Woman's Hour - Women's tennis in Saudi Arabia, 'Dear Sirs', Women and advertising

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

This week sees the culmination of the women's tennis season as the WTA finals are held, somewhat controversially, in Saudi Arabia. So far, top seed Aryna Sabalenka is through to the first semi-final, the second semi-final will be decided tomorrow. However, the decision to hold the tournament in a country which has been criticised for it's treatment of women has been in the spotlight and under scrutiny. To discuss this more, Clare McDonnell is joined by sports reporter Catherine Whitaker and Felix Jakens who is head of campaigns at Amnesty International.A Woman's Hour listener is fed up with the phrase 'Dear Sirs' - Ellie Rees is the co-founder of Brickworks Estate Agency and despite her team being all female, they are often addressed in this way. Clare is joined by Ellie to discuss this, and also by Susie Dent, the author and lexicographer. ADWOMEN: 100 Years of Women in Advertising opens this week at the Museum of Brands in London. It features iconic adverts from the 1920s to the present day looking at the creative women within advertising and the portrayal of women within the adverts themselves. It also examines the impact of advertising on women’s lives through defining periods of social history. Clare speaks to Alice Kain, the curator, and Sabina Usher, Head of Strategy and Partner at OMD.Playwright Caitriona Cunningham has drawn on her own experience of being in a mother and baby home in 1979 for The Marian Hotel, a production that’s currently touring Northern Ireland. In it, a group of young pregnant unmarried women hold each other up with sharp, dark humour against the backdrop of the Troubles. Caitriona joins Clare to explain why she decided to tell this story now.Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Emma Pearce

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Clare MacDonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. The grand finale of the women's tennis season takes place in Saudi Arabia this week for the very first time. Issues surrounding women's and LGBT rights in the principality are well known, of course. So is Riyadh the right place to host the crown jewel of the women's game? We'll walk that nuanced line between defending women's rights and growing women's sports. Now, are there certain words that put your teeth on edge every time you hear them? I

ask because today we're going to be joined by Woman's Hour listener, Ellie Rees, who's on a mission to rid the world of that catch-all email letter opener, Dear Sirs. Wordsmith Susie Dent will join me too. So tell me the gendered words that really get under your skin and what have you replaced them with? You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate.

On social media, we are at BBC Women's Hour. You can email us through the website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Also, how much progress has been made in how women are depicted in advertising over the last hundred years? A new exhibition aims to answer that question. We'll be joined by its curator and following on from our special programme on the tomb baby scandal in Ireland and the quest to identify the 796 children who died there. Today we will hear from one woman who has turned

her own personal experience in one such home into a powerful, emotionally charged new play. Katrina Cunningham will join me live. But let's start this morning with tennis. This week sees the culmination of the women's tennis season as the WTA finals are held somewhat controversially in Saudi Arabia. So far, top seed Irina Sabalenka is through to the first semifinal. The second semifinal will be decided tomorrow. However, the decision to hold the tournament in a country which has been criticised for its treatment of women has been in the spotlight and under scrutiny.

Tennis giants Chris Everett and Martina Navarretalova declined to attend after calling the choice of Saudi Arabia a significant step backwards to the detriment of the WTA, women's sport and women. Now, in the past, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said he does not care about the accusations of sports washing. The WTA have defended their decision and we'll hear from them shortly. But let's hear first from world number three, Coco Gauff.

She spoke to the BBC about this and she said that as someone who is grown up, obviously as a black woman in America, she understands that change takes time. Very aware that we're not going to come here and just change everything. But it's a nuanced kind of conversation. And I think knowing from the past and what my grandmother in integrating her school, people aren't going to like it. But obviously, in the long run, I think it could be better for everybody. Other major tournaments have taken place in Saudi Arabia in recent years as the country seeks to assert itself as a hub for world sport. Let's discuss this now with the sports reporter Catherine Whittaker and Felix Jenkins, who is head of campaigns at Amnesty International. Good morning to both of you.

Good morning, Claire. Good morning. Good morning, Felix. Good morning, Catherine. Catherine, let's start with you. Why is it so controversial that this WTA tournament is being held in Saudi Arabia for the very first time? Because of the human rights record of Saudi Arabia, quite frankly, which is no secret. I think it's pretty well documented. The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the fact that women in Saudi Arabia are subject to male guardianship laws by which essentially

some of their most basic freedoms and decisions are dictated by men and the fact that homosexuality is criminalised and punishable by death and transgender expression as well. So while a lot of people would defend the decision to take women's tennis to Saudi Arabia on the grounds of essentially whataboutery, there is a lot of that in the sport as it reckons with ever closer ties to Saudi Arabia. And tennis obviously isn't alone in that.

A lot of sports are dealing with this. A lot of figures within the sport will point to the fact that there is no country in the world where hands are clean and there isn't moral ambiguity. And trying to draw a line in the sand as to what countries you will engage with on moral grounds is essentially impossible. But and perhaps Felix can speak more about this. I think the fact is that you can't really claim to have any kind of line in the sand if you are prepared to engage with Saudi Arabia, because there is no country with a poorer record on human rights than Saudi Arabia. Well, some of the areas you covered there are contended.

We'll get to that in a second. But I just want to ask you, why has it ended up in Saudi Arabia? Is it just because they will write this big check for the next three years? Or is it also a combination of the legacy? Because there was a bit of a fiasco in Cancun last season and essentially investment not coming into the women's game seriously in other areas. Yeah, you're right. There are commercial realities for the Women's Tennis Association. They have pledged to try and achieve equal prize money with the men in just a few years' time.

And while there is equal prize money offered at the Grand Slam tournaments, the four biggest events of the year at other tour level events sometimes the women are taking home a fraction of what the men are taking home so it's a it's a misconception that equal prize money exists in tennis actually the situation is is far from it and the WTA are in financially dire straits. And there are commercial realities to be contended with by the people at the top. And Saudi Arabia have the big checks to write. You're right, the tournament being held in Cancun last year was a fiasco. The year prior to that, it was held in Texas.

And of course, Texas, just days before the tournament staging two years ago, Texas had just rode back Roe versus Wade and introduced very restrictive laws regarding female governance over their bodies. So it is a morally murky, very grey area. So it's a dilemma then, isn't it? We'll hear from the WTA shortly to hold fast to a moral compass

on this. It's a very difficult decision to make. Defend women's rights or in growing the women's game, they would argue maybe that they are enhancing women's rights in the sports world. They certainly would, yeah. And as you heard from Coco Goff there, incidentally, she was the only of the eight players, it's the world's top eight players that play at this event. She was, as you would expect, she's fantastically and and eloquent far beyond her years she was the only player that really expressed strong reservations about about playing in that part of the world but she did as we just heard their point to her belief in sport as a as a tool for change and a tool for

engagement and this is an argument that billy jean king King herself believes in as well, that you have to see it, to be it. And they can inspire potentially a generation of young women in Saudi Arabia, provide a tangible example of what's possible for women in a country where historically very little has been possible. The counter argument for that, of course, would be whether women have the freedoms or are even on track to have the freedoms to make that possible. Billie Jean King also has her own tournament there. Am I correct in saying that or that's the plan? No, there is the Billie Jean King Cup, which bears her name. That's essentially the women's version of the Davis Cup that's currently being held in Malaga. But its future is very much uncertain and they have not ruled out the possibility of that event being held in Saudi Arabia in the future. Certainly,

there isn't really anybody within the sport of tennis that is wanting to alienate Saudi Arabia as a future source of income at the moment. Let's get the view then, before we go to Felix, from the WTA themselves. Marina Storti spoke to BBC Five Live last night. Here's what she said about their reasons for holding the tournament in Saudi Arabia. Firstly, we really wanted to work with a partner who would commit to investing in a really high quality event. And I hope you have seen that, you know, they've done a fantastic job. Secondly, really important for us to work with a partner that was committed to our goal of delivering equal price money for our players. And we have this year a record price money pot and it's the same as the ATP.

And thirdly, it was really to ensure that we could leave a legacy to last beyond the event itself. So working with a host that will commit to growing at the grassroots level, to really grow the sport over the term of the partnership. Felix Jekins, just a reminder, head of campaigns at Amnesty International. Felix, your response to that? Yeah, well, it's unsurprising that the WTA have ended up taking their tournament to Saudi Arabia. They're just one in a very long line of sporting organisations that have ultimately succumbed to the kind of financial heft that Saudi can bring. Catherine was talking very clearly about the financial imperatives that these sporting

organizations have. I think the really important thing for Amnesty to just note, though, and in response to those comments, is that while one more sporting organisation goes to Saudi Arabia and adds a further kind of gloss and glitz to the kingdom as a kind of reforming country, a place which is opening up that's seeking discriminated against in almost all aspects of family life, marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance. The guardianship is perpetuated. And in the wider context, it continues to be one of the world's top users of the death penalty. We've seen over 200 executions carried out this year. And really the bitter irony for high-profile women in Saudi Arabia is that some of them, like Manahel al-Otaibi and Salma al-Shahab, have received extraordinarily harsh sentences, 27 years for Salma and 11 years for Manahel, for speaking out about women's rights. So while you have high-profile tennis players like Coco Goff coming forwards and speaking very nuancedly and

positively about their role and what it means to go and participate in sport in Saudi Arabia. The on the ground reality for women and for human rights for all people is that things are getting worse, not better. What do you say to the argument then that comes from people like Billie Jean King, a gay woman herself, that you cannot shift the dial on this argument unless you are inside the room. And if you don't go to Saudi Arabia and engage with society there, nothing will ever change. I don't want to criticise Billie Jean King, but I draw on a couple of historical examples very briefly. So in 2008, Beijing held the Olympic Games and this exact conversation was had then. China's opening up, the world's media will be there and will we see

an improvement in the human rights situation? The categorical answer from Amnesty and the wider human rights community is no, we've seen the exact opposite. Same thing with Russia, World Cup in 2018, Winter Olympics, exactly the same thing thing much further repressive crackdowns have taken place saudi this isn't new the world the women's tennis association are just one in a long line of sporting organizations that have gone to kind of and being used frankly and to have their sports sports washed to promote this image of saudi arabia and we don't criticize saudi arabia unfairly we are seeing the situation for human rights there getting worse, not better. They have an absolute zero tolerance to any form of criticism from individuals inside the country towards the government,

no matter how innocuous. People with 10 followers on Twitter receiving death sentences for tweeting criticism of the government. These are absurdly stringent crackdowns on freedom of expression going on. So if the situation in Saudi Arabia was genuinely improving from a systemic human rights position, Amnesty would be saying that we open letter urging FIFA to drop the Saudi oil giant Aramco as a sponsor, calling it a punch in the stomach to the sport. So tell us a little bit about that. And why do we have a situation where women's footballers protest, but female tennis players don't? Yeah, that's a fantastically interesting question. And there is not a clear-cut scientific answer to it, as much as I spend a lot of time pondering it. We do have a

generation of women's tennis players right now that feel very far removed from the generations before them. The Martina Novotilovas and Chris Everts, as you say, that have taken a very strong stance against this. And I think that distance from the history of the WTA and women's tennis, which of course led the way in terms of women's rights within sport and the power of sport to change things, I think there is a big distance between this generation and that formative generation. And I'm not sure this current generation, with notable exceptions, Coco Gauff very much being one of them. I'm not sure

how well versed they are on that history. And Billie Jean King, one of her very famous sayings, if you don't know your history, you're destined to repeat it. I also think there's potentially a difference between women, between team sport and individual sport. And I do always think that tennis is the most individual of individual sports. It requires such tunnel vision on the parts of tennis players that their view is extremely narrow of the world. And I don't think that's necessarily their fault. This is a sport that requires its competitors to even have a chance of reaching the top to kind of sacrifice any kind of life outside of the sport from age 12. So I wouldn't expect them to be necessarily deeply well-versed on everything that Felix is detailed there. What they're being presented with is an extremely glossy perspective

on the country that they haven't made the decision themselves to go to or to engage with. That decision has been made by those in power, those above them, those at the WTA and it's really them that bear the responsibility for this decision. Felix, I guess we have to ask ourselves, when does politics ever shift the dial

when you're talking about a place like Saudi Arabia? Excuse me, and look realistically maybe at what sport can do. For example, Tim Henman, British tennis player, has come out. And what he's done is he's criticised the tournament for other reasons today, saying the second day of the WTA's premier tournament saw a host of household names competing, but there were only 400 spectators in attendance. And he said the organisers are in a privileged position. They're not trying to necessarily make money

out of gate receipts. They should get out into the communities, into the schools. We need spectators here to witness the best players and create an atmosphere. And that outreach is important, isn't it? The WTA have said, you know, we want to get out there. We want to involve women more. And on that level, Felix, surely that's empowering for women, isn't it? To come into an arena that previously they haven't been invited to. That kind of grassroots change, those little seeds can make a massive difference, can't they? Well, I think there's definitely something to be said for the opportunity that, know sports like the work that like tennis when women's tennis going to saudi arabia present and katherine talked about this like they become some

of those tennis players can become role models for young women in saudi arabia to go and participate in sport however the fact remains that the at the systemic level at the national level in terms of the law in saudi arab, women are systematically discriminated against. And, you know, Lujain al-Haflal, let's talk about her. She received a 10-year-plus prison sentence for calling for the right to drive. She was subject to awful treatment in detention, torture, sexual abuse allegations by her guards. And she's now subject to an indefinite travel ban. She can't leave Saudi Arabia for calling for the right to drive for women which is one of their much touted um freedoms that that has recently been enacted so there's this bitter irony that yes there are some uh this does create some space for women to

see a different role for themselves in society in saudi arabia and can't be critical of that but ultimately women are discriminated against through the legal system and that is codified and people who speak out calling for bigger advancements in women's rights end up facing absolutely appallingly long, brutal prison sentences for things that are not crimes. Listen, it's been a fascinating debate and one that will run and run. So thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour

this morning to go through that. You heard the voice there of Felix Jenkins, head of campaigns at Amnesty International. And our thanks also to sports reporter Catherine Whittaker. We'd love to invite Billie Jean King on the programme to get her side of this story and why she thinks investment in Saudi Arabia is

paramount. And also just to point out Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There was a UN report on the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And that did conclude that he was the victim of an extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible under human rights law. But Mohammed bin Salman has always denied any involvement in that killing. It is a woman's hour. Let's now talk about words that get under your skin. Plenty, so many of you getting involved in this already. Thank you so much for your text.

We'll come to those in a moment. Excuse me, but we had a recent email from a woman's hour listener, which began with a slightly tongue in cheek phrase, dear sirs. It came from Ellie and it continued like this. I'm on a mission to eradicate the common default salutation, dear sirs, from legal correspondence. It is something I come into contact with weekly, if not more, as a woman who runs her own estate agency, an almost all-female team. I'm still shocked and baffled every time I receive an email or letter that begins this way, despite over a decade in the industry. It's from Ellie Rees. She is the co-founder of Brickworks Estate Agency.

Delighted to say Ellie joins me in the Woman's Hour studio. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me, Claire. Well, thank you for bringing this up because you've really, you've lit the touch paper. I opened a can of worms. You certainly have. And Susie Dent joins us as well.

You may know her from Dictionary Corner on Countdown, author, broadcaster, lexicographer, and her new Radio 4 series is called Unspeakable. Good morning, Susie. Good morning, Claire. Good morning, Ellie. Ellie, it's great to hear from you. And we had to pick up this ball and run with it. So tell us why Dear Sirs gets your goat so much.

Well, as you say, tens of thousands of emails and letters are written every day and sent to people in the property industry, my industry. But it's the default salutation and legal correspondence. And basically has been, I guess, since the 1800s, when these big male-dominated, traditionally male-dominated firms were established. But we're still using them today. This is language that is fossilised. Put simply, and I'm sure Susie will concur, I hope she will,

it's also inaccurate grammatically. I'm not a man. There's not multiple of me. So to call me a sir, neither am I a knight of the round table, by the way. It's non-inclusive. You know, we live in a progressive society. These are not words if we believe that language matters. These are not words that represent new cultural attitudes in 2024. And you've only been in estate agency for 10 years.

And your background before that was what? I'm trained as a fine artist so I come from third sector academia the creative industries whereby referring to yourself as a feminist is hardly radical it's you know so far so normal and I entered into an industry a sector a workforce which is incredibly male dominated aggressively aggressively so, whereby the stats are staggering in terms of discrimination against women and representation in C-suites. We have a huge larger than average gender pay gap, for example, huge bonus gap because of the pay structure of estate agency. And it was just sort of in the water. You know, everywhere I looked, that thing of the culture being represented,

I felt by this language, which just reinforces paradigm. And when you brought it up or bring it up and say, can you ditch that? Initially, what was the response? Interestingly, there's been a lot of resistance. Now, of course, there are progressive law firms and estate agencies who agree with me.

And Freshfields, which is a large magic circle law firm in 2016, went through the Herculean task of eradicating deersers. It's not actually supported by the Law Society of England and Wales. And that is an issue because it's a top-down problem. They don't have formal guidance to say we should be using gender-neutral terminology, we should be using gender-neutral language. The Law Society

of Ireland did do that in 2020 but people aren't really picking it up and I often get a lot of resistance and that is usually in the form of it's tradition, it's the way it's always been done, we're trained this way as solicitors. We do get a statement from the Law Society of England and Wales, and they said, we encourage replacing dear sirs with gender inclusive salutations. Quite an old fashioned word. Exactly. To strike the right balance between best practice, inclusivity and appropriateness, we recommend using dear, followed by the person's name or job title,

and to avoid using pronouns if they haven't been established, if it is not possible to identify the person using phrases including to whom it may concern, or less formal options such as good afternoon, morning, evening. But you're saying they need to go further than that. Absolutely. It must be policy. And I think they need to say it should be eradicated. It's the first time I've heard from them, by the way.

So I really welcome that. But it's got to be eradicated. It's the first time I've heard from them, by the way. So I really welcome that. But it's got to be formalised. It has to be galvanised. And it has to be, I think, policy to an extent. It would be good if Lady Chief Justice, for example, said this is a problem. This is what it represents. And therefore, our guidance is that we change it.

To dear colleagues, for example, I think is a good one. And before we move on to Susie, so it's not just words. You think it represents something so much more than that. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It reinforces the culture. And that's in law and finance and other male-dominated industries whereby we just don't see women visible. I mean, if you say, dear sirs, you are just not speaking to 50% of the workforce, you are just not respecting everybody in the room. I spoke to my daughter yesterday, she's 12 years old. And I said, you know, she's been living this, but why does it matter to you?

And she just said, just sounds like all the men are in charge, mum. Yeah, but we know that's not the case. Susie Dent, what do you think about this? As we heard from Ellie Rees, she sees it as fossilised language. Do you? I think Ellie puts this so articulately. I mean, there is an inbuilt patriarchy in language, largely because of the voices that have been recorded over the centuries. You know, I spend my life in the historical dictionary

and women are the ones usually being spoken about rather than speaking. And I think this is a really good case in point. And it's strange because I know so many corporations and institutions are making active efforts to change things. I suppose the other side of the argument is we're speaking with our fingers as we type away on our keyboards and screens these days. And so we are producing the sort of written spoken hybrid that is less formal and that over time will hopefully make salutations like this redundant, but not as quickly as we would like. And so it might well take action, direct action to change things, because, you know, for all its versatility and its speed language sometimes just doesn't keep pace with us I mean it is a democracy but it's down to all of us to guide it to the places we want and need um and you know I think the thing that's frustration is that women have

consistently been at the forefront of language change um and yet not recognized for it even in Shakespeare's day it was women who, in letters, were changing things up and using does instead of doth and you instead of thou. And it's estimated by some linguists that women are about a generation ahead of men when it comes to language change because perhaps of our social networks, perhaps traditional roles as carers, you know, speak of our mother tongue after all.

But yes, I think some things are fossilised and they need a giant shove into the present. And do you think that shove needs to come, for example, as we were just discussing with Ellie, needs to come from the kind of sector that you are working in? Because if there's a standardised sort of industry-wide, this is how we, you know, we talk to one another or in a formal setting in this business then that would accelerate things because everybody sits there and goes dear and then thinks what do I write next yes this is this is sort of what I mean you know I think we all struggle with saying do I say hi and something formal do I say hello dear administrator also sounds wrong and slightly aggressive, I think.

So I think we all need to get our heads together and come up with things that are acceptable. I think certainly if you have looked at a company's website and found the name of the person you need to write to, that's great. And I think that shows a level of effort as well. But it surprises me standard dear sirs salutation and wish that a standard gender neutral replacement could be introduced i try my best to find a suitable alternative but absolutely agree that a formal policy change should happen somebody else saying chairman made worse when it's changed to chair what's wrong with chairperson i don't like guys says sister extra nobody could think of calling us gals, just as people do not like ladies, gentlemen.

Why do I need to be referred to by what I consider a male term? And talking of male terms in your business, in estate agency, they creep in as well. Master bedroom. We don't even think about that, do we? No, and it's a good one. And there have been huge efforts made in the US in particular to discredit master bedroom and if you are a guilty pleasure watcher of Selling Sunset you will know that they call it the primary bedroom and here we call it the principal or

the main bedroom and that's because of its connotations of slavery and and sexism but they managed to get rid of it pretty quickly and just replace it with an alternative and as Susie said we can get our heads together. You know, we can put men and women on the moon. We've got the imagination to come up with an alternative. Often the resistance is that dear all, for example, if you don't know the person's name, is not formal enough. But then let's go to whom it may concern. Let's go to dear colleagues.

There are progressive law firms like Futanshi who are rolling this out on the ground. They're going to their employees. They're saying, do you think it's appropriate? Yes or no? They've all agreed broadly, no, it's not. Let's come up with something else. Susie, final words to you. I mean, you've got this new series on Radio 4, which started last week. I don't know whether you can throw this in the running order at some point, but is it something you think we need to talk an awful lot more about? I absolutely do. And it was interesting listening to Ellie, you know,

talking about master bedrooms. I mean, if you think about those sort of couplets from the past, Governor and Governess, Courtier and Courtesan, Bachelor and Spinster, you know, they are so unfairly sort of rated in terms of sort of liberty for the male role and promiscuity or, you know, some kind of subjugation almost for the women. I mean, it is very much enshrined in language.

And I think, yes, it is a linguistic gap, which is what Unspeakable is all about, that definitely needs filling. So I think it's a perfect candidate. Ellie, where's the campaign going next? Well, we've got over 4,000 signatures, which is fantastic. And it really is about getting those sort of bastions of law to change their minds and to do it formally so and put out the word that this is going to make a change. We need a paradigm shift. Lucy's texted. Thanks for texting, Lucy.

On the Dear Sirs issue, when i worked at a solicitor's firm we would sometimes receive letters with a salutation gentlemen on the assumption that all the partners in the firm were men which they weren't says lucy i should print off all these texts and give them to you on the way out to the studio at all please do thank you so much you've got a really kind kind of lively debate going here amongst the Women's Hour listeners. Thank you so much, Ellie. Thank you for having me. Ellie Rees, co-founder of the Brickworks Estate Agency. And you heard from Susie Dent there as well.

Just to flag her new Radio 4 series is called Unspeakable. Listen on BBC Sounds and do keep your texts coming in on those gendered words that really get under your skin. And maybe you've come up with an alternative. We'd love to hear from you. 84844 on the text. 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. Now, you may have missed yesterday's programme where I spoke to the world's fastest woman, Julianne Alfred, who won gold at the Paris Olympics this summer in the 100 metres.

The first time someone from St Lucia won an Olympic medal. Now, if you want, you can hear the interview, the full interview on BBC Sounds. I'd really recommend it. She's got an incredible medal. Now, if you want, you can hear the interview, the full interview on BBC Sounds. I'd really recommend it. She's got an incredible backstory. Here's a flavour of her speaking about what it took to become an Olympic champion. It's what my coach and I have been working towards. And early on that season, well, this season, sorry, I had a breakdown. I was completely out of it. I told my coach I didn't want to continue the season. I told my agent to cancel my meets because I just didn't want to continue.

I was just so hard on myself, struggling mentally and just feeling like I couldn't go on. But my coach, he worked with me. He took me off the track for a little bit. We had a long conversation. We both cried on the phone. And the last thing he said to me was, are you ready to be an Olympic champion? And he believed that i could be one when it finally comes through and you cross the line first it's such an amazing feeling all i could scream was yes yes yes i mean it wasn't so calm but

i was screaming at the top of my lungs but honestly it's such an amazing feeling just knowing that all your hard work and sacrifice is finally paid off. And I know when you talk to any elite athlete, they've all got a back story. But Julian's is particularly interesting. Lost her father at 12. And because there were no decent athletics facilities where she was in St. Lucia, she started off training in barefoot on grass. And now she's the fastest woman in the world. Go and have a listen on BBC Sounds.

You can hear the full interview there. Just look for Woman's Hour episodes from the 4th of November. Thanks for all your texts coming in on gendered words

that get under your skin. I just wanted to read this out. I'm a female solicitor and as part of our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee we are in the process of changing this in the firm.

That is from Alice. Thank you so much for that. Keep those coming in. 84844. Now, as we are all aware, advertising has the power to influence the way we think, how we feel about ourselves and how others see us. Ad Women, 100 Years of Women in Advertising, opens this week at the Museum of Brands in London. It features iconic ads from history and also explores the creative women behind them. I'm delighted to say I'm joined by Alice Kane, who curated the exhibition, and also Sabina Usher,

who has worked in advertising for 15 years and is head of strategy at OMD. It's a large media agency and a trustee of the History of Advertising Trust who've collaborated with the Museum of Brands for this retrospective. Good morning to both of you. Good morning. Great to have you here. Alice let's start with you. Why this exhibition? Why is it important to mark 100 years of women in advertising? Well, we have developed this exhibition, along with the History of Advertising Trust, to look and give depth to a collaboration that they created with Channel 4, which was called Mad

Women, which is a documentary looking at the women that worked in advertising from the 1970s to the present day. And with this little sort of kernel of an idea, we came up with the concept of linking our two collections together in order to present a full and much more sort of robust version of the last 100 years. So we're looking at not just the TV commercials, but we're looking at printed material, at objects and just different forms of advertising over the last 100 years. Absolutely fascinating.

Sabina, obviously you've worked in this world for quite some time. And I guess it's how women are represented, but also women like yourself working in the industry. So what have you found interesting looking at all of this? That's a really good question. Look, I think the inevitable question this asks is what has really changed? Yeah. So it would be really easy to clap ourselves on the back because we're no longer showing sort of virginal 60s housewives or pin up 80s sex symbols right and i know i think the exhibition

um you know has an example of the wonder bra ad from the 80s came straight to the forefront of my mind yeah hello boys like it is sort of a shock to the system for our modern standards but i think what this exhibition does and what we have to continue to do in this industry is really challenge how much has changed like are we just replacing old stereotypes with new ones there's a particularly pervasive one I think at the moment of the you know the super mom like she's the master of the home she's an organizational queen she's a sort of fun mom but she's also absolutely nailing it at work we have to challenge these perfectionist ideals

that just aren't real right I don't know any women like that exactly I wouldn't be drawn to buy that product um it's interesting then Alice um so take us you know the point from where we start how are women uh depicted and I guess we're talking about the 1920s so what role do they play in advertising then yeah what's been really interesting about looking at women about the 1920s. So what role do they play in advertising then? Yeah, what's been really interesting about looking at women from the 1920s and 30s is that actually there are lots of very developed and a very broad range of women doing different activities. So we've got sporting women, we've got women who are very independent, cycling, driving cars, and then other women who are engaged in technology, such as the Kodak girl with her brownie going out and about. play is the the role of women during world war ii and their drive into the workforce and how that shifted the whole messaging around advertising and their recruitment why so are you saying it

kind of got worse after world war ii because women were so engaged weren't they you know women stepped into the workplace when men went off to war so you would think that would improve the representation or the diverse representation of women in advertising? Yes, absolutely. And I think one of the really interesting things that you see is that certainly women at work becomes more of a commonplace visual guide to advert. But then suddenly in the 1950s, they're very much going back into the home, homemaking, mothering, cleaning, having all these fabulous new products to help aid their lives. So we've got some fantastic adverts, obviously, from that period of time.

We're looking at Persil and Fairy Liquid and all of these things that suddenly were meant to help women's lives become a lot more simple and a lot more effective and technology really playing a big part in that. But then obviously we have the women's liberation movement in the 60s that then moves that forward yet again and women's representations change. So we've got a whole section about Mary Quant in particular and Laura Ashley, so women who were changing the design and how people lived. I mean, Sabina, it might be interesting because you would, I was quite shocked at this statistic from earlier this year,

which showed a continued reliance on traditional gender roles within advertising creatives with only 8% of ads featuring women in non-traditional gender roles last year. Yeah. What's going on there? It is, it's mad. The stats are really, really sobering. You know, I was thinking what Alice was just saying,

the majority of ads still to this day show women in a domestic setting. And when they're shown, they usually have additional forms of bias, right? So they're thin, they're young, they're white, they're able. What about women of colour? What about senior women? What about non-feminine presenting women, disabled women?

And the thing is, perception is reality here. A recent study, I think it was by JWT, said that 75% of women surveyed in the UK don't think advertising represents them. That's mad. We're in a world that primarily sells to women, right? They are the primary purchasers. And if they're not, then they're the influencers of the purchasers. To your point,

positive portrayals create, you know, more effective advertising. Feeling seen feels good. Feeling good means they're more likely to buy from your brand. So unsurprising that women want to see our industry show a picture that better represents them. And you are in this world. Yeah. So talk to me then about the inside of this world and why it isn't happening. Because, you know, is it a 50-50 gender split inside advertising firms or not? Or who's calling it? Yeah, good question. Look, I think this industry is making a good show about acknowledging it has a representation of misogyny problem. You know, it is commonplace now that we track things like percentage of senior female leadership the gender pay gap flexible working etc undeniably a form of progress where i work as a predominantly female

board for instance but as in wider culture so in agency culture that misogyny needs an intervention yeah it's the same i imagine for women in lots of industries we're either too loud or too quiet we're too much too little too confident not confident enough etc um so i think there's a few things that need to happen like one that we need to amp up the power women spending power in the boardroom because money talks like we all know we're in the business of commercial creativity the second is we need to get more creative women working in verticals that aren't traditionally female dominated right so we get women out of working on you know tampons and toiletries and retail where those kinds of categories are incentivized

to represent women in more broad ways but actually get women into those categories that might traditionally be more male dominated, you know, durable services, beverages, automotive, where we still see them in secondary roles. And there's an incredibly two dimensional view. This is so fascinating, isn't it, Alice, because, as we mentioned earlier, it's not real life. I don't know any woman who has kids, a family, a career, and still manages to nail every single aspect of her life. It's just not real life. If I saw women depicted in a more honest, real way, I'd be much more likely to lean into the radio or to lean into an advertising hoarding. Is there anything that you found through curating this exhibition where you thought, you know, that is progress or that was progress. We need to more of that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, going going through all of the archival material with the history of advertising trust in particular, seeing the progression through television commercials in particular, such as the Sport England This Girl Can campaign. It's actually quite emotional watching something in a row with older representations of women, and then suddenly 2012 comes along and that particular campaign looks completely different to anything else. And you really start to go we've

done something here something has changed but there's still so so much to go um there's still so many sort of you know invisible disabilities um such as uh women's mental health particularly maternal mental health um and so we've also got campaigns that the Comic Relief and Maltesers campaign, Mother Lover campaign is really important. And that's specifically looking at trying to address things that you don't see that are there.

And those kind of stories represent a minuscule percentage of the overall total ad spend we have in market. The average person is subjected to between 4 000 and 10 000 ads every single day that's a yeah crazy we have a responsibility to challenge the storytelling choices we are making to make them feel more real what a canvas what an opportunity for my industry to push forward more progressive images of all gender

and you know the examples Alice mentions are so interesting because it goes beyond just getting women in ads getting them present it's actually those are women in leading roles in interesting ways representing the whole of what being a woman is. It's been an absolutely fascinating discussion and I cannot wait to get along to this exhibition it's called ad women 100 years in advertising it opens on the 8th of November and runs you've got plenty of time it runs until April 28th next year at the Museum of Brands in London thank you so much Alice Kane who's the curator of that exhibition and Sabina Usher, who has worked in advertising for 15 years, head of strategy at OMD.

Thank you so much. Thanks so much. For joining me on the programme this morning. And thank you to all of you for sending in your texts on gendered words that really get under your skin. Jenny's been in touch. Morning, Jenny. I always use greetings if I am emailing or writing

and don't know the name of the people i'm addressing it is upbeat encouraging and friendly and this from lorna morning lorna i ordered a new kitchen i live alone and the letter of contract from the kitchen supplier came addressed to mr and mrs i sent the letter back unopened with an email to them to change their default to reflect reality they were bemused says Lorna thank you for all your texts on that we'll try and get to as many before the end of the program now in September you may remember we dedicated a whole program to the tomb baby scandal in Ireland as work begins to find and identify 796 children who died in the care of a mother and baby home. But those homes were scattered all over the UK and Ireland. And my next guest

joins us from Londonderry to talk about her story. Katrina Cunningham grew up in Derry and gave birth to a daughter in 1979 whilst resident at the Marion Vale Mother and Baby Institution in Newry on the other side of Northern Ireland. Now she's written a powerful, emotionally charged new play based on her experiences called The Marion Hotel. Katrina, good to have you on the programme. Thank you. I mean, your play is going down a storm.

It's getting rave reviews but it's hugely personal. Why did you think it was important to tell your story? Well firstly, personally, I gave birth in 1980 to my daughter in Marionvale and Newry, a mother and baby institution there and I went home, I got her back at three months old and I I went on with my life I started to work and you know you're raising a family and as time went on I started to think more and more about the other woman that were there along with me that had their babies taken and I started to write just little bits personally and then when I retired I did a course up in the local the playhouse the local theatre and I said that I would like to do a bit of acting

so I went into a drama group and we had to do a sketch or a scene in the drama group of the Drama Queens. And I wrote a scene that is now in the play, The Marion Hotel. And then during lockdown, I took the scene to a theatre lab run by Sole Purpose Productions, who now produce The Marion Hotel, and it's directed by Patricia Byrne. And Pat, as I call her, she read my scene and said if you write the play I'll read it no promises and I went and wrote the play she read it and she liked it and that was the start and for me it was totally cathartic I had to get that out there I had to talk about it with all these other women in my mind because they were the ones that had their babies taken.

I was the lucky one who got my baby back. How old were you when you went into Marion Vale? I was 19. I was actually one of the oldest in there. And unusually, for that time, I went in voluntarily. Why? Well, I discovered I was pregnant and it was a big shock to me and I was on my own. And I decided, because I knew a girl very well, a very good friend of mine had been in a year or two beforehand, and she hadn't got her baby back.

Now, I didn't realise until recent years that she actually hadn't got her baby back for a month. She didn't talk about the place. But I, in turn, back for a month. She didn't talk about the place. But I, in turn, when I came out, I didn't talk about it either. It was with a great sense of shame that you go through these institutions. And our history as women here in the North Ireland, and all Ireland, I'm sure, has been shrouded in shame. Was it shame that drove you in there? As you say say you went

voluntarily or did you also think I'll get help? Yes I wanted to get away from everybody and everything people you know there are people who are kind but a lot of people when you were pregnant and on your own then would be talking about you. You get a wee bit paranoid if people are laughing or talking and you think that's about me. It puts you under great stress. And I thought, I really need to get out of here. And I thought I was going to a place that would be like a retreat. We went to a religious retreat from the school I was at

and it was really good, very chilled. I thought I was going there to that type of place and that I would get help. And what kind of place were you going to? Well, it's like going back a step in time, that's what I would call it. And you landed there, you were taken in, you were told not to associate with the other girls, to keep your your distance from them to not give any information about yourself and then you were shown into the place itself a big long corridor quite dark and you were introduced to the other girls and immediately the first thing hits you is this atmosphere of sadness a bit of suspicion as well these were girls who were treated very badly some

of them were taken against their will and to marion vale so there's a great deal of distrust you know with you even just coming on you into the place so um very quickly you settle into a routine you can get institutionalized very quickly in these places. I want to play a clip actually from your play now. Let's hear a little bit. This is Kitty. Main character Kitty has given birth and the nuns have taken her baby away.

I might be disobeying the sisters, but I had to come see her. I'm glad you're here. She's so sick, you know. Like, I heard she had a hard time, but she's so unwell. Maybe, um, maybe she was sleeping. Maybe she was sleeping when they came in to tell her they were taking the wee girl. That's why she just doesn't know. No.

Maybe she was sleeping. No, they don't tell you. We just took her baby away to who knows where. Jesus Christ, Jeanette. Where did you find the baby's gold? Did you just never wonder why all our girls come back to Marionville on their own after giving birth? Really powerful stuff. When did you realise then, Katrina, that your daughter was going to be put up for adoption?

Well, almost straight away when I went down to Marionvale, I realised that nobody was going to talk to me about the pregnancy or about what was going to happen afterwards. Everything was geared to getting your baby adopted. And I thought even when the social worker came, the Catholic Adoption Society social worker came and told me that the baby would be better off going to a home with two parents, that I had nothing to offer a child. That if I kept my baby, that I would end up staying in a flat with men calling to me at all hours of the night. This is a coercion that went on at that time and the manipulation of these girls. And I realised that everything was out of my control.

And I did blame myself in a way because I thought, you came here of your own free will. I mean, the others have an excuse, you don't. But I thought everything would change when I went into hospital to have the baby. I thought they can tell me what they want, but I'm going to do what I want when I get into the hospital. And that didn't happen either. How did you get it back?

Well, I left at Daisy Hill Hospital. I left Daisy Hill Hospital. I don't remember it. I went back to Marionville for a couple of weeks and then back home. I now realise that I had postnatal depression. I didn't know what it was then. So I spent my time at home lying in bed or lying on the sofa. I was very physically ill after giving birth. It was a horrendous birth, by the way. And three months later, a social worker from

the local health board called out, a young social worker worker and asked me when I'd last seen my child and I told her that I had sneaked down to the nursery and saw her in the hospital and she couldn't believe it she said you haven't seen her at all and I said I haven't and she said would you like to see her I couldn't believe it because I thought she'd gone so she went under our hall and she rang the Catholic social worker. I heard them arguing. And she came and took me out to a foster home in a town outside Derry. It's about three quarters of a mile or three quarters of an hour's travel from Derry. And I met my daughter after three months.

And I was able to nurse her. And afterwards, the social worker said, what do you want to do? And I said, can I take her back? And the very next day, she took me out and I got my daughter back and that was a miracle really because I've heard other mothers saying to me after I wish that social worker had a call to my house. I mean it's an incredible feat this play and I guess what you're trying to do through the telling of it is eradicate that shame. Is that your message to other women in your situation?

It is. No more shame. I mean, you know, we shouldn't have been made to feel shame. There's people have carried this shame for 70 years, older women. And it's for birth mothers, for their children, now grown up children and their families, you know, for them to come out, talk to somebody. There's a lot of help out there. We're fighting to see justice for these people. And, you know, there's a there's a safe place for them now. Thank you so much for talking to us, Katrina. Katrina Cunningham there and her play The Marion Hotel is going to be playing in Strabane, in Armagh and Belfast this month. You can check online for more details.

And just a reminder that there was an inquiry announced in 2021 to these mother into these mother and baby homes. It hasn't started yet, but there has been an independent panel and a consultation so far. My thanks to her for joining us. Tomorrow on Woman's Hour, we'll have the latest following the presidential election in the US. Our own Nuala McGovern alongside Roz Atkins

will be with you on Radio 4 from 10 o'clock tonight here in the UK right through the night with the America Decides Results programme. She'll then be with Krupa tomorrow morning to give us an update on what we know so far and what the big ticket issues are for the women voting in the US. Woman's Hour tomorrow from 10. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi, I'm Kirsty Young and I'm happy to tell you that Young Again, my podcast for BBC Radio 4, is back with more conversations with people who fascinate me.

In the new series, we'll hear from the comedian Miranda Hart. Part of being human is that we are vulnerable. The writer Irvin Welsh. It's quite a thing to be eight years old and then suddenly to have a criminal record. And we'll begin with a conversation with the actor Minnie Driver. What do you wish you'd understood about the movie business?

It's all ephemera. None of it is real. Subscribe to Young Again on BBC Sounds. 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 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.