Woman's Hour - Ukraine, Matchgirls' strike of 1888, Equal pay deal for US women’s national football team, and Briony Greenhill

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

A pivotal moment in the history of trade unions and women’s rights is to be marked by English Heritage with the placement of a blue plaque commemorating the 1888 matchgirls’ strike in East London. Curatorial Director of English Heritage, Anna Eavis, tells us about the protest, its real role in the Labour movement and why it has been so misconstrued throughout history.Millions of people across Ukraine are this morning making choices they never dreamed they'd have to make. Olena Symonenko told us about her escape to a safer part of the city only to find out that her apartment that she had lived in all her life had hit by a bomb overnight. The BBC Correspondent Sarah Rainsford told us about conversations she's been having with people on the ground in South East Ukraine and from Iryna Terlecky, the Chair of the Association of Ukrainian Women in Great Britain, about the work they are doing to help families in Ukraine.Earlier this week the US Women’s national football team reached a $24 million settlement with the US Soccer Federation, which will guarantee equal pay with the men’s team and give players millions in back pay. Women’s soccer is incredibly popular in the US, the players are household names and having won the World Cup numerous times, are considered the best team in the world. But they have been fighting this battle for equal pay for six years. We speak to Cindy Parlow Cone, the president of the United States Soccer Federation about how they hope to push FIFA to equalise World Cup pay. We also hear from journalist Molly McElwee about whether it is the big win it is touted to be. What sound does my body make? That's the question singer and musician Briony Greenhill asks in her work. Briony is a vocal improviser - meaning she writes her songs entirely out loud, on the spot, without notation. She gives us a demonstration of how we can vocally improvise ourselves, and tells us about her debut album Crossing the Ocean.Presenter: Andrea Catherwood Producer: Rabeka NurmahomedPhoto by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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 Andrea Catherwood and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour on a day when our thoughts are never very far away from the horrific conflict unfolding in Ukraine, where millions of lives have been upended in scenes reminiscent of the last century, but happening right now on the 25th of February 2022. We're going to be talking to women across the Ukraine in just a few minutes. Also today, the US Women's National Soccer Team have won a guarantee of equal pay with the men's team.

We're going to look at how they did it and where it might lead for other women's teams. The story of East London's Match Girls, who went on strike at the end of the 19th century against harsh working conditions and why their exploits are now being recognised with a blue plaque. And singer Bryony Greenhill will be giving us tips on vocal improvisation. If, like me, you didn't know what that was it is literally composing songs out loud on the spot. Well you can text us here at Women's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media it's at BBC Women's Hour and of course you can always email us on our website. Now millions of people across Ukraine are this morning making choices that they never dreamt they'd have to make.

Last week, they, like the rest of us, would have thought big decisions would involve maybe changing jobs or moving house. Now, as Russian forces invade, many are looking at the very most basic of needs, food, shelter, security. Thousands are trying to flee cities including the capital Kiev seeking safety over the border in Poland or Romania. The US ambassador to the UN is warning that up to 5 million people could be displaced.

But those vast headline figures are hard to take in. It's the stories of people travelling with their babies and buggies and their cats in baskets. It's teenage girls wheeling suitcases stuffed with their clothes. It's children with stickers on their coats, giving their phone number and blood group

that tell the real story of what's happening right now in Ukraine. Well, this morning before I came on air, I spoke to Olena Semenenko. She lives in a part of Kiev that is very popular with young families. She left her home yesterday to try to get to the border. It was too late. She spent the night with friends in an area of the city called the Right Bank, which she thought would be safer. This morning at 4.30, she sent us a photograph of her apartment block. It was on fire. When I spoke to her, she started off explaining what happened yesterday. Yesterday morning, I woke up at five o'clock in the morning

because I hear the very horrible sound like the fireworks, but it doesn't sound like the fireworks, but it was quite long. I don't know, for a few minutes. And I look at my son he was sleeping and for for a second i could not understand what is going on and then when i realized what is going on i it was just in my head it started and then we decided what to do with my husband. We tried to take, we took the emergency

back. We woke up my mom. She lives in the next apartment in the same building. We took all our stuff. It takes, I don't know, half an hour. All these days we kept our car just in front of the house. It was full of gas. It didn't go anywhere. And we just sit down with the car and try to move to the right bank of Kiev. And actually, it was a horrible traffic jam. Like three hours I was standing with the kids inside. We didn't have any breakfast, nothing. Where were you hoping to go when you got in the car?

We hoped to go to the West. I have a friend of my father. He was waiting for us in Uzhgorod. He has the house and he has that you can come and stay here as much as you need. Also, I had a friend in Poland who also told me that I can come and stay for a while. And as well, my company where I work, they support me. And they said that we can take you out of the border. We will come to the border and take you.

But it was totally crazy situation on the road. And we were not even moving on the road we were just standing still standing with the even you know switched off engine but we stay here all night and we as well hide in the shelter when we hear bombing like now probably you can hear or not it's a bombing in in kiev already for a few hours and i woke up today at four i received the phone call from my uncle and he told that our house destroyed in in kiev it's a house with the six entrance to the the buildings. Just imagine. This is the house where people live. We live on Poznyki area. Poznyki is the area where you have the concentration

of population of kids the biggest in Ukraine. All families with the kids living. So the rocket, I don't know what exactly happened, but our house destroyed totally. So we don't have a home anymore.

Elena, you sent us a photograph of that. You sent it to one of our teammates. Yes, that's our house. And that's your house. It's an apartment block. It's on fire in the photograph. It's an apartment block, yes. That's the building where I grew up with my son as well.

We live there. When my mom lives there, we have two apartments, but now we have no place to go. And do you know if anybody else was in that apartment block last night or was everybody in the bunkers? Our neighbor, he was sleeping, and then he heard the sound and he immediately jumped catched under there he jumped under the car

i'm not the car sorry under the bed and he survived and i know that few people injured all windows blow up and there was a fire that was taken out by the fire brigade. Just imagine our house just standing in between kindergarten and the school. Two kindergartens and two schools. Elena, it's really hard for us to imagine what you're going through. What is happening in Ukraine?

This is like the worst, I don't know, movie we could ever even imagine and see in our life. This is not appropriate. This is impossible. This cannot be done to our kids. Elena, I can hear

your pain and I really feel for you and for your family. Where are you now? Are you safe at the moment? Well, we think that we are safe. We are hiding in a house on the right bank. We have here a very small shelter, but that's enough at least to sit there. At least in case of the attack from air again, we think, we hope we're safe.

Olena, your child is just six years old. Yes. How is your child getting on? He's a brave boy. He survived post-COVID syndrome last year. And he is kind of mature after that situation because he was in a very difficult situation. And now again, difficult situation with this

and that's very bad he is trying to be okay we told him that we are going for a trip but then obviously when he heard all the planes and he see the people

and he heard from the news from the car that we switch on, you know, for five minutes here. He said, you know what, you don't think that I don't understand anything. I understand everything. And he's six. Yes, and you know exactly what he said.

He said, yesterday, before we went to sleep, because we could sleep, that was quiet, and we said, okay, we need to sleep at least for a few hours because we don't know how the night will be and we told him this and he's very active boy but he said okay yes we will go sleep and he said i didn't i never sleep in this house before i said you know there is the saying in ukraine that if you sleep in the first house for the first time you should make a wish and he told his wish you know what was that

he said that he want the war to stop and he want for the president of Russia to become a good person this is my son for the president of Russia to become a good person. This is my son.

He's six and he's saying this himself. Just imagine. Elena, it's really hard for us to imagine. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. It's very hard to understand just how upsetting this is, but thank you for telling us about it can i ask you can i ask you how how your mom is this is the apartment that she's lived in her whole life and and it was destroyed last night well uh i don't know how it's going to be because i mean this is exactly the place where she lives all her life and she's a teacher and was the teacher and now she's retired and her salary is affordable only you know to pay

the electricity fee and stuff and that's it we don't know where to go after that. Elena I know that this only happened to you last night, but I just wonder what are your thoughts now on what you do next? What decisions are you making today? First of all, I'm staying here for this day

when they're trying to get Kiev. So we will stay in this shelter. We're monitoring the traffic jams and the situation, trying to talk to our friends when there's reception available and talking to them if we can gather together and move with the column at least to the west of Ukraine. So as I said, I have a few people there to stay there. So probably I will move, if that's's possible for a month or two with my family and of course

mom to Poland where my company has the office and they're ready to support us and they wait us there but we cannot get there right now Olena, thank you so much for sharing that with us I really appreciate it and the very very best

of luck to you and to all your family please do everything you can to stay safe Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I really appreciate it. And the very, very best of luck to you and to all your family. Please do everything you can to stay safe. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Elena is speaking to me just before we came on air. I'd just like to share with you a couple of other firsthand experiences. Veronica reported in the New York Times today, writes, my internet went down and I felt fear crawling in my guts.

I'd never felt this way before. It was as if somebody, maybe Mr Putin himself, had grabbed my heart and squeezed it. This feeling has stayed with me. It's my new permanent condition. And Katerina writes, I can no longer function. I'm just breaking down in tears. My city, my country, my people are so beautiful, friendly and peaceful. We're fighting and we'll keep fighting,

but my beautiful country will never be the same. Nothing will be the same again. And from Marina, a lot of people are driving with kids, babies and cats. There's been a lot of traffic jams and queues at petrol stations. Everyone's frightened but are helping each other. If somebody needs water or help with a baby, it's there. Well, we'd like to go now to Sarah Rainsford, our BBC correspondent, who is in another part of the UK in the southeast of the country. Sarah, first of all, where exactly are you at the moment? Well, I'm in Dnipro, which is a big city, a strategic city here in southeastern Ukraine on the river Dnipro, which is a vast river, several kilometres wide at some points,

which dissects this very large country into east and west. And we're here because yesterday we were in the Donbass region, which is the industrial heartland of Ukraine. And it's the region in which several territories have been controlled and run by Russian-backed forces now for eight years. And where there's been a war for eight years, but where the front line has been pretty fixed until now, when those militia, the Russian-backed militia, are now openly backed by Russian troops who are trying to push and break through that front line and to advance across this country so we came in this direction slightly west following many people from those regions who were who were fleeing looking for relative safety so there was a streamer of cars with number plates from that region heading out and also many people being evacuated on special trains that were laid on. That included women who were wheeling their suitcases

and whatever they could carry to those trains, but without really knowing where they were heading and what they were heading to. Also, there was an orphanage that was being evacuated at the time. One of my colleagues saw the children there from a regional orphanage, again, being evacuated. But the trains were heading to Kiev, of course, and even then, you know, Kiev was in trouble, was being bombarded. And since that train set off yesterday,

things there, of course, have got even worse. So it's, you know, people looking for safety, but, you know, struggling really to know where to go at this point in this country. To know where to find it. I know that you spoke yesterday to some families in a playground. What's the sense? What are they saying to you?

It's a huge decision to leave your home, particularly when there's so much uncertainty about where to go that could be better. Yeah, there's so many sort of factors playing into any decision at the moment. One is where do you go that's actually safe? That seems to be changing all the time. I mean, the general consensus in Kiev and parts of western Ukraine was that the safest thing to do was to head west because to the east of Ukraine is Russia,

to the west is Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, safety in that sense. So people from Kiev were heading that way. People here in the east were also trying to head west as much as they could. But for example, as you mentioned, I spoke to a lady in a playground in the Donbass region, and she was there with her two children. They were merrily building mud pies in the playground there, sort of oblivious to what was going on. But their family had already been dislocated and displaced eight years ago from the fighting in the Donbass. They'd moved to the town where we were,

and now they were facing the prospect of being uprooted again. And Nastia, the mother of two that I was speaking to, was saying she just couldn't face it, you know, being forced again to beg to stay on people's sofas, you know, to find friends to house her and her family. And just the whole idea, the prospect of that was really quite distressing for her. So she was staying put and I think sort of hoping against hope

that actually the war wouldn't come to her doorstep again. The sense that I got from Lena this morning was that in Kiev there was still a sort of a genuine disbelief that Russia had really invaded, that this was really happening. Is that sense there as well? Yeah, it's across this country and it's not just Ukrainians, it's a lot of Russians too. I mean, I've spent a lot of time in Ukraine over the years. I was here when the revolution happened in 2014. I was out in the east when the Russian backed rebels took over. You know, I know this country, but I know Russia a lot better.

I lived there for many years, and I've seen a lot of my friends in Russia kind of posting stuff on social media saying that they're ashamed and sickened by what's happening, and they didn't believe it either. And the night when this all started, there was a lot of rumors and a lot of signs pointing to the fact that this invasion was about to be launched. I sat there at like 1 o'clock in the morning. I watched President Zelensky making an address in Russian to the people of Russia. You know, it is his native language, but he's the president of Ukraine.

Instead, he chose to speak Russian to the Russian people, asking them to stop this war. And at that point, I thought, you know, this is a last ditch attempt. It's not going to work. He knows that. And this is about to start. So everyone, I think, that I was in contact with, nobody was sleeping that night. We were all waiting for the invasion. And a couple of minutes before five o'clock in the morning, I heard the first thud and that was it.

I think everybody would share the sense that I had, which was a real sort of sick feeling in the stomach that Russia was actually doing this, that Vladimir Putin had actually crossed that line, because he's been talking about Ukraine. He's almost obsessive about Ukraine and his vision of what life should be like here. But, you know, so many people, myself included, didn't actually believe he would launch an invasion. And especially on the pretext that he's come up with, the idea that this is a country which needs to be liberated from Nazi rulers. That's his language. That's what he says.

And that there's a genocide in the east of Ukraine is just not true. But it's the reason that he's given for launching a massive invasion, which is uprooting and ending lives right across this country. Sarah, as people find it really difficult to believe that this is actually happening now, are they able to see where this might go, how long it might last, what might happen next? Do you have any idea about what people's plans are even tomorrow into next week? No, and I don't think people do either. I mean, they're literally living moment to moment.

I mean, you see the fear in people's eyes. You see the doubts, the questions. We were just doing some broadcasting from down near an apartment block here and two women sort of ran out. They were kind of the local neighbourhood watch, I think, from the way they were talking. And they were asking me, what are you doing here?

Which side are you on? What are you broadcasting? You know, why are you here? Why have you chosen our yard? And we're just like, you know, this is just where we've come to shelter from the rain and to find out what's going on but they they were nervous you know that they just don't understand what's happening and we arrived at the hotel last night again you know that the people

the staff working here there's a curfew now at 10 o'clock at night people were were rushing to get home um you know the even before that all the shops had closed uh people were clearing the streets and we passed a big um checkpoint that was being built on the main road here from east to west. You know, the sandbags were neighbors, and which have very, very deep rooted cultural and family ties. You know, there are so many Ukrainians with relatives in Russia and exactly the same vice versa, millions of people across the border who are very, very closely connected. And yet President Putin has launched this war, claiming that he needs to liberate Ukraine. Nobody really understands it here. Nobody really believes it.

Sarah, we're just getting breaking news in that says that Ukraine says that Russian forces are in the northern suburb of the capital Kiev. That's the latest from BBC Breaking News. Sarah, thank you very much indeed for joining us from southeastern Ukraine. Now, Irina Terliky is the chair of the Association of Ukrainian Women in Great Britain. She lives in London. There are 70,000 Ukrainians living in the UK. Irina, thank you very much for joining us. What stories are you hearing from Ukrainian women here in the UK? Many of them, of course, have got family in the Ukraine. It must be a very worrying time.

Hi, Irina, can you hear me? Irina, I think you have to unmute. Hello. We're hearing exactly the same stories as Olenka told in her earlier interview and Sarah has talked about. People are heartbroken, absolutely heartbroken by what's happening in Ukraine, a peaceful country, a country with a long history. But we're also angry, angry that after 30 years of independence, we have to justify, again, Ukraine's right to exist. And make no mistake about it, what President Putin has unleashed on Ukraine will not only cause a humanitarian crisis, is already causing a humanitarian crisis. But it's also threatening peace, security and democracy in the whole of Europe. Irina, have you got family in Ukraine at the moment?

Yes, we've got family in Ukraine. We've been in contact with them. They're in Western Ukraine and tell us that the war hasn't reached them yet. But clearly, everybody is prepared for the worst. Many women, Ukrainian women in the UK, have families in areas that have already been shelled and bombarded by Russian troops. And they're desperately emotional, desperately upset, and just hoping for the best that their families stay safe. Now, what exactly is the Association of Ukrainian Women here in the UK? The Association of Ukrainian Women will be celebrating its 75th anniversary next year. It was founded by our mothers and grandmothers who came to Great Britain at the end of the Second World War.

Many of them had been taken from their homes in Ukraine to be forced labourers in Germany, and many of them ended up in the UK. They created the association to unite women, to provide a sense of the family that they, to become an integral part of the Ukrainian community. Irina, I wonder how it feels to you that this kind of support that you're talking about, it seems like it might be necessary again 70 years on. Yes, it will be. But it's continued to be over the last 70 years. There are hundreds of Ukrainian women in the UK that form a very close-knit, family-like group that supports each other and that carries out projects not only to preserve our national heritage here but also very much to help the disadvantaged in Ukraine. I know that you must be desperately worried about friends and family there at the moment but I wonder practically are you able to offer any kind of support? What's the

Association for Ukrainian Women doing at the moment? What are your goals? What we're doing, we're doing practically a number of things. Ukrainian women everywhere have been lobbying politicians, especially on strengthening sanctions against Ukraine. We're going to continue doing that because this will last a long time and we cannot let what President Putin's doing in Ukraine in any way become the new normal as in 2014 the invasion of Crimea suddenly became the new normal. There's nothing normal about this. We're also, together with our other community organisations, we've organised an emergency aid appeal, which has had a fantastic response, not only from our community, but from the British public. We've already been able to send several tons of emergency medical aid, or rather the funds to procure

emergency medical aid to humanitarian organizations in Ukraine. And we heard only yesterday that the medical aid we provided had already been moved out to hospitals who were starting to treat incoming wounded, especially civilians. We know there are a lot of people on the move at the moment. Do you anticipate that there will be a refugee crisis in neighbouring countries like Romania and Poland? I think people do want to get their families to somewhere safe. And it's inevitable that they'll be crossing the border into Poland and other countries. that makes our humanitarian aid appeal even more important because all those people who are going to be displaced on top of the 1.4 million who have already been displaced from their homes will need continuing help.

Well, Irina Terliky of the Association of Ukrainian Women, thank you very much indeed for joining us today. Well, now, I know that many people listening do have friends or family in Ukraine of the Association of Ukrainian Women. Thank you very much indeed for joining us today. Well, now, I know that many people listening do have friends or family in Ukraine, and for many, this is a very worrying time. As ever, we'd like to hear your thoughts and opinions. You can text WOMEN'S HOUR on 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate.

And on social media, it's at BBC WOMEN'S HOUR. Or, of course, you can always email us through our website. Now moving on to other stories and earlier this week the US Women's National Football Team reached an agreement to guarantee equal pay with the men's team in a 24 million dollar settlement giving players millions in back pay. Now you might know it, but women's soccer is incredibly popular in the US. The players are household names. Having won the World Cup numerous times, they are considered the best team in the world. But they've been fighting this battle for equal pay for six years.

Yesterday, Claire Walker spoke to Cindy Parlow-Cohn, who's the president of the United States Soccer Federation. She began by asking her what the reaction has been of the players to the news. I mean, just really excited. You know, I think for me, too, as a former player, it took too long. Right. But these things do take a long time. And, you know, for me, when I came on as president of U.S. Soccer, my top priority was resolving the litigation with the women's team. And it took me 18 months to do it. Right. And so these things do take time and it's

a process. But the important thing is we got there and it was just a huge win. And I'm so excited about now working with our women's team, hooking arms in because they're not just the best players in the world. They're the best ambassadors for the sport as well. The Soccer Federation, when they were going through the case, argued that players were less skilled and worked less demanding jobs than the men. Do you regret that choice of words now? Yes, I did not say those words. Let me just be perfectly clear. I immediately disavowed that language in the legal filing. It was horrible. It was offensive. You know, I'm a former player.

I played on the national team myself for nine years. When I read that, I was so angry and appalled that anyone would think that, much less write that in a legal brief. And once I came over as president, I came on as president shortly after that was filed and we removed that entire argument. So is this settlement an admission that there has been gender discrimination? This agreement with the women's national team is about moving past this contentious litigation so we can chart a positive path forward. It does us no good. It's not good for the game. It's not good for the advancement of U.S. soccer

to fight with our women. We want to move past it and work together with them. You know, I think U.S. soccer has been a leader, especially on the women's side of the game, since the beginning. And we want to continue to do that. And so moving forward, we are working with our men's team and

our women's team to make sure that everything is exactly the same. So what are the exact terms of the settlement? So the deal of the settlement is that U.S. soccer is paying the women's national team players in this class $24 million, $22 is paid to them directly, and then $2 million, 22 is paid to them directly, and then 2 million will be put into a fund that they can access to further their post-playing careers or for charitable donations. And then another part of it is that it's tied to ratifying the new collective bargaining agreements, equalizing World Cup prize money. So until FIFA does it, we need our men's and women's team to come together with U.S. soccer to find a path towards equalizing World Cup prize money. So until FIFA does it, we need our men's and women's team to come together with U.S. soccer to find a path towards equalizing World Cup prize money. And can you explain how

men and women were paid differently? Yeah, I mean, one of the big challenges for us was with the FIFA World Cup prize money that FIFA gives out. There's a significant difference between the winner of the men's World Cup versus the winner of the women's World Cup. And this was a huge sticking point in terms of paying the players the same amount for the last World Cup. For instance, the men's team that won, won $38 million. Our women's team won the women's World Cup and they were awarded $4 million by FIFA. So obviously a drastic difference in people, World Cup prize money. And, you know, our men's team makes more money just making it to the round of 16

from FIFA than our women's team makes from FIFA when they win the World Cup. So that's where the big difference was. There were other small differences because the women wanted guaranteed salaries where the men were paid to play. So the men only got paid when they came into camp, played a game, and then they got paid whether they won or tied. Whereas the women were on a guaranteed salary of $100,000 a year. So they got paid regardless. And then they got paid on top of that when tied bonuses. So the structures were different. We're trying to advocate and encourage FIFA to close that pay gap and equalize the World Cup prize money. And how confident are you that you can persuade FIFA to do that?

Well, I think it's going to be a long road. I think it's challenging on many fronts, but, you know, nothing worthwhile is easy. So we will continue. And now the good thing is the women's team is on our side now. And we want to advocate for the women's game together instead of separately. So I think that's powerful as well. And I want everyone to know that FIFA has invested a lot of money in the women's game continue to advocate and push them to invest in the women's game at the same level as the men's game. Part of that is FIFA World Cup prize money, but it's investment in the girls and women's game all over the world. We want to continue to have FIFA invest in the women's and girls game at the same levels they're investing in the men's and boys game, not just the elite level in the women's World Cup. How confident are you that this could change things for women's game in the UK globally, if you were able to push them to do this? You know, it never happens as quickly as you want, right? Change is hard. And just look at the settlement with a women's team. I mean, it's such a huge win for everyone.

It's a win for U.S. soccer. It's a win for our players. But more broadly, I think it's a win for women in sports, whether you're on the field or off the field, and honestly, for women in general. And I think FIFA would be smart to be part of it. I would love to see them be leaders and have soccer be a leader in the world game and the international game to move this sport forward and move women's sports forward in general. I know it's really hard to be patient in these types of things, but we didn't get here overnight, right, in the US. And so I think while it's hard to be patient and we have to keep pushing, I'm not saying

we slow down or back off. I think we have to keep pushing the envelope and have to keep advocating for women in sports. But we are moving the mark. It is changing and we feel it here in the U.S. And I know over there as well. I mean, football is growing significantly. I mean, just look at the recent games and being sold out. It's just incredible to me to see where the women's game is going. The women's

game is primed for exponential growth, not just in participation and on the field success, but commercial growth, broadcasting growth. I think people are finally figuring it out that investing in the women's game is not just the right thing to do. It's the smart business thing to do as well. Cindy Parlow-Cohn there speaking to Claire Walker. Well, I'm joined now by Molly McElwee, who's a sports journalist at The Telegraph. Molly, it sounds like this is a great win to get equal pay, but is it all it's titered to be?

So that's kind of pros and cons i guess to this deal the obvious thing was that in um when they originally sued their federation in 2019 and the uswmt were kind of seeking 166 um 66 or 67 million in damages they've only got, so it's about a third of what they originally saw in terms of the numbers. There's other kind of parts to it. There's also the fact that they weren't able to get kind of the settlement to include former players who are now retired,

which is another aim that they had gone for. But there are a lot of positives as well. It obviously concludes a six-year battle with their federation. It allows players to focus on the football finally. They've spent years kind of having to answer questions on this and really put in the work behind the scenes. And also, on some level, they weren't in the best situation from a legal standpoint.

A judge had thrown out the equal pay element to their case recently, and they were due to appeal it in court next month. So to finally settle is big news, especially considering that big hurdle that they were facing. Now, I know that, as you mentioned there, some of the former players have actually brought their own lawsuit. Solo Hope, I think, who's a US former goalkeeper, she's written that this settlement is infuriating and heartbreaking. Why is she so disappointed? Yeah, Hope Solo came out and said this is not a win, which is obviously a very kind of negative look on it compared to the big kind of celebratory outlook

from the current players involved. It's worth noting that Hope Solo was among the five original players who first put a discrimination complaint against the USSF in 2016. And she's since retired. But it's also worth noting that she she's she's still in a legal battle with with her with the federation and that she took on kind of she took a separate route to the rest of the team on um i think it is partly quite understandable considering um this deal does not include former players and that had been a big aim for the USWNT.

Molly, we don't have a lot of time. And I just wanted to ask you about the impact on football worldwide. Is it the case that other countries, for example, England, might end up getting equal pay? Well, the US is not the first to do this. New Zealand, Norway and Australia all already have equal pay? Well, the US is not the first to do this. New Zealand, Norway and Australia all already have equal pay, which was agreed in recent years. I think to compare it to the UK

is quite difficult. I mean, England men don't get paid to pay for England. That money goes to charity. So it's a difficult comparison to make. However, the big kind of understatement that Megan Rapinoe, who was the poster girl, I guess, of this lawsuit on the US women's team said

was FIFA are next and that they're coming for FIFA next. And with the World Cup, prize money is still so different when it comes to the women's and the men's World Cup. I think it's about seven it's due to be seven times they're due to the prize money due to be seven times that of the of the women's world cup um this year in the men's um version of the tournament so and that's also part of the reason why the u.s women's team and men's team were paid so differently when it came to bonuses because the men's sides can earn so much more from getting to the last 16, whereas the US women's team

have won it four times and are still not earning as much from that win. So I think it could have a big impact from that standpoint, from a prize money standpoint, which it looks like this US women's team is kind of gunning for next. And Molly, just while I have you here, it's probably no surprise to anyone really that UEFA have announced that the final due to be played in St. Petersburg of the European Cup has been moved to Paris.

Yeah, not a surprise at all and could be one of the first of many similar decisions to come out of football and sport generally. Sebastian Vettel has called on Formula One to scrap the Russian Grand Prix later this year. There's pressure on FIFA as well to cancel World Cup qualifiers that were due to be played in Russia next month. And also Russia's participation in the Women's Euros this summer

is due to be discussed by UEFA too. So a lot hanging in the balance. In tennis too, a tournament next week has been cancelled by the ATP in Moscow. So yeah, probably the first of many similar decisions. Molly McElwee from The Telegraph, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Now imagine standing up to perform a song with no words and no written notes. It's called vocal

improvisation. It sounds pretty terrifying actually and it is how singer Bryony Greenhill makes her music. Now she's going to join me and of course I'm going to ask her to demonstrate but I also want to talk to her about her debut album Crossing the Ocean So first off let's listen to one of the tracks, Die Every Day You better die every day

like a rose You better run on the hill Like a horse in the wind and the pouring rain You've got to give it away Let it go as an offering to the wind Bryony, you wrote these songs just as I explained there. Is that correct that you just come out with it with no notes?

You must have thought about some of the topics before you start, have you? I wouldn't really call it writing. It's more they just come in a flow, you know, like in that situation. It was a breakup improvisation and my becoming ex-boyfriend played some chords and a beautiful guitar piece and I just started to sing on top and one of us was recording on a phone or something, you know, and I suppose improvisation, the study of it, enables you to get into a state of flow where just whole songs will come through.

And then you listen back to the recording, you go, oh, that's strong. Maybe it's time to take that into the studio and see what we can do with it I mean a lot of musicians obviously get together for jam sessions but how is this process different well it's not um it's that it's improvisation I suppose growing up in the UK improvisation was fairly absent or completely absent from most of music education and culture, and it would sort of happen at festivals around fires,

you know, jam sessions. And I suppose when I went to India for the first time where the classical music is improvised and they have a whole culture of it, I was like, oh, this is next level, like, wow. You know, in India, musicians study for 26 years before they can perform. That's how high of an art form improvisation is.

And you see it in American music, jazz, Keith Jarrett, people like that. So, yeah, so I went into a deep study of it and in some ways then sort of took improvisation a bit of a step beyond a jam session to improvising whole pieces of music that have a lot of coherence to them. You also teach vocal improvisation, and you've said that it can be quite intense as an experience for people. Why is that? I mean, I say the scariest thing is public speaking, right? Next up is public singing.

Well, then you try public singing without a song oh you're in the extreme sport of life of singing I think we we all kind of edit ourselves a bit in public to be acceptable to each other and with vocal improv it goes so fast you lose that editing facility so people are terrified that parts of ourselves we usually keep more private or feel ashamed of might come out of our mouths and also our voices you know a terribly intimate part of us they really express something in the core of us so being that seen and that heard we're not usually so naked with each other. So it's a journey for people to grow into a sense of safety and trust, given all that.

For people at home who might want to try vocal improvisation, can you lead us in a simple demonstration? Don't make me do it, for goodness sake. Oh, sure, we can all do it. All right, how long have we got? I'm afraid we've only got a few minutes okay come well i'd say first of all feel your feet give them a wiggle and imagine they're getting poured through with warm golden olive oil and that olive oil is rising up your legs anointing your knees from within rising up your thighs have a go on. And the heads of your thighs can move your hip bones. We do this because we need to soften the body first. So Oliver, rising up your torso, moving in your chest,

moving your shoulders, pouring down your arms. Your head can move around. Rising up your neck, you can yawn into one side of your mouth and then one side of your throat. Go on, you can have a go. And the left side. stay time deep yeah deep in you can't see bradley but she is doing all this in real time on my screen great inhale into your nasal cavities and then

some head sounds. Good. Some throat sounds. Some heart sounds in the chest. Breathe into your diaphragm, the area between the breast, strap and the waist. See what sounds are there. Breathe into the belly see what you got and all the way into the pelvis usually take more time but we're I'll put it all together. I'm going to do it. And as you tap into your body and your heart, you know,

you might start to make room for, I think, some of the grief and some of the shock that we're all feeling that's moving through the collective today all across Europe, maybe all across the world. And, you know, last night I had a class and we gathered and we got into our voices and we sung our shock and our horror, our grief for the invasion. And then we sung our prayers for peace, our sense of the peace that is in every living being and sent our voices towards the rising of peace in Russia, just like that woman's boy wanted Putin to become a nice person, you know. And by the end, we were all kind of twinkling. It's like there's some capacity of the voice to to transmute pain to move us through our emotions and to to regulate us and you're planning a collaborative vocal improvisation festival are

you hoping that people will come along and and basically with a little bit more time do what you did for us today yeah absolutely it's um i think it's october 23 to 5th, just outside of Bristol. It's the UK's first ever vocal improv festival. There's about eight of us collaborating to put it on, so you'll be able to try all kinds of different teachers and styles and find other people who like this approach to singing. Bryony, thank you very much indeed for joining us. And Bryony Greenhill's debut album, Crossing the Ocean, is out now.

Now, until recently, you could pretty much be safe in making a bet that if you spotted a blue plaque on a London building and read it, the writer, inventor or composer would be a man. You might not be surprised to learn that when English Heritage began a mission to highlight more women in history, they dug up some pretty fascinating stories, like the 1888 Match Girls Strike, when 1,400 young women fought for better workers' rights in an East London factory. After three weeks on strike, the factory's owners, Bryant and May, agreed to almost all the women's demands, and now they're going to be celebrated with a blue plaque. Anna Evis is the Criterial Director of English Heritage, and she joins us now to tell me more. First of all, Anna, tell me a bit about the Match Girls and their story. Good morning. The Match Girls, well, they were young women aged between 15 and 20.

Many of them were the daughters of Irish immigrants who'd come to East London to work in the docks and the gasworks. So they were the sisters and daughters of dockers, gasworkers. And they worked at this enormous factory just off the Bow Road, the Bryant and May Match Factory, making matches. And at that point, by the 1880s, matchmaking was, you know, it was a big industry and Bryant and May had become huge in that industry. They got a monopoly. And as Bryant and May grew more successful and their shareholders got bigger and bigger dividends, the working conditions and pay of these girls got worse and worse and worse. And we know quite a lot about them as a group. They were documented by the commentator Clara Collett in the 1880s,

who described them as boisterous, rough, open-hearted, honest working girls, who, in addition to putting in incredibly long shifts at the match factory, used to club together to buy gorgeous, long-coloured ostrich feathers so that they could stride down the Bow Road in their high heels and their fringed hats. So they kind of worked hard and played hard. That paints a fantastic picture.

Now, at some point, these feisty Irish women decided that they had had enough. What happened? Yeah, well, they had throughout the 1880s, actually, they'd gone out on strike a few times. And that hadn't really got anywhere. What happened was in 1888 was that the socialist writer Annie Besant published, she went and interviewed some of these girls. And she published an article in a journal called The Link, which set out the terrible conditions in which they were working. Tell us a bit about the conditions. I mean, just how bad was it? Yeah, so they were mainly, the girls were mainly taking matches which had been dipped in phosphorus.

They were taking them out of little frames and putting them into boxes. That was the main job. And in addition to very low pay and long hours, they were subject to a really punitive system of fines, which were applied by a bullying foreman. So if they dropped a match on the floor, or they were a little bit late, or they went off to the loo without asking, they would have money deducted from their pay. They could be docked a whole half day's wages, for instance. And Annie Besant wrote about this and publicised it. And she drew attention to the fact that the shareholders, many of whom were clergymen and MPs, were kind of making a mint out of these girls.

And Bryant and May, the employers, responded by trying to find out which girls had spoken to this journalist. And three women were dismissed on accusations of having spoken to her. And it was really that, you know, that galvanised these young women to go out on strike. And so on a morning in July, early July 1888, 1400 of them walked out and stayed out, as you said, for three weeks. And that, you know, that was a big moment, because that was almost all of the workforce. It was a huge proportion of the whole. They were very young, you know, they were teenagers, some of them, and they were supremely disciplined and well organised because they stayed out. And with Annie Besant's help,

they got, they got for the first time, a lot of attention. And it was really because of that, that combination of Annie Besant's contacts and their unbelievable sort of discipline and determination, that they were able to negotiate through the London Trades Council with Bryant and May and get their demands met. So this massive company, this monopoly, Bryant and May, a huge company, actually caved in to most of their demands. I mean, did it really make their working lives better? It got rid of the worst of their conditions in the first instance. But the other important thing about it was that this is a time of general unrest in London and a time when the old craft unions were gradually being supplanted with a new kind of workers' union,

so where unskilled, so-called unskilled and casual workers, would come together in unions to try and work for general improvements to workers' conditions and pay. The following year, there was to be this huge, the great dock strike, which was hugely significant, where the dockers got together and managed to get a lot of their demands met. But the great thing about the match girls strike is that that comes first. You know, and this is actually, it's not just a kind of great story about these feisty girls who, you know, got what they wanted. It was also a really important in the history of the labour movement. And so the following year in 1889, when you have the MP John Burns is trying to galvanise the Dockers

into action, he actually cites the match girls. And he says to these, you know, a great crowd of 10,000 men, stand shoulder to shoulder, remember the match girls who formed the union. It's so interesting as well, Anna, because I think that match girls, in a way, that image of the match girl, I know there's a sort of a fairy story about this poor girl who strikes all her matches and then she dies because she's so cold. But, you know, in popular culture, they have been seen as helpless victims. Actually, it seems like when you look at it, this wasn't the case at all.

No, that's right. And when we got so English Heritage received a nomination from a local resident, actually, to put this plaque up. And when our in-house historian began looking at the looking at the history, we discovered that there's been some really great work done recently in the last decade by historians like Louise Roar about the girls themselves, the women themselves. And actually, I think they have been rather sentimentalised in the past. And also, there has been this idea that Annie Besant organised them into action. It's not really true. You know, they did it themselves. And their contribution was a serious significant one and I think that's what we're trying to mark with our blue plaque. So you tell me about this plaques for women campaign because obviously as I mentioned in the introduction there

that that we we are used to seeing plaques really commemorating men in the past how are you doing with finding interesting women from history to celebrate? Well, there are lots of them. It's great. So just... I've no doubt, once you start looking. So English Heritage runs the London Blue Plaque Scheme, which has been going for 150 years. And anybody can nominate somebody for a plaque. So, you know, you could, and any listener could. And we have, in last sort of five years we had we took a good look at how many nominations were coming in from the public for women and and it was a you know it was a small proportion we get about 100 nominations a year and maybe only a fifth of one

were for women so we we have been encouraging the public to to send us more nominations for women and it's gone really well. We're currently, I reckon, about 50-50 in terms of the proportion of nominations for men or women. And I know that you're going to unveil one about the Ayers. That's the name for Indian women who worked as nannies for the British in the 1800s. That's right. So also this year, we're putting up a plaque to a house in Hackney, which was a refuge for the Indian nursemaids and nannies

who had served British families in the colonies, mainly in India, but who had come back with those families to London and then were sort of discarded because the families had sort of no use for them and didn't pay for them to go back home. So this was a place, a refuge for those women where they could stay until such a time as money could be found to get them back home. And a bit like the Match Girls plaque, actually, this gives visibility to an underrepresented group in history.

You know, the Match Girls were, you know, young, impoverished, second generation immigrants. These women are South Asian, working class women also, who otherwise are invisible really. So our plaque, which will put a tangible marker on the building, will mean that everybody who walks past that building will remember them. Well, Anna Evers from English Heritage, thank you very much indeed. And as Anna mentioned, if you would like to put forward a nomination for somebody

who deserves a blue plaque, you can. Thank you very much indeed for joining me today. I know that many of you have been very moved by Elena's story and that of everyone from Ukraine. And do join me tomorrow for Weekend's Woman's Hour.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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.