Woman's Hour - Tash Speed, Eurotunnel Train Driver

Episode Date: December 5, 2019

Tash Speed, 25, is one of 20 women who work as a Eurotunnel driver in the UK. recently appearing on the BBC2 documentary celebrating its 25th anniversary. Originally a financial advisor, she retrained in a vigorous driving and engineering course with a 90% fail rate. What are the unique challenges of driving trains for the busiest rail system in the world, which includes operating the “dead man’s pedal”?Andrea Catherwood speaks to Grainne Teggart, from Amnesty Northern Ireland and writer, Siobhan Fenton. What are the key issues for women in Northern Ireland in the upcoming General Election?After a long campaign from #FreePeriods, the Government agreed to fund a scheme to ensure all primary and secondary schools and colleges provided free period products to menstruating pupils. This was meant to start rolling out in September 2019 but has now been pushed back to January 2020. It is an opt-in scheme and so schools and colleges must sign up to receive free sanitary products. Gemma Abbott is a campaigner for FreePeriods and volunteer from the charity The Red Box Project, and Nadia Collier is a family support worker at a primary school in London, who has first-hand experience of how important these free period products can be.Most Wikipedia profiles are of men. A British physicist has made it her mission to change that, adding pages for more than 800 women in STEM. But who really decides who is notable enough to be included in the encyclopedia? Dr Jess Wade explains her quest for diversity and equality online, and the real-life impact it can have on the careers of women scientists. Presenter: Andrea Catherwood Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Grainne Teggart Interviewed Guest: Siobhan Fenton Interviewed Guest: Tash Speed Photographer: Matthew Wheeler Interviewed Guest: Gemma Abbott Interviewed Guest: Nadia Collier Interviewed Guest: Dr Jess Wade

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 and welcome to Woman's Hour on Thursday the 5th of December. I'm Andrea Catherwood. Good morning. Now coming up on the programme, if you have your own Wikipedia page, the chances are you're a man. There are five times more men than women on the site and today we are joined by a woman scientist who'll tell us what happened when she tried to change that for her peers.

It's a really interesting insight into how Wikipedia works and why it matters. And if you grew up wanting to be a train driver and have fulfilled your childhood dream, well, the chances are that you're also a man. But I have got a woman who is a Eurotunnel driver today in the studio. And we've got some good news, I think,

about a positive step in the studio. And we've got some good news, I think, about a positive step in the campaign to end period poverty. But first, we've talked to a lot of politicians on Woman's Hour over the last few weeks about what they're offering women in this general election. And today we're turning our attention to Northern Ireland. And if you think that's not relevant to you, well, remember that it was those 10 DUP MPs that were crucial in the 2017 election after the Conservatives failed to get a majority. They kept Theresa May and then Boris Johnson in power. But this time, a number of seats in

Northern Ireland could change hands to pro-Remain parties, and the outcome of this election could determine Northern Ireland's future, indeed, its very existence. Joining me from Belfast, journalist and author Siobhan Fenton and Gráinne Teggart, who is a campaign manager for Amnesty Northern Ireland. Gráinne, Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where abortion isn't available. But just before Parliament was dissolved, Westminster actually changed the law to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland. What's the situation now? What happens next? Yeah, so Northern Ireland is in the position now where we are leading

the rest of the UK on the decriminalisation point because, of course, the rest of the UK doesn't have this healthcare decriminalised. Where we now are is that some services may be available where there has been a serious impairment with the foetus, but we're in what is known as the interim period, which runs from October to March 2020, when the Northern Ireland Office is now legally obligated to put in place regulations that will govern our services here. So during this interim period,

a majority of those who need terminations will continue to travel to England. What's different now is the UK government are covering travel and accommodation as well as the procedure for everyone. Siobhan, you might think that this issue of abortion in Northern Ireland and what happens next would be really prominent in the election campaign.

But when you look at the party manifestos, what do you see? Well, very little, to be frank. And as you say, it's very striking because you would think that abortion, having been such an emotive and such a politically contentious issue in Northern Ireland for so long,

the fact that it's just been decriminalised here, you'd think there would be much more discussion of it, whether it's for parties here in favour of that or for those who are opposed to the decriminalisation. But essentially since that all has passed in October, it's sort of dropped off the political radar.

The DAP has released some political adverts where they say that they still object to it and they would like to see Stormont come back in order to try and sort of reduce some of those reforms. But other than that, most of the political parties haven't been discussing abortion. And instead, it's the kind of the main central issue, as is much the rest of the UK, which is Brexit is the focus for most of the election campaigns.

Indeed. And Siobhan, the Belfast that you and your generation live in now is almost unrecognisable from the Belfast that I grew up in during the Troubles. And that is because of the relative peace brought about by the Good Friday Agreement. How widespread is the concern throughout Northern Ireland that Brexit is going to damage the Good Friday Agreement and the peace that it's brought? I think certainly there's a very big generational divide in this, as you say. And I think definitely people under the age of 30 are very, very concerned about the potential fragility of peace. Even though they've never known anything else? Yes, but equally, I mean, if you see just, I think it was on Monday morning at two o'clock on the Falls Road, there was a grenade was thrown at police and that was, the police said that was a serious attempt to try and kill or

seriously harm police officers and that was just over the last 48 hours a grenade being thrown so though certainly there's much has normalised certainly compared to the troubles it's definitely not like Glasgow or London or Cardiff in that sense and particularly I think this year with the

murder of the journalist Larry McKee in April I think that was a really shocking reminder for lots of younger generations about the threat of IRA violence and how dissident Republicans, while they are small in number, they certainly do pose a very serious threat to life still. Grainne, it's hard to overestimate just how concerned people in Northern Ireland and particularly those border communities, are about the uncertainties over Brexit? Yes, absolutely. I mean, we're seeing something very interesting in this election that pre-Brexit times we just never would have witnessed. And that's actually cooperation with some of the pro-Roman parties. So there are certain seats, and we don't need to get into the detail,

but if we take, for example, North and South Belfast, where actually the SDLP and Sinn Féin, as the two nationalist parties are cooperating by not running candidates so they're giving the sdlp a run in south belfast and that's reciprocated then in north belfast now it's not to say we haven't moved away from the tribalism of our politics here but there is an understanding that brexit does pose a real threat to northern Northern Ireland, both in terms of our peace process, but also our economy, rights, etc. So we are seeing cooperation that pre-Brexit times we just never would have seen. And it is very much being fought along the lines of those who were pro-Remain and those who were pro-Brexit.

So it will be very interesting to see the impact of the position adopted by the DUP in these election results, because, of course, Northern Ireland voted to remain. Indeed. And Siobhan, this could actually see a number of seats changing hands, could it? I mean, we talk about the Remain alliance in England and Wales,

but it is on an unprecedented scale in Northern Ireland, the idea that Sinn Féin and the STLP are standing aside for the middle of the road party the Alliance for example Yes and so I mean as Grainne mentioned there in Northern Ireland it's very rare to see these pacts because the kind of tensions between the different parties

can be just a lot higher here because of the kind of particular bitter history in Northern Ireland because of the conflict and so Sinn Féin and the STLP would very rarely cooperate together so the fact that they're essentially forming a pact together I think shows really that the strength of the feeling here that people are so desperate to stop Brexit and I think in particular the DEP's actions over the course of the last few years in Westminster has really driven a lot of people to the point where they kind of don't care who their MP is as long as

it's you know anyone but the DEP because of course Northern Ireland voted Remain but because of the DEP's confidence and supply arrangement with the Conservatives effectively Northern Ireland has been given a pro-leave voice and that has alienated and frustrated so many voters they want anyone but a DEP politician in charge and that's really what's allowed these PACs to now come into play. And actually just on that point that Siobhan has made,

what's very interesting is if we look at one of the border constituencies, for example, for Manus South Tyrone, the DUP leader, who will be obviously known to many across the water and the position that they have adopted on Brexit, she herself is not running in that constituency. That's Arlene Foster, of course. Arlene Foster, of course, yes. So one would have thought that we would have seen Arlene putting herself forward.

But of course, she hasn't. So I think that does say a lot in terms of the popularity of Arlene at the minute and actually the concern that they have over the position on Brexit and the reaction to that. OK, well, you've both mentioned the anger that's been expressed at the DUP for keeping a Brexit-supporting party in power. And then, of course, Boris Johnson's deal that actually every party in Northern Ireland is agreed is a mistake. But I want to talk about the nationalist side as well, because although everybody who voted for Sinn Féin knew that they wouldn't take up their seats,

is there a feeling that it's such a crucial time for border communities? They want to be represented in Westminster. Yes, I think that's a really interesting point. And so I was in Derry just yesterday when I was talking to people there, I got sort of starting to pick up quite a considerable sense of frustration towards some traditional Sinn Féin voters. And of course, Sinn Féin have had this policy for decades and decades that they will never take their seats in Westminster because they say it's a foreign parliament

and so they, under their Irish Republican ideology, they don't get involved in the way that they would ask for Britain not to get involved in what they would consider to be internal Irish affairs. But normally they would particularly argue that a few Sinn Féin votes wouldn't make any difference either way but because so many crucial Brexit votes have come down to the wire and just a few votes could have made so much difference.

I think there is certainly growing pressure on Sinn Féin about that. And I think it could be one of the seats to watch would be in the Foyle constituency in Derry, where the SDLP leader, Colm Eastwood, is standing against Sinn Féin's, Alicia Macaulay, and whether Sinn Féin might lose that seat because of concerns about abstentionism. And the SDLP could win that one. OK, so looking overall the DUP

returned 10 MPs last time we also had one independent unionist who's now not standing and then we had seven Sinn Féin MPs who didn't take their seats. It could be crucial in Westminster

what happens in this election in Northern Ireland? Because we could have more Remain MPs returning. What are we likely to see? It's incredibly difficult to say, I know, and there are lots of caveats about polls. But do you think that we're going to have a different make-up from Northern Ireland this time round? I think so. I think, as you say, it's very difficult to know for sure, but I think that the DEP are likely, I think, to come back with nine MPs. I think

they'll probably lose North Belfast and South Belfast, but they'll gain North Down from that independent unionist. And then I think the SOP will gain South Belfast one seat there, possibly also Foyle, which would then have a really, I think, a dramatic shift, particularly at the SOP, get those two seats,

because they would not just be pro-Remain party like Sinn Féin, but they would be turning up in Westminster, making speeches, voting on legislation, and that could have a big impact for whatever government is formed next. Now, the number of women candidates standing varies hugely from party to party in Northern Ireland. More than half of the middle-of-the-road party alliance candidates are women.

I think it's just over a quarter for Sinn Féin. The DUP has only two women candidates out of 17 and the Ulster Unionists have only got one out of 16. But, Gráinne, we could see some interesting women elected to Westminster. Yes, absolutely.

I mean, if Clare Hanna takes the seat in South Belfast, that would be very interesting because Clare actually in herself and just her experience in the SDLP at the minute is a very interesting one to look at because, of course, they're all united in their opposition to Brexit and the harmful effects that they say it will have here.

But, of course, Clare has also recently, the SDLP, we've obviously seen they had a partnership with Fianna Fáil and Clare very publicly resigned the party whip over that. She would be on the Labour side of that party. Fianna Fáil is a party in the Republic of Ireland that's broadly a Labour party.

Yes, so it would be very interesting to see just how, if Clare was elected, the dynamics within the party play out going forward. I think also, Wonderwatch is, whilst Lagan Valley is, some would say, and it has been a strong DUP stronghold, and Geoffrey Donaldson would be expected to return. I actually think it's also one to watch, possibly not for this election, but for future elections. If we take, for example, the Alliance candidate there, Sorka Eastwood,

she's done a lot of very impressive work there in terms of building ground and support for Alliance and I think that coupled with the frustration around Brexit and the other issues such as welfare reform etc, that for future elections she's possibly one to watch, particularly

in that constituency. Siobhan, there's been an awful lot of coverage across the UK of Nicola Sturgeon's SNP and Scottish independence but does a Brexit supporting government getting elected this time round make a poll on Irish unity more likely?

I suppose in a paradoxical way it could in terms of further alienating people in Northern Ireland I assume any Conservative government would, because they support Northern Ireland remaining in the UK, they would be very resistant to calling a poll. But I think certainly over the last few years,

a lot of the actions of the government, the Conservative and DEP pact of pushing for Brexit has radicalised a lot of particularly younger people towards the United Ireland. So that continues. With all the usual caveats about polls, when you look at younger voters, your generation, there is a lot more interest in United Ireland. Yes, that's certainly the case. And particularly, this is very interesting to see with the election, if young people turn out and vote

and younger people are more likely to be voting for parties like Sinn Féin and the SDLP, more nationalist parties. So if they do turn out and vote, whether or not that's reflected in the results, then that could see a greater sense of momentum, I think, growing in the campaign for reunification. Well, Siobhan Fenton and Gráinne Tegard, it's a fascinating election.

Thank you very much indeed. And a full list of candidates standing in Belfast North, Belfast South, Fermanagh, South Tyrone, Foyle and Lagan Valley are available on the BBC election website. Now, the Channel Tunnel is 25 years old this year. Now, that may make you think, wow, what happened in the last quarter of a century? It only feels like a few years ago that it was being built. Well, you might just take for granted that you've always been able to hop on a train under the channel. Well, Tash Speed certainly doesn't remember the days before the tunnel because she is also 25 years old.

And she's one of the few women Eurotunnel drivers. And she's featured in a BBC Two documentary to celebrate the anniversary. Tash, welcome. Good morning. Tash, did you grow up wanting to be a train driver? In all honesty, no. I'd like to say yes, I've got train drivers in the family, but no, it's not something I actually thought about until recently. And what did you grow up wanting to do? You were a ballet dancer originally, right?

I did, yeah. I did all sorts of dancing, lyrical, tap, Irish. But originally I wanted to be a lawyer. And then I wanted to work in finance, which I did for five years. And then I just had a complete career change and went on to be a train driver. So from a financial advisor to a train driver, why the change? So my brother actually is a driver and he knew there was an intake coming in. And he said to me do you want to go for it and I thought why not I fancy a change so I'm going to have a go. You talk about

the intake the training process is incredibly rigorous and the fail rate is really high 90% what do they do to you? It's very intense you have two test days they do say four tests on the first day and four tests on the second and each test you take if you don't pass it that's it you fail you're right yeah and you're out yeah so it's it's quite um it's quite strenuous on the day actually to sort of stay mentally focused for the whole day so i think that's probably why people fail not necessarily because they can't do the test but but because there's so much pressure. So tell me then what a normal day involves as a Eurotunnel driver. So a normal day for me is, depends what time my shift is. So get up, go to work, sign in, get my radios for the day so that I can contact the Rail Control Centre and be in contact with my manager as well in case anything happens.

Ring up for the train that I'll be driving. We have various trains on the terminal, so I need to know my rolling stock. And then me and my partner, my driving partner, we go out to the train, we do six missions and we go home. So you do six missions. The bit that I didn't understand is that one driver doesn't take the train from London to Paris or London to Brussels or something. This is the actual tunnel. So you drive the train basically under the under the channel basically yeah we start in Folkestone our terminal in the UK is in Folkestone and we drive to Coquelles in northern France and I will

drive three missions so I'll do there back there and then my driving partner will take over and he'll drive the last three missions now I read about something called the dead man's pedal, which does sound something like something from the Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, definitely. What is that? So the dead man's switch basically means the train knows you're alive if you're activating the dead man's switch. For example, if a driver had a heart attack or fell ill or fainted

and didn't reset the pedal within a minute, the train would perform an emergency stop thinking that the driver had died so it's a safety precaution that's reset every minute so that the train's not traveling through the tunnel without a well driver basically are you are you perfectly attuned now to hitting it every minute or do you hit it a few more times i'll be honest i probably hit it about 12 times a minute i'm probably wearing out the pedals so we don't want to tell my company that now i am old enough to remember when the tunnel was being built and one of the main concerns that was talked about was a fire are there there obviously are safety risks there are you concerned i'm not concerned concerned at all no we have training in a smoke sim and it's got a fake train inside a tunnel

and we're taught about all the fire safety down in the tunnel the way to evacuate passengers because there is a safety tunnel as well and we can evacuate people straight into the safety tunnel so although it is a risk that it could happen, we work with electricity. At the same time, we've taken every precaution possible to ensure everyone's safety. Now, it is a really male-dominated area. I think 6.5% of train drivers overall are women, although I think 20% of Eurotunnel drivers are women. Is it a macho culture? Not that I don't find it macho.

I think there are a lot of men down there, but they like having the women train drivers down there. They actually, they won't like me to admit this, but a lot of them do say the women are the better drivers. We're more accurate at driving. So I just think for me, it's not really a concern. I just think everyone that goes in fits in. What about passengers? Because I know that some women pilots have said that they've come across passengers who said, oh, I don't want to be flown by a woman. Does that ever happen with you as a train driver? No, I think that's awful. I don't think it matters what gender you are. Everyone can drive.

So I don't think that's fair. But a lot of the time our passengers won't even know if they've got a French or an English crew driving them. So they really don't get much interaction with the driver. The driver doesn't talk to the passengers like the pilot does. The pilot always calls over the aeroplane. The driver doesn't, so they wouldn't know. Now, there are more young women coming in. What would you say to girls who want to follow in your path?

I'd say go for it. It's a fantastic job. I don't think your gender has any relevance to whether you can drive a train or not. And it's good money. It's a great career to have. Well, Tashpeed, thank you very much indeed for coming in and telling us about it. Thank you so much. Well, still to come, the row over women on Wikipedia. It's often the first site that pops up when you search online,

and yet women are underrepresented. A female scientist is here to tell us what happened when she tried to redress the balance. And of course, we'd like to hear from you about any of the topics that we're discussing today. You can email us on the Women's Hour website, or it is at BBC Women's Hour on Instagram and on Twitter. Now, period poverty is something that we've discussed regularly on Women's Hour.

And after a long campaign, hashtag free periods is offering free sanitary products. They will be available to students in schools and colleges who sign up to the scheme from the new year. It was supposed to be rolled out in September, so there has been a delay. But overall, it sounds like a positive step. And joining me to talk about it is Gemma Abbott from Free Periods who's a director there and Nadia Collier who is a family support worker at a London primary school. Welcome to both of you. Let me just talk, I think it might be just worthwhile, I know we've talked about this quite a lot Gemma, but just start by telling us what period

poverty is. So period poverty describes the situation that some people experience where they're unable to afford or access the menstrual products that they need. We have stats from Plan International UK that tell us that one in ten girls are unable to afford the period products that they need and that really impacts upon their ability to attend school to participate in their education once they get there and really just to live in a healthy and dignified way and so we asked the government to provide funding for these free products and that's what is is coming from January of next year. Now up until now Nadia before the government provided funding there was a charity scheme in place called the Red Box Project your school was involved in it can you tell us a bit about the

kind of impact that it had? Okay so since we joined up the Red Box Project we introduced it to our girls for an assembly because we felt it was something that was really important that they had awareness of and felt comfortable to talk about. So since introducing the Red Box project, introducing the space for our girls to have access to these sanitary towels, we've seen an increase in girls requesting products from the Red Box. And that's from year four up to year six. So it's really had a big impact on them having it available to them and feeling comfortable to talk about periods. So these are very young girls, these are girls

who are just starting their period. These are very young girls that are starting their period from as young as eight and nine, which in itself is a difficult time. So being able to talk about it comfortably and feel secure and safe that it's not something that they can't discuss and if they ever needed the product, it would be available whether they spoke about it's not something that they can't discuss and if they ever needed the product it would be available whether they spoke about it or not now look this is a really basic question but i'm sure a lot of our listeners will be thinking which surely their their mum or a carer at home should be talking about this well i wouldn't say it's a basic question i feel like it's a very important um subject because there are lots of homes that you don't talk about periods i

mean in my home, it wasn't something you discussed. You discussed it with a cousin more so than your parents. So yes, in an ideal world, it'd be something that parents would talk about, but we know that it doesn't always happen. So you have firsthand knowledge of this because you actually suffered from period poverty yourself when you were younger. Just tell us a little bit about your own experience. Totally. I mean, I grew up the 70s um in a household with six children low-income family so there were times when I knew that my parents didn't have the money to buy sanitary products and for me it would be simply a matter of okay this is my situation I'm gonna have to find a

wad of tissue or improviseise and you also didn't want to put that pressure on your parents so you wouldn't talk about it so you'd improvise or you would simply miss school if your parents left early enough you could just stay in in the house rather than go to school with that shame Gemma when you hear these stories and you realize how very important it is that this is funded. The Department of Education has now stepped up, but it's only available in schools and colleges who are going to opt in rather than it being available to all. Why is that? That's right. Well, I think in an ideal world, it would be mandatory for all schools and colleges to provide these free products.

I think practically speaking, you know, we don't expect there to be a problem with schools ordering sufficient toilet roll or soap. Right. For their schools, the schools take that on themselves and we don't worry that they'll be there when we get there. Hopefully we will get to a stage where the same is true of these essential menstrual items. But schools do have to opt in. So it's incredibly important that we raise awareness of the availability of these products. The scheme is due to start on the 2nd of January next year. And yet we haven't had any direct communications from the Department for Education or from the PHS group who are running the contract about how schools can order. Okay, so in terms of actually raising some awareness, if you're a school or college out there listening today,

what do you do? What should you be doing? At the moment, the best advice I can give is to visit the Redbox Project website, which is redboxproject.org. And we have a sign-up page. I'm a volunteer with the Redbox Project as well. We have a sign-up page on that homepage

where we will provide updates as soon as they're available to direct schools and colleges to be able to order the products that they need. I'm just looking at this because this is supposed to be, it was originally supposed to be rolled out in September. Then it was put back until January. You know, we're coming up to the Christmas period now. There's obviously Christmas holidays and schools are incredibly busy with all the things that they do in the run up to Christmas. Is this really going to be rolled out in January? The latest, you know, we are pressing the Department for Education and PHS group for updates all the time. And we are continuing to be told that it will be rolled out in January.

So we have to take them at their word on that. But certainly, you know, it's really important that people are talking about it now. So thank you for having us on and you know that everyone is discussing the availability of these free products because it's just so important that that these products are available in schools it's it's a real opportunity to not just address the issue of period poverty which is incredibly important but to provide you know one of the first steps towards equality more broadly as i said we don't expect students to bring their own toilet roll and soap to schools. Why are we expecting them to bring their own menstrual products? It's not right.

This is a really important step for everyone. So I'd urge all schools and colleges to sign up. Any state funded school, college or alternative education setting is eligible. Gemma I wonder what you would say to students who might be listening to this and thinking that's something that that I need and yet their school or college they don't know if it's going to have signed up you know because one of the reasons of course that this is such a hidden problem is that particularly young people are really embarrassed to talk about it I mean if you told me when I was 14 that I'd be on national radio discussing periods, I'd have probably wanted to do just about anything else in the world except that. And, you know, but yet it's so important that we are discussing this.

And I wonder, what's the best way for girls to mention this at school? You know, can they ask their teachers? Should we be signing up? And also, how do they get the products when they're at school because of course just access to these products could also potentially prevent kids from getting it even if they know that they're available where should they be how do schools do this best okay so for our school what i did was i designed a presentation for an assembly which was just for girls i bought the red box along with me we had a talk about what periods were why they happened what to expect um and then we uh designated a

space a toilet for just our girls made them aware that this toilet was just for them not for teachers just for them solely so they could have that private space to um deal with their menstrual cycle at the time once they were aware that space was to deal with their menstrual cycle at the time. Once they were aware that space was there, that made them more comfortable. They didn't have to use the main toilet. And I think just by having that assembly where we spoke about it, we made it comfortable. We spoke about what we do as adults in terms of some ice cream if you're in pain, DVDs in the evening, lots of chocolate, a duvet. It just made it, it it normalized it for them and

as a result of that they now just talk about it i'll be walking down the corridor and be like miss nadia i need this or miss and what we've also done is we've made sure that we have designated spaces and a password so they can go at any point in the day and just take a sanitary towel or say the password and somebody will give them one so I think it's just making it comfortable and normalizing it. I think in the context of primary schools I think that that extra level of support is so valuable in a bigger secondary school I think we should be aiming towards the products being freely available in toilets the department of education is due to issue guidance for schools as to the best way to

distribute products. You also asked how should students go about asking for these if their schools haven't signed up yet? And I would just urge any students to be as confident as they can if they don't feel able to articulate it verbally, to send an email to their head teacher, to whoever is in charge of safeguarding, to any teacher. And we know from our work with the Red Box Project that teachers care so much about their students and they will do whatever they can to support them in this sort of area. So I think just reaching out to anyone that they trust and feel able to have the conversation with,

we really hope that schools staff will take that forward and get the products ordered. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, both of you, for coming in and talking to us about it. That's Gemma Abbott from Free Periods and Nadia Collier, who is a family support worker. Thank you both. Thank you. Now, Dr. Jess Wade is a physicist at Imperial College, and she's been on a mission to raise awareness about the many women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM, who've made

a significant contribution. In the last two years, she's added more than 820 profiles to Wikipedia. But last week, a wiki editor tagged 50 of those women as not notable enough to appear in the online encyclopedia. So who decides what goes into Wikipedia? Well, Dr. Jess Wade is with me now. Jess, welcome. First of all, what inspired you to start this quest? So I was inspired by thinking about how important Wikipedia is. We're familiar with it in trying to settle debates in pub quizzes or maybe trying to cheat on a crossword. But it's also really important in schools and education, maybe in making a healthcare decision, maybe in media, selecting experts to go online or speak on the radio. So I was increasingly aware of how important

Wikipedia was. And then I learned just how biased it was because of the lack of diversity in people who write the content for Wikipedia. So we all rely on it. But about 90% of the editors of Wikipedia are white men in North America. And that impacts what's on the site. And how does it impact what's on the site? I mean, in terms of how many women and how many men's profiles are up there, can you see a difference? Sure, of course you can. So on English speaking Wikipedia, which is the biggest of the languages, which has about one and a half million biographies, 18.04% are biographies about women. We don't have the stats on people of colour or different kinds of backgrounds,

because that's harder to pull from the data. But we know that less than 20 percent, so less than one in five of the biographies are biographies of women. So you decided to try and change that. Tell me a bit about the kind of women that you created profiles for. Sure. So I've written about people from all different kinds of backgrounds, from all different parts of the world and all different aspects of science. They do the most incredible research in really difficult, different and difficult circumstances. One of the most memorable and one of the most disheartening for this this campaign in this journey of editing was a phenomenal woman chemist called Clarice Phelps. She works at Oak Ridge National Lab and she was probably in the States. Yeah, in the States. She is probably the only African-American woman ever to contribute to the discovery of an element.

She discovered element 117, which is tenosine, and she separates the isotopes. And she's kind of got this incredible legacy and incredible story, similar to Tash, who came on earlier. So she went through the Navy nuclear program, which is incredibly competitive. It probably has a fail rate of 90%. She's at the top of her game. And I wrote her biography. So she was not on Wikipedia. She was not on Wikipedia. And she's, you know, phenomenal. I wrote her biography,

I put it up, and then instantly it got tagged for deletion for this person not being notable enough. So some other anonymous Wikipedia editors in some parts of the world were deciding this story, this person's profile isn't important enough. We don't need this on the site. Actually, at times I've been told that I'm diluting the site by putting these stories up. Let's go back a step then and just explain to people a little bit more about how Wikipedia works. Who decides what's included? Who creates these profiles? So I think probably you're not aware when you use Wikipedia, but every single word you read on it is written by volunteers. So people like you or I sit at home at night after their day jobs and write content for Wikipedia.

As I mentioned before, the majority of those editors are men. You say you or I, but actually most people don't look like us. Mainly around this table, it's me. So everyone's editing, people are editing as volunteers. And in general, they do a pretty good job, right? We read about all different kinds of stuff on there. The editing community then selects a few administrators who are given special privileges to make decisions about what should and shouldn't be on there. The editing community then selects a few administrators who are given special privileges to make decisions about what should and shouldn't be on there. But to kind of get

onto Wikipedia, particularly for a profile, there are a set of notability criteria that we have to fulfill. And that's again written by a community of volunteers who put themselves into positions of leadership on the encyclopedia. So it's written by members of the public and they decide what is and isn't notable. It's also anonymous. So the people that tagged these women whose profiles you wrote, did you get to know who they were and what their problem was? I didn't get to know who they were and I don't know what their problem was. But you can see it's kind of in this case, the case that happened last week, it was incredibly systematic, right? They went through all the profiles that I'd written recently. They decided a few of them who are completely notable and completely justifiable for the site, they decided they'd put one of these horrible tags along the top saying they're not

notable. And whilst I don't know who they are, you can kind of imagine if 90% of the editors are men and this person has selectively gone through and taken profiles of women scientists, of women policymakers, then that's something that kind of flags to me that they're not someone who's thinking constructively about how we can make this encyclopedia better. They're someone who's just saying that these stories don't have a place online. Now, Wikipedia have said that they are trying. They say that it's tough to have an open source forum. And Catherine Mayer, who is the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, had this response. Let's just hear it.

You can understand why with circumstances like this, it is frustrating for women who do decide to edit Wikipedia to remain involved when their efforts to deliberately undermine their work. At the same time, I think that what the response that we immediately saw within the Wikimedia community was one that was very supportive of Dr. Wade, both on Twitter, where she initially posted this, but from the editing community writ large. So it sounds like they do acknowledge that there are some issues. You did get a lot of support on Twitter. Sure. And I love the support on Twitter and it's really fantastic. I just wish that that would translate into more diverse people helping to edit on the site,

helping to write these biographies and helping to keep championing these stories. Because what we really need is all of this positive momentum and enthusiasm to translate into people really contributing their time and insight into making the encyclopedia a better place. So what do we need to do? Because I can imagine that, you know, stories like this, although they do highlight the fact that there are not very many women profiles on Wikipedia, it doesn't may not really make a lot of women listening think, oh, gosh, I need to take up that role. Is that what you'd like people to do? I'm hoping everyone does. I mean, everyone sitting at home now listening to this has some particular piece of insight. They know about one fantastic woman, they know about one fantastic fact that isn't on Wikipedia

and other people don't know about. And it is the most simple thing in the world to edit. It's a really, really great opportunity to share those stories and to communicate. You know, it's used 32 million times a day, English speaking Wikipedia.

So if you write something on there, it's going to be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. It doesn't take that long to learn how to edit it. And I really hope that everyone can take this opportunity to think about the people that long to learn how to edit it. And I really hope that everyone can take this opportunity to think about the people they want to celebrate

and to write those profiles because there are the most staggering, phenomenal women out there who don't have them yet. And I really think that the world needs to know those stories. You've put a lot of women's profiles on there. What have they said to you? Have you had a response from them

about the difference that it's made to them to be on Wikipedia? Yeah, I think it's really cool. Sometimes you get people who are a professor in a university and suddenly they get a profile on Wikipedia and potentially that's used when people are introducing them at conferences or when they're going on the television or the radio. But it's also used by prospective PhD students when they're looking who to look for for a supervisor or trying to identify and apply to a different position. Sometimes it's used by people in policy. So when you're trying to establish that something's notable and important. One of the really exciting profiles I wrote recently was a young woman called Rihanna Gunwright, who was a Rhodes scholar and a kind of political scholar in the United States, who was headhunted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to join the Democrats and to help

write the Green New Deal. So it's kind of these inspirational stories of people taking their research, taking their activism and knowledge and then applying it to changing the world. And yeah, I really I hope that it makes them happy to be on Wikipedia. Well, that was physicist Dr. Jess Wade. And we had a huge response on Twitter and on email to this item on Wikipedia. For example, Bridget writes in from Fowey in Cornwall to say, listening to the programme and the problems of getting women on the site, I've just donated to keep it ad-free and I'm appalled and I will be protesting directly. So much misogyny goes unnoticed and we are all affected subconsciously.

Thank you for highlighting it. A former librarian, Sally, writes in to say, I wouldn't touch Wikipedia ever. There is something much more reliable called the Encyclopedia Britannica, put together by experts. And Rosie says, Every so often Wikipedia asks me for money, I do donate, but hearing this and how much it's skewed towards male entries in science,

and no doubt other fields, it does give me pause as to whether I will donate again. But Rachel says, look, we are all editors and I, for one, am not a white man in North America. I greatly expanded the entry on Fanny Burney, one of the earliest successful women writers, and she urges us to look her up. Well, also on the period poverty item, we had a lot of support for the idea that sanitary products ought to be free. Carrie writes, I can't believe that it's taken this long to properly support girls in this country with their period. She also includes her own harrowing account of what it was like starting her period in the 1970s and I'm sure that there are quite a few women and girls out there who can relate to that when it happened to her at school and also another very good point that Jeanette Campbell makes is that it is such

a shame the BBC Women's Hour made absolutely no mention of Scottish government supplying free period products for students in schools and colleges and unis in Scotland for the last 18 months and it is not an opt-in scheme. She hopes that the excellent campaign down south catches up with it soon and yes it is important to mention that it does already take place in Scotland. And tomorrow on Woman's Hour Emma Barnett will be here interviewing Joe Swinson, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. Thank you very much indeed for listening. Here's a question. A man escapes from one of the world's most brutal dictatorships.

He's risked everything to do it. But once he's free, he digs a hole and he tunnels straight back in again. Why? Find out in Tunnel 29, a new 10-part podcast series from BBC Radio 4 with me, Helena Merriman. To subscribe, search for Intrigue Tunnel 29 on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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