Woman's Hour - Takeover 2019 - Amika George, teenage campaigner who started #FreePeriods

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

Amika George is a 19 year old student, activist, and founder of #FreePeriods. She's been campaigning to combat period poverty in schools. 200,000 signed her petition and almost 2,000 teenagers protested outside Downing Street. Two years on, the government has pledged to end period poverty by offering free menstrual products in all English primary and secondary schools by 2020. Amika George says "I’m so thrilled to be a guest editor of Woman’s Hour'. Her chosen topics range from access and diversity in higher education, to why young people are so fascinated by Love Island, to why grime and hip hop artists have more power to influence young people than MPs. Access, diversions and inclusion in higher education for BAME and state school students. What's the nature and extent of the problem and what needs to be done about it? We talk to Ore Ogunbiyi, one of the authors of 'Taking up Space' and Laura Bruce, Head of Programmes at the Sutton Trust. What's the appeal of Love Island? What does it tell us about young people and relationships today? We talk to three fans Scarlett Curtis author of 'Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies, Bolu Babalola writer and commentator and Ore Orgunbiyi.The power of grime and hip hop to politically engage young people today and give a voice to the issues that are important to their lives . Producer: Dianne McGregor Presenter: Jenni Murray

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Wednesday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. It's day three of Takeover Week where the programme is edited by an invited guest. Today it's Amica George who's now 19, has just completed her first year studying history at Cambridge and two years ago she began a campaign to end period poverty in schools. She started a petition which was signed by 200,000 people and almost 2,000 teenagers protested at Downing Street to persuade the government to provide free sanitary products to schoolgirls.

Well today we'll discuss diversity in higher education, the music known as grime and its impact on young people and their politics, and Love Island. Why have so many young people become addicted to watching other young people trying to find love and romance? Well, as a result of the founding of the campaign Free Periods, Annika George was named one of Time magazine's 25 most influential teens of 2018. And she flew to America to collect an award from Bill and Melinda Gates. And of course, the government has pledged to offer free sanitary products to all English primary and secondary schools by 2020. Scotland and Wales do it already. So Annika, what was it that really fired you to do the campaign?

I think at the time of starting it, I was at school, I was doing my first year of A-levels, and I read an article about girls having to miss school because they couldn't afford pads and tampons, and I'm really lucky I've never gone through that myself. So I think initially it was the shock of that actually happening in the UK and it was having such a detrimental impact on their education obviously and kind of thinking about having to go through that repeatedly every month I think also as another layer it was kind of the fact

that this was so gendered and the fact that this was obviously only affecting girls who were then being negatively impacted and falling behind in their educational progress. And these girls who are going through period poverty were then no longer able to break out of the cycle of poverty if they were being repeatedly marginalised, not getting an amazing education and breaking out. What has it meant to you not only to be successful and get the government to agree to it but to go to America meet the gates and be one of 2018's most influential teams? It's amazing I mean I think when I got both of those awards I hadn't achieved what I had set out to do we were still waiting for a response from the government so to hear that amazing people and organizations were backing the campaign was just incredible because it could definitely at times be quite difficult and hard to find that motivation when you're campaigning for something for two years and you have so many amazing teenagers and amazing people behind you who came to the protest who signed the petition who donated to the protest, who signed the petition,

who donated to our legal challenge, and for the government to still be doing nothing. So yeah, it was really reassuring and reinvigorating. But what have you learned from all that campaigning that you can now go on to do? I mean, I think it's kind of a testament of our time now where young people, and I think all three of these topics really reflect this, where young people and I think all three of these topics really reflect this that young people are really coming into their own and not that they haven't in the past but if you have an idea or if you want to start a campaign it's achievable and you know through the power of social media and getting together with your friends and just talking

openly often about quite difficult and taboo subjects, you can make change because there is this kind of sense of disillusionment in our traditional political system, which has meant that amazing figures like Greta Thunberg and other young people can run their own campaigns and make change themselves. And I've just been completely blown away by the amount of young people who've supported the campaign and are so energised.

So what are you keen to campaign for now? So now that we've kind of achieved what we wanted in the UK, the aim is to go global. So obviously if it's happening in the UK, it's happening on a much larger scale around the world. You know, reports have said that 30% of girls in Nepal drop out of school because when they're on their period, when they reach puberty, they can't go to school and afford pads obviously so they have to drop out completely and obviously their risks of child marriage and other awful issues then increase. But how do you extend this campaign to the world? Well it's difficult because I think it's not only those countries but it's

also Europe and America so it's I think it's a case of different strategies working in different societies. So I'm actually going to Zambia at the end of August because some charities there are running period education workshops where boys and girls are being educated on periods and also making reusable pads. So it's incorporating that as well and seeing if a similar strategy can be rolled out for the rest of the world.

How did you manage to fit all this in when you were studying hard to get into cambridge um i think it's something i kind of just got used to i because i started it when i was in school and i didn't at the time i didn't know that i'd still be doing it when i was at uni um but it's something i just kind of got used to the routine of balancing both and doing a couple of hours on the campaign in the evening and then you know after my homework or whatever and yeah my school at the time were very supportive of letting me kind of move around my lessons and exams and stuff when I had to go to America and other things but yeah I think it's just something that I'm so passionate about and dedicated to I don't think I'd ever give it up. Which leads us

to the first topic for discussion this morning why were you really concerned about access and diversity in higher education? So kind of I've always lived in North London in a very diverse area and also the school that I went to, both primary and secondary, were very diverse. So I think that was something I almost took for granted. And going to Cambridge was the first time that I became very kind of aware of my race, my background, my privilege. And I think there's almost this kind of heightened awareness. awareness um even in my first year I've noticed that people really want to talk about access and diversity and the barriers that are stopping people from applying to universities like Cambridge and other um amazing universities that they they feel like there there is something wrong and there is something quite um something that can be improved and I think it's it is a positive feeling that

things are being done about it and things are changing. So I think I just wanted to kind of explore that and what can be done and what's holding people back from applying, because I think there are definitely issues. Well, we're joined by Laura Bruce, who's head of programmes for the Sutton Trust, and Ori Ogbunbinyi, one of the authors of Taking Up Space, the Black Girls Manifesto for Change. Ori, why did you decide to write the book? I think for Chelsea and I, we had been having these conversations at Cambridge for a while. So we both went to Cambridge as well. And through our roles... That's Chelsea, your co-author. Chelsea, my co-author. Yes. So we wrote the book together. Chelsea and I both ran the African Caribbean Society. I was president, she was vice president. I also took the photos for the Black

Men of Cambridge University campaign. I also wrote an article about a letter to my freshest self surviving Cambridge as a black girl. And I think through these kind of, through like this different work we've been able to do, we've been having these conversations about access and getting more black students in and changing how universities like Cambridge look to black students for a long time. So I think for us, it was just an opportunity to have an honest conversation and show that there's an urgent need for us to do something when it comes to specifically black girls in higher education. How different were your and Chelsea's experiences when you were applying for university?

Very. So Chelsea's from a working class background and I'm not. So I, in my application, had quite a lot of support in that I had a mentor at school. I had a lot of support from home. My dad is an academic. So in terms of representation, I had a lot more support. Whereas Chelsea, it was very much, she talks a lot about having a specific teacher who believes in her. And she writes the access chapter of our book, Taking Up Space. But for her, it was very much, she was pushed and lucky that she had one teacher that believed in her.

But even then, there are lots of there are lots and lots of students out there, specifically black students who don't have teachers who are backing them at all. So even though our experiences are pretty different, in many ways, at least we can point to someone who is at least rooting for us. But there are lots of students who don't. I think we just hope that taking up space kind of comes in as like a little fill in the gap for people who don't have those mentors laura what was your position at school when you were thinking of applying to oxbridge yes so um i'm a white student um and my diversity comes more from the socio-economic background um that ori was just talking about um so i went to a school that doesn't typically send young people to Russell Group universities, let alone Oxbridge,

and was part of a gifted and talented programme where I was mentored by a student from Oxford. And we were mentored over a couple of years, from year nine through to year 11. And we went on lots of trips to the university to see what it would be like to study there. But still, from my personal experience, still felt there was a barrier when I was there in the dining rooms,

in the accommodation blocks, in the libraries. I can't describe what it was. There was nothing in particular. It was just a sense of grandeur, I guess, that I wasn't used to. Meeting the student ambassadors, who at that point had come from very different backgrounds to myself, predominantly privately educated. I remember my mentor talking to me about going to orchestra.

She played the violin, she played the flute, and that was something that I'd never done. And so there's just a slight cultural shift, I suppose, when you're there and a sense of, you know, do I belong here, that kind of question. Ori, you mentioned the photo of young men from the Afro-Caribbean society that you took when you were president. I think that was 2017. What message were you trying to pass on? I think it was just about firstly showing just how shocking it was.

So there were 14 men in the picture. And in the year that I was admitted into Cambridge, 15 black men were admitted alongside me. So it's just about showing actually what that looks like. Like it's a tiny group of people. But also just that they were like laughing in the pictures and they're all like really close. And it was really brotherly. Just about showing that in spite of the fact that they're such a small group, they're still thriving here. And we had lots of calls from parents and teachers and people reaching out to us just saying,

thank you for showing that kind of imagery, because a lot of the times when black men are shown in the media, it's not in nearly as positive a light as that. So for us, it was just important to... It's part of our contribution to changing the perception of how people see Cambridge. Laura, from your experience now, working to try and help young people make their applications,

how do applications from less advantaged students compare with those from independent schools now? So we released some research recently called Looking at the Access Gap to Oxbridge and that showed that there were eight schools within the UK that sent more applications to Oxbridge than the rest of the state sector combined. And so there really is a gap there between the privately educated that sent more applications to Oxbridge than the rest of the state sector combined.

And so there really is a gap there between the privately educated who are almost trained and expected to make an application to Oxbridge as part of their university application in comparison to the state education where students maybe aren't given that advice. And then when you also look at the next step of that of students who are then given offers, there's also a difference between students from independent schools being made more offers than students from the state sector. And that's even controlling for high performing schools. So students from a private school, 35% of them were successful in gaining an Oxbridge offer compared to 28% of the top five performing state educated groups. So there's definitely a disparity. But I mean, you said that when you went there, you thought, I don't think I'm going to like this. I'm going to fit in. And I think you decided not to do it.

What stops these young people even applying? So I think there's lots of different reasons. I think some of it is around advantage, some of it is around structural, some of it's around cultural. So some of the structural barriers are looking at things like personal statements, interviews, students may have never been interviewed before and having to go to an interview for Oxford or Cambridge is something that they may never have experienced that could put them off. In terms of cultural barriers, it's really interesting. We run an outreach programme with the University of Cambridge. And on the summer school last year, they had a panel of students who were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds talking to similar students. And the questions that the students were asking weren't about, do you experience racism?

What's it like at this university? There were questions such as, you know, where would I go and get my hair done? Is there a hairdresser in the area that can suit my needs? And I think there's some barriers there that for areas like Cambridge that aren't as diverse as areas like London, students may struggle with those barriers. But I think also seeing people like them in institutions, which is why the campaign that you've done with showing students the black men is really important, making sure when you go there you can actually see people like you

and understand that it's somewhere you can fit in. What did you find, Amika, when you got there? Were you at all put off by its grandeur? I mean, I think it's really interesting because I think there are so many barriers and a huge one is the culture. I mean, I was raised in quite a middle-class household and I went to a school where Oxbridge was very normalised and encouraged

and I think that's what... Yeah, I'm very lucky about that. But I think the kind of grandeur, I'm very lucky about that. But I think this, the kind of grandeur is something that can definitely put something off. It is almost like, you know, an alien world of, you know, formal dinners and gowns and boat races. And it's, it's really interesting. I read a similar statistic that was that more, more students are accepted from Eton than black men. So the fact that you have one school, one private school that has more students, and then those are the people that then go on to get

incredible jobs. They run our society. I mean, I'm thinking about the election of Boris Johnson yesterday. He's the kind of person who has always had the silver spoon and always then going on to create our laws, be our journalists write our headlines and run society and that's just kind of a self-perpetuating thing. Ori you've described something you've called a black attainment gap what do you mean by that? So basically we even though as black students we outperform our white peers at GCSE by the time we finish university there's a 25 percent difference in white students and black students who achieve first classes in 2-1 grades um and in taking up space we have a whole academia chapter where we talk about different things that contribute to that so a lot of the times it can be the fact

that we're not seeing ourselves represented in curriculum um in curriculums um and whether it's the lack of support that we're getting for subjects that we do want to study that aren't then on our curriculum a lot of times it's mental health issues that we suffer from and we're struggling to find counsellors who actually understand how our experiences with imposter syndrome at this top universities are racialized there's lots of things that contribute to it but it's just important to highlight that it's not that we're not capable, but that something happens in those three years that means that we drop and we're 25% less likely than white peers to do as well. Laura, what's the most important thing that

needs to be done? I think universities need to understand context more. And there's a lot of talk at the moment around contextual admissions some universities are taking steps with that but there needs to be more understanding of context so whether that's the school that you've gone to whether that's the background that you've come from we need to understand that students don't come to university always equal as much as we would would like them to and so understanding that a student from a private education who may have three a's may not have um may have had more advantage than a student in state education who may have an a and two b's that doesn't mean the student who has an a and two b's

is less capable it may just mean they've had less support or less time to to work on their or just briefly to finish i know Stormzy published your book and he's launched scholarships for Cambridge. How significant is that? I think very, very important as a celebrity to recognise that there's an issue within your community and you have some position to use your clout to even just help to remedy that.

But it's not his job. And I think it's nice and benevolent of him, but it really isn't his job to be funding black students to go to Cambridge. And I think it's important that we recognise that it's not his job and I think it's it's nice and benevolent of him but it really isn't his job to be funding black students to go to Cambridge and I think it's important that we recognize that it's a systemic issue and goes beyond university um and even though we're grateful that he's doing all these kinds of things it's not his job and lots of people have work to do well Ori Ogambi thank you very much stay with us because we'll hear from you later in the program Laura Bruce thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. Now, still to

come in today's programme, what is the appeal of Love Island? And why do so many people find it addictive? And the serial episode three of House Rules. And don't forget you can download the Women's Hour podcast from BBC Sounds if you missed Monday's guest editor,

that was the cook and author Nadia Hussain, who talked about tips for switching off and relaxing. Or the lawyer Harriet Whistreach, who wanted us to talk yesterday about the treatment of women in false rape allegations. Now, today is the day a new prime minister will take his place in 10 Downing Street. And in our next discussion about the influence of grime and urban music on the politics of the younger generation, we won't be including the word Stormzy used at Glastonbury

to describe his attitude to Boris Johnson. Amika, why were you keen to explore how this type of music influences the politics of the younger generation? I think it's so interesting because obviously this type of music influences the politics of the younger generation? I think it's so interesting because obviously this genre of music has always been kind of political and commented on social issues but I feel like in the last few years we've seen a real rise in young people looking to hip-hop and grime artists as a source of political inspiration and really taking action on the back of their lyrics for example this evening there's a protest based on kind of which

is called that lyric that in that Stormzy song that had the yeah the one that we're not going to use the word exactly steady on and so I think it's not just that people are listening to Stormzy and going oh yeah that's true I agree with that it's this is how I feel it's not just that people are listening to Stormzy and going, oh, yeah, that's true. I agree with that. It's this is how I feel. This is not something that I'm seeing in Parliament. These aren't the issues. Ray Black's song about knife crime. That's obviously something that MPs aren't talking about enough because it's become the role of artists like her to comment on these issues and then make young people talk about them. Well, we're joined on the line by Debra Stevenson, who's a grime poet and academic who's worked with the Royal Court Theatre,

and Dr Joy White, whose PhD was a study of grime, and she's a lecturer of Applied Social Studies at the University of Bedfordshire. Joy, let me start with you. How do you define grime um i suppose uh if i had to come up with a definition and it's not my definition it would be um 140 beats per minute um it would be um the sound of um the inner city it would um be a sound that draws on sonic influences from the Caribbean, from Africa, filtered through reggae, dancehall, UK garage, jungle. I would try and define it in that way, if I could. Debra, who would you say it speaks for and to? I mean, so, you know, I grew up in East London as grime was being invented. So I have a very sort of first person narrative in terms of being, you know, 10, 11, 12.

You know, I went to a school where the only thing we got the highest in was truancy are severely dyslexic at the time you know mormon family things were a bit weird and you know suddenly your peer group and people one or two degrees away from it are articulating your experiences your feelings for me particularly i think an accessible version of rage um and I know debris you were particularly influenced by Dizzy Rascal's Boy in the Corner how did that influence you I mean I think yeah it was it was a very instinctive sound I think for all of us it just made you know when I heard it when I was 13 it just made sense and I think it was that that thing of which has already been touched on in the show not feeling like anything articulated in my narrative or my experiences and it was just brutally honest I think about what he was experiencing as a

teenager in East London at that time and it made complete sense to me and it's the first time I'd heard that. Joy, you've described Grime as a positive entrepreneurial force. Why? I think when I started out doing my research initially, that was in 2007 and we used to take young people on work placement and they come and i think you would have to be in year 10 then i suppose so you'd come for your your week's work experience in a business and um i was in east london the borough i was in 100 languages are spoken young 14 and 15 year olds from a variety of cultural backgrounds not the slightest bit interested in business by the way nobody turned up with a pen but everybody had a phone ringtones on and had this sound that's what that's what um connected them and it was in talking to these young people that were as the school described them not the a star to see um students that actually these young people were either listening to music that their

friends had made the type of music that debris is describing listening to that music or creating it and the entrepreneurial bit was at the time it shows how long ago it was it was my space people putting their work on my space they were selling their cds in the playground they were um practicing their craft you know going back to back with their peers in the program and these were young people that um pretty much even at that young age had been had been written off and so the entrepreneurial spirit was that spirit of well let me let me make something from the from the meager resources that i have let's let's collectively put together what we have and make something out of it.

And so that positive entrepreneurial spirit that is not often seen, because we don't see entrepreneurs in that way, do we? We don't see them as 15-year-old teenagers, 15-year-olds from East London. That's what sparked my interest and that's what set me on my research journey. Debbie, who would you say now are the most influential voices?

I mean, I think what Stormzy has done for me has just been needed for so long. A mentor of mine, Charlie Dark, once said grime inspired and otherwise disenfranchised generation to dedicate their life to words you know and i think the entrepreneurial spirit that it represents the skill and resourcefulness it represents yet the reductive media retention it has drawn over the 15 years of its existence you know you can really liken to things like carnival and you know i think there's such an obvious intersection with you know the media wanting to reduce anything that feels black british and i think his bluntness his honesty his use of his position and power has really said there are so many other stories in relation to this music and i just i just felt like a long time coming and I just think yeah it just makes me very very happy

um but I think what Ori said is really really true you know other people need to step in that position and the reality is it's a music form that things like form 696 which the Met Police brought about and where I was living in Nottingham for some time literally I lived with a DJ that was blacklisted you know just for the music that he played. He had no previous convictions. So I think, yeah, other people need to step into that space and other people running policy and running the police need to be aware of these prejudices and the fact that crime isn't just this thing that you can associate with gun and knife crime and violence.

It is so, so, so much more. Joy, that form 696 has now been disbanded. It was considered discriminatory. So is the music now becoming so respectable that Stormzy headlines Glastonbury and Wiley's got an MBE? I mean, I think I would echo a lot of the sentiments that Debris has mentioned in terms of how the music is perceived. And Form 696 was just one method of control.

And Stormzy used this platform very publicly in a very charismatic way to make those messages heard. But what we mustn't forget is that other young people in smaller ways are using their platforms to articulate those statements, to speak of their experiences, to say what it's like for them. And what it's like for them is that Form 696 might have gone, but the control and the surveillance still exists. And so it is still difficult in many ways

to put on events where it's black British music it's still monitored in a way that perhaps folk and pop aren't. How well represented are women on the scene? Well represented not as visible in the same way as if you looked at any other music scene and the breed can speak on this um in in more detail i'm sure and it is it is that thing about um that what we see what we see is the person at the front of the stage we don't see the what goes on behind um an mc doesn't get on stage and perform on their own there's all of these other allied activities that go along with it and often women are in those roles they're performers as well but often women are in those roles so it depends um where you look and who you look at in terms of women's contribution. Debbie briefly how well represented

would you say women are? I mean i've always felt you know people like lady lisha no lay miss dynamite which obviously preceded grime slightly i think there's always been really charismatic women at the forefront of grime that you know often are really embraced by the male mcs around them but i think yeah i i really agree with Joy on that I think there's a wider issue with music in terms of empowering women I think even maybe there's certain I often think women are the melody not the content that's like a stereotype that's perceived on us so if I walk into studio people will assume that I'm a singer people won't assume that I'm a lyricist and I think that's not a problem that's like just inime. I think there's a general issue in terms of our perceptions of leadership, our perceptions of protagonism, our perceptions of, you both very much for being with us this morning.

Now, we've heard something else this morning, some piece of news. Love Island, currently the most popular show on television for young people, is to return in 2020 and not just for a run once a year, but twice a year. So what will no doubt please some superfans who've watched Amy leave the show because Curtis finished with her

and Curtis getting it on with Maura, the fans are the writer, Balu Babalola, Ori Ogambi, who we heard earlier, Scarlett Curtis, the author of Feminists Don't Wear Pink and Other Lies, and of course, Amica George. Amica, the series is coming to an end. Why are you keen to discuss its appeal to the younger generation?

I mean, I think as well as it just being like the best icebreaker ever, because we were all in the green room and like ranting. I've just been really fascinated as to why all young people are just hugely behind this tv show and what its appeal is and why I don't know as well as it just being very entertaining and light why it's so interesting to us and from talking to my friends I think what I found is that it's because even though it's so dramatic and everything's so high like high speed and quite brutal these are all issues that we can relate to and all issues that happen in our everyday lives like we can all I don't know if we can we have to do some spoilers in here but we can all kind of you know laugh at certain female

characters or male characters or kind of feel really angry about Jordan or whatever but it's because we've all been Anna it's because we've all been Anna. It's because we can relate to these issues, we've all gone through them ourselves, and I think that's something that has been really galvanising for our generation to see that represented on TV. Scarlett, as such an obsessive fan, that you've got a bag and a water bottle...

And a make-up bag. And a make-up bag, OK, fine. You've described it as a feminist masterpiece why? I do stand by that I just think, you know, I spend all day every day talking about feminism

and kind of talking about these systems of patriarchy and toxic relationships in the abstract and I think we very rarely get to see them in the flesh and in Love Island you get to see all these things that we know happen but we never get to see depicted back at us we get to see guest lighting you're basically watching the patriarchy in action and I also think you can see the way that women fight back and join together and there's been a lot of really strong

women this season and that's not strong women in terms of like feminist academics or, you know, incredible famous actresses. These are normal women who are fighting back against these toxic relationships and against this abuse. Follow the patriarchy in action. I do agree with that, actually, in terms of we see how men can manipulate certain situations, especially in a romantic context, how they attempt to gain the upper hand by gaslighting. Why do you love it? Love is a strong word. I find it fast.

I think I find it compelling and fascinating. I think there's something about seeing these things in real time, things that we experience in our own lives, things that I'm 28, so I'm a little bit older, and most of these lovely ladies here, but it makes me reassess things that I experienced when I was younger. And I think it really provides a useful torch for us to reflect back into our own lives

and how we handle situations and how we might want to handle certain situations moving forward. Ori, how much would you say you see your own life reflected on the screen? I think as a dark-skinned woman, dating is kind of hard in general. And we talk about this in Taking Up Space a little bit, but especially at the beginning with Yoandia being picked last and just the way she was treated, being assumed to be angry when she was actually just... Like, when her anger was very much justifiable.

I think very much so. It's just a very, like, telling tale of what it means to be a black woman and how you kind of automatically fall to, like, the bottom of this, like, desirability scale that, like, society has, like, placed on us. And black women in general, but specifically dark-skinned women, and that's why, like, Yoandia, I felt very tightly connected to her. I felt very supportive about her, because I but specifically dark-skinned women and that's why like you and I felt very tightly um connected to her I felt very supportive about her because I'm a dark-skinned um black woman myself and I think that it's important to see these things because

oftentimes when we're discussing these things often it's within our own community and then it sounds like we're making it up and people think that it's not a reality when it is and I think when people see it every single day for like two months, they're like, okay, so they're not just projecting their insecurities. This is something that happens. Scarlett, I know you have a feminist WhatsApp group, of which I think Amika is a member. What sort of things do you discuss on it about the violence?

It's really interesting. I mean, it's going off all day, every single day. There's a lot of kind of analysis. I try and bring in, like, feminist theory. Yesterday we were talking about Shakespeare. We were comparing Curtis to Iago, which was very fun. And there's also just a lot of personal stories. Like, I found everything that happened with Michael.

You might not know what happened, but there was a huge amount... Now, what happened with Michael? Do enlighten me. There was a huge amount of gaslighting involved there and he essentially called this amazing woman Amber he said he'd broken up with her because she was angry and she was childish and she was overdramatic and then you saw how she twisted her personality she didn't want to seem angry when she was justified to be angry she didn't want to seem childish when she was justified to be upset and I've had that exact experience happen to me of when someone tells you you're crazy and then you change your behavior to not do that and so we were all talking about

that also my I've got three younger brothers and they're all on the whatsapp group and I think it's amazing for them to see these things happen you know they're 15 17 and they need to know what this looks like because it's all fine me telling them how upsetting it is when someone does this to you, but they need to see it, and they do see it, and they kind of recognise how awful these men are. So they won't behave like that when they start dating? I'm hoping so. Amika, what conversation has been going on about what happened last night?

I mean, there's a lot of anger involved. I think we were talking about it before, and I think... So to explain what happened is that um there's a there was a couple Jordan and Anna and two days ago he asked her officially he did this big romantic gesture to be his girlfriend amazing or very happy and then literally two days later he decides he likes someone else and um kind of pulls her aside for a chat which is the lingo and um yeah and um asked this other girl india just kind of says i really like you and she was amazing i thought and said i actually just see you as a friend so it's just watching his face forwards like that was never very satisfying i know so it was just i think the

response to that see you know anna who was his girlfriend obviously getting really really upset and angry at him and the way he was trying to make her feel like she was the issue and saying, you know what, you don't know what our conversation about them, saying you're being really childish, you're overreacting, you're really negative and blaming her behaviour for his. There have been lots of tweets admiring Ori,

who you just mentioned. Obi. Yes, and Ori. Oh, and Ori. And Ori. And Ori. Why? You'll fight for him.

Oh, goodness. I'm getting confused. Who would you fight for? Obi. Why? He's amazing. I think it's just that he's so, he's obviously very good looking,

but then when you come in, you weren't expecting him to be such a sweet guy. And he has this thing of just staying out of the drama being protective without being overpowering um never instigating fights and his best friend in the villa is telling me a woman and i think that the other men they just kind of bitch to each other and just like kind of they support each other when they're behaving very badly whereas he just seeks counsel from like a, a woman, which I think influences his behaviour. That's one thing I really hate about the show.

Just to say that when there's a fight between a couple, it's kind of a given that they'll separate and the boys will all support the boys and the girls will all support the girls, and Ovi is defying that, which I really like. How worried, quickly round the table, are you that they're so obsessed with the way they look?

Scarlett? I think it's worrying, but I also think it's representative of a lot of young people. So it's important for us to start that conversation. Molly? Extremely worrying because the people who are in the villa, a lot of them are influencers. So social media influencers. And I think it affects how young people will see themselves. And it's not representative of like the general population of how most people look like um yeah i'm i'm with scarlet on i think we

are very obsessed with our looks especially when it comes to like relationships and things um and how we are seen so i it is kind of worrying but i also think it's kind of normal unfortunately and last word to amica i think it's yeah i think there are a lot of issues with um kind of like we said misogyny with body body image, with mental health, that are represented on the show and I think could be used as more of an opportunity to talk about them more and the people who don't normally get involved in the conversation

to see them on TV. Now, we would, of course, like to hear from you about Love Island and any of the other subjects we've discussed this morning. You can tweet us, you can email us. And our thanks to Amica George, our editor, and Scarlett Curtis, Bolo Babalola and Ori Ogumbi. We had a tweet from Ade who said, such an interesting listen, lots of topics I wouldn't normally come across. British broadcasting at its best. Michael said, great to hear one of my favourite campaigners of recent years talking

about diversity in higher education. Roque Wood said, I've checked, none of my 20-something children watch Love Island, neither do any of their friends. I venture to suggest they have better things to do with their time, so a bit of nuance might be welcome. And Sinead said, BBC Women's Hour has had a bunch of young women talking about period poverty, access and diversity in Oxbridge. Most impressive. Put them in charge, I say. And Jude said, people ask who does music like Stormzy speak to? Well, I hear and appreciate it, and I'm a 62-year-old white woman. Thank you for all your contributions.

Now, tomorrow, our guest editor will be Cressida Cowell. She's the new Children's Laureate, and she's the author of the How to Train Your Dragon series. She'll join me in the studio, and she will decide the content of the entire programme. We'll talk about the magic of books and reading aloud, why she gives toothless a stammer and squeezed used a tiny little voice. She'll be investigating the lack of diversity in literature, the history of her great-great-aunt, Trudy Denman, and the lost words of nature.

Oh, and we might also be hearing from that actor, David Tennant. Bye-bye. Is the daily grind getting you down? Fancy taking a break and going out into nature this summer? Then look for Go Wild in BBC Sounds, a place for

some of the best nature programmes from Radio 4. Get some inspiration for your next adventure, no matter how big or small. Just search for Go Wild and BBC Sounds and set out on your next adventure today.

I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.