Woman's Hour - Polly Toynbee on her new book An Uneasy Inheritance: My Family and Other Radicals

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

As a self confessed “silver spooner” who enjoyed a privileged upbringing Polly Toynbee talks to Nuala McGovern about her committed left wing "rabble rouser" ancestors and her own life long battle with the injustices of the British class system. In our series about narcissistic mothers we've heard a lot from daughters. Yesterday, a listener we are calling Bethany told her story. Her relationship with her daughter had been strained for a long time. In January she received a book in the post about how to spot and deal with a narcissistic mother, some passages were highlighted , and a letter. Today she picks up the story and explained how she felt as she opened the book and read the passages pointed out by her daughter. How does it feel to be labelled a narcissist and how can you move forward from there? Last month we looked at the experience of caring with authors Emily Kenway and Lynne Tillman. So many of you got in touch including academic Dinah Roe, a Reader in nineteeth-century literature, who with poet Sarah Hesketh, managing editor of Modern Poetry In Translation, have been running a series of free online workshops, inspired by Christina Rossetti's writing, designed specifically for people with caring responsibilities. Dinah and Sarah join Nuala in the studio.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Duncan Hannant

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Now, if I say the word class, what do you think? Of your own place in society? Or maybe that of your parents or grandparents? And is it a source of pride or of shame? Maybe you're indifferent. And do you think you were offered or denied

certain opportunities because of your background? Well, Polly Toynbee, the Guardian columnist and author, has delved into the meaning of privilege in Britain in her new book, An Uneasy Inheritance, My Family and Other Radicals. Now, it's a family full of eminent scholars, historians, authors, social reformers. So we're going to hear how Polly perceived her place growing up and also how she sees class and its resonance now. Also today, have you managed to find a creative outlet while being a carer? It can be hard, right, with so much time devoted to another person. But if you write or paint or sing while caring, I want to hear all about it.

And you will hear from two women who have created online poetry workshops for carers and will hear a little of the poetry too. You can text the programme, that number is 84844, on social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour, or email us through our website. If you'd like to send a whatsapp or a voice note that number is 03700 100 444 also today we're going to continue our

conversation which i know so many of you are really leaning into and listening to closely on narcissistic mothers from the perspective of a mother who has been labelled as one by her daughter and what we know so far about the evolutionary reasons for masturbation. It's all coming up on Woman's Hour. But let me begin with Japan. The Parliament there is debating a landmark bill

to reform the country's sexual assault laws, which is only the second such revision in a century. Currently, Japanese law defines rape as sexual intercourse or indecent acts committed forcibly and through assault or intimidation, or by taking advantage of a person's unconscious state or inability to resist. Many other countries you may know have a much broader definition. Now, the most significant change will see lawmakers redefine rape from forcible sexual intercourse

to non-consensual sexual intercourse, putting consent at the heart of it. And we are joined now by Tessa Wong, the BBC's Asia Digital reporter. Great to have you with us, Tessa, on Woman's Hour. So this is at the point of debate. It has not been passed as a law,

but how significant is it that it is up for debate hi nola it is very significant and that's because in japan um i think the idea of sexual consent is still very poorly understood that's what i understand from speaking to activists this whole past month doing this piece um and the thing is, you know, the idea that, you know, sexual consent is not very well understood, very well defined, is actually kind of, you know, proven in law, because a lot of cases where there has been rape, where I think in most other countries, it would be defined as rape. In Japanese courts, it's not considered as rape. And so there's been many cases where survivors have actually not found justice, even though they had clearly said no or had resisted. You know,

a lot of those cases can be found in the online piece that I wrote today that's out on the BBC News website. So the fact that they are changing this law, it's really quite significant. Activists have told me it sends a signal to Japanese society that no really means no. They're hoping that it changes the conversation. And also they hope that it would mean more survivors would be encouraged to come forward and to actually report the cases because that's what they've been seeing. They're seeing survivors hearing this other person who didn't get justice because even though they did say no, they felt that they were raped. The courts and the prosecutors didn't take the case to the court.

So they never got justice. So they're hoping that survivors will come forward and that more will see justice. Because I suppose it's really around that burden of proof on trying to prove forcible sexual intercourse. Exactly. So in the piece that I've written, there are some cases that I've cited where it was quite clear,

even the courts acknowledged that the survivor had resisted, but they felt that person didn't resist enough. So, you know, I think in most countries, you know, the very act of resisting or even saying no already means, you know, there wasn't consent. And that would be defined as rape in most countries. But in Japan, it isn't. of the language and the terminology or really how you define it, the definition, being so narrow compared to other countries? I think it's a process that other countries have kind of gotten to its first,

but then Japan has lagged behind. But why? It's really difficult to pinpoint. Yeah, so I think some of the reasons has to do with the societal understanding of sex and sexual consent. So when I speak to activists, they tell me, you know, sex education in Japan, and we've looked through some of the curriculums and some of the reports on this as well, you know, sex consent is not very well taught, it's not taught a lot even in schools. When they teach about sex even, you know, a lot of schools and

textbooks, they also teach about it in a very veiled metaphorical way. A lot of people, a lot of schools hesitate in using anatomical body parts to describe the act of sex itself. And in one infamous incident a few years ago, a group of educators with the Ministry of Education tried to teach consent, tried to introduce a consent module in sex education. And they found that they couldn't because they were told they couldn't actually describe the act of sex itself. That's the level of discussion about sex you know currently the case in japan so i also saw in your article tessa um even sometimes the euphemisms flowers or grass were used to try and explain sex education lessons exactly that's what how i don't know i don't quite understand how grass could be i mean flowers, flowers, I could understand.

But, you know, I think that's the level of, I think there's a certain sense of modesty in the way they want to talk about sex. And I think that has come to the detriment of understanding, you know, sex and sexual consent at an early age in Japan. And this is coupled with also, let's not forget, very easy access to porn and, you know, highly sexualized manga comics. And so, you know, this has kind of led to a very distorted sense of what sex is and what sex consent is, especially amongst younger Japanese, according to the activists. Well, you talk about consent, and we're talking about whether intercourse is consensual, for example, in some of these. But the age of consent in Japan, it might surprise my listeners what it is. Do you want to tell us? It's 13 years old. Yes, it's very, very low.

It's the lowest among the G7 group of countries, the world's richest democracies, yes. Yes. And, I mean, has that been a point of debate as well, if they begin to talk about issues like rape, for example? Oh, absolutely. So one of the cases I wrote about, you know, where the case was thrown out of court because the girl was deemed as not having resisted enough, she was tried as an adult because she was 15 years old. So in the eyes of the law, she was considered an adult woman

and it wasn't considered statutory rape. So, you know, that in itself was also very problematic and another reason why she never saw justice. How much political will do you feel there is for these changes to come about? I'd be curious how big the swell of support is among people that you speak to too. Well, I think the amount of support has really grown in the last few years, helped by the Me Too movement, also by certain people such as Shiori Ito, the most famous Me Too icon in Japan. She's a journalist who was sexually assaulted,

but never got justice, but later did through a civil defamation case. So that wave of support has been growing, especially with recent cases where this law has proven to be inadequate. There was a month in 2019 where four cases came out around the same time where all four attackers got away, got free, even though when people read the details of the court cases, it was quite clear that it was sexual assault.

So there was a lot of anger, public anger, and there was even a movement called the Flower Demo where women came out with flowers near subway stations to kind of just demonstrate their anger at this situation. When might, sorry Tessa to interrupt you, when might there be a decision on this debate? Well, it should be passed by the end of the parliamentary session on 21st June, but there is a problem. Time is running out. They were supposed to pass it, but currently the parliament is locked into a political debate about immigration. There's an immigration bill that they're debating, and it's taken very, very long. And so activists are really worried that this sexual assault bill is not going to pass. If it doesn't pass by 21st of June, then they're going to run to problems.

It might end up being scrapped. It might have to be, you know, tabled and debated all over again. And that might take months, if not years. Tessa Wong, the BBC's Asia Digital Reporter. Thanks so much. And as we mentioned, her article is up online if you'd like to read a few more details

about the case studies and the people that Tessa spoke to. Some of you are getting in touch already about caring and being creative. Let me see, this is Linda. I care for both of my parents and as a creative outlet, I make porcelain buttons for a local designer in Margate that did not want to use plastic buttons.

Keep them coming, 84844. Now, my next guest is one of the few journalists in the UK who have the status of being a household name. Polly Toynbee, the veteran Guardian columnist and former BBC Social Affairs editor, has been writing about social equality and class for the past 50 years. And it's that last issue, class,

which permeates her new book, An Uneasy Inheritance, My Family and Other Radicals. It is an intergenerational memoir of her own family. It includes academics and historians and an ancestral home of Castle of her own family. It includes academics and historians and an ancestral home of Castle Howard as a backdrop. And she is a self-confessed,

and she'll tell me if she doesn't agree with this anymore, silver spooner. And it is something that she has, oh, she's nodding, railed against her entire life. Well, Polly is here with me in the studio. Welcome so much. Thanks for coming in.

Hello. Good to have you with us. Now, there's so much in the book, but so much. Thanks for coming in. Hello. Good to have you with us. Now, there's so much in the book, but the overriding theme is the British class system. And you talk about being middle class and being a member of it. But reading it, I thought, surely not more upper, perhaps.

I'm talking about the visits to Castle Howard or the crusts being cut off your toast or maybe even Dante Rossetti painting your grandmother Rosalind, then Countess of Carlisle. Great, great grandmother. Yes. Well, yes, I've written about class. I've written about social injustice all my life. It's all the kind of reporting I've done. But this time it's personal. This time I thought, look at myself, my own family, understand what it really means. People are very happy to write books about how they've struggled their way up from a council estate to a successful professional life. But people very rarely write the other story, which is a life of privilege in which you cannot claim that your own merit alone has achieved the position you're in. And I thought being honest about that was important. And is that the word uneasy? Is that how you feel about it?

It is. But the uneasiness is also that I come from this family of professors, teachers, administrators, and they have all been on the left side of life. And they have always lived with this uneasiness about how do you support the underdog? How do you support greater equality for others and yet live a life of privilege yourself? So on the right, they're always pointing fingers at you saying champagne socialist, you're a hypocrite, you know, and that's ridiculous, really, because what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to, because you are a privileged professional person what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to because you are a privileged professional person. Are you supposed to say, oh, well, I must be a Tory in that case because I want to look after everything I've got.

Well, let's go back to Little Polly, because I'm curious, you know, the place that you feel you are politically, whether it was handed down, whether you inherited it fully. And I know there was a conservative that you talk about as well in your family, but we won't go to him just yet. But, you know, was it something instead through your own life experiences? Because there are two different things in some ways. I mean, there is overlap, of course. But let's think about you as a small girl. You talk about already knowing that your place in society was somewhat different from some of the other kids, for example, the cleaner's daughter. Children sort each other out at a very young age at school. They just know status and there's no avoiding it. And though my parents were desperate to kind of protect me from the knowledge, of course,

you know, I would play with working class children and it would be quite obvious to me and to them that I was posher than them. And that's an embarrassment. You're always trying to hide. You don't want to be posher. But that's an embarrassment you're always trying to hide you don't want to be posher but that's the truth of course that's only a mild embarrassment compared to the real disadvantage of people who know that they start life at in an underprivileged position. But do you feel then so that's the little girl kind of realising that there's a difference. Did you think that that other person who was in a lower socioeconomic group was hurting in any way? Or do you feel that was drilled into you by your family? Yes, I think probably. I think people know where they stand.

I mean, I was doing a while ago a programme for the BBC called The Class Ceiling. And as part of that, I just thought I'm going to ask people, everybody in the street, everybody I meet, when did you, were you first aware of class? When did you first realise that you were either posher than or less posh than other people? And how much did it hurt? And you try it. Everybody has a story to tell. tell they know uh you know class is deeply embedded in all of us and i don't think these days is politically talked about enough politicians will talk about everybody must have equal opportunities but what does that mean you know i didn't have equal opportunities i was imbued with uh middle class class life of high education right from the start.

And that puts you leagues ahead. You did fail the 11 plus. I think our listeners might be interested to know you went to a comprehensive, but then to a boarding school and won a scholarship to Oxford. And you say that trajectory demonstrates the unfairness of your class. Expand. Well, yes, I threw everything away. My sister and I hated the school we were at. We failed 11 plus. I was sent to boarding schools,

a kind of punishment, really, because my family were not going to send me to a secondary modern. And then later on in the sixth form, comprehensives have arrived and I took myself to a comprehensive and that was much better. But I was able to make mistakes to be casual about my education in a way that any working class child gets one chance, and if they mess it up, that's it. Whereas I would be picked up time and time again, extra tuition or wherever it took. And I think people like to believe we live in a meritocracy because it's awful to think we don't. But sadly, we really don't and the numbers of people who say oh well I should have tried harder it's working class people who

say I should have tried harder at school it's my fault but it's they don't understand the nature of privilege that makes sure that you are kept up and that's what I wanted to describe because I don't think people do talk about that people are embarrassed about a lovely bit of research came out the other day that said everybody wants to pretend to be working class and something like nearly 50 percent of people who are professional managerial when I say oh I'm working class why are you working class even people who had professional graduate parents said oh well I had a grandparent who was working so how do you understand that and I want to come to something in the States that

somebody told me once, but how do you understand everybody trying to harken back? And you did it yourself, I think, trying to find somebody going back through the annals of history to have a working class job or mindset. I couldn't find anyone in my family at all for generations and generations. Which is astounding to me but I'm not going to go into my background but it's an amazing thing

if you look at your family tree just how eminent some of these people were. Yeah. I think it's because everybody wants to believe they've merited their position and I think the need to believe you live in a meritocracy is very important. I mean, even for people at the bottom to think, oh, well, those people up there probably did merit it. They

probably did really well at school. And I didn't. And certainly people who are in positions of privilege want to believe that they deserve it. I mean, look at the, you know, CEOs of top FTSE companies earning mega sums. Well, we did a focus group with them and they absolutely believe that they are entitled to that position. And when you ask about them, of course, most of them have been to private schools, have had legs up all along the way, yet they believe it's merit that allows them to earn, I don't know, 10 million a year.

I lived in the States for a while and I remember a friend of mine one time saying instead in the States everybody's middle class. He says you ask a homeless person in the street

they will tell you they are middle class. Which is so the flip of what you're saying and it's just making me think. But of course you've spent

all these years writing five decades about class and inequality. I'm wondering, do you think there's been progress? There must have been some. No, I mean, there was right up until the 1970s. This country got more and more equal.

Opportunities in the 50s and 60s were enormous. The numbers of people, blue-collar parents who moved into white-collar jobs, there was an absolute escalation, partly because the number of jobs that turned up. And right up to the 70s, incomes became more equal. But after the 80s, there was an explosion of inequality. Top pay went lifted off the top, the lid lifted off the top, and middle and lower pay stayed down.

And it hasn't improved since then. It's stayed on a kind of plateau, which has made us one of the most unequal countries within the Western European countries heading on towards America. You mentioned America. Their great myth is that anybody can make it from mobile home to White House. It just isn't true. The Americans are even more, even less likely,

though they think they're classless, they're even less likely to climb ladders than we are. And we're less likely than most European countries. Let's stay with those years, though. You tried to walk a path to make change. You had your involvement with the SDP, the breakaway part of Labour going back to the early 80s again. You stood as a candidate

for Parliament. You lost, but you tried. You've acknowledged, though, that ultimately led the way for Kinnock to come in to reform the party and onto the success of New Labour. Do you sense

this is a similar time for the Labour Party? I mean, it's been such a tumultuous time, particularly not even just the last year or two, but even if we go pre-pandemic, etc. Yes, indeed. It feels like one of those pivotal moments. There aren't very many, but a pivotal moment when everything seems to be changing. And I think that's quite exciting. I mean, last time Labour was in power, they did manage to achieve a million fewer children in poverty, a million fewer pensioners in poverty. But it's a very hard struggle.

You're fighting against huge forces that are pushing towards greater inequality. And it's very hard to turn it around. And I know, of course, if I had a Conservative member of party here, they would push back against that and they would put the figures forward for what they feel are solutions. But I do want to talk about, of course, Keir Starmer, Sir Keir Starmer, that perhaps also elevates him, you know, within society.

Many have observed he hasn't got the charisma of Tony Blair, for example. And I'm wondering, he would like to be considered off the people, but I think to some he may seem posh. Do you think that's a hindrance? Yes, I think he might regret, I haven't asked him, I think he might regret having taken that knighthood, which was a job that went automatically with his job as in charge of his chief prosecutor.

Because he does come from a working class background. His father was a toolmaker. His mother was a nurse. A toolmaker or a factory owner? I've always... Oh, not a factory owner. No, no. He was an employee, definitely.

No, I mean, he does come from a working class background. But the trouble is people who come from working class backgrounds and they go to university and they arrive in the commons and everybody goes, oh, they're all middle class in the commons doesn't mean their backgrounds or quite a lot of labour party people had blue collar parents um and themselves went to university it's

been the story of success of great expansion of universities in this country which certainly has helped but isn't it maybe strange in a way that a sir, as you talk about, maybe he might regret it. It is a title, but does it immediately remove you from your background? I don't think it does, but it gives other people the impression. That's what I'm talking about. More the perception. Yes, I think so. I think that's probably difficult.

And how you're seen matters very much. It's interesting how many MPs all the time talk about their backstory. You know, who's got the best backstory? Is it West Street or is it Angela Rayner? They've both got fantastic backstories. But in the end, in the end, a lot of it is really about what you're for, what you're willing to do and how you're willing to try and put this right. So with you, as I mentioned, you've wrote so many books and made documentaries about the lives of ordinary working people living on minimum wages. You've yourself worked in low paid jobs. Do you feel that experience was authentic?

No, not at all. I mean, I was doing it as a reporter. I knew I was I did two books 30 years apart about going to work in manual jobs, you know, in a Lucas's car parts factory in Birmingham in a cake factory in a hospital. And then 30 years later, I went to the same thing was more call centers, dinner lady, I wanted I wanted to be able to say what kind of standard of living on the minimum wage can you get by doing those jobs. So it was an experiment in that. But I kept saying in the book, there is no way I could experience being one of these people because my life is so secure. I, you know, I've never suffered a moment of insecurity in all my life. Most people I'm working with have one or maybe two months savings if they lose their job and that's it.

So, I mean, you've written about inheritance tax today with a group of conservatives that are trying to abolish it. I'm wondering, what are the solutions? Is it all around tax? I know there's some of the labour policies that you'd like to see introduced. That's a whole lot. Is it achievable? Oh, yes. And then first of all, you would start with improving benefits, taking away the £20 that was given to people during COVID has projected so many poor families, most of them in work, into food banks. First thing you do is make sure no child arrives in school hungry. And that's just a bit more on benefits. But for the long term, what really matters is starting right at early years.

There were 3,500 sure start centres in 2010. They've nearly all gone. And helping families right from the beginning, making sure that every single child is ready for school. That makes more difference to their future and the chances of them not falling behind than anything else you can invest in an education. And I do think that childcare, particularly those early years, are an election issue, no doubt. I mean, I think the Conservatives would say, would talk about the family hubs that they have that have replaced in some ways Sure Start. Very few of them. I know you weren't going to agree with that particular characterisation, but they would probably say that.

A couple of comments coming in. I had a working class upbringing, but passed the 11 plus and went to a very posh grammar school. Then I became acutely aware of my humble beginnings compared to others. The advantage of that

is that I can now happily relate to a wide range of people from all walks of life. But I feel I float somewhere in between working and middle class. I'm in class limbo. Another, Richard, I first became aware of class differences when as a Geordie boy of 11 who had failed the 11 plus like Polly,

I got sent to a boarding school in Surrey. When I came home for the first holidays to my friends and found I didn't quite fit in anymore and I still don't 55 years later. But with both of those, there is a, not an identity crisis is probably too strong, but you know what I'm talking about. Yes, class is identity and it's very hard to shake it off. Some people will deny it. So these days, you know, we're all the same, really.

It's just not true. I mean, it's just so appalling that it's got worse in my lifetime that the chances of making it. People used to say, oh, grammar schools were better. Well, actually, very few people made, working-class children made it through grammar school. Some did, and we always hear about those ones, but actually comprehensives did help. But even so, I think people are acutely aware of class

and often embarrassed to talk about it. And what I wanted to do in this book by using my family and family stories going back generations, some of which are quite funny, as my family struggled to try and cope with their privilege. And then my father set up a disastrous agricultural commune, which was catastrophic. And it was kind of tragicomic, because he thought that would be the answer to share everything with everybody. And each of them in their way tried to square having, you know, liberal left wing views with being privileged. And that's awkward. Awkward, but a really fascinating read. Thank you so much for coming in, Polly Toynbee.

She does have a column today, of course, in The Guardian that she does on many days, but also an uneasy inheritance. My Family and Other Radicals is her new book that is out now intergenerational look at the life of Polly Toynbee and those that went before her thanks so much

thank you thanks for your comments coming in 84844 if you want to get in touch on that or indeed on caring and creativity we're going to talk about that in a bit I'm a full-time carer for my 22 year old disabled son or indeed on caring and creativity. We're going to talk about that in a bit. I'm a full-time carer for my 22-year-old disabled son.

I write a daily blog about our life together and I'm in the process of completing a children's book too. I need that creative outlet, something just for me. And that's Emma that got in touch. 84844 if you would like to get in touch too. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Now, let me turn to something completely different. A recent study estimates that 78% of adults globally engage in masturbation. But we are fairly hesitant to talk about it, but not on Women's Hour. And for women,

you might know, the topic has historically been taboo, but where does the behaviour come from? Why do we do it? Well, scientists have put a great many of our behaviours under the microscope and trace their origins back to our primate ancestors, showing exactly how they helped us survive and why they've stuck around. But the evolution of self-pleasuring behaviours in humans and

our ape cousins has been neglected, a problem that Dr Matilda Brindle at University College London has been trying to solve. She studies the evolution of masturbation and her latest study, just published by the Royal Society, has highlighted an even bigger gap in our understanding of female masturbation. Welcome, Matilda. Thank you for having me. So you looked at the evidence from many different species, trying to figure out where the behaviour has come from.

And it's not just humans that do it. No, absolutely not. So we ran a big comparative study over the primates, which is the group of animals that humans belong to. But of course, it's not just primates that masturbate. As many dog owners will know, they've probably seen their pets enjoying various household objects at different times. So lots and lots of different animals masturbate,

but primates seem to do it the most of all of the animals. So this is why we looked at that group group and they're particularly inventive as well so I've got so I'm afraid to ask well I can give you a few examples so female chimpanzees have been seen kind of backing onto water fountains because the the water flow tickles their clitorises so they seem to enjoy that or a male orangutan was observed poking a hole in the leaf and using that to pull back and forth over his penis and lots of different things and primates use all sorts of different body parts as well so it's not just the genitals they're touching

so Sulawesi crested macaques would slap their rump while masturbating and they might also suck on their nipples and things like that as well. So looking into this and maybe there's no surprise to our listeners on this, but there was much less research into female chimps, for example, instead of male chimps. Yeah, there's not been a huge amount of research on the evolution of masturbation at all. There have been a few studies that have looked at masturbation in different species um but not really from this kind of broad evolutionary perspective where you're trying to understand across lots of different animals why it might have evolved there have been a few different um theories that have been put forward as to why

masturbation might have evolved in both females and males. So one of these is that it might help to increase our reproductive success. For both male and female? For both females and males, yeah. So the males are a bit simpler, so I'll explain them first. So masturbating before sex, but without ejaculating, might help males who are maybe lower in the dominance hierarchy, might not quite have as many opportunities to mate, to ejaculate quicker when they do mate. So this is beautifully demonstrated by marine iguanas where the small males masturbate before they have sex and in that species they do actually ejaculate

and they've got this special pouch in the tip of their penis where they store that ejaculate. The bigger males like to try and monopolise the females. They'll push the small males off if they see them but because the males have this kind of pre-prepared handy ejaculate they can just get in and get the job done and get out of there so that's one hypothesis it might also be a way of basically flushing out inferior sperm so the longer sperm are sat in the testes the more they the sperm cells deteriorate so where males might ejaculate before having sex if they then um that that's then helping them to flush out that

inferior ejaculate they'll then have a kind of a smaller overall amount of ejaculate but the sperm cells within it are higher quality so where lots of males and females are mating with one another which lots of species of primate do, that might help those males to kind of out-compete the others in the race between their sperm. But of course, those both focus on males. In females, as females become aroused, the vagina becomes a lot less acidic. So normally, the vagina is mildly acidic just to protect from pathogens and things like that um but obviously that's not very hospitable to sperm having this acidic environment so the vagina becomes a lot less acidic it's a lot more hospitable and welcoming to sperm over the course

of arousal um but what we also find is that um the vaginal mucus that's associated with arousal can help to filter out inferior sperm in the vaginal canal. And it kind of fast tracks those higher quality sperm through the uterine cavity. And finally, masturbation with orgasm might help females because the contractions that are associated with orgasm can, again, just help transfer those sperm through the uterine cavity. So females, we thought at the beginning of this study, might be masturbating to kind of influence the chance that a particular male that they've mated with fertilises them. Huh. I've heard that debate about the orgasm and fertilisation before. So this is, you know, primates we're talking about.

Does this relate to male and females and the evolutionary, I don't know, basis for people to do it now? Yeah. So we looked at both females and males. And unfortunately, we actually didn't quite have as much data as we did for males. No surprise there. No surprise there. And unfortunately, this reflects a kind of a lack of interest in female sexuality and behaviour across the biological sciences. Things are changing nowadays, which is good. Why would that be like? Because we can talk about a patriarchal society and know why it happens with humans.

But why was the research not done on animals i think historically the perspective was that females were sort of these passive recipients of of male behaviors um and for that reason females weren't that interesting you know if you look at lots of female animals they're sort of their coloration isn't so spectacular and they you know they look like males are fighting over them and then the females just mate with whoever wins. And so that perspective has kind of been prevalent throughout a lot of science and luckily there are some really cool studies coming out now that are changing that perspective

and females are rightly sharing the focus nowadays but obviously there's a lag in the data there. So also for human females to kind of understand how any of this research might or what it might tell us. Yeah, absolutely. So unfortunately, you know, we didn't find support for this idea of female masturbation increasing reproductive success. But I think actually, in my opinion, if we tested that with a fuller data set, we might find something something different. But what we can say for human females is that masturbation

is common not just in primates, but across the whole animal kingdom. It occurs in all different age groups, it occurs in both females and males, and it occurs in the wild and in captivity. So where people historically might have said, well, this is an abnormal behaviour, it's a by-product of captivity, or it's just a by-product of sexual arousal, we can say, well, actually, no, it seems to be a perfectly natural behaviour. And it's common across the animal kingdom. Dr. Matilda Brindle, it's fascinating. I know what your life's work is going to be now. There's a lot of research that has to be done. Thanks for coming in to us on Woman's Hour. Thank you for having me.

Now, I will keep reading your comments. I care for my husband and daughter. This is creative, being creative while caring for somebody and enjoy poetry

and loved the workshops with Dinah and Sarah. We're going to be speaking to Dinah and Sarah soon. Wrote virtually over four weeks with an inspiring group of carers. 84844

if you'd like to get in touch. Right. I want to return to a conversation we were having yesterday. How would it feel to be labelled a narcissist by your daughter? Yesterday, you might know, we heard the first part of a listener

we're calling Bethany, not her real name, and her words have been voiced by an actor, I should also tell you. But according to Bethany, their relationship has been deteriorating for years. She feels her daughter is quick to judge her, finds her wanting as a mother.

But she admits, Bethany, having been thoughtless and selfish as a mother at times. Now, in January, Bethany had been looking after her grandchildren. And afterwards, when a text she sent was not replied to, she started having what she described as a kind of terror. I rang her after a week and I was upset. I just wanted to talk to her and just say, you know, what's going on? We've got to a really bad place. How can we make it better? And she was really cold. She said, I started writing to you

with a book. And I said, what's the book? And she said, well, I don't want to tell you what the book is. I've highlighted some bits in it that I think are how I feel about our relationship, which I want you to read. And then maybe you'll get an idea of why I feel the way I do. I said, oh, okay. I was trying to say to her, I'm interested. We left it at that. So another couple of days went by and it arrived. When I saw the title, I felt like I'd been punched. Am I? Am I a narcissist? Is what this book is telling my daughter? Is this true about me? Well, the book that Bethany received from her daughter was one of a very popular genre of books which highlights the behaviours of the narcissist and how to deal with them. Our reporter, Enna Miller, asked her what happened next.

I put the book down and I read the letter, but it wasn't really a letter. There was no salutation, there was no dear mum or anything. It was almost like a stream of consciousness that she'd just poured out on four or five sheets of paper. It was cogent, and it was articulate, and it was clearly heartfelt. And in it, she said she'd been full of grief for a long time. The moment my granddaughter was born, it made her start thinking about the damage I'd done to her. She didn't want that damage inflicted on her own daughter, my granddaughter, and that she'd become friendly with a woman who told her about her challenges with her own mother. And that woman cut her mother out of her life. And she'd recommended or she'd alerted my daughter to this book about recognising

a narcissist mother. So she bought a copy of the book and she went through the book and the book resonated with her completely. She never thought she would be the sort of woman that would cut her mother out of her life, but now she thought she probably was. And then I read the passages she'd highlighted, and I was horrified she felt that way. And I thought, my God, what have I done to my daughter to make her believe this about me? That was my first thought. What a failure you are. It felt like a fait accompli.

There was nowhere to go with it. I didn't have it for very long because my husband said, you're not reading that. You beat yourself up enough. You don't need to add fuel to the fire. I'm not having you reading this bullshit. And he took it away. My initial reaction was, this is ridiculous. I'm not taking this seriously. And then it was, my God, am I a narcissist? Is this really who I am? And am I deluding myself? I'm not a decent human being. I'm not a kind person, not empathic and none of these things. I'm actually a sociopath or a narcissist. The more I read some of it, I thought, dear God, is this really who I am? And I started to, you know, wonder. And then I needed? And I started to, you know, wonder. And then I needed to revisit it to really quietly ask myself.

Was there anything that you recognised? Or on the flip side, was there anything that you thought, absolutely not, I'm not going to accept that? One of the things that made me smile and I thought, yes, absolutely, I completely accept this. What the narcissist mother says when her child shows her something they've done, something they've achieved. My daughter is brilliant at decorating. She's brilliant at DIY. I do the DIY in this house. And I have said, oh, you're really good at that. You must get that from me. And it's always slightly tongue in cheek. It's always meant

with levity. But that is perceived by her as being a narcissist and making it all about me and taking credit for all her skills. That really stuck with me. What is it I really mean when I say things like, oh, you're good at singing because I'm good at singing and you got that from me. You get that talent from me. What do I really mean? We're growing apart and I'm worried about it. I'm looking for anything and everything that reinforces that we are strangers, we are connected. Your genes and my genes, there are more similarities between us than there are differences. And I'm highlighting that by saying, oh yeah, you get that from me. I'm absolutely not saying the only reason you've got that is because I've given it to you.

And that's what comes across in that book. And that is not what's intended. But I can see that's not how it comes across. Were there any others? These are ones I thought were preposterous. So gifts I've given are thoughtless with no thought whatsoever to the recipient. It's a tick box exercise that I do it because I have to. And that was another section of it that was highlighted. I always think about the people I buy gifts for. I'm always buying gifts throughout the whole year and I'll buy them because I'll see something at a particular time and think, oh, I know somebody who'd love that. So this couldn't be further from the truth. I thought this one, she talks a lot. Now I thought, yeah, yes, I do. And then I realised that it's to fill the silence

and that's why I do it with her because otherwise we just sit in silence. You know sometimes once you've read something you just can't get it out of your head are there things that you just can't forget? Yeah that my love is not real she thinks my love is counterfeit coins and of no value. She highlighted that in a piece of text she sent me. She's taken a template that she's using to highlight things. The term narcissist is like an umbrella word for lots and lots and lots and lots of different behaviours, right? So how do you shake it off?

Because even if you try yeah then there's no does that other person then believe that you're trying or do they think you're just being deceitful you can't shake it off if you change your behavior it's fake you might as well be telling somebody they're a leper it's just a label that you cannot shed apparently questioning am I a narcissist means you're not well I've asked myself that every single day since I've had that book but I don't think that'll make any difference in my daughter's eyes I think I'll always be a narcissist to her because I don't fit this framework which she's got in her head of what her mother should be what's really interesting about all of this is that now speaking to someone who's on the receiving end of the letter, I've also spoken to someone as part of the series that spent a week writing the letter.

And as they received the letter, you've been devastated. And the person who wrote one was also devastated. So there's two very devastated people on either side of this cutting off this letter. That's the point I'm making. You've got devastation. Where's the path to healing? I challenge you to find where the path to reconciliation and healing is in that book. I'm her mum. That's not going to change. I'm doing my book. I'm her mum. That's not going to

change. I'm doing my best. I want to be part of her life. I don't want to be intrusive, but I want us to be a family and keep that connection and tie and know that we're there for each other. But she's got to want that too. Can you read it? that she thinks her mother's love is fake. And I sent her a text and said, I'm rereading your book and I'm revisiting your letter and I just wanted to say to you, I'm really sorry. You must have been feeling terrible. Did she respond? She did.

I ended just saying, you know, if what you need to do is cut me out of your life for the rest of your life, I will have to live with that, if that's the best thing for you. I will live with the consequences of that. But I just want you to know, if you suddenly decide for any reason whatsoever you'd like to see me, or you need me, or want me, I'm here. And actually, what was lovely was she put a kiss at the end of it, which I thought was really quite encouraging. She said, I'll come back. I just want to digest

what you've written and I'll text you. I'll message you sometime. And that was it. And I thought, these are little nuggets of hope and I have to hang on to those. That was Bethany's story. There is an article on our website about this. And if you'd like to catch up on the other stories in this series, they're listed on today's episode page on the Woman's Hour website. Now, I want to move on to caring and creativity. Lots of you getting in touch. I have a five-year-old autistic son and started writing poetry on my phone in the 30 minutes between my son falling asleep

and me being able to move away without him waking up. It has been fundamental and given me the confidence to share my work. And that's from Jenny. And the reason we're talking about this is because last month, you might remember, we looked at the experience of caring. That was with authors Emily Kenway and also Lynn Tillman.

So many of you got in touch. That includes the academic Dinah Rowe, a reader in 19th century literature, who, with the poet Sarah Hesketh, a managing editor of Modern Poetry in Translation, have been running a series of free online workshops for carers. And they were inspired by Christina Rossetti's writing.

We were talking about Dante Rossetti a little earlier, with Polly Toynbee. But these workshops have been designed specifically for people, as I mentioned, with responsibilities for others. Dinah, Sarah, welcome. Thank you. So, Dinah, let us turn to one aspect of this. Christina Rossetti had been a carer. We know her as a writer, as a poet.

Yes, Christina Rossetti was very much a carer. She was a young carer at about the age of 14. Her father had a mental and physical breakdown. The rest of the family went out to work, and she stayed home to care for him. And then much later in her life, in her 50s, she was a carer for her mother and two aunts, all three of whom were in their 80s and who had varying degrees of severe health problems. And how did we not know this? I mean, I think people maybe know her best for her poem In the Bleak Midwinter, usually sung, you know,

In the Bleak Midwinter. But you see that as a poem about care. I'm wondering how you figured out what the rest of her life was about. Well, I think I worked out that she was a carer because like many carers today, her work was invisible. You know, she didn't kind of talk about it. She didn't go on about it. She, you know, it was a very private, invisible thing. And, you know, one of the things I wonder is how much support she had, which I think is very little. But I worked out that she was a carer because I'm doing a complete edition of her poems, and I did a chronology of her life. And I thought, ah, okay, so this, you know, her work changed at one point. And I thought, why has it changed? Why has she changed form, and started writing more short form prose? And then I thought, oh, this must have to do with the caring. So she started writing this reading diary

called Time Flies. And she would write one entry per day. Like a blog. Yes. Yeah, maybe she's an inventor of the blog. Yeah. And I say that because one of our listeners got in touch earlier talking about that that's what they do. They blog to try and alleviate, I suppose, some of that pressure that you're feeling from caring. Yes. And blogging, you know, or writing a reading diary, as Christina Rossetti did, is kind to your time. You can fit it in between things, like the carol you just heard

from, you know, sort of writing poems and then that sort of those little bits of time. You wrote in an essay quoting another brother, William Michael Rosetti, where he writes that Christina's material was too seldom concerned with breathing and diurnal actualities, and she neglected rising currents of thought. What do you think he meant by this? So that's William Michael saying she wasn't writing about important things that were going on in her day. She wasn't engaged with what was going on. What this really means is she wasn't engaged with what William Michael knew about, and a lot of men knew

about, you know, which was politics and working at the Inland Revenue, which he did in those sorts of, you know, businessy things. What Christina Rossetti was taking care of was, again, that invisible, invisible social care. So she was also active in her community. She did community visiting. She put together scrapbooks for people in hospital. She was a care. She was godmother to several London children in deprived neighborhoods. So this is the kind of thing that for William Michael Rossetti, just that's not important. You know, it's reminded me of Polly actually, in in a way as well, because she would have had servants and nurses probably to help with the day to day work of caring for another. But she still was overseeing, I suppose, all that care being distributed. Yes.

So she would have, you know, when the medical stuff got slightly beyond her, she would hire a nurse. But those were problems too. So she had kind of problems with staff, she had to fire one for drunkenness. So there was that kind of rotation of staff. Also, she was really the person who was on all night. So she inspired these workshops. You've already done three, I know. You plan to do more. Sarah, tell me about your role. So I came on board, I guess, as the workshop leader. So the workshops were kind of Dinah's conception. She said if Rosetti could write while she was caring, what does that mean for carers today?

What could they get from that experience of writing? So we made contact via another colleague and she said, how do we go about this? How do we build a workshop series? And so that's what we did together. And my role is to put those teaching materials together and then to actually lead the workshops themselves. And so the kind of writing and reading sessions that we do. I want to bring one of the poems to our listeners. This is by Catherine Graham.

It's called Pantomime. If I were brave, I'd peel them off. But she loves them. Self-adhesive stickers with pink rose patterns she pressed onto the tiles two years ago. She likes to fix the curled up corners as she sits on the shower stool. She's my mum when she asks if I'm okay as shampoo splashes my eye. I could cry and get away with it, pretend it was just the silly shampoo. Clouds of baby talc fill the cubicle. My fault, I forgot to keep it out of reach. White dust settles on our hair and eyelashes as another sticker breaks free of the tiles.

Mom emerges from the haze like the snow queen in our every morning pantomime. I take the liberty of laughing. And you've got to laugh. I think that will resonate with so many people that are carers. It's beautiful. Catherine Graham, who wrote it, in case she's listening. But, you know, writing poetry, that's a big ask. Are people coming as experienced writers? It's a real mixture. We've had some people who have done some kind of writing or poetry writing before, or sort of previous to when they were a carer, or they might just be a keen reader of poetry. But we've also had some

people who have never done any writing before. And what's attracted them to the group is not necessarily the writing, but the idea that they can spend time with other carers. And I think that is as important as the writing as a motivation for people getting involved. And Dana, you know, was that pantomime? Is that quite typical? Are people always writing about that experience of directly caring? Well, it depends. I mean, some of the best poetry exercises actually come through kind of indirection. So I think what poetry does is create a safe space to talk about things that you would be afraid to talk about in prose or sort of directly. So, you know, an exercise we use is you write from the perspective of an object that you use in caring and that liberates people. I thought the talcum powder there, I mean that anybody who's a carer will

know that that is, what would I say, a prerequisite maybe in some aspects. Some more comments that are coming in. I sing each week in a choir that is formed of carers and former carers. The breath control needed to sing really helps with the anxiety. We support each other and I really enjoy getting out of the house. Another, when caring for my 93-year-old disabled mother, I managed to squeeze in my artwork, painting and printmaking by working at it each morning for an hour or two before seeing to my mum's needs. That discipline made me focus.

I was alert and fresh to it and it was a peaceful satisfying start to each day I achieved a lot and felt better for it just in our last minutes here though a lot of people I know who are carriers are like how how am I going to fit in the time to do this so what we made sure was that people didn't have to do anything outside of the workshop time that we give people reading and writing time in that in that actual hour itself. So that it's an hour of their day they're giving to us, but no more. And online. Yeah. And it's interesting, Donna, how does it feel to do this work, to run these workshops? It feels amazing. It is easily my favourite thing I've ever done. And why is that? Because it shows you that, as Sarah said

in one of the workshops, that poetry can actually do things. It can really do things for people. It can really help people. So it's not just this, you know, academic thing. It's a real thing. Yeah, I think this is the most rewarding teaching I have done in nearly 20 years of teaching. And that is because poetry is the jumping off point but the poetry facilitates the community the the ability to voice something that you can't voice very easily it's so interesting you'll continue the workshops i want to thank everybody actually who got in touch with us following uh that segment on caring i was blown away by the response and i'm so glad dinah that you did as well

and brought it to us. Dinah Rowe, a reader in 19th century literature. Also with us, the poet Sarah Heskett, managing editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. Thanks so much for being with me today. Thanks for all your messages

and contributions. Tomorrow, Krupa will be joined by Lindsay Burrow, the wife of former rugby star Rob Burrow, who's been battling, as you might know, motor neuron disease since 2019. She'll be discussing her new ITV documentary, Lindsay and Rob Living with MND.

So do join Krupa Padi tomorrow from 10. I will see you on Monday. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm India Axon, and I just want to quickly talk to you about witches. In this series from BBC Radio 4, simply titled Witch, I'm going to explore the meaning of the word today.

It is a twisting, turning rabbit warren of a world full of forgotten connections to land and to power, lost graves, stolen words and indelible marks on the world. Because the story of the witch is actually the story of us all. Come and find out why on Witch with me, India Rackerson. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the bbc world service the con caitlyn's baby it's a long story settle in available now