Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Sarah Ransome, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Donna Ward

Episode Date: January 1, 2022

British woman Sarah Ransome says she wanted to be at Ghislaine Maxwell trial when it started: not to testify but to see justice take its course. Like the four women who gave evidence, she says she's also a victim of Epstein's and Maxwell's. She tells us more about her story and Harriet Wistrich, founder of Centre for Women's Justice discusses the wider impact this case could have. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, is a world renowned human rights and climate change activist, who has made it her life's work to protect her Inuit culture and the Arctic regions where Inuit live, in Greenland, Canada and Alaska. She was born in Arctic Canada and launched the first legal petition linking climate change to human rights. We discuss the word 'spinster' and what it really means with Australian author Donna Ward. Her new book She I Dare Not Name: A Spinster's Meditations on Life., explores the meaning and purpose she has fought to find in a life lived entirely accidentally without a partner or children.BBC History is launching a 100 objects collection to mark 100 years of the BBC in 2022. Head of History Robert Seatter gives us a sneak peak into a few objects which represent the history of women at the BBC including a 1930s job advert looking to recruit the first women TV announcers, a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey and a 1920s scrapbook from Evelyn Dove, the first black female singer to perform on BBC.British women weren't allowed to visit the Antarctic until 1983 but now scores of women are making major contributions to polar science. Morgan Seag who has just submitted her PhD in gendered institutional change in 20th century Antarctic science to the University of Cambridge and Jo Johnson who has visited Antarctica seven times tell us more.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Andrea Catherwood and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. This is where we bring you select standout moments from the week just gone. Following the verdict in Ghislaine Maxwell's trial, we'll hear my conversation with Sarah Ransom, a British woman repeatedly raped by Epstein and abused by Maxwell. Plus, we meet a woman who's made it her life's work to protect her Inuit culture and the Arctic. And what do you think of the word spinster? Reclaiming is such a curious word because it sounds like I want to put a gloss on it.

And I don't want to say or say to anyone really that I'm spinster and proud because I'm not spinster and proud. I am spinster. Australian author Donna Ward tells us about her new book. Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison, yet to be sentenced. We got the verdict on Thursday. She's guilty of recruiting and trafficking young girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein. She was found guilty on five of the six counts she faced, including the most serious charge, that of sex trafficking a minor. Her family have said she will appeal.

Four victims of Maxwell and Epstein testified in court. After the verdict, the only one to have waived her anonymity, Annie Farmer, gave this statement. She said, I'm so relieved and grateful that the jury recognised the pattern of predatory behaviour that Maxwell engaged in for years and find her guilty. She's caused hurt to many more women than the few of us who had the chance to testify in the courtroom. I hope that this verdict brings solace to all who need it and demonstrates that no-one is above the law.

One woman there in the New York courtroom at the beginning of the trial was Sarah Ransom. She wasn't one of the four who testified in this case. She'd previously settled a civil case with Maxwell and Epstein. She's a British woman who was repeatedly raped by Epstein and describes Maxwell as the ringleader and the enforcer. She spoke to me, it's the first time she's spoken to British media since the verdict, and started by telling me how it was sitting in court during the trial. I managed to get into the main courtroom and, know I was there for closing arguments and for me there is

not enough money in the world that would ever be able to compensate for that moment when Ghislaine and I locked eyes with each other and you know I said on a on a previous interview, you know, it was, there was a time when Ghislaine forced me into Jeffrey's room to be raped. And afterwards, when I looked at her, she smiled. Now, Ghislaine, I mean, this is a sadistic, sick woman. You know, she took great pleasure in humiliating, hurting other human beings. So for me, when I finally had that moment, when I locked eyes with her, and she's the one sitting, fighting for her life now, because she's going to spend the rest of her life in prison behind bars. I'm not. I'm free.

So, yeah, that moment when we looked at each other was just the most phenomenal moment. And I'll never, ever, ever forget that. Did she recognise you immediately? Of course she recognised me and so did her lawyers, Laura Menninger. Sarah, you grew up in Britain and South Africa. At 22, you moved to New York, a young woman in an exciting city, hoping to study fashion.

How did you meet Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell? So I was just in a nightclub as any 22 year old girl would do. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. I did nothing wrong. You know, and immediately I was befriended by a girl my age. She immediately warmed to me, started asking me about me, you know, you know, gosh, you've got beautiful eyes, you know, asking me why I was there. She literally, she was a trained interviewer. She, that was what her job was. And I mean, I, I,

looking back, I was almost like prey, you know, in a water with a shark literally coming for the prey. And that's exactly how it was. And I had a great time with her. You know, I'd made a new friend and then she sort of phones me and says, you know, do you want to come to the cinema? You know, I really liked you. And, you know, I really, you know, your story is really, you know, I really liked you and you know I really you know your story is really um you know I really want to help you and you know there's this wonderful kind generous um man who you know he he's a philanthropist and he believes in young talent

and and I believe in you and and he genuinely wants to help you and this was Jeffrey Epstein and this is Jeffrey Epstein so I'm like well I mean okay great you know so I rock up to the cinema I mean when you go to the cinema you're not expecting that the next time you're going to see that person they're going to be raping you on an island, you know, on a private island somewhere. I mean, that doesn't go hand in hand. So how did you end up on the island? You were invited there by Jeffrey Epstein.

Yes, I went to the cinema. There were 10 other girls there. Again, beautiful, really engaging. And then we watched a movie, nothing untoward, nothing sexual, insinuated. And then I get a call from Natalia. You know, Jeffrey absolutely. Natalia was the girl that you'd met in the club originally. Natalia was the girl who recruited me.

And next thing I know, Natalia's phoning me saying, you know, Jeffrey, absolutely. You know, he really enjoyed meeting you. Do you want to come for this girls weekend? What 22 year old who has no friends, no girlfriends in a new city wouldn't want to go for a girls weekend? I mean, I just, you know, and it was literally bam as soon as as soon as I got to the island um bearing in mind there was an incident on the plane ride over with Jeffrey and Natalia um you know where they another you know where they had full-blown sex in front of me but because the other girls on the plane, they didn't react. It was like normal. I thought, well, okay, this is completely shocking to me,

but maybe there's something wrong with me. As soon as you got to the island, passports taken, phones taken, the whole atmosphere completely changes as soon as I got to that island. I believe that you met Ghislaine Maxwell on that island. That is correct yes. What were your impressions of her? I was immediately told to fear her. Geoffrey made it very clear by saying to me you do not cross Ghislaine she is the woman of the house and it was made very clear to me that she was the go-to lady. She ran everything. She controlled everything. You've written in your book a very graphic account of what happened.

The book's called Silence No More. And one of the incidents that you talk about happened on that infamous island. And the reason I would like you to tell us it is because there will be people who are listening who are thinking, well, why didn't you just run away? But when you were on the beach there and you actually thought about just getting into the water and swimming to safety or swimming, I don't know where, what happened to you? Maxwell came to find you.

That specific day I had been raped. I had been bullied by Ghislaine. Ghislaine had taken my food away and I knew I thought I was actually going to. I was that hungry. I thought I was actually going to die. And that is when I just I just cracked and I got in a quad bike and I actually drove to a remote part of the island because I knew that they would find me by the beach. And the island wasn't so much as a beach per se. There was a jetty. But anyways, and they knew exactly where I was.

It was at night time. I wanted to climb down the rocks. This was sort of just by a sort of a cliff. And, I mean, I was that desperate. I was going to die trying to escape. And they brought me back. Ghislaine brought me back. How did she do that?

What did she say? She became very kind and nurturing. So you must understand, when you, in any sex trafficking, and this is what's really important, and I hope my book really educates people on the grooming process. Because when you're in a situation where you are constantly tortured, raped, bullied, any scrap of kindness, you're like a hungry dog. You latch onto it. And that is called the trauma bond. And that's what groomers do.

So she very quickly, you know, apologize. You know, I didn't mean it. You know, come back to the house. Everything will be okay. And that continues for a certain amount of time to build your trust up again, because you can't get out. I mean, everyone assumed I could just get on a plane and just go.

That was not how it happened. I was threatened daily that if we ever told anybody, went to the authorities, went to our families, that I and my family would be killed. We'd be taken out. And you've written that Ghislaine Maxwell had actually got details of your family's contacts, phone numbers for them. Of course they did. That's the first thing that they did.

And you were living at this point in a flat that was owned by Jeffrey Epstein. Absolutely. So now I'm now in a situation where, you know, I'm, yes, he's paying for my accommodation, but I'll be homeless on the street. I mean, you know, and now everyone assumes, well, why didn't you escape? Well, I tried to escape. I tried to escape twice. There was another occasion in New York where I tried to escape. I didn't answer Jeffrey when he demanded that I go to his New York mansion. I was just walking on the street. The car pulls up next to me. I'm forced in the car, driven back to his mansion and raped. He knew exactly where I was.

And please do not assume I ever escaped Jeffrey. I escaped Jeffrey the day he died. Ghislaine Maxwell's defenders have said that she has been made a scapegoat. In fact, her brother on Radio 4, Ian, this morning, said that he thinks that she stood trial because Epstein couldn't. Do you have any sympathy for that view? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And I think it's despicable. Absolutely despicable, what her brother's saying.

How much of an influence was it that Ghislaine Maxwell was a woman in being able to draw you into the relationship and to make you stay? Well, I mean, that is the main, that is the fundamental, the fundamental, you know, structure of how the sex trafficking ring lasted for so many years. This is a sex trafficking ring that has raped hundreds, if not thousands of children and young women. This was an organization, sex trafficking pyramid that was run by women. This sex trafficking pyramid wouldn't exist without Ghislaine. She was the enforcer. I want to talk to you about women being believed and victim shaming. And if you don't mind, I'd like to read some of your own words to you from the beginning of your book, because I think they're very powerful.

You wrote that when a survivor discloses her abuse, some forget the manipulation and look instead at her skirt length or how much cleavage did she bear, how red her lipstick was. You've been very open about the fact that you weren't perfect. I mean, who is? And that people who haven't led spotless lives should be listened to. Do you think that this verdict does widen the net of who can be believed? Absolutely. And you know what? It was, you know, the defence in the Maxwell trial, you know, used the same old victim shaming, you know, and it's the same old victim shaming that's been going on for decades, honestly. You know, I have been called every single name under the sun.

You name it, I've been called every single name under the sun. You name it, I've been called it. And, you know, I'm so sick to death of it because no one on the planet can tell me that what happened to me, me being raped, was my fault. No one deserves to be raped. I don't care what you've done. And that, for me, is why I wrote my book. Because I haven't been perfect. And I wanted to explain to people, instead of judging me, listen, listen to my story. That was Sarah Ransom. I also spoke to Harriet Wistrich, founder of Centre for Women's Justice, about the wider impact of this landmark case and what it might change

for women being believed in the future. It's obviously really important that there's been, you know, an outcome and that these women have been believed. Of course, we've been here

again and again and again in the last, you know, decade. You know, we go back to to the Saville case, the Epstein, sorry the the um Epster uh sorry the um Max Weinstein you know the recent conviction uh there are a whole series of cases where women are now be beginning to be believed in in some of high profile cases. That's incredibly important because, of course, for so long, powerful men in particular have relied on their power and their ability to continue to abuse because they can pay people off. They can defend themselves because of their power. And so the fact that there's some degree of crumbling

of that ability to protect themselves and their power is very positive. But we mustn't forget that we're still facing a massive problem in terms of the day-to-day prosecution and convictions of sexual offences. And it's a huge problem and there needs to be, you know, the sort of resources put into this case, put into prosecuting all the other men who benefited

from the trafficking that Maxwell provided, that Epstein facilitated, and of course, just more generally to sexual violence cases. Ghislaine Maxwell was obviously very well known. She was already, you know, she was the daughter of a former press baron, Robert Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell moved in the highest circles of American celebrity. So this was always going to be a very high profile trial. Do you think the fact that she is a woman is important? Because it may be that there are people who feel that a woman is less likely to have committed these crimes. And indeed, the girls themselves actually

testified that one of the reasons they trusted her was because of her gender. Yeah, well, this is a very common tactic of traffickers and abusers, that if they can use a woman to lure in other women, then they will do, precisely for that reason that young women may be more likely to trust a female. That doesn't make her crime more abhorrent than the crime of the men that actually abuse and rape these young women, but it certainly makes her very complicit in that. But the focus of her as a defendant, because she's female, and the way in which she's she's monsterized as a female

um is in in some ways disproportionate to the way in which um male abusers are are focused on so that that is not in any way to say her crimes are not uh you know very very grave but um you know the the where a woman steps out of line uh and behaves in this way, she will be the focus of extreme media attention and monsterising. And what we want to see now is and what we should see is what about the rest of the entourage who facilitated the grooming and trafficking and abuse of these young women? And what about all the powerful men that were provided with young underage girls to rape? What about them? Are they going to be held to account now? You mentioned that this is one in a series of high profile cases recently. Do you think they really have a positive impact? Do you see more women coming forward and stepping up to go through what is a very harrowing process because of these high

profile show trials, if we can call them that? Yes, I think they are an important signal. They're an important signal, particularly if you've been abused by somebody powerful to know that this is not the, that coming forward can result in justice. So I think it is important. And I think we have seen increased reporting because there is an increased focus and possibility of justice. But it is an incredibly tough journey to undertake. And, you know, we should absolutely salute the courage of those that do come forward. And they do so not just for themselves,

but they do so because they know there are other victims out there. And, you know, that is why so many women put themselves through what is an incredibly tough process to try and bring rapists, sex traffickers and abusers to justice. Harriet Wistrich there. Well, lots of you sent us your thoughts on this. Sue says that she was sexually molested by a woman when she was a child. It's still the case that women's sexual predators often slip below the public radar, she says. By the time I disclosed it, the perpetrator had died. I've got huge respect for those women who have come forward in a case like this and put themselves through such a

gruelling ordeal. And Laura says it's so powerful to listen to Sarah describe not being believed and the shame and victim blaming that happens. When my 12-year-old daughter was raped, what happened to her following disclosure was unbelievable. And she says it wasn't the rape that ruined her life, it was the telling. Now, Sila Waklutie is a world-renowned human rights and climate change activist who's made it her life's work to protect her Inuit culture and the Arctic. Inuit people refer to those living in Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada and Alaska. She was born in Arctic Canada. She was elected as president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and launched the first legal petition linking climate change to human rights,

work that led to her being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She spoke to Emma and started by describing what life was like for her growing up. I was born in a small community, which was a Hudson's Bay Company post called Old Fort Chimel. My humble beginnings are traveling by dog team the first 10 years of my life. And we lived very traditionally hunting and fishing and gathering. And I didn't know any English until I started school at the age of six years old. And then at 10, I was sent away for school like many indigenous children were across the country in Canada. And that's where I was born. That's how you began life. Travelling only by dog sled is very different to lots of people I speak to. So just very much painting an image for us. And you were very close to your mother and grandmother, I understand. I wondered if you

could share some of the traditions that they practised that you remember as a child. Well, I mean, we still practise every activity. We still live a very traditional life. My mother and grandmother were single mothers, and they raised us children. Because in those days, you know, the white fathers didn't stay. And so they were left with their children. My grandfather was a Scotsman, William Watt, who came over with the Hudson's Bay Company, had three children with my grandmother, and then he was gone. But we lived very traditionally with my mother and my grandmother, and they were my role models. During a time of transition, great transition in the Arctic, they were really the survivors, you know, the women that really worked hard. And they went on to do domestic work for the Hudson's Bay

Company, and allowed for us to have food on the table and to have the ability to go out and still hunt. And my brothers, when they got older, they became the hunters for the family. But before that, my grandmother was the one that would go out and try to fend for herself because it was during that period of time when, you know, we were transitioning into this modern world, you know, bartering for food and so on, and being used for the global market for fur and becoming fur trappers almost overnight to meet that global market for fur. So it was a tough time. And my grandmother had to give up one of her children after my grandfather left, because she was already struggling to raise her children single-handedly. There's some extraordinary details in that as well. And I recognise not lots of things have

changed, but a lot also was changing, which you alluded to. And for anyone unfamiliar with the history of the Inuit in the Arctic Circle, can you explain what the Canadian government did in the 50s and 60s? Well, you know, there was a lot of what we call now, and we have come to understand historical traumas, the major changes that were happening where we were coerced into communities in order for us to attend institutional schools where the land was our teacher for millennia. And everything that we needed to know, the land taught us that, to be able to not just survive, but thrive in the harsh conditions that we have lived in for millennia. And we would teach our children naturally on the land for the opportunities and challenges of life. And then the governments came in and we were brought into communities, put into small matchbox houses and had to attend school.

And by then we were already becoming quite dependent upon family allowances and welfare systems. And if we didn't bring our children into the communities, then those were taken away from us. And so it was a real coercion that was happening. There was also some, you know, I chronicle this in my book, The Right to Be Cold, where, you know, there were forced relocations up into the highest Arctic where we wouldn't have chosen to live up way up that way, where there were very few animals to hunt and so on. But the absolute wisdom and ingenuity of those families that were forced up there in the name of sovereignty, you know, survived many of them, but still the legacy of that trauma still lives on today, generationally. And in terms of the impact this had on the Inuit way of life,

because you said that traditions have carried on, but against this sort of backdrop, how did it change things? Well, it changed things in terms of the trauma and the woundings that really happened during those period of time. You know, we were sent away at the age, you know, very young age. I was one of them, having lost my language and having to gain it back. But there was also the animal rights movement that came in and really demolished the ability for us in a transitioning world of being able to sell the seal pelts from the byproduct of the subsistence hunt, that really demoralized the hunters and wounded their ability and their

self-worth to be able to provide for their families with the byproduct of that hunt that we do. You're bringing up there killing seals, which as you put it, is an important part of Inuit way of life. But you are also obviously aware that many people have been and continue to be deeply upset by this idea on the animal rights side of things. Well, we were impacted by the broad stroke that they came in to try to be anti-commercial sailing against that without fully knowing, you know, that this was our way of life. And because people have become very squeamish about seeing blood on the ice, you know, there's a real judgment here that has happened over the years. And for us, you know, blood on the ice means we're going to eat,

we're going to celebrate. And it's not a confirmation of death, it's actually an affirmation of life. And those kinds of differences of opinions, you know, have really interfered with a way of life that is so honoring of every animal that we harvest and hunt. And it's about life giving life for us. I mentioned that you have campaigned all your life to protect Inuit culture in the Arctic and launched that first legal petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights back in 2007, linking climate change to human rights. How was that received at the time?

Well, we were ahead of our time when it came to making these kinds of connections. You know, climate change was always about politics and science and economics. And it was a very academic kind of way of looking at climate change. And so we were humanizing this issue. And we pioneered that work. And I led that campaign on linking climate change to human rights. And of course, in the beginning, people didn't quite get that. Because people are used to human rights being violated on an individual basis, like, for example, torture and that sort of thing, you know, that would happen with human rights violations. But never did they really think about collective rights being violated and that a whole way of life of people were being negatively impacted. Our right to health, our right to educate our children

on that ice, our right to safety, security, mobility, transportation, housing, all of those things which are entrenched in international law to begin with, but they were all being minimized and destroyed as a result of climate change, and more so today. It takes a long time for the world to even understand these Arctic issues, much less understand that it's connecting to everybody else today. We not long ago had COP26, of course, a convening of the world leaders. How much faith do you have that they do get it now and how climate change is affecting communities in the Arctic right now?

Well, the thing is, I don't think the governments are necessarily getting it. I mean, they do, they understand it. But because they're so entrenched in unsustainable activities, it's very difficult for that kind of movement to happen within government. So I don't focus on those kind of issues anymore because I left elected politics way back in 2005 and have been working on these issues with civil society, those who wish to make changes. And I think in spite of, you know, the COP meetings, which perhaps in a sense can be almost obsolete now in terms of it being effective, not to throw everything out with, you know, in terms of what can be done there,

civil society is moving ahead in many ways. You can see the cities trying to green themselves, whether it's in buildings, whether it's in parks, all kinds of ways in which municipalities and cities are moving ahead with the changes they want to make. What about you now? I mean, where do you live? I'm having a look at where you are, like where you're sitting, which we've learned to do looking into each other's homes. Now we all speak on video call. But do you live near where you grew up? Well, I have lived in Nunavut for almost 20 years, Nunavut, which is even further north in the Arctic. And then I moved home to Kujoak, where I was born four and a half years ago. And then one month ago, just a little over one month ago, because of the pandemic, my whole livelihood relies on public events, book events and so on.

And when virtual events started to happen, the Internet is so bad in the north that it hindered my ability to continue to work. And so I've had to temporarily move to Montreal now. Oh, wow. And that's where I am right now because internet is much better here and I'm able to do what I'm doing now with you. Yeah, we're grateful for that. But how much of a wrench is that for you to be away from where you have been living and where you want to be, presumably?

It was a very difficult decision to make, but it was one that I had no choice, really. So I've rented my little home in the Arctic, and now I'm renting some space here in Montreal. In the Arctic, we're often left behind. People are working hard on it to make it work, but it's really, really bad. Sila Watclutie there. Now, Australian author Donna Ward's first book describes the realities of living a single life in a world she sees as designed for couples and families. She, I Dare Not Name, a spinster's meditations after a long period of struggle and depression,

she now thrives as a self-styled spinster, but that it often means dealing with the prejudice and stigma of being different. She spoke to Chloe and started off by talking all about the word spinster. Reclaiming is such a curious word because it sounds like I want to put a gloss on it. And I don't want to say or say to anyone really that I'm spinster and proud because I'm not spinster and proud. I am spinster. And can I say to you,

I began this book as a single woman. You know, I was writing about being single. And as I researched the life of single and the meaning of single, particularly when it comes to statistical surveys, I discovered that single is kind of this heterogeneous, this conglomeration of different kinds of lives and mostly lives that didn't look like mine. Certainly single women, you automatically assume that there's a child attached to the woman, that women have children attached to them.

And I was, when I was being a social worker, fighting for that recognition that women shouldn't be seen just solely as individual members of society, that every woman had a child involved in their life and so their income and housing and all sorts of things needed to take that into consideration. But as I was doing my research what I was finding out was that there was a lot of reflection on single women and those women could be like not yet married or they could be separated or divorced, excuse me, divorced, or they could be sort of between relationships in a way or they could have had a partner living

in another house down the road. So they were living very different lives to me, lives that were quite familied, which is the term that I sort of coined for this book, the idea of I think it's really much better to have a look at the difference between a familied world and a non-familied world. And that brought me into the idea of using the word spinster and bachelor for that term, but that's even more complex. Yeah, sorry.

No, all I was going to say was let us into that world because I know that you were estranged from your family and you initially had some really close friends but as often happens they got married they had children maybe they moved further away and clearly there's technology now which can help that but but many years ago that that wasn't the case so just explain what that life was like and I know you talk a lot in the book about solitude and silence and kind of the difference between that. So let us in on that world, if you would. Yes.

Look, I think there's the big hurdle that I think that single women, childless women face is just, I call it the grand exodus of friends into married life. I mean, once children come along, I perfectly understand that they're very, very busy. Women and families are very, very busy. And so friendship at that time, from the 30s probably until the 60s, really stretches out into the icing on the cake of another person's life, which leaves someone like me confronting the big reality of more solitude than you probably signed up for, and probably more

solitude than you thought you had sanity for. Now, I discovered I have quite a robust psychology. I certainly went through some very deep moments, but I've got quite a robust psychology and many people don't have, and we're finding that out through the pandemic, the intensity of having to stay in your own home for a very long time. Even I found that quite different. But that solitude allowed me to think, to actually challenge some ideas around solitude. People compare and contrast solitude with loneliness and say solitude's like the good happy version. Loneliness is the bad version you want to stay away from and the

project is to really bring yourself from loneliness into solitude. Well I see it differently. I see solitude or I've come to see solitude as the terrain of my life in which I live. Sometimes there's loneliness in that. I have feelings of loneliness. I think I call it the gritty beast in the book, the idea of loneliness, desperation, despair. You see, we all have this in our lives. We all have loneliness, desperation and despair. And we need to challenge it and live through it somehow. And so I thought it occurred to me that that's just as much solitude

as those glorious transcendent moments when you feel at one with the universe and very happy with everyone else and your life in general. And we mustn't forget here as well that you didn't make a conscious decision to say, I don't want children. I don't want a partner. I want to do this. This is something that just happened. Yes. And that holds a particular peccadillo in itself i would love to have chosen my life i think we'd all love to have chosen our

lives um if you have chosen the life that you're living whether it's um to be single and childless or whether it's to be coupled and with 10 children, who knows, if you have managed to luck out and choose the life that you're living, then, you know, you're in the winning seat really. But most of us haven't. We don't choose our life. Life happens to us and that's kind of chaotic. We blame ourselves for it not being the way we choose and I think that's something that we need to attend to.

So there is still a stigma you feel attached to the life that you lead? I think there's several versions of stigma. I kind of think of it as prejudice, but stigma is part of stigmas. You know, the minute I say I'm a spinster, there's that stigma. But I think that prejudice kind of ripples through everyone's lives. Certainly there's a prejudice against, from family people against being non-family,

that sort of pity that your life is, you've missed out on something. I don't notice that I've missed out on something. There's that prejudice. Then there's even within the singles world this split between whether you've chosen your existence and therefore single and proud or spinster and proud or whether you haven't and you're theoretically unhappy and want to be something else,

you know, whereas I would say that, of course, there are times in your life where you're unhappy with your life and would want it to be somewhere else, and the story is how to move to a different place in being. Sorry, I was just going to ask you if technology has aided you in connecting and reconnecting with people. So many of us, as you mentioned with the pandemic, we've had to have a smaller world forced upon us, technology has saved so many people if it's not too big a proclamation to make yeah look I have to say it certainly reconnected me with friends and I feel

like I've got close relationships with people all over the world now in fact I was just reconnecting with a friend in France the other day. So that's a remarkable thing. But I have to say what's most remarkable is that this pandemic has brought technology to play so much in my life. And, I mean, the fact that I'm here today talking to you about my book is a remarkable wonder of technology. And also I think because everyone got onto technology

and said this is what my life's like, you know, this is what I'm going through, there's whole conversations and groups that I've been able to connect with people I've met online who I'll never meet in real life. Just sharing the experience of the pandemic brand of solitude has been quite a remarkable, I feel like it's broken open, a presence in my house that I didn't have in my 40s. Author Donna Ward there. Well, we got a lot of feedback from you about this. One anonymous listener says, I can't go along with the positive view of single life being put forward by others.

I can't bring myself to spell out how bad I find it these days. I'd be too ashamed. This is not a life I like. And with every year that passes, my hope fades more. Faking it for the world is exhausting. Sonia says, I totally relate to the idea of solitude as the landscape of my life and that unfamilied people are not recognised as having a place in society. I've been single for most of my life and feel as though I live in a grey area at the side of main society. And Vivian has emailed us to say, nothing is lonelier than being with someone who won't hear you and doesn't see you. Solitude is a privilege which many, many cultures won't allow a woman. Let's enjoy it. Well, still to come on the programme, women working in polar science. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any day of the week if you can't join us live at 10am during the week. Just subscribe to the daily podcast free via the Woman's Hour any day of the week. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast free via the Women's Hour website.

This year, 2022, the BBC marks its centenary becoming the first major public service broadcaster to reach 100 years of continuous broadcasting. Alongside it, BBC History will be launching its 100 Objects collection that tells the inside story of the BBC. Head of History, Robert Seater, selected several objects to reflect the history of women at the BBC. He spoke to Chloe Tilley, who asked him first what the BBC was like 100 years ago. It was completely magic. So it was initially all about the tech. And when I talk about it, I often talk about it like in a similar way to online. It was a sort of male preserve. It was technical. It was something that mended in sheds. And then suddenly people realise in the

space of a few years what you can do with it. And it transforms people's lives. The early days of radio are so fascinating because suddenly you realise at the turn of a switch you can have the voice of the king, classical music, band music, timekeeping, weather, it utterly transforms the nation and then that just those changes go on and on as television comes, as colour changes and people moderate and change their lives and broadcasting in a way becomes a sort of memory of all of our lives. So tell us some of the objects that you've selected today. Well you're getting a tantalising taste because I've selected three actually you've got four you've got an extra one too and actually it's really interesting coming at the end of the programme because I'm picking up I think themes

that when you were talking about Janice you were talking about the trailblazer Lorna was talking about you know black women in a very male organisation and how that's changed. So the first object really plays to that tune because it's Evelyn Dove's scrapbook. And Evelyn Dove was a black woman. We think she was the first black woman to sing on BBC radio in 1925. It's only three years after the dawn of radio. And she was a mixed race woman. She had a classical music education,

Royal Academy of Music. And then she had a very successful career in cabaret and musical. She sang on the continent. She took over from Josephine Baker in the Casino de Paris. So she had a very successful career. But what broadcasting does

and what this scrapbook shows is how broadcasting gave her a completely different platform. It amplified her career and enabled her to be the trailblazer that she became. Even though she's not that well known now, I hope she will be better known after The Hundred Objects. But in the scrapbook, you get all the pictures, all the cuttings from the Radio Times and the other press of the day about her as a singing star in the early radio days. And then she transitioned to television and became a star on television. So she's a trailblazing woman in the world of music, in the world of the BBC. Let's talk about another female influence.

You've got a press cutting of a job advert, haven't you, for the BBC? Yes, and I'm going to read also the requirements for the presenter, Chloe. Which I won't fit, but let's go with it. Just to see if you make the cut. So we're moving into the 30s. It's the decade of television. It's much earlier than people think. So in 36, the BBC launches the world's first ever high definition television service.

And the year before, they put out a call for female TV presenters or hostesses. And this is what you have to have. You have to have a super personality, a face which makes a first class picture, a mezzo voice and a good memory. And you really had to have a good memory because there was no autocue. So from that range of superlative patents, that terrifying list of requirements, they got thousands of applications. In fact, Gerald Koch, who was the director of television, was quoted as saying, an impossible situation has arisen. Women all over the world want to be announcers so basically this flood of requests and then they finally finally i'm amazed they even managed to find two they select two

women jasmine bligh and elizabeth cowell who in their mid-20s who become stars overnight and it literally and visibly and metaphorically puts women set to. Because in the early days of radio, they were always male voices doing announcements and news, and they were never named because they thought that the personality would intrude into the news giving. So basically, these two women become stars of early television. When television closes during the war years, Jasmine Bly is the first voice, the first face you see,

saying, hello, face you see saying, hello, do you remember me? Welcome back. Let's talk about the Indian cookbook, which you've selected for us. So in 1982, she's the first woman really to promote true Indian cookery on air. And she does the book Type TV Tie-In, which had just been done with Delia Smith,

funded by the Education Department. And the great thing about Madhu Jaffray is that she became a chef completely by accident. She couldn't cook at all. She was in this bed-sit in London. She wrote to her mother. These airmail letters came back to her with all the recipes. And she began to learn how to cook. And that's what she did on television for the nation. She transformed the British nation into a nation of curry lovers. And she made us, by stealth, by love, by aberration for her, a multicultural nation in the heart of the home.

And tell us... Yes, go ahead. We've got a couple of minutes left, but this is the one I really wanted to talk about. Well, we couldn't tell the story of the nation and the story of the BBC without showcasing Woman's Hour, because you have been an amazing vehicle for showing the transformation of women's lives and the ongoing transformation. So what we have as your showcase object is the Woman's Hour quilt from 1993, which celebrates your 50th anniversary and 75 years of suffrage. And so the 80 patches came from all your different listeners

and they told personal, very personal and very diverse stories of women. So you have first female priests, you have female workers in World War II using parachute silk they'd made, you have female activists and they're all made into this wonderful quilt, which is now actually in the V&A. So it's enshrined in the nation's history of craft making. And yeah, so that's one of our star objects. And it must have been very difficult to select

which of those patches went into the quilt because how many were there? Maybe 80 in the quilt? And clearly many were there? Maybe 80 in the quilt? And clearly there were many more. 80 patches. And thankfully that task didn't fall to me, but that was Jenny. And also I think she had curators from the V&A.

So they were looking at it as a piece of, which is what it is, a piece of social history, capturing all that story and all the aspirations to come as well. Robert Seater from BBC History. Now, British women were banned from visiting Antarctica until 1983 when Janet Thompson was finally granted passage by the British Antarctic Survey, the organisation that coordinates trips to perform research in that polar region.

But now scores of women are making major contributions to this field of science, especially those working on the stability of ice shelves and sheets. So how did women break through the ice ceiling to create opportunities and become leaders in their field? Emma spoke to Morgan Siag, who's just submitted her PhD on this subject to Cambridge University, and Jo Johnson, who's visited Antarctica seven times with the British Antarctic Survey. Morgan began by explaining why women were told they couldn't go to Antarctica. The ostensible reason was that there were no facilities for women in Antarctica, but that was a superficial excuse. And in fact, one woman in the 1960s reportedly received a reply from the British Antarctic Survey saying that they didn't think women would like to visit the Antarctic anyways.

There were no facilities. In other words, there were no toilets, there were no shops, there were no hairdressers. But of course, the superficial excuse really underlied much more foundational anxieties. They were worried about sociality and sexuality on the ice. A gentleman who was among the leadership of Bass in the 1970s and 80s said that even for an all-male community, morale is balanced on a knife edge, and an insignificant occurrence can have a snowballing effect and shatter morale on station. So they were worried that women would arrive and the sort of cultural social norms on stations wouldn't be able to withstand the pressures of sex. They were not talking about homosexuality at the time. That was very much swept under the rug. And I think there's

a brilliant quote from the leader of the U.S. Antarctic operations in the 1950s who said, we won't be having any women on the ice unless we can provide one woman for every man. Wow. Yeah, quite striking. But still underneath these anxieties, the Antarctic was seen as a stage for proving British masculinity, dating back to the expeditions of Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton. And so I think that they were worried that women would sort of shatter this illusion. And US Antarctic leader George Dufec said, women would wreck the illusion of being frontiersmen going into a new land, the illusion of being a hero. And yet, I suppose what was going on with the men there at the time, were they being heroes? What do we know about what was going on?

Certainly there are risks involved in working in the Antarctic. Fatalities and tragedies taking place. But the reality at the same time is that for most people, life in the Antarctic has been fairly mundane, a little bit tedious, maybe boring, especially if you're confined to the station for a couple of years at a time. And so there's this, I think, fear that women might emasculate the Antarctic by demonstrating that in fact, it's not quite all it's cracked up to be in terms of these masculine mythologies of heroism. And the first woman who worked in the interior of the continent with Bass, a glaciologist named Liz Morris. She worked on the ice first in 1987 to 88. And she said that she suspected that the men who were resistant to her participation might have worried that if, in her words, a middle-aged woman with no particular physical skills could hack it, then how could they be heroes? But she

says that once she arrived, the men realized that her presence didn't make the crevasses any more frightening, didn't make the workload any more or less difficult. And then they began to accept her participation. And I mentioned before her, just before her came, Janet Thompson, the first British woman to be allowed. Tell us a little about her. So Janet Thompson was a geologist who began working with Bass in the 1960s. And when you say Bass, you're talking about the British Antarctic Survey. I am, yes. And in the 1970s, she was offered an opportunity to participate in an Antarctic expedition with the U.S. Antarctic Program. So her first strategy to reach the ice was actually to resign from her position at Bass in order to participate on a U.S. expedition.

And that was how she first managed to work in the Antarctic region. And then in the early 1980s, yet another strategy that she employed was women administrators were going south. And when she heard that a last minute trip for scientists was being planned, she said, oh, well, there's empty spaces on this berth. It's last minute. Why don't you send me? And so Bass was backed into a corner essentially being unable to tell Janet that she couldn't visit the region since they were sending the administrators and so she was able to visit the region in 1983. Good old Janet

eh? Jo Johnson listening to this it's enough work I imagine to prepare to actually go on this trip never mind to have to try and sneak your way on or find a way onto it because you're a woman yeah gosh just listening to that makes me realize how times have changed you know I just have so much respect for those people for paving the way for people like me and also is is it a bastion of masculinity when you get there are you seeing men still looking at women like you like come over come overhead, but don't disturb my work? No, I've never experienced that, actually. I've been incredibly fortunate to go to Antarctica seven times. And I first went about 19 years ago.

So, you know, there's a good span of time there. But even the first few times I went, I was just really fortunate to have great male mentors amongst my colleagues, people who sort of took me under their wing and showed me how to operate in Antarctica, how to actually survive and look after myself. Can you describe to us what it's actually like to be there? Yeah, so I spend several weeks, usually sort of six to eight weeks camping in remote field sites on the ice. And I'm a geologist, so I work on the rocks close by and so I'm going to really remote places many hundreds if not thousands of miles from the nearest proper research station or indeed where people are so I guess there's a real sense of sort of privilege that I'm doing something that very few other people get to do going to absolutely beautiful wildernesses where nobody has ever been before

in some situations and it's just so special and I think there's a real sense of it being so untouched by humans as well and it's just incredible really and you feel really vulnerable in that environment I think as well as you realize that you're just there alone with maybe one other person and you have to look after each other and there's a kind of sense that you are surviving as well as doing the work and the work for you is what what's the focus and so I'm a geologist I'm using rocks to find out how big the Antarctic ice sheet was in the past and we need that information to be able to understand more about some of the processes that drive ice sheet changes today and we're using models to predict how much the Antarctic ice sheet will contribute to future sea level rise but we need to be able to sort of ground truth those

models so that if they can't reproduce what we know happened in the past to the ice sheets then they won't be so reliable at producing predictions of what might happen in the future. So it's all about using what I can tell from the rocks to inform us about how the ice sheets can respond to warmer climates. Morgan Siag and Jo Johnson there. And you can listen back to our programme on women of ice and snow on BBC Science. And our content inspired many of you to get in touch. Lynn, who is 76, emailed us about walking barefoot. She writes, since September 2019, I've been walking every day barefoot in my garden,

which is an average-sized garden. As soon as I get up, I put on my dressing gown and I go out for a walk in all weathers. The feeling of opening the back door, slipping off my slippers and putting my feet on the grass is so good. I look at the sky and then I look at every plant and I see how they are doing. The birds arrive

and I feel grateful and well. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Beating climate change is a tough job, but we've got a famously tough guy on our side. I think that we have to go and button up and work together in order to really conquer this problem. 39 Ways to Save the Planet is the podcast from BBC Radio 4 that meets the sharpest brains with the best ideas to cut the carbon. And it's a podcast with a famous fan, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

One of my favorite chapters was when you talked about the things that we can do right away, the nuclear power, when you talk about the smaller reactors, or for instance, the dry rice, or, you know, the carbon capturing and all of those kind of things. There's so many things that we can do technologically. If you want to hear more from Arne and a host of inspiring innovators all taking the fight to climate change, then subscribe to 39 Ways to Save the Planet on BBC Sounds. We've terminated problems in the past. I think that we can do it again. It's the bottom line. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.