Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Women at breaking point, Revenge porn, The term 'witch'

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

Why the latest lockdown has left so many women feeling at breaking point as they try to juggle home schooling and working from home simultaneously. Annie tells us her story and we hear from Leann Cross the Director of Homestart Greenwich and Sam Smethers the former Chief Exec of the Fawcett Society,. Model and TV personality, Zara McDermott talks about revenge porn. Intimate images of her were shared without her consent when she was 14 and again when she was 21. Sharing explicit or intimate images without consent has been illegal since 2015, when Baroness Morgan was in office as Minister for Women and Equalities. Baroness Morgan joins the discussion to talk about the change to the law, which has been failing women and girls.Harry Dunn was just 19 when he was was killed on his motorbike in Northamptonshire in 2019 when an American woman was driving on the wrong side of the road. His mum Charlotte Charles tells us about the latest ruling in the campaign to get Harry justice.Why are so many girls and women suffering from vulva anxiety? Alix Fox, a sex journalist, broadcaster and educator, and Dr Naomi Crouch, the Chair of the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology discuss.A new TV campaign is urging people from BAME backgrounds to take the Covid-19 vaccine, We hear from Mehreen Baig who's backing the campaign and Dr Binita Kane a Consultant Respiratory Physician at Manchester University Foundation Trust. And the Classics scholar Mary Beard on how the term ‘witch’ has been used as an insult which she believes is an attempt to discredit her and older women generally.Presenter Anita Rani Producer Rabeka Nurmahomed

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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 the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. Today we discuss the consequences of revenge porn on one woman and how the government is trying to tackle the issue. Harry Dunn was the 19-year-old who was killed on his motorbike in Northamptonshire in 2019, when an American woman was driving the wrong way.

His mum, Charlotte Charles, tells us about the latest ruling concerning his case and why campaigning has been so vital for her and her family. Still living with the pain every day, you know, every fibre of your body still hurts. But I think our mental health would have been far, far worse if we hadn't had the campaign to really focus some of our anger and some of our grief. We discuss why the term witch is being used as an insult to older women with Mary Beard,

who has personal experience of this. And vulva anxiety. Why are so many girls and women seeking help about their vulva anxiety? I look like that, and that woman had an operation, so there must be something wrong with me. There must be a problem, and now I need to find a solution. It's very hard to reinforce the sense of the fact that their anatomy is normal, they don't need any procedure or anything done, to try and undo that in a 20-minute appointment face-to-face.

Now, on Monday, the Prime Minister is due to outline a highly anticipated plan for reopening schools in England. Speculation is that it'll be the 8th of March, ending what will have been a whopping nine weeks of homeschooling. This has placed immense strain on families, many of whom are already working 40-hour weeks. A recent TUC report found that women are disproportionately picking up the slack when it comes to the children,

but were not given enough flexibility by their employers to fit it all in. This leaves some women effectively doing two full-time jobs at the same time. And we wanted to give voice to this unique moment in our history. Meet Annie. That's what we're calling her anyway, as she needs to remain anonymous because she felt uncomfortable complaining about her lot in the first place and was scared her employer wouldn't look too kindly on her either. She's juggling a 40-hour week and three children.

For me personally, and I think we always caveat this with, we know that there's people in kind of worse situations and tougher situations on the front line. But for me personally, this has been really, really hard. I feel completely conflicted between trying to be a mum and do that as best as I can anyway and trying to to work full-time and I have great pride in my job and I I I'm passionate about my career so I want to do a good job and then for me the the tipping point is this attempting to try and homeschool at the same time and again take pride

in that and knowing that I want to to set that example and and show the kids that it's really important to work hard um but attempting to do all three at the moment just feels completely impossible and for me feels like it's falling as a as the the female feels like it's falling on my shoulders your husband works but can't work at home is that right yeah um so he works in an office um that has to be open at the moment and um there was absolutely no negotiation it was a fact that he has to work in that office have you tried with your employer have you said this is really hard or do you feel like you can't say that because you're scared you're going to lose your job um i don't necessarily feel i'm going to lose my job but i feel like um i would be seen to be not coping and so for me for

my employer they're not asking and i think that's a real issue so they are not asking if i'm okay because i've got three children at home i get oh you've got your hands full because I've got three children at home, I get, oh, you've got your hands full because you've got your three kids at home type comments. The only people who are asking whether I'm okay and I make sure I ask everybody if they're okay for this reason is fellow mums and that is it. Do you get obsessed about your everyday, what the reality is at the moment?

I think for me, I go through a complete range of emotions every single day. And I said to you, Emma, I am kind of close here. So I do find it really emotional because I have times when I feel like I'm failing at everything at the moment um that I'm not I'm not I know I'm not being the best mum and I know I'm not doing the best at my job um and I have moments in the days when I I do feel I've got this you know I can do this and those moments are there as well and I feel I feel proud that we are getting through this and we are keeping the kids at home so the NHS can do what they're brilliant at I feel that kind of pride as well and I think I'll look back and feel that probably more but right now every day and right

now at this moment in time with the kids you know in the other room it feels really impossible to juggle all these kind of different priorities at the moment. I can hear the strain and the emotion in your voice. Yeah, I think it's a I do have so many moments throughout the day when I just try and not to kind of cry. Because I think we have this thing and this pride where we don't want to, you know, once you go, you go. And you've kind of got to hold it together, as I say, for the kids in the other room, for work, for being on that call for everything else. But just so emotional about not feeling in control of anything, anything that I'm doing and all this is kind of being slightly done to me. And I know that's the same for everybody. But yeah, just I think the emotion

comes from just feeling like I'm pretty close to failing at all of this. Well, that was the experience of Annie. Leanne Cross is the director of Homestar Greenwich, which provides support and a friendly ear for a range of different families. Sam Smethers is the former chief exec of the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality and women's rights, who stepped down in December last year, in part to find a bit more balance in her life. What did she make of Annie's story?

It was really moving listening to her, and I really identified so much with what she was saying, and that constant battle, which frankly was a battle before COVID anyway, of juggling everything and caring for children. know i've been juggling it for 29 years i had my first baby when i was 21 and my last one was 42 so i you know that's one of the reasons why i stepped back because i felt so ground down by it but doing a full-time job and caring for three young children at home and home schooling trying to give them an education as And how are mothers and parents supposed to do that?

And so you really felt that you felt the kind of tension in her voice. And she's trying desperately to hold it all together. And I'm sure she's she is holding it together. And, you know, you can see she's just about managing it. But there are so, so many women right now who are struggling to do that driven out of work feeling that they can't carry on doing what they've been qualified and trained to do and paid to do all this time and making those informed decisions as you said so and you know it's really really hard I was just gonna say teaching is a full-time job you know as well it's a professional job I'm not a teacher I don't

actually enjoy teaching my kids I really don't I find it very hard. Leanne, what are you hearing from families perhaps that you don't normally hear from in your support role as director of Homestar Greenwich? A very similar story from Annie. And I think families like Annie are kind of the ones that we probably wouldn't have heard much from before. So they're in full time work, their children in school, and maybe they might dip in and out on a weekend type of activity we're running. But more and more, that cohort of women, of working families, who are just feeling that the pandemic has added, with the homeschooling, just slightly too much to their plates. And, you know, women and families are amazing at all of the multitasking that they do. But this feels very overwhelming because the support systems that people are used to having, we have families saying, you know, actually my mum or a friend helped me with the children

or sometimes colleagues buddy together and they pick up children or the after school clubs and with those being closed, even the day of support that families previously had isn't available to them. I know that you yourself, Leanne, are feeling this as well. Oh, definitely. I mean, I've been quite open with my school and said, we aren't homeschooling.

They're home from school and I'm doing my best and we're trying to do things that fit two different curriculum ages through working huge amount of hours each week for both myself and my husband um and I've done that oh I'm really lucky because I've got a partner at home well actually my experience and my hardship isn't diminished by somebody else's. Just to come back to you Sam Smethers as the former chief executive of the forces society and to remind people, campaigns for gender equality, you know, there's a whole other conversation perhaps we could have at another

time about your own decision, which was actually not necessarily just linked to the pandemic, because one would hope that the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, you know, wouldn't necessarily feel like work was not working in some ways. But, you know, there's lots of personal things at play there. But because you've held that role, what would you say to employers who are listening and doing what Annie is saying, who are essentially just ignoring the fact that children are at home? Is there something you would say, Sam Smethers? Absolutely. I think the first thing is employers have got a duty of care to their staff and their mental health, their wellbeing, really supporting them to do what they need to do and to get through this pandemic and you know there are some good employers who are doing that who are really putting the extra work in

place to support their employees but we also hear of lots of horror stories where they're not and they're just not engaging with it and it's all a bit of a joke or here are the kids on zoom and they're not really thinking about what what does that really mean for the woman at the other end and it is disproportionately still women who are doing that sort of balancing act so duty of care to your staff if you've invested in those staff and you've you've you've trained them you've promoted them they they must be a value to you why not value them now it's really really important that you continue to value those staff and actually think about retaining those staff and if they're walking away from you and feeling they can't cope that's that's a vote of no confidence really in in the

way they're able to balance their work and home life so there's much more that employers can do you know and I just don't accept that jobs you know in many cases they can't be done flexibly most of them can I know that some are frontline jobs and some can't be done from home but actually some degree of flexibility is usually possible. So really thinking afresh about how things can be done flexibly and not just, you know, focusing on presentees. And, you know, really, we've really got to think about what is productivity and how do we get the best out of people and how can we support and care for our staff

to get through all of this together? I mean, I can also hear, you know, small business owners and mid-sized and large probably saying, you know, I can't even think about anything right now because I suppose I'm fighting for my company, but they've also got to try and do this at the same time. That's not to diminish that point, but just perhaps also to reflect that.

Leanne, if I could just give a final word to you on this. Is there a message you would like to give to anyone listening who doesn't feel they can get in touch and feels bad even raising this with anyone or is there something that I don't know a piece of music or something you do to get yourself through a particularly bad moment I think I've got I've got lots of tactics that I've been um in bringing out of the box over the last few weeks and months but I think I'm just going to say first a lot of

parents probably because they've never felt they needed any extra support don't know where to go so the first thing is there are still support services there's organizations like home start like um like mind who are doing lots of activities you've got your local children's centers i mean they're generally directed for under fives but even the youth services they are open they might not be physically open but they're doing online activities I mean my children got involved in a couple of online zoom groups and just the difference in them engaging with other children has actually picked up our day for the rest of the afternoon so I would encourage parents to keep on doing that engage with the local children centres engage with the local home starts they are befri services. Use the support that's out there.

Mine. Don't think, oh, I'm not that bad. I don't need it. We all need it. We all need to talk. Leanne Cross and Sam Smethers were talking to Emma there. Well, Annie's story was something that many of you could relate to and you got in touch to talk to us about it.

Anonymous emailed in to say, I don't think anyone realises how many women are feeling just like Annie We're exhausted and scared to speak up in fear of what employers might do If we ask employers for help we're told to take our annual leave or take unpaid leave Which is frankly unfair as others are using their holiday to relax I'm a single mum and I'm at breaking point Please fight for us Woman's Hour as we're too tired to fight for ourselves We got your backs don't worry And Anna says, but listening to Annie made me feel relieved that it's not just me feeling this way. Just hoping to get through this without the children knowing how hard this is, trying to do the best I can to homeschool, work and keep the family together,

whilst all the time feeling guilty that I'm doing none of it well and knowing others have it harder. Thank you for this piece. It's made a difference to know I'm not alone. Now model and TV personality Zara McDermott had intimate images of her shared without her consent when she was just 14 and then again when she was 21. She's presenting a BBC3 documentary about so-called revenge porn and supports domestic abuse charity Refuge's latest campaign to make threatening to share intimate images a crime as part of the domestic abuse bill. Baroness Morgan was in office as Minister for Women and Equalities when explicit or intimate images without consent became illegal in 2015. But first, Zahra explained what happened when she was 21.

So there was a guy who I was going out with. He was a professional. He was a lot older than me I think he was like almost 30 and I honestly thought that he was like the one I was like this is the guy that I've been looking for he's mature he's got everything um he ended up asking me for an image a few months into our relationship I sent a few and I think that essentially he sent them to his friends at the time and then we broke up uh and that was after when I went on Love Island because I was gonna not go on Love Island for this guy because I liked him that much and we broke up I ended up going on Love Island and then

I think that he'd sent the images to his friends before I went in the villa and then as soon as I appeared in the villa all his friends were like oh my god we have these images of this girl who's just gone on to Love Island and they started circulating it with their friends and on that occasion it went worldwide like ridiculous amounts my um my ex-boyfriend Adam said that he was on a flight once and he was next to a guy and this guy just got up the images of me and just shoved them in his face. That's the extent that people would go to at that point. It was crazy. And terrifying.

It's really hard to even hear you talking about it, actually. Now you're involved in Refugees, the Naked Threat campaign. What do you want to do? I think that it's really important that these types of crimes get more recognition um there's several things that you know if i was if i was the prime minister i would change quite a few things about the about the law there one one main thing that we're looking at with the refuge campaign is the idea of the threat to share. So, you know, looking at a lot of research, we know that so many women are almost held hostage to these images, you know,

their abusive partners can have these images and say, if you leave me, if you walk away from this relationship, or if you do this, or if you do that, I will share these images with your colleagues with your friends with your family and women are more and more feeling so isolated in these situations and I think it's so important that we recognize that and because I think so many women are probably scared to go to the authorities because it's actually not a crime so what where where could anything go with that and for some women, just the threat of something like that can destroy their lives, as we'll find out in your document. I'm going to bring Baroness Nicky Morgan in here. It was when you were in office as Minister for Women and Equalities

that explicit or intimate images without consent, exposing them, sharing them, became illegal. What do you make of what Zara's saying now and actually pushing it further and making the threat to share those images made illegal as well? I think it's necessary to criminalise the threat of sharing. Women feel held hostage and of course I should just say it is mostly women who are the victims. Of course there are going to be some men and people in perhaps same-sex relationships but the vast

majority are women. The vast majority are in a relationship. And this is an instrument of control. And this government has already recognised in domestic abuse legislation the issue of coercive control. So I think it's right that it is time that we use this domestic abuse bill to criminalise the threat to share intimate images. Also, as Zahra says, I think when people do know that this is being threatened, they will go to the police. The police will say, well, we can't do anything until those images are shared. That's not entirely correct, but the law is not clear. There are potentially some other offences that could be used, but it's not clear at all. That's why I think having a clear offence in the domestic abuse bill, the Law Commission is then looking more broadly at other image-based abuse offences.

But our argument, I think Zara's now, Refugees is, we've got this bill, let's take this opportunity now. How likely is it to go through? Well, the government have conceded a principle. I think the government understand there is a gap in the law and ministers know that actually there is this opportunity to fill that. I think they would have preferred to wait for the Law Commission to report more on all image-based abuse offences. I understand that. But I think the government have indicated that they are going to accept, whether it's my amendment, whether we're able to put some other wording down that we can agree on. But I think that's good news. But obviously, the next stage of the bill is going to be in early March in the House of Lords. And I hope we'll get some definite movement from ministers then.

Azara, as part of the documentary, you looked into teenagers now, young girls 10 years younger than you, and just how common it is to be asked to sext to a young man. I mean, what did you discover? To be honest, it kind of confirmed exactly what I thought. I knew that this was just going to get more and more prominent in society you know we live in a digital age people have entire relationships across one side of the world to another and I think it would be completely naive to think that they stop at you know just how was your day you know I think that's completely naive to think that so it doesn't surprise me in any way shape or form that this has just got kind of this situation has got worse um what kind of does sadden me though

is the fact that a lot of the young girls I spoke to and as Nikki rightly said you know there are other victims in this situation you know it's not all women but just for the most part it is um you know a lot of these these young women felt that the blame and the onus was always going to be on them. And they felt that there was no clear definition of punishment. And I think that once the bill is passed and once there's more clarity in the law and there's less of a grey area, I think that it gives people more guidance on what they should and shouldn't do. And I think that is going to be such a huge step. Nikki, how difficult is it for the government to keep up to date with amending offences

with the constant advances in technology? Well, I think it is going to be a challenge. And of course, one of the things that has been discussed in the context of this amendment, but more broadly, is the issue of deep fakes. And that's something that we might not even thought about a couple of years ago so i think eventually obviously the government is also going to legislate against online harms

more broadly um the issue of curbing um some of the uh making sure that harmful content shared on platforms is you know is taken down quickly um and i suspect eventually we will have as a sort of general law and then there'll be underlying regulations that can be kept up to date more frequently in order to respond to the changes in technology. It's always going to be a challenge for the government, the police to get ahead, obviously, of the technology. But that doesn't mean that we, you know, we must not try because people, as we hear, their lives are being taken apart by having this sort of thing happen to them. And Zahra, what struck me is, you know, the amount of people that, well, you were blamed by the school and by your peers,

you know, the boyfriend you were seeing at the time dumped you. I mean, it was just, the repercussions were horrendous. And we constantly talk about this in terms of stopping girls from sending the images. But surely we need to be talking about how to educate boys. I agree. I'm in complete agreement with you. But I think at the moment the problem is there is that lack of safeguarding in place there is that lack of education so

my advice right now is saying to girls you know really think before you take that risk because it is a huge huge risk to take when deciding to stand that image you're putting the you know the autonomy over your own body you're putting that in someone else's hands. And unfortunately, with the lack of education and the lack of punishment, you know, we can't govern it enough. That was Zara McDermott and Baroness Morgan speaking there. Gabby emailed in to say,

as a woman of a similar age as Zara, I just wanted to say thank you to Zara for speaking about a really important issue. She's very brave, as it's a topic that carries a lot of stigma. Many girls send these types of images because of pressure, lack of education or guidance and a trust in the person they send them to. I know of countless intelligent and brilliant women who've had similar experiences. Let's stop shaming women for sending the pictures

and start putting the responsibility on those that spread the images. Thank you for that email, Gabby. Now, Charlotte Charles is continuing to fight for justice for her 19-year-old son, Harry Dunn, who was killed on his motorbike in Northamptonshire in 2019 when an American woman was driving the wrong way. That woman and Sekoulas returned to the US, claiming diplomatic immunity

and an extradition request was blocked. Now a civil claim for damages against Harry's alleged killer has been allowed to go ahead in America due to her refusal to return to the UK, a judge has ruled. How does Charlotte Charles feel about this latest decision? Basically that it just means an awful lot to me personally and obviously the rest of our family just being able to have the opportunity to hear some truths you know it means that Anzacoulis has to sit in a room with lawyers and answer questions under oath. So it means that I get the opportunity to present questions to her and I have to have truthful answers. Having that, I can't even begin to put into words

how much that means to be able to perhaps try to find out parts of the jigsaw puzzle that I still don't have because we haven't yet had our inquest so to find out a little bit about Harry's last hours is enormous absolutely enormous and that's what's chased you around this hasn't it that is what you're doing all of this for yes yeah we never wanted to bring a civil claim in the first place. It wasn't anything that we were, it wasn't in our remit. We weren't thinking about anything to do with the money side of things. But US lawyers were approaching us, many of them were approaching us a long, long time ago, advising that this may well be the way to go for us to find out extra information.

So after lots of talking, lots of chatting and rad travelling over many parts of the United States. I'm sorry to interrupt, but we should say that's the family spokesperson who I've also spoken to in the past, but just in case for our listeners. Yeah, absolutely. And he travelled halfway around the world on many occasions to try and find the correct lawyers for us, you know, because it was just highly important for us that we found the right ones that would be able to enable us obtaining information and bring it on now. There's lots of questions I have.

Anne Sekulis has admitted she was negligent and that her negligence did cause Harry's death. She has also said now in the latest statements that she wants to bring peace to Harry's family, to you, and that was after the judge rejected her bid to have that damages claim moved to this country. Is there anything that you want to say in response to that? So just, you know, if that's what she wants to do, if she wants to find a resolution, then she needs to just do the obvious thing, like we've been urging right from the beginning,

which is to just get herself on a plane and get back over to the UK to face that justice system. You know, Rad, again, you know, our spokesperson, he's working so very, very hard. There's dialogue going on all the time, almost daily, between officials in Washington and in London. And we are on the right route to her facing the UK justice system. But she could make that happen an awful lot sooner if she wants to find that resolution and she wants to maybe think about rebuilding her own life. If not for her own sake, but for her children's sake, then the obvious answer is there to just just come back and get it done. And that would be your message to her woman to woman, mother to mother yeah do it for her kids if not for herself the judge has said that she expressed a concern she she would never receive fair treatment both within the press and the local community if she returned to the uk do you have any truck with that

no i mean you know all of our supporters are very, very vocal. They've been amazing. Literally around the world, they have been amazing. But they're good people. And I do feel that she would, and Sekoulas would definitely have a safe passage in and out of the UK. We don't wish her any harm.

This isn't about vengeance or retribution. It's just about getting justice that my boy deserves. I want to talk about Harry in just a moment, if I can, because he is at the heart of this, and he's the reason you're talking to all of us today. The decision to go for a civil case, which has now been successful and will go ahead, you described in the past as a last resort, and you've explained that to us just now. How important or helpful would you say the British government, in particular the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, was in supporting that case?

Raab generally deals with all of those types of questions, but I can certainly be quite open about the fact that, of course, we are grateful for every bit of help that they have been giving us over recent months. You know, I think everyone knows that we had a very, very rocky first year or so, to be honest, with the FCDO. But there are many things that they've been working on with us since then. You know, the anomaly that we had amended in July to make sure that the loophole was filled so that we could be rest assured that this would never happen to any other family ever again. We were very vocal in thanking Dominic Raab and his team for that. And Rad has been very vocal the last couple of days in thanking the same team for helping us go ahead

with the civil claim. You know, they are supporting us in every which way possible with that. So onwards and upwards, hopefully, with them. Can I ask about that badge you're wearing? Because I know this is radio, but we are in these times doing it over video conferencing. So I have the pleasure of seeing you uh which is very nice for for the purpose of being able to talk like this and and again I know how hard or I know how hard you've

told me it is at times to talk about Harry but you're wearing a badge of a motorbike yeah um he was one hell um of an enthusiast with motorbikes he his whole life revolved around motorbikes you know he he had one from the age of seven he's always been a bit of a petrol head um and I wore I wore this this badge to his funeral. And I've barely taken it off since. I try to wear it in nearly every interview I do, whether it's radio or whether it's TV. It's just part of him that I can feel that I can carry with me all the time. And the other little badge is obviously our little green ribbon,

which I think is quite significant. We chose green because of Kawasaki green and he had his favourite motorbike was Kawasaki and it was a beautiful bright lime green. But green green ribbons also represent mental health. And I think it's very poignant because without having embarked on this campaign, I don't think any of our mental health would be quite as intact as it is now. You know, it's not by any means perfect. We are fragile, for one word that can describe how we're still living with the pain every day, every fibre of your body still hurts. You're missing with everything you've got, everything you feel, you miss your child.

But I think our mental health would have been far, far worse if we hadn't had the campaign to really focus some of our anger and some of our grief. You know, we've been able to channel some of that. And for that, I'll always be thankful to everyone around us that's helped us continue this campaign. So, yeah, both of my badges are really, really important to me. Incredibly powerful listening to Charlotte Charles there. And lots of you were moved by what you heard. Patricia emailed in to say, listening to Harry's mother Charlotte has taken me back to the fatal crash that killed my eight-year-old brother Patrick in 1967 when he

was crossing a road coming home from school. The dispute that followed never revealed who was the driver of the car. That and the moors of the time meant that my mother clammed up and Patrick's life and death were never spoken about. She suffered from never having the structure or support to find out what really happened, and I applaud Charlotte for voicing and pursuing her fight for Harry. If you'd like to email us about anything you hear on Woman's Hour, please go to our website.

You can also text us on 84844 or contact us via Instagram or Twitter. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Now, what should a vulva look like? Well, there isn't a correct answer because everyone is different. Teenage girls and women in the past wouldn't have been able to compare, but now with the internet they can. This has led to something called vulva anxiety and is seeing them referred to gynaecologists from as young as nine. And in lockdown, teens are like the rest of us, isolated and more prone to fixating over issues than normal. So how do we equip girls and women to feel confident about their genitalia? Alex Fox is a sex journalist, broadcaster and educator,

and Dr Naomi Crouch is the chair of the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology. What issues are girls and women coming to her with? Girls are very much coming along with anxieties, usually about appearance, but they'll sometimes talk about physical symptoms as well. But the striking thing is that they're unable to get much access to reliable information. So one of the areas I will always ask them about is where they've got any information from. And the vast majority of the time, this will be from cosmetic surgery websites. So girls will be concerned sitting in their bedroom, probably, like you say, sort of over worrying, very kind of

anxious, trying to get some reassurance, and looking on the internet. And they'll quite often see before and after photos of surgery. And the comment I often get is, well, I look like that and that woman had an operation. So there must be something wrong with me. There must be a problem. And now I need to find a solution. And it's very hard when that's built up over a couple of years of worrying girls, plucking up the courage to talk to their parent about it. and then perhaps coming to see a doctor or a gynecologist it's very hard to reinforce the sense of the fact that their anatomy is normal they don't need any any procedure or anything done to try and undo that in a 20 minute appointment face to face what specifically are they seeing that they don't like? So it's nearly always the labia minoris, the inner lips.

And one very important fact that often gets missed out is the vulva takes many, many years to develop. And one of the things that's quite interesting in medical schools is we're taught about sort of genital anatomy development using canna stages. And for boys and for men, then this will have penile and scrotal anatomy, and it will show all the changes boys and for men, then this will have penile and scrotal anatomy and it will show all the changes. But for women, then it's just pubic hair changes. There's no comparative information on development of the vulva through many years. And of course, I have to say it's probably been 10 years since I've seen a pubic hair on an adolescent. Most people will choose to remove it completely. So the information we have about normal genital development in women is reasonably useless. And it's very hard to explain the fact that the anatomy

changes dramatically over many years, and where labia minora, the inner lips might appear as though they're protruding through, then actually as the rest of the vulva develops, the appearance changes dramatically. Alex, to bring you into into this how do you think this has become an anxiety? I totally agree with Naomi I think these before and after pictures and the prevalence of labiaplasty and the advertisement of of it as something desirable. Even slang terms like design a vagina are painting the idea of surgically altered bodies as a goal. And it's interesting this because often when I talk about vulval anxiety, the big old finger of blame automatically goes to porn. And porn is an influence, but it may not be as big an influence as a lot of us assume.

And actually using that as quite a convenient catch-all scapegoat might mean that we are missing other problems that also need attention. The standard argument goes that a lot of images you see in pornography may have been surgically altered. And also because neat, petite, discreet labia minora and labia majora, the inner and outer lips, are considered conventionally attractive. That people who naturally have those bodily forms go into porn, become more popular and thus perpetuate that idea that that type of vulva is the most attractive. But actually, misogynistic put downs of women's natural anatomy and the corresponding shame that go along with that have been around for a lot longer than online porn. And there's some really interesting conversations and research coming from places like Stanford University and leading voices like the sexual psychologist Silver Neves that suggest that porn isn't this necessarily this primary destructive juggernaut in terms of vulval self-image that we often assume it might be.

In fact, anecdotally, I've heard from women who've actually said that they've seen porn that shows a greater variety of vulvas and that they've actually found some reassurance in seeing bodies that look like theirs in porn. So I would like to see his bodies that look like theirs in education and other places. So that's that's a change there that you could see. Naomi, if you're already dealing with this issue yourself, or perhaps you're the parent of someone who's going through this, is there anything you could say to them today, because perhaps they can't get an appointment, to try and help that person or help themselves to diffuse this constant going over it in their head, like something is wrong with them? Yes, I think it's really important to acknowledge the psychological distress. It's rather than just saying, oh, for goodness sake, you're just normal, don't worry about it, there are worse things. I think it's really important to acknowledge the psychological distress. It's rather than just saying, oh, for goodness sake, you're just normal.

Don't worry about it. There are worse things. I think it's important to acknowledge that. But in terms of trying to find accurate online information, there's a leaflet which was commissioned by the British Society called So What is Evolver Anyway? And it was developed with adolescents specifically looking at the huge variety in normal anatomy and reassurance. And that's available online. And also there are websites, there's one called the Labia Library, which I think is a fantastic name. And that's very good and also shows women in various sort of standing up as well as sitting down. And again, just celebrating diversity,

really. And finally, then I find that often girls are very anxious about what a future partner may say. So these are imagined psychological distresses rather than things that have happened in reality. And so, again, talking to the fact that if anybody, any partner has access to that part of your body, actually, it's an immense privilege and it should be treated with respect. And we occasionally sort of make a little joke about the fact that, you know, if you're worried about that part of your body, you get rid of the six foot of useless flesh, not the one centimetre of flesh. And so we talk about partner selection and self-esteem. Good bit of advice there from Dr Naomi Crouch and Alex Fox. Now, despite being disproportionately affected by COVID,

people from Black and Asian minority ethnic backgrounds are also much less likely to take up offers of a vaccination. In fact, a study by the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine recently found that in England, black people over the age of 80 were half as likely as their white peers to have been vaccinated against COVID. In Wales, the proportion of people in these communities who've had the vaccine is 14% lower than among white people. Disinformation and myths which have spread across WhatsApp have been largely blamed for the lack of uptake, but a new television campaign, shown at the same time by ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, is hoping to change this.

Let's hear a bit of that now. Hello, namaste, satsiri akal, assalamu alaikum. This past year has been challenging for us all, with many others losing our loved ones. But we will be reunited with our friends and family. All we have to do is just take the vaccine. Many in our community have suffered the most, largely due to our efforts on the frontline at the NHS or as key workers. Looking after others and serving our community is what we do.

It's how we've been brought up. That's why we have such immense pride when a family member becomes a doctor or a nurse. We have so much respect for them. They need our respect now more than ever. Now more than 20 famous faces from black and Asian communities have taken part in that short film, and one of those is presenter and blogger Mehreen Baig. I spoke to her and Dr Benita Kane, a consultant respiratory physician at Manchester University Foundation Trust,

and Mehreen told me why she wanted to take part in the film. It was a really easy decision actually. I am obviously a British Pakistani. I have parents who are elderly. My father is incredibly vulnerable and shielding and so is my brother. So for us knowing that there was a vaccine coming at some point was a real kind of light at the end of the tunnel and obviously when the studies were being done showing that there are so many people from black and asian and minority ethnic backgrounds who are not willing to take the vaccine for various reasons it just felt right to do something about it and just address some of the fears and some of the concerns. Even with my own dad,

I saw sort of him getting messages from his mates around the world, WhatsApp videos and stuff. Saying all sorts of conspiracy theories. He's going to get a chip in him. He's going to die. One of them, one of the things that we saw was actually on YouTube and it was like a full film. It was over an hour long going through all sorts of evidence and stuff of why we should take the vaccine.

I witnessed him firsthand go from being quite excited to quite reluctant and quite frightened. So I think the beauty of this campaign was that it's not just for these communities, but it was made by people from within those communities, authentic and trusted voices. Benita, let me bring you into this because you've come across vaccine hesitancy on the front line. You were nodding away, I could see, when Maureen was talking about those videos and WhatsApp messages. Is this something that you found when you've been talking to people? Yeah, absolutely, Anita. And, you know, I think we have to remember that vaccine

hesitancy is quite complex. It's not just, let's not just blame the communities for being slack and not taking up the vaccine. It's complicated and it's based on people's previous experiences and, you know, their beliefs and that's shaped And that's shaped from social issues, from cultural issues, political factors. And, you know, there are also things around health literacy, language literacy as well, and access to the services that can give them the right information. I mean, you've done community awareness groups. What are saying to you what are their fears so i think there's lots and lots of fears so um firstly uh as marina said there's huge amounts of misinformation circulating on whatsapp people masquerading to be doctors and and uh religious leaders as well um spreading misinformation um and people are worried that it'll affect fertility

people are worried that there's animal products people are worried that it will affect fertility. People are worried that there's animal products. People are worried there hasn't been enough testing, that they haven't been put through rigorous processes and that they're not effective. So there's lots of percentages being thrown around. It's only this effective or that effective. And all of this is just stoking fear in people who are at higher risk of dying from Covid. And that's the really sad double whammy here. Hasn't it highlighted something deeply worrying, though, that we have a huge proportion of our population who are mistrusting of the systems around them and the healthcare system in particular, and at a time when it's so important that we have trust to get beyond

this situation that we're in? Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, well, you can go as far back into this, Anita, as you like, because, you know, all of medical science, much of the things we learn in medical school are based on, you know, through a white lens. So, you know, we're not taught things through the eyes of an Asian or a black person in this country. And therefore, the systems are structured to disadvantage certain groups. And it's not just black and brown people, but, you know, the traveller communities and other communities as well. There is a systemic element to this as well, where people are disadvantaged. Well, Professor Kevin Fenton, who's Public Health England's Regional Director, said racism is a key factor in the disproportionate deaths in the BAME communities.

What do you think? Yeah, he's done a huge amount of positive work around this and a huge amount of research into what's going on. people who are from minority ethnic communities are more likely to live in poor conditions in deprived areas perhaps not have as good a diet because of that crowded damp housing in jobs that are exposing them to things that might harm their health and all of that is due to societal factors that disadvantage people and stop them from from not being in that position because actually maureen I don't know whether you agree with me, actually, within a lot of certainly South Asian communities, historically, there's a huge trust in doctors and medicine. You know, they are the people that you would have turned to to get your advice. So it's not actually a mistrust of medicine per se, is it? Or science? Yeah, no, I do agree with you you i don't think it's a mixture

of science i don't think i think there's something i mean all the all the issues that benita's highlighted so far it's an amalgamation of all of these things over many many years that has caused this to happen and get to the stage that we're at right now and i think it's this year has just proven i mean the last year has just proven how important it is to start tackling those wider issues to prevent this from happening ever again. And have your parents, has your dad had the vaccine now? My mum and dad have both had the vaccine and I cannot even, I just get,

I get teary thinking about it, it's pathetic. I can't tell you what a relief it was. We lived, and I know the past year has been so terrible for so many people, but we have lived in fear for a year, not being able to leave the house, even to pop to the shops or even like it was, it was just horrible. And just knowing they've got some element of protection is just a wonderful wonderful relief. Maireen Beg and Dr Benita Kane hands up anyone who has been called a witch. My hand is up. Mary Beard says she's had this word thrown at her frequently. She believes it's an attempt to discredit her and older women generally.

In the latest episode of her Inside Culture TV series on BBC Two, she's exploring dark arts, which include witchcraft. So who is it that's throwing this particular word at Mary Beard and why? Well, you never quite know who people are on Twitter, do you? But you get called a witch or I get called a witch. Often when I open my mouth to say something that the recipient at the other end of the tweet doesn't much like you know so you get not just shut up but shut up and get back to your cauldron you old hag you know well you know where's your broomstick darling and you know you can imagine you know there's a lot worse than that I have to say I've been called much much worse than witch on Twitter in my time but can imagine, you know, there's a lot worse than that. I have to say I've been called much, much worse than witch on Twitter in my time. But I think the, you know, it is extremely interesting that when we've got an old woman, particularly an old woman who looks like me, that there is a kind of resort to the language of haggery, coronary and witchcraft. Yes, and for people who don't know what you look like,

you should say, you know, you have grey hair that's over your shoulders and that will have associations for people. We've actually had a few messages as people's hair, you know, have changed or whatever that they've then received such messages. We're also, you're doing this in a very good, humoured way and I know you're going to perhaps

explain a bit more about the history of this, but does it upset you ever? I know you've been called worse. Has it ever affected you? I don't think it affects me much. It causes me to think, you know, what is it that, you know, in 2021, we're still going back to those old cliches about witchy women that, you know, the Greeks and Romans were already using 2,000 years ago. And although you kind of think that the people who are throwing those insults about are probably a bit silly, probably a bit lonely

and probably a bit sort of fearful of old ladies, I think you're still saying, what is it? Why? And have you come to any conclusions on that? Have you arrived anywhere? I mean, I think you never answer questions like that completely, but I think there is something throughout Western history, and I suspect more widely, which somehow doesn't know what to do

with women who no longer have a reproductive function you know that um they're past their childbearing years so what are they for and you know i think that you know sometimes that's a bit clearer to see when you know i go back to my own specialist subject of the of the ancient world, where the idea of the crone who can't have kids being a real danger in a culture is very strong. But I think we still haven't got over that quite. Men can go on, as it were, parading their potency, parading their ability to impregnate whoever they like, pardon, up to their dying day. But the menopause is something which changes how women are seen and looked at. And I think it is quite odd because you don't notice it happening to you. And about

20 years ago, I went through a few years where I thought, gosh, you know, the lads on the building sites are getting much, much kind of better behaved than they used to be. And then I realised, no, it's just they're not whistling at me. I was going to say, have you noticed in your own life that the insults changed as you got older? What were they and what did they go to? Well, the insults that they start being are things that masquerade as compliments, you know. I mean, I don't know whether you think hello gorgeous is a compliment or an insult, but the kind of overtly sexualised language

that people talk to you or people shout at you when you're under about 45 does change. You don't notice it to start with. And it changes into the crony, wizened, witchcrafty as generally defined. Well, I think I think that's what's interesting is that, you know, I'm certainly always inspired by older women who who have embraced some of this because I look to you to to try and use it as a power. And I think, you know, I'm seeing that on some of the messages messages but I also did just want to ask you how you had felt but I think with that age can come power if you channel it correctly and I wonder what your take is on that yeah yeah I mean I think that I suppose if I've got an ambition here it's to turn that sort of language on its head and say you know like in the words

of one of your tweets you know crones are wild women. Crones are powerful. And it was very, very encouraging a bit earlier in our Inside Culture series when I had Evelyn Glennie on. You know, she's also got long grey hair. And she was giving me a percussion lesson via Zoom, which was all terribly exciting. Like you do. Like you do. I thought, gosh, this is the day I was born for, really.

But then you found there were loads of tweets from people saying, great, you know, too long haired, grey haired ladies having a great time on telly. And, you know, I think it's not top of my list of great injustices in the world, let's be honest. But I think that if we can say, look, you can turn that power nexus around. You can say, you know, there's great, you know, there's great things about being an older woman. You know, you know, I do not regret not having periods anymore. I do not regret. Oh, Mary, you don't know how much I'm looking forward to that day. I know the process to get there is going to be an interesting one. But when you're there, Emma, it's liberating. But, you know, let's get that over. Let's say, let's celebrate this.

And that in some ways is what the kind of modern interest, I think, in witchcraft is partly doing. You know, partly saying that there are different ways of being female and powerful ways. And also, you know, as some have also said, I will read you a couple of these messages that, you know, have come in expressly for you, is that there is a power also with the idea of magic, you know, the idea of being able to play with your situation and change it. Yeah, you know, and I think magic means many things to many people from rabbits out of hats at kids' parties onto the dark arts. But it partly means getting the world to work the way you would quite like it to work.

You know, that's magic for me. Jenny says on email, Hi, I've been called a witch all my life. As a child, I got called a changeling or one of the fairy children, probably because I was wild. I've been called not normal, various other names,

usually by men, but also by women. I really don't care. I see it as a badge of honour. Really, I've just spent my life, you know, doing what I need and noticing things that people don't see. Rebecca says on email, Good morning. In one of my previous jobs, I was called a witch by one of my colleagues who gave me a customised broomstick

when I left. It was meant and taken as a compliment from someone who considered herself my apprentice witch. It seems she saw me, her manager, as a wise, all-seeing, doesn't miss a trick, eyes in the back of her head, strong, assertive and with a sense of humour type. Great. You know, I'm going to go out and buy my broomstick now. I must add, I actually have a broomstick at home and I use it to get to Woman's Hour every Friday and Saturday. Mary Beard and Inside Culture with Mary Beard is on Thursdays, 7pm BBC2 and iPlayer. And the emails came in. Anne says, I was so interested in your piece with Mary Beard and some of the assumptions you were making.

I am a very proud witch. Witchcraft is a pagan religion and is followed by both sexes. It is much maligned by many people and quite why the term witch is considered a derogatory term frustrates me. Interestingly, it's never used to describe men. Although the reality is there are quite a few men that would describe themselves as a witch. An item for another day, maybe. That's all from me today. Have a wonderful weekend and do join Emma again on Monday from 10. 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's 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.