Woman's Hour - The codebreaking sisters. Women in elite sport. How female DJs are adapting during lockdown

Episode Date: August 15, 2020

On VJ Day we hear from Patricia and Jean Owtram who both served their country while their father was a prisoner of war in the Far East.We discuss the findings of the BBC Sport Elite British Sportswomen's survey 2020 published this week.Karen Maine tells us about her new film Yes God, Yes about 16 year old Alice growing up a Catholic and attending Catholic school in the early noughties in the American mid-west.Plus as President Alexander Lukashenko is re-elected in Belarus, we talk about the woman who challenged him.And with nightlife on pause during lockdown how have female DJs been adapting?Presenter Jenni Murray Producer Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor Beverley PurcellGUEST Susannah Townsend GUEST; Priyanaz Chatterji GUEST; Tammy Parlour GUEST; Veronika Tsepkalo GUEST; DJ Flight GUEST; Ngaio Anyia GUEST; Karen Maine

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.

Good afternoon. In today's programme, Karen Mayne's film Yes, God, Yes! sees a teenage girl's burgeoning sexuality in conflict with her Catholic education. How much is the director telling her own story? The BBC's elite British sportswoman's survey and the racism that's been revealed. One of my new teammates just kept referring to me as Curry and I told her from the get-go that that wasn't appropriate and I didn't want to be called that but she just didn't really seem to get it and didn't understand why it wasn't appropriate, acceptable in any context. Priyana's Chatterjee who plays cricket for Scotland. Women DJs, how are they faring during lockdown

when nightlife is pretty well on hold? And the election in Belarus. The women who opposed President Lukashenko and the intimidation and threats they have faced. I received several phone calls that the authorities put the pressure on the teachers and asked them to write a letter stating that I'm a bad mother and the next step would be taking away my kids,

putting them to the orphanage. So that's why my husband took the kids and they left Belarus and went to Russia. Today is the 75th anniversary of VJ Day. The 15th of August 1945 saw the surrender of Japan and the final end of the Second World War. It was a very significant day for two sisters from Lancashire whose father had been a prisoner of war for three years in the Japanese camp at Chungkai. Prisoners there were forced into the building of the infamous Burma Railway. He was somewhat surprised when he came home to find his two daughters had been serving their country during the war. They are Jean and Patricia Outram, and the book about their wartime exploits is Code Breaking Sisters, Our Secret War. Patricia told me about their father's reaction to his girls when he came home.

Of course, when he left, Jean was at boarding school. I was doing a sort of junior secretarial job. And he had no idea, while he was a prisoner, that we had gone into the women's services. Jean went into the fannies and I went into the Wren's. So I think we changed a good deal and he perhaps had to get used to the idea that we were young women rather than school girls. Jean, it's slightly surprising to read in the book that you both seemed ever so slightly excited when war broke out. You were, of course, both very young teenagers when it happened. Why did it give you a sense of excitement? Well, I hesitate to say it now, but I was very worried it was going to finish and all be over before I could actually get into it. And I was going to miss this wonderful opportunity of being an adult and doing something for my country. And it was all very exciting.

But in fact, of course, it went on much longer than we had thought from that first year. Eventually you did join the Wrens, but you had turned down the offer of a job at Bletchley Park. Why did you had turned down the offer of a job at Bletchley Park why did you turn that down yes well I had a godmother married to somebody in the foreign office who wrote to my mother at the beginning of the war and said lots of the foreign office secretaries are going to work at a place in the country in Buckinghamshire. And it would be so nice if Pat joined them because she would spend the war with a crowd of jolly girls. Well, I had decided I was going to join the Wrens

and, if anything, be with a crowd of jolly sailors and no way stuck in the countryside with lots of foreign office secretaries. So I got my mother to send a telegram to my aunt, and I was away from home, sent a telegraph as soon as possible to my mother to say, hate crowds, jolly girls. And the night man in the telegraph office said he also hated crowds, jolly girls and the nice man in the telegraph office said he also hated crowds of jolly girls so that was the end of Bletchley Park.

Jean obviously you were that little bit younger how did you come to join the Fannies the first aid nursing yeomanry? Well of course I thought Pat was doing an interesting job which she was at the time but when I applied they only wanted to cook and my skills as a cook have never been very great and besides I didn't want to be a cook so I had to explore around and find out what else was going on and somebody introduced me to the fann's and I found that not only did they do interesting secret work but they also went overseas and at the age of 18 and I'd never been out of England apart from Scotland in my life and I said no this is the one I'm going to join and did.

Now Pat you both obviously had to sign the Official Secrets Act. How was that for both of you, that you realised you could never speak to anybody about what you were up to? Well, of course, we took the Official Secrets Act as seriously as everybody else does. I finished the General Wren training. And before I started a short special course in intercepting German ships radio, we all had to sign the Official Secrets Act and realize that probably for the rest of our lives, we would never be able to tell anybody, including our families, what we actually did.

So it was years and years after the war, I think the 1970s, when all those books started coming out like ultra, that I finally said, by the way, Jean, what were you actually doing in Cairo? And she told me. What were you actually doing in Cairo, Jean? Yes, you might well ask, because I was rather surprised myself. Although I was 18, I still had to have parental permission to go overseas. And so as my father was a POW in the Far East, my mother had to give it to me,

which she did, which was great help. And the Fannies then put me aboard a ship. We sailed out of Liverpool. I had no idea where we were going. We turned left, went towards America, turned left, went south. And next thing, we were in the Mediterranean. And I worked in Cairo and then in Italy, southern Italy, for the rest of the war. But it was very exciting, 18.

Pat, I know at one stage you learned to use a Sten gun. Why? Well, this was when I was stationed at a station called Abbotscliff, which was a very isolated house on a cliff about three miles west of Dover and there was always a bit of a chance that the Germans might try some sort of coastal raid and we had armed police guarding this station we were the only station that did have an armed guard. And they had these lightweight stem guns. And some of us thought, well, suppose the Germans did land, it would be rather nice to know how you used a stem gun. So we persuaded them to show us how to

take it apart and put it together again. And then we're allowed to fire at a little target in a field across the road. So we got quite good at Sten gun practice. So I think maybe I could still remember. I'm not quite sure I'd remember how to take a Sten gun apart. But it must be rather unusual acquisition for old ladies in Chiswick to know how to use a stem gun. And you never fired it in anger, I presume? Not in anger, but I was allowed to shoot at little targets. I was talking to Jean and Patricia Outram. The BBC's Elite British Women's Sport Survey 2020

was published on Monday, covering responses to questions on trolling, funding, the impact of coronavirus, periods and the pill, sexism, racism, abortion, family planning and mental health. The survey was sent to 1,068 women in 39 different sports and 543 responded. I spoke to Tammy Parler, the chief executive of the Women's Sports Trust, Priyana Chatterjee, who plays cricket for the Scottish women's team, Susanna Townsend, who plays hockey for Great Britain and is an Olympic gold medalist, and Becky Gray, a BBC sports reporter. How did the new survey reflect

things like Me Too? In 2015, we had 15 questions in the survey and this year we had 28. We just really wanted to, like you say, Me Too raised all these topics and like broke a lot of taboos and we wanted to talk about some of those in the survey as well so that's why we included things on family planning periods and and the effect of the contraceptive pill on performance because we wanted to look at the things that affect all women in all areas of life but you have to accept that they affect sports women quite uniquely as well that's why we also put a couple of racism questions in to look at how that affects sportswomen uniquely. And then obviously, we had to ask about coronavirus and the effects of that as well. Susanna, today's launch is looking at the impact of

trolling. What happened to you? In 2015, I was about to step onto the pitch for training and I couldn't log into my Instagram account. And luckily I had the login for the GB women's account so I could look and see where my account was. And unfortunately someone, I still don't know to this day who it Olympic Games and for that to happen and to wonder how your reputation is going to be seen to everyone sort of looking through your social media it it was quite distressing. So what effect did it have over a long period because it's not your fault? At the very start of it for me it was a big lack of control and the anxiety as to how I was going to be portrayed. As for everyone close to me, they knew that it simply wasn't me, but everyone else looking on my social media at that time potentially thought, what's Susanna Townsend doing?

And the biggest thing for me at the time was that I simply didn't know who to go to to help me or to change it. And at that point in time, even going to my coach and saying, look, this is happening, I just need some help. Will you ever trust it again? To be honest, potentially not. It's something that still worries me. And anything that's on anyone's phone or social media, it's their private information.

And for me, I like to set a positive example. And stuff like that happening, you do lose trust over it. And I see it as a platform to promote who I am, my sport, women's sport especially. And for that to happen, I think it makes you a little bit uneasy. I'm trying my best to, if I can change my password, I think, and have more security around it than maybe. But at this moment in time probably not. Becky how surprised were you that 30% of the respondents to the survey have been trolled in some way on social media? To be honest as depressing as it might sound not that surprised I would maybe even expect that statistic to be a

little bit higher it might have been women thinking it had to be quite extreme to count as trolling rather than any sort of social media abuse. But I know that on BBC Sports social media, for example, every time we post about women's sport, someone's got something negative to say. So it's not surprising. We've actually launched some new action today to tackle the trolls on BBC Sports social media as a result of this survey, recognising that we need to stand up because the platforms aren't really doing that much about it. What do you get if you post something about men? Do they get trolled? The thing that I found working on this survey is that it's such different trolling. Women are, it's so sexualised, it's about stereotypical gender roles,

so one of the most common things that I think a lot of people would have experienced is just being told to get back in the kitchen, you shouldn't be playing sport, make me a sandwich it's that kind of questioning women's right to even play sport or it's about their body image so it's definitely a different type. Very original these trolls aren't they? Priyana, the survey says that 20% of the respondents have experienced or witnessed racism in their sport. What's been your experience? I think that I have certainly experienced different forms of racism at various times throughout playing cricket unfortunately. One incident in particular that stands out. of racism at various times throughout playing cricket unfortunately one incident particularly

that stands out I joined a new cricket club and I went on to my first training session and one of my new teammates just kept referring to me as curry and I you know told her from the get-go that that wasn't appropriate and I didn't want to be called that. But she just didn't really seem to get it and didn't understand why it wasn't appropriate, acceptable in any context. And it took quite a number of weeks of me asking her not to call me that before she finally stopped. And it was actually only when I started calling her racist that she stopped calling me Curry.

How did your teammates or your coaches react to what she was calling you unfortunately i think it there was very much uh it was a relatively informal atmosphere and i think people were aware of it but no one wanted to kind of get involved and i guess because i was being quite vocal directly to her as far as i'm aware no one said anything to her about it. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge, no one actually challenged her other than me. Tammy, how big a problem is racism for the women you work with? Yeah, well, sadly, it's still a problem. And it's been awful to hear some of the stories that our athletes have shared. But, you know, also not surprising, systemic racism is absolutely a reality.

And every piece of data you look at proves that. And sports and microcosm of society, the whole of the UK has a case to answer for. So yes, of course, it affects the women we work with. help to create platforms so the brilliant athletes like Alice Dearing, Asma al-Badawi, Sasha Corbin and others can be heard. And, you know, frankly, I think we need to get our own house in order to ensure that we're a more representative organisation that understands how racism affects sport and takes action to do something about it. Becky, one of the things it was shocking to read was a lot of it was shocking I have to tell you but this really surprised me that where

elite male and female teams train in the same place the women are often expected to leave the gym to accommodate the men how common is that it does depend on the sport but it's pretty common and it's so interesting because you you say shocking and i think i've become desensitized to it i've been working on this for a few months and i think the women themselves have because we asked people whether they'd experienced sexism, 65% said they had, and then we asked if they wanted to share some examples. And only a couple of people kind of shared this example of being kicked out of the gym. But then when I did some follow-up phone calls with some of the respondents, I just sort of mentioned it like, oh, yeah, one thing people say is they get kicked out of the gym

when the men's team come in. Does that happen to you? And you just got laughs back and kind of like, yeah, of course it happens to us. It's almost become so accepted that people don't think to report that as an example of sexism. Susanna, the experience of sexism seems to have increased since 2015 when the last survey was done. What have you observed that you would

describe as sexist behaviour? For us in hockey, actually, it's a very equal sport, which we're very lucky to have. But there's still things, for example, I've got a scenario where in 2016, after winning an Olympics, a male counterpart and the same sponsor at the time was getting paid double and for me it was it was something that I looked at and I was like this this simply isn't okay and and I and I left the sponsor um and I actually took a lesser package in terms of sponsorship out of principle with someone else because for me it just didn't make any sense and these things happen every single day and in in club sport and that men are paid that women aren't we're very fortunate that for from UK sport almost your funding is given on how successful you are and the the model itself is is brilliant at this moment in time we have been more successful than our men and we some of us are able to actually

touch a paid packet that the men can't and and i think that's very very rare i was talking to susanna townsend tammy parlor pre-announced strategy and becky gray and alf in an email said regarding the gym use whereby the women have to make way in the gym for the men please just provide the names of the men involved, ask them why, interview them, name and shame. Still to come in today's programme, the woman DJ. How is she faring during lockdown when nightlife is on hold? And Catholic guilt and teenage sexuality in Karen Mayne's film Yes, God, Yes. And don't forget that if you miss the live programme during the week,

you can always catch up with the podcast. Just go to BBC Sounds or The Woman's Hour website and there you will find us. As you may have heard in the news this week, there have been demonstrations in Belarus in protest at the result of Sunday's election, which saw President Alexander Lukashenko re-elected. More than 6,000 people are said to have been arrested and leaders of the opposition have been jailed or driven out of the country. Among them is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who challenged the president in the election and has left for Lithuania after an apparent threat to her children. She was an unlikely opposition leader, saying she preferred to stay home, look after her children and fry cutlets rather than run for president.

During the campaign, she was supported by two other women. One of them is Veronica Tepkalo. We'll hear from her shortly. Sarah Rainsford is the BBC's Moscow correspondent. Why did Svetlana stand? As you said, she never really saw herself as a presidential candidate. She's very much a reluctant, almost an accidental candidate. And the reason that she makes quite clear that she began this race for president was because of her husband. Now, Sergei Tikhanovsky is a very popular video blogger. He'd gone around the country for months making very critical videos about Alexander Lukashenko, talking to people about their problems, about poverty,

their criticism of their president. He, in fact, called Alexander Lukashenko a cockroach. That became his pet word, if you like, for the leader. And when he tried to run for president, he ended up getting arrested. So Svetlana Tikhanovskaya stepped in. Although she's a complete political novice, this was certainly nothing she had planned to do. She called it, though, a mission she couldn't refuse. And once she'd started and once she saw the huge sort of groundswell of support for her,

she said she just couldn't stop. Now, two women supported her, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo. We'll hear from Veronika in a moment. Who are they? What's their background? Well, this is the fascinating thing about this election race, because although Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is a complete novice, she was then supported by the campaign teams of two other candidates for president. Now, these were two men, one of whom, Viktor Babariko, was seen as a very strong contender, politically speaking, to Alexander Lukashenko. But he also was arrested shortly

before registering or trying to register for the race. He was accused of money laundering. He's now in prison. Another contender, a former US ambassador, he ended up not getting registered and fleeing the country, he said, for his safety. That's Valery Tsipkalo. So the campaign manager of the first candidate and the wife of the second candidate

then joined forces with Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya and the three women became this very powerful symbol, travelling the country, holding these campaign rallies. Three women often dressed in white, holding up a fist or a heart shape, which is what one of them would make to the crowds. And they really captured, I don't know, I guess the frustration and the pent up desire for change of many people in the country. And I think also worth bearing in mind this in the context of a comment by Alexander Lukashenko, the president,

who had said back in June that the constitution in Belarus was not suitable for a woman president because it gave the president too much power. And he said the society in Belarus wasn't ready to vote for a woman. And I think, you know, something of those crowds

was people coming out and saying, actually, yes, we are. I spoke, as I said, to Veronica earlier, and I asked her why she has left Belarus. Well, actually, my family left Belarus several weeks ago because my husband, he was one of the candidates and he was running for the presidential position. But in our country, if you have alternative opinion, you are not allowed to speak up. Therefore, he was at danger that he was going to put to the jail. At the same time, the authorities started the process of taking away of my kids. Well, actually, the first information which I received was from the school where my kids study. I received several phone calls that the authorities put the pressure on the teachers

and asked them to write a letter saying, stating that I'm a bad mother and the next step would be taking away my kids, putting them to the orphanage. So that's why my family, my husband took the kids and they left Belarus several weeks ago. They went to Russia. I stayed in Belarus and I was campaigning

with two beautiful ladies, with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and with Maria Kolesnikova. We represented three different candidates. Two of them are already in the prison. So I stayed in Belarus for three more weeks. And then I decided to vote in the Russian Federation, in the embassy of the Russian Federation, because the embassy of the Russian Federation, because I really missed my kids. I did not see my kids for several weeks. We went to the embassy, I voted, and that evening I returned back to Belarus. How, during the election campaigning, did the country respond to women standing against Lukashenko? It was awesome. It was absolutely beautiful because we traveled.

I mean, our trio, Svetlana, Maria and myself, we traveled all around Belarus. We visited so many cities because we had a lot of meetings around Belarus. We visited large, medium, small cities. And if you follow up the news from Belarus, you definitely saw how many people came to our meetings. And people were very excited because we understand that people are ready for change. People don't want Lukashenko anymore because he has been in power for the last 26 years. People of Belarus are very tired of his attitude towards Belarusian people because he humiliates us, he humiliates women, he insults women.

He calls us different names publicly, openly. For example, he called us pigs and he said like we're giving birth to the piglets. The Belarusian constitution is not for women. So we are used to this insult, but we don't want this insult and humiliation any longer. Why did your attempt to win the election and the support that you seem to have had, why did it fail? Well, actually, we didn't fail. I think Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, she won the election because the first time within 20 years, we saw the lines of huge lines of people, long lines of people standing and willing to vote. president of Belarus because I'm sure she got not less than 80% of the entire votes. And Lukashenko became illegitimate president. We ran several initiatives, online initiatives, just to calculate how many people voted to see the voting results in our platform. It calls The Voice. More than

1,200,000 people registered. And according to the data from this platform, 80% of the people, they voted for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. So basically, we think we did win. We think Svetlana is the only legitimate president and Lukashenko announced that he gained 80% of the voters, which is completely not true and international community should not accept these results. How is Svetlana now? at the country because she spent three hours with people. We don't know who were these people, but I guess these are people from KGB or any other agency. I'm not sure because nobody knows this information. They had a conversation. Nobody knows what the conversation was about, but knowing that her husband is in the prison, they hold him as a hostage. This is my assumption. They probably showed her the pictures of her husband, maybe some videos. And also they were threatening her with her kids. Because if you look at her video next day, or yes, next day, she published the video on the Facebook or in the social media, you see how threatened she was. You see the tears in her eyes and her voice is shaking.

And she's talking that she had to leave Belarus because she changed her mind. So I could tell that because I know I've been next to Svetlana for several weeks. I know her, that she's a very strong woman. I'm sure that they put a lot of pressure on her. And they threatened her with her husband and the kids. And this was the reason why she had to leave. It's really scary taking into consideration that we live in the 21st century in the European country. She's doing okay, but so far I did not have any contact with her.

I called her, I sent her several messages, but I guess she's still under huge stress. That's why she's not responding. It will take some time for her to recover. Veronica Tepkalo and Sarah Rainsford, if I can come back to you just briefly. That's why she's not responding. It will take some time for her to recover. Veronica Tepcarlo and Sarah Rainsford, if I can come back to you just briefly, where does this all go now? Well, it's a good question. I mean, the protests have continued for a fourth night. They're slightly smaller than they had been on three previous nights, but they've still faced this massive crackdown, this massive, brutal response, really, by riot police and security forces.

Thousands of people are in detention. There's big crowds outside police custody centres, people looking for the missing now across the country. But this is something on a scale and a scope that's never been seen in Belarus before. And I think whatever happens, clearly, Alexander Lukashenko, who's ruled for 26 years and believes that he was supported, clearly that myth, if you like, has now been broken. Things can never be the same again in the country, whatever happens. I was talking to Sarah Rainsford and Veronica Tsepkalo. DJs, disc jockeys, are not just people who spin records to which people will dance. They're performers, many of whom create their own music,

put on a show in a nightclub and are crucial to supporting new artists. But what do they do during lockdown when there is no nightlife? And how much more difficult is it for women who've had to fight for their place in an industry that's long been dominated by men? On Thursday, I spoke to Naio Anya and DJ Flight whose work is mainly in drum and bass. DJ Flight, that's a small example of the work that you do now I know you've founded something called EQ50 a project aiming to address gender balance in drum and bass and that was in 2018 why did you found it? Simply for the fact that women haven't been supported enough or given big enough platforms within our sub-genre of dance music for many years I mean I'm grateful for the level that I've been able to reach,

but it's still very much a male-dominated industry. So a crew of us got together and just thought that we could use our profiles and platforms to try and encourage more women to get involved. What effect has lockdown had on the project? It actually hasn't had any negative effect. We've just launched a big mentorship programme. It felt like the time was right. So we wanted to actually here and in the US and globally, it felt like it was the right time to kind of push this. People were focusing more on social issues. They had a bit more time to kind of take notice of what was going on. And how much interest has there been in young women wanting to get into drum and bass? We've had an amazing response, actually actually we received maybe double the number of

applications that we were hoping to and just the responses that we've seen from men and women across our social media channels via messages from our website emails etc it's been a really positive response and proves that something like this was definitely needed. I think the fact that we're working with five established drum and bass labels definitely helps as well because women can see that there will be official support for them should they want to try and get involved, whether that's producing or promoting or DJing, whatever it is. Nayo, how have you been managing during lockdown? So I went down a bit of the live streaming angle luckily before lockdown happened I got a good sort of a unit a DJing unit which is what you would get

industry standard in clubs but sort of a lot smaller and easier to to take around and so that did mean that I could do quite a lot of DJing at home which was incredibly lucky because I think for a lot of people as soon as they weren't able to go into clubs they didn't have anything to play on so because I did have something that I could use then I decided to do streaming whole DJ sets over the internet. And how do people know where to find you? Well that's yeah that's where it gets a little bit more complicated I guess because my major um platform probably is Instagram in terms of social media and Facebook but Instagram's probably where I have more of an engaged audience and when it went um online playing over Instagram actually was the biggest the hardest thing because when you're playing other people's songs, obviously everything is copyrighted.

So as soon as a popular song is picked up by Instagram, it shuts down your live stream. And as soon as that happens after three or four times, they actually won't let you log back in. So there was quite a lot of difficulty around how to get around that. Some people started talking over the music, like with a microphone. But other people moved to Twitch, which is actually started out as a way that people could watch others playing video games. So, again, some people switched over to that. But if you didn't already have an existing audience there, you're just kind of playing to no one. So it's been a bit of a juggling act. I know you played a live stream from a club.

What was that like in a club but no audience? It actually felt amazing. It was just really nice being back in that environment with people who I love and really get on with, fellow DJs that I respect. The crew were all really cool. We kind of kept socially distanced. They cleaned down the equipment

and had a little pause in between each set. Yeah, it was a great experience. were all really cool we kind of kept socially distanced they cleaned down the equipment and had a little pause in between each set yeah it was a great experience I mean personally that's I've only done one live stream so far I'm actually doing one later tonight that's just been been announced as well yeah I wasn't really in as much of a hurry as other people have been to do them during quarantine so far. Naya how has your income fared since lockdown? It's kind of stayed the same I've also been keeping busy I do quite a lot of different things so in terms of the DJing that wasn't necessarily a big like I mean it was helpful obviously money is always helpful but it wasn't my main source of income but yeah going back into the world now I've also

played in a couple of clubs socially distanced which has been really interesting I've done a few live streams organized by bigger people so they've they've been able to pay so the fees have gone down I think that's kind of to be expected but also because I do run my own events there's definitely been a kind of everyone banding in together. So it's kind of given the opportunity for more partnerships to open up that maybe wouldn't have had the opportunity to do this. So working with new types of promoters and new venues and being a bit more experimental, I guess, as well in the way that we've been doing live streams and taking a few more chances which has been interesting so yeah the fees have gone down and I think there's an expectation that it will sort of slowly go back up but again it depends if the industry itself gets enough support which at the moment

is not looking that positive. But Flight how hopeful are you that you will achieve gender equality with the efforts that you've been making, despite the current restrictions? I guess you have to stay optimistic at all times. It feels like there is movement now happening with the labels we've got on board. They've all been really positive and happy to be involved. And after we announced, we did actually have quite a few producers hit us up directly offering their help. So, I mean, the plan always was to expand into different territories with this mentorship and do others. Just keep it rolling so that the mentees become mentors themselves in the future.

DJ Flight and Nayo Anya. Karen Main is the director of a film called Yes, God, Yes. It features a 16-year-old girl called Alice who's had a strict Roman Catholic upbringing but secretly at home has been chatting on an AOL site and finds she's aroused by some of the things she learns there and inevitably feels overwhelmed by guilt. In class, there's sex education from Father Murphy. If you're not keen on your children hearing an extract

of my conversation with Karen, you can always switch off for a bit. Okay, it's like this. Guys are like microwave ovens, and ladies are like conventional ovens. Guys only need a few seconds, you know, like a microwave to get switched on. While ladies, they typically need to preheat for a while.

But God created sex with boundaries and for a purpose. Does anyone want to take a stab at what that boundary is? Yes, Wade. Marriage. Very good. And does anybody know the purpose? To have children. Very good. And does anybody know the purpose? To have children. Perfecto.

When a man and a woman receive the sacrament of matrimony, God calls on them to create children in His image. Any sex outside of one man, one woman, one marriage is against God's plan. Um, what about sex with yourself? Can you create children from sex with yourself? No. Right. So it's against God's plan. Exactly. Well, after her AOL experience, Alice decides to attend a religious retreat to try and suppress her urges. Karen Mayne joins me from Brooklyn. Karen, how much of the sex education morality lesson that we've just heard mirrors your own experience? Pretty closely. I always start off

by saying that the film is 80% true and actually happened to me when I was growing up in Iowa and going to Catholic school for 13 years. But yeah, everything you hear in that scene, the microwave, conventional oven sort of metaphor was said to us. And yeah, we had to watch a partial birth abortion. It was so graphic. We had to get permission slips signed by our parents and a class called Christian Lifestyles. So it was definitely a bewildering,

strange way to get sexual education for sure. Now, Alice is quite a naive 16-year-old and the film centres on her discovery of masturbation on the internet and her sense of guilt and shame about it. What was your experience? It was very similar. I feel like, you know, this was the year 1999, 2000. The internet was, you know, new and exciting,

but no one really understood its full potential or what you could kind of get into or who you'd be chatting with on there. So it's definitely like a window into discovering a lot of things about sex that I probably wouldn't have otherwise discovered until I graduated high school and left Iowa. It was a very sort of homogenous, conservative upbringing for me. And I wanted to showcase that in my character as well. How much shame did you feel? A lot. I remember my first sexual experience on AOL. I, much like the character in the film, was just innocently playing a word scramble game in a chat room. And I got an email with some, quote, saucy pics from a complete stranger.

And I looked at them being a curious teenager. And then I had to go upstairs and have dinner with my parents. And I remember being so guilty and shameful that I didn't have any appetite and I couldn't eat any of the dinner my mom had cooked. Now, it is a coming of age story, but I know you've said it's a coming of age story of a different kind. What do you mean by that? I really wanted to tell a female coming of age story that was focused on self-discovery, self-pleasure and not just partnered sex. I think a lot of women discover their own bodies before they have partnered experiences. And I felt like I never really saw that explored

as a main narrative, even though it's such a defining moment for so many young people in their lives. But why do you suppose female pleasure is so often absent from films and television? I think it's just a general issue with society and how we discuss sex and sexual education. I know there are more progressive schools of thought out there, more progressive teachers and classes, which is amazing. But I think female sexual pleasure, because it's not necessary to procreate. It's often left out of more scientific discussions of reproduction. So therefore, it's just more taboo than male sexual pleasure is. And I think it's slowly starting to change, which is great. But as a young teen girl, for me, discovering it, I felt like I was doing something wrong and forbidden because

no one had discussed it with me before. How easy was it to make sure the scenes where she is testing her sexuality are rather comic rather than titillating this film is absolutely not titillating. Yes that was definitely I'm so glad you think that Yes, that was definitely, I'm so glad you think that. Thank you. That was definitely something I was trying to achieve. And I think it was just a matter of, you know, keeping it really grounded in reality. I mean, the first time she touches herself, she's on AOL eating a bowl of Cheetos for an after school snack. So I mean, I just think, you know, when young people are discovering themselves, you know, it's never really sexy. It's just like a very genuine and honest exploration of your body. It's not prepared in any way. So yeah, I think just the small details of like the Cheetos or

just the desperation of wanting to do it, the moment you feel something helps to keep it grounded. And then, you know, teenage sexuality, there's always a little bit of comedy in that. I think my film goes for a more gentle comedy than most of the typical, quote, sex comedies do. But I was just keeping it focused on my personal experience as much as possible to keep it grounded. Karen Mayne, and you can find Yes God Yes on

digital download from the 17th of August. On Monday, Jane will be discussing the work of Mary Stewart, who's been called one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century. She's said to have developed the romantic suspense novel. So Jane will be talking about her work because her novel, Madame, Will You Talk, is being dramatised in two parts on Radio 4. If you're a fan of Stewart's, do let us know your favourite and why. That's Jane on Monday, usual time, two minutes past ten. From me for today, do enjoy the rest of the weekend. Bye-bye. 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.