Woman's Hour - Sussex Maternity Review, Hidden world of charity shops, Remembering Gloria Steinem

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Tomorrow the Sussex Maternity Review will launch in Brighton to examine more than 1,000 cases spanning over a decade. The independent review's chair, the former midwife Donna Ockenden, will meet with families who have been affected by poor maternity care in the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. Bereaved mothers, Hannah Robotham and Katie Fowler join presenter Clare McDonnell to share their stories, along with BBC Social Affairs Correspondent Michael Buchanan.Journalist Tansy Hoskins has spent more than a decade investigating the fashion industry, from garment factories to global supply chains. In her new book Charity Shop World she looks into where unwanted clothes end up, volunteering in a charity shop to reveal the hidden stories behind people's donations. Tansy joins us to discuss over-consumption, textile waste, and the hidden workforce - mainly women - who are dealing with the consequences of fashion industry excess.We hear about the life and work of American feminist icon and journalist Gloria Steinem, who passed away in New York City this week. Feminists Beatrix Campbell and Sarah Ditum reflect on her long-lasting global legacy, from her beginnings as a freelance writer to her life-long battle for women’s rights.The new Women's Super League (WSL) season kicks-off tonight as London City Lionesses play Manchester United. So what exactly can we expect to see this season and what do we need to know? Clare speaks to Helen Hardy, the founder of Foudy's, which she says is the first and only dedicated women’s football retailer in the world. She appeared on our Woman's Hour Power List back in 2023 for her work amplifying the sport.Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Rebecca Myatt

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You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription. Hello, this is Claire MacDonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. This morning, on the eve of the latest maternity review, this time in Sussex, we'll hear from two women who will tell us their babies died as a result of poor maternity. care and we'll ask them what concrete action they want to see come out of these multiple reviews. Tanty Hoskins has written a book about her experiences volunteering at her local charity shop. Now she sees charity shops as a key cornerstone of local communities.

So this morning, tell me about your local charity shop. Maybe you volunteer in it yourself. Maybe you'd like to big up the people who work there. And also, how does it go the extra mile to help your local. community. What does it do? You can text the program. The number is this. 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media. We are at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website or you can send a WhatsApp message or a voice note using this number, 0-7100-100-44. Just remember data charges may apply depending on your provider. So you might want to use Wi-Fi if you can.

We'll also be paying tribute to the trailblazing feminist activist Gloria Steinem and examining how her message still resonates with the younger generation today. And the new Women's Super League season gets underway tonight. Manchester United take on London City lionesses. The lionesses have just signed what's thought to be one of the biggest ever sponsorship deals with Nike. So we'll talk to the women behind what she says is the first standalone women's football store here in the UK. all that on the way. But first, we're about to hear from two women who have been through unimaginable trauma.

Hannah Robotham and Katie Fowler say their babies died as a result of poor maternity care. Now, their shared tragedy brought them together to campaign for better provision for pregnant women, so no other family has to go through what they have been through. And tomorrow marks the official launch of the Sussex Maternity, Review. Donna Ockenden, former midwife, will meet with the families in Brighton who've been affected by poor maternity care in

the University Hospital, Sussex, NHS Foundation. Now, the meeting will give families an opportunity to contribute to the development of the review structure and the criteria for which families and cases will be included. It is expected to examine more than

a thousand cases spanning over a decade. Now, the BBC Social Affairs correspondent Michael Buchanan, has been following this story. He joins me in the Women's Our Studio, as do Hannah and Katie. Welcome all of you. Morning.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for dropping by. Just a warning. Some listeners may find some of the content we're about to talk about distressing. Michael, you've looked at this issue for many, many years. You've got to know many, many families.

What is happening tomorrow? So what's happening tomorrow is the official launch of what is the sixth maternity to view into a local service in little more than a decade, briefly running through them. We had Morkan Bay in Cumbria, it published in 2015. Shrewsbury and Telford, it published in early 2020. East Kent, it published late 2020.

Nottingham published this summer in June. There's a review that's just started in Leeds, and now we're going to get this review starting in Sussex tomorrow. So that's six reviews into local maternity services in England in just over a year. and in a couple of months' time or a few weeks' time, I should say, there's going to be a review into maternity care in Scotland as well. So these reviews are ongoing.

And there's another review that's just completed as well. That was ordered by West Streeting, the former Health Secretary in England. That was called the Rapid Review. That was chaired by a woman called Baroness Amos. And she was meant to look at maternity care across the whole of England and come up with recommendations for how to improve care. This particular review then that starts tomorrow. What's prompted this?

This has been prompted by Katie and the families and a campaigning group. And it's always the case that it's a number of families that come together and push for a review because fundamentally, certainly up until the of the reviews that have been published so far, families have been trying to get answers. The NHS has refused to give them the answers. And therefore they've had to go public. They've had to campaign for these reviews. We did some work, BBC News with a new statement, statesman earlier on this year.

We found that there were at least 55 babies may have survived with different care over a five-year period between 2019 and 2023. We found a review into stillbirth at Worthing Hospital, which is one of the hospitals at this trust overseas from 2021 and 2022. In those nine cases that they reviewed, they found missed opportunities in all of them. So that's some of the context for all of this. The review was initially called for a decision. despite resistance by West Streeting, but obviously he was two health secretaries ago, and so now it falls to Donna Ockin and to actually chair it.

Well, let's turn to Hannah and Katie. Hannah, let's start with you. How are you feeling on the eve of this launch? I feel a lot of relief that we have been finally listened to and that action's been taken. I think we have worked so hard and for so long, and it's been at an enormous cost to all of us, and to be confident that we've got someone of Donna Rockenden's calibre, her objectivity, her integrity,

to really ask the difficult questions about what happened to our children and so many other children that hopefully the families who don't have answers yet will get them and that future mothers and babies will be saved. Katie, it's been a lot of work to get to this point. Same question to you. How are you feeling? I feel very emotional actually. it's been a real slog particularly the past year or so. We've been campaigning really, really hard for this.

It has, as Michael said, fallen to the families to push for this inquiry. We became aware of each other. Originally there were nine of us within a two-year period that had lost children, and we all said that that must mean there's something wrong here. That can't be normal for that many babies to have died avoidably. The group has continued to grow. but it has been us, you know, we've asked questions of the trust. We've had to push the government to commission this review.

It's been exhausting and it's taken such a toll. So now it just feels very emotional that we're finally at a point where we can hand some of this over to Donna Ockenden and her team. And the group is, Hannah, truth for our babies. Awful that you've had to go through everything to meet in this way. But how has it helped supporting one another to get to this point? I don't know what would be happening in my life without the other people in this group. I looked for other bereaved mothers for support after Austin died

because you need to know people who are going through the same thing as you to survive that kind of thing. And so many of us had similar very serious concerns about our care. And you feel on your own because you're being told by, you know, important health professionals with big job titles that nothing could have been done. And slowly you start to unpick what actually happens and you need to stand by each other. You need to have people who you can call, who can help you figure out how to navigate this incredibly complex, difficult system, just trying to get answers about what happened to us. What did feel like, Katie, when you met Hannah for the first time and you were able to go,

I'm talking to somebody who completely understands, what I've been through. It was, I always say it's kind of hard to explain because it felt like a relief because my husband and I felt so isolated after Abigail died. We fought so hard for answers from the trust. We were kind of led to believe

we were the only ones that had experienced this. We were told it was incredibly rare. And it's such an odd place to be. You feel like you're being gaslit and just, yeah, the isolation is just something I can't really describe. And so we had a feeling that we couldn't be the only family that this had happened to. And so we spoke out after Abigail's inquest, and then we had the truth for our babies group get in touch with us

and found that there were, I think at that point it was maybe seven other families. And it was such a relief to be able to talk to people that had experienced what we had. but also so sad that we were all in the same position. It's very, very difficult, but are you able to tell us a little bit about what happened to you, how you came to this point? Yeah, so Abigail was my first pregnancy. It was a low-risk pregnancy. I went into labour exactly on my due date in January 2022. During the day that I was at home in labour, I had some bleeding, which we reported to our maternity as a centre.

unit and they told us everything was fine and no concerns everything's normal um we phoned them twice about the bleeding and then later in the day i became very unwell at home and i became very faint i felt sick i was clammy i couldn't breathe properly and so my husband phoned again and they told us at that point to go into the hospital but that there was no rush um when i arrived we traveled by taxi to the hospital and when we arrived, I was in cardiac arrest. My daughter was born via emergency C-section in the reception area of the hospital. We both needed to be resuscitated. We were both then put into induced comas.

And I was woken up two days later to meet her, but that was also the day that she died. So it was to meet her and also say goodbye. And this was in 2022. Yeah. Four years on, have you managed to, repair from that if that's if it's even possible? I would say that the one thing that's kind of sustained me is finding the other families

and having people to talk to you that understand. It obviously is something you never move on from. I will miss my daughter every day for the rest of my life. She should have been starting school this week. It's a really lonely place. it's very, it's very hard. You know, my life isn't what it was and it never will be. Hannah, same question to you.

It's difficult to talk about, and I'll tell you, it's very difficult to hear, but we massively appreciate it. Your story. Yeah, thank you for asking though. So Austin's my second child. I have a daughter who's three years older than he would have been. and so my pregnancy was actually, my delivery was a little higher risk

because I'd had that previous cesarean and they don't want the scar to rupture during the birth. And unfortunately that is exactly what happened to me. So the labour was progressing fairly well and things started to slow down and feel not right. And I was heavily and loudly advocating for myself. My husband was too and we did not feel listened to

and this went on for several hours until I ended up starting to become very unwell and you'll hear there's some similarities between mine and Katie's stories and I remember curling up on the hospital bed thinking

well I don't have to try anymore because I'm going to die now and that's the end of it and there was a crash cesarian and I woke up and nobody would tell me where my baby was and I had to scream, is he alive? And they told me that he was very, very poorly. I think the only beautiful thing from this is that we did get to spend a day with him. He was heavily brain damaged. So he wasn't conscious. He was never going to be able to

be conscious or do anything. But we were able to spend some really beautiful time with him. my daughter was able to meet him and family and we were able to say goodbye to him held in our arms and I'm really glad I got to do that for him. After he died we found out that they measure your baby's heart rates

when you're in a high-risk labour and that CTD trace showed that he had been in distress for many hours and they had missed it and they also missed that they recorded mine heart rate instead of his heart rate for a lot of that trace, which meant that even though he was in distress, they weren't able to identify it. So he was there dying inside of me. I was asking for help and nothing happened for hours. And if they had acted when those signs were first shown, he would be here. He would be starting school with Abigail and Sasha and Esme and so many of our lovely children. To hear that you had a conscious thought that this is it for me. You know, you actually got to that point.

Things had got so bad. You thought, there's no way back for me. I mean, what was that moment like? It's actually something I felt very guilty about for a very long time because I think every bereaved parent feels guilt in losing a child and you continually question yourself as to what you came, could have done differently. And I think even in that moment,

I was wondering whether I was giving up, but what I now understand is I was hemorrhaging and needed to be saved. Well, we have to say, thank you so much and we are so incredibly sorry for your loss. I mean, we just have to say to people listening to this that there is the BBC Action Line that you can go to, head to BBC Action Line.

It's a brilliant resource, a brilliant website, the links there for support to specific issues we're talking about this at this moment. So if that has affected you in any way, go to the BBC Action Line. We really appreciate Katie, you, both of you, Hannah and Katie, sharing this with us. After something so devastating, how do you go then, Katie, about finding out the process of how you got to that point to pick yourself up and say, I need to get to the bottom of this. So we had two investigations done after Abigail died. One was internal by the trust and one was external.

So I suppose what we did is we followed the process and then we weren't satisfied with the answers that we got. And so that made us ask more questions and push harder. Eventually, in our case, we had this external investigation that found issues with the care that we'd had. and then we spoke to our MP who recommended contacting the coroner who then ordered an inquest into Abigail's death and it was only at that point which was nearly two years later

that we finally properly felt that we understood what had happened to our daughter but it's a fight families shouldn't have to have it's taken real effort and it's exhausting and it feels very much like when you go through something so awful the response should be to help you in every possible way and that's just not what happened to us or to any of us in our group. Hannah, the onus, as Katie said, is on or was on you to find out the information.

Did you have a similar experience? Yes, the first time we met with the hospital after our son died, we were told that nothing could have been done differently. And this was categorically shown not to be the case. and there have been investigations, there have been issues with the quality of those investigations, there's been regulators who we've also struggled to get answers from.

And you end up trying to learn to navigate a system which is just completely impenetrable and all you want to do is stop and be able to grieve your child as you should be able to. Absolutely, Katie, We've spoken about maternity reviews. Michael started off by listing how many are ongoing. And the Sussex one is the fourth local one that Donna Ockenden has led. And at the end of June, Baroness Amos published her independent National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation.

There was criticism of that, that people like you weren't centred enough in it. What's your response to what came out then? My feeling about that review was that it was never going to be in depth enough to really give us the answers needed to fix what is broken in maternity and we know it is across the country, it's not isolated trusts. I was very concerned that Bill Kerckup resigned after it was published in relation to normal birth ideology. I think obviously...

Who is that? Sorry. Who is that? You just mentioned. So he did the investigations into Malcolm Bay and East. to Kent. So he knows he knows maternity. And the fact that he felt he couldn't stand by that report, I think says a lot about its failings. Personally, I just don't think it was ever going to be enough to fix the system. Hannah, your view, there was talk of a maternity commissioner,

a single person, to oversee services. Is that an idea you ever thought would work? It's not something I would have thought of. I guess I still don't think we've surfaced enough of what is happening in maternity services to really know exactly what the right way forward is. And so I'm unsure what a maternity commissioner does in that space. I think the focus should be on establishing the root causes in the entire system and something like a statutory public inquiry would be the way to do that. Let's bring Michael back in at this point, because that is a push that a lot of people who've been through this, as we just heard from Katie and Hannah, want to happen.

So why all these reviews are not something like that that's overarching? There's several reasons for that. I think, first of all, people might listen and think, oh, here we go, talking about maternity again, a sixth review. But then you listen to these stories. And that is fundamentally why these reviews have to happen. It's the four reviews that have been published have got less. that are still not being learned by the NHS. And one of the crucial things is, two of the crucial things is one is deaths are often referred to as tragic isolated incidents.

That is a phrase that gets wheeled out by the NHS year after year, month after month. And fundamentally what has been proven by the four reviews that have been published is that are not tragic isolated incidents. If the NHS was honest, what they should say is this is a preventable death because we didn't learn from the previous one. and that is what the NHS has fundamentally failed to learn over a number of years and that is why these reviews keep having to be called because the families don't get the answer so the NHS was honest most of the families that I've spoken to in Sussex all over the country they can accept that mistakes happen

it's the cover-up and the refusal to learn that they struggle with but when you get to the point of why is there not a national inquiry West Streeting was pressured heavily on this and his argument was that it would take too long and we needed to improve care now. So his solution was the Baroness Amos' rapid review. The problem he had was that there was a group of parents and never thought it was the right way forward. But even if you take them out of the equation,

the bigger problem the government now had is that when she published a report, even some of the organisations that believed, you know, let's work with her, let's give this review a chance. They came out against it for a variety of different reasons. They just didn't think it came up with the right solutions. and therefore you now have a process where the government has created something called a task force, which is chaired by the Health Secretary, this task force, which does include some bereaved families and NHS representative,

they are now meant over between now and Christmas, since the summer and Christmas, to come up with effectively a blueprint for how maternity care in England is going to be improved. And they were meant to use, according to West, treating, they were meant to use the Amos Reviews as the baseline document. but that hasn't landed well with a lot of families as you've just heard. So what this task force now comes to work with, it's working with the Amos Review, which hasn't landed very well. It's got the Ockenden Review from Nottingham, which was slightly different. It's got to have half an eye on these reviews that are taking place in Leeds and Sussex

because the work of improving maternity care is meant to start, according to the government in December or January, in the coming months. And so what they come up with and how they devise a plan, in that very, very contested space is going to be really interesting. I mean, it just seems there's so much that needs fixing Katie, and we don't want to rush it, do we? We don't want to get it wrong. We don't want anything to slip through the net.

What will you be saying to Donna Ockernan tomorrow? I think in terms of the Sussex Review, what I want from that and what I believe that we will get is full family, is to have answers and that includes families that may not realise anything could have been different with the care that they had as we've heard. You know, that's the kind of response a lot of us had and then it proved not to be true. I also want just to understand what went so wrong at Sussex. We know there were problems.

The CQC was concerned about all of the hospitals in 2021. Clearly, whatever kind of regulation they did there didn't do enough to. stop babies dying. So I just want to understand and I think that will be helpful in understanding the national picture as well because no one's managed to get a grip on it yet. No, it's been, it's been, you know, a decade of reviews and we are still in this situation where babies are dying avoidably, families are being harmed. It just needs attention, it needs the government to really, really make it a priority and to

to accept that this isn't an experience that families should have. We should be saying this is wrong and we're going to do everything we can to stop it happening to anyone else and no one is doing that at the moment, unfortunately. Hannah, what do you think it says about how we as a society treat women? I mean, it's not particularly hopeful, is it, at the moment? There's a lot of themes about women not being listened to and the role of that in losing children.

Yeah, I want to give you a fuller answer, but I think I'm just so categorically disappointed in the response that we've had as campaigning families, as individuals, as parents. It's a difficult question, and thank you so much for going through your personal testimony. It's so important to hear because unless you hear it, You can't change it.

You can't begin to understand how awful things have been. Katie, how can you see yourself moving on from this? I don't think I will ever move on. In terms of moving forward, I'm hoping that having this independent review and being able to pass over some of the fight is going to mean I have more space in my life for remembering my daughter and for grieving her

and just being maybe more. moments of peace is what I would love because life has not been peaceful since Abigail died. And Hannah? It's very similar. I want to be able to honour my son through including him in our family life and remembering him not through fighting.

I would love to be normal friends with Casey rather than campaigning partners or whatever we would call it. Well, let's hope that's on the horizon on the other side of this. but we thank you so much, so much for coming in and telling us your story. Michael Buchanan, thank you as well.

The Donna Ockenden Sussex Review begins tomorrow. And I believe you want other people who may be listening to this if you'd like to make that plea now to come along tomorrow. Yeah, we would absolutely love families who are concerned about their care or have had harm in maternity and Sussex to come along because we want the review to be as full and to serve families as well as possible

and the more family voices that are joining in to help shape the review, the better the review will do that. That's why we wanted Donna to lead it. And the more of us that can be there to support each other, the better as well. So we would love to see new faces. Thank you both so much for coming in, Hannah and Katie and Michael Buchanan as well. And just to reiterate, if you have been affected by anything that you've heard,

please do head to the BBC Actionline website for links and support. We've just got a couple of statements to read out here. We've got this from the Chief Executive of University Hospital, Sussex, NHS Foundation Trust, Dr. Andy Heaps. He says we welcome Donna Ockenden's review and remain committed to fully supporting the process so families can get the answers they need. And we take any possible opportunity to learn and improve. Our overriding priority is always to provide the safest possible care for mothers and babies. That is why our maternity teams have implemented many positive changes in recent years.

And the Department of Health and Social Careers, says this. Through the national maternity and neonatal task force, increased investment in maternity safety and the wider reforms following the previous Okenden and Amos reviews, we are working to ensure families receive safer, more compassionate and more consistent care

in every part of the NHS. 84844, if you'd like to comment on this, lots of you already are, so I'll get to some of your texts as soon as... Your sales order says, one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODbh.com. Get more with BBC Podcasts, wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your

favorite shows, like Evil Genius, Good, Bad Billionaire, and You're Dead to Me, with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription. I can. You are listening to Woman's Hour. Now, let's move on and talk about charity shops, because more than 80 billion items of children are produced around the world every single year, and human-made materials now outweigh all living biomass on Earth, if you can get your head around that. But what happens to those clothes when we're finished with them? Well, journalist and sustainable fashion expert, Tansy Hoskins,

has spent more than a decade investigating how clothes are made from garment factories to global supply chains. She's got a brilliant new bookout. It's called Charity Shop World. And she's turning her attention in that to the other end of the supply chain after spending 60 months volunteering in her local charity shop. She uncovers the hidden stories behind our unwanted clothes and what our donations reveal about us, our shopping habits,

and the fashion industry itself. Tansi Hoskins joins me in the Woman's Hour studio. Welcome to the program. Hi, Claire. Thank you. Oh, it's such a brilliant read. Oh, thank you so much. And it's a topic that we all know a lot about, but I think the way you've presented it

and the detail you've gone into and the history attached to it is so fascinating. Why did you want to write it? Well, as you say, I write a lot about the fashion industry. Usually I'm writing about factories and labour rights in garment factories. I wanted to follow. the supply chains of these 80 billion pieces of clothing

to what happens to them at the end. And so charity shop is a book about expulsion. It's about us expelling the clothes that we no longer want out of our houses, giving them to the charity shop, and then the charity shop expelling them out the back, and then them going into these so-called textile recycling vans, and then being expelled to countries like Ghana and Kenya and Pakistan, and then becoming a massive social and environmental house.

hazard over there. So we think we're in a kind of pre-loved, virtuous circle, but that's not always the case, is it? When we donate to charity shops. Yeah, I mean, I think we donate to charity shops because we love the charities that, you know, that are running the shops. And we hope that we're doing something good and we hope that clothes are going to the people who need them. But the reality is very different in a lot of cases. If a garment can't be sold in a charity shop, then it is exported. And I mean, yes, one of the countries where loads of stuff ends up from the UK is Ghana. And, you know, stuff there is like falling in, you know, about, well, the figures are a bit controversial.

But millions and millions of the pieces of clothing that arrive in Ghana are not sellable there either by the market traders. You know, if something's not a nice item in the UK, it doesn't become a nice item on the boat over to Ghana. So it's waste over there. It ends up in informal dumping sites, tumbles into rivers, ends up in the sea, is burnt as fuel and stuff, all goes into landfill and becomes a big methane bubble and then catches fire. So it's not what we want. Not a good story. No, it's not. You call this waste colonialism and you tie it back in with the colonialism, if you will, of the industrial revolution and the cotton trade that, you know,

we started. So tell us about that because maybe a lot of people don't really understand how that shaped where we are today. And we've kind of gone full circle, haven't we? Yes. Yeah. So it's just really interesting looking at the supply chain of a piece of clothing. You know, typically like our clothes are being made in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, you know, places where there was a very destructive colonial occupation and relationships. So we're following the same, you know, British, European, American companies are following their. those same trade routes. And then, you know, once the stuff is over here and once it's been used and it's no longer

wanted, then it goes and it's waste, then it goes back on those same trade routes, you know, and goes back to Pakistan or over to the continent of Africa and ends up as a problem in Kenya or Ghana. And the irony being, we as a country kind of decimated the domestic cotton trade or garment, if you will, fabric trade in India. And then we've now farmed out our production to these countries so that we can buy it in cheaper. Yes. Yeah. And when you look at the amount of, like the resources that we're taking, you know, from those countries, I mean, I did a bit of work a while ago. We figured out that it takes 4.5 million years worth of human time to make all the clothes that are imported into the EU in a single year. So 4.5 million years of human time every single year just to make the clothes that we're wearing.

And then, you know, we don't even value them that much. We then just like toss them out when we've worn them. There's this phrase, isn't there, built-in obsolescence, which we have, we can apply to tech. But you make the argument, the stuff that you went through in your local charity shop, it's not built to last, is it? Which is why people get rid of it. Yeah, this is one of the things that really broke my heart is like, you know, we would get things donated.

It were new items. They had the label on. But, you know, the seams, the seams were split already. The fabric was see-through. And it's a deliberate policy of, you know, these giant multinational fashion brands are deliberately making our clothes worse and worse. So, you know, there is a sense. People sort of say, oh, charity shops are getting worse.

And the part of the problem is the volume of clothing that's being donated is the same. but the quality has tailed off. So charity shops are just being used like a dump, you know, for like ultra-fast fashion and these, you know, this stuff that, you know, it's broken by the time it reaches you or by the time you've worn it once. Yeah, it doesn't last. You also don't like how charity shops are kind of thrown in this basket

of declining high streets, you know. If a high street has vape shops and charity shops, well, it's game over. Tell us why that leaves you uncomfortable. And you don't think it's the reality, do you? No, I don't. I think charity shops are in a really important part of our high streets, a really important part of our communities, especially in the climate of austerity.

These are places where people are coming together and finding their way through the cost of living crisis. You know, lots of people who are, you know, maybe older women who've retired and are bored out their minds and they want, you know, somewhere to go and to be part of their community. They think they're really important places. And I think charity shops get blamed for an awful lot when actually what they're doing is clearing up the waste of our communities.

And they might not be doing it perfectly and we need to fix the model a bit. But this is still, you know, like groups of volunteers tidying up after our community and our consumer society. And you saw the human connection that is really important. people coming in, the one conversation they have all day might be in that charity shop. Yeah, I was taught from the get-go, you know, anyone who comes in, we say hello to them because that might be the only conversation that they have. You know, in the winter it was very obvious that people were using the shop as a warm space,

you know, because it's warm and welcoming. You can take your time, you can browse. And so, yeah, it was really important to the managers of that shop that it was a welcoming place and a hub for that community. Lots of people getting in touch about their local charity shop. We've been asking people what, you know, what happens where you are. This is from Pearl. I'm a volunteer at my local running club as a welfare officer.

I've received so much joy and support from that club. I wanted to be a full part of it. Not a charity shop, but in any way, a volunteering story. And this from Fiona in Argyle. I hope I say this right, Fiona. Lock Gildfeed, community shop is amazing. It's a hub of activity that brings to life, a life to the high street. And they're always kind to the children who go in.

There is a free box of small things that haven't been sold and kids love going and looking in that. That is Fiona in Argyle. And this, I just wanted to take the opportunity to give a shout out to my mother, Margaret, who's worked in two charity shops for 30 years, and at the age of 90, is still there two days a week. It provides a real sense of purpose and pride for her. Unfortunately, her current shop, BHF, is closing at Christmas

and she's unlikely to start afresh in a new shop. So all of those human connections going on. You say you could take charity shops and use that as a starting point for us to all rethink how we consume and put that at the centre of the high street. So explain that to us. Well, yes. I think a lot of people think that there is a laundry attached to charity shops. There's no laundry attached to any charity shops.

So I think if I was changing the model, I would have, you know, the charity shop in the middle. You'd have like a community laundry on one side and 100% a repair, like a repair cafe, a permanent repair workshop, so that we could increase the percentage of things that get donated and that stay in our communities. Because these are, you know, these are our resources

and, you know, we can take care of them here. Beth says there's, I want to let you know about the most amazing community charity shop in Sussex Village called Forest Row. it's called Second Life set up when the village tip closed so everyone could recycle their goods. All the money raised goes back into the community. So it's a great example of a sort of circular economy. You mentioned this in the book as well, you know, because the money stays in the community, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah. And we fix our problems here. You know, we don't export like the waste to become a problem in Kenya or in Ghana where there's no infrastructure to set up to deal with the volume of stuff that's come. in. So your message to people listening to this, and I tell you something your book really made me think, is it start with what you buy. Is that, would that be it? Yes, I think, I think we definitely can all assess our own consumption habits and think about our consumption habits and think whether we want to be giving more money to, to billionaires so they can buy another super yacht or

if we want to do something different. I also think we should look at our expulsion habits and, you know, and think about how much we are giving to the charity shop and what we're giving and make a pledge to donate more responsibly and make sure we're giving nice things to the charity shop and not just selling them online, I think, yeah, would be very helpful for all charity shops. And charity shops don't have washing machines. You just like to make that clear. They don't have washing machines. Yeah, donate responsibly.

Clean the mud off your hiking boots, you know, before you donate them. Like give your trainers a clean. like clean your clothes. Yeah, donate, donate as if you're giving to your friend. Yes, make it a gift of love. Are you wearing charity shop chic today? Of course, 100% even the earrings. A silk red blouse, red berry jeans and even the DMs.

Yeah, yeah. Incredible. You'll have to tell me where you work. Thanks for joining us, Tansy. Thank you. Tansy Hoskins there, journalist, sustainable fashion expert, and charity shop world is out. Now, keep your stories coming in, 84844 on the text. now on Woman's Hour.

Yesterday we heard the news that Gloria Steinem, who became a leader of the women's liberation movement in America, has died at the age of 92. Gloria Steinem was a writer and a magazine editor and co-founded the Women's Action Alliance, a group dedicated to fighting sexism more than 50 years ago. Now, she started her career as a journalist in New York and went on to co-found Ms. Magazine,

one of the first publications to focus on women's issues such as abortion, domestic violence and women's political rights. So to help us reflect on her legacy now, I'm joined by the feminist writer and activist, Beatrix Campbell, and columnist Sarah Dighton. Welcome both of you. Hello. Hello.

Brilliant to have you here. To pay such an incredible tribute to an incredible woman, let's start. What did Gloria Steinem mean to you? She meant. a thousand different things. One, she meant being at a time of extraordinary, an extraordinary frisson of risk and pleasure

associated with the Women's Liberation Movement. And she was a very eloquent, elegant, gorgeous, tremendously experienced political activist who came out of a period in the United States. States, which was defined by the great black civil rights movement, the horrors of the Vietnam War, and women's journey into collective self-discovery. I can't tell you what that felt like then. It was a time of extraordinary kind of pleasure and danger, it seems. And she was an iconic figure in that great historical moment. Sarah, anybody, it wasn't just women, wasn't

it was anybody on the fringes she was drawn to. She wanted to be their voice. She wanted to hear their voice, didn't she? Yeah, she was a great political activist who was passionately involved in multiple of the kind of signature liberal left-wing progressive causes of the 20th century. But she gave her life, really, to the women's movement. That was where her heart was. And I think one of the things that I find so impressive moving about her is that she managed this actually very difficult thing to do where she made her politics personal but without ever demeaning herself or making herself into a victim. When she published her autobiography 11 years ago now, she dedicated it to the doctor who, formed her abortion when abortion was illegal, which is both, you know, a remarkable thing to disclose about yourself, something to you have been open about her entire life and open about

how it had transformed and saved her life. But it was never an active victimhood. It was never an act of pity me. It was always an acknowledgement of what this could mean for other women, for her to share this story. Be, pick up on that, if you will. As we were just saying, she wrote about having an abortion as a 22-year-old in London at a time when it was illegal. So how did that impact her personally and how she went on to campaign for women's rights, especially in America?

Well, I think the thing that's remarkable about it is that she made absolutely clear the irreducible necessity for women to control their own bodies and really it's the politics of reproduction. She put that at the centre of a political agenda. And I think the thing that's so easily forgotten, particularly in these times when we've got political leaders who are so regressive, so degenerate, so sexist in her society,

it's easy to forget how dangerous it was often for women to have something as straightforward that women forever had sought an abortion. She felt emancipated by it because the doctor who serviced her said, now, get on with your life, live your life, make your life what you want it to be. So that described, and the events that she was associated with that described some of the horrors of seeking an abortion

and getting an abortion, which wasn't her experience, but it was the experience of millions of other women, made that into what is called politics. She made patriarchy. something to be understood, not as nature, but as a system. We've got some lovely clips. So we can hear her voice now. Let's hear from Gloria Stein.

Here she is speaking to Sue McGregor on Woman's Hour back in 1977 and started off by reflecting on women's place in the labour market. 94% of all of those people who receive middle income level are white males. That leaves only 6% for women of every race and black men. Now that is an extremely effective caste system. The CAS system is so deep that nothing will help except a movement. Education doesn't help. Every year the female unemployed become better educated, and they're still unemployed.

The average secretary in this country is better educated than the average boss. You know, it becomes more and more clear that women are just going to be confined, even if they are in the labor market, and we are 40% now, the labor market. I mean, it's important that people see women doing many different kinds of work, especially important for children, to see women honored an authority, to see women, you know, doing atypical things. But it's still only a token change. But if in these last few years there have been relatively few, as you say, achievements for women, and if it suits the people who are in charge in America to keep it that way,

how hopeful are you that the revolution that you really want is actually going to happen? Well, I think we can't underestimate this difficulty, but it is also somewhat inevitable. Perhaps the whole world is in a stage of exerting individual rights of various kinds against centralized rights of governments or certainly against foreign incursions in the form of colonialism. We move forward in uneven waves. Women now, feminists now understand that we are in it for life. Does the thought of applying your whole life to this cause don't you? Well, everything else seems dull to me. There's nothing that it doesn't transform and change. and a life or a subject matter that is limited to the old conventional pattern without the addition of the feminist perspective seems to me very dull and boring.

I mean, it's so wonderful to hear her voice. And as you were saying, B, she dedicated her life to this. But Sarah, you are of the younger generation hearing her voice there. And obviously, she's outlining many struggles that are still current. How does her argument resonate with you today? Well, I think, I mean, number one, it's nice to be reminded, right, in a time of pretty profound backlash on lots of things, including abortion rights, especially in America. But to be reminded that there has, in fact, been progress and women's entry to the labour market, that is, you know, a massive generational shift. And I think work is so important to understanding her life.

She was an activist journalist and the journalist was integral to her activism. She founded Ms. Magazine, which was such a powerful vehicle for bringing feminism into the mainstream of culture in America and for giving a vehicle for all kinds of feminist discussions and debates. And I think that influence, that putting women in the picture was, I mean, that is her. legacy actually and it's something that she was such a fantastic, articulate advocate for her own voice but for, you know, the right of women's voices to be a part of the picture. But you had a chance to meet her. Yes. What was that like?

Well, she was lovely. She was a woman who, it's interesting trying to remember. I don't remember who I wrote for when I was doing the interview with her. But she was just a lovely, generous, humane, smart person who used her journalistic experience to advocate for women across all classes. She got class, she got racism, she got the centrality of the body in a way that was seemingly, certainly in her articulation of it, straightforward and a kind of common sense.

and she communicated that in a kind of genial, generous way that was just a pleasure to be around. And I think she communicated a pleasure in politics generally as not a kind of horrible realm, but as tricky for sure, but immensely exciting and productive. And of course, what we are in now is a time when we've got a, we've got genuine. generations of women who had never existed on the earth before met with, now, in the last days of her life, a most degenerate, genocidal, sexist, counter-revolution. And yet she brought to that, what she brought to those conversations two, three, four decades ago, a kind of smiling, intelligent optimism.

I mean I remember President Obama said, you know, you bring people with you with the kind of arm around the shoulder approach, even those that disagree with you. She did that so brilliantly, didn't she? She did. And I think the important thing in terms of how to conduct politics that we learn from her is first that women have to create the space for collective self-discovery of themselves. And at the same time, to create alliances with the political institutions. that are going to be useful. So she was a very creative, not rigid political activist

who learned from black people, from First Nations in the United States, from poor women, from wealthy women. She was a real pluralist and Democrat. Well, we can learn a lot from that and wonderful, wonderful tributes from both of you. Thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour. You heard the voice there of feminist writer

and activist Beatrix Campbell and also our thanks to columnist Sarah Dighton for joining us on Women's Hour this morning. Thank you both very much indeed. Now, finally, we're going to turn to football. The new Women's Super League, the WSL season, kicks off tonight. It's bigger than ever. London City lionesses play Manchester United this evening

with plenty more action over the weekend as well. So what exactly can we expect this season and what do we need to know? Well, Helen Hardy is the founder of Fowdies. She says it's the first, and only dedicated women's football retailer in the world. And she appeared on our Woman's Hour Powerless back in 2023 for her work, amplifying the sport.

Helen, welcome back to Woman's Hour. I know, it's so good to be back. Thanks for having me. And I love looking at you in your shop with all the stock behind you. Oh, this is my bedroom. This is just, this is my home. This is how you live. Can you imagine what the stop or the shop looks like?

Oh, my home. You are walking the talk without a doubt. So you are the first standalone women's football kit shop in the country? Yeah, in the world. I mean, isn't that crazy? The only place in the world that really hyper focuses on the women's game and hyperfocuses on women's football merchandise. And that started in my bedroom because basically I was so frustrated

that I couldn't buy a football jersey with Lucy Bronze's name on the back. So I thought I'll just make one myself. then here we are printing women's names on the back of jerseys for thousands of customers every year. And you're the standard. What's interesting is in recent years, you can go into a shop at a ground, you know, one of the Premier League grounds, but they're all shops and teams that are affiliated, are affiliated to the men's team. You're doing something that is standalone, a complete one-off. Well, I think the first thing to know is we were printing, you know, women's names on the back of Manchester United jerseys before Manchester United were doing it. it was the fact that we were first and when

Manchester United started doing it it just amplified what we were doing. It just made people want to access it more but they wanted to access it from a space that was talking to them that was honing in on them and their love of the women's game. Whereas let's be honest, Manchester United

and other clubs are probably more amplifying the men's side of the game and the women's side of the game is secondary. Bowdies is putting women's football front and center 365 days. even during the men's World Cup. And let's be honest, the kind of football boot a woman needs, the shin pads a woman needs,

the cut of the, you know, the kit that she needs are very specific to, you know, the female body. Yes, that and also the way that we have those conversations. So opening our flagship store in June in Manchester was a huge moment for us to evidence our why, which is when a customer comes in, I can have that conversation. or one of my team members can have that conversation. It's like we have this great period product from Nixie Body, what sort of sports bar do you need to play football in? The conversations are a lot bigger and broader.

And also what we found is that women's footballers at amateur level are coming into the game maybe a little bit later. So a lot of people that play at my football club have started playing in their 20s and 30s. They've never been taught what type of football boot to wear. Firm ground, soft ground, mid-ground, artificial ground. So we're having those conversations and we're not patronising them.

We're just trying to educate and support people to have that decent consumer journey. Well, thanks for starting that conversation and let's hope it goes into other shops around the country and football grounds as well. Let's talk about the actual football. I mean, it's just growing and growing, isn't it? London City Lionesses, they've just done this massive deal that their owner, Michelle Kang, says she thinks it's with Nike. She thinks it's one of the biggest ever sponsorship deals in women's football. follow the money, that's where the growth is. And it is in women's football right now, isn't it? Yeah, and it's not a huge surprise that it's London City Lionesses, an independent women's team.

I mean, they obviously, in Michelle Kang's testament to this, they obviously recognise the growth of the women's game, so they're honing in on it. And yeah, the Nike deal, I think, probably is the biggest women's football front of shirt sponsor, but according to Michelle Kang, it's bigger than some Premier League front of shirt sponsor deals. So, I mean, that just shows you the power of the women's movement, really. And the WSL itself, I mean, three new teams this season, so it is expanding, but also the calibre of the player that's being attracted. Coming to, again, London City lionesses, Alexia Piteas, who's two-time Ballon Door winner, is this the league that the best players in the world want to play in now? I know, you're just getting me excited for tonight now, aren't you? Because there's obviously kicking off tonight against Manchester United. said yes, the WSL, I think is arguably the best league in the world now.

And I think what the WSL has done really well is it's amplified across the league. So we've got a number of teams that are now participating at the very, very top. And it just makes the caliber of game and the quality of competition so high. So it's just super exciting to get ready for it. It's only a few hours away. Listen, we wish you all the best with your new venture there. sure it'll be a great success because women's football, people really can't get enough of it right now. So thank you so much for joining us, Helen. That is Helen Hardy, the founder of Faudies.

She says it's the first and only dedicated women's football retailer in the world. Thank you so much for all of your texts that have come in today on charity shops. I work at a charity shop. If old dirty damaged clothes come in, we put them in the red bag, a rag bag. And we sell the rags every week to a company which buys them by weight and uses them to make undelay, loft insulation, and the like. I think this is a good use of resellable items. They also take bags, shoes, belts, but I don't know what they do with them. Well, I think we've had a little insight into where all of that goes in the book Charity Shop World

by Tansy Hoskins. Thank you so much for joining me. I'll be back tomorrow with Weekend Woman's Hour, singer-songwriter Natalie Imbrillia. We'll join us on that on her latest album. But that from today is Women's Hour. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. The murder of Tupac Shakur has generated nearly 30 years of rumors,

conspiracy theories and unanswered questions. Now the mythology is about to meet the courtroom as the trial gets underway and Nevada prosecutors try and solve the mystery of who killed Tupac. I'm Minishka Matadowity and for the BBC's Fame Underfire podcast, I'll be inside the courtroom every day and I'm bringing you with me. What really happened on the Las Vegas Strip that night in 1996? It's time to separate facts. from fiction. Join me for Fame Under Fire, the two-part murder trial, the testimony, the arguments,

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