Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Beverley Knight, Melanie Sykes, Cinderella

Episode Date: November 27, 2021

‘The Drifters Girl’ is a musical which tells the story of Faye Treadwell, one of the first Black women to manage a vocal group in the US. Singer and actor Beverley Knight plays Faye.We discuss the ongoing appeal of the Cinderella story with Faye Campbell who is playing Cinderella at York Theatre Royal and Dr Nicola Darwood who recently co-edited a new book with Alexis Weedon called Re-telling Cinderella: Cultural and Creative Transformations.On Tuesday Sikh Women’s Aid launched a report into domestic abuse and child sexual abuse within the Sikh community. Conducted via anonymous surveys sent out over the summer, the survey of nearly 700 respondents showed that 70% had experienced domestic violence and 35% had experienced child sexual abuse or exploitation. To tell us more about this report and what can be done to help the issue, we're joined by the co-founder of Sikh Women's Aid and co-author of the report, Sahdaish Pall.We used to have YOLO, then FOMO, now we have HOGO. Post lockdown, the fear of missing out no longer plagues us. We have become too comfortable sitting on our sofas watching TV. The effort of putting good clothes on and leaving the house is too much. This hassle of going out (HOGO) has been blamed by the hospitality industry for an increase in the number of no-shows at restaurants and paid-for live events. We talk to psychotherapist and author of Happy Relationships: At Home, Work and Play, Lucy Beresford and actor Sadie Clark whose play, Algorithms, is on at Soho Theatre in December.TV and radio presenter Melanie Sykes has just announced that she’s been diagnosed with autism at the age of 51. She says it's 'truly life changing, or rather life affirming… and so many things make sense’. She tells us more.Presenter Zara McDermott’s new BBC documentary explores sexual harassment, teenagers, and what impact school is having. We speak to Zara and two contributors who feature in the documentary - activist Zan Moon and 14 year old Trinity.

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. It's cold, it's dark, it's Saturday. What other excuse do you need to catch up with some of the best bits from across the week? Now pour yourself a glass of what you fancy and settle in. Coming up, an interview with TV presenter Melanie Sykes on how it feels to receive an autism diagnosis aged 51. And Cinderella. It's a story we all know,

but why does this fairy tale classic continue to be so successful? And is it possible for a story like Cinderella to be feminist? I'll be talking to Cinders to find out. But first, The Drifters Girl is currently on stage at the Garrick Theatre in London. Like so many productions, it was delayed from last year due to the pandemic, and it tells the story of Faye Treadwell, one of the first black women to manage a vocal group in the United States. With the death of her husband in 1967, Faye decided to continue managing the Drifters on her own.

The musical tells the story of her struggle to make the group successful in the face of ongoing racism, sexism and legal battles. Faye Treadwell is played by the singer and actor Beverly Knight. And Emma spoke to Beverly earlier this week and started by asking what drew her to this role. Initially, you know, the music is obviously very compelling. But I have to say, the idea for the musical started with Faye Treadwell herself. So for me, the big interest was actually getting to play this utterly formidable woman who just did incredible things at a time where women were expected to stay home and, you know, wash the dishes and, you know,

mind the children and all of that. So I'm just so proud. Tell us a bit more about her because we're talking about a time when she has to take over here. It's in the 60s. Is that right? That's right. George Treadwell died in 1967 of lung cancer. And at that time, you know, as I say, women were expected to, quote unquote, know their place. And she decided to take on the management of the Drifters. And it was her who

took them to global superstardom, because she was a brilliant strategist. You know, she thought on her feet. And she was formidable. She took no mess from anyone. And this was unheard of at that time absolutely unheard of added to that she was a woman of color a black woman who grew up at a time where um black people under seg you were under segregation you know Jim Crow um was was alive and well when she was born she was born into Arkansas the state Arkansas. You know, that was the state that famously had the Brown versus Board of Education battle to integrate schools. She saw it all around her. But as a woman and as a woman of colour, she just fought through. Nevertheless, she persisted and she really won. Yes. And she had to make a lot of sacrifices, didn't she, in terms of her own family to do this?

That's right. Tina Treadwell, her daughter, was left behind at home while she went to London to manage, you know, as closely as she could the careers of the drifters at a time where their star was beginning to fade in the US. So she took them to the UK and ignited the second wave of their success. And as a mother, that must have been a hard, hard wrench for her. But she did that. And she did that and she did that because she wanted to leave a legacy for her young daughter um not only to provide her with financial stability but to say to Tina and subsequently to many other um women women she wouldn't have even have known to say you can do this you can forge your own path if you stick to it you know um there is nothing you can't achieve you just need the opportunity to to do it and um and Tina took that and ran with it well I mean this is a lot about and for what you're saying here about what she had to do I suppose to to try and make a success here to keep keep a success going, to revive their acts

and make sure that they were popular again and then experience success. But how did they take it? How did the guys that she was managing deal with suddenly having a woman manage them, having had her husband? Well, it's an interesting thing. We see in the show,

we see the battles that she has with various members of the Drifters who came and went and came and went. They drifted. For all kinds of different reasons. All sorts of drifting. They drifted in, they drifted out. And yeah, some certainly didn't take very kindly to being told what to do by a woman. Not only the very band members, but, you know, record label bosses. And in return, the music industry, as we all know,

is an industry that is dominated at the decision-making level by men. And, yeah, when you have a woman, a forthright woman who is not afraid to speak her mind and is in a position of power whereby she can speak her mind, it doesn't always go down very well. And it certainly didn't. You know, but you know all about this, don't you? Because you've had your own experiences. I was having the joy of listening back to some of your music this morning. And, you know, so many of your songs I know and so many of us know. And I was particularly listening back to Gold.

And I know that you were very clear what you wanted with that particular song. And people can go and listen to it. It's so beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous to listen to again. And it's one of those things that you've experienced very recently about how to have your sound and make it your own and have those clear ideas accepted by men around you in the music industry it's it's interesting to be in a position whereby you are the creator of your own art but other people want to tell you or impose their idea of what your art should look

like and sound like to you um it's so important to keep I believe a control of your own musical output or any artistic output because then whatever the public say about it you can take it because it's your vision but if you acquiesce to the ideas that somebody else has imposed upon you and um you know for some reason it doesn't work out, you'll always look at yourself in the mirror and say, why did I allow this to happen? Why? And I knew that from a very early age. I was determined that the music I was going to make was the music I wanted to make. Subsequently, it's meant that my career has been a slow and a long burn, you know, that path to success, but it's one that I'm happy with because it was within my control.

And everything that the public got to hear, as much as was possible, of course, was what I wanted the public to hear. And yes, specifically with that song, Gold, which was so personal to me I've written that just me on the piano I didn't want someone coming in and saying well actually the production has to sound like this no I wanted the production to sound simple and stripped back like the emotion of the song and I certainly didn't appreciate being blamed for the fact that the producer at the time was not happy with being

told by the songwriter and artist, you know, what to do, especially when he was the one who walked out the session. I wasn't having that at all. I got my own way in the end. So I was happy. Also, I've just got to ask you as well, news out this morning, the Brit Awards, scrapping male and female categories. What do you make of that? Oh, wow. OK. I'm just hearing that when you're in a show, some of the news passes you by and then you're always kind of a few days behind the curve. Well, men and women going going head to head. So some worry will be worse for women. Will men win more of the awards? I just wondered what you made of that Beverly Knight an interesting one because I remember um and this is going back

20 years ago admittedly I remember um being part of a talking heads panel for a tv show which was celebrating the music of the millennium and And overwhelmingly, you know, the great artists, the artists that were most revered were men. And there had to be a specific women's category just to get women in there. But the category that I remember was the greatest songwriters. And there wasn't a woman among them. And I was like, Carole King, Kate Bush.

No, no one. No, okay. Anyone heard of these OK. Anyone? Anyone heard of these people? Anyone? Anyone? So often that's how it goes, you know. Good on you, Beverly.

The Drifter's Girl is on at the Garrick Theatre in London right now. Now, it's been a big year for Cinderella. A film version was released. Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical version is currently in the West End. And the panto season is kicking off, so there are Cinderella's popping up all over the place. Yesterday I spoke to Faye Campbell, who's playing Cinderella at the York Theatre Royal, and Dr Nicola Darwood, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bedfordshire. She recently co-edited a new book called Retelling Cinderella, Cultural and Creative Transformations.

I started by asking Nicola what famous adaptations of Cinderella exist in other countries. Well, we've got some really interesting examples in the book. So, for example, there's retellings of Cinderella in Spain. And Maya Lamarck looks at the ways in which the Cinderella tale was modified and adapted during, particularly during the Franco years and then following. So the Franco years versions of Cinderella's are the very idea of the woman in the home looking after the family and children. And then as the Franco years disappeared and Spain regained some of its autonomy, the tales then start to tell stories of lesbian relationships, of women trying to get equality, of women striking out and going into the workplace.

So seeing how Cinderella has changed within that sort of small area. So you can tailor Cinderella to tell any tale you want to? You can, yes, absolutely. And Cinderella often reflects the times in which it was written. So what the prevailing ideologies were of the time, that's a Cinderella that we get. Well, we have a Cinderella with us. I'm going to bring Faye in on this.

Tell us about your take on Cinderella, Faye. So Cinderella at the York Theatre World is very much a current story. It does have the outlines of the original tale, but it's very much the Cinderella I'm playing she's so much a three-dimensional character she's strong she's still fun and loving but she's very independent and I think that's important to make her a relatable character so that people now can be like oh I can see myself in that situation or maybe young girls or any any young child can be like that's a older sister that I would like to look up to uh Cinderella she does actually have

moments where she stands up to her stepsisters so in Outline of the Original Story she does have her stepsisters that aren't very nice to her. But in our version, she does say, it's okay that you might not like me, but it's not okay that you make fun of me. And I think that's a really important moment in the show. And that's what makes it so important and related. Because I was going to say to both of you. Cinderella isn't walked all over as well.

She still has a love story, Because I was going to let nasty words get to me and I'm going to be strong and I'm going to be brave because I think what's important is that she deserves, she deserves everything that's coming for her. And it's not just what she is, it's who she is. And that's good because I was going to say to you, tell me why i should like cinderella because i as i'm heading into middle age i'm becoming more of a cynical woman i'm like

really do we want to go to the ball is it all about the handsome prince still nicola or maybe maybe like maybe i need to start seeing it in a different way yes at the risk of sounding horrible yes i think you need to see it in a different way the story has evolved we have different retellings of cinderella we have Yes, at the risk of sounding horrible, yes, I think you need to see it in a different way. The story has evolved. We have different retellings of Cinderella. We have obviously the York pantomime. But it's a way, the Cinderella tale is a way of exploring ideologies. It's a way of exploring issues around women's quality.

And yes, we have the traditional tales, but so many of the retellings now are looking at the place of women in society, the way that we may need that transformative experience, but we're not necessarily reliant on the handsome prince to come along and rescue us. It could be the beautiful woman. It could be nobody. Or it could be just our internal way of transforming ourselves. And maybe through education or through all sorts of things. It's about us being able to transform ourselves into something, a better version of ourselves, perhaps. Absolutely. And Faye, you know, just talking to you now, you instantly have flipped something on its head from the Cinderella's I watched from when I was little, is that you are a mixed race Cinderella.

Yes. Yeah, I think, again, it has to be current. Cinderella can be anyone. She can have, you know, like in the original book, she's blonde hair, but then also she could be mixed race. She could be Asian, black. I think this is what it's about being who she is and not what she is or how she looks.

Again, we've gone to... And do you love playing her? I do really love playing her and I think I think it's um a great step forward as well having someone like me play it's very very exciting and again going about back to the ball when you mentioned that I think more than anything it's not about how she looks it's about this is a character that we all love as a person. That's the girl we're rooting for. We want her to experience great things. And I think it's important that anyone can play that because it doesn't matter how she looks. Any one of us can be Cinderella. Love that.

Faye Campbell and Dr. Nicola Darwood. Now this this week, Sikh Women's Aid, the UK's only frontline service for Sikh women, released a new report about domestic abuse and child sexual abuse within the Sikh community. It's the first comprehensive review on the issue in the community, which is over 430,000 strong in Britain. It was conducted via anonymous surveys sent out over the summer, and of the nearly 700 respondents, 70% had experienced domestic violence. To tell us more, Emma spoke to the co-founder of Seek Women's Aid and co-author of the report, Sadiq Bal. So Seek Women's Aid actually launched its organisation only six months ago. So we're a newly formed organisation. But our work that we've been doing on a voluntary basis spans many, many years. I've been working in the sector for 26 years.

And during COVID, we were inundated with calls coming through from people asking for help, asking for guidance. And part of the survey, which identified the multiple perpetrators in the home, we believe that that was part of the reason why people had had enough and they were reaching out. And so when we launched, initially, it wasn't to write a report. The survey wasn't carried out for that reason we carried it out because we wanted to ensure that our services were fit for purpose um and to help um set up our business over the next few years and so we wanted to engage with the community and consult with them and also when you apply for funding that's what funders want to um to understand and commissioners want to hear about is how have you engaged the community and how have you evidenced that there's this need for this service so that was the initial reason for us carrying out

the survey but we were so inundated with the number of responses and then as we started doing looking at the interim findings we got to 500 respondents we thought you know we really need to pull this information together and to share it with other people, whether that's the community, whether that's commissioners, with partners, you know, working in public health and so on, because people need to hear about these issues and concerns. Because when we looked for research ourselves, there was very little out there. What struck you about the findings? It's a really interesting question because I've done this work for such a long time and I know what's happening. I know what my community, you know, we are a fantastic community.

We do so much for, you know, generally across the board. You know, we provide so much selfless service. We volunteer so much. You know, we have integrated so well in the UK. And when you look at research around the Sikh community, we are a very forward-thinking, a very developed community. But coming from this, I think part of the reason why women don't report is these issues.

They feel they're not going to be believed. And so for me... And also, if I just may, I was going to say, is there also that pressure, because you just made that point to come in, to not bring shame on the community and make the community look bad? It's about, A, it's about a belief system.

So, you know, people see us as being in a certain way and, you know, will people believe us? But also, we system. So, you know, people see us as being in a certain way and, you know, will people believe us? But also we culturally, although, you know, the faith itself is that it's a very, very progressive faith. You know, it's about equality. I always say the founder of Sikhism, Grunanak, he was like, for me, was the first feminist. He talked against oppression.

He condemned oppression against women and he talked about equality between men and women. But there's the cultural aspect that hasn't disappeared. And that has come through with people emigrating to the UK. And so oppression is still happening. And, you know, in the survey, we asked about incidents. So we asked about domestic abuse and sexual abuse. But in our report, what we talk about is gender based violence.

This is not just about incidents that happen as you get older, as children or as adults. This abuse and oppression starts actually much earlier than that. And this is from birth. You know, girls are seen as lesser. They're lesser value. As they grow up, they are taught they are lesser than their brothers. And therefore, when abuse takes place, by that time, it's almost been normalised. And therefore, if something is normal in your community, you're not going to see it as an issue. Therefore, you're not going to report it. People feel odd, people feel awkward, they may suffer from anxiety,

but they may not even understand why they're feeling like that and if they approach somebody and they talk to someone about it like a family member um parents or in-laws they're told to be quiet and to put up with it because actually their older generation went through worse and therefore it's not that bad for the younger generation. Therefore, they shouldn't be moaning about it. And the cycle keeps going in that way. Keeps going, exactly. You've also spoken about in the only six months that you've been officially going, I recognise you've been doing the work for longer, but I think people will find that striking that the Sikh Women's Aid organisation has only been going six months.

You've said that of the South Asian community, seek women are the least likely to come forward about abuse. What do you put that particularity down to? So, again, this is anecdotal for me because this is a statement that I made because having worked in this environment for such a long time, this is what I saw. And I knew this was happening, but women were not seeking help. And I think it is that it's partly down to the normalization of abuse that's taking place in the home. I think that it's partly to do with women being frightened and scared,

not being able to reach out. And when you come from a community which is quite wealthy in some cases, you know, when you look at the British Sikh report, which talks about, you know, the Sikh community paying the most taxes proportionately, we donate more proportionately, we're more likely to own our homes. And so we're seen as this progressive community. When you're breaking away from that, if you want to challenge that community, that family that you're coming from, often women feel that they're not going to be left with anything. So when you're leaving and pulling your children out of, you know, great homes, schools, etc, there's a level of guilt that women feel as well. And a lot of the women that we've worked with have also been women who've come from abroad. They've come here

to the UK. They've, you know, married with British citizens. And, you know, they don't know the law in this country. They don't know who to contact, and so on. What's been the response in the community? Because obviously, as you say, a great number came forward, but it's still a very small proportion. Have you had any response in the 24 hours since it's been out? And also have any men spoken to you about this? We've had overwhelming support to the report. And, you know, we've had a huge number of men

at the conference yesterday. And actually on social media as well. We've had so many people supporting us and this is the conference where you launched this launched this yeah we launched the report yesterday um at a at a conference and um we've had overwhelming support from all sectors across the board from all different communities and people from our own community people supported us with the with the you know the report the report writing because we're not report writers and and we weren't we didn't

originally set out to write the report so we had a lot of support from from people from our own community um but um you know there are small pockets of people who are not happy that we've done doing this piece of work um but he's a very very small minority um and um so it's been really welcome and actually people even on social media have revealed now they've seen this report or they've heard about this report some people attended victims attended our conference yesterday it's given them the courage to speak up yes which which often these things do don't they It kind of spreads in that way. And, you know, in terms of the report,

I should just say in case anyone thinks I was making a presumption, the majority of the victims are women. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. So we did a breakdown. So there was 14% males. It's still significant with domestic abuse, that is.

But still, yeah, predominantly female victims. Are the ones that you are hearing from. But as say 14 we must also make note of just finally what are you hoping to do to support those who are able to come forward and do want support yeah so we currently have um we've got a helpline um and people are contacting us through there or through our website um we have got managed to secure small pots of money so we are now in the process of recruiting to um support a part-time support worker and a volunteer coordinator and actually our time is voluntary as well people who are working within the organization at the moment so i had three calls if i tell you three calls last night following the conference of people who needed help. And so people are reaching

out and we're doing what we can to help them. If they're local, we can support them one-to-one. If they're further afield, then we're referring them to the correct agencies local to them. Sadiqa Bal speaking to Emma there. And if you are interested in finding out more, Seek Women's Aid are based in the West Midlands. Still to come on the programme, a discussion on sexual harassment in schools. The safety of young girls in school is a growing concern. We explore why. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day and wherever you want. All you have to do is subscribe to the daily podcast via the Woman's Hour website. And you know what? It won't cost you a penny. Now to HOGO,

aka the hassle of going out. Post-lockdown, the love of going out seems to have faded for some. HOGO has been blamed by the hospitality industry for an increase in the number of no-shows

at restaurants and paid-for live events. To find out why this is, Emma spoke to the psychotherapist and author of Happy Relationships at home work and play Lucy Beresford and actor and writer Sadie Clark whose play Algorithms is on at the Soho Theatre in December. Well I was suffering a little bit from it myself last week. I was meant to go to

a view of some paintings at the National Gallery and there was a part of me thinking firstly can I be bothered to get dressed up, get the car go there and secondly can I be bothered to take all my makeup off at the end of the day and I almost didn't go and it is so tempting because we've had 20 months of getting used to a different kind of socialization we've discovered how amazing our own company might be but we are very social creatures and we get a lot of positive reinforcement and mood boosting qualities from engaging with other people. So yes, HOGO is something that many of us have experienced very recently, possibly COVID pandemic induced,

but we indulge in that at our peril because actually it's better that we get out there and meet people. Why is it at our peril? Because we're relational creatures. We actually boost our mood and actually gain a lot of positive qualities from engaging with people, having them validate us in some sense, but also just having those different experiences and bringing that different energy into our lives. If you're on your own, loving yourself and having a good relationship with yourself is absolutely fundamental to any other relationship that you have.

But once you have developed a good relationship with yourself, the key is to go out there and have great fun with other people, be stimulated by them mentally, physically, to have great experiences. Because as you said earlier, we only have one life. Yeah, there's a lot of that today and how we're going to live it and what rules we have, all of those things playing into it. Sadie, do you have a good relationship with yourself?

Are you suffering from HOGO? I think I do have a good relationship with myself. I think my relationship with myself has definitely changed in lockdown. And I'm learning slowly to know what boundaries are. I definitely was one of those people that always like burning the candle at both ends, always out pre-COVID. And I've certainly, as Lucy has, suffered from some moments of ho-go

since the world has reopened a little bit. In what way? Can you give us an example? Well, I'm very indecisive. So often the problem with me is I take a very long time to actually decide whether I'm going to go out or not. Then I'll end up doing something stupid, like forgetting that you have to take a lateral flow test. I'll already be late. And then I'll be like, oh God that you have to take a lateral flow test. I'll already be late.

And then I'll be like, oh God, I have to take a lateral flow test as well. I was meant to go to a networking event last week for TV people. And there was a lot of ho-go going on because it just felt like a lot of effort to do small talk, especially with like people you don't know yes so even for even for a sort of I don't know if you would describe yourself as an extrovert

but someone who liked going out a lot before it has kind of seeped in yeah and I actually realized I think that I was forcing myself to be an extrovert before I think I thought that because I'm on stage a lot I must be an extrovert I must like get my energy from other people if I'm gonna stand on stage, like making a fool of myself at times. Lucy, we've got quite a few messages coming in from people who do say they've got HOGO, especially now in the evenings being dark and cold.

Anne says, I've got to force myself out of the house at all. But when I do it, I enjoy it. Yes, there's always that theory of expectation management. Invariably, the event that we're not looking forward to is the one that we end up having a whale of a time. We also have to remember that we are not born actually knowing how to socialise. It's one of the reasons why we start to get a bit anxious or as your listener has identified that maybe some of the winter blues are kicking in as it gets a bit dark and, you know, we want to just cozy up. But if you do get out there, you will have so many more benefits. And also maybe think about, I don't want to pathologize this because I think we're talking about something very different to, say, social is a really you know medical thing but hogo is very much more about inertia lose losing some of those skills as a sadie was talking about earlier in terms of networking small talk those skills can be acquired and if all else fails maybe develop a wingman have somebody that you can go to these events with where you can secretly say to each other, if we don't really like it, we can leave early.

I'm with her. Always a good idea to have a decent wingman or wingwoman that you can tap out with. That was Lucy Beresford and Sadie Clark. Now, you might know her from Radio 2, her former ITV show with Des O'Connor or her modelling days by Eckett's Gorgeous. But what Melanie Sykes didn't know

during all of those gigs was of her autism. This week, Melanie has just announced that she's been diagnosed with autism, aged 51. When Emma spoke to Melanie, she asked what impact having a diagnosis in later life has had on her. Well, I found out on Thursday, but I'd waited 10 days to get the diagnosis,

so I'd already been processing what it means, actually from when it was suggested to me. And the response has been amazing from the autistic community, just saying congratulations. And it's interesting because people in the autistic community do say congratulations and people that aren't sometimes they'll ask me, so what's the treatment like? What are you going to medication wise

and I think well do I sound and look like somebody that needs to be medicated I mean you've known me for 100 years and that's me being an autistic person so it's not something that I want to treat and you can't treat it and nor would I want to so it it's been interesting, to say the least. And how did the assessment come about? Because I'm trying to get a documentary off the ground. I set up a production company called, to be frank, Productions this year. And I wanted to make a documentary about the education system and how it operates with autistic children and that it

needs to be changed. And I was working, am working with Harry Thompson, who is a writer and a speaker of all things autism, he's autistic. And we were just working together at my dining room table and he'd been with me 10 minutes and he suggested that I might have ADHD and you know potentially um have an autistic profile and he said why don't you get an assessment so it made sense to me I did and it was a series of assessments over over a period of days for hours um and it came back that that I'm autistic so yeah it's it's um it's fantastic really because it does like I said it does make sense of a lot of things I'm a I'm very I'm a very sensitive person I care about the truth and facts as you realized this morning and I yeah it's just a million ways in which I am autistic and as you know I have a son with autism too who is autistic too so I've been around it for a long time.

Was there any point when when you were going through that process with your son that you connected it to yourself? No not at all all. Absolutely not at all, because obviously he presents in a completely different way to me. But it is interesting because obviously it is considered news that women are not being diagnosed. But I knew that 15 years ago. It was something somebody said to me 15 years ago. Tino's 17, he was diagnosed when he was about two and a half. And I was told back then that it was not rare in girls. It just wasn't picked up in girls 15 years ago. And at that point, was there anything, even though the presentation in your son and respecting his privacy, but was different? You never thought to yourself there was anything that you had read

or heard about it because you were engaged with it that could relate to yourself I honestly I honestly didn't know but obviously um speaking to Harry and him actually seeing me and seeing my behavior and how I operate I he saw me clearly and also all of my especially being in the industry you're in when you say you're not able to do something or people just say oh but you're fantastic at it like that is enough to be able to feel better about doing something well actually a lot of the things that I've had to do I've done it with a lot of um anxiety and duress. But it's how I pay the bills. So I've got to do it, you know.

What do you mean, things you've had to do and then there's been anxiety? Just being a model. I was a model for eight years and I don't really like being in front of camera. I mean, I was quite wooden, really, at the beginning and I learned to move. And I've never been massively comfortable with cameras and I've spent my entire well two careers in front of them and you know now I'm the editor-in-chief of a magazine and I and I started it for many reasons because it's a it's

a women's magazine but it's also um you know frank is about sustainability and I'm able to be behind the scenes saying what I want to say, being an advocate for the things that I want to want to be an advocate for without actually being visible. So when you say, you know, you look back and so many things make sense. When you look back at your TV and modelling career, what now fits in to place that perhaps didn't before is it because you mentioned that anxiety are you do you think things would have been easier if you'd known well I think it's not just the actual job itself no I probably I think oh god there's a million things to say about it but I think the industry at large I found problematic um because there's been moments where I've absolutely loved what I'm doing. I'm very good at not driving a program.

I like to be somebody that's responding to other people driving a program. But I have been asked to, you know, be in control of a format and I've had game shows and things where I'm my focus has been the format and I've not been able to bring my personality to it as well because I can't do the set the two things together so yeah I often look at people on TV and go how how do they do that you know they can absolutely bring themselves to it whereas I am the juggle for me has been quite difficult. And as I said, when you tell somebody that you might have a few sensitivities around certain things, everybody just says, oh, but you're fantastic at it. And then you just have to deal with it and do it. How are you feeling about it now? You've had some time with it.

I'm feeling fantastic about it. I mean, I was from the get-go, but also it's such a big piece of news and I'm processing it by the second. Yeah, so I think it's going to take me a long time. I mean, I don't know. I mean, at the moment, it's news to me and I'm just working with it but it's interesting you know I'll be you know I was in the restaurant yesterday and I'm suddenly absolutely understand that levels of noise and how I'm I can't really do a big group of people I can only focus on one person at a time if somebody's speaking loudly on another table I cannot focus on my table because I've suddenly tuned into somebody else's conversation, which is one of the reasons, I guess, there are so many ways in which people are autistic and, you know, but there's like this list that apparently that you have to take and, and it's things like not being empathetic. Well, you know, that's not all autistic people. I, you know, I have great empathy for people. I am so sensitive, sensitive to other people's needs and,

and sometimes more, more than myself and I think I've said you know and I when anybody tells me anything I absolutely believe them because I'm so honest about my feelings and how I see things I'm I always um say it but I expect that from everybody else but of course people lie and so I've found myself in situations where I've been hoodwinked quite a bit by people and that is now the real realization of that is a relief um as well yes I've had some conversations with women in your situation before where they say you know getting the joke can be quite difficult and taking people for their word and not and just believing people is part of what they do i've worked with alan carr i know what's funny yes you do yeah but but like i said deadpan delivery sometimes not so much and obviously

if i don't know they're a comedian i wouldn't know that they were trying to be funny well i think i think also that sort of ability to to to sort of you know have that empathy and say what you think I was looking back and you've talked about you have talked about feeling like you have to constantly educate men about how to behave around women and you talk very straight and that's part of your delivery in social media and also with what you're doing with your writing and do you think that's sort of played into it your ability to just speak very straight about things yeah and I've always had it down to that I'm from the north of England and you know but again not all northern people are straight talkers but I just thought that was part of my cultural background and um you know and I do speak my truth I mean

the only time when I first got into this industry, I was 26. So, and I was being interviewed by the press and stuff like that. And I was always so open and honest about everything. And then I learned not to do that because I realized people sensationalize what you say. So I've been managing it for years where I'll only give as much as I want to give. And even that gets twisted. And I'll say to journalists, I don't know why you waste my time and yours

because you write what you want anyway. And I think sometimes journalists just think, I can't believe she says this. And sometimes my uber honesty doesn't make the cut in the magazine because it's a narrative that's been dictated by them. And so you're just a puppet. Well, I'm not a puppet. You're brilliant.

That's what you are, Melanie Sykes. Speaking to Emma earlier this week. Now, sexual harassment in schools and among teenagers has become a major concern for campaigners and government officials alike. Earlier this year, an Ofsted report, which spoke to over 900 young people, found that sexual harassment has become normalised

for children in schools. Presenter Zara McDermott's new BBC3 documentary explores rape culture and what role the education system plays. Last week, I spoke to Zara alongside two young women who feature in the documentary. Zan Moon is the creator of Screen Grab Them, an Instagram page sharing screenshots of the

inappropriate messages so many young women are sent. And Trinity is 14. A close friend of Trinity's took her own life earlier this year. Trinity's friend Samina said she was raped. She reported it, but the boy disputed it. No DNA evidence was found and no charges were made. It's a heartbreaking story to hear, but it's really important that we do hear it. I started by asking Zara why now felt like the right time to make this documentary, and she told me about an incident that happened to her four years ago. Zara reported the assault, but the boy was never found

and no charges were made. So I made my first film, Revenge Porn, last year and I had such an incredible response to that film. But I think Revenge Porn only told a very small part of a story of what's going on in our schools right now. You start from a really interesting point, Zara. You start from your own experience of a sexual assault. That was very courageous of you to share that information at the beginning of this documentary. Why did you feel that was important? I think that the assault that happened to me, it really kind of shook me up a bit because I think in those situations as a woman, we should never feel unsafe, especially in broad daylight.

And, you know, walking home, especially if there's a school boy behind me I shouldn't feel unsafe and in that situation where all the odds were with me in terms of my safety it was broad daylight I was I was close to my home I still ended up being assaulted by this you know this I would say is around 15 years old and I'm safe and I'm okay but what about the next time this young boy decides to to assault a young girl? Is it going to be, you know, in the dark down an alley? Is the girl going to be younger? Is she not going to be able to fight him off? And it put all these thoughts in my head and I've kind of buried it for a while. But now when making this film, it just felt right to speak about

my experience and what happened to me. That's a really brave place to start Zara and what makes this film so powerful and it is in so many ways is that you then go off to talk about sexual harassment but for teenagers and you're going to schools so we see you go off on a journey to explore this subject matter further. Yeah and I think that this this film was a massive journey for me um I think you know having those conversations and starting those conversations especially with boys and young men um was so important for me because there's so much uh that goes on in schools that I think the schools are struggling to to deal with and know how to deal with and it's you know it's a really hard position for teachers to be in um especially when reporting because I

feel like there's not really a massive amount of support for schools and teachers with you know any kind of sexual assault cases and I think there is still a bit of a culture in schools of oh it's kind of kids messing around But actually there's a lot more sinister activities that are going on that maybe aren't being reported, aren't being talked about enough. There's not a good structure in order for teachers to be able to report. There's not a good structure for students

to be able to report about what they're experiencing. And I think there's just a massive disconnect at the moment and so much is going on and people just aren't wanting to talk about it this film for me is trying to break that mold and enable students to be able to feel comfortable talk to their teachers and teachers to be able to talk to their students and parents to be able to broach with their children you know if this is happening to you please talk to us please talk to the school talk to your teachers and I have no doubt that when this um program

goes out that that is what it will do it will spark conversations and in the meantime whilst pupils can't talk to their parents or teachers there are other places where young people can talk about their experiences and that's where zan you come in zan moon you've set up um screen grab them what is that yeah so screen grab them is an Instagram page which is aimed at exposing misogyny and rape culture through image based evidence and screenshot evidence. And this was set up off the back of my open letter, which, again, was sent out to multiple different schools uh with a list of testimonies of sexual assault and harassment throughout um it was actually 14 pages of testimonies of assault that has happened at these schools and um i found that as that sort of hit

the press um and as that circulated i was being questioned on the validity of some of those testimonies, which is incredibly frustrating. But I thought, what can I do to combat that? And I thought, well, we have a bank of evidence in our phones, in our chat histories, and all it takes is a quick chat search of a buzzword, for example, nude or pic or slag. And, you know, we have hundreds of conversations popping up from our past. And I think for far too long, social media has been part of the problem. So exacerbating misogyny and rape culture. So ScreenGrab then was a name to

kind of flip that around and use social media to our advantage by exposing exposing it through evidence and so people are just literally screen grabbing conversations they've had with mostly young men but also young women being sexually explicit and they send it to you and you put them on the instagram account that's exactly it and i tagged the schools of the young boys in the posts in an effort to sort of urge them into action. Is it mainly young boys? Yeah, well, there's a massive range. Young boys, underage boys.

Obviously, image-based violence is one of the main kind of culprits of sexual harassment online and coercion into sending nude pictures and sharing them, but also just outright rape threats um named like sort of slut shaming um and just sort of online harassment and bullying but then there's also quite scary kind of innovations and technology which have allowed um more serious kind of kinds of online abuse such as these apps where you can anonymously post questions and vote on answers so boys have been using that to rate girls or sort of post graphic pictures of them and then people vote on which one's the best and that was quite a sort of

scary thing for me to see that has changed in recent years, a sort of new form of sexual harassment online, if you will. I'm going to bring you in, Trinity, because this is where the story of your friend Samina comes into the into the programme. Tell us in your own words who Samina was and what happened to her? Samina she was 12 and she she got bullies online so she got bullies and she had men messaging her online like social media um messaging her just asking her for nudes asking her to send pictures of herself asking her to do things in person I think it was a bit of it in schools as well I think she had people saying stuff to her in schools as well um so obviously she had the harassment on social media for a while it was a good few good few months to a year um and it was just getting worse and worse people People just said even worse stuff.

They were saying she was lying about things that happened. She was, there was just so much bullying towards her. And I think it all just, it all just got to her too much. And obviously she talked to me about it. She talked to me about how she didn't feel comfortable. Like boys weren't making her feel comfortable and everything. And on the 12th of June, she took her own life due to bullying and, like, harassment online

and in school and everywhere, basically. That's so heartbreaking, Trinity. I know. I just think I want, like, a change in the world. Like, I want boys to think that they don't have to ask girls for pictures and stuff for girls to want them, because girls, as me, I want to be treated respectfully by a boy and so does everyone else and I think the things that happen nowadays on social media and boys thinking they can ask to

send pictures and do things and everything it can make people feel so uncomfortable and as well as walking in the street as well. And you'll get people coming up to you and you're walking in the street saying things, people driving past you and honking the horns. I just think the world needs to come together and just do something about it to stop it all. And back to Samina, your friend who took her own life and she was only 12 years old from watching the program she said she was raped didn't she yeah um she said she was raped by a boy

in school not in school but from her school and um she was told that she was lying about it by a few girls and a few, like a few just different people in the schools and stuff because it got out and people said she was lying about it. And I think that, I think that affected her a lot because obviously it would affect someone if people are saying you're lying about something and loads, loads of people found out and she got bullying from it.

She got bullied really bad she would get calls on the phone she didn't want to go to school anymore because of it because she didn't want to see his mates or him or people that know him and you're 14 now yeah

do you feel safe walking around you must be in your school uniform most of the time yeah no I don you feel safe walking around? You must be in your school uniform most of the time. Yeah. No, I don't feel safe. Because it's getting darker early, I think it's a lot more scarier because it's not light, there's not many people walking around. And I just get scared that someone would be, like, following me,

or if you see a car and you think it's following you, you get scared in case. You know, you just feel like you've got, like, eyes on you all the time, and I think it's just because of the amount of things that have happened and the amount of stories you've heard about young girls, it just puts a big impact on you. It's really devastating to hear this i want to bring zara and zan in on this sorry i mean one of it's you go and meet samina's mother

and you know just listening to trinity talk about and trinity's only 14 and samina was only 12 when she took her life it's it's beyond heartbreaking yeah is. And that was definitely the hardest part of the film. With these types of peer-on-peer abuse, a lot of the time it doesn't just stop at the assault. It's the aftermath. It's the bullying. It's the pressure. It's the not being believed.

It's the not feeling safe in your school where a child should feel safe in those premises. And to think that Samina didn't feel that and didn't even want to go to school because of how badly the bullying got is really heartbreaking. And it's something that really needs to change. It's heartbreaking. It's sad. It's devastating. But I feel from watching the programme, there's lots of young women, you included, Zan, who have quite, you know,

you want to shout about this now, enough is enough, and you're taking action about it, aren't you? Yeah. Because you're angry. Yeah, I'm furious. I just, I hear stories like that and it's absolutely heartbreaking, but it's also all too familiar. It's all too, it's just it's happened

for so long and I think I'm trying to channel my sort of emotions into activism and that's the way that I'm coping with it in order to try and fight and create change and make noise and you're like you said you're channeling your energy into activism. And it started with this letter that you wrote with all these testimonies. Tell me about that. Yeah, so I grew up in a very privileged education where I was partnered with some very elite private schools where unfortunately there was a sort of toxic masculinity

and a culture of misogyny. Rape culture was rife within those schools. And I experienced it myself with my own sexual assault when I was 15. And throughout the death of Sarah Everard and of recent happenings in and around March, that YouGov study that came out as well that showed four-fifths of women have experienced sexual harassment. This was around the same sort of time I was having conversations with my friends and as Zara mentioned, everybody has a story.

And I was starting to realise that and from the back of that just felt enormous anger. It's good that we've got powerful young women talking about what needs to happen and it's really great that your voices are being put out there in this programme. I want to come back to Trinity for the last word. Trinity, has your experience over the past year changed your relationship towards boys and how you feel? Yeah, because of everything that happened to Samina, it's made me think, why are boys like this?

And why is school not doing anything about it? If a girl goes to the school and they say, well, I've been sexually harassed in school or a boy's tried to lift my skirt up or something like that, the school just will put them in a detention after school. There's not much punishment towards it. And I think that's the scary part because otherwise they're just going to think oh if I just get a detention then I can do it again because it's not much

and I just think everything that happened to Samina as well it's just made me think well the world's not as nice as you think it is and there's a scary part to the world as well and social media and girls just they don't deserve to be treated like this by boys that was trinity zan and zara and the bbc3 documentary rape culture is available to watch on iplayer now and if you would like to get in touch with us to talk about anything you've heard on any of our programmes, then please do drop us an email by going to our website. That's it from me today. Join Emma from Monday at 10 for a brand new week. Have a lovely weekend. I'm off to join me wingwoman. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. I'm Sarah Trelevan and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.