Woman's Hour - Recovering after domestic abuse, Black women in music, Bicycle saddles

Episode Date: August 1, 2020

We discuss the process of recovery after domestic abuse, the way that these relationships can stay with you but also how you can build a new life after. How do those who have survived abuse find their behaviour affected? What do they wish that their friends and family had understood? And how can friends and family can help? With Sue Penna, co-founder of Rockpool who deliver trauma-informed training programmes for those working with survivors of abuse, and Jennifer Gilmour, an author and advocate for women in abusive relationships, and founder of #AbuseTalk on twitter and the Abuse Talk podcast.The school summer holidays are underway across the UK – but this year they’re going to be a bit different. Thanks to coronavirus there’s a shortage of childcare and holiday clubs, helpful grandparents are mostly off-limits, parents are already exhausted from juggling home-working and home-school for four months, and teenagers are faced with another six weeks of restricted freedoms. So how are people planning to make it through to September? Joeli Brearley is the founder of Pregnant then Screwed, and Leann Cross is the director of Home Start Greenwich.Now that cycling may soon be on prescription and bikes are soaring in popularity due to the pandemic, how can women ensure they have a pain-free ride? Endurance cyclist and coach Jasmijn Muller talks about what she’s learned from years of serious pain, and specialist women’s cycling physio Bianca Broadbent gives her top troubleshooting tips for everything from saddles to lubricating cream, and not wearing pants.We explore what it’s like to be a black woman and work in the music industry. Jacqueline Springer is a music lecturer and journalist. Fleur East is an artist and songwriter who rose to fame after coming second on the X Factor in 2014. Lioness MC is a Grime rapper who has been making songs for over 10 years.In her book Sex Robots and Vegan Meat, journalist Jenny Kleeman explores seismic changes in four core areas of human experience: birth, food, sex and death. We hear about the implications of fully functioning artificial wombs and what sex robots mean for future relationships between men and women.In the next of our summer series of How to guides, we discuss how to end your relationship well. It seems lockdown has accelerated the process for some couples, with one UK-wide legal services firm reporting a 42% increase in enquiries about divorce between March and May. We offer you expert suggestions on managing the practical, emotional, legal and financial aspects of splitting up, with the least damage to you and others. Jenni is joined by family lawyer and mediator Rebekah Gershuny, FT Money digital editor Lucy Warwick-Ching, family therapist Joanne Hipplewith and founder of amicable Kate Daly.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Rosie Stopher

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.

Good afternoon. As lockdown puts pressure on marriages and relationships, lawyers are seeing a rise in demands for divorce, how do you end it well? As the summer holidays get going, what will be the impact of a lack of childcare or clubs and camps for children? As black women like Bey Beyonce become international superstars, what's the industry like for talented black women who don't have such power? The men in the scene, they expect you to not be good because you're just a girl. You know, you're just a girl. You know, I mean, back in the day, we used to go on pirate radio and we used to get on the mic

and they just wouldn't give me the mic as a girl that's there. Get on your bike, says the government. All very well, but it's not necessarily comfortable for women. How to find a saddle that suits you. Jenny Kleeman is the author of Sex, Robots and Vegan Meat. How technology will change All Human Life. Once it becomes possible for gestation to happen outside of the body, reproduction becomes entirely equal between men and women. Men and women just need to provide the cells needed to get things started.

And then when nobody has to be pregnant we have complete equality now every time we've discussed domestic abuse on the program and that's been even more frequently than usual i'm afraid during lockdown we've received lots of emails from you recounting experiences of abuse that are decades old saying this happened to me in the 1970s and then going on to recount the relationship as if it had happened yesterday. It's become increasingly clear that the effects of abuse can last a lifetime. How are people changed by it and how can you recover and learn to live with it? Well, Sue Penner is from Penzance. She designed the Recovery Toolkit programme and is one of the founders of Rockpool. Jennifer Gilmore

is an author and advocate for women in abusive relationships. She completed Sue's course early on in her recovery. Can you ever be free from abuse that has happened to you? I would say, you know, it's not easy being a survivor and no-one should underestimate the long-term effect of that. But if we look at the dictionary definition of the word survivor, it's a person who copes well with difficulties in their life. And I would say that before that programme, I didn't cope well with what I had

experienced but moving forward and having the tools because of that programme I was able to put one foot in front of the other I was able to overcome you know triggers flashbacks and move forward with my life and obviously now I'm a very happy married and thriving woman. So Sue how does your program teach women like Jennifer to recognize the effect abuse has had on them? What I do with the recovery toolkit is take a slightly different approach to maybe some other programs and I think my experience of working in the sector when I when I first came into it was that actually what we do rhan o'r rhaglen eraill. Ac rwy'n credu bod fy mhrofiad o weithio yn y sector, pan ddodais i mewn i'r cyntaf, yw'r hyn rydym yn ei wneud, ac mae'n dal i fod yn fyddiol am hyn, Jenny, rwy'n credu, yw bod unwaith y byddwch chi allan o'r cysylltiad, mae popeth wedi'i gosod, rydych chi'n iawn, gallwch chi symud ymlaen gyda'ch bywyd. Ond yr hyn a ddodd i mi wrth gweithio gyda phobl sydd wedi cael

ddiffyg yn ymdrin, oedd eu bod yn dweud wrthi i mi ddwy bethau, mewn gwirionedd, oedd yn gyffredinol. Un oedd, pam nad oeddwn i'n gweld hyn yn dod, fel os oeddant yn ddweud eu bodd. A'r arall oedd, roedden nhw'n dweud, yn arwain ar eu coedau i'r cutiau a'r brwydrau, ac yn dweud, bydd hynny'n gwerthu. Ond beth fydd yn mynd i ffwrdd yw hyn, ar y pwynt y byddant yn nodi at eu chyffyrdd a ddisgrifio'r gwaith y maen nhw'n ei gyrru gyda nhw, yr hyn rydyn ni'n ei alw'n ymdrinolwyr. Felly, beth rydyn ni'n ei wneud yn ein rhaglen yw ddatblygu'r profiad i rywun. Rwy'n credu bod, os oes unrhyw un wedi byw drwy gyd-dwylo a chyfweliad, wedi profi trawm. Ac rwy'n credu bod angen i ni ddechrau

newid y sgwrs am sut rydyn ni'n gweithio amser hir gyda phobl neu dynion sydd wedi profi abwysedd ac i ddiframo'r cyd yn y honno. Felly mae fy nghydweithiad yn gweithio. Roeddwn yn ddoddwr gofal cyflogol yn iechyd mentol i'w blwyddyn am lawer o flynyddoedd, felly mae fy nghydweithiad yn dod o'r safon o feddwl am sut rydym yn newid hyn, beth yw'r newid ymlaen ar gyfer rhywun. Felly, rydyn ni'n defnyddio elfennau o'r hyn sy'n cael ei enwio fel rhaglen sy'n ymdrin â thrauma, a dyna'r ffwrdd mawr iawn. Felly, rydyn ni'n gwneud dau pethau bwysig. Un yw ein bod yn rhoi gwybodaeth i'r unigolion sy'n dod ar y rhaglen sylfaenol a dyna'r llawr iawn. Felly, rydym yn gwneud ddau pethau bwysig. Un yw ein bod yn rhoi gwybodaeth i'r unigolion sy'n dod ar y rhaglen am wybodaeth am sut mae llawr yn digwydd, sut maen nhw'n cael eu cwrdd â'r ffordd y maen nhw wedi cyrraedd y sefyllfa hwnnw

oherwydd maen nhw wedi cael eu gwneud yn y sefyllfa hwnnw ac yna rydym yn eu helpu i ddysgu sut y mae y and then we help them identify how that voice in their head is still impacting on that behaviour and then we teach them how to undo that thinking. Jennifer, I know you experienced coercive control. How hard was it then to unlearn habits that you'd developed? What was there stuck in your mind all the time? So obviously when I came out of that relationship it was almost like the blueprint of everything i knew had been sort of altered to this perception and his world so every time i looked in the mirror i would have his voice um you know

putting me down and my self-esteem my weight was a big problem in that side of things but also in family and friends and he would control pretty much every element of that so who I could talk to who I couldn't even down to what clothes I could wear and what I couldn't wear and for me it was really really difficult to unpick and to be honest when I left that relationship I wouldn't have actually known that was a part of it I actually felt that it was my failing as a partner that I didn't do everything right so actually the program for me taught me about the behavior but it also then gave me the methods and the equipment to sort of unpick the habits you know it was all in manageable chunks for me and to be honest I don't want to overwhelm myself it's not a good position to be overwhelmed by everything

that's gone through so for me to take it in step by step that really helped and for me a lot of what I've experienced you know having that negative automatic thoughts asking permission so it went to the extreme of me asking permission to go to the toilet in that relationship, which you think is a normal thing we should do as a human. And coming out of that relationship, I still asked people permission, even my family members, and obviously they didn't understand. And I had to change it around. So I changed it to letting them know I'm just going to the toilet. So I progressively changed it and then obviously weaned myself out. But it's really difficult. That's just one example.

There's thousands of different things that have come from that relationship and I'm still working on them today. What do you still struggle with then? So for me, it is mainly my self-esteem. So one of the examples I would say I was going to try and overcome this year was walking into ASDA, which I guess you'd think, why on earth would that be? But he used to say that I had more rollbacks than ASDA and for me I believe that if I feel confident in myself I can walk into ASDA and not have that voice and feel put down and feel horrible about myself so for me it's a challenge in getting healthy and feeling comfortable in my own body I believe that we need to overcome and

not avoid so I could just go to Tesco couldn't I and just you know avoid it completely or many other supermarkets Jennifer I have to be careful yeah you know there are lots of them but what I'm saying is I could have avoided that completely but then that that doesn't work in my recovery process does it I need to actually go to that supermarket and overcome it myself I mean I've been out the relationship for six years and you know there's bits of that I'm still working on myself but I'm in a really good mindset and it doesn't overcome me as a person. Before I would have managed it in terms of I would have been maybe stuck in a difficult position, people wouldn't be able to maybe talk to me or communicate. I wouldn't even recognise what I was doing to myself.

Whereas now I can say, actually, this is something I need to work on. I wouldn't have been able to do that before. Sue, what do friends and family need to know in order to help someone in Jennifer's position? I think the most important thing, and part of some of the feedback I've had about the book is that it is as valuable for friends and family as it is for those that have experienced the abuse is that when you're in an abusive relationship the decisions that you

make the way you think as Jennifer's just eloquently described are based on safety we put ourselves into the head of the perpetrator we have to understand because anything we do may have yn seiliedig ar ddiogelu. Rydyn ni'n cyrraedd ein hunain i'r rhan o'r perthynaswr. Rhaid i ni ddeall, oherwydd y bydd unrhyw beth rydyn ni'n ei wneud yn cael canlyniadau. Felly, yn enghraifft Jennifer, byddai cael gofyn i fynd i'r llwyr yn golygu, os nad oedd hi wedi gofyn hynny, y byddai wedi bod yn canlyniad o hynny, naill ai yn seiliedig neu'n ffisigol. Felly, un o'r pethau sy'n ddefnyddiol i'r teulu wybod, rwy'n credu, yw ei fod yn dweud nad yw'n dda, dim ond oherwydd mae rhywun yn ffri neu ddim yn byw gyda'r perthynaswr, One of the things that's useful for family to know, I think, is that it doesn't, just because someone is free or not living with the perpetrator more than they're OK. And I go back to what I said earlier slightly. There is this myth about, well, you're all right now.

You're not there anymore now. He can't hurt you anymore now. And that's not true because of the longer term psychological impact. effeithlon yn ymddiriedol. Rwy'n credu bod y ddau bethau sy'n bwysig yw, un, y gallai rhywun fod yn ffisigol yn siŵr ond nid ydyn nhw'n teimlo'n siŵr yn ffisigol. Felly, dealltwriaeth bod system nerfus rhywun, eu gallu rheoli a rheoli eu ffyrdd o ddynion, efallai fod yn anodd iawn pan fyddant wedi dod allan o'r cysylltiad. Nid ydynt yn mynd i fod yn hapus. Yn y ffaith, mae llawer o unigolion yn teimlo'n drwm oherwydd maen nhw wedi colli eu gofnodion a'u fyddoedd. Felly mae

broblem diogelu psychologol. Ac efallai un o'r materion mwyaf yw ymddiriedaeth. Oherwydd y person rwyf wedi bod yn gyfres gyda, a ddylai fod yn y person mwyaf ymddiriedaethol i mi, y person sydd ar fy ngawd y is actually the person that hurt me so coming out of an abusive relationship it can be really hard for the individual to know who to trust and there's a there's a sort of process of relearning that really and family members can't expect just to be trustworthy jennifer just one final question i want to ask you if you could say one thing to a survivor or indeed someone who is still in this kind of relationship, who's struggling right now during the Covid crisis, what would you want to say to her or more rarely him? Fe dwi'n dweud bod yna ddwy ffordd arall. Gallwch ddewis y ffordd hefyd. Ac efallai nad yw'n edrych fel y bydd yn fwy hwyl ar hyn o bryd. Ond mewn gwirionedd, os ydych chi'n cael y cymorth a'r cefnogaeth, yna mae yna gyfle i'r hwyl.

Dwi ddim wedi meddwl mai byddaf yn teimlo'n hwyl mewn fy fywyd. I never thought that I would ever feel happy in my life ever again. I thought that was it, eternity, life imprisonment as such. But I've been able to lead a happy and healthy life. So seek that support and help. And if you're out of that relationship, of course, look at the recovery toolkit. I advocate every person who has experienced domestic abuse to read that book first, because that really was the key to my freedom. Jennifer Gilmore and Sue Penner, and a lot of you wanted to share your experiences with us. This one said, I'm 67, left a bad marriage to a controlling man around 30 years ago

and have since married again happily. I only recently had counselling to explore all the decisions I've made, and can see so much more clearly now. It was such a relief to be understood by the counsellor, who listened so carefully to all I had to say, and to understand and forgive myself. And I think I've eventually realised, I don't actually have anything to be forgiven for.

Well, there are, of course, details of organisations which offer information and support on domestic violence. They're available on the Woman's Hour webpage for today's programme and at bbc.co.uk forward slash action line, or you can call for free at any time. You can hear recorded information on 0800 888 809. A recent survey of 20,000 working mothers revealed that 72% of them had done fewer hours because they couldn't get childcare. And 81% needed childcare to do their job, but less than half had it. Parents now have the school summer holidays to deal with, so how are they planning to make it through to September? Well, Leanne Cross is the director of Home Starting Greenwich,

which supports families of children from 0 to 5. And Joel Brearley is the founder of Pregnant, Then Screwed. They carried out the survey. How surprised was she by the depressing findings? It's incredibly depressing. I mean, one of the key statistics that we gathered was that 15% of mothers either have been made redundant or expect to be made redundant in the next six months and that 46 percent of those mothers say the reason

they're going to be made redundant is because of a lack of childcare and most statistics are particularly worrying because if we compare them to what's happened over the last few decades it's taken us 24 years to increase maternal employment by 13% in no small part because of childcare provision. And what we're seeing now is that all that progress is being rapidly undone because the government has failed to acknowledge childcare as a social infrastructure. It's very obvious that without childcare, one parent is unable to do their job and that disproportionately falls on women's shoulders.

So for all the progress made on the whole, it is women who bear the brunt, and we know this, many of us who've been through it ourselves, it's usually up to working mothers to sort out childcare. They do the legwork, they make all the phone calls, they do the groundwork, essentially. Yes, I mean, that was the case before COVID-19. So this has just amplified the problem.

We know that women do 60% of the unpaid labour. And so now we're just seeing that that problem is magnified and the result is that women are being pushed out of their jobs. Has this happened partly because of a lack of female involvement in the higher levels of the current government? I mean, absolutely. Where are the women? We are not seeing any women on those decision making groups at all. We do have a minister for women and Equalities, that's Liz Truss. We have a female Home Secretary, I know not directly involved

in this sort of decision-making, but they are there in some pretty prominent roles. We're also hearing from other MPs that the government is just not interested in women's issues. Tulip Sadiq said at the weekend it's like banging her head against a brick wall when everything's... Yeah, she's a Labour MP, of course. Of course she is. But from our experience of talking to MPs,

there are definitely some Conservative MPs who are interested and supportive. But those that are in those senior roles, their voice seems to be completely drowned out and we're not hearing anything from them in terms of childcare, in terms of flexible working, in terms of anything to do with how this pandemic is disproportionately affecting women and that's very concerning. So apart from an acknowledgement, Jolie, what else would you like? We would like to see financial investment in the childcare sector. The Early Years Foundation has said that one in four childcare facilities will close their doors for good before Christmas. And provision was already very threadbare across the UK.

Without that provision, there is no way women will ever get back to work. We need women back to work for the benefit of the economy. So we want to see targeted investment in the childcare sector immediately to ensure more childcare facilities do not have to close their doors. So let's talk about how everybody's going to try to get through the summer holidays. I appreciate in Scotland, they've been going on for some time. And indeed, they're over in about, I something like 14 days the Scottish schools will be going back to start the autumn term but Leanne Cross is the director of Home Start in Greenwich in London which supports families with children between nought and five. Leanne what do you know about the people you normally work with in Greenwich how are they coping? Well I think the

Greenwich picture is probably the same as the national. The families that we've really seen affected have been those with the nought to ones, whether that's mums who have felt that their whole maternity leave has been missed, have not been able to get involved in groups or get to know other mums while they've been off, especially if they had their babies at the beginning of lockdown. Also, our families who have both working at home or single parent families still working through the pandemic.

It's been extremely challenging, even those who have been able to access some childcare or some schooling have just found the increasing burden of trying to be, you know, the parent and keep up with all the social expectations and the homeschool learning and try and enjoy this time with their families and that's flipped with still trying to hold down their full-time jobs or part-time hours or whatever flexible working looks like child care and working at home is really really stressful and I think another group of our families that have been affected are those who had a already had some kind of anxiety or depression. And then that social isolation has really impacted on them more severely, as well as those who've got families who have maybe been affected by the pandemic itself. So that's and that seems to be the picture definitely locally in Greenwich. And I know from my partners that that's been up and down the nation.

What's opening up now, if anything? So I would say, yes, open spaces are now open. Adventure playgrounds are now open. You can use your bubbles. And I would say to families, use your bubbles. If you're in that position that you can bring a grandparent in and that's safe to do so, do so. If you've got two families who can bubble up together, two single-parent households, do so. Get to know the two families who can bubble up together, two single parent households, do so.

Get to know the rules so that you can feel confident about the activities that you do with your children. But to go back to our earlier conversation with Jolie, child care is pretty difficult to come by at the moment. And the summer play schemes, which lots of people rely on, they're just not available, are they? Not like they normally are. No, there definitely aren't as much provision open at the moment. And I think for lots of reasons, including, you know, not really having enough time to plan it effectively and to do so with the bubbles when they were running at bubbles. We run some childcare.

We're open in the summer. So I would say to parents, talk to your provider who you normally have your childcare with. If your children normally go to a summer camp or a nursery, get in touch. Leanne Cross and Jolie Brealey were talking to Jane. The government, as part of its obesity strategy, is very keen for us all to get on our bikes. But how comfortable is cycling for women who experience pain when they're riding?

It can be caused by the wrong saddle, the wrong style of bike, and a lack of understanding by the medical profession of the damage that can be done to the vulva. So if we are to take it up, how can women ensure they have a pain-free ride? Well, Jane spoke to the women's cycling physiotherapist,

Bianca Broadbent, and to the endurance cyclist and coach, Jasmine Muller. How has her long experience on her bike affected her body? Between 2013 and 2018, I've never sat on a saddle with any comfort.

But you kept on doing it? Kept on doing it. I do enjoy my cycling, but with horrendous infections and in the end two operations on the labia. And what did that operation do? The first operation was in 2013. This was acute. So this was after a 24-hour cycling event in France in Le Mans and the infection was on the left labia which became sort of the size of something that might belong to an elephant rather than a human and it was an acute operation that took five weeks to heal and they left it as an open wound to slowly close you to inject it with like iodine every day couldn't sit on it and couldn't shower then miraculously never had issues on that side anymore but I started having issues on the other side which got operated on in 2018. And now you are you are still able to cycle with

no discomfort? Absolutely for the last 20 months I haven't had a single saddle sore. Wow. OK. Bianca, I think it's worth pointing out that Jasmine is an extreme example. She is an endurance cyclist. Surely most cyclists don't suffer like she has. Well, I think that's where we'd perhaps disagree. There's quite a lot of cyclists that assume saddle discomfort is normal and a normal part of cycling. And so they just deal with it and push through it or maybe they're told the saddle needs to wear in you need to learn to strengthen

your tissues so they can cope with the pressure and it's not really true what you tend to find is people that start with some discomfort in that way may then ride through it and it gets to the point where the symptoms just as like with jasmine become quite serious and they become much harder to deal with now is all this because when cycling first came about became popular there were a lot of people who felt that cycling for women might do them a mischief is that where all this starts i think what you probably need to consider more is where cycling has come from in general. And the history of bikes is very much a case of having a vehicle. And consideration to the ergonomics wasn't necessarily something that was at the forefront of the designer's thoughts.

And as obviously the bicycle has grown in use, then we've certainly begun to realise that actually there's more to it than just creating a wheel that attaches to two frames. We need to think about the contact points and also aerodynamics and the progression of sports science has also helped that. We start to now realise, well, if these issues exist, how can we overcome them? And certainly with current manufacturing techniques it makes it a lot easier can i just bring in the listeners because um there are so many questions this is we don't need to mention her name i've cycled since i was five i had to stop a couple of years ago due to a prolapse of my bladder cycling irritated my urethra as it's now in a vulnerable position to the seat i've wondered if there's a better seat

for this problem or can a seat be adapted with something to protect me um bianca what would you say to that i think this is quite a common question and most people that experience saddle discomfort assume it is simply the saddle but the saddle is not always to blame the saddle is one consideration really of the contact points on the bike but you equally could have a saddle that actually would work really well for you but if the positioning is far from optimal then the saddle is never going to feel right still so for example if the saddle is too high it's going to increase the pressure and that may well cause you to have a predisposition to pressure and pain around the vulva conversely if the cockpit or the

handlebars are too low or too far away you may move yourself onto the front of the saddle and sitting on that narrow aspect of that saddle really isn't the most comfortable place to sit and you're going to get tissue pain as a result of that so it's about thinking about the bigger picture really well is it about changing your saddle there are so many different saddles out there jasmine what would you say about saddles is there an optimum saddle or frankly we all need our own personalized version of it i guess i think i'm not the only cyclist who's got a small library of saddles or at least went through a small library you keep trying try on error and with uh with significant pain um it certainly is very individual.

I think recently we're starting to see more and more bike shops using technology to test the pressure on the saddle. So like Bianca explained, you can have the same saddle, but if you change the rest of the bike fit, that technology can actually show you, either in still images or moving images, how the pressure is divided, whether it's more to the front or the rear, which areas need to have more support, whether that saddle works for you or not.

Right. That can be kind of a shortcut to buying ten different saddles. You've got to be equipped with a certain amount of information to even start asking those questions. And you've got to feel, Bianca, comfortable in the bike shop environment, haven't you? And they're not always that welcoming to women. No, they're not. I've got a great story from a friend who went into the bike shop environment, haven't you? And they're not always that welcoming to women. No, they're not.

I've got a great story from a friend who went into a bike shop and approached a young 17-year-old male about her vulva issues and he promptly went the colour of beetroot in return. So, you know, I think if you have some confidence in raising these issues, that's great, that's one thing, but you also need someone who's equally as receptive on the other end to your concerns. Can we talk practical advice in terms of moisturiser? Or what kind of shorts should you wear, Jasmine?

And pubic hair, that's another thing. You shouldn't shave your pubic hair, should you? Correct, yeah. thing you shouldn't shave your pubic hair should you correct yeah in um 2018 after my second operation i uh i wrote a blog called um flipping flat mash um it's kind of still by the way um it's a graphic description of what um yeah what the labia may end up looking if there's too much friction there and with shaving the issue you get is that some of the hairs might grow in. That can cause an infected follicle. And then if you've got, in addition to that, pressure in a hot environment, sweaty environment, that might get infected, and from there it gets worse.

So generally the advice is not to shave, just to kind of trim it, cut it short. In terms of chamois cream, I'm actually using double-based gel. Because easily, it's available everywhere. It's over-the-counter, and they use it for patients in hospitals who have to lay there for a long time. It works also if you've got to sit on a bike for a long time. It's cheaper, and it works quite well. I certainly wouldn't advise not to use anything

if you're doing longer-distance riding. But underwear is not a necessity. In fact, it can be a negative thing. If you do an hour of riding to the shops in an upright sort of Dutch bike, then clothing and underwear are not a problem. But in a Lycra, bib shorts, on a race bike and riding for longer, you don't want any friction,

so you don't want any underwear. Helen says, I found comfort, this is on Twitter, in an old-fashioned sprung leather saddle. ergonomic ladies ones are about as useful as a chocolate teapot she says bianca what do you say to that well i'd probably disagree based on the fact that my my job really is seeing people with the saddle related issues so you can come at things from two angles you tend to find that some saddles are going to relate back to your anatomy. So actually some of the ergonomic saddles don't work for some people because they've kind of been designed based on research by manufacturers

and they also might be trying to overcome a specific problem which doesn't apply to you. But also it depends on the position that you're riding in. So very much the whole concept of saddle discomfort is relative to your anatomy and your riding position so all these things need to be accounted for really when you're finding that perfect saddle and the thing is as jasmine has said there's no perfect saddle necessarily for one person you know we we are all very different and we all have very diverse anatomy bianca broadbent and yasmin muller and you can read their advice on the woman's hour website lots of you got in touch with us about cycling helen emailed to say i can't thank you enough

for the piece on bike saddles my My husband is simply obsessed with cycling. He's one of those lycra-clad 40-plus-year-old chaps with a slight paunch whizzing down country lanes on a weekend and simply can't understand that my female bottom is in complete agony on a normal saddle. I'll be forcing him to listen to the podcast when he returns on his bike, having cycled the 45 mile round trip to his office and back today. I'm hoping this will go somewhere to make him understand

that you don't just have to get used to the discomfort. Still to come in today's programme Jenny Kleeman the author of Sex, Robots and Vegan Meat, how technology is altering the main expectations of a human life. And as lockdown continues to put pressure on marriages and relationships, how to end one well. And don't forget that if you can't join us every day for the live programme, all you have to do is go and find the daily podcast. It's free, it's on BBC Sound, of course. The Black Lives Matter movement has brought attention to a number of areas of society where discrimination and prejudice rumble beneath the surface. There are a number of black women in the music industry

who've risen to become international superstars. Beyonce is perhaps the best example. are a number of black women in the music industry who've risen to become international superstars. Beyonce is perhaps the best example. But what are the others who have talent but haven't reached the pinnacle of power in popular music? Olivia Cope spoke to Jacqueline Springer, who's a journalist and teaches music, to Fleur East, who's an artist who writes songs. She came second in The X Factor in 2014. And to Lioness MC, a grime rapper who's been performing for more than 10 years. How has she found working in a male-dominated field like grime?

The men in the scene, they expect you to not be good because you're just a girl. You good because you're just a girl. You know, you're just a girl. You know, I mean, back in the day, we used to go on pirate radio and we used to get on the mic and they just wouldn't give me the mic as a girl that's there. And I'm having to get through the crowd and grab the mic to show my worth.

Yeah, I find it fun, though though because they expect me to be rubbish so when I come through and I'm giving them something they're like what's this what's this I like that and I like that I like the fact that sometimes people expect me to be a singer so I like when I go to places and I'm actually no I'm actually rapping huh? And you have these T-shirts which are sold as part of your marketing brand, which read, Angry Black Female. Can you just tell me a bit more about what's the meaning behind that? So I made a tune called DBT, which stands for Dead Black Thing. And it was talking about how black men view black women.

Yeah. talking about how black men view black women, yeah? And, you know, part of that song, I was speaking about how black women are just automatically angry. So it's so mad that what we've been talking about, a lot of black women won't speak about it because they're going to be perceived as being angry, bitter. It's just going to, their point of view

is going to be cast to the side because, oh, they're just moaning again. Do view is gonna be cast to the side, because, oh, they're just moaning again, do you know what I mean, a lot of the time people don't say that, and my aesthetic alone, without me saying one word, sends so many signals to people, and it tells them the person that I am, and I've said not one word, yeah, and it's typically that I'm angry, so I thought, well, you think that anyway. So why don't I just put it on a T-shirt? So I put angry black female on my T-shirt as part of the campaign with DBT.

I just want to explore something which is about the idea that music on its own is diverse and beautiful and doesn't care about labels. It's the music industry itself which can be quite toxic so Fleur and Lioness I'm curious to know as artists do you feel like products like commodities rather than people rather than individuals and maybe that's why it can be difficult to speak out about how you're being treated yeah I mean I mean, that's essentially what you are. Like, I was never, you know, I was never delusional or ignorant to that. I've always known that. I've never thought otherwise. But that's what's always fascinated me about the music industry.

And I remember even seeing an interview with Kanye West and he said something like, artists shouldn't have managers. They should have CEOs like because really and truly we're we're a company like we're a business we're being sold we're being marketed and that becomes even more real when when you're signed to a massive label and you have a huge machine behind you it's like every single element is considered because it's like how's this going to appeal how's the consumer gonna gonna you know accept this how's the consumer gonna buy into this um everything

like from the cover of your single from you know the imagery for everything and it's like now being independent i can definitely see the difference when you have like a huge machine behind you when you're doing it on your own. And like I was beating my head against the wall and it was demoralizing and it was draining. So the minute you go into the industry and you realize that you are a product, you are a commodity, it's all about selling you. I mean, it does, it does hurt. It starts to suck, suck the love out of it. It does. It's really, really difficult to exist, to be an artist, create and not be tarnished or bruised by the marketing side of the industry. It's difficult. There's that saying that people don't buy products, people buy people. So once people

go off the back of that statement, everything about that person has to make money so that's why the way in which you look has to be a certain way for you to get the money that I need from you do you know I mean when I came back to music I was like I'm not I know that I need to be a product but really I don't want to take that on board because then that just governs the type of music I make. The type of person that I am, I have to be true to myself. Otherwise doing music makes no sense. The reason why I do music is because I love it. It's therapy for me.

It's just everything about music. I just, I just love it. So I need to continue with that and focus on that the minute I try to make it a business which I understand that it is because the industry has made it that way the minute I do that I'm compromised as an artist because I'm thinking all these other things and I can't just be I can't just create the way I want to create because I'm taking in all these extra added factors that I don't need to and then it's just a complete waste of time so I've just decided look I'm doing what I want to do and if you roll with me I love that if you don't want to roll with me there's other artists in the world what we're looking at here is also the way in which within

that infrastructure of selling sound women and women of color black women non-white women broadly come off worse from the experience because of the way in which racism functions the way sexism functions things have got to change because people are damaged they're emotionally and psychologically damaged by this this maltreatment all of this revelation isn't to avenge people. It's to actually get, it's to expunge the weight of this evil. I just want to finish by asking about the Black Lives Matter movement, which is where this whole discussion started. Do you think that this is a lasting conversation?

Do you think what we're talking about today and right now will still have an impact and still feel relevant later down the line? For as long as we make it last, it will last. So we can't just go back into just getting on with it. If there's something that's unjust that happens, we need to call it out immediately. I think I think we need to shy um stop shying away from being the complainer being the just like what Jacqueline was saying we are going to be the complainants we are going to people are going to expect that from us and that's fine because we have to continue to talk about things that are unjust or they're going to just continue to happen

what I've gathered and what I what I've taken from all of these conversations as well is that i feel like there's like a sense of a lot of people feeling defensive like the minute you post something about black lives matter people are like yeah yeah but you know this ridiculous no like you know i didn't and it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa who was talking to you? Like, this isn't a personal individual attack. It's all of us against the system. That's what it is. It's like us against the system. Just because it's black lives matter, it doesn't mean, oh, because you're a white person, it's an attack against you as an individual. It's not about that. But there's this sense of defensiveness. And I think that comes from a sense of guilt, if I'm honest,

because a lot of like, because obviously I'm of dual heritage. So my dad was white, my mom was black, and I have a lot of white family, obviously. And there's like conversations where people are saying, you know, I'm embarrassed. The more I'm learning, the more I'm embarrassed, the more I'm ashamed, the more I feel guilty that I've been complicit in a lot of situations or I

haven't spoken out against it. The music industry is merely an extension of society. Black Lives Matter is a global concern. It concerns wherever black people exist because black lives matter as well. Lioness MC, Fleur East and Jacqueline Springer were talking to Olivia Cope. Sex, robots and vegan meat is the intriguing title of a new book by the journalist and radio presenter Jenny Kleeman. It explores changes in four core areas of the human experience, birth, food, sex and death. Jane began by asking Jenny about fully functioning artificial wombs. How soon might these become a reality? If you're talking about an absolute replacement for pregnancy,

I do think that is going to happen at some point, but maybe not in the next 20 years, maybe in the next 30 years. But if you're talking about the chance to gestate human beings outside the human body, I think there are going to be clinical trials for these devices that I've been looking into at some point this year. So these are, they're called bio bags, the particular ones I've been looking at. And what they are is it's a Ziploc bag filled with artificial amniotic fluid and an artificial placenta, which is some tubes that you plug into the foetus's umbilical cord that oxygenate the blood and remove waste products.

And these are already being developed to grow babies in from about midway through pregnancy. And they're being developed by doctors who are trying to save the most vulnerable human beings on Earth, super premature babies. Well, that's what they say they're doing, isn't it? Yes, that is what they say they're doing. And that is what a lot of them are doing. The thinking is at the moment, if you have a baby at around 23, 24 weeks, the border of viability, doctors currently treat those babies as newborns and they put them in incubators and help them

breathe. They help them with the functions they need to survive. But the process of gestation doesn't continue. These researchers have been doing experiments with lambs at an equivalent gestational age to 23, 24 weeks in humans, and have found that if they put them in these bio bags, these lambs will continue gestating, they will continue growing, they'll get puffs of wool and their tails will grow, they'll put on lots of weight, they'll continue growing completely independently of their mother to full term. And then you open the bag, you clamp the cord and the baby's born. Is it being born? What is happening in that moment? Well, I looked at this. The legal definition of birth is not necessarily when the baby comes out of the mother's body. It's when the umbilical cord is clamped and the baby can survive on their own independently of their

mother. So technically, this kind of technology will redefine the meaning of birth. And I was looking at it because once it becomes possible for gestation to happen outside of the body, reproduction becomes entirely equal between men and women. Men and women just need to provide the cells needed to get things started. And then when nobody has to be pregnant, we have like complete equality. Yes. Well, or do we? Or do we run the risk of women, females being surplus to requirements? This is the thing. This kind of exposes the difference between a perfect world and the real world that of exposes the difference between a perfect world and the real world that we're living in. In a perfect world, this kind of technology could be used for a great good. It could help people who currently would have to use a surrogate if they

wanted to have a baby. It could be used to help super premature babies survive. But in the real world, we live in a world with great inequality, where some places are very misogynistic. And because this technology is being designed initially to save vulnerable babies, you have to think, what is the definition of a vulnerable baby? Could a vulnerable baby be inside the body of a woman who was drinking or smoking or perhaps they're eating the wrong cheese or behaving in an unmotherly way and could we see a world where this technology is being used as a way of rescuing babies from who are growing inside the bodies of irresponsible women well you've already said that there are some parts of the world where women are treated dreadfully badly and the plain fact is the only status they have is their ability to deliver children and mainly sons, if we're honest.

Absolutely. I mean, in the most misogynistic parts of the world, women are still valued if for nothing else other than they might one day have a boy. So I was looking at the implications of that and also that the rights that we have now as women, like the right to an abortion, the right to choose, derives from the right to choose what happens to your body. What if it doesn't have to happen to your body? What if you get pregnant and you decide you don't want the baby and this technology exists where the baby can continue growing but not in your body? At the moment, we have a right that men don't have, which is the right to choose not to become a parent. When this technology exists, why should a woman be able to decide that her baby should

die just because she doesn't want to carry it in her body anymore? But then on the flip side, you meet this fascinating doctor in Oslo who makes the case for a future where women are not encumbered by pregnancy or childbirth at all. Absolutely. So this is Anna Smydor. She's an ethicist who says, you know, pregnancy is barbaric. We have evolved physically and socially to such an extent that it's not fair that we expect women to joyfully go through this painful and sometimes quite dangerous process with their bodies, whereas men don't have to just for the production of new citizens. comes from how we produce babies. And this inequality, it begins with the fact that we are

providing for our babies with our bodies through the placenta or through breastfeeding or whatever kind of feeding. And that sets up a dynamic where even if you have the most engaged partner, things are unequal. And that inequality tends to persist and it persists to childcare provision. So this ethicist was saying, we need to really be investing in these technologies that make things equal. Otherwise, it's incredibly unfair that we're expecting women to carry the burden when we're socially expecting women

to be on exactly the same plane as men when it comes to work. Let's move on to sex robots, Jenny. There are some really terrifying parts of your book. I don't want to be fatuous about some of the finer points because it's gripping but petrifying. The robots who you make the point that, or one of the inventors that you speak to, makes the point that they could help those women, real women, who are physically abused by partners. Robots will be able to withstand abuse. And you say, wouldn't it be better if we just stop men behaving like this and having these feelings? And they seem completely nonplussed by your reaction to that. Yeah, they completely don't see it. I say, wouldn't it be better if those people were

encouraged not to have those feelings instead of being given something to rape and beat? That's the kind of message going throughout my entire book, which is the extent to which we can solve all of the problems that these technologies claim they're going to solve by changing our behavior instead of relying on machines to give us what we want without making any effort. And the same goes for artificial wombs. If we made it easier for women to be pregnant and give birth, then we wouldn't be trying to find an alternative for pregnancy. And the same goes with sex robots. I mean, the argument for sex robots is that it will provide companionship for the bereaved, for the lonely, for the socially awkward,

and that it will mean that women don't necessarily face abuse. But there's a very strong argument to say that it will perpetuate loneliness. It will perpetuate abuse once you have these objects that you can act these things out on. And in fact, what lonely people need is human contact, not, you know, clever silicone and circuitry. Jenny Gleeman and her book is Sex Robots and Vegan Meat. Now, throughout the summer, we're putting together a series of how-to guides in the hope that we might give you some pointers into the best ways to negotiate some of the trickier parts of life. We've talked about careers, friendship and today it's relationships and how to end one well.

We've known for a while that lockdown has put a huge amount of pressure on family life. One large law firm has confirmed what we suspected, reporting a 42% increase in enquiries about divorce between March and May. So what is the best way to end a relationship, practically, legally, financially and emotionally, with the least damage to everyone concerned, including, of course, the children? Lucy Warwick-Ching is digital and communities editor of FT Money. Kate Daly is the founder of Amicable and host of The Divorce Podcast. Rebecca Gershany is a family lawyer and mediator, and Joanne Hipplewith is a family therapist. Splitting up is a very hard thing to do. How can you make it easier

for everyone? I think when it comes to relationships, it's always very difficult. And the thing that I would say that we need to bear in mind is about being able to communicate because it's very painful. You know, are couples actually working to stay together or are they actually working to separate? It's emotional. You know, one person might feel positive about it. It's been a long time coming. The other might feel it's come out of the blue. It might be a quick process.

It might be a long, drawn-out, protracted process. But I think it's important to realise it's tough, even though you think it's the right decision for you. So it's about communicating and also bearing in mind children and pets and other family members and the effect that you could have on them at any given time. Rebecca, how can the impact on any children from your relationship be minimised? I think it's really important when you have children that you really try and focus on the needs of the children and it is very difficult um sometimes to put aside your um

the emotional trauma that you're going through but if you can focus on their needs um and and and and and try not to involve them in any way in the conflict that there is between you. And there are resources out there that can help people, because I know it can be really overwhelming for people. So, for example, I would always encourage parents, if they can, to look at putting together some sort of a parenting plan. And there are online resources that can help with that, such as a CAFCAS and also the Resolution website.

And where parents are really struggling to communicate with each other, there are also apps such as the Family Wizard app, which means that actually you don't really need to directly communicate. You have like a shared calendar and other resources to ensure that you know you can you can really focus on the children and support them through what is obviously going to be quite a difficult time for them there are also courses that are run as a separated parenting

information program if you really feel that you need some additional advice about how to take your children through this separation, how to talk to them. And mediators can also assist in helping you to resolve the issues that you might have between you about, you know, contact arrangements, the time the children are going to spend with each of you. And they will help you to have a dialogue in circumstances where perhaps that's very difficult. Rebecca, when you're making the plan, where can you go for initial and preferably free information about the practicalities of separation?

I think it's always really overwhelming when you're going through separation to know actually where to go. Rwy'n credu bod ymwneud â'r rhan fwyaf o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r ydych chi'n gallu, ydych chi'n ceisio cyngor leol. Er bod eich bod chi'n gallu cymryd hynny drwy'r proses cyfan, efallai y byddai cyngor cychwynol yn eich cymryd i'ch gael ar y llwybr cywir. Mae canolfannau cyngor llaw, mae canolfannau cyngor dynol, mae barwyr sy'n cynnig cyngor pro bono hefyd. gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth ar gyfer cymorth the Family Mediation Council website and mediators will arrange initial meetings with each of the couple and those meetings aren't only about mediation. Obviously they will explain the mediation process but they will also highlight what other options there might be and also provide signposting if there's other information the person wants. But Lucy, what's the most common inquiry about divorce and separation that you get from your readers? Lots of people write in and as well as mentioning, you know, the severe emotional strains of splitting up,

they talk about the financial implications of breaking up. So they worry that they can't afford to get divorced, that they won't be able to pay rent on their own or pay the mortgage. Because when you get divorced or split up from somebody, there's obviously two separate households to run. And that gets enhanced when people have young children. So they worry that they won't be able to afford a place that's big enough to have separate rooms for the children. And even for wealthier families, they

worry about the ongoing costs of things like school fees or perhaps running two cars and things. And then there's also, I hear from a lot of people about maintenance payments. So from the main breadwinners of the family, they worry about whether they will be able to afford to continue to pay maintenance for an ongoing period of time for children. And then the homemakers, perhaps people that have given up work to look after the children, they then worry about how much they will get to live on so there's lots of financial concerns and that's on top of all the emotional strains that people are going through. Rebecca what are the legal protections that you get if you're a married person or a civil partner compared with somebody who is not married?

Well they're really significant difference that I think it's very important that people understand what they are. I think there are still a lot of people that think there's something called a common law marriage and there absolutely isn't. There is in fact no guaranteed rights to ownership of the other person's property if you're not married. If that relationship breaks down, there are really none of the other person's property if you're not married if that relationship breaks down they're really none of the same rights that you would have as a married person or somebody that's in a civil partnership and so I would always recommend that if you're going into a relationship where you're not going to be married you're not going to have a civil partnership that you you think very hard and get advice about entering into a living together agreement that a chael cyngor am ddod i mewn i gyfraith i fyw eich gilydd sy'n

seilio ar yr unrhyw fath o'ch arbedion. Os ydych yn mynd i gael prwpiet i gyd, yna gael ddeglir sy'n seilio ar yr unrhyw un o'ch bwydau. Efallai y byddwch hefyd am ystyried sicrhau bod gennych chi bob un o'ch gilydd yn y digwyddiad y byddai unrhyw un ohonoch yn mynd i'w hwynebu beth fyddai'n digwydd oherwydd nid oes gwirionedd arwain i'w ddod o hyd os nad ydych chi'n casglu. so you can make claims for their support and that might also include housing. But other than that, you could really put yourself in a very vulnerable position. Joanne, last question, this one.

How good an idea is it to try and stay friends? I think some couples are able to stay friends. I guess it's what you mean by being friends um how that is defined because i think there's a difference between being friendly and being friends um it might depend on you know if it's an amicable separation or if it's less amicable um and what is the context of being friendly? Is it being friendly to kind of get through the process and then you're not going to be friends? Is it you're friends until one of you meets another partner?

So I think it's a both and really and it really depends on the couple. Joanne Hippleworth and I was also speaking to Lucy Warwick-Ching, Kate Daly and Rebecca Gershony. That's all for this afternoon. Do join Jane on Monday when she'll be speaking to the Mobo Award-winning singer-songwriter Zara McFarlane. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Ta-ra. I'm Sarah Trelevan 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.