Woman's Hour - Swearing, Women in north east India, The 'grey pound' and fashion, A story of brutal crime, forgiveness and empathy

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

If you've been following the Covid inquiry, you may have noticed a lot of strong and swearing language. So why do we swear, and are women judged differently for swearing than men? In her new book For F*ck's Sake: Why Swearing is Shocking, Rude, and Fun, Dr Rebecca Roache explores double standards, the misogynistic roots of certain swear words and the challenges in reclaiming them. Anita Rani is also joined by the scientist Dr Emma Byrne who discusses why she swears, swearing in front of children and her own relationship with certain swear words.Six months ago, there was a horrific act of violence in north-east India, when two women were stripped, paraded naked, and allegedly gang raped by a mob. It made the news nationally when their ordeal was made public in a viral video. Now the two women have spoken for the first time, in a face-to-face interview with the BBC's Divya Arya.Luxury fashion brand Loewe recently made headlines with the face of their Spring/Summer 2024 pre-collection campaign: 88-year-old Dame Maggie Smith is pictured modelling some of their best-selling bags. Is this a step in a new direction for the world of fashion? Are major brands waking up to the consumer power of the 'Grey Pound'? Anita Rani is joined retail analyst Kate Hardcastle and former British Vogue Editor Alexandra Shulman.In 1985 in Gary, Indiana, four girls aged between 14 and 16 years old entered the house of an elderly woman and brutally murdered her. They took her car and a small amount of cash. The girls were black and the woman was white. Ruth Pelke was a Bible school teacher, a widow, well-known in her community. Those facts are not disputed. A new book called Seventy Times Seven by Alex Mar is a forensic study of what happened before and after that day and her focus is on Paula Cooper - a 15-year-old girl sentenced to death for her crime. So far, so grim, but this is also a story of forgiveness and radical empathy. Alex Mar joins Anita. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. High-end fashion brands seem to be targeting the grey pound. Those of you in the boomer generation who, in theory, have the disposable income to spend on clothes. Dame Maggie Smith, 88. Dame Mary Berry, 88. Charlotte Rampling, 77, are just some of the women who've recently modelled for high-end fashion houses. But what

I'm interested in this morning is hearing from you about your own relationship with clothes. Are you over 60 and now living your best fashion life? How have your clothing choices changed over the years? Do you spend a lot more on your wardrobe now has the spend increased the older you've got with the more cash you seem to have what's your relationship with fashion and style and how has it evolved and what about those of us who don't have a small fortune to spend on designer gear are your fashion needs as an older woman catered for have you always had a fabulous wardrobe and now it's coming to you know its own because it's vintage darling um we're talking fashion today so tell

me about your wardrobe admit to me your shopping habits what's your favorite item and why or is your hard-earned lifetime's worth of cash being spelt elsewhere whatever your thoughts on this get in touch the text number is 84844. You can also email me by going to our website or you can WhatsApp me or voice note me on 03700 100 444. Also on the programme, a story of forgiveness from America when the grandson of a murdered woman decided to forgive her teenage murderer on death row.

And we're swearing, or at least we're talking about swearing. In fact, we've had a message in already about swearing from Vivian on Twitter, who says, I hate how the C word is liberally used to describe the worst possible person. Even if I might agree with the user, I'm not sure it can be reclaimed anymore. Despite attempts, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley was possibly the last positive example. What are your thoughts about swearing and your spending habits on fashion? I want you to tell me about it all today. The text number once again 84844. But first, six months ago there was a horrific act of violence in northeast India when two women were stripped, paraded naked and

allegedly gang raped by a mob. It made the news internationally when their ordeal was made public in a viral video. Now the two women have spoken for the first time in a face-to-face interview with the BBC's Divya Arya. Well, I spoke to Divya earlier this morning about her conversation with the women and she started telling me a bit of the background to the story. It all started in early May when the Kuki tribal community and the majority Maithai community, which is mostly Hindu, all based in the northeastern state of Manipur in India, which borders Myanmar, got into these really violent clashes over a dispute over land rights, though important to state that there are many issues that are underlying and bring complexity as to why the two communities are at loggerheads,

even now, six months after that violence began. But the immediate provocation was the right to own land. So when did the violence erupt? The violence erupted on the 3rd of May and a horrific incident happened on the 4th of May. But none of that came to light till mid-July when a video came out on social media. So what exactly happened to these women? So this video which showed us, it's a very disturbing video, Anitaj. There should be a warning here for your listeners. And when I saw it on

Twitter and later when it was circulated on WhatsApp, it's a very tough watch. It's less than a minute long. It shows a big mob of Maite men surrounding two women from the Kuki tribal community who are completely naked. And as these women try to shield themselves from this mob, the men are groping, pushing them along and eventually take them to the fields nearby. And we get to know later from the accounts of these women and the complaints that they filed with the police that they were allegedly gang raped. So they filed complaints to the police? Yes, they filed a complaint within two weeks because the attack wasn't limited to the sexual assault. Before that, the mob had set fire to their village, also killed the brother and father of one of the women. So there was a lot of violence that had happened and eventually once they were able to there was a lot of violence that had happened.

And eventually, once they were able to get to a point of safety, they did file a complaint with the police two weeks after the incident happened, but nothing happened. Only when the video came out two and a half months later, that there was this uproar in the country, there was widespread condemnation, including by the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, who had up until then not said anything about these clashes. So the police swung into action. In their defense, they said they could now identify some of the accused. So they have arrested seven men, but that's obviously not the whole mob. Now, the women claim that the police was lax in investigation, and it wasn't just because they couldn't identify the men.

And on their complaint, the Supreme Court of the country took cognizance of the violence and has transferred the investigation of this case to the Federal Investigative Agency, which is considered independent because it is not connected with the state government. And therefore, it's trying to shield these women and ensure that the proper investigation is done into their case. And all of this is happening off the back of the fact that this video came out. But you have managed to speak to the two women who were attacked for the very first time. They've spoken to a journalist for the first time. We're calling them Gloria Mercy. How are they doing? What's happened to them in their lives? On the face of it, they've spoken to a journalist for the first time. We're calling them glory and mercy. How are they doing? What's happened to them in their lives?

On the face of it, they look very fragile. But the fact that they actually sat across me in a room face to face and agreed for an interview. In fact, they thanked me many times saying that they really wanted their story to come out now. That showed that they had recovered somewhat. They spoke a lot about the trauma they had gone through. When they met me, you know, they came fully clothed. They had a big black mask covering their face and scarves covering their forehead. All I could see was their eyes. And even those were downcast, you know, it's like

the shame just follows them around. And they said that they have now restricted themselves to staying indoors with with the friends and extended relatives they're now taking refuge with so they're not stepping out they're even afraid of facing their own community because they feel so exposed they get nightmares even now. They feel very hopeless about the future. But despite all that, they wanted their story to come out because they want justice. And that's one thing they were really clear about. And we spoke for a couple of hours. And I think by the end of it, I could hear that strength in their voice. They'd become more comfortable and they began looking me

you know into my eyes so what's it done to them and and and their relationship with their own community having gone through this horrific horrific ordeal the good thing is that the community has come together in helping these women and in, once their plight came to light because of the video, other women who had also alleged sexual assault went to the police and made formal complaints. So they felt emboldened. They saw a glimmer of justice somewhere. And as you can imagine, in a clash that is ongoing, where communities have been completely segregated because of the ongoing violence, their homes burned down, and both communities have suffered losses. There's been displacement of thousands of people on both sides,

even though the deaths are largely from the minority Kuki community. In that situation, sexual assault gets sort of pushed down the ladder. The community is first fighting for survival, first fighting to get justice for murders, you know, for people who have lost their lives. And there is a huge sense of shame within the community because it's a very small and close-knit community. We are not taking their names or disguising their voices, but the whole community knows what happened to which woman. It is public knowledge there. So given all of that, the community feels that the women were not, they were not any other rape survivor, you know, where often wrongly questions are asked about what were you wearing? What time were you out? Did you know pure victims i would not you know go into those labels but the community feels that they need to come and support these women because they were targeted because of their identity of being part of a certain community so the community owes it to them

to protect them to help them rebuild their lives and move forward. It's such a shocking act of horrific violence and particularly because they targeted these two women and paraded them and shamed them and humiliated them and degraded them and then the violence surrounding it as well. And you kind of wonder about the psychology of that and that taking place that specifically they targeted the women. You're absolutely right, Anita. One does think about what went in the minds of those men.

Now, there are theories that are being given that the men were fed wrong information, that women of their community were also being attacked. Maite women were also attacked. And we haven't come across any such complaint except for one, only one complaint of sexual assault against a Maite woman. But that said, I mean, one rape does not justify another. And at the end of the day, each man in that mob is responsible for what he was doing that day. And in India, we started talking about sexual violence 11 years back. If you remember, in December 2012,

there was this horrific gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi. And it raised a lot of issues around safety of women, around attitudes towards sexual violence, attitudes towards gender roles and gender equality. And laws were changed. A lot of other progressive legislation was brought in to address the surrounding issues around sexual violence towards prevention of sexual violence. Despite that, we regularly see really appalling cases of sexual violence. And that just shows that we've only been able to move maybe a few inches. And we have such a large distance to cover for men to be empathetic, for men to understand their women's bodies are neither to be, you know, shamed because they belong to a certain community or not in any situation.

What was it like for you as a woman and a journalist to hear what they went through, to have to sit and listen to their testimonies? It's not the, unfortunately, the first time that I was meeting survivors of sexual violence. And every time I meet them, I think I traverse this journey from fear to fight back, which is the journey that they have traversed. Because I go to them only aware of the fear because of the gory details of the horrific violence that they've gone through. And then when I come out of that interview, I come with their spirit of fight back because that's the journey they have traversed. And they speak with so much strength, despite all the odds, that I think it's very empowering as a journalist and as a woman.

What's happened to the seven men that were arrested? They're in the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is the federal investigative agency now, hearing this case and all other cases of sexual violence and some other cases of the ethnic clashes and the violence related to that when they were identified their own community the methi community handed them over to the police and the women in the methi community went and, in fact, burned their houses down. And they said, and I spoke to some of them, they said that they're doing this because they want to

distance themselves from those perpetrators. They wanted to say that the whole community absolutely abhors or condemns the violence that the women experienced. And they wanted to say that these were just an anomaly and that the whole community believes in respecting women and does not justify this kind of violence. That's so interesting that it was the women of the community that stood up and took action. So the women of the community also gave the two cookie women clothes after the mob left them in the field after attacking them. So it's

hard to, you know, I think there is hope in all these gray areas between the black and white of the violence that we often end up focusing more on. The main accused when he was arrested, he left behind his wife and two children. So when the Maite women went and burned down his house, in a way, it was the woman who got affected, who had no part to play in this violence. She and her children had to leave that, not just the house, but they were banished from the village. In some ways, the women keep becoming victims of a conflict, which they may not even choose to be participants in. That was BBC journalist Divya Arya speaking to me earlier and if you want to find out more she's

written a full account of her interview with the two women which is on the BBC News website now. On to the next item which is about how much money you spend on fashion. Well luxury brands are beginning to feature timeless icons in their campaigns to attract older shoppers with more spending power. Dame Maggie Smith, Charlotte Rampling and Dame Mary Berry have all been featured in adverts for Loewe, Massimo Dutti and Burberry, where brands would normally work with models half their age. According to figures from McKinsey,

the percentage of baby boomers planning to spend on fashion over the next three months is up 5%, whereas for millennials, this has dropped by 6%. So the fashion industry finally responding to the strength of the so-called grey pound, the purchasing power of older people as consumers, or could it, as my next guest suggests, be an element of age-washing?

Well, Kate Hardcastle is a retail analyst. She's here to crunch some of the numbers behind this trend for us. And we're also joined by Alexandra Shulman, journalist and former editor-in-chief of British Vogue. Welcome, both of you. So let's get into this, the grey pound. Kate, I'm going to come to you first. What are the figures suggesting? Who's spending and who's not?

Hi, good morning. Well, absolutely. There's a shift in terms of the buying power of what you're calling the grey pound. I prefer silver. I don't suppose any word's quite right. But it seems to be oriented around the fact that there is opportunity to sell to that marketplace. And particularly we've seen within the luxury sector a need to be able to recoup and find new markets when it's getting incredibly tough we know the cost of living is impacted on that and it doesn't really take a rocket science to work out that when we've got a group of people in 50 plus who tend to be amongst those who are house owners aren't as impacted not everyone of course but not as impacted for their cost of living.

There's an opportunity for them perhaps not to retire, which seems to be an idea of just going and hiding away, but to be jubilant and celebrate and travel more and get into fashion more. So that's the market. It's a low hanging fruit. The question for me all the way through is the business is, is this another sustainability, greenwashinghing another diversity or a rainbow washing piece where we're just seeing these models just being portrayed in huge brand advertisements but when you get into the core of the business is the reality that an over 50 woman would be respected equally in the boardroom as in the advertising I think that's where we've really got to do some digging because the one thing I can tell you about over 50 consumers smart agile emotionally intelligent and they will see through anything that looks like it's fake well we've got a lot of them listening to the program now and they're getting in touch to tell

us about their shopping habits um we've got a message here saying um I have worked in fashion for many years and getting dressed every day has always been a fun creative part of my day I'm 61 and refuse to buy into the marketing campaigns that target the older consumer. The distinctions between age groups are blurred in other aspects of life. I don't feel genuine. It's just gimmicky. Love the Loewe Maggie Smith images, but no doubt they will revert to 20 year old models in the next campaign.

Carol says I'm 70 next week. Happy birthday for next week, Carol. My wardrobe now consists of 30 much loved old clothes and 70 bought from the charity shop anyone looking inside my wardrobe would have no idea if i'm 70 or 17 love that recent purchases include knee-high laced doc martin style boots i've not developed a love of sensible clothing i wear what feels right and fits right and I love giving another life to high quality branded clothing that someone else no longer wants 84844 keep your thoughts coming in um is there a sudden change in spending Kate it's not sudden no actually the spending power has been there for quite some time in fact McKinsey

who were quoted uh just recently uh I think you mentioned earlier, this 5% more propensity to spend amongst these baby boomers, of which I'm nearly one, is seen as the opportunity where we've seen a 5% drop in millennials. McKinsey were reporting in 2007, actually, that they saw the growth of the 50 plus consumer, they would be leading the economy. So we've seen this. And we've also seen this almost tokenism in advertising before LVMH, the group who actually owned Louis V. In 2016, I think we're using actresses of a 70 plus age range. But actually, does it cut through? That's the thing. We need credibility. You know, things can be in and out. And I'm sure Alexandra will tell us all about that. Colours can be in and out. Shape can be in and out. Age shouldn't be in and out. The respect and authenticity that's

needed from brand to consumer should be consistent all the way through. Well, let's bring Alexandra in to give us her thoughts. Morning. Welcome to the programme, Alexandra. What were your first thoughts when you saw the pictures? Something to be celebrated or something to be wary of well i think some of them are great and some of them less so i kind of agree with everything that kate said i think it's very um easy to see this kind of use of of much older models to sell luxury brands as a bit of a gimmick um i have to say i mean maggie smith in louisville i mean she looks at least 20 years older than she actually is i mean there's this kind of thing whereby you can be really really old for fashion but what you can't be is kind of middle-aged and I think that's one of the areas

where I have a bit of a problem I think when you've got um somebody like Mary Berry for Burberry I mean it's a lovely idea but really there is no real connection between her and Burberry, whereas Phoebe Philo at Celine in 2016, I hadn't realised that LVMH had sort of done it before, but she had Joan Didion, the writer, as her sunglasses model. And I think that had a real kind of authenticity because Didion always wore sunglasses and Celine was aimed at a kind of cool intellectual women. I think it very much depends whether there's a real connection between what the brand is and the person they're using.

Age, to me, is kind of irrelevant. I mean, that connection can be there with a 20-year-old or it can be there with an 80-year-old. I'd like to see more kind of 50-year-olds being included in the mix. Why do you think they've done it then? Because we're talking about it. I mean, in the campaign with Maggie Smith, they had, I think it was four young models of which nobody has mentioned a single one of them. They were an equal part of the campaign.

But Maggie Smith and Loewe got front page headlines. I mean, they're doing it to attract attention. That's what advertising is about. It's to attract attention to the brand. I just wonder why they don't aim. I mean, let's get into this a little bit. Because, Kate, why are they not aiming at that certain middle-aged demographic that alexandra's talking about because the older demographic have always had spending power this isn't anything new is it it isn't you and some recent research came

out at the start of the year just listen to this from a organization called bias cut 88 percent of women 50 plus feel they are poorly represented in all media and they even created some stock images stock images are kind of library shots so that when an article is written and maybe you don't have an image for it you can slot in a picture that's relevant there was even within stock images a huge amount of that age group missing I feel like I've entered the age of invisibility and I'm 47 and I think you know it makes sense for fashion houses to realize the opportunity because of course what's happening if you feel this way at this age younger women are going to fear aging because they're going to feel

that invisibility is on the horizon so there's financial sense behind it and therefore I've got to think about the boardrooms I've been in, even the factory floors I've worked on internationally. Were body shapes of a 30 plus women being monitored, understood as we go through changes physically to make shape and size and fit done? I've never seen that happen. I've never I've never witnessed that. Have I heard the voice of the consumer at that age group represented fairly within the culture of an organisation very rarely seen it happen and if you start digging into the amount of CEOs that we've got the diversity piece there is a long way to go. Alexandra you were editor-in-chief of British Vogue for 25 years do you think you had enough older models on the pages? Well we certainly had enough older women

included in the magazine because it was something that i felt very strongly about i think everybody kind of liked to try and bang the gong for for what they're part of so i was very very keen it was one of my big things was to try and show women of all ages wearing fashion um but i think that it's you know it is quite complicated because we people talked a lot about a magazine for older women for instance launching why are there no magazines for older women well older women don't want to read a magazine for them you know why are there no shops for the older market nobody wants to go into a shop for an older market we we don't want to be siloed in that way and um i disagree with kate about the invisibility thing i mean i i sort of feel like actually there

are a lot of great uh women older out there doing interesting things now sort of more and more we've got a long way to go but there still are so I think there's there's kind of hope but as far as actual fashion is concerned and sort of fashion imagery which in a way is what we're talking about you know that again is a complicated thing um I always you know I'm quite a sucker I was looking the other day in a catalogue at a beautiful young blonde girl wearing a velvet trouser suit. And I thought, yeah, that trouser suit's really nice. And I kind of, I know I'm not going to look like her if I buy that trouser suit, but she looked so great in it, it propelled me to

want to buy it. So I think we have to be realistic about people not only wanting to see representations of themselves to be sold things what do you think Kate I didn't say that there weren't over 45 women not doing brilliant things I just want to hear more of them and I do want to see my body shape and size represented in the clothes because I'm if we look at the even the basics from a commercial element of it, returns is one of the biggest issues online retail companies face. And the returns are because of sizing, fit and issues. So if you see something that you can see realistically how it fits on you, then you're going to buy something you feel better about

and hopefully connect more with. And I think it's also about putting confidence in a different way. It's going back to that piece of the credibility, actually layering in a spirit within these organizations that isn't just about selling it's actually about interacting engaging and as we see brands get savvier through social media it's conversational rather than just a heightened identity of a brand telling us what we will wear or won't wear or can wear or can't wear it's got to be this

immersive piece where we as consumers feel the power of our purse actually connects with these brands and feels like we're actually being respected and I think that's the majority of feedback I get back from research we just want to feel respected and part of the decision making. Or is and what do you think to that, Alexandra? Or is that, are we missing the point of high fashion, which is, as you said, you know, it's aspirational. We are meant to look at these photographs and admire youth beauty and until very recently, white beauty. I think there are so many ideas that we're unpicking here. It's really kind of, you know, that the question of older women's place in society and the question of luxury brand advertising are really two completely different things. So as far as luxury brands are, I think that they just want people to buy.

They're not really interested in, they want to promote their their goods obviously they like the idea that people kind of feel invested in the idea of them but they feel invested in a brand that i think is aspirational when you come into the more attainable middle market where we're all shopping you know the zaras the uniclothes or. There's a very different thing going on there. And there I feel like the customer does want to be, feel like they're part of the conversation. But I think I would say that we have to credit the consumer with a certain kind of intelligence at understanding what they're looking at. You know, whatever age you are, you're going to have a problem with fit and returns. I mean, I think we all see teenagers buying from ASOS, you know,

piles of things coming in, piles of things going back. So the returns thing is a very different thing. I think people are used to an idea that you interpret images, you don't have to be told that they are exactly what you are applying to your, you know, to your beliefs and criteria. But, you know, that's my feeling about it. I guess I edited a, you know, a luxury magazine. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what we want to hear from you. Loads of people are getting in touch with us about their relationship to fashion.

I'm 61 and love fashion. I own a shoe shop and sell boots to age range 20 to 75. Age should not be an issue when you consider clothes. When my daughter, age 26, visits from Athens, she doesn't bring anything and wears all my clothes. That's nice. You've obviously got a fantastic wardrobe. I absolutely love my clothes.

I tend towards a vintage look. And as a young woman in my 30s, I tend to buy secondhand because I can't afford to buy new on a regular basis. But something I love seeing is older women embracing their natural beauty, particularly the likes of Helen Mirren, Diane Keaton and their stunning silver hair. So glamorous and an inspiration to the younger generations. And Marilyn says, I just want a bra. As a large, busted, mature woman, I would like a bra that actually fits and is comfortable. And let's get another one in here.

I love clothes and always have done. Now I'm 82. I'm blissfully happy in my corduroy dungarees, which has pockets in all the right places. And it's not tight around my tummy. I'm still thinking about you saying, Kate, that you felt invisible at the age of your mid 40s when it comes to fashion. Yeah, I'm around the fashion industry and I'm around advertising a lot. I'm a geek behind the scenes. I do the numbers. I crunch the numbers. But I still want to feel as if I've got an opportunity to speak. I've worked incredibly hard to get to this point in my career and I'd like my voice to be heard and the voice of my peers to be heard I'm incredibly respectful of everyone you've got on the program today I love this

program I love listening to those voices I just want to hear them more in mainstream media look you know I just to go back to Alexandra's point business is a commercial they're about profit they're not about doing the right thing necessarily but the realism is consumerism is getting more educated more emotionally intelligent. And if you want to cut through as a brand, you're going to have to start thinking about doing things properly because the consumers will see through it. If it's flimsate, they will see through it. Oh, yeah, particularly the Radio 4 listeners. Alexandra, whilst I've got you on, I've got to ask you about the big cuts and changes that have taken place at Vogue since you left.

They've axed the job of British editor in chief. There's no longer a bespoke French Vogue. British Vogue has also now left its famous office, Vogue House in London. What have you made of the changes? Can I just say no comment? If you want to, or you can give me an answer. I mean, I think, you know, all publishing companies are having to look at the way they operate. It's not true. There is a bespoke French Vogue, by the way. I think it's really sad that the international Vogue are becoming more merged together.

One of the great things about editing Vogue was that it was very much a sort of reflection of the different cultures. It was it was its strengths. I don't quite understand the rationale for thinking that magazines can have a kind of global identity. But if you want to cut staff, I guess that's the way to do it. I'm kind of pleased I'm just not having to edit the magazine while it's happening. Well, we've really enjoyed speaking to you this morning.

Thank you, Alexandra Shulman and Kate Hardcastle. Lots of you getting in touch about your own fashion stories. My gripe is, as I like to think of myself as a young 75-year-old, there are no shops that cater for us.

I used to make my own clothes, but there are no fabric shops anymore in spite of the sewing being encouraging us to sew. Very limited fashionable cater for us. I used to make my own clothes, but there are no fabric shops anymore in spite of the sewing being encouraging us to sew. Very limited fashionable choices for us. And Nikki in Whitney says, born in 1955, the only fashion I have ever followed were loons and maxi dresses back in the 1970s.

Some of the dresses I still have, they don't fit anymore, but one day I'll make cushion covers from them. How wonderful. Since then, I spend very little on new clothes, unless I have a wedding to attend. I've never been a shoes and handbags gal, but I do love a trip to the garden centre.

Thank you for those. Keep them coming in. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. 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. Now, in 1985, in Gary, Indiana, four girls between 14 and 16 years old entered the house of an elderly woman and brutally murdered her.

They took her car and a small amount of cash. The girls were black and the woman was white. Ruth Pelkey was a Bible school teacher, a widow, well-known in her community. Those facts are not disputed. Well, a new book called 70 x 7 by my next guest, Alex Marr, is a forensic study of what happened before and after that day. And her focus is on Paula Cooper,

a 15-year-old girl sentenced to death for her crime. So far, so grim. But this is also a story of forgiveness and radical empathy. And Alex joins me now to tell me more. So let's start by talking, Alex, welcome to the programme, by the way. Let's talk about Paula Cooper. What happened to her before she walked into Ruth

Pelkey's house? Well, Paula, as you mentioned, these girls are very young. Paula Cooper was 15. And at that point in her life, she had for years been living in a home that was chaotic. She had been dealing with physical abuse from her father. Her mother had a very severe drinking problem. She and her older sister consistently went to people for help, social workers, police officers, asking for them to be removed from their home. So she ended up, Paula was bouncing around

between emergency shelters, foster homes, but constantly being sent back because these were always temporary solutions. And her parents refused to participate in any kind of counseling that was suggested by the city. So just a few weeks before the crime, Paula had been returned yet again back to her parents' home. And that's an incredibly important piece of the background here. So in the book, I really wanted readers to grapple with the situation of this young girl and not just look at her as a criminal and a perpetrator of violence. You go into a huge amount of detail about the context. So let's get some of that.

Can you briefly explain, tell us about how social and political forces shaped what happened to Paula? Because we're talking about 1980s America, but Gary, Indiana. So tell us a bit about the place and the time. Right. Well, Gary, Indiana is a really fascinating town, quintessentially American. It's an old steel town. And what had happened was that, you know, it developed as a northern industrial town that actually was deeply segregated to the point where it was on the par with some of the American South in that regard. So that's in the background. And so the fact that Paula and her classmates who joined in this terrible event were black and their victim was white was a huge part of

the sensationalism of the press, the fascination with it in the community. At the same time, you know, the larger picture in the United States was the 1980s. That is the Reagan era. And Reagan's administration was frequently using the phrase, you know, tough on crime, law and order. The idea was that there really should be force and harsh punishment used in response to crimes of all kinds. And that includes crimes committed by very young people, which really shut down any kind of dialogue about, well, why? Why are why are people so young engaging in these acts? There were there were very few questions at the time as to what shaped Paula Cooper.

How much attention did this case get at the time? You know, it was really fascinating locally and all around the Midwest. The case was quite sensational because of the violence of the crime. There was, Paula Cooper was ultimately sentenced to death for the crime in spite of being 15. That was less, there was a lot less shock around that fact. It was really about the violence of the crime, the shock that, you know, these were girls and they were capable of this act. It wasn't until the European press was turned on to this event, and in particular, a couple of Italian journalists covered the case and covered Paula's death sentence.

And it was on the front pages of some Italian papers. It spread around the media in Europe. And the fact that there was so much criticism of the justice system in the U.S. coming from Europe ended up reinvigorating the case in the American media, right? So for the first time, American newspapers and television programs were actually actively questioning, you know, is there a reason why we're coming under fire for this kind of decision? And Indiana at the time, you know, the minimum age for the death sentence was just 10 years old, which is something this case revealed to the public. And you had several states where the death penalty then was available for kids. So we have Paula, who's now sentenced to death. She's only 15 years old um let's move on to the other character in the and these are this is a real life situation that happened that um alex has written a book about tell us about

bill pelkey who was he and what was his initial reaction to the sentence bill pelkey was an incredible person to get to know through the writing of this book. So as you mentioned, Ruth Pelkey was the victim, who was nearly 80 years old and a Bible teacher. Bill was her grandson, and he was nearly 40 years old at the time of the crime. He was a lifelong working class guy. He had worked for nearly two decades as a crane operator at a steel mill in Gary. He was not someone who had a particular kind of political conscience. He'd never been interested in making grand public statements. But this crime and the punishment that was meted out to this young girl really changed all of that. He attended Paula Cooper's sentencing

because he and his family members really believed that she deserved the death sentence as sort of a symbolic act. It wasn't that he wanted to see her executed per se. It was that, you know, the prosecutor really made the family feel that if we win death, then that is a form of respect for your grandmother's life. We're giving this girl the ultimate sentence, right? Then a few months went by and Bill was going through a really tough time in his life. He had been, he had just gone through a divorce. He was estranged from his kids. He was, he had just declared bankruptcy on top of that. And he was mourning the death of his grandmother to whom he was very close. And he had a sort of night of the soul where he realized, you know what, if my grandmother was still alive, she would be horrified at the thought that a young girl was about to be

executed in her name. Actually, could you read that bit from the book? I hope you have it in front of you. Could you read us the bit where you describe what happened and how he had a change of heart or a change of thought? Yes. Okay. A single photo of Bill's grandmother was used in the press around her death. It is a church portrait taken against a velvety black backdrop, Ruth, with a ring of soft silvery white curls around her head, her cat's eye glasses, a beatific half smile. But now, in Bill's mind, the image transforms. His grandmother's eyes begin to shine, and tears begin a steady, clear runoff down her cheeks. In this moment, Bill believes he understands.

She is crying for that girl, for Paula Cooper, and for the girl's grandfather. She would not have wanted him to suffer the knowledge that his grandchild would be buckled into the electric chair. And she would not want this girl to be killed in her name. For the first time, Bill believes it is possible that the girl did not know what she was doing when she killed Ruth. That she'd been out of her right mind. And now his grandmother is calling on him to forgive her. It's powerful stuff because like you said, he was in the courtroom when he witnessed Paula being sentenced to death

and he saw it was Paula's grandfather had to be taken out of court because he was the only person that reacted and said, my baby, was it my baby? Am I remembering this rightly? It's my grandbaby my grand baby and it was really the first time that that that bill pelkey was confronted by family members on paula cooper's side and had recognized that she too had family so what did bill do next what's kind of incredible you know the passage i just read this takes place he's he going to still do next? What's kind of incredible, you know, the passage I just read, this takes place, he's up in the crane in the steel mill late one night, alone on a late shift. And, you know, introduces himself and says, you know, I want you to know who my grandmother was. And I want you to know that I forgive you. And and I hope I hope you'll I hope you'll write back and let me know how you're doing.

You know, yeah. And did she? They did they did right they they struck up a relationship absolutely and it was honestly that correspondence and their relationship was the reason why I chose to spend years on this on this story because you know I was so I found that so compelling it was so unusual to have someone reach across the aisle that way. But also, I mean, here's a middle-aged white man. She's a young girl. She's from a black neighborhood. She's a runaway. And on top of that, she is the person who killed his grandmother.

So how do you even begin to have that dialogue? To get to understand how their relationship was built was so fascinating. And she was certainly suspicious of Bill's intentions at first. But he marched and lobbied and campaigned against the death penalty. He did. So, you know, and keep in mind that he was really a solo warrior in this scenario in his community. His family, his friends, his co-workers, the members of his

church congregation, everyone rejected his choice to forgive this girl. They just didn't know what to make of it. And they thought that he honestly lost his mind. So it was over time, you know, throughout Paula's appeal and in talking to the press, he was able to start to meet up with people who had a history as activists and who were aware of the death penalty issue and harsh sentencing in the United States. And it was, it's really, you know, there's a, there's a very touching moment in the book where he shows up in a press suit carrying a copy of the Bible to this rally that is, you know, full of like college activists who were, you know, he just really stood out. And his transformation was pretty profound. Paula's sentence was commuted, and she served 28 years in the end, didn't she? Yes, that's right. So, you know,

while her life was spared, she did end up having a very long prison sentence ahead of her. And so that was something else that I wanted to look at. You know, the book certainly doesn't end with the commuting of her sentence. So it's kind of this question also, what happens when someone that young enters the system? And is there the possibility for her to change over time? And the book definitely makes the argument, it makes a case for, you know, yes, when someone is a teenager, they are not fully formed. And so we get to kind of, we get to see her evolution

and it's a really, really rocky one. But what was, yes, sorry, it's a rocky evolution. Yeah. Well, also over time, you know, her relationship with Bill and her relationship with her appellate team really ended up making a difference. So so there are those kinds of like real life factors. You know, there's the drama of getting off of death row. But what happens next in reality? And what's fascinating about this and you you i mean i'm intrigued to know because

you've spent time with bill is that and i guess what is the question we ask ourselves if it was me would i have the capacity to forgive such a horrific crime his grandmother violently murdered by this girl that's not in dispute what was it like you got to know him you spent time with him what did he tell you about that how did did he did he what what happened and was it just that moment where it just something clicked and that was it he he had a change of heart I mean absolutely it really was sort of a revelation you know and I think that's when the hard work started for him because he had to be able to live with the rejection from most of his family members and from his friends. His girlfriend at the time was utterly horrified that he had made this decision.

I, you know, in getting to know him, it was really it was extraordinary. He's an extraordinary man. He's got a great sense of humor about life. But one one thing that was conveyed to me was that, you know, he did it partly for himself, right? He did it for his grandmother, but he also did it for himself. Because how do you move forward when your family's experienced such a terrible crime with hatred in your heart, right? And getting to know him was really challenging because i don't know if i'd be able to make that decision in his place right yeah i think that's what i think that's what most people listening will be thinking about as well alex thank you so much absolutely fascinating

speaking to you sadly though um bill forgave her but paula could not forgive herself and you can read more in 70 times 7 by alex mar Now, if you've been following the COVID inquiry, you may have noticed a lot of strong and sweary language. So why do we swear? And are women judged differently for swearing than men? Why are some swear words considered more offensive than others? And what does that tell us about misogyny and sexism in society? Well, to discuss this, I'm joined by Dr Rebecca Roach,

the author of a new book, For F's Sake, Why Swearing is Shocking, Rude and Fun. She's also a senior lecturer in philosophy at Royal Holloway University of London. And Dr. Emma Byrne, scientist and author of Swearing is Good for You, the Amazing Science of Bad Language. And yes, we're going to be discussing some difficult language that some might find offensive. Rebecca, I'm going to come to you first. Why do we swear? Yeah, that's a fascinating question. I think there's a variety of reasons. Probably an obvious one is we swear to let off steam. So it has this role in venting emotion. You know, if you stub your toe or if you have a disappointing experience or a fantastic experience, then swearing is one of the ways that we can vent emotion. But it's not it's not the only thing that we use swearing for.

We can use swearing to try and insult or offend people, of course, but also in establishing trust and intimacy. So the way that we might use swearing in a group of close friends might be sort of benign and affectionate even. There's lots of reasons. Are women judged more harshly for swearing? And why do we think that is? Yeah, I think there's still this taboo around women swearing. I mean, sort of we're maybe past the times when you just couldn't swear in front of women, that would have been a real taboo. But I think sort of just noticing myself that especially men will often be more taken aback to hear swearing from a woman compared to a man. And that's actually, you know, that's kind of amusing and entertaining. But there's also a serious point there, right?

It means that women potentially pay a higher price for swearing than men do. Emma, there's been a small study about these double standards, hasn't there? That's right. And it's slightly outdated now, at least I hope it is. It was done in the early 2000s. And the way it was done was to send out randomised studies with swearing phrases in. And those phrases either had a woman's name or a man's name as the ostensible speaker. And they asked people to rate how reliable, how trustworthy, how intelligent, how just generally how good these people were.

And the women all paid higher social penalties for these swearing phrases than the men. Pardon me. But one thing that makes me really hopeful that we might be changing is what happened at the covid inquiry the other day in that both dominic cummings and helen mcnamara uh had been using swearing and to rebecca's point the ways in which they used their swearing were completely different and i didn't see helen mcnamara getting the kind of vitriol for what she'd said that Dominic Cummings had had

for his, let's face it, fairly misogynistic comments. So I hope if that study were to be repeated now, maybe those results would be a little less stark. I have to say my own experience is my, I wrote a book and it's got a few swear words in it because I'm an adult female and in real life i've been known to to swear um but whenever i've done interviews about it people seem to be a little bit shocked that because not i and i think it's not only because

i'm a woman i'm a i'm a south asian woman and i think there's a little twist there's an added layer of shock that uh i might know what these words. Why are swear words about women's bodies considered more offensive, Rebecca? Yeah, this is a really alarming thing, isn't it? So if you think of the rudest swear words, which I'm not going to say, obviously, but you probably all know which word I mean. It refers to a woman's genitals. And there's, of course, an equivalent word for male genitalia, which is actually pretty mild by comparison. And I think it arises from a time when women's bodies were sort of really viewed from a time. I mean, it's still the case, I think, that women's bodies are viewed with just more distaste than male bodies. Yeah, more distaste, but also sort of more exoticised, just more of a taboo around women.

And it's interesting, you know, that's a point about bodies, but it translates into the shock value of the words that we use to refer to those bodies. Emma, you've written that you have a certain pride in your knack for colourful and well-timed profanity why do you swear and why do you enjoy it? Yeah I mean I've noticed similar to you though obviously as a white woman I only get half of that sort of exoticisation that you know particularly guys who will swear in front of me and then apologise and just sort of exoticisation that, you know, particularly guys who will swear in front of me and then apologise and just sort of go, I've heard these things before. But working in male dominated industries for most of my life, I ended up using swearing kind of as a way of just putting all that

aside and saying, you don't have to pussyfoot around me. And people said, this will change as soon as you have a child. I was writing the book while I was heavily pregnant. And they're like, well, you'll stop swearing as soon as your child comes. But I didn't. And I followed the research that comes out of the States, which says that if you explain your emotional state when you're swearing to your child, they'll learn to use swearing far more judiciously. And this was borne out when my daughter was about two and a half and got very bored in a restaurant where I'd strapped her into a high chair and told her, you know, we can go and have a run around afterwards, but you've got to stay here while you

eat. And about sort of 10 minutes later, I'm still eating, she's finished. And I just suddenly heard her pipe up, mummy, get me out of this effing high chair. I mean, the complete phrase. And I recognised it was my cadence exactly that's the exact way that I would have used it and I understood her frustration and the urgency with which she wanted to leave so how did you react to that well compared to a tantrum compared to what would have probably happened about six months before that the full back arching you know projectile crying tantrum I preferred it and. And to be honest, being able to use your words, it's one of the reasons why, as Rebecca says, there's a serious element to misogyny about

swearing, is that if women, and particularly women of colour, are made to feel like there's this really powerful part of language that you're not allowed to use without paying a social penalty, how do we express those strong feelings, whether they're positive or negative? And it happened in a restaurant. So I wonder if you felt or noticed a reaction from other people, because for some people, obviously, swearing in front of a child or hearing a child swear is offensive and it's not appropriate, whatever the context, and often it's the parents that are judged.

So did you get a reaction from people around you? Oh, completely. And it is something that I'm exquisitely aware of. One of the other bits of research that I've done is on the neuroscience of parenting and of childhood. And I know that there is nothing that's quite guaranteed to shame a person, like that feeling that people are going,

oh, don't like their parenting. And so focusing on the research that I did on that shows if you just focus on your child and forget those other people, then you're going to be much more content and your child's going to be much more content and forget what the woman in the supermarket is tutting about. I think that's just good life advice, isn't it? Loads of people getting in touch with us about this on social.

What is described as swearing can often be debatable as a teacher i was involved in an investigation when a little girl said she'd been called the c word by a classmate when we got to the bottom of things it turned out that the word was cow so her spelling was correct another one here my late mum looked like a delicate duchess and swore like a trooper seeing the expression of a young man overhearing her use both the C word and the F word to express outrage at a can of cheap cat food was the funniest thing ever. Surely women are reluctant to swear because many or most swear words are direct insults to women.

And that's from Tabitha. Rebecca, can swearing be a feminist act? Yeah, I think so. I mean, one way is that you can just swear if you're a woman. You can kind of push back against those taboos, you know, against women swearing. I think it is tricky, though. It's, you know, if you are doing that, it's not always obvious to the people around you that you are engaging in a feminist feminist act rather than just not caring about the feelings of the people who are around you. So I think, you know, it is a place where we have to tread carefully. Emma, we've been speaking, I mean, people have

mentioned the C word there in some of the messages coming in. You've had an on-off relationship with the term. Absolutely. I grew up in, like my late teens were in the early nineties. And at that point, feminism seemed to be about being able to neck a can of beer and know the offside rule um it's a little bit regressive but i was really proud of the fact that i would call particularly my male friends the c word and now it seemed to have been it seemed to have been reclaimed but younger women i think have had so much experience with misogyny online that i don't use it anymore um lots of you getting in touch on this. By the way, thank you, because we are approaching the end of the programme.

So I just want to thank you both, Emma and Rebecca. Someone said, the C word is acknowledged as the most powerful swear word and women should reclaim it and use it as such. And Karen said, I wrote a poem, I do not swear, where of course I do, the online support sessions for unpaid carers,

which everyone often talks about, the many merits of swearing. Thank you to all of you. I'm sorry I didn't get to read all your many messages out. I'll be back tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. From BBC Radio 4, life can be unexpected.

It was big. This was not a wind. This was not a storm. This was a tsunami. But when confronted with change, humans are remarkably resilient. I knew in that moment as I fell to the ground that I would recover more. I'm Dr Sian Williams, psychologist and presenter of Life Changing, the programme that speaks to people whose worlds have been flipped upside down and transformed in a moment.

If I had to live my life again, would I ever want to go through what I went through? There's a very simple answer to that. I would go through it again. Subscribe to Life Changing on BBC Sounds. 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.