Woman's Hour - Otegha Uwagba, Nigella Lawson, Anne-Marie

Episode Date: November 12, 2020

Otegha Uwagha is a writer & commentator. Today she discusses her new essay, Whites: On Race and Other Falsehoods. She discusses, what she sees as, the ‘colossal burden’ of co-existing with white people when you are not white. A Mary Wollstonecraft inspired sculpture, created by Maggi Hambling, is causing a stir. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the famous "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman". But there's controversy over the sculpture which has a small naked female figure at the top of it, and some are wondering whether that's appropriate to remember Mary. Our reporter Melanie Abbott reports from the scene and talks to passers-by, plus we have art historian Ruth Millington who gives her reaction to the piece.Nigella Lawson’s new book is Cook, Eat, Repeat. It's about the pleasure of cooking, feeding and eating. It was mainly written during lockdown. Nigella joins Jane to discuss her love of cooking and food and describes how to Cook the Perfect Fish Finger Bhorta, which was inspired by the political journalist Ash Sarkar.Anne-Marie has been nominated for 9 Brit awards. She’s famous for songs such as Ciao Adios & Rockabye. Her debut album Speak Your Mind was the biggest selling debut artist of 2018. She’s got a new documentary out called ‘How to Be Anne Marie. She's also a karate champion. She joins Jane to discuss her music, life lessons and life in lockdown.

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. Good morning, welcome to the programme. Ortega Uwagba has written a very powerful essay called Whites on Race and Other Falsehoods. She is a podcaster and a journalist and an author as well and she'll talk to us on Woman's Hour this morning. Also with us today, a singer, Anne-Marie, who's had, well, not the year she

was expecting, but she'll talk live to us a little bit later. And we have Nigella Lawson as well, who is talking, she will address, you will, won't you, Nigella, address Fishfingergate, which has been raging. Well, I think raging is perhaps too strong a term since it was on the telly earlier in the week. How are you? Gladly. I'm very well, thank you. Good. And I know you didn't sleep last night, but nor Nigella did anybody else. So I guess that puts you... No, no one does.

No. Many of us are used to that. Yeah, we are now. We've become used to it. So you are in the, well, certainly in my copy of the Daily Mail today talking about fish fingers. This is because fish fingers are the main... I haven't been talking about fish fingers in the Daily Mail today talking about fish fingers. This is because fish fingers are the main... I haven't been talking about fish fingers in the Daily Mail. No, the Daily Mail is talking about you.

Aha, yes. Yeah, it's a very different thing. You're absolutely right. Yes, it is. But the headline is, something a bit fishy about your curry, Nigella. Well, actually, this is fish finger butter, and you're going to talk about how to make it

a little bit later with us, aren't you? Gladly. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Hang on in there. Oh, briefly, before we go to our next item, have you seen the statue of Mary Wollstonecraft, which is going to be our first discussion point this morning? Photographs only. I haven't seen it. I haven't gone to see it. And thoughts?

Well, I'm not sure if I were putting up a statue to the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, I would choose to have her naked. And that is the point. It does seem odd. Yes, okay. That is the point made by quite a few other people.

Thank you. We'll come back to Nigella Lawson after we've gone to the location on Newington Green, which is in North London, of this statue. It's a sculpture by Maggie Hambling, and it does indeed celebrate the mother of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft, author of, as Nigella points out, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. It's provoked a great deal of comment and a lot of attention, and perhaps in a good way, people are finding out about Mary for the first time that's no bad thing here is Maggie herself describing it well there's the plinth and then the the tar as I call it of the intermingling female forms struggling away until

it they culminate in the figure of the woman challenging the world. And she is naked because clothes define people, do you know? And so there she is, a standing woman ready to challenge the world. That's the culmination of the struggle and, of course, the ongoing struggle. I mean, somebody said it looked like a space rocket going up, going up a space rocket of hope, which is terrific because obviously the battles aren't over. Maggie Hambling. And it's important to point out this work is for Mary Wollstonecraft.

It is not of her. So let's go there. And Melanie Abbott is our reporter at Newington Green. So tell us, much interest in the statue, Melanie? Yeah, there's been a lot of interest. I've been here since about eight o'clock and I think people have been standing all around it for most of that time. In fact, they've all disappeared now, wouldn't you just know it? Maybe they think I'm going to pigeonhole them to come on air. But yeah, taking photographs, a lot of debate, talking to each other about it,

people wondering exactly what it is supposed to represent. I mean, to my untrained, maybe unartistic eye, some might say, I can't quite make out the amorphous mass of bodies in the lower part that Maggie was referring to there, but you can obviously quite clearly make out at the very top the image of the woman, the every woman, as Maggie described it. But it is very tiny, actually. It is doll-like in its perspective.

Incredibly perky breasts, very nipped in waist, quite a prolific amount of pubic hair, actually, I might say. Somebody tweeted that they thought her pudenda looked like broccoli. But who am I to comment on that but I think that is what people are really quite mystified about this almost doll like figure at the top but it certainly is attracting people to Newington Green and this is an area that probably you know most people hadn't really heard of before just by chance I used to live here and my great-grand grandparents lived here as well which is also by chance and they were very working class they had a furniture workshop a couple of streets from here but now it's uh quite a she-she area

there's a french patisserie there's a natural wine shop that means it's uh definitely up and coming doesn't it but there is also still it's mixed still, there's a Bookies and a Chicken Express as well. But it's interesting that a lot of the people I spoke to this morning did seem, you know, they had very positive, quite informed views. Maybe you'd like to hear some of them now. Yeah. It looks like a woman rising out of God knows what. And, I don't know, the autumn light and everyone looking

at someone outside in this very strange time. I find it interesting and somehow uplifting, even though I'm not exactly sure what I think about the piece yet. What did you know about Mary Wollstonecraft before the statue appeared? If you can tell from my accent, I don't come from here, so not that much, but I'm learning as I go along. As a result of the statue? Yeah, as a result of everything, we're all learning a lot of things we didn't know, is the feeling that I have. I tried to have a look at it yesterday,

but when I came past there were people putting clothes on her, which actually I could only stop for two minutes on my way to work, but it was a really kind of moment I could imagine Mary Wollstonecraft really enjoying, that there were some people there really passionately wanting to leave this figure as she is and why should you cover up a woman's body and there were other people wanting to see the statue and enjoying the idea of the roots of feminism taking hold and then a lot of people obviously just think it sort of imagine this is meant to be Mary and it's it's just disrespectful but she was a real rebel and she would have I think she would have imagine this is meant to be Mary and it's it's just disrespectful but she was

a real rebel and she would have I think she would have relished the excitement and the all the debate and all these women sort of passionately arguing their different sides of the argument I'm just slightly post-plexed by it having like known Maggie's work in a way I trust her because she's such an incredible artist who've done so much not just for women but also she's such a kind of inherent feminist in her own way so because it's by her I sort of trust it but then again I'm also just slightly perplexed by it I mean I came down today because I didn't actually really realize the sheer scale of the minute scale of the figure in this sort of completely warped and swarmed by this otherworldly kind of rock. Yeah, I think that's what's getting to people, isn't it, Mel?

It's the fact that the figure of the woman is so tiny in relation to the rest of it. I love the detail of people popping clothes on her as well. Absolutely. In fact, I've just walked round to the other side of the statue and here, lying on the ground, there's a tiny, tiny little vest that maybe someone was trying to put on or is planning to put on later and then there's a sign saying hey every woman put on a vest and find some strong boots there's work to do and then in tiny letters it says p.s still love you maggie just make the next one as big as a mountain and louder than thunder

great stuff thank you very much. That's Melanie Abbott. We should say, of course, that a lot of people have campaigned long and hard for this statue to be put up, and this programme has certainly drawn attention in the past to the relatively few statues of women we have in Britain, and we've asked that there maybe should be more. We've suggested it's a good idea. So let's go to art historian and critic Ruth Millington. Do you have any sympathy, Ruth, for those people who did

really battle to get this put up? Absolutely. This was a campaign to get Mary on the green. My first thought on seeing the statue was, well, where is she? is this mary if we think about if there was a campaign to get a shakespeare statue to celebrate the writer's literary genius unveiled and say stratford and then it wasn't shakespeare himself unveiled but some naked man with a six-pack toned arms representing this every man everybody would be so disappointed it just it wouldn't happen and bear in mind that mary walson craft she campaigns for equality between the sexes and as you you pointed out there aren't enough statues of women figures so this really for me is a missed opportunity to have leveled up the playing field here

well what should they have done? Well, I can give some great examples of other statues, which I think do a really good job. So Gillian Waring, she created a fantastic sculpture of the suffragette Millicent Fawcett. And this was unveiled in London. And she's holding a banner banner celebrating the fact that the suffragettes, they really protested with banners. They use banners in this fight for female equality. And on this banner reads, courage calls to courage everywhere. And this statue for me, it's so clear who she is and what she stands for. Anybody walking past, it would be so clear that this was a woman who fought for women's rights. And I think the problem with this statue here is anybody walking past will see this

sort of sexy, shiny, Barbie-like figure and not necessarily understand what it's meant to represent. It is so difficult, this, isn't i absolutely when i hear maggie hambling describe her intention i get it i really do but then when i hear the people passing by not appreciating at all the fact that the figure of the female is so tiny and and so um how can I describe it? That whole body perfect thing, that unrealistic expectation of what the female anatomy might look like. None of us look like that in truth. Yes, I completely agree. I think for me, that's the key problem with the statue, because if she was going for that every woman feel, then what we have here is actually a very detailed descriptive depiction of a woman she's got a very tiny waist she's got perfect breasts she's young she's slim and white

and for me this is a really narrow definition of femininity and one an image we're bombarded with through art history through the media on social media and statutes have an important place in reflecting opinions and making carrying important messages and for me this has really missed the mark in that respect yeah i mean i have to say though that this program certainly has talked quite frequently about mary wustencraft but on the whole, she's another of those women lost to history. Well, hopefully not anymore. That's true. And this statue does what contemporary art does best.

We've definitely got people talking. We're talking, yeah. Yeah, and that's fantastic. And people are going to see the art. They're leaving notes. They're making knitted vests for her. How fantastic. Thank you very much indeed. That's Ruth Millington, who is somebody who knows far more about art than I do.

Let us know what you think. If you've seen it, if you've been down there or if you've just seen an image of it on social media or in a newspaper, tell us what you think about that statue of Mary Wollstonecraft. But I think it is important to say that we have for years years on this programme, talked about the relative paucity of female statues. Here is one representing a fantastic feminist heroine and we're mired in controversy, seemingly, but at least we're talking about it, at BBC Women's Hour on social media. Let's go back to Nigella Lawson,

whose new book is called Cook, Eat, Repeat. Now, Nigella, I guess the title there is a hint at how many of us feel about the drudgery of cooking, because although it can be pleasurable, there is a certain amount of not this again about it, isn't there? Well, yes, but to me, in a way, it's really there to evoke two things. And one, you're right, I'm aware that for a lot of people it's it's drudgery it feels like drudgery all the time and for many of us it does some of the time but mostly for me it seems to me for me it's a sort of repeated pattern that makes me feel very

contained and also it's like a promise of pleasure every day. Is it something that you can use as a mindful exercise? And I'm not talking about those women. And let's be honest, it is largely, they're not entirely women, who will be maybe coming downstairs from a day at work today because they won't be in the office or coming in from a job, a key worker role that they can't fulfil outside the home. And they've just got to cobble a meal together for four or five people in about 15 minutes if they're lucky.

That's very different, isn't it? That is different. And I think that, in a way, if you can feel happy about the patterns of cooking, it obviously shows that you're privileged and lucky but but it's good to realize that but I I think that for a lot of people though that cooking can and not can just be a moment away is probably where a lot of the pleasure is to be found I think you know I love feeding people but of course when I cook for myself there isn't any there isn't stress and I can sort of calm down into it and just potter about. The joys of pottering are never to be underestimated. Oh no, actually we had a really good conversation

about the joys of pottering a couple of weeks ago. Can I ask then, if you are on your own, and I'm sometimes on my own at night eating, and I will, I'm afraid, more often than not, give in to two slices of bread, whatever I can stick on it, and then a bowl of cereal, sometimes just the bowl of cereal. Do you never do that? Oh, I sometimes, I mean, I sometimes have bread and butter or toast.

I don't have cereal. I'm not enormously a cereal eater, although now you've said that, I suddenly feel like a bowl of cornflakes with all that wonderful gritty sugar in the milk at the bottom yeah but I'm not no but no but I don't you see I don't make distinctions as well about the sorts of pleasure you get from eating if I want you know buttered toast for supper I don't feel bad about that I just enjoy it and if I want to make myself you know lamb cutlets with you know an anchovy sauce, I will too. Anchovies. Let's get talking about anchovies because they're a controversial little fish, aren't they?

I love the things. I mean, I have been known to stuff a few straight out of the jar in one of those weird moments. Me too. Although, as I say, going back to the bread and butter, anchovies on unsalted butter on top of bread is really one of the great joys of life. Do they have to be the expensive ones or any old supermarket value anchovies? Will they do the business? Well, I have both. I mean, to be honest, mostly I have just the regular ones that come in those jars, you know, rather than in those beautiful tins. I think, though, for a treat, the expensive ones and tins, if you're going to eat them just as they are, I'd love to have those. But when I'm cooking, I just use the, you know, just completely regular ones.

Janssen's Temptation, I always thought it was called Janssen's. It's actually not called that. It's in the book and it's something I'm going to do definitely this weekend. That is, it is the, well, just bring it to light. It's the most unctuous, gorgeous. I mean, you can really lose yourself in one of those. We call it chip gratin, I hope, because you cut the potatoes into like sort of French fries rather than our chips. And then you cook onion till the onion's very soft and layer up.

Now, in fact, they're not anchovies. They're a different fish. I think my Swedish is not brilliant. And corvids. And corvids. And they're more like sprats, which are quite hard to get here. But if you get a roll mop and chop it up, that will do. Although at home, I often it by without the fish element and thus whisking

three tablespoons of parmesan into the cream and milk that the you know french fry cut our potatoes are baked in yeah um just the list of ingredients in that dish it's it's not one for the self-deniers is it that one i don't yeah but i don't know that uh i don't i don't know that i i uh write recipes for them in mind i must be it's not controversial to say that no okay um we must move on to fish fingers um now this is this is the fish finger border and um actually inspired by ash sarko who's been a welcome guest on this programme over the years. She's a political commentator and journalist. Is it, I mean, I watched you making it the other night on the telly.

I was with you until you got to the point of the slightly overcooked fish fingers. But take our listeners through this. Well, this is, so you want me to take it through in terms of cooking so people can get the flavors. Yeah, really. It's it's a I start off with onions, cook them till they're soft, you know, with ginger, garlic, chili, mustard, English mustard. I dare say originally it would have been mustard oil, which I can't get. So then there's mustard. I will put a spinach in and then lime juice. So it's hot, sharp, sour, fiery and the sweetness of the onions.

Now, I bet you could mash anything into this. But I my attention was drawn to the fact that it's a sort of English Bangladeshi entity, this fish finger porter, where you start mashing cooked fish fingers, mash them and turn them into this wonderful tangle of flavors. And then with coriander, if you so choose. Now, I love this. I like the balance of textures and I find it immensely comforting and rather enlivening. And I think that a lot of people think it's a bit odd until they make it.

OK, I'm going to make it and then I'll let you know because I'm sure you'll be fascinated to hear what I make of it. In lockdown, and by the way, the recipe is on the Woman's Hour website, bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour if you want that recipe. And I bet it is really, really tasty. How have you fared in lockdown? I mean, this is a question we're asking most of our contributors at the moment because, I mean, the nights, it's dark by five o'clock and some of us are better at dealing with all this than others. How are you?

Well, you know, I'm in a very lucky position, you know, because I've got work and a roof over my head and someone knows to sit and many fairy lights in my garden. So, of course, for me it's fine. And I'm actually very happy with solitude so that I, you know, that doesn't trouble me. But I also realise that how I am doing through lockdown is, you know, is not how it is for a lot of people. Are you, I don't know whether we've lost Nigella or not. No, I'm here. Can you hear me?

Yeah, I can. Don't worry. I know that we've had a few technical issues. I know, the line keeps seem to be going. Yeah, that's welcome to my 2020 and indeed yours. The Christmas, the thing of Christmas, which I think is, hang on, we've had quite a few emails from listeners about this. People concerned, not in the usual way about Christmas, but concerned.

But whether it's going to be possible. Yes, yeah yeah your thoughts on that well I have no idea and I feel also there are two separate arguments you know a lot of people say I don't know what we're going to be allowed to do but also I feel well I don't know what's going to be safe to do and that is also I mean incredibly important I mean I certainly won't be doing anything large at all I mean I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with six people you know around a table but I don't you know I don't know what's going to happen and I feel this year has been so much about not knowing what's going to happen that somehow I think one year has been so much about not knowing what's going to

happen that somehow I think one feels a bit saner not thinking about it too much. Yeah doesn't it make you nostalgic for the days when we thought we had things worth worrying about I think that's what I'm I'm angry with myself for being stressed when I didn't need to be relative to how we're all stressed now if any of that makes any sense. It makes complete sense and I just don't know if we learned from any of it though. Oh, well, let's hope we have a bit. No, do you know what I mean? I think that one still can worry an awful lot

about trivial matters. I try not to. I worry much, much, much less now. But I think it is very difficult because you haven't got anything. There are no firm foundations to make any decisions on. Yeah. Well, at least we can get very cross about fish fingers in your dish.

I know. So if I can provide an outlet for that, I'm very happy. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's Nigella Lawson. Like the rest of us, not really certain about life. And yes, she's right, of course. We just used to.

Well, we still are stressing about absolutely everything in our lives, aren't we? Your thoughts on that at BBC Women's Hour. I really do appreciate that. So many of you listening are up against it in any number of different ways, as Nigella acknowledged as well this morning. Now, let's talk to the writer and podcaster, Attega Uwagba, author of The Little Black Book, a toolkit for working women. She's written a new essay called Whites on Race and Other Falsehoods. Ortega, good morning to you. Hello. I think if you don't mind, we'll start with your starting point in this essay, because you draw our attention to the fact that the death of George Floyd occurred at a time when the world had a moment to focus. And I think that is significant, isn't it?

And the reason I drew attention to that was because for a while I was trying to figure out why it was that George Floyd's death actually got as much attention as it did and really kind of sparked this huge conversation and protest because, let's face it, this has happened before. Black Americans have been killed by police and, you know, in all sorts of circumstances. And we've seen these videos go viral before. And for a while, I just couldn't figure out why this one incident and this one man

had, you know, provoked as much attention as it did. But then I realised that it was because we were in a pandemic and we were all, you know, we didn't have the usual distractions of everyday life. We weren't, most of us, you know, weren't commuting to work, weren't socialising as much, you know, you couldn't go out and go to a party. So I do think most people kind of trapped indoors, looking at their phones, looking at the internet, refreshing Twitter, or at least I certainly was. And so it meant that when this happened and when, you know, the video starts to emerge, I think we were really a captive audience. Well, you write about how so many white people responded and posted and tweeted and put images

up on Instagram. But you also say you felt deeply unmoved by much of it just tell me why it just felt very performative and honestly I found it strange and confusing that so many white people you know kind of said oh I didn't know this was happening or you know it was almost like as if white people were discovering racism for the first time and I just thought that was utterly bizarre you know it's white people are the people who perpetuate and benefit from racism so I found it incredibly bizarre that this was all sort of new to them and it made me feel uncomfortable the kind of more performative aspects of social media as well you know there was a lot of posting there was a lot of instagramming people posting these black squares people were posting you know anti-racism reading lists and

the books they've read and for me I just thought well what next because uploading a picture onto Instagram is very easy we all do that all the time but what are you going to do that's actually you know fundamentally going to change the status quo and I think that's the hard question I felt like it was almost a bit of distraction well there was actually these graphics some sort of of squabbling about the people who hadn't posted and why they hadn't posted or they hadn't posted frequently enough. All that was going on as well. I think it's very possible. And when I kind of look at my own engagement with certain social issues, I don't post about everything that I'm thinking about or working or engaging with. So I definitely didn't assume that. But, you hadn't ever written about these issues. Your little black book, A Toolkit for Working Women, is exactly how it sounds. It's a toolkit for working women. It's about careers. And I'd never really written, you know, I hadn't written an essay or written many articles about race.

And I felt like people were just adding me to these lists or to these kind of social media roundups simply because I was black. And that then inherently makes me a sort of a walking, talking anti-racist resource. And I really resented that. It felt quite dehumanizing it felt reductive um you know people adding little black book to these lists when it doesn't talk about race when it talks about careers and nothing else just felt like a really sort of reductive and strange thing to do so was that what then compelled you to write about this issue and to actually address it in this form well i'd actually been thinking about and working on the ideas that I explore in this essay for a couple of years now. So I had known that at some point I wanted to

write about race. And, you know, it's really a product of, I think, decades of my experiences and feelings and observations. But I would say that after George Floyd was killed and white people responded in all of these strange and surprising and sometimes unsurprising ways, I just suddenly felt a renewed sense of urgency and felt like the things that I wanted to say for a long time and, you know, preceding George Floyd's death really ought to be said right now. So it was sort of, I guess, the trigger and the impetus for me to finally put this out into the world. You write, for people of colour, some aspect of friendship with white people involves an awareness that you could be dropped through a trap door of racism.

Just explain exactly what you mean there. Yeah, so the trap door of racism is in the company of white people there is always a risk that someone is going to say something mildly racist in sort of unconsciously and there is just this horrible feeling as a black person or a person of color when it kind of comes out the blue and you're not expecting it and i've had that happen to me so many times in life and when i first read this you know this description that he put out um I just it just really resonated with me and I thought it's a really accurate description of the physical feeling as well you really do feel like a trap door is open beneath you like a rug has been pulled out

from underneath you it's really kind of physically debilitating and when I speak to you know other black people who've read the essay and I've discussed it with also discussed that really physical reaction that they get when someone says something that is racist and when they're they're really not expecting it I think the thing about the trapdoor as well is it often happens in situations where you think you're safe so if I went to an EDL march I would not be surprised if somebody said something racist to me but it's when you're in these kind of well-meaning quite genteel white spaces let's say you're at a publishing party or whatever and someone says something and it's really unexpected that's when the trap door opens

well i think the example you use in the essay is that you are out with a friend's work colleagues that's right isn't it and they work in a an east london creative sort of environment yeah and you know so yeah i talk about this incident in the essay where a friend's colleague said something just hugely racist and the funny thing is i'd sort of known to expect it like i'd almost not wanted to go out that evening because i knew the exact sort of demographic of people that would be there because i used to work in a creative agency in east london and sure enough on that evening there were two incidents of racism. One was anti-Semitic and one was anti-Black. And I just left feeling really deflated, but also

slightly vindicated. I was like, my instincts were right that I shouldn't have gone into that situation. I shouldn't have put myself in that situation. Did you, after that happened, did you then speak to your friend? No, I didn't. If I'm being honest, I don't think that she is someone that would have understood or would have reacted well to it. But she is your friend? We're not friends anymore. No. OK.

I mean, this is, I hope people are taking note of this stuff because, you know, I think, I suspect it's happened so often i may well have been responsible for one of those incidents um and i think we should all be aware of the possibility that indeed we have so i mean i know you went to oxford didn't you um yes what was what was that a constructive environment it was strange because in some ways it wasn't that new an environment to me like i went to a private private school in London, which was mostly white. So I was pretty used to being in largely white environments. But I did find that Oxford is just somehow even less diverse just because also I think there are a lot of people there who maybe haven't grown up or lived in London and so aren't used to being in diverse environments.

I think you just kind of almost inherently are to an extent in London so that was the first time that I really started experiencing this trapdoor sensation and really started having people make these comments in passing either to me or about black people in general where it was almost as though they didn't see me as black like they sort of would say things and almost kind of forget that I am black and forget that I'm listening. So that was, you know, I navigated Oxford quite well. And I had a good time there. But it was definitely the first time that I felt very conscious of my blackness and also very conscious of these white people who were honestly just a little bit ignorant. Yes. And did the university attempt? I mean, I didn't go to Oxford. I don't know quite how it operates. It's a college environment, though, isn't it? Could the college not have, did it not assist you in any way? Or I don't or, you know, squalling graffiti on my door. It's just these kind of conversations, these things that happen in polite conversations.

People who I was friendly with and probably am still friendly with, you know, they weren't huge, obvious incidents of racism. It's the kind of tiny microaggressions. And it's, you know, I talk in the essay about someone telling me to turn off my music because it's too black. I mean, I think also, if I'm being perfectly honest, at the time, I didn't really know how to articulate that these things made me feel uncomfortable, that there was something wrong with them. I think I didn't, at that time, I was 18, five, ten years. But, you know, I didn't know to use a term like microaggression

when I was at university, but that is now kind of part of common parlance. I didn't know about the phrase white privilege when I was at university. So it was also very hard for me to articulate that I found this sort of behaviour problematic. What should happen now, Attega? I mean, it's a very powerful essay and I do hope people read it. But having read it myself, I'm now conscious that almost anything I say is going to sound faintly idiotic.

But tell me, I mean, you say if white people take allyship seriously, they stand to lose the privileges that are as integral to their lives as breathing. Losing those privileges is necessary. That allyship will cost them the shape of their lives as they know it. So tell me more. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, that conclusion where I talk about my views on allyship was really provoked by the fact that in response to George Floyd's killing, there was a lot of discussion amongst white people about what they were going to do for black people, essentially, and kind of framing allyship as this kind of charitable act. And I also felt like people kind of alighted on these quite kind of easy actions like buying from black-owned businesses or, you know, amplifying black voices. And I think white people need to think more about, you know, how they're going to change their own lives you know maybe focus on themselves for a bit and i think the unpleasant truth and

unpleasant for white people is that it's going to require them giving up power and giving up privileges and a degree of self-sacrifice that you know is possibly going to worsen the quality of their lives because white privilege currently improves the quality of their life so if you give that up then if you you you surrender those racialised privileges and turn down those advantages, what is your life going to look like? And how are you going to do things that are fundamentally sort of redistributive and disruptive to the status quo? I don't think real amish is something that's necessarily going to make white people look or feel good.

And I think that's kind of where we need to go from here. Thank you very much for talking to us. I appreciate it. That's Attega Uwagba. Her essay is called Whites on Race and Other Falsehoods. And it's out now. Now, Anne-Marie is able to join us. She nominated for nine Brit Awards. Her debut album, Speak Your Mind, was the biggest selling album by a debut artist back in 2018, not that long ago actually. Here is a taste of Anne-Marie. So take me out in your fancy car and make out in the rain. And when I ring you up, don't know where you are till I hear her say your name.

You should sing along when you play guitar, that's a distant memory. Hope she treats you better than you're treating me. Rockabye, baby, rockabye. I'm gonna rock you, rockabye, baby, don't you cry. Bang, bang, bang, bang All right then And she has a new documentary out on YouTube. It's called How To Be Anne-Marie.

Good morning, Anne-Marie. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? Yeah, not too bad, thank you. Now, listen, this was going to be an amazing year for you. What was meant to happen in 2020 for you? I was meant to be touring starting from last month and just loads of festivals I guess and the um normal shows that we try to do on promo and releasing of singles everything that we weren't allowed to do really yeah and when did it dawn

on you that none of that was going to happen well when this when the first thing happened the first lockdown happened I thought it was going to last about two weeks so I was on zoom with my friends doing bingo and catchphrase every night thinking it'll be over in two weeks and um yeah I think after the fourth week it dawned on me and um yeah didn't really know didn't really know what was going to happen and still don't really know no okay so what as an artist this is obviously it's taken it out of you a bit hasn't it it's been a strange time for you yeah it has been very strange I think we just don't know how to do it anymore I don't know know what we're, that we have no plans. We can't make any plans because we don't know what's allowed. And the good thing about it is that I'm making music way more than what I was. And I feel like releasing of songs is easier to do because that's the only thing we can do. as a creative it's actually a great thing I was going to say you at least have that that you are you're able to reach your audience still and you're able

to be creative and if you if you aren't a creative person um it's quite this is a really really hard time at the moment um and you have an audience who wants because they were going to see you they were going to come to see you so they're going to be interested in what you can provide for them now your documentary actually I like the bit where you you met up with Little Mix and what you were you were sharing some of the pressures of your working lives and you were just talking to them about how when things get bad for you you're not quite on your own but Little Mix have got each other yeah I always get a little bit jealous of groups and people that have other people within their little, you know, group, I guess, like Rudimental and Little Mix. They all have so many people around them, all experiencing the same thing together.

Whereas I do have amazing people around me, but it's hard because they're not experiencing my exact experience. So, yeah, it is tough. And I just wanted to see how they felt about it and obviously when I see them at festivals and stuff they're so happy all the time and you have that light conversation and you think oh everything's fine and obviously you dig deeper and you think wow we are we are all struggling and that's you know not even just people in the music industry that's anyone at the moment so yeah it's it's strange to think that we all feel similar. Yeah. And when you were at school, you actually, the documentary explores this,

you had a tough time because, interestingly, you were sort of given a bit of an elbow by people because you had cheated on a boy. But boys who cheated on girls, that was fine. Yeah, it's been a very strange um summer I guess because this documentary is called how to be a Marie and I guess the idea was to let people know how to be and in the end it ended up being a lesson on for me on how to be me so um we didn't have any idea or route of what this documentary was going to take we just let it flow and let conversations really plan out where this

documentary was going to go and obviously one of the the conversations was about school and i didn't really enjoy school too much and i had a tough time and i i wanted to forget about it but really i had to face it head on and try and figure out why I didn't have a good time. And I guess the only reason I could really figure out in my head is this moment where I had a phone call with another boy in the evening. And then that whole thing escalated from that moment. So, yeah. But what is really interesting is that you were having a tough time, but your family didn't know. No.

And I guess that must be the experience of lots of your young fans, actually, who are struggling with all kinds of things in their personal lives, but their mum and dad are not likely to know that much about it. No, I made it my decision not to tell anyone just because I was embarrassed and I just didn't want people to to know that that was happening at school um but obviously to my detriment I'm still paying for that and still dealing with problems that I have from back at school because I didn't talk about it so obviously on my social media and everything that I say in the documentary I just urge people to just talk every day no no matter how little they think their

problem is, just to speak about it and let it out, because it would have changed my life, I think. Yeah, it's clear that you feel a real responsibility to your audience, because they are largely young people. And back in the day, I mean, pop stars just didn't do this sort of thing, Anne-Marie. You're a very different generation, aren't you, of performers? Yeah, I feel like when I think back to who I looked at when I was younger, like Christina Aguilera and all these people, I feel like the media and people didn't let them be honest and they painted the picture of the pop stars. And now we have the opportunity and the obviously the social media platforms that we can control

to be able to show people what we want them to see so I feel like with that I want to make it my thing that I'm just completely honest with everyone and I show everyone the ins and outs of my life because even though from the outside it might look perfect it definitely isn't and um well the trouble to show that. We see you at gigs with massive crowds, everybody going bonkers, having a great time. And it does look like a wonderful life, but I appreciate. You'll be back there playing,

hoping presumably to do gigs next year. Have you got any dates in the diary yet? Yeah, that is the plan. Obviously it's like changing monthly on what is going to be able to be. But yeah, it looks like it's going to be visual and virtual for the meantime. Well, when you're back there with a real audience, imagine how great that is going to be.

Yeah. Thank you very much, Anne-Marie. Take care of yourself. Thank you. That's Anne-Marie who is looking forward, and why wouldn't she be, to performing live again in front of a crowd? I mean that must be the most amazing thing to do so to be prevented from doing it

through no fault of your own it must be tough on all performers actually one thing you can say about radios you can keep on doing it during a pandemic as we've discovered okay to your thoughts on the programme this morning to the statue of Mary Wollstonecraft.

You've got a feel for Mary who, let's face it, apart from this safe space, probably isn't discussed all that widely. But right now she's very much back in our thoughts, which has got to be a good thing. Sally, though, does not like the statue. It's terrible, she says. How demeaning of Mary Wollstonecraft and of all women. Ruth says, miserable, vulnerable, inexplicably naked and embodies all that's wrong with how we're perceived. You can't get out of it by saying the statue of Mary isn't of Mary. It doesn't represent her towering intellect, nor does it represent us. What's us anyway? Libby, I see it as referencing the birth of Athena from the brain of Zeus. OK, I have to say I don't see that, but I'm not as educated in the classics as I know many of you are.

Emily says, I think it would be better if the woman were a bigger part of the sculpture and look more like an every woman and less like a gamer's wet dream. Good line from Emily. I do like the bottom half though and I like Maggie statues in general. Judy, I feel very strongly about all these women trying to cover up the statue as though nudity is shaming, which in my view plays exactly into the patriarchy. Why shouldn't a woman be nude and proud instead of being pruriently covered? It's every woman, after all, takes us back to Eve, who was nude and content until she was told it was indecent. As for being perfect, nobody complains about, for instance, Michelangelo's David being perfect and therefore shaming to men. Yeah, but this is a statue designed to celebrate one of the founding mothers of feminism. So I do get the argument that she shouldn't be nude.

But as I said in the item, I also, when I listen to Maggie, understand what she was trying to get at too. A typical BBC seeing both sides of the story here. Joan says, I absolutely love Maggie Hambling's statue. I think it's beautiful. I'd love to see it before these protesters get their way. Knitting vests for her. How prosaic, boring and reminiscent of the knitters at the gallows. Emily, Maggie's done a great thing for art and feminism,

bringing it to the forefront to be debated and noticed by everybody. Art is meant to bring these conversations to the wider public. Mary says, I think it looks like a car mascot. Why bother with statues? Plant a tree. Much more radical. I've loved all the views on this, actually. It clearly is something that genuinely divides people.

So thank you very much for that. On to the subject of Nigella Lawson. If Jamie Oliver had made that dish, she'd be hailed as a genius. It's reverse snobbery for our Nigella Lawson. If Jamie Oliver had made that dish, she'd be hailed as a genius. It's reverse snobbery for our Nigella and not for the first time. Good point, actually, Nicholas, when you think about it. Elizabeth says, well, that cheered me up. Thank you to all. Much needed. I'm dreaming of fish fingers and have asked my daughters for your book for my birthday. I think that was a comment really for Nigella, but it was a comment on her contribution.

So, Elizabeth, thank you for listening. On to the conversation with Attega Uwagba, Steve says, As a white person, I found the George Floyd video the most potent expression of the brutality of the police officers involved, something I will never forget. Rather like the girl running away from a napalm attack in Vietnam, some images just crystallise something already understood and spur a greater awareness. It seems a little strange to be suspicious of this sort of reaction, though I do get the concern about virtue signalling. From Linda, I'm a white woman and I'm 71. To my shame, I truly did not understand the extent of racism in Britain, but this summer has taught me a lot.

I genuinely want to understand how to address my own, honestly unconscious racism. I am doing my best, but I need help. Well, Linda, yeah, thank you. And I hope that conversation was of help. And all I can do is, is urge people to take notice of the essay. It's called, I'll just mention it again. It's called Whites on Race and Other Falsehoods. And it's an essay. I mean, it's in the wedding industry, because so many of them are having such a difficult time at the moment. And also tomorrow, Wafa Mustafa, a Syrian refugee currently living in Berlin. Her father was arrested in Syria in 2013, hasn't been heard of since. Her story is just one of many Syrian women part of the group Families for Freedom, a woman-led movement launched back in 2017

by families whose loved ones have been detained or disappeared by the Syrian regime. We'll find out more about that tomorrow on Woman's Hour. radio podcasts. The Piper. A new thriller from BBC Sounds. 80,000 children go missing every year, Sam J, and most return within 24 hours. We'll find her. You don't know that. Seven days. Seven days.

He's here. The Piper. A new thriller starring Tamsin Althwaite with music from Bat for Lashes' Natasha Khan. Subscribe to The Piper on BBC Sounds. 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.