolutely everything else is made up. But what's real is the emotional and truth and how we lived and the gigs we went to and that kind of stuff. I wanted to capture that joy and put it on the page. And that felt important to me. And, you know, why not? Thank you so much, Caroline. Thank you. Absolute pleasure to have you here in the studio about your new book, The Rachel Incident, which is out now.

Good to have you here. Glad to be here. Thanks. Right. Now, we all have to think about money especially in testing financial times and for some women getting the right advice especially when it comes to large amounts of wealth can be difficult the uk's wealth management industry has traditionally been male dominated only 16 of financial advisors are women according to data released by the Financial Conduct Authority last year. And a recent survey by the firm Schroders shows that only 5% of

financial advisors have a differentiated strategy for attracting and retaining female clients. Now, financial experts are saying that the industry needs to change to better meet the needs of a growing sector of wealthy women. I'm here with financial planner Sarah Ruffsege. She started Either Wealth, a wealth management firm for women. I'm also here with the entrepreneur Tamara Gillen, who sought financial advice after going through a divorce, and her experience led her to create a network called Wealthy Her,

which aims to help wealthy women take control of their financial futures and advise wealth managers on how to better tailor their services to women. Thank you for being here, both of you. Good morning. Good morning. Tamara, let me start with you. What was it that made you realise there was a problem with how wealth was being managed when it comes to women? I think that one of the things that I became very aware of is when I asked my female friends, who do you recommend? Not many people could recommend someone. Also, when you get married, you know, you go through a relationship that suddenly you find yourself with a divorce lawyer. But actually, why didn't we talk about the finances and how we'd split things if we were to get divorced how would we do you know set things up for my son and and his future education and actually just lack of an awareness personally but also amongst my female friends when I started talking to them and I went to see some wealth advisors and just didn't really feel that they sort of understand me the things that I was really motivated by I was an independent woman I'm always

had businesses but in fact setting things up to my, you know, for my son is so emotional as it is for all women. And yet I was talking to someone that just didn't understand my kind of deep seated emotions. And why did you in the first instance want to go to see someone who could help you manage your money specifically? Because I had property. So I'd had property. And that's where'd, that's been where I'd invested my sort of assets prior to getting married. And I think that women generally love to invest in property because it's a tangible asset. We understand it's less, you know, it's less sort of remote than other forms of investment. And I just thought, should I sell everything up to sort of buy out my ex-husband or should I keep some of my property? How should I do this? Should I invest differently? What choices do I have? And so I really just wanted this really practical advice. But actually, I wanted someone to understand what was driving that advice and all those decisions. And I just didn't feel that I was getting it.

I also, I was married for a short time and I don't think I looked after my, protected myself through that relationship. So I thought I want to set up a network that understands women, helps women have these complex conversations, but more importantly changes the way the finance industry talks to women. Sarah, is this something that you can relate to?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think for me, my initial experience of finance, I came into the world of finance when I was out of university and seeing my experience, feeling what I felt, I'd walk into world of finance when I was out of university. And seeing my experience, feeling what I felt, I'd walk into a room with, oh, goodness, so many men who were in grey suits, sort of, I don't want to pin an age on them too much, but you know, around sort of 60. And I was the only woman and I was the only person under the age of 30, really in the room at that time. And it was just so intimidating and I just thought

well if if that's intimidating for me what's it like for everybody else out there for every other woman trying to seek financial advice so yeah definitely my experience too. Yeah yeah Tamara what kind of dilemmas quick queries questions do people women come to you with? Everything from how do I talk to a loved one about money actually is really difficult. And that's everything from my parents. You know, my parents are getting older. You know, do my parents have things in the right order? How do they have those conversations? And it's, you know, I remember having it with my dad, who's 87.

And I would go upstairs and he'd have on his forehead, do not resuscitate. And I'd be like, Dad, I'm not trying to see you off. Does mum, you know, does she have signatory rights? Probate is a terrible thing. It can lock things down for six months a year. If you don't have things in the right order, it will impact mum. And it's not about my mother saying, well, I don't want to upset your father. And he's always been the businessman. And so it's really emotional for people. And that almost sounds like the financial needs and concerns specifically of women in that sense might differ to an extent to men's.

Absolutely. I mean, if you talk to men, you know, I do, I research thousands of men and women and men will say it's about the financial success. I want to see my wealth grow. I want to see it grow in numbers. And for women, it's either about freedom for herself, like it gives me independence, security and comfort for myself and my loved ones, my children's education, a woman will invest in her child's education over her pension every time. So in fact, for women, it's really different. It's deeply, deeply emotional. Yeah, very different. Sarah, can I put this to you? We've had an email in from a listener who says, I've just tuned tuned in i'm hearing that you're doing this uh section i would agree that i don't have the confidence to invest i've looked into different options about what to do with my savings when i know that i could be earning more somewhere else for example she talks about the amount she has

she says i've got ten thousand pounds which i would like to invest in but in what i'm 40 next year so my take on money savings is very different to when I was in my 20s my husband is an excellent saver but I want to invest for myself and that's key first of all on the subject of confidence confidence in women is so much lower and I think it starts right from a young age we don't educate our children well enough and certainly our girls and I think that the number of people that I've spoken to that have maybe come through university and they are wanting to start on the same level footing as men and there's this sense that as women we start off behind men we're always playing catch up and I think if we educate our girls better they start off with a much better position to

be able to you know move their future forwards and then just providing more information in a way that women can digest better it's just there's so much jargon and there's so much mistrust as well where do you turn to who can you trust to go to for information it's it's a really difficult field for people yeah and when it comes to I mean I'm not asking you to give her direct advice, but the options for women when it comes to investments, a lot of the jargon will just go over their head. Where do they start? Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? And there's, you've got traditional wealth managers, and they operate obviously in a space where you have to

have large amounts of money to invest, which leaves people with smaller amounts to invest, self-investing and having to make those own decisions themselves and having to research that themselves. And I think this is where we need to educate better to provide more information, and we need to do much more as an industry. And does that need to come from women specifically, women for women? I don't think it has to, but I think women get women.

Like Tamara was saying, actually, our journeys are different, our needs are different, our desires are different. The way we think is different. And I think actually women get women. And that's not the only way. You know, men get women too. But I think we have a unique opportunity to help other women in similar situations to our own. You know, given that we are in a time of a cost of living crisis, you know, food costs are rocketing, mortgages are skyrocketing. There'll be people listening to this who say, I don't have savings. I don't have anything to invest.

I mean, why does this matter? What would you say to them? I would say information is key. Someone said to me, Emily from Vestpod, the founder of Vestpod, she said to me, look at your subscriptions. Are there things that you subscribe to that you don't really, really use? And she said, just add those up. Is it £100? Is it, you know, and actually, and it was little digital subscriptions to things I don't

regularly use anymore. So are there places where you are spending money that you can make savings and make investments? There are things when I look now at my son's education, where I wish I'd just started that hundred when he was born, because it would put me in a very different position. So I think there are things where we don't have a perception that we have money. And I certainly feel that we are all feeling that right now. But are there little incremental changes you can make and are there smarter ways of doing things? Similarly, speaking to an advisor myself, I have a repayment mortgage. Can you go on an interest only mortgage for the next couple of years because of the interest rates where they are?

I do not know if it's a good idea. Again, don't expect you to tell me live, but actually just looking and, again, that information is key and thinking about can you make adjustments to make it all possible and make the most savvy choice. And conversely, there are women who are wealthy and they need advice on how to manage their investments, their inheritance, however they might have come into their wealth. And I wonder whether you both think that wealthy

women in the public eye, I mean, people say that Akshata Murthy, Rishi Sunak's wife, she has come under a lot of scrutiny regarding her wealth. Do you think wealthy women are treated differently to wealthy men? It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah, lots of food for thought there um i certainly think that um wealthy women are on the rise whether that's through inheritance or you've got more um more business owners that are females these days and i think that's brilliant um i think a study tomorrow that you've done is it shows that the um investors into women's businesses is much lower. So 2% of all investment goes into female entrepreneurs, yet they start 150,000 incorporated last year, record numbers of businesses, you know, 2% of funding. So yeah, so it'd be fascinating to understand that.

Go ahead. I was going to say, I think that we also know that looking at confidence, which we were talking about, if women generally, not all women, if you've inherited your wealth or you've accessed your wealth through partnership, you have the least levels of confidence overall and the least levels of financial confidence. And when you ask women, why is that? It's because I didn't make it. I don't feel I can make it back if something goes wrong, particularly in tough economic times. So giving women, you know, it is, you're not a pariah, you have accessed this wealth, you have

inherited or you've accessed it through partnership, taking control of it and knowing what to do with it. And I think is a big opportunity for women. In the last 30 seconds, your top advice for women when it comes to women and their money. Sarah first. Don't be afraid to ask questions and search around and someone will be there that will click with you and will be able to advise you on your journey. I think there are increasing sources of information, events, organisation, go to those because we all learn from each other as well. Ask questions of each other, start talking about it with your female friends. If you know something, share that information. Thank you so much, both of you for coming on to Women's Hour here. Sarah Ruff said she started Either Wealth, a wealth management firm,

and also Tamara Gillan, who herself sought advice after going through her divorce and now created a network called Wealthy Her. Thank you both for coming in to Women's Hour. Thank you to all of you for sending in your messages and all of the stories we've been covering. That conversation continues over at BBC Women's Hour and on BBC Sounds. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Women's Hour and on BBC Sounds. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Women's Hour

over at BBC Sounds. Jason Manford here. And I'm Steve Edge. We just wanted to tell you about our new podcast from Radio 4 on BBC Sounds. Best Men, it's called. And it's all about

one of the most important jobs a fella can face in his lifetime, being a best man. We were each other's best men, weren't we? So we know all about the pressures of this honourable but daunting and all-consuming role. In this podcast we'll be meeting the people who've succeeded

in helping their best pal through the most important day of their lives. And, crucially, those that have failed. Hearing some unbelievable stories of stag-do disasters, of speeches that have silenced the room, and about friendships that were never quite the same afterwards. We'll also be trying to help those going through this particular trauma

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From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.