Woman's Hour - #NunsToo, Onlyness, Black female professors

Episode Date: February 9, 2019

Pope Francis has for the first time publicly acknowledged the scandal of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns. Rocio Figueroa, a theologian and lecturer and Doris Reisinger Wagner tell us their experience in a discussion with Sister Sharlet Wagner, a sister of the Holy Cross and the current President of The Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States.The Football Association should increase the Women’s FA Cup Prize Fund according to Charlie Dobres from Lewes FC, the only football club to pay their men and women teams equally. He's joined by sports writer Anna Kessel to tell us why.We discuss Onlyness – when you’re the only person with a certain characteristic, perspective or life experience in a group – usually a work setting. Chloe Davies Executive Officer at UK Black Pride and Chloe Chambraud Gender Equality Director at the Prince’s Responsible Business Network discuss.The writer Lucy-Anne Holmes tells us about her book Don’t Hold My Head Down where she explores her sexuality and looks at improving her sex life.Southeastern Trains wants more women to become train drivers. It’s launched a campaign to get 40% of applicants to be women by 2021. We hear from their Services Director, Ellie Burrows and from Kelly-Joe Ballard who has been a train driver for two years.Bullying and stereotyping of black female academics is stopping them from progressing at UK Universities according to a new report. We hear from Gina Higginbottom an emeritus professor of Ethnicity and Community Health at the University of Nottingham and Dr Nicola Rollock a reader in Equity and Education at Goldsmiths, University of London, who carried out the research. Catherine Simpson on her memoir, Once I Had a Little Sister - about suicide, loss and how it felt to come from a family who never spoke about their feelings.Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed Edited by Jane Thurlow

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. Hi, good afternoon. Welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. And this week, we mark the fact that for the first time, the Catholic Church has acknowledged that priests have abused nuns. We'll discuss the concept of onlyness, and you can hear from Lucy Ann Holmes, the woman who founded the No More Page Three campaign, about exploring her sexuality and her sense of self. I didn't come out of the womb hating my bottom. You know, I wasn't there as a toddler moaning about, you know, the shape of my thighs. I've learnt this. I've got this from somewhere. So I started, yes, I started to really think, you know, how that had developed. Lucy-Anne Holmes, more from her later in the programme. You can hear too from the author Catherine Simpson, who will discuss her memoir,

When I Had a Little Sister, which is about her sister Tricia and her suicide, and why the career progression of black women in academia seems to be being blocked at some UK universities. One woman spoke, for example, about having her hand up for half an hour before the chair of the meeting, a white male, turned to her. Someone else talked about being mistaken for the student rep instead of actually acknowledging her role as a professor. That's the voice of Dr Nicola Rollock and we'll return to that issue later in the programme. First of all, Pope Francis has acknowledged for the first time in public this week that the long-rumoured scandal of the sexual

abuse of nuns by Roman Catholic priests and bishops is indeed true. Jenny spoke this week to Sister Charlotte Wagner, the President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States, and to two former nuns and survivors of sexual abuse. Doris Reisinger Wagner is German and she decided to become a nun when she was just 19. Rocio Figuero is a theologian and lecturer born in Peru, now living in New Zealand. She told Jenny how her abuse started. I was 15 years old and it began with the founder asked me to begin a spiritual direction with a vicar and he became my spiritual director. And after months of gaining my trust,

he asked me and some young men to bring our sports gear and to study some yoga. And after some group sessions, he moved into personal sessions. And he said to me that he will teach me exercises that will help to develop my self-mastery and control over my sexuality. I was 15, very naive, very young and no prior sexual experience. So he began touching me all over. And I thought, no, that cannot be him. He's a superior. He's a good person. I am thinking wrongly. He was good. I was the evil one. So what I felt during these exercise sessions must be my fault. I felt very guilty and disorientated. And the sexual

abuse, he never raped me, but he absolutely committed sexual abuse in my regard. And Doris, what happened in your case? I would say that before I was sexually abused, I was spiritually abused. So I didn't have a possibility to choose my confessor freely. I was not allowed to read books. There were no personal friendships between sisters, so I was not allowed to speak to anybody about personal matters and so on. And that all affected me in a way, you know. I lost my self-confidence and I became very, very weak in a way.

And five years into this, there was the male superior of the house who began to approach me. Whenever I was working on my own, he would come into the room and just stand beside me and talk. And eventually he would hug me. And at some point, he just came into my room in the evening and started to undress me and rape me. It sounds as though, classically, you were being groomed. Yeah, that's exactly what happened, yeah. And at what point, Doris, did you realize that you were being abused? Well, actually, you know, as soon as he started to address me, that was a shock.

And I understood what was going to happen and said I couldn't believe it. But I knew that that was not right. He was not allowed to do this. I was unable to think about what I wanted or didn't want because for years I was trained not to think about what I want and what I don't want, but I knew it wasn't right. And I definitely didn't want it to happen. But I was completely convinced he is a priest. This is my vocation. This is a sacred community

with papal approval. It was impossible, you know. I just was unable to understand that abuse was happening in this world, in this perfect world where I was living in. So it took years until I really understood that what had happened was actually rape and it was abuse and it was not right and that I could speak out about it. Rocio, at what point did you realise that something very wrong was happening? Well, after months happening these terrible exercises, I felt so badly and I just got ill. And I said to him, please stop because I think this is not right. And he really stopped because I was really firm, but the damage was already done. But I couldn't say it was an

abuse in those times. I blame myself. And for years and years, I had a very low self-esteem and guilt and confusion and very defensive. And after 20 years, I needed 20 years, but I always was with all those thoughts and problems. Just after, yeah, 20 years, when I went to Rome, a priest, a very good man, talked to me and asked me, Rocio, why are you so defensive with men? As I saw him, that he was a good person, I told him what happened to me. And I think I was already prepared, mature enough to face what had happened to me. And he said, Rocio, that was sexual abuse. You are a victim. And for the first time, I realised when I was

40 years old, that I was a victim of sexual abuse. And what impact has this had on your faith? Well, it had a strong impact. First of all, because I questioned everything, questioning the General Vicar, and then then realizing that there were more victims, it had an incredible impact because the people I trust, the ones who were representing God, were fake, were not real. I felt abandoned, confused, abandoned by God and betrayed. And then little by little, I tried to purify my faith and say, OK, my faith is in Jesus, not in the people. And I asked God to help me. And thank God my faith didn't come from this institution.

My faith came from my family and from my mother, that they were very good people. Sister Charlotte, at what point did you become aware that this kind of abuse was happening? My earliest awareness was as, I would say, a very young sister. I was temporarily professed, so I had just made first vows, and I was missioned to Uganda. And I can remember talking with a doctor from, I believe she was from Holland, who ministered at the local Catholic hospital. And she talked about seeing young women who had come to her for a physical, they had to have a physical exam before entering a religious congregation.

And she had seen young women who were HIV positive, in some cases were pregnant. And the women who had these issues would pretty much tell the same story that they had to get a letter of recommendation from the parish priest to enter the religious congregation, and the parish priest would demand sexual favors in exchange for the letter of recommendation. In talking to the sisters in my own congregation who had been there much longer and were perpetually professed, they said they had made the decision to stop requiring those letters of recommendation from the parish priest because they had heard that this was happening in some instances. And that was my earliest awareness of it. How widespread would you say this abuse has

been? Geographically, I would say around the world. I don't doubt that the abuse has occurred in every country. Africa and Asia are probably the biggest areas, but that doesn't mean it hasn't occurred in other areas. Both Rocio and Doris experienced it in other parts of the world. And why would you say it has been happening to such a degree? There are probably a number of reasons. I believe the culture of secrecy is one, that it is possible for these stories are not coming out or have not been coming out in a way that would be helpful. I was talking to a member of the clergy a few weeks ago about the sexual abuse, and his view was that it was a combination of a sense of entitlement plus opportunity.

And so I believe part of the issue is that sense of entitlement on the part of some in the clergy, the culture, the clericalism, plus the opportunity that presents itself when you have very young, I think both Rocio and Doris talked about how young they were and somewhat naive. And the priest is able to play on that naivete, that youthfulness, and that sense that the priest is someone who should not be questioned. He's a good man. He's a holy man. So it gives a tremendous opportunity. But what do you want to see the Vatican do to expose and punish those responsible and protect vulnerable young nuns? I want to see some systemic change so that priests and bishops are held accountable. commission made up of women religious, clergy and laity, really studying this issue and recommending concrete changes, not a commission that comes out with a study that's set aside, but makes concrete recommendations that the Vatican then puts into effect. And I believe

it's critical that women be included in the reforms and included in more than just a token role. If there are only clergy around the table, the issue is seen through that lens. Women have a different perspective. We need these differing perspectives around the table. Clearly, one of the things that needs to happen is accountability for priests and for bishops who are accused. Right now, I believe the Vatican leaves it to the individual diocese to deal with the issue. That's not enough. The Vatican needs to step in and really take some strong action.

I can talk about things congregations can do of women religious to help educate young sisters, help teach them what to do when they're approached, not put them in situations of vulnerability. And I believe that needs to happen, but that puts the onus on the religious congregation. And we need to get to a culture such that the congregation doesn't need to protect the sister. Doris, what would you want a young, vulnerable nun to know if she was entering a religious life now? Well, first of all, I would wish that there are no young vulnerable nuns,

but that every nun in every continent on this earth knows that she is somebody, that she has rights, and that the ideal of her life is not to be completely selfless. This ideal of selflessness and always smile and always be there for others and never have own wishes, this has to go. And I wish that the Vatican would promote a different ideal of religious life and would support women and women communities who want to build up and form and shape a new ideal according to which every young sister can live, that she knows she has rights and that her superiors defend her and support her in becoming a strong and self-determined individual. And, Rocio, what do you want to see?

Well, really, I think the change has to be profound systemic change because it's not about just we need to protect the victims, but also we have a system that has enabled the abuse. We have to rethink priesthood. It's now a separated, elitist, exalted group of people. Women in the church, unfortunately, we are citizens of second class. And so the abuse will continue because it's not just a sexual abuse, it's financial dependency of young sisters, it's financial dependency of congregations, it's the inferior position of women that have been educated for centuries to see themselves as inferior, subservient and they have to obey the priest. So if we don't change all the culture in the church, the problems will continue. Rossio Figueroa, Doris Reisinger Wagner and Sister Charlotte Wagner.

We did approach the Vatican press office for a response. Their response on Thursday was that the statement's being prepared. I'm sure the statement will reach us eventually. Lewis Football Club is the only football club paying their women's team the same as their men's. Now they're after something else. They want the FA to increase the Women's FA Cup prize fund. The total for men's teams is over £30 million.

For women, it's a quarter of a million. The FA does make quite a lot of its for-all strategy and it says it does recognise a significant disparity and they say they're doing what they can to make progress. Anna Kessel is a sports writer. Charlie Dobrez is from Lewis Football Club. We wrote this open letter, and we were very careful and clear to be very respectful to the FA. They set up a fantastic separate FA women's group in the FA, and they are doing an awful lot. And we've come a long way in the last few years, and they've invested £18 million in the game plan for growth. So that is very good.

I think what we're saying, though, is that some people say to us, well, be careful what you're doing. It's like you're trying to rock the boat. And actually, we're just saying you're going to need a bigger boat because the opportunity is huge, and it's now. And that is our frustration that's coming through. So we love what the FA is huge and it's now and that is our frustration that's coming through. So we love what the FA is doing. We just think when we look around the world at attendances and so forth, the opportunity is huge. What is the FA doing? And the FA does have, and it's a genuine strategy for all,

there is no doubt that women are playing football in ever greater numbers. Young girls are starting to play it and they're keeping at it, which is brilliant. But where is it all going wrong? Well, I think where it's going wrong is this kind of acceptance that women earn 1% of what men earn is OK. Because if you talked about that in any other industry, they'd be outraged.

You know, this is worse than space exploration, construction industry, politics, medicine. It's arguably the worst gender pay gap in the world. And yet we just accept it because we say, well, men have huge followings. It's a game that's grown, feeds itself, brings in its own revenue. And the women's game doesn't. And we don't look at the reasons behind that. The historical reasons?

The historical reasons. The FA, who are doing good things now in the last five to ten years, are the same organisation that banned the women's game for 50 years and then left it out to dry for another 40. Yeah that was banned in what was the year it was banned I should know this? 1921 when 53,000 were going to watch women's football so it's very popular. Charlie do you know about that don't you about women's football being banned? Oh yes. Yeah but I wonder how many members of the general public do. I think they don't. I think that we go around and give talks wherever we can under our Equality FC banner,

which is the equal pay banner that we use. And I have to say that the one thing that causes an absolute deathly hushed jaw-dropping moment in the room is when we explain that women's football was, on December 5th, 1921, after a 15-minute meeting, banned by the then FA. then fa and people go no seriously because you know what someone needs to put that write a play about that or something good idea yeah good good well i think you know while waiting for someone to write a play because obviously that

can take some time yeah what we're thinking is the opportunity is is right now and i just wanted to give a little analogy is is that you know a lot of the pushback we hear online from men on this is saying, you know, your gates aren't very big, the this and that, the media coverage, the sponsorship. Well, can I just put that? I mean, obviously the gates aren't. I mean, you tell me. Yeah, but there's an answer to that. Okay, well, go on. Although, again, you know, in Spain, Atletico Bilbao play Atletico Madrid in the main men's stadium and get 48,000 the weekend before last. Last, in the weekend before last we're just talking about latent demand but let me just address this specifically this isn't an argument that says we

want you know women's foot wants to be rewarded for what's happening now this is an argument that says guys because it's mostly guys you're missing a huge investment opportunity and the best analogy we can think of so far is that your coca-cola sitting there in atlanta in the you know the late 70s and 80s and the rest of it and 1982 they introduced diet coke now coca-cola earned almost all of their money that time from coca-cola uh in the same way they have to get their money from the men's fa cup but coca-cola decide we've got this huge mature product which is now about as big as it can get yeah but here's an investment opportunity if we we put money behind Diet Coke, read women's football, look what we can do.

Well, look what happened. Diet Coke is now up to the same levels as Coke in sales. This is an investment opportunity. Anna, do you think the FAA are going to change and cave in at all? Because they would say, we've made huge progress already. What more do you want us to do? I think we have to be careful here not to wait for the numbers. You know, people say oh

well once once enough people are watching women's football once enough sponsorship are on board then then it will all happen look at america the women's national team out far out more successful than the men earn more bring in more get bigger gate receipts uh smash the record for television viewings millions but they earned less than the men even though the men went out um you know a couple of rounds into the world cup and the women won it they still earned less so even when they bring in the money there's that cultural shift that needs to happen anna kessel and charlie dobres and an email here from claire women do not need to be paid more to play football men need to be paid much much less it is immoral in a country that thinks that home

carers should get the minimum wage to look after our most sick and vulnerable people, while others become multi-millionaires by kicking a ball. The world has gone mad. Claire, I'm sure you probably speak for many. Now, the term onlyness was coined relatively recently, in 2017, actually, by an American Indian academic, Nolifar Merchant. It's the phenomenon of how it feels to be the only person with a particular characteristic. It usually applies to the work setting, though not always. It can apply to a woman because of her gender, because she's a mother, perhaps, her ethnicity or her general background. Chloe Chambrough is the Gender Equality Director at the Prince's Responsible Business Network.

Chloe Davis is the Executive Officer at UK Black Pride. So why does being the only person of any sort matter? For a lot of reasons. I think for myself, sometimes it's for the representation. You find yourself in situations where you wouldn't necessarily have access to spaces or as your career grows, as mine has, especially being a woman of colour who's also bisexual and a mother. It ticks so many boxes that actually I think sometimes onlyness becomes out of laziness. OK, can you just tell me where it was in your working life or any other part of your life actually where you felt the most only? I think it happens quite a lot, I'll be really honest. Still? So, you know, it started, I went to a very good school. You know, I'm thankful for my education. But in a year of 66, there were only five other women of colour in my year so you end up becoming sometimes the only representation

just for seven years of schooling. And then people make judgements about... And then people make judgements based on what you look like, what you sound like as you then go into the workplace and again I've been very successful in my career but sometimes being the only woman within a situation, being the only woman of colour. Funnily enough, my mother worked in retail for 35 years and was one of the only department managers who were a woman and black. And that's what she'd been known for.

And she knew that. Yeah. And so from the other side, you do end up, I guess, kind of playing that card because you know what it's like for other people who look and identify like you. And I think that I found, especially I was saying earlier to a friend, being in a situation where, you know, you've stepped into a role because the representation is so important and not recognising what that means to other people. You know, I had a young man who was talking about his life experiences on Twitter and I said, you know, thank you for sharing. And he turned around and said, no, actually, thank you for the work that you're doing. And it was then that I really realised that actually to him

and to others who look like me, being in this space of onlyness is so important because actually they have someone else that they can identify with. And I know for myself and especially I think being part of UK Black Pride and especially working alongside you know someone like Lady Phil is actually having that representation and now having a tribe because like you said onlyness can get incredibly lonely. Yeah I was going to ask you Chloe what about you and what do you do at the Prince's Responsible Business Network is what what does that do? So business in the community is an organization that helps businesses be more responsible and create healthy

communities right it's part of the prince's trust prince charles's yes it's one of the prince's charities and we help employers be better and more inclusive especially in the workplace because it's very important to have diversity in the workplace but it can't just be a tick box exercise because otherwise you won't benefit from having diverse people in the room and diverse women in the room. Does that message still have to be sold? Hasn't everybody got it yet? Well no I wish. Well the thing, companies know they need to have diversity. What they don't necessarily do is to have an inclusive culture that underpins that. Because diversity without inclusion, and inclusion is the inclusive behaviors,

it's listening to people in meeting, creating psychological safety. It's not asking women to make coffee when they enter the meeting room, even though they might be the most senior in the room. It's all those behaviours that we can all do that will make a difference. So you can have the best processes and policies in place unless you've got an inclusive culture. It's not going to work. And women are more likely to want to leave your organisation.

Right. I mean, what's your experience of that been actually, Chloe Dovey? I've actually left a couple of organisations simply because the tick box actually becomes a bit too much and so sometimes you actually the knock-on effect of what that means to you as a person singularly you know when you like I said I tick a lot of boxes and especially in the community work that I do you know you find sometimes I sit on panels and I look to my right and have a look and see who else is on the panel with me and actually I am the only you know woman of ethnicity I am the only woman sometimes I'm the only mother it just lumps you with a whole load of responsibility and you

can see where somebody's just gone oh well in her package we've got everything that we need yeah and so that's why I say it does come down to laziness because actually there are many other women there are many other mothers there are many other bisexual women but when you're talking to marginalized groups you very much like myself women of color lgbt you actually have to go to them now now it's not that they're not going to come to you it's about that visibility you actually have to do the work and so you know that's part and parcel of I think what I'm so proud of of doing my community work with people I work with is actually taking it to those other people. Chloe Davis and Chloe Chambrough. Now on this week's Late Night Woman's Hour podcast which

is available now Emma Barnett is your host and she discusses Cardi B's and City Girls video to their track Twerk. Here she is in a little chunky extract, joined by Ellen Coyne from The Times, Zoe Strimple, the gender historian, and the presenter of Radio 1's Live Lounge, Clara Amfo. Of course it's provocative. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's loads of bums everywhere, but...

I mean, it's not... Hang on, hang on, hang on. We need to just back up a bit on the bum thing here. Yeah. Because it's not just that there's loads of bums. They're like in thongs. Yeah, there's bums. And they're like bashing bums at times. They sure are.

I don't think I'm a prude. But there were some moves in there where I was like, whoa, what would that even feel like to do? Never mind like be filmed doing and then have your bum all over the internet wibbling, wobbling everywhere. Is this your like beach holiday routine? I mean, I'm privy to

to a dance on the beach with my girlfriends but for me i i can't say i was offended by the by the video i think my eyebrows came off my face yeah yeah yeah of course but of course yeah it's provocative i'm not gonna be like oh my god yeah it's just some bugs i was like wow this is wild but I for me I genuinely appreciated and the art of the twerk well yeah to be honest

yeah actually it was it was extreme twerking is a skill you can either do or you can't like it genuinely is a skill

let's go round the table and we'll come to some of the issues that it raises right you've seen it what do you think you did

weirdly yes I was like did you do it while you watched it I can't do it because I have weirdly yes I was like did you do it while you watched it I can't do it because I have pancake butt I have like

no all bots work surely no mine are like so just I have the most disappointing butt ever

I mean you'll see later I can't wait I can't do it but I thought do you know what yeah this is basically

the sort of boiled down undiluted version of what everyone is sort of trying to do in all their like various different ways. And it wasn't prissy.

They were not skinny. They weren't even thin. And that's what I loved about it. It was unflattering. But did you have a reaction? My reaction was, woo. Okay, that was a good sound. I like the sound.

And I liked that that was my reaction because usually you're just like, ugh. But the fact that it was all women, it's just something very primal. Primal women. It wasn't like man scoping. It was like women. Not man in the centre of the boat. Yeah, it was just like women. Flesh, women, flesh dancing.

I thought it was cool. Truly feeling themselves. Yeah. And as I say, it wasn't flattering by the standards that have come to me as a woman born in 1982, maybe as a white woman, whatever. It was definitely like a different aesthetic. And if you want to hear the full discussion, go to BBC Sounds and subscribe to Late Night Woman's Hour.

Lucy Ann Holmes was the founder of the No More Page Three campaign. She was uncomfortable with the porn industry and disappointed by her own sex life and she decided to try to do something to improve it. The result is her new book, Don't Hold My Head Down. I had a bit of an epiphany one night and I was actually watching pornography one night and I saw something on one of the big free porn sites and it was a thumbnail picture of, I'm sure it was a woman but she looked very young so I'll say she looked like a girl and

there was a sex act happening to her. And the image shocked me, and I turned my computer off, and I found I was worried about this girl, hoping she was OK. At the time, I had four nieces, one of whom was, I think, 13 or 14. And I just kept thinking of her at that age, curious about her body, her sexual awakening, and going into one of these sites.

And this is what she'd find. And I just thought, wow, this is the sex we're giving our young people. And it made me feel very sad. And I typed in a few things that night. I typed in good sex, great sex and everything led me back to these same sites. But I remember typing in beautiful sex. And I got one film of a woman giving a man a blowjob while he held her head down. And then I got offers of other things. And I thought, wow, you know, if you type in beautiful conservatory,

beautiful pasta sauce, you'll probably get something that we could all generally agree, you know, was quite beautiful. You type in beautiful sex and and I found that the results quite alarming and then I thought oh well I'm hardly raising sex to some divine art form myself sitting here masturbating to online porn and so that I would say was the epiphany and I started to think my friend has a great expression if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got and I thought actually I don't want to get what I've always got with sex I felt when I thought about it it was quite often performance led it was something that was done to me rather than I was shaping it one of the most interesting things

in the book is something which I suspect is really common for so many women a loathing of your body image, which clearly played into the way you felt about sex. Why do you think it had such an impact on you? Oh, yes, it's fascinating that, isn't it? Because I just hated my body, particularly my bum and my boobs. I, you know, I hate my bum, I hate my boobs. I said it, you know, again and again, or thought it again and again. And everything else, really. There wasn't any part of me I liked. And I had never thought about it until I got to my 30s and started off on this sort of sex, what I call a sexual odyssey or a sexual adventure. And it really did make me think.

Because I thought, I didn't come out of the womb hating my bottom. You know, I wasn't there as a toddler moaning about, you know, the shape of my thighs. I've learnt this. I've got this from somewhere so I started yes I started to really think you know how that had developed and one thing you know you mentioned I did a campaign against page three I was a woman in my 30s and I'd never thought questioned why I hated my boobs and I thought you know when did this hate start and I thought oh gosh I can actually remember when the hatred came and it was when my breasts came. But was the paper in your house when you were a kid?

Yes, yes. So yes, so it was around, my brother used to bring it home and it was around in the house. And I just, and it was fascinating because it was the sun, it was, you know, it was lively. I think we also had the times in the house, but I didn't pay any attention to that.

It was the sun because it told me stories about pop stars. But there was always this, well at the time the the women were 16 you know these these um young women in their pants and i just my breasts were developing and i just thought gosh they don't look like these women in the papers so you set out on your sexual odyssey to love your body tell us all how you do that right uh i made friends with that i. I really started looking at my thoughts. So I didn't set out to love my body. I set out to explore various things sexually, one of which was slow sex,

one of which was learning about my own pleasure. I learned that there were 14 different types of orgasm and I wanted to explore them. And I kept coming up against my body hatred again and again and again. So I couldn't explore great slow sex because I hated my body. I didn't want to show it. You know, I needed a lot of wine to show it to anybody. So I, so I then started to explore the body hatred. And one thing I did, first of all, is I had to really, I really monitored my thoughts because

I thought I'm, I'm a bit of a hippie. I'm all about peace and love, really. And then I realized that I was actually pouring loads of hatred onto myself. And actually, I wanted to be a friend to myself. So I really started to watch when it's, you know, when these and they were horrible thoughts. You know, I can't believe anyone would ever had sex with you. You know, you're disgusting. This word disgusting came up again and again. And I really just started to just breathe into it, just try to love myself.

I made friends. My boobs, I just said, you know, you're sensitive. And I'm so sorry I've given you so much hatred. You did go from tantric sex with a boyfriend to group sex at a festival. Yes. Why that rather rapid escalation? I think, yes, a lot of people have spoken about the sex festivals and sex parties aspect of it. And I think unless you've been, you have quite a base vision in your head of it. And actually, one thing that I found again and again with this

journey was that actually sex for me was the most transformative most spiritual thing I could do and I've I went to a catholic convent where you know there was a lot of shame you were given a virgin mary you know sex was something you're not supposed to do or enjoy or talk about and actually I found it was you know cathartic healing spiritual so so when you go to what you know a sex festival you've got all the best teachers there giving you workshops in tantra, in intimacy. It teaches you how to tune into yourself, how to state your boundaries,

which was just really, really empowering for me. There's some wonderful women leading work in this area because essentially, if we're having sex, and I think for a lot of women, sex is something that's done to them. We're pounded, we're tweaked, we're grabbed. We're not directing the show. You did meet someone.

I did. And then you became pregnant. Yes, I did. What impact has having had a baby had on the Odyssey? A huge impact, but a beautiful one as well what was really interesting with starting out on the sexual journey is I asked myself what I wanted to experience and I I set about exploring that and then after I'd had a baby my body I'd changed physically and emotionally hugely and I had to come back to myself and ask myself again what I wanted and needed.

And interestingly, in some ways it was quite similar because, you know, when I first set out in the Odyssey, it was I wanted to experience slow sex. And post-baby, I've really struggled to have penetrative sex again after I had the baby. I had an episiotomy. So I was stitched and I'd read that in six weeks I was supposed to be OK. But I couldn't, you know, four months later and it was stitched and I'd read that in six weeks I was supposed to be okay but I couldn't you know four months later and it was agony and uncomfortable and I had to really just tune into myself and go what do I need and I really just wanted the most tender touch I wanted to be touched like I was precious and actually yes a light gentle touch on my episiotomy scar and I would weep and weep and weep. Just one last question, Lucienne.

There are moments in the book when you go, oh, should I really, am I embarrassed? Are you embarrassed now it's out and you're talking about it? No, not at all. It's really strange that because it was a hard book in a way to write. Definitely the hardest book I've ever written. And I did keep saying, should I be writing this? I did keep checking in with myself. Do I want to do this? But now it's here and it's out and people are responding to it. No, I feel quite proud. Lucy-Anne Holmes talking to

Jenny on Women's Hour this week. How do you fancy becoming a train driver? If you were a woman and a train driver, you would be a bit of a rarity. Southeastern Trains wants more women to apply for the role. Currently, only 5% of their train drivers are female. Kelly Jo Ballard has been a driver for them since 2016, and she, as you're about to hear, absolutely loves her job. Ellie Burrows is Southeastern Trains Services Director. Ellie, tell me why they're looking to recruit more women in the train driver role. So out of the 1100 drivers you've got only 53 of those are actually

women and that's not representative of society so what we've what we're aiming to do is increase the number of applicants that for train driver jobs. Normally we get about 14-15% of applicants for every job that goes out there are female. That doesn't feel right and we feel like more women should know that it's an interesting job and more women should be applying for that. Tell me about your early aspirations then, Kelly Jo. What did you hope to do when you were younger? I actually went into floristry. I was training to be a florist. Although I completed the training, it didn't go very far

because you need to own a florist shop really to earn any money so I then steered off from that the journey to become a train driver I cared for my grandmother and during that time I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do and discussed it with my grandmother what did she say when you said, I fancy being a train driver? It was that I wanted to get into the transport industry, maybe what might be the best way to do that. She was a very intelligent woman, my grandmother. And we just discussed because I had been in libraries, that was what I was doing before caring for my grandmother,

which had been given up and to care for her. So it gave me the opportunity to think about what I wanted to do. You actually went to bus driving initially, didn't you? Exactly, yes. Now, I mean, I'd never done either, but it strikes me that driving a bus is harder than driving a train. I don't know. You tell me. They're two different jobs or careers.

There's stresses in both careers. For me, I find driving a train less stressful, but that's because we're given so much support. There's plenty of people that we can talk to, whether it be another driver, whether it be our driver manager. There's just so much, you're given support the whole time round. So although you're in the front of the train and you're on your own, actually you're given more support

than when you're driving a bus and you're actually talking to passengers face to face. Sure. I mean, to be really crude, the money is better, isn't it? Yes, the money is better. We do work a four-day working week also. So we are given, although you're concentrating for long periods of times

while you're at work, everything is safety based i mean everything evolves around safety the safety of your passengers um so even though you're you're you're can be very tired after those four days you have got the time at home to recuperate to rest yourself before coming back into work. Now, your favourite route, you were telling me earlier, is, remind me, Charing Cross to? Seven Oaks. Okay, what's the appeal of that route? It's a little bit prettier.

It's a bit hard on the south-east of England. The stations are a little bit further apart once you pass Stolpington. Okay, so why is that good? You're just not, anybody that drives a car, if you had to pick up multiple people, you're pulling over, you're stopping and then you're restarting. When you're driving and you've got further distance between your stations, you've got a little bit more time to relax. Not completely, you're still concentrating, taking in the environment and your signals that are in front of you but there's a little bit more of a down time so to speak whereas when you're driving um more into the metro routes of of london you're stopping a lot more often and there's train safety checks that you have to do at every station it is but there's no getting away from this a colossal responsibility. Yes. How aware of

that are you as you're doing it? Very aware, we're very aware. You have to be. You are carrying hundreds and hundreds of passengers around every day and I'm pretty sure the passenger would want you to be aware of the pressure that you're under and the safety aspects of the job that you are fully trained and aware of that. You're one of those people who, when asked about her working life, your face lights up and you just sparkle. Why do so few women do it then? I'm really not sure.

I've been doing a few things with South Eastern, which is to do with women with drive, which is what Ellie's been doing. And I found that when I do speak to women at some of these events, that they just don't realise really that they can go for the job. So things like this, the radio and some of the other stuff that is getting the message out there. I'm a normal person, normal girl.

The job isn't gender-based. It doesn't matter what background you've come from, whether you're male or female, we're all doing the same job and there's nothing stopping a woman from doing this job, nothing at all. No, it is frustrating that young girls haven't quite got that message. Yeah, but hopefully with more of this getting the message out there, hopefully they they will come forward and apply in the beginning you are tested it's called an assessment day

but you're not tested on how intelligent you are or how academic you are they test how your brain works and how you how well you are at concentrating and things like that so you are you are tested right in the beginning. So you will be told whether you'll be able to A, go through the training or have got a chance of going through the training and whether you would be suited to the job. So there's nothing stopping any woman for just going ahead and going for it. Kelly, Jo Ballard and Ellie Burrows. And it was lovely, as a lot of you said, actually, just to hear a woman in love with her working life and just delighted to be doing it. Now, a report released by the University and College Union suggests that black female academics find it tough to become professors at Britain's universities.

There are actually nearly 19,000 professors in the UK and the majority, you will not be surprised to hear, about 70% in fact are white and they're male. White women make up 22.9% of the total and right at the bottom of the scale, black women. There are just 25 of them. That's 0.1% of the total. Gina Higginbottom is Emeritus Professor of Ethnicity and Community Health at the University of Nottingham. Dr Nicola Rollock is Reader in Equity and Education at Goldsmiths, University of London. She carried out the research. I've been concerned for some time about the low number of black female professors. And in this context, black, we mean those of Caribbean, African and other black backgrounds.

So this is the first time, to my knowledge, that any research has been carried out looking specifically at this group. So I've been concerned, why are there so few? And indeed, what are their experiences in reaching professorship? So why are there relatively so few? I mean, 0.1% of the total is very low. Yeah, and just to kind of play with the figures that you gave and put them in kind of a different context, around 15% of white male academics are professors. So around 30, just under 13,000. Around 6% of white female academics are professors. So just over four and a half thousand. And then as you've spoken to, just 25, there are just 25 black female professors. So just 2% of black female academics are professors. And indeed, when I spoke to 20 of those 25, they shared with me what were really quite painful and sad accounts of bullying and discrimination and harassment throughout their careers.

Gina, if I can bring you in here, what was your route to actually becoming a professor? well my route was through a vocational and professional route as a nurse midwife and health visitor so I was a clinical nurse midwife and health visitor for 20 years and I actually during that course of my clinical career I studied quite a lot attaining a first degree master's degree postgraduate diploma and realized that I was really very interested in research and the academic side of health care so I obtained a PhD and subsequently obtained a position as a lecturer in Russell Group University. So Nicola, how does Gina's experience compare with other women in the study? That's a clear progression through getting more and more qualifications.

Well, just to put this into context for listeners, the usual route for progression is lecturer, senior lecturer, reader or associate professor, which is what I am, and then full professor. So that's the usual career trajectory. Gina's, Professor Higginbottom's experiences were quite reflective of what I heard from other respondents in the study.

So one woman spoke, for example, about having her hand up for half an hour before the chair of the meeting, a white male, turned to her. Someone else talked about being mistaken for the student rep instead of actually acknowledging her role as a professor. And what's really key here is that those acts might sound relatively trivial in isolation, but actually many of the respondents are in their 50s and 60s. And these incidents characterise their entire career journeys. They're repeated

time and time again. And I think the key thing here is when black female professors, such as Professor Higginbottom, compared their experiences to their white female counterparts. And what they found was that they would go for a job position and find that they, as black women, weren't appointed to a role where their white female counterparts were not seen as being as qualified. Gina, to what extent did you experience those roadblocks that Nicola describes? Well, I have experienced roadblocks. At the same time, I've had a fantastic, productive and very enjoyable academic career, but there have been challenges. And I do believe at times these challenges are really related to my social identity as a black woman.

And most often what I've experienced is a process of what I describe as marginalisation. And this is quite often manifested in perhaps being omitted from the organisation of meetings, missed off distribution lists for certain publications, despite formal agreements being previously made about these publications. And these effects, of course, are cumulative in nature, and often they seem quite minor. But when they're viewed in their entirety, it's quite a demoralising experience and constitutes a multifaceted experience of marginalisation and discrimination.

How then, Gina, did you find ways of dealing with any difficulties? I think one of the most important things to do is to really network with others in the same position as you because they can provide enormous support for you. And it's really vital, I think think to have a mentor and a coach and someone who can guide you and advise you through your professional career I think is pretty critical. And Nicola what would you recommend to improve the trajectory for a new generation of black academics coming up? Well one of the things that we're required to do when we're putting in applications for professorship is commonly you need the approval of the head of department. And actually,

in many of the cases, in terms of the women I spoke to, the heads of department were themselves part of the problem. So I'd like to see the sector review the needs for head of departments to take to give their approval. I'd also like to see racial justice training being given for all line managers and senior staff. And I want to be very clear here, Jenny, I don't mean unconscious bias training. I mean specifically training that looks at issues of structure and also white privilege.

Nicola Rollock and Gina Higginbottom. This listener says, I'm a white woman with a Polish background, just finished my PhD at a UK university, and I'm not sure whether to continue my academic career. I have struggled so much during my PhD and so have my colleagues, many of them female or women of colour. But the expectation is that you just persevere and keep your mouth shut. Sadly, in my experience, senior women in academia rarely offer real support. I strongly believe that Britain's academic culture needs to change in general. That's strong stuff, isn't it?

If you are in academia and you recognise that, please do let us know what your experience has been like. You can email the programme whenever you like via our website, bbc.co.uk slash women's hour. And we do welcome, of course, your suggestions on things we should talk about on the programme that you feel perhaps have been missed. And so to Catherine Simpson, the author of a very moving new memoir called When I Had a Little Sister, the story of a farming family who never spoke. Now, the book is largely, though not entirely at all,

about her sister Tricia and her eventual suicide. Catherine told me about her family. We were raised on a farm in Lancashire near a town called Garstang. It was the farm where my grandparents moved there in 1925. So my father was born in the farmhouse, as were me and my two sisters, Tricia and Elizabeth. Well, your dad is one of a number of memorable characters in this book. But also there are great aunts, there are grandfathers. I love the character of Gran, who confusingly is not a woman, but was your paternal grandfather my dad's dad yes he was an ypres veteran who was widowed his wife died in childbirth in 1938 that was my grandma marjorie

she died having her fifth baby my dad was 12 years old at the time so he never went back to school after that he had to stay at home on the farm to help Gran run the farm. And I remember Gran in the 1970s when I was growing up on the farm and he kind of lived in the outhouse. Well, he slept in the farmhouse and he ate in the farmhouse, but he spent his days in his little den with his brown ale and his library books and his dogs and cats that slept all over him. And people didn't realise he was in there until he suddenly emerged and frightened them to death. He was a total character.

He was a Victorian, of course, when he was born in 1890-something and was a man who lived through the most incredible... Well, I was going to say, we now, having watched the Peter Jackson film, for example, I have a sketchy idea, and only that, of what my own, actually, paternal grandfather might have witnessed in the First World War. I mean, no wonder the man was singular.

I know, absolutely. He just used to say, you don't know you're born. Every time we'd ask for warm water to bath in, or we wouldn't eat something on our plates because he would eat everything on his plate, and then he would eat the second course on the same plate, and there was not one scrap of food left. And if there was, it went to the cat.

He was a man of his time yes um there were some great aunts as well i think whose lives were well perhaps not what they might have been had they been born a generation or so later absolutely well there was one great aunt of course who was a suffragette who um was a businesswoman and who did marry a man much younger than herself and then pay for him to go to austral Australia and not come back. But then there were other great aunts who didn't marry. I think there were quite a few probably because they came of age just after the First World War. Yeah, yeah.

And whose things I remember being distributed in the 1970s. This was my kind of introduction to these great aunts. I'd just see all big piles of stuff on the kitchen table because they'd died and we were busy trying on their underskirts and clopping around in their high heels I ask all these questions because I do want people to read this book and I want them to realize that it isn't altogether sad it's poignant and it is sad at times yes but it's a proper family story uh multi-layered it it is I mean yes I think think it's looking at my life or looking at the life of the family through the lens of loss. So we've lost Tricia, but it's also the lens of loss, all the

other things that you lose. You know, people come, they go, we lose our things, you know, your things come and they go and they're distributed to other people. So yes, it's looking at the family over three generations, actually. And you say never spoke. The thing is, we approach these things now through our 21st century, let's get it all out there lens. Well, the conversation, such as it was around the table, was about what was happening on the farm. So it was, you know, what's the weather going to allow us to do today? What's the weather not going to allow us to do today? Can's the weather not going to allow us to do today? Can we bale? Can we mow? All that sort of thing.

What are other farmers doing? And that was basically the conversation that we would have. We didn't have conversations about feelings or emotions. God forbid, I don't think we were allowed to have emotions, except anger. You could get angry about things, but other than that, yeah. Now, in the book, you say you can just about pinpoint the time that Tricia changed to somebody rather more troubled. Is that really true?

Yes, yes. I have a very distinct memory of me sitting on the hearth rug and I was cutting out, which was something that I was constantly doing, cutting out. We did that in those days. We did that. We had to make our own fun. So I was cutting out and I used to play this game called Ladies.

Where I'd cut out ladies and I'd make them have adventures and so on. And they were very, very unthrilling. But Tricia used to enjoy watching me play this game and joining in. And I said to her, Tricia, let's play Ladies. And for the first time she just walked straight past and out the room and slammed the door. She must have been eight or nine at the time. And it suddenly dawned on me that she had changed over the preceding weeks. And I'd never consciously thought it.

And just at that moment, it was a crystal clear thought. When is the old Tricia going to come back? Did she ever come back? No, and at that point, I started keeping my eye on her. And then realised with a really sinking heart of maybe weeks later, Tricia is never coming back. This is Tricia now. Eventually, you find her diaries, don't you? And they are full of relationships gone wrong, thwarted passions, a deeply troubled soul basically

Yes, well I found her diaries after she died we cleared the farmhouse out taking three generations of things out of the farmhouse really and I found all these diaries and notebooks and I said to my elder sister Elizabeth I can't read them and I will never be able to read

these because I was so frightened of the despair that I might encounter in there and I was so scared that I would read that she blamed us for being unhappy. So my sister took them away and she put them in her attic. And then I was going on a writing retreat and the writing project I was working on wasn't working out. So I realised I needed another project. And I remembered the diaries and I thought this is the time that I need to read those diaries. Tricia had been dead by this time two and a half years so I took the diaries with me to this castle in the lowlands of Scotland and I looked at them and I thought I don't I don't open them I can't open them and eventually I did I started reading

right from the beginning 1981 when she was 14 right through to the day she died when she was 46. And I was extremely heartened to discover that there were moments of real joy in there. The black despair wasn't in so much, possibly because when she became very depressed, she couldn't write. And there was no blame for the family, which was enormously helpful to me. And she, in fact, was writing quite affectionate things to me in it. And I kept reading them over and over and over again because you have this huge guilt.

Catherine Simpson, whose memoir is called When I Had a Little Sister, the story of a farming family who never spoke. I hope you can join us for Woman's Hour on Monday morning. My guests include the woman who was Nelson Mandela's right-hand woman. She was also white. Her first language was Afrikaans, and they formed an incredibly close relationship. And basically, she says nobody will ever replace him in her life.

That's on Monday morning, just after the news at 10. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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's 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.