Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour - Lockdown anniversary, Cryptocurrencies & Portraits of women

Episode Date: March 27, 2021

Last week marked the first anniversary of lockdown. We hear from three women of different ages, backgrounds and circumstances to discuss their experiences of having to stay at home. Actor and author Sheila Hancock and writers Kerry Hudson and Yasmin Rahman tell us about their highs and lows.Friday marks 50 years of Bangladesh Independence. The BBC Asian Network presenter Nadia Ali and Shaz Aberdean, a community worker in Swansea tell us about the celebrations.We discuss the ins and outs of cryptocurrencies and why young women are choosing to invest in these more than ever before with money expert Jasmine Birtles and Susannah Streeter a senior investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.Last year the National Crime Agency assessed there were at least 300,000 individuals posing a sexual threat to children in the UK and warned of a spike in online child sexual abuse offending during the pandemic. Donald Findlater is from the charity The Stop it Now helpline, he tells us about the growing problem. We also hear from Chris who was arrested for possession of illegal sexual images and from Sarah about her husband’s arrest.Zing Tsjeung, executive editor of Vice UK and Mai-Anh Peterson, co-founder of BESEAN the British East and Southeast Asian Network tell us about the increase in racially motivated attacks against women of Asian descent throughout the pandemic.And the very last commission before the National Portrait Gallery in London closed for renovation involved two women - a portrait of the author Zadie Smith by the artist Toyin Ojih Odutola. But such a work is in stark contrast to much of the rest of the permanent collection, with 88% of the artists and 75% of the sitters being male. We hear from Curator and art historian Dr Flavia Frigeri, and from the artists Roxana Halls and Toyin Ojih Odutola about the women they paint and want to see in the gallery.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Siobhann Tighe

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 and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. It's a programme of anniversaries today as we mark the year since lockdown began. We hear from three writers on its impact on their lives. We also have a conversation with two women of Bangladeshi heritage who tell us about marking the country's 50th year of independence and will also discuss the increase in racially motivated attacks against East and Southeast Asian women since the pandemic began. Personally, I started receiving racialized

sexual harassment from the age of about 13, wearing my school uniform out in public. People would shout things like, me love you long time and make jokes about my partners or that first one being a line from a very well-known film about the US war in Vietnam. We'll give you the ins and outs of cryptocurrency and discuss why women need to save less and invest their money more. And why have so few women been painted? The last commission made by the National Portrait

Gallery was of the author Zadie Smith. The artist who painted her tells us what she has tried to encapsulate in her portrait. It's not simply just an image or a capturing of Zadie, it's more of a portrait of Black Britain and all the people that can look at that portrait and feel like they belong to that narrative. Tuesday marked a year since Boris Johnson delivered the instruction to stay at home, save lives and protect the NHS. To mark the year point, we've brought together three women of different ages, backgrounds and circumstances to discuss their experiences of being in lockdown. The author Kerry Hudson had a baby with her husband during the last year and fellow author Yasmin Rahman has spent the year

living with her parents, grandmother and brother. But first we hear from the actor and author Dame Sheila Hancock who has been locked down alone. Here's her view on how she's found the experience. Confusing. I'm terrified that the other two are going to say that they've learnt French and how to knit. They've grown a garden and once had a baby. I've done nothing. I stood staring at the walls. I've gone upstairs and think, what am I up here for? I utterly confused and I've come to no conclusions except that we need a revolution. Sorry, what do you mean by that? You can't just say that at the end and then not tell us a bit more. Well, I just think the one thing that I have discovered, which I knew already, but I think a

lot of people didn't, is the vast divisions in our country, the gross undervaluation of the people that have got us through this mess. And we've got to do something about it. It's no good standing on the step with a torch and clapping. That's nonsense, and I never do that. We've just got to get down to making our society work better. And we've got to start making our politics work. I don't like decisions that are made for political reasons as opposed to the welfare of the country, which is what's been happening a great deal of the time.

Most of the mistakes have been because politicians didn't want to offend other members of their party. So that sort of thing, I want to see change. But me personally, I just want to have a coffee with my mates because I know that being on my own has driven me slightly mad. I was a bit mad, but I mean, I know I'm really round the bend. Because there's nothing to take the edge off. No, and there's no one to get evil thoughts out of your head, confused thoughts out of your head.

Normally, you think, oh, my God, I'm going to die, or my neighbour or my grandchildren are going to die if they go back to school. A quick discussion with a mate will make you realise that you're talking absolute rubbish. But I haven't had that. So things have got totally out of control. And I'm so fed up with all my friends having achieved a lot. I think you will not be alone in that. Kerry, you have had a baby. We can't take that away from you. And we

definitely want to hear about that. But hopefully you haven't learned French or otherwise. Absolutely no languages, not even Czech, which as I'm based in the Czech Republic would have been the sensible thing to do. I just grew a human and I feel like that's a big enough job, to be honest. Indeed. And what has that been like? Because that would be a very different life altering experience in regular times. The two are kind of intrinsically linked for me now, the pandemic and my baby. So we moved to Prague actually, because we've been trying for a long time. I'm 40, I was 40 last year. And we'd kind of given up hope of having a baby. And of course, as soon as we moved country, we fell

pregnant. So we fell pregnant a few weeks before the first case here in the Czech Republic. And then 12 days after that, the full country lockdown. It was one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe, quite a lot ahead of Britain, actually. So you have this like incredibly exciting, vulnerable time as a as a new mum with a very much wanted baby. And then this the world really just, you know, becoming chaotic. And especially at that time, we didn't know how the virus affected pregnant women, how it affected babies. So it was a real sort of intensity, I guess,

to the whole experience, but still so much gratitude. I think that's the thing. You've got to try and find that balance. And as Sheila was saying, if you're on your own, there's no one to perhaps offset it with. You've got to try and find that balance. And as Sheila was saying, if you're on your own, there's no one to perhaps offset it with. You've got the opposite problem, Yasmin. You've got a lot of people in your home. And I wonder, tell us a bit about what it's been like living with grandma through to sibling. So I live with my parents all the time anyway.

We're not exactly what I'd call a close family. So I just, you know, I'm mostly just alone in my room. And you know, they're in their own room. So it's been pretty much the same. But I think what's affected me most is the way that it plays with your mind. I suffer from depression, anxiety anyway. So on top of that, all this worry, and you know, the constant news and the doom scrolling, it really, really got to me at the beginning. And I always say that lockdown was pretty much my life anyway. I don't socialise much. I don't enjoy going out.

So I do enjoy just spending time in my house. But it was so hard to do anything like I, you know, make a living writing books. So that is just sitting in my room at my desk but I couldn't even do that because of how it had affected my mental state and I think that's the horrible thing that we're still dealing with you know a year on and I don't see it going away anytime soon. Kerry let me let me say that to you I recognize you've now got a a child in tow so life's going to be a bit different anyway but do you think you're going to go straight back? Oh my god yes stop me you know stop me if you can um I have already planned about 500 trips overseas um and to every crowded public place I can

possibly go to um obviously I think what's been interesting is that a baby just does make your life a little bit smaller in many ways. And then pandemic does, too. We are a very long way away from that in the Czech Republic, though. We're still in a very strict lockdown at the moment. We have some of the worst contagion in the world per capita. So we're really looking at possibly even not even seeing a lockdown to the end of the year. So a lot of it's about trying to remember that things might not even go back to normal. They might be better than they were before because, as Sheila said,

so many things have been recognised about where society hasn't quite worked and people have identified those. Yes. Sheila, bring you back in. I'm actually quite scared of coming out. I'm so enjoying the fact that I am now wearing my bottoms or dirty old trousers and I don't wear makeup and my hair is,

I just cut bits off when it gets too long. I've quite enjoyed being slutty and I'm quite worried about having to look all right, you know. I look like a bag lady when I go out. You do not. I'm looking at you now, you look great. No, no, well, I've made the effort for you. But when I go out, I have a terrible woolly hat and a horrible coat.

And I do look, I mean, social services are going to knock on the door eventually. But I mean, I just, I find also the fact of being disciplined again. You know, I mean, I will be because the next thing I'm doing is a television and and that is necessitates getting up at a certain time being in makeup and you know and and shooting and and I I need that because I realized this last year in my 88th year I've realized I have no self-discipline at all which is why I'm also trying to finish a book. And I have managed to write some books, but it's been a real effort. Just with something you were saying there, and I should say, I'm looking forward to watching you in Great Canal Journeys on Channel 4.

But I was going to ask what you were saying there about being worried about coming out. I think that's a real thing right now. People thinking, I'm not quite sure how to get back to whatever it was before. Yeah. And to drop the things that you didn't like. There's a lot of people that I don't actually want to meet again. Do you know what I mean? I've quite enjoyed just being on Zoom, you know, but I'll now have to be polite to them again because that's what we do. Yasmin, do you think this time of perhaps being in, which is what you were doing and like to do before anyway, do you think there's anything that you will do differently afterwards? I don't think so.

I think I'm terrified of going back to how things were. I don't think we ever will. And I think it's sort of like, you know, hearing, you know, the government saying that they aim for things to be back to normal within, you know, June and July. I've got a book coming out in July. And the idea of having like a launch party or doing events terrifies me, you know, meeting people, being close to them. Like it worries me how you can sort of promote a book as you would in normal times in the times we're in now. I think... This is your second young adult novel, This Is My Truth, coming up in the summer.

But I suppose it's also just about reconnecting with those that you perhaps haven't been able to see. You know, at a much lower level, I know that there's young ones in your family that you're worried perhaps, especially your mum's been worried about them not even recognizing her yeah I have um a nephew who's um two years old and um he was zooming with my sister and he had to ask his sibling who she was because um he didn't recognize her anyone that's just so so sad to hear because we used to see them you know we used to seeing them every weekend and things like that so to hear things like that, it really breaks your heart.

And I can't imagine what it must be like for Kerry to have, you know, a new baby who's having to sort of miss out on that interaction with other children and things like that. It's worrying so much. And all the support that you need when you've got a young baby. Do you get that? Are you getting that? Kerry, everyone's turned very concerned for you.

Go on. Actually, I mean, I'm really lucky that I have a phenomenal partner and one of the nicest things has been that I've fallen in love all over again with him because if you want to test your marriage, have a baby during a pandemic in a country that is not your own country.

So no baby groups, no my son's never seen me outside without a mask unless I'm also holding a takeaway cup of coffee. He obviously hasn't met his grandparents and his, our wider relatives. And that's really kind of the most heartbreaking thing because he's four and a half months now. So he's growing all the time and changing.

And we just want them to be able to give him a cuddle. So those are the really hard things about it, I think. And that was Kerry Hudson, Sheila Hancock and Yasmin Rahman in conversation. Many of you have been getting in touch, sharing your tales of being locked down. Catherine says, My experience was that in the first lockdown,

community blossomed into something wonderful, neighbours supporting each other at every turn. That and the sunshine made it bearable. And I think it will continue beyond the pandemic. We now have local communication networks set up. But the winter lockdown was a different matter. The just checking you're OK phone call stopped and everyone hid away. There was much more of what Sheila Hancock said that could have been me and when you do talk to people no one can quite remember how to converse as with any major knock it's going to take time to recover and this message from Chris she says on a personal level I'm walked out zoomed out

baked out and knitted out and desperate to get over to the Netherlands to see my new grandson born in November. We usually get together many times during a year and it's been awful having your daughter go through such a major life experience and not being able to lend a hand. Yesterday was the official Independence Day of Bangladesh. In March 1971, Pakistani troops carried out a raid against prominent Bengali nationalists and intellectuals in an attempt to curb the growing independence movement in what was then called East Pakistan. It marked the beginning of the Bangladesh Liberation War. After nine months of conflict, East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan and became the independent state of Bangladesh on 16 December. The war had left 3 million people dead

and a further 10 million people were displaced in India. The region, of course, was once all a part of the British Empire as it ruled over the subcontinent. According to the most recent census, there are now over 450,000 Bangladeshis living in Britain today. It is a time for reflection, analysis and celebration. And we're doing just that with Nadia Ali, who presents the Bangladesh Music, Entertainment and News show on the BBC Asian Network, and Shahz Abedin, who is a community worker from Swansea.

She told me about her mum's experience of the war. My mum has shared quite a lot about her experience because she was in Bangladesh during that war period. She was about 14 years old and she's part of a big family, predominantly girls. So my grandparents were very worried about their safety and the extended family safety. So they had bunkers around their property. So all the girls would be put into the bunkers and food and whatnot would, provisions would be provided there.

They were quite tightly closed bunkers. And then the men would be guarding the property. My mum came from a very affluent background, wealthy as well. So they had quite a lot of riches to protect. So the men were there guarding the property, guarding the wealth. My mum actually told me that my grandmother saved up some jewellery to give away to her daughters when they get married.

So she put them in a little hanky, all put together, wrapped up and given to one of my mum's sisters, the older sister. And then they went into the bunker, protecting that themselves, while the men were up looking after the house. My mum also said that when they were moving from one location to another, they would have to do it in the middle of the night, and they'd be walking and walking in the dark, fearful, and my grandparents would ensure that they'd be dressed in rags and look a lot older than their age and frail and looked as if they had a lot of illness

so that they wouldn't attract the attention of the wrong people because there was a lot of abuse and rape, all that ongoing. So my grandparents were very, very fearful. Of course, after that period, and even prior to that, after the Second World War, there was large immigration of Bangladeshi men to the UK. And Nadia, I believe your father was one of them or your grandfather. Tell us about that. So my grandfather came to the UK in the 60s, in the 60s before the war. So it was still East

Pakistan. And he came to the country to study, to become a barrister. And, you know, it was such a struggle for him when he did come. You know, back in the days, if we look at the 60s, you know, he faced racism. English was not his first language. And, you know, there weren't many, not even Bangladeshis, there weren't many Asians at the time in the UK. So, you know, being a Bangladeshi, as you quite rightly mentioned, when we look at South Asia as a whole, Bangladesh usually gets forgotten about. And I think it's because it's such a young country, you know, it's 50 years old.

When my grandfather came at the time, there was no representation. He was one of the only British Bangladeshis here that could speak English, that was educated. So I remember that there would be a queue of people outside the council flat where my grandfather, my grandmother lived. And it would be Bangladeshis that would need help with their bills, that needed help with writing letters, that needed help with their immigration status. And my granddad would help them for free because he felt like he had to, that we had to be united. We had to be united we had to be one it brings me quite nicely into my grandmother because my grandmother my grandfather was here for seven years without my grandmother so my grandmother got married when she was 15 had my father at 16 um and then had my

auntie at twin uh sorry 16 yeah about 19 very young parents yeah she went to utah university which is the equivalent to Oxford. She studied because my grandfather said it was very important for her to be educated and for her to pass that on to her children. My grandfather really supported my grandmother. She trained as a schoolteacher here in the UK and wore a sari to a school. She was a proper schoolteacher in primary school, which is huge. That's a lot of work to put on seven yards every morning

before you go and teach 30 kids. Hats off to your mother. I know, my grandma. She had her bindi. She was ready. She was ready for school. And I've actually got a beautiful picture of where she, at that time in the late 70s, you know,

the schoolteachers were predominantly white females. And she actually took all her saris in one Eid and said, we're all going to dress up in saris. And she did. And she made them. And, you know, and it's just so beautiful to see that, you know, from Bangladesh 50 years ago to now in Britain, how much we've come forward. And I see that in my grandparents. Shaz, what about your family's tale I believe your family have been involved in the restaurant industry. Yes well my dad came over to the UK before the war broke off and when the situation was terrible in Bangladesh my dad was

the earner here sending money back home to support his family. So the only way of earning at the time was through a trade that was quite common. So catering, restaurant. My dad's brother-in-law opened up a restaurant in Swansea, one of the first in Swansea, known as Bombay Grill. And although it was a restaurant owned by Bengalis, run by Bengalis, The name Bombay Grill was there just so that people knew India a lot better than Bangladesh because of the reasons we've just spoken about. And so dad worked there pretty much the best part of his youth and supported his family in Bangladesh. But I imagine it can't have been easy moving to somewhere like Swansea,

not very diverse at that time at least. It can't have been easy. No, it wasn't. I think there was a minority of BAME community residents here. And I think the largest was Bangladeshi community at the time. And you would only talk about a few households and they all knew each other. And over time, that has grown, obviously. But when my dad was here he remembers that there

was probably a handful of households that they would all communicate with each other and with that one restaurant most of the men from those families worked in that one restaurant and so they were a unit. Do you know it's lovely to hear you both so proud of your heritage how are you going to be marking 50 years of Bangladesh? We'd be celebrating as a family. Basically, language is quite important within our family. I'm one of seven siblings and we've grown up learning the language, speaking the language quite fluently around each other. When it comes to the new generation, my nieces and nephews,

they tend to shy away from speaking the language. It's tougher with the next generation, yeah. So we've created this game where our nieces and nephews would have to narrate some of the stories that they know in Bangla. Good luck. Obviously, it would have to happen via a digital platform, whether it's WhatsApp or not. But this is what we'll be celebrating,

the heritage of the language that we have got amongst us now. And that was Shahz Abedin and Nadia Ali. The National Portrait Gallery is currently closed for renovation, but when it reopens in 2023, it promises to be a different place. The last commission before it closed involved two women, a portrait of the author Zadie Smith by the artist Toyin Oji Odutola. But these are relatively rare within the context of the rest of the permanent collection, with 88% of the artists and 75% of the sitters being men. On Wednesday, Emma talked to Toyin

Oji Odutola and to the artist Roxanna Halls, who focuses on images of women. First, the curator and art historian Dr Flavia Frigeri explained why there are so few portraits of women now. I think it goes back to tradition, the tradition of portraiture. I mean, you must think traditionally portraits were very much mostly focusing on men because men were the ones that had prominence in cultural, social, political spheres. Women were very much traditionally relegated to the household, the domestic realm. So they weren't so much the subjects of portraits,

unless obviously they were from a certain class. So that's why, in a way, it's important now that we reclaim a place for them because women made history throughout times and that we know and we should celebrate. Yes but I suppose if you've got a gap in what's available or what was actually created what do you do is it about commissioning new work? It's a mix of things in the sense yes you can commission new work by contemporary artists and asking them to do what one can say a historic intervention but also we have material we may not have portraits necessarily of women in

gilded frames but we have photographs we have prints showing them often you know in different contexts but what's important is also to reclaim this material and say this is equally important this tells us a story that we should be knowing about a woman who's made strides in whatever field that might be because you you also think photography is very important in this and is there a specific example of women you're trying to bring back into the frame um tons of examples but i won't uh keep you here hours. So I'll give you one that I think is a very good one. So the woman Anne Aikson, who probably you've never heard of, was the very first female fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors. But the reason why she's an example of a woman I'm trying to bring back into the frame is she is the woman who invented

the plaster cast. So if today our bones heal properly, it's thanks to Anne Aikson that during the war was volunteering and thanks to her anatomy skills and experience was able to develop and invent that as a system, the plaster cast. That's an example of someone we don't represent in the collection. There's not even a photograph of her. So she's an example of someone that I'm actively researching a photograph of for the collection. And you're trying to include that within the collection. Fascinating to hear her story. Toyin, what were you trying to do with Zadie Smith's portrait? Tell us about, you know, creating now and painting

a woman. And may I say, I've been lucky enough to have a good look at it. You can look it up online and it is wonderful. The portrait really was just a dream come true because I got to work with someone who I really admire. And I knew that there was very few portraiture in the National Portrait Gallery of women of colour, particularly black women. So I was very few portraiture in the National Portrait Gallery of women of color, particularly Black women. So I was very conscious of the choices I was gonna make in the picture. And so what I wanted to do was to have an inclusive picture.

It's not simply just an image or a capturing of Zadie. It's more of a portrait of Black Britain and all the people that can look at that portrait and feel like they belong to that narrative. And that was key for me. And the ease that she has in the portrait was also intentioned. I didn't want her to feel like she was subject to the gaze,

which is often an issue when you're creating any sort of image of a figure. There's, especially a woman, you always have this concern that they're going to look at her in a very particular way. And I wanted her to look like she didn't care how you looked at her or if you looked at her, she was going to be fine. And she had agency and she could do whatever she wanted. I wanted to show her humanity and also show that, I mean, I don't know if I can curse, but she's a badass. And I just thought that was so great that I had the opportunity to do that. Yeah, because we do think of portraits, don't we, as quite stiff.

Let me bring Roxana into this. Do you think women paint women differently? To an extent, that's inevitable, isn't it? I mean, I wouldn't want to make any kind of gross generalisations about the differences between male artists and female artists. Much has been said about that. But I think it's inevitable that we bring to bear everything that we know and everything that we experience into our work. So I think there will be key differences, yes. And how do you feel hearing about this change at the Portrait Gallery? You know, the idea that we're trying now to correct this. And where do you come into that at working as a female artist today? I am really excited. I'm absolutely thrilled that the National Portrait Gallery is doing this. It's not before time. And it's vital. This is vital that we see ourselves reflected, that we see diverse voices and that we get a fuller picture of who is working today, who is achieving today.

I think without having female voices, it is like having only half an orchestra playing. It's like keeping half of the instruments in the orchestra in their cases. I think we need the full sound. Talking arts there with Roxana Halls, Toyin Oji-Odutola and Dr Flavia Frigeri. Last year, the National Crime Agency assessed there were at least 300,000 individuals posing a sexual threat to children in the UK and warned of such a spike in online child sexual abuse offending during the pandemic. The Stop It Now helpline run by the child protection charity the Lucy Faithful Foundation is a nationwide service which offers advice and support for men viewing illegal sexual images of

under 18s or feeling that they are on the verge of doing so. And it also has reported an increase in people seeking help for their illegal online behaviour since the beginning of lockdown. In a moment, we'll hear from Donald Finlater, the director of the Stop It Now helpline, and from Sarah, not her real name, who was supported by the charity when her husband was arrested. First, here's Chris, who called the helpline when he was arrested.

The male voice you'll hear belongs to an actor. I started viewing legal adult pornography at an early age, 12 or 13. And over my teenage years, I spent a lot of time viewing explicit legal material that was shaping my developing brain, and I almost feel I became reliant on it. Porn, for me, became a kind of support blanket, and when my relationship with my ex-wife began to break down and I had difficulties with my job, causing increasing stress and anxiety, I became more and more reliant on it. Viewing porn became like an addiction, and in my very depressed state,

my usual go-to sites were no longer providing the same level of relief, which led me to looking elsewhere. I've spent a lot of time assessing why and how I got myself into this position, and there are very clear cycles at play as I move further towards sexual images of under 18s. It began with me taking a slight risk in the things I was viewing, stronger legal material, getting a release and then dealing with the shame of what I'd done. But when some time passes and there have been no consequences, I began the cycle again with another step towards more risky material.

This process takes a long time, and each time the boundary preventing you from searching for the material becomes more and more eroded. I justified my actions because I didn't view anything on the internet as real. I was able to disassociate this from reality and as I had no perception of the impact my actions were having on children in the real world, I was able to continue on my spiral. I feel shame at my actions but I start every day now by hoping I can show society I can turn my life around and provide a positive contribution of some kind. Had you fantasised about children before?

I had never fantasised about children before and I do not now. A large part of the thrill associated wasn't the material itself, but that I shouldn't have been doing it. I believe firmly that I was able to act in the manner that I did because my offences were non-contact offences, and I viewed the internet as something completely separate from reality. I genuinely believed I wasn't hurting anyone, and that allowed me to continue down the path I outlined before. Do other people know what you did? All my family know what I did as do my children and a number of

personal and family friends. My family have all stood by me and without my parents and close family I feel perhaps I wouldn't be around anymore to try and make a difference in some small way for myself and more importantly for my children. Would you do it again? My answer is a very strong no. Each person who heads down this path has their own reasons for reaching this point despite a lot of similar themes and I can only reaffirm that I have no interest in destroying my life again. I'm incredibly lucky to have been given a second chance and I will not waste it after so much faith has been placed in me by my family and friends. Chris, you called the Stop It Now helpline when he was arrested and that voice was of an actor's. We're talking to Donald Findlater, who's the director of the

helpline since it began in 2002. Donald, is Chris a paedophile? From that account, I would say not. If you understand a paedophile is someone with a primary sexual interest in prepubescent children. This man that we just had an account from, Chris, is such a typical story of people viewing sexual images of children online, of a primary sexual interest in adults met through pornography use in part, and then migrating to viewing increasingly egregious material, extreme material, including material involving children. That doesn't mean he can't become a paedophile over time if this becomes his sole interest.

But at the moment, I would say not. Because there seems to be a disassociation with what he's actually looking at that you know where he said I genuinely believed I wasn't hurting anyone and because it was a non-contact offence and I think that's a very frightening but important thing to explore. Look I entirely agree and one of the primary pieces of work we do in education and treatment programmes is get these men to think about the people in the images, the children who have been harmed. Because, frankly, at the time that they're viewing this material in a sexually aroused state, they're viewing it as pornography for their own personal pleasure. They're not thinking at all about the individual and the circumstance they're in. And important that they need to do that journey and recognise the harm those children have suffered and the shame that they need to engage with about them taking pleasure from that harm. In terms of the work that your helpline does, a large part of it is also supporting those who are looking for advice about someone in their life who's going through this or gone through this.

And let's have a listen now to Sarah, not her real name, who was supported by your Stop It Now helpline when her husband was arrested. Her words are also voiced by an actor. My husband of 25 years was arrested nearly five years ago for the possession of indecent images. I had no idea what he was doing until the police raided our house early one morning as I was upstairs getting ready for work. I was convinced that there must have been some mistake. I drove over to the police station that evening and was able to speak alone to my husband for the first time since the police had arrived that morning. It was at that point that he confessed to viewing pornography for 10 years, including illegal material for the last two years. My two daughters reacted very differently. The elder girl was tearful and outraged, then intensely curious.

She immediately wanted to have contact with her father to ask him lots of questions about the house and the wives. It'd been viewing a large number of very extreme images and was fortunate to escape a custodial sentence. I've remarried and moved away. Many women do choose to stick with their partners but I knew our marriage could never be the same again because he'd been betraying my trust for the past decade. Also, he would have constantly been apologising to me and I don't think a successful relationship can develop on such an unequal footing. Furthermore, as a teacher, I would not have been able to continue my career unless I had distanced myself from him. Eventually, the girls both rebuilt their relationships with their father and they have a good relationship with me too.

However, that has been under strain at times because I've moved on and rebuilt my life whereas they feel sorry for their poor father who's depressed and living a pretty impoverished life now they say they understand but I'm sure there's a part of them that thinks I should have stuck with him. Sarah there who was supported by the Stop It Now helpline Donald who runs that helpline, is taking us through this. What has happened, do you think, over the last year to make this worse or is it that we're monitoring it differently? And for people who are concerned about the policing of this, you're a former probation officer, are we doing a good enough job?

The UK globally is doing probably the best job I've seen in terms of tackling all forms of child sexual abuse, including online online of any police force indeed any country in the world whether we're in the vanguard of all the developments and others are learning from us which doesn't mean we've got it right yet it just means we're getting better and there's a bigger push now towards uh towards prevention um and one way we I can demonstrate some level of success is the fact that year on year since 2015, we've had more and more calls to the Stop It Now helpline from people either concerned

about their own behaviour online or concerned about the behaviour of a loved one. And that's a vital thing that people in households are noticing and doing something about it. Noticing a partner, an adult loved one, or indeed a teenager in the family doing something egregious online. We need to notice and take action as soon as we possibly can. Why COVID? Why has this made it worse? Well, frankly, if you talk to the porn companies, they will tell you there's been a vast increase in the viewing of adult pornography online. And sadly, a proportion of that will end up migrating towards viewing sexual images of children. People are bored, people are depressed, people have limited recreational possibilities. But people will give themselves all sorts of excuses as to why they do

bad things. And sadly, that COVID and the restrictions we've all had to live within provide some of those excuses. So I don't take any kind of delight in saying that, but there's no reason people should break the law in this way. But there's every reason to say there is help available to stop. And that was Donald Finlayter, Sarah and Chris. We're going to turn our attention to events that took place in Atlanta in the US earlier this month, when eight people at three different spas and massage parlours in and around the city were killed. Six of the eight victims were women of Asian descent. Activists have pointed to an increase in racially motivated attacks against Asian Americans throughout the pandemic.

But it's also something that many say is happening here in the UK as well, even more so since the pandemic began. I talked to Mayan Peterson, co-founder of Be Seen, which stands for the British East and Southeast Asian Network, and to Zing Sing, executive editor of Vice UK. How did she feel when she heard that the attacks in Atlanta were said to not be racially motivated? I was completely appalled, to be honest.

And I think you have to put this in context of the fact that many people in the East and Southeast Asian community here are fully aware of the rise in coronavirus related racism and hate crime. Many people have personal first time experience of it themselves. And then to hear a police officer who is investigating a case of the murders of eight people, six of whom are of Asian descent, proceed to ignore the obvious racial motivations for a crime like this, just felt like a real slap in the face. Just to be clear he said that he a quote here that the suspect said he had a sex addiction but of course like you many in the East Asian community

are calling out those words and it's important to stress that there was no confirmation that these women were sex workers as well. Mayan let me bring in bring you in here the organisation that you work with be seen was set up by you and five other women of East or Southeast Asian descent. It's a grassroots movement. It aims to tackle negative stereotypes and promote positive media representation of the community. And what was your response, therefore, to the coverage of these women who were killed last week? Well, I think it's safe to say that what the global East and Southeast Asian diaspora is feeling at the moment is a sense of collective grief, but also one of trauma,

because I think that particularly with the especially violent uptick in incidents against notably East and Southeast Asian elders in the US, although we have seen a lot of incidents in the UK, Australia, across Europe, was one of commonality. I think that a lot of us really saw ourselves or our family members in the victims. And it also struck home because unfortunately, most East and Southeast Asian women will know very well that racism and misogyny often go hand in hand together. And it's unfortunate, but it's true that EC women, that's East and Southeast Asian women, experience a kind of hypersexualization and fetishization from an alarmingly young age. So I think there was a really a collective feeling there. Yeah, absolutely. And what I'm keen to

understand from you is how this has changed over the past few months. I mean, we've had comments from the likes of former President Trump calling the virus the China flu, and that's obviously led to an increase, some say, in the number of cases of hate crime against Asian Americans. What's the situation here in the UK? How have those numbers and experiences changed? Yes, we can certainly trace a line from the inflammatory language used by people like Donald Trump across the pond. But also we can look, for example, at just before Christmas, we have people like Nigel Farage tweeting, thanks, China, Christmas is cancelled. And that leads to quite an increase in online hate. bigoted behavior to, unfortunately, as we've seen with the Atlanta killings, a real life manifestation of the mistrust and misogyny that's kind of deeply ingrained in a lot of people's

consciousness today. And our organization, Be Seen, was founded in response to a noticeable increase in negative media representation of people of East or Southeast Asian appearance surrounding the pandemic reporting, and an overall frustration at the lack of visibility of EC people in Britain anyway. That is to say that there's no positive or very little positive representation to kind of balance it out. And so what we're really doing is trying to create a space for community to share thoughts and opinions and a kind of positive spotlighting, reclaiming the narrative to put EC voices and faces out there in a space whose parameters are defined by us and for us, because unfortunately, we don't see that in the wider social consciousness at the moment. Could you share with us possibly your personal take

on this, what you might have experienced? Mayan, I know you were born and raised here in the UK. So why don't we start with you? I was actually born in Hong Kong, but you're right, I grew up in London. And in terms of COVID-related racism, I think I myself have managed to avoid the worst of that treatment because I spent a lot of the pandemic out of the country. So most of what I've experienced has been online or inflammatory comments. But it's actually quite a sobering feeling to realise that I feel lucky not to have had anything more serious while friends and family members have been racially harassed several times. And that leads to increased feelings of fear when leaving the house. those sort of, I don't refer to them fondly, as regular microaggressions, which, although the name suggests that they're small, trivial occurrences, can add up over many years to cause quite significant harm to people's well-being. I mean, for example, people making fun of the shape of

EC people's eyes, making indistinguishable martial arts noises, or making fun of EC languages, and suggesting that I eat dogs and cats or questioning my nationality. You call that microaggression, but when I hear that, I feel like it's definitely not that. It's a lot more. Yeah. And this is stuff that starts in the playground and continues throughout your adult life. And in addition to that, I think that women will often notice that as they grow older, the treatment and harassment that they receive becomes increasingly intersected with their gender.

And I've mentioned this hypersexualization before. And a lot of that blame for that lies with the stereotyping that we see on screen and in the media. And personally, I started receiving racialized sexual harassment from the age of about 13, wearing my school uniform out in public. People would shout things like, me love you long time and make jokes about my partners or that first one being a line from a very well-known film about the US war in Vietnam. And this is hugely problematic across multiple

axes because it says a lot about our social consciousness when it comes to women, East and Southeast Asian people, sex workers and migrants. And so that's why it's critical to look at the Atlanta shootings with an intersectional approach. Zing, what about you? What about your personal take on this and your personal experience? So I have quite a unique experience in that I moved to the UK when I was a teenager. So I went from being part of a dominant majority ethnicity, which is Chinese Singaporean in Singapore, where I grew up and went to becoming part of a relatively small minority. And I think that because of my desire to not stick out and stick my head above the parapet, I spent a lot of time brushing off racism as just a kind of failure of cultural understanding, you know, those kooky Brits. And yet I didn't really get for a very long time why, for instance, when men came up to me in public spaces, pubs, bars, clubs, bus stops, even, they would try and

speak any number of East or Southeast Asian languages that I didn't speak myself, usually very badly, bow to me, compliment me on my English. At the time, I don't think I had the language to understand that these were microaggressions. But now I kind of liken these microaggressions to sort of being stabbed with a very, very subtle knife repeatedly. Right. So you might not notice it when it first starts happening. But over time, it adds up. And then you realize that, you know, you've been quite injured over a period of time just by the sheer weight of them stacking up. And what was harder to ignore when I came to the UK was the overt racial abuse. So I've had racial slurs directed to me at you know tube stops I've had it directed to me online and there's definitely

been uptick in the amount of racialized harassment I got as a woman journalist online in the last year since the COVID pandemic and this is very much I think the tip of the iceberg for a lot of people of EC descent you know I've only been here for about just over 10 years. And I consider myself relatively fortunate to not have suffered more intense racial harassment. You know, I think back to cases like Jonathan Mock, who is a Singaporean student who was attacked in Broaddale on Oxford Street so badly he needed facial surgery. But Singh, isn't it incredible that there's almost a kind of radar, there's almost a chart, a level of you feeling fortunate that you haven't experienced that degree of harassment in any way.

Moving this forward, going forward, I mean, last year we saw the global outrage after the killing of George Floyd in the US and those conversations around the Black Lives Matter movements. Listening to what you're saying, do you feel the East and Southeast Asian community were left out of those conversations, are left out of those conversations? What needs to be done going forward? I think that, you know, what the Black Lives Matter

movement did for especially people like me who, you know, have spent quite a long time trying to assimilate and not engage with their ethnicity was to show a path forward, that there is a path to kind of discussing racism and tackling it. So, you know, I really admire what Black Lives Matter has managed to achieve in such a short amount of time. I think the conversation for people of EC descent is much further behind, especially in the UK. And, you know, I talk about... And more so for women as well, Zing?

Yes, exactly. And I talk about these microaggressions as part of a tapestry of discrimination, right? So Joe Bloggs down the pub might think nothing of coming up to a woman who looks like me and bowing deeply and trying to speak whatever he thinks is my language. But for a woman of EC descent, that immediately calls up a whole history of racialised and sexualised abuse that they've suffered. So that's why I want people to understand that this is all part of the same tapestry of discrimination. The views there of Zing Singh and Mayan Peterson.

Time to talk money, or rather digital money, and the rise of young women investing in cryptocurrencies. New research released by the Financial Conduct Authority shows that the profile of people making investments is changing. New investors are more likely to be female, younger, and from black and ethnic minority backgrounds. They're more reliant on social media for tips and tend to use investment apps. There's also concern that they're less educated and take bigger risks using gut instinct. Susanna Streeter is a senior investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdowne. But first, Jasmine Bertels explained what cryptocurrencies are.

Unlike what you would talk about normal money, fiat currencies, pounds, dollars, etc., cryptocurrencies are decentralized. So there's no central authority that produces them and ratifies the transactions. It's done on a decentralized ledger across the world, across thousands and thousands of computers. So every transaction is recorded on all of these computers, which means that nobody can go in and change them. And they work on something called the blockchain, which is a technology that is run by what are called miners.

So anybody who has these computers, they help to unpick the cryptography, the puzzles that keep those transactions secure. And by doing it, much of the time, they can actually make Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever the cryptocurrency is. So that's how the actual currency is produced at the same time. So digital tokens almost,

not controlled by a bank or a government. It's something that you dabble with a bit. Is it a bit of a boys club? Well, it has been, but there are a lot of women and I'm frankly, I'm pleased to hear that more women, okay, they say young women are investing in cryptocurrencies. As you say, I do invest, I have Bitcoin, Ethereum, and one or two of the smaller cryptocurrencies. I think of it as the future of money. So my view of it is a long-term view. I am not happy about people just going in to make a quick buck. That to me, any sort of alleged investing is basically gambling. So I am unhappy about that. But I am pleased to hear about more women at least investing, whether it's stocks and shares or cryptocurrency. I'm very

pleased to hear that that's happening. Susanna, let's bring you in here. The figures from the FCA show that women now make up more than 50% of new self-investors. Surprised by that? And has lockdown possibly accelerated this trend? I think certainly you've seen during lockdown many more investors dipping their toe into stock markets for the first time. What is really worrying though in this report from the Financial Conduct Authority is that it shows that some of those new investors

are investing in these really risky speculative assets. Now, Jasmine's talking about a Bitcoin view for the longer term. The problem is many investors are literally jumping into it, putting their money into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with the expectation that they'll make a fast buck. They're not looking at whether it's got intrinsic value. And certainly many would say it doesn't have that. It's very difficult as a means of exchange at the moment. And so there are so many warning lights around about Bitcoin. And it is this danger that what people are doing is rather than looking at it as a long-term investment, they simply are trying to ride the wave, buy in and then sell out at a higher price.

And of course, they don't ever know exactly when that will come. So the problem is they could end up getting their fingers burnt. And this is very problematic because although, as Jasmine was saying, it is really encouraging to see people investing for the first time, what they need to do is make sure that their risk is diversified and it's across a range of assets and that they don't get swept along by the hype, which is being propelled by social media influences in particular. A link to what you're saying. I've seen reports suggest that this rise is due to what people are being called as DIY investors.

And it also found that they're often being swayed by influences on sites such as Instagram and TikTok. Where should people turn to for advice on these matters, Jasmine? Well, I mean, I would blow my own trumpet and say I actually do webinars through my website, moneymagpie.com. We talk about all types of investing

for beginner investors. And we do lots about how to start investing in the stock market and, of course, in cryptocurrencies. But there are also a number of other websites. Of course, frankly, the BBC website has some pretty good articles about how to start investing. It explains very well what cryptocurrencies are. And there are also some specialist sites like CoinDesk, for example, which has a lot of articles, quite a lot of them difficult to understand unless you've been in the crypto sphere for a few years.

But there are a number of places that you can go for sensible advice. And I would certainly say anything that you see on social media, you should immediately assume is a scam because there are scams all over the Internet, particularly on social media. Also, though, in emails directed to certain people saying, oh, you know, there's this new crypto thing and we've got a trading platform for cryptocurrency. It's highly likely that they're run by criminals and that you will never see your money again. So you have to be very careful and really read up first just to find out to start off with which are the right platforms to use that are pucker and won't just take your money. Some good guidance there. Susanna, how do women traditionally fare as investors, maybe in more traditional forms or cryptocurrency,

when it comes to their male peers? Well, certainly, the research has shown, in fact, there's some research from University of Warwick in 2018 showing that actually when women do invest in the stock market, they have a return around 1% higher than men. And that is because actually they have been found not to indulge in this really more speculative behaviour, switching and ditching stocks. And they are much more inclined to look at their investments over the longer term. So in many ways, although it's great to see more women coming in uh dipping their toe into the market for the first time it is worrying that perhaps might be changing their behaviors and being too risky

however all you know investing poses a risk and there is a risk as well of leaving your money languishing in an instant access savings account so guilty about yes yeah so in fact if you look over a historic basis, if you invest in the stock market, a tracker fund, tracking the stock market on a historic basis, you could see an annual return. We have seen an annual total return around 8% a year. So it's a huge difference.

But women are not putting their money into stocks and shares, ISIS, at the same rate as men at all, 23%. And more men put money into stocks and shares ISAs at the same rate as men at all, 23%. And more men put money into stocks and shares ISAs. So women are being left behind. And that ISA gap is widening, unfortunately. And that was the money expert, Jasmine Bertels and Susanna Streeter, a senior investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdowne. That's all from me for today.

Join Emma on Monday morning, just after 10. 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.