Woman's Hour - Singer-songwriter Lisa Simone, Women in the horror films industry, What is it really like being a teenage mum?

Episode Date: November 2, 2019

Lisa Simone, songwriter, singer and daughter of Nina tells us all about her new album. Maddy Prior the folk singer and member of Steeleye Span talks about a career in music that's spanned more than 50 years. At BBC Introducing Live we look at how to get into the music business and once you're there how to thrive. Plus what’s it really like to be a teenage mum? Genetic Counselling – how do families deal with the news that the man they thought was dad isn’t biologically related? Women in the horror films industry what’s behind their creations? And author Jenny Downham joins on her latest novel Furious Thing about a fifteen year old girl struggling with her feelings of anger.Presenter Jane Garvey Producer Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor Beverley PurcellGuest; Lisa Simone Guest; Maddy Prior Guest ; Jenny Downham Guest; Chyna Powell-Henry Guest; Dr Kim Jamie Guest; Aislinn Clarke Guest; Anna Bogutskaya Guest; Lizzie Franke Guest; Nicola Dunn

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. Now this week we are celebrating women in music. We're looking at how to get into the music industry and how to get on once you're in. You can also hear from Maddy Pryor, the folk singer and member of Steelye Span for 50 years. And Lisa Simone, songwriter, singer and, yes, daughter of Nina, is on the programme as well this week. Teenage pregnancy rates are dropping, but the UK does have one of the highest teenage birth rates in Western Europe.

So what is the reality of life as a teenage mother? They just assume that I'm like this 15-year-old having a baby, you know, that's going to be on benefits for the rest of my life. They don't realise that young parents actually have aspirations and dreams and goals and want to do more for themselves and their child. We've got some really powerful speakers on that issue on the programme today. And genetic counselling. How do families cope with the news that the man they thought was their dad

isn't actually biologically related at all? And women in horror, where do they get their ideas from? I'm seeing women directors coming to us with projects that are really slashing to the pulse of the times. They really are tapping into lots of anxieties. Motherhood is a really rich territory for the horror form. And I think the sort of wave of anger has finally bubbled to the surface. Women and British horror on Weekend Woman's Hour this week. Now, Friday's programme came from BBC Music Introducing Live.

It's a three-day event. It's still going, actually, this afternoon at Tobacco Docks in Shadwell in East London. There are talks and performances and a chance for new performers and fans of music to get together and really get advice about how you can get into the music industry and flourish once you're there. My guests included Carla Marie Williams. She is a songwriter and a singer. She's won a Grammy Award for her work on Beyonce's Lemonade album.

She's also written for the likes of Britney Spears and Alicia Dixon and Girls Aloud. She's the founder of Girls I Rate, which aims to help women in the music industry. Rhiannon Mair was on the programme too, producer and engineer for amongst others Laura Marling and a female director of the Music Producers Guild. And we talked to Maxi Gedge, who runs the PRS Foundation Key Change Initiative for Gender Equality in the UK. She also has her own band, Graceland. And Emma Banks was also a guest. She's a real mover in the music industry. She works for the Creative Artists Agency, and she's helped people along the way like Katy Perry and Florence and the Machine. So this is very much her business. I asked her how much talent and know-how you really need to succeed in today's

music industry. I think you need a huge amount of both now more than ever, because there's hundreds of thousands of songs being uploaded to BBC Introducing and to all of the digital platforms. So to stand out, you've got to be really special because otherwise you just listen and it's like, oh, there's another song. Yeah. So what do you do if you want to be true to yourself, but you also want to be successful? You want to make a living. Do you betray yourself? Let's say you are a folk singer, but actually you see there's a gap in the market for something completely different do you just change tack and go after that well that's it's a decision you have to make isn't it because i think if you make music you have to start from being so passionate about the music you make that you can't you can't fake it yeah if you fake it

everyone knows you faked it frankly so yeah if you're a folk singer and suddenly you have the revelation that you actually want to do some techno album if it's coming from a real true place then go and do it but if you just think you can make a techno album there are people that love techno making techno albums that will be better than you at it the reality is this is a hugely difficult business to get into it has a massive massive failure rate, not only for artists, but for people that want to work in the business. Right. So make music because you love making music.

And if you can make a business out of it, that's fantastic. Carla Marie, you are a hugely successful songwriter. Would you say that you didn't fail as a performer? What happened? say that you i don't want to put you didn't fail as a performer or what happened i think what happened for me was that i was given the opportunity to write songs and as soon as the checks started coming through the post i realized that i wanted a life an easier life because being an artist is tremendously hard being at the forefront having to do photo shoots having to do the shows having to do all that. I would go to

work at the production company I worked with, Zena Maynard, big up Brian Higgins, thank you for the opportunities. And I would go to work at 12 and I'd be watching Emmerdale by seven and I was really happy. You chose it for the lifestyle then that it offered you? No, I guess what happened, what really happened was I was being an artist, I wanted to be an alternative artist, being a woman and a black woman at that time trying to do alternative music, there just wasn't any space for me in the industry. But that's wrong, isn't it?

There should have been space for you. But they didn't know how to market a black alternative artist at that time. Brian gave me this opportunity to write songs and I genuinely did feel really happy that I was now making an income for someone who was trying from leaving. I left

college to do music and for 10 years nothing was happening and then I lost my voice for a whole year I had severe muscular tension I had to go to speech therapy so it was almost like a sign like for me to just take a back seat and then I just ended up enjoying writing songs and within the first year of working with him I think I had my first number one and three songs so I was like who wants to do this anymore there was a message somewhere you're good at this keep at it um Rhiannon you you studied at college didn't you how many how many women were doing it was a music production course that you were on or yeah when I started that I was one of two women and out of I mean it was definitely over like 200 students on the course but by the third year obviously you know there's always a dropout rate um on courses in universities but

yeah by the third year i was the only female on the course and but why was that though i don't really know i don't know if i've got any kind of answers in collaboration um women we've been indoctrinated to one go up against each other not support each other um two men have a strive to want to achieve much much more their threshold and their resilience is much stronger than ours and i've found through doing girls irate that we give up quite easily a lot of the females they're chasing the money for the next day it's more short-term thinking rather than long-term thinking and i feel like maybe the reason why she was able to have resilience she just had resilience in what she's doing whereas if it gets hard sometimes we get emotional and make excuses for ourselves in a way and I'm not saying we don't have

other um boundaries and limitations but I do feel like some of the responsibility we do need to start taking responsibility for ourselves. OK, we need to own it and admit that we sometimes give up perhaps a bit too easily. Maxi, what do you want to say? I just think it's everyone faces barriers in the music industry. I mean, we know at PRS Foundation that people face barriers because of their gender, not just women and gender minorities, but everyone. I mean, look at the recent Musicians' Union survey

where 48% of their members said they had been sexually harassed at work. I mean, there's no surprise that there's a big drop-off rate at all career stages. And what we're trying to do at PRS Foundation is break down those barriers and make sure that whoever you are, you can realise your full potential.

Can we just talk briefly about Ed Sheeran's name has cropped up. Now, there is absolutely no denying his prodigious talent however I would just want to put out there the idea that there are no equivalent female performers who look like Ed Sheeran. It shouldn't be down to how you look in order to succeed in music. Of course it shouldn't but it's easier to be a man who isn't Hollywood pitch perfect, Hollywood ready. And I think that's why it's easier to be a man who isn't hollywood pitch perfect and that's ready and i think that's why it's important to make change and to try and swing the pendulum the other way so that things can become more equal and when you're starting out as a musician everyone has the same opportunities because we know that talent is everywhere but opportunities are not

can i be real with you yeah and i had this conversation this week with with a man who's helping me and i said he said to me can you sex up some of the pictures sexy up i'm like why does sexy always have to come in the equation and i guess that there is that limitation on us that's been put there and that's where the boundaries come for women from the men who are still up the top but i'm just about to say, is it because the majority, like what I call them, the gatekeepers, are still, you know, the majority of them are still men. I've even felt that people will put you in a box

and these men do put you in a box. Oh, you need to look like this. If you want it to work, you need to look like this and then you find yourself compromising yourself. Emma, has there been a generational shift here? Christine in the Queens is a good example, actually, of women who are simply not prepared to play those games anymore and don't feel they have to. I think you can look at Billie Eilish as well, can't you? Who is, you know, doesn't wear what would be considered sexy by the guys that think you have to sexy

yourself up. Everyone has more of a voice, don't they? Social media has given people more of a voice to have a point of view. You know, I think the good thing is that stuff's talked about as well. You know, Rhiannon's absolutely right that harassment is really how you receive it as well. And for some people, they can laugh it off, brush it off, tell people they're an idiot. And for others, it festers inside you and horrible things happen. And we've all got to be open to talking to people, to helping people and to take people's concerns really seriously. That was Emma Banks from the Creative Artists Agency, also involved in that discussion at Tobacco Docs,

were Rhiannon Mair, Carla Marie Williams and Maxi Gedge. And if you know somebody who wants to be in the music business or if that person is you, you can get that whole programme which is packed full of advice and useful life experiences on BBC Sound. So that was Friday's edition of Woman's Hour. Teenage pregnancy

rates have been falling in this country and they're actually now at their lowest level since records began in the 60s but we do nevertheless still have one of the highest teenage birth rates in Western Europe. Pregnant Teens is the name of a new BBC podcast. It follows three girls from Middlesbrough, Nicole, Megan and Robin. Middlesbrough has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in England and Wales. So here they are. Megan is 17, Robin and Nicole are both 16,

and it's Robin you'll hear from first. I just think there's a lot of negativity out there. At the end of the day, yeah, we are young, we are having kids young. We can still have a career as well as having a child. We're probably more mature when pregnancy does hit us. I've matured a lot, even my mum said that. I used to go out every weekend now, like, I don't move from the house. Every penny I get goes on the baby now. That's what you said, that having been pregnant's changed you as well, Robin, didn't you? Like, how it's made you mature a bit?

Yeah, I was really bad. I was going out every weekend, getting pissed. I'd come home, get my stuff, my mum would, like, it'd be like half twelve, and I'd say, like, what are you doing? You need to go to bed, you're drunk. We'll speak about this in the morning, you're not going out. And then I'd just say, well, I am going out.

Give me some money. I'm going, there's a party. So this is when you were 15, you were coming in on a weekend at half past midnight and you were saying to your mum, I want some money, I want to go to a party. Oh, yeah. And then I met my boyfriend and then the baby's just totally changed me. People say you're a skit or you're a slag because you're 16 and pregnant, but I don't get why.

Why? I'm going to be going to full-time college. My baby's going to be in nursery. Megan, how do you think being pregnant's changed you? Well, I wasn't, like, really bad at all before I found out I was pregnant. I'll go to college and I can hear a few whispers, oh, my God, look, she's pregnant, things like that.

And, like, yes, I am, but I don't regret making him because, yeah, it was a shock. I wasn't planning it, but I do not regret this. Very young voices, but also some really mature words there from Megan and from Robin and Nicole. The podcast is called Pregnant Teens. You can find it on BBC Sounds. Kim Jamie is Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Durham. And Chyna Powell-Henry is with me. She is a young mother. Her son is one. You were listening to

that with me. What did you think of it? I thought the same thing as them. I had the same view. A lot of people view teenage pregnancy and young parents as a negative thing. And I'm not saying it's amazing to be a young parent, but I don't think it should be viewed so negatively as well, because it does happen a lot. And young parents shouldn't be made to feel as if they're iced out of society because they've made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes, and teenage pregnancy can happen to anybody. And we're all just normal people. Have you ever faced judgment from anybody?

Yeah I've faced judgment a lot from my own family members I would say and also from people just on public transport. People on public transport giving you dirty looks or if they see a middle-aged person that's pregnant they're likely to get up and give their seat whereas for me they just look at me like why are you standing on the bus pregnant like and I also look so young they just assume that I'm like this 15 year old having a baby you know that's going to be on benefits for the rest of my life and they don't realize that young parents actually have aspirations and dreams and goals and want to do more for themselves and their child. Kim, are you surprised, I'm sure you're not, that people like China are still subjected to that kind of judgment? Sadly, no, I'm not really surprised at all. I mean, what we saw in the research that we

did is that these judgments are so persistent and they are influencing all sorts of things about the ways that these young women are living their lives, the places that they're choosing to go and not to go, the conversations that they're actively avoiding. And I think we have some real hangovers of really problematic stereotypes. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Where does this stuff come from? It's hugely mixed. It comes from this idea of how life should be lived so that young people should be going through particular trajectories and doing things in particular order. So going to school, then university, then a good job, marriage, then kids. And of course, when young women kind of disrupt that by having children

young, it kind of sends people into a little bit of a panic, really, because I think it's questioning actually the legitimacy of that standard trajectory through life but also I think actually it also goes deeper and I think it it touches on some deeply rooted kind of prejudices around poverty and inequality social isolation and also too I mean young women's sexuality to be honest and I think you know young mums they're kind of saying look I'm a sexually active young woman and think as a society, that's quite an uncomfortable thing to be faced with. We need to point out, of course, they don't get pregnant on their own. Absolutely, yes. There's somebody else involved.

Chyna, you have also said you're aspirational. You're at university. Yeah, I'm at university studying sociology. I'm in my first year and my son goes to nursery while I go to university. All my family and his dad's family take care of child care and I also work I have a part-time job so I don't just sit at home and want to sit at home for the rest of my life I want to achieve something with my life like every other person yeah of course and it used to be said Kim that I mean it's a terrible cliche but I'll wheel it out this business of getting a council house but But that's still out there, though, isn't it?

It really is. It annoys me personally, actually, because I think the idea that young women are actively choosing to have a child with all the responsibility that that entails, the financial implications, the interruptions to education, the effect that it has on women's bodies, and the idea that a 15 year old would plan to do that to get a flat is laughable plus it's laughable to be honest that in today's

society that a young woman would actually have much of a chance of getting a council flat i mean you know we know what's happened to council housing i mean it's just not particularly likely and yet this stereotype really sticks yeah well china i know you continue to live with your mom don't you and she's been supportive yeah i live with my mom and she supports me a lot she drives me and my son to his nursery every morning that i have university and i don't think having a child to get council house is even a thing because of the pressure on social housing at the moment that isn't even possible I don't think no um but we do need to say though I suppose from from the other perspective it is a

big responsibility when I was your age at China I was just having a laugh frankly and I wasn't capable of doing anything else do you have moments of just thinking I wish I could be free of responsibility I think when you decide to keep your child and have a child, because obviously we all know that abortion is legal in this country. I think you already know that you're signing up for responsibility. Every mother, I think, whether you're young or old, you want a moment of freedom. But I don't want to be away from my son. I miss my son when I'm at work, when I'm at university, whatever I'm doing, I miss my son and I spend a lot of time with him. So I don't feel like I ever want to be free from

responsibility, but I think everybody deserves a break. That was China Powell Henry. And you also heard from Dr. Kim Jamie of Durham University. An email from Susan who says that question to the teenage mother, do you sometimes wish you were free from responsibility? says, Anna says, My mum was 16 when she had my sister, 19 when she had me, and then my brother four years later. Although it was a difficult time for her, me and my siblings have always had a really strong, positive relationship with her. And although I wish for her that she'd had more of her teenage years, it hasn't been a negative from our perspective as her children. That's really interesting. We got some brilliant responses, actually, to that conversation about teenage motherhood. And you're very welcome to keep your thoughts coming via email through the website,

bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. Now, let's go back to music. And the singer Maddie Pryor is part of Steeleye Span, one of the biggest British folk bands of all time. And this year, they're marking their 50th anniversary. Who can forget this seminal moment steel ice bands all around my hat all around my hat i will wear the green willow and all around my hat for a 12 month and a day For a twelve-month-and-a-day And if anyone should ask me The reason why I'm wearing it

It's all for my true love Who's far, far away Now that is going to be an earworm for everybody all day, Maddy. What's it like for you to hear it again? Well, it's part of my life. It's been a very useful part of my life, I have to say. And for some reason that just comes out of the speakers, that song. I don't know why. Possibly Mike Batt's production.

But it does. Some songs work on the radio and there seems to be no sort of reason for it. What was the atmosphere for women and girls in that folk scene at the time? Well I think it was pretty even we were considered mainly singers we weren't taken very seriously as instrumentalists and I never really took

I played the banjo but it was the wrong instrument because it was American and I moved into English music and there wasn't really a place for it. The folk world is a very interesting world because it was American and I moved into English music and there wasn't really a place for it the folk world is a very interesting world because it's very nice and people aren't on the whole incredibly judgmental and difficult um and and they're not looking it's not a world you go into looking for making money you just don't go there it's it. You go into it because you like the music. How easy was it, though, for a record company to know how to pitch you?

Because you were far from the average pop band. No, well, I think Chrysalis did sort of scratch their heads a bit, especially about America, which was where everybody wanted to go and wanted to be popular. We were selling out big halls in England. I mean, we did two nights at the Hammersmith Apollo, which was sort of one of the biggest venues because there weren't the big stadiums then. Nobody sort of seemed to be really doing that very much

in the early 70s. We were kind of a popular band in Britain, sort of thing, but America was much harder. We toured with Jethro Tull and Ian said to me, he said, the Americans have a hard time getting us. I don't think they're going to get you. And I think he was kind of right in a way. We're too extreme.

How did you cope over the years with really constant changes in lineups? There were always new people coming in. Yes, I was always surprised when they left, actually. I think I sort of bumble along in a world of my own a bit. And people have come in from all different worlds. You know, we've never gone just to the folk world to bring people in because it's a very distinctive kind of style that we do,

which isn't... The songs are traditional, but we don't approach them in the way that the revival has approached them, really. Did you ever expect it would have lasted this long? Oh, no, I didn't think I'd last this long. You're what, early 70s now, I suppose? Yes, yes. No, I mean, you weren't thinking like that. I don't think anybody thought about your life as a sort of scanner,

for a sort of shape. You were just moving from day to day song to song as far as I was concerned now there is a new album as there is for the anniversary we're going to hear part of it it's a song called reclaim and it's written by your daughter Patience and grace There will be good days And when there aren't Your thoughts will make your hands Make things that make others take a stand.

But until then, please hold my hand and remember. This too shall be reclaimed It all starts with the wheat Between the turnip haze What's it like working with her? I mean, I know you didn't come from a musical background family, but she obviously has. Do you just gel?

Yes. Well, I think family voices are always similar. And Rick and I, ex-husband, I get on very well with, I have to say. We sometimes sing together, and it's always very interesting how that voice thing of families is very close. My son does hip-hop, so they've all gone in different directions. Rose went into heavy metal, heavy rock. But she's just a great singer, and she's become a brilliant teacher

because she's done training in speech and language. And you do courses, which I think she partly is involved in. I know there's one called Singing for the Uncertain. Yes, that's the one. What's that all about? There are people who have been told when they're 9 to 11 that they can't sing. And it becomes their life story because they then tell everybody else that they can't sing. And then their children tell them that they can't sing.

And on it goes. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So we've realised that actually what it's mainly about is confidence because the constrictor muscles that are in the throat will lock down if they think you can't do it. Therefore, if you think you can't do it, you won't. Just briefly, what's it like being on tour now after 50 years? It's great. It's the easiest part of my life, I think.

As long as my voice is working and I'm not ill or anything. But it's actually very straightforward. You have the two hours on stage. You don't have to think about anything else. Whereas at home, there are always other things to think about. It's always quite busy and I'm teaching and all those. But actually, touring's great and and to work with great musicians which the band is and they all love being in the band which is quite

quite unique actually having a band that wants to be in it. That is Maddie Pryor the latest album is called Steel Eye Span Established 1969 and Maddie and the band are on tour as she said throughout November and December. Annie emailed to say, I've got a really happy memory of seeing her perform in the foyer of the National Theatre back in the 70s. The theme was something to do with the River Thames,

says Annie. Maddie was wearing white, she was obviously pregnant, and she looked beautiful. I think it was the first time I realised you could be pregnant and still perform. Now, later on in this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour, we've got the young adult fiction writer Jenny Downham, whose new book is called Furious Thing. She'll talk about that. And we'll hear from Lisa Simone. Yeah, daughter of Nina, but there's a lot more to Lisa than just that.

Now, the 10 highest grossossing horror films of all time were directed by men. This is according to a list compiled by Forbes. But there are women and successful ones in the horror film industry. Lizzie Franke is a production executive at the British Film Institute, which provides film funding. Anna Bokatskaya hosts a podcast called The Final Girls

and runs a film collective of the same name. And Aisling Clark is the first Irish woman to write and direct a horror film. The Devil's Doorway is extremely scary and it came out last year. It's set in a real-life setting, a Magdalene Laundry. Magdalene Laundries were Irish church state-run institutions for women where you didn't have to do anything illegal. You could be put in there for basically

any kind of female behaviour that was considered to be aberrant in any way. So you could be put in for being considered to be too easy or for getting pregnant out of wedlock or for in some cases being too pretty and considered a danger to the men in the community. So what you've done is you have firmly rooted a horror film in total Irish reality haven't you? Yeah. Do you find that more frightening than the crazy alternative universes of some other horror films? Yes I do I think the best horror for me is horror that's rooted in some kind of social trauma. And in the case of Magdalene Laundrie, it's the last one closed in 1996. So we're not talking about total ancient history here.

This is in living memory. And I myself had my son when I was 17, and that was 1997. So I always felt that I could have been one of those girls, and I wanted to tell that story. I think horror can be very useful as a metaphorical tool that helps us to unpick and understand social trauma. You're getting a lot of supportive nods in London this morning, I can tell you that. We'll come back to you. Let's just play a short clip from The Devil's Doorway. What are you crying, child?

They're lonely. They have no mothers. devil's doorway. How much did you have to exaggerate Ashlyn? Well I mean I think the scariest things the most horrific things in the film for me always were the real things that happen to real people in the world in these places so about 10 years ago I was working in TV and working more in kind of documentaries and I did a lot of research into these places. And I've used some of those stories in my writing.

And for me, that's what's scariest. The horror is just used as a supernatural things that happen are a metaphorical tool that helps us to kind of get into that. So, Anna, where do you see women in horror in 21st century Britain? Who are the great filmmakers we should know about? I think there's a real movement right now, kind of not just with British filmmakers, but with international filmmakers as well. There's been what people have been calling a wave of feminist horror or of female directors who are approaching very different subgenres from slasher films to psychological horrors to more metaphorical things.

And currently, I think there's a number of British female filmmakers like Ruth Platt, like Prana Bailey Bond, like Rose Glass, who have all either made films or are in the process of making horror films. And the audience, is the audience still... Well, I was going to say, is it still overwhelmingly male? Maybe it never has been. I don't think it's ever been. Traditionally, and this is one of the misconceptions that there's always been about the horror genre, is that the audience is predominantly male. But actually, even statistically, it's always been pretty gender balanced. So it's always been pretty 50-50.

But the marketing mechanics and the way the distributors position and promote the films has traditionally been oriented towards men and it's true that in some cases female characters in particular have not been particularly well treated by the horror genre but there's been an abundance of talent always behind the screen and on screen that has been female and have led stories and female anxieties kind of really surface in some of the best horror films made in history. And there's a particular new wave coming through now where women are really both writing, producing, directing and twisting the genre on its head to prioritise those female stories.

Well, Lizzie from the BFI, you've brought along a clip for us. We're very lucky to have this because it's from a film that doesn't even have a name yet. It's from a production company called Stigma Films, directed by Corrine of Faith. And let's just hear a clip from this. It is a bit of a maze, this place.

We have to move nearly all the patients out because of the cut tonight. Place people die in. Should never be allowed to get that dark. I need a girl for tonight. The dark shift. The only ward left here tonight is antenatal and intensive care. Oh, dear.

There is a pattern forming here. Antenatal it's what do you think is is going what what's going on in our collective subconscious a lot of anger in the world at the moment and a lot of female anger films that ashlyn's described um and the film that karina's just made about it's about institutional abuse within organizations in karina's case it's set in a teaching big teaching hospital in the 1970s against the backdrop of the three-day week. I'm seeing women directors coming to us with projects that are really slashing to the pulse of the times. They really are tapping into lots of anxieties.

Lots of anxieties. I mean, motherhood is a really rich territory for the horror form. And we've got a film that we're developing that's about post-natal depression and psychosis. I think these are really rich subject matters. And I think the sort of wave of anger has finally bubbled to the surface,

and it's very exciting, because those feelings are finding fables and modern-day fairy stories to sort of work out those anxieties. And you don't think Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, The Exorcist, they were all around. Do you really think things are changing? Lots of women have given themselves permission to tell stories

and there's an infrastructure, whether it's the work that Anna's doing, the work we're doing at the BFI, to welcome those stories. But, you know, I was inspired as a teenager by Halloween. That was co-written by Deborah Hill, produced by Deborah Hill. Actually, a lot of women was inspired as a teenager by Halloween. That was co-written by Deborah Hill, produced by Deborah Hill. Actually, there's a lot of women have been in the history of horror. I mean, the greatest horror novel ever written was by a 19 year old called Mary Shelley. So it's sort of there in the ether. And now I think women are running with the ammunition of

being given the camera and the writing tools to come up with great stories. And Ashlyn, do you consider yourself part of that movement? I think I am sort of by default because I'm making horror films right now, yes. So your next project, what is that going to be? I have a couple of things in development. I'm working on a folk horror film. Of course, everybody's in the horror scene. A lot of people are talking about folk horror at the minute, called Godmother, that does get into some of these issues around

motherhood and femininity and female power in a negative way as well as in a positive way. That's Aisling Clark. That film is terrifying, not least, as she pointed out, because it's so firmly rooted in real life. It's called The Devil's Doorway and it's available on Amazon Prime or Sky Cinema. Also taking part in that conversation, Anna Bogatskaya and Lizzie Franke. What's it like to discover that you can't be related to your own children or the people you thought were your own children? The availability of genetic testing does mean that men are now discovering that they have no genetic link to the people

they thought were their offspring. Nicola Dunn is a family therapist and a genetic counsellor. How do the majority of these cases come to light? My NHS experience, it's often around the medical condition and the one that I can talk to is an X-linked condition. So in an X-linked condition, because men only have one X chromosome, they can only pass that on to their daughters, so all their daughters are carriers. So when these women come in to the department, and they're assuming that they are a carrier of the condition, they want to think about their own families and their fertility options.

And if it becomes apparent that they don't have the gene mutation that their father has, that they don't carry their condition, there is a very rare medical possibility which can be investigated. But if they also have a sister who does carry the condition, then the answer tends to be misassigned paternity. How often does it tend to occur in your work? It's not every day, but it does happen. And I think in the scientific literature, the percentages are about one to three percent of misassigned paternity.

And that tends to feel about right to me. How much more common do you suppose it is now than it might have been 50 years ago, say, when sexual freedom was assumed to be rather less common than it might be now? Well, I think it's interesting because I think in the latter years, often the reason for it, the motivation, was infertility within a marriage. And I think because we have other options now, when it happens currently in this generation, it's often a crossing of sexual boundaries. What sort of reaction do you find is common when the truth comes to light?

There are at least five people impacted. There's the adult child, there's the mother, there's what I call the nurturing father, the father who's in situ, there's the biological father, and there's the partner of the biological father. So I think if you take the adult child, the first reaction is deep shock, disbelief, and then a dawning reality of perhaps nuances that they had experienced, feelings that they were different, somehow separate from their family. Then it can go into rage, sadness, grief,

and hopefully eventually a level of acceptance of this new identity. What tends to be the reaction of the mother when she effectively has to face the truth coming to light initially it's shame and guilt often sadness and regret about the pain that's been caused to the the child and to their partner and actually often relief finally the truth is out. So how do the partners have a discussion about this? You know, the man who assumed he was the father and wasn't, and the mother who knew all along that he wasn't. So I think there's a couple of possibilities. Sometimes the father does know because he's begun a relationship with a woman who's pregnant, and together they've chosen not to tell the child. Other times the father has an inkling because they've been unable to conceive. There is a

miraculous conception and then there are no other conceptions, though they're still sexually active. So sometimes the father knows but doesn't ask. And then at other times the father has absolutely no idea and it's a bolt from the blue and clearly deeply shocking. And how does he cope, the father who really feels he's been betrayed? Yes. The father is in a difficult position because there's two primary relationships here. There's that with his partner who has lied to him. And there is that with the child. And of course, the child's done nothing wrong.

And so I think it depends on the quality of the relationship with the woman and the degree to which she can express a really deep acknowledgement of what he may be feeling. It depends on how she's told him, whether she's told him in quite a loving way or whether she's told him in a moment of anger. And it depends on the age of the child and the quality of that relationship. And what about the biological father who may not actually have known that he had fathered a child? Yes. So I've also worked with biological fathers. I think once again, it's deeply shocking. They may have felt they had an encounter a very long time ago, but they hadn't imagined they were starting

a family. They have their own situation. They often have a partner. I think it's a very curious experience for them and one that they need support and time to come to terms with and to make choices about whether they're going to be actively involved or not. And of course, the child wants, the adult child would ideally like both. And what's the effect on the children? I mean, obviously, they're adult children. If the father, who is not the biological father, but has been the nurturing father, if he's so angry that he breaks contact? It's deeply painful because it is a rejection. It's rejection based on who they are. So they feel that who they are isn't good enough. And it's very wounding.

What's your actual role then within the genetic testing process? My role is really to support people who mostly we assume have the condition and are going to consider fertility options going forward, how they're going to have their family. is a sort of something which comes up occasionally but is a whole different part of that because mainly it's about moving forward with the condition and making choices about the family that they want to have. And how then do you handle it when this kind of thing does come up? Well on the occasions that it has in the situations that I've been involved with, actually, the young woman has had an inkling. Sometimes what I've also discovered in all the settings I work in is that often someone will tell the child or give an indication, the adult child. It can either be often a brother or sister of their mother or their grandmother or their mother's close friend, because people understand that it's a very important issue and that there's a belief

that actually people have a right to know who their biological parents are. The family therapist and genetic counsellor Nicola Dunn. Now, if this has happened in your family, we would really like to hear from you. I appreciate this is, to put it mildly, a delicate area. But nevertheless, it's something that is becoming more and more common. If you're prepared to share some of your experience, then we really would welcome your involvement. If you can email the programme via the website bbc.co.uk slash woman's hour. Jenny Downham is a very successful author of young adult fiction, although her work can really, trust me, be enjoyed by anybody. Her previous books include Before I Die and Unbecoming, and her latest novel, Furious Thing, is about a girl of 15, Lexi. Lexi doesn't

want much. She would like her stepfather to accept her, her mother to love her like she used to, and her stepbrother to declare his desire to spend the rest of his life with her. I was often bad after that. It was like something came over me. If it were a movie, I'd grow extra muscles and my T-shirt would rip. But it was just my life. So all that happened was I'd knock a plate to the floor

or drop a cup, or accidentally swear, and John's attention would turn on me. It reminded me of the way Grandad used to hump for snails at night with a head torch. They'd get caught in a beam of light and he'd pick them up and dunk them in a bucket of salt water. John would switch his beam on me and shout and wave his arms around and tell Mum I was out of control. Once, I took John's favourite ashtray, the one he'd had since being a student,

and smashed it on the kitchen floor. Mum had been washing it in the sink and knocked it against the tap. Oh no, she said. Oh hell. I snatched the two halves from her and flung them. Lex, she said, no. She probably thought she could have fixed it with glue and John would never have noticed the crack, but he would have. He came bounding in. My ashtray. He dropped to his knees to get a better look at the damage. It was annoying me, I said. Go to your room, he whispered. I went to my bedroom and sat by the window. It was ages before I was allowed out. Jenny, just take us into the heart of this household. What is the domestic dynamic here?

Lexi has been living with her soon-to-be stepfather for almost eight years. And when he arrived, the dynamic between her and her mother, there was just the two of them changed significantly. She is incredibly unhappy. She doesn't understand why. The book is actually about controlling and coercive behavior and about female anger and about her response, which she doesn't understand why she's so angry. But as the book develops, she begins to recognize that she isn't, in fact, the problem. Well, it becomes really serious because effectively her righteous anger is medicalised.

And her stepfather, or the man who becomes her stepfather, puts her on medication with the collusion of her mother. Yes, he does. She resists that at first. And I think for me, one of the things I really wanted to explore was female anger and the way people look at female anger, because I think we often dismiss it. We often say she's hysterical or over emotional. We might not even call it anger. We might say she's sad or upset. And I think we have a different response to male anger. And to me, it was very interesting to put a teenager in a situation where she's thinking, I don't understand what's going on, but I kind of feel my response is the right one. She's a very eloquent expressionist. She sort of

throws things around the room and loses her temper. But the adults around her, the power holders are saying, you're the one that's in the wrong. And it was that situation that really intrigued me about, that's why I wanted to write about such a subject. Have you got any closer to understanding why, and in this case, it is a man, but why people need to exert or attempt to exert this sort of control over families? It's really complex. I mean, in this situation, he has a fragile ego, he's not emotionally eloquent, he has the power and doesn't want to give it up. It's really complex. I mean, in this situation, he has a fragile ego. He's not emotionally eloquent. He has the power and doesn't want to give it up. It's undoubtedly a learned response, familial, societal. For me, it was less interesting to explore why he does it and more

interesting to think about how we recognise it and when we do what we can do about it. Her mum was very young when she had Lexi and she falls for this. And he is a charming older man. I wasn't quite sure how I was meant to feel about Lexi's mother. I actually got quite angry with her. We very often don't forgive women who are mothers

for not protecting their children in any given situation. And it's a fundamental misunderstanding of abuse, really, that we don't understand that somebody in Georgia, who's the mother situation, has had her self-respect and judgment and strength eroded because she is also a victim of abuse. And she's actually unable to protect her children in a way that she used to do and in fact wants to be able to do. Do you think schools are doing enough to help girls in situations like Lexi when perhaps they are, I'm trying to think the expression would be acting out, I suppose, at school,

and maybe they are labelled naughty, troublesome, disruptive. And as you have already said, there's less understanding than there would be for a boy carrying on in the same way. I think we often see, yes, we often see boys' anger as a strength. We think it allows them to defend and protect and potentially lead. And we often see boys' anger as a strength. We think it allows them to defend and protect and potentially lead. And we often defer to male anger. So I think female anger is seen very differently. I mean, essentially, I think that schools, we need to educate about what a healthy relationship is from a very young age. That seems to me to be the most important thing.

Because by the end of the book, Lexi, whoi who as you said is hopelessly in love with somebody by the end of the book she's feels a little bit broken because she's been in a situation where she's looking up to a relationship that's her mother and a soon-to-be stepfather and trying to understand the dynamics of that whilst also falling in love and at the end she wonders whether she's become somebody who likes the bad boy, the kind of boys who perhaps aren't particularly empathetic or play hot and cold. And she is really afraid that she will find the likable, kind boys a little bit unattractive. And I think that can be what happens if you grow up in that kind of dysfunctional environment. It's very difficult for you writing essentially for young adults, although, as I've already said, this book can easily be read by anybody. You have a responsibility for them and because they are forming their own beliefs, aren't they, whilst reading your work. It's very different if you're

writing solely for adults. Yes, it is. I feel my job is to present a story that reflects the truth. I wanted it to be palatable in the sense that obviously it's a difficult subject and I wanted Lex to be brave and funny and hopelessly in love while also dealing with her temper and her difficult situation. So hopefully it's got a lot of light and laughter in there as well.

But yes, there are many gatekeepers as an author when you've finished a book before it gets published. But my responsibility, I think, is not to teach, but to put lots of ideas out and allow young people to feel empathy for the characters and wonder what they would do in that situation. When I've talked in the past to victims of coercive control, the conversation always moves on to the role of the concerned outsider, the friend who thought she knew but couldn't be 100% certain. That's a really difficult one.

Well, it is a difficult one. And there are adult women in your book who are concerned. Yes, it's really tricky because I think if we see a friend whose relationship we're worried about, that if we approach them and say something, they will A, defend it, and B, perhaps retreat, which means that we're in less of a position to help them. And I think all we can do

is listen and validate and perhaps support, steer them towards services such as refuge and women's aid. But I think the most important thing, if somebody you're worried about is not to wait for them to come to you, because inevitably they won't. That's the writer Jenny Downham. Furious Thing is about Lexi and it's her latest novel. It's out now. Lisa Simone is a composer and a singer and an actress. And yes, she's also the daughter of Nina Simone. Lisa has just released an album called In Need of Love. And here is the title track. She needs love, love. He's an attorney, always suffering.

On the outside, he's got a skin disease. Something happened when he was young Scarred him so deeply He became the bully He needs love Cos he doesn't feel anymore Okay, who is the bullying attorney with the skin disease? My mother's attorney.

There's more to this, Lisa. Oh, it's a long story. We don't have enough time. But I will say this. It was an extremely painful, dark time that I was going through. There's my life before my mother died, and there's my life after my mother died. And the rose-colored glasses shattered when she died, and I was thrown into a way of living that I'd never experienced before, and I stood up to deal with her affairs.

Let's just keep saying it that way. And there were a lot of people who had their own agenda, I stood up to deal with her affairs. Let's just keep saying it that way. And there were a lot of people who had their own agenda. And in the midst of a very harrowing time, there were two particular individuals, a woman and a man, who were making it their life's mission to destroy me. And at this time, I live in my mother's former house. I sleep in the spot where she died.

And one evening, this song came in its entirety, the melody, the words, and I was able to see past the angry, ugly faces of these two people and actually look into their hearts and look at them with compassion. And that's how this song was born. Yeah, I mean, if you just if you don't speak English, and you just hear the beautiful, soothing vocals and the lovely music, you are not aware of what is actually being said about these people. So it's very, very powerful. Your own backstory, you've lived quite a life, to put it mildly. Haven't I? Well, you really have.

I get tired when I see anything I've done. Serving in the Gulf War is not a trivial thing. And you were in the military for quite some time, weren't you? I was, 10 and a half years of my life. I went in at 18 and I got out at 29. So why did Nina Simone's daughter serve in the military? Good question. Desperation, impatience, youth, you know, things not working out when you wanted them to and the way you wanted them to.

So you just decided to go in a direction that was not the smartest thing to do. The day that I woke up in basic training and they were screaming at us turning over beds, I was like, what have I done? But at the same time, it helped me to transition out of my teenage years into my adult years. It helped me to learn a skill, which is civil engineering. I have a two-year degree in civil engineering and many years of experience. And it also led me back to who I truly am, which is the reason why we're sitting here talking today. Yes. But at that point, presumably, were you doing no music or had you decided it wasn't for you or you didn't dare to

do it? What was it? A lot of the elders in my life, my mother not included, had said, you're not going to live that kind of life. And so there was always this cloud that was over the musically artistic vocation. It came very natural for me. Singing, composing, harmonies all came very natural for me. And I was happy when I did it. I made other people happy. But for some reason, those people who had my best interests at heart felt, you know, like most elders, you're going to be a doctor, you're going to be a lawyer, you're going to be an engineer, but you're not going to do that. It was interesting at the age of 28, that I happened to be brought back to who I truly am, which is an artist, and that I recognized it. And for the first time in my life, I felt that call, that fire in my heart, and I decided to follow that. Well, you implied there that your mother didn't discourage you. But on the other hand, that's not the same as encouraging you.

No. So she didn't encourage you? She didn't encourage me and she didn't discourage me. My mother, as most of us who know some of Nina Simone's journey, had a very conflicted relationship with the music industry because of her color, because of her temperament, her genius, because of the times, because of the type of material that she chose to write about and support.

So it wasn't easy for her. And most parents that I know of, they want their children to be happy and to be fulfilled. Well, for anyone who thinks, oh, Nina Simone, yeah, great jazz, blues singer, wonderful. Yeah. But actually, she was a thwarted classical pianist. God bless you for saying that. Well, she really was. Yes. She was a classically trained musician who wanted to go into the classical world. Because of the color

of her skin, she was not accepted into that world. And that was a huge pain that she carried until a few days before she died. A few days before she died, there was a delegation of women in Philadelphia who told me that when she came through there in 2001 to do a concert, she was still lamenting the fact that she had been rejected by the Curtis Institute of Music. So they took it upon themselves, without my mother's knowledge, to go to the Curtis Institute to ask them to... My mother already had two doctorates by that time, and they awarded her a diploma. So three days before she died, she was told when she'd lost all her motor skills and had had two strokes, they told her that the Curtis Institute had given her a diploma and they said that she smiled. So when my mother left this world, that circle had finally been closed.

Yes. Too late, really. But at least they did it. And you do acknowledge and you've made, I do urge people to look up the Netflix film you made about your mum. What happened, Miss Simone? Yes. acknowledge and you've made a do urge people to look up the Netflix film you made about your mom what happened miss Simone but in that you do acknowledge that she was abusive she was not a well woman in many ways and and very unhappy but she did hurt you she did I I kind of sum it up by saying I made the mistake of growing up and you know I have a daughter who's 20 and everything on her body defies gravity she She stops traffic the whole nine. And if you're an old crone like I am and you are not secure in who you are, then that can be difficult to watch and difficult to process. And so my mother looked at me more like a competitor or a challenge.

And that's how she treated me as opposed to her daughter who was growing up and trying to find her way. I really enjoyed talking to her. That was Lisa Simone, the daughter of Nina Simone and a singer and a songwriter in her own right, of course. Hope you can join us on Monday morning, just after 10. My guests will include Dame Helen Mirren and the former US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power. Hope you can be with us then. If not, there's always

the podcast, of course. Thank you for listening. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there

who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.