Woman's Hour - Reappraising Christine Keeler, Leah Penniman, Alice Guy Blache

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

BBC One drama series The Trial of Christine Keeler is an imaginative reappraisal of the 1960s scandal known as the Profumo Affair. It's told from her perspective and the impact a series of powerful men had on the teenage girl. We hear archive of Christine Keeler talking to Woman’s Hour in 2001. And, Baroness Joan Bakewell and Professor Kate Williams discuss attitudes to Keeler at the time and changes in sexual politics since 1963. New research out today reveals that women in the UK have much poorer sexual health than men. But many of the groups identified in the study – including those with sexual dysfunction and low desire - are often being missed by existing sexual health services. We look at what's happening and why. Fifteen per cent of UK farmers are women. When it comes to Black or ethnic minority farmers, numbers are hard to pin down - and it seems there’s a similar lack of diversity in farming and food production in America. Leah Penniman is a Black woman who describes herself as an activist farmer. She opened a community farm called Soul Fire Farm in New York State, aiming to provide better quality food for people on low incomes. She talks about her new book, Farming While Black. Alice Guy-Blache was a pioneering French filmmaker. In 1896 she wrote, produced and directed one of the first narrative films ever made. She created more than 1,000 films during her 20-year career and ran her own studio, yet her contribution to the birth of cinema has largely been largely forgotten. Pamela B Green spent 8 years researching her story, resulting in the documentary film ‘Be Natural’, and joins us to discuss her work. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Ruth Watts

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast. Christy Keeler is on view in the BBC serial on Sunday night, attracting huge audiences. We hear from her from an interview in 2001 and ask how she was seen in the swinging 60s and how, with changing sexual politics, she is viewed today. Farming While Black, Leah Penniman's book about the importance of the ownership of land and organic farming to the liberation of the children of former slaves. And as female film directors appear to be ignored in the season's award ceremonies, the woman who in 1896 became a leading light in the birth of cinema, who was Alice Guy Blaché. Now you may have seen the headlines in some of today's papers

declaring a third of women have almost no interest in sex and many are left distressed by a lack of libido. Research led by the University of Glasgow has found that whilst there's a lot of attention in sexual health services paid to sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies, there is very little help for those who seem to have no interest in a satisfying sex life. Why do women suffer more than men and why does the passion appear to fail us in our later years? Well, Dr. Catherine Hood is a consultant in psychosexual medicine

and works at the St. Pancras Sexual Problems Clinic. Kirsten Mitchell is Professor of Social Science and Public Health at the University of Glasgow and joins us from there. Kirsten, why did you decide to research this side of sexual health? So when people think of sexual health, they often think of STIs and preventing unwanted pregnancies. And I call that the bugs and babies approach to sexual health. And yes, it is about unplanned pregnancy and STIs but I tend to see it as more broad a broader concept which includes things like sexual violence and sexual problems so we were interested as a team of researchers

to look at a population data set and see how a much wider range of sexual health indicators clustered and to look for patterns in the data to see if we could identify a broader range of groups, distinct groups that experience similar sexual health outcomes and perhaps adverse experiences. Now, you found overall that 83% of men have good sexual health, but only 52% have women. Why such a big difference? So the main differences we found between men and women were that we seem to see this extra group among women

who have low interest in sex. So they reported a low level of interest in sex and also that they were avoiding sex. And that was around 30%. So that accounted for a large part of the difference. And another key difference we saw between men and women was a much smaller group of women who were highly vulnerable. So they experienced a wide range of adverse sexual health outcomes, coercive sex, unplanned pregnancies, risk-taking and not being aware of it. And we didn't see the same highly vulnerable group in men. So those are the key differences in gender.

Catherine, as someone who works at one of the few clinics to specialise in this side of the problem, how much does your experience tally with what's been found in the research? I mean, certainly the issue of libido in women is a big one. And there are an awful lot of people who do suffer and they they suffer quite silently, and they don't really talk about it. And to be honest, if you ask people about their sexual health, we can sometimes see a sexual dysfunction, but it's their level of distress that's the important thing. It may be that a couple decide they don't want to have sex as they get older, or things change, and that's fine.

But there are a lot of people who just silently worry. They worry about why they're no longer interested in sex and it becomes an issue for their relationship it becomes an issue for their own self-esteem so yes it is a problem but again what do you think is going on in in the gender question why women less libido apparently than men i think there's several things i think the first thing to say is that libido is very complicated. There's not just one thing that underlines somebody's libido. It's a mix of our hormonal milieu that we find ourselves in,

which changes at various stages in our lives. It's also about physical things, which, again, our physicality, our anatomy changes, pains in the hips, pains in the knees, all these things can impact. But also, particularly for women, it's our psychology, it's our brains. Our brains are our biggest sex organ. And unless we can engage our brains in the concept of sex, or we can engage our brains with sex with our partner, then it's a real challenge. And there are several things that sort of can can impact on that i mean at the beginning of a relationship there's lots of spontaneous desire around we can

engage in sex quite easily as we're in longer relationships that gets more tricky how do you treat a woman um who finds no pleasure in sex and is prepared to admit it well the first thing is to find out why they don't get any pleasure. Again, I think this is a... There's cultural things that come into this. I think women, if I can be a bit sort of categorising about

this, I think often women don't give themselves permission to own their own sexuality. It's almost like their sexual pleasure is something that they can only engage in if it's inspired by somebody else, which is slightly different to men. Men are very used to, very early on, having this sexual drive. Whereas women, we can package it away under a pile of other things we need to think about, such as the kids and the job and everything else. So often we don't give ourselves permission to sort of engage in sexual thought and to kind of allow ourselves to get aroused. Maybe as we get older, we don't kind of imagine

ourselves being sexual. And I think these are all challenges that can come in. So the first thing you do with somebody is you sit down and you try and work out what are the things that are going on for them? What are the things that are getting in the way of sex? And some can be intrinsic, so about the woman themselves, but some are about the relationship, like Kirsten mentioned, so coercion and other things that may be happening around sex. And it's important to look at all of those. Kirsten, you mentioned the highly vulnerable group that you uncovered in the research. And I know you've said that you found that result surprising why I think one of the surprises was that we found this group among women but not men

and I think part of that is to do with the fact that women are more likely to report coercive sex and that was one of the key indicators of being part of this group. And I guess it's surprising because we don't really talk as a society about vulnerability that goes across the broad range of sexual health. So it's not a group that we identify as needing to be targeted for sexual health campaigns or extra support. And I guess some of the aspects of this group were quite interesting. We found it tended to be women who were poorer, women not in stable relationships, and there tended to be association with alcohol, drug use and depression. So it seems like their sexual health was tied into perhaps a broader spectrum of risk

and not being in great health more generally. Catherine, I know you are able to offer help for these kind of problems, but I mean, if women start to think yes I need to talk about this how easily are they going to find help? It is a challenge I mean the first port of call is always your GP because there are not that many clinics but there are a lot of people who a lot of psychosexual therapists around it's just finding them and whether you can find them on the NHS or not so the first port of call is to go to your GP and find out what is available. Unfortunately, over the last few years, there have been a lot of changes and a lot of services have been

decommissioned with changes in the structure of the NHS, but there are still people out there. So go to the GP, then there's the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine as well, which can tell you if there are practitioners in your area, or also the College of Sex and Relationship Therapists, COSRAT, which is a good website to find if there is someone nearby that you can at least ask those questions of. But it is important to start talking about it. Well, Dr Catherine Hood and Professor Kirsty Mitchell, thank you both very much indeed.

If you do want more information about any of these issues, there will be links on the Women's Hour website later today. And we'd like to hear from you, too. If you find that this strikes something in you, do let us know about it. You can send us a tweet or indeed an email and we don't have to name you if you don't want us to. Now, you may well be one of the millions of people who are tuning in on Sunday evenings to the trial of Christine Keeler. It is to so many of us a familiar story. A 19-year-old young woman caught up in a scandal in 1961 with John Profumo, Minister for War, Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval

attache, and Stephen Ward, a society osteopath. She's often been portrayed as a prostitute and Ward as her pimp who lived off immoral earnings. Christine spoke of herself in very different terms when we talked in 2001. She told me how it all began in that swimming pool at the Astor's country house, Clifton. We were all having a swim except except Stephen, because he never went swimming. And I got one of the bathing suits that was too big and whatever.

And Stephen said, oh, take your swimsuit off then if you're complaining about it. And so I did, because it kept sort of virtually falling off. It was so big. And threw it to one side. And then Bill Astor and Jack Profumo walked in and I tried to quickly swim to the side and get my swimsuit of course Stephen kicked it to one side laughing and so it just became a game and I had to get out of the swim pool there was a tiny towel at one side and I sort of grabbed that and got out and tried to cover myself and then Jack started

chasing me around the pool. Bilaster ran over and switched on the the floodlights and at that time all the rest of the guests walked in in their long gowns and tiharas and it was an awkward moment. So how did the affair with Jack actually start? Jack did ask me for my telephone number. And I put him off by saying, you know, ask Stephen. Because I certainly didn't want him to phone me. I mean, he was an old man and I didn't fancy him at all. And Stephen said, Jack's asked for your phone number.

You must go out with him. And I said, why did you give it to him? I don't, you know, why? I don't want to see him. And he said, really, he said, you mean to say that you don't want to know about the next prime minister? I mean, you're not really interested in... And it made me sound, seem as if I was completely stupid, of which I probably was anyway. Were you not suspicious, though, Christine?

I mean, you say that Hollis, who was the head of MI5, was around there all the time. Here was the Soviet naval attaché. Here was the war minister. Here was Stephen suggesting to you that maybe you might like to ask him about plans for nuclear placements. Did it not occur to you that you might be getting caught up in something really, really big? Security to me in those days was something I didn't understand.

But yes, I did know that they were up to no good, especially with Hollis, because he was a sinister sort of a chap, very stiff sort of a chap, whereas Blunt was more laid back. Of course, Stephen told me that there was money in spying. I knew that it wasn't right, but I sort of shut my eyes to it and I didn't want to think about it. And when he asked me to get involved, I was very afraid. You do claim very categorically that Sir Roger Hollis was the fifth man alongside Burgess, McLean, Blunt and Philby.

Now, some of the critics who've looked at the book have said, no, no, no, she's talking nonsense. Several inquiries have been held. They've failed to conclude that Hollis was involved in any wrongdoing. Why should people believe you when it's been dismissed so often I assure you that Hollis came to see Stephen many times when I was there and stayed in my bedroom as did Anthony Blunt anyone who met me could see that I wasn't the lion whore I had been set up to be by Denning.

Why is it that Denning set me up like that? Why is it that he lied that I spoke to the press immediately after the case? Why is it that he lied that I was on drugs before I ever... that I was taking marijuana before I ever did take it, even though I had tried it with Stephen. Why did he go on about who I told, who I told, who I told, when he was the only person that I told? Why did he, Christine?

Because I was the star of the Denning Report. And so all Denning had to do was to make sure Stephen was called a ponce and made a ponce, because Stephen had to be stopped no matter what, and to condemn me. There was even a photograph of one of my portfolio pictures and Denning remarks in the Denning report, you could see by her photograph what she was.

One of the things that you've revealed in the book is that you did get pregnant by him and had an abortion. I wonder why you decided to reveal that. I mean, he's now an old man. He's restored his reputation through good works. I don't care about Macmillan, Jack, me, Stephen, Mandy, anybody, Lord Astor, anybody who's involved in that case. All I know that the stories about me were going to continue

because I had been brought so low because of MI5 and the CIA with their film, working together and covering up, going further than filling in all the lies that Denning had already set down. And I just couldn't take it anymore. I was still protecting people. There's not much love lost between you and Mandy Rice-Davies, is there? Mandy was never my cup of tea. Her ankles were far too thick and her shoulders were far too wide and big. She was no model. I didn't blame her at the time because, well,

it certainly had done her life no good being called a prostitute either. How much has Christine Keeler hung over your life since then? Well, I've always been... I've got a lot of guts and a lot of spirit. I've always just got on with my life like I did when I came out of prison. I've married a couple of times, I've started again, I've started a job and look forward to it, and, you know, with all the enthusiasm that one does, and bang, they keep coming up with these dreadful stories.

Keeler the liar, banner headlines, best gobbler in the business. Some girl's writing a story how her and I used to be on the game together and there was lots of MPs and judges. They were just lies and lies and I'm trying to bring up my child. How does he cope with it? He's tough, but it's not fair on him either. He loves me, he understands. I've told him the truth, you know, and so he

understands the situation. But there was the most awful article yesterday in the paper about me. Of course it's upset him. It upset me. Rather than bring out my roll-ups, because I was put down because I roll up, because I am trying to give up smoking, I've had to buy a packet of cigarettes today to clean up my act. I was talking to Christine Keeler. Now there's no doubt the new dramatisation of Christie's story portrays her in a more sympathetic way than was the case in the early 60s or even in 2001. So how was the whole scandal viewed nearly 60 years ago and how differently is she perceived now as a result of the intervening years of sexual politics? Well earlier this morning I spoke to the historian Professor Kate Williams and to

Baroness Joan Bakewell. What does Joan recall of the Profumo affair at the time? I remember it being very exciting. I thought it was a great thriller and of course it proves to be so because she was clearly enmeshed in a whole spying issue and spying was a big deal in those days really politics of the Cold War were at their height so not only was it very juicy salacious stuff but it was going to bring down Macmillan's government and at the time we rejoiced in that prospect. Kate it makes for excellent television drama now, and I guess even better, salacious tabloid headlines at the time. How significant was it really, would you say? I think the Perfume Warfare, it's very, very significant.

I think it's impossible to overstate its significance for the 20th century. It really is seen as the beginning of the sexual revolution. But also I think it's when the establishment really breaks apart because, let's face it, before the Perfumo affair, there very much was an idea that men could do as they pleased, establishment men could do as they pleased, and no-one would tattletale. It was a boys' club.

And this broke it apart, the questions of morality, the questions of behaviour, this tiny boys' club that was ruling the country. Now, I'm not saying it's any better or particularly changed to the degree it should have done but I think that was the beginning of the moment in which people said who are these men and are they the right men for us? And the class hold was so great they could protect their own. You see Macmillan's wife had had an affair with Robert Boothby for some 20 years

and had an illegitimate child. Macmillan knew all about had an affair with Robert Boothby for some 20 years and had an illegitimate child. Macmillan knew all about that. He was prime minister. But the established class held the secret to themselves. But when they tangled with girls, as they would say, no better than she should be, then they had to dismiss that. They were extremely young women, both Christine and Mandy Rice-Davies. Was that ever something you remember registering? Did you ever think, oh gosh, they're so young? I think I had in my mind a popular image of young racy models having quite a sexy life. And of course, having a sexy life was great in those.

It was a new idea and one that we all thought was terrific. So the fact that she was a naughty girl rather appealed to us. We didn't sympathise with her in the way this wonderful remake of the idea does, because in those days there was no social media. We didn't pay a great deal of attention to the detail. There was just a girl involved and, you know, she had to make her own way. So we weren't particularly sympathetic. Christine speaking to me, as you heard, in 2001, was convinced that everybody had targeted her, from Lord Denning and the rest of the political establishment to the US intelligence services.

What evidence is there that any of that is true? Here she is saying that they lied about me, that they made these stories up about me. And it's really fascinating that she feels that she was completely, and she was, sold down the river by the establishment. Because the brilliant drama on BBC at the moment is absolutely fascinating because it sees it from her point of view. And the whole Me Too movement has said to us, women's voices are important because what we've seen is the fact is that because it was all these valuable men, she was seen as this disposable girl. And she was the what what you did to raise those men with by denigrating her, calling her

all kinds of terrible names, you know, casting this girl who was basically a schoolgirl, casting her as a femme fatale who brought down the government when she was exploited, she'd been exploited really from the year dot by men and this was another level of exploit exploitation and i don't i think there was a lot of truth in the fact that she was caught up in something she didn't understand and there were networks of spying going on around her i don't think that ward was a spy but i think spies were socialising, all these men were socialising, she was dragged into it, and it was what the men were doing, but she was unequivocally blamed for it, which I think it's so great to see that being revised. Joan, Philip Larkin, of course, said that sex began in 1963 as a result of all these shenanigans, but second wave feminism was still quite a few years off.

What strikes you about the way women thought about themselves and about women like Christine Keeler? Throughout that decade, has it changed? She would have been impressed by the fact that she was mixing with the establishment, which was male, upright, well-suited, well-tailored, well-behaved, well-mannered men in power. I have to say, it is always a seductive process. I mean, it hasn't died away, has it? So she would be impressed by that. The other thing is she wasn't enormously bright.

She was a very likeable person, incredibly beautiful. But she made the mistake of going to the papers with her story, which, of course, anyone now would know was kind of suicidal. Also, I have to say, I met Lord Denning, and he was rather naive in the world of relationships with young women, I have to say. So he would be completely unsympathetic to her and see her as dismissible, as someone you could toss away. He wouldn't have any regard for her.

So there are different personalities played into the story to her disadvantage. Kate, how accurately would you say the television series portrays the sexual politics of the time? I think the television series really is very accurate on the sexual politics. It's very accurate on showing Mandy and Christine caught up, really, these girls, these showgirls who were caught up in a world that was, really, they didn't understand. And there were presents, and there were men who took them out. And it's interesting, she said to you,

you know, I didn't like him. He was an old man. But she didn't really have any choice. And I think that really is really brought to the fore in the drama, which is so well done. And yet, it's continued, hasn't it? I mean, with Monica Lewinsky, she was seen as this femme

fatale bringing down Bill Clinton when obviously now we're saying look at the power imbalance an intern a president and and she's blamed for everything so the woman is always blamed she's Eve she's the scarlet woman she's attacked for blame for bringing down the government when it was the government who did it to them you know the perfumer who did it to himself. She is, Joan, still primarily remembered as the scandalous woman who played a symbolic role in bringing down the government and changing deferential attitudes to the establishment. So does this recasting of her as an exploited and vulnerable teenager make a difference? I think it plays very much into the way we're constantly revising where we are as women in the actual power game today.

And it's going on, of course. It's going on all the time. We've never come to an end of it. So it plays along with our view that women in the past, and Kate is a witness to this. She's written about it so much. Women were not given anything like equal hearing. Their role was different, and of course they are different.

The place they play as seductress plays very well into the historical story, and we're now having to take that out of the popular imagination and say, no, women in their own right as intelligent beings with their own agency. And this series is part of that rethink. Was this a drama that had to be made by a younger generation of women, Kate? I feel this was a drama that had to be made in that way. And it was crying out to be made, wasn't it? The whole fact is that we are completely saying, what are the women's stories? What are the women's voices?

And what did she herself feel? So I think that saying Christine Keeler, the Profumo affair from her point of view, because she had spoken about it, as she did to you. She's written her book. Her voice was not absent. It just was no one was really listening. And this drama has really brought it to the fore and said,

rather than these were good time girls who had a fun time, what a joke. And then they brought down Perfumo. Really showed that these were two women who were, you know, absolutely hunted down by society. And Mandy, of course, rather had a pretty good inning. She went off to Israel, set up nightclubs, had some very happy marriages. But Christine Keeler was made to suffer for the Perfumo affair for the rest of her life and could never escape it. And the way in which society makes women pay for men's sins, I think younger generations are saying this has to stop. I was talking to Kate Williams and Joan Bakewell and the trial of Christine Keeler

continues on BBC One on Sunday evening at 9 o'clock. Still to come in today's programme, as women who direct films seem to be left out of the awards ceremonies, the woman who was the first female director to run her own studio and contribute to the birth of cinema. Who was Alice Guy Blaché? And the serial, of course course episode four of Exile. Now there's a very touching dedication in the introduction to a book called Farming While Black Soul Fire Farms Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. It says this book is dedicated to our ancestral grandmothers who braided seeds in their hair before being forced to board transatlantic slave ships,

believing against the odds in a future of sovereignty on land. The introductory chapter is called Black Land Matters, and the book is written by Leah Penniman, who describes herself as an activist farmer. Leah, why as a teenager did you feel it was only white folks, as you put it, who were concerned with organic farming and environmental conservation? Well, I fell in love with farming as a 16-year-old. That elegant simplicity of tilling the land and feeding the community resonated with me. But every farm that I worked at and every farming conference I attended was dominated by white experts. And so I started to question

whether I was frankly being a traitor to my people and whether I had disregarded the hard work of my ancestors to leave behind the legacy of slavery and sharecropping and considered lending my talents to more relevant enterprises like housing reform or addressing the achievement gap in schools. Fortunately, my mentor, Karen Washington, who is a black farmer, said to me that the legacy of black farming extends far beyond slavery and we will reclaim the pride in our relationship to land. So hang on. So how did you actually become a farmer?

Well, my grandmother had a strawberry patch in Boston. So that was my first exposure to gardening. I became a farmer when I got a job at the Food Project in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States back in 1996. And because I was quite enraptured with the magic of seed to harvest, continued working at many farms across the northeast of the United States until I had the skills to start my own farm. And why did you finally go ahead and start your own farm? Well, the primary impetus was actually the difficulty that I found in feeding my own children. At the time, in the early 2000s, I had a newborn and a two-year-old. And we lived in what we call a food apartheid neighborhood in Albany, New York. That means there's

no access to farmer's markets or fresh food in the supermarket. And the only way we could get food was to travel several kilometers away and to pay an exorbitant price. And we ended up deciding that it was an obligation of ours as a family to create a farm that provided fresh food for our community and also for our own family. So what impact has your work had on the provision of good organic food? Well, for the past nine years, we've been running a doorstep delivery program that serves about 110 families, 400 individuals, mostly in the refugee and immigrant community, as well as people impacted by incarceration. So they pay what they can afford on a sliding scale.

And then that food is delivered on a weekly basis right to their homes, which overcomes the income barrier as well as the transportation barrier to accessing those vegetables, eggs and other fresh items. Why is carrying out rituals important? Well, you know, one of my first farming teachers was Mani Nartiki. She's a queen mother in Ghana, West Africa. I traveled there as a young person. And she really was astonished that in the United States, we would put a seed in the

ground and we wouldn't pray or sing or dance or even say thank you to the ground and expect the seed to grow. She found that quite disrespectful and thought that's why we as a society were so sick. We treat the earth as a commodity and not as a relative. And so because of that teaching and the mentorship of these West African grandmothers, frankly, we've been quite keen to integrate ritual and ceremony and reverence into our practice as farmers. And so we have our annual rituals as well as our weekly and daily rituals that give thanks for the earth. So what are your daily rituals? What do you do?

So a daily ritual is to make a small offering. So before we take anything from the land we give, we will pour a little bit of rum or water, put down some flower petals on the earth and say a brief prayer of thanks. An example of an annual ritual is the Haitian festival of Manje Yam in the fall, which is giving thanks for the yams. It's quite elaborate. It actually involves putting banana leaves all over the ground and rolling metaphorically back to the

land of our ancestors to receive a blessing, and then rolling back across the sea, you know, to where we are in order to implement those blessings. You write about going home sometimes after having been all day in the city and needing to tell your family that you have to go out, dig a hole, stick your head in it and scream. Why? Well, here's the thing. The earth is the ultimate composter, right?

Both in a literal and a metaphysical sense. And so we have a belief, and this is part of West African cosmology as well, that the earth can really absorb our trauma and pain and transform it into hope. You know, my work as an activist farmer involves quite a bit of going out and dealing with politics, which anyone knows is difficult. You know, for example, in our country, farm workers are not protected by the same labor

laws as the rest of American workers. They don't have the right to a minimum wage, to overtime pay, or a day off in seven. So I might go out for a day and be campaigning around these issues and be frustrated by the walls that I'm running up into and so I know the earth will be there for me I go home and dig a hole and cry into the hole and then I'll have that support to receive hope and renewal for another day you know out in the world fighting you literally do that you literally dig a hole and cry and scream into the hole and fill up the hole and let the earth take that away. How does it help? Well, honestly, I think from a psychological perspective, I mean, there's something to be said for the release of emotions and not letting them get all pent up.

There's plenty of research about that. But I really approach it from a spiritual perspective where we have a belief that in Yoruba religion, for example, there's two heavens. There's the heaven under the earth and the heaven in the sky. And the heaven under the earth is the abode of our ancestors. And it's also the abode of the Orisha, who are earth-based divinities. And they literally can take away, you know, our pain for us and give us back strength. And so these are practices that I've learned from my ancestors

and that I continue to implement and have become quite integrated into our life on the farm. And what do your kids think of it? Would they go out and dig a hole in the screen? I don't think my children have dug a hole in the screen, but they do. They do practice Yoruba and Vodun. And so my son in particular is a worshiper of Ifav, the deity of wisdom. And he has encouraged me to help him teach a class about this Orisha and this relationship. So coming up in February, he and I will be co-leading an Orisha circle where we're teaching folks about their traditional religion and their relationship to the earth. Now, you said how involved you are in the politics of

farming at the moment. There is, it seems to me, a new politics of farming coming, where people are saying, oh, we must produce food technically, we can produce food technically, we must stop farming to save the planet. What do you say to that? Well, the thing is, sustainable technologies actually exist, and some of them are tens of thousands of years old. You know, take, for example, the raised beds of the Avambo people, which are quite good at mitigating the effects of extreme weather events. Take the Fanyaju of Kenya, which are these terraces which take marginal land and make them productive, 25% more productive than conventional agriculture. The polycultures of Nigeria, 26 different types of agroforestry. These technologies have been working for tens of thousands of years. They still feed

70% of the population and are often ignored when we talk about what it's going to take to feed 10 billion people. And I'm really in the business of uplifting these ancestral technologies and continuing to innovate them. It's not to say that there is not a space for technological innovation. And in fact, there can be a beautiful marriage of these worlds. But to think that we don't need soil or we can't farm is foolhardy, I believe. Leah Penniman, thank you very much indeed for being with us. It's an honour. Thank you. Now, the lack of female directors in the current round of film and television awards has not gone

unnoticed. But it's interesting to look back to the birth of cinema in the late 19th century and see it was not unusual for women to direct films. One in particular stands out but has been largely lost from the historical record. She's Alice Guy Blaché and is now acknowledged to be the first female filmmaker who in 1896 wrote, produced and directed

one of the first narrative films ever made. She created more than a thousand films during her 20-year career in France and in the USA, where she ran her own studio. Pamela B. Green has made a new film about her called Be Natural. Why did she spend 10 years researching the story? This is somebody who's responsible partially for the birth of cinema, and I felt that someone needed to do her justice.

How did you first come across her? I was watching a show on AMC, and they had a documentary about women pioneers called Real Models. Barbara Streisand was the executive producer. And I knew nothing about early cinema or history of film with women, really, because I didn't go to film school. And all of a sudden, she popped on the screen with Shirley MacLaine talking about her. And it blew my mind that this woman had wrote, directed, or produced a thousand films, owned her own studio, was responsible for one of the first narratives.

I just couldn't wrap my brain around it. And I felt that my brain at that point was rewired. The thought of women directors, even though I knew about some, I just never thought about a first and somebody being so early doing all those things. How did she start? She started as a secretary at a photography studio. Then it became Gaumont. She went to a screening by coincidence, was invited by the Lumiere brothers. And when she saw the people exiting from the factory, which is a very famous film by the

Lumiere's, she was completely blown away because she thought, why not use films to tell stories? She thought this medium could be explosive and the future. She saw the future on the screen and she could use her tools to enhance it, which became, as we know, the grammar of cinema. She became the head of production. She wrote, directed, or produced one of the first narrative films, La Fée aux Choux, The Cabbage Fairy. Then she became the head of production. And she produced comedies, dramas. Her biggest epic film at the time of Gaumont was La Vie du Christ. It's one of the first

films about the life of Christ. 300 extras, very detailed sets. It's based on the James Tissot Bible. It's pretty elaborate. A lot of early effects that weren't done back then. She was one of the first to pioneer in sound, the chronophone, which is kind of early music videos, color tinting, one of the first close-ups. The list is very long. How willing were the men who were running the companies initially to enable her to learn the technology, practice with the technology, because the technology was complicated and very new. Well, Leon Gamont was a scientist and industrialist, and he didn't take that seriously.

Nobody saw the future like she did. They thought, oh, this is a silly girl's thing. If you want to go and try to shoot something on your own, go ahead. And that's when she made the first narrative. But then when the company started making money and she became more successful, the men were a little bit unhappy about that and actually damaged her sets on The Life of Christ.

Gustav Eiffel, Mr. Eiffel Tower himself, was on the board of directors, and he saved her from getting fired. But there was definitely a lot of resentment. You know, how could this woman be my boss? Now, the film is narrated by Jodie Foster. And in it, we hear from lots of well known people from the industry, some of them historians, some of them actors, people very involved, who had never heard of her. Why has she been forgotten? Well, many have been forgotten, but I think documents were lost.

People didn't believe that she could do such a thing. She wasn't being taught. And I think for me, going to Hollywood and shining a light on her was important because then they could tell everybody else. You know, it's like high school. Once you tell people that are cool, they tell other people and then she becomes cool. Her first, 1896, The Cabbage Fairy. We see a bit of footage of it in your film. What was it about? It's based on a French folklore. It's about a fairy that grabs babies out of cabbages. And what's interesting is she used dolls, but she actually used real babies. And in the interview when she's on camera, she said that

the parents are very worried the way that the babies were being picked up by this woman. But, you know, it all worked out. You say that some of her films were way ahead of the time. And I have to say one that struck me as I was watching your film was the consequences of feminism. It's a wonderful film. And through the research and discovery, women acting like men dressed as women, what would it be if the women

were in charge at the time? Also, she remade it later in America and called it in the year 2000 where women are in charge. It doesn't exist. Maybe we'll find it. But I think what's special about Alice is she kind of grows up with cinema. So she tackles all these social issues that you probably couldn't get away with, but she uses that medium to do it, and it becomes okay socially. The film about Planned Parenthood, a script that she wrote with Rose Pastor Stokes, immigration, anti-Semitism, a lot of women, heroines, little girls that are heroines. So she really was able to put her personal views in the stories and add some humor.

The Fool and His Money was important. That had an all-black cast. It wasn't supposed to be that originally. It was supposed to be a mixed cast. And the white cast said, no way, we're not going to do that. And she said, fine. And she made it all African American cast. How many of her films still exist? I mean, you demonstrate in your film,

how difficult it's been to track some of them down and certainly get them digitized. Yes. Well, what's great is the British Film Institute has many of Alice's films, but they weren't in condition to be shown. So they had to be transferred. When I started, there were 132 known of. By the time we were done, it was close to 150. I think more films will be discovered. But even if they're discovered, they still need to be put in a digital format. Somebody needs to put music on them, and then they need to be packaged out. I think the more interest that we have in Alice and her story, more people will want to help get the films out there. It's clear, though, that there continues to be doubt about her significance. I mean, often

film historians have failed to credit her. How much is that because she was a woman? I think it's definitely part of it, but also because they only believe in documentation. How much is that because she was a woman? hey, if we look at this through a new lens and differently, we can see that clearly what she's saying is correct. The poster of the film was a photo that was found, and that is a series of photos of her on set directing Life of Christ. What happened to her in the end? She looked for her films for a very long time, even though she lived to almost 95, the world wasn't ready to start looking and trying to restore that era. So she only found two of her films and a fragment of a third. And

she passed away before her memoirs were published. She still did get the Legion of Honor. She still did get recognition, but no obituary and forgotten, really. I was talking to Pamela B. Green, and B Natural is in selected cinemas from the 17th of January. We had quite a lot of response to our discussion about sexual health and women someone who didn't want us to use her name said libido as an older woman married over 30 years the young man i married has become less attractive sadly no doubt i have too although i try hard to keep attractive he on the other hand has let himself go personal hygiene bad teeth despite asking gently over a 20-year period he reacts badly when asked to wash or clean teeth he reluctantly does but rarely has a bath many

other habits are off-putting but this is the most this may be a common problem sad if it is and then someone else emailed i would like to point out that I know many single women who are not troubled by a strong need for sex and as a consequence they are entirely happy and can focus on other more productive aspects of their life. By contrast I am 60 and still have a high libido. This causes me to feel dissatisfied as I find it difficult to meet men that I would actually wish to sleep with and as I get older fewer men are interested in me. And then Maria emailed and said come on women's hour no more silly excuses the main reason for this sad situation is that women are overloaded.

They're the ones giving birth, recovering after birth, breastfeeding through the night, nurturing, doing the cooking, cleaning, housework, shopping, school trips, activity trips, organising the family when work and illness of children rear their worrying heads. And to add to that, having to return to work at a full-time job. How in heaven's name can they relax and be a free woman? What more is expected of women? This is why men do not have this problem, because in the main, despite equality,

it is the woman who manages everything. It is obvious. And then on the Christine Keeler item, Rob Hicks said it's surely worth noting that Christine's belief that Hollis was the fifth man is corroborated by none other than the former assistant director of MI5, Peter Wright, who, after carrying out the most thorough and exhaustive inquiry into Hollis, came to the same conclusion. And John Drew said, I write concerning your interesting programme this morning on Christine Keeler. Something of the context and changing social attitudes may be gauged by reference to two other women not mentioned, Valerie Hobson and Barbara Castle.

I know little about either, but Valerie Hobson gave up her star acting career for Profumo and stuck with him through thick and thin, for better or worse. Barbara Castle, as I remember, was vilified for daring to suggest in the Commons that the Minister of War had something

to answer for. It would be interesting to see how the papers of the day did her up. Tomorrow, Jane will be joined by Phoebe in the last of our series, How Fat Feels. Phoebe was 16 when she talked to us last time, so how does she feel about her body now?

Join Jane tomorrow, if you can, from me for today. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.