Woman's Hour - The Shamima Begum case, #OscarsSoMale, Young people and alcohol

Episode Date: February 19, 2019

A look at the issues raised by the case of Shamima Begum the 19 year old former east London schoolgirl who travelled to Syria back in 2015 to join the Islamic State group. We hear from Huda Jawad a Muslim feminist, Nimra Tahir who's a lawyer and Saiqa Ali from WARN - Women Against Radicalisation Network.As we approach this year's Oscars which has seen the #OscarsSoMale trending Jane talks to Radio 4 film podcast presenter and playwright Melody Bridge No women have been nominated in the Best Director, Original Score, Film Editing and Best Picture categories this year with only a quarter non-acting Oscar nominations going to women. Yesterday she talked about some of the films that have missed out. Today she compares modern female film makers with some of their counterparts in the past. What do you do if you suspect your child is drinking alcohol and everything seems to be getting out of control? And what’s the best way to introduce alcohol to your child – if at all? Jane speaks to Mandy Saligari, a former addict and author of ‘Proactive Parenting’ and Dorothy Newbury-Birch, Professor of Alcohol and Public Health Research, School for Social Sciences, Humanities and Law at Teeside University.This is an edited version of the original broadcast. Presenter Jane Garvey. Producer Sej AsarGuest; Huda Jawad Guest; Nimra Tahir Guest; Saiqa Ali Guest; Melody Bridge Gust; Prof. Dorothy Newbury-Birch

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. Thank you for downloading the Woman's Hour podcast from Tuesday 19th February 2019. We'll talk in this programme about teenagers and alcohol. What are the important messages to pass on about how you consume alcohol, where you do it, who you do it with, what are the safe limits.

We'll try and get some sense into that conversation. I've tried to have it myself. I know it's not easy. But we start the programme and the podcast today with a conversation about Shamima Begum, a young woman who has dominated the headlines in Britain now for the best part of a week. Everyone, it seems, has a view on this 19-year-old woman who travelled to Syria when she was just a girl of 15 to join so-called Islamic State. You'll know that she's given birth to a son now in a Syrian refugee camp, and she's been talking to reporters and she wants to come back to the UK. We'll get the views in a moment of three British Muslim women contrasting

views on what they think about what she's done and about what should happen now. First, have a listen to the BBC's Middle East correspondent, Quentin Somerville, who talked to Shamima Begum and asked her if she was sorry for running away and joining the so-called Islamic State. Yeah, I am sorry for all the families that have lost them, like husbands and sons and brothers, you know, and I'm sorry for all the men that have lost them, like husbands and sons and brothers, you know, and I'm sorry for all the men that have lost their women and children because of the attacks back in the UK and other countries. It wasn't fair on them. They weren't fighting anyone. They weren't causing any harm, but neither was I and neither are the women who are being

killed right now back in Borgholz. Well, that's the voice of Shamima Begum. She was responding there to a question about the hideous attacks at the Manchester Arena at the Ariana Grande concert. So with me this morning, Huda Jawad, who's a feminist writer. Huda, welcome to the programme. Nimra Tahir is a lawyer. Nimra, welcome to you. And also with us, Saika Ali from the organisation Women Against Radicalisation Network. Welcome. Good to see you.

There's so much we can talk about. First of all, take us back, if you don't mind, all three of you, to your own adolescences in Britain. Now, Huda, you didn't come to this country until you were 11. Yes, that's right. I was born in Baghdad and travelled throughout the Middle East and then came to settle as a child refugee with my parents in 1988. Did you come to London? Yes, I came straight to London. And as you can imagine, it was quite a different world. I had come from the Middle East where things, life, expectations, women, education, language was all very different um and so um it was a very uh uh interesting time for me because

i was trying to find out who i am by also figuring out where i am at the same time and it was a tough one at times i imagine absolutely um nimra you grew up in london as well that's correct and what was your adolescence like oh quite fun actually um so pretty bit I think because of the fact that I actually moved from one area to another from the east side of London which is very much Muslim dominated to northwest which was very you know it was a bit of a mix mixture um so I think I got a bit of flavor of all particular way of life so I grew up with very, Muslim dominated to a very mixed cultural, you know, sort of society. And it was quite fun. And I think I actually understand some of the perspectives, but I actually feel as if that there is a bit of an issue within the community.

And that I'd like to raise. Okay, well, we'll look forward to hearing your opinions. And we need to point out as well, Nimra, that you, Saika, do forgive me, you grew up in Rochdale in Lancashire and what was that like? So I was born in Rochdale and my parents both came from Pakistan and we lived in like a community actually and it was it was so I actually had a really happy childhood I wouldn't you know change it for the world but it was very different when I was at home to what the the persona that i had at school it was like two different things so um and that's quite normal i think maybe like not just for my generation but for other muslim

families as well that you you can say things and do things at school that you probably wouldn't be able to tell your parents about so it's quite I mean it's an interesting thing because you live two different lives. Do you have sympathy for Shamima? I do yes. Why? I have sympathy for Shamima because I think that she was basically this was her rebellion and I think at 15 years old I mean it wasn it wasn't... I think she left at 15. But we don't know how long it was that she was being groomed before that. So she was a child. And she made a mistake.

And I think that sometimes it's an idealistic thing. That you believe something that you're being told. And I don't think she had the emotional or intelligence to understand the decisions that she was making and then there's no turning back do you know once you get once you got there it's not like you can get on a plane and come back it was she was in it then and and she went with friends so I can imagine them be like when they when they made these choices or they did it as the three of them together and they already knew a friend out there who they were probably communicating with

who had gone like the year previous, Shamina or somebody. So I think that she just, she made a mistake. That's my view on it. Nimra, I don't think you're quite as sympathetic, are you? No, I'm not. I think, you know, by the age, you know, your criminal age starts after 10 years. So you're, from my understanding, she was delinquent and she was a delinquent teenager who decided to go not just against the state, but also against her parents' will. And, you know, looking at it from an Islamic point of view, what 15 year old, a good child does that.

And at the same time, what, you know, if you're loyal to the, you know, you're supposed to be loyal to your country. Where is your loyalty and what sort of British values are you representing? You know, when you're 15, I think you have a lot of sense. And thinking when I remember, it's not long, not so long ago when I was 15. And particularly, I did have sense. I I did I did know what I was doing I knew what I was doing when I was 12 years old let alone 15 there are children out there in you know streets who are actually doing you know within London who are doing who are getting into these gangs and all the rest but not all children are though are they and therefore when you're delinquent you're delinquent it doesn't change the fact that just because you were radicalised

or you were not radicalised, maybe there's an issue within the community. But I personally think the individual was delinquent. OK, let me bring the listeners in. Janie says, I'm struggling to understand the overt racism against her. She was groomed, not unlike the 15-year-old girls in Rotherham and Oldham. The only difference, in my view, is the ethnic origin of the victims. I don't think 15-year-olds are adults.

That wasn't quite the line you took, because you think you should be responsible at 15. But Huda, what I want to understand, obviously I can't, I'm not Muslim, is the challenge of growing up Muslim and a girl in a country that offers you a very clear alternative and a different set of opportunities? Yes, I think from my experience, you know, I imagine Shamima grew up in a post 9-11 world where this thing called Islam and Muslimness became relevant in a way that it didn't become relevant for me. And having to live in a world and navigating this idea that you're sort of in, but you're not sort of part of the group, there's something suspect about you, that you inherently come from a community that is violent, that is barbaric,

and that is oppressive to women. Yet you are in the heart of London, in a diverse community. You have access to, and you are part of British culture. So you listen to pop music, you have friends, you know, make up, social media and you read the same books as your classmates. But there's something about you and the way society speaks to you internally that makes you feel different and that you're not comfortable and perhaps the community that you live in or the parents that you were you have kind of are overprotective and have certain ideas of what appropriate women or children of your gender and colour should do and religiosity so I think for her it was a way of exploring herself and what she might I mean again I'm assuming we don't because we don't fully understand her family background and i think that's the biggest key here like people are talking

about why she shouldn't come back and she shouldn't come back and and that's but there's no thought in that because actually if people want to understand why she was radicalized or why girls like her are radicalized then surely bringing her back and speaking to her and trying to understand why this is an opportunity actually you know all these programs like prevent and everything else then surely bringing her back and speaking to her and trying to understand why. This is an opportunity, actually. You know, all these programmes like Prevent and everything else, you want to prevent it happening again, then speak to the people that it happened to.

Nimra, what do you think about that? OK, bring her back, but put her in a detention centre. I don't think anybody's... No, but no-one... But they need to be processed, unfortunately. You can't do that. I don't think anybody's anybody's assuming. No, but no one I don't think anyone But they need to be processed unfortunately. You can't do that. I don't think anybody's saying

No one is saying that she's innocent. No one is saying that she shouldn't face justice. But what we're saying is or be questioned is that you cannot under legal law

under the international law We cannot make a stateless. Yeah, you can't make a stateless and say oh go and do because you were made a decision groomed at 15.

It's now your responsibility and live with the consequences. We have obligations as a society to look after the people that are our citizens. Quick word, Nimra. I wasn't actually saying that. What I was trying to say was that you bring her back, put her in detention cell, process her. Therefore, you're carrying out investigations to find out whether she's safe for the country and whether she's safe for the society and for herself. You know, just because people

harm themselves, we don't know, like you said, post-traumatic stress disorder, whatever it is. I think what we really need to do is actually, you know, like you said, examine what's really going on, what's really going on, but at the same time, we need to protect our society. We need to process her and we'd have to keep her indefinitely unfortunately there just like we did in 1947

we had you know we've massified individuals here but it was for i think in around two years and after that you know they were put to trial whether they were criminals they were criminals or alternatively what happened was um you know if we think fit, she's been disloyal to the country, which I really, really strongly feel that she has been disloyal. She did so at the age of 15. But you can still be of a criminal age even after. We should also say, of course, that there is a gender aspect to all this because no British man who has left to fight for so-called Islamic State has been vilified in the way that Shamima Begum has. So where do we stand on that, Huda? What would you say about that? I think it's really interesting how society has this notion about the perfect victim and how if a woman generally, whether she is Shamima or any other woman, falls outside of this norm of like what is acceptable in terms of gender terms. Women can be victims in this way, and particularly Muslim women.

You can either say, I'm a victim of my community, come and save me. Or you can say, I am oppressed by my religion and I want to belong to you. And I relinquish all that. It seems to me that the only voice Muslim women are allowed is one that reconfirms prejudice and racism. And I think we really have to examine the discourse around how the reaction to Shemima feeds into that. So she's been treated in a way that no man would ever be treated. I firmly believe that. No, I completely agree that she's been treated, no man would have been treated like that. And I also think that for some reason, she's just become this personification of isis

so therefore everybody's like all the the venom and everything that they feel and nobody's saying like isis is good no one is saying that and i don't even think she is treated in the same way as a white child no she wouldn't either or white female child okay i personally think um right okay although i agree with you yeah there are many Shamimas out there, for whatever reason, but this was the one which the media caught. And she's an example there. And because she's an example, we're under a duty to make sure, as a country, that that example is, you know, that example is actually, you know, that there isn't any other young female Muslim women going out there trying to do this and that is unacceptable within their community as well as it's unacceptable within the UK society

and therefore we need to sort of do this. Unfortunately, it's a female I don't personally think it's a witch hunt but, you know I think it is a witch hunt actually. I think that no one's saying that she shouldn't be brought back or she shouldn't be

questioned or she shouldn't go through a process or anything like that the point is she's a British citizen she's got every right to come back to this country has she committed a crime against you know has she actually committed a crime even in Syria or wherever did she commit a crime

because if she did then shouldn't she be tried in syria for it or whatever but all she's done i mean for the past four years she's been there she's been pregnant three times i mean that in itself like at what point did she go out and do anything other than there are clearly some deeply troubling questions about rape and about the way to which any sort of consent was involved there. Can I just mention an email from a listener? This is Ken. Is there any evidence this woman was groomed and brainwashed as a 15-year-old? She managed to make the long trek to Syria, which would have phased many older teenagers.

By her admission, she knew exactly what she was doing, and four years later, she's now showing minimal remorse. I don't think Ken is untypical, but I would go back again to the fact that as a 15-year-old, you are, and I know you back again to the fact that as a 15-year-old, you are, and I know you say legally criminal responsibility starts at 10, which is true, but I've had 15-year-olds, I would argue passionately actually, that 15-year-olds are children, Huda. Absolutely, and I think, look at the way in which we talk about the Rotherham grooming of the 15-year-olds and younger girls who have been groomed.

We don't, for a second, and rightly, make them responsible for the actions that they have been subjected to. Absolutely. And therefore, I kind of find it interesting that we can't make the same comparison. Nubia doesn't agree. I don't think so. That's a very good comparison, unfortunately.

Why? The process is exactly the same. The process isn't exactly the same. It is. It's grooming. The lady got funded. It's a big criminal activity. It's terrorism, unfortunately. She wasn't funded, though. She sold gold.

They sold gold. Well, whatever it was, we don't know how did she survive. You know, you haven't, you're not the police. You haven't investigated anything. We don't know. Here, I'm sitting here and making assumptions. You're sitting here and making assumptions. Informed assumptions.

I think they're informed. You cannot, you cannot, you cannot compare the two. Why? Because you don't think if someone informed. Just a moment. You cannot compare the two. Why? Because you don't think if someone has been sexually... Why can't you compare the two? Because if someone's been sexually assaulted, and then someone in their country... They were groomed before they were sexually assaulted. Yeah. Throughout, they were groomed before they were sexually assaulted.

However, you're saying it's the same as someone who's being radicalised. Well, you know, why are you teaching your children at home? Please, I'd love to know, because you're not teaching your creed properly and that's why your children think it's perfectly acceptable to actually go out there and do those barbaric activities. We know there are very, very few teenagers who take that path.

Just a moment, let's psychospeak. I don't think so, because I've got four children and I would like to think that my children would have made would have known better but we don't know I mean there are there are failings here of safeguarding like why we don't know like we were discussing earlier about what we don't actually know what our kids are doing but um surely there should have been something that the teachers were picking up on or like there was I mean the girl that had gone out there before them and she was deeply troubled because of whatever reasons. And that was her escape mechanism.

And she'd used that to get out of a bad situation. We don't know anything about her. And this is the point, is the point is that unless you bring her back and you speak to her at the moment, I mean, it's interesting to me as well that not a single woman has interviewed her. I was going to ask about that. I mean, there are some concerns. There's no doubt.

If I, as a mother, actually was a bit concerned about the tone of Quentin Somerville in the BBC interview. She is a young woman. She is very vulnerable. But this is, let me just read you one take from a listener here. They will not read out any negative views. This is Marianne. I think she's the they there is the BBC. Only the snowflake ones.

She was just a child. She didn't know what she was getting into. Well, she did research, stole family jewellery to fund the trip and used her older sister's passport to get there. So leave her there, says Marianne. And by the way, when you say we don't read stuff out, we do read stuff out. I've just read that out, Marianne, by the way. There is a lot of

hardline thinking out there, Huda. And I agree with your point about a woman interviewing her. Would it have been different? Would the tone have been any better? Or am I just being too much of a snowflake? of the world that's very different to a man and that's not being controversial, that's the fact. And I think what's interesting is that no female journalist has been allowed or has had the opportunity to speak to Shamima and I wonder what the line of questioning would be.

But I think, you know, as I was hearing, and I like Quentin and I followed his work in covering the Mosul and ISIS attacks. It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. But while I was listening to him yesterday, I was thinking, you know, I don't know who your audience is and who you're playing to. Because I think this woman, she has said that she was pregnant and she lost two of her children. She's grieving. She's probably suffering postnatal depression.

She just gave birth and she's seen people die and her friends murdered. I wonder what the aim of the line of questioning is. Well, I mean, to be fair to Quentin, we know that this woman, to a degree, and she is now a woman, has been complicit in outrageous terrorist acts. Whether you agree that she says, I was just a housewife, but she was part of it. By joining that movement, by voluntarily joining it, of course there are questions to be asked, aren't there? You don't disagree with that, Sa?

No, I don't disagree that there's questions to be asked and that she was involved in things. But if we live in a society where we can rehabilitate paedophiles and murderers and people that commit really heinous crimes, then should we award that? Should that apply to everybody? Should people be given a chance? And this is the question, is that should she not be given a chance to be rehabilitated or to be questioned she should just have due process

like everybody else like everybody else okay very briefly because we run out of time but go on i personally do you think yes do process her but keep her in detention so indefinitely and then decide and put her on trial but i personally think she's been disloyal and whoever's been disloyal whether it's a male or a female, they should not be part of the country, they should not be represented. We've got to, I wish we could go on, honestly. Perhaps we'll talk more in the podcast, I know all three of you can stay, that would be brilliant, we'll do much more,

because there are loads of tweets coming in, and your emails are welcome, of course, at BBC Women's Hour, email the programme, many more emails coming in, so I will try and read those out in the podcast, and we'll all get more opinion from you as well. So you've heard there from Nimra Tahir, who is a lawyer, from Saika Ali from Women Against Radicalisation Network, and from Huda Jawad, who is a feminist writer.

Please do get involved if you've been exercised by what you've heard there and you want to pitch in. We do welcome all opinions. Now, Late Night Woman's Hour is available on BBC Sounds. Emma Barnett has been speaking to Zoe Strimple, a historian of gender and relationships, to Clara Amfo, the presenter of The Late Lounge on Radio 1, and to Ellen Coyne, the senior Ireland reporter for The Times newspaper.

They're discussing self-image and the merits or not of bonging selfies on social media. I've noticed that more women are posting selfies with no makeup, not as a radical act of like, look at me in my natural ugly form, but it's just as in like a completely normal thing. And that wouldn't have been something before. They're going to repose that photo a million times. If you take a photo of yourself with no makeup,

there's no way the first one's good. I definitely think though. I think some people really are posting. Okay, they've got pros at it. Maybe the angle is selective but like the other fact of the matter is like my idea of what's beautiful has completely changed. So it used to be like someone who's waif

like really really blonde like a certain kind of look maybe really really angular and now like the people I'm watching doing like makeup tutorials and stuff are completely different shapes and sizes from different parts of the world so my idea of what's beautiful has like completely changed and I'm really enjoying

the arrogance that I get that like comes with it as well. By the way that you make yourself up and how you feel about that? Well I just understand now that like just because I don't fit the typical idea of what I thought was beautiful in my early twenties it's just really like being a little bit arrogant and kind of appreciating how you look which is something that people didn't really like to see little bit arrogant and kind of appreciating how you look

which is something that people didn't really like to see on women before and I would give a lot of credit to it to Instagram for it do you feel like that in any way I don't think you should use the word arrogant I think it's confident you don't feel like an arrogant person you're giving me confidence you know what I agree with you because I think of course there is a definite dark side to social media but it's particularly apps like instagram where it is about i'm going to make sure that you see the most perfect side of my life i'm going to make sure you see all the highlights of me having a great time in x y and z but for me i have found such a wonderful camaraderie especially with other women through social media around beauty and around

around body image that i don't think i had experienced that much I guess in real life outside of that like you know if one of my friends posts up a hot picture I love commenting on these like you look great you look I mean I tell in real life anyway but I love I love I love seeing that but yeah the camaraderie and I think and and I would say yeah the sisterhood that I have seen in sort of in like body image positivity and just like beauty positivity and celebration amongst other women

has been has been really great and actually quite heartwarming Zoe is staying quiet what on earth do you make of this I mean okay

bring her in wheel her in come on I am maybe not a good because I have a weird relationship with all this stuff because I just slightly

I think maybe it's generational I don't know I how old are you Clara 34 okay you're 36 got 28 maybe I can't play that card I'm 33 still just I'm the old lady in this room you're not give me that mic I'm taking charge um okay don't like myself when I'm like oh I just know I look quite good and then I put like a little picture get someone to get my friend oh can you just take a picture of me now? Because I can just tell the lighting.

Then I sort of, the putting it up. I just, I'm full of shame of like what that means to be like, look at me. I'm pretty. And I'm like, then I hate the fact that it gives me a sort of like the dopamine rush, that sort of addictive feeling. And then I start thinking, what is the point of looking pretty in a social media picture? Surely what matters is how I look in real life. So I just get very sort of suspicious and uneasy about the whole process ranging from like misleading people, because I mean, I can look

great in a couple of pictures, and then they can see me in real life, maybe not looking the same. But also just that sort of addictive quality, the dopamine rush, really makes me uncomfortable. There we are. There's a little taster of Late Night Women's Hour available on BBC Sounds right now. Make sure you get it. Tomorrow, another family secret on the programme. This is a cracker involving one of those amateur DNA testing kits. They can cause a lot of trouble. So make sure you listen to that. On Friday, we're talking about herpes in some detail. So this

is something that's affected you and something you're interested in. Make a note of that. That's Friday morning on the show. And Comic Relief is approaching March the 15th and I'm very excited to say that I'm going to go to Nigeria for Women's Hour to do some reports from a health clinic in Nigeria

and that is going to be put out I think the week before or perhaps the day of Comic Relief on March the 15th. So really looking forward to that coming up over the next couple of weeks. Now the Oscars are on Sunday night. The hashtag OscarSoMale has been trending. No women have been nominated

in the Best Director, Original Score, Film Editing and Best Picture categories. And just a quarter of non-acting Oscar nominations this year went to women. So I've been speaking to the playwright and film expert Melanie Bridges about the prominent writers, directors and cinematographers you should know more about, past and present. First, though, you might be aware that on the BBC News website over the weekend, Nina Hartstone, nominated for her work on the film Bohemian Rhapsody,

was described in a BBC headline as a sound editor mum. That article, we should say, has since been changed. Here's Melody. It's really problematic and people do ask female directors about their family lives when I don't think they would ask male directors about that. And we have to look at the equivalency always. Is there a male sound director who would

be asked whether he was a father or not? Would that be something he would be celebrated for or put down for? We really have to say that it must be separate from the skill they've used. That's 2019 and where we're at right now. Let's go back in time then to a director that we all should know, a woman who was right at the very start of the filmmaking business, and that's Alice Guy Blaché. Yes, Alice Guy Blaché is the filmmaker that everybody should know, but somehow people kind of don't. Incredibly important pioneer filmmaker. She made over a thousand movies in her career, right at the beginning of filmmaking. In 1896, she was making movies. So an incredible woman had her own studio, was just directing movie after movie after movie. In 1896, she was making movies. So an incredible woman had her own studio,

was just directing movie after movie after movie. In the States? Yes, originally France, but yes, over in the States. And somehow we just don't know her. And it's a real tragedy. And women's experiences, were they at the heart of what Alice was doing? Yes, it is seen that actually she was really interested in making some kind of social commentary in a way as well, as well as some obviously entertaining and comic pieces too. Some of them are really quite hilarious.

You can show them even now and children will be laughing, which is really lovely. She used to have a sign up in the studio saying, Be Natural, you know, in order to encourage her actors not to be overdramatic in front of the camera. And of course, Be Natural is the name of the documentary about her, which was out last year and for some unknown reason has not been nominated for anything. Right. There's almost like there's a pattern forming here.

Indeed. So she was the first person to do narrative filmmaking, which means what exactly? So narrative filmmaking as opposed to documentary. Documentary is obviously just filming kind of what's there, whereas narrative is putting a story in front. So fiction. Indeed. Absolutely. It's the kind of drama that lots of whereas narrative is putting a story in front. So fiction. Indeed. Yeah, absolutely. It's the kind of drama that lots of us go to the cinema for in the first place.

Right. Okay, so before that, people had just looked at what was around them and made it celluloid. Simple as that, yeah. Absolutely. So that's what the early filmmakers are doing. That's what the Lumiere brothers are doing,

is just setting up the camera and filming people moving. Going about their business. Indeed. Bang up to date then with a woman called Ava DuVernay. Now, she directed, well, a film last year, 2018, A Wrinkle in Time. Before that, Selma, from 2016. So what happened here? Yes, I mean, Ava DuVernay is perhaps the most modern equivalent of Alice Guy-Bochet

in that she doesn't care. She is just getting on with it. She's rolling up her sleeves and she's making movies and she's making great movies. Hugely talented director. Completely don't know why she's not more recognised, but I love the fact that she's in charge of distribution, direction, producing, promotion.

She's just incredibly talented. I know about Selma, but what was A Wrinkle in Time about? Yeah, A Wrinkle in Time was lovely too, actually. It had Minda Carling, it had Oprah Winfrey, and it's quite a charming children's movie. A big budget for Disney as well, so I'm really pleased to see that they gave that to Ava DuVernay because so often, unfortunately, women aren't trusted with big budgets.

That's why when I've asked in the past about the domestic nature of some female-directed films, rightly a lot of people get very angry about even asking the question. But often it's because the films they're given to direct don't have the big special effects, CGI budget, and so naturally they are on a smaller scale. Absolutely, and often so many women get foxed and stopped in those early stages, so they manage to make maybe one movie or two movies,

but they don't get the chance, like so many male directors, to be building up in their career and getting bigger and bigger budgets. Now, there's no doubt that the writers of films are overlooked generally, actually, whether they're female or male. Women probably have a tougher time in terms of recognition, as they do in other areas. So let's go back to a woman called Anita Luz. What did she write? Oh, Anita Luz. Even thinking about her makes me laugh because she's such a great comic talent. She was making a star of Mary Pickford. She made a star of Douglas Fairbanks. Really funny, brilliant scripts. Between 1912 and 1915, she managed to write 105 scripts and only four of them were not made.

So you can see what a huge talent she was and how popular she was for the studios. That is a phenomenal work rate. Indeed. She's obviously a complete natural and they just loved the stories and scenarios she was coming up with. What is the script she's best known for? She's most famous for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which is obviously completely hilarious, featuring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. Yeah, hasn't done brunettes much good over the years. Anyway, we'll let that one lie on the file for Anita.

Again, what success did she meet in her life? I mean, with that work rate and with those stars involved with her work, and even I've heard of gentlemen prefer blondes, surely she was widely celebrated. Well, this is one of the tragedies of early women in Hollywood, is that they were kind of written out from film history. When people look back at film history, they so often don't give the women the credit they deserve. And that's

unfortunate, both when we're looking at film history. And obviously, when we're looking now, the pioneer filmmaker Nell Shipman said, applause and recognition are the handmaidens of creativity. And I think it's true that women really need to have that feeling. In fact, all creatives need that feeling, I'm doing a good job, I'm okay. But somehow that women really need to have that feeling. In fact, all creatives need that feeling. I'm doing a good job. I'm OK. But somehow women aren't always given that opportunity. Deborah Davis is a name that many people would know because a lot of people have seen the favourite with Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. She wrote or co-wrote the favourite.

Well, this is a controversial area. So she came up with it about 20 years ago and it's kind of been in development for a long time. Tony McNamara has kind of come on board at a later stage and helped polish it, is my understanding. But you are right that they are jointly up for a best original screenplay. And the favourite is, well, people take issue with it and say, well, it's not historically accurate. It's a drama. It's a hilarious drama. It's really fun to see Olivia Colman as Queen Anne. Absolutely don't take it as a history lesson. And it's just wonderful to see women, the gritty reality of women's lives at that time. It's not glamorous. It's not fun. They're scratching away for a living and trying to win their position in court.

Okay, we've done writers and directors and cinematographers. If I'm honest with you, Melody, I don't really know what a cinematographer does. Okay, so a cinematographer lines up the shots. They are responsible for what is beautiful and what is captured by the camera. When you look at the screen and you think that looks like a really beautiful shot, that is a cinematographer. And in fact, really a good cinematographer isn't really necessarily announcing themselves. So you shouldn't really know that they're there, which is perhaps one of the problems with it as a skill. And the fact that there has not yet been one female cinematographer nominated in the whole history of the Academy Awards. Not a single one.

Not a single one. And that doesn't mean there haven't been any female cinematographers. Absolutely not. There's been women making films and being cinematographers for the whole history of filmmaking, which is why it's seen as the last citadel. So Laura Bailey was doing exactly that ages and ages ago. We think that perhaps she might be one of the first recorded female cinematographers. So we know that she was filming between 1898 and 1906.

And we know that she was taking out a camera and there's a kind of record of her taking out a camera and filming the waves down in Hove. The most well-recognised female cinematographer at the moment is Rachel Morrison, who is the cinematographer for Black Panther, as well as making some other wonderful movies too. But she has no nomination.

And Black Panther, there is no doubting, it's phenomenal success at the box office. So do you honestly, I mean, if you were to stand up and say to a disbelieving male audience, let's say, you know what, a man in this role on a film as successful as this, his work would have been acknowledged? I think potentially, yes. And I think there are real structural issues with seeing women holding a camera, women in positions of power and women shooting. Melody Bridges. And there'll be more from her on Friday when she'll discuss the films directed by women that she thinks should have won Oscars.

That's on Friday. The Oscars themselves are on Sunday night. So to the subject of teenagers and alcohol and the best way to approach it. Mandy Saligari is here, author of a book called Proactive Parenting. Welcome to you, Mandy. Hello. And in our studio in Middlesbrough, Dorothy Newbury-Birch, Professor of Alcohol and Public Health Research at the School for Social Sciences,

Humanities and Law at Teesside University. Dorothy, good morning to you. Good morning. So I know you are a mum of two girls. Do you have grandchildren now, Dorothy? I do. I have two grandchildren now. But they're not near the drinking age, are they? Because you're not older, no?

No, they're six and three. All right. So tell me briefly about your stance. I've always vaguely taken the view that a little bit of alcohol in the home, responsible drinking, show your children it is entirely possible to have a moderate relationship, the occasional glass of wine here and there. What's wrong with showing children that? Well, I think as parents, we're all just trying to do the best we can. And I have to say that was the stance I had when my kids were younger, I think the reality, and now that I know the evidence much more, is that this isn't a good idea.

And really, when you think about it, why are we teaching our children how to use a drug? We wouldn't give them a cigarette after dinner at the dinner table. And I think the problem with this and the reason it happens is because we're all just trying to do the best we can and there's mixed messages out there and not very clear messages

about what we should be doing. Well, give us a clear message. Well, the clear message is the guidelines that were published in 2009 says, you know, alcohol-free childhood is the best thing that you can give your children. But the reality is that we know some children are drinking. And in fact, the majority of children have had a drink by the age of 15. So the guidelines say under 15,

we should not be drinking at all. And then from 15 to 17, if they are going to drink then they shouldn't drink more than two to three units once a week in you know in in in a way that is safe for them the problem with young people is the problem with young people's drinking I should say as opposed to young people is that it's they're not interested in the long term effects. They're not interested in all of the stuff we know that it's related to all sorts of diseases. It's related to cancers. But we need to get the message across that they, you know, they can get into fights. They can be arrested for getting into fights. I've seen young people who've drank

too much in A&E, where the doctors and the parents haven't known if that young girl has been raped or not, because she's been so drunk. Now, these are not young people who we would class as being dependent on alcohol. They may only drink very irregularly but when they do drink they drink a lot and their bodies aren't able to deal with that amount of alcohol i appreciate what you're saying although there will be some listeners who say we've got to deal not with the world as it should be or could be but with the world as it is so mandy we know alcohol is a legal drug enjoyed responsibly by millions of people in this country. How do you teach your teenagers to be a responsible drinker? OK, so I think that what we're trying to do is first as parents be able to be heard by our children so that whatever we do tell them sinks in.

And the way to do that is to act with self-respect and model, you know, appropriate behaviour to our children. So I think the first place that our children learn about alcohol is by seeing us drink. So if you're the person who comes in after a stressful day and goes into the kitchen, kicks off your shoes, pops open a bottle of wine, swigs it back and says, that's better there's a message that's gone out there to your children uh however old they are and i think that that's a simple reality that we have to understand that we don't just suddenly introduce our children to alcohol at whatever age you may decide to do that that there are messages before that that have already

laid an influence but as a parent do you not drink ever in front of your young children okay you're asking someone who's in recovery from addiction so i haven't drunk for decades um i think so they've never seen me drinking ever having said that but but i mean to keep my children mildly out of it but my experience the real the reality i work in schools i work with teenagers i work with loads and loads of kids that they drink. And I think the most important thing for a teenager to understand is that drink has an impact and for them to be able to clock that impact as it's happening, which means that they can then become responsible for why they drink, what purpose. I mean, they're trying to ease the sort of social wheels, of course they

are and lose inhibition and bond and belong and take risks and all those things. But they must understand that there are consequences, that there is subsequent behaviour that happens as a direct result of the alcohol. And any teenager who says I can drink and I don't get shattered and nothing terrible happens is in denial and that needs challenging. I don't suppose there's the word of that you disagree with, Dorothy? There isn't't a word I would say that there is some evidence to say that if we're totally lax about drinking with our children or really harsh about drinking then it can have a negative effect and actually I totally agree that actually modelling our behaviour as adults and understanding what safe limits are, 30% of us as adults drink too much. So, you know, it's about getting the message across what is the safe limits for adults as well as for young people. Mandy? I think also that parents will often pick up the pieces of a child who's drunk. So they've gone out, they've got drunk, they're sick, they're staggering around.

Personally, as parents, I would suggest you do not make it easy for your child if they are suffering after a massive hangover or a big drink-up or something like that. Let the world also have a part in teaching your child the consequences of what they do right well let's talk practically then what is a unit of alcohol is it worth actually lining up a load of i mean you can use water obviously put them in glasses and say this is what a unit is don't drink more than this i don't think they'll listen because once your children get to 13 14 years old the parental voice is often less influential than the internet voice or the peer voice. So what you want to do, and some kids will be able to drink more than others, and we can

measure it by units, because that's what we all have to do. But actually, as a parent, I want my child to know what their individual limit is. If you can't cope with what your best friend copes with, you need to know that. You also need to know, have you eaten before you go out and drink? Because that will also moderate the impact of alcohol. Are you able to drink one, stop drinking for a while, notice how you drink? It's getting people to be conscious and in their bodies when they are drinking so they log the effect as they go along instead of this dissociation where someone just gets hammered and doesn't even feel themselves getting drunk. Dorothy, is it possible as a middle-aged parent, most parents when they've got teenagers probably are at middle age or near it, is it possible to find the time in the day

to open up that conversation with your recalcitrant 15-year-old as they head off for the evening or is it just too late by then? Should you have laid the law down or put the messages out long before you get to that stage? I don't think it is about laying the laws down. I think it's about having honest conversations from an earlier age. How young do you start? Well, I think, you know, we've all had those conversations with our young kids. You know, if we've had a glass of wine where they've said, can I have a glass of wine?

Can I have a drink of that or whatever so so just sort of bringing the subject up but I totally believe that you know by showing a good example it's the best way to move forward I really like the idea and agree with the idea of this harm minimization approach and you know I, my eldest daughter was brought home by the police at 15 after being very drunk. And she promised me she would never do it again. And, of course, she did. And so it's not as easy as me just sitting here as a professor

and saying we should do this and we should do that. OK, thank you very much, Dorothy. There'll be more in the Women's Hour Parenting podcast. That's Dorothy Newbury-Birch, Professor of Alcohol and Public Health Research. And you also heard from the author, Mandy Saligari. Let's go back to our earlier conversation about Shamima Begum, which I think it's fair to say, drew quite a big response from the audience. I just want to bring in, all the guests are still here, so we'll talk to them in a second but colette um is not um this is a view that a lot of people have expressed i have to say says colette on twitter i am personally very conflicted over this young woman part of me says show compassion young people do make mistakes and it's sad she's lost her children but there's another part of me that feels that her motivations are motivated by selfish and self-serving interests, especially her lack of

remorse. Okay, so Nimra and Saika and Huda all still here. Nimra, I think it's fair to say, and you won't mind me saying this, you took the strongest line against Shamima. So what do you say to Colette, who I think like a lot of us, you always get people who ring up a radio phone in and say, oh, she shall be locked up for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. No, it's not, and I completely agree. And therefore, I was suggesting to put her in a detention centre indefinitely and then determine whether she's been disloyal and then we can take off the, you know, strip her off the citizenship.

Can I just put it to you that as a Muslim woman, you might feel, and you can challenge me on this, you might feel that you have to take a stronger line on Shamima Begum than, say, me, because I am a white woman. No-one's going to suspect me. I'm not Muslim. They're not going to think that I'm in any way an IS sympathiser. Do you feel in any way obliged to take a firm line?

No, I actually don't. And with my background, I'm actually looking at it a bit more legally, as well as, you know, how I have seen things. And I think earlier I did explain that because I've seen different communities, I've had that exposure. And the fact that I still remember how I was as a teenager. And I personally think that her behavior was delinquent and therefore she should be punished for it. And that's the end of it. Regardless whether, you know,

it's a later thing, whether you develop, whether she's been, you know, radicalized, whether she's not been radicalized, she needs to be put on trial. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Muslim people in Muslim countries who commit crime. And I think whether they are male or females,

they are delinquent. And I think it's very important to acknowledge that. We've got delinquents all over the place. We've got them on trial. Before I get too psyched, this is Nadine weighing in on Twitter. I agree with Colette, so they're having a conversation on Twitter via the Women's Hour Twitter feed.

First, last week, I thought, bring the poor girl home. She was young and groomed. But her words and her whole demeanour in the interviews she's given have shocked me. Right, that's an interesting point. But Mary emails to say, what if Shamima is not able to speak up against so-called Islamic State for fear of recriminations within the refugee camp?

This is something I think, Huda, you've got a view on. We don't know how free Shamima Begum feels in that setting to express her views. Yes, I think it's very clear that when working with women who have been groomed or are coerced into

situations, they have to navigate their safety. So this woman is living in a refugee camp where you were saying that you went to refugees. And you have actually, there are all sorts of people there that may be enemies on the outside of the camp, or they may have hostilities towards each other. And also, there are probably some ISIS sympathizers in there, or maybe commanders or something so she has to decide whether it is safe for her to be as critical as she wants but also as i said in my early earlier interview we are assuming that this

woman is not under any kind of um trauma or um is in a daze she's just given birth and so what she's 19 and she's and what and if you has had children passed away i can only begin i remember when i had a child my the first four months were horrific i had i can't recall them in fact the whole year i can't remember the first year of my son's you know birth because i was so caught up in trying to adjust and i was living in the leafy suburbs of northwest london yes it's still a challenge, yes. I think we're making a lot of assumptions and this thing about, I agree,

like, you know, when you listen to the interviews and everything and it's like, she's just digging herself into a bigger hole. That's the feeling that I get. It's like, you know, just, she's got nobody advising her. She's literally on her own. You know, somebody just needs to say to her, just be quiet.

That's another thing. Just be quiet. She's being on her own. You know, somebody just needs to say to her, just be quiet. That's another thing. She's being almost interrogated without any legal representation. Is that ethical? And she's making it worse for herself. And she seems like, to me, her whole demeanour was one of like, she's just dazed and not really with it.

Can I just say that she's voluntarily giving interviews? Yeah, I know she is, because she's trying to better her situation and I think that it's a naive kind of point of view. That still doesn't change the fact, whatever, you know, she's going through post-traumatic stress disorder or post-natal depression, whatever

it is. Don't dismiss those things. You can dismiss them. I'm not dismissing them but that doesn't change the fact that what she did was wrong. Yeah, right. Okay. So we, right.

So I've got a thing on remorse and I feel quite strongly about this. But I think that's really interesting. The question about remorse and what she did. Why do we need remorse in order to treat her fairly and legally and ethically? Why is that important? Because we don't expect, unless people are going to trial and are being committed to... And then you have the mitigation.

Exactly. We expect them to show remorse, but we still kind of give benefits and support to criminals, to rapists, to wife beaters. And we don't say to them, unless you show me remorse, I'm not going to allow you back into this country or I'm not going to give you due process. Well, isn't that just another example of a double standard?

Absolutely. And Shamima Begum, for all the mistakes she has made, is a perfect storm of brown Muslim woman. Yes. I mean, there is absolutely no escaping that, is there? No. And I just wonder, I mean, also we made the point, all of us, and I think we all agree that she's a woman

and has been treated in a way that a man wouldn't be treated. But listeners have taken issue with that as well. Adrian emails to say, no man would have been vilified in this way. What about Jihadi John and the so-called Beatles, who were British men who ended up travelling to fight for Islamic State, which is not quite what Shamima Begum did. Well, I think they confirm our ideas of masculinity.

They confirm it. And so they will not be vilified. But she is being punished not only for being groomed, but also for choosing to act outside the norms of what's expected of her gender. And I think that's really important in informing the debate. And also for her culture. Because the backlash that she's facing from the Bengali community, for example, is that she has disgraced them

because she's acted outside of what the norm is for a Bengali girl. And we are repeating this cycle of dishonour. So we claim that, oh, why do these brown communities have this unacceptable code of honour for their women? But actually, what the debate has shown is that... We're perpetuating. We are perpetuating and we have our own code of honour, but we don't call it that.

I personally think, you know, looking at it all, yes, you know, it was very unfortunate. She got caught by the media and therefore she's become an example, not just, you know, in the British society, but also within her community in the British society. And therefore we're thinking, you know, there's so much on one little girl, as you're looking at it, victim here in your eyes. I'm not saying she's a victim. I personally think the more you sympathise with this lady, the more i'm not saying she's a victim i personally think the way you the more you sympathize with this lady i'm not the more you're actually turning her into a victim there are a lot of people who commit crimes because of whatever reasons because of particular

family backgrounds or whatever it is because they got into a certain situation but that does not change the fact what they do was wrong right what they're doing is wrong and i think you're right it might just be. There might be, you know, we can acknowledge that there are, you know, hundreds of Shamimas out there for whatever reason, but each and every one of them are accountable and therefore they need to be put on trial. And it's just very unfortunate that this person's on the media

and they are highlighting and therefore we need to set an example. Unfortunately, she's a female. We just want to wind up by, i want to ask all three of you what you think is the best possible scenario i know i think we know from nimra that you think she should be brought back and she should be put in put on trial and we'll hear why she did what she did um psych i think that she should be brought back i think she should be um there should be some compassion i think she should be accountable for what she's done i think there should be questions asked i think there should be due process um but then i also think that she should be used that you can make you can bring something good from every

bad and actually she could answer a lot of questions about why people get radicalized why girls get radicalized okay and that's really important to do that and who do would you agree i agree with everyone that said so far is that we need to have due process we need to bring her It's why girls get radicalised. And that's really important to do that. And Huda, would you agree? I agree with everyone that has said so far is that we need to have due process. We need to bring her back and allow her to experience the positives of being a British citizen. What I want her to be treated as is somebody who has been groomed

but who also holds the key to a lot of answers and to what we should do in the future so that we ensure that women from any background don't fall under the guise of grooming and are supported to kind of fight back and be resilient because that's what she's done. Thank you all very much. I know there's not ever going to be total agreement on this because it's such a complicated area, but I really appreciate you coming in. Huda and Saika and Nimra, thank you very much for being with us on the program and the podcast today. Jenny's here tomorrow and she'll be talking amongst other things about

family secrets. And on Thursday, there'll be a psychotherapist in the studio with a kind of family secrets debrief. We've all got them, let's face it. So that's on Thursday. Thanks very much for listening today. Did you know that technology can make us kinder to one another? Did you hear about the diver who walked out of the sea onto a Portuguese beach, dragging the internet behind him? Did you realize that how you speak to the little robot helper in your house might cement age-old stereotypes for decades to come? I'm Alex Kretosky, and those are just some of the stories that we've looked at in The Digital Human, the podcast that explores what it means to be human in the digital age. If you want to hear more, and I guarantee we will surprise you,

come check us out exclusively 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's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.