Woman's Hour - Second Trump presidency, Dating red-flag questions, Sophie Tea

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

As Donald Trump has been declared the winner of the 2024 US Presidential Election and the election coverage dominates front pages around the world, we discuss what a second Trump presidency may mean for women. Krupa Padhy speaks to Woman's Hour presenter Nuala McGovern, who is in Washington DC, about what’s happened overnight, the latest news from the Harris campaign and any further information that has been revealed about women voters. Krupa is also joined by US Deputy Editor for the Telegraph, Rozina Sabur, and Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, Director of the US and Americas programme at Chatham House.Iqra Ismail, a football coach and refugee advocate, was prevented from playing in a match last month because she wears tracksuit bottoms rather than shorts, which she says compromises her religious beliefs. Iqra, who captained Somalia in 2019, was expected to play her first game against an east London team, but was told by the referee that club shorts were a requirement. Iqra joins Krupa to discuss why she has chosen to speak out.Do you have a first date red-flag question? What would be an absolute sure-fire, definite no-no answer which would tell you there is definitely going to be no second date? Olivia Rodrigo, the American singer-songwriter and actor, is quoted as saying that if her date wants to go to space, that is a red flag for her. Krupa talks to Helen Coffey, senior journalist at the Independent who's written her take on questions she would ask, and Poppy Jay, director and podcaster most famously on Brown Girls Do It Too and now the spin-off Big Boy Energy.From Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus to Gustav Klimt’s Mother and Child, women’s bodies have been a major theme throughout art history. But can we ‘reinvent’ the classic nude? Artist Sophie Tea is famed for doing just that, with paintings celebrating the female form and women of all shapes and sizes. Sophie joins Krupa in the studio to discuss finding fame on social media, pushing back against the ‘ideal’ body type and trying to make women feel a little bit nicer about themselves.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Rebecca Myatt

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupa Bharti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and thank you for being with us. It was around this time yesterday during our programme that we learnt that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election for a second time. And over the past 24 hours, there's been a lot of soul-searching from Democrats and, of course, celebrations from Republican supporters. It was dubbed the gender election, where the difference in the way men and women vote

would decide the result. But abortion turned out not to be the defining factor for women's votes. We're going to discuss what did. We will hear from Women's Hour's own Nuala McGovern, who is in Washington for us, and we'll be looking at how the new government's policies might impact women in the coming months and years. We will also talk about one woman's quest to wear football joggers. You might have seen last week that Iqra Ismail was barred from

playing in a match for refusing to wear shorts due to her religious beliefs. Her experience coming up. And we're going to talk about dating red flags and in particular red flag questions. This is after the pop star Olivia Rodrigo said during an interview on Netflix that she had a red flag question when on dates. She said, I always ask them if they would go to space. If they say yes, I don't date them. I just think if you want to go to space, you're a little too full of yourself. Well, what are your red flag questions on dates, no matter how big or small? What is the question you must ask? And what about the questions that you've been asked on dates that have made you think twice about the date that

you're on? Do share your stories with us by texting the program that number is 84844 over on social media that's instagram and x we are at bbc woman's hour and of course you can email us through our website or you can now send us a whatsapp audio message using the number 03700100444 all of our terms and conditions can be found over on our website. Plus, we speak to the artist Sophie T, whose work capturing the female form has earned her over a million followers on TikTok. So let's start with the US election outcome dominating front pages around the world as people ask that question, what does a second Trump presidency mean for them and we are doing exactly the same asking what does it mean for women. We spoke to Nuala live from Washington yesterday after a

mammoth night of broadcasting for her covering the elections and she's back with us again today. Hello Nuala. Good morning. Good morning. Well rested I hope. Not feeling too bad, actually. Well, yesterday when we spoke, you said you had one key question. You wanted to know more about how women voted. That was your mission, to find out why. Are we any clearer to understanding that? Yeah, they're beginning to have quite a lot of exit polls. So taking a look at how people voted and breaking it down. And there was some this morning that I was taking a look um at how people voted and breaking it down and there was some this morning that i was taking a look at which i thought we might find interesting uh to have a

look at if we take a look at harris for men it was 42 percent for trump 55 percent for women 53 percent for harris uh 45 percent for trump but that is overall and with the United States but when you begin to break it down then you see different figures emerge for example white women Trump had a majority

there if we talk about black women instead it was 9 out of 10 voted for Harris we did see as we expected a breakdown when it came about black women instead, it was nine out of 10 voted for Harris. We did see, as we expected, a breakdown when it came to college educated. Non-college educated, 63% for Trump. This is women, 35% for Harris.

And women with a college education, 57% for Harris, 41% for Trump. But a lot of people, I think the white woman is the part that people are drilling down into because they did what they did in 2016, which was go in larger numbers for Trump than the Democrat. And I think some people thought with the issue of abortion that this time it might be different but it appears not i was just having a look at the most important issue in this vote and this is overall men and women uh but it was the economy that people voted for trump on that was 80 percent for of trump voters it was the economy 19 for democrats the state of democracy, that was 80% for the Democrats,

but 18 for Trump. And abortion, which we've talked about so often on the programme, I think this is interesting, 74% of Democrats voted for that. So it was, we'd say, 25% for Trump, 74% Democrats, but it was just 14% of the electorate that was voting. So it's already

quite a bit down. So let's see, we have economy, state of democracy, and then abortion. So with that breakdown, it just meant there weren't the numbers turning out for Harris that would have been expected. A lot of data to get our head around and no doubt the Harris team will be doing exactly the same in the coming weeks and months. We did hear from Kamala Harris speaking yesterday at Howard University. Let's take a listen to some of that speech. So let me say my heart is full today. My heart is full today, full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country, and full of resolve. The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for, but we must accept the results of this election. Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory.

I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition, and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power. Vice President Kamala Harris there. Nuala, what were the key takeaways from that speech, in your opinion? I think, you know, immediately, she didn't speak on the night. I think that's probably the first thing to underline. And lots of people kind of questioned that. One of her surrogates, Cedric Richmond, came out and said she would speak tomorrow. And then the people who had gathered to see her and support her then made their way out, some of them visibly distressed by it. That really, I think, continued as well. People would have seen it on social media, I'm sure, of really depending on who you voted for, how you reacted to that win. So eventually it came out that she would speak and people did gather,

not far from here, about less than two miles from here is Howard University. And they went to meet her. I think she was putting forward that message of don't despair. Whether people take it on board or not, I'm not sure. I think a lot of people were very upset still. To me, I started thinking about 2016. I very much remember when Hillary Clinton came out and she talked about the glass ceiling and about trying to smash it through. And she spoke to little girls in particular. That was eight years

ago now. So I was just thinking how much has moved on in that way when it comes to a woman president or being the commander in chief. I think with Kamala Harris, a lot of people, what they're saying was against her was number one, the economy and number two, the fact that she was following on from Biden, who was an unpopular incumbent and that it was almost impossible for her to make the leaps and bounds that she would need to make to take on Mr. Trump. Kind of interesting as well to think about Donald Trump, that the two people he has run against really when it came to voting day were women. Yes, interesting. And the wider outcome that Team Harris will be grappling with, I imagine, is not just losing the Electoral College, but the popular vote as well.

Yeah, you know, I was in a coffee shop yesterday and where I am in D.C., I mean, this would be very much a blue area, a Democrat area. And I could hear two people in front of me, but he won the popular vote. And I think for Democrats, they're finding that quite difficult for some. But we had a fabulous number cruncher, Lakshya Jain from Split Ticket with us throughout election night. And I bumped into him yesterday

and I was speaking to him about how did women vote, etc. And he says, some people are extrapolating, oh, you know, a lot of Latino men went for Trump or much more black men went for Trump than previously.

He's like, across the board, more people went for Trump. You know, he does have this mandate with the numbers that turned out. We can go through some of these demographics like we have. But on the whole, across America, popular vote and electoral college, he won. Thanks, Nuala. And do stay with us because we are going to turn our attention now to what a second Donald Trump presidency might look like and how it might look and feel for women as well. I'm joined now by the US Deputy

Editor for The Telegraph, Rosina Sabur, and Dr. Leslie Vingimuri, Director of the US and America's Programme at Chatham House. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Now we are going to unpick Donald Trump's policies in our conversation, but one thing I do want to put to you first is the language that we've been hearing from Donald Trump in recent weeks, especially about protecting women. Take a listen to this. My people told me about four weeks ago, I would say, no, I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women. Sir, please don't say that. Why? They said, we think it's we think it's very inappropriate for you to say.

So why? I'm president. I want to protect the women of our country. They said, sir, I just think it's inappropriate for you to say pay these guys a lot of money. Can you believe it? I said, well, I'm going to do it whether the women like it or not. Rosina, what do you make of that? Well, classic Donald Trump there expressing his frustration with his campaign advisers in public. Not the first time we've heard that from Donald Trump in the last few weeks, where's bemoaned the fact that he he's got to have some message discipline he also complained recently about the fact that he couldn't call women beautiful anymore and and actually the key architect of his winning campaign this time around

is is a woman Susie Wiles and he called her out by name and said, oh, you know, Susan Wiles, you wouldn't want me saying this. But, yeah, a rather crude attempt to appeal to women in what we did expect to be historically a race really won or lost on gender. As Nuala's pointed out, those exit polls didn't bear that out. But that was what we were expecting from this race. And Leslie, the language there, lots of people talk about it almost sounding controlling to some. I mean, clearly there are many people across the United States that have voted for Donald Trump for a multitude of reasons. And I don't actually think that the language was either a motivator of very many votes, nor did it depress very many votes. I think Donald Trump in US politics has become normalized. People have heard a lot from him over very many years, and again,

on this campaign trail. and a lot of people quite frankly tune him out um and make their decisions about what they who they ultimately think you know we separate that basket of issues the economy rising prices um immigration women's rights you know we know the the the top core issues but when people go to the polls they're not they're not kind of going i'm voting on the economy or i'm voting on women's rights, you know, we know the top core issues, but when people go to the polls, they're not kind of going, I'm voting on the economy or I'm voting on women's rights. Some of them do, but most voters are sort of looking at the basket and they're looking at the leader and sure they might rank these things for a pollster,

but there is a lot that goes into voting. And I think people were willing to disregard the rhetoric and and make a decision do who do they think is going to be the leader that represents them who do they think is going to be better for the country um who you know suits their community there's a massive rural urban divide in america joe biden was the exception right he turned out rural voters for the democrats. And what we've seen is that, you know, that's been erased. The rural voters that turned out for the Democrats have gone right back to the Republicans, to Donald Trump. So there's, you know, there are a lot of

ways in which Americans have sorted themselves geographically, culturally. But, you know, overriding in this election election a very strong majority of Americans did not feel like the country is going in the right direction and we know that the economy played a huge part in that as well yeah well let's unpick you know one more thing and I think it's really important to note it is it was a landslide election by American standards he's won the popular vote he's done extremely well in the electoral colleges He's won the popular vote. He's done extremely well in the electoral college. He's won the swing states. But 68, more than 68 million Americans voted for Kamala Harris. This is a woman, a black Asian woman, who has a very powerful presence in the

United States. And one of the most very interesting things to watch will be what does she do with that voice? When you have 90% of black women voting for you, what do you do with that voice in American politics and American society? I do want to try and unpick some of those key policies that Donald Trump is proposing, if we have the clarity on them. Rosina, let me turn to you

and talk about the economy specifically, because the exit polls, the data that we have at the moment does say that the economy was one of the most important factors for voters. That is where we will start. Let me put this to you. The US Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2023, women were nearly 70% of all minimum wage workers.

It shocked me to learn that the current minimum wage sits at just over $7 an hour. And that hasn't changed since 2009. We're hearing from Donald Trump about lower taxes, higher tariffs on imports but practically speaking Rosina what does this mean for women especially those in difficult economic situations? Yeah the economy obviously a critical issue for for every voter in this election. The minimum wage issue in particular is a difficult one because obviously, you know, 50 states, the economies of West Virginia and California are vastly different.

Having a federal national minimum wage is a difficult thing to enact. And actually, Kamala Harris was the one that put forward a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. She made that promise quite late in the campaign, actually, it was only in the last fortnight or so that she announced that policy. But Donald Trump has made his own outreach to working class voters and, you know, service industry workers in particular. He vowed to end taxes on tipped wages, which is a big outreach to women in particular who work in the service industry. You know, that's not just in restaurants, that's salons, that's nail bars, the rest of it. So this was something that the Trump campaign was very aware of.

Yeah. The other key issue, of course, was abortion, one that we thought was going to be quite pivotal, or at least analysts around the world certainly thought that way. Leslie, it certainly turned out to be less central, less pivotal than voters previously thought what do we understand about what abortion laws might look like under a Trump presidency well you know in recent first of all we know it's been devolved to the states right states now make decisions about abortion rights and there is this question of whether or not there would be a national ban, a federal ban on abortion or,

you know, in Harris's case, one protecting. Donald Trump, in the lead up to the campaign, recognized that he was, you know, losing some ground on reproductive rights, his failure to really embrace them on the abortion rights issue. And he said, you know, he started saying things like, I'm going to support IVF, you know, fertility treatments for women. I'm not going to have a national ban on abortion. I think there is a level at which Americans, obviously not all Americans, but many Americans have moved on. They recognize that abortion is a fundamental issue, but they recognize that it's been shifted to the state level. And so we saw lots of proposals for amendments,

state level constitutions. Nebraska had two amendments on the ballot. One was, you know, supporting abortion rights and one was rejecting it, but every person in the state of Nebraska voted on. So, you know, it is a very significant issue, but it has been devolved. And I think that people have, you know, grappled with how to contest and manage that issue separate from the presidency. Clearly, a majority of Americans were not, you know, singularly voting on that issue, which isn't to say that a lot of women were not. Interesting take there. Rosina, I't to say that a lot of women were not. Interesting take there.

Rosina, I want to turn to childcare now with you. The average US couple spends 30% of their income on childcare. What might Donald Trump do about affordable, high-quality childcare, in your opinion, especially for working families, but importantly for mothers? Well, the biggest thing is child tax credits it was actually Donald Trump who doubled the amount of the child tax credit during his first administration one of his biggest legislative achievements was the 2017 tax cuts that he enacted. His campaign has declined to provide specifics on his plans for increasing the child tax credits,

except to say that he would do so significantly. His running mate, J.D. Vance, now the vice president-elect, has also raised the possibility of increasing the child tax credit to about $5,000 so that more parents can stay home with their children was his way of putting it. So unclear in terms of exactly, you know, the monetary amount, but that would be a key area where Trump has promised to help families. Leslie, when it comes to immigration, Donald Trump is expected to mobilize agencies across U.S. governments to help him deport record numbers of immigrants. Do we have an understanding of what kind of an impact this might have on women?

A very negative one. It's almost inevitable, sort of across the board, when it comes to this kind of dramatic policy, war, peace, immigration, deportations, women always suffer disproportionately. sort of across the board when it comes to this kind of dramatic policy war peace immigration deportations women always suffer disproportionately whether it's um because they are you know deported whether it's because their families are separated whether it's because they lose a source of income but it tends to fall very harshly on women but you know men are going to are going to suffer very significantly but the one thing about deportations and that phenomenal promise by donald trump which is a threat to so many people is

a it's extremely hard to do this is not going to be an easy policy to actually enforce um and b you know he's got plenty of corporate leaders in his camp. They need workers. Immigrants in America provide a very important source of income. And when you remove them, you create jobs that actually many Americans don't want to fill. And that creates pressure on wages. You want to attract workers. You increase wages. That creates inflationary pressures. And Donald Trump is going to have to kind of grapple with the economic reality that America's economy depends on on the productivity of a tremendous set of immigrants. We also have, you know, an identity as an immigrant nation.

So he's managed to politicize that there is a real problem that's recognized across Democrats and Republicans, that there's a problem at the border. But if we return, so there needs to be a policy, but if we return to the nastiness, if we stay in that toxic rhetoric, if we see, God forbid, family separation, like we saw during the first Trump administration, this will have a devastating impact on families, on women,

on the economic health of immigration and on America's border nation, which is to say Mexico. Thank you for your thoughts there. Let me also bring back in Nuala McGovern. Nuala, the conversations you're having there, what do they say about the prospect of the United States ever electing a woman president? The question is being asked. I mean, I think a lot of people, coming back to the economy and some of the aspects that were being raised there in the conversation, it seems like it would have been the wrong time for Kamala Harris or any other woman to run,

basically that they were starting at well below where they should have been to try and run that race also she only had 107 days if we remember the shortest I don't know historically is it the shortest presidential campaign it's definitely the shortest in modern history there is one thing I'd like to mention, though, which, because there was also congressional races taking place for the House and the Senate, and in Delaware and Maryland, they both elected black women to the Senate, and this will be the first time in the US Senate

in which two black women will simultaneously serve together, which is shocking in one way, but positive news in another. I don't know. I mean, I think after Hillary Clinton, they were saying, you know, trying to push younger women to get into politics. And we were hearing, you know, there was no pussy hat march, for example, like there was after Donald Trump's inauguration. But there was two years or I suppose maybe two years after Hillary Clinton lost this huge influx of women

that entered politics into Congress, you know, whether it was in the House or the Senate. And you need to be, you need women in those positions to then run for the White House. So will this, I don't know, inject or be a catalyst for more women making their way into politics? I don't know.

We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. Yes. Maybe it was the wrong time this time. Thank you so much, Nuala, there for us in Washington. And my thanks also to Rosina Sabour from The Telegraph and Dr. Leslie Vingimori from Chatham House. That conversation will continue Thank you so much, Nuala, there for us in Washington. And my thanks also to Rosina Sabur from The Telegraph

and Dr. Leslie Vingimori from Chatham House. That conversation will continue for many days, weeks and months to come. Thank you also to you, our listeners, for sending in so many of your messages on red flag questions that you ask on dates or that you have been asked on dates. I will get to them shortly as well. But first, let us turn to football. We now know that more girls play football than netball that's according to new analysis from sport england however it can be a challenge to keep

women and girls in the sport as they get older with a range of barriers getting in the way and this is the concern of my next guest the footballer ikra is smile you may have seen last week that ikra who captained somalia's international team in 2019 and has worked as a coach, was barred from playing in a match for refusing to wear shorts due to her religious beliefs. The FA has since apologised. Ikra joins me now in the studio to tell me why she decided to speak out. Welcome, Ikra. Hi, thanks for having me. Tell us what happened last weekend. It was difficult. I think it was a difficult moment for me. I've been playing football since I was about eight years old. And I think this is the first time really that I was told in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't be able to play because of my religious beliefs.

Yeah. So I tried to step onto the pitch wearing tracksuit bottoms, as I have been doing in this same league for the last four, almost five years. And to my surprise, I was told by the referee that if I do not wear shorts, I will not be able to play. And obviously I told him that it was because of my religious beliefs and he said that I still wouldn't be able to play, even taking that into consideration. So, yeah, it was really difficult for me. It was really alienating.

But, you know, the response since has been really positive. Yeah. I mean, you've touched on it there, but expand on how that made you feel. It was difficult. I think, you know, I it there, but expand on how that made you feel. It was difficult. I think, you know, I've always been known to be stubborn in the best of ways. And I think, you know, I really don't want things like that to be able to put me off the game that I love. But, you know, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that it really did feel like such an isolating moment for me.

And I felt like, you know, the game can be so unforgiving sometimes. And it felt like one of those moments where, you know, you're being pushed away rather than being brought closer. You decided to draw attention to this by posting a video on social media. Why was it important for you to speak out? Yeah, I think for me, you know, I've always done my best to try and be the voice for, you know, women who look like me that want to play football. And for me, I had to be honest and I had to be genuine with myself and I had to share that experience firstly to you know allow other people to resonate with

me and allow them to you know resonate with that experience if people face a similar thing but also to shed light on the issues faced by Muslim women in football and you know make people understand that as many as many steps as we've taken forward in the game and to make it more inclusive, this really did feel like a big step back. Are you concerned about the impact this could have on young Muslim women wanting to get into the sport? Yeah, I mean, you know, the Muslim Sports Association recently did a study and I think it said something along the lines of

45% of Muslim women don't play football because they feel like it's not a safe space for them and it's not something that's inclusive and, you know, there aren't the correct venues or the correct you know sort of adaptations to clothing as we've seen in this situation for them to be able to feel comfortable to play um so it did really really feel like a situation where it's being made a little bit more difficult for us but saying that conversely the response from the Middlesex County FA and the FA has been really positive they have been really apologetic and have wanted to work with me side by side

to ensure that something like this never happens again. Let me put to you what the FA has said. As I said, they have apologised and you pointed the same out there as well. We proactively wrote to all county FAs and match officials across the women's grassroots game earlier this year to confirm that women and girls should be allowed to wear clothing that ensures their faith or religious beliefs are not compromised. We remain deeply committed to ensuring that English football

is an inclusive and welcoming environment for everybody. Do you believe that message is trickling down? I think the FA have done really well to send out as much guidance as they can. I mean, you know, football's massive in this country and there's so many leagues and so many respective county FAs and as much as they sent out their message, of course there can be incidences like this one where, you know, the respective league has not taken in that information,

has not, you know, applied it correctly. And, yeah, the FA are doing their best to rectify that and the Middlesex County FA themselves have reached out to me and I've been in conversation with their chief executive who has ensured me that she'd work alongside me to make sure this doesn't happen again. And also asked me on my advice on how to best get this information out so there isn't gaps in communication as there has been in this situation.

Michelle in Nottingham is listening at the moment. Hi, Michelle. She sent us this message and says, I fail to see how showing bare legs is an important part of playing football. What kind of a response have you had from fellow football players, people in your community, for example? Yeah, no, it's been amazing. Everybody has really been so supportive of me

and so supportive of my response and me speaking out in the situation. Of course, there are always one or two negative comments, but it has generally been very positive. I think there was even a Premier League player that reposted it, I think a player for Ipswich Town. And yeah, organisations like No Gym Sports have reached out, kick it out. Loads of people have been really supportive

and have asked me to, yeah, I guess, feedback and ensure that something like this, of course, as I said, doesn't happen again. I'll also bring you this statement from the Greater London Women's Football League who issued a statement saying it has been working with the FA to better understand the detail of the guidance regarding what women and girls can wear when playing football which ensures their faith or religious beliefs are not compromised something that you are working with various grassroots organizations to achieve as well um i want to learn more about your footballing journey how did you get into it um i've yeah i i was i was the one on the pitch i think in primary school with the boys running around chasing the football um i probably still am doing the same thing i guess to this point um you know i always

had that passion for the game my brother's a big chelsea fan as am i so that's how i got into you know my passion and watching the game and And yeah, once I felt a ball at my feet, I feel like I didn't really want to feel anything else. So now obviously I do play football and I also work in football for QPR Community Trust. Yeah. And you are very competitive as I understand it. I try my best, yeah. How have you remained determined to play? What's kept you going? Honestly, the people around me, my support system and, you know, also the women that I coach.

So my work at QPR Community Trust, I am the female refugee football project coordinator, meaning that I run football sessions for women of refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds, whether that be people that, you know, have come into the country 10 years ago or last week. So, you know, working with the women that I do, it's been really, really motivating really inspiring to yeah see their journeys and see how much they enjoy the game and yeah I take inspiration from them. Yeah tell us about the Never Underestimate Resilience Women's Football Club. Yes funnily enough I sat in this chair five years ago you know wearing my track suit so I started a football club originally called Norwomen's Football Club and then it became Hilltop and that was a club that was aimed at

getting women like me from underrepresented groups more involved in football the team does still run that even though I've stepped away from it but yeah that journey was really beautiful for me

and it's really great now to come back to Women's Hour five years later and you know and see how it's grown right of course yeah yeah and do you hope

that more Muslim women can find a space in football and what's out there for them to attain that, in your opinion? Absolutely. I think, you know, the FA's motto is football for all. And I really do want to see that, you know, come into fruition in today's game. I think this is the kind of game that can be adapted for everybody. I feel like there is spaces for everybody to take part, whether that be sessions like my own and, you know, projects run through QPR and things like that, or just booking a pitch at the local goals or Power League and having a five-a-side session with your mates.

And genuinely, from first-hand experience, I am seeing a lot more of it. I do feel like a lot of us grew up feeling like we were the only ones that were playing. You know, I was the only girl with a hijab on and a football under my arm, but it does genuinely feel so much different now. And it's lovely to say that. Have you been able to get back onto the pitch wearing your tracksuit bottoms? I have. So yeah, as of this past Sunday, I did get back onto the pitch. I did play. Both my team are really

supportive and even the opposition were passing on their respects and being really supportive of the journey that I'd went through. So yeah, didn't win the game, but I did play. Well, Ikra, thank you so much for joining us here on Women's Hour, sharing your experience. And yeah, we wish you all the very best with the next steps. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Ikra, a smile there. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Right, let's talk about red flags

because so many of you want to do exactly that. Thank you for all the messages that you have been sending in because here's the question. Do you have a first date red flag question? What would be an absolute surefire

definite no-no answer? And which answer would you receive that would mean there's going to be no second date i'm asking this because olivia rodrigo the american singer songwriter and actor is quoted as saying that if her date wants to go to space that's a question she would ask that is a red flag for her so we wanted to know do you have a red flag question do you ever use it was it effective or if you don't have one what would it be be? Joining me now is Helen Coffey, senior journalist at The Independent,

who's written her take on questions that she would ask. And also on the line is Poppy J, director and podcaster, most famously on Brown Girls Do It Too. And now the spin-off, Big Boy Energy. Welcome to you both. Hi. Helen, let me start with you. What did you think when you read Olivia Rodrigo's comment?

I mean, I think at first I was like, wow, what a niche question to ask. And is that really very fair to eliminate men based on that? And then I started thinking about it more and I was like, well, maybe not 20 years ago. But now kind of that desire to go to space is really associated with, let's face it, the sort of Elon Musk musk jeff bezos types who have made it their mission like i'm going to be the first to get commercial space travel going and with the best uh will in the world with the greatest respects i really would not want to go out with someone who even vaguely resembled either one of those men so i thought

actually maybe it's a genius thing like a very subtle question to in. Although now she's let the cat out of the bag. People are going to know they have to just lie and say, no, I don't want to go to space. Poppy, what do you make of this? I mean, you're dating for fun at the moment. You're not settling down at the moment. But do you think Olivia Rodrigo's got a point about having that red flag question? No, I love her niche question because it shows the caliber of men that she goes out with the caliber that I go out with um I do I am even though I'm um just dating and um having fun and

not necessarily looking for well definitely not looking for a relationship um there are a set number of questions that I ask guys on first dates that are like my universal flag red flag questions one is do you have any female friends or close female friends and if he doesn't i'm like i mean i say get in the bin i'll probably see them again if it's fun but there's no future there right he has no female friends then to me that says about a myriad of things number one he sees women as female objects or you know women that he can only have sexual relationships with, relations with and not see a friendship. I also being Asian, with Asian guys will absolutely first in just to scare them, will ask them what their relationship like is with their mother.

Yes. Obviously, I'm being very sort of on the nose with you guys now. I mean, I do kind of a much more subtle believe it or not, but I do ask them, well, the relationship is like their mother. If it's very, very problematic and too unhealthy, then they're going in the bin. I always ask what they don't like to eat. I don't like fussy eaters. So if they come up with a list of, oh, I don't like fish and I don't like this and I don't like that, in the back of my mind, I'm like, well, there's no second date here. And also I always ask them, maybe this is a second date question because it's a bit too deep but I ask them a bit like Helen's article when was the last time they opened up to a male friend

and last time a male friend opened up to them um and I think also this is a red flag question reserved for first slash second dates. I like to get a makeup of their friends because if their friends are all from the same class in the same world, I have no interest. They have to have an interesting group of friends from all over. And if they just have a set group of friends and it's all lads and they all have the same kind of world experience and the same worldview, then I'm sort of much less interested. That's a lot to sift through, Poppy. And we're going to break some of that down. Well, I get to go on first dates.

I do a lot. Well, look, Martha is one of our listeners and she agrees with you about food. And she says, if they had broad and varied answers to me, it tells me a lot about who they are. Are they willing to try new things? Are they worldly?

Are they open-minded? And she's talking specifically there about cheese, believe it or not. And this listener says, my red flag question is what are your thoughts on OnlyFans? So again, Poppy, going back to what you were saying about the female body, it opens up a whole conversation on how they perceive women and their bodies. And I asked this after three months and realised I was dating a misogynist.

For context, I am pro-women and they can do what they want. Thank you for your messages. Helen, your key questions that you must ask on a date. Well, I mean, they were somewhat tongue in cheek, but also I think probably do stand up under scrutiny because I just started thinking about not the big questions like, do you want kids? What is your religious view? are your politics you know these things that we we can all agree you might want fundamental agreement on but especially these days i think lots of men would identify as a feminist perhaps or would never say i'm a misogynist and yet the more you kind of delve underneath the more you're like you've got some problematic ideas there that

you're not being upfront about so just quick ways to sift them out my first one was uh do they have any cryptocurrency now that's a big difference this one threw me you've got to unpick that one for me tell me more there's a sort of a crypto guy thing going on right and it's again it's very elon musk adjacent because he loves crypto. That's one thing. If he's got some Bitcoin that he bought, you know, 10 years ago, fine. That he's never really thought about again, doesn't really know how to access it. But if you ask, and actually the next 15 minutes are spent talking about blockchain, that is possibly a crypto guy.

And that is a lot of what he will want to talk about. It's just quite indicative about a certain type of personality um which i'm probably going to get loads of hate for saying it but i found the venn diagram of that and and being quite problematic in various ways can can really overlap somewhat probably because of the online spaces that they're taking up um i also would ask what the last book they read was uh not being a snob here unless it's a really deeply problematic book that they were like I'm such a big fan but it's mainly to ascertain like do they ever read because these days a lot of men will literally say to you

oh I haven't read a book since I was a kid and this will be like a 45 year old man and I just find that absolutely like flabbergasting. I mean, audio books I'll accept, but if they just are like no literature whatsoever for me, that's a red flag. That's just a personal one. Not everyone will have that one. But hobbies matter, right?

Hobbies do matter. And having something in common matters. Yeah. And I think, I didn't include this, but I think that's a great shout. I think a man that doesn't have any extracurricular activities that they're interested in at all, that's a big red flag. If all they do is work and go to the pub

and they've got nothing else going on, not sure we're going to really get along in life. And who they choose to spend their time with. Poppy was so right in saying that. Really, you can tell a lot by a person's friends. And that's why one of mine was like, because they might not really tell you what their friends are like but asking who their kind of celebrity kind of friend crush is like if they could go for a drink with anyone for a fun night out who's famous who would it be can tell you a lot because that will tell you

who they think is sort of on their level and if if they're saying like joe rogan or something i'm again i'm sorry i'm out if that's your sort of dream well helen catherine agrees with you she says i like to ask new people who would you love to go out to dinner with and talk to you about their life and views alive or dead so she agrees with you there um here's one question i'd like to put to both you maybe. Maybe, Poppy, you want to kick off. Look, dating can make people feel really nervous when you're sat in front of someone you hardly know or sometimes you've never met. Sometimes you say really silly things, right?

Second chances, where do you stand on that? If they give a dud answer the first time round, do you follow up, Poppy? Yeah, I have a traffic light flag flag system red flags you can't come away from ambers i'll give you a chance on an amber um and obviously green flags are great um yeah i think it's like if you weigh it up if they've got like one you know when you take a driving test you've got majors majors and minors yes they've got like one major and a couple of minors you know you're just like i like you enough i'm going to give you another chance so you might throw them another question like a lifeboat and see if they latch on

yeah yeah and if they don't i mean it depends on the red flag because if the red flag is very red flaggy you're just there's no saving from that really I don't know about Helen but it's like I don't know how much you can come back but also I have to turn the mirror back on me I mean I hope I'm not giving red flag energy but there might be some things that I say that I'm that guys are like god I'm not gonna see her again so I think uh sometimes you've got to approach these things with an open mind, but it really depends on your boundaries and it really depends on what you're interested in. For instance, a cryptocurrency question.

See, Helen, I wouldn't mind because I'm quite fascinated by all of that, probably because of my job as a director where I'm looking for stories and I'm like, what are these guys and these finance bros into? Certain things like the big stuff would be a complete turnoff, you know they really thought jacob reese morg was an absolute ledge i'd you know there would be some questions it's not always about the serious stuff right let me put this one to you um a listener writes uh her red flag question would be or his can you pay for my chips i don't want to break into a fiver. Helen, what do you make of that money talk on a first date? Is that a red flag? Do you know, this is one of mine and people will

have really different opinions to me on this. But actually, a red flag for me would be in either direction. But because I'm a heterosexual woman, it normally happens a certain way around, which is a man will offer to pay. I absolutely refuse. I would say on nearly any kind of date, but especially a first date, I want to pay half. I feel very passionate about that. This is 2024. They don't, they're not paying for me because I like their property or because they necessarily earn more money than me. So if they, I don't mind someone offering, but if they are really insistent and they say, I am not going to let you pay, that for me is like, no, it's an absolute no.

And the other way around, like if I was a guy and the woman expected me to pay and was very like, you're obviously covering this. That's a red flag in that direction as well for me. I'm sorry. I should have actually finished reading that. I completely agree. Sorry, just to jump in.

I completely agree with Helen. Unless you're some billionaire and you insist on taking me out to a bar that's well beyond my means, then that's fine. But this idea, and on this podcast I host called Big Boy Energy, I have guys on and they're like, girls expect us to pay all the time. I'm like, who are these women?

Because Helen and I don't. And a guy was like, no, no, no, no, I insist on paying. I'll pay. I'm like, we can go halves on this. It's okay. I'm not going to think any less of you. But apparently there is a corner, Sorry, I'm getting ranty. There's a corner on the Internet where they're like these girls. They want us to be chivalrous and they want us to be masculine and then they want us to pay up.

I mean, I'm sure those women exist, but like I'm not seeing those women and those women are not my friends either. And I should add that this this listener who got in touch actually married this man. And so the nightmare began, she says. He plundered everything and everyone I brought into our world. two breakdowns i finally woke up which is why those red flag questions are so important i'm going to put this last one to you briefly poppy a red flag question for this listener was do you iron your jeans uh if a yes comes out that means the guy is too high maintenance for me your thoughts poppy can he iron my jeans? And then that would be, that would make that red flag into a green flag. Yeah, I have to admit,

a guy who's ironing T-shirts and shoelaces and bedsheets, if he's got more product in his wash bag than I do, it's just, and I feel that's actually quite an unfeminist statement for me to make. Because on the one hand, I'm like, I do want him to be quite clean. But yes, if he's ironing his jeans. Helen Coffey from The Independent and Poppy Jay from the podcast Brown Girls Do It Too and Big Boy Energy. Thank you so much.

Absolute pleasure speaking to you and hearing your thoughts on red flag questions. Women's bodies have long been a major theme throughout art history, from Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus to Mother and Child by Gussa Klimt. And that theme continues to run through my next guest's artwork. Sophie T is known for her nude paintings of women of all shapes and sizes, which have found fame across social media. And she joins me now in the studio. Welcome to Women's Hour, Sophie. Thank you for having me. Now, a lot of your work, as I've mentioned, captures the nude female form. Why is this so central to your work?

I think because I never had the best relationship with my own body growing up, honestly. Like I have, I don't, I have always hated my boobs. And I always thought like if I was like 14 years old and I like saw in the media, like in a magazine or in a movie, like someone with a flatter chest, then it would have just like made such a difference to how I felt about my body, like when I was young. So I think it just really stems from that, like just wanting like young people to know that they're enough.

How do you go from that insecurity to where you are now? Well, Deciding to paint, create your form in all artistic shapes and sizes. Yeah. I mean, it's a decision you have to make like all the time every day like it's not just like one thing that you finally get and you're happy um you do need that reminder and I get that with the women who become who are my muses and I paint them and yeah I mean it's not an easy journey um but it requires actually a lot of hard work and maintenance. And yeah, I just like to be able to be a person that can guide others on that journey, even though I'm not great at myself still.

When you first started out painting news, you asked your followers to send news to you to use as a reference images. What kind of a response did you get? Wow. Well, I actually woke up to over a thousand over a thousand my goodness yeah it was wild and you know what the best thing about it was like all of the pictures came with a story of why they felt it was so important to share I mean I'd been painting probably for five years before that and I um I was just honestly just blown away by how vulnerable these women were like I mean some of them were funny this one girl was like oh my god so I've never sent my boyfriend a picture of myself but here's one for you um and then yeah it was amazing and then I remember this one girl

she'd sent me like a link to a drop box and there was 150 images of her all different times and like angles and I was just like I still use those images now and I was gonna say what do you do with all this material a thousand images yeah but um I do remember this one and I always talk about this because I think it was like when I read it I was just like god like I um this lady she sent me a picture she'd had a double mastectomy and she said that her mum had passed away from breast cancer two months before and if her image could be a part of whatever was being made that would mean the world to her I don't know it just there's women everywhere going through a lot of stuff exactly and it sounds like you captured women's stories just through their photos from across the spectrum celebrating confused complex well I think that when I was

looking for reference images online like they like you know you type in naked women online like pornographic stuff is going to come up but not so much that it was I was seeing the same body type and I wanted to like see bodies like mine or like my mum's or like my sisters like and it was just this same body so I just honestly it was just great to see and have real women be so open to sharing because they all know how important it is you took that project to the next level in send news a live show earlier this year where you painted live with around 50 naked women tell us about that very it was crazy it was at the palladium um we i have these applications they're called nudie applications we had 10 000 women apply to be so we're a thousand we're now on 10 000 for a live show it's for a live show incredible

numbers yeah and then um i read through all applications. It took actually me and my team like a couple of weeks. And what I do is I paint on their naked body and the show's 90 minutes. So there's different elements to it. I do a live painting element with the choir and there's an interview section with some of the women. But the crescendo, I guess, is at the end where all the women are naked and there's this huge catwalk and they all walk down and the crowd is cheering and the energy and it's just insane like it's one of the best moments ever and yeah it's kind of it's become a thing I think I've done six shows now over the past five years and they keep growing each time. Incredible, incredible. Let's talk about your journey um you came to art with no art degree no contacts little skill you say here you are you use social media to find success yeah I've always

used social I think like well I never studied art I studied business and I came across being an artist really quite randomly like I was always good at school but like you know when your teachers are like yeah like but don't do it as a career type thing like just you know it's good that you can paint but don't pursue it but I remember um you know that like year or that like time before you get a proper job after you graduate well I went I remember I went traveling to India and I was running out of money and there was this wall and it a hostel and it had loads of graffiti on it so I just randomly asked the manager if I could like paint in return for a free stay and he said yeah and that was the first time I painted again since I was at school and I was like oh my goodness I actually need to do this with my life and then all of a sudden I decided

I was an artist I had emailed my grad scheme like hiya I've decided that I want to become a painter they were like yeah we literally don't care like we've got someone else yeah and then yeah I've just used social the whole time I think I did try the gallery route honestly I tried to pull together a portfolio but you know galleries take 50 commission like it's a huge whack and I think I just recognized very early on that the art market needed democratizing because normal people buy my work, not people that have studied art or know about it. Or like, you know, the impact of art is huge

and it can have such a positive impact to so many people. And that's what I'm trying to get to really. You don't have to be a certain type of person with money to like enjoy it, you know. What do you say to people who say, you might be pessimistic about the projects that you do and say, this isn't an artist here, here we have an influencer?

Oh, interesting. I mean, I am actually coming into this question more and more because I'm blowing up on social right now, which is funny because like, I've always used social as just the vehicle for me to connect with my audience, to be honest. And business-wise, like all the sales come through my website and drive the Instagram but I don't know I feel honestly like video creation as well is an art form like it is one of the arts so and I think the definition of

being an artist is connecting to an audience so however you decide to do that whether it's on stage whether it's a video whether it's painting whether it's sculpting like you know this and this is the problem I think with like the art world like trying to like put people in boxes or like make people define being an artist in a certain way like it's actually how you connect with people in my opinion yeah another way that you've connected with people is through the charity shop hunt series. So people who don't know much about that, tell us more. Okay, so every Friday I go to a random charity shop in the UK. Actually, last week was Bali because I was away. That was fun.

But I go in, find an object, buy it, take it away, paint on it, then take it back to the charity shop redonate it and then put it on my social media on my instagram stories honestly and just say this is my location come now and week one one person came and it took like half an hour and I was so embarrassed because like I was literally just there on my own and now it's become this like cult thing. We're on week 18. And we've been all over the UK. It's just so nice. And tell me about the things that you've painted and recreated, reinvented. Honestly, the most random things. I mean, I've done clogs.

I did a wooden dog in Bali recently. Bags, vases, a doll's house, a Monopoly board. Like, it's honestly all random stuff. And it's so funny because, you know, you know when you like meet someone for the first time, you're like, yeah, I'm an artist. And then like, all right, let's see funny because you know you know when you like meet someone for the first time you're like yeah I'm an artist and then like all right let's see you work and you click up my Instagram now it's just like all these random things I'm like no no like I am actually a proper investment grade artist just scroll down a bit pots pans and

but yeah no it's been an absolute blessing like yeah and I believe your school art teacher came along Miss Thomas yes she did yeah I went back to Chester a few weeks back which was nice and community is a big element of your work isn't it oh it's everything like it's everything like yeah yeah I yeah I'm very blessed to do what I do and and meet the people that I do and many of them you know my nudies that many of them are now my best friends like yeah it's just this whole world of we've made it's just this beautiful yeah tell us about your new show Muse at the Alternate in London okay so it's in like two weeks time I've got a lot to do but we're doing

a catwalk and the difference this time is there's a huge emphasis on tech so I'm actually I don't know whether you know what they are, but you know those like tilt brush things that you like put on the goggles and then you can like make like digital art, like through a tilt brush. Anyway, basically, so I'm going to be live painting on stage and then embellishing it with like a digital element. And there's obviously all these massive amazing screens at Alternet London. Yes.

So yeah, that will be an interesting side side to it and why are you doing this um why am i doing it i understand that there's a theme of mental health that is really important yeah um i feel like honestly just making women feel a bit nicer about themselves is very important like i whenever an audience or anyone interacts with what i'm doing whether it's the artwork or we have a gallery on carnaby street so whether it's they come in or whether it's they see a show like i just want to just have a like a small very tiny but positive impact when they walk out so i guess that's it i don't know where it comes from god you may be getting a bit deep there i don't know why i want to do that but yeah.

Well, look, you're doing some tremendous stuff. It's great to look at your feed and see what you get up to. Thank you so much, Sophie T there, the artist on her work and the focus she places on depicting the female form. Thank you to you all for sending in your questions about first date questions. There's red flag questions. What is your relationship like with your most recent ex um that question is one that our listener would put and she says that it should be civil if possible but not too close um and this one from rosemary says a red flag for me

is a man who doesn't ask me any questions about it at all and my first date question from this one says tell me about your kids um the answer i was looking for was something like, I love him, her, them. It's really sad that the mother and I aren't together, but we try to put the kids first. Thank you for all of your messages. Do keep them coming in on social media at BBC Women's Hour, where you can keep the conversation going. But for now, from myself, Krupa Bhatti and the rest of the Women's Hour team, thank you for your company. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Women's Hour team. Thank you for your company. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds.

Hi, I'm Kirsty Young and I'm happy to tell you that Young Again, my podcast for BBC Radio 4, is back with more conversations with people who fascinate me. In the new series, we'll hear from the comedian Miranda Hart. Part of being human is that we are vulnerable. The writer Irvin Welsh. It's quite a thing to be eight years old and then suddenly to have a criminal record. And we'll begin with a conversation with the actor Minnie Driver. What do you wish you'd understood about the movie business?

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