Woman's Hour - Sci-Fi, Sex Discrimination, My Best Day

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

Margaret Atwood's new novel is out today. It's science fiction and is called The Testaments. Science fiction is often stereotyped as a male genre, but we forget that a woman was one of its first authors: Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein. When it comes to recognising science fiction talent, male authors have got many more awards than women but that's changing. To discuss why science fiction really does appeal to women, we hear from Mary Robinette Kowal who's won this year’s Hugo Award for best science fiction, as well as British writer, Temi Oh.Teenage girls are getting advice about what’s a healthy relationship and what’s not. The young adult author, Holly Bourne, is the ambassador for a new campaign launched by Women’s Aid. Holly says, “When you’re crazy in love with someone it’s hard to know what’s OK and what’s not OK in a relationship.” The campaign talks about gas lighting, consent and gives advice about what to say if your partner asks for your social media passwords. The answer is: NO! What’s the link between feeling discriminated against because you’re a woman and depression? Dr Ruth Hackett from University College London explains.And our series called My Best Day. You sent us some pictures of when you looked and felt great. Today Nilufer Algas tells the story behind her snap from the eighties.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Tuesday the 10th of September. On the podcast today, in the light of the knighthood given to Geoffrey Boycott, the cricketer who does have a conviction for domestic violence, we talk about that on the programme today. You'll also hear from two fantastic authors about women and science fiction. And that's the conversation that we carry on at the end of the podcast today. And what else do we discuss? Oh, yeah, the possible link between

feeling that you've been a victim of sexual discrimination and depression. So that's all on this edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. But we started with a conversation with the writer Holly Bourne. She's written successful books like How Do You Like Me Now? Her new book is for young adults and it's called The Places I've Cried in Public. And Holly Bourne has been lending her support to a separate women's aid campaign. So not connected to Jeffrey Boycott, although it happens to be all in the news on the same day. This is a women's aid campaign trying to teach young women about what is good and bad in a relationship. So here's Holly on why she was happy to be involved in the campaign.

I think it's because it's such a huge issue. I'm not afraid to use the word epidemic in terms of women being in coercively controlling relationships and a kind of doubling down on that they sometimes don't even know that they're in abusive relationships because we just don't really understand what they are if you don't have a black eye and you're carrying in the corner and the damage that this causes to young women that I speak and meet every day as part of my work just has made me realise that something needs to be done. We not only need to stop this, we need to learn what it is in the first place. But why is the situation apparently getting worse? It's always hard to know if it's just people are more aware of it,

so they're reporting it more compared to if it's actually getting worse. But I think it's just the kind of ongoing nature of the world that we live in, where it seems to be that, you know, boys are going to be groomed to abuse girls. And we just sort of normalise that and to some degrees really romanticise that. If you look at any of the very popular romance films

on Netflix at the moment, I could point out lots of red flags that somebody would identify as like warning signals that we kind of make into red roses and think they're grand romantic gestures but they're actually abusive behaviours. Grand romantic gestures actually when you get you're right film and fiction are absolutely full of them aren't they but there's a slightly sinister element to some of them. So many of them so I could give you examples like The Notebook a film that I loved as a teenager.

Is that the Ryan Gosling? With Ryan Gosling. He actually threatens to kill himself in order to get a date with her at the beginning of the film, which is a known abuse tactic in relationships. Like, if you leave me, I'm going to hurt myself. Even things like Friends, Ross and Rachel, a relationship that, again, I worshipped growing up as a teenager.

He's extremely jealous. He resents it when her career does well um you know he kind of turns up at her job he stops her having male friends and we're kind of like oh Ross loves Rachel so much we're so happy when they get together but again that is an abusive relationship it's not romantic you've got me um really rethinking my somewhat benign enjoyment relative enjoyment of friends okay let's listen to a young woman called Chloe who has talked about this on Woman's Hour she actually appeared a couple of years ago she was just 13 when she was in a bad relationship she is now in her 20s I think I was quite isolated

at the time that I got into a relationship with him and I think that made me more sort of vulnerable to him friends didn't really know what was going on I think he made it quite difficult for me to spend time with friends and so the friends didn't really know very much about what was going on my mum knew a little bit but I think I I hid quite a lot of it from her especially how bad he was and how verbally and emotionally abusive he was towards me when she did find out later on she didn't sort of support me with going to the police and stuff about it but I think it's quite difficult because if people try and pressure you like at one point she tried to pressure me to break up with him and that in some ways can almost push me closer to him because I was kind of

defensive of him like first I went to the police they didn't do him. The first time I went to the police, they didn't do anything. But the second time I went, eventually, about six months later, he was charged with harassment and he pleaded guilty to that. And I'd been told to only expect him to get a fine or something. I was told by the police that it wouldn't be taken very seriously. But the judge in the court that sentenced him actually said his exact words were cruel, calculated abuse. And he said that he wanted to make sure that I was sort of protected from him and had a chance of getting through finishing school and getting into university

without fear of him contacting me and making my life so difficult again. And he was convicted and he got a suspended prison sentence. And there was a restraining order, which stopped him contacting me for five years. He had electronic tagging and a curfew for a bit and he had to pay compensation money. And then later on I reported something else to the police which was related to our relationship about him and that activated his suspended prison sentence and so he ended up spending about seven months in prison.

And what do you think about that? I wanted to know that I'd done absolutely everything within my power to make sure that he wasn't going to do the same to another young girl. And so once he had those sentences, he's on record now, he's now on the sex offenders register as well. People know there's a record. Chloe, where has all this left you? You're very young still, I should say. How old are you now?

I'm 20 now. And yeah, I think it had a huge impact going through that at such a young age. I think you're still developing and learning how to make friendships and relationships at that age. And I think it's had a huge negative impact on my mental health. There's still a lot of things that I really, really struggle with now. But I think it's also really opened my eyes to domestic abuse and to the whole sort of culture of people thinking that kind of thing is acceptable and not realising it. It's made me really determined to make a difference. So I've

really framed myself into raising awareness of these kind of issues, doing work in schools with young boys and girls to try and educate them about like what actually makes a healthy relationship. And that side of it's been really positive for me. And I found that really, really helpful. Well, Chloe has recovered. She's gathered herself together. But I imagine most people, Holly, base their teenage relationships on the template they have from home. Surely that's got to be most people's starting point. I think the home environment is important. And if you kind of consider that one in four women are victims of domestic violence, it seems that, you know, one in four teenagers entering relationships for the first time,

you know, that is their blueprint. And again, we have this wider society that, as I said, sort of, you know, romanticizes and normalizes abusive behavior. I think what's so worrying about teenage relationships is, again, it's this first experience. You know, your heart is never as pure and fresh as it is when you fall in love for the first time. You do kind of stumble into it blindly. And, you know, with this kind of background of, I believe, this kind of toxic idea of what a healthy relationship is

or a healthy relationship is not, just not existing. And it can make young people very vulnerable. And that's why Love Respect, this website that's been launched by Women's Aid to educate young people on what is a healthy relationship? Who do I give my heart to that won't, you know, completely and utterly annihilate me over time? Sort of like a drip drip effect of eroding me away until I feel like nothing. Like, you know, you can educate yourself and hopefully not have that happen to you and break the cycle if it is one that you recognise in your family. Now, rightly, Women's Aid is rolling this out really across social media, isn't it?

So how can people ensure that their children get access to this? It's just making them aware of love, respect. The website, the opening page has a test that you can do to sort of check if your relationship is healthy and kind of educate young people about words they've heard that may not understand, things like the word gaslighting or consent and also just kind of hearing survivors' stories because I think, as I said,

so many people don't recognise themselves in abusive relationships. I think it's something that happens to the woman with two kids. But actually, you know, it happens in teen relationships. In fact, one in three young people, young women, have been in an abusive relationship. I mean, fact, one in three young people, young women, have been in an abusive relationship. I mean, the emphasis so far has been talking to young women.

What about conversations with young men? Well, I think this is the thing that it's always tricky to balance. It's sort of how do we kind of educate and empower young women to make healthy decisions? But, of course, we need to be tackling the men too. But as anyone who kind of works in this field will know, it's quite tricky and you get a huge amount of backlash um and uh from from from men you know men mostly i mean like just because they're like kind of like oh how dare you or this makes me feel very uncomfortable it's very very hard to talk about it without getting a lot of as i, kind of aggression.

And I think it's because it makes people uncomfortable. And I'm just encouraging people to try and step into that discomfort. And I think one of the reasons it makes people so uncomfortable is because abusive relationships are so rampant and everywhere. So you're kind of touching every one and four people, making them feel difficult. And it's just all into that discomfort. It is. The whole thing is uncomfortable. And this, you're not here to talk about jeffrey boycott but this conversation is happening against the backdrop of a conversation about a man with a conviction for domestic violence being honored actually it's the highest civilian honor he could have been given i think apart from being put into the house of lords

it doesn't help does it in terms of what the message you're trying to convey? No, and it just goes against, you know, we've made coercive control illegal in this country. But, you know, there's very few convictions coming through. It's one of these things where we bring out one message saying this is wrong. And then we have a completely opposite message where you're knighting somebody who's got a history of domestic violence and that's almost like abuse in itself when this kind of you know this completely shifting of realities and what is and isn't acceptable it sort of replicates what an abusive relationship

is like we're going this is wrong you're turning me it is wrong I fulfilled it is wrong actually no it's fine and it just kind of builds to the mess which is very tricky and uncomfortable to unpick but so important and to, education is a good starting place. Thank you, Holly. Always good to talk to you. Holly's new book is called The Places I've Cried in Public. Good to see you. Thank you very much. Thank you. And as I say, we are still waiting for the chief executive of Women's Aid,

acting chief executive. Her name is Adina Clare, and she's on her way to the studio. This could be connected to, I guess, is there a link between feeling discriminated against because you're a woman and depression? And if you heard the 10 o'clock news on Radio 4, you'd have heard Matt Hancock, the health secretary, talking about over-medicalisation. It's all over the front pages of today's newspapers as well. Top of the poppers is the headline on the front page of The Sun. Shock rise in pill addicts as docs prescribe to 11.5 million of us. So could there be a link

between sexual discrimination or feeling that you're a victim of sexual discrimination and poor mental health in women? Well, Dr. Ruth Hackett is a research fellow at University College London, and she's been looking at the data on this. Ruth, it's a huge study. How many women took part? So almost 3,000 women, Jane Right, across the whole UK? Yes, all of the UK so this would be a representative sample of the UK and in fact we over-sampled ethnic minority groups as well

so we think this is giving us a good picture of women in the UK and all their diversity today Okay, and all ages as well? Yes Right, now we're not suggesting that every woman who feels she's been a victim of sexual discrimination is on antidepressants, but nevertheless, it is a possibility. And we're also, this is about feeling that you've been a victim of sexual discrimination. You don't have to have legal proof. Yes, so what we did in this survey here, we asked women whether they felt that they ever felt unsafe or they'd avoided a certain setting or whether they'd been insulted and harassed.

So the settings we asked them about were on the street, on bus and train stations, at the workplace, even in their homes. And then we asked them why they thought the reason for that was. And if they said it was on the basis of their sex, we coded that as sex discrimination. So it really wasn't asking them specifically about sexism. We were asking them about their feelings and perceptions in the first place and whether, you know, it went up to the extreme levels of, you know, actually being physically attacked. So really, you know, it is about perceptions. But I think, you know, it's very difficult to measure objective events. But all I can say about the data more widely in Europe

is that this is something that people perceive to be on the rise. So in European data, 37% of people across 27 EU countries perceive that sex discrimination is on the rise. And that is increased by 6% from previous data we have on that. Now, racial discrimination can also be extremely toxic and unpleasant. And if you are a woman of colour, presumably you're suffering in two ways here. Yes, so I mean, intersectionality is a well-known concept. So my study only looked at sexism,

but what I can say is that these reports of discrimination, sex discrimination, and the link between sex discrimination and mental health found in this study did not vary, you know, depending on ethnicity. We know that actually it was white women were more likely to perceive it. And that could be because, as you say, for women of colour, it could be racism that's more important to them.

Right. So what do we do? Well, I mean, I think the first thing is awareness raising, you know, so letting people know it's not just about promoting equality between the sexes, but actually sex discrimination in itself might be damaging mental health as well, which is what these results suggest that, you know, four years later after a sexist event, there's further decline in mental health, not only depression, as you say, but also people feeling distressed or having poor mental functioning. So I think, as I said, awareness is the first thing. And the Me Too movement, I think, has raised that awareness for young women in particular. And I think, you know, I think the second thing is just to continue to do work in this area,

because this is actually the first time in any UK data we've seen this link over time. So this really gets away from the idea that these are people with victim complexes, and that's why they're reporting this. What we're seeing actually is that the mental health issue is coming after the sexist event. Can we just take it, make it less theoretical, more real world? So let's say a woman out running, perhaps a woman who feels that she needs to get fitter, maybe even feels that she needs to lose weight. She's out in her running gear and somebody makes an obnoxious remark to her. What might that lead to? Well, in my opinion, that's a pathway, Jane, linking the sexist event to the mental health issue. Because the most common setting we saw here for women reporting the sexist experiences on the street

and the most common feeling is feeling unsafe, which is exactly the scenario that you've described there. We know that exercise is not just beneficial for weight maintenance, as you say, but it also has huge impacts on people's mental health. So for me, that is the pathway actually linking the sexist experience to the later mental health issue four years later. So I think that's a very good example of what the pathway linking the sexism to the later mental health issue could be. And we often hear these days about loneliness and isolation. And again, this is a really important point. It doesn't matter how actually lonely other people might think of you as, if you feel it, then it's real to you with real life repercussions.

Yes, and that is the concept that really speaks to me about this data. It's very difficult to measure objective sexist events. It's really how people feel about it. And it doesn't have to be something like being attacked. I mean, if you feel unsafe to go out for that run, as you say, that feeling in of itself can be damaging to your mental health and to go back to the loneliness thing I mean social isolation is one thing you can count the number of contacts or maybe family relationships people have but they still may feel very lonely and we do know that that

also has negative impacts for people's health. Right but we're really I get the impression we're scratching at the surface of this a bit we'll'll know more, presumably, in what, a decade or so? Yeah, well, I'm hoping to do more research on this. I think the point you made about actually looking at intersectionality, so potentially how racism interacts with sexism and other minority statuses might be involved in linking these discriminatory events and mental health outcomes. And I'm also interested in learning more about those pathways. As you say, you know, if this is a barrier for physical activity, is that what the link is to the later mental health issue? Really interesting. Thank you very much, Ruth. Thank you. That's Dr. Ruth Hackett, who's a research fellow at University College London.

Any thoughts on that? You can, of course, contact the programme. I think I've remembered the website address now, but I'm not going to try it just in case. Now, a couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send us an image of yourself that captured you at your very, very best, not just looking brilliant, although you all do, by the way, but just feeling your best in that moment. And you can see these images, the ones we're talking about on Twitter, on Instagram, and on the aforementioned website. It's a great one today. I'm just looking at the image now of a woman who, well, frankly, she's got a cigarette in her hand. She's wearing what looks like a baseball jacket. It's incredibly cool. So we're heading back to the 80s and to

Chesterfield Social Services offices where Nalufa Alghash was working. Here she is telling Laura Thomas that she'd just started her new job. It's 1987. I know that because I finished my social work training at the end of 86 and this was my first job. Before children, before marriage, she doesn't look that much different than I am now, except that I am much older now, obviously. I'm 31 then. Smoking, Marlborough, which was my favourite, and I had a desk. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about what you're wearing. You've mentioned the smoking, and the smoking in the office is one of the things that I love about this picture. It takes you back immediately to a particular time

when it was still OK to smoke in the office. But, I mean, you look amazing. It's a very strong look, the baseball jacket. There's quite a sense of in the best possible way attitude in this look yeah tell me about yourself then well I think probably that is a strain in me that that I do have I mean recently my sister told me that I was a rebel when I was growing up I never thought about myself as a rebel. But now looking back, maybe I was and that's how I ended up in England and my life changed altogether. The jacket is that I bought

the jacket and I didn't think that I would probably wear it as much as I did wear it. Now, now looking back, I did wear it a lot. And I think it did have numbers on the back. I can't remember what the numbers were. I used to and I I still do, wear quite a lot of black. Everything I wore was black in those days. I came to England in 1980. I was born in Sunderland but brought up in Turkey because my dad's Turkish and my mum's English. And I came over to do a master's to go back and work in Turkey.

I'd done a psychology degree in Turkey but then I just got into working with children with learning difficulties and then moved on from there from residential into area social work and liked it and then went and did my training. Because it was my first job I was really excited, everything was new, and I was very organised at that time. Well, I am still, but not as much. And I think I just got lots of hopes and dreams. Nowadays, most social workers work with computers. We didn't have computers in those days.

And you can see the orange files in the background. Those were children's files or people's files i used to have a pen and there's a ink blot in front of me i used to have a fountain well i used to use only fountain pens in those days so there's lots of little things and like nowadays social workers don't have desks they have to hot desk we had a desk and i had loads of things in those drawers in front of me you know that to me, that were part of me that social workers now don't have or can't have because they have to hot desk.

They have to carry their lives on their backs or in their bags. Tell me a little bit about this, the fact that you weren't necessarily thinking at this stage that you were in the UK for the duration. You thought you may go to Turkey. And though you were born in Sunderland, you talk of going back to Turkey. There's a sense that that's home or that that has a certain meaning for you. Well, it does. And though I've been in England since 1980, I probably have struggled with where my home is all this time, really. And I still do. I don't feel like I always belong here. And yet, when I my children and so I feel like I'm living here but

I think deep down there is a hankering to think well you know should I go back and should I live there and then when I go and visit I think oh my god I couldn't live there either so I just that's that's it really I don't I don't want to put too much weight on this, but is there a sense then that the desk, your desk why this photograph, when I found it, because I found it sort of only in the last two or three years, really excited me when I saw it. And then talking about it to other people who were around in those days,

we reminisce about those days quite a lot more than any other. Tell me, have you got the love? You walked in, I woke up. quite a lot more than any other. A bit of Prince rounding up that item, which features our listener Lilufa Algash, who is talking to our reporter, Laura Thomas. And a reminder, you can see that image on the website and on our social media feeds at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter and Instagram. Now, The Testaments is Margaret Atwood's long awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. It is out today. If you didn't know that, I do not know where you've been. I can see I've got a copy in front of me right now. Now she calls it, she's a tiny bit

snooty about science fiction in I think a jolly way, but she calls what she does speculative fiction. She says it's not sci-fi because there are no talking squids in outer space. Well, I question how she knows that actually but anyway um women we should say have won six of the last eight years of the huger awards these are the prizes given to authors of science fiction uh women have won in each of the last four years significantly um margaret mary i do apologize mary robinette cowell is one of those winners and she's able to join us from the early hours and is the very early hours of an American morning. She's in Nashville.

And she is the author of Calculating Stars. Mary Robinette, good morning to you. Good morning. I'm really looking forward to talking to you in the company of the British author, Temi O, who's with me here in London. And Temi, your book is Do You Dream of Terror Too? A brief outline of that plot, please, for us.

So I kind of summarise it as a coming-of-age tale set in space. Another Earth is found, is discovered in another solar system. It takes 23 years to get there, and I follow seven different characters who are 18, 19, as they travel there. Right, OK, so it's an epic journey in more ways than one. Yeah. And Mary Robinette, Calculating Stars, I'm halfway through it, is about a search for an alternative world. A bit more about your story, please. Certainly. It is set in 1952. So I often describe it as Apollo era science fiction that's women

centered. I slam an asteroid into Washington, D.C. in 1952, which kicks off the space programme early and fast and with an international effort. Yeah, so you've played with history a little bit, haven't you? Just a little bit. The slamming of an asteroid into Washington, D.C. was not wish fulfilment when I wrote it. All right, don't get all political on this, please. I should say the front page of this morning's London Times is dinosaurs wiped out by meteorite equivalent to 10 billion Hiroshima's. That's a terrifying headline.

But this stuff has happened. Civilizations or something approaching civilizations have been ended by just such events. We can't rule them out, can we? No. In fact, they're pretty confident that it will happen again, that we'll have another giant meteorite come down and hit us. So there's a lot of things that NASA is doing to try to make plans for how to avert that or how to deal with the consequences if it happens.

Do you think there is any sort of prejudice that holds women back from reading and enjoying science fiction? Mary Robinette? My experience going to conventions is that it is pretty evenly split on who the actual readers are. However, I think that a lot of people think of science fiction as being for children, or something that is just a very specific category of fiction. Certainly in the way it is marketed, it is marketed and targeted towards men, even though you find that the readers themselves are not strictly men. Tell me, did anyone try to stop you from writing science fiction? I think I definitely came across a lot of people who would say, oh, I've never read

science fiction. And I feel like especially throughout history, there are lots of books that are famous that we now might describe as science fiction, like 1984 is dystopian. I think that Frankenstein is like one of the first science fiction. And whenever I'd suggest this to people, they'd go, Oh, no, but those are good books. So no, they don't count. People have said that to me. Definitely. Mary Robinette, that happens in the States as well, does it? Oh, that is that is a constant thing.

Ursula Le Guin talks about this, that the moment something is viewed as literature, it's taken out of science fiction and shelved someplace else. I definitely agree with that. Yeah, Margaret Atwood, in bookshops, would she be in contemporary fiction? That's the thing. I feel like maybe we could use that as an example of this phenomenon,

which is that it's marketed as like, I mean, you know, she's an amazing writer and she writes really beautifully imagined worlds, but people don't describe it as science fiction and she's sort of reticent to describe it as science fiction as well. Because she doesn't want the label. What does that tell you? I mean, yeah, I think it speaks for itself. Mary Robinette, the lead protagonist in Calculating Stars is a woman. And that's probably one of the reasons why I'm enjoying it so much. But I know some people have said to you,

oh, how do you make your books appeal to men when you've got a female protagonist? Oh, yes. I have gotten that literal question on a panel. And the answer that I give them is that I don't worry about that, because there's another half of the population that I'm interested in writing to and for. So I don't think that men are ever asked, how do you make your books appealing to women? It is something that women are asked to do all the time, to cater to the male gaze. Temi, did anyone talk to you about female characters, male characters? Not in particular, but I definitely had that in mind when I was writing it because I was working in a science fiction and fantasy bookstore during my gap year,

and I'd read quite a lot of books about space that I really loved. And I was saying to the manager, this was sort of six, seven years ago, do you have any books that are set in space but have like a female point of view character? And now there are so many that I could list, like with Mary Robinette Cowall and Becky Chambers and Emma Newman. But at the time, he and his colleagues were sort of scratching their heads, really unsure of any books they could think of.

Isn't that depressing? I mean, well, it depresses me. Ursula Le Guin has been mentioned. Mary Robinette, I want some cast iron recommendations from you, please. Well, so some of the people that Temi has already mentioned, but I would also suggest Anne Leckie, Nadia Kourafour, N.K. Jemisin. And a lot of it depends on what a person wants to read, like what draws a person to a book. So if someone is looking for something that is intensely character driven, then an Emma Newman book would be a great book to pick up. Why? If someone is, Emma draws these intimate character portraits and uses science

fiction as a way to almost as a metaphor for a larger societal thing. And this is something that a lot of science fiction allows an author to do is to kind of tip the natural world to its side so that you can see the interconnecting tissue. And that's something that Emma in her books does to wonderful, wonderful effect. Go on, Timmy. Yeah, I definitely agree. There is sort of some books that focus a lot on the technology and how the technology comes about. But then Emma Newman's books focus on how the technology affects what it's like to be human and the human condition and the inner lives of the characters.

And they're really beautifully drawn. So women, they do it differently. I'm trying to find out exactly what women do that a male author wouldn't or couldn't. What would either of you say about that to me? I remember because I was reading about, I remember reading Madeline Millard, and she was talking about the Song of Achilles. And she was saying that the Iliad is an epic,

it's sort of like, spans these huge battles and these big characters, and each of the characters kind of embodies a certain character trait. And she was saying that her version of the story is lyric it's it's intimate and it's about like these two people and it's about a relationship and I've definitely noticed science fiction going more in that direction and I I it could be related I've seen a lot of female authors who are who that's sort of their particular interest but yeah I wouldn't generalize but yeah well we like it we like the occasional sweeping generalisation. You have such, I've been reading up about you, Mary Robinette, your working life is

genuinely mind boggling, because you are a very successful puppeteer. Yes. Is it true that you've worked on Lazy Town? Yes, I did. I spent a year and a half working on Lazy Town. Which is for anybody who doesn't, the seminal children's TV show about, I can't quite remember what, I know it used to haunt my early mornings, but which part did you play? the characters. So anytime a character was handling something, that was often my hands, which meant because of the position, I had my hands over my head and was having to throw basketballs. Basically, everything that a character was doing was me with my arms over my head attempting to be coordinated. Okay. I mean, it's an extraordinary line of work is all I'll say

about that. But then you were going home, presumably, and immersing yourself in another series of alternative worlds. I was actually, my first novel, I actually wrote in the green room at LazyTown. It's, for me, puppetry and science fiction are very much the two sides of the same coin, that we're looking at the theater of the possible. And for both of us, we get shunted over into this little ghetto. One of the things about puppetry is that it's got this rich, thriving adult puppetry community. But if you say adult puppetry, people get this image in their head that is a little – they think I'm talking about a completely different type of puppetry. But the thing that's instructive about it is that there is a – in order to make people understand, there's a default that puppetry is for children.

And so I have to put a modifier to it. And with science fiction, I find that it's much the same way that a lot of people read juveniles, juvenile science fiction. And then as adults, when they reach for science fiction again, they reach for the stuff that they read as kids, which doesn't work for them because they're adults. And so we often have to use modifiers or other trappings to get people to read it, which is why I'm a little bit sympathetic to the fact that Margaret Atwood calls what she writes speculative fiction. Okay, well, Temi, you're sitting tantalizingly close to the new Margaret Atwood. I know. I could touch it. Well, you can touch it. You're not going to be able to read it. Are you seriously going to make sure you do read the Testaments? Definitely. I'm so excited. And it's also arrived conveniently now that the Hulu series is finished. There's a Handmaid's Tale hole in my life.

Now I know what I'm going to do on Sunday nights. The trouble is I could never get into the habit of rounding off my weekend with a little dip into The Handmaid's Tale. It's sort of emotionally taxing. You have to prepare yourself. I'm afraid it was off to Cornwall and pulled up. But anyway, tell me, I'm really interested. I'm with you with Paul, Derek.

Oh, are you? OK, Mary Robinette, thank you. And we really appreciate you. It is the early hours and we're delighted you were able to talk to us thank you very much that's mary robinette who is in nashville and we'll talk more in the woman's hour podcast about women and science fiction some great suggestions from you if you can stay with me tell me that would be great um that's temi who's the author of the british book which is called remind me do you dream of terror too yeah well worth looking out that's temi O.

Now, I mentioned that we were waiting to talk to the acting chief executive of Women's Aid, and she is here. This is Adina Clare. And this is after the knighthood in Theresa May's resignation honours for the former cricketer Geoffrey Boycott, who back in the 1990s was convicted in a French court of punching his then partner. In case you didn't hear it here he is on today on Radio 4 this morning talking to Martha Carney who was wondering why his honour had been so long coming. Well I suppose one of the reasons that your critics might put forward is the conviction that you had for domestic violence. It's 25 years ago, love. In a French court, she tried to blackmail me for a million pounds.

I said, no, because in England, if you pay any money at all, we think, hang on, there must be something there. I said, I'm not paying anything. I'm not sure I've actually got a million at the time. But no, and it's a court case in France where you're guilty, which is one reason I don't vote to remain in Europe. You're guilty until you're proved innocent. That's totally the opposite from England,

and it's very difficult to prove you're innocent in another country, another language. And most people in England don't believe it. I didn't do it. I move on. It's a cross I have to bear, right or wrong, good or bad. I have to live with it, and and I do because I'm clear in my mind and I think most people in England are that it's not true. Although the Chief Executive of Women's Aid has said celebrating a man...

I don't care a toss about her love. It's 25 years ago so you can take your political nature and do whatever you want with it. Martha Carney and her political nature. Well, Dina Clare is here. She is the Acting Chief Executive of Women's Aid. Just briefly, what is your reaction to the fact that Theresa May has given the cricketer Geoffrey Boycott a knighthood? Well, I was in Number 10 talking to Theresa May the week before she left office, she reassured me and all of the people around the table that domestic abuse was something she was utterly passionate about.

And indeed it was spoken of, I think, by Harriet Harman as part of her legacy on her last day as Prime Minister. And when you think of her legacy, I congratulated her on that day for such an incredible legacy, something we'd fought for for many years. And it feels that that's just being undermined by celebrating someone who has been convicted of domestic abuse, a violent crime against a woman. And we're just dreadfully disappointed. Well, there were hints in that interview with Martha on today that he certainly would dispute the veracity of the conviction. And it occurred in France, which he seemed to think was, well, he has views on the European Union as well, we know. But nevertheless, he was, as you say,

convicted of a domestic violence offence. And he is now a knight of the realm. And we were talking at the beginning of this programme about how you teach young women about healthy relationships, which I know is another Women's Aid campaign. It just doesn't help, does it? Not at all. And what sort of message does it send victims and survivors that someone who's been convicted gets celebrated in this way and is put forward as a role model? When you look at the declining number of prosecutions and convictions for domestic abuse,

is it any wonder that women don't come forward when people cast aspersions on the veracity of their voices? It sends just completely the wrong message. Are you disappointed in Theresa May? I am disappointed, to be honest. It feels like a misstep. It is a brilliant legacy. She's done so much.

I absolutely believe in the passion she has for fighting domestic abuse and in pushing forward the domestic abuse bill. So yes, I would say we're disappointed in this particular. Of course, I've fallen into the trap there of blaming a woman when we are talking about a conviction of a man for domestic violence, which is at the very heart of this. Where are we going with the domestic violence bill? Obviously, Parliament has been suspended. So what happens now? This is, again, all part of Theresa May's prime ministerial legacy, or so we were led to believe. Well, that's right. And she'd pushed it through that first reading for which we were really

grateful. But unfortunately, with the proroguing of Parliament, now the domestic abuse bill's off the table. We have pushed for Boris Johnson to make a commitment to bring it back. We haven't yet had that commitment, but we sincerely hope that we will achieve that. So at this moment in time, it's a wait and see and see if he has the same level of commitment as Theresa May, which we sincerely hope he has. But in the meantime, what are women or women that you're talking to every day? Is there a sense of limbo? I think so. Certainly across the services in the sector that support women, we were so encouraged by the idea that there would be

forward movements through the domestic abuse bill in terms of defining the crime and supporting services. So there's a real strong sense of sort of being in that sort of limbo, as you describe it, because there's no forward movement right now and we just really want that commitment from Boris Johnson and his government that they will continue to move it forward. Thank you very much for being part of the programme this morning. I know you've had quite a busy time but we appreciate you coming in.

That's Adina Clare who's the Acting Chief Executive of the domestic abuse charity Women's Aid. Thank you very much, Adina. Thank you. Adina Clare, the Acting Chief Executive charity Women's Aid. Thank you very much, Adina. Thank you. Adina Clare, the acting chief executive of Women's Aid. So let's go to your thoughts on this. Linda, not a particular fan of Geoffrey Boycott, but it happened 25 years ago.

Actually, he was convicted 21 years ago in 1998, but anyway, he seems to think it was 25 years ago as well. Linda goes on to say he got a suspended sentence and he denied it anyway. Shame on you for bringing this up at a time when he's been given an award for his cricket. You're just dragging up dirt. Lawrence, I'm a man. I was disgusted when I heard about the knighthood granted to Geoffrey Boycott. A new low that somebody who hosts a conviction for assault against a woman is being honoured. How on earth Martha Carney kept her temper with him

in that interview eludes me completely. I'd have cut him off. Even his rudeness and patronising attitude addressing anybody in a professional environment with love all the time is appalling. I hope the cricket community condemns this honour. I'm not surprised that so many people have become totally disillusioned with politics. Another email this time from Christopher. How desperate are you to pursue a man like Geoffrey Boycott who's done the crime and paid for it, as have thousands of

other men who've gone on to lead a normal blameless life? This man has received an accolade for his sporting life. For Woman's Hour to drag out this fact from so long ago is absolutely disgusting. And I just want to include this email because I find it breathtaking. I find it breathtakingly sad, really, but it's from a listener. We won't give her name, although she does include it. Give him a break. We all make mistakes. My ex-husband hit me once as we were already separating. I preferred the physical contact to the icy coldness and coercive manner he had at other times.

Right, I will read one more out actually. Thank you for covering the stories about Jeffrey Boycott and domestic violence. There are such important issues here. I recently left a long-term abusive relationship which included emotional, verbal and physical abuse and coercion, including financial. I haven't pursued a criminal prosecution against my former partner to keep the peace because we do have children. He has a high-flying job and an MBE. Domestic abuse is classless and ageless.

The knighting of Geoffrey Boycott sends out a message to victims and perpetrators that perpetrators are untouchable. I think it's a dark day for women and for children's rights. Right, let's return to the happier subject, actually, of women in science fiction. So Temi is still here, and so brilliantly is Mary Robinette. Mary, I hope you don't mind, we're really going to talk now

about other writers that people have recommended. I'm always happy to talk about that. Yeah, I know. Well, I've got an interesting suggestion here from a listener called William. He says, I read this minor and now largely forgotten masterpiece back in the early 70s.

And it was... Oh, he doesn't actually give the title of it. Oh, yes, no, he does. Forgive me. I'll get this right if it kills me. I read this minor and now largely forgotten masterpiece in the early 1970s. It's called Ice and it's by Anna Cavan.

Does that ring any bells with either of you? I think I've heard her name, but I haven't read it. He says it's a great novel of the Atwood genre. I believe that. That's one of the things that is often so frustrating. People will say, oh, women are now writing science fiction. And in fact, we were writing science fiction all along, but we didn't get the press that the men got. Yes.

OK. So how have you gone about changing that? Social media has been wonderful for that because we've been able to elevate the conversation and bring it to people's attention. But the other thing that's been happening is that a lot of the newspapers have recognized that they only had male reviewers and they've started bringing on women reviewers who review different things. Tell me, where was your book reviewed and who reviewed it? The Guardian in the UK and lots of science

fiction presses those tour and it's just come out in the US and NPR did a review. So you never felt siloed in any way? You were given, it was quite broad your coverage. I definitely, yeah, I feel very grateful about that.

All right, Sue emails to say, I'm now in my 70s, but the ladies who kept me sane during motherhood in the 70s and 80s were the likes of Anne McCaffrey, her Pern series, Dragon Riders, which I discovered on the BBC. Anna Massey, great actress, Anna Massey, she read them out.

The Crystal Singer series and her Damier books. Does that ring any bells? I ate the Anne McCaffrey Dragon Riders of Pern books growing up. Just I loved them up now. Go on. Because there are some relationships that very much fall into celebrating toxic masculinity. There's some aspects of it that are kind of rapey. But I didn't read it that way when I was a teen. Isn't that interesting? Because obviously, we've been discussing all sorts of women related issues in terms of relationships this morning on this on this program and podcast. It's interesting when you revisit the stuff that we were talking the other day. I'm not sure it was in my real life or here about that hugely successful book about the Catholic cardinal and the relationship with who the hell wrote that book, the one about, I'm looking for inspiration, Richard, the actor who played, the Thorn Birds.

That's it, the Thorn Birds. Oh, okay, yes. I mean, when you think, when you revisit the Thorn Birds now, that's wrong on absolutely every level. So what would you say about that? It is something that I find true about, it's so much fiction where we have taught women to see stalkers as normal. And science fiction and fantasy doesn't escape from that. One of the things that I think that we can do that you don't see in mimetic fiction or realistic fiction is that we can explore the causal chain farther.

We can go down the path of the what if, which is what gives us Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. That causal chain is something that we're starting to see actually played out in the United States, where we are losing abortion rights. But it's something that she explored in that speculative fiction. Just and you're so right about that, of course. And anyone who's been shocked by the Handmaid's Tale, you do wonder whether they've actually thought about the lives of women in, for example, contemporary Afghanistan, That is true. Or Iran. Boko Haram. Or Saudi Arabia. It's not as though this stuff isn't actually happening. Though she does mention that too.

She says that she doesn't include anything in her book that hasn't happened already. Yes, I think perhaps, yes, she does, to be fair. And I think that's probably what makes it so frightening is that it's sort of just drawing attention to all of the different things that happen to women. Jennifer has emailed to say, I've had a 10-year-plus love affair with the Liardin Universe series

written by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. In the last couple of months, I've discovered Jodie Taylor and her Chronicles of St. Mary's. Any idea? No, but that's... I'm taking notes. And I'm doing all these hipster choices. She says, and it's the study of history in contemporary time. Don't call it time travel.

Oh, so I don't know. All right. Ursula Le Guin is everybody. I mean, so many people have mentioned her, but there will be people who've never read anything by her, Temi. So where do we start with Ursula? Well, the first thing I ever read by her was the short story, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, which is kind of, it's almost like a philosophical

question. There's this utopia called Omelas. And so she begins by describing it. And then you find that in order for this utopia to exist, one person has to be in like sort of horrible suffering. And there are like a few who sort of see that person suffering and go well i guess i'm gonna forget about that and live my happy life and a few who walk away and um so the short story is about that but um it sort of is a really good example of what great science fiction can do which is it's it's a philosophical question in practice but i mean i don't know about what happens in the States. You can tell us, Mary Robinette. Is science fiction on school literary syllabuses? Is it taught?

It is a lot of times, again, labeled as something else. So 1984, Ursula Le Guin, they are, you do see them and you're starting to see more contemporary authors. You're starting to see N.K. Jemisin taught her series, The Fifth Season, or that begins with The Fifth Season, is an absolutely brilliant, brutal look at racism and sexism and climate change and exploitation. But it is unquestionably in the science fiction and fantasy realm. Well, we're running out of time. I just want to play, you'll enjoy this. These are the voices of three authors recommending books that they think everybody else should explore. Let's start with Elizabeth Bear. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Bear, and I wrote Ancestral Night. I was inspired by the work of C.J. Cherry,

who wrote Down Below Station and The Pride of Chinor. Hi, I'm Marina Lostetter, author of Numenon. I love sci-fi because it allows us to explore the complex interplay between social science and technology and gives us a chance to imagine interesting and better futures. In my youth, I was inspired by writers like Tanith Leigh and Madeleine L'Engle. Today, I'm constantly inspired by my contemporaries, such as Nikki Drayden, author of The Prey of Gods, Megan O'Keefe, author of Velocity Weapon, and Emily Suvada, author of This Mortal Coil. Hi, my name is Becky Chambers. I'm the author of The Wayfarer's Books, the first of which is The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. I've been a science fiction fan my whole life, but I don't think I'd be writing it if it weren't for the works of Ursula K. Le Guin. She's best known for The Left Hand of Darkness, but my favourite of hers is a short

story collection called Changing Planes. Well, there you go. There's plenty of suggestions there. No one can argue about us not giving you ideas. Mary Robinette, I gather that your male character in Calculating Stars, Nathaniel, who's married to the heroine, he's been accused of being a bit too perfect. How do you deal with that criticism? He is, I have to say, very accommodating about his wife's ambitions. Well, so this is a class of criticism that troubles me because he's based on my husband, who is not a perfect man. And Nathaniel is also not a perfect man, but he's married to someone with an anxiety disorder,

so he does tend to de-escalate arguments. But he is a workaholic. He will make plans for her without consulting her. But the thing that strikes me when people say this is that they are saying it because of the fiction that they have been reading. And it's one of the reasons that I try to write happily married couples because there are so few blueprints out there. And we are made of narrative.

We internalize everything that we read. So it is, it's something that I think that fiction, and not just science fiction, but that fiction can do is to show people a different path. Yeah, you do wonder about the books that will be written about Trump's America, don't you? I'm sure I mean, you hinted at your lack of respect for him at the beginning of the program. Yes. Well. Yes, indeed. You couldn't actually make some of this stuff up, could you? No, it's so true. Like, if I attempted to put someone like that in a book, I would, it would never play. And this is also one of the things that I find fascinating is that frequently

when we are confronted with something real, it doesn't seem plausible. The other character that people will sometimes say is, no one could be like that is Stetson Parker, who's the kind of antagonist in my novels. And he is based on someone that I worked with. And it is appalling to me that people will brush this stuff aside and normalize it, which is, again, the thing that happens in the US with Trump is that we are normalizing the things that he does, the lies that he tells, the bigotry and the racism. Thank you very much for all your contributions. I know the conversation has been very varied and you've been fantastic. Thank you very much, Mary Robinette, who started her first book in the green room at Lazy Town, which is a sentence I never thought I'd say. Now, very, very quickly,

your next book is going to be about? Oh, I'm not saying it in public. Oh, all right. Well, you can tell me in a minute. OK, I was going to give you a big plug there. Oh, I'm sorry. That's Temi O, who is a fantastic young writer. And thank you for being on the programme. Jenny's here tomorrow on the podcast and the programme as well, of course.

Russell Cain here. And I'm here to tell you about Evil Genius, the BBC Radio 4 podcast where we take icons from history and then decimate them by slinging mud think you know everything about Einstein? you don't, he was a woman hater you probably think you know about Amy Winehouse

that she was a victim, she had a pretty dark side and we're not shy about exploring it Evil Genius, we take people from history and a panel of three fellow jesters have to vote at the end of the show. No ifs, no buts, no grey areas, evil or genius. Plus hilarious banter as well. So head to BBC Sounds now and hit subscribe. 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's 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.