Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour - The Feminisation of alcohol marketing, Nudity & Sculptor Bridget McCrum

Episode Date: September 19, 2020

How does the feminisation of alcohol work? We hear from Carol Emslie a Professor of substance use and misuse at the School of Health and Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University, Kate Baily a podcast host and the co-author of Love Yourself Sober – a self-care guide to alcohol-free living for busy mothers and from Dr Athanasia Daskalopoulou, a Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Liverpool Management School.What are the pros and cons of being naked in front of your children? Rosie Haine, a writer and illustrator whose book is called “It Isn’t Rude to be Nude and Dr Keon West, a psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, discuss.Three quarters of black women do not feel the NHS protects them equally. That’s according to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights which commissioned a poll on being Black in the UK. We hear from researcher Celine Henry and Harriet Harman MP Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.Julia Gillard, once Prime Minister of Australia, and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, economist and international development expert from Nigeria and also a woman with experience at the top of the Nigerian politics, have come together to explore women and leadership. They tell us about the book they’ve written together.Bridget McCrum didn’t start her career as a sculptor until she was in her forties. Now at 86 she is still working with stone and in the last 10 years has had more interest in her work than ever - a recent commission sold for 68, 000 pounds. The author Nina Stibbe tells us about winning the Comedy Women in Print Prize with her book ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’ with chair of the judges Marian Keyes. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Sarah Crawley

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.

Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good afternoon. In today's programme, a children's picture book called It Isn't Rude to be Nude. But how comfortable are families with being naked around the house? Research commissioned by the Joint Committee on Human Rights finds three quarters of black women feel the NHS does not protect them equally. Harriet Harman MP and the researcher Celine Henry discuss. And Women and Leadership, the former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, recommends preparation for the sexism you'll face.

Be ready that there will be times when there are moments when you are treated differently because you're a woman. Think about that in advance so that you're not blindsided in those moments, so that you've got a game plan. Bridget McCrum joined us from Devon to explain how her career as a sculptor began in her 40s and continues now she's 86. And the winner of the Comedy Women in Print Prize, Nina Stibbe, and her take on the mother she created in Reasons to be Cheerful. She says, I'm a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists

and I've got a singing voice and I'm thin but the only thing that's ever given me any acknowledgement is having five babies so I see her as a victim not a villain. If you've been looking at advertising on television in magazines and in newspapers recently you may have noticed a distinct change in the way ads are aimed at women. Suddenly there's a lot of wino clock, the colour pink, a lot of glitter and the slogan female empowerment. How well does the feminisation of booze work? Well, Kate Bailey is one of the authors of Love Yourself Sober. Dr Athanasia Daskalopoulou is a lecturer in marketing at the University of Liverpool's

Management School and Carol Emsley is Professor of Substance Use and Misuse at the School of Health and Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University. What has her research shown are the trends between women and alcohol? Our research at Glasgow Caledonian University has showed how alcohol is used to demonstrate our identity to others. So we went out to talk to women in their 30s and 40s and asked them about drinking and what it meant to them. And we know that from this research, women used alcohol really to try and show their identity beyond the responsibilities

associated with being a woman in midlife. And they summed this up with stories and laughter around timeout and transformation. So the idea that alcohol provides relaxation at the end of the day and timeout from responsibilities. Also this transformation where women felt that they were transformed back to carefree youth away from their responsibilities. And how would you say, Carol, it's being marketed? Well, we know that the alcohol industry is increasingly designing and promoting products for women. And so we've seen a move away from sexualising women to sell alcohol to men towards alcohol brands themselves trying to align their products

with sophistication, with women's empowerment and with female friendship to sell alcohol to women. And this is really straight out of the tobacco industry playbook with slogans such as you've come a long way baby in the 60s trying to align products tobacco in that case with women's liberation. Athanasia what examples have you noticed of advertising to women being linked to feminism sisterhood wine o'clock? It's really not surprising that alcohol companies are targeting women at the moment

because their socioeconomic power has increased and also their drinking. So we see a feminization of alcohol products, also of drinking spaces with ladies' nights and drinking culture. We see a lot of trends in terms of developing new products such as fruit beers, ready-to-drink beverages, low-calorie drinks, even low-alcohol products. We also see a change in the messages. So we see a focus on slimness, weight, pink packaging, glitter, messages of sisterhood, all-female friendships, motherhood, and also the all-time favorite, sexiness. Messages of empowerment have increased and of a celebration of women, for example, in association with International Women's Day, Valentine's Day, and even Mother's Day.

Kate, what's been your relationship to alcohol? How much has gender played a part in it? I think I've been on the ground, as it were, and being in sober forums for the last eight years. And most of these forums were set up with pretty much all of them for women by women. And so it's very interesting to hear what sort of comes out of there. And one of the big reasons mandy and i wrote wrote our book and do the work we do is that we saw a massive impact on on mothers and this linked kind of mummy juice wine o'clock and this that women were using alcohol to kind of it's the acceptable face of self-medication stress release we were sold it as this kind of

reward at the end of the day and once you start on picking the kind of mental health links obviously the cancer links and we feel that mums are a very vulnerable group in terms of their mental health it's something like one in three experience mental health issues in early motherhood so it's really like so when you're sort of self-medicating this kind of anxiety and using it for that kind of reason you're very vulnerable at risk of sliding down the scale of the alcohol use disorder so it's not like this okay you're normal and then you're an alcoholic there's a spectrum according to the world health organization so you'll be in that kind of harmful and hazardous place if you are drinking in that way and we've seen that um very much and and myself included so really there's this kind of like okay well it's the

pressures on women so what does it's okay what do you make then of the way it seems increasingly to be marketed? Well, I think there's a few things happening there. I think that there's also been the rise of social media. And I think the kind of mummy wine o'clock, it came out of a kind of a good place. It had a good heart it was women suddenly instead of everything looking like a bowden bum fight and icing the cupcakes and looking like a supermodel there were real women on the rise of instagram and social media you know breastfeeding in the bathroom surrounded by washing but unfortunately that real parenting got coupled with drinking

and so you'd have bottles of wine in prams, mummy juice, you know, calm on the outside, Prosecco on the inside. And then the marketeers kind of cashed in on that is the way I see it and kind of really ran with that. So I think we've got to really ask what we actually need.

You know, it's not about shaming, blaming, being perfect, but what do you need? Are you ragged at the end of the day? you need flexible work do you need affordable child care because women are literally limping towards the end of the day and crashing with a few glasses of wine which is in turn going to make their mental health deteriorate how worried are you about women's best interests not being considered by the manufacturers who are paying for the advertising? I am concerned about this. I think Kate's absolutely right.

We shouldn't be blaming women for this. We shouldn't be applying double standards to women in the way that they're being judged more harshly for their drinking, particularly mothers. But what we need to remember is that alcohol advertising normalises drinking. And although the alcohol industry claims only to market to adult, of course, our young people, our daughters, are consuming the same media and taking in the same alcohol messages as adults. And so I think there's a couple of things we can do.

At a policy level, we've got reports coming out, such as the alcohol harm report out yesterday called It's Everywhere, Alcohol's Public Face and Private Harm, which is really calling in the UK government to restrict alcohol advertising. And as Kate said, this needs to be online media as well as broadcast media. We see the rise of social media and influencers selling products to women. We need to think about the alcohol sponsorship of professional sport. And in Scotland, the elite girls team is now being sponsored not by alcohol, but by a public health organisation, SHAP.

And we need an independent regulator. So at policy level, we need to restrict alcohol advertising. We need organisations like Kate's to talk about alcohol-free days or alcohol-free lifestyles so it's not normalised. And we can also try and call out some of these images of pink, fluffy, sparkly advertising. So our social media campaign, hashtag Don't Pink My Drink, tries to do this on Twitter where we ask women to post examples that they've seen in the supermarket of products that are really equating women's drinking with pink, with fun, with friendship, with empowerment. Athanasia, does this form of advertising work? Are women buying more drink because it's pink and glittery?

Or do they think, oh, come on? Actually, unfortunately, there is a market for this type of empowerment and feminism. But it is important to acknowledge that this is a form of feminism that is mostly white, middle class, cisgendered and heterosexual. And we see that these companies are using empowerment as a form of market segmentation. You know, if only women had the right products, the right alcohol drinks, they could achieve anything, anything could be possible for them. But we have to acknowledge that feeling empowered is not the same thing as actually being empowered as a woman. And this is really dangerous because these type of advertisements, they promote a type of neoliberal corporate feminism that doesn't actually challenge deep structural inequalities and doesn't contribute to women's movements and struggles. It is a type of feminism that is very accommodating. It is not difficult. It's not threatening. It's not angry.

It isn't humorless. You know, you are empowered as a woman who drinks, but you're not a killjoy as well, in the words of Sarah Ahmed. I was talking to Dr. Athanasia Daskalopoulou, Carol Elmsley and Kate Bailey, and an email came from Fiona. She said, I used to work in a big department store's women's wear department. At the end of each busy day, we were encouraged by the managers to go home and have a big glass of wine.

It always seemed very unhealthy to me and normalised even glorified drinking. And Jay Wren said on Twitter, yes, Prosecco o'clock, vintagey kitchen signs, mugs that say, wish it was wine, gin lip balms, etc.

All aimed at women and making alcohol the everyday norm. We can crack on with life without decorating our houses with tat, urging us to have a swig of fizz or gin every half hour. Now, I suspect it's not uncommon in a lot of families for mum, dad and little children to wander around the house with no clothes on. In my experience, it gets a bit more difficult as the children get a bit older and neither want to be seen naked nor indeed to see their parents in their birthday suits.

How do we navigate this whole question? How do you communicate that your body is nothing to be ashamed of whilst never creating any embarrassment? Well, Dr. Kian West is a reader in social psychology at Goldsmiths University of London. Rosie Hain is the author and illustrator of a picture book for children called It Isn't Rude to be Nude. It kind of came about because I really enjoy drawing naked people. I've done a lot of life drawing and it's something I just doodle anyway. I tend to draw imaginary naked people and I realised I hadn't really seen that in children's books so I sort of thought I was on to something and then beyond that I just think

it is important to to see people naked in a sort of non-sexual normal context to see adults naked normal adults naked so it kind of came from there. Kian some parents I think are comfortable with nudity others absolutely not What would you say are the pros and cons of either doing it or not doing it? That's a very good question. I would like to say that as early as the 1960s there was quite a lot of research trying to really pin down what the cons were and this research came from a mindset that something was seriously wrong with people who did this, or something very bad would happen to the children if you did that. And so they looked for these bad things throughout the 60s, and to some extent in the 80s and the 90s, and they reliably

didn't find them. So when you say what the cons are, for me, I can't identify any cons, because I'd have to rely on the research to do that. And the research hasn't found any so far. The pros, however, that's a bit of a different story. So sometimes they'd accidentally find pros when they were looking for cons. So they were looking for things like discomfort around sex or physical affection. But they actually found in one study in the 80s, particularly for men, that if their parents were comfortable being naked when they were younger, they were more comfortable with physical affection. And they had healthier sexual relationships. Some studies did find, I guess, the one thing that you could call a con

for both men and women, what they'd call a higher tendency to engage in casual sex. But I think that's more a matter of your personal take on things than an objective con. But what about the teenager who, you know, has been perfectly happy to wander around the house naked with his or her parent, and then suddenly, age 13 or so, says, no, you know, don't come in, I've not got my clothes on. That surely must be a difficult time for a teenager.

Yes. And there haven't really been any good, large empirical studies on what happens to teenagers. So generally people tend to do this research before the teen years or as adults. And I suppose there must still be some some taboos around naked teenagers. And I think we could all understand why but i could say from the very small amount of qualitative research that that isn't really what tends to happen that in families where people are very comfortable with nudity and nothing else has gone wrong there's nothing else that's happened people tend to remain fairly comfortable it's actually in the families where children are taught from very early on that there's something shameful or difficult or worrying that they then become

very close as they get older. Rosie, what was it like for you when you were young? Yeah, my parents weren't prudish. I would see them naked in kind of normal situations, like if they were having a bath and I wanted to go into the bathroom or if they were getting changed. So there was definitely no shame around the naked body. But certainly as I became a teenager, it sort of stopped happening and I didn't really want them to see me naked. And I think, you know, that's just was my choice, I suppose. But then as you got older, would you have been happy? I mean, teenagers are a difficult time for everybody, isn't it?

Yeah, I'm not sure possibly i mean i me and my parents aren't don't see each other naked now um for whatever reason but yeah i'm not quite sure how to answer that question actually kian how does the british attitude to nudity compare with other countries i think it compares there's so many things that are great about the British attitude and so many things that could really use some work. To run over a few things, compared to many of our European neighbours, we are much more prudish, I suppose you could use that word. So we are less likely to take our clothes off and more likely to have a reaction to someone who does. So I mean, one of the biggest differences, I guess, would be when you

look at nude beaches in England, that they're always the really rocky, horrible part of the beach, put to the side, hidden away, protected from everything else, far away from the children. And if you go to a nude beach somewhere else, I've been to some in Germany and in Spain, and they're right in the middle of the beach. They take up prime property, prime space, right in the middle. Everyone can see it. Sometimes you have to walk through it to get to the other beaches and everyone's much more relaxed about it. People don't seem to be as uptight or as excited about it. But why might that be? I think the British, so I think actually a lot of it can be understood even in terms of the way that we as Brits discuss nudity,

when we do it in defense of nudity. So even the title, Nude is Not Rude, it is very much reminiscent of the earlier Black is Beautiful campaign. And you only need a campaign like that if there's a strong societal message that nude is rude, and rude is one easy way of encapsulating it. But in the UK, there is an idea that so many things are caught up in being naked, that if you're naked, you're automatically doing something sexual, you're probably dangerous or predatory to children. And I think very important for me, you're automatically deserving of less respect, that people who are willing to be naked around other people simply should not be treated as well as they would be

otherwise rosie how hard was it to find the right language for this i mean it is essentially a picture book but there are words on every page like everybody has a bum, nipples are normal. And then for boys, you use the word willies and for girls, vulvas. Why? Yeah, so the language of the book was very difficult. And I started out wanting to use those informal sort of silly terms like bum and willy and boobs. But then when I came to girls, it was really difficult because I just couldn't think of a sort of colloquial neutral term to call female genitalia and I kind of thought about using fanny but then some people were uncomfortable with that in the first iteration of the book I used the word vagina

but that's not actually anatomically correct for what you can see in the images and it's often misused to describe the whole of a woman's bits, so to speak, whereas vulva is actually factually correct and what you can see. And I thought it was like a little used word and maybe not known. And so I thought it might be quite nice to introduce it to people and to girls to use if they want to. Kian, what is the best way to discuss nudity and describe bodies to children? What words would you use? So I don't know if there is a single best way.

I'd say there are a range of things you could do that would probably make it better. I think that when it comes to discussing most things with children, I'd say first, be as honest as you can. I don't think children benefit from parents lying you can. I don't think children benefit from parents lying to them. I don't think that's particularly helpful. And the second thing I would say is try to as much as possible be aware of what your own hangups are. We can often pass on our own anxieties to our children just because we haven't dealt with them. And just because you happen to be uncomfortable with some aspect of the human body or some aspect of sexuality or some aspect of something else,

it doesn't mean that you should automatically make your children inheritors of that discomfort. And just finally, Rosie, how did publishers react to you wanting to publish a book about nudity? Yeah, that was really interesting. I did show it to a lot of publishers, both in this country and internationally. And I got a really, really positive response. A lot of them found it really, really funny. And that was really, really nice. But then they would say, I love it, but my boss would kill me, or I could never publish this in my country, or I just don't know if it will sell. And so I think there's this idea that something a little bit risque might not make any money and that's what it's always about really for publishers but luckily Tate really really liked it

and they also felt that as an art gallery or art collection that's absolutely full of naked representations of people that they couldn't really blush at a book with nudity in it. I was talking to Rosie Hain and Dr. Kion West. A poll in which black people were asked about their human rights treatment by the police and by the NHS was commissioned by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. The results have confirmed something we've spoken about on Woman's Hour before, when we talked about the fact that black women are five times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy and childbirth than are white women. The new poll shows that three quarters of black women feel the NHS does not protect them equally. How was this survey conducted and what will be the result of what it demonstrates? Well, Harriet Harman MP is the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights

and Celine Henry is a researcher for Clearview Research. How was the survey conducted? The research was done using polling, focus groups and interviews to conduct the actual sample size. And the sample size were about 515 black people aged 16 and above across the UK. And in that we had 213 men and 299 women. And then of course, we had one person who identified as transgender and two non-binary. And in order to sort of achieve that sample size we used you know existing databases from previous research that we had undertaken within the black community and who have taken part in our other research studies. And what would you say are the most significant findings in the case of women? I must say, I think we were quite surprised with

how much surprising findings there were with women. We found that there was a disparity between the males and females in terms of their interaction with the NHS and the police, and of course, in general terms, their human rights. So in terms of how they felt about the human rights, their human rights being protected and their health. So, you know, men who were interviewed often described their fair experiences with the NHS. Whilst women sort of expressed more concerns, I have two examples from the interviews I conducted where there was a young lady who looks after her mum with MS. In her caregiving role, she sort of exclaimed that, you know, there's been times where her mum has been neglected. And she has compared it to, you know, the fact that

she can see that her other white counterparts have not. And I have another woman who mentioned that she was eight months pregnant. And it wasn't specifically with her. But when what she found out was that she saw another black woman who didn't have a great command of English and the way this person was treated it was likened to somebody who had mental health issues. When you appeared in front of the committee you said some of the women you interviewed felt they were seen as less than in inverted commas stereotyped or part of a quota what did you mean by that there were certain prejudices or acts that you know when we think of them we think of you know maybe men in large groups or you know men behaving badly but what we found was that you know there were women actually who were mentioning that you know they've been treated quite badly by the police um so in in

one instance there was a young lady who is black and she's from Kent, and she mentioned to her friends that she had been stopped and searched by the police. When she mentioned it to her friends, they were quite shocked. Her friends were white. They were quite shocked, and they realised that they were not familiar with this idea completely. They were expressing that things are quite diverse, especially in education.

Some people felt that they are just part of a quota. So in that sense, maybe they don't get the necessary discipline required or the necessary support and attention required. What have you concluded are the reasons behind the problems you've uncovered? We didn't set out to find out reasons behind the problems, and this is especially the case in the polls, given that the questions were quite close ended. Most of them would be merely speculative or from a personal opinion as a black person myself. And, you know, many people try to explain different things, but I think there are myriad of reasons. It could be

sexism, classism, and often maybe black people being seen as homogenous and just maybe their daily interactions. I mean, I had an encounter this weekend just seeing my mum interact with a pharmacist where you could see that, yeah, sometimes these things are just unconscious biases. Harriet Harman, how worried are you by these findings? Well, I think they're a real wake-up call and I think that the government should consider them very seriously, the NHS should and the police should, because I think what they do is they challenge another number of assumptions. I think it's widely understood that there is a poor relationship between young black men and police and that exhibits itself amongst young black men feeling disaffected

with the police. But what Clearview's research showed is that the feeling amongst women in relation to the fact of them not being treated as a black person fairly compared to the police is even greater than amongst men. So that for all black people, 85% felt that a black person would not be treated fairly by the police in the same way a white person would. For women, that figure was not 85%, but 91%. And in the NHS, because of so many black women working in the NHS, I think it could have easily been assumed that there would be a sense that black people would be treated equally within the NHS and their lives equally valued. But whereas amongst all black people, 60% felt that they wouldn't be treated equally by the NHS, amongst women, that figure was 78%. Now, you know, that is something that the NHS should really address. And you've reported about the maternal mortality gap.

That is that black women are five times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth. And yet when we had evidence before the Joint Committee on the Human Right from the head of NHS maternity services, they say what a terrible thing it is, that gap, but they don't have any target to actually narrow the gap and to end it. So I think really there needs to be a recognition that something is really wrong here. There's a great sense of inequality and it's not for black people to address it. It's for the institutions people to address it. It's for the institutions themselves to address it.

So what pressure can your committee that commissioned this research and now have the figures, what pressure can be brought to bear? Well, we'll be reporting soon and we'll be considering all the evidence that's given to us. But I do think that one of the things that the police should do is they should recognise that they actually need to have targets for narrowing the gap of trust that there is between black people and white, then the police should measure that. I mean, with my own local police force, the Southwark and Lambeth police force, I've asked them over the years to do polling so that instead of them just feeling comfortable and assuming that they've made great progress over the years, they actually do recognise the reality of the situation. So I think that we need to have routine polling to check opinion amongst black people. And this is an unprecedented set of polling that Clearview has done. And I think they've done an incredible job. Routine polling and then targets should be set for narrowing the gap. You can't have a situation where people in this country, black people, feel that their human rights are just not as valued as white people. And one of the things that should be done is the implementation of findings of government reports

instead of them just gathering dust. I was talking to Harriet Harman and Celine Henry. Still to come in today's programme, the career as a sculptor of Bridget McCrum, still working in stone at 86. And Nina Stibbe, who won the Comedy in Print Prize, and Marianne Keyes, who chaired The Judges. And don't forget that you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at two minutes past 10 during the week, all you have to do is go to BBC Sounds and you will find us there. Across the world, less than 10% of national leaders are women.

A new book, Women and Leadership, in conversation with some of the world's most powerful women, sets out to ask what obstacles continue to hold women back from becoming leaders and offers advice on how to overcome them. The writers who collaborated to create this book are Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who served as Nigeria's first female finance and then foreign minister, and Julia Gillard, the first woman to become Prime Minister of Australia, known for that famous misogyny speech she directed

at the then leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott. I say to the leader of the opposition, I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The leader of the opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the leader of the

opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia. He doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives. He needs a mirror. How did Ngozi and Julia decide which leaders they would include in their book? Jacinda Ardern is probably the leader with the biggest story to tell that we interviewed, given she's the second woman in the world to have a baby while in office as a national leader. The first, of course, was Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. And Jacinda was very clear in her discussions with us that there's no right way, there's no wrong way, there's not even a question of balance. She ends up saying that she doesn't think she balances things. She just gets through. She

makes it work. And her partner, Clark, has become the primary caregiver for their daughter, Neve. So she has that kind of support. Other women talked about some of the sacrifices that they needed to make, some of the concerns that they had about what it would do ultimately in terms of their relationship with their children, but came through their leadership saying, look, they managed it and got through. We also examined my experience, Theresa May's experience, neither of us have children. And of course, people do look at women who haven't had children and try and make some assessment about what that says about their character. So we walked away from all of this thinking that there's still so much that we need to do, whether it's in politics or

business or beyond, to try and make the current structures more flexible, more inclusive and better for work and family life. And ultimately, that's not just an agenda for women. It's for everyone, because, you know, many men today, many fathers would also thrive if there was a way of putting work and family life together better than some of the current stresses and strains that people bear. And Guruji, how important have you found the idea of the role model is? Well, with ourselves and looking at the women, certainly we searched for whether there was a mentor, a role model, someone they looked up to, to help them shape their lives. In several cases, yes, people had people they looked up to. I think of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who looked up to her mother after her father died, and her mother had to bring up the family single-handedly.

And she saw a strong woman trying to make a go for her children. And that shaped the way she wanted to be a strong woman, a Christian woman, a leader. And so, yes, throughout our leaders have looked up to sometimes their fathers, their mothers or others outside. But there was no systematic role model or mentor for everyone. Julia, you conclude with a number of lessons for aspiring leaders. What would be your favourite one? Well, I think our overall message is if you've got a passion for leadership, whether it's in politics or some other walk of life, go for it. We end up using the terminology, it's not about

beware. We're not trying to tell you, you know, don't do this, but we are trying to say, be aware, be ready that there will be times when there are moments when you are treated differently because you're a woman. Think about that in advance so that you're not blindsided in those moments, so that you've got a game plan. I think that in some ways is the biggest message we can give women because we've had a number of female leaders now. In some ways, women coming up through leadership now have seen this movie before. They've seen women go through it.

So let's learn the lessons so that the next generation of women can be there already empowered to knock over any of this stereotyping, any of this gendered treatment that gets in their way. So, Julia, I'm sorry to bring this up, but you knew I would have to at some point. Had you prepared in advance to make something like your misogyny speech or did it just come off the bat in fury? Oh, it just came. I didn't even know I would be giving a speech, so I had no notice to prepare a speech at all. I walked into the Parliament that day for what I thought was going to be parliamentary question time. And I knew because of the circumstances of the day that there would be issues about gender and sexism raised. So I'd taken in some quotes from the leader of the opposition, things that he'd said, which I thought was sexist. I had them with me to use in question time. But we didn't have question time. Instead, the leader of the opposition jumped to his feet and moved a motion and what's come to be known

as the misogyny speech is my immediate case in reply. So there was certainly no opportunity to write it. Ngozi, of these lessons for aspiring leaders, what would be your favourite? I think my favourite really has to do with men. So for aspiring leaders, we also say that don't only look to the women. If you're looking for mentorship or guidance, men can also play a role. And we have a message for men.

You are part of the solution. You cannot be a bystander. If you see the kind of behavior going on that is clearly against women, whether in public life or in the workplace, you need to call it out. And on your own part, try to also reach out, mentor women, make space so that they can climb up, so that they can lead. So that's my favourite, that we can't do it without men. Julia, what do you reckon the world would look like if we had around 50-50 male, female leaders? I know people tend to answer these questions suggesting that the world would be more collaborative, more nurturing, more empathetic. And I'm always a little bit hesitant about saying

that because it seems to me it's kind of baking the sexism in that we stereotype women one way and say, therefore, a world with more women leaders would necessarily be like that. What I think I can certainly say is a world where women came through for leadership in equal numbers as men would be a world with a better calibre of leadership. Because if you believe, as I do, that merit is equally distributed between the sexes, if we are not seeing women coming through for leadership in reasonable numbers, that means that there are women of merit who aren't making it. And why wouldn't we want the most meritorious people to be leading us as a global community. And Ngozi, finally, how hopeful are you that

we may get there sooner rather than later? I'm an optimist. The numbers, when you look at them, don't tell a very good story. If you look at the number of women who are presidents and prime ministers in the world today, even in the workplace, CEOs, and within parliaments even, in many countries, this is not the case. So the numbers say that if we continue at this pace, it will take us years and years and years to get there. But I remain hopeful that the changes are coming on. I remain hopeful because the younger generation is more impatient. And I think that with the way

things are going now, we may be able to make faster progress. Men are also changing. We are bringing up our boys differently. Certainly, my three boys were brought up in a household and a world where they were told that nobody, they have to be an equal partner to any woman they marry in the future. So if we can change these attitudes of boys and young women coming up, I'm hopeful that we'll make faster progress. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Julia Gillard and Neil sent an email and said,

in my opinion, speaking as a 60-something man, Jacinda Ardern is what true leadership in today's world looks like. She's remarkable. And there isn't a male national leader anywhere that I can think of who comes close. I'm also a great admirer of Angela Merkel for her competence, pragmatism and resilience. And no, I wasn't a fan of Margaret

Thatcher. Bridget McCrum was in her 40s when she began to work at her sculpture. She trained at art school in Farnham, had gone on to marry a naval officer and had three children, so her art was rather put on hold. She's now 86, working with Stone in Devon and has become more successful than ever. Why did the work have to be delayed when she was a young wife and mother? Well, the Navy at that time didn't mix well with the wives doing anything at all except being perfect little wives. But I also decided that we were out in Malta when I was first married in the 50s. And I thought I won't have any children now.

I will wait until I get home and then I can travel around the Mediterranean, which I did. And I went to all sorts of exciting places and it was wonderful. I really enjoyed it. So what inspired you to begin in your 40s? Oh, well, I always knew I wanted to get back to it. When I was a five-year-old child, I had this A4 book and it had two little black and white photographs in it. And one was, I think it's at Baalbek, but it may be in my imagination. And it was a ram's horn capsule with a ram's head on top of it.

And the other one was the Colossus of Memnon at Luxor. And I just remember as a five-year-old thinking, oh, I want to go and see those. And I don't think most five-year-olds want to go and see lumps of stone. But what was so attractive about lumps of stone when you were only five? I don't know. I was fascinated by them, obviously. And so I always had to make things all my life, you know, when the children were growing up. And I decided not to start working whilst they were small because they're not around for very long. And I think you need to enjoy them whilst they're there. How important was your husband in promoting your work? I think he did have a role in it. He certainly did. I mean, he'd be well in his 90s now,

and it's quite unusual for men of that age. But he really, you know, he said, you've supported me through my career, I'm going to support you through yours. And he really pushed it and entered a couple of things into the Royal Academy when I was out with a friend surveying in uh surveying the coastal settlements from Mogadishu down to the Kenya border in Somalia and he put two things up for the Royal Academy and they both got in and so it sort of started from there really I got four

exhibitions out of it and that's how it all started. I wouldn't get in there now. Why not? Because I'm not cutting edge enough. Now, I know you have a friendship with Elizabeth Frink, who I think has been supportive of you. How did the two of you come together? Well, at the beginning of the war,

I was sent down to Exmouth aged six to get out of the Blitz because my father was in the army and my mother was in London. And we went and lived with this woman who gave a home to the children of Indian Army parents. And the little boys were all at prep school. So she had us girls in the term time. And I there age six and a week later Liz arrives age ten. So and then we re-met again and you know she commissioned a piece off me after she saw pieces in the Royal Academy and she was incredibly supportive. Wonderful. How aware were you when you were such little girls that you were both interested in sculpture and stone? I don't think Liz was particularly interested in stone, but she certainly made sculpture.

Actually, I went back after the war. I was taken away when they bombed Exeter, but I went back after the war. And after we'd finished our prep, Liz and I and one other used to sit round the dining room table drawing horses because we were totally horse mad. And Liz's were big black horses with knights in armour on them and very dramatic. Now, how easy is it to continue to work with stone, which is not a light material, as you get older? Well, I get hefty young men to help me. I mean, I've got a couple of people who are very helpful and I couldn't be doing it without them. You know, I do quite a lot of it.

And then they come down every now and then and I get it roughed out by a nice man called dominic welsh who lives up in the on north dartmoor and um there's somebody called mick chambers who helps me a lot he'll come and he's very good got a very good eye both of them are wonderful bridget mccrubb on monday night the the author Nina Stibbe was awarded the Comedy Women in Print Prize. It's the only literary prize in the UK and Ireland to shine a spotlight on funny writing by women. It was set up in 2018 by Helen Lederer in response to an historic dearth of female winners for the Bollinger Everyman Woodhouse Prize for Comic Writing. Nina's award was in the category of Published Comic Novel for Reasons to be Cheerful. The story

is set in Leicester, where her central character Lizzie gets a job as a dental nurse. When people in the village heard I was about to start working in the city, they tried to unsettle me with tales of woe. I'd soon regret it, they said. The journey into Leicester was so long and winding and went all around the houses. I'd spent half my life on the bus and half my wages on the fares. And when I explained I'd be living there too, they told me I needn't think city folk would smile at me or say hello because they wouldn't. And if I accidentally dropped my library card, they wouldn't run up the street to hand it back.

They'd use it to borrow books like the Tudor Appetite and the Betsy and never return them. And it would be on my record forever that I liked porn. Well, who'd have thought dentistry could be funny? I spoke to Marion Keys, who chaired the judges for the prize, and to Nina. What inspired Reasons to be Cheerful? I wanted to write a coming of age of a young woman in that time, in the early 80s, because I was a young woman then myself. But I know that some people were a bit dubious about my setting it in a dental surgery, and I don't know how you felt about that, Jenny. I hate... Actually, my dentist is one of my friends, so I hesitate to say I hate dentistry, but I do hate dentistry,

and I used to go to her in great terror. I thought it was a great idea to set it there because it was a way of putting my character, who is this young adult who thinks that adulthood is going to be less chaotic than adolescence, and of course it's not. And I thought having her there in that very intimate space with lots of adults trooping in every day,

she'd see adults, warts and and all and that kind of thing. But since publishing the book, people have revealed a great fear of dentistry, which I don't myself have. So anyway, it's turned out OK. You're very lucky not to have that fear. I think it might be something to do with one's age, because dentistry, when we were very young, was not as painless as it is these days. I remember having fillings with no injections. So maybe that's why we're all so scared. Now, as you say, it's set in the 80s, and it does explore really limited opportunities for women in that period. Why were you keen to tackle it? It's interesting. I never set out to write comedy, but I always set out to write about real lives, particularly of women. And I couldn't have written about the early 80s without writing about,

or at least touching on casual sexism and racism and the subject of contraception and reproduction and that kind of thing. But the comedy comes second, really, I have to say. The mother that she's getting away from, who inspired her? My mum. Oh, your mum can't have been as horrible as that. But Jenny, she's not horrible. She's just, she's as much a victim of that world as the young Lizzie. You know, she's there and she says, doesn't she?

She says, I'm a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists and I've got a singing voice and I'm thin, but the only thing that's ever given me any acknowledgement is having five babies. So I see her as a victim, not a villain. OK, I'm sure your mother won't be upset by what I just said. She will be. What was the inspiration behind JP, the racist, small-minded dentist?

Men. Men at that time. I mean, not all of them, but, you know, he's not two-dimensional, is he? I mean, I think there are things about him that you could identify with. He's, again, he's part of that world. He's worked his way up. He's a social, climbing, anxious man. He wants to join the Freemasons and they won't let him in because he's not posh enough type thing. So I think he's, although he is horrible um he's also a victim of that time as well but yeah he is horrible why would you say Marion it's important to have a comedy prize for women because women writers of comedy weren't being celebrated. They weren't really known. They weren't winning prizes. And by setting up the Comedy Women in Print Prize, it's brought a whole genre of books to people's attention. Like it's a way to celebrate funny women writing. And it's a way to almost

make it respectable. I think a lot of people felt that women writers aren't as funny as men or that there's something a little bit distasteful about women trying to be funny. But I think especially the shortlist that we had, which is full of like such wonderfully diverse books, it shows that there are many, many ways that women are writing comic novels and that there is something for everybody. Nina, what does winning it mean for you? Because, to be fair, you have also won the Woodhouse, one of only four women, I think, to win it in 20 years. Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm thrilled to have won the Quip Prize.

Partly it's just lovely to win and be acknowledged. But we were, the shortlist and the longlist were judged by people like Marian and Emma Kennedy and Joanna Scanlon. So because Helen recruited all these extraordinarily talented judges, just being shortlisted or longlisted meant that your book is being read and mulled over by these comedy goddesses, you know. So that's fantastic and wonderful. And about the Woodhouse, I don't know, I always think with the Woodhouse Prize, I only won it because Marianne would have beaten them up if a woman hadn't won it. Is that true, Marianne? Would you have beaten them up if a woman hadn't won it. Is that true, Marion? Would you have beaten them up if a woman hadn't won it? Well, no, I mean, obviously not. But in

2018, I did actually call them out for the fact that they had had only two and a half winners in 19 years, one of the years a woman had to share it with a man. And, I mean, it caused a bit of a furore at the time because I suppose women aren't supposed to complain.

And Reasons to Be Cheerful is a fantastically comic novel and it would have won on its own terms but I think maybe they it refocused their attention perhaps um and I am so delighted and in fact on this year on the shortlist half of the the shortlisted authors women, which again is a break with tradition. So, you know, I wouldn't have beaten anybody up, but I am really, really pleased. Marion, how differently have you found men and women respond to women's comic writing? Because I know one reviewer called Nina's book slight. Yeah, I the thing is men and women are socialized very differently and so much comedy is grounded in shared commonality and there will be things that

men cannot identify with in female comic writing um also I think if women write in any way about bodily functions or in any way body, men have been told that women talking about or writing about those sort of topics are being distasteful, unladylike. And also, there's this myth that women aren't funny, which becomes self-sustaining. So men tend to steer clear of female comic, any kind of funny women, because they feel that it's got nothing to say to them or that it's just not important in any way. Just to end, Marianne, let's have a couple of funny novels

that you think we should be reading that are written by women. I have so many. OK, Standard Deviation by Katherine Heine. She's an American writer. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae, another American. Oh, my God, what a complete ashling by two Irish writers, Eimear MacLysa and Sarah Breen. The Arrangement by Sarah Dunn, which is about it's hilarious, it's about

a couple, sort of happily married who decide to have an open marriage for a while. And then, I mean, there are the classics Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield, Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy

Mitford. I could keep going, I mean, I could be here all day, but that should give people. And of course, I mean, obviously, if you haven't read Reasons to be Cheerful or our wonderful runner-up, Queenie, or indeed our entire long list, they're all fabulous novels and all very funny. Marianne Keyes and Nina Stibbe.

Now, next week, we'll be launching the Woman's Hour Power List 2020. The first Power List was in 2013 and since then we've been celebrating inspiring women who not only wield power and influence but have made a difference. So on Tuesday's programme Jane will reveal the theme of this

year's list and will introduce two of our judges as well as asking for your suggestions of women you think deserve to be considered. You can also look back to see who made it onto previous power lists. They're all on the Woman's Hour website. That's all from me for today. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Until next week. Bye-bye. 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.