Woman's Hour - Women in K-Pop: the success of BLACKPINK

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

As we’ve mentioned recently, the number of children being taken into care in England is currently at a 10-year high. Two weeks ago we looked at the repeat removals of children by the court and the lengths some mothers have gone to avoid that. Today we look at one of the most frequent outcomes for children removed from their parents' care - placement with a Special Guardian, usually a member of their extended family, under a Special Guardianship Order. A recent study from Lancaster University shows that while only 5% of children placed with Special Guardians end up back in care, there is a severe lack of support from local authorities and government. What more could be done to support these families, often looking after children in very difficult circumstances? Trying to live an environmentally friendly life is complicated. With our hectic lives, caring for the environment might seem like a problem too big to solve. We hear from Dr Tara Shine and Madeleine Murray, who run Change by Degrees, a sustainability consultancy that offers advice to business and communities, and environmental journalist, Lucy Siegle for some tips on the ways we can live better, greener lives. Last week, K-pop girl group BLACKPINK made history by becoming the first of its kind to perform at the festival, Coachella. With a world tour set for this year and their single ‘Kill This Love’ climbing the charts in the UK and the US, it looks like they might be poised to break the western pop music market. We discuss the role of women in K-Pop, both as performers and as fans. How powerful are their female fans? What’s behind the ‘girl crush’ concept? And how are women being marketed? We’re joined by K-Pop dance instructor Tammy Jane Mejia, music journalist Biju Belinky and Dr Haekyung Um from the University of Liverpool. Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Professor Judith Harwin Interviewed Guest: Dr Tara Shine Interviewed Guest: Lucy Siegle Interviewed Guest: Madeleine Murray Interviewed Guest: Tammy Jane Mejia Interviewed Guest: Biju Belinky Interviewed Guest: Dr Haekyung Um

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Women's Hour podcast from Friday the 19th of April 2019. Today, the first all-female K-pop group to perform at Coachella and they were in the UK Top 40 as well. I'm talking about Blackpink. MUSIC PLAYS about Blackpink. Is this the moment for women in K-pop?

Something we're discussing on the Women's Hour podcast today. If you happen to see the Sir David Attenborough documentary on BBC One last night, it was called Climate Change, The Facts, you might well be reassessing how you live your life. So we'll have a debate on the programme today about what exactly you can or could do in the home to make things a little better. First, though, this morning, we talked about a couple of weeks ago on the programme, the number of children taken into care in England. It has been widely acknowledged. It's a 10 year high. And a fortnight ago, we looked at the women who've had one child after another removed from their care by the courts.

One other option is to put them with a special guardian, usually, though not always, a member of their extended family. This happens under something called a special guardianship order. And there was a fourfold increase in the number of children put in these sorts of care between 2010 and 2016-17. Now, a study from Lancaster University has followed over 20,000 cases, and their study showed that just 5% of children who lived with special guardians ended up back in care. But it also showed a severe lack of support from families from local authorities and government. I talked to

Rachel, who's looking after a baby that we are calling Lucy, and I should say Rachel, that is a pseudonym as well, that's not her real name. First of all, here's the view of Judith Harwin, Professor in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Lancaster. I asked her how to define special guardians. So special guardians are either friends or relatives, normally, and they can be distant relatives they can be grandparents

and they take on as you were saying the responsibility to look after children up to the age of 18. But these are children whose lives have been well who have been involved with social services or the courts in some way. Exactly that was the group that we were really interested in we wanted to look at children who could no longer remain with their parents because of the experiences the children had had so the court made this order but the court wanted the child to remain within the family group and that's the very special feature of special guardianship orders because the child keeps in touch with the birth family as well as the relatives as living with the relatives let's talk to somebody we're going to call rachel who is looking after a very young child

that we're going to call lucy rachel good morning to Good morning. Tell us a little bit how about how Lucy came into your life. So we arrived in Lucy's life or into her care package fairly late on. She is my step-niece's daughter so although her family were quite removed from that side of it so we were aware that Lucy had been born and we were aware that lucy had been born and we were aware that she was in care as far as we knew though she was they were setting up a care package for her somewhere else um but due to varying circumstances and other things that happened very late on in that care package um that all fell through and the social services were ringing around family members or ringing family to see if lucy could be placed within the family before she went up for adoption

so that's when we entered the picture we have we found out that she was going to be put up for adoption it all sounded i was reading a little bit about your experience it sounded incredibly rushed and really very traumatic because you barely had 24 hours to get yourselves together. It was very quick. So it was a bank holiday weekend and her final court hearing was on the Wednesday after the bank holiday weekend and we were trying to phone social services on the Thursday and the Friday

and we never got through to anybody. So on the Tuesday I finally spoke to a social worker. And we didn't know, A, we didn't know whether we would be allowed. We hadn't heard a special guardianship. We didn't know anything. So when I spoke to the social worker, she just said, turn up at court and we'll sort it out from there. So the next day we turned up at court. Now, you're married and you have other children.

How did you come to the decision that you were indeed willing to do this? In our case we'd actually talked about fostering or adopting for a couple of years with our children anyways and it was something that we were looking at doing in the future. We'd contacted social services the year before with the look to fostering but there was blocks in the way we needed a spare room. One of us needed not to be working. There was various things to be able to foster. So we were looking at putting those in place.

So we were in a fortunate position. Our children had had conversations with us and we'd had conversations before about taking on a child anyway. And the rest of your children children were they all right with it yeah they were they were great because we'd had conversations before and there's a lot of them so they're used to sharing and the youngest was a bit he he was worried that he wouldn't be the baby anymore but but we talked it through and he was fine and they've been amazing since well that's that's brilliant

to know but tell me about the level of support you expected and the level of support you ended up getting we didn't to be fair we didn't really expect any support because we didn't know what we're doing so when we arrived at court we had conversations with them with social workers for about four hours and uh about various things and and they explained then what a special guardianship order was and how it would would work and i have to say the social worker that we dealt with throughout doing the guardianship assessment and right up until the assessment was signed off was excellent she worked really hard and we were fully supported in that um they they did pay for us to see a um a solicitor as well so we did get that at that point during the during the uh process

there was a lot of support it just being afterwards has has been lacking what in particular has been lacking well everything so they signed us off once we got our guardianship order through that came through within within like six months six months, three months, something like that and then once they signed us off we had I think one visit from a social worker afterwards

and then really we didn't hear anything and that was fine, everything was ticking along and then all of a sudden we got correspondence from birth family that we hadn't had. And we didn't get any warning that that was arriving or any advice on how to deal with replying to the things that we got. OK, can I put that point to Judith? What would you say in these circumstances? When a family like Rachel's gets that contact from the birth family of the child they're looking after, what are they supposed to do? Well, normally, in the best situations, that is all agreed in advance that there will be contact with the families.

And quite often, the local authority will be very detailed, specifying exactly how much contact, sometimes literally down to three times a week, and with which particular family members. So the experience you've just described there is really, really troubling and concerning. But what we also found was that even if it had been sorted out in advance, often family conflict was the most difficult issue for special guardians to handle. We interviewed a lot of special guardians and had quite extensive conversations. And this was one of the things that they said to us. And I don't know how it was for you, Rachel, but what they were telling us was that they really wanted a bit more guidance about what do you do if, for example, a birth parent either doesn't turn up and then the child is

really upset and disappointed and feels let down, or if they come and then they're in some ways say they're not in the best possible shape and that makes it very difficult because as a special guardian you can say I don't want this to go on for the time being and that's a very difficult thing because sometimes they're your own grandchildren. Rachel? Yeah I think that's right I think in a way it's slightly easier for us because we're quite removed so it's been slightly easier that that I don't have that pull of um of other family or being that connected i would imagine that as a grandparent or as a brother or a sister being a special guardian that must be really really difficult fortunately we're

in a situation that we can remove ourselves slightly but when you had that contact from i think it was it was the birth father you said and did you ring up the local authority for any help? I did I rang to see what I was meant to answer. Now we knew there was a possibility it is written into our order that they can have contact letterbox contact only so letters. It was the way that it came through we had no warning it was it was very informal it was so I was it came through we had no warning, it was very informal so I was ringing social services to try and

put something in place so it was a bit more formal and a bit more controlled and I know that they're overstretched and the team that I spoke to is actually the emergency social worker team so they have pressing cases and they don't have the time to deal with

this end of it so we did get very little response really. I know that you said earlier Rachel that you as a family had pondered fostering or adoption and I wonder Judith really whether some people perhaps cynically will listen to this and think well this is if this is adoption or fostering on the cheap I know adoption or fostering on the cheap. I know adoption and fostering are not the same. What would you say to that? A lot of things. I think the first point is it's very variable,

and that's one of the problems, that the amount of financial support that you can get from a local authority really does vary, but there's no obligation or setting out how much financial support you'll get or indeed how much legal advice you'll get. It is in some ways I think it is certainly you get less financial support than you would if you're a foster carer or if you're an adopter and the crucial point here is that you're taking care of children who are very, very vulnerable and who need permanent homes. They're no different, these children, from children who have been placed in foster care or end up in adoption.

So I think there are really serious questions. And one of the interesting and important issues is why and it may be that when special guardianship was first thought of it was expected that the special guardians would know the child the child would have lived with them for quite a long time and would have thought through can they afford this arrangement and it was really a private entirely private order right and it does seem to be something that has changed actually almost without anybody acknowledging it or recognizing it um and it's being used very frequently now exactly it's being used very frequently and particularly what's happening is it's being used increasingly as an outcome of care proceedings.

And it's gone up from, as you were mentioning, from about 5% through to 4,000 children a year who are now made subject to a special guardianship order. So that's an important thing. We're using it more and more. It's a great order provided the supports are there and the supports aren't sufficiently there. So what, Rachel, you were describing about how it came out of the blue, really, I think that's such, you know, you felt that you wanted to help this child, the little child you're looking after now. That's what all special guardians feel like, but they often don't know what they're taking on, and they're not getting enough legal advice. They may get no legal advice. Mostly they do, but it's only about half an hour, £250 worth.

And then they don't always understand what the implications are. We were, I think, truly shocked when we found that special guardians were saying to us that they'd had to Google what a special guardianship order is. That does seem quite ridiculous. Although, obviously, Rachel, you said yourself you weren't entirely sure. But we don't have much time, I'm afraid. But I'm sure you'd say, Rachel, that it was worth all the struggle.

Absolutely worth the struggle. And that Lucy's thriving in your care, I'm sure. Thank you very much. Really appreciate, Rachel, you taking the time. And Judith, lovely to see you. Thank you very much. That's Judith Harwin, Professor in Socio-Legal Studies

at the University of Lancaster, who undertook that research. Thank you very much. Now, no doubt you saw David Attenborough last night on BBC One in the programme Climate Change, The Facts. And the Extinction Rebellion protests are still going on in central London, throughout central London. Indeed, I have to say, a rather pleasant atmosphere at Oxford Circus.

First thing this morning, beautiful, sunny morning and everybody in very good spirits. So if you did see to David Attenborough last night, I think that the point that stood out for me was where he quite simply said, we stand at a unique point in our planet's history. Every one of us has the power to make changes now. We're running out of time, but there's still hope. But trying to live a more environmentally friendly life is actually quite complicated, as you're about to hear. I've been talking to Dr Tara Shine and Madeleine Murray, who run an organisation called Change by Degrees. This is an Irish sustainability consultancy, which offers education, advice and inspiration to any organisation that wants to basically operate more sustainably. I also spoke to the environmental journalist and one show reporter,

Lucy Siegel, and it's Lucy you'll hear from first. I work with lots of people on plastic and how to reduce the flow of plastic into their lives. And I often don't say, would you like to tackle the global plastic pandemic? To which most people would say, not really, because it's too big. I say, would you like control over your kitchen bin? Which goes down a storm, because actually, deep down, most of us don't want to be outwitted by our bin. I definitely don't. I can honestly, and I totally understand why people, by the way, are drawn in with that argument. All right, Madeleine, let me into your home then. How does it work now, and how does the way it works now contrast with the way things might have happened, say, six years ago?

So, yeah, we have made some fundamental changes in our house and it can be the simple things like the kind of shopping, you know, the average food shop that I do now looks radically different

to the food shop I did even last year. What's the difference? Well, there's far less plastic waste and our recycling bins, just to go back to Lucy's point, are now respectable. I'd happily let you rifle through them.

We have really interesting conversations, even like with my six-year-old and my four-year-old, about whether this is good for the environment. You know, the language has changed in our homes as well. And what have you avoided? My personal pet peeve is multi-packs and mini-packs. I buy in bulk now. I buy the biggest yogurt I can buy. I buy big cereal boxes. I buy big shampoo bottles. I just make sure that everything is, you know, we can decant stuff into lunch boxes and we can, you know, refill our pasta and our rice. Yeah, but why don't supermarkets have refills for shampoo?

Yeah, I know. But they could have refills for shampoo? Yeah, I know. But they could have, couldn't they? I mean, that's something we could aim for. Lucy? Oh, well, one of the reasons they don't have, and actually they used to be a lot more in like whole food shops and they took a lot of them away in some of the chains because there was a health and safety issue of shampoo leaking onto the floor because, you know, they're often in taps, like you turn the tap on.

And funnily enough a lot of these health and safety issues tend to evaporate once the market uh is is there once people start saying i would i would buy this suddenly they found a way around it which is um a mop generally for stuff like that um lucy let's nail this down carbon footprint and ecological footprint what's the difference well they're both rather more complicated than you might think that's the that's the truth i would think so carbon footprint basically takes the amount of carbon emissions that have been made to make a product so everything that's made every product and every service really comes with a carbon footprint.

So these, if you're talking about a cup or a computer, this is all the carbon that's embodied in that product. So it's the energy that was used to make it, where fossil fuels have been extracted or flying it wherever it needs to go is also included in the carbon footprint, but not always. So tracking my life today, for example, get up, boil kettle. Oh, huge. Huge. So, you know, by 10 o'clock or 9am, most of us have racked up a fair old carbon footprint. I get the tube to work. I buy a coffee. It all counts. It all counts. It all counts. But if you're looking at the wider ecological footprint of that, you're also factoring land use, resource use. You're factoring in all the impacts of all the materials, including water use, which is very, very important because we are on a planet with declining available water sources. So then it gets really complicated and you're sort of factoring in everything.

So it's not just the climate. So we tend, obviously, we know, you know, people talk in terms of a climate emergency at the moment. So we're all fixated on climate change. Well, I'm fixated on climate change and that's important, but there are all other ecological parameters that we have to bear in mind. Tara and Madeleine, do you avoid vegetables or fruit

that's out of season but has been flown in? Yeah, insofar as I can, I try and buy as local as possible. For me, this has always been a real challenge. I worked for years and years on development cooperation in countries like the East African countries that grow green beans, for example. So I have seen the improvement in livelihoods that has come to the farmers out there that have been able to make a living through green beans. So Kenyan green beans, I mean, they're very tasty, but they're being flown thousands of miles to my dinner table. But on the other hand, they're helping poverty stricken communities in Africa. Yeah, and there was some research I looked at a few years ago that looked at like flower growing in Kenya versus flower growing in in the Netherlands for example and

the overall ecological footprint was actually lower for the Kenyan flowers even though they were being flown in than it was for the Dutch because they required so much heat for example and so many more inputs where they were grown yet I don't know within any of these studies you're never sure how holistic they are. So were they looking at the long-term impacts of watering those flowers in Kenya on the groundwater there? I don't know. Basically, it's always complicated. Living on Earth means we have an impact.

So we have to get over that, number one. The very existence of us has an impact. And then it's just about making the best choices you can. And sometimes those choices are trade-off choices. But the more people have information and can make those trade-offs as an informed consumer, I think that's better. Then, you know, they're not having the wool pulled over their eyes or they're not only getting one side of the story. I kind of want to nail it down to the most basic domestic detail. Tara, why are toothbrushes plastic

routinely? Well, because plastic is an amazing material and, you know, we can all agree with that. The problem is we just now use plastic for things that we shouldn't use it for. And so someone invented a great plastic toothbrush once upon a time and thought, well, you know, it's hard wearing, it's

light, it holds nylon bristles really well. But we're now encouraged to change our toothbrush every couple of... Absolutely, yeah. So a toothbrush is used for anywhere between a month and two months. So it doesn't need to be made of a material that can last for five or six hundred years.

It's too good, it's too well made. So get a bamboo toothbrush. You can get a bamboo well made. So get a bamboo toothbrush. You can get a bamboo toothbrush. If you get a bamboo toothbrush, then, you know, make sure that you cut the bristles off it and you put it in your compost or use it to label the sweet pea that you grow in your garden or on a window box. You know, we can use it for we can use it for different for different things. But, yeah, it just the problem with plastic is it is made to last forever. And if you make things that are meant to be used for, you know, 10 seconds, 20 minutes, one month out of a material that's there to last forever, it's just overkill. Can I leap into the toothbrush? Every toothbrush you've ever had, plastic toothbrush, is probably still with us in some form. And many of them, Jane, will be bobbing around the ocean.

And the reason for that is because look at them. They're like aerodynamically made, they're like the perfect shape to travel in water. There isn't a proper recycling route for them because they're made of mixed plastic. And we've complicated it often by putting a battery in, which batteries and recycling centres do not go together. They're really dangerous. So we've basically made it unrecyclable. So we've managed to design in planned obsolescence and pollution into one product. So if you change one thing, make it your toothbrush. I just want to ask about my dishwasher and my dryer. Madeleine, what would you say about my use of these contraptions? If you're going to incorporate how you talk about tumble dryers, along everything being just and fair and allow for how people live.

So if you've got people living in apartment blocks that don't have access to a nice big garden to wind dry their clothes, then they're probably going to use a tumble dryer. And you have to talk to people about, OK, so if you're going to need a tumble dryer and you've no other options, then buy the most energy efficient tumble dryer that you've no other options then buy the most energy efficient tumble dryer that you can afford there are other little contraptions that you can get to put inside your tumble dryer that will help reduce the drying time if and when you need to use these balls aren't they yeah yeah and i have one and do they work yeah they do so an approach might be with a tumble dryer if you need a tumble dryer look at your energy company which is you're paying you if you use a tumble dryer I always think you're paying not through guilt or feeling guilty you're actually paying because it's really expensive and electricity is expensive so then you start thinking well how can I go with the energy company that offers the best green proposition for me.

Okay and there's some there's some interesting research around how many of those decisions around utilities etc in the home are made by women so women would actually be in charge of a lot of those choices in that regard so I know that when I went and changed my provider I went on to this generic website that allowed me to compare the different companies and they did automatically show me what was going to be green energy as well so you're getting the cost benefit of having a reduced bill and then the the feel good of knowing that you're using clean energy the simple things if you wanted to make a daily change a life change become a vegetarian that would be a help wouldn't it yeah i mean i did that but it took me a long time to do it and i can't tell you how glad i am that i've done it and it also helps with packaging

because a lot of meat packaging is the stuff that's non-recyclable Let's nail down from all three of you the things you should never buy or do again Tara, can I start with you? Okay, don't buy anything disposable, it doesn't matter if it's compostable or biodegradable

anything that's designed to be used for a couple of minutes and thrown away you don't need it. Madeline? My bugbear right now is online shopping and just the volume of online shopping that, well, Irish consumers do. I think we're ahead of the posse by a mile in Europe in terms of our online shopping habits. And I did some interesting research that kind of terrified me around the amount of stuff that has nowhere to go when it is returned from online shopping, that there's no processes at the other end

to actually put that material back out online. What? Sorry, I order three dresses because I'm not sure about the size. Are you really telling me that if I send two back, they're going to be dumped? So that's my example. We just talked about that recently. The girl who orders five dresses in the hope that one fits and then returns the other four.

And Lucy, you might know about this in terms of all the work you've done around fast fashion. Is that true? I cannot believe that. Oh, yeah. How can they afford to do it? Well, the company's returns are killing them. I mean, it's killing the whole business model. Initially, when online retailing became a really big thing, there was some positive carbon benefit from everyone having their deliveries at the same time.

So rather than you and I driving to a shop and expending that carbon on one item, there was some positive net gain. However, that was really quickly days with 21st century child rearing. Tara, what would you say about that? Well, I have two kids. Madeleine has four. So we're well placed to have a view on this. I think there's a lot you can do to buy less. There is some kind of crazy pressure that's put on new parents to have to buy, you know, the bouncer and the stroller

and the walker and the top of the range buggy. And, you know, it just gets out of control. All stuff which you might use for like three months, four months, five months, six months. And then it's actually quite hard to sell on to get any of the money back from the cost that you incurred for it. So number one is try and buy less.

Talk to parents who've gone before you, and if they say to you, really, you will not need that, you know, believe them, they're probably right. Then pass things on. The hand-me-down, pass-thing-on culture is really, really important in the world of kids, and there are lots of things that can be passed down, whether it's toys or the equipment or the high chair,

whatever it is, all of that can be passed on. And that's really important. And it's again, it's saving someone else money. Most of these things are in good nick when we need to pass them on. Well, Madeleine, four kids, disposable nappies? Yeah, so I never used cloth nappies. I always used just regular nappies.

My youngest is now four. Would I change my mind if I went again? Which I'm not going to do, by the way. I think four's enough. Of course, it's enough for the environment, that's for sure. Exactly. I'm inherently unsustainable in my large family. Wet wipes. Yeah, no, they're a big no-no. Absolute. And you actually have to be really literal with people. You talk about wet wipes to people and then you go, that also means facial wipes. And then they go, oh.

Yeah, you have to be really specific about what they use them for. This is really odd. Yeah, totally. Or like, you know, and don't pull out a wet wipe to clean your runners. They are essentially bits of plastic, which is what people don't seem to understand. And they are transforming our landscape. And I think something that's worth thinking about is a lot of these habits are new habits, relatively new habits. We weren't doing this even when we were growing up.

So I'm in my mid-40s. There were no white wipes when I was growing up. There was a damp hanky. And we managed to find it. And I don't think it's a it's a step backwards you know to go back to that it's going to save you money it's going to stop the sewers getting blocked up. And the products that are sold to us by companies who want to make money out of our conscience are the eco products eco-friendly green organic who can I trust here Lucy? I think by and large you can trust the people who've

been doing it for a long time and have actually put money into research and development. So if you take cleaning products, for example, there are brands who've been doing this for a long, long time. And then the supermarkets come in, take the logos and some of the formulations, but they haven't really invested in research and development. And the product is not as authentic. So I really, really do try and stick to those kind of tried and tested brands who've been in this arena for a long time and are continuing to push things forward. That's Lucy Siegel. You also heard from Madeleine Murray and Dr. Tara Shine of Change by Degrees. I have now bought a bamboo toothbrush since I recorded that conversation

earlier in the week. I should say I was really shocked by the clothes business and we have had a tweet on that subject from Sarah who says, I work for Debenhams. We do not dispose of our returns. They are put back into the system and resold. Yeah, any other opinions on that? I'd be really, really interested in hearing what does go on. I cannot believe that all those clothes are dumped. That would be absolutely terrible, surely. Bank Holiday Monday. Women's Hour is here, two minutes past ten, with a programme about women and

true crime. And I hope you find this interesting. The guests include Maureen Lee, who survived an attack by Peter Sutcliffe. It will also involve a former detective in the conversation, a criminologist, the editor of a new magazine aimed at women. It's called Crime Monthly. And also I'll talk to the presenter of a podcast about serial killers.

So women and true crime. Why are so many women interested in true crime, even if at times they feel somewhat guilty about it? That's Bank Holiday Monday's edition of Women's Hour. I hope you can join us then. Now, last week, it was an important, important moment for Blackpink. They are a K-pop girl group, and they made history by becoming the first K-pop girl group to perform at Coachella.

We played a bit of their track at the beginning of the show, but let's hear something else. This is Don't Know What To Do by Blackpink. That's Don't Know What To Do. Kill This Love was the track we played right at the very start. That one's climbing the charts in the UK and in the US. So Blackpink might actually be about to break the Western pop market, but they've been hugely successful everywhere else,

which we don't want to forget. With me now, K-pop dance instructor Tammy Jane Mejia. Welcome to the programme. Also here, Bijou Balinky instructor Tammy Jane Mejia. Welcome to the programme. Also here, Bijou Balinky, who's a music journalist. Welcome to you, Bijou. And in our studio in Liverpool, Dr Hek-Yong Um, who's from the University of Liverpool and an expert on K-pop. Can we start with you, Tammy Jane, because you haven't always been a massive fan. When did K-pop enter your life and how?

I would say completely it was about about 10 years ago um my family's actually from the philippines so i actually watch a lot of filipino entertainment shows and there's one um in particular singer that um was korean who was started off in the philippines and then she um she then made the news saying that she was now in a new um Korean girl group and then from there it was YouTube and then that was it it just took over my life and it was it wasn't an instant hit with you though was it no so um so before that point I had heard of a Korean singer called Rain who um I watched some clips of his concert and it was just to me it was just a a really like muscular guy singing and dancing and I thought okay I understand why it's kind of cool over there

but it didn't really um it didn't really resonate with me at the time but a couple of years later then listening to um other k-pop groups it kind of reminded me more of sort of my childhood watching maybe like britney spears or n-sync singing and dancing and that resonated with me more and then it was from that point on that it just kind of stuck with me now i know k-pop has been popular with lots of of people in britain for quite some time but this does appear to be a breakthrough why is it happening now um i'm not uh i'm not really sure why now maybe it's just the right i mean the last time we kind of heard of k-pop or korean music was when psy appeared so um i think just slowly and slowly was he the gang man yeah gangnam style yeah yeah that was him I wasn't keen yeah but that was a novelty song

surely yes it was it definitely it was taken over here in the West definitely as a novelty song and I think just as

more K-pop fans are sort of appearing I think Korea and the industry over there

are making it a bit more accessible to the more Western side. Yeah. Bishu, how would you define K-pop? Oh, God. Well, K-pop is pop music made in Korea. It is comprised of, you know, many different aspects. I don't say you could necessarily just restrict it to the music. It's also the music videos. It's also the concerts. It's also the fan meets. It's also all the content that is put out to the fans. So, you know, essentially Korean pop music, but there is so

much to it. That is why people love it so much. It is to a degree state-sponsored, isn't it? Is that fair? I mean, there is a stronger connection than you would have in, say, the Western market usually, but I wouldn't say it's state-sponsored necessarily because essentially the companies, they work, they promote the groups they have all of these independent works it's not like there's a government official signing anything no but if you were looking for a cultural export this would be South Korea's wouldn't it um South

Korea has many different cultural exports K-pop is only a part of the Korean wave. You have, you know, lots of different sides of culture. I definitely think that K-pop didn't become popular just because someone decided that it would become popular. I think that's a misconception that a lot of people have about the genre. Okay, let's bring in Dr. Hye Kyung Um, who's the academic here. What would you say about all this? About the recent popularity of K-pop, I think it took a while for many general and the public to be aware of this

popularity in many ways. Another thing is that more younger generations really they use digital technology and YouTube is everywhere especially for K-pop YouTube is a very very important

kind of a medium and platform to disseminate and promote this music almost free of charge it's a kind of free currency. So I think that really play a really important role. And another thing about the K-pop is that those who became fans,

they seem to stay with that music, although they might move to different kind of musical genre within Korean popular music. So it's a fan, let's say, demography. It's a broadening and a deepening in many ways. Can we just talk a little bit about women in K-pop? Bijou, there's a concept, I gather, in most K-pop groups, and the concept of Blackpink is girl crush. What does that mean?

I mean, not only girl groups groups boy groups also have concepts uh it's a thing that like you know a lot of groups stick with one concept throughout their career but a lot of groups also go into new concepts at every comeback uh new album new videos etc uh girl crush is hard to define because there's many you know sides to it but i would say that essentially it means a visual that um pushes forward a more sort of independent a less cutesy less soft uh version of the group and the girls that are involved in the group so that translates to more powerful lyrics, that translates to videos in which they are like, you know, with baseball bats and looking strong,

looking powerful, looking great. But I think, you know, girl crush as a sort of definition has been discussed for a very long time within fandom circles about what it actually means and what it actually means for the fans as well yeah and cynically i suppose some people might say well there are probably men still in charge of all this and making loads of money out of it i mean but isn't that the case for most entertainment industries i think i think it's one of those things where you know of course there is a need for more women in position of powers, in position of power in all of the entertainment industry. But it's unfair to say that necessarily K-pop should be like chastised for that exclusively.

I wasn't chastising it. I think it's a point that we, I mean, we certainly would make it about the Spice Girls, for example, who were all about girl power. But there were plenty of men in charge. OK, let's talk briefly about the dancing tammy jane tell me about it how what is it so there's a huge culture around um dance um in itself um a lot of a lot of k-pop groups or all of them really their um choreography is really a point of their visual and um it makes sometimes the choreography makes the song and a lot of the fans copy the songs and there's a lot of youtube covers there's a lot of cover groups where fans get together they establish themselves as a group almost like a k-pop group

and they put out videos you'll see in like leicester square or trafalgar square you'll see a lot of um a lot of some of the people that have come to our classes as well that have been dancing and they're dancing out there, putting up videos. There's a whole community, there's a whole global community and there's global competitions for K-pop dance that I've also been involved in. So it's a huge culture around everything and all of the fans that are in those kind of groups you know they copy the costumes and the styling just everything and there you'll see them lip singing

as well so yeah um what do you think the future of this is a future of a fandom or k-pop how much how much more successful can it become well i think it think there's a limit. It almost doesn't really exist because about some years ago, and everyone is saying that K-pop is not going to last another year or two, but then it has grown enormously. So because I think K-pop is not just a dance, it's quite diverse, and you can't really call K-pop as a genre. It's a kind of meta genre which has everything and it's not just music and dance and to some extent almost for many fans become a way of life and in a number of different ways. So plus I think the whole world is more becoming open to non-English language popular music.

So reggaeton is a very good example. And the K-pop really fits into this kind of moment in a kind of a global popular music history. That it really can appeal to many different kinds of the audience across the globe. Yes, thank you very much. I mean, it's a day glow delight, isn't it? At its best, all this. Very briefly, Tammy Jane, does it matter that most people can't understand the lyrics? No. No, no, not at all. I mean, it's the same for if you're a South Korean listening to English music. Yeah, exactly.

It's just the same. It's just reversed. And I mean, I've been listening to K-pop for so long, I wouldn't necessarily say that I understand Korean 100%, but I love it and I listen to it every day. Let's just end with a couple of go-to tracks from you both that could introduce our listeners to this world. Oh, gosh.

Well, go on what's your number one you can't just spring that there's so much um i mean i i think definitely go more into blackpink's discography they have a lot of really good um tunes uh look into luna they are a very incredible girl group yeah they've recently released a really beautiful song called butterfly bijou balinski who's a music journalist you You also heard from Tammy Jane Meeja, who runs those K-pop dance classes. And from the senior lecturer in music at the University of Liverpool, Dr. Haekyung Um, who were all talking about their love of K-pop. I have to say, I know not everybody likes the sound of it, but I'm kind of warming to K-pop.

It might become my new thing once I've stopped my obsession with KC Mars Graves. Let's see what happens with me and K-pop. Not that anybody particularly cares. Now, look, loads of people had plenty to say about our conversation on climate change and on the environment and on the kind of changes you could make in your everyday life. Although the point of that discussion really was to illustrate just how complex this whole thing is. Because yes, it's awful that green beans are flown all the way from Kenya. But on the other hand, they're tasty. And by consuming them and purchasing them, we are doing our bit to improve the lives of people in the developing world. So what should we all do about everything? Well, loads of views from you. Virginia said,

small contribution to reducing plastics is not to bag loose fruit and veg in the supermarkets. Weigh it on the scales, then print the barcode and then stick the label to the veg. Even better to do this using the supermarket scan-as-you-go facility so that labelled veg or fruit goes straight into your shopping bag. Is that possible in every single supermarket?

I don't think you can do it in my local one, I must admit, but that's Ginny's idea. Thank you very much for that. Another listener says, surprised that your interviewees didn't mention shampoo bars. They're widely available. Lush have a good choice, but others do them too. There's no need for plastic. You can just keep them in a small tin. They're light to carry around as normal shampoo is mostly water, which is heavy and takes up loads of space. So less carbon

footprint. They're easy to use and convenient. Great to take on holiday as well. Less space and weight. Also consider powdered washing powder rather than liquid as again you're just spending money transporting liquids and liquids have to come in plastic bottles others might advocate washing balls uh but i haven't tried them yet says sarah please please give them both a call out well we've done that we've mentioned shampoo bars and powdered washing powder that actually to be fair that is a good point. And I hadn't thought about that. And I might well, I might well change because that seems a relatively simple alteration to my life I can make without really feeling a massive hit, but it would make a

difference. Thank you for that, Sarah. From Scott, listening to this with interest, a friend at work recently received an order from a well-known online retailer. And get this. A pair of jeans in the order had somebody else's knickers tangled up at the crotch. Evidence surely, says Scott, that returns are sometimes repacked and sent out again. Thank you. We're all contemplating that, aren't we, slightly. From John, I was listening to your item today on the environment. Someone said it was complicated. John, I think that person

might have been me. Anyway, he says it isn't complicated at all. Buy a small car. Well, I've got a Mini, so I mean, I could go electric, of course. I haven't quite gone that yet. Try using trains and buses more. Well, yeah, definitely use public transport. Don't buy a house where you need a car to do simple shopping. I do walk to the shops, John. And don't book a holiday in a resort built on a greenfield site. That one I don't know about. But again, that's something I haven't thought about,

but perhaps we all should consider that. From Leslie. Listening to the ways to help counter global warming, I was out shopping with my daughter-in-law at the time of the interviews. I was in a large department store, something I never usually do as I live in the countryside and I avoid towns and big shops whenever possible. In the cosmetics department, a cursory glance around

and, oh my goodness, so many products, e.g. three steps all with separate products just for eyebrows from one company. Women do seem to be one of the worst offenders at contributing to unnecessary consumption of superficial over-packaged products, milking us of our money and contributing to the mountain of discarded packaging and facile use of energy. And here's Elaine. I was struck by the fact that two of your contributors to today's item about living more environmentally had seven children between them. Elaine says the world is overpopulated. What could contribute more to saving the planet than having less children? It's not all about plastic toothbrushes, but more about overpopulation. Well, in fairness, Elaine, that was a recorded interview

with the three, I thought, really interesting contributors. And we did have to, for time's sake, we did have to cut a bit of our conversation out. And the contributor with four children, who I think was Madeline, did say that she'd recycled all their clothes, that they only wore hand-me-downs. She had four sons, as it happened happened which made that slightly easier to do and who's to i mean i i don't make judgments on the size of other people's families i know um it's a personal thing isn't it and life can work out in any number of different

ways and so uh i think i'd probably hesitate to to judge that but i'll take your point uh katherine says it's frustrating how expensive it is to shop green I'm a single woman with a salary how is a single mother with four kids supposed to manage it's not sustainable at the moment refill shops are usually organic and three times the price well to go back to the example of my new bamboo toothbrush it was £3.99 I did notice it was on the high street so I could certainly easily get one

but £3.99 and the plastic ones well they started at £1.20. So that shows you the difference, doesn't it? Right. Thank you to everybody who contacted us on that one. Now, Judith, our academic from the University of Lancaster is still here because we felt, Judith, there was a little bit more to say about special guardianships. And we need to just talk about the finance and the financial side of this, because I did ask, is this adoption on the cheap? And there is no doubt that if you look at special guardianship superficially, it does seem as though some people are putting in a colossal effort, no doubt some personal, psychological and financial cost. And we, the taxpayer, are getting real value out of them, aren't we? Yeah, that's right. We are getting real value out of them. And some people might put it slightly differently and say they're actually being exploited.

Well, OK, you can say that, yeah. I think the key issue is that if you compare special guardianship with adoption and fostering, there aren't the same automatic entitlements. And that's a really important point so for example on housing with foster care you automatically get help over housing you're prioritised you're prioritised and it's all agreed in advance. There are very strict rules about, for example, how many children can be in one room, only one child per bedroom. With special guardianship, you can't go to the front of the queue, even if you need more accommodation because, for example, you're taking two or three extra children in

and you've already got children of your own. So there's no automatic entitlement. The other way where I think a problem has risen is in relation to legal aid. I think I mentioned legal aid, but the government is now considering whether special guardians ought to routinely have legal aid. And that would mean that they'd understand better exactly what is entailed and whether it's right for them and whether it's right for the child. Yeah, I mean, you said some people would say they're being exploited. I'm going to put you on the spot a bit.

Do you think some of these people are indeed being exploited? Well, that's a tricky question. I think that you've got to first remember this is a private law order. being able to bring up the child without worrying about their housing situation and their financial situation, then really we are failing special guardians. Because we found in our study this was one of the most common issues that was in the case file study. And obviously if you're worrying about those kinds of issues it's bad for the child and it's bad for the special guardian so i think we need to think much harder and i think more needs to be done it really is that basic isn't it a child probably it'd be easier to thrive in a household

where there aren't financial worries that just makes it makes, doesn't it? And in a way, it's completely counterproductive because it might be putting people off special guardianship or alternatively catching them on the hop when they don't realise what they're taking on and that there won't be enough financial support. And then they won't become special guardians. So I gather some local authorities are rethinking all this. Well, there are some indications that a few,

I know one authority where they are thinking exactly about that so that there's parity between what a foster carer gets and what a special guardian gets and rethinking how you would actually present special guardianship. I think that's right. In Wales, they're also looking at this much more broadly. And I think really the time has come to say that given that special guardianship is now being used very frequently for children who are very vulnerable and have been through the courts. This isn't just like a relative stepping in to look after a child who isn't very vulnerable and won't have problems.

So these are, if you like, green shoots, but much more needs to be done. Really interesting to get your viewpoint. Thank you very much. Professor Judith Harwin, who is at the University of Lancaster. Thank you very much. Don't forget, we've at the university of lancaster thank you very much don't forget we've got weekend woman's hour the podcast on the show if you want to hear the show on radio 4 it's two minutes past four saturday afternoon the highlights of the woman's hour week and then we're back on bank holiday monday at two minutes past 10 with a program about women and our relationship to true crime now initially when i was told about this show i thought i'm not

interested in true crime and then i had a really good look at what I listened to and what I watched and what I read and I realised I too was interested in true crime. So that's Bank Holiday Monday, two minutes plus ten. Oi you, while you're here, have a listen to this would you? Forest 404. An environmental thriller for BBC Sounds. I'm so sorry. Meet Pan. Oh, I did. She lives a few centuries from now, after a data crash that wiped out most records of life.

So when she finds an old recording of a rainforest, she has no idea what it is. Forest 404. Nine-part thriller, nine-part talk talk. Nine part soundscape. Starring Pearl Mackey, Tanya Moody and Pippa Haywood with theme music by Bonobo. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds. Subscribe now. 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.