Woman's Hour - Reimagining ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. Author Charmaine Wilkerson. Forensic Scientist Professor Angela Gallop

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

The National Theatre is embarking on a seven week tour of secondary schools. Their radical reimagining of ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ with two female leads will be watched by more than 10,500 students from across the UK, bringing live theatre to underserved areas like Doncaster, Sunderland and Wigan. It aims to create conversations about issues like Police sexual abuse, violence against women and online misogyny. Emma discusses the play with its director, Kirsty Housley.35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee was attacked and stabbed in her New York apartment after a man followed her into her building. Her murder has caused outrage in the city amid questions about the vulnerability and safety of the Asian community in the city. Communtiy activist Grace Lee joins us from New York.Author Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel Black Cake tells the story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history. She joins Krupa to discuss how stories shape our identity and how secrets can impact families across generations.Choosing a name for your child is a personal decision and sometimes you just have to realise not everyone is going to like it. But one mother in the US mum was left shocked when she told her nurse one of her twin daughter's names, only to be laughed at for it. Elizabeth-Leslie Edwards, posted the video to her TikTok account where it went viral with over one million views. We hear from SJ Strum who has has a YouTube channel and blog which offers advice on baby naming.Plus forensic scientist Professor Angela Gallop will be telling us all about 'How to Solve A Crime' . And will we see Hillary Clinton enter the Presidential race in 2024.Presenter Krupa Pardy Producer Beverley Purcell

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.

Hello, this is Krupa Partey and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Vigils have been held in New York this week in memory of Christina Yuna Lee. The 35-year-old was found dead in her bathtub in the early hours of Sunday morning after being followed to her apartment by her attacker. He had stabbed her over 40 times. Her death comes amid a rise in violence against Asian Americans, with women now reporting incidents at twice the rate of men. Community activist Grace Lee will be joining us from New York. We're also going to talk about Black Cake, the title of Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel, the story of an elderly mother who, after she dies, leaves an eight-hour audio message to her children full

of life-changing revelations. One of the key themes in her book is the idea of food connecting us to our past, our heritage, and how it brings families together. Charmaine will be with us to tell us more about black cake, but if there's a dish of significance that binds you to your mother, your grandmother, your roots, maybe you've lost the art of making something the way your elders did and in doing so you might feel like you've lost a part of your identity. Please do get in touch to share. I also want to hear your stories about naming your baby. Mum of three in the US, Elizabeth Leslie Edwards, announced the name of her baby to the nurse at the hospital and was shocked when the nurse laughed in reaction.

She's posted her story on TikTok and that's been viewed over a million times. She called her baby, by the way, Honey Bay. We all know that naming your baby is a huge responsibility and it takes a lot of thought. My own daughter was nameless for a month because we couldn't quite nail it. So how have people reacted when you've shared your baby's name and how has that made you feel? There are a few ways to get in touch as always. You can text us on Women's Hour on 84844

and if you're on Instagram or Twitter, find us on the handle at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website. But very, very keen to hear from you. Let's start with a story here in the UK. Police forces across England are conducting trials of a traceable liquid known as smart water to combat domestic violence. Last month, for the first time in the UK, a suspect was convicted and jailed for harassment after being sprayed with the liquid by his victim. Forensic science is a key part of criminal investigations, not only to identify offenders and provide expert evidence to the courts, but it is one of the strongest safeguards

against false allegations and wrongful convictions. For examining blood patterns to analysing fragments of fibres, the eminent forensic scientist Professor Angela Gallup has worked on hundreds of cases, having set up and ran forensic science laboratories. She has led teams to find vital evidence in many of the UK's most challenging high-profile cases, such as Stephen Lawrence, Damolola Taylor and Rachel Nicol. In her new book,

How to Solve a Crime, she describes some of her own and her colleagues' most intriguing cases and the wide range of skills and techniques used to solve them. Happy to say she joins us now. Thank you for joining us, Angela. Not at all. It's my pleasure. Well, let's talk about something that really struck me, the idea that forensics can be anything and everything we encounter in daily life. Explain that to us a bit more. Yes, I think it's because crime happens, you know, where we are, whether it's in the domestic environment or whether it's when we're at work or at leisure, wherever it is, you know, that's where it happens.

And so the traces that we look for as forensic scientists come from those sorts of environments and obviously the people in them, people involved. And so that's why it can be absolutely anything. And your book talks us through that. There's a chapter almost on every element, everything we touch, everything we feel. And water is one of those. And I'm keen to get your reaction to smart water being used to catch someone in this domestic violence case. Yes, it's very interesting. I mean, smart water itself has been around for quite a long time and applied to high value items that people might want to steal. So if they do, then they get contaminated by this by this substance that you can then, you know, link directly and uniquely to them. But it's very interesting seeing it applied to actual people, being sprayed on people and being used as evidence in that way.

But I think that anything that makes women feel safer and that makes it easier to catch the people who attack them and get that side of it right, then... Yes, I mean, you talk a great deal about how the industry has evolved over years, and I do want to get into that a great deal. But one of the things that stood out for me in the book is that you say few cases, that there are few cases that can't be solved and how every contact leaves a trace. So explain to us why so many cases remain unsolved. Well, I think it's just the way in which they're investigated and the amount of resources that's

devoted to them. I think it must be that in the end of the day. You know, if you do investigate every case to the extent that you might need to to solve it, then that might be sort of financially unsustainable. So there are always decisions to be taken and there's triaging and there's all that kind of stuff that goes on. But I think I say that because, you know, with these, particularly these complex old cases, we have been amazed ourselves at actually, you know, the fact that it usually one manages to sort it out. And I think, you know, just the very the names of these cases, I think that kind of demonstrates that point. Your work has been extensive. You worked on investigations since the 1970s.

And it was at the age of 27 that you encountered your first dead body. Tell us about that. Yes, I wasn't sure how I was going to be you never are people aren't do your face with something like that so i'd never seen a dead body before and i was very nervous that i didn't you know fall over and embarrass my colleagues um but i found that actually fortunately i've got fairly strong stomach and it was fine but that victim it was incredibly important case they're all really important at that level um but it was one of the yorkshire ripper series and uh you know we were desperate with the police to try and find whoever was doing this because obviously he was just going to continue until he was caught

um and so it was just uh you know but i was so i suppose i realized then that at that early stage that actually something comes over you when you go to a crime scene or you start working on a case but you're just so determined to see how well you can do if you can just you know if there is a if there is evidence there so squeeze it out somehow um that uh you all your energies and thoughts go into that process and you don't have so much time to think about the normal emotional side of things which you otherwise might dwell on and which might make your job more difficult so but angela what an incredible high profile introduction to your industry at the

tender age of 27 absolutely it really was absolutely i mean the arrival of dna then in the 1980s so so you started in the in the 1970s then we had the 1980s the arrival of DNA then in the 1980s. So you started in the 1970s. Then we had the 1980s, the arrival of DNA profiling. That was a real game changer for your sector, wasn't it? Absolutely. I mean, before then with blood grouping, if you managed to get grouping results, you needed quite a lot of material to get results from that. But if you managed to get a set of results that gave you a frequency of occurrence in the population of about one in a few thousand people you thought that was quite good evidence

whereas now we have sort of one in a billion routinely for a full profile so it has completely changed everything and of course these days we can get DNA profiles out of truly tiny amounts of material. It's changed things but it's part of a wider toolbox of utensils that you have at your disposal to use everything from plants to dust to fluff. And you talk about your most valued informants. We have DNA, but what is that in your opinion? What the most valued informant? Absolutely, yeah.

Oh, well, I'm very keen on dust and fluff as I call it but it's the sort of and that would intrigue people you've studied forensics for decades you're a scientist and yet you talk about dust and fluff and that stood out for me as well absolutely it's these tiny things

that you can't really see that people don't notice I mean it depends on the case obviously sometimes it's a whacking great blood stain that no one could miss but very often um it's these tiny amounts of material and it's so subtle forensic science which is another reason why i wanted to start writing about it for the general public in that you know sometimes to find the thing you're looking for if there's a tiny amount of it, like in the Stephen Lawrence case, for example, actually we only found the blood in that case because we've been looking for tiny individual textile fibres and that was all very microscopic. And that was how we came across this tiny bloodstain, which actually in the end was the most significant part of the forensic evidence. So dust and fluff is really, really important

and we have to maintain our skills in it. And the Stephen Lawrence case is just one of many high-profile cases that you have worked on over the years. You've dealt with countless horrific cases of murder, many femicides, other horrific crimes. So how have you over the years learnt to remove, almost step away from the emotion involved with what you are faced with, if at all? As I say, I think it's that thing, that feeling that comes over you when you start

a case or when you turn up at a crime scene or you go to court. It's that feeling, I've got to do my very best. This is so important. It's why I wanted to do applied science in the first place rather than carry on researching or do some other kind of science for me the application of science is extremely important the immediate benefits that that it can bring is really important and so um so i find that that helps um you know that focus on the here and now and doing my best job seems to take away the time that I would otherwise spend musing about how absolutely ghastly it is that this has happened to someone I mean I absolutely think that it doesn't remove my emotions from me I have to say and I will think about that in quiet times but I think generally speaking I'm far too focused on what we're actually doing and how we're going to

get to the bottom of something which is in quiet times yeah yeah but obviously not every case can be solved and sometimes you're left hanging and that must really play on you yes i mean sometimes it does i talk in the book about this one particular case there was a young girl who was found um mutilated her body had been dumped by the river in windsor um and she was naked and everything and there was no she'd been dumped there there was no crime scene was ever discovered and obviously who'd done it was incredibly dangerous and we just seemed to get absolutely nowhere you know the police and ourselves um but then years later over 30 years later

um the the case was connected with another case where somebody got convicted. And it was possible for us to go back to those samples that I'd taken at the crime scene from the body of the girl all those years earlier. It was possible to go back to them, get some DNA profiling or results off them and compare that and show that actually there was a connection with this chap who got convicted of the other crime. So really, really sort of, you know, interesting that you never give up hope. You never say never on a case because you just don't know. That is interesting. But of course, there are miscarriages of justice and a single mistake

in your field can lead to a wrongful conviction. There have been some concerns about some firms not meeting quality standards. Just how reliable is the industry as a whole? I think, you know, like everything, it's got some very concerning aspects to it at the moment. I think if you're an independent company, and in most areas of forensic science not all yet not some of the newer areas but in most areas you have to have proper quality standards and you have to work to them and show that you've passed them all or the police will simply not use you and that is absolutely right i think my concern about forensic science more in more recent times is that because of funding pressures,

and there are tremendous, as everybody knows, funding pressures on all sorts of public services, but no less the police. And this is causing them to start doing some of the early forensic science work themselves. And it includes searching for things. And searching is incredibly important. It sounds a bit boring, doesn't it?

Not at all in your sector no but um but that is where you either find something or you miss it or you lose it or you compromise it it's so important that um and it also helps you understand what you've got and what it means in the case when you finally do start getting results and so I want to raise the question I mean it's for society to answer generally but whether it's right that the police should be forced into this position when they are doing more and more of forensic work but they're part of that little hunting down the criminal prosecuting machine should they really at the same time be attempting to provide independent, impartial scientific evidence? So I think that's a question that we

must ask ourselves. It's about that, it's about funding, and the funding is a broad issue. It's about what you do in an individual case, but it's also about the skills that you maintain. You know, some of these skills, like textile fibres, my favourite dust and fluff point, you know, now that they're being lost, we have many, many fewer people who can do that kind of work, can do textile fibre analysis in comparison these days than we used to have, and that cannot be right. Stephen Lawrence and the Pembrokeshire murders,

they were absolutely dependent on doing fibre work first. And it was the fibres that led us to the DNA which really nailed it. And you talk about dust and fluff being sidelined. We also have the rise of digital forensics being used, don't we? And I wonder whether that's played a part in organic sources, I call them, grassroots sources being sidelined more and more. Yes, and I mean, to a certain extent, you would expect there to be a shift in emphasis

from one type of evidence to another type, and that's fine, and that's a natural progression, and everybody understands that. But it's just, in the meantime, if you do your digital work and don't get any connections, any links, then what are you left with? If you haven't even taken the samples, which would allow you to use, you know, other kinds of techniques, I think it's really important to keep as wide a range of forensic techniques as possible if you're really

going to live up to, you know, what I say about it should be possible to solve the vast majority of cases. That is what our work has shown. And it absolutely lives up to that principle that was first espoused in 1910, every contact leads a trace that you referred to earlier. You know, when I was a young scientist, we'd say, yeah, every contact leads a trace. But in this case, no, really, maybe not because of this that and the other we were completely wrong every contact does leave a trace it's just whether or not you're clever enough to find it. Angela you talk about inspiring the next generation of forensic scientists especially young women if there is a young woman out there listening to you thinking about a career in this sector, what advice would you give her?

I think it's for me, it's been absolutely fascinating and extremely rewarding. Very tough. So I think I think the first thing to do is to to understand the different aspects of it. And and not just the you know the the end bit when you've got the evidence and you're presenting it but everything that leads up to that um and just to try and make sure that you're the right you've got the right kind of um personality and the right kind of qualities for it and then um and then get yourself a nice bit of science, solid science education, and then give it a go. I mean, lots of people are as passionate as I am about forensic science, so it's not just me.

I think a lot of people enjoy it and find it very rewarding. So I would obviously try and persuade new people into the profession. It needs new blood. It needs new ideas. And I advise picking up a copy of your book, How to Solve a Crime. Very insightful. A toolbox on how to understand the world of forensics. Thank you so much, Professor Angela Gallop there,

talking to us about her new book. Now, this one's getting a great deal of reaction on our social media pages. I just took a quick look over at my screen and lots of you getting in touch to talk about your baby's names and how you chose a name for your baby. And that's because we understand it's a very personal and a very important decision. One mother in the US was left shocked when she told her nurse that one of her twin daughter's names was to be Honey Bay. And she was laughed at for it.

Elizabeth Leslie Edwards posted the video to her TikTok account where it went viral with over 1 million views. With me is SJ Strum. SJ has a YouTube channel and a blog where she offers advice on baby naming. Welcome to Women's Hour, SJ. Were you surprised by this story? I wasn't. There is so much online at the moment around backlash about these unique baby names, which is a real trend with younger women and parents wanting to really give someone's baby name, that it's okay to judge it, rather than accepting, you know, times have changed. We're not all John's, Mark's, Mary's and Sue's anymore. We're honeybees. You're an SG and I'm a cropper. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, I've just spotted a comment in relation to what you've just had to say there about the generational difference. Trevor's been in touch to write write when I called my mum from the maternity ward to announce that she

had a grandson called Harvey she laughed out loud and said what is he a giant white rabbit I mean it's very tricky SJ when it's your when it's your parents it's it's a delicate relationship they're very happy to have a grandchild you You're delighted to have your newborn. I mean, how do you navigate that sensitive dynamic? It's absolutely huge. And I started our podcast, Baby Name Envy, as a consultancy for helping people navigate these family dramas that come from baby names. And it's often because we ask our parents, what do you think the name and they go oh no never and so that we really take it to heart you know it's such a sensitive time when you're about to have a baby and it's so important to you and everyone to love the name because it's your first kind of choice as a parent that people know about so it's packed full of emotion and sometimes as you say it's packed full of emotion for the grandparents or they have a particular name in mind they weren't passed down through the family and we have to

think about how baby names were very much that they were passed down from generation to generation and it's getting to the last couple of generations where we're sort of going to know what um we're marrying around the world much more much more blended cultures blended families different influences on us beyond you know the royals and Bible, which is where we used to get our baby names. Now it's more Netflix and Kardashians. And we're going a bit more braver with our name choices. And it's just that boom now that people need to start to understand that as much as you wouldn't laugh at how a child looks, can't laugh at their name you can't judge it it might not be your choice but it's somebody's very thought out and important choice

if you don't like the name find something you do like about it it's what I always say so it could be that name looks really special how did you come up with it use some tact because what you say in that moment is the is going to stay with those parents forever yes absolutely i'm going to read you a few more messages that i've had in when we named our first son cornelius the nurse said uh you can't call him that and when we called the second one finn his grandma wouldn't use his name just referred to him as the baby until my husband got across to her i'm sure you've heard about experiences like that. Another one here. We named our six-month-old daughter Neva last year.

It's been met with a mix of that's beautiful or is that actually a name? With lots of people ignoring the A and just calling it by her name that they know. Neve, it's just a name, just a pretty unusual one. It's very, very, very tricky. What would be one piece of advice you would share with parents who are worried about family members, members of their community not being convinced by the name? Yeah, I say don't share. Don't share it with anybody. That's a tricky one. Yeah, don't tell people before because once they're holding the baby in their arms it's a very bold person who's going to say i hate the name um you know you love that baby

for who they are and what they look like um so don't share as much as possible or share with a very small trusted group we do anonymous polls and things like that so people can get a real test useful and yeah we do and we get hundreds um and we put, you know, this name or that name. What do you really think of this spelling? Unusual spellings are mostly what trip people up and that cause issues later on with teachers and things. But actually teachers say, we don't mind unique names. What we don't love so much is unique spellings

of traditional names. So that trips people up a bit more. And then we also talk about the Starbucks test so you can go into a coffee shop they say what's your name say it out loud because I love the name say Persephone but was I going to tell him Persephone was my name or was I going to be mortified um how do they spell it on the on the cup you know all those little tests you can do um and then I also say look at your partner so I love unique names but my husband is called Henrik and he's very straight-laced Swedish guy and I thought could he really be called Fox I'm not sure and my son is most likely to be similar

to his parents so sort of do that test as well would it suit us would I be brave enough to carry this name yes I do the playground test, SJ. If I was a kid and I was being a bit of a meanie, what might I call that kid? And that's a test I use for my kids as well because it's not easy being a kid in the playground with a name that isn't conventional. SJ, a pleasure speaking to you.

Thank you so much for giving us your insights there. Right, is Hillary Clinton staging a political comeback? And now, please welcome to the stage, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hi. Hello. Hello, everybody! Hello! Thank you! The sound of Hillary Clinton being welcomed onto stage yesterday to speak at the New York State Democratic Convention. She was there in support of Kathy Hochul's nomination for governor,

but beyond that, there are now murmurings of another potential run for the presidency in 2024. Melissa Maleski is senior lecturer in American history at the University of Sussex and joins us now. Thank you for your time, Melissa. Many say Hillary Clinton is most comfortable on stage. And yesterday she spoke at this convention. Little was said about Joe Biden. More was said about Donald Trump. And one journalist said she was at her most playful and unrestrained.

What did you make of it? I thought that it was a really powerful, hard-hitting speech. And she was ostensibly there to introduce the Cathy Hochul, who is going to be running for governor in the state of New York. She replaced Andrew Cuomo in a sex dance scandal. So she was there to support this female candidate for governor, but she also was really laying out the priorities of the Democratic Party. She was very kind of clearly saying why American voters should support the Democratic Party in the midterms on a national

level and making a really strong case for that. And I thought that she's oftentimes been criticized for not really connecting with American voters. And I thought she really connected with voters in this speech. She was very empathetic. She was talking about the difficult experiences that many Americans have had during the pandemic. And overall, I thought that it was a really, really powerful, well done speech that would really connect with a lot of people. Because she has had time to reflect. It's been a number of years since she's kept quite a low profile since that defeat after those two failed efforts at that presidency. And we don't really know what's going on in her mind.

But what we do know is that in 2024, Joe Biden will be 84. Kamala Harris may or may not run. We still don't know yet. What about Hillary Clinton running for another presidency in 2024? What do we know about that? It's certainly an interesting proposition and has been getting a lot of media attention in the U.S. in the last few weeks. There was an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal recently that suggested that the Democratic Party was in trouble, having a president and a vice president with very low approval ratings and coming into November 2022 midterms in a place

where they're likely going to lose a number of congressional races and saying that they need Hillary Clinton perhaps to come back onto the national stage of the Democratic Party and perhaps run for president again. And there's been quite a reaction to that. Fox News has had a field day with kind of thinking through this potential. And I mean, I think that Hillary has always had great strengths, but also great weaknesses as a candidate. And in my opinion, I think that it's more likely than not that she won't run for president. Again, she's done that. She's gone through a great deal, been kind of pulled through the mud a number of times in the media. It's kind of given her a great deal of grief. But you never know. I think that she's still a very strong

player on the American political scene. And whether or not she does run or not, I think she's still going to play a very important part in shaping what's happening next in American politics, especially in the Democratic Party, perhaps even playing a part in picking who might be the future president. And you clearly say that we don't know what her thinking is, but she has returned to stage at a time that is not great for the Democrats. Joe Biden's approval ratings in decline. We're not quite sure about Kamala Harris's positioning on whether or not she will run. I mean, what's what are your thoughts there? I mean, the Democrats don't really have many options at the moment. I think the Democratic Party is in trouble in many ways right now. Joe Biden's ratings are very low. Recent ratings have shown kind of in the low 40th percentile, which is certainly kind of not good. Kamala Harris's ratings are even slightly,

her approval ratings are slightly lower than that. And I think that Biden did come in at a very difficult time in American history. Obviously, the pandemic was continuing. Trump had recently kind of said that he was going to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. And so the American economy was struggling. So he came in with a very difficult, a lot, a lot to handle. But I think that there's also been great criticism of currently of inflation, of what actually did occur in Afghanistan. And there's a lot of Americans that are very unhappy with how the U.S. government has handled the pandemic, including masking and vaccine mandates for federal workers. And so there's a lot of deep unhappiness among Democrats, I would say, as well as with Republicans, with

the state of the presidency. And although Biden, I think that it's an open question whether or not Biden will run again. I think there's been talk about Buttigieg, Buttigieg perhaps running and his age is certainly an issue at this point. Hillary Clinton is five years younger than him, but she's not that much younger too. So I think there are, there is certainly people who want a fresh face as well. Melissa Malesky, great to get your take on this story. Thank you for your time. Senior lecturer there in American history at the University of Sussex. Staying in the United States, some of you may find the details of this next story upsetting.

Christina Yuna Lee was found dead in her bathtub with more than 40 stab wounds in the early hours of Sunday morning in New York City. Footage released by authorities shows the 35-year-old being trailed to her sixth-floor apartment by 25-year-old Asamad Nash before he attacked her. Christina's death comes just weeks after another woman of Asian descent, Michelle Goh, was killed by a man who pushed her in front of an oncoming subway train at the Times Square station. And these attacks have left many Asian American women increasingly worried about their safety

and that their calls for action are not being taken seriously. Grace Lee is a community activist and candidate for the New York State Assembly and joins me live now from New York earlier there for you. So we appreciate you joining us, Grace. First of all, in terms of the case itself, it is ongoing. Is it still the case that police are refraining from calling the killing of Christina Unilever a hate attack? Yeah, that's right. They are not identifying this as a race-motivated crime. But I would say as an Asian American and an Asian woman especially, that that doesn't

diminish the fear and the sadness that we feel as a community right now. We are really hurting. We have seen an acceleration in crimes against the Asian community, especially Asian women, especially over the last two years. And we're seeing repeatedly that these crimes are being committed, especially against Asian women. Two thirds of anti-Asian hate crimes are being committed against women right now. And you talk about that fear. Some of the quotes I've seen just this morning from Asian American women in the US in the growing coverage of this, one saying nowhere is safe anymore. We're terrified to go out. I mean,

I know that you live not too far away from where Christina was killed. And I know that you speak on a community level, but you as an individual, how has this impacted you? Yeah, you know, I'm actually, I've lived downtown for over 15 years. I'm raising a family here. I've got three young daughters. So I'm not just scared about my safety. I'm scared for the safety of my children. This is a really scary time. And I'm having conversations now with my Asian female friends. And we're talking about what's the best way to stand on a subway platform so no one can push us into the tracks. Oh, I put my back against the wall. I use a pole. My friends are asking me if I need pepper spray, if they're distributing it on the playground.

And this is not a normal way to live. You know, we are living in daily fear for our lives. And it's becoming normalized, this type of fear. And it's terrible. I mean, we really need to take action around and recognize how much this is affecting our Asian community. I'm stunned, Grace, by what you've had to say there. Those conversations you're having with other women in your community, how to stand on a subway. I'm sure many of our listeners feel the same hearing that. Do you feel authorities are listening to your concerns? I think that, no, I don't think so. You know, there was a story that just came out yesterday about an Asian woman who had tried to report an attack against her on the subway.

And she actually had it recorded. She had a recording that clearly showed that she was being attacked because she was Asian. And when she tried to report it to the NYPD, she had been dismissed, and they refused to take that down in the report. And then she tried to accelerate this all the way up to the head of the Hate Crimes Task Force of the NYPD.

And the head of the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force also dismissed her. And it wasn't until this story broke news and our New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, was confronted with the story, that something was done about it. The head of the Hate Crimes Task Force was then reassigned. And I don't think a reassignment is acceptable, especially for what is going on right now. When they are refusing to listen to women, to hear them and believe them,

this woman should have been fired. There should have been consequences. There should have been accountability. But of course, we don't have the full details of the case that you've mentioned there. But I will say that what I'm hearing from you is that you are increasingly worried, increasingly worried about the fact that you are not being listened to. And of course, we are almost a year since the Atlanta area spa shootings increasingly worried, increasingly worried about the fact that you are not being listened to. And

of course, we are almost a year since the Atlanta area spa shootings in which six Asian women were killed, something we talked about extensively here on the program at the time. Are you saying that you've not seen any improvement since those attacks, at which point people were saying things are going to change? No, I think every month we see more violent crimes being committed against Asians and not a lot is being done. And, you know, one of the things that's really important here is that without acknowledgement, we will never have safety. We need, even if the crime does not seem like an overt, explicit attack based on race, we have to understand that racism often underlies a lot of the attacks that are being made against the Asian community. The dehumanization of Asians through racism, invisibilizing us by...

Explain that to me a bit more, invisibilizing you. What does that mean? Yeah, well, I can tell you about something that recently happened to me. I had an interview with a local news network, and when they aired my interview, they misnamed me as Michelle Goh, who was the unfortunate victim of a horrific crime, as you mentioned earlier, just less than a month ago, who was thrown into the subway, they didn't even take the time to properly name and identify me for this in their segment. And that is just one of many microaggressions that Asian women face on a daily basis, underlying, you know, driven by racism against us. They do not care to get our names correct. They misidentify us. They often with, especially with Asian women, we are considered passive or that we are hyper-sexualized and objectified. And these kind of racist tropes help to drive our vulnerability as victims of crime. So if we never, if we do not

address the racism in our country against Asians and acknowledge that it's there and it exists, we will never be safe. With regards to your misnaming, I know that the Aston was then corrected, but that doesn't take away from the fact that what you're describing is the fact that a lot of Asian American women are put into the same basket in terms of identity, in terms of appearance, and this is doing nothing to support your cause. Going forward,

what change are you anticipating, if at all? I know that your community have been coming together. There was a vigil. There have been many vigils in honour of Christina's life and your community. It is coming together.

What is your plan of action to make sure that your voices are heard? Not that the owner should be entirely on you, but what are the dynamics at play here? No, of course, I think that we really need to put pressure on our government now to really support our community. We are the fastest growing minority group in New York State and New York City, but we are historically underfunded within our communities. So our state senator, John Liu, is calling for $65 million to be committed to Asian communities

towards community support programs, that's a start. And, you know, that is, and also just general recognition again that this is happening to us and that we are really victims. Well, Grace Lee, we wish you all the very best with your efforts. And thank you for waking up earlier there to bring us up to speed with this devastating case And thank you for waking up earlier there to bring us up to speed with this devastating case. Thank you. The National Theatre is embarking on a seven-week tour

of secondary schools. Their radical reimagining of Jekyll and Hyde with two female leads will be watched by more than 10,500 students from across the UK, bringing live theatre to underserved areas like Doncaster, Sunderland and Wigan. It aims to create conversations about issues like police sexual abuse, violence against women and online misogyny.

Director Kirsty Housley joins me now. Thank you, Kirsty, for your time. Talk us through why you've decided to create this play now. Well, I mean, you listen to the other women that you've spoken to already this morning and it's just, it's painful, isn't it? Like, it feels like we're in a crisis. This is an epidemic, you know, epidemic levels of violence against women. And almost, you know, all of the women that we've heard from this morning are sort of, I mean, even talking about Hillary Clinton and the kind of abuse that she's, the misogynistic abuse that she's been on the receiving end of so um the original novel the original novella of Jekyll and Hyde um really doesn't have any

women in it there's a woman who's trampled to death at the beginning of the novella and then I think there's a maid um who doesn't say anything so when Evan was sort of looking at reimagining it he said he you know went back to the original and went wow okay where are the women because obviously there were women in Victorian times so why are they not in this book so that was really the decision to sort of retell it from the female perspective which obviously then brings you into okay what was happening for women at the time there was the criminalization of sex workers the contagious Contagious Diseases Act, the women that were campaigning against that. So you've suddenly got this really interesting context. And then, of course, you sort of start to look at what the parallels are. And of course, a lot's changed for us since

Victorian times, but also painfully a lot hasn't. um so then they're sort of there's this second strand to the play which is the second female lead which is a an 18 year old girl who's writing Jekyll and Hyde fan fiction um which is sort of what you realize you've been watching um and she um and she's writing about uh about all of the issues that we talked about this morning, actually, you know, police violence against women, you won't end it until men feel the same level of fear and experience the same levels of abuse that we do. So it poses a very extreme sort of... And it's a very powerful narrative, an interesting take on the traditional Jekyll and Hyde. You talk about having two female leads, but then let's talk about the audience here, because your audience, the main target is young people. These are difficult topics to be dealing with.

They are. But you know what? We were talking about this yesterday because I went into a school in Wigan to to see it with with the young audience and um and it's it's familiar to them it's not something that they're not living all the time you know there are certain things in it that sort of get a laugh from them and it's not because they've it's not the mention of it that makes them feel uncomfortable it's the fact that they go oh my the adults know it's like the like the adults know that we know about these things. And so I think, I mean, I think they are. It's interesting watching the different dynamics that play out and the reactions, particularly that some of the trickier moments get from the young people. Kirsty, just to come in there, the age range is vast.

When we're talking about secondary schools, we're talking about 11 to 18 year olds. I imagine for some of the younger ones, maybe it might be slightly more triggering. Yeah, we actually, so we're only performing to year nines and year tens. Okay, so 14 upwards. thing that we're learning is that they those 14 year olds haven't had a full year in secondary school because of the pandemic so actually I think that we're we're kind of learning as we go that that and I think it's actually less the subject matter and more the thing of all coming to sit in a space together they haven't been in in a room with a large number of people lots of them have never seen live performance so it's sort of that thing of sort of realizing oh god there are people in front of me and it's not netflix um and you know the actors can hear me

and if i say something that you know there's a there's a sort of uh there's a liveness to it that that feels um exciting i think when you talk about some of these young people never having been to a theatre before you are touring in very particular areas yeah yeah we are and that's a that's a conscious decision because when you when you put work for young people on in the national theatre so many young people won't ever be able to access that work so you've got to take it out and actually you can't even take it into the to the local theatre because for a lot of those schools they're inaccessible so the arts have been massively cut from our state secondary schools which is a huge problem so the subjects have been cut the teachers have been cut um and

then on top of that you've got sort of years of austerity meaning that actually just the kind of the the kind of, the logistics of trying to get a group of young people out to the local theatre is often, it's just overwhelming and it's too much. So you've just got to take it into the schools. Kirsty, good luck with the project. I'm sure it's going to be very well received. And yes, we wish you all the very best

as it continues with its tour. That's director Kirsty Housley there about her radical re-imagining of Jekyll and Hyde, which is touring around UK schools. Lots of you are getting in touch to tell me about your baby's name dramas. I've got to slip in a few here. I was pleased my sister stopped me

from calling our daughter Allegra because she said our surname is Carth. It was too many parts of the body. Another one here. I named my son Perry 32 years ago. All of my family hated it. But now my son says he has a really cool name. Your baby, your choice. I'll try and drop in a few more of those just before the end of the programme. But let's go and talk about a new book. The American author Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel, Black Cake, before the end of the programme. But let's go and talk about a new book. The American author Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel, Black Cake, tells the story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories and even names can shape relationships and history. She joins me now

to discuss some of the themes of the book, how stories shape our identity and how secrets can impact families across generations. Welcome to the programme, Charmaine. Thank you so much, Kuka. Pleasure to have you with us. I want to talk about the name of the book. First of all, what is Black Cake and how has it come to be really the binding theme of this book? Well, I know that a number of people in the UK will certainly know Black Cake even under other names because it's a traditional Caribbean fruitcake served at Christmas time and also for weddings. And it has a very dark, deep color from the dark cane sugar that's used and from the dried fruit that are left soaking in rum. And you may recognize it

because you think of English plum pudding and how there are some similarities. Well, it's sort of a descendant by way of economic and political changes and colonialism. And that's actually part of why black cake becomes an interesting symbol in the novel Black Cake. I have to say it was a page turner for me. And early on in the book, the mother says in her recording, I want you to sit down together, share the cake together when the time is right. You will know when. And it got me thinking about how food really is so central in connecting and rooting individuals. in which stories in particular have incredible power to shape our identities as individuals, as families, as cultures. And when it comes to stories, food is a kind of language. You know, it's a carrier of emotions, of memories, not only the ingredients or recipes, but also the

sharing of the food, which you mentioned, and the producing of the food, the preparing of the food. There's a part in the book where the characters talk about the recipe for black cake, and then they realise, heck, there are no ingredients here. There are no, well, there are ingredients, sorry, but there are no quantities. And I thought, that's exactly how my mother's taught me to cook. I've got the ingredients, but I don't have the quantities. I mean, it's important to say that this is not an autobiographical piece by you, but how much of what you've explored is inspired by your own experience? Well, I come from a multicultural family and where over two or three generations,

very few of us have had quite the same upbringing or even look alike. And that has me thinking about identity and family and how we inherit traditions made a fantastic black cake. It was legendary. It was wonderful. And a few years before I started writing this novel, a younger member of my family texted me on my mobile phone asking for my mother's recipe. And that just sort of unleashed a number of thoughts that I had to sit down and write. I had to sit down and write, but these were personal thoughts. I didn't think, I didn't set out to write a novel about cake or black cake. That just sort of walked into the story later on. But when that black cake popped up in the novel that I was in the process of writing, I understood that it went back to that day when I sat down

and started scribbling, started thinking about the ways in which we do inherit identity and tradition and culture and how we choose to hold some things closer to our hearts than others and how a recipe, how the ideas of food, how a story is portable. It's the ultimate portability. It's all in the head and the heart. I believe you're going to read us a short extract. So this is from, this is about Byron and Benny, whose mother has left them a puzzling inheritance, a small black cake sitting in her freezer. And once they've heard a lot about her past, they hear this on a voice recording from their mother. B&B, I don't know how you will feel after

hearing everything that I've had to say. You may be upset about this. I can see that. You may be asking yourself if you can ever really know who I am, if you can believe anything that I say. When your father died, I too had my moments where I thought, who am I? What's left of me? But then I came to realize that the answer had been there all along, right in front of me. And this is what I need you to to understand. You have always known who I am. Who I am is your mother. This is the truest part of me. Thank you, Charmaine. I have to say, when I read that part of the book, I was almost tearful. It was so deep. It is so deep. And it just makes me think there are so many layers to Eleanor, the mother's identity there. What does this book say about gender, specifically about mothers?

Well, certainly in Eleanor's life, and without giving away too many spoilers, she's, you know, from the very start, she was struggling specifically because of her gender. She was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s on a Caribbean island, and she was very unusual. And that led to, you know, challenges for her. Then fast forward to her life in California, where she's this athletic, rambunctious woman who seems to have had a pretty good life. But in fact, she has struggled with some memories of the things that she has gone through as a woman. And so she has hidden much of that from her children. And I think that sometimes in terms of gender, specifically for those who identify as female, there's often a connection of shame attached to memory.

And in the case of Eleanor, we don't really think of it as such, but that's part of it. And so she has struggled and she's always felt secure as a woman who was athletic and who loved music and who also baked and who taught her son how to surf and as a woman of color. But she struggles with the expectations and the stereotypes of other people and what other people expect of her from her teen years. You know, it's always she's always running up against that. And as we go forward in time, we see that her daughter in her 30s, you know, living in the present day is also struggling. Her daughter also feels quite comfortable with, with, you know, her own identity, her stated identity. But the truth is that she's struggling. She's running up against, again, the expectations and stereotypes of other people.

How will her mother's story, revealed through a long recording, sort of help Benny, this daughter, to process what she's gone through and maybe understand that her mother might have understood more about her had she shared some of her troubles. And that does lead me to what I did want to ask you next, because the book talks openly about the discrimination faced by young black people in America. It also explores the pressures that many children might feel, often unknowingly from their parents, to be high achievers. And you talk about Benny there, tackling those expectations of her from her mother. Indeed, and Benny is very bright.

She's so bright that someone quips in the book that all she has to do is, you know, walk into a classroom and breathe, and she's at the top of her class. But she, you know, drops out of college. She changes her course of studies more than once. She starts to follow a path that doesn't seem to meet her parents' approval, unlike her brother's path. And the interesting thing is at a certain point in a huge fight with her brother, when they're learning about their family secrets, she says, I always thought that we were expected to be high achievers because we were a Black family in America,

because of all the pressures, you know, the idea that you have to be twice as good and twice as fast and, you know, in order to gain respect. But what she says is, so our parents were hiding things. Our parents were expecting so much of us because they were hiding something. And our lives were built on a colossal lie. So it's an interesting juxtaposition where she thinks, I saw my life in one way, but there's all this stuff I didn't know. And I think so much of what you were talking about, I'm sure many children born to immigrant parents, born to children of the diaspora, I'm sure they can relate to so much of what you are saying. I know I certainly can. Very briefly, I know that your book is now being turned into a television series.

Tell us about that. Well, it's wonderful. It's been commissioned by Hulu. And the wonderful thing is that there are a couple of amazing, creative, strong women who are at the team, you know, in part of the team leading this production. And they include Oprah Winfrey and her production company and Carla Gardini from her production company and Marissa Jo Serrar. You may not know her name, but she's just premiered a series called Women of the Movement in the US. And she was one of the writers on The Handmaid's Tale.

Brilliant. Well, we wish you all the very best with that production. A beautiful read. Thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for your reading. And we wish you all the very best. That's Charmaine Wilkerson talking about her book, A Black Cake. It is out now, a real page turner.

So thank you for your time. Let me just try and squeeze in a few more messages. I decided to call my second daughter Kitty. My mother said she won't like that when she's older. My mother said, here, here, Kitty, Kitty. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Do join us again next time. 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.