Woman's Hour - Rethink – The harm of macho leadership; Athlete A
Episode Date: June 26, 2020Today’s Rethink essay comes from the musician and artist Brian Eno, he asks what the response to the pandemic has taught us about leadership, and how what we want and need from our future leaders mi...ght have changed. To discuss the future of leadership Jane speaks to Dame Heather Rabbatts, Chair of Time’s Up UK, Inga Beale, former CEO of Lloyds of London and Professor Ngaire Woods, founding Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. A new Netflix documentary – Athlete A – explores the physical, mental and sexual abuse of young women within the United States of America Gymnastics; including at the hands of former USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar. Former artistic gymnast and writer Jennifer Sey tells Jane about her career and the culture within gymnastics that she believes allowed this to happen. Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Sarah Crawley Interviewed guest: Dame Heather Rabbatts Interviewed guest: Inga Beale Interviewed guest: Professor Ngaire Woods Interviewed guest: Jennifer Sey
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Hi, this is Jane Garvey and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast, Friday the 26th of June 2020.
Good morning to you. We're having another in our series of Rethink conversations on the programme today.
This is a whole series of bits of conversation you've heard over the last couple of days on Five Live,
here on Radio
Four and on the BBC World Service as well. We are imagining the world post-Covid, the positive
possibilities, things that ought to change, things that will change. And this morning in the company
of Brian Eno, no less, we're going to examine the future of leadership and how it might look
in the years ahead.
We've got some fantastic contributors to that conversation.
Dame Heather Abatz, Inga Beale, former CEO of Lloyds of London,
and Professor Nairi Woods, founding dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. Heather Abatz, of course, is chair of Time's Up UK, former local government chief executive.
Once too, a director of the Football Association.
So some very high powered guests with us.
Let's start then with the thoughts of the musician and artist Brian Eno,
asking what the response to the pandemic has taught us about leadership
and how what we want and need from our future leaders might now have changed.
If we've learned one thing from the coronavirus experience,
it's that a certain style of government and leadership, a style that's dominated the last
few years, isn't going to be of any use to us at all in the 21st century. The countries that have
suffered worse from Covid all share a single governmental style. Macho, media-savvy authoritarian leaders
whose primary talent is self-promotion, who lie freely when it suits them, who disregard
scientific advice if it doesn't enhance their own claims. These leaders gain power by manufacturing
threats, Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims, Europeans, liberals, whatever you like, to create fake emergencies in
which they can appear as saviors. But in the face of an actual threat, coronavirus, all that macho
posturing proves to be worse than useless. What was needed was preparation, expertise, cooperation, expertise cooperation and good data all complete mysteries to the match of mind
contrast the performance of america england and brazil currently one two and three in the mortality
charts with that of say germany new zealand and taiwan who've had much better results all those
three countries have female leaders as do many of the other nations with better than average outcomes from Covid.
The nations that have done well spend more time listening to their scientists, apparently, than to their ideologues, and don't consider evidence as a challenge to their manhood.
It's to their examples that we must look for a future, because we're running out of futures. By that I mean we're
running out of choices about what kind of world we might inhabit. The urgency of climate change
is propelling us towards two starkly contrasting visions. The first is the billionaire's utopia,
where a few rich people secure themselves behind strong walls while the rest of us collapse in a fireball.
The other vision is our only chance, where we rethink our institutions and global arrangements
so that in dealing with the upcoming disruptions of climate change and pandemics,
we build something new, something better than we have now. This sounds idealistic, but in fact it's the only option. We have
to make a society that works in the long term by valuing all its different intelligences,
by engaging everybody rather than excluding most. It's a future built on cooperation
and inclusion, not division. We've seen the first green shoots of it in the better responses to
COVID and in the proliferation of anti-discrimination activism which could
also be called pro-inclusion activism. If we want to live in a stable creative
society we need to rethink things so that everybody in it feels welcomed and
valued. The more people have an investment in society,
the more they'll want to nurture and improve it.
This isn't about the winners being generous enough
to share a bit of their spoils with the losers.
It's about realising that a world with a few winners
and a lot of losers isn't a tenable world.
Brian Eno with his thoughts on what the future might hold
in terms of our thoughts about leadership
and who we want to be in power and in charge.
So my line-up this morning, Dame Heather Abatz,
the chair of Time's Up UK,
Inga Beale, former CEO of Lloyds of London,
and Professor Nairi Woods, the founding dean
of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.
A warm welcome to all of you.
Heather, if we can start with you, let's just start with the central thrust of Brian Eno's thinking here,
that macho posturing has proved to be, he says, worse than useless in the face of an actual threat, a pandemic.
What do you think? Well, I think that he's absolutely right with his insight. And what
has been so incredible is that when you look at the countries, as he mentioned, sort of being the
fastest out of the gates in terms of dealing with this pandemic and have the lowest mortality rates,
they are all women. But what is also fascinating is their style of leadership.
And so, you know, we've had, for example, the amazing prime minister of New Zealand on Facebook showing that she's changing a nappy, not being flustered by an earthquake, just talking to people about what is required of them.
To the Prime Minister of Norway with kids, no adults allowed,
talking to children about fear and about love. And what we have here are leadership styles which are both empathetic,
which have feelings, and we always used to say,
well, you can't show your feelings as a leader.
Here they are showing their feelings at the same time, being incredibly decisive, basing their judgments on evidence, being collaborative, listening. formidable sort of sense of this is what constitutes leadership it isn't the shouting
it isn't the vilification of others or the demonizing of others it is absolutely about this
sense of humanity aligned with clear leadership and that's also echoed in the black lives matter
movement which of course is is rightly, right and centre stage to challenge racism, founded, directed by black women.
Let's move on to Inga Beale. Inga, humanity, humanity isn't something that only female leaders have.
Surely men are more than capable of it, too.
Of course they are. But most of the time we think of different leadership traits as somewhat feminine and masculine.
And that goes, I think, throughout not just politics, but all throughout business.
And that human side, that sort of nurturing side is often thought to be more of a female trait, to be honest.
But is that right?
Well, you know, I think there is something to it. In fact,
I remember I worked for a massive organization years ago, and it used to have very hard-edged
leadership traits as its requirement for its leaders. It used to be, you know, you've got to
go and execute, you've got to have that edge. And then they wanted to, the CEO changed and he wanted
to introduce some new types of leadership traits. He was looking for people who were going to be
more outward looking, actually wanting to put the customer and people at the heart of what they did.
They wanted to have an inclusive leadership style. So that sort of listening that Heather
just mentioned, being curious about other people's views.
And I remember this was about 20 years ago. They introduced it as more female leadership traits.
So, you know, whether we'd be happy with it being called that these days when we're talking about equality, I don't know.
But I know that when I was a leader at Lloyd's, I was sometimes criticised for not being more autocratic.
And I said, you've hired me to be me in my style, which is much more inclusive. I'm not going to be
there, you know, thumping my wrist on the table and demanding things. And so I do believe generally
there are differences between female and male leaders.
Nairi Woods, you happen to be from New Zealand.
I didn't think it would be long before Jacinda Ardern cropped up in the conversation.
And it did happen really, really early.
Yes, she is noted for her communication skills.
I mean, that's I think that's what she did her degree in, in fact.
So she is an expert in that field.
But you could look at the practicalities and say that New Zealand, low population, an island, she could lock it down and she did.
And that's why they succeeded so well there.
Yeah, I think what's interesting in the way people explain reactions to Covid is that, you know, I keep hearing two kinds of stories. One is the one that we've heard today, in which there's a lot of truth. But equally, I hear the story that actually,
it's autocratic governments, it's not democracies that do best, that China and Vietnam have
succeeded because they've got command and control style governments, they've got subservient
populations, and they've got huge coercive control over their populations. That's the narrative that people also throw out.
And so for me, what's interesting is, you know, what's the what is going on within these countries that have succeeded?
It's clearly not autocratic states.
You know, New Zealand, Germany, Taiwan, Greece, you know, these are democracies.
And I think there's one characteristic which, you know,
Inge and Heather have, and Brian, all alighted on, which is a humility in solving the problem,
coming to the table and saying, actually, the central government cannot solve this alone.
We need, right from the beginning of the crisis, we need to get universities, businesses, local governments, NGOs, local communities around the table.
And we need to be humble in the face of them.
In other words, not to tell them what to do, but to say, this is a brand new kind of crisis and we need solutions to all parts of it.
And we know that we don't have those solutions and we know that you will have. So in Germany, Merkel played a fantastic role conducting an orchestra, as it were,
of state governments, of universities, of business. When China revealed the sequence of the virus,
within a couple of days, the German government had brought their universities and businesses
together. And within a few days, they'd already started building tests.
Likewise with those other countries, they all moved very quickly.
Greece, the unlikely candidate for being one of the best movers on this,
moved before COVID really hit its shores and moved in this collaborative, cooperative way.
What's very interesting is two years ago,
Britain and the United States, in a pandemic preparedness global index scored themselves as top numbers one and two in terms of pandemic preparedness.
And actually, that probably hobbled their response.
Because what total complacency you mean a confident sense that they had the institutions, the resources, the NHS, the public health England, you know, that they could deal with it on their own.
Whereas in Germany, in New Zealand, in South Korea, in Greece, they immediately said, actually, we can't deal with this on our own.
So right back in January or February, those guys were working on other things.
Because I think this is something really crucial here, which has just been referenced,
which is about how women leaders tend to form alliances. And that's in part because the journey
to power for most of us who have experienced this has been that we have
often been the people, and particularly if you're a woman of colour, where you're not heard, you're
not listened to, your idea gets adopted by your male colleague and everybody speaks to him and
not to you. And what we've learned to do is build alliances to be able to amplify and enhance our voice as we have navigated
our way into the structures of power. And what all of these women, and you know, Germany is a big,
complicated country, and New Zealand may be small, but what they have all demonstrated is that sense of collaboration, building alliances, listening, humility,
which I think speaks to women's roles to leadership,
their experiences of getting to leadership.
And that is something that is shared internationally.
Can we look to the future then, Inga, and look to a world where,
let's say Britain is going to the polls in four years' time
or other democratic countries.
Will voters remember, perhaps they'll have to remember because who knows, the ramifications could still be going on.
Will voters remember what happened here?
And will they be willing to think of voting for a leader who perhaps isn't all about tax cuts and doing wonders for the economy, but about coping with a crisis of this nature.
Will they bear that in mind?
Will we bear it in mind?
We will absolutely remember how we felt during that, I believe,
and how we were treated.
And I think there's a certain magic in,
and Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand is my inspirational role model
because she has a way of communicating to people with this empathy where everyone feels that they're at the heart of what she's wanting to do.
And you sort of contrast it with some of the sort of Churchill-like addresses we've had.
They don't resonate with most people and they don't resonate in the times we're in. That isn't strictly true, is it?
Because initially, I think a lot of people really approved of the way Boris Johnson and his government were handling things.
I know his approval ratings have slumped lately, but at the start, people were full of confidence in the government.
Yeah, I think they were because they were hearing this confident air come out.
But of course, what we've seen is that it hasn't come through in the statistics and
reality. And therefore people will say, well, actually, maybe that style isn't the right one.
And now I want to hear from people who actually care about me and put me at the centre of what
they do. And that's why that communication is so important.
Now, I mean, in order for Jacinda Ardern to be Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of New
Zealand, she had to be elected.
People voted for her.
And it's not always the case that politicians of her type are elected.
Yeah, and nor do I think that the qualities of leadership that she's exhibiting are only female.
I mean, Greece is being led by men, but men who understand how to build collaborative partnerships.
But I think crucially, Jane, you ask what are people going to vote on? You know, Greece is being led by men, but men who understand how to build collaborative partnerships.
But I think crucially, Jane, you ask what are people going to vote on?
People are going to be voting in one of two scenarios. It's either a world in which individual countries have immiserated themselves because you cannot control the virus within only one country. You cannot access the public health goods you need without cooperation with other countries.
And you cannot rebuild economies in this world without countries cooperating and using a collective form of insurance.
Poor countries that Britain relies upon for all kinds of things, for terrorism control, for stopping human trafficking, key minerals and metals that go into our industry, those poor
countries are being pushed to the, are already being pushed over the cliff because the house
cleaners that work in London that send their remittances home fund those economies. You know,
they rely on growing markets in Britain, but people aren't buying things. They've had to shut
down their economies and are on the brink. And the kind of leadership we need is a leadership which is going to be able to both do the things that Inga and Heather have talked about domestically,
but genuinely lead in a Churchillian way for an international cooperation, just as the world saw after the Second World War,
that says, yes, we don't agree with all of these countries. We might not like what they're doing. But this is a global crisis.
And if we don't actually cooperate together, come together, for example, within the IMF and World
Bank, make it possible for even the poorest countries not to collapse into complete chaos
and anarchy, then we're all going to suffer from more and
more viruses that we cannot control because the weakest link has collapsed
and all the other problems that we know we rely upon, piracy, terrorism, drugs,
human trafficking. We need to remember that
leadership is not only about those human qualities, but also about having a prepared,
as Brian Eno put it beautifully, a prepared vision of what's required for this country
to build forward. And that's going to require international cooperation. And that will require
genuine leadership to explain that to the nation. Now, I think it would be Brian Eno's belief,
and quite possibly the belief of many people listening to this programme now that we
do need more women at the top and more female leaders. But Heather, you have been the only
woman in the room and it isn't an easy place to be. How do we encourage more women to pursue
leadership roles, whether in politics or elsewhere? I think partly by speaking to and
raising the profile of these amazing women leaders who have demonstrated the ability to deal with
an unprecedented challenge in the pandemic. And actually hearing more of their voices,
I think will encourage more women to feel that they too can be leaders in a whole
range of walks of life. So I think that profiling in that voice, and we can see that in Black Lives
Matter, we can see that in some of the countries we've just spoken about, and we can see that in
an increasing, emerging and powerful female voice, whether that's been in the Me Too movement or clearly in
Time's Up. And that has pushed change across different sectors, where we're trying to ensure
that we get much greater equity and representation of women at all levels of leadership.
You know this as well as anybody, Heather. Women who pursue leadership, who pursue success,
actually, at any level, the treatment is extraordinary.
It can be exceptionally tough.
It is. It is really tough.
And I think, you know, it is about having to be resilient in ways that are uncalled for.
I think it's about also having that support around you and women know how to get support.
But it is absolutely, it's a difficult and painful road. But if we are going to live in this
fairer society, if we are to forge, and I totally agree with the international piece, with the
international collaboration to deal with getting our economies out of the sheer chaos we are going to be in, then we need leaders
who speak to working together and not speak to their own ego.
Inga, what do you now understand about the need for diversity that, frankly, you didn't when you
were at Lloyd's, for example?
Well, I was already driving a lot of diversity at Lloyd's and it was walking through that historic market,
you know, over 330 years of history,
and looking at it and saying, why hasn't it modernised?
Why isn't it fit for today's world?
Why isn't there technology?
Why aren't there new ways of working?
And I looked and I saw mainly men, mainly white men.
And I realized then that was the key to being creative and innovative and moving forward
was making sure that there were different voices around the table.
So it actually started then.
And that's when we started this whole push to get many more women in, many more people from the BAME community. In fact, I think we got 37%
of the senior leaders female at Lloyds and 21% BAME of the top 50 leaders in the central Lloyds
team. So we managed to do it because I realised there was a lack of creativity. Nobody was
challenging. Nobody had those new thoughts and ideas. It was very protective of the old ways.
And that's when I really saw the benefit of having diverse teams.
Yeah. I mean, protective of the old ways, which of course, admirably suited many of the participants
because they were doing fine. Yes, they were doing fine, but it wasn't allowing others in and it was very threatening to others.
You know, you looked in.
I remember in the 80s when I started working in the city
and I looked at this terrifying place of Lloyd's,
which looked so unwelcoming to a young woman at that time.
Nyree, when was the time you felt you're most uncomfortable
or were made to feel uncomfortable in your professional life?
That's an interesting question. I'm not sure. I mean, I, you know, as a teacher of female students
at Oxford University, I just, I love some of, you know, what Heather and Inga were saying. I do think
that we've got to balance the way, as parents, as teachers, as bosses,
there's too much encouragement of girls all the time
to be neat, tidy and well-liked,
to sit back, to be the smiling presence.
And there's not enough focus,
there's not enough balancing of those qualities
which all have their place,
but to be bold, to stand up and to be counted, to dare to be not liked.
I find that absolutely fascinating. But there has been a lot of talk, even in this conversation, about collaboration and indeed nurturing.
So it's all still there in the mix, isn't it?
Do you remember a book, I think we featured it on this programme, The Hillary Paradox, about Hillary Clinton's problem being that women didn't quite like her enough.
Yes.
Do you want to talk about that, Nairi?
Yeah. So I know I spend a lot of time with my female students on exactly that,
on balancing the need to be liked with a much more important thing, which is being trusted, being trusted to be
someone that stands up for the right things and being trusted to be somebody that achieves the
goals that they set out to achieve. And I think even in boardrooms, I notice, you know, that
for whatever reason, the females that come out of the room will often be more concerned about
the emotional state of everybody else. Was he unhappy? Was he displeased by this?
And the male colleagues will come out of that room saying,
yes, I got what I wanted, or no, I didn't get what I wanted.
And I think ensuring there's a balance between the goals that you set,
helping women and the girls in your own homes set goals,
focus on the goals instead of the people all the time.
Of course, we also need to focus boys on being empathetic and humble
and bringing a collaborative approach to problems.
But I would love to see more encouragement of girls
to be bold, to set goals and to pursue those goals.
And it's up to the parents of girls to actually give them permission
to be, well, not that interested in playing nice, as you say.
Heather, do you want to come in on that?
Well, I think it's for the parents, it's for the education system.
It's also for all of our media, how we present young women,
that to have a sense of confidence in themselves,
a belief in their own self-esteem,
that it isn't dependent on being mispopular,
but absolutely about standing your own ground.
And that is something that is cool.
And that is something that is going to guide you through life
and give you that strength and fortitude.
And the rewards are huge in terms of living that
life to your maximum potential and maximum fulfillment. And I think the more that we
can see those sorts of images, and we see them increasingly with young women musicians and actors
and people from across the creative industries the more that we see that
the more that young girls can have that sort of modeling in front of them with images and um which
reinforce that i think that that is hugely that hugely important it's been very interesting the
lionesses at the fa they've been doing huge podcasts to young girls to encourage them to stay fit. They've
been way more successful than the guys. And that, I think, is one of the interesting turning
points that we're seeing coming through this pandemic.
But we can't, the mainstream media is still full of hogwash about losing weight after,
you know, you've put weight on in lockdown. It's all cobblers, but to a degree,
most of us play along with it up to a point, don't we?
To my shame.
Well, we do.
And of course, we all play along with a whole sweep of things.
But it's also about not playing along all the time.
It's also about presenting this other voice.
And we are seeing that start to happen amongst brands
who are recognising that actually, if you are going that start to happen with amongst brands who are recognizing that actually
if you are going to appeal to women then there have to be different images associated with it
and it is about the people you have sitting in your studio today jane in all of our lives in
in business and in education and in and in sport about how we take some of these points that we've
been rehearsing today and amplify them in our daily lives.
Yeah. And it's up to us, of course, to big up other women and to offer our support to them.
Just really briefly, Inga, would you swap places with one of the incredibly intelligent and capable young women that Nyree Woods is educating at Oxford?
Have they got it easier than you had it, do you think?
They've got it easier in terms of there's lots of conversation happening
and I think there's a greater understanding of the need for equality.
However, I think today's world is much tougher
than when I was starting out on my career.
I really believe that when I see the pressure on young people,
it is truly immense and when I
just walked it I had several job offers made at the same time in the 80s it was a different
different era right at that time okay so oh dear that's actually a bit of a negative note to end
on bit of a shame never mind well they've got lots of opportunity come on there there is a lot of
opportunity out there yeah um for women in particular brilliant lovely to talk to all three
of you really enjoyed it this morning thanks for all all your wisdom. Inga Beale, the former
CEO of Lloyds of London. You also heard from Dame Heather Abatz and Professor Nairi Woods. And your
thoughts are welcome, of course, at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter, or you can email the programme
via our website. Next week, we've got a series on women and gaming. And it turns out actually that
loads of women
are actually heavily involved in gaming
including some over 70s and you can
hear from some of them on Women's Hour next
week. Now to a Netflix
documentary I recommend. It's not
the easiest watch but it's
absolutely vital that we
understand this. It's called Athlete A
and it's a documentary about
the serial sexual and
psychological abuse at the heart of US gymnastics. A man called Larry Nassar, who was the American
national team doctor for over 30 years, was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for the
sexual assault of minors in 2018. And tragically, over 500 survivors of Larry Nassar have now come forward.
Many young American gymnasts spent time at the Corolli Ranch, a place run by two Romanian coaches
who'd previously worked with Nadia Comaneci. Jennifer Say is the producer of the documentary
Athlete A and a former gymnast herself. She hadn't been a victim of NASA,
but in 2008, her book Chalked Up laid out the emotional and physical abuse she had gone through
in American gymnastics in the 1980s. When I wrote it, I was almost 40 years old,
but I continued to struggle with some of the physical and emotional abuses that were pretty commonplace for coaches in the
United States. And I couldn't quite sort of make peace with it. And so eventually, as a mother of
two, and a working professional, I just sort of sat down to write it to kind of make sense of it
all. And it came out before the Olympics in 2008, and definitely kicked up some dust. People were
pretty upset by
it, I would say, in the community. And really all I meant to do was, you know, a truthful retelling
of what I'd experienced in the sport, which was not only unusual, but quite abusive.
How were you treated?
I mean, it was pretty commonplace. So it was easy to sort of think that it was my fault that I
continued to struggle with it. But the coaches that I trained under, we were belittled and berated for our weight.
We were called fat pigs.
We were weighed in multiple times a day, humiliated in front of our teammates.
We were screamed at for being lazy when perhaps we were injured and struggling to train.
And when I say injured, I mean seriously injured, like broken ankles, but not getting proper medical treatment. So we often trained
on serious injuries. You know, they threw things at us when they felt we weren't working hard
enough. All of these kinds of things were pretty commonplace in my gym and others as well.
Right. All of which gives us a really clear idea of why you are so invested in the notion of
athlete A and why you've put so much hard work into getting it made. But from what you say there,
nothing changed. You wrote that book. You made it clear that life was completely unacceptable
for you as a young girl.
But if anything, it just got worse, didn't it?
Well, I would certainly say it didn't change.
You know, and I described a time in the 1980s and I wrote about a coach who was the national team coach at the time who I traveled with around the world and the country.
And he was a sexual abuser and ultimately he, you know, some of the women
that he abused came forward in about 2011 and he was ultimately banned from the sport due to
pressure. But I would say largely there were no widespread cultural changes. There was no real
admission that there was something wrong. It was treated as anomalous. It was treated as sort of I was this dissatisfied, angry, bitter ex-gymnast who never quite achieved the success that she wanted and was out to make a buck in a book.
And so it wasn't really examined with any diligence or honesty and not to kind of look inside and say perhaps we have a problem but to blame the person who was speaking out and dismiss and discredit them.
And for many years, that was effective.
Honestly, it was quite effective.
But with the Larry Nassar story breaking, there were just too many voices.
Nearly 500 women came forward.
And you can't dismiss and belittle that many.
You could try.
But even now, with that having happened,
I believe it's looked at as anomalous
and not something sort of deeply broken in the culture.
It's a sort of, he was one bad apple,
and now he's gone, and so we're okay.
And that's what I think is really problematic.
Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles is going public today
saying she was among the athletes who were sexually abused by Larry Nassar.
Several Olympic champions have also come forward,
including Ali Raisman, Michaela Maroney, and Gabby Douglas.
Maggie Nichols first came forward more than two years ago,
but her identity has not been publicly known until now.
Maggie did not want to be here today.
She is a full-time student, and
she's training as a full-time athlete still
for the University of Oklahoma, so this is
too painful.
So I'm going to read
the statement that she put
out to the public.
USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic
Committee did not provide a safe
environment for me and my teammates and friends to train. We were subjected to Dr. Larry Nassar
at every national team training camp, which occurred monthly at the Crowley Ranch.
Up until now, I was identified as Athlete A by USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic
Committee, and Michigan State University.
And I want everyone to know that he did not do this to Athlete A. He did it to Maggie Nichols.
Larry Nassar was the USA Gymnastics team doctor for nearly three decades.
And he also treated many girls in a club program at Michigan State University.
I mean, he must have
treated thousands over his years as a sports medicine doctor. And he was systematically
sexually abusing these girls under the guise of medical treatment. He listened to them. He talked
to them. He was sort of a safe harbor, especially for those girls training under USA Gymnastics and
training at the Caroli Ranch where the conditions were
incredibly harsh. He offered them food. He offered them an ear. And that was his strategy. That was
part of the grooming. And it made these young women question what they felt was happening,
what they knew was happening. But they thought, well, he's this revered doctor. I'm grateful to
see him. This can't be happening. He's being nice to me. I just need to let it go.
And that's what's incredibly insidious about abuse in general is you come to believe it's
your own fault. It's true of the physical abuse, the emotional abuse, and certainly the sexual
abuse. And so for many, many decades, he was able to get away with it. But he was sort of the
one kind person in their midst. And he was obviously the most abusive of all.
Which is a horribly troubling state of affairs. And the arrogance of the man was quite breathtaking.
In the end, he was abusing girls, sometimes when their mothers were in the room.
He did, in fact, and there is a woman in the film, Rachel Denhollander, who plays such a critical
role in the unfolding of the story, because she was the first to come forward and tell her story with her name and her likeness.
And that prompted so many more to begin to come forward. Within a few weeks of her telling her
story, there were well over 50 credible survivors that had come forward. And she tells the story in
her own book, how he abused her the first time with her mother in the room. He would position himself between her and the patient's mother.
He used a towel or something and he would do it right there.
And the child, because she was a child, was sort of so confused and disoriented that she didn't say anything.
These are children. They don't really know what's happening.
He's a trusted doctor.
Jennifer, what has the impact of all this been on fans of American gymnastics?
There are so many of us who love to see it.
Simone Biles was well, she's an international heroine and she, too, has had to talk about being a victim of Larry Nassar.
What's it all done for the sport?
Women's gymnastics is the most watched sport in the Summer Olympic Games.
It's not watched widely in between.
So, you know, I wouldn't say that the viewership has suffered necessarily.
Certainly, USA Gymnastics, the governing body for the sport, has severely suffered.
They've lost all their sponsorship dollars.
They're incredibly challenged right now.
People do not trust them as a governing
body, and why would you? But I think people, fans of the sport, remain quite enthralled with the
heroes. Simone Biles, Ali Raisman, a two-time Olympian and medalist who also came forward,
many Olympians, Michaela Maroney. I think our respect for them has just deepened. But
I think casual viewers especially certainly have questions about how the sport and the training
is conducted. But unfortunately, I don't believe anything has really changed.
Well, what about parents? I mean, if you're a parent, surely now in the United States and no
doubt elsewhere, you've got to question your child
spending long periods of time away from home with who knows who. I think largely that is the case.
But you have to understand in this culture, this sort of microcosmic culture where winning is
everything. You have this child that is better than you ever could have imagined. And she's
incredibly driven. And she just wants to be the next Simone Biles or Allie Raisman.
And she wants to train and she'll put herself through anything. I mean, I know, and I'm not
putting myself in the category of those athletes, but I would never have shared with my parents
what was happening. I didn't want them to take me out. And the parents get caught up in it too.
And you hear from parents in the film, you know, you hear from Maggie Nichols' parents, they trust. And certainly that trust is shaken a bit right now, but you have to
understand even here in America, there are parents of athletes now who are very resentful that all
of this has come out. They feel that it's unwarranted, that it's just tough coaching,
and that this uproar is ruining it for the next generation of athletes.
Believe it or not, there is a contingent, a widespread contingent that just wants to move on.
And from this, you know, horrible scandal.
I find that really troubling that there are still parents and people who'd simply rather this was all brushed onto the carpet.
It can't be serious.
It is incredibly troubling. And I think the thing is,
is it's, it's just so it's such the accepted coaching methodology, what I described in the
beginning that I went through, it's just the way it is. And so people in their minds have said,
well, that's just tough coaching. If you want to be the best, that's what's required. And if you
can't take it, then you're weak and you need to get out. Now there's a bright line around sexual abuse, but it all creates the conditions for the sexual abuse to happen.
If you emotionally and physically abuse a child, the way I described, they're broken down
to the point where they don't know up from down and right from wrong. And they don't even trust
their own experience in the world. And so if they are marched into Larry Nassar's office,
they will accept it as either their own fault or as nothing wrong and their own fault that they're suffering from it.
And so you have to tackle all of it, the physical, the emotional and the sexual abuse.
And I don't believe that reckoning has come.
Right. It's really worrying.
Something else I took from Athlete A was a reminder of the time when Olympic gymnasts were not little girls, but grown women.
Do you actually think we'd be better reverting to that and actually saying, you know what,
you can't go to the Olympics, you can't compete unless you're, say, at least 20 or 18?
Or would you do that?
I mean, there definitely is a contingent that believes that.
I would say even if you're going to the Olympics at 18 or 20,
you're still probably training incredibly intensely as a child.
So I don't think that's the end-all, be-all, solve.
I'll just say that.
I think it would be healthier.
I think a very young child, if you're going to the Olympics when you're 15 or 16,
you're training in this incredibly intense way at eight or 10 years
old. I mean, imagine that. So if you raise the age a bit, you can kind of move that out a bit.
But I don't think that is the only solve. There has to be a re-imagining of the coaching culture
in the sport that is one that puts child safety first. There just has to be. And right now there isn't.
It is a culture that puts winning in medals first
and the athletes are collateral damage.
Collateral damage, it's as bad as that, or it can be.
I believe that it is.
And for all the winners that USA Gymnastics has produced,
and there are a lot since the mid-90s,
imagine how many there are that fell
by the wayside because of these methods. I mean, I know too many. I know there's more than the ones
I know. That was Jennifer Say, and the documentary Athlete A is on Netflix now. The US Department of
Justice is investigating USA Gymnastics, the US Olympic Committee and indeed the FBI for its handling of allegations of sexual abuse of athletes.
Your thoughts on that? A listener says, Jeanette says, I've stopped watching women's gymnastic events because I can't stand how much makeup they seem to have on.
It's ridiculous with such young girls that their faces are plastered in the stuff.
Makeup should be banned in the event.
I don't care about their prettiness.
I just want to see them performing gymnastics.
On Twitter, another listener says,
my children have been through emotional and physical abuse in gyms in Britain.
That's really disappointing to hear, although I suppose not surprising.
Louise says,
I'm lying in bed with a fractured fibula
and I'm horrified that young gymnasts
were forced to train with serious injuries.
On top of all the other physical and emotional abuse
they seem to have suffered.
Yes, that was, it's very upsetting, isn't it?
Not least because we all,
and I'm among the viewers of gymnastics at the Olympics, I absolutely love it. It's really compelling. Now, many of you enjoyed hearing from Brian Eno on the subject of women leaders and the future of leadership in the light of how various countries have dealt with the pandemic. In fact, quite a few of you are asking just for a copy of the transcript
of what he had to say.
But I need to point to the fact
that Emma Robinson is not the only person
to have tweeted or rather emailed
in her case along these lines.
She says,
I don't understand why Woman's Hour,
I thought the clue was in the title,
should be promoting the male voice
with their take on the post-covid world um emma yes
i absolutely take your point and interestingly i too mentioned this in a in a one of my sort of
pre-programmed strops which are traditional and which happen around about 8 30 on the morning of
a program um people know just to ignore me basically basically. But that was one of the things I mentioned, because, yes, like I say, I was a bit puzzled by that, too.
Now, what I have to say to you, Emma, is what was explained to me, which is that this is a pan radio, pan BBC radio series of conversations.
And it just so happens that Brian Eno wanted to do his essay on this topic.
And he's a big name and he was making some interesting points.
So that is the explanation.
But yes, I don't blame you, I have to say,
for asking exactly that question.
This from Jo.
I really enjoyed this morning's discussion on women in leadership.
It's not the first time you've tackled this, of course,
but I would have been happy to listen to a whole programme
devoted to that discussion. Well, absolutely. Thank you for saying that. In Scotland, we have
an excellent First Minister, in my view, who is a woman, of course, Nicola Sturgeon, and who I'd
suggest has good communication skills and empathy for all parts of our society, which have been well
in evidence in her COVID briefings. At the point when you stopped the discussion,
it was getting interesting about the psychological
and cultural hurdles women struggle with
in putting themselves out there.
How can we address this at a personal level?
I speak as a privileged white middle-class woman
who still finds it hard to stick her head above the parapet.
More on this topic, please, with some practical ideas.
Jo, thank you for that and noted. Yes, I think you're right.
We could have used the whole programme for exactly that conversation.
Nuala says, Jane, it's time Women's Hour did start to big up women leaders in the UK
instead of continuing to constantly champion New Zealand and Germany.
We've heard all this already. Boris Johnson isn't the only face of leadership.
Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill, of course, in Northern Ireland.
They deserve to be applauded at the moment.
And Nicola Sturgeon and Jane Freeman in Scotland are also front and centre of the COVID lockdown debate and handling.
Nuala says,
I appreciate Women's Hour going global, but maybe going outside London
or England once in a while would be a good idea. Joanna says, I worked at Lloyd's in the 90s. I was
sitting next to a man who I was told didn't like women or graduates and he was vile to me. When I
complained to my boss, I was told I needed to smile more. Wow. Well, let's hope that's a thing of the
past. And finally, to an important topic, which I suspect will get many of you going. This from, I don't think we need to mention her name, but she was in Lidl's in Dorchester the other day and witnessed this. Right. Listeners to the Woman's Hour podcast,
don't, don't allow this to happen in any supermarket you venture into.
Our emailer is quite correct.
It isn't a good thing to be doing right now.
Thanks to everybody who's taken part
in the programme today
and indeed throughout the week.
We're back tomorrow
with the highlights
of the Woman's Hour week
with Weekend Woman's Hour
both on the radio
and in podcast form.
And back live Monday morning
three minutes past ten
amongst other things
we're talking about
women in gaming.
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