Woman's Hour - Sheila Atim, Péju Alatise, Amanda Wakeley, Emma Norton

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Anita Rani talks to Sheila Atim the award-winning British-Ugandan actor about her new film ‘The Woman King’. She plays the warrior Amenza, part of the Agojie, an all-female army who battle fearlessly against marauding European slavers to protect their empire in 19th century Dahomay, in West Africa. Her role is Lieutenant to Nanisca (AKA Viola Davis), the formidable head of that female military regiment. A year on from the Atherton Review which found women in the armed forces were being let down with a majority reporting they had suffered bullying harassment or discrimination we hear from Emma Norton from the Centre for Military Justice about what progress has been made. A new sculpture by Nigerian artist Péju Alatise, Sim & The Glass Birds, can be seen in this year's Frieze Sculpture 2022 in London's Regents Park. Sim & The Glass Birds is a four-panel life-sized sculptural composition featuring the figure of a young girl and glass birds in flight highlighting the plight of marginalised young girls and the issue of child labour in Nigeria . Peju joins Anita in the studio.Amanda Wakeley OBE is one of Britain's best-loved designers. She has three British Fashion Awards and has dressed everyone from Diana, Princess of Wales to Beyoncé but a downturn during the pandemic saw her company collapse into administration. She’s now started her own podcast called Style DNA by Amanda Wakeley. She talks to Anita about starting over again, turning 60 and her never-ending love for a good white shirt.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

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, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour. I want to talk to you about the power of dressing up, power dressing this morning. And I don't mean walking into a boardroom in massive shoulder pads and toe crushing stilettos. I'm talking about clothes that have the power to make you feel a certain way, whether that's ready to take on the world or ready to take down the boardroom. Clothes that bring you immense joy, clothes that make you feel sexy, just straight up attractive. The outfit you know you look really fit in, the revenge dress or just the mothy and cardi that makes you feel really safe.

Today we are talking about the power of the perfect outfit. I hosted the Hello Inspiration Awards this week and wore a dress with a very 60s-inspired print, not something I'd normally go for, but it brought me so much joy and put me in such a good mood. It felt like I was spreading happiness and it didn't want to take it off at the end of the day. So get in touch in the usual ways. You can text me on 84844. You can

contact us via social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email me through the website or you can WhatsApp me with a normal WhatsApp message or even a voice note. The number is 03700 100 444. The reason I'm asking is because today we have fashion designer Amanda Wakely OBE on the programme, who knows a thing or two about the power of the perfect outfit for women. Diana, Princess of Wales famously wore a green suit designed by Amanda when she announced her retirement from public life. So that we're discussing the power of outfits this morning. Get in touch. Also, top film recommendation this week, The Woman King. I highly recommend it.

Incredible movie. And if you know nothing about it, you will shortly, as I'm speaking to one of the stars, the immensely talented Sheila Atim, and Nigerian artist Peju Aletese will be talking about her new sculpture that is currently on show in Regent's Park as part of the London Freeze exhibition. And of course, I want to hear from

you, your thoughts and your opinions and your experiences. It's 84844. That is the number to text. But first, statistics out today show the number of transphobic hate crimes have increased by 56% in the last year. So a few statistics for you now. Overall, the number of transphobic hate crimes have increased by 56% in the last year. So a few statistics for you now. Overall, the number of hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales have risen by 26% to over 155,000 in the year to March 2022. That's according to Home Office figures. And more than two thirds of those, over 100,000, were racist hate crimes. Well, I'm joined now on the line by Lenny Morris, the chief are from the Home Office. They've shown that hate crimes are on the up. So what's behind the rise? Any idea?

Yeah, so well, first, it's important to say what a hate crime actually is. It's an offence that targets a person because of their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, their transgender identity or their disability. And sometimes, you know, it doesn't just fit into one of these categories. It can be, you know, if someone is targeted for more than one of these things at the same time, like if they're South Asian and Muslim or if someone is gay and transgender and they get sent both homophobic and transphobic abuse at the same time. So in terms of why there's been such a big increase, the Home Office says that it's because the police have become generally better at recording hate crimes.

So for example, when a crime is reported now, they say that the police are better able to identify that the victim was targeted for their religion or their race. But another thing to keep in mind when we hear that 26% increase figure on hate crimes, that that is obviously from March 2021 to March 2022. And that's being compared to the numbers from the previous year, March 2020 to March 2021. And now we all know that that was the year we had multiple lockdown measures in place because of the COVID pandemic. And people weren't going out, which means that overall numbers of these sorts of crimes being reported that year were a bit lower than normal. So they do say, though, that because there are such significant increases, it is also likely that there's been a real world increase in hate crime too. And it's possibly not solely down to COVID and better recording recording but it's hard to say what did these hate crimes involve do we know well the vast majority like you said uh the vast

majority of the hate crimes recorded were racist hate crimes and there were also there were over 109 000 race-related hate crimes this year um But it's also the first year ever that the number of racist hate crimes has been more than 100,000. There were also almost 9,000 religion-related hate crimes recorded, which is also the highest number since the current data series began 10 years ago. In terms of who's being targeted within that, the Muslims were the most targeted religious group, with about two fifths of religion related hate crimes targeting Muslims. And Jewish people were the second most commonly targeted.

And it was crimes against transgender people that saw the biggest rise, up to 56% from the previous year. Have the government explained why they think that might be? Yes. So like you said, there's a 56% increase. And to open that up beyond percentages, there were 2,300 recorded hate crimes against trans people in 2018. And in the last 12 months to March March there were 4,355. Hate crime reports against lesbian, gay and bisexual people also saw a 41% increase in the last year to around 26,000. So the bulk of these were public order offences, that is, you know, verbal or physical threats and intimidation, followed by stalking

and harassment. And so in its analysis, the Home Office says that, you know, some of the factors that could have contributed to this increase, or this reported increase, as well as improvements in the recording of crime, you know, and also the covid issue uh they say that for trans identity the increase was much higher than previous years possibly because um issues related to trans people have been heavily discussed on social media over the last year okay she said thank you very much for that i'm going to bring in lenny Morris, who is the chief exec of the LGBTQ plus charity Gallup. Lenny, why do you think we've seen such a rise? So I'm going to disagree a little bit with the narrative that we've just heard.

So Gallup works with thousands of LGBT plus people who experience abuse and violence every year. And we run the National LGBT plus hate crime helpline. should anyone listening to this need to reach out to support i'd say to go there and in the last six months alone we've seen a 19 increase in demand for our hate crime services so what we are seeing in real time we know that from the government's own research we know that 90 of anti-lGBT plus hate crimes doesn't get reported. So the 30,000 plus incidents you are seeing in this report that came out yesterday is only representing about 10% of the reality of what our community is going through. You know, if you think about the escalation of unregulated, unchallenged transphobic narratives in the media, in public life,

as well as on social media. With any minoritized group, where there is a permitted, consistent public narrative that is hateful towards that minoritized group, you see a direct line from those words through to abuse and violence against that community. And I believe that's what we're seeing here. It's not just that, though. You know, if you look at the way that some of the reporting around things like monkeypox have been reported against GBT plus men in a very homophobic way. If you look at the way some people reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic, equating it with the AIDS pandemic in the 80s and 90s, and seeing attacks that result against our community there, the online attacks that happened as part of Operation Pride 4, it's been a couple of years where the community as a whole has been far more visible. And wherever we are more visible, there are higher levels of abuse and violence against our community. And that is particularly bad over the last several years

for the trans and non-binary community. And as you mentioned at Gallup, you work directly with people who've experienced hate crime. So what sorts of things are people sharing with you? What's happening? So there is often a narrative around hate crime. A, that the be-all and and end all is getting it reported. We don't talk about the incredibly low prosecution rates that we have, particularly for LGBT plus hate crimes when they are reported.

But we also sort of there is sort of this narrative that increasing hate crime is just people reporting mean tweets and people saying nasty things to each other whereas what we see um in a really real way is very um long-term effects of abuse and violence against our community so we're seeing physical abuse we are seeing people needing to be hospitalized we are seeing sexual violence we are seeing people being blackmailed we're seeing people being doxxed so that's where all of your personal information is found published online against your will as if she decided we're seeing stalking we are seeing really extreme levels of abuse and violence um as a result of of people's anti-lgbt plus prejudice and it is a minority of people in this country um but i think that the permissiveness around that abuse and violence is growing culturally and i think that we need to wrestle as a society

with what that narrative is doing to real people every day that these figures represent. Can we dig into a bit of the intersectionality of this too? So it's not if you are transgender and you also maybe have a disability, religion, sexual orientation, race, how does it all play and give us a bit more of a breakdown? So I think that it's interesting so i think that one of the things that um this country is not doing well enough yet in leading the way around protecting specifically lgbt plus identities is that we have a disparity in law so um in terms of hate crimes if you are if there is a hate crime

committed against you because of your race or religion and it is defined as a race or religion hate crime, that is seen as an aggravated crime that has an uplifted sentencing of two years. Whereas if it's an LGBT plus crime or an anti-disability crime, it's only six months. So even in the eyes of the law, minoritised groups are not equal and the abuse of violence laid towards those individual groups is not seen as equal. And I think that is something that we need to address in order to send a signal that says actually abuse and violence against any minoritised community and those who are from multiple is equally bad and equally frowned on and something that will be dealt with by our society. Now, this whole item is about the increase in number of hate crimes that are being reported, and the Home Office suggests it's down to better recording by the police,

and fewer being recorded under COVID restrictions before that. What do you think? So I would say for the LGBT plus community, what's happened in the last couple of years is, you know, we've had the outcome of the Stephen Port inquiry that showed structural homophobia in the police in the way that was dealt with. We've had a couple of high profile incidents around homophobia and transphobia for the police. And we know from our own research that individuals within our community, when they interact with the police, not everyone, I'm not saying it's everybody, but like there is, there

is a consistent narrative around homophobic transphobic responses to people when they when they try to engage with the criminal justice system so i think it's very unlikely that with that as a background what you're seeing here uh is an increase in trust um you know i would say uh noticeably from these figures um obviously race-related hate crime is always the biggest number um you will notice that that's the only one that's not disproportionately high over the whole. But I wouldn't say that that is probably because there's higher trust from communities of colour in the police. I think what we're seeing, particularly for our community, is a real-time actual rise. And that's reflected, obviously, in our services.

Brilliant. Lenny, thank you very much for joining me to talk about that this morning. Your own experiences, please. Have you experienced a hate crime? And has it come out of the blue for you? What do you feel about this? 84844 is the number to text. scourge on communities across the country. It does not reflect the values of modern Britain. Whilst the rise in cases is likely to be largely driven by improvements in police recording, these can be serious crimes such as assault and we cannot be complacent. We expect the police to fully investigate these hateful attacks and make sure the cowards who commit them feel the full force of the law. Like I said, 84844 is the number to text. Now, Sheila Atim is not only an award-winning British-Ugandan actor, but a musician, writer, singer and composer who is fast becoming a famous face around the world. In her new film, brilliant film, The Woman King,

she plays the warrior Amenza, part of the Agoge, an all-female army who battle fearlessly against marauding European slavers to protect their empire in 19th century Dahomey, West Africa, which is now Benin. Now, more recently, you may have seen Sheila in the series about slavery in America, The Underground Railroad. And last summer, she appeared in a West End revival of Nick Payne's quantum physics rom-com Constellations, for which she won an olivier no less her second olivier i may add but now as a she is spiritual advisor to the king and long-standing lieutenant in aniska played by the amazing viola davis the formidable head of the female military regiment she acts she sings

she's got a biomedical degree that's a triple threat. Sheila, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you. Good morning. Morning. I mean, incredible movie. Congratulations. I was full of emotion from beginning to end. It's uplifting, it's inspiring, as well as thought-provoking and at times deeply painful. As I mentioned, you play Warrior Amensa, who along with Ogozi, played by the brilliant Lashana Lynch, are the deputies to Viola Davis's character.

And you're all part of the Ogoji tribe. I think we should start by explaining to the audience who the Ogoji tribe were. So they were an all-female warrior unit in 1800s Benin, Dahomey. And they were the king's guard. They were the fiercest warriors in Africa at the time and they served to protect their king, protect their kingdom, and protect each other. They were often young girls who had been cast out from society. They were deemed unwanted, unmarriable, you know, not sort of fit for other women's duties. And so, yeah, they had a choice to, as you see in the trailer,

a meniscus as you fight or you die. And it's a story we have never seen on screen before. So when you got the script, what was your first reaction? Well, I knew I wanted to do it because I'd heard about the project before. So I'd heard that it was being made. I heard that Viola was cast. I heard that Tusa Mbedu was

also cast and she was the wonderful lead in the Underground Railroad um so when they asked me if I wanted to audition I was like well I want to be a part of it in some way uh it's just about figuring out how did you have to audition did you have to audition I did but you know you had these sort of technicalities I I had to audition not everybody did but I had to audition but the the wonderful thing was that the editor of Bruised a film that I did for Netflix starring and directed by Halle Berry was edited by the wonderful Terrilyn Shropshire who also edited The Woman King so she was the one who kind of suggested me to gina prince by the director for the role and hallie was actually kind enough to release some of the footage um as part of their

pitch to me to sony to say that we really want this girl to play the role and the film bruised hadn't come out yet so yeah there was a bit of a process of kind of getting everyone on board but it was very quick i found out within a couple of days that i was in the fold i mean what but when you heard that this is a story that's going to get made oh and also you know you just got viola davis's name attached to it i mean exactly i was going to say these films don't come around very often these films don't come around. This is it. Full stop. Full stop. I mean, there were so many elements. Viola, Gina, the story, Tussauds, the time as well. I think the timing, you know, everything is in its time, I believe. And we were coming out of a pandemic.

I'd just finished doing Constellations in the West End, as you mentioned earlier, and that was one of the first shows to reopen the West End in the COVID pandemic. So it felt like a really kind of tentatively ambitious time to be making things again and doing so with the full force of production in a way that the pandemic hadn't necessarily allowed people to do for two years. So it felt right.

It was like, OK, this is a great way to end this year and start the next one. Let's play a clip from the film. Have a listen. I am Amenza. You come to the palace of Gezu, the ninth monarch of the Dahomey people, descendants of the leopard Agassu, beloved of the twin gods Mawu and her brother Lyssa, you are called to join the Kingsguard.

We fight or we die. We fight for the home, for our sisters, for our great king. You will be revered. Oh, shivers, shivers. And when you all watch it, you will know exactly what I'm talking about.

So you have this very, you are a tribe of warrior women, you are hard as nails. And your character is a spiritual advisor, as well as, you know, the right hand woman of Nanishka, the warrior leader. You are soldiers, but also you are women. And we see sisterhood and we see a relationship that we don't see between women ever on screen. Yeah, that was fundamental to the telling of this story. I think all of us knew that even before we discussed it, we were all jumping at the chance to create a story that had these 360 characters these 360 women as you say it's not always something that you get um in a project we're often turned into an ideal um or you know a very sort of unfleshed out version of what we could be our backstories don't matter um we're fulfilling a particular gaze so

to know that we would have the chance to explore all of that that we wouldn't just be devices in someone else's story but that we would all have our own stories within this larger story um was just extremely exciting and you know we we formed that bond in real life as well um so yeah it's been a real joy not just to work with these other women but to also do the press tour with these women to to discuss the project with them to hear their opinions and their reflections and to share ideas and and also to just see them dressed up in nice clothes you know I mean I was just going to say that I'm clinginginging on to the entire press tour because it's great to hear you all talking together,

but also to see what you're all wearing because you look incredible and to see you all out there doing that. Let's talk about the physicality of this film because you are warriors. Like I say, you're hard as anything. How much training went into it? Lots.

We trained before we started the project we trained during the shoot um we trained every day we did an hour and a half of physical training with our personal trainer gabby mcclain um and then we would do maybe two and a half to three hours of stunts with the stunt coordinator, Danny Hernandez. And that was pretty much standard. So, yeah, you were sore for five months, if not more. But it was necessary. And it was, you know, Gina had set us the challenge and said, I want you to do your own stunts. She's she's a real advocate of women on screen being athletic. She was an athlete herself. And she really wanted us to, you know,

display physical prowess as much as possible. And you can just shoot it differently. You can just capture all of the action. You are powerful in it and it is very powerful to watch. Viola Davis said producing the film that stars three black women to get the financial backing for it was very difficult. How does it feel for you to be making cinematic history? It feels brilliant because I still don't know what the ramifications

of that will be, but I have high hopes for it. And I've now seen, now that we've done the press tour, I've now seen up close the responses from people, how it's affected them personally. You know, I've seen little girls dressed up as a goji ear before they've even seen the film. That's because the costumes are amazing. They're incredible.

They're incredible. Gosha Phillips did a brilliant job um as our costume designer um yeah it's just it you know the things that people have said even before the film was out just again the knowledge of this film existing what that meant to people so huge and so seismic and so much bigger than me or any of us as individuals who were involved in making this project um and i feel like that's you know if you're able to do that whilst also doing a job you love um and a job that is fun when it's not extremely difficult uh then it's a win-win really yeah it's incredible and we like you say watch this space to see the real ripple effect of it

i have to say you excel doing the job you love sheila i've had a the only the first time i had a spiritual experience in the theater was watching you uh sing on stage in girl from the old country that you won an olivier for and i just couldn't stop crying i know there are another lots of films coming out soon all dirt dirt roads taste of salt which follows a tennessee woman from youth to old age you've been in disney's I know there are lots of films coming out soon, All Dirt Road's Taste of Salt, which follows a Tennessee woman from youth to old age. You've been in Disney's live-action Pinocchio and you're in the Marvel film Doctor Strange

in the Multiverse of Madness. What about your next role? Are we going to see you on screen or on stage? Oh, gosh, who knows? Who knows? I don't know yet, so we'll see. I like to be surprised. I like to keep the options open. I always say, you know, between myself and my agents, like, let's never second

guess anything. We obviously have an idea of the direction that we'd like to be headed in, but sometimes something drops in your inbox and it takes you by surprise and you just want to say yes immediately. Constellations was definitely like that, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. So, yeah, I never try and preempt what's going to happen, but I do like to plan. I've started writing as well. So maybe it will be something that I've created. Well, we look forward to it. Come back and talk to us. And it is an incredible film. Don't just take my word for it we've had someone message in saying I just want to congratulate

all the actors and writers producers on The Woman King absolutely brilliant film in every way I hardly slept the night I saw it from the adrenaline I felt whilst watching all power to black women

everywhere FYI I'm not black Sheila Atim thank you so much for speaking to us this morning now you may remember our coverage of the Atherton Review by the House of Commons Defence Committee last year, which found evidence of sexual assault,

bullying, harassment and the lack of mental health services for women in the armed services. The government accepted the majority of the findings and agreed to a review this year to check on what progress has been made in bringing about change. The Defence Committee is asking servicewomen to come forward with evidence as part of that follow-up and plans to report back on its findings in November. Well, earlier this morning, I spoke to Emma Norton from the Centre of Military Justice, and I began by asking her to remind us of the findings in last year's report. It was really, really shocking. And I think MPs and government and the Ministry of Defence were very, very shocked by some of the testimony that they heard.

4,000 women gave evidence to it. There was a lot of information, evidence not only just about things like ill-fitting body armour, health issues. It went right the way through to really serious, pernicious sexual harassment and sexual offending, including very serious sexual offences. And a lot of women gave evidence that the systems that are in place to help them achieve justice or some sort of accountability or to bring complaints or to formally report them to the military police were just not working effectively. And they felt that they hadn't had justice.

And then what you also saw was the consequences for those women that had been most seriously affected was that they lost their careers and that perpetrators were still serving in the forces. Right. So really, really shocking things were found, as I said, in the beginning of this. 64% of veterans, 58% of female currently serving experience bullying, harassment, discrimination. They found that sexual discrimination is gendered. Lack of faith in the complaint system, like you've just said. Really shocking statistic that rape case convictions within the military, four to six times lower than in civilian courts. Yes. And that doesn't seem to have changed.

While the last year's statistics on rape at court-martial have improved, it's really important to acknowledge that, they are still far, far below the outcomes in the civil system, which are already, as you know, very bad. So it really is, they are getting really rock-bottom justice in the military justice system. And one of the most powerful recommendations of the Atherton Review was that serious sexual offences like rape, sexual assault by penetration, but also child abuse, domestic abuse offences must be taken away from the military justice system and should be sent to the civil justice system. And that follows a series of similar reviews and findings

from independent judges. And the Ministry of Defence rejected that very quickly, as they have consistently rejected it. And I doubt very much that their position on that is going to change. And the other really important thing that came out of the Atherton review was the need to take serious service complaints, those are the internal grievance processes that deal with bullying, harassment, discrimination, a disproportionate number of which of course affect women, take them away from the services themselves, put them in a central defence authority. Now this again is something that has been recommended year on year by lots of different independent reviewers. And again, they have not done it. What they've done, they have made some improvements and there is a lot of work going on I really want to acknowledge that but it is not it's on their own terms they will not give that that level that that that quality of independence that external advisors have

repeatedly advised them to do do we know why well you have to speculate and it will be really interesting to know what they say about it I mean they always come up with some sort of fudge answer about well we have an have an independent ombudsman, but if you know anything about the system, you know that the ombudsman only gets involved right at the end of the process, by which point the damage has been done. I think there is a real concern about the level and the level of the problem. There's a failure to appreciate just how difficult and complex it is and the impact that it has on individual women's lives and careers. And taking it away from the single services, taking those complaints away

from the single services would engender a huge amount of faith and trust, would mean more women would come forward and make complaints, because we know the majority don't even bother to make a complaint because they think there's no point. And that would then trickle down. It would then have consequences for people and would bring about more widespread change. OK, so things that they haven't done, which may take a lot longer. And like one of the things that did come out of the Atherton review was the lack of faith in the complaint system. So women aren't even coming forward to make the complaints. But what changes have been brought about? Well, there's a huge amount of work going on at a very high level in the MOD.

So they have agreed, because there was so much criticism and public concern about the refusal to hand rape cases over to the civilian system, they said, OK, what we're going to do is we're going to improve military policing. So what they've done is important, and it is, I'm sure, going to improve military policing, and that's got to be acknowledged. They're going to create an integrated called a Defence Serious Crime Unit. It's not bedded in yet, it's not active yet, so we've got no way of knowing how effective it's going to be and critical to that is going to be ensuring there is a very significant amount of civilian involvement in it because that, when it was recommended by two independent judges to be set up it was on condition that there would be important levels of civilian input and we have

no idea if that aspect of it has been accepted. So take us through some of the experiences that women have faced during their time in service how were they treated let's hear about the things that you are listening to. Well we gave evidence to the original inquiry and we supported a number of our clients to give evidence through us to the inquiry. The kinds of things they're describing are really serious sexual assaults on units by colleagues or by fellow service personnel. That once they make that report to the military police, there is in every case that I've seen really serious concerns about the quality of those investigations, so really basic failures in investigative processes. There have been serious concerns about the quality

of the prosecutorial decision making. And these concerns that the women have raised with us have been reflected in all of these independent reviews of what's been going on then what women are describing are consequences for them inside their units within their chains of command for having reported those kinds of offenses and that might range from quite deliberate hostility to just a complete failure to understand what it is like to have survived a sexual assault, complete ignorance on some parts. And those women are then left to their own devices. And the other thing I would say is there is in every single case that we have seen a total failure to understand, apply, or even

be aware of the policy on what commanding officers are supposed to do when somebody in their unit has reported being a victim of a sexual assault. Complete ignorance of it. So that is changing because I think partly because these women are coming forward and basically banging on about it. But again, the burden is always on the women to make these changes and to carry them through. And it's a huge burden. And you still need women to come forward. What can we read into that?

Well, exactly. And one of the things that concerns me and a lot of other people is that service women are not allowed to speak to Parliament unless they go and get consent from the Ministry of Defence, which of course is the very institution they would like to criticise. They have to go and get that consent first. Now, the original Atherton inquiry got consent from the Secretary of State for Defence for women to give evidence directly in writing only. It's really important to make that clear. They weren't allowed to speak to them, but in writing only, and they did. Now, we don't know if that concession continues to apply. And service women, service men and women, they generally follow orders.

They don't break policy. They don't like to do that. And so it's really, really important that they have that reassurance that they can come forward, that people, that Parliament really does want to hear from them, that there won't be repercussions. Obviously, there are independent charities like ours, and there are other organisations like Forward Assist and Aurora New Dawn, and they may also be able to help women give evidence if that's useful. General Sinek Carter, who was the head of the armed forces, he said that they need to encourage a laddish culture to get young men and women to fight on the front line. What do you think about that? It's so disappointing that somebody who's been in post for so long and with such authority said something like that. And to be fair to him, he did resile them very, very badly and don't support them

to bring about changes to improve the forces, that is what is compromising operational effectiveness. And you see this time and time again, when people like me, when Sarah Atherton, when other people were raising these concerns, in some quarters, it's dismissed as wokery, it's dismissed as, you know, well, diversity and inclusion, roll the eyes, all of that kind of stuff. And it's really, really important to show leadership on this because it's absolutely, as they said, as the Ministry of Defence admitted, it is mission critical. So what recommendations would you like to see from the government? Well, it feels a bit like Groundhog Day because people are making these recommendations over and over again. I mean, I do want to emphasise that they are doing a lot internally.

Cultural change takes a long time to bed in. It will be really interesting and important over the next couple of years to see how it all further beds in. I still think, and many people still think, civil courts are the best way to go for cases of rape and serious sexual assault you have got to take serious sexual sexual harassment complaints and bullying and discrimination away from the services themselves do what review after review has recommended and take them away and put them in a central defense authority but for the change that change to take place i mean you need um service personnel to come forward women to come forward and basically explain and talk about their experience of what's been happening, particularly in the last year. So that's what this is about. We want to encourage women who might be listening today who may have a relative or a friend who is serving to encourage them to come forward to talk about their experience.

Yeah, absolutely. And this is a huge opportunity. Thank you to Women's Alpha doing this because there's been so little publicity around this. So this is a really, really good opportunity to get that message out. And if those women don't feel that they can come forward themselves, you can do it through a friend.

You can do it through a colleague. You can do it anonymously. You can contact us. So I think it's really, really important to encourage people to come forward. Yes, please. But it's a very small window they've got. I think the closing date is next Friday.

So they've got a week. They've got a week. How encouraged are you by the fact that Sarah Atherton, who brought about the report, the review last year, is now a minister who's sitting across it all? That is very encouraging. She's a minister for veterans. there are here we haven't really talked about that today but there are huge issues with veteran care for women for female veterans

and charities like ford assist are doing amazing work on that um and it will be really really important that sarah atherton now has oversight of that um i hope she won't feel compromised now that she's in government because she's obviously been very very critical through the through this review um and now she's in government she may have some very difficult questions to answer in terms of what's your position now on how rape cases should be handled what's your position now and how serious sexual harassment cases should be handled um but uh there's no doubt that she's very very committed to these issues she understands it and she gets it so it'll be very interesting to see what happens.

And we have a statement from the Ministry of Defence and they said, we've made very positive progress in delivering change and we're absolutely determined to keep improving the experiences of women in our armed forces. The House of Commons Defence Committee will hold an evidence session in order to assess the government's progress

on the recommendations of women in the Armed Forces Inquiry Report that was published in 2021. We're encouraging serving personnel and civil servants to submit written evidence to the inquiry to inform the session and support our continued efforts to maintain momentum and keep delivering improvement for our women in the armed forces. Well, we'll be following this story and hope to speak to the Defence Minister, Sarah Atherton, in the next few weeks. And a reminder, the deadline for getting in touch with the Defence Committee is October the 17th. Now, so many of you are getting in touch with your power outfits. Michelle emailed in to say, I have a lot of outfits that are perfect for the particular occasion, whether it be dinner,

work, shopping, lunch. I don't feel fully dressed, confident, and the outfit completes. Unless, she says, I am wearing a hat. From the flat cap, the trilby, the fedora, the cloche, or the country hunter. I will have one that is perfect. And someone else says, I'm feeling powerful in my Dickies overalls that I bought for learning to weld. Robust, utilitarian, flattering. I feel sexy in them. I'm ready to take on anything,

says Sue in Coventry. Well, we're talking about the power of clothes because my next guest, Amanda Wakeley, OBE, is one of Britain's best-loved designers. She has three British Fashion Awards and has dressed everyone from Diana, Princess of Wales and Beyonce. She launched her Amanda Wakeley label in 1990 and won legions of fans with her clean glam style. However, in 2021, the pandemic caused a downturn in the business and the company went into administration. But this woman knows a thing or two about comebacks and has now started her own podcast called Style DNA by Amanda Wakeley. And she joins me now to talk about everything, including starting over again at 60. You look incredible, Amanda.

Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you so much, Anita. It's always such a pleasure to be here. I have to start because I know that if I was listening, I'd want to know what you were wearing. So I've got to tell everybody. Amanda looks gorgeous. She's got very happy to announce wide leg black jeans. Hooray for skinny jeans being over.

High waisted. High waisted and a beautiful what looks like a cashmere black jumper. So my first question is, what is it with all fashion designers putting everyone else in colour and always wearing black themselves? Oh, for me, I mean, you're going to laugh at this. I feel like I'm wearing a lot of colour anyhow because I've got quite a lot of hair. You do have beautiful blonde hair, yes, long blonde hair. And for me, it's just very easy. Although I have to say the older I get, the more I do love a white shirt,

looking at you in your gorgeous white shirt. It was a stress having to get dressed for knowing I was interviewing you. I must admit that. Oh, stop it. Now, if people are wondering where they've seen your clothes before, I'm going to do a bit of name dropping. Diana, Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle, Beyonce, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, Naomi Harris. My God, the list goes on.

How did it feel to have dressed those people? It's always amazing to have the endorsement of those globally famous, beautiful women. But I have to say, one of the most rewarding parts of my career was always working with women in the store, watching how clothes can really transform you. You know, watching women coming out of the dressing room, actually walking an inch taller and their shoulders back and a little bit of a wiggle and really owning that look. And by the same token, if they weren't, I'd send them right back in and say, OK, that doesn't work. Let's try something else. And I think that's the for me, that's the fundamental part about getting dressed. How do you feel in it? I don't care what anyone else thinks. How do you feel?

And just, I loved hearing those quotes that you read out just then about how these women, whether they were in their Dickies overalls or their power suits and the hats, felt amazing. Yay. And there's so many messages coming in. Joe, who's 50 in Karsholten says, my go-to is a jumpsuit,

something you can walk, move, dance and run in. And she says also karate kicks. Hallelujah. Love that. We've got to talk about your relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales. She catapulted your career into the stratosphere. In fact, you designed tailored suit skirts and other items that

she was famous for wearing in the 90s. She was wearing one of your dark green suits when she announced that she was retiring from public life. How important was that relationship? It was an incredibly important relationship. I have to say I had no idea when we delivered the suit that she would be retiring from public life in it or that I would get credited for it. So that was an amazing sort of catapulting onto the global stage. But at the end of the day, she was just a really fun, self-deprecating, humorous, fun-loving woman.

Who knew the power of dressing. Who really, really knew the power of dressing. And I think that evolved over the years. She clearly was sort of thrown in at the deep end when, you know, she was very young when she married the Prince of Wales. But she quickly found her style with the help of the late, great deputy editor of Vogue, Anna Harvey, who was the woman that was responsible for introducing the two of us. She said, you know, I think Diana would really enjoy your company and I think your style is perfect for her. So thank you, Anna, wherever you are.

How did you react when she said that? Oh, I was so touched that so early on in my career to have the deputy editor of Vogue make such an important introduction. It was, you know, that was a very, very special moment. Talking of the power of dressing, this week Liz Truss has been accused of wearing the same red dress as a fictional TV dictator for her conference speech. It's not the first time fashion has caused a stir for female prime ministers. As some of you might remember, back in 2016, Theresa May wore a pair of leather trousers for a magazine shoot, which created a political storm, bizarrely, called Trousergate. They were

your trousers, your leather trousers, Amanda. I thought she looked great. Guilty. I thought she looked fantastic. She really owned the look. She had a big oversized cashmere sweater with it. And I just thought, good on you. You look fantastic. I hope you enjoy your weekends away from, you know, away from Downing Street for a moment, wearing something as glamorous and as gorgeous as that. I'm really glad we've got you in and we're talking about fashion because I've often said that if men can talk about football in the way that it's taken us so seriously in this country, then fashion is equally as serious and it's political. It's the psychology behind dressing that really inspired my podcast. Everyone has an opinion on what they're wearing, why they're wearing it.

Even if they don't really love clothes or fashion, they still have an opinion on it. And that's fascinating, the lives behind the looks. Yes, I'm just thinking about people who even don't have an opinion on it still. You have to make a decision regardless. You do, unless you're a nudist. Everyone is making a decision in the morning, whether it's jeans and T-shirts or it's full-on power dressing. That's the Woman's Hour quote for the day.

Brilliant. Now, let's talk about you as an entrepreneur, as a businesswoman, because the pandemic hit so many businesses hard. Talk about what the impact of the collapse of the Amanda Wakeley brand had on you. Oh, it was, you know, it wasn't an easy moment. You know, I can't lie. But out of hard times come silver linings, I always say. And so I did take a moment.

I'd worked incredibly hard. I was about to say, yes, I've worked incredibly hard. I was going to use an Anita Rani saying that. I don't know what you mean. Exactly. No, I'd worked incredibly hard for 30 years and I was exhausted. And I thought, OK, I'm going to take a moment and think about what am I going to do for, as I call it, the second half of my adult life in a very positive way. And I was lucky enough to be able to take a little bit of time and think about that clean sheet of paper and what that meant to me. How would I like the

rest of my working life to look? And when you first look at that sheet of paper, it's quite intimidating. And then you start to populate it with all these things that you could do. And so now I'm having this incredibly exciting journey, starting with a podcast, but with so many fantastic conversations about collaborations, licensing the brand. There are so many possibilities. I'm writing and I love writing. So this is a really exciting chapter for me. I love what you just said, the second bit of your life. The second half of my adult life. Love it. Because you've just turned 60, you look incredible. Thanks

Anita. Sorry, I know. Sorry. But you look amazing. I think it should be celebrated. You're open about it. Yeah, no, I mean, you know what it's like in a public eye, you can't hide your age. And so I feel somewhere in my 30s. I hope I always do. I look after myself. But life is a lottery. You never know. So it's about living each day to the full. Absolutely. And I mean, we're talking about fashion. Fashion is the biggest earner for the creative economy in this country. It was worth 26 billion. It is huge. And so it always slightly saddens me when it gets slightly sidelined as frivolous. It's not.

It's a massive employer. We've got the best designers in the world. And that's, you know, you can see that because they get snapped up by the major luxury brands in Paris and Milan. You know, we educate our designers brilliantly here. And so it's something to be really proud of and really celebrate it. Absolutely. Amanda, it's been such a pleasure to speak to you. And we will be tuning in to your podcast, Style DNA, by Amanda Wakeley. Thank you so much for joining me on Woman's Hour.

Thank you. Such a pleasure to be here. So many of you are getting in touch with your own style, powerful dresses. Someone said here, Sabrina says, it's my birthday today. I've been given a Star Wars T-shirt from my seven-year-old daughter. And Star Wars and Japanese food are the two loves of my family. She's also got a ramen T-shirt from her 10-year-old daughter. She says, I know I will love these T-shirts as long as they last

and bring a smile to my face every time I wear them. Someone else has said, I'm texting him regarding the power outfits of today's show. I'm a shoemaker and personally feel as though my choice of footwear alters my mindset. Yes, I agree. Footwear does. On to my next guest.

A new sculpture by Nigerian artist Peju Alatishe, Sim and the Glassbirds, can be seen in this year's Freeze Sculpture 2022 in London's Regent's Park. It's a four panel life-size sculptural composition featuring the figure of a young girl and glass birds in flight, highlighting the plight of marginalised young girls and the issue of childhood labor in nigeria well i'm delighted to say that pedu is in the studio to tell me more welcome to woman's hour thank you for having me it's our pleasure i'm gonna say first of all you look fantastic i suppose how do you feel in your outfit just talking about that you're feeling good i'm feeling good feeling warm yeah it's quite warm we've got the heating on that's why um regents park yeah how does that feel i mean it's an amazing feeling um for every artist that there would be places you would dream to have your work shown regents park will be one of that describe the work i mean i did a job there try to do it but i'm going to get the artists to describe it themselves. And we will put a picture up on our website so that everyone can see it.

So it's an installation of four large panels, about 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres on sandstone bases. And in each frame you have, there's a girl, there's a sculpture, like stone sculpture, stone cast sculpture of little girl uh trying to talk to birds or there's a communication between her and these glass birds but amongst the four sculptures uh there's a particular one that is yellow it's like a really bright shiny yellow and um there are two girls in this particular sculpture um and when you look at them when they're aligned you sort of see in a perspective the girls coming at you and it looks like this chaotic um string of birds all just coming at you it's really really nice to to look at i have to say um yes yes where did the idea come from for it i i'd written this book called flying girls and uh the book is about

a girl child called sim nine year old and um she she she lives as a domestic servant in her real life but she has a parallel life when she goes to sleep she wakes up in a world of magic and uh the world of magic inspired by uh Yoruba folklore and mythology and she in this world of magic she can fly she she does amazing stuff so in this particular work she becomes friends with a girl in her dreams called Emiogo and Emiogo is one of her dearest friends who loves her and teaches her a lot about herself teaches her how to fly and in one of the frames you'll see Emiogo. And in the subsequent frames, Emiogo disappears. And the whole thing is about trying to find her friend. And she's using these birds to send word to her friends because in Yoruba mythology, birds are used to carry messages.

So she's making these birds and trying to, sending them out to look for her friend. This is incredible. So now when I'm standing in front of it at Regent's Park looking at it I will know exactly what is being said. Now your installations and your writing often concern themselves with issues of child labour, child marriages and basically the plight generally of marginalised young girls. Yes. How big a problem is this in Nigeria? It is a problem. It's really difficult to see young girls like disposable napkins.

That's how it feels. The first time we had the Boko Haram incident when girls were kidnapped. Girls had been kidnapped before then. There was the news that 90-something girls had been kidnapped and nobody batted an eyelid. It wasn't... It wasn't... call for concern for anyone. It was no big deal.

Until 234, you know, and people started to scream, like, you can't pretend this isn't happening, you know and people started to scream like you can't you can't pretend this isn't happening you know and there was a time when they tried to make it a propaganda it really didn't happen but girls started to escape and find their way back home and tell the story you know so it was important to be able to say that this is what's happening there was another time we had a senator who tried to tamper with the uh one of the laws that pertains to what age one can denounce their citizenship but he tried to like put in a little clause that would allow girls to be married at any age you know and for me that was alarms

going off because it does happen traditionally so in customary law you can have a 10 year old bride you can have a 13 year old bride you know and for this man to come out and say if a girl is married she's become a full age you can't say a nine-year-old is a woman she's not so for me the minute girls are exposed in that sense they're open for any kind of exploitation and in what way do you hope that your work will make a difference oh that's the thing sometimes I feel like a hypocrite right because I feel like my work isn't talking to the people that need to see it, you know, sometimes. And then other times I feel like there is that, what you call that, there's that energy that ripples out and somehow I get heard, you know. And we're all working.

It's not just me. There are so many people that are concerned about talking about these issues. And collectively, when we're all able to speak out on different platforms, it gains momentum. And that's where I think that the power comes into changing things. But on my own, I never feel like much has changed. And you as a Nigerian woman artist have a very special platform an international one for your art. Oh for sure yes I do and I don't take it lightly it's a privileged platform so I want. And not an easy one for you to get. No it's not easy definitely not not easy. You're right.

But I take it really seriously and I always want to talk about something serious and something that I hope will bring some kind of change. Pedju, it's been such a pleasure speaking to you. I cannot wait to go and stand in front of the sculpture and experience it in the flesh. Pedju's sculpture can be found at Free Sculpture in London's Regent's Park. The exhibition is free and it's on until the 13th of November. An email from Esther, she says,

my favourite dress ever was bought from Amanda Wakeley nearly 30 years ago. A long navy off the shoulder, three layers of pearls. I still have it, but shortened it. I felt so good wearing it. Lovely to hear about the dresses that have empowered you. Lovely to have your company. Enjoy your weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, this is Marion Keys. And this is Tara Flynn. And we're here to remind you that our podcast, Now You're Asking, is back for a new series. Each week we take real listeners' questions about life, love, lingerie, cats, dogs, dentists, anything really.

And apply our worldly wisdom in a way which we hope will help. But also hopefully entertain. Join us, why don't you? Search up Now You're Asking on BBC Radio 4, now available on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC 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.