Woman's Hour - The UK’s only female arm-wrestling referee Kath Whitaker

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

What comes to your mind when you think of ‘arm wrestling’? Burly men taking each other on to see who’s the strongest in a testosterone charged atmosphere? Well now there is a woman at the heart of this sport in the UK. Kath Whitaker is the UK's only female arm-wrestling referee and is preparing to make her debut at the national championships in Birmingham this weekend.This week the cricketer Azeem Rafiq candidly described the racism he's suffered. No one could fail to be moved by his testimony on Tuesday, and the other interviews he's given since - sometimes very emotional. His comments will have triggered something in people who've experienced what he's talking about, and know it’s true. We talk to the MP Naz Shah and Halima Khan who works in grassroots cricket. A new report by the Prison Reform Trust has just launched a new report on how long sentenced women are “invisible” in prison policy and practice. We hear from “Jane”, a former long-sentence prisoner who talks about her experience of jail and by Julia Killick a trustee from the Prison Reform Trust In the third of our series on toxic relationships we hear from a woman we are calling Katy who feels that her earliest experiences shaped what she looked for and needed from her partners.And we’ve music from Yazz Ahmed a British-Bahraini trumpet player and composer who is a pioneering figure in jazz in the UK.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineer: Tim Heffer

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning all, it's Friday's Woman's Hour. Now this week, Azeem Rafiq made a powerful two-hour testimony calling out the racism he experienced while playing cricket for Yorkshire from people at the highest level of the game. His words resonated with many Asians in Britain, both men and women, and go far beyond the sport.

Well, I'd like to hear from you this morning. And what impact did his words have on you? Maybe you have children who play and love cricket. Has it made you feel differently about the game? What reaction did hearing his words trigger in you? You can text WOMEN'S HOUR on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. You can also email by going to our website or contact us via social media. It's at BBC WOMEN'S HOUR.

Now, when was the last time you arm wrestled? Well, your interest will be piqued this morning as I'll be talking to the UK's only female arm wrestling referee. And you never know, you might fancy taking it up as a sport. It's how we settle all the disputes in my family. And it's Friday, so I'm taking you on an Arabic jazz trumpeting odyssey. That was beautiful. The very talented Yaz Ahmed will be joining us later. But first, this week, the cricketer Azeem Rafiq candidly described the racism he suffered. No one could fail to be moved by his testimony on

Tuesday and the other interviews he's given since, sometimes very emotional. His comments may have triggered something in people who've experienced what he's talking about and know it's true. Azeem told the Digital Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee about the racist language he's had and how he was treated insensitively after his son was still born. Here he is at the Select Committee. End of 2017, we had a really difficult pregnancy. And through that time, the treatment that I received from some of the club officials were inhuman. They weren't really bothered about the fact

that I was at training one day and I get a phone call to say there's no heartbeat. Sorry. Good times to refugue. If you wish to break it at any moment, please just let me know. Azeem said that what he faced at Yorkshire County Cricket Club is without a shadow of a doubt, his words, widespread in domestic cricket.

He also believes that sharing his experiences of racism will be a moment of change in cricket and beyond. But just last night, Azeem came under criticism for anti-Semitic message he sent in 2011 to former Leicestershire player Atiq Javid. Azim apologised for the remarks, saying in a statement to The Times, I am ashamed of this exchange. I was 19 at the time and I hope and believe I am a different person today. Well, with me to discuss all of this is Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West, and Halima Khan, founder and director of Opening Boundaries, a sports charity using sport as a catalyst for

gender equality. But before we speak, I caught up with Scottish cricketer Priyanaz Chatterjee on a tour in New Zealand and began by getting her reaction to Azeem's testimony. It's obviously been very sad to be quite blunt about it, I guess. Really sad to see the kind of long-term effects that it's had on him, like very understandably. But also not, I'm not that surprised. Why not? I don't think it's a surprise to anyone, like the brown or black community,

that racism is alive and well in the UK and therefore in sporting communities and all sorts of communities. He said that cricket is institutionally racist. Does that include the women's game as well? I don't see why the women would fall out with that structure. So what's your own experience? I would say that for the most part, I've been quite lucky. I mean, I have nevertheless, though, experienced racism. I know that my teammates who are, you know, people of colour have also experienced racism in cricket.

A lot of it comes under the guise of banter. But, you know, at some point, I think there has to be a reckoning. And I hope that this is it where people start to question that and realize that actually not everything can just be passed off as banter and I guess ultimately ignorance not realizing that you're what you're saying is inappropriate especially when I think actually if you pay attention it's quite obvious that a lot of the things that get said are inappropriate and if you look at how people react, and in my own experience, I've called things out. I've told people, don't call me that.

And they continue to do so. So I'm just not sure that banter can excuse all of these things. I think there might be some people listening, Prernaz, honestly, who will be really shocked to hear that there is racist banter in women's cricket as well. I mean, people seem to be shocked to hear what's been going on at Yorkshire. You're saying that most people of colour will understand it and accept it, but there will be those who won't. Well, I'm not sure they'll accept it, but I think they'll know that it exists.

I think that's a bit different. It's very difficult to challenge things when you might be, for example, the only brown person in the team or the only person in the team who isn't white. And then even if you do, it doesn't necessarily get taken very seriously but like the power dynamics of what's involved there especially actually for probably potentially it's different for men when it's like a professional setup because I think the power dynamics might even be stronger and more extreme and then often equivalent to the women's game obviously that's also professionalizing now do you know what there's another there's something that he said which i found incredible most people would find incredibly sad and i want to know what your thoughts about this statement is i'm paraphrasing because i can't remember exact his exact words but

it's along the lines of that he loves the game but the game doesn't love me yeah i mean that is incredibly sad i don't know I think it's relatable not necessarily for me specifically in the game but like that's a relatable sentence I mean there's there is so much racism like I think if you if you want to pay attention I just don't think you can avoid it in terms of in the UK and in the in the world um and there are times you know especially probably over the past kind of year and a half where when you when you pay attention and you read it it's incredibly sad as a brown British woman like you read it and you say there are people here who genuinely don't think that

I'm welcome and that's incredibly sad because I would always say I was British like I am I couldn't say I'm from anywhere else um that was Priyanaz Chatterjee, who plays cricket for Scotland, talking to me from her tour in New Zealand. Well, joining me now to discuss this further are Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West, and Halima Khan, who's the founder and director of Opening Boundaries, a sports charity using sport as a catalyst for gender equality. There's so much to get into here,

particularly from what Priyan Naz has said as well. Naz, I'm going to come to you first. What are your feelings this week after listening to Azeem's testimony? Good morning. So I was in the select committee, in the room, listening to most of that testimony

when Azeem Rafiq gave it, and it was heartbreaking. I felt it was a real tragedy for cricket, for us as a country, for him personally. I commend his bravery in speaking out. And the idea of a 15-year-old boy literally being assaulted and have wine poured down his throat. And I think that needs further investigation.

And what is really heartbreaking is that you know we see when when we have diversity and when we have you know and i say this repeatedly when we when we get it right we have the moinalis and the other roshids of this world absolutely you know bringing the world cup home for us and being the best and this you know the queen and country and yet this incident has really, really has been tragic, not just for cricket, but for us as a country too. Halim, I'm going to bring you in

because you work, you've worked in cricket your whole life. You've been involved in women's cricket for more than 20 years as a player, as a coach, as a volunteer, an admin too. What's your reaction to what you're seeing being played out? And also let's talk about

what Priyana has just said. You know, she said she's experienced it and believes it exists in the women's game too. Yeah, thank you. Good morning, all. I think there's a couple of things here in the wider sense of what's actually happened here. You've had somebody that's brave enough to come out and call out racism.

There is a wider issue in sport and in cricket, in particular, around institutional racism and i think organizations now need to get a hold of this they need to learn from this need to make sure it doesn't happen again just off the back in you know in the last week from azim's statement and then the ecb are putting out an independent inquiry survey hearing the stuff on alex hailes and azim himself you know apologizing for remarks that he made years ago this is not a person issue this is a cultural issue within sport why are people allowed to get away with this type of talk why is it passed as banter at times and I think this is where the

governing body and the counties need to take a hold of this and look at education but that's not education just to say let's put a training course on for one hour, for two hours and we're done. You've done your training, boxed kicks. Actually, this is how do we create a culture where education is seeped through the days and the lives of all these cricketers and administrators who are part of the organisation

during the time that they're there. Your second point that you made on the cricketer, just remind me again what that second bit was. Oh, Priya Naz. She plays in the women's sport and she was saying that, you know, there's racist banter within the women's game. Yeah, I think the challenge that you have with the women's game, and this is where people really kind of understand intersectionality a bit more, is that it's hard enough being a woman trying to get into the women's game.

The women's game has evolved over time. It's a lot better than what it was 10 years ago. However, the challenges that you then face, not just being a woman trying to get into the sport, but then actually being a woman of ethnic minority trying to come into the sport, understanding the different culture that there is. I, you know, I've played cricket only at a local club level

but it's a tradition and nobody's ever batted an eyelid like yes you do go for you do go down the pub or sometimes a clubhouse they'll have an open bar that you go and have a drink um afterwards i've never drank alcohol but i've shared in you know i will say that i've sat there and i've had a drink with my with my teammates but actually there's an understanding from both sides that at times I may not want to do that and I may just want to go home and that's fine as well. And it's about accepting that we all have our ways of wanting to engage with the game in a safe way

and we should all respect that. Naz, has Azeem's message been undermined by the texts that have surfaced showing him making anti-Semitic remarks? Well, it depends on what the measuring yards do, because I think the issue for the ECB, really, should the inquiry still happen, Azeem has made a heartfelt apology and a sincere apology, which the Board of Deputies have accepted, but it was sincere and he's truly ashamed of what he has said. And I think that shouldn't take away at all from what the issue is at Yorkshire County Cricket,

what we've just heard from Halima and the cricketer. We should not, that should not undermine it in any way, shape or form. Is there enough support and solidarity for what he said from within the game? I'm thinking, I feel that there is. Certainly Lord Kamlesh Patel, for comments that he's made and he's come out and his apology on behalf of Yorkshire County Cricket was unprecedented.

His, you know, not gagging him to come before the select committee, that in itself was unprecedented. And these are signs of real leadership. And it will take leadership to have the brave conversation that we need to have to get cricket to where it needs to get to. But Naz, Lord Kamlesh Patel is an Asian man. For an Asian man at the top of the game to come out and say that is slightly different, isn't it?

I think, look, whether he's Asian or whether he's white, the fact is that he has said it and it's now up to us as a community as as members of members in political leadership wherever we are to support him and yes there is commentary that why did it take an Asian man to come out but that's why we need diversity at the top so that we can be part of a conversation which includes us rather than excludes us. So it's very important that we have Lord Kamlesh Patel. But it's also very important not to expect him to fix this because it responsibility. I say this often, just like you don't have to be black to get racism or a woman to get feminism.

You don't have to be black to get racism and the problem for racism is all our responsibility regardless of what where what race we belong to you know we ultimately it's all our responsibilities and i also think and i will say look azim rafiq is a pakistani of muslim heritage he has said you know the idea of alcohol put down his throat that was islamophobic first and foremost it was an absolute assault and it was a start it was you know, the idea of alcohol put down his throat, that was Islamophobic. First and foremost, it was an absolute assault. And it was, you know, steeped in Islamophobia and racism, which is rooted in racism. And I think I'd like to see the prime minister and the government finally, you know, do something about recognising Islamophobia and recognising the definition, which they haven't done for two and a half years now. Halima, how is this going to impact getting younger players into the game?

Because we're talking about Yorkshire. You look at the kind of demographics of Yorkshire and how many young Asians play cricket and just how many get into the sport. So you can see it in so many different levels. What's your own experience? I think it's going to be difficult. But before I answer that, I've probably just got to point out Naze's point there that I slightly disagree. many different levels what's your own experience i think it's going to be difficult but before i

answer that i'm probably just going to point on nazi's point there that's slightly disagree um with lord cambridge patel coming out and apologizing on behalf of yorkshire um for for what's happened to azim i think this is where racism will never be defeated if the wrong people are apologizing so just just on that point but but everything else, Naz, I do agree with what you said. And the impact... Yes, Salima. I was going to say, the impact that it's going to have is it's lost trust.

There's many people that now don't trust the game. Unfortunately, don't trust those people that govern and run the game, the administrators of the game. It's not just about the young people themselves seeing and reading and hearing something like this and having their opinion on what's the point of me even trying as an eight-year-old i'm going to get through the system look what they did with the zine but actually it's going to be about parents parents

won't feel safe sending their kids to trial sending their kids to talent id sessions or even just coaching because they they will be thinking actually how will my child be feeling when he goes there? What will others be doing? What experiences will they be having? I'm sure this is a conversation that will be going on for a while yet.

Halima Khan and Naz Shah, thank you very much for joining me this morning. I'd love to hear your thoughts. 84844. Cricket's a team, someone's messaged in saying cricket's a team, an individual game where teams can be sitting and standing

around for many hours. Mental health is impacted. Young cricketers need to be educated about the difference between racism and banter can't be tolerated. And on the subject of calling it out, we want to hear from you, this time about sexual harassment. Earlier in the week, the MP Caroline Noakes talked about

the importance of calling out inappropriate behaviour, but what about you? Has calling it out got results or was it you who paid the price? We want to hear from your experiences so get in touch. You can email us by going to our website and you can tweet us is at BBC Woman's Hour. Now it's Friday and I'm delighted to be able to treat you to my next guest Yaz Ahmed. She's a British Bahrainian trumpet player and composer who's a pioneering figure in jazz in the UK. Her work is influenced by her mixed heritage, combining Arabic and jazz musical styles. Her album Polyhymnia, inspired by female role models, was voted Album of the Year in 2020 at the Jazz FM Awards. And

in 2020, she also won the Jazz FM Award for UK Jazz Act of the Year, Jazz FM Album of the Year, and the highly prestigious Ivan Velo Award for Innovation. Yaz is playing at the EFG London Jazz Festival this weekend, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra. Before I chat to her, let's hear a clip of one of her pieces. This is Al Emadi from the album Les Saboteurs. absolutely gorgeous yaz i have been consumed by your music for the last week absolutely gorgeous it's been described as psychedelic arabic jazz love that Absolutely love it. Inspired by your British Bahrainian heritage.

Tell us more. Welcome to Woman's L, by the way. Yeah. Hello. Yeah. So my dad is Bahraini. My mom, she is English. And her dad was a jazz trumpet player in the 1950s. He played with people like Ronnie Scott, Tabby Hayes, John Dankworth, and he was also a record producer. How cool was your granddad? Yeah, I know. He was my hero, you know,

and that's really why I picked up the trumpet because, you know, it seemed so cool. You know, as a nine-year-old, it looks shiny as well. So obviously that's very attractive. So, as a nine year old, it looks shiny as well. So obviously, that's very attractive. So, but yeah, I mean, as I've sort of grown and become more aware of my identity, I've sort of had this urge to express myself and share my story with people. And so that's where the kind of, I suppose you could say the birth of my music came

from which was to embrace both my heritages you know my Bahraini side and my British side and yeah and that's that's the music you hear today. So and how did that happen then did you were you brought up in both styles of music did you then after learning trumpet then go off and have to understand a different form and in that Arabic style how did how did it all come about yeah so um as I grew up in Bahrain um I was brought up in all sorts of music my mom she was a she was a ballet dancer and so she played me lots of classical repertoire and she was also a massive um reggae fan so I listened to a lot of reggae and then obviously my my granddad shared jazz with me and you know I grew up with a lot of Arabic music around me

and then when we moved to London when I was nine I studied classical trumpet and but I've always had that kind of real love of jazz music and that freedom of expression. And, you know, I continued, I studied jazz, but I studied mainly American styles. So as I developed and graduated from music college, I was trying to play in that kind of American jazz style. And then it hit me one day that, you know, hang on, this doesn't feel genuine to me. You know, I'm not American. I'm trying to play like someone that I'm not. And then I discovered this incredible album by Rabbi Abu Khalil,

who was an oud player. And the only reason I picked it up is because it featured my um favorite um jazz trumpet player and composer of all time um which is kenny wheeler and i thought oh this this is really intriguing um there's arab Arabic music mixed with jazz. This is amazing. I never thought of this before. So, yeah. And that kind of inspired me to kind of rediscover my Arabic roots. That must have been an amazing experience as someone who has mixed heritage, who loves jazz to then discover this album that does both. Yeah, it was a cathartic experience. I kind of felt whole, sort of like, I mean, on a kind of personal level, as I was growing up in the UK, I was very aware that being from Middle Eastern heritage was, let's just say, not cool at school. So I kind of put that to one side and embraced my British side more than my Bahraini side. So I kind of felt, yeah, kind of something was missing for many, many years. And that album really kind of made me feel whole again. And then in 2019, you released an album called Polyhymnia, which explores the stories of females, changemakers from around the world,

including Malala Yousafzai and Rosa Parks. I want to know about that album, but I think we should hear some more music. So this is from that album. And this is a track called Lahan Al Mansour, which is about Haifa Al Mansour, Saudi Arabia's first female film director. it's absolutely beautiful it just takes you to another place entirely tell us a bit about this album what were you hoping to achieve by um with music reflecting the stories of these incredible women? Yeah, well, I wanted to obviously share these stories. And for me, this music, well, this whole project was a very kind of outward looking project.

So my previous album was very inward looking, looking at my mixed heritage. But this one was more sort of dedicating and also responding emotionally to these remarkable women. And, you know, I also, when I started writing this album, it was first a suite performed on International Women's Day in 2015. I'm quite embarrassed to say that quite a few women that I wrote about, I had no idea existed. And, you know, and that made me realize that there is a problem with representation.

So I thought, OK, I'm going to look into these women and share their stories. And hopefully, you know, these stories will inspire others and, you know, to achieve their dreams and their goals and, you know, for everyone to become more aware of the great achievements of women. And the great achievements of you, Yaz. Thank you so much for speaking to us, including the Ivor Novello Award. Amazing. And if you've just loved what you've heard, then you can check out all of Yaz's back catalogue, as I've been doing. There's an album called Les Saboteurs, then there's Polyhymnia. And also you're going to be playing at the EFG London Jazz Festival Sunday night with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Enjoy it. It's amazing. Live audience. Wonderful. Thank you so much for speaking to us. Thank you.

Now, the Prison Reform Trust has long called for a reduction in women's imprisonment and a change in how the criminal justice system responds to women. Well, a new report, which has been shared exclusively with Woman's Hour, reveals how long-sentenced women are invisible in prison policy and practice. We're joined by Julia Killock, who's the Prison Reform Trust trustee and the last governor of Holloway Prison, Europe's largest female prison. But before we speak to Julia, let's hear from Jane, a former longstanding sentence prisoner who told me about her experience in jail. I asked her how easy it was to stay in contact with family when you're serving a long prison sentence. The thing that was a big issue in the prisons is that a lot of the prisons are full of poor people, really. They're not, you know, there isn't rich people in prison.

There's a lot of poor people in prison and they come from poor backgrounds or working class backgrounds. So families have to pay for petrol if they're working and they have to pay for everything. If you're on benefits, you can get support regarding visits. You can claim for petrol, but you have to have the money initially up front and then claim it back. It's called assisted visits. If you're on remand, you can have a visit every day in certain jails. And if you're convicted, you are allowed two visits a month. You get a visit in order. And if you're enhanced, then you get four visit in orders a month.

So were your family able to come and see you? If you lived near to a prison, then obviously access was a lot easier for some families, but there isn't many female prisons, so therefore most families have to travel a fair distance to be able to visit. And if families work in the week, some prisons do visits in the week and some prisons only do visits at weekends. If you're on remand, you can only have visits in the week and some prisons only do visits at weekends if you're on

remand you can only have visits in the week and if you're convicted you can only have visits at weekends so and it's first come first serve and you have to send a visit in order and what's the impact on on you if you your family can't afford to come and see you or it's that difficult or if you're miles away what's's the impact on a lot of the women in the prisons who are serving long sentences? Well, I mean, it affects women more so with young children. A lot of the females are caregivers and in turn when they're put in prison, a lot of the families can't support.

I mean, if a woman has one child, then a family might step in and actually take that child on. But I mean, if someone's got three, three or four kids, a family can't take on that many children. So they end up in care. Then the social services have to then book the visits. And then they're limited to maybe one a month or one every two months um so then that that has an impact on the mothers uh their mental well-being and um their relationship with their children well you've brought up mental well-being just how much support was there in terms of mental health so each prison has different kind of support or cash i suppose to fund that kind of support um there's some prisons that don't have health care during the evening and then there's some prisons that have a mental

health unit so um with mental health staff and always a nurse you know in Holloway I can remember somebody being on suicide watch and there'd be a nurse sitting outside the cell constantly watching the person because that has a drain on some prisons because they don't have that facility then they will ship that female out and send her to a jail that has mental health, like a hospital wing within the prison. And prisons are about punishment, but they're also about rehabilitation. So I want to talk about kind of some of the offending behaviour programmes? Because one of the sort of observations about this is that most of them are designed for men and don't really take into account specific needs of women's like trauma history. What's your experience? Prisons nowadays are more trauma-informed and staff are trauma-informed trained. But right at the beginning of my sentence, that wasn't really recognised.

You know, again, rehabilitation is a choice. Just because you put somebody in prison doesn't mean that they'll be rehabilitated. Basically, you rehabilitate yourself by accessing what the prison provides and what you can access. So in turn, it's a personal responsibility to rehabilitate yourself. You can make people do courses, but then we call it lip service. So they fake it to make it. They just tick a box and they're not actually. But what about your own experience? Well, for my own experience, I mean, because I was a long-termer, I had plenty of time to think about and reflect on everything that I'd done. I had a turning point after about three and a half years into my sentence

where I had to address why I ended up in prison, really. You know, because the majority of people that end up in prison is a consequence of poor choice of partner, victim of circumstances, poverty, and also poor coping skills. They're the four main causes for people being in prison. And then you've got addiction, alcohol and drug related offences, which is behaviour caused by addiction so that's five main reasons that people are in prison you know a domestic violence that's very high in the agenda in female jails you know a lot of women have suffered a lot of trauma and you do hear that um for me I started on a rehabilitation course and I did that for five months and that was segregated from

the rest of the jail and then I went straight on to do therapeutic community for 23 months and that again that first I had to address the addiction side of things then I was able to sit with my feelings without wanting to use drugs because when you take drugs or alcohol, it's because you can't deal with the trauma you've suffered, so therefore you try to block it out. And Jane, the Prison Reform Trust are basically saying that the criminal justice system needs to respond to women who are serving long sentences differently because they think your needs are being overlooked.

Did you feel that when you were in there? We were told many times, not just me, but other people that were long-termers, that we were no different to any other prisoner, but we were different. Our needs are different. You know, we were in prison to any other prisoner, but we were different. Our needs are different. You know, we were in prison for over a decade, sometimes a decade and a half. I've met women in there that have been in for two decades.

So women have different needs to men. You know, like women have like the menopause. You have your monthlies. Women are very emotionally driven you know we women are more expressive about how they feel if we saw somebody crying somebody would go up and try and say you know what's the matter you know um men don't communicate as much like that as women do women as a rule are not generally violent towards each other and also you know women internalize pain and then they take it out on themselves and then you know like when I went into prison I'd never seen self-harm

and that that was quite traumatizing seeing some of the levels of self-harm that you see in prison, and you're exposed to that on a daily basis. What do you think needs to happen specifically for women who are serving these long sentences? I think it just needs to be more trauma-informed, access to be able to contact their family and be able to see them, you know, because we have technology these days so people can do Zoom meetings, you know. So even if they can't come physically, at least they'd be able to see them via a screen and see that they're healthy and happy and things like that. That was Jane, not her real name, who spoke to me earlier

about her own experience of serving a long prison sentence. Well, joining me now to discuss this further is Julia Killock, Prison Reform Trust trustee and the last governor of Holloway Prison, Europe's largest female prison. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Now, your report shows just how easily women are overlooked in policy, planning and services. And it's been described as a correctional overthought. What do you mean by this? Why is there a problem? Good morning. Basically, women are a minority in the prison system. There are currently 328 long serving prisoners in the in the system where there's almost 7000 men, long-term men. That said, that has increased quite considerably since 1991.

There were only 96 long-serving women. They're overlooked because most of the campaigning, quite rightly, about women in prison is that they serve very short sentences because the majority of women do go in and serve short sentences. And therefore, there's not a lot of campaigning and recognition about these 328 women that are serving long sentences their route into prison

is is hugely different to the route into prison um by men the uh amount of abuse that that jane has spoken about is physical abuse sexual abuse abuse, domestic violence, and violence and coercion quite often that leads to them being in prison, overlaid with a lot of addiction. But binge drinking is hugely significant to them coming into prison, Class A drugs, abusive prescription drugs, and overlay that on mental health issues and previous attempts at suicide and very high levels of self-harm before they come into prison

means that we've got a real chaotic amount of women to deal with before they come in actually someone's just messaged in they picked up on something that jane said which is and they've put in quotes the problem with prisons and the access to visitors is it's full of poor people you don't find many rich people in prison and they said sums up the mental health of many women in prison many child caregivers and that's from Francis

if you do want to get in touch it's at BBC Women's Hour Now you say the impact of imprisonment on women more than half of whom have themselves been victims of serious crime is especially damaging and their outcomes are worse than men's. Why is that the case? Their outcomes are worse because the highest criminogenic need for women or one of the highest criminogenic needs for women is relationships.

It's quite often relationships and familiar relationships and intimate relationships that have got them into prison in the first place. There's been a lot of research, Lord Farmer did some research on the importance of strengthening family ties and relationships to enable prisoners of both genders to become successful and rehabilitate for when they come out. For women, quite a lot of them are primary caregivers. When a man goes to prison, three-quarters of children stay in the family home. When a woman goes to prison, less than 10% of them stay in the family home. So there's a massive big difference in their outcome for them in terms of children and in terms of the support

that they get from the family relationship. So what do you think needs to happen, Julia? What improvements need to be made? What would you like to see? What I'd like to see, as Jane mentioned, there are trauma-informed environments in women's prisons, but there are few women's prisons, and there's only one therapeutic community,

which is in HMP Send, which is in Surrey. So if you happen to be a woman in prison in Manchester, for example, you need to go to Surrey to be able to benefit from a therapeutic community that will address all of the multiple needs that you've got, the mental health, the addictions, the trauma. I'd like to see, first of all, what this project is about is speaking to the women to see what they need. The 328, what do you need in order to turn your life around? But to be able to have bespoke programs in each prison,

trauma-informed that will look at what each individual woman needs. She needs to be able to know that her family are safe. She needs to be able to have face-to-face visits. She needs to be able to have contact with her family. Once she knows the family is safe, then she can move on to work into the addictions, mental health and the poor thinking and coping skills that Jane was talking about. And they need to be bespoke in a prison that is as near to their home as can be, not 100, 200 miles away.

Well, Julia, I'm sure we will be getting you back on to discuss this further. But thank you for speaking to us this morning on Woman's hour we have had a um a mess from a statement from the ministry of justice a spokesperson said we're investing 2.75 billion pounds to transform the prison estate including new gender and trauma responsive accommodation in the women's estate to enhance rehabilitation and maintain family ties now today the third in our series of personal stories about damaging relationship patterns, our reporter Millie Charles has been looking back over her relationship history and meeting women who've had similar experiences. One of the things I looked into on my mission to

understand why we do the things we do in relationships is how our early life experiences can really set the template for our adult relationships. I think getting some understanding of that can be a really vital part of the puzzle. So for the third part of this series on breaking relationship patterns, I've come to meet a woman we're calling Katie at her home. Hi. Hello. How are you? I've got your left printer. Oh, nice.

I love it. Tell me about your first love. We met each other at secondary school, and I was really young, I was about 16, and we were best friends originally we'd known each other for a while and we decided to have a relationship because you just got on with each other so so well it was the longest relationship I've been in we were together for about five years you know when you know someone really really well you kind of just like you finish each other's

sentences and all that kind of stuff we had a really really like nice time but then there was a point where things started changing and instead of having that warm fuzzy feeling it started turning into a weird paranoid kind of I don't know where my place is now in this relationship kind of feeling and it all stemmed from my partner at that time he had been smoking a lot of weed and I think that in turn gave him weed induced psychosis so he was really struggling with his own mental health at the time and we were really young and they don't teach you how to deal with mental health so it was kind of like something that was contained within our relationship and it was only something that I saw and unfortunately bore the brunt of as well. His mental health was deteriorating a lot. It deteriorated really fast actually

and over about a year towards the end of the relationship he was really verbally abusive and physically abusive and made sure that everything I did was like under lock and key and he knew everything that was happening and if I didn't say what was happening or what I was doing or where I was going then that was like the end of the world you know I didn't necessarily take myself out of that relationship somebody else stepped in who was a friend who realized that something was really really wrong and then there was an incident that involved a person I don't even know and they took me in off the street with my friend because they were going to call the police because they thought it was a random person attacking us so at the time when I realized that this person I didn't even know thought that this was really serious I had to step back and go wow this maybe this is really

really bad and I tried really hard to get out of the relationship at the time I stepped out I pulled myself out my friend tried to keep me away but I kept on going back I think a lot of the time I have been drawn massively to like people who are slightly broken or like lost lambs and it's because of how I'd grown up and I'd not really been in a very supportive house when I was little and my parents weren't very well and that was all I knew and I think when you young, the people that are closest to you, like your parents or guardians, whoever's looking after you, the way that they love you or look after you, that's your first understanding of care and of love.

If it's bad, if it's traumatic, that kind of understanding stays with you throughout your whole life and you play out your understanding of love and care in all of your relationships as well. Eventually I came to another city to escape that. And how old were you then? I was about 20, 21 at that time. And I think at the time time because I was so young and I'd just come to a new city

I was really excited to one be in my own headspace and be myself again and make new friends but at the same time I had this weird sense of like there's this dark cloud hanging over me because of what had happened before so in my head I was like well I'll make friends I'm gonna find a new boyfriend and build myself back up again and I think just because I was so excited but also so used to having someone with me I immediately fell into another relationship where did you meet what was what drew you to that person I was at university and I was on a bus going somewhere and this person was on a bus they ever had me talking with my friend about trying to find a party to go to to make friends and he said oh well if you come to our place we're having a party on the weekend. I think I was doing

a lot of soul searching and this person seemed like they had everything so spiritually like put together and I think it was that spiritual element that really drew me to them and they were a lot older than me as well so I in my head I was like this other person that I just left was really young and it all went wrong so I'd want to be with someone older and obviously they'll have experience and stuff we just clicked really well we'd sit and talk for hours about like politics and spirituality and we just got each other so you had this sort of very deep and quite profound connection you know you felt there was like a real depth to this person so when did things start to take a turn we spent a lot of time with each other. It was too much time with each other and

I did have a really positive friendship group and I still do now with the same friends with the same people now but I just as soon as I started seeing this person I just didn't really see them as much. We moved in together and I didn't actually want to but he talked me into doing it and he started trying to make me feel bad for a lot of things. And he'd make it seem as if I was making him feel bad about stuff on purpose. He just seemed a little bit depressed and not very happy with things. But he would make it my problem. If I didn't want to cook food for us it would be really really bad or if I wanted to spend

time with friends it was like I don't care about him or I'm just being like selfish or something like that and all of these things at the time they'd be isolated and seem really separate but then the more they happen the more there was this big picture like being made and I just remember sitting down and thinking I don't understand how I've let this happen to me again I was like I need to literally just go see my girlfriends and talk to them about this person it gave me more confidence and understanding and awareness that it was a really bad relationship to be in so then I started thinking about leaving and um eventually just left that relationship

did your ex accept that easily your decision to end the relationship no not at all no and he got really upset and he wasn't upset in an angry way he he was upset and uh how could you do this to me and saying that he was going to kill himself and stuff and it was because of me and it's my fault or he'd be like, I didn't go to work for this whole week and I stayed in bed because of you to try and make sure that I felt as bad as possible. How did you deal with that?

Because that's so hard, isn't it, to deal with someone threatening to kill themselves and making it your fault? I think because I'd at that point spoken so much to friends and I'd think to myself well I've heard people say things like this to me before. My mum she's got bipolar and she was she had lots of schizophrenic episodes and my dad wasn't around and she would say things like that all the time because I was the only person that she would interact with she would direct everything at me by saying why have you made me like this why

are you doing all these things hearing someone at a young age constantly telling me that I was the cause of all of these horrible issues there must be a part of me that kind of believed it because that's all I knew. I must have been drawn to people that bring that up in myself and that have similar behaviour. So when the relationship ended, you were getting some counselling. I had like one session of counselling just before I'd left and then afterwards I got a lot more because I was aware that I was being drawn to certain kinds of people in relationships. And it was really triggering for me because it was bringing up a lot of things from the past and things to do with my parents and stuff.

That period of reflection was probably the healthiest thing I could have ever done for myself. I had this person who was giving me the tools to not only see what was happening on this like timeline of events but also gave me tools to move forward from that as well without the counselling plus having friends around me that I could speak as openly about anything as I'd liked without that I'd probably just be seeing the same people and doing the same things and probably damaging my own mental health massively. What were those tools that you were given, do you think, to move forward? It was making sure that I had as much of a sense of self before I go into any more relationships.

Like setting standards, like knowing, you know, this doesn't give me any sense of growth or this doesn't give me any sense of worth. Knowing what it feels like to be in codependent relationships knowing the signs of what they are and if someone starts questioning what I wanted to do all the time or if someone wanted me to spend time with them all the time if someone didn't just let me be myself and have my own space and have my own headspace and all that stuff then I'd I'd have this kind of like list in my brain of like okay these are warning signs I remember

sitting down in the living room with someone that I'd started seeing and I was with my friends and watching a program and they seemed like they just weren't having a good time which is fine and I said I'm to go to bed. And I said, oh, I'm going to stay up. And they said, no, we're going to go to bed. And I just looked at them and I was like, no, I'm going to stay up. Like, why are you forcing me to go to bed with you? And then in my head I was like, that's one of those behaviors again.

It's like very controlling behavior. And I nipped that in the bud straight away. The next day I was like, I don't think this is going to work out. I learned to say no. I don't think I said no enough before. Where are you now with this stuff? Now I'm in like a really healthy relationship. I'm always really happy to talk about things that might be difficult

or really happy to say if I don't like something. And I'm happy to be challenged about stuff and they're happy to be challenged about things that feels like a good base for a loving trusting relationship in the grand scheme of things you're actually quite young to have broken free essentially from this destructive and unhealthy and very painful pattern of relationships that you're in how do you think you managed to get out of it so quickly? Because I know lots of people who've been kind of going around the mill for decades or stay in those relationships for years and years and years. I think I have had a lot of outside intervention.

I think without those outside interventions from friends and counsellors and professionals, I think without them, I probably would be doing the same things or it would have taken me a lot longer to help myself very powerful learning to say no now there's an article on our website with advice and support about changing relationship patterns and links to all of the stories we'll be telling out there too now when it comes what comes to your mind when you think of arm wrestling burly men taking each other on to see who's the strongest in a

testosterone charged atmosphere well now there's a woman at the heart of this sport in the UK, Kath Whittaker is the UK's only female arm wrestling referee and is preparing to make her debut at the National Championships in Birmingham tomorrow and joins me now. Kath

how did you get involved in arm wrestling? Hi Anita, oh god, about five years ago I came across it online watching some stuff over in America. I wasn't aware there was a community over here. My partner's an ex-strength athlete so he was looking for something to get into as well. And yeah, we discovered the arm wrestling community in the UK. So what does the actual job entail, being a referee? Keeping the athletes safe, making sure that neither participant is gaining too much of an advantage, or you may call it cheating, but I don't know.

Yeah, and how do you do that? Because I've obviously arm wrestled my brother a lot when I was a kid and always cheated. So how do you make sure that, like, what are you looking out for? What is the sort of detail that you're looking for? The guys are set up initially. So when they come into a match, they come to the table and there's a way that you set them up to make sure

that they're arm wrestling safe, so shoulders are straight, square, sorry, and that they're not gaining an advantage in the way that they grip up because a lot of the arm wrestlers are seasoned arm wrestlers and they've got a lot of experience. So, yeah, it's keeping it fair, basically. They get a fair match. Now, I've described it as testosterone-fuelled. Is that the case?

The room's pretty charged, yeah. The athletes train really, really hard, really intensely before the competition. So there's a lot of energy in the room and there's a lot on the line for the people competing. But testosterone-fuelled, in the match, yes, but no, it's a really friendly kind of inclusive environment. And what's it like

as a woman stepping into that environment as the only woman referee in the UK? It's my table. I'm in charge. Oh, yes. I'm high-fiving you

through Zoom. And is there big prize money? In the UK, no. I mean, the guys do it for the kind of accolade and for the sense of no. I mean, the guys do it for the kind of accolade and for the sense of achievement. You know, it's a lot of hard work and a lot of training.

But no, there's not much money in the UK. In the US, maybe a little bit more. And certainly some of the European countries, yes, but not in the UK. And what's the situation like in the US and Europe with regards to women in the sport? In Europe, as far as referees, there's an awful lot of female referees,

and in the USA, not so in the UK. We do have a few female arm wrestlers in the UK. Aggie Gozanz is one, and Lucy Horne, who's, I think she's 15, she's recently come into the sport and she's amazing she's really really good so we have got some up-and-coming people but we are looking for more go on then do the pitch how are you going to come well how are we going to how are you going to convince other women to get involved in arm wrestling um it's it's just it's an amazing sport

it's it's fascinating to watch um it's it I mean you can come in as a novice, work your way up. It's such an inclusive environment, the guys and the women involved. And is it just strength that you need? No, technique. It's definitely technique and fundamentals, which the guys involved will teach you. And the priority is to keep people safe. I think the worry is if you watch people arm wrestling in a pad generally they're not arm wrestling properly and that's when they'll hurt themselves and break their arm so and make sure they don't grab the table to cheat

which you'll be and what are the skills you need to be a good referee you know apart from the fact that you've obviously got the control of the room just with your attitudes um i think attention to detail, knowledge of the rules obviously is important. What else would there be? I think that's probably, yeah, it's attention to detail and focus because I mean, some of the matches will be... Does it help that you are six foot tall, Kath, in that environment?

I'm a little under six foot tall. As I've got older, I think I've shrunk a bit. But for a female, I'm quite tall. But if you go over to Europe and look at some of the female referees over there, they're very, you know,

they're very petite ladies, but they control that table. It's their environment. And when's your, when are you doing your first match? Is it tomorrow? Well,

I've, I've been refereeing now for the last, for the last two years. Obviously with, with the pandemic that had to stop for a bit. But yeah, it's tomorrow in Birmingham. We're hoping

to have about 100 competitors. So yeah, looking forward to it. Kath, good luck with it. Thank you so much for joining us to talk to us about that on Woman's Hour. There you go. If you haven't considered it already, possibly a career in arm wrestling for some of you out there. Lots of you have been getting in touch with various tweets on what we've been discussing

today. I've had a message here where we were talking about Azeem Rafiq's testimony and Andrew emailed in to say, racism isn't just in sport. We live in rural England and have just removed our 12-year-old daughter from school

due to racial abuse, chance and bullying that she's continuously received over the past 18 months to school. Just put it down to banter and I've no interest in taking it seriously. I'm hoping that the cricketer speaking out

will really make a positive change in how racism is seen by people and dealt with. And we've also received quite possibly my favourite ever tweet from someone saying, you can tell it's Friday because Woman's Hour has just had a seven-minute discussion on psychedelic Arabic jazz. Yes, we did. And we may well tomorrow.

Join me for weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. about, say, cancel culture or mask wearing, then you are a soldier in the culture wars, those everyday battles for dominance between conflicting values. I was curious to learn how things fell apart, and so I decided to go back in history and find the origin stories. There was this ping, and there was a bullet flying around the house. I had no idea, but I've uncovered some extraordinary people

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