Woman's Hour - The British women taking part in the Vendee Globe solo round the world sailing race

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

The Vendee Globe solo round the world sailing race is considered to be one of the toughest sporting competitions: 24,000 miles as the crow flies, no help, no stops and no turning back. This year out of 33 entries, six women are aiming to be on the start line on 8th November. We hear from three British women who are taking part.How do we ditch our shame? Comedian Grace Campbell has written a book, 'Amazing Disgrace', about growing up feeling shameful about sex, rejection, mental health and jealous tendencies. Grace and psychotherapist Gabrielle Rifkind join Jane to discuss how we can negotiate with ourselves, and work on getting rid of our shame.The femme fatale, the crazy cat lady, the girl next door – writer and performer Anneka Harry has come up with 50 tired tropes for women in her book, 'Lady Sidekick'. She’ll discuss how women have been pigeonholed for years into a handful of tired and basic characters, and how it’s now time for a change.In peace processes between 1992 and 2018, women represented only 3% of mediators and 12% of negotiators despite UN research showing that when women meaningfully participate in peace talks the resulting agreement is less likely to fail. We speak to women peace negotiators about what the challenges and benefits of being female can bring to their work and what support is needed to enable more women to be involved in peace negotiations. Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Pip Hare Interviewed Guest: Miranda Merron Interviewed Guest: Samantha Davies Interviewed Guest: Grace Campbell Interviewed Guest: Gabrielle Rifkind Interviewed Guest: Anneka Harry Interviewed Guest: Sara Cook Interviewed Guest: Quhramaana Kakar Photographer: Vincent Curutchet

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Friday, the 30th of October, 2020. Humanely dispatched. I think we can have a little guess as to what that might have meant. Anyway, let's move on. Welcome to Woman's Hour.

Welcome to the programme. You can get involved at BBC Woman's Hour on Twitter. Today, we're discussing shame. Do you feel shame? Why do you think you feel it? Do you resent feeling it? Would you like to ditch it? Our guests on that subject this morning are the writer Grace Campbell, also a comedian, and the psychotherapist Gabrielle Rifkind. We'll talk about that a little later.

We'll talk too about why more women are needed desperately at conflict resolution negotiations. More women should be involved because there are better and more lasting, more long lasting results when women are involved in peace talks. And the comedian Annika Harry is with us as well, discussing those female tropes that crop up on screen all the time. Here are just a couple. There's the token Asian friend, the Russian villain, and quite popular at the moment, the murderous bisexual. Annika Harry will bring some of those tropes to life on Women's Hour this morning.

Now, if you are finding the news at the moment just too depressing for words, and perhaps if you've struggled to the end of what's been a rather trying half term, let's do something completely outside our comfort zone. Let's talk about the Vendée Globe Solo Round the World Sailing Race, which starts on the 8th of November. It's one of the toughest sporting contests there is. You're talking here about 24,000 miles as the crow flies. There's no help. You can't stop and you can't go back.

There are 33 entrants this year and there are six women and three of them are from the UK. And I'm delighted to say we can talk to all three. Sam Davies, Miranda Meron and Pip Hare can join us now from France. They're all in separate bubbles with their teams. Sam, first of all, good morning to you. How are you? Good morning. Very well, thank you.

Now, I want to pile some pressure on you because you came fourth in this race 11 years ago. You're back competing now. How are you feeling about it all? Really excited because it's been so long since I last did the Vendée Globe and a long preparation and really proud to be part of this race and to be part of this race with my project Initiative Care. I've got an amazing boat and so I'm lucky to be able to sail fast and try and get a good result.

But also I'm representing a charity, a French charity, that helps save kids' lives, kids who are born with heart defects in developing countries who can't be treated in their own country. And so every time I do a big race like this, with the help of my sponsors I also get to do something that helps other people and other families. Right hence the name of your boat. Okay thank you for that. Miranda tell us what sort of what you have to do before the race.

What are you up to now? This morning we've had two briefings. Well, one was on how to use our backup beacons so that the race organisation knows where we are. And the next briefing, which has just started and I'm not listening into, is about the new protocol for the start day and for the week before the start, because now that France has gone into lockdown, I imagine that the rules have changed yet again.

And apart from that, working on the boats, just making sure that everything is in place, that everything is on board that needs to be on board and just getting through that last job list. Yeah, I mean, for those of us who are not sailors, what's the fine tuning that's going on at this stage? Making sure that I know how all the systems work on the boats, the complicated ones involving electricity and electronics and hydraulics.

Okay, you're being self-deprecating there because you are a woman prepared to be out there on your own for, well, how long? How long is it going to take? It's going to take me about three months because I have an older boat with Compagnie de France. I imagine that Pip and I are likely to have a good race against each other because our boats are of a fairly similar vintage. And given the state of affairs on land at the moment, I'm absolutely thrilled to be going away for quite a long time. Well, we can ask more about that. Pip, tell us then about your boat. Your boat is called Medallia, is that right? Medallia.

Apologies. Carry on. That's OK. So it's one of the oldest two boats in the fleet and i think one of the really interesting incredible things about the vende globe race is the range of entries and projects that are in the race itself so we've got 33 entries the age of the boats spans 20 years you can see a huge development in design and technology across them. But in an average Vendee Globe, only 55% of the entries will finish. And so, you know, there's no one specific element of design that is better than another. And we've all got our own races to sail.

And we all have our own stories when we go out there it's about the ability to keep going on basically what is the the toughest challenge is it is it a mental one or is it a physical one I think there's so much I mean like all sort of super lengthy endurance sports it becomes more about what's in your head than than your physical ability and that's why men and women can compete in this race on equal terms because the boats are 60 foot long they can carry up to about 600 square meters of sail area which is enough to cover three tennis courts and you've got one person managing that you know the new boats they go at 30 35 knots um you're constantly moving you know the human body man or woman can uh you know

only only take so much of that and the brain has to regulate the brain has to risk assess the brain has to problem solve and so you know there's this unique set of qualities that you need which are so much more than physical yes i mean i think most of us listening will simply have to take your word for it um pip and miranda it does sound as though you are likely to be as miranda said competing against each other but sam sam davies you are are you in it to win it i wish i i wish i hope that one day i will be um and i'm lucky enough to have a great boat initiative car which is which i've managed to optimize and my boat's got foils which is kind of the latest technology that makes the boats more powerful and faster um if if all goes well um hopefully i should be in front of miranda and pip but um that's that's not through sailing ability it's

through um how amazing my boat is um but it's not a brand new boat my boat's actually 10 years old. And so I don't have exactly equal material as the real favourites, such as Alex Thompson with Hugo Boss. But, yeah, I'm lucky enough to have a boat that goes really fast, a bit like Pip was saying. It's maybe a little bit less comfortable. And like Miranda was saying, I'm not sure if it's a good thing to come back to land quickly at the moment. Although I do have

a little boy, Reuben, who's nine years old. So I'll be in a bit of a hurry to get back anyway. Yeah, I mean the world maybe I'm being optimistic, the world Sam, could be a different place in three months. You never know. Yes, and I experienced that last time in 2008 because there was quite a bad um economical

crisis um during well during the time i was out there and the world had changed and each time i do a long a long around the world race uh things change and uh lucky enough we have satellite phones and so we we do stay in touch um but yeah sometimes uh it's definitely we we escape all that and we live in our own little bubbles out there on on the water which is kind of important because we have to give it everything to sail safely and to survive all the challenges that get thrown at us well i was going to ask you about that you can't afford distractions can you whether it's thoughts of home or, well, frankly, anything. No, there's moments where you have to be so 100% focused on everything

just to stay safe and not make mistakes that could put your life or your boat in danger. But obviously, it's a race that's going to last between two and a half to three months. And there are times where you can kind of look back and reflect and realise how lucky you are. Or in my case, think about the kids that I'm helping along the way. And that helps kind of put things back to reality. And maybe this time for us, it will be important as well to think about how the world's changing whilst

we're sailing around the world but i hope that we'll be able to um have create or share in our adventure with everybody who's who's locked down and um hopefully it will make the winter a bit easier for people who who are who can follow us and i'll definitely be thinking about that when i send some videos back right well. Well, good for you. And it will be a way, you're right, of transporting the rest of us somewhere else. Miranda, just in terms of the trip itself, is there a stretch that is,

and it is all relative, easier than any other stretch? It really depends on the weather. The Atlantic is generally a bit easier than the Southern Indian Ocean and the southern Pacific Ocean, but not always. We can have big storms up here as well. And I have to say, having been in the southern ocean before,

I'm not sure whether it's an advantage to know it or a disadvantage because it's not really a place for mankind. It's really a very, very long way from everything. And, you know, should anything go wrong, almost certainly your nearest help will be a fellow competitor. Right. Who would come to your who would try to come to your rescue? You would hope so. And it's actually a legal requirement. Is it? Well, I mean, again, that would be not something that everybody understands. So you would be expected as a competitor to sacrifice your own chances to go and help somebody else absolutely and uh sam did that in 2008 is that right 2012 sam uh when she went to the assistance of yen les who had broken his

femur sam tell us about that uh yeah well it was it was a pretty, it was a big scare. When the race organiser calls you up and says, there's been an accident, we need you to help. And so, yeah, the only thing you can think about is your fellow competitor who's suffering. And in this instance, Jan, his life was in danger. And luckily, we were just south of Australia and the Australian Navy quickly put a rescue operation,

but it took them two days to get to Jan's position. And so I was the second nearest to Jan at the time, and we were obviously diverted, and obviously you don't think twice, and actually I think I sailed faster than I ever did in the rest of the race, and I remember the race organiser actually phoning Zach to tell me to slow down

because he didn't want to deal with two accidents. Oh, I see. Right. And so luckily for me and for Jan and for Mark, who was closer to Jan at the time, who actually got to sit his boat next to Jan's, but unfortunately it was too dangerous to try and get on board to help him. But it was just a case of being a psychological help for Jan so that he knew that we were there and um and we were talking to him and helping him um get

through the the agonizing wait for the Australian Navy to arrive and and then at the time actually I translated um obviously from English to French the rescue operation as well with the organizers and with Jan and with the Australians and luckily um luckily Jan got rescued and got really well treated and so then we we got released back into the race and um in so in this instance um mark yema and myself who are the two competitors who who well we diverted from our race to the hands help we both got uh our time was given back to us. Oh, I see. I was going to ask. Yes, so you didn't lose out.

Well, you shouldn't. You shouldn't, of course. Sam, thank you so much. No, no, no. Don't want to interrupt you, but we are going to have to. Thank you. And the very, very best of luck

for the race, which begins on the 8th of November. Sam Davies, Miranda Meron, and Pip Hare, all British women competing in the Vendée Globe round the world sailing race. Incredible guts. Let's talk about shame, whether we feel it, whether we carry too much of it and how, if we want to, we can dump it for good. Grace Campbell is a comedian, the author of Amazing Disgrace. It's a book about growing up, feeling shame about rejection,

about mental health problems, sex, jealousy. And Gabrielle Rifkind is the voice of, well, wisdom. She's a psychotherapist. Gabrielle, first of all, good morning to you. Good morning, Jane. Can you just define shame for us? Well, it's probably one of the most least talked about and yet one of the most powerful emotions. And it's like an overwhelming sense of self-conscious we feel a mixture of regret, a need to cover up, to hide.

It becomes so secret, too shameful to talk about. So what we then do is we withdraw deep into ourselves. And it turns in on us. And it can lead to self-abuse, drug abuse, panic attacks, even suicidal thoughts. And this terrible sense of being left alone with feelings that in our mind we're no longer lovable. Where and when does it start? Well, I think it starts around two years old. And when we, with the advent of language. And of course, this is very deeply culturally bound.

And so, for example, we'll see in the Middle East that homosexuality is an area of terrible shame and a source of punishment. You take Iran, which is really interesting um people can legally actually change sex but sexual activity between members of the same sex is legal illegal and can be punished by death and so what happens people start feeling like pariahs in their own culture right i think we actually learn the shame in our own families and where we feel that we're not lovable and behaving in a way that they want us to. That's very serious. And I don't want to immediately take the conversation hideously down market. But I think it is worth acknowledging that, Grace Campbell, the cover of your book, Amazing Disgrace, features a young woman who I think could well be you riding on a cloud in the shape of a penis. Let's be absolutely honest about it. And this is a book, you say, about shame. So, Grace, where did yours start?

Well, it's a book about and shame is in quotation marks because what it is, it's a book about things that I was taught to feel ashamed of but I don't think I should feel ashamed of shame that doesn't belong in me shame that doesn't belong in young women yeah of my generation so I'm 26 and I feel when we were growing up there was a lot of shame thrust upon us and I I mean listening to Gabrielle sort of define it in that way it gave me goosebumps because I was like that's exactly how I felt my entire life okay exactly how you felt or were made to feel well made to feel I don't think so for example I'm going to talk about masturbation there you've just described the cover of my book so I'm not going to hold back um when I was a quite young child I started masturbating and I was so deeply ashamed of that because nobody had told me it was a normal thing for a girl to do. Not a single person until I was 21 years old,

legitimized this thing that I've been doing on my own. So I was deeply ashamed of that. What about your friends? They must have talked to you. No, because we all projected that shame onto each other. So while we were all doing it, because no one at school, no one one in our families no one in sort of culture had said to us that's a normal thing that girls do as well we knew boys did it everyone knew boys did it because boys spoke about it all the time you know you actually make a good point what about masturbation and women gabrielle well i love what grace is saying because what she's talking about is this is all in the realm of the ordinary and she

wants to normalize it so it doesn't actually go underground and become shameful that you know that it becomes an area that it's pleasurable that you befriend that's part of who you are that's not humiliating and all of that we we have to i think mention grace i know you won't mind because a large chunk of the book is devoted to your parents who are Fiona Miller and Alistair Campbell, names that many of our listeners will know. You say that a lot of your insecurity comes from your childhood and Tony Blair, and I love this, Tony Blair stealing your father. Tell us about that. Oh, totally. I mean, I was competing with Tony Blair from when I was a baby because the month after I was born, my dad started working for Tony Blair.

On my third birthday, Tony Blair won his first election. Both of my parents worked full time at Downing Street for the first sort of decade of my life was dominated by politics so in the same way that you know when you don't have your parents enough particularly my dad because he was completely consumed by his job I was so jealous of this person it wasn't necessarily that he was the prime minister he was the person who had my dad's devotion so of course I was jealous of that because I idolized my dad and then it gave me a really weird complex because growing up I was both very arrogant because I idolised my dad. And then it gave me a really weird complex because growing up, I was both very arrogant because I was like, well, I'm as good as the prime minister because when I'm with my dad, he's obsessed with me. So I must be as powerful as the prime minister.

But at the same time, I'm not the prime minister and I wasn't getting that devoted attention from my father. So it gave me this really sort of deep arrogance and insecurity, which I still live with today. Do you think how, if at all, does that impact on a sense of shame? Well, I think some shames like, so for example, one of the things I talk about in the book is my shame in how awful I feel when I experience rejection. And now this is something that, again, I don't think I should feel ashamed of, because rejection is something that we go through in life. Like, it's just a really normal part of life, rejection in work, rejection in relationships, rejection in friendship.

It happens, and it's never a nice experience, but it used to make me feel like a complete and utter failure. And like Gabrielle said earlier, shame can make you feel unlovable. And that's, I was so ashamed of how much I would get rejected by men in particular, that can make you feel unlovable. And that's, I was so ashamed of how much I would get rejected by men in particular, that it made me feel completely unlovable, like no one would ever love me. And as a result, I used drugs and substances and drank too much to sort of numb some of that shame that I was feeling. That's why Gabrielle's definition really sort of made me feel so much. Okay, let me put that to Gabrielle. Is what Grace went through, I think it's fair to say, an extraordinary adolescence?

And I guess you can't go through that kind of childhood without it having an impact on the way you see yourself, Gabrielle. Yes, but everybody does different things with it. And I think what's so wonderful about what Grace is doing in her book, it's very ballsy. It's very direct. It's actually speaking to all the stuff that goes underground. But people have different reactions to experiences and what's happening. And, you know, this idea that she was in competition with Tony Blair and what that happening. And, you know, this idea that she was in competition with Tony Blair and what that did.

And then she describes the kind of hubris and the huge insecurity that that brings at the same time. And I think that's just beautifully put. Your parents have read the book, haven't they, Grace? They love the book. They really do. And it is very ballsy because I overshare in the hope that other young women in particular, I want everyone to read this book, but I hope young women will read this book. And then they, just like Gabrielle said, they bring a lot of this stuff from the underground and talk about it in a completely normal dinner time conversation way. Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed the book too. I suppose

if I was going to ask you a challenging question, Grace, it would be, is there a young heterosexual male equivalent, someone of your age, but a young straight man writing a similar book and owning their mistakes and their shame? I cannot think of one. I must say and the book look i don't at all hate men i love men and i've got so many incredible men in my life but one of the things i do talk about in the book is that i feel young men of my generation were sort of given the wrong kinds of education and particularly around sex and as a result we were kind of a lost generation in terms of consent and really sort of like damaging things because of the internet and everything that was happening then. So do I think there is a man equivalent?

I'm not sure I can think of one. I'm not sure that men are quite there yet. But I do think the conversation with men and shame is opening up now in a good, healthy way. So hopefully there will be one. I think you make some really interesting points in the book about porn. And I wonder, Gabrielle, very briefly, if you can, whether you honestly think we've scraped the surface

of the impact of porn on the way young men have felt they had to behave? Oh, gosh, you need a whole programme on this about what young men internalise and kind of images they're seeing at the onset of adolescence that are completely distorting things in their mind. I remember with my own children at 13, you know, they could be exposed to characters of EastEnders and their sexual lives. It was just not helpful stuff and very, very disturbing and doesn't give the kind of ordinary developmental experiences of sexual development. I think I'm leaving women's out at the end of the year. I really hope we can do this programme before that happens.

Grace, perhaps we'll get you and Gabrielle back for that. Thank you both very much. OK, thanks a lot. Thank you, Gabrielle. Gabrielle Rifkin, psychotherapist and the Grace Campbell, the Grace Campbell, I call her, the comedian and writer. Let's talk about female tropes. So we'll do that in a sec. and the Grace Campbell, the Grace Campbell, I call her their comedian and writer. Let's talk about female tropes. We'll do that in a sec, actually.

I just want to say Jane MacDonald, hopefully she'll agree to do a duet with me. She is on Woman's Hour on Monday. I'm so looking forward to that. Now, we want to talk to Annika Harry, comedian, writer and performer. Hi, Annika, how are you? Good morning, Jane. Fantastic. How are you doing?

Fantastic. You're the only person in the world who is. Are you sure you're fantastic? Someone's got to be. And it's you. OK, excellent. Well, I'm glad you're here. Lady sidekick, 50 tired tropes for women. Now, I love this. These women are everywhere, particularly on screen. Talk us through some of your favourites, those old, very tired female clichés.

That's right. So the clichés, caricatures and archetypes that we've forever seen in fiction. I don't know if it's favourites, really. I sort of love-hate them all. So if I said damsel in distress or bridezilla or girl next door, I'm sure listeners might be able to imagine some, if not all, of those characters because they're received ideas about women that have crept into our everyday and unconscious bias through centuries of storytelling. Right. Let's hear some of them. Now, this is this crops up in just about every detective serial on telly and on film, The Naked and Nameless Corpse. That's right. I'll read

a bit of that one out for you. And I chose this one because it's silly, but also it's actually one of the most serious. Obviously, we've got an epidemic of violence against women across the globe. And the glorification of that violence as a plot device is the absolute armpit of tropes. And like you say, we see it all the time. So this is the naked and nameless corpse. A high percentage of victims freeze and like you say we see it all the time um so this is the naked and nameless corpse a high percentage of victims freeze and stay silent when being attacked this girl has taken both ideas to the extreme she's on ice she's voiceless and yet her contouring is on point her only job is to flaunt the normalcy of female victimhood and she's excelling in her role

enjoy she's naked she's nameless she's who islling in her role. Enjoy. She's naked. She's nameless. She's... Who is she? Nobody cares because we're not here to sit and watch dexterous, intriguing women tell their insignificant life stories. We're here to watch them serve the plot and kicks of men. The naked and nameless corpse may be in an industrial freezer,

but she's still insanely hot. The naked and nameless corpse coming soon to a cinema near you for approximately 15 seconds of screen time. The Naked and Nameless Corpse does not contain brutal content warnings because they are spoilers that ruin the thrill of the details. We've already told you she's a corpse, what more is there to say?

That's why this trailer can be short and entirely uneventful, just like her life. Only too true and this one unfortunately is a little too close to home for me because it's the cat lady. The cat lady. Well, that's actually sort of become shorthand. You don't even have to own a cat to be a cat lady. It's shorthand for anyone over 40, middle aged or upwards, who is, God forbid, not married or even more scandalously, perhaps they're divorced.

And as I say, it doesn't have to be a cat. I always think of the bird woman in Mary Poppins who went out feeding the pigeons. It can be pigeons. I know Bridget Jones famously said she had two choices in life after she became single. She could be a spinster or she could get eaten by Alsatians. Okay and the tomboy that is well tomboy is more of a loaded term than it used to be. Tell me about that. Yeah the tomboy is actually a bit of a personal bugbear for me because I still get called a tomboy at 34 years of age and as you say it feels archaic it's such gendered old-fashioned language and I actually adored so-called um tomboys on screen growing up because to me they represented freedom and fun I loved um Vader in My Girl for example she wore a cap backwards her dungarees were grass stained

she jumped into lakes fully clothed and she just had fun. And that term seems like it's never going to die. It keeps cropping up and it's even used against some of the most inclusive, non-tropey characters that are coming through. And it's just women with some smarts, young girls who have ambition, basically. The proto-feminists. Let's try to be positive. Can you give me some rock-solid examples of really good, well-rounded female characters? Yeah, actually, in the proposal for this book, one of my lines of persuasion for the publishers was that I said we needed more Killing Eves and less women being killed in the opening credits by Steves, because women can be psychopaths and assassins too and villain

alan killing eve is a great character um and actually your brilliant producer reminded me when we had a chat about her that my what she's russian you could take that out with her afterwards yeah the the but she's russian and i do have the russian villain trope in the book uh so you know there's good bad and ugly in all tropes. But the difference is with this character is she's not one dimensional. She's not two dimensional. She's more fully rounded. And I think that's the point. There is good and bad in all tropes. We should use them as the building blocks to build better, more fully rounded and imperfect characters. Does this stuff actually stop us enjoying dramas, for example, do you think?

I mean, is there any evidence to suggest it turns women off from watching them? Since my book's come out, and I've been talking about it a bit more online, I have had people contact me to say so. But I think the problem is, is when we sit and watch it, and we're just so used to seeing it, that as I say, it starts to affect your unconscious bias. So personally, for me, obviously, it's at the forefront of my brain at the minute. So I do throw the remote control across the room. But I do think, sadly, it's just something that's that's so ingrained because, as I say, it's been around forever. And there is some some sort of comfort almost in those characters

that we know and we were brought up on. Perhaps they came from our fairy tales or our religious texts, if we're religious. They're always around. Do you think men recognise a female trope when they've created one? I wish that they did, because then I think we might be in a bit of a different position. You know, we know that that phrase, the male gaze and a lot of films because there's more men in writers rooms, casting, producing, you know, all of those roles.

In fact, last year in the top 100 grossing movies, only 16 percent of the cinematographers were female. And I think that's why we're in such a sexist rut, because, you know, they arguably bring together all of the roles to create the gaze. And if there's, if we're overrun with men, then it's only going to go one way. Yeah. I'm not even sure I fully understand what a cinematographer does. Are you actually saying that they are, they create what we end up seeing? Yeah, so they work on the look of the film and, you know, everything, the angles and there's a term, for example, called fan service in films and fan service basically is shots of, take Wonder Woman, for example.

Yeah, she's amazing. She's got a sword. She's running through the forest. She's powerful and strong, but she's also bouncing all over the shop and in fairly few clothes. And that's the male gaze. And that fan service will have been picked out

specifically for anybody horny in the audience. They're the angles that we're getting. Right. I'll take your word for it. Okay. And we should say as well, there are some great illustrations in this book from Laura Dockrill, which bring your ideas brilliantly to life. Thank you very much for talking to us. We appreciate it, Annika. Take care. Annika Harry, author of Lady Sidekick, 50 Tired Tropes for Women. Now, you may not be celebrating this tomorrow,

but it is something you should probably know about. October the 31st is the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Now, it called on member states to make sure that women do take part equally in all efforts to promote peace and security. However, it has to be said, it doesn't really seem to be working. Nobody's paying that much attention to it. In peace processes between 1992 and 2018, women represented just 3% of mediators and 12% of negotiators, despite the UN's own research,

which apparently shows that when women do participate in peace talks, the resulting agreement is less likely to fail. Well, we can talk now to Kakramana Kakar, who is a senior strategic advisor for the organisation Women Mediators Across the Commonwealth, and to Sarah Cook, who works for the organisation as well, and both have worked in conflict resolution areas around the world. Kakarimana, good morning to you. Good morning. Tell me a little bit about your own life. You're from Afghanistan yourself.

Yes, I'm from Afghanistan myself. I was born in Afghanistan during the war. The first thing that I can recall, along with the love of my parents, was the terror of the war. My family, along with many other families, were victims of war in many ways, including becoming refugees in a neighboring country, which saved the lives of many Afghans, but at the same time brought a different set of challenges to their lives. With all the direct and indirect experiences of war and its implications on my life, I always believed that peaceful settlements and dialogue was the only way to resolve violent conflicts and save people from its immediate and long-term impact.

And women in my culture and in many other cultures that I've known so far are best at this. From a very young age, I've worked with people, communities, women, men and young people on peace building and promoting peace for coexistence in a society. So my work led me to work internationally, regionally, including for the Afghan government, advising the highest council in the country, which was mandated to lead the peace process with the Taliban. And working for peace and with peace builders and mediators has always been my passion. And all of this brought me to work with women mediators across the Commonwealth Network, which is hosted by a peace building organisation called Conciliation Resources. Right. So you believe firmly that the UN needs to bring more women on board to take part in these talks? Yes, of course. I mean, women's presence is very important. When women participate in a process, they do not fight for the political or military power. They fight for the rights of the people. They fight for the rights of the people.

They fight for equality and inclusion. And they bring discussions around the conflict and they address the underlying causes of the conflict. The reason why women bring important discussions evolving around the impact of war in conflict on people and the benefits of peace is that the roles that women have generally been playing in communities more generally and the deep connectivity and understanding of the issues

which enables them to get to the cracks of the problems and the ways conflict affect people and systems in much more complicated ways than we normally assume. And Sarah, you are actually from the United States, but you've been working, I think, in Northern Ireland. What qualifies you for a role like that? That's a really interesting question, Jane. I was actually invited into helping out with the peace building process here in Northern Ireland as quite a young woman. So I was 23 and had moved here just for a year just to support the good work that was happening on the ground here, just after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. And I was invited to take on a really interesting role leading an organization and developing a methodology and actually

facilitating peacebuilding dialogue, which involved bringing former British soldiers, police, prison officers and their families, former Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries and their families, and then people who would have been injured or bereaved by state violence or paramilitary violence together in dialogue. So it was a really interesting experience as a young woman to be invited into a process like this. How were you treated by every participant? Well, it was really interesting. I think in some ways, my role as a younger woman actually really helped because I think people trusted me as an honest broker or, you know, almost even a third space. I wasn't coming with kind of the baggage of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

So although I was certainly vetted and I was certainly checked out by the various parties, I think I was able to make some really interesting inroads early on because people trusted that I was there, not with an agenda, but really because I was hoping to make space where people could really come together and have some important conversation. Yeah, well, correct, Romana. I mean, I imagine that it is difficult. It's hard enough for a young woman to enter a place like Northern Ireland and be respected. But for somebody, a young woman to take part in negotiations in Afghanistan, you would imagine that would be close to impossible. Why wasn't it? Yes, it's definitely very, very tough for a woman to participate in a highly political process such as that of Afghanistan. In a highly patriarchal society, both war and peace are considered as highly male-dominant areas. Have ever in some contexts, both religion and culture have aspects which support the position

of women in a society more generally? So in Afghanistan, for instance, women peace builders often leverage on this position and engage in the affairs of their communities, including in the political affairs. From my experience as a woman peace builder, particularly as a young woman when I was working in Afghanistan in a highly patriarchal society, it was initially difficult to enter the community, to enter the process. To be blunt about it, in the current Afghan peace talks, there are no women at all on the Taliban side, which wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, and only four on the Afghan government side, and there are 21 altogether. So women are still not being involved. No, women are still not being involved in the formal processes. And that's the whole issue

around UNSCR 1325 and its implementation. Women are highly involved in peace building activities and peace building at the community level, at the grassroots level, at the national level. But when it comes to the very formal level and the decision making, women are often not seen quite well seen. I mean, that's one of the key challenges that we have been trying to advocate for, to bring women to the formal processes, to increase space for them, and to include them into the decision-making processes. It's been highly challenging, not only in Afghanistan, but in several other contexts as well. And the reason, of course, is the lack of political will from the politicians, from the international community, as well as national governments. In the case of Afghanistan, the process is highly complicated in itself,

but then the challenges are not only with the Taliban, but within the system there are actors who prevent the participation of women in the formal peace negotiations. Yes, and we must be clear, Sarah. I mean, I wonder whether you met resistance and resentment in Northern Ireland as well. Yes, I mean, I certainly did from time to time, you know, people always are suspect, I think, of peace building processes, because people wonder, is there an agenda? Does this change the balance of power? What does this mean when it all shakes out if people engage in peace building processes? So I think women all over the world and myself included, when they're managing peace processes or dialogue, we certainly can come under scrutiny

and suspicion. But I think the work really wins out in the end. I think women all over the world, from the local to the global, are doing this work with a lot of heart and a lot of passion. And I think many, many times that wins the day and people see the genuineness and the sincerity there. All right. Most of us, Sarah, will never be in this room. So give us an example of an occasion when you actually thought, you know what, this time, I think I've got to them. I've made a connection. Can you remember a moment like that? I can, absolutely. I think one of the most powerful memories that I have of doing this work was sitting down with former British soldiers and former members of the IRA, which for people who aren't familiar, that is a Catholic nationalist organization that took up arms during the conflict in Northern Ireland. And I remember people really not only hearing each other's stories and understanding them for the first time, but

really could see each other as human beings. And I think that's kind of the pivotal moment. I know many of us have had this experience when conflict parties are sitting down together and acknowledge each other as human beings with lives and interests and needs. That begins to crack something open and makes a new space for people to engage in peace building work. I think people come up with very creative solutions and new ways forwards when they can see their kind of perceived enemy or the person sitting across from them at a mediation table or a negotiation table as a human being who also has needs and desires. And, you know, it's very exciting when you start to see that happening. And, you know, all kinds of interesting possibilities emerge when people are able to see each other in that way. Yeah. So it's really as simple as that.

It's about making that human connection and realizing that every participant, whatever their ethnicity or their religion, they've got passions, they've got interests, they've got family. It's as simple as that. Absolutely. And I think that's why women are so key to peacebuilding roles, whether that's at the local level, the national level or the international level, women are really able to, I think, open that up in people and allow people to really connect on the kind of level that will allow new possibilities. Because I think sometimes people think of peacebuilding or mediation as a very complex art, and it is in a lot of ways. But it's also as simple as people being willing to make change and being willing to be in conversation with each other. And when you can make that space possible, all kinds of things can stem from that that lead to much, much better and stable, more stable societies.

Sarah Cook and Kakarimana Kakar, who are both people who work for the Women Mediators across the Commonwealth organisation. Now, to your thoughts on, well well let's go sailing first of all i was just really struck listening to those three female competitors in the vende globe sailing race that um let's be honest with ourselves we just couldn't do it could we i mean i can't be the only person who heard what they were saying and just thought i would not last three minutes um i just wouldn't and the actual physical and mental strength required to even begin to think about competing in something like that. It's incredible.

It's off the scale. Lorna said, thank you for such an inspirational and enlightening discussion. So good to hear anything unrelated to COVID quite. I'll be following these women's progress. Good luck to them. Sheila, sitting here listening to your piece on the Vendée Globe,

we were due to go and watch their departure, but obviously because of COVID and the French lockdown, we can't be there. I wish them all a safe race and hope the women get round. Quite, so say all of us. Richard says, I worked on a British research ship as a senior deck officer near the Kerguelen Islands and watched the Vendée Globe race go past on the radar system. If there'd been an accident, we would have had to go to rescue those involved

by virtue of maritime law. There are many research and passenger ships in the Southern Ocean, some carrying doctors and lots of medical equipment. Richard says there is actually a lot of help out there. Well, yes, you make it sound like it's not very much to actually attempt it. I'm sure that's not your intention, Richard, but I still think the women and all the competitors are phenomenally brave. Alison says listening with rapt attention to every word of the three amazing female competitors in that race. I'm in awe of them and I wish them all so much luck.

We'll find out how to follow the race more closely. Well, I'm sure the BBC will be tracking them, but obviously there'll be other ways as well, won't there now? Thanks to all forms of social media and the internet, you should be able to keep up to speed with how they're all doing. On the subject of shame, Katie says, I'm a songwriter. My most recent song is all about shame and the embodiment

of shame when we don't deal with it. I realised more recently that it's very much about the shame I felt coming out in the early 2000s. I'm very happily gay now, but the shame does run deep and the internal homophobia learned from a young age is as hard to deal with as the homophobia of others. This anonymous contributor says, I'm 71 and I feel the shame that I didn't have a career for my children to be proud of and to be proud of me. I'd been an old-fashioned housewife, the old-fashioned there is in speech marks, and I don't feel I've achieved anything.

I cannot shake that feeling of inadequacy. So there's another thought of shame and another sort of shame. And there's just there is no need for it at all, of course. Catherine says, enjoyed the conversation on shame, but I was hoping it would broaden out into a discussion of the societal benefits of it. Lord knows we're living in an era of increased shamelessness right now. Yeah, that would have taken the conversation in another angle, another direction, Catherine. You're quite right. And maybe we could do a conversation about shamelessness and the impact of that.

Lucy says there are men talking about shame. Lucy, I absolutely take your point because Lucy goes on to name two men who I really rate and I think are really good and certainly have talked about shame. I think, Lucy, you have to read Grace Campbell's book to understand possibly what I was getting at. about her sex life and about the way her male partners conducted themselves. And I don't think, well, she said herself, she couldn't think of a male heterosexual comparator doing the same thing, owning their shame in 2020. And that isn't quite what Ellis James and John Robbins talk about, but I know they do talk about shame. And John Robbins, you're right, it does have an Edinburgh show about it. I should say they are on Five Live, as Lucy points out.

I think their show starts one o'clock this afternoon on Five Live, and you can hear the podcast as well. And in fact, they were unfortunately, listen, John, with me and Fee a couple of weeks ago. They are excellent. They used to have a feature, says Lucy, on their old Radio X show called The Shame Well. I thought it was great listening for everyone and I speak as a young woman consumed by shame. Lucy, thank you for that. They are good, Alison John, so you might want to give them a listen. Annika

Harry, Charlotte says, these tropes, yes, they affect me too. When I was a teenager and all my life, I felt really upset by the way women are shown on film and telly, but friends and family tell me to chill because it's only Yes, thank you, Charlotte. And Jude says, I never watch these crime thrillers with dead women victims on principle. What feminist does? That's a good question, Jude. And I suspect there are a lot of people who would say they certainly were feminists who do watch these programmes. Again, that is another good conversation topic and one perhaps we should take up. Thank you for listening this week. Woman's Hour, of course, the highlights of the Woman's Hour week will be on Weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow afternoon,

also available in podcast form. Join me on Monday morning where my guests will include the singer Jane MacDonald. That's on Monday. Before you go, I'm Miles, the producer of a brand new podcast for Radio 4 called Tricky.

This is how it works. Four people from across the UK meet up and without a presenter breathing down their necks talk about issues they really care about. Sex work is quite complicated for a lot of people and it's okay to be against it

but not to shame someone because of their profession. Across the series we'll hear anger, shock and even the odd laugh. Another thing that really gets to me is when people say, I know what we need to do, I know what black people... Shut up. You don't... That's the thing. That's not how it works. Nobody knows. If you knew, you would have done it. Discover more conversations like this by searching Tricky on BBC Sounds. More stable society.

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.