Woman's Hour - Rachel Stevens of S Club, The motherhood penalty, Interracial marriage in the United States, Sexual assault during therapy

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Rachel Stevens was one of the founding members of S Club 7, the pop band that took the world by storm in the early 2000s. She joins Anita to talk about her memoir Finding my voice: A story of strength, belief and S Club, which covers her time in the hit-making band, her solo career and what it's been like being in the public eye.Anita is joined by Ella Janneh who has won a civil case against her former therapist, over claims he raped her during a therapy session at his clinic in London. She has been awarded more than £200,000 in damages. A day after the incident in 2016, she went to the Metropolitan Police, but the case was dropped two years later. Ella explains why she decided to pursue a civil case and how she’s been affected. Two new studies from Scandinavia suggest that having children doesn’t harm women’s pay, at least not in the long run. Christian Odendahl, the European economics editor at The Economist, talks Anita through the findings of the new research into the “motherhood penalty.”For over a century, many Americans believed that interracial marriage was illegitimate and until the late 1960s, the American legal system supported that belief. Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White is a play written in the 1960s that explores the impact of these laws. Anita is joined by Monique Touko, the director of a new production of the play, and American historian Dr Leni Sorensen who had a black father and white mother in 1940s California.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Olivia Skinner

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. I'll be joined today by Ella Janna, who yesterday won a civil case and more than £200,000 worth in damages against her therapist who she claims raped her in a therapy session. That's coming up shortly. There's a new play on in London that examines miscegenation in the deep south of America in 1918. I had to look the word up too. It means sexual relations between

people of different ethnic groups which was not only illegal in the USA at the time it was seen as unnatural. I say a new play. It was actually written in 1962. It's called Wedding Band, A Love Hate Story. It's a powerful script about a black woman and a white man in a relationship and how the people and the world around them react and the impact it has on their relationship. So this morning, I'd like all of us to talk about mixed relationships, if it's your experience are

you in one maybe your parents were or someone in your family a friend when was it and how was your or their experience did it cause a hoo-ha or rifts in the family how were they navigated how was it fitting in to the other culture maybe the only trouble you had was getting used to your mother in law's new style of cooking. And I don't just mean interracial relationships this morning. It could be interreligious or maybe you're from Lancashire and you married someone from Yorkshire. This too can cause issues. Your experiences, please, on mixed relationships. Text the programme on 84844.

Email me via our website. You can send me a WhatsApp on 03700 100 444. And of course, our social media is at BBC Woman's Hour. And we are going to be discussing the motherhood penalty. That's what happens to women's income after having children. Also on the programme, we have some stardust. Listen to this. Don't stop, never give up. Hold your head high and reach the top. Let the world see what you have got. Bring it all back to you.

Hold on to what you try to be. Your individuality. When the world is on your shoulders, just smile and let it go. If people try to put you down, Just walk on by, don't turn around You only have to answer to your dad And reach for the star MS Club. British pop band that took the world by storm in the early 2000s.

Rachel Stevens is sitting in front of me. Kids and adults alike learnt the dances to the songs. They joined the club. They even watched the band on their own TV show. Rachel went on to have her own successful solo career and has graced our TV screens in shows like Strictly Come Dancing and more recently on Dancing With The Stars. Now she has a book out, Finding My Voice,

a story of strength, belief and s club it's rachel's debut memoir about her life her time in the hit making band her solo career and what it's been like living life in the public eye and she joins us now it's wonderful to have you here oh it's gorgeous to be here thank you how's your morning been so far it's been great apart from i walked i've hate flights of stairs so i'm i finally like, I'm a lift. I've got a real, I'm very claustrophobic. So yeah, I'm always, ever since the band as well, I've always been, ever since I was really little.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's a great way of keeping fit. It is. But oh my God, my heart was pounding. But I've had time to just sit and have a drink of water. So I'm all good. Well, I'm going to ask how many questions about this now. What happens?

I mean, you've traveled the world and you've presumably been up some very tall buildings so what what happens like how do you how do you cope with it um yeah it was it's it's well yeah I mean such a phobias are such a fear to other people it's like it's fine just do it but no and I know that I've got to um I should just be facing it but I'm still I get my steps in you know one thing at a time yeah one thing you've been doing a lot going on so I'll come to that another another thing but I do think tackle your fears but yeah another time okay we'll put well maybe we'll pick up on it again and we'll get you back on to talk about that specifically but you have had a lot going on yeah including uh publishing a memoir why why now oh I'm excited. I can't believe today's the day.

It's been a real process, a real journey. Why now? I mean, the opportunity came up and I had to really think long and hard about whether I could. Well, whether I. Yeah, I had to really think long and hard about doing it, because if I'm going to write it, I was like, I have to be really honest, really open. Yeah. And and tell my truth and that's something that honestly I've through my career through life found really difficult to just let

my I've always had this sort of protection up and um and I was scared of that because I wanted to really you know be honest um so yes I decided to do it and then just felt so passionate about sharing my story because I think it's just wonderful to share. I think it opens up conversation. People can, we can relate to each other. So it became really important to me. So I feel very lucky. So there you are talking about phobias and well, writing this book then is facing a fear. It is. Opening up. I mean, honestly, sometimes, well, a lot before, especially interviews, I would feel my heart would race and I would think to myself, I'm just having a conversation. I'm just talking. But for me, going through my career, interviews have felt like a very exposing thing for me.

So I always found it really, really hard because I would self-censor. I would feel like my words would get stuck in my throat. Trying to articulate everything I felt. You know, I'm someone who sort of would think a lot. I'm a very deep thinker and would feel a lot and couldn't access the thoughts with the feelings and just be myself and just be in the moment. So it's been a real sort of process to unravel everything and put the pieces back together.

And I've always been very curious about self-development and self-growth. So when you look back at you starting out in the S Club, young you, because you're only a teenager, having to do those interviews, what was going on? Why were you self-censoring? Gosh, I talk about it in my book. I go right back from the beginning. I mean, I grew up, obviously it's a very generational thing,

but I grew up in a home where I felt like I was a lot of emphasis was put on looks and how we looked and the outside and how things looked to the outside um yeah you say that you're seen and not heard that kind of you had to be well turned out well turned out um and I felt like I just had to be a certain way and I just felt like I wasn't seen and wasn't heard growing up. And that sort of carried through my life. And interestingly, really carried through into S Club because that was very much about how I feel like I'm cutting everything quite short, but how I looked and it became a real emphasis on that and everything was just inside and I kept just kind of pushing it all down pushing it all down and it's all there isn't it doesn't go anywhere but it manifests in other ways so it would manifest in anxiety worry um real low self-esteem I mean gosh it could go on and on but yeah it was a lot to unravel yeah yeah and also I guess your position in the band I mean you're so ridiculously beautiful and you and I suppose everyone was especially in the 90s especially a woman in the pop industry at

the 90s they see you as a certain way and maybe you were the you know the gorgeous one and you maybe you weren't expected to say anything well yeah it was it you know it was it was a concoction of so many different things I mean being in a pop group of that at that time um everyone saw the sort of final polished glossy finish um and everything that I I came into the band a very sort of shaky time in my life I was my family had just sort of fallen apart my parents had separated we'd lost our home I was very like I didn't have that song strong sense of herself or a foundation of family which was everything to me growing up. So I kind of went into the band and was like, I was always very driven, very career driven.

And I just threw myself into it 100%, but became this version of what I thought others expected me to be. And yeah, you know, like you said, being a teenager, you're still finding yourself. And I did, I found it very hard to sort of I've very got very lost in it yeah but it came to you as a real gift I mean you were working in the canteen at Sony and in the background somewhere hundreds thousands of young people were auditioning to be in this new super group that they were putting together a real sliding doors moment sliding

doors moment in your life because two record execs just saw you and said, do you fancy being a pop star? I mean, obviously I'm paraphrasing. You tell the story. Yeah, well, no, exactly. I mean, it really was such an, from then on, it was a real whirlwind. I mean, they approached me to, they said,

literally said, can you sing? I mean, it was a pipe dream, obviously. You know, I remember like, I was so passionate about music, always singing, but I'd never been was so passionate about music, always singing. But I'd never been that kid who'd auditioned for things. If I was going to be in a school play, I'd be the tree. You know what I mean? I wasn't like.

What were you singing in your bedroom or who were you singing? Oh, God. I was. Oh, God. Well, I grew up with a lot of like the greats, obviously Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Elvis. Elvis. My brother was a big Elvis fan. So he was always playing my dad loved soul

music so a lot of like Teddy Pentegrast and Dusty Springfield oh my god I could go on and on and on and then I loved my pop as well but Rick Astley Kylie Minogue Rick Astley it's crazy how I thought of him first well he's got an amazing voice that's why I'm great pop songs just came to me Kylie Jason that whole thing and and Madonna, you know. So I just loved music. But I never thought, I'd never been to drama school or auditioned or thought I could sing. I didn't, you know, I just, but I was like very career driven and I was always like if an opportunity presents,

I'm going to go for it. So I was a real contradiction in a way. So yeah, I just was like, yeah. And I just kind of went along and it was for a solo artist that they were putting together this real manufactured pop artist called Lolly and I fit the bill I looked like you know who they thought she would look like and I went into the studio started recording and unbeknownst to me s club was being put together and auditionings auditions were happening and it all went from there and so with that do you feel that i mean

i think this comes out in your memoir a bit a bit of imposter syndrome oh my gosh yeah absolutely massively and of course i didn't really know what that was then. I mean, we talk about it a lot now. We talk about it now, yeah. You know, we all say it. Mental health wasn't a thing then. No one talked, really, or talked about it. So everything was just going on inside. But what I feel very grateful for is I've always been passionate ever since I was young about mental health and growth and self-development.

I've always been so curious about why I struggled so much with anxiety as I got a little bit older why I felt it's so hard to just be vulnerable and allow myself to be myself I didn't know who myself was at that point but yeah just to um questioning really questioning and how did you navigate it how did you cope and it's the 90s it's pop music in the 90s 2000s I should say it wasn't 90s it was 2000s FHM loaded and you were on the cover you were you know one of the key pin-up girls of that time yeah I think I coped with just pushing it all away and putting the smile on and putting the show on and just sort of being who I thought people expected to me but then behind the scenes I was therapy I was I've been in therapy since I was really young and I needed an outlet I needed someone to I was always searching basically for

answers and understanding as why I found it hard so hard to connect and sort of be open and what was going on there was a lot of confusion that I was carrying and I think a lot of shame and a lot of so much was going on so I was always searching and so that was my coping mechanism was to put that protection up but it it really started to do the opposite obviously and not serve me in any way because it would hold me back from so many things of being present of connect human connection and um and you make choices of more, I don't know if this is the right thing to say, but more sort of surface choices in a way of your life when you're not fully connected to what you really need, want, deserve.

You don't know how to set boundaries, all of those things. I mean, as I've gotten older, we're all learning on the go, aren't we? And we're just muddling through. The best, you know, life is messy and it's a constant working on ourselves. What was it like having the other band members around you? Oh God, we had so many incredible times. I mean, but we were all kids really

and we were all finding our own way. We all had our own stuff going on like we all do. And we worked so hard um which for me was I mean it taught me such a strong work ethic and like I've said I've always been so driven um and career driven um and always known that you've got to put the work in to get the the results so and we did I mean we had an incredible time we worked with some of the best in the business um and our music really does stand the test of time you know so absolutely but we had fun we did we did have fun and you're back

but obviously um we must mention because we know that in april 2023 um you as a band learned the about the passing of paul catamount i mean what was that time like for you all oh it was just heartbreaking i mean we'd all come back together. Everyone was really excited. He was so excited about it. And it was really special getting to know him again as grownups. And sort of we'd have we had a couple of really lovely chats and he was just such a beautiful soul. But, yeah, it was really heartbreaking.

And we took time to just obviously the tour was in motion at that point but we took time to just process and um but there was no talk of the tour not happening it just kind of stopped and then we were like it all it took on a whole nother uh beautiful thing of a tribute to him and a celebration of everything i mean 25 years in itself is such an incredible thing. It's huge. And we really got to celebrate him, which felt like a really special thing to do.

And it's a very special thing to be able to do. When you say 25 years though, Rachel, there will be people sitting up going, that has dated all of us. To think that S Club has reformed. Is it one of those things? Do you feel, I mean, obviously you're an adult female now, but you know when you know someone

from a certain period in your life and they will forever be that person? Totally. You'll forever be a teenager. That's no bad thing. I thought that when I was listening to that. I'm like, oh my God, it takes me back to being 19 again, for sure.

When the band came to an end, the first time around, you decided to pursue a solo career. Did you imagine that you'd do that? Yeah, I did. I kind of kind of I always I keep going saying I feel like I'm repeating myself but I always had this like inner fire and like I always knew what I wanted to do but the thing that I always struggled with was like articulating it or owning my own power in it um and owning my own yeah I'm doing this well I feel like you are stepping into another powerful space as a woman. You separated from your husband last year, Alex Bourne.

And you have to, as a woman in the public eye, how do you keep things private and how do you navigate that publicly? And how are you? I'm really good. I'm really, really good. I mean, you know what it's like life is up and down and everything in between um and it has it's been a real process it's a lot of navigating um especially with the girls because they've always been the forefront I'm very lucky my uh their dad is a great dad and he we've always been so aligned with keeping them really safe in

it and being really honest. We've had great advice on how to age appropriately, speak to them and help them feel safe in it all. Because that was my biggest fear was how are they going to be in this, all of this? And it is, it's like you're changing your life. It's like a 360, isn't it? You know, you've built, it's not only a marriage, it's a family around it. It's your friendship groups. It's your home.

It's your children. Obviously, that's like the biggest part of it all. So it's like your whole life. And it's, for me, it felt like jumping off a cliff. It was like, wow, it's the unknown of, you know, but I've always believed that we have to be happy and we have to be true to ourselves. And it's not something you

decide overnight is it it's something that takes so much turmoil and thought and like working out and questioning and back and forth and and it was it was a process and and and I find it I mean I haven't talked about it a lot publicly because I'm so mindful of everyone involved and respectful and being mindful of everyone. So, yeah, but it's... But then you're in the public, right? So the minute you step out with someone new, as you have done with Brendan Hatfield, who's your former Dansk and Ice partner. Yeah. And we see amazing photographs of you together.

And congratulations. Thank you. But of course, all of that must have been thought about you know how do you then step out and say i'm in a new relationship yeah no exactly and it's been um yeah we've just like i said been really mindful and thoughtful of everyone involved and um it was a very slow slow um process but i think you know when you go through growth in your life and you change and your outlook on life changes and you realize this is what I need, this is what I want, this is what I deserve. And everything is new and it just all kind of happens. It's like we were talking before we went on air, isn't it?

It all just evolves and it's not black and white. It's just an amazing growth experience. So what would you say to Rachel, who has just been spotted in the canteen at Sony Music? What advice would you give her? You've done so much and you've obviously done so much work on yourself and understood so much about yourself. What would you say to her?

I'd probably give her a big hug and gone you know I was very I was so like oh protect building up these walls of protection and actually I would have just gone it's all right you know just breathe and um yeah giving her a big hug I think you know because we I'm all about self-love and it takes time doesn't it when we build up all these things inside to go actually we need to be really kind to ourselves yeah that's good advice yeah what happens next I mean the books come out today yeah um you've got these make those I saw those amazing pictures of you performing at hoopla yeah in London the other week was amazing I hadn't done my solo stuff for so long so that to get up there and do that again. I mean, you looked incredible. So what happens now?

What's next? It feels like a new chapter. Literally, from getting this book out and moving forward, it feels like a new chapter. I'm so excited about following things that I'm really passionate about now. And like actually looking at how I can put my passions into and create things that I can can start working on and I love my fashion so I would love at some point to have my own brand that's something that's bubbling away creatively in my head um so yeah lots lots coming so it's exciting oh we cannot wait to see what you do next Rachel good luck with the book and thank you for popping into Woman's Hour lovely

thank you uh the memoir is out today it's called finding my voice thank you rachel lots of you getting in touch um with various things that we're going to be discussing on the program um um we're coming up we're going to be talking about a new play that's on in london about an interracial relationship in the american deep south and someone has got in touch to share their own experience saying my parents chinese father and an English mother married in 1965 her family disowned her for the rest of her life Chinese English marriages were unheard of I'm often asked was your mother Chinese but it was my father for whatever reason they assume the mother must be a foreigner 84844 is the number to text please keep your thoughts coming in on that and anything else

you want to comment on that you hear in the programme. Now, I'm joined in the studio by Ella Janna. Hello. Hello. Welcome, Ella. I'm just going to bring everyone up to speed. Sure. Yesterday, Ella won a civil case against her former therapist, Michael Lusada, over claims he raped and sexually assaulted her at his clinic in London in August 2016. She's been awarded more than £200,000 in damages. A day after the incident in 2016, she went to the Metropolitan Police, but the case was dropped two years later. Ella launched the civil proceedings after the CPS decided not to press charges against him. The court heard that Ella did not ask for or consent to the use of penile penetration as a therapeutic technique. In his

ruling, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker said he had no doubt Miss Jana was suffering a full-blown disassociative panic attack and that she entirely lacked capacity to consent to what took place. Thank you for making the time to come in to speak to me this morning, Ella. Thanks for having me. You won the case yesterday. How are you feeling this morning? To be honest, I haven't even had much time to sit with it. It's just been go, go, go, go, go ever since we got the verdict.

And I think it will take a while for things to filter in. It's been eight years. It's been a really long fight. And I guess, yeah, I feel every emotion at once. That's kind of the best approximation that I can tell people. It's just, it's all of it. Why do you decide to waive your anonymity? For a few reasons. I think in being able to do this, shame has been a huge, huge, huge thing that I've had to confront. And I want this to end, you know.

We normalise rape. We normalise child abuse, of which, you know, I've experienced both. And I feel like putting my face to this, putting my name to this, means that I'm able to, yeah, confront shame and tell people that this is not our shame. I didn't rape anybody. I didn't abuse anybody. This is not my shame. This is his. This is theirs. And, yeah, we make change by putting our face to it,

stepping up, speaking out, and ideally that creates a culture change. That's very powerful. Do you feel like you've confronted your shame? Do you feel powerful? Do you feel like you're on top of it? I do feel like I've confronted a lot of my shame. I'm not going to say, oh, you know, all better now. But I've had to confront a huge amount of shame. I've been through a rape case

in which, you know, I've had all of my intimate documents looked over. I've had to tell my story over and over and over again. I've had to go to a rape trial in which my evidence has been tested against me. So, yes, I have worked through a lot of shame to be able to sit here today. I think we should start by understanding why you went to see this therapist in the first place. So I was abused as a child. I was sexually abused as a child. And as a result, in my early 20s, I started to suffer panic attacks during consensual sex with my partners. And so I was desperate to gain an understanding of what was happening to me. me um it's not something that uh people don't talk about child abuse generally anyway um but in terms of understanding how trauma can have an effect on the body as well is just is really rarely spoken about uh so i went to him uh for help because um i was yeah i wasn't happy with the fact that I was left with this type of trauma.

I imagine even the process of deciding to do the therapy would have taken a level of strength. How did you find him? So I actually heard about Michael Uzada in 2013, which is around when my panic attacks first started to arise. Sorry, not 2013, earlier. But I, so yeah, sorry, can you ask me? I just thought, how did you find him? Did he come recommended? Yes, no, I found him in a newspaper article. And at this time, my panic attacks were first coming up. I didn't know what they were. I didn't have a proper understanding of them.

And I was first just starting to confront the fact that I had been abused and the effects that it had on me. And I found this article, and he was talking about the fact that he worked with trauma in the body, that he'd worked with lots of people who had sexual trauma and that he wanted to bring his services to the NHS. And at that time it was so rare to find, or at least for me, to find anybody talking about trauma in that way

and connecting it to sexual trauma and the body. And I wasn't practiced in talking about it or accessing information. So I thought, okay, this sounds like this is a person that can help me. Now, I don't want to get into the details of what happened during that session. And I want to make sure you are okay talking about it. But how did he explain his therapy techniques at the time he didn't explain anything um and uh yeah i mean i i did a lot of explaining of what was happening to me um and he just said i'm confident i can help you um because i've worked with a lot of people that have been sexually abused as children. And I, trusting him, thinking, you know, he's the therapist,

and he says he's an expert and he presents himself as somebody who, you know, is knowledgeable about all these different modalities and has created his own practice that's incorporated all of it. I'm just thinking, well, I'm going to see, you know, a world-class expert here, you know, and he's going to... And you've paid a lot of money to be there. I did, yeah, and I equated that with his expertise. Sure, which is what you think, right?

£750 for a session. I thought, and I said to him, I can only afford one session. I want to get as much information as I can. You know, I thought I would go in and get this kind of download like you would, you know, an expert and come out with practices and things I could do and an understanding of what was happening to me. When did you decide that you needed to go to the police? Well, I contacted the police the next day. The first thing I did was call a sexual assault service the next day because by the time I was ready to access them, that's when they were open. So it was the next day and they said, you need to call the police. So I called them. They said, call the police. And I called them straight away. I'm just wondering about the in between just you leaving there and what went on in your mind. You know, what happens when you've when you realize, goodness, something has happened here?

Yeah, I mean, I had a I had a total breakdown. I left his offices. And when I came to because I had experienced a panic attack and dissociation, when I came to, I was in Dalston and I started screaming down the phone to my friend. After that, I switched off my phone. I was so humiliated and really bargaining with life. I thought, I don't have time for this. I don't have time to be raped. You know, I was I was still struggling with what had happened to me. And so I switched off my phone, bought a bottle of wine and just drowned myself that night. I must mention that Mr. Lusada denies it was rape. But you then went to, but then the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to take on the case after you'd gone to the police.

How did that make you feel? I've said in a statement yesterday, it made me feel totally worthless. There was some form of, once I had, you know, been involved in the police investigation, there was some form of hope. It wasn't perfect. I wasn't happy with the way that it was being run. But I knew that I had to hold on to this as, you know, my hope. If I'm going to be in this investigation, I have to do everything I can to, you know, try and get some justice and try and stop him from doing this to anybody else. And when the CPS decided not to pursue it, I mean, I was just in total despair. I mean, I use the word sorrow and that's what I felt. And it took me a really, really long time to recover.

We've heard from a CPS spokesperson this morning who said criminal and civil cases require different standards of proof. In criminal cases, we must prove beyond reasonable doubts that an individual is guilty. And following a careful review of the evidence in this case we concluded there was not a realistic prospect of conviction a decision later supported by two independent reviews we are continuing to improve how every rape case is handled and our suspect-centered approach means we always focus on the behavior and actions of the suspect and not the victim um now ella at this point a lot of women would have given up we know this because of the low numbers of rape cases that actually reach the courts abysmally low and we talk about it on all the time why didn't you give up um i think um the day that I walked out of his office, I wanted to die.

I honestly, I just, I felt so worthless and I wanted to die. And I thought, I've done all this work. Prior, I had done quite a lot of work in the years leading up to confront the abuse. And I'd done a lot of talk therapy to be able to talk about and understand the effect that the abuse had had on me. And I thought, I've walked out of here and I want to die. And what about the person that's walked in and they've never told anybody what happened to them, and they're finally ready to confront the abuse they experienced and they go into his office and he does that they will die that's how I felt honestly and I just thought I can't I cannot leave this I cannot walk away with

it from it sorry I cannot walk away from it um yeah I just I couldn't square it and I couldn't accept it for myself. You won your civil case yesterday but does it feel like justice? Mr Lusada hasn't been prosecuted in a criminal court of law in the civil case his lawyers said his techniques were legitimate practice. Does it feel like justice? It feels I think justice is an interesting concept it feel like justice? It feels, I think justice is an interesting concept. It feels like the beginning of accountability in that I've been able to speak out at least. I've been gagged for almost eight years. So to be able to tell the public about this person,

to be able to put some kind of stop on him having access to vulnerable people feels like the beginning of accountability but I don't think that it should be my job to have done any of this and I'm keenly aware of that so I mean justice is a you know I could talk philosophically about justice for a very long time it's been eight years of your life dealing with this um having to confront your shame uh publicly do the work personally uh what happens now do you think you can move on if that's the right phrase to use I mean I hope so I hope that this isn't the only defining thing in my life. You know, there's lots of things that I want to do. But I think I'm not ready yet to kind of to tie everything up because there's so much that I've learned through going through each one of these processes. Like what?

What have I learned? Yeah, absolutely. uh processes like what like what have i learned yeah absolutely oh i mean navigating through a criminal um investigation um appealing um the cps decision not to pursue it uh going through a civil trial um going through a civil case um all the things i've learned along the way um and most most of which i didn't have an advocate, which is also something we don't have services, we don't have funding for services. But I want to be able to share this with other victims.

I have things that I can pass on. I was saying I feel like I've done a PhD. And I first and foremost just want victims to know that this is 2024. We can't keep doing this. You went to him because you wanted to confront and deal with and heal from your childhood trauma only to be re-traumatized. Yeah. And then you've spent eight years fighting this. Where has your strength come from? I said yesterday in my statement, but it came from seeing other women who have done this or who have pushed against just fighting, you know, institutional and societal sexism, but racism,

colorism, classism, transphobia, horophobia, you know, the list goes on. And it's in the stories of the people who have been obscured, that I've been able to find my strength, you know, this is a lineage. And I'm, I'm just hoping to be able to contribute to that. Hello, Jenna, thank you so much for coming in to speak to us and taking the time to talk to us this morning. Thank you. Thank you. We have had a statement from Michael Usado says I have told both the police and the court that what happened that day and you will appreciate that I am very disappointed that my evidence has been rejected. I no longer engage in this sort of work and have not done so since the incident in question. I was seeking to help Miss Jana and never intended to cause her any harm. I've always regretted the outcome and the effects on her and I wish her well for the future. I must say that if you have

been affected by the issues that we've been discussing on the program today with Ella then there's help and support on the Woman's Hour website and via the BBC Action Line 84844 is the number to text. We've got a message here and this is about mixed relationships this is from June in London who says I was very lucky to see the play Wedding Band on my birthday June the 5th and loved it as a black lady who has had loving kind and beautiful relationships with white guys have all but one been embraced by their family but the play shows the lengths people would go to to hold onto the superficial differences but the real differences are how we view and receive love which brings me nicely onto my next item.

For over a century, many Americans believed that interracial marriage was unnatural. From the late 1860s through to the late 1960s, the American legal system supported the belief that they were illegitimate and deemed them illegal. Love Hate Story in Black and White is a play by Alice Childress that explores the impact of these laws known as anti-miscegenation laws. Set in the deep south of the USA in 1918, Julia, a black seamstress, and Herman, a white baker, are defying all odds and objections with their secret love. The play is currently on at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith in London. I'm joined in the studio by Monique Tuko who has directed the play and Dr Lenny Sorensen who specialises

in African-American history and culture who joins us from Charlottesville in Virginia where it's only 5am. It's lovely to have you with us Lenny. A warm welcome to both of you. Yes thank you for joining us so early. I'm going to start by coming to you first, Monique. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Let me start by talking about the play written in 1962 by Alice Childress during the heat of the civil rights era.

But it wasn't shown in the States on Broadway for at least 10 years. Yeah. Alice wrote the play and in terms of her activism and in terms of the woman that she is, was quite unapologetic with the depiction that she wrote. And there were quite a lot of pushback actually from producers and for people within the industry, just saying how hard hitting it was and how the themes were really resonant, but also just quite radical for the time. So it took a while for the play to come on and be put on Broadway. So who are Julia and Herman, the central characters?

Tell us about them. So Julia and Herman have been in a relationship for 10 years. It has been a relationship that has... It's been hard for them because both families, both sides of the families have not been supportive of the relationship due to the time and the context. Because of their relationship, our central female character, Julia, has been moving and moving and moving because of the risk of the relationship. She's a seamstress. He's a baker. He actually comes from a family where the father had some attachment to the Ku Klux Klan. So he's come from quite a racist context.

So the fact that they're together is a big deal, is a big deal. But love conquers all, as they say. By the second half of the play, the pressures from the outside of their relationship have set them up against each other. How do the people around the two of them respond to the relationship? So initially, Julia moves into this community in South Carolina. She's only been there a day or so. And they find out about this relationship. And initially, the women are quite honest

about how they are against black people and white people being together. So she's met with, I suppose, confrontation and also just judgment, which she's been experiencing for many years. And then on Herman's side of the family, it's the same, if not worse, because it's his actual family. So people are not wanting them to be together. And also the context doesn't allow them to be together either.

I'm going to bring Lenny in on this to give us the context. But before you do, Lenny, you are our expert and you're here as a historian, but it actually is your own experience as well, because your parents were an interracial couple. If you don't mind me mentioning, you were born in the 1940s in California. So what was the reaction to your mixed family like growing up? Well, my mother's family, white family, she was kind of the odd daughter out in any case. So probably they were both, they were shocked and she always felt that they had rejected her

and it probably was the case. My dad's family were very accepting and I knew them well and interacted with them whenever it was, you know, we visited California, as you know, it was a pretty big place. So we visited sometimes frequently and sometimes not so frequently. But I knew my grandparents and my cousins, and they were all cool with it. But your parents couldn't get married legally in California, so they had to get married in Mexico. Yeah, and they just handled it. They just did what they did. They were kids. They were young and impressionable, and they decided, well, they were going to get married, and they did.

He went off to the war. So I was born in 1942, and so he was already – when I was born, he was already in the service, and he ended up in Europe. And as many marriages in that particular time didn't last, theirs did not last. But it wasn't necessarily because of racial issues. It was just because of distance and time and they didn't know each other that well. He ultimately married again and my mother married again, again to another black man over the years. So, you know, California was odd in that people had personal, people who might have reactions kind of kept them to themselves, I have a feeling. Is that because it's more of a liberal state? I have a feeling, yes, especially after 1948 when the law changed. A black soldier brought home a German war bride, and in order to have his marriage recognized legally, the case was taken to the California Supreme Court. And in that setting,

the anti-mixed race laws were struck. And as someone had said earlier, being one of your posts, it wasn't just a question of Blacks and whites marrying. It was a question of Mexicans and whites or Chinese. A lot of different people were considered mixed. Yeah. So when did these laws come into play, this miscegenation law? When were they introduced? Well, before 1860, when that word miscegenation was coined. Tell us what the word means. I think people might have forgotten.

Well, it's a very specific term that means anti-race mixing, but it's actually a made-up word by a couple of newspaper editors who were trying to write scurrilous material about Abraham Lincoln during his second run for office. So it's a really odd term, but it was something about it caught the racist notion of having this very specific term. Before that, and I will just be very quick, it was that the interracial relationships were called amalgamation it still was not acceptable and in many cases of course was illegal so like suddenly things became illegal and it always been illegal for people to formally marry but the term was amalgamation and was more concerned about fears of white women being attracted to black men, black being that, you know, whatever.

Those were the fears that went along with that. Monique, this play is having its first outing in London. Why did you want to direct it? What attracted you to this story? So I'd worked at the Lyric last year. I had a play called School Girls, the African Mean Girls play. So Rachel O'Riordan, the artistic director, called me and said, I've got this play. I've been sitting on this play. It's an African-American classic. And if I'm being honest, when I initially read it, I was scared. It was a challenge. What scared you? The text scared me. The idea of doing something that is, you know, part of the canon, part of history. The idea of depicting quite a specific community.

The idea of working with kids. And just the language. The language is raw and it's true and she's not hiding. So for me, it was quite confronting, the material. There were central themes that, you know, run through my work, such as race, such as class. Many things that quite confronting, the material. There were central themes that run through my work, such as race, such as class, many things that attracted me to the project. And I saw myself in Julia.

I saw myself in that central character. It was a challenge and I wanted to do it. In what sense? Go on. I'd been in an interracial relationship before, so I understood that dynamic. I understood the strength of that love and what it means. And it was really important in terms of my career to really ensure that the next show that I did was a challenge and was going to push me. And just the responsibility of doing a UK premiere of such massive work.

This woman doesn't get enough flowers, I think. She's done incredible work over the years. So, yeah, that was the reason why. And there's a centering around the women on stage stage as well 100 the opening scene yes a stage full of black women completely and what was it important for you to tell the stories of the characters surrounding the two main characters as well yeah I think work that centers women um she's drawn these characters in such a 3d way they were really. They're really accessible. And I think what I loved about them most

is that they were ordinary. It could be your neighbour. And that relatability meant that I felt that audiences would be able to genuinely connect with these characters. Also, they're full. And a lot of the discussions that they have are not in relation to men. They're funny.

They're bold. And it's their community. They take full ownership of it she's really put them um and really celebrated what they can offer um and also just displayed a womanhood that is not only um brings us together but also allows us to reflect and get better and improve the reaction from the audience is immense as well yeah i don't think i've heard anything like it the booing and the jeering and the length and the intakes of breath because the audience is immense as well. Yeah. I don't think I've heard anything like it. The booing and the jeering and the intakes of breath because the language is raw and cutting.

Completely. But then, you know, language doing what it's meant to do. Completely. Lenny, can you tell us a bit more about these miscegenation laws, though, in the United States? And tell us about the most famous case in 1967 that actually ended the anti-miscegenation laws. Well, there had always been a discouragement of these kinds of relationships.

In the North, they weren't necessarily the law, but they certainly were the ordinary social expectation that these things were very discouraged. The Lovings, by 67, had been living as a couple, considered that they had married, I believe, in Washington, D.C., which had different laws. And they came back to Virginia and were living where it was illegal and were finally brought to court over it. And luckily had the kind of, I believe, the NAACP and other advocates who helped the process, excuse that time, our Supreme Court had a much more liberal view of the private rights of people. And that's basically how they found was that it is unconstitutional to limit who or what an individual may do in their private marital choices. So that was amazing. And it freed up, I think it helped free it, certainly it helped in the remaining southern states

where it had been struck down, but it also freed up many, many interracial marriages of all kinds white women and black men and black men and uh black women and white men all ethnicities and it's a and to come out and and be themselves uh absolutely and june june the 12th the date of the supreme court decision i i like this detail a lot it is still remembered as Loving Day. What an appropriate surname the two of them had. It couldn't be poetic. And I was amazed to learn that the last state to end these laws against interracial marriage was Alabama in not until 2000. It's incredible to think. It doesn't mean that they were prosecuting those things. It just takes a long time

in a place like Alabama for the law to finally, the law itself to get rewritten. And yes, it is a very important date. Absolutely. Loving day. We won't forget it. It's a great day. Monique and Lenny, thank you so much for coming in to speak to me. I want to wish you all the best with it.

A wedding band, A Love Hate Story in Black and White is on at the Lyric Hammersmith in London until June the 29th. Just very, very powerful. So congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you, Monique. 84844 is the number to text. I've got a message in saying, I'm white.

My ex was a British Pakistani man. We had a secret relationship in the mid-1990s. After two years, he had an arranged marriage. He respected his mum and her wishes. I was heartbroken. My dad was very racist and his mum had strong opinions towards white women. 30 years on, I still think about him and would definitely do things differently if I had my time. And now let's talk about the motherhood penalty.

If you're unfamiliar with the term, the motherhood penalty, sometimes referred to as the child penalty, is the impact that having a child has on a woman's earnings. After becoming a parent, factors such as adjusting working hours, changing job position or moving industry differ for women and men. A research project titled the Child Penalty Atlas analysed data from 134 countries, which represents more than 95 percent of the world's population the study found that the child penalty accounts for more than 80 percent of the earnings gap between women and men in developed countries but two recent studies a norwegian study in 2023 and a danish study in 24 found that although women's earnings fell in the immediate aftermath of having a child in the long run the penalty narrowed and in some cases even turned into a premium.

And these studies use data of women who had IVF treatments. To get into this, I'm joined by Christian Odendal, European economics editor of The Economist, who analyzed these studies in the article. Welcome, Christian. Tell us about the research. So as you said, this is sort of part of a larger research on the gender pay gap. And part of that gender pay gap has to do with children and care work. And so the question for researchers is what exactly, how exactly does that work? Right. And this is where these child penalty studies come in. They look at the trend of income of women before and after childbirth and look at the drop in incomes and to what extent that recovers. And the conclusion was that it does not recover. This gap remains.

And so this is the conclusion from the study so far. And what about the, tell us about the Norwegian study and the Danish study, if you can tell us a bit about both. But they focus specifically on women who've had IVF. Doesn't that skew the study somewhat? Yeah, so the reason why they want to study IVF is because ideally researchers always want randomization. So to be able to tell the difference of an effect of having children. And of course, you cannot randomize children. And so IVF treatment is one way to at least come a bit closer to randomization, because the group of people who undergo IVF treatment clearly want children. So in that sense, they are the same. But then there is a sort of natural lottery of whether it works or not.

And so this is why they want to use this particular data. And in the Norwegian study, they had access to data of 10,000 women who underwent IVF treatment. And then they also find between those where it worked and there where it doesn't, a sharp drop in the short term. But then crucially, they find that this income drop closes and closes over time and it's just 3%, which is still 3%, but it's a lot smaller than the previous studies had found. But they aren't looking at the difference between men and women. It's women who have children and women who don't. That's right. So what were the findings?

So there is exactly these, the finding, the main finding of these new studies is that while there is a short-term drop in incomes for women after having given birth, that this income gap closes to the women that did not have one. And in the Danish study, they had access to data from 25 years. And so they can look at a very long time span. And they find that by year 15, it even turns into a motherhood premium, which means that mothers then end up earning more than those in the IVF treatment who remain childless.

After a long period of time? After a long period of time. And they sort of calculated that for the remainder of the working life, that slight motherhood premium is even enough to fully compensate for the initial drop. Now, these studies are from Norway and Denmark, the World Economics Forum sites. And we all know that Scandinavian countries, they're ahead of the grain, aren't they, when it comes to childcare arrangements? They're some of the most generous in the world. So how can this data, is it, and how can it be relevant to what's going on in the UK here? Yeah, so are Nordic countries different? We know that their childcare policies are much more generous. We also know that in terms of gender norms, they have much more equal gender norms.

And so it might be that, well, my personal view is that, of course, this will contribute to that result, right? That childcare probably plays a role or the role of the fathers that allows mothers to more quickly return to their careers. So I would expect these results to be different in the UK or in Germany where I'm from. The problem is that we, as of yet, do not have the necessary data. The reason why we have these studies from Scandinavia is because the availability as sensitive data as the success and failure of IVF treatments and then link that to administrative tax records to be able to really tell the difference. So maybe we will find out more in the future. In your article, and very quickly because we are running out of time, I'm just interested now, you say the cost of being a female exists regardless of motherhood. Yeah, that's a term of Nobel Prize winning economist Claudia Goldin.

She said that there is a parenthood gap, which consists of three parts, the motherhood penalty, then there is a potential fatherhood penalty or premium, and then the cost of being female. So to what extent do parents come into having children with already differing incomes? And that still remains, and that was not part of these studies. But she says this is very much still the case. And that's what we need to study more of. Oh, well, something that we will be discussing, I'm sure, a lot more here on Woman's Hour.

Thank you so much for making the time to come in to speak to me, Christian. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm going to end with one of your messages here. When I was at university in 1958, I had a black boyfriend from Bermuda. It was the happiest of times, but both of us knew neither of our families would have accepted the marriage. After a year together, he returned to Bermuda and I went to Heathrow to say a sad farewell. I was verbally abused by a racist taxi driver and I had a profound effect on me and shamefully I ignored my ex's letters to me. We lost contact, but I never forgot him.

And by chance, three years ago, found his address. I wrote and explained my sad silence. Since then, we speak on the phone every month and the love we shared is still there. He's 89 and I'm 86. They say love never dies. Thank you. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. million from BBC Radio 4, I hear extraordinary eyewitness accounts that tell the story for the first time of the Bengal famine which happened in British India in the middle of the Second World War. At least three million people died. It's one of the largest losses of civilian life on the Allied side and there isn't a museum, a memorial or even a plaque to those who died. How can the memory of three million people just disappear? Eighty years on, I track down first-hand accounts

and make new discoveries and hear remarkable stories and explore why remembrance is so complicated in Britain, India and Bangladesh. Listen to 3 Million on BBC Sounds. 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.