Woman's Hour - Poet Joelle Taylor, Fantasy Football and Yusra Mardini and Sally El Hosaini

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Poet Joelle Taylor won the Polari Prize last night and the TS Eliot Prize in January this year. Over a long career as a writer for the page and the stage she has explored butch lesbian counterculture and told the stories of the women in underground communities fighting for the right to be themselves. She joins Emma Barnett to explain how joining the literary establishment fits with a lifetime of protest. As Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Dominic Raab stands in for Prime Minister's Questions today, despite accusations of bullying, we look at how MPs and the macho culture of Westminster can be called to account without an ethics advisor, since Lord Geidt resigned earlier this year. Emma speaks to Pippa Crerar political editor of The Guardian and Christine Jardine, Liberal Democrat MP Edinburgh West, spokesperson for Cabinet Office, Women and Equalities and Scotland, who yesterday tabled a bill asking for parliament to appoint an ethics advisor if the conservative party fails to do so. We speak to director Sally El Hosaini about her new film The Swimmers which is based on the true story two Syrian sisters who fled Damascus in a dinghy boat in order to escape war and build a new life for themselves. One of those sisters, Yusra Mardini, will also be speaking to Emma Barnett about how she feels about her story being turned into a film. Fantasy Football is a hugely popular online game which requires building a make believe team of real world players who compete in the Premier League. But the growth of women managers has exceeded that of men in the last five years, rising by 112%. With the Premier League taking a break for the first ever winter World Cup, we explore the challenges early female participants of Fantasy Football have faced and what their participation in the game, and a growing interest in football, could have on the sport.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Today feels a bit like a waiting game as the UK and its allies try to establish the facts about a missile which landed in eastern Poland near the Ukrainian border, killing two people, following a wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, speaking at a press conference within the last hour in Bali, where most of the G20 leaders are meeting, has said, quote, all of us want to get to the bottom of what happened.

And closer to home, speculation is mounting about what tomorrow's budget will mean for personal finances across the country. But in order to govern effectively and with stability, which has been lacking of late because we've had three prime ministers in as many months, there has to be faith in our leaders' judgment and conduct. Calls are growing for Rishi Sunak to appoint an ethics advisor after bullying allegations against his deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, which Mr Raab has denied, who is standing in for Mr Sunak today at Prime Minister's Questions. We'll get into this with one woman trying to change things and the accusations of macho politics shortly. Also on today's programme, the refugee Syrian Olympic swimmer who ended up swimming part of the way to her freedom is here with the acclaimed filmmaker who's brought her story to the screen. The poet winning prizes for her account of being

a butch lesbian and what that means in today's society and what it doesn't. And we have two women who adore playing fantasy football. The growth of the number of women playing this game, which you may or may not know, we'll go into that as well, has now overtaken the new numbers of men joining the ranks of fantasy football management. I thought this begged the question, what hobbies that you have in your life that perhaps have been traditionally male pursuits? And how has it been breaking into those spaces? I'm in the market for all sorts of stories on this subject. Take me wherever you want. I'm ready to go for all sorts of stories on this subject. Take me wherever you want. I'm ready to go there. The number is 84844. Text will be charged to your standard rate on social

media at BBC Women's Hour or email me through the Women's Hour website or why not send a WhatsApp message or a voice note, always lovely to hear your voice, on the number 03700 100 444 and just check out on those data charges. You may want to use Wi-Fi. But today, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary of State, Dominic Raab, will be standing in for the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, at Prime Minister's Questions at Noon. Mr Raab has been facing increasing pressure following accusations of bullying, which were revealed over the weekend.

On Monday's programme, you may remember we had the former Deputy Chief Whip Anne Milton, a Conservative MP, on the programme. She was the final straw for Sir Gavin Williamson's cabinet career this time around, some would say, having gone public about his conduct when in that office and his alleged bullying of Conservative MPs. We talked about the toxic macho culture around Westminster as well and what needs to change. Sir Gavin Williamson, I should say,

refutes this characterisation of his conduct. And yesterday, Catherine Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner, you may remember this woman's name for standards, certainly around what was going on with Boris Johnson and some of those allegations around Partygate. She's raised concerns around public anger and despair over the behaviour of some MPs. She's especially bemoaned the lack of power for Parliament to investigate 1,500 complaints around Boris Johnson's Partygate

scandal or, for instance, Matt Hancock's decision to prioritise ITV's I'm a Celebrity role over his job in Parliament. She also called on Rishi Sunak to appoint an ethics advisor following the resignation of Lord Gait earlier this year, saying somebody needs to make a decision and make a decision soon about what happens to ministers who breach or are alleged to have breached the ministerial code. We did ask for a member of the government to come on this programme this morning and no one

was available. But I am joined now by Pippa Crear, the political editor of The Guardian. Pippa, good morning. Good morning, Emma. Thanks for having me. I just thought I'd start with Mr. Arb, because he's the voice we're going to be hearing as the voice of the government today in Prime Minister's questions. I should say a spokesperson for the Deputy Prime Minister said Dominic has high standards, works hard, expects a lot from his team as well as himself. He's worked well with officials to drive the government's agenda across Whitehall in multiple government departments and always acts with the utmost professionalism. What have you been hearing? Well, I should probably bring you breaking news immediately, Emma, which is that Dominic Raab has

just tweeted in the last five minutes that he has received or that there have been two formal complaints made against him and that he's written to the prime minister to request an independent investigation into those. He says he looks forward to addressing those complaints and continuing to serve as deputy prime minister, justice secretary and Lord Chancellor in the meantime. Now, you wouldn't have missed the fact that over the last week or so, or last five days or so, Number 10, Rishi Sunak and any government minister you ask has sort of hidden behind this defence that there hasn't been any formal complaints about Dominic Raab's alleged behaviour. Although, of course, as more allegations have come to light,

they haven't been able to deny that there have been informal complaints and a number of permanent secretaries reporting alleged behaviour to the Cabinet Office. So that's just happened. Formal complaints have come in. What does that mean and how does that link to Rishi Sunak? Or how should it, some would say? Well, the difficulty, the bigger picture here, of course, is, as you said in your introduction, that there's not currently an independent ethics advisor. So what we're not clear about is where those two complaints, one from his time as foreign

secretary and one from his first tenure as justice secretary, have been made to. I mean, my assumption is that they would go into the cabinet office, the propriety and ethics team, and that they would conduct an investigation into them. But there is a big gap in the government's response to these sorts of allegations because, as you say, we've not had an independent ethics advisor for five months since Lord Guyte quit. Number 10 insists that the replacement is happening. The process is happening at pace. But this will make it even more urgent for them now to fill that role, to make sure that there is an obvious point of reference for people, for civil servants and other officials to go to. The problem for Rishi Sinha right now, of course, who's on the other side of the road in Bali,

is that he spent the last four or five days defending Dominic Raab, saying he doesn't recognise the characterisation of some of these allegations of bullying and that no formal complaints have been made. He's tried to shut it down. But as we saw last week, and I'm not making a comparison with Gavin Williamson, I think there's a different level of behaviour or alleged behaviour there. But as we saw last week, because Rishi Sunak came into government and repeatedly promised integrity, professionalism

and accountability at every level of that government, if any ministers have seemed to have fallen short of that, it puts him in a very difficult position when it comes to deciding what to do. Here we are again, more complaints into alleged behaviour. He's already repeatedly said integrity, professionalism and accountability.

If Dominic Raab, who seems keen to stay in post for the time being while that investigation takes place, if he's found guilty of breaching the ministerial code and those rules, then Rishi Snack, frankly, is not faced with any choice other than to get rid of him. And the allegations are, just to give us an insight, I know we don't know the details of these formal complaints that have just been announced by Mr. Raab, that he's just alerted people to and that he's been alerted to. But what are the nature of the complaints? So people are aware, because we've also been hearing about the idea of there being a toxic culture of machoism and the way that that has played into some of these scenarios. We're not saying everybody who's ever been accused in politics is always a man, but there is a concern about the culture in Westminster.

Yes. And the allegations which we've reported on at The Guardian and also The Observer over the last few days initiated with it. The first one was the claim that we reported on Saturday that the Ministry of Justice senior staff had been offered respite or a route out when it was announced that Dominic Raab was returning for the second time to the department and that he was allegedly given a warning by the Home Secretary, by the Permanent Secretary in that department, about his behaviour. Now that behaviour was said to include demeaning, undermining and belittling of civil servants in his private office. There's about 15, a dozen to 20 individuals, civil servants who work very closely with him on a day-to-day basis, belittling them,

being very angry in meetings, berating them. One example which was reported by Civil Service World as contributing to this culture of fear was him talking about having a zero tolerance approach to bullying and staff feeling that that was just gaslighting of them. Now these allegations of this type of behaviour don't just come from the Ministry of Justice, we've also spoken to people at the Foreign Office and the former Brexit department where he was also Secretary of State, should repeat that this is not Gavin Williamson-style allegations. And allies of Dominic Raab say, look, he's just a hard taskmaster. He's got very high expectations and is driving delivery.

But the civil servants we speak to, and there are multiple ones across multiple departments, allege that those expectations are beyond realistic. His manner is not professional or appropriate appropriate and it verges into bullying just finally your thoughts on this idea of a of a toxic macho culture in westminster what's your take on that pipper as someone who who works and lives and breathes this whole space well i think i think westminster in some ways and by that i mean with whitehall departments and and the palace of west politics, does have, unfortunately, still have a sort of a culture, which is kind of like, I'd say about 10 years behind, 15 years behind other professional workplaces. Whereas other workplaces, this sort of behaviour would just be shut down immediately.

We seem to breach all professional guidelines. Unfortunately, it looks like, less in the civil service, but certainly in the Palace of Westminster amongst politicians, it still exists. And, you know, that is, of course, it's not just men. There are allegations about women as well. But it does feel it's sort of, I mean, it is still a male-dominated arena. There are many more male MPs than there are women and men in senior positions than there are women. Inevitably, that has a consequence. You know, I think it's really important that it gets called out at every opportunity and that the professionalisation of the workplace here happens in the same way as it happens outside, because really it's not fit for the modern age. And for those who think, you know, perhaps this is technicalities, we're getting into the HR of politics.

It is the human resources, I should say. It is relevant because of, of course, what happened to Boris Johnson and how that particular political chapter came to a close leading to not one new Prime Minister but two and that points to stability and some of the major issues that the country is facing at the moment domestically and internationally. Pippa Creel, thank you very much for your analysis and also bringing us that

latest news from Dominic Raab's perspective, the Deputy Prime Minister who has to get on his feet in around just under two hours time, having just announced that he's written to the prime minister to request an independent investigation into two formal complaints that have now been made against him. But he's looking forward, he says, to continuing to serve as the deputy prime minister. So that just breaking as we're talking to you. Let me bring into this Christine Jardine, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West, a spokesperson for the Cabinet Office Women and Equalities in Scotland, who I believe yesterday tabled a bill about this, asking for Parliament to appoint an ethics advisor if the Conservative Party fails to do so.

Christine, good morning. Good morning, Emma. What has been your driving force on this and what's been the response to your bill? Well, the response has been very positive. People see the need for an ethics advisor and to shorten the delay that the government seems to be, or at least seemed until a few moments ago, to be in no hurry to do anything about. 145 days we've been without an ethics advisor and rishi sunak did promise us that this would be a government of integrity and ethics and we see all these allegations about the behavior now of three cabinet ministers so if he's not going to appoint an ethics advisor then parliament should be able to do it because it harms us all it

undermines um the body politic if you like, and as long as we don't act to do something about this macho culture, which is not just in Westminster, it's in politics generally in the UK, unless we act to do something about it, then we're responsible for it

and that's why I believe that we need to do something. You just said three cabinet ministers. Is that right? Well, we've had allegations about Gavin Williamson and Dominic Raab and I was thinking back to when we had previous allegations about cabinet ministers sorry. Okay, no, no, I was checking I hadn't

missed, it's good to keep up with politics It is very difficult to keep up though, there are so many allegations of bad behaviour. It's our job. Yeah, I mean there are, I have to say, across the House as well. But your point is around the conducts of the Cabinet, the most senior politicians. And I mean, some would say that the ethics advisor

that was there in place before perhaps didn't fulfil their role. They weren't that powerful in the first place. I mean, Catherine Stone, the woman trying to look at all of this, is frustrated, it seems, with the powers that she has. But we still ended up losing a prime minister. So and behaviour that was, of course, part of a police investigation. So what would you say to those who say this is a bit of a waste of parliamentary time from your perspective because the role doesn't really have much power? Well, that's, if you like, the problem in a nutshell and why we need Parliament to appoint an ethics advisor, because the ethics advisor needs to be independent, but appointed by Parliament and Parliament needs to take responsibility for the way that we all behave.

Parliament needs to recognise that this is damaging politics in this country. It's damaging people individually as well. Anyone who's ever been the subject of bullying or harassment in the workplace knows how it seeps into your consciousness, it affects how you see life actually and can be incredibly damaging. So we can't just allow this to be something that is addressed on the whim of whoever is Prime Minister at the time. It has to be recognised as a serious problem. Parliament needs to take responsibility and ensure

that there is an independent ethics advisor. Now we did this with the Standards Commission and we need to do it again. Of course there have been issues right across and in all the parties there have been issues right right across and in all the parties there's been allegations you know within the liberal democrats you'll be very aware of but i am aware that you also said you talked about it being a toxic macho culture yeah what what is your take on that well i think um politics can be very aggressive and um people i worry about the extent to which we all spend

all our days attacking each other rather than dealing with the actual issues and i've you know it's it's something that i think we need to address across all parties is think very carefully about how we conduct ourselves and what we say and be less aggressive and actually several times recently um mr speaker lindsey hoyle has said come on now that's not the it doesn't a very pleasant way but he says come on now that's not the sort of behavior we expect and that's the problem people will tune in to pmqs today and you know dominic rabb now is going to be there's going i would suspect it's all going to get a bit there's going to be a bit of a pile on Dominic Raab today which I you know I don't

defend at all but I think that there is a danger that we behave in such a way in the House of Commons that people see us shouting and bawling and being nasty and that infects the behaviour throughout Parliament and it's what people see and it's not good nasty and that infects the behaviour throughout Parliament. And it's what people see and it's not good enough. And we need an independent ethics advisor who has teeth and can say, no, I'm sorry, you're behaving in a manner that's not acceptable. Christine Jardine, we'll see what happens with your call, your bill that you've tabled. Thank you for your time this morning, Liberal Democrat MP there. And I should say, as I mentioned, we did invite somebody on from the government this morning, no one was available nor any statement provided. But as we've just brought to you

that statement from Dominic Raab, who has talked about now, there's been two separate complaints formally made against him in parallel from his time as Foreign Secretary and from his first tenure as Justice Secretary. When in an interview with my colleague, the BBC's political editor, Chris Mason, yesterday, Rishi Sunak also repeatedly declined to say whether he'd had any informal warnings about Mr Raab's behaviour before bringing him back into Cabinet and was not aware of any formal complaints. That's obviously changed and updated this morning, as we've just brought you. An interesting message here that's just come in I wanted to share as well. Westminster culture is

not good, but local government, reads this message, is even worse. Horrendous misogyny and bullying. No one talks about this. I don't want to give my name, but I've been at the receiving end many times. And another one here, I'm sure I'm not the only one to be increasingly irritated by the concentration on the alleged bullying behaviour of politicians. Government is a serious business, not a women's knitting group. I'm not sure anyone's saying that. And it attracts strong personalities who are often very committed to what they're doing. Such people are actually needed to get things done and their efforts are in danger of being stifled by a complaints culture that's now infesting politics.

There's an old saying, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And it's about time that a more robust approach was adopted towards complainants, reads this anonymous message. Well, no, knitting groups haven't been brought up, but thank you very much for that comparison. But your point is you're frustrated by the focus I take that point and I think it's of course something that you may have your own view on and you wish to get in touch with please do so the number you need is 84844. Talking about perhaps what you are interested in doing in your spare time maybe it is a knitting group I did ask about traditionally male pursuits that perhaps you've gone into as a woman and how you have found them. I'll come to those messages in just a moment.

You may even class politics in that. But it's changing. It is changing. And something else that's changing is fantasy football. With over 9 million players worldwide, it's hugely popular. The game requires building a make-believe team of players who compete in the Premier League and the fantasy manager then gaining points based on their players' real-life performances, such as scoring goals or not conceding. Fantasy managers can create leagues with friends, family and colleagues

to compete for the most important thing in the world, bragging rights. The game is dominated by male players, but the growth of female managers has recently exceeded that of the men. Since 2015, women fantasy managers have increased by over 112% to more than 355,000. And the number of women playing fantasy football overall has gone up by over 95%. The Premier League game is now on hold, as we, of course, await the World Cup in Qatar starting on Sunday. There's a lot of discussion about that, often not about the football.

And the tournament also has its own official FIFA fantasy football game. I'm joined now by Nim Fryer, or Nim, a big player, and she brings tips to her YouTube subscribers. And someone who would normally talk about perhaps our previous discussion, the politics side of things, but also in a very different guise today,

the Sky News broadcaster and journalist, Sophie Ridge, another avid player who has also noticed this increase in female players since she started getting involved. I was going to come to you, Nim, first, if I can. How did you first get into fantasy football? Yes, I started playing FPL in the 21-22 season when a friend from uni asked me to play.

Our friendship group wasn't very football-focused, but my best friend was. And he knew that I used to watch Match of the Day for Arsenal, but not really interested in any of the other football teams. So he was like, can you play this football game with me? Probably thinking I was a little bit of easy fodder, I would have thought. But I was like, yeah, no worries, no worries. I loved it. I won our mini league and I've been hooked ever since pretty much and Sophie what was it for you how did you get in good morning hello Emma um so for me I've been playing for five years so this is my sixth season now and what stuck me in was definitely

competitiveness with my brother um who basically beats me at everything. And he beats me at fantasy football as well, which I find deeply annoying. So that kind of keeps me going. But then, to be honest, it is really addictive. It's really fun. It makes you enjoy the Premier League, I think, even more if you've booked a fantasy team as well. And also, you know, there's a lot of work leagues too. So at Sky, there's a big work league.

There's also work leagues in the parliamentary lobby as there's a big work league there's also work leagues um in the parliamentary lobby as well um which i definitely get sad is there is there is there a reaction i'm sorry i think we've got a slight bit of um interruption on on nim's line there we'll see if we can just sort that out but sophie just one more to you because we have just been talking about the the culture at westminster but is there a reaction to to you at work when you say you play because you're a woman we've got some messages to that effect in different areas um I think people quite like it I definitely stand out um so because I've it is quite fun I think people at the beginning of the season like oh yeah you're doing really well this year and I'm like yeah and then like I have I've won I had

one really good season I'm not doing so well this year, but won the Lobby League and the Sky League, so that definitely gave me the bragging rights. I 100% agree with you, Emma. That is really what it's all about. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing better. Nim, I just wanted to ask about your experience of breaking into this, because I know you go under your name slightly differently on YouTube because it wasn't so good at one point when you were starting out. Yeah, so when I first started out

I used my my my actual name and unfortunately loads of people found me on Facebook and I got quite a lot of I guess um unsavory comments why I should be playing FPL as a woman and yeah just just the sort of comments you don't need to hear on the radio really and from that moment I decided to use my a nickname that my family use and a gaming tag and since then really it's kind of eased a lot of that worry I guess that it can come back to myself so yeah and and the sort of comments were, around the fact you shouldn't be playing this? Yes, basically, as a woman, I shouldn't be playing a fantasy football game. I can't know what I'm talking about.

And do you mainly play or when you're competing, are you doing it with women as well? Or are you doing it with men? How does that work? Yeah, so all sorts. And my YouTube channel is to give advice to anyone who wants to watch it. I'm the first female that that has an FPL YouTube channel. So hopefully broke a few barriers there for others. And I've also started a new show as well, which is an all female panel based FPL show as well, which is hopefully the first of its kind. But yeah yeah I play with all sorts that you know women are playing FPL more and more we're seeing more high profile females coming out about playing

FPL like Sophie and it's great because you know it's all exposure for females in the game. Have you noticed a rise Sophie of women being involved? Yeah I have definitely in the recent years. I think as women have become more involved in football as well, it is still definitely quite male-dominated. Also, just to pick up on what Nim was saying, I find that unbelievably frustrating that you have that kind of feedback. The thing is, with fantasy football, I think as well,

is obviously there is skill, but there's also luck. If you're a guy who has a bad week, you just had a bad week that's really bad if you're a woman particularly a woman who's giving advice like you you have a bad week it's like oh it's because she's a woman and it's actually just not cool um but it's the different standards i find really frustrating and sophie just to be clear for those who may want to get into this or know maybe they're a they're a widow either as a man or a woman to to this particular game or pursuit. You are playing it largely about the men's game, aren't you? Because there is excitement so much now about the women's football game,

but it is still about the men's game, isn't it? Yeah, so I just played the fantasy Premier League male game. A lot of other people will get involved in World Cup games. I mean, to be honest, is there a women's football game? I actually don't know, Nim, if there is a fantasy. I think that there is more recently, yes. But it's only recently. I was going to say, we looked this morning

and it seems it's very recent and pretty small compared. So you're still deciding to manage a team of men, Sophie? That is great. There should be more female managers. Yeah, I mean, that's not really happened in real life yet has it that many women have crossed over to to run the men's game or be the coaches a little bit here and there but I just wanted to make that clear are you are you going to keep playing NIM during the World Cup? I think I might take a bit of a break because it's not very often that we get a bit of a break in the lead up to Christmas, except for, you know, COVID aside, of course.

So I might take this opportunity to have a little bit of a break in the lead up to Christmas. Hang on a minute. When you say have a break, is this because you're doing your channel or this is because, how much time does this take up though as well? Play it.

This is, well, this is mostly my channel and the content I create around my channel. So it's pretty much full time for me. But yes, so I'm taking a bit of a break. But I'm sure I'll get suckered into something to do with the World Cup before the weekend is out, for sure. Sophie, you know, you're a busy woman as well. How much time do you give to this?

You've got to do your Sunday morning politics show as well as, I don't know, try to have some downtime. Is this all your downtime? You know what, it makes me sound like a big geek but um yeah it takes loads of time am i no i mean i definitely spend too much time on this is what i'll say uh in as you say i've got sunday morning program i've got wednesday evening program on sky i shouldn't be spending so much time reading blogs on fantasy football well it's good it's good to know what's really keeping you entertained. Sophie Ridge, lovely to have you on in a very different guise than normal. And Nim, great to have you as well.

Thank you very much for talking to us this morning and telling us a little bit, bringing some light to the fantasy football world and why and how so many more women are now getting involved. Amazing messages here coming in about what have been traditionally male pursuits. Thank you so much for these. Let's go through a few of them now. We've got one here from a listener, Carrie, who says, hello, I do weightlifting in my spare time as it makes me feel amazing.

I tend to not talk about it much, but it makes me feel really good when I can surprise people, especially men, with my strength. And so it continues. I have fond memories of my mum doing the football pools when I was little. My dad was never interested in football and neither am I. And as a man, says Scott listening in Bristol, good morning to you. I'm 41. I play a very male dominated mobile game religiously, about 90% male. Can be difficult if they find out that you're female, especially if you're a leader in the game. Both my teenage daughters play fantasy football and have done for years.

It seems to fuel lively conversations at school. I believe some of the teaching staff do it too. Traditional male domains, I can hold my own at a classic car event and I own a 1958 Austin Healy frog-eyed Sprite, says Couchy who's listening, good morning to you. And so it continues. And no knitting groups yet, I have to say, for the mention of that earlier.

I spent five years skydiving. It's a heavily male-dominated sport, Emma, and I have hugely mixed feelings around the time I've committed to it. I felt preyed upon and constantly sexualised. The culture in skydiving is very toxic. But as you say, it's your interest as well. So you've continued with it. I run ultra marathons.

And while these events are still male dominated, the number of women entering these events has grown significantly in recent years. The 85 mile event I did last weekend usually boasted around 43% female entrants. But the She Races organisation, Sophie Powers She Races organisation, is working hard to make races more accessible to women.

Furthermore, women are starting to win these events and set course records. Women also have a lower dropout rate compared to male competitors. I've been surfing, Emma, since 1999. Up until recently, it has been an overwhelmingly male pursuit. Over 20 years on,

it is an absolute delight to see so many girls and women take to the waves. But when I started, women were very much a minority in the water. We were harassed by men, sexualized and belittled. I will not say all men were this way. There are a lot of good guys out there, but I've had to stand my ground and prove my worth more times than I can count. Times are changing. Thank goodness. We'd like to remain anonymous.

Yes, we can always do that. And another one on the weight side of things, Adele says, I'm really impressed and delighted at the number of women at my gym who are not afraid of lifting heavy weights. Traditionally, the testosterone zone. I was a bit late to the game, but it's 60. 10 years on, I love the strength, pride and lack of fear and self-confidence of these upcoming strong fit women.

Brilliant messages about those of you who are pursuing what had been traditionally male pursuits in your downtime, your hobbies. I still would love to get into, which has been a very traditionally male pursuit, I'd still really like to try my hand at fishing, but that has not happened yet. So I must try harder. But for any of you out there, any of you female anglers, perhaps you can give me a few tips. Do let me know and get in touch. But last night, let's talk about someone who's experiencing some success. Maybe they're a bit hungover. Who knows? The poet Joelle Taylor was named the winner of the Polari Prize 2022. It's the only dedicated award for LGBTQ plus writing in the UK. The name Polari refers to a code language invented by gay men and made famous to some by Kenneth Williams. That award for Joelle will now join the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry on her very busy mantelpiece, now heaving with them, which she won in January. The title of the collection, which bagged her both prizes, features very strong language,

which I am about to use. It's her fourth collection. It's called Cunto and Othered Poems. And it started as a performance piece about the butch lesbian experience and what she sees as the erasure of lesbian culture and identity. Joelle, good morning. Good morning. How are you? How are you feeling? I'm feeling a little bit peaky, but in the most delightful way. I had an amazing night last night and, you know, it's just such a phenomenal feeling.

I bet. Congratulations. Thank you. And I'm happy you made it to be with us this morning. And I suppose it must be an interesting thing to be receiving prizes, having worked so much with counterculture and been on the edges. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was a couple of years ago, really, it started to occur to me that I wasn't as marginalised as I was saying. I think it was at Buckingham Palace or something.

But, I mean, I think it's the journey of all artists, isn't it? The point of us is to get our work out there and to reach other people. And for years, my whole kind of USB has been the fact that I'm from a marginalised community and I'm working against the system, but then suddenly you find yourself becoming the system. Well, maybe not that far yet. But I suppose it is that line, isn't it? You want the success because you want people to hear it

and you want to get it out there. But it's a bit like where I always think musicians or rappers, if they've talked about being, you know, struggling and the finances side, they can't quite keep writing those songs. Yeah, that's right. Fortunately, I can keep writing those songs. As a poet. Yeah.

That bit can still stay. I'm waiting for my gold chains. But, you know, part of it, being a poet, is about investigating and exploring life and trying to, you know, uncover humanity and what makes us us. So a part of it is always going to be a little bit on the margins, a little bit strange, and I guess counterculture. It's a joy to have a poet in the studio, I always think,

and it's a waste if we don't hear some of the poetry. So I know that you're happy to see a reading for us. What are we going to hear? We're going to hear one of the cantos from the main series of seven cantos that was the um initial you know um what do you call it the initial inspiration for the book and just before you do the word canto tell us about that because you've obviously played with it so canto is is kind of i always describe cantos as tiny little poems and when you put them together it it makes one big poem. So like Dante's Inferno, or like scenes in a film, that kind of thing.

OK, so I'm going to read one of the cantos that was chosen by Wimza. Born backward, bright back and wide skin, rolling cigarettes and shirt sleeves, skyline chin, Levi 501s curled up to cuff, white t-shirt that they may project themselves on you, tsunami quiff, and black boots whose roots spread and tangle through the centre of the earth. You don't wear makeup. To prove you have not made anything up. This is your face. Your father's friends gave it to you one Christmas Eve, 1973. You unwrapped it beneath a decorated tree from which the rest of your family hung.

They sipped cocktails as you slowly disappeared, swaying gently to that wail of celebration, the harbinger of party. You cut your first suit from the thick silence when you enter a room. They call you Butch, the name derived from Butch Cassidy. You are the descendant of outlaws. Irony incarnate. Woman butchered, cut into select meats. Middle distance stare. Shoulder. Breast.

Wild tongue. They fear you. Thank you for that, Joelle Taylor. A lot to unpack just in that one. And this is talking about in part, and this is what the book is about and your work's about, what it means toians and the loss of kind of ourselves within a new culture. And it's very, very personal. So it wasn't a great big political statement. It was very personal.

It's about how some of my butch friends have died and how they die and how much I miss them and how they haunt spaces. And then I started thinking about ghosts in general and how they haunt the entirety then I started thinking about ghosts in general and how they haunt the entirety of LGBT culture you know um the most obvious one being after the AIDS pandemic um but yeah that's essentially what it's and when you say you've lost spaces what do you mean by that physical spaces so there's one lesbian club well it's not even a club, one lesbian bar left in the whole of London. And I used to have a choice of maybe five or six a night.

There were loads of different clubs. And it's across the world. So it's happening, you know, in an endemic way that these spaces are closing down. Perhaps some of it's because there's more integration. Some of it's market forces. But it always surprises me when people say, well, you know, lesbian bars, they close because they don't make money because they were rammed.

So I feel like because we've been a bit digitally kettled, we've all been kettled on social media and those have become our kind of virtual spaces and where people hang out. But it's a space that celebrates difference not communality i mean you're right also i mean i was just thinking of a report this week about nightclubs generally closing and the market forces and all of that but it's also a bigger comment from you like you say from personal experience about the identity as well the erasure of the identity of what it is

to be a butch lesbian yeah um i feel like the butch lesbian is kind of the identity of what it is to be a butch lesbian? Yeah. I feel like the butch lesbian is kind of the equivalent of the highly effeminate gay man, so the drag queen. The butch is kind of the ceremonial office of lesbians with a visible and yet invisible face at the same time. So it's very easy with the first kind of identity, I think, to be erased because we don't appeal to the male gaze at all. We don't even notice it. We're not even in the same room as the male gaze. Are you saying young women, though, who know they're gay, who know they're a lesbian, wouldn't now perhaps think that that is an identity for them?

Do you think they know about it or can lean into it. How did you come to it? I mean, I was lucky. I came into being, but I came into being as a Butch Dyke in the 90s when there was a massive revival. And so there was a lot of conversation around what it meant and an understanding that it's not about replicating male-female relationships. It's something to do with heritage and survival. So I don't identify as a man, for example. I identify as freedom and survival so I don't identify as a man for example I identify as freedom and survival and I'm aware of of what my ancestors if you like did in order for me to be sitting in this room now

talking to you um I think there is like a greater understanding it's widening it out a little bit because there are people like Roman Manfredi doing this photography exhibition called We Us in February next year which explores butch culture in photographs. It's going to be phenomenal. And there are various little things happening, which means that younger women are given more choices and understanding perhaps their place in identity better. Do you think if you were growing up today,

how do you think you'd find your identity today and how you'd express that? I mean, I have absolutely no idea. It's kind of one of those questions where, you know, it's very difficult to imagine. It's very difficult for me to put myself in the position of a young lesbian today, a young LGBT member of the community. No, of course, I just wonder if with the options that are there,

that there's something that seems to have replaced what was there for you when you were saying about in the 90s. I mean, it's possible. Friends and I have talked about non-binary being something that we recognise and understand, but the understanding of what non-binary is has widened so much that the people I'd have recognised as non-binary like myself are kind of beside women and men who look really like women and men,

look very classically heterosexual in ways. So in that sense, non-binary doesn't fit me anymore. I think this is it. It's all a matter of exploration. There's a real sense that people are searching for their identities. All I know, and the book is about, is that I'm a big, fat lesbian and a butch as well. And, you know, this book is commemorative.

It's a memorial to my friends. And also, do you not think, though, that as an identity, you will continue or keep going or growing? It sounds like you think something's ended i don't know i don't know if that's true or not i think things are constantly in flux and constantly changing um i think there'll always be butch lesbians always um because i didn't i didn't dress i literally was born like this you know i've never had to come out for example i'm one of the few people,

because I'm one of the very visible lesbian-looking women. You also talk about Butch Cassidy, that reading that you just gave us. Tell us about the link there and how that works. I was researching, so this was really early, these cantos in the research of the book. And essentially we could just trace it through research, the word butch, back to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And it was literally lesbians calling themselves Butch.

But then I looked into it further, into Judy Grant and another mother tongue, and Butch seems to be related to Boudicca, you know, and the office of the bull slayer. So you hear words like bull dyke and bull dagger, Boudicca, bull dagger. So it's fascinating. Basically, we've been your virgins in italics. We are your virgins and bull slayers.

Wow. I know, it's interesting. I didn't know that. It is. And also just talking about words, obviously, you chose to call your book what you've called it, that play on Canto. How's that going now?

You're being stopped in the front windows of all the bookshops? Do you know what? Yes, yes, because it's a real word. It means to recount or tell a personal story, past singular historic. And in Italy, they flew me out to Italy to read The Wasteland, and nobody blinked there because it's an Italian word. Really?

So, yeah. What we've done to that word and how it works. I know. I mean, obviously I'm playing on it. I'm not just using it because of what it means. Because their canto is about women. So it's that simple, really. I just wanted to ask you, we were just talking about football.

I don't believe you're the biggest football fan, but there is this story continuing about the comedian Joe Lysak calling out gay ally David Beckham for his work for being an ambassador for Qatar ahead of the Football World Cup. He said he's going to shred £10,000 on TV or on a channel live if David Beckham doesn't stand back from that because he had been viewed as a gay ally. Just to say again, Qatar, if you don't know,

homosexuality is illegal there. That's why there's been so much consternation as well as the issues around the human rights of those who built the stadiums. But what do you make of all of that? Well, I mean, we're illegal in, I think it's 72 different countries. Lesbians are illegal in 44. I don't think we should be supporting the World Cup or whatever it is.

I'm a really bad butch because I don't understand football. But we shouldn't be supporting it. This rainbow capitalism is just, you get flags in the window and you like to make money off us and to use our identity as a way of creating money. And then the minute we turn away, you're making deals with one of these 72 countries, not just Qatar, there's 72.

And in a substantial number of them, gay men can expect to be killed. So I don't think Joe Lysak should necessarily shred £10,000 when those people haven't got money, Joe. It'd be really nice if you thought of something else to do with that. But I'm very pleased he's speaking out against David Beckham. Well, thank you for sharing how you've been speaking out this morning, sharing some of your work with us. And congratulations again. Thanks so much.

We'll let you get back to the day that is after this. Joelle Taylor there, the poet, having bagged not one but two awards for her work and also some of those issues raised around identity and what it is to be a butch lesbian. Now, your message is also, I would, if I can, come back to me. They're brilliant, still coming in. But I did want to read this,

just because we're talking about identity and also women. Going back to our very first discussion, someone wrote in saying, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen about perhaps a macho, toxic culture in Westminster. We've just heard as we were coming on breaking news about the deputy prime minister and two formal complaints. Someone wrote in saying, Parliament's not all, you know, or politics isn't a women's knitting group. Someone says, I wish Parliament was a women's knitting group. Just think how many jumpers, blankets they could make for everyone this winter with those idle hands.

Well, keep with the politics for a moment, because yesterday the UK signed a revised deal with France, agreeing to pay £8 million more a year to try to stop people crossing the English Channel in small boats or whatever they can. The money will pay for increased surveillance of French beaches, while UK police officers will also be able to observe patrols within France. The government is coming under increased pressure to reduce journeys across the channel, which has risen

to record levels, which have risen to record levels this year. More than 40,000 people have crossed in small boats or some kind of vessel so far this year, including 1,800 this weekend alone. That's according to official figures. My next guest, Yusra Mardini, knows what it's like to take a journey in a dinghy like that or in some kind of vessel, because in 2015, at the age of 17, she and her sister, Sarah, fled their home in Damascus in Syria. They were among the million refugees who risked their lives to travel across the sea to reach Europe in 2015. Yusra and her sister, who were both professional swimmers, jumped into the water to swim alongside at one point their overcrowded boat as it threatened

to sink in the sea between Turkey and Greece, before finally getting, after a whole other journey, trying to get to Germany to make a home there. Since then, Yusra Mardini, you might recognise her name, has competed in the Rio Olympics for the refugee team and then also Tokyo. And her story has been made into a film called The Swimmers. She joins me now in the studio. Good morning. Hi, good morning. Lovely to have you here. Alongside with the film's director, Sally El-Hosseini, down the line from Cairo.

Sally, hello to you. Hello, Sally. I think we're just going to unmute you. This is the phrase of the last two years, isn't it? So we can make sure. Sally, hello. Yes. Hello. It's great to have you. I actually thought I'd start with you just to ask about, you know, you've got your choice of stories

when you make a film in many ways, but what was it about Yusra's story and their family story? Well, I've been aware of Yusra from the news because I'd seen her in the news around the time she was in Rio competing, but I didn't know that she had a sister until Jack Thorne's script came my way. And I saw in that story an opportunity to make complex heroes out of the type of modern liberal Arab women who exist, but rarely appear on our screens, as well as an

opportunity to subvert the stereotypes of refugees and these young women. Yeah, I mean, it's an absolutely beautiful story. And of course, for a different reason, we've been thinking about these boat crossings. And, you know, we're not comparing stories here. And of course, not everybody in these boats are refugees either. But that experience, Yusra, of what you have gone through, and I don't want to ruin any parts of the film, but what you ended up having to do with your sister was just incredibly frightening, I imagine. Yeah, at the time I was, as you mentioned, I was only 17. And it's just sad to think that this was our reality and the reality of millions around the world. As you mentioned, there's right now 100 million displaced people all around the world, and none of us chose to become a refugee.

We tried to leave our country. We left our country because of war and violence, because we wanted to have a normal life. And I say that so many times. We had two choices. Either we risk our lives every day in Syria, or we risk our life one more time to have a you know stable life and what was it like that crossing um honestly um you know the the movie portrayed it really in such a good way Sally understood what happened with us Jack all the the actresses um so yeah it was it was crazy i was 17 years old at the time my sister was three years older than me we had to cross um seven countries it was 25 days until we got to germany um my parents were freaking out the whole time um because we were very young we were two uh two girls crossing and um it's again just a sad reality to know that a teenager had to go through

all of that just to have the basic human rights. The film and I'll go back to Sally in just a moment is called The Swimmers and of course that does pertain to your amazing skill in the pool but there is also this element of where you you get out of one of the vessels because you're worried it's going to sink and you swim. Yeah, I've been a swimmer since I was three years old and I had this dream of competing at the Olympics since I was nine years old. I was watching Micah Phelps and all the really amazing swimmers such as Adam Peaty as well just compete and win gold over gold. So that motivated me to become the person that I am today,

the swimmer that I am today. And, yeah, unfortunately, when the boat, after 15 minutes, the motor stopped, and we had to jump overboard to try and stabilize the dinghy because the water was getting in. It was sinking. There was a lot of wind. We were turned back and going to to turkey which we did not want you were always a you're also in the water afraid of like the police coming and unfortunately

ripping off your dinghy not helping you because they did that too um so in general it was a really really terrifying three and a half hours for us even if you're a swimmer it's the sea you don't know anything about the sea and it's just we had so much respect and the thing that was the heart the hardest for me is just knowing that lots of people did not know how to swim on that dinghy and they still risk their life to to be safe so that that was a really traumatic experience and I I'm very, very glad that it's very well portrayed in the movie. Sally, how was that to try and reenact? Yeah, I mean, authenticity was the most important thing for us. We had Hassan Akkad, who's a Syrian filmmaker and took the same journey as Yusra and Sara,

also took a dinghy and he recorded it on his mobile phone. So we had mobile phone footage as well of crossings. We did extensive research and we really went to the Aegean Sea and put a dinghy in the water with 25 people and did it for real. The daytime portions of the crossing were filmed in the open water. And that location that we set sail from for the movie, when we had been wrecking it, we saw dinghies crossing. We saw Turkish Coast Guard ships chasing those dinghies. So it was a very alive situation.

Also, we'd cast a lot of supporting actors who were in the dinghy. They were refugees who had taken that same journey themselves. It was important for me that refugees were not only cast in the film, but also worked on the film behind the scenes. Has it given you a different perspective about what that is then? We are talking, again, I want to be quite clear because you don't ever want to confuse who's a refugee, who isn't, who's coming from what, the journeys they're making. We are, I think at times, lumping lots of things together in the same place. But for you, for that perspective about those people taking those journeys,

what have you learned having not done that yourself and now filmed it? Yeah, I mean, I think it's very easy to be nervous of the definitions, but ultimately people have been moving around this earth for hundreds of years for various reasons and are going to continue to do so. As politicised as the term is and is labelled a refugee crisis, the reality is that we're going to see more as a result of climate change, not just war. Because of inequality and poverty, people are moving for a safer, better life. And why is it that some are able to and can travel freely and decide to live wherever they want and others can't?

It's just the lottery of life. And what I really wanted to do with the film was to allow an audience to walk in their shoes, to participate in the journey from the inside rather than objectively observing it from the outside. Because empathy is so much more powerful than sympathy. It's very easy to see images on the news. Well, also, I was just going to say that the debate around is about safe routes and the need for that as well.

You know, not necessarily even about definitions, because I think what I was trying to sort of get at here, which your film brings across, and what Justus obviously lived and is talking about, is just how dangerous it is to do that and the risk that is taken. If I could come, though, to the fact that you do make it to the Olympics. I mean, this is covered in the film. There's a lot of joy in this movie as well, and a lot of joy in your story. And it's an incredible thing that you join the refugee team.

Yeah, I mean, it was the most, the biggest event, the biggest sport event on the planet. And I've been dreaming of that since I was a little girl. So for that to become reality, I was very, very proud. And I do struggle. I did struggle with the word refugee in the beginning because of the misconception and because of how I was educated about it. I was never educated about what a refugee is. You mean when you were in the team?

Before, when I got selected, I was just, it was a journey to accept being on the team. Because first of all, I did not want people to feel sorry for me. I wanted people to understand that I did earn accept being on the team because first of all I did not want people to feel sorry for me I wanted people to understand that I did earn a spot on that team I did earn to be at the Olympics um so yeah after I I was walking you know the opening ceremony and then everyone was standing up and then like I started receiving messages from kids all across the world from from people who were inspired by the story, inspired by the refugee Olympic team. It was just incredible.

And I realized this is not about me only. This is about representing millions of refugees around the world. And that's what I've been doing ever since. I've been advocating for refugees since five years. And now with the movie, we really want to bring the conversation back on the table and say, you know, refugees are normal people. And our story is a success story. But as Sally always said, it is the 1% of the refugee story.

And unfortunately, not every story ends up like that. Are you still swimming? Are you still competing? Not competitively. No, because, you know, I also wanted you to walk in here with a medal around your neck, the whole thing, because I feel like there's unfinished business on that. But that is finished for you competitively.

Honestly, if you ask me right now if I want to go medal or do whatever, what I did right now with Refugee Crisis, which is what I did with my life right now. And you're continuing to work in that space. Is that what your priority is? Yeah, I'm launching my own foundation as well. It's going to be focusing on helping refugees from the educational side and from the sports side. And I am still a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR.

So I still do a lot of work around refugees. And yeah, I'll always be one, no matter how many things are going to change. It is a wonderfully made film, Sally. Congratulations on doing it. Because there's also that element of, you know, is it a sports story? Is it a human rights story?

Is it political? There's so much in there. Ultimately, it's a film about sisters. And, you know, this really is a film about female emancipation. And it shows how inner strength rises out of suffering and it explores the power of ambition and freedom and female ambition.

You know, it's so often a dirty word, but I really wanted to celebrate that in the film. And as you mentioned, there's a lot of joy in it. You know, sometimes I've got through the hardest times in my life with humor and laughter and so did Yusra and Sara yeah and you know that that was something that really helped them on the journey and it's it's there in the film as well and some fabulous music you've got to get you've got to get through it with some dancing and a little bit of music so

which came from Yusra's playlist did it it did yes it did I was loving it yeah she did ask us Sally came and asked me Sarah Natalie and Manal

for our playlist and she was like what do you listen to like to motivate yourself to like when you're down and everything I was like honestly Sia

and I put Unstoppable and I put Titanium and both were in the movie and you cannot imagine how happy I was I felt really included and it throughout the the movie and you cannot imagine how happy I was. I felt really included and throughout the whole movie we felt included and we just trusted the team from day one and we're very, very happy. Sally, Yusra, thank you. The film's called The Swimmers and

some very decent music promised too, as well as swimming and very important messages. And Anna, just final word from you, one of our listeners. The act of knitting means that the brain listens much more intently. Parliament would be transformed. I'll leave you with that from Anna. Thanks for your company. Back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time.

Join us again for the next one. I'm Gabriel Gatehouse, and we're back with the Coming Storm podcast from BBC Radio 4 and World Service. As Americans vote in the midterms, their democracy faces its first real test since the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election. What happened to that dark energy? The QAnon conspiracy theory about how a cabal of satanic paedophiles had stolen the election. All of this is black magic, ladies and gentlemen. That's morphed. A new diabolical enemy has emerged.

Your community will consider all of you groomers. And a new deep state plot. I'm like, oh my gosh, the regime is straight up coming down on this. Listen to The Coming Storm on BBC Sounds. 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.