Woman's Hour - Public Toilets, Cheerleading, Women and Conscription

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

New analysis from the Royal Society for Public Health shows a 14% reduction in the number of public toilets across England since 2016. The report warns that the lack of facilities is contributing to an increase in public urination, creating unhygienic conditions. But is the impact felt equally - or are women disproportionately affected? Nuala McGovern is joined by Gail Ramster, Senior Research Associate at the Royal College of Art who carries out inclusive design research around public toilets and co-author of a book 'Designing Inclusive Public Toilets: Wee the People'Last week former Major General Tim Cross said UK youngsters on benefits should undertake military service. As anxiety about global conflict increases, what might military conscription look like for UK women? RAF veteran and reservist Amy Hill and Victoria Basham, Professor of International Relations at Cardiff University join Nuala to discuss.Using cheerleading to appeal to girls and young women to stay engaged with sport is one of several recommendations in a new report from MPs aimed at getting people to move more. After a more than year-long inquiry the Culture, Media and Sport Committee discovered a patchy picture of how well community and school sport is meeting the needs of people in England. So is offering cheerleading the way forward? Sarah Bellew, Head of Communications at Women in Sport and Millie Fannin, who runs Swindon Lightening Cheerleading club discuss. Four years after Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, the human cost of the war continues to mount. A new documentary looks back to the months before the invasion, following a group of young female journalists reporting independently as press freedom in Russia were under threat. It captures the danger they faced - and the friendship and humour that sustained them. Director of My Undesirable Friends Part 1: Last Air in Moscow Julia Loktev, and journalist Anna Nemzer, who features throughout the documentary, join Nuala.In 2018, Rebecca Dale made history when she became the first female composer to sign to the prominent British classical music label, Decca Classics, and the first woman to sign to Decca publishing. Her debut album was programmed around her piece Requiem for my Mother and reached no. 1 in the specialist classical charts. Rebecca has been commissioned to compose by major organisations including the BBC and 20th Century Fox, in addition to having written for choirs and orchestras for studio albums. Rebecca’s latest album - Studies in Disappearing [Music for Screen] - is released on 15 May.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Emma Pearce

Hello, I'm Nula McGovern and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Now, you might have an image of cheerleading from the film Bring It On, or maybe the TV show, cheer. But is perception based on reality or more on a US-based high school story? Well, here's what the chair of the Culture, Media and Support Committee ought to say. about the sport in a new report game on that was released this morning. Cheerleading is a prime example of an activity that can engage young people,

particularly teenage girls, who might have previously thought sport was for others. What do you think about that? Well, women in sport will be with us to discuss. Also today, deliberate dehydration, being on a loo leash, I'll explain, and street urination are just some of the findings attributed to the 14% decline of public toilets in England,

according to the Royal Society for Public Health. We're going to speak to a woman who sees solutions to what the report calls a significant shortfall. Now, I imagine you have tales of your experiences with public toilets, the quest, the queues, and perhaps also some tips about what you can do when you're out and you need to go. To get in touch, you can text the programme,

the number is 84844 on social media where at BBC Women's are, or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or voice note, that number, 0300-100-400-444. Later this hour, we want to talk about women. And should they be part of the conversation when it comes to a future possibility of mandatory conscription?

It is an interesting concept to explore as we speak about gender equality in the military. Also, just hearing about classical music there in the news bulletin. We have Rebecca Dale. She was the first female composer to sign to Deca Classics. She will be with us to discuss her latest album. And we'll also hear from the director of my undesirable friends, a documentary that follows Russian female journalists

before and after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But let me begin with that story about toilets. Have you ever been caught short while you're out and about? So the new analysis from the Royal Society for Public Health says there has been a 14% overall reduction in public toilets across England in the past 10 years. So since 2016. The report warns that the lack of facilities

is leading to more people urinating in public, creating unhygienic conditions. But it also says the impact is felt equally by everyone. Are women worse off? This is a question. Let me know what you think, 84844. Joining me is Gail Ramster, senior research associate at the Royal College of Art

who carries out inclusive to do. design research around public toilets and a co-author of a book Designing Inclusive Public Toilets, We, the People, yes, it's WEEE. Good morning, good to have you with us, Gail. Good morning. So how would you describe the public toilet shortage? How serious is it? So the public toilet shortage has been ongoing for at least 20 years and it is discouraging to hear this research from the Royal Society of Public Health that this is continuing. very much looking at toilets provided by councils, and this is kind of the core infrastructure for our country.

If we wish to visit our high streets, our local neighbourhoods, then we need council-provided public toilets to help those shops, those businesses, those other clubs and community groups to kind of sustain themselves. What do you think about that term of public toilet desert? fair? Yeah, I think it is because an overall decline in facilities doesn't really tell us much if what's closing is toilets that weren't needed or which were already next to better facilities somehow. But when you get gaps in provision, then that causes real problems. People can't go to a new area, for example, if they can't be sure that there will be a toilet there that they can use.

And I think particularly in areas where there are very high numbers of people, such as near a park or a beach, then a public toilet is the only solution. And not being able to go to those places is going to affect your opportunities for interaction, for exercise. It also impacts some people who are working if they really rely on public toilets because they're out and about all of them. Because there was a few terms used.

One was a loo leash, which I guess you're a loo leash. which I guess you're alluding to there, that there's only so far you can go without thinking, how am I going to go to the next place if there's no public toilet? Yeah, and I think more and more people plan their journeys. I think we have probably always planned our journeys

based on where a toilet will be available. I used to think like this. There's toilets that you wouldn't use even if you're desperate, and then those toilets which you think, oh, and there's well go, even though I could wait. and quite often we go even if we don't need to just because we're not sure when we'll next have the opportunity. Well, what about women in this story?

Because everybody will need to go at some point, but women, obviously, are using them perhaps in a different way to others. Yeah, women need to use them for longer. We also need to sit down. So we're not, and there's been research, Professor Clara Greed did lots of research, looking at women and public toilets and how trip chaining. So having to make several trips is something that affects women far more. So you might be going to school and then work and then the shops and then the GP and then home.

More so might be. And this is, of course, stereotyping still because men are more and more doing. childcare. So there is a need for more toilets and better toilets in general that women just have fewer alternative options, I feel, if there's not a toilets. I can't go anyway. I was throwing it out to our listeners. The comments are coming in. If you need a loo while you're out and about, just walk into a large hotel with confidence. Scan quickly for the toilet signs without hesitation and in you go. I've never been challenged yet. Another says we visited Australia. We were so impressed by the cleanly list, the lack of graffiti, the availability of public loos,

which showers if by a beach, a complete opposite of UK, says another. But I want to get down to another aspect that these findings found. And they got them through multiple requests for freedom of information. And one of them they said was deliberate dehydration by some. Yeah. Yeah, avoiding taking water because you don't know when you'll next be able to go to the toilet. It's something that in our inclusive design research and myself, and my co-author Professor Joanne Bichard, we spoke and spoken to lots of people,

particularly those with medical conditions, continence conditions, about how this affects them going out and about. And self-dehydration came up a lot. I remember someone with multiple sclerosis, saying that they need to keep hydrated for their personal health, but if they know they're going on a long trip, then they will often not drink

because they don't know when they'll be able to go. What do you suggest, if it were up to you to design toilets. Because you talk about a more inclusive toilet. You're trying to think of some of the conditions or the situations that people find them in, particularly women. So there's two aspects to our research. One is helping people to find toilets.

So we previously created a websitetolletmap.org.com, which maps publicly accessible toilets, including public toilets in the UK, based on, interestingly, a map created by the Australian government, more than 20 years ago, they have a national toilet map as part of their confidence strategy. So this map is helping people to find toilets, but if you find a toilet, then can't use it, then that's not really helping anybody. So we also encourage, through our book, to encourage councils to design toilets that better meet people's needs.

So that could be designing or choosing to install taps that, say, someone with arthritis, can use or someone with limb loss or a child. So in the accessible toilet, you will always have a large lever tap, which is much easier to use. Why not just have these in all toilets? You need a tap, so why not choose a more inclusive one? It's an interesting conversation because everybody uses them yet at times reluctant and also perhaps not thinking about different designs for it, as you describe.

Here's one. I'm a building surveyor and find. trying to find a toilet difficult. I can't always use the toilet in the property. I'm surveying as the water is turned off. I cover a rural area, so public toilets are rare, despite being near beaches and woodland walking areas, and that's Jenny in Lincolnshire.

But there are, I would imagine, not that many women urinating outside, but we know that men often do, which is part of this report as well, trying to discourage that behaviour. Yeah, and it's hard to discourage that behaviour if there isn't any alternative. Another thing that councils can do is to look at toilet strategies.

So this is mandatory in Wales, it has been since 2017, 2018, for councils to map the toilets that they do have and also with permission, map those provided by other organisations with network rail or shopping centres or service stations so that you can truly map the gaps in provision and where those toilet deserts are and also consider a range of users. whether it is tourists or whether it's, say, long-distance lorry drivers. We had an inquiry from someone over the weekend wanting to map toilets on main roads because you can't park a HGB on a busy high street.

So it's making sure that the toilets are in the right place so that we're not excluded from where we can go or the jobs that we can do or the types of transport we can use because of public toilets. This is really why we keep kind of thinking of it or trying to convey it as infrastructure and a public health issue. it's so easy to dismiss it. Well, that was going to be my question. You feel it is easy to dismiss it.

I was kind of alluding to it earlier. Do you feel it's taken seriously for something that is a day-to-day need for people? I think we just have this really awkward taboo around it. So if you're in a meeting with lots of developers, then being that one person around that table who says, actually, we also need toilets, it's very difficult and is easily dismissed,

but it should be as critical, as streetlights and roads and Wi-Fi and drinking water. It just doesn't get mentioned. And it's really, yeah, it's a problem how many design guides and high street regeneration information has not until very recently mentioned public toilets at all. Here's one. Let me see. I have been using and contributing to a new and free app

which shares info on where toilets are and what state they're in. You can put reviews up, share details about their accessibility. Excuse me. Amy from Wiltshire on that one. We also, a lot of them are coming in. I'm a posty for Royal Mail and rarely drink all day for fear of needing a toilet when out delivering due to toilets being closed or unavailable. The question of toilets is universal

and of national interest. I'm 74-year-old who enjoys trekking. The King Charles Coast Path is a fantastic facility. More people should enjoy. But there are few toilets. Some are closed out of season or permanently closed. And so the messages continue to come in. Are you hopeful that it's changing?

Reports like this are helpful to highlight the problem that councils have. And the views of your listeners are really helpful so that those who are making these decisions can really understand that this is an issue that affects everybody. And it's, yeah, it's not a minority problem. It's affecting people in their entire working day. Gail Ramster, Senior Research Associate at the Royal College of Art who carries out inclusive design research around public toilets

has created that map as you mentioned and also co-author of a book Designing Inclusive Public Toilets We, the People. Next, we want to talk about military conscription. It's a daunting subject but with anxiety around global conflict increasing, it's one perhaps worth discussing in a UK context. Former Major General Tim Cross suggested last week that UK youngsters on benefits should undertake military service.

He was speaking after Lord Robertson, former head of NATO, accused Britain's leaders of a corrosive complacency towards defence. But what could it mean for women? Could we be called up? It is an interesting concept to think about in the realm of gender equality. Since 2018, all UK combat roles have been open equally to women and men, and so experts say would any form of UK conscription. Norway and Sweden, they have compulsory military service,

for men and women. Denmark introduced it last year. Well, with me to explore all this is Victoria Basham, Professor of International Relations at Cardiff University, who researches how countries prepare for war. We also have Amy Hill from, she's a Royal Air Force veteran and reservist, whose most recent deployment was last October on a UK aircraft carrier. You're both very welcome. Thank you for joining us. Amy, let me start with you. Conscription can have several meanings. Talk me through a couple of them. Good morning and thank you so much for having me this morning. It's amazing to be here. I think that's the first question, isn't it? Is that what is conscription and what does it actually mean? And I don't necessarily think that we've had that grown-up conversation yet that actually centres

understanding of what this could look like and what it is. I think in practice, we've had discussions about the Scandinavian models. We just mentioned them there, both myself and Victoria, are familiar with the Swedish and the Norwegian example that would be really good to talk about. And then we've got these kind of historic contexts that are more related to experiences that we've perhaps had in the UK of understanding what it was like in World War I, World War II. But we've not necessarily had, yeah, that conversation, I think. I think realistically it's important for us here to remember that any form of mobilisation would be gradual, as in we need to understand the mobilisation of reservists and the role of reservists, the role of strategic reserves. And I think it's that kind of understanding that there's more of a gradual.

process rather than an immediate launch into this. So, yeah, I think that's the first question that we need to ask. What is conscription? Well, because when I looked it up, it could mean, you know, what we traditionally think of, you know, going to the front lines in battle when there is a conflict underway that requires more people. But it could also be a form of national service, for example, that some you will be conscripted to do.

Certain countries have that already. I did see the last service man conscripted in the UK was discharged. I think it was May of 1962. And I mean, I suppose it's looking at attitudes and how they may or may not have changed since that time, Amy. Yeah, absolutely. And I think when we compare to other countries who have that conscription that still exists and how those attitudes are perhaps different,

I think that there is a sense of perhaps complacency that if war does come, that perhaps it's not everybody's responsibility or everybody's problem. But I don't know whether that is because, as Lord Robertson said in his speech last week, that actually perhaps because we've not had that grown-up conversation, the public don't necessarily understand what war would look like and that kind of underfunding and systemic issues of how we're looking after the armed forces isn't necessarily working. So, yeah, I think we just need to kind of engage, the government need to engage with the public to understand that when it comes will be everybody's problem, whether you are, yeah, however it comes. When it comes, you say some would be hoping if it comes. You have been looking at Norway in particular. And I understand that time in the military can be considered aspirational. Can you explain that a little bit to me? Absolutely.

So the Norwegian context is quite interesting. So everybody is required to fill in a form when they're 18, and that basically dictates how much physical exercise you do, how healthy you are, and why you want to join the military, why you want to do that conscription service. Conscription service lasts a year. And it is seen as this type of you are responsible for defending your nation

and in a really positive way. I think it's the way that it's seen in Norway, and the way that it's perceived is almost like it's, you know, you have it on your CV, you have these incredible experiences that allow you to develop your leadership, they're giving different experiences in different contexts. And then it's almost like, yeah,

going to a brilliant university is how we probably frame it in the UK. As soon as you have it on your CV, you've then got that opportunity to sell yourself to an employer. And what might you be doing? Like I mentioned front lines, but it's not always about that. Well, I think that's also comes back to the question about what conscription actually means in practice.

So in the UK, because there is this kind of big gap between understanding what the military is, seen as this almost like kind of elusive beast of not really understanding and not really knowing and it's always kind of closed door. And actually when we think as the public, when we think of conscription, we might just think of the army. We think of being, you know, on the front lines in a kind of trench warfare. But actually, because we've not had that grown-up conversation, we don't really know what that gainful employment could look like. The service, obviously,

the UK armed forces, is across three distinct services with three completely distinct employment patterns and how they work and how they operate. And if we're going to have a conversation about conscription, it's interesting to talk about how those people would be gainfully employed and what they would be doing, because warfare is obviously very different to what it was before. So give me an example. Well, I think it's, so obviously in the Royal Air Force, we've got a lot of different roles that look at logistics, administration. I myself am a medical reservist. And it's about creating those opportunities where we would be able to gainfully use different skills that civilians or people who are normal, normal civilians and in this conscript form

would be able to offer. For example, to benefit the military like tech experts or AI programmers or things that we don't necessarily have in the UK armed forces right now, but they show how warfare is changing so significantly. Victoria, I want to bring you in. Here in the UK, a 2024 UGov poll found more than a third of under 40s would refuse conscription in the event of a world war. women more likely to refuse to serve than men. That's 43% would refuse compared to 32% of men. You're joining us from Stockholm. Victoria, you're currently a visiting professor

at the Swedish Defence University. But what do you think when you hear those UK figures before we get into how it works in Sweden? Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think young people are facing a number of challenges around careers, the prospects of, you know, owning their own home, all these things that they worry about, they're not entirely certain what the pathway for them is

traditionally. For a lot of people, it's been university, but that's not necessarily now the case. And I think something like conscription might be something that they would be worried about, not just in terms of frontline combat and being deployed and the dangers, but also what impact will this have on my long-term ability to build a career? Now, a lot of the time people are talking about, well, it will give you fantastic skills and experience and work experience, and that's certainly one of the things that the military gap year is trying to promote here in the UK a pilot scheme. But it's interesting to note that here in Sweden, where they have gender neutral conscription. So similar to what Amy was talking about in Norway, there's a questionnaire that goes out to young people. They sort of talk about their motivations for serving, their fitness levels, etc.

But there's some emerging studies here and some historic ones that have sort of shown that actually young men seem to get this sort of dividend when they, leave the armed forces after conscription that doesn't seem to apply to young women. Now, we're not entirely sure why that's the case. And even in Sweden, where there's, you know, this gender neutral conscription approach, only 24% of conscripts are actually women. So there's this reluctance here as well. And then I think we're bringing perhaps things into the realm of, you know, household responsibilities, caring responsibilities and so forth.

It's notable, you know, here in the UK, for example, that the vast majority of young carers, so under 25s, around 60% of those are women. So there's a lot of challenges and a lot of things going on for women and young people more widely, I think, that might make them a little bit concerned about conscription, but also those dangers, those uncertainties about what that would mean, what it would involve that Amy was talking about. But I'm just wondering, in countries that conscript women, how are pregnancy, motherhood or caring responsibilities handled if you are within the system. Yeah, well, I think that's kind of one of the issues here as well in somewhere like Sweden, where there's such, you know, defined infrastructure. So for a start, they have shared

parental leave. And it's not just a case of, you know, a mother gets, you know, a lot of leave and then the other partner might get a bit of leave. It can be shared very equally. So there can be a balance there. there's also a lot of state investment, of course, in child care, which is heavily subsidised. So it makes it much more accessible and cheaper for parents, for families, to actually engage in whatever forms of labour in the labour market that they want to engage in. So there's all these sorts of services. And then within schools and so on, there's services like lunches are often provided. So we have so many different kinds of things that we'd have to sort of fix and attend to in broad. a UK society to enable a kind of, you know, conscription across the board and that equal

service, as it were. I mean, last year there was a report commissioned by the Ministry of Defence that found two-thirds of women serving full-time in the UK's armed forces reported experiencing sexualised behaviour in the previous year. It can be a tough place for women, as we found out on this programme, with people speaking to us. As I looked into the research, even for countries that are concerned, gender neutral when it comes to their military. There are still these incidents of sexual harassment and abuse within them. So you could understand, Amy, why some women would be put off even with the concept of conscription.

I think that's a really fair point. And it is important to acknowledge that being in the military isn't always easy for anybody. And I think that those statistics highlight that the last. military service, sorry, the last survey looked at, actually, yes, a lot of people, that 10% of women in the UK enforcement have received some form of sexual harassment and it isn't, it isn't good. And it is something that seriously we need to address. But I think it's important that we need to remember that that is also happening in society, that that isn't just a military issue and then that is a significant issue across society to be able to resolve. And two points to

come to that. I think the Norwegian example, if we'd like to look at that again, in Norwegian conscripts, there's 37% of Norwegian conscripts are women. And actually, sexual harassment, negative gendered experiences are significantly lower in that proportion, rather than in the main Norwegian armed forces, which is still, because there's only 17% of women. And I'm not suggesting that critical mass resolves everything, but it certainly seems to create a more open and honest culture where there is less tokenistic behaviors, there is a bit more gender equality. And I think the last point is that it's really important that we don't continue to just define female participation in the military by those negative victim's experiences and that there

are plenty of women who are still joining and enjoying military careers, even despite or in addition to those experiences. So I think it's important to acknowledge it's significantly important to resolve, but yet we can't just keep centering this almost victim narrative. And some would say survivor as well, but it's an issue that they want to bring attention to. When it comes to conscription, we did approach the Ministry of Defence. They said conscription is not government policy. Our focus is on voluntary service, opening new doors to the armed forces rather than compelling people through them. For the first time ever, there is now a servicewoman at every rank in the British Army from private to four-star general.

And they say numbers of women in the forces have increased since 2024. They say they want to go further and are offering schemes to help achieve this. I want to thank both my guests, Amy Hill, who you've just heard, and also Professor Victoria Basham. Thank you very much. Now, cheerleading. Using it to appeal to girls and young women to stay engaged with sport is one of several recommendations in a new report from MPs.

It's aimed at getting people to move more. It's after more than a year-long inquiry, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and they've discovered a patchy picture of how well community and school sport is meeting the needs of people in England. So could cheerleading be the way forward for some girls and young women?

Well, to discuss this further, I'm joined by Sarah Bellew, ahead of communications at women in sport. Also, Millie Fanon, who runs Swindon Lightning Cheerleading Club, which has been going for 15 years, works with preschool children, all the way up to elite level.

I found this really interesting to read it this morning. Let me begin with you, Sarah. Is this a way to keep girls and young women engage, particularly as the chair of the committee said, for those that perhaps weren't thinking about sport for them? Well, thanks so much for having me on this morning. And first of all, I'd really like to say

we really welcome this report from the Culture Media and Sport Committee, and particularly from Dame Caroline Dinich, who's shown really strong leadership here, because, you know, it's about time we tackle the inactivity crisis in this country and particularly for girls. You know, right now, you know, girls are suffering a mental health crisis and particularly for girls between the ages of 17 to 19. You know, 23% of them, a quarter almost will suffer from mental health issues. That's twice as many as young boys of similar age. So, you know, this is something that we really need to get a handle on.

And we know sport can be a really powerful antidote to tackling mental health. You know, teenage girls dropping out of sport is nothing new either. So, you know, what this sport is, what this report is calling for is choice in schools. You know, for too long we've been forcing girls into a really narrow perception of what sport should look like. You know, teenage girls are not innately adverse to exercise and to sport. They've just been, we've been, it's the square pegs and round holes analogy. You know, we haven't been providing girls with the right environments to support them in sports. And this is what this can really offer.

So what about that with cheerleading specifically? With cheerleading, I think there is going to be some level of discomfort perhaps from some people in this country. Why? It's been for so long, if you think of the perception of cheerleading, it's about, you know, girls with short skirts, and pom-poms providing the entertainment quite often the sidepiece to men's sport. But we have to get away from that perception. There's a difference, and I'm sure Millie, who you've got on in a moment, we'll explain this far better than me,

but there's a difference between the sideline cheerleading perception that we see in American sports and competitive cheer, which is all about gymnastics and acrobatic and lots of skill and teamwork that's involved in that. And, you know, ultimately, sport is about fun. and we should be providing girls with sports that offer them fun and enjoyment and, you know, that will keep them in sport for a lifetime. Let me bring in, Millie. Why is cheerleading so great? Hi there.

Cheerleading, in my opinion, is so great because it's so diverse, because there are so many elements to a cheer routine like you touched on, the gymnastics, the acrobatics, the dance, the flexibility. There's a chance for everybody to shine on a team. So you've got maybe your bases who are particularly strong. You've got your backspots who are particularly reliable and conscientious. Your flyers who are strong and flexible and can perform really well. There's a space for everybody.

If you're incredible at gymnastics, you're going to get that superstar tumbling position. If you're great at jumps, you're going to be point jumper, point dancer. There is something for everybody within a cheerleading routine. And that's what I love, that everyone has a chance to shine. What do you think about the mistaken perception that there can be about the sport. Yeah, we've been fighting this stereotype for over 15 years and clubs, you know, like mine

have been running for longer than me that have had this stereotype battle for a very long time. I understand it. POM is a discipline in itself, whereas ours is the more competitive side. Let me stop you there because I think you just said POM. Is that

with the POMPOMS? You explain it to me. That's generally what people think of when they think of cheerleading. It's like you say, the sideline cheer, the POM, We don't do POM in our program because we focus on more competitive, the athletic style of cheerleading. But POM is a very difficult discipline in itself, but people confuse the two sometimes because they're both called cheerleading. And they're the Pompoms, decorative balls made of fabric or feathers that we might be used to seeing as well. A message has come in.

I'm a woman's hour listener from Kingston University cheerleading team. I'm so delighted to hear some recognition for cheerleading. were plagued with stereotypes and really underrepresented despite cheerleading being successful in the UK with many athletes currently competing at the cheerleading world. Cheleading, competitive cheerleading is incredibly hard work. It's provided me with an amazing family of women who I could not imagine life without.

Well, what about that, Millie? I mean, could it have a bigger profile? I don't know whether it's the Olympics or something like that, for example. I mean, there's talks about having Olympic recognition. They're working with the IOC now. there's a lot of stuff that's going on in the background. Sportier England is our governing body, and I know that page has written in the report today

about the challenging the fact that mainstream sports don't always suit young people, and that cheerleading is a much more viable outlet for some young girls. And I would say that cheerleading, it builds bonds for life. I've got friends that I did cheerleading with from back in university that I still speak to now, and a lot of our girls, that is such a huge factor for their enjoyment in the sport.

What is it that attracts, because they were singled out teenage girls in this report when it came to cheerleading? What do you think it is that is the attraction? I mean, it is tough. I would liken it to a sport like rugby. It is a contact sport. It is tough.

It does push you through your limits, what you expect that you can do and you push through those limits with the support of your teammates, with the love of your coaches. and you actually achieve what you thought you never could. That sense of achievement is so addictive and, you know, it's so rewarding and the girls deserve to have that type of sport in their life.

You know what I thought was interesting as well in this report because they were talking about obviously things come down to funding and trying to figure out how to pay perhaps for more activities like this, Sarah. And they talked, it could be potentially paired with basketball, you know what I mean, that you have a whole ensemble. together with various teams that are, you know, working in the same spaces and creating something in that respect. What do you think? I mean, I think it's brilliant. You know, we need to change what our definition, our perception of sport looks like. And if we can give girls these

different options, if we can shake up what sport looks like, then, you know, that's a good thing. You know, at the moment we're seeing our, you know, our charity women in sport have done, you know, a huge amount of research into teenage girls. And we found that one point, million girls who once loved sport drop out in their teenage years. And if we can provide alternatives to stop that happening, then surely that's a brilliant thing for girls, for all the things that we know that sport can provide, not just mental health benefits and physical health benefits,

but all of the skills that give girls the strength throughout their entire life, leadership, communication, teamwork, to be able to develop in their careers as well. So, you know, this is a really good thing. You know, we have to get away from some of the really, you know, narrow definition of what sport looks like. You know, look, I speak to women in midlife all the time who label themselves unsporty. I spoke to a woman not long ago who said, well, I'm not sporty. And she was about to run her 50th marathon. You know, we've got to get away from that stereotyping because, you know, what does sport look like?

You know, sport provides enjoyment for girls and it allows them to be active for that. their entire lives. Well, that's a brilliant thing and we should welcome that. Sarah Bellew, cheerleading for cheerleading. Along with Millie Fanning, Sarah is Head of Communications

at Women in Sport and Millie runs Swindon Lightning Cheerleading Club. Thanks very much. If you're talking about, we're talking about public toilets earlier, if you're a cheerleader, get in touch as well,

844-on-the-tollets. Here's Sandra. I'm a female roofer. I'm out and about all day. Toilets can be thin on the ground and that is something I don't agree with. Personally, I love weeing outside. So she says, it's a fertilizer.

As humans were meant to do this, some might disagree with that. 844844. Just one of the findings, as we talked about that report earlier in the program. Right, I want to move on to Russia. It has been four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the conflict still dominates the headlines. More than 5,000 women and girls have been killed in Ukraine since February of 2022. The actual number of deaths is possibly higher, according to the United Nations.

Figures for Russia are not published. A new documentary takes us back to the months just before the invasion, following a group of young female journalists trying to report independently as the country cracks down on its media. And the documentary captures not only the risks these journalists face, but also the friendships and the humour that kept them going. One of those journalists is Una Niamzer, who joins me now, along with Julia Loctave,

who's director of my undesirable friends, Part 1, last air in Moscow. Julia and Anna, welcome very much to the program, and thank you for getting up so early in New York to join us. Julia, let me begin with you. As I mentioned, you began filming in 2021, the autumn of that year. And I read that you had a different idea

of what the film would actually represent. What were you planning on documenting? Hi, thanks for having us. Well, the world was a different place when I started filming. When I started filming, the war had been going on since 2014, but it was a scale of war that the world seemed to find acceptable enough to let Russia host a World Cup, for example. But nobody could imagine the kind of war that we've seen for the past four years. And it was a world in which there was still a vibrant opposition working inside of Russia,

opposition press, people working out in the open. And it's a world that's impossible to imagine now because since the start of the full-scale war, one million people have left. Some of the journalists that you speak to, and we come to this quite early in the documentary, they have been labeled foreign agents. Can you describe that a little bit further?

Yeah, that's what the idea started with, is that in late summer, early fall, 2021, Russia started naming media, but also individual journalists as foreign agents. So, for example, if you were a foreign agent, you would have to put this on your show every 10 minutes or so. You would have to say that you're a foreign agent. And for example, Anna Niemserku is a foreign agent.

Now she wasn't at the time. You would have to introduce Anna as a foreign agent. And not only that, but Anna would then have to put this everywhere on everything she wrote, everything she put on her television shows, and also on her cat pictures on Instagram. she would have to put that she's a foreign agent and basically announce herself as such.

Like a disclaimer almost is the way I would describe it because there would be these banners on every publication or broadcast that you did. The BBC understands that while opponents accused the authorities of suppressing its critics with that foreign agent law incur basic freedoms in the country, the Kremlin does deny it saying the law prevents foreign organizations from interfering in Russia's internal affairs. my listeners may have heard that previously. But let me bring you in, Anna, and welcome.

You're one of those journalists working for TV rain. So this was one of the channels that was on air that was in opposition to the Kremlin. What was the reality like day-to-day working in that particular circumstance? Good morning and thank you so much for having us here. So, yes, if I may, I'll add a few words about this foreign law a foreign agent situation because it's important to understand that it was not only the idea of a bunch of horrible and unpleasant administrative measures taking towards actually any

undesirable person for the Russian authorities. It was the demolition of the whole journalistic infrastructure, independent journalistic infrastructure, because of a lot of administrative measures, but at the same time because of the creating of the atmosphere, of total toxicity, of the idea that dealing with foreign agents, both individuals or organizations, it became dangerous. People became very suspicious. People started thinking that if I get in touch with a foreign agent, maybe it's contagious. Maybe I'll become a foreign agent myself. If we exchange, I don't know, small payments or anything like that.

Or if I repost the article or something like that, I can become a foreign agent myself. So it was a demolition of the whole journalistic infrastructure. And so basically it was the atmosphere we were living in because from one hand it was disgusting. it was getting, it was horrible and it was getting worse and worse. And we all lived with constant feeling that everything was going to be only worse, that the repressions are increasing. At the same time, maybe if you saw the movie,

you understand that we lived in a constant laughter as a defense reaction. And I think this is... Because we had to survive somehow. I think this is important to get across, actually, because there's lots in the documentary that I see that's in your home Anna, for example. You have a daughter that you are raising. People are around for dinner.

There's music, there's wine, and there is sarcastic jokes, for example. How are you able to continue with that part of life, almost normality in a way when you are under such pressure that you've just described? I think the best way to describe it is to give you an example. For instance, you know, my husband and I used to play a rock scissors paper just to decide who should go to the protest.

Because at some point we realized, when we realized that the authorities started terrorizing people with children, specifically at first there were, They were specifically terrorizing people with adopted children, saying that if you are going constantly on protests, maybe you are not the right parent for this child. And maybe we should take your child from you and give your child to some very loyal Putinist family, who doesn't go to protest or anything like that.

And then we realized that our daughter who wasn't adopted, but still we thought, and I saw how it horrified a lot of my friends. And my husband and I, we realized that, okay, our daughter wasn't adopted, but if we both go to the protest and we both are detained, so we don't know what happens with our daughter. And so we had to play this funny game just to decide who will go to the protest, but it describes this feeling of your body living in a very difficult conditions, in authoritarian conditions. And trying to solve some problems with a joke or game or something like that. Because basically you don't have any other choice.

You say in the documentary that you had one rule with your daughter. Can you tell me that briefly before I come back to you, Julia? Anna? Sorry, I thought it was. So my daughter, well, she was 10 when we started filming and she's 14 right now, so it's a whole new person. And it was like, yes, it was quite challenging to combine two directions to be very well aware that you are independent journalist, that you are, well, you're fighting a fight. You have enemies and you know that. And at the same time, being a mother, being a friend, being a wife, being a normal person, trying to invite friends and so on. And this very weird feeling when you want to hold to this normality, at the same time, constantly being aware that this is not normal.

But you... But I was trying to remember the one rule, Anna, and I think the one rule that you said was that, you know, you were never going to lie to her about what you did and about the situation, you know. And I think that's what happened, you know, when we get to the first week of the full-scale war, it gets into a situation where people are for, you know, telling their children saying, don't talk about our opposition to the war at school, you know. And I remember Anna says this in the film, like, she can't imagine saying this to her daughter. Like, you know, and what happens in the first week of the full-scale war is that,

And that's what we couldn't anticipate when we started filming, is that all the journalists who were working out in the open and still trying to resist Putin, you know, from the inside, are now forced to play the country because it becomes impossible to tell the truth inside the country and not risk going to jail. And so many of them have. How do you understand, Julia, why there were so many female, young journalists

within the opposition? Maybe Anna has an answer for that. It was unfortunately a structure where you see very often where you would have the head editor be a man and then this newsroom of women. And I did have, you know, I mean, it was disproportionately women, but also in all honesty, I did start out filming some men. They just weren't as interesting to film.

They weren't as open as characters. They weren't as dynamic. And I ended up following a group of these young, incredibly energetic, funny, full of life journalists. And they all happen to be women. And I'm so glad they are because they do show you what it's like to live this life where you have to feed your daughter. And you know, you're with your friends. And at the same time, you're working like right now, you know, I'm working on Part 2 exile.

And it's a lot of the women in the film work on stories about war crimes. And they're doing very serious journalism work at the same time as there's a parallel life and all of the – I mean, I think we all know that from our regular lives, you know, that your life doesn't just stop because of, like, all of the things going on politically, your life doesn't just stop because of your work. We all live in all these parallel worlds at the same time. And are those women able to continue their journalism from where they are in exile? Yeah, all the characters in the film are now working in exile. Everyone that I was filming left.

I mean, I think this is important to mention. Everyone left during the first week of the full scale invasion, because they were facing a choice of, do we go to the office tomorrow? or do we go to work? And if we go to work, we might go to jail where we will not be able to be journalists, or do we leave the country? And so people fled with a carry-on suitcase just in four hours, and they left, not knowing what country they're going to. And now all of them are working in Western Europe and in the U.S. as journalists trying to deliver an alternative for Russians to propaganda, give them an alternate, you know, give them the truth about the war. I mean, it's

actually not. It's kind of wrong to say an alternate. I was slightly triggered when you kind of just read the disclaimer about the Kremlin because one of the things that had to happen, you know, with all these journalists during the first week of the full-scale war is every single thing they said had to be followed by a disclaimer of like the Kremlin says it is not attacking civilian targets. So you would have, you know, images of Russia bombing an apartment building in Ukraine, which is clearly an apartment building. And then they would have to say the Ministry of Defense says that was not attacking civilian targets. So that's not a possible way of, you know, doing journalism in that space,

but also more importantly, it just became illegal to call the war war. All of the things that all these journalists speak about, many of them have criminal cases against them. One of our main characters was recently sentenced an absentia in Russia to seven and a half years in prison, which means she can't go to half the world because she would be extradited to Russia and be sent to prison. But they face tremendous risks. in exile. I want to let people know my undesirable friends, part one last air in Moscow,

is the film of Julia Loctave, who is the director, One of Neamsar, one of the journalists, also joining us today. Thank you both so much. And we did contact as we do when we cover these stories, the Russian embassy in London and asked for its response to the claims made in the documentary by independent journalists. It said Russia does not pursue censorship. Russia applies the principle shared by most responsible states, which is that the deliberate distribution of false information is a threat to public safety and foreign-funded political activity is subject to disclosure and that Russian authorities apply Russian law in the ordinary course under judicial supervision and with a right of appeal. They go on to say critical voices are not silenced in Russia. the Russian media landscape comprises a wide range of print, broadcast and online platforms with diverse editorial lines

and contested political subjects routinely generate open polemic in which competing positions, including those critical of the authorities, are aired and debated. And as Julia was speaking, their previous to the statement, I know she would not agree with a number of the points in that, but I want to thank both my guests for joining me. Thanks also for all your questions and comments coming in. Being in a wheelchair and finding an accessible toilet can be a nightmare.

So many venues still have them downstairs or public ones have a step up to negotiate. So says Steph. On cheerleading, my daughter is 28 and loves cheerleading. It helps keep her fit, meet people and socialise. She did ballet and gymnastics as a girl. Trampolining is a teenager and this is the perfect fit for her. She's made a lovely circle of friends too. So says Juliet.

844, if you'd like to get in touch. Now, wonderful, extraordinary, breathtaking. These are just some of the words used to describe the work of my next guest by people including Coldplay's Chris Martin, no less. She is the composer Rebecca Dale, and she's been blazing a trail since 2017 when she self-released her first single, I'll sing. Its success led to an approach from Universal Music's Deca Classics

and her signing as the label's first female composer. Her debut album, Requiem for My Mother, reached number one in the UK Specialist Classics, Charts. Rebecca Dale also scores film and television productions for the likes of BBC, Disney, Sky, 20th Century Fox. Her new album, Studies in Disappearing Music for Screen is drawing on that work. Great to have you in studio with us. Thank you for having me. I had such a lovely time last night going through all, my goodness, you've composed so much and so much that we're familiar with perhaps and not knowing that your name is behind it. Little women, for example, if I throw that out. Well, I did additional

music on that. There's a fantastic composer, St. O'E.L., who I worked for, but it was a fantastic project to be part of. Yeah. We were listening there to a snippet from your debut album that was programmed around your piece, Materna, a Requiem, and that launched your career as a composer.

But I was very moved to read. It was about processing your grief for your mother who died quite suddenly when you were just 25. Yeah. So that came out back in 2018, and it was a bit of an accidental process, which sounds mad. But my mum was, she was always incredibly encouraging of my work.

Like a lot of parents, she was just so supportive of her children. She spent her whole time ferreying us between, you know, music practice and sports practice and kicking us dinner and all these thankless tasks that parents have. And she was really supportive of my composing,

but I was quite underconfident as a teenager about putting my work out there. And I think suddenly when she died, deaths are great leveller in that sense in that sense, in that all of that self-consciousness stuff just fell away. It didn't matter because it was so much more important to honour her and the things that mattered to her and the things that she would have enjoyed.

So I ended up creating a piece that was full of melody because she loved melodic music. She wasn't classically trained, but she just enjoyed music of all kinds. And it was actually music that, a lot of which I would have written when I was younger, so she would have heard those themes. So the P.A. Gasey, for example, that you just heard,

I think I wrote that when I was 14, the melodies. So she would have been familiar with it all. It was a kind of bridge back to her. So that's why I wrote it. But I didn't expect it to be picked up. And then I think when, yes, when the record label heard some of my other music, they said, have you got anything else in the back drawer? And I mentioned the Requiem and the rest of history.

Yeah, and I'm sure of them knowing you wrote some of it at 14. It's incredible. Also not coming from a family of musicians, although music lovers. Your new album is quite different to your past work. celebrating as it does music for the screen. How is that different? So this is a really different direction to the last couple of albums that I've done,

which were very much more traditional classical stuff, so music for choir and orchestra. But there's a whole other side to my work, which is the work I've done in Screen over the last 10 years. And I wanted some of those pieces to have a place to live. This album's much more experimental.

So I think you're going to hear. a piece next called evolutionary etude. And with that, for example, I was, I was really fascinated by the idea that we tend to think of instruments as quite binary, so a violin and a synth, for example. But what if we could evolve more seamlessly between them? So this piece, it's a kind of traditional classical study in a sense. It's just lots of arpeggios going up and down on the violin. But it gradually, through the piece, evolves into a synth and back. and actually the orchestra does the same thing at times. So it's about exploring more experimentally this album, I think.

It feels very wrong to cut that short, and I'm sure it's bringing people off to a different place. But so beautiful to listen to. I'm curious if you feel women composers are treated any differently to men. I hope not, because it doesn't make difference to the music you write. You don't think there's any difference gender-wise in the music that women compose compared

to men? Being totally honest, I find it a strange thing that the music I write would be, to be slightly connected to my genitals. It's sort of, you know, I write because of the things that I'm fascinated in. But I do think it affected my experience growing up. I think girls can definitely lack confidence. and because of that it took me a longer time to actually take the plunge. I didn't do a music undergrad degree and I was working in another job

before I gained the confidence to really go for it later in life. Where we're so glad that you have it now and also a story of resilience and pushing back. So wonderful to have you in. Rebecca Dale's Studies in Disappearing is out on the 15th of May on Signum Classics label. Thanks so much for joining us here on Women's Hour. You can do the exact same. Join us tomorrow at 10 a.m.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi there, I'm Izzy Judd, and I'm so pleased to be back with the Music and Meditation Podcast Series 6. We'll be talking about everything from reframing anxiety to getting a good night's sleep. So if you need to find some moments of calm in your day, subscribe to the music and meditation podcast on BBC Sounds. It feels very wrong to cut that short, and I'm sure it's bringing people off to a different place. but so beautiful to listen to.

I'm curious if you feel women composers are treated any differently to men. I hope not because it doesn't make any difference to the music right. You don't think there's any difference gender-wise in the music that women compose compared to men? I'm totally honest. I find it a strange thing that the music I write would be to be slightly creed connected to my genitals.

It's just sort of, you know, I write because of the things that I'm fascinated in. But I do think it affected my experience growing up. I think girls can definitely lack confidence. And because of that, it took me a longer time to actually take the plunge. I didn't do a music undergrad degree. And I was working in another job before I gained the confidence to really go for it later in life. Where we're so glad that you have it now. And also a story of resilience and pushing.

back so wonderful to have you in. Rebecca Dale's Studies in Disappearing is out on the 15th of May on Cignam Classics label. Thanks so much for joining us here on Women's Hour. You can do the exact same. Join us tomorrow at 10 a.m.