Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Childcare, Kerry Washington, 80s egg donors, Women triathletes, Inclusive wigs after chemo, Bette & Joan

Episode Date: December 14, 2024

A new analysis on the quality and quantity of childcare provision in England has revealed that the huge expansion of free childcare currently underway is at risk of not delivering for poorer families, according to a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Save the Children. Author of the report Jodie Reed and Phoebe Arslanagic-Little, Head of the New Deal for Parents at Onward, joined Nuala McGovern this week to discuss.You might remember Kerry Washington in her iconic role, Olivia Pope, the fixer in TV series Scandal, or perhaps you know her from her many other roles in The Last King of Scotland, Django Unchained and Little Fires Everywhere. In her new starring role, Kerry plays Major Charity Adams, a real-life World War Two hero. She joined Anita Rani live to discuss the film The Six Triple Eight, which tells the story of the only women of colour battalion stationed in Europe during the Second World War.A new report from SheRACES and Fund Her Tri UK has found that women triathletes can experience unacceptable harassment at events. It also showed that women competitors struggle with the lack of toilet facilities and changing facilities. Sophie Power is an ultrarunner and founder of SheRACES – she joined Nuala to tell us more about the report and the change they hope to make.IVF is one of the great medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. Thanks to its invention, over 390,000 babies have been born in the UK since 1991. 70,000 of which used donor eggs, sperm, or embryos. Elaine Lee was one of the first women in the UK to donate her eggs. She told Anita about the process then, and what it was like to be one of the first women to donate back in 1987.After going through chemotherapy for breast cancer, hairdresser Anastasia Cameron was told at a salon in Wales that they didn’t offer Afro wigs. She joined Nuala to discuss her experience and how she’s now helping other women in similar situations with her own wig business.The rivalry between silver-screen icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford is the stuff of legend, a decades-long battle sparked by both professional and personal resentments. Now the story is being told in a re-boot of the play Bette & Joan, now showing at the Park Theatre in London. Greta Scaachi, who plays Bette, and Felicity Dean, who plays Joan, joined Nuala to tell us more about the pair’s infamous relationship.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Rebecca Myatt

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. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani, on the programme today. We rolled out and even hoovered the red carpet this week. Actor Kerry Washington joined us to talk about her new film role in The Six Triple Eight. Also, one of our guests discovered there was a lack of afro wigs when she was going through cancer treatment and decided to do something about it. Actors Greta Scarki and Felicity Dean, who are starring in the play Betty and Joan, telling the story of the famous feud between Hollywood royalty, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. And we step back in time to the early days of fertility treatment and hear from one woman who donated her eggs

to help other women conceive back in the 80s. I was at a Tupperware party in late 87 with a friend and we were in a discussion about a mutual friend who wanted a second baby and couldn't have a second baby. As I was leaving, a lady came up to me and said she knew that Patrick Steptoe would take eggs. So I literally went home and wrote to him. So much interesting stuff to listen to. So grab yourself a cup of whatever takes your fancy and settle in for the next hour. First, the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank, has published a major report on childcare in which they say that amongst the poorest parents with young children, only a third use formal childcare. The figure is more than two-thirds for the highest earning

households. This comes in the context of an unprecedented extension of funded childcare placements in England, introduced by the previous Conservative government and now being rolled out in stages. Working parents of children for nine months old can now access 15 hours a week of free childcare. The now Labour government hopes the scheme will help parents return to work. However, critics say there are not enough places. So is the scheme working as it should, or are poorer children missing out? Nuala was joined by the author of the report and associate fellow at the IPPR, Jodie Reid, and by Phoebe Asloonagich-Little, head of the New Deal for Parents at Centre Right think tank Onward.

Nuala started by asking Jodie, how did they reach that figure? So we've looked at the Labour Force survey and done that analysis. We've looked at income groups and we've also looked at job occupations. And one thing that's interesting is this is not just a question of parents at home not working. This is a question of very significant differences between occupational groups. So when it comes to managers or senior professionals, you've got around 70% take-up. That's across the UK. Whereas if you look at elementary professions, services, cleaners, take-up is less than half. Do you know why? So there's a number of factors at play, but a very significant thing

we found is the very different levels of accessible provision per child in across different communities. And you mentioned accessible provision and we will get into that but as I was reading out this extension of funded child care entitlements is currently underway, unprecedented is what it's called. Do you not see that alleviating issues? Yeah, it's incredibly exciting for someone who's worked on early years for most of her career to hear the Prime Minister stand up last week and say we're going to make early years one of our delivery milestones. We're seeing the budget for early years doubling so that from about £4 billion to £8 billion, which will leave government as the biggest buyer of childcare in this country for the first time in history. So it is exciting,

but an entitlement on its own won't deliver places to families if they don't have the provision available to them locally. So you talk about access. Explain what the barriers are as you see it. So there are some long-term issues we've always had in our market, whereas markets in better off areas work more successfully. Parents can pay more. The government has always weighted funding so that disadvantaged areas get a little bit more and disadvantaged pupils, in particular, through the Early Years Pupil Premium that was introduced several years ago. However, the waiting is nowhere near as staggered as it is for children in school. So schools in disadvantaged areas tend to get more money than early years providers in disadvantaged areas. And also, as I mentioned, with the government becoming the biggest buyer of childcare places, there's no longer going to be the potential for providers to charge parents more.

So that's going to change the market significantly and mean that government really do have to fund those disadvantaged places. You talk about funding there. You will have seen today the Chancellor, Rachel Rees, has started her first spending review and promising, I quote, to take an iron fist against waste so government departments are being asked to identify efficiency savings worth five percent of their current budgets so is there anything that you are recommending that works within that structure? Yeah so there's a apart from increasing and making more efficient the funding for disadvantaged areas there's lots of things in the report which are about better and more imaginative use of existing resource. So, for example, we're recommending that local authorities come together

and pool their funding to commission new provision in what we're calling childcare deserts, areas where there's not enough provision. We're also recommending that the government creates a structure to support some of the smaller nurseries. So the majority of nurseries in this country are actually very small settings. What size are we talking? So average number of staff is about 12.

OK. And they are not part of a chain or group. I think it's about two thirds of them are not part of any of any wider group. And they cannot achieve the same economies of scale as you see some of the larger chains achieving, which are, you know, and we see some growth in the larger chains, mainly across the leafier areas. So we're proposing that the government set up a structure called Not-for-Profit Nursery Trust, which would allow some of those smaller nurseries to pool their learning, their business management and work together to get those economies of scale.

Are you trying to replicate what's happening in those larger chains? To some extent, yes. There will be not-for-profit structures and we're also recommending that where there's a desire for it, they could actually evolve into full integrated charities. Let me pop over to Phoebe, who has been taking notes on a lot of what Jodie has been saying. Well, what do you want to pick up on, first of all? Well, first of all, I think it's really good that there is so much effort being put into and policy focus from government, but also from organisations like the IPPR and onwards also published work, looking at how we can make the childcare system work better. So it just

doesn't work very well at the moment. What about that last proposal that Jodie was outlining, a not-for-profit nursery trust? Potentially that could be a positive adjustment to the system. At the moment, the system works in pretty complex ways. We know that parents find the subsidy system very difficult to navigate. We know that providers find navigating the subsidy system very, very difficult. Providers struggle with overhead costs as well. They struggle with recruitment. Parents struggle to work out what exactly it is that they are entitled to.

It's potentially the case that with some kind of restructuring like that, it could become easier to navigate that system and also actually to offer the service as well. Your group, Phoebe, also talks about some of the ways that you would like government to adjust. But there is a philosophy, I suppose, when it comes to child care as well, like whether the government funded child care should really be, you know, looking at targeted at working parents, for example, or should it be going at the other end, which would be the needs of the child?

And although some might think they should work together, they can be very different priorities. Your thoughts first, Phoebe? Well, I mean, I just say I think that everyone talking about childcare from parents to people who are designing the policies and government to organisations like within the IPPR, the needs of the child are always first and foremost, right? That we all want children to be in stable, stimulating environments. But that comes down to funding. For example, if we think about children that have particular needs that might need to be addressed in a certain way, in a certain environment, that would require a more nuanced approach, for example, than targeting parents that work 16 hours a week?

Yes, beyond that, making sure that all care that children get is of good quality, whether or not that's at home or actually in like a formal setting. I am particularly interested in how we make sure that parents have lots of choice and are able to get a childcare provision that works for them very, very, very well. We know that where parents are able to balance work and family life better, people are able to better build the family lives they want, have the number of children that they want. Childcare is a huge part of that, part of getting the right sort of system that works in terms of the hours that you want to do, in terms of the sort of environment that you want your child to be in. Because I know your think tank talks also about people being able to have as many children as they would like to, to have that balance of life that you talk about there and child care being

part of that. Do you support the two child benefit cap? No, in fact at the New Dulf Parents Onward we wrote a report in the summer that explicitly calls for the two child benefit cap to be removed. So the two child benefit cap is the cap on the child element of universal credit, not actually on child benefits. It's an extremely widely misunderstood name because it's got a terrible, it's terribly, terribly named. And we know very clearly from lots of research done by lots of organisations that not only does the two-child benefit cap push children into poverty

and more and more children every year, but it also sends a terrible signal to families and to parents, I think, that we're not willing to make sure that we're supporting families and children properly. I think you agree with that, Jodie. I do agree with that entirely. Thank you, Phoebe. And I'd just like to build as well on your earlier point and your question, Nuala, about whether childcare is for work or for child development because I think in policy circles there's a tendency to think of these things as slightly different and certainly when the entitlement was rolled out we were seeing low productivity, low growth in the labour market and there was real concern to get more parents back to work. It's one objective for extending child care. It's not a bad objective. But the

reality for parents, the reality for children is that you don't go one place so your parent can work and another place to support your development. When you're a child aged nought to five, whatever you do within your environment supports your supports your development. So another key part of what we're arguing for in our report is a more proactive approach on childminders to bring them into the funded entitlement and raise their quality and availability. Well, let's talk about childminders because there was one line in your report that got quite a bit of headlines is that if the rate of attrition, so if the number of childminders continues to go down by the year 2033, there might be none.

That's right. I was saying to Phoebe before, that's a figure that, you know, the fact that we're losing 3,000 childminders a year is actually widely, has been reported. It's been there in the statistics for a while. Project that forward. And yes, it does look rather scary for families.

This is a long-term trend. It's been going on for over 10 years, driven by financial pressures on the childminder model, which have already before the pandemic. What, the childminders aren't getting paid enough? It's hard for childminders to make it work financially. And especially with cost of living increases, that's increased pressures. However, the extended entitlement is a massive opportunity for them. It's a sort of do or die moment. It's right there for nought to twos, the market that they mostly serve, and it has the potential to provide them with more business. The government rate that's being paid to provide us to care for nought to two-year-olds under the

new extended entitlement is actually pretty generous. So it's really a question about if we can bring childminders in and make that payment more accessible to them. And have you thought about that? Yeah, so one of the things that we've said is that currently free funded places from the government get paid termly in most areas. Actually, they could be paid monthly. That would make it much easier for childminders. It's already happening in a couple of local authorities. So that there's more, basically, liquid cash in their pockets. So they can get a more regular income

from delivering government-funded places. There are a number of other things you could do to make it easier for them, but that's chief amongst them. Any thoughts on that when it comes to childminders? I think that policy adjustments like that moving to monthly payments, is that the sort of thing that make a really big difference to what is essentially a woman running like a very small business by herself.

I mean, yeah, the extent to which childminder numbers have declined. I mean, it's over 50 percent in the past decade. My mother-in-law is always talking about the amazing childminder my husband had when he was a baby. I mean, what this sort of exodus of childminders from the market represents is a massive narrowing of choice for parents and options. And often this is just care that's just available down the road. So it really works well for parents. And anything we can do, I think, to make it easier for more people to stay and come in would be excellent.

That was Phoebe Eslunagich-Lisle and Jodie Reid speaking to Nuala there. And after that item was recorded, the government announced £2 billion extra investments in early years compared to last year, Reid speaking to Nuala there and after that item was recorded the government announced two billion pounds extra investment in early years compared to last year which will help support the rollout from September 2025 eligible working parents of children from nine months will receive 30 hours of government-funded child care per week during term time the extra investment includes an increase in the funded rate per hour, £75 million for nurseries wanting to expand and the largest ever uplift in the early years pupil

premium. The Department for Education says this increase will help those children who need it most in the areas that need it most to give them the support they need to be school ready at age five. Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson said, the early years has been my priority from day one because by giving more children the chance to start school ready to go, we transform their life chances and the life chances of every child in their classroom. Now for an actor, director, producer and activist. She's won and been nominated for Emmys and changed the game with her iconic role as Olivia Pope, the fixer in TV series Scandal. I am of course talking

about Kerry Washington. Perhaps you know her for her role in Ray as Ray Charles's second wife, Della B. Robinson, or her many other roles in The Last King of Scotland, Django Unchained, The Brilliant, Little Fires Everywhere, which she co-produced, Anita Hill, the list goes on. In her new starring role, Kerry plays Major Charity Adams, a real-life World War II hero in the film The Six Triple Eight. It tells the story of the only women of colour battalion stationed in Europe during the Second World War who were sent to tackle a postal backlog. And I'm delighted to say that Kerry joined me this week in the studio. And I started by asking her why she said yes to this role. You know, I had never heard of the 6888 up until very recently. And I consider myself

somebody who knows a bit about American history, black history in particular. But I was doing a series on Instagram called Black Herstory, where I was dressing up as all these famous women from history, like Grace Jones and Rosa Parks, just really fun people to transform into. And my director of social media, Emily Kitching, she came to me with this story about the 6888 and a picture of Lena Derricotte King, who's another character in the film. And I was floored. How did I not know that there were 855 women of color stationed overseas in World War II? I'd never heard of them.

I'd never seen them. So we rented a uniform and got dressed up. And I put her on my social media a couple days before I had gotten a clip from Tyler Perry saying it was a link. He said, take a look at this. I think it's something we could maybe work on together. But I thought, you know, I have so much going on. I have to do this photo shoot.

And I was really busy that weekend. I'm going to watch it on Monday so I can give it my undivided attention. Tyler Perry, who directed the film. Yes. And so when I opened up the link a couple of days later, it was an entire feature film about the 6888. And I just thought, well, this is a crazy coincidence that just days before I had learned about these women. I thought it was unfortunate that their story had been so lost and pushed aside and that this film could be an opportunity to correct history, to lift up their story and to let people know who they are and what they did to celebrate them.

Serendipity. Mm hmm. That it happened. So Major Charity Adams, she was the highest ranking African American woman in the US Army by the completion of World War II. What a woman she must have been to have got to that level. Tell us about her. She was tremendous. I'm always floored by the reality that she was only 26 at the time. I always say to people, I couldn't command myself at 26, never mind 855 women traveling overseas. But she was an extraordinary leader. She was, you know, people talk about her and how stern she was. She had very high expectations for these women. She was strict.

She was strong. She was strong. She was fierce. But people loved her. They respected her because even though she was tough, she led with love. And they always knew, the soldiers say, that she wanted the best from them because she wanted the best for them.

And also the battalion that she led, it was filled predominantly with African-American women. Tell us a bit about them. They were from all over the country. Some of them were Afro-Latina, so they were from the Caribbean, Spanish speaking, but all women of color. And they really took on this mission. So the mission that they were assigned was to sort through 17 million pieces of stockpiled mail. And when I said to Tyler that I wanted to be a part of this project, I said, look, this sizzle reel is amazing. The story's phenomenal. These women must be lifted

up. But how in the world are you going to make a visually compelling film about the mail? Like, how are you going to do that? And he did. He found a way. And it's I think it's so beautiful. And part of it was that he he really leaned into this notion that back then there was no WhatsApp, there was no texting, there was no emailing. It's all about the letters. People didn't have a cell phone. Letters were how you stayed connected to the people you loved most. And so, you know, we panic today when we don't hear from somebody on text message for 10 minutes. But these folks went years, years, two, three years without hearing back, not knowing if their sons were alive,

not knowing if their wives had moved on. There was such a loss of purpose and connection and community. And so when the 6888 was able to sort through these 17 million pieces of mail and return them to their soldiers, their fellow soldiers, these men were filled with hope again, hope and purpose. Yeah, you tell it in a brilliant way through that connection of the letters, but also the story of these remarkable women, all of them. And a lot of the women depicted in the film have clearly had to overcome so much. They've pushed through racism or domestic violence or a range of other issues within their own little societies to then make it into the battalion. Was it emotional to make it? Oh, my goodness. Yes. There's a wonderful scene toward the end of the film that I'm so proud of.

And it's because it's a moment that Charity Adams really, I think, is tremendously courageous. Can I guess which scene? Without ruining it? Is it where at the burial? Yes, yes, yes. I was good. Okay, so that one, there's so many. So many. Yes, yes, yes. I was good. Okay, so that one, there's so many, so many that there's also the moment where, where she stands up to the general and says, over my dead body. Yeah, that's huge. These things really happened. And I think, for me, the kind of courage that they pull on is really an invitation to all of us, not just to honor them and lift them up, but to ask ourselves, what does courage look like for me? Because the film resonates beyond black women. It's so important for and about black women. But I think anybody who's ever felt underestimated or doubted or pushed aside really resonates with the journey of these women and resonates with their victory. Yeah, yeah, it's a very, very powerful movie. And watching it, I did wonder which scenes felt so real. That scene in particular, where she's standing up.

And at the very beginning, when we meet your character for the very first time, and she's talking to her battalion, and she says, you know, I'm paraphrasing, that because they are black and they are women, they must be better than white men. And I thought, how much did you relate to that speech? You know, I laugh because we say now, you know, there's a phrase and we said it on Scandal, Joe Morton playing Papa Pope said, you know, you have to be twice as good. And these women were given six months to solve this problem. And they did it in 90 days because they were twice as good as people expected them to be.

They did it in half the time. So I just I really relate to that pressure on them. And I admire them so much for not letting the pressure to be great, make them small or make them paralyzed with fear. They rose to the occasion. They met the moment. They they really showed up for their mission. Now, when I was doing my research for you, Kerry, there are a few sort of parallels that we have. I don't have the sort of glamour and the Hollywood success.

I would argue you look stunning. The magnificence. However, we're a similar age. You wrote a very vulnerable memoir. You also made a program where you sort of explored your family history. You've really done some work into your own heritage and who you are. For me, the woman I am now is so different to the woman who before I knew did any of those things. It's really sort of changed the course of my life. And I just wondered what those things, writing that memoir, putting your life out there and exposing your vulnerability did for you and also finding out about your family history? It absolutely transformed the shape and tenor of my life. In what way?

Um, well, I think in some ways, the greatest gift that my parents gave me when they revealed to me that my dad is not my biological father and were willing to kind of unlock this family secret with me is that I got my sense of instinct back. I think my sense of being able to trust my inner spidey sense was really fractured. Because you knew something. Because I was being gaslit all the time. Not because they wanted to hurt me, because they really wanted to protect me. But the result was that I was really cut off from my sense of self and my sense of being able to trust myself. So being able to build a pathway back to that deeper understanding of myself has been really helpful. Being able to now have a relationship with my parents that's really rooted in truth and acceptance and

having courage to be our true selves with each other, that's a tremendous gift. Kerry Washington there and the 6888 is out in selected cinemas here in the UK and on Netflix right in time for Christmas. Still to come on the programme, actors Greta Scarkey and Felicity Dean currently starring in the play Betty and Joan about the silver screen icons Betty Davis and Joan Crawford. They tell the story of the famous

feud between Hollywood royalty. Also we hear from a hairdresser who discovered there was a lack of afro wigs when she was going through cancer treatment and decided to do something about it. And remember that you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, all you

need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast it's free on bbc sounds now you may remember a photo from six years ago of a female athlete who had paused in the middle of a 106 mile mountain race not to rest though to breastfeed her three-month-old and next to, a man lying flat on his back, feet up. That woman was Sophie Power, and just a few years later, she founded She Races, a not-for-profit organisation aimed at getting women on the start line. Now in a new report into female triathletes and their experiences of competing, She Races has found that women racing in triathlons are exposed to unacceptable harassment, both verbal and physical. Sophie joined Nuala this week and Nuala asked her what her report had found.

So the report found that we've been working on running races for several years. And we started with pregnancy deferrals because the reason I was in that photo, I was on the start line with a three-month-old baby, was because they wouldn't let me defer my place to the next year. They said, pregnancy is a choice. Injuries, we'll let you defer if you get injured. And I wanted to defer, but they didn't think about it. So I was looking at the barriers for women to start lines. And we then did a big piece of research in running and found it's not just about pregnancy deferral. There's so many other things that events can do to welcome us.

And we've done so much work in running races from 5Ks to ultramarathons that we wanted to then take the step and look at triathlons. Similar event, men and women lining up in the same line, a start line. And you've got the event directors are mostly male. And they said they designed the event directors are mostly male. And so they design the events through their own lens. And we wanted to understand what are the barriers of women seeing and how we can advise those events to make them more inclusive of women. So what did you find?

So we found that women are super simple changes that events can make to encourage women. Often we see these images of start lines, and they're all the fast men on the start line. And we want to see ourselves to be there. We want to see women of all colors that look like us, of all abilities. That makes us feel we belong. We want the language to be more inclusive. The biggest, baddest, toughest, hardest isn't something that's going to get women to sign up. We want to know that we've got the confidence get the confidence that we lack because I guess from the age of five

years old we've always felt we weren't as good enough at sport as boys are and we found these women are having the toilet provisions not good enough and there's no changing facilities that many women especially Muslim women need to be on that start line. But then we also found that there were the behavior of male athletes sometimes wasn't conducive to giving women a safe and secure experience. And this is something that if we address, we can give more women that joy of triathlon. I'm wondering though, because in those endurance races, it's every man or woman for themselves in a way. I mean, is it specifically men harassing women or could it also be women harassing women

in those very vigorous, competitive environments? I think a lot of the behaviour, people don't know they're actually doing. Okay. And this is why we think it can be addressed. And things like passing too closely on the bike. A lot of women, we're a lot smaller than men. So we can be swum over, it can be addressed. And things like passing too closely on the bike. A lot of women, we're a lot smaller than men. So we can be swum over, we can be punched.

We feel things differently to men. They may think that's okay behavior. We feel it a different way. So simple steps to educate men and other women on how we behave on courses. And I think it's because, especially in these longer distances in the UK, some of these races have 10 times as many men as women. And that then creates this atmosphere that's more male dominated. And if we can take steps to make them aware of their behavior, we then can create that atmosphere that women feel more confident. We can get more women

stepping up to those longer distances and having that real sense of achievement of challenging themselves kind of further than they have before. I'll come to you in a moment about why triathlon specifically but just as I'm thinking about one of the points that you raised there so if you know the starting line that you see all these men not women it might be that they would say well the men are going to be Therefore, they want to be on that front line to kind of take off, you know, that we see in lots of professional races as well, that those that are fastest have that spot. Oh, and that's really important.

I think it's when you use that as your imagery on a website. I understand. That's the first thing you see. And that's the only thing you see. And especially we find that the women's race isn't covered in the same way as a male race sometimes. So you see something And especially we find that the women's race isn't covered in the same way as a male race sometimes. So you see something announced as the winner of the races, and it's most often a man, and then the first female. There's two separate races. We are equally

capable as athletes, and we need to kind of announce our winner in the same way that we do the men and give that same media coverage and especially for the elite athletes unless you have that equal media coverage you can't get the same sponsorship deals as brands and we're not truly growing kind of the female elite side of our sport you focused on triathlons i was just wondering why that specifically as i was thinking about it this morning why for example is that particular environment the one you decided to focus on? And is it different to, I don't know, marathon running, mountain biking, extra long trails, etc.? I think it is in no way. I think we've really understood women in running. That's my background. I run

ultramarathons. I know it inside out. We've spoken to thousands of women over the years. But triathlons, it's a multi-sport, it's multi-discipline sport and you're changing between the bikes and there's more kit involved. And we know that some women are nervous about kind of being able to fix their bike on the course when their hands get so cold that you can't do anything and where the toilets will be, where the course is going to be,

is there going to be traffic? It's that much more complicated that we really wanted to understand. It is difficult. It's a challenge. That's the nature of it. But are there things that events can do really simply to get more women on those start lines and give us that great experience? And some of them are so simple, like putting period products in the toilets.

There are no pockets in these tri-suits to put your tampon. So I'm also thinking, and I can see some of the logistical stuff may be easier to implement in a way you tell me, but some of the stuff I was reading in your report is about verbal abuse or commenting on, for example, clothing, ability, even race marshals you mentioned. I want to know how you think you changed that mindset. So we've been working with a company called Aria Events. You run the Dragons Back race in Wales. And this year, they put in really good female safeguarding policies. And it's about briefing athletes and volunteers before the race starts about what acceptable behaviour is. But it's also empowering women to speak up.

And they had four or five incidents raised this year. And they've never had incidents raised before. And they said it's not because these incidents haven't happened. It's because women haven't felt empowered to say, actually, that's not OK. And athletes and volunteers haven't thought about what the behavior should be. We shouldn't be making inappropriate comments. We should be encouraging every athlete equally. We shouldn't be pushing and shoving and physical harassment. And I think a lot of it is empowering women and knowing that when women speak up, we will be listened to by the race directors. A lot of our survey comments were,

I made this complaint and I was ignored. And that woman's not going to get back on the start line of a triathlon. They've come out the sport and we want to encourage more women into the sport. So it's creating those boundaries and having these policies say, this is what was expected of you on the start line. And to tell women, you can actually say that something's wrong and we will listen to you. Sophie Power speaking to Nuala. Now, IVF is one of the great medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. Since 1991, over 390,000 babies have been born in the UK thanks to its invention, 70,000 of which used donor eggs, sperm or embryos. You might have heard

about or even watched the recent Netflix film Joy. It tells the true story of how the process was invented by three scientists, embryologist Jean Purdy, biology professor Robert Edwards and surgeon Patrick Steptoe. Together, they were responsible for the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first test tube baby in 1977. It was whilst watching this film that Elaine Lee recalled her own meeting with Patrick Steptoe. She wrote on social media about being one of the first women in the UK to donate her eggs in the 1980s. Well, we saw her post and wanted to hear more about her experience. So she joined me in the studio this week and I started by asking her where she first heard about the IVF programme. I was at a Tupperware party in late 87 with a friend and we were in a discussion about a mutual friend who wanted a second baby

and couldn't have a second baby and I was musing on the fact that if you needed sperm for IVF that was fairly easy to get hold of but what would happen to women who needed, who couldn't use their own eggs and needed eggs? As I was leaving, a lady at the Tupperware party that I had not spoken to, didn't know, came up to me and said she knew that Patrick Steptoe at Bourne Hall would take eggs. So I literally went home and wrote to him. You had to write in those days. There wasn't any email. I got a letter back from him almost by return. And very, very quickly, I found myself sitting in front of him in the early 88. Yeah, offering to donate my eggs.

Why did you want to do it? I just felt that it will be calmer, really, that if I gave something to the process, then people like my friend might get an opportunity somewhere down the line. I couldn't have given my eggs to a friend and watch a baby that I knew was genetically related to me grow up. But I thought it would just like give to the wider effort. You know, I didn't really think about it too hard it was something that I knew I could do yeah it was easy and your husband and you had three boys at the time what did they think of your decision what did your husband think of it he wasn't super keen to start with and he said he was more worried about me going through the process than the ethics and the implications of it

my boys were too little they were eight six and two so although I did explain it to them I know they fully didn't understand it so it was something that we discussed later but really we don't talk about it we it's I forget about it from you know years to years if you see what I mean until you posted this tweet and now yeah you are telling the program the program sort of brought it home to me because the process was so familiar because it was very different back then so you did it because you wanted to help you wanted to help women who were infertile yeah and then you you went to as you mentioned the Bourne Hall Clinic in Cambridge that was co-founded by Gene Purdy, Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards. Yeah, so I was lucky enough to meet him.

Yeah, what was he like? What was Patrick Steptoe like? I think that Bill Nye did a really good job of him in the film because I thought he was very business-like, very brisk but kind. So I just met him once and then I got passed, obviously, over to the rest of his team to do all the medical checks and the chat, you know, the counselling, basically. Yeah. What was the process like? What happened? Well, obviously, after I'd seen him, we got the counsellors talked to both of us about whether we'd really understood what was going to happen, which I did. I was I'd done my research so that was fine so yeah we just chatted they took a medical history I think the really big thing was that I had to have a clear AIDS test they made me do an AIDS test and that took a long while to come back

just because of the process of doing it and And I had to do that three times. I mean, it's the early 80s as well. Yeah, it was an important part of it. Of course. There was some secrecy as well. There was, yes. Why was that? I took drugs at home to start stimulating my ovaries

and then I had to go into Pornhub for about seven days for like blood tests and things like that but they didn't want me to tell the other women that were there that I already had children they felt that it would cause some bad feeling but I found that really stressful being with women that were asking me questions such as, have you done this before? What drugs are you taking? I couldn't answer their questions. And I felt that it wasn't fair on me and it wasn't fair on them.

So I had a discussion with the staff at Bourne Hall and I said, look, I can't do this. And obviously, by that time, I was carrying eggs for somebody and they didn't want me to walk and I didn't want to walk so they said okay well you can tell them and without fail those women were lovely because I was giving something back to the wider cause and I think after that they stopped the secrecy thing yeah because women to women have an honest conversation it was hard to be in a be in that situation with all those women and not tell the truth I felt it was just dishonest so you made this decision to donate your eggs like I said very early stages of IVF yeah very early and then you got an anonymous letter from the family receiving your eggs? The second lot, yeah, I did it three times. They were very grateful and they were happy that I'd

done it, even though it didn't work out. And when they said it didn't work out, it was because the first time I produced 19 eggs, the second time, which was the eggs going to them, for some reason, my body didn't respond in the same way. And they only got three eggs, which obviously is a very small chance. So I don't know whether they were lucky enough or not. I just don't know. But the letter was nice because it just made me feel that I was doing something useful. What you set out to do.

Now, in 2008, the law changed. So children born from donor eggs were allowed to find the identity of the donor when they were 18 years old yeah very scary moment for me yeah but that was different when you donate it was i'm still anonymous yes supposedly but had that been in place when you were donated would you have donated i would have but i would have had to have discussed that really with the rest of my family because I don't think they would have been so keen because obviously the chances of somebody finding me are greater and that has implications not only for me but my whole family and I feel they've supported me and I wouldn't want to do something that might mean they would be put in a different position.

You know, my three boys would, you know, there would be another one somewhere. So I probably, if I'd have been on my own, yes, but probably not because for the rest of my family. You just said you're anonymous still, supposedly. Supposedly. I'm aware that these days there are DNA databases and if somebody in my wider family put their DNA on there then it is potentially possible that somebody could trace me. Elaine Lee there sharing her story.

Now a side effect for some forms of chemotherapy is hair loss. For many wearing a wig can ease this transition and there are salons and wig makers across the UK that offer their services to NHS patients. But what if your hair type isn't stocked? Well this happened to hairdresser Anastasia Cameron from Roos, just outside Cardiff, who was told that Afro wigs weren't available in the salon she visited when she had cancer. Anastasia had trained as a hairdresser and wig maker. Her upsetting experience led her to create wigs for the NHS so she could help women in England and Wales to find a perfect match. Well, Nuala spoke to Anastasia about what made her decide to try and get a wig fitted.

I told my daughter, who was then six at the time, that there would be physical changes on mummy, I'm going to lose my hair. And my daughter was absolutely terrified. So that kind of brought me back to a little bit of logical thinking. And so when you went, however, you had an upsetting experience? Absolutely yes it was horrific so I contacted Salon and I spoke to the lady which was the owner on the telephone prior to the appointment and the consultation and I explained to her on the phone that my hair

because I've always had to explain to everybody, it's a coping mechanism, I suppose, because throughout my life I've had to deal with, I've got Afro hair, so I'm different. So I did explain this to her. I've got different hair. My hair's Afro. And again, under the term Afro, it's an umbrella of lots of different textures. So, you know, I gave her quite in-depth.

I didn't tell her about my knowledge and experience around wigs or my hairdressing experience the lady didn't really say much on the telephone there was very little empathy I felt that I was on a conveyor belt in some respects even on the telephone the tone was very desensitized and she said yeah yeah that's fine just come in have a consultation I went into the hairdressers and I sat waiting for quite a long time and she called me in she removed the bobble hat that I had on because I'd start to move the hair on the top without asking me so I was quite mortified at this point and the consultation was just horrific. There was no, like I said, compassion, no empathy whatsoever, because the lady was very cold and desensitized to the situation.

And she was very assuming. So we got into the consultation, which lasted minutes. She didn't show me anything. And she said, we don't do your type of hair. And so with that, how did it make you feel? Ashamed I suppose in some ways, isolated and just absolutely so upset. I was just really upset. And I probably at this point as well should say that NHS England and NHS Wales some salons do provide afro hair wigs some do not you came across somebody who did not sadly but you did decide to make your own to go out and create wigs and apply for one of the nhs wig provider

contracts which you're doing yes that's correct yes so after that experience that drove me and fired up my passion once more and I had to deal with the situation myself I made a wig for myself and over the time the time span of the 15 years that I've been in hair replacement I thought I've never really thought about taking on or applying for the NHS contract though lots of my clients had said to me you really should and I thought right yes actually I need to be able to help people and help these women that don't have the option and would like their biological hair type. I want to read some of the comments that have come in because it's obviously something people have thought about I was in my 50s when I started chemotherapy I had gorgeous hair past my waist choosing a wig was the comments that have come in because it's obviously something people have thought about.

I was in my 50s when I started chemotherapy. I had gorgeous hair past my waist. Choosing a wig was horrible, a mix of dread that I would lose my hair and hope that I wasn't. I mostly did lose it, but the wig was gorgeous,

though not nearly as long as my hair. It was really important for me to feel like me and I didn't want the first thought anyone would have when they saw me that I was on chemotherapy. So it worked.

I'm very grateful for my wig. Another, when I started to lose my hair during chemotherapy last year I quickly had my head shaved then bought several turbans in various colours and styles. I found wigs too unnatural but loved wearing my turbans. Loss of eyelashes and brows was far more traumatic and more noticeable. All grown back now thank goodness. I am glad to hear it. And I do want to mention from the Welsh Government, we did receive a statement that they say they take matters of health inequality very serious and that a number of improvements

to data collection and analysis have been implemented across the NHS and Government, which includes collecting ethnicity data on death records and linking census data to other records for analysis. We continue to work with the NHS in Wales to determine how we can further capture data on ethnicity as part of a person's

core clinical record so that it's available whenever a person is accessing health care for whatever condition that they have. NHS England and Wales did not provide statements to us. But I suppose just as we come to our last 15 seconds or so, Anastasia, you've managed to turn it around and provide now for other women. Absolutely, yes. And it's such a privilege to be a part of someone's journey,

whether that's, you know, in terms of having to be able to give them a biological Afro wig or a Caucasian type style of, you know, wig. And it is just an absolute privilege to be a part of their journeys. Anastasia Cameron speaking to Nuala there.

Now the rivalry between silver screen icons Betty Davis and Joan Crawford is the stuff of legend. A decades long battle sparked by both professional and personal resentments. BAFTA nominated actress Greta Scarkey revives her role as Betty Davis while Felicity Dean takes the reins as Joan Crawford in Betty and Joan,

now showing at the Park Theatre in London. The play is set while the two stars are filming Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, the claustrophobic thriller from 1962 following an ageing former child star, played by Betty Davis, tormenting her paraplegic sister, a former film star Joan Crawford, in an old Hollywood mansion. And they both joined Nuala this week. And Nuala started by asking Greta,

what's it like playing Betty? And was she really that rude in real life? I don't know about that. I think she was frank and opinionated, but she felt that she was right. And yeah, she must have been an absolute pain in the ass to work with. I think the rivalry is interesting. I mean, because I think female rivalry is something that's not really talked about that much, but it exists either overtly or covertly. And the interesting thing about these two, it was very overt. I mean, they were openly rivalrous, particularly Betty, and they expressed it very, very clearly, which I think is quite interesting to see.

But they both had to be very tough battling in a man's world. And we could say that there's still resonances of it today. Sometimes you think not much has changed. But if you imagine the 1930s and 40s, where they were both up for the same roles, working opposite the same actors. Married in the same, well, having, what should we say? Love affairs with the same men. We're the same directors and actors and studio heads. So they were having to attract and also keep their careers buoyant and attract the public. And there wasn't much chance for them to have an exchange because like we find in our careers today, if you're cast in film roles, you find it's very rare. You know who your rivals are, but when do you actually meet them? And what I've found is when you meet your

rivals, when you meet fellow actresses of the same generation, you have so much in common. You tend to feel a warmth and an instant bond and understanding. It's extraordinary once you meet. Well, you might have expected that between Joan and Betty when they were beside each other, also on something that was so successful. It's not like it was a flop that you might, you know, have some hostility towards the person. But Joan was trying to be friends with Betty, I think.

Yes, I think she was. I mean, she had a great admiration for her as an actress. She really did. I mean, they just, they sort of approach things from totally different standpoints, which is actually played out in the play. Joan is much more interested in her look and her glamour and her sort of persona. And Betty, the theatre actress, she came from New York and she wanted to actually break barriers. You know, female work was not just about glamour. But for Joan, it was very important to...

It was an era, the 30s and 40s, when the idea of film and stars and seeing huge close-ups of glamorous faces on the big screen, especially because people were struggling with poverty and wartime and so on, they wanted their stars to be superhuman, to be something, to be goddesses. And Betty, who had a slight disadvantage that she was not as photogenic as many of the contemporaries she was competing with, she naturally wanted to be a real actress that is playing real women.

So she didn't buy into this idea of everything just being perfect and the soft focus lens. She wanted to play the part and look like the part. And that's one of the reasons that she's inspired actresses for generations. Meryl Streep has written and talked and done documentaries about why Betty Davis was her inspiration. It just sounds so modern to me, you know, with women that have come in and spoken to me at this table for example i want to play a little of both of you in action you're discussing being older in hollywood i was back at mgm recently they made me feel like somebody's mother there are no stars anymore they don't exist how can they when they give the likes of joanne woodward the academy

award what's wrong with that i I rather like Miss Woodward. I think of her as a real... She's no star. Well, at least she doesn't trade on her looks. Like so many of them today. Or yesterday. Rows and rows of passive blondes, all made from the same cookie cutter.

No guts, Debbie. Endurance. That trap, Monroe. Don't speak ill of the dead. I wasn't, dear. I think it's a good thing she's dead. Oh, stop. She was a sweet girl, dear. I think it's a good thing she's dead. Oh, stop. She was a sweet girl.

Just brilliant. And it's like that, that quick-fire dialogue all through it. I thought it must be an incredibly difficult role to play. I mean, just... Both roles. Very challenging for words. That's what I mean with both. And props.

I mean, the props, I'm still struggling with them. I still at night kind of wake up and think, I've got to do this and that and the other, because I do a full Baby Jane makeup. Yes, you do. And I take it off in an imaginary, in front of an imaginary mirror. So it's terrifying because certain things have to be done

in certain places so that we get on to the next bit of action, the next bit of dialogue, and it's really fast. Yeah, really fast. And actually the play goes in so fast. Just as an audience member, it went by in a flash. Oh, good. That's good. I think also it's a very intimate space.

It is. They're very close. So you have to sort of overcome the energy coming. I mean, literally there's a two-foot gap between somebody's feet and you're playing space. So they're there. By the way, when we boast about it being sold out, of course, it's only a 90-seater. So it's a bit of an empty boast, really.

Not really, I don't think, because people are so invested in it. And also the demographic was really diverse. Which is interesting. Yeah, definitely. That's true. I think Anton Burge has written a cult classic, actually. Which is interesting. people are fascinated with and that kind of energy and dynamism that they have between them is just compelling to watch I guess they were both in their 50s when they made yeah yes they were yes they were did they ever become friends no I don't think so I I think they were rivals. It was some zero bias.

It was if I get a part, that means she's not going to get it. So I think they got stuck in that psychology, really. Maybe. I mean, sometimes a rival can make you better, right? That competitive edge can kind of push you. I don't know whether they had that or whether by the time you're in your 50s in Hollywood at that point that you were considered past it. I think you were in that era. It was very difficult to maintain that level of stardom. Their careers were both taking a downturn. Mind you, a lot of what they say, a lot of our dialogue, I find so resonant with my own

experience, you know, so I say, not much has changed in some ways. And it's a great pleasure to relish those lines and those strident opinions expressed by Betty. Most of the dialogue of both characters is verbatim. It comes from their interviews or their autobiographies or witness accounts of what they said. So it rings very true. But how close it can be at times to what you, Felicity, and I want to say, what we want to complain about. And they were both struggling to keep their careers buoyant in a very much a man's world where age was, you know, completely dismissed at a certain time of your life.

And so it is very close to us both. Speaking about verbatim, I saw you speak about what you called, and I'm quoting you, the grey wig in the wardrobe problem. Do you want to tell us what you mean by that? Oh, that was something that I coined 20 years ago because I realised that all those actresses, great actresses of our time like Maggie Smith and Geraldine McEwan, you meet them in real life and they look like young students and, you know, very youthful and with lovely hair. And as soon as they play a character, as soon as they're acting,

it's out with the grey wig to play what audiences expect women of their age to look like. And I've got a grey wig being made for me now because in the last five years I've had to put on so many bad wigs because I was to look grey. And I don't even dye my hair. But, you know, the expectation that someone my age in their 60s should be grey is still so ingrained in the public. The casting directors get young, they're very young. So their perception of a 60-year-old is very different from the reality of being 60. That is so interesting. They see us as much older as they would see their mothers

or even their grandmothers. So they're looking through a lens that's a few generations out of date sometimes, I always feel. Greta Scarkey and Felicity Dean, thank you. And Betty and Joan continues at the Park Theatre in North London until January the 11th. That's it from me this weekend. Join Nuala on Monday, though, when she'll be speaking to Anne-Marie Duff about her latest stage role playing an ambitious woman determined to create her own wealth in 1900s Alabama in the classic American drama The Little Foxes. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. 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.