Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Women and Artificial Intelligence, Paralympian Stef Reid & Comedian London Hughes

Episode Date: July 31, 2021

The writer Jeanette Winterson tells us why women need to be at the heart of the Artificial Intelligence revolution and about her new essay collection which covers 200 years of women and science.The British stand-up comic, writer and actor London Hughes tells us about making it big in America and the difficulties of dating during a pandemic.The singer-songwriter, Josie Proto, tells us about her frustration towards the extreme measures women feel they need to take in order to simply get home safely. She performs the new song it has inspired ‘I Just Wanna Walk Home’.We hear why the government’s new violence against women and girls strategy ignores the needs of black and minoritised women. We hear from Ngozi Fulani, the founder and director of Sistah Space, a small charity that offers specialist support for African & Caribbean heritage women affected by abuse and from Professor Aisha Gill, an expert criminologist working on violence against women and girls in Black and minoritised communities for over 20 years. Helen Thorne, the other half of the Scrummy Mummies duo, tells us about finding out about her husband’s infidelity during lockdown and finding happiness after divorce. And the paralympian Stef Reid will represent Team GB in Tokyo next month in the long jump. She tells us how sport helped shape her sense of self and why she’s working to encourage girls to take up sport and stick with it. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Kirsty Starkey

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. What a fine selection of choice cuts I have for you today. We'll talk all things artificial intelligence with Jeanette Winterson, have some music and chat with Josie Proto and discuss why some organisations like Sister Space, a charity that offers specialist support for African and Caribbean heritage women affected by abuse,

think the government's new violence against women and girls strategy just doesn't go far enough. We find that a lot of black women are going to housing, to police, to even violence against women and girls and not getting supported. There is this feeling that African-herited women are strong and are not in need of support. And so we're not getting the service that we need. The Paralympian Steph Reid explains how sport was vital in helping her find a sense of herself after her leg was amputated. It helped me to just like my body again and like who I was and also helped me build up that confidence. And even though I went into sport not very good,

I knew, well, OK, fine, I wasn't great today, but I'll come back tomorrow and I'll be better. All that and Helen Thorne navigating us through divorce and London Hughes has a very frank and funny chat about discussing her sex life on stage and moving to America. But first, Jeanette Winterson's latest book is all about artificial intelligence or AI. She says women were at the start of this scientific revolution more than 250 years ago and she wants them to be taking a central role as this technology becomes a reality.

The book's called 12 Bytes, How We Got Here, Where We Might Go Next. But what is Jeanette Winterson's take on AI? At present, all AI is a tool. Mainly, we meet AI through algorithms, through chatbots, through Siri, Alexa, when we go and do our shopping, all of that. For me, one of the interesting questions is, what happens when AI is no longer a tool, when it develops into a system that can think for itself, make its own decisions, start to be a participator? And, of course, this isn't so much sci-fi as likely reality. It's a question of time. It's not an if, it's a when.

And I was looking at how this could happen, and that sent me right back to the early years of the 1800s, when we had two visionaries, Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein and saw a time when we would create an artificial life form. In her case, it was out of the discarded parts of the graveyard. But she used electricity, which was really a nascent force there. Nobody understood electricity. And without electricity, there was really a nascent force there. Nobody understood electricity. And without electricity, there's no such thing as computational technology. And she saw a time when we would create a life form,

and we're doing it now, not out of body parts, but using electricity again and the zeros and ones of code. So it was a real vision. And alongside her comes Ada Lovelace, daughter of Britain's most famous poet at the time, Lord Byron. And she coined the term programming because she was programming a computer that's never been built by Charles Babbage, the computer pioneer. So you've got these two women who are largely forgotten for a long time. And now we begin to see that they belong at the beginning of the future, the beginning of the industrial revolution that becomes the computing revolution that we then

place after the Second World War at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing, you know, building the Colossus and the bomb sets that were able to decipher the Nazi code with the Enigma machines. So we've got this stretch of time. And what I wanted people to see was, okay, how does this 250 years join up? Where do women fit in it? Because women were not an afterthought. Not only were they there at the beginning, but until about 1984, women in computing were everywhere. And then they start to disappear. So it's not that women have the wrong brains, or they're not interested in this stuff. It's that actually, they are phased out. And that was a shocking story to me. And I wanted to tell that story. Because if AI is going to be anything,

it has to be about all of us, doesn't it? So whatever it is, black, white, male, female, whatever your religion, because whatever else AI is, it's not a binary. You know, it doesn't have a gender. It doesn't have a colour. It doesn't have a religion. So what we should do is make sure we don't bring our old boring binary mindsets into this amazing new technology that we're creating. From what you're saying, it sounds as though artificial intelligence is inevitable. It's going to happen. It's not if, it's when. So what will it look like? I suppose people would have seen 2001, Space Odyssey, that film.

They would have seen the movie with Will Smith, iRobots, more recently. There's been TV series, Humans, for example, years and years as well. But what does it look like to you? What will us embracing AI look like? Well, it's going to be embodied and non-embodied. So embodied means robots. So you might have your friendly little iPal running around helping, looking after your kids. Some people will have seen Pepper the Robot at the Eurostar station in the days when we could travel. The idea of service bots, care bots, physically can look like us.

You know, if you go onto a website called Boston Dynamics, you can see all kinds of robot shapes that are being developed now. So there'll be that, and we will make relationships with those creatures. But there's also non-embodied. You're already used to shouting at Siri and Alexa. And we can have relationships, not only with biological humans. That's obvious,

A, because more than half the world prays to a sky god every day. And whatever gods are, they're not biological. And we consider that to be an important real relationship. Second, we all fell in love with our teddy bear, didn't we? So we are used to creating relationships with non-biological life forms as we see them. So I imagine that as AI develops, it will be both. So there'll be the service and care bots, the helper bots. Look, there's already sex bots. We'll come on to that a bit later.

Yeah, and then there will be non-embodied, which is where you will have chatbots. You know, we already go on there and we can't tell often if in a call centre, if it's a human or if it's a machine. You know, there is this thing called the Turing test, which is the point where we will no longer be able to distinguish between a human and an artificial intelligence system

if nobody tells us which is which. And we're moving quite rapidly towards that. That's what Google have in mind when they talk about their Google personal assistant. It'll be like a mini me. It'll know everything about you, sort it all out for you. And we will not be able to help developing relationships, meaningful ones, with such a thing. So is this where the term transhuman comes in? Because Elon Musk has also spoken a lot about this. It's Elon Musk who says if we don't blend with our technology, it's going to outsmart us. You know, he's working on neural implants at the moment, which initially will help paralysed people communicate with their computer interface by thoughts alone. The idea is that we will all

be able to communicate by thoughts alone. You know, it's quite scary and sci-fi, but it's likely. If we don't blend with the technology, the fear is among some really smart people that we will be the left behind, that there'll be a new binary, an us and them. You know, computing is already much faster, say, at data crunching, number crunching, than any human can ever be. So you have to imagine that power with something like a mind behind it. We don't want to be left out of the game there, do we? So what's your take on neural implants and the ability for humans to be able to download the contents of their brain onto another platform? I love that idea. Look, we're a long way off that yet.

I mean, we can barely manage to scan a slice of a mouse's brain. But, you know, it's only just over 50 years since the first heart transplant. You know, people looked into the sky for thousands of years and thought, I wish I could fly. I wish I could communicate instantly with someone across time. All of those things we can do. We don't do it with a crystal ball anymore and we don't need to strap on wings.

So what I say to sceptics is, look how much sci-fi has become everyday reality. So if we get the computational technology to scan the contents of our brains, then I appear in your computer. You know, I might be like the genie in the bottle. You then control me. But then I can be downloaded. The contents of myself can be downloaded onto a substrate that isn't made of meat.

And this is a moment when religion and science are beginning to say the same things. Actually, no, you're not just your body. And this is what excites me. Somebody came from a religious background to see the same thinking coming together and the idea that we might transcend these physical limits, not only to live longer in the first instance,

but then to achieve immortality, the dream that we've always had since time began. It's now within visible sight, not in my lifetime, I don't think, but hey, maybe in yours. One of the issues that you highlighted in the book, of course, is the area of sexism. And despite the fact that women made a significant contribution to this area, they've been prevented from joining in the future and, you know, staying in this industry. Tell us more about that. Yeah, they were driven out until 1984, which is when Apple launches its first home computer. Women made about 37%, 38% of computing science graduates. They were really in there. And we know that after the war, after Bletchley Park,

women were programming these massive machines the size of this studio. And they were simply learning how to do it. At that point, it was called clerical work only because women were doing it. They then trained the guys and it was called computing science. You know, this is absolutely documented history. In the 1980s, it was an image change. This was something boys did. This was something geeky guys did. This wasn't something women did. Nothing has changed with women's brains. It's society.

And we've got the same with computing science. And girls think, oh, it's not for me. It's for these boys who play computer games all day. That's been a real push, making women feel left out. But there are now really great incentives to bring women back in because if we're not building the platforms, that's electrical engineering, we're not doing the programming, that's coding, we're out of the biggest conversation of the time except for climate change. And AI is going to play a big part in regulating climate change.

So women need to be back in the game here. So mothers, please encourage your girls to code. Another big section of your book is on sex bots. Oh, yeah. Now, don't encourage your girls down that route. Well, I mean, you know, I'm open minded at this point. How do you think that will change heterosexual men's relationship with women, sex bots. What's weird about sex bots, it's not just like a little eye helper or any old robot.

It's a 1950s stereotype version of what a female should be. Always compliant, always willing, never puts any weight on, never argues with you, never complains, is always there for you. Plus with 21st century porn star raunch. You bring this together and what you've got isn't about sex or relationship. It's the same old stuff about gender, money and power. Now, men buy these things.

Some men really believe they're having a relationship with them. But of course, how does that screw up your relationships with women in the real world? And if you're a man, say your woman's a boss, you know, are you thinking about your sex boss at home when you're dealing with her? What if you're dealing with a woman in the service industry? Of course, it's going to screw up relationships. Not because I've got any particular issue with bots that we make for sex, but I've got a big issue with the old power structures that are underpinning this. Jeanette Winterson speaking with Jessica Crichton there and your emails came in. Pauline says, interesting to hear your guests talking about women in IT. It resonated with me as I

started as a programmer in the mid 70s and stayed working in IT until I retired three years ago. And Linda emailed in to say, artificial intelligence is still nothing like the intelligence that we find in ourselves, our children and even our dogs. Jeanette is lovely and clever, but she's not thinking this through logically. She's thinking as a novelist and a creative. We need the analytical perspective as well. If you know how AI machines are constructed and trained, you do not start thinking they're beings. Sure, they can be handy toys and tools, but look at any TV programmes on robots. They are stupid. they can barely walk

or catch things and climate change will put an end to our civilization way before we get convincing clever robots thanks for that linda doom we're doomed and if you would like to share your thoughts on anything you hear in the program we'd love to hear from you go to our website send us an email now since moving to the usa just over a year ago, the British stand-up comic, actor, writer and presenter London Hughes is making waves. Her stand-up special is about sex and that's reflected in the explicit title, To Catch a Dick. It was originally performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and has now been adapted for TV and is streaming globally on Netflix. But why did she decide to move to LA?

There's the unofficial answer and there's the official answer. Unofficially, I decided to go to America when I was like 10 and the first black woman I saw on TV was Aunt Viv in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And when I was younger, because there weren't many black women on television when I was a kid I used to think that to be black and be on tv you had to be American so my thing was like oh if I want to be famous because I'm black I have to go to America so that was like sewed into my head from a very young age but then the official answer is I decided when um uh I was doing uh standup in the UK for a while and I tried to have my own TV show eight times.

And in 2018, I pitched a show idea with me and Whoopi Goldberg and Whoopi Goldberg said yes and no TV channels wanted it. And that's when I went, if I can't get a TV show with me and Whoopi Goldberg off the ground there's no business I have no business being here and that's when I officially told my brain you've got to set your sights on America and then what happens you just pack up your bag and go well the thing is yes packed up my bag and went by myself for a little vacation and when I got there I just it just hit me I was like this is where I'm meant to be. And like, I was even on holiday

and I managed to get an opportunity to be on a TV show just through chance. And I was like, this is what happens when I come here on holiday. What would happen if I came here, you know, really focus my energy here? And I wrote these YouTube sketches because I was frustrated again

that I hadn't had my own TV show. So I wrote like 25 YouTube sketches because I was frustrated again that I hadn't had my own TV show so I wrote like 25 YouTube sketches and I put them on YouTube and I starred in them and then I put them out there they didn't even go viral I think one of them got like 3,000 views and randomly a management company in LA were a woman called Chanel Hardy was was basically just on YouTube and she got stuck in a YouTube hole and she like discovered randomly my sketches and was like who is this girl and the the rest was history she flew me out to LA and signed me and yeah and that was not that long ago it was only 2018 so uh yeah it's been crazy you you were you were achieving you had a level of success in the uk you know you were you were on all the panel shows we see you

around you know you're a name here you also would have had a very successful show up in edinburgh and that's what netflix got in touch with you tell us about that because we're talking let's talk about your netflix show that can i say the full name or no my dad makes me call it to catch a duck should we just call it that well let's call your show to catch a duck okay right so to catch a duck was spotted by the Kevin Hart tell us the story how it got from Edinburgh to Netflix the Edinburgh Comedy Festival came up in August 2019 and I've never really completed that festival I've done it before and like I did a show called London Hughes Superstar it's just nobody's realized it in 2017 and when I tell you nobody realized it in the hour literally literally like it got like three stars at best I got 100 seat

of venue and about 11 people showed up it was was just like, it was a really fun show. It was an hour of stand up and performance arts. And there was props. And it just told the story of me trying to be famous and actually make it in America, actually. And it was called London Youth Superstars, just nobody's realised it. And that went terribly. And there was a part of me that always, even though I had my sights set on America, there was a part of me that always even though I had my sights set on America there was a part of me that always wanted to do well in Edinburgh and so I decided to strip

everything and just go do you know what I'm just going to do a stand-up show I'm going to do I'm going to say exactly what I want to say I'm going to do it for me just going to be bold and look if it works it works if it doesn't it doesn't matter going to America, you know? So I wrote this show called To Catch a Duck. And it's basically stand-up all about my sex life, my love life, how I feel about being a woman. It's super feminist. It's super in your face. And I just performed it at the festival.

And I performed it in this tiny little room to like 50 people every day for a month at the festival. And it sold out. Next thing I knew, Lenny Henry was writing about me, like posting that he posted a tweet saying, I want to be London Hughes when I grow up. Lenny came to see the show. Lupia Nyong'o came to see the show. And I just like what is happening and so we got so much buzz at the festival that um I became the first black British woman to be nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award which famously is has been you know won by some white male greats in a British comedy there was so much buzz about it that the buzz reached america i went to la just for some meetings and like netflix offered me a deal and i was like wow i have a netflix special and then

on top of that kevin hart wants to produce it and i was like what so i had to do the show for kevin hart he flew me out to las Las Vegas to meet him and basically was like, I want to make you a star. And he did not lie. This is a fairy tale. London, this is a fairy tale. It's brilliant. And the stand-up,

if anyone hasn't seen it, it is great. It comes with a... We did try and find a clip that we could use at 10 in the morning. You can't use the clip. It's too filthy. It is filthy.

It is bold. It's authentic. Like you say, it's unashamedly about you and your sex life. But also there's a fascinating story about how you went from Babe Station to CBeebies. How does that happen in someone's life? It's when you're determined. Oh yeah, and then actually, what is babe station for anyone who doesn't know so babe station is an adult porn channel that used to come on in the in the night in the 90s

or 80s and 90s in 2000 it was like a sky channel but way in the back of sky like there's a part of sky that no one ever goes to and And it was basically daytime. In the daytime, it was just like a flirty channel where pretty girls just spoke about dating. And then in the nighttime, those girls went home and these other girls came on and those other girls took their clothes off and put fingers in places. Now, I weren't part of that part of Babe Station. I was on Babe Station in the daytime. I just want to stress that. I'm 20 pounds an hour. And the one thing that like presenting Babe Station and presenting CBBC have in common is energy.

Amazing. That's what you need. We had Gina Yashere on the program a few weeks ago who also famously went to America. We love Gina. We love Gina. What does your success out there, Gina's success out there, the success of so many people of colour who have gone from Britain

to America say about the British entertainment industry? Ooh, it says a lot, babe. I think it says, you know, this is the thing. There's so much going on about race right now in the UK and in America, everywhere, really. And when it comes to race in the entertainment industry, I think that it's just a simple fact of we are not seen as the stars by the people in charge. We're just not. And I'm not just saying black people, I'm saying people of colour in general. People talk about the fact that, you know, black people are only like three percent of the country so why should they have all these tv shows and it's like let's be clear black people

are three percent of the country but they're definitely over represented in football or represented well in football and that's because football is based on skill set so like not all the time sometimes about who your dad is and who you know but a lot of the time or opportunities but a lot of time it's about skill set which shows that if you're if we're going on skill we're going to include black people in this but now entertainment doesn't go on skill when it should it should go on who's the best for the job and if it did you'd see a lot more people of color in places but it doesn't go for who's the best person for the job it goes to who's the best white person for the job and that's why black people who feel slighted by the UK industry,

we go to America to see if we're good enough. And America goes, of course you are, because America works on the best person for the job. And that's honestly why I think it is. We know that you are a grafter. You wanted to be famous from day one. Yeah. You auditioned for big brother five times correct

you have what did you say at the beginning of this interview you had a proposal that was rejected eight times you even had an idea with whoopi goldberg that gets turned down i said you know i've we all know who you are well i do i've followed your career i've seen you on various comedy panel shows doing your thing and kind of gaining success. But just how exhausting was it for that 10, I guess, 10 years when you were really trying to make a name for yourself? It was, do you know what? It was crazy because I was in huge denial in the beginning. So when I was in 2009, they had this competition called Funny Women, where it was just a UK search for the funniest women. And female stand up comics from all over the world entered. And I was 19 when I entered.

And I won. And I'd been doing stand-up for literally a month. And I won a competition. And I was like, oh, my God. And the competition was, like, funded by the BBC. And I was in the press. And I remember, like, all my old interviews, they were like, what's next for you?

So, like, I worked really, really hard. I remain a nice person. Surely, I've won this competition. like, I worked really, really hard. I remain a nice person. Surely I've won this competition. Surely I'm going to do well. And I remember I started out with people like Jack Whitehall and me and my mum would sit and watch like how famous Jack Whitehall got. My mum would be like, isn't that that guy?

And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I did like a Radio 4 sitcom that I wrote in like 2012 and it aired and it was just a pilot and I remember like not fighting but begging them to put Ramesh Ranganathan in it because I'd seen him at a gig and thought he was talented and at this point he was not a huge star that he is now and my mum and dad went to watch it and then maybe like two years later Ramesh was like the biggest thing ever and my mum was like, isn't it my guy? I was like, yep. And it just kept happening. Every guy that I pretty much knew or

started around the same time as went on to be a thing and I was still coasting at the same, pretty much the same level, just a little bit higher. It was crazy to watch because, you know, I could have stayed in the UK and I could have had a perfectly averagely nice career you know I wasn't and I want to sound ungrateful you know I wasn't working a normal job I was in television I was writing and auditioning but I was still living at my mum's house and I was I wasn't making the money that I knew I could my plan was to go to America and try and kick down the doors and I got to America and the door was already open. And they said, come in, have a seat, here's some green tea. And now I'm here.

Green tea, I love it. Because she's in LA. I have to say, London, it has been wonderful to watch your success, even if I'm slightly envious of all your Instagram pictures of you at pool parties in LA. How has dating through the pandemic been? Oh God, listen, this is what I could just stress to you. Do not move to a brand new country

two weeks before a global pandemic. Just don't, it's just not. How are you going to get material for your standup if you're not dating? This is the thing. So my next special was called To Catch a Husband. And I've been like getting research and putting myself out there, you know.

But dating in LA is hard in a pandemic. I was downloading all the dating apps, but I would delete them because everyone on it is beneath me in every way. And so I would get frustrated. But right now we've opened back up a bit. I'm going out, going to bars, going to day parties. They love a day party out here.

I'm like going to the beach and meeting boys men sorry men and it's going okay no husbands yet brilliant absolutely brilliant what's the plan what's happening next so you're working on to catch a husband catch a husband but that's not for a while because I need to I my stand-up is so authentic I know a lot of comics you know, they make up stories or steal stories from their friends. My thing is, everything I say is a million percent true. And so when I do my next special, because To Catch a Duck was so truthful,

I want to be truthful with the next special. So I kind of don't want to perform it or pull it out there until I've been proposed to. I know it's risky, but I'm gorgeous. So I know I'll be proposed to soon. She is definitely gorgeous. That was comedian London Hughes speaking with me earlier. Now, rising singer-songwriter Josie Proto started out playing her grandmother's guitar. Growing up, she was frustrated by the extreme measures women needed to follow to safely get home. So she wrote a song about it. I Just Wanna

Walk Home has been given the seal of approval from Radio 1's Annie Mack as the hottest record in the world. Did the recent murder of Sarah Everard influence the song? There was so much discussion around Sarah's tragic death and the situation. I think more what informed the song was the response and the narrative surrounding her death that was so frustrating for, I think, not just me, but women all over the nation, feeling so frustrated with the way that people were responding to her death. I felt like it wasn't giving us the representation that we wanted.

And tell me about the video. It features a wide array of different women, doesn't it? It's one of the things I'm the most proud of. It's an incredible, we had like, you know, 30, 20 to 30 women who all came in and lip-sunk to my song. And they weren't, you know, actors or actresses. They were just women that were passionate about this and wanted to be there and wanted to talk about it and and

they were so passionate that afterwards we ended up actually filming loads of conversations with them about and questions because they wanted to talk about it and they wanted to have these conversations and it was so empowering the room felt incredible when they were talking about it was such an incredible experience and I'm so proud of it. And it looks fantastic. And it's such a powerful video. Congratulations. Thank you. This isn't your only song that's caught people's attention. There was another song of yours, B-Tech Lily Allen, that went viral on social media and led to a record deal.

My goodness, you've had a pretty productive lockdown. What have the last few months been like for you? I've been writing and playing guitar for a very long time but in lockdown I was bored and sung my song be tech lily allen which was essentially a song made up of any sort of hate that I'd been given about my about my music and posted on tiktok and then like literally in the evening I couldn't turn my phone on because I was it sort of went a bit mad and then yeah so my past year has been incredible I've I've like signed a record deal which is insane and it's like has been my dream since I was like 14 and um I'm doing it kind of full time now so it's really exciting everyone this is Josie

Proto who is going to sing her song I Just Want To Walk Home I left my hair in the taxi Cause the driver was a creep Chatting on my dead phone Just so he could see I was careful to show my face on the CCTV Told a joke to the bouncer So that he'd remember me leave So I guess that's where we are isn't it amazing

what i'm contemplating to get home you okay with where beautiful sounds there from josie proto now on monday andrea catherwood will be speaking to journalist Miranda Levy about her new book, The Insomnia Diaries. We want to hear from you. Have you or do you suffer from insomnia? What impact has it had on your life and have you managed to overcome it? Let us know in the usual way. You can go to our website, drop us an email. You can contact us via our social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Or you can send us a text by saying it's for Woman's Hour it's 84844. Now the government's new violence against women and girls strategy was published last Wednesday. While some organisations have welcomed the commitments it's made some had criticisms

particularly around the specific needs of ethnically diverse women who face domestic violence. Ngozi Falani is the founder of Sister Space, a charity that offers specialist support for African and Caribbean heritage women affected by abuse, and Professor Aisha Gill, an expert criminologist working on the intersections of violence against women and girls in ethnically diverse communities for over 20 years. She told Jessica Crichton why she thinks this report fails ethnically diverse women. The strategy announced by Priti Patel, in my opinion, was half-baked. I don't think the government has done its homework in terms of providing a deep understanding and acting on enabling a just, transformative strategy that actually includes and centres the experiences of black and racially minoritised women and girls.

And I think it was a real missed opportunity because the strategy kind of neglects to centre the lived experiences of migrant women and particularly women who have no recourse to public funds. So the strategy is weak in offering tangible intersectional interventions. Violence against women and girls in our communities is not new. And we really need to leverage commitments in terms of this, what I describe as a half-baked strategy, to ensure that the experiences and the prevention, provision and protection in terms of routes to safety and justice are not undermined.

There's a real disconnect. I appreciate that there's commitment. We welcome the commitment around street safety investment, but there's no real commitment in terms of ring fence funding for specialist buy and for services. So there's a serious gap in terms of the rhetoric that's been put out. And Gozi, I'd come to you now as well, because Sister Space has actually done its own research. It's been funded by the London Mayor's Office and the Black Lives Matter charity,

which has been released today. So I'd like to hear more about that. Okay, just to be clear, we are commissioned by the London Mayor's Office, one member of staff, to support African and Caribbean heritage women and girls around London. The Black Lives Matter UK have funded our research because we find that the research that's out there currently funds BAME, whatever that is. And so when you when you talk about BAME, you're talking about a vast amount of different cultures.

You can't really specify about African and Caribbean heritage women and girls. And so we have gone to do that research because only we can really get into the community and talk about ourselves. So tell me about the research that Sister Space has released today. Okay, well it's ongoing so people are encouraged to go on to our Twitter and our Instagram. But it's about finding the real experiences of African

and Caribbean heritage women and girls. We had Valerie Ford and her baby who were murdered a few years ago. She had gone to the police station and asked for help and it was recorded as a threat to property and we find that a lot of black women are going to housing to police to even violence against women and girls of work sector and not getting supported there is this feeling that africanherited women are strong and not in need

of support. And so we're not getting the service that we need. And so we've decided to hear firsthand the experiences of Black women. And when other people take on the research, they don't go to grassroots people. They don't go to the community. I don't know where they go. But in order to find out about us, it has to be us. Understood. So Aisha, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think recent statistics show that domestic violence is not necessarily a bigger problem in ethnically diverse communities than others. So is the problem then that these women are having trouble accessing the support needed? By and for specialist services have reported higher rates of violence against black and racially minoritised women, but only 37% report to the police. Now that is key to

highlight in terms of the aspect of underreporting. And this is borne out by research by Sisters for Change, for example. And I think it's important to highlight that it's critical to understand the relational aspects of both black and white women's experiences, because we can learn from each other in terms of furthering our commonalities to address violence against women. But the bottom line is this Jessica, black and racially minoritized women are less likely to report abuse due to a lack of trust of support services, direct and indirect discrimination, systemic structural racism. We have a long history of fraught racialized responses to violence against women and girls in our communities. For example,

go-home bans, hostile environment, windrush, Brexit, Islamophobia. And basically, these events have actually fueled powerlessness and the rights and protections of Black racialized, minoritized women on basically not being protected. Now, the research by Sister Space captures really snapshot data. And that that's really really important because what it highlights it kind of supports the research that has been ongoing in our communities by black and Asian feminists in terms of documenting the complex abuses in in terms of the multicultural multi-diverse communities and of course these are marked by gender norms, family kinship aspects, you know, the way masculinityism that Ngozi speaks to in terms of the assumptions that are often made in terms of that one size fits all. It doesn't. And we need

to ensure that services reflect the experiences of diverse women and girls in our communities. And Ngozi, just finally, I suppose that's what you want to see more of going forward, specialist training that is able to help these ethnically diverse women. Let me tell you about Valerie's Law, which is what we're trying to get implemented. You see, everybody knows of the murder of Sarah Everard. I myself and the Sister Space team went down to support. But what we found is that when it came to, like, Biba and Nicole and other black women, the media is not interested,

and neither is the violence against women and girls sector. I mean, Biba and Nicole, even in death, they had police taking photos, selfies with their bodies, yeah? Everybody knows the name of Sarah Everard, which is good. But why is it when it comes to black women, there is no outrage? So Valerie's law is the petition that we must make sure it goes through. Because where people think they understand about African heritage women, they don't.

And we very, very rarely have a voice. We find everybody else is allowed to speak on our behalf it's as if black women can't articulate or or we are invisible but we must be able to say to the community to the agencies and to the government look we're not being heard this is what we want well we want valerie's law because it it supports what victims of domestic abuse are saying that we are not being seen and we are not heard I just want to respond to yes please do just to say you know it's really important that that you know we have a problem here in terms of the way in which there's a lack of representation and reporting of black women's experiences minority women's experiences

when they're subjected to murder. And of course, working closely with the organisation, Sister Space, we know that historically cases of Banaz Mahmoud, Shafila Ahmed, the case of Nicole Smallman, Biba Henry, basically they all draw attention to the fact that lessons are not being learnt. And we have to tell it like it is, that there are minority officers who are not upholding the human rights and dignity of black and racially minoritised women in the line of duty and those kind of delayed responses in relation to scenes of crime are not only reckless but they actually demonstrate systemic institutional race-based bias in terms of protecting life. You know the uniform says, you know the police uniform

says that do no harm so basically I share your concerns and i think it's really important that more must be done to build public confidence in police responses to reports of gender-based violence in our communities because you see what is going on here is that there is a hierarchy of human rights and the responses to violence against women in our communities has to change enough of the talking well yes uh it goes you mentioned valerie's law there and that is for those that you know haven't come across it yet um is basically the call to make specialist training mandatory for all police and other government agencies that support black women and girls affected by domestic abuse. You started that petition. It's almost close to 16,000 signatures so far.

So just put it into context for us, Ngozi, without this compulsory training, without Valerie's law, are black women and girls unsafe? Absolutely unsafe in danger of death, serious injury. Look, we're not going forward because when we do, we get asked questions about our hair and people say that they can't see the bruises on our dark skin or, you know, things like, oh, a tough girl like you, I can't believe that somebody will attack you. I think the organisations don't understand that they don't understand. Everybody who thinks they know or they run a service for everybody should be able to cater for African heritage women, and you don't.

So basic training is compulsory, and we can only do that with the help of the community, for them to sign Valerie's Law. That is the only way we can do it. Ngozi Fulani and Aisha Gill there and a Home Office spokesperson has said to us, we are committed to radically changing how we tackle violence against women and girls across society. It's vital that the specific needs of different communities are listened to, which is why our call for evidence, which received over 180,000 responses, actively sought views from underrepresented communities and held focus groups to ensure the perspectives

of black and minority ethnic groups were fed directly into the strategy and complementary domestic abuse strategy later this year. We are encouraging forces to take on the College of Policing Domestic Abuse Matters training, designed to change and challenge the attitudes, culture and behaviour of police when responding to domestic abuse. And we'd love to hear about your own experiences. Please get in touch with us in the usual way. Now, just a few days before the national lockdown in March 2020, Helen Thorne's life imploded.

The comedian, you might know her as half of the Scrummy Mummies duo, found out her husband had been unfaithful. Her new book, Get Divorced, Be Happy, details her first year of separation, telling us about her heartbreak, single parenthood, enforced social isolation, and only being able to leave the house once a day for exercise. She told me what happened. I had been with my ex for nearly 22 years and met when we were 19. It was the fairy tale story and I had no idea what was about to happen. And so I was preparing a World Book Day costume, which is horrific in itself.

And I found a love letter that wasn't from me. And so I sort of went numb and cold and just went into overdrive as you do as a mother going, okay, then, well, yes, let's get the fish fingers ready. And let's wait till daddy comes home because I can have a little chat with him. And then when I saw him, I was just like, it's over, it's over. And then two weeks later, we went into lockdown. And so I didn't have anyone to hug, anyone to hold. He was the last person I hugged. And then for three months, I just faced sadness and hurt and betrayal and anger and all the things. And there was no hiding away from it. As we all were trapped in our houses and couldn't, you know, we were faced with our own feelings.

And so it was very confronting. And I loved marriage. I loved my husband. I am the daughter of a vicar you know I am very much you grew up watching weddings I did I did I am a firm believer in it um so you say you say in the book that looking back you wanted the marriage more than the man yeah I think and I think that's very true because I worked very hard we did lots of couples counseling and and of course as a mother, I wanted that family unit. And so many women have talked to me and written to me going, how can I do it? I'm worried for my children. But I guess the thing I want to say is that

your children need a happy mother and happiness is the most important thing, as I have discovered. And it is a divorce that I didn't want, but it's the divorce I needed. You stayed in the family home with the kids. He got the flat nearby. You decided to split the time, five weekends with you, weekends with the dad. How did you bond and how did you heal as a family of three and homeschool and, you know, live through a pandemic? Well, it involved a lot of biscuits and a lot of TV. But no, it was it was actually a blessing that I had the pandemic in a way because we just had quiet time. And when the kids needed me, I was there on tap.

We walked across the woods, across the road. We we cried when we needed to cry. And I think, you know, I'm I'm a really busy comedian, often on tour and things like that. And so the fact that I didn't have any other distractions, I could sort of sit and grieve. And when the kids needed to ask me questions about things, I was there for them. So I think in a way that was really healing for us both.

And I never shied away from answering any questions. And the kids asked why we got divorced and we told them. So I just didn't want any more lies. I think that's what I really wanted is honesty and, you know, lies hurt so much more than the truth. What was the turning point from sadness to happiness? Yeah, well, there was some really great things. Like I was obviously immensely loved by friends and family from afar. I have this amazing comedy partner, Ellie, who would drop lasagnas and all sorts of things on my front doorstep and wave from two metres away.

But I just remember one day I woke up and the sun was shining and I walked downstairs into the kitchen and went, this is all mine. Nobody's going to criticise me. Nobody's going to go, not pasta again for dinner. You know, things like that. And I just went, oh my God, I've got this blank canvas ahead of me. I'm happy. You know, I've got two beautiful children. I'm loved by my friends. And this is this amazing opportunity that I just didn't know was out there. One of the themes that runs through the books that I absolutely loved is friendship. Yeah. And you really get a sense that you were held, swaddled,

comforted by your female friends in Australia, here, and dude, Ellie, we've got to talk about dude. Oh, my God, yeah. So what is the importance? Just talk about the importance of your female friendships through this period. Yeah, I really wanted to. It's sort of like a love letter. It was the love letter that ended my marriage,

but the book is a love letter to all the women in my life. And people just dropped everything and said, what can I do for you? And I think one of the hardest things we do as women is saying, I can't cope, I need help. And someone said, what do you need? I said, just put some cigarettes and a chocolate Easter egg on my doorstep. And they did that and And it was amazing. But they listened. And I probably repeated the same things and said the same swears over and

over again to them. But they said, no, you're not okay, Helen. You're not. And just knowing that you're loved. And I just thought, gosh, you know, he was only one person in my life. And then to get him out of the way, it sort of cleared the path. I go, I am so loved and so supported. And, you know, apart from, you know, a bit of the good stuff occasionally, women give me everything else. You know, it's great. Yes. Like you say, lasagna's on your doorstep.

Yeah, absolutely. We've had a message, lots of people messaging in about this. Charlie in Bristol says, I think anyone who survives a divorce should get a medal or a certificate. Absolutely. No one tells you how hard it is. My advice would be to surround yourself with people who've been through it and to hold on to the fact that it won't always feel this bad I wouldn't have believed that I could recover but I

have and I'm 53 I've married again I never thought I'd want to be married again but I've been fortunate enough to meet the most amazing man and it was me who proposed to him so hold on to hope this time will pass yes that's exactly what your book is about yeah and I just remember a friend Holly picked me up about five days after it happened. And she just said, look, it's really, really, really bad at the moment. She used other words. But it will get better. And it will be better than you've ever imagined.

And just remember that. And I think I don't shy away from the fact that it is horrible and you're broken. But as you slowly piece yourself back together again, you feel stronger than you've ever been. And what I love throughout the book, you know, it's your memoir, but you've also spoken to other incredible women to get advice and important advice, expert advice, like financial experts and the barrister. What did the barrister say to you?

Oh, I love this. The barrister said, whatever you do, stay out of court, which I just thought was amazing, coming from a barrister. But she just said, look, you know, court is not a court of morals. And I go, but he did this and this and this. And she said, the court doesn't care. The court does not care. Stay out of court. It will cost money and it will cost time. And yeah, so I went down the mediation route, but I've got lots of sort of really nuggety good information and amazing women littered through the book who just, you know, who I was very privileged to be able to contact. And that's what I want to give back to all the women. And I'm hopeful that men will read

this book as well. Yeah. I mean, it's just useful for anybody going through it. And then financial advice, because you said that in the 20 odd years that you were married, you'd never really thought about your own finances. Yeah. No, I put my my hand up and say I'm a terrible feminist when it comes to money and and also that I was sort of promised like don't you don't have to worry about you'll be looked after and I feel quite embarrassed that I haven't done that but there's some really good practical advice about budgeting and pensions and all those sort of things that suddenly you just have to face you know I think that's that's it. And it's not as scary as everyone thinks it is. And, you know, yes, there's some admin and divorce,

but goodness me, the payoff's amazing. Well, yes, because the book then talks about this wonderful sexual awakening that you have. Oh, my goodness me, Anita, yes. I mean, you know, we've talked about everything this morning. We might as well go there. Oh, my God. Within no details, don't you?

No, no, no, no. All I'm saying is I'm having a very, very nice time with lots and lots of different men. And I'm very safe. But gosh, oh, isn't it wonderful? I'm having a lovely time in the nude. So, yes, I'm having a great time. And I just really don't want a boyfriend.

But I'm rediscovering things about myself that I didn't know. And I haven't dated since I was 19. So I'm getting into all sorts, really. Yeah, it's a very entertaining read. Would you change anything about the past year? Yes, just one thing. It was I went in a hot tub in August last year and I got a massive eye infection. So I looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame for about two months.

I had this big puffy eye, which obviously hindered my dating prospects. So I had an eye patch, but it didn't stop me, Anita. She also talks about how sexy underwear got her through the year as well. But I won't ruin the book for you. It's out now.

Paralympian Steph Reed is heading to Tokyo next month to represent Team GB at the 2020 Games in the long jump. She's a five-time world record holder and a triple Paralympic medalist. Steph was involved in a boating accident when she was 15, which led to her having the lower part of her right leg amputated. Steph soon found that sport allowed her to heal and grow as a person. After new research showing one in three teenage girls drops out of sport, Steph is now on a mission to keep girls involved. She told Jessica how she feels about going to Tokyo next month.

I am so excited. Like, I know that there's still a lot of difficulties with the game, but as you say, it's just been 18 months of uncertainty. It's being cancelled. Will it come back on? And even, I've actually only, the para-athletics team was only announced As you say, it's just been 18 months of uncertainty. It's being cancelled. Will it come back on? And even I've actually only the para-athletics team was only announced less than two weeks ago. So it's the first time I've been like, OK, yes, I'm going. And now I just need to pack and get my life organised. And then I can't wait to go.

Wow. Congratulations. This will be your fourth Paralympics. You've already won three Paralympic medals over the years. So what's the aim this time around? I mean, I've, like the gold medal, that's what everyone is always going for. But you always want to have your, you know, your kind of your dream goal. And then there's your process goals. And so for me, this is very much just, there were still some things I thought I could do better. And I was just loving it. You know, this was just never a career. When I first had my amputation, you know, nobody knew what the Paralympics were.

This was just not even on my radar that it was possible. I just thought I am loving this way too much. And if I can do it again for another cycle, I am in. You are absolutely beaming this morning. I love the enthusiasm. You mentioned, you know, that when you had your accident, no one really knew what the Paralympics was or what it was about. So how did that accident and the amputation change your relationship with sport? It was tough. It was really, really hard. I grew up playing sports. And actually, my initial dream was to be

an international rugby superstar. That's what I wanted to do. And then and I was always somebody who was very confident and comfortable and at home on the pitch playing with boys or girls. And then the accident happened. And I became an amputee. And, you know, two things changed. One, it was just it's being 15 as a female going through puberty, that's already tough. And you then get this life altering injury that changes how you look and perhaps what you're going to be able to do in life. That's really difficult. And then there was the aspect about missing out on my dream and wondering whether or not the sport was going to be for me. And I did want to get back into sport, but I was

now in this very unknown position of, I was so unconfident and I had never been like this. And it was just so hard to, you know, I wanted to go to the gym or I wanted to be out on the pitch or playing basketball because of the artificial leg. There was just no way that I could ever do it and slip under the radar. Everybody was always staring at you. And then there was just no way that I could ever do it and slip under the radar everybody was always staring at you and then there was a thing that I've just I wasn't that good anymore not because I had necessarily changed as an athlete but because I was still learning how to use this artificial leg and it was a really really tough time but at that moment what sport did for me was it helped me to just like my body again and like who I was

and and also helped me build up that confidence and and even though I went into sport not very good I I knew well okay fine I wasn't great today but I'll I'll come back tomorrow and and I'll be better and I suppose that's exactly why you're campaigning to increase girls participation in sport body confidence is a big part of that. Yes, exactly. I mean, I'm so excited to partner with Always and the Keep Her Playing campaign because I know what it did for me. And the thing that the sport does is, you know,

you learn all these things like confidence and leadership and, you know, what do you do when the pressure is on and these are things that yes matter in sport but matter so much more as well in the rest of your life and the fact that the research show that one in three girls are dropping out of sport at puberty and this means that this is one in three girls that aren't getting that opportunity to develop these skills and we just we cannot be missing out on that kind of potential. There are many benefits but what would you say to any girls listening right now the main benefits that they can experience from playing sport? For me it was the confidence factor both in terms of how I felt about my body I in the span of about and it took it took a long time just to it was

about four to five years that that's how long it took me to really become OK with being an amputee and going from someone who hated her artificial leg and always wanted to hide it to being someone that loved it. Because now this blade is how I can run. And yes, you should stare at it because it's awesome. And that was a huge transformation for me. But I think what it did for me personally about learning about confidence outside of that and being able to walk into any situation and know I can handle this. So inspiring. Paralympian Steph Reid speaking to Jessica there. Go Steph. Have a lovely rest of your weekend and do join Andrew Catherwood on Monday at two minutes past ten to be precise. I'm Sarah Treleaven 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.