Woman's Hour - Wonder Woman at 80; Virginity tests; Bridgerton; Choked Up

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

As Wonder Woman 1984 hits video on demand services this week, a new generation is introduced to the superhero styled as Diana Prince. Later this year, she'll celebrate her 80th anniversary - so what is her story? And what makes her so culturally relevant still? G Willow Wilson is one of the women who's written for the comic series.Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, introduced the Virginity Testing (Prohibition) Bill into the House of Commons in December. His interest was sparked by an investigation for BBC Newsbeat and 100 Women which found that virginity tests are being offered at British medical clinics. Richard joins Anita to explain why he wants to make this controversial practice illegal. She also speaks to Dr. Naomi Crouch, Chair of the British Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology Society and spokesperson for The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Natasha Rattu, barrister & Director of the charity Karma Nirvana. If the first lockdown was all about watching Normal People on TV, why is this lockdown all about Bridgerton? We hear from writers Marian Keyes and Kathryn Flett and from the Bridgerton star Kathryn Drysdale.Anjali Raman-Middleton is a 17 year old activist, and one of the founders of Choked Up, a group set up by black and brown teens campaigning for changes to clean air laws. Anjali went to primary school with Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who died, aged 9, in 2013. At an inquest in December, Ella become the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death.

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 everybody, Anita here, welcoming you to today's Woman's Hour podcast. All the world is waiting for you And the power you possess Good morning and welcome to your new look Friday Woman's Hour. Now how many of you were transported back to seven years old, jumping off the sofa and spinning around to that music? Well the new Wonder Woman film is out and available to rent so we're talking female superheroes later.

And it's been quite a week hasn't it? Terrible weather, minimum daylight. You might be at the end of your tether homeschooling, nowhere to go, no one to see. We're in the depths of winter. My God, I'm depressing myself. Well, we could do with something to look forward to and some inspiration. So I'd like to know what you are doing to escape, relax and unwind this weekend. I'll be cooking something low and slow, maybe going for a lovely walk, pouring myself a glass of wine, maybe tentatively planning a holiday. Imagine that. But I'm sure you have far more creative things going on. I don't know. Maybe you might be buzzing with Bez this weekend too. Get in touch. You can text me at 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate.

And do check with your network provider for exact costs. And of course, you can contact us on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. And you can email us through the website. And Miss Dip Patel has already tweeted to say, Yes, can't wait. Pamper Day in the house. Love a pamper day.

And finishing off a book called The Parisian by Isabella Hamad. Great read. We always love a book recommendation here on Woman's Hour. And I will be watching some TV as well, too, as well as Woman's Hour. We're talking Bridgerton. Now, some of you may have heard of it. It's a new Netflix period drama mega hit. So we'll be discussing that a little bit later. Plus, I'll be talking to a remarkable young air pollution activist. But first, virginity testing. Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, introduced the virginity testing prohibition bill in the House of Commons in December. The second reading was due to take place today, but can't now due to COVID numbers in London. He heard about the story following an investigation by rachel stonehouse for bbc newsbeat and 100 women which found that virginity tests are being offered at british medical clinics for between 150 and 300 pounds

the tests involve a vaginal examination to see if a woman's hymen is still intact and are considered a violation of human rights by both the United Nations and the World Health Organization. And in 2019, US rapper T.I. sparked outrage after admitting during a podcast he took his daughter for a virginity test every year. Now to discuss the practice and issues, I'm joined by Richard Holden, MP, Natasha Ratu, Director of Karma Nirvana,

a national charity helpline for honour-based abuse and forced marriage, and Dr Naomi Crouch, Chair of the British Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology Society and spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Welcome to all of you. Richard, I'm going to come straight to you. What compelled you to want to bring this bill i was just just looking at the bbc investigation and then digging into it uh seeing that that who report which shows there's absolutely no scientific basis for this what's going on and the also the the impact it can have on people and psychological impact and going you know through for many years afterwards, after these tests have been conducted.

I just couldn't quite believe it, that this practice was still going on in the UK today. It sounds like something from the Middle Ages, really. And so it was just something that, and I looked around and I realised that nobody else was doing anything about it on a parliamentary level. So I just thought, this is time to push forward on this so I did my 10 minute rule bill and we've got the second reading coming up unfortunately not today it's been delayed but you know we've got the legislation there and I've also managed to get it knocked together as an amendment for a government bill so if we can't get it through in a private member's bill I'll

make sure it's attached to a government bill in government time as well. And what are you calling for exactly? So calling for it to be banned. And I think the entire issue around this is that people shouldn't be, these things aren't, have got no basis in scientific fact, and yet people are being charged them. So you can, even if you wanted them to continue, there's a basis in fraud,

that these things just aren't scientifically factual. And also, I think the driving force behind it, though, is the fact that women and young girls are being subjected to this. It smacks of very old ideas of what a woman should be and some form of possession of a man that it's all about her purity that she has no um notion of her no rights herself and i think it just it that's the reason i've been pushing so hard on it because i think it just is it's something that we cannot allow in modern britain i'm going to bring natasha in now from the charity karma nirvana your reaction to what richard's trying to, Natasha? We absolutely support the bill. And just to echo what Richard has said, this is about the control of women and girls' bodies. This is absolutely what it is about.

And it's rooted in social and cultural norms that emphasise that it's okay and it's acceptable to have that degree of control. You know, the fact that women and girls are being made to prove their modesty or their innocence in this day and age just shows that we've got so much more work to do on tackling gender and power inequalities. And that's a huge factor as to why we're supporting the bill because we feel that it will help us to get that momentum in making those sorts of changes that we need to see in society. How much do we know about this practice? How widespread is it?

It's very, very hidden. It's very hidden. People do contact our organisation to talk about it, but they talk about it in passing. Very often they're at a point of crisis where they want to leave and they talk about it in a historical context. Like what? What do they say to you? So we've had girls' contacts to say that they've been seen by elders in the community with a boy and they're now being asked

to prove that they are a virgin. We've had women and girls that are due to get married and they know that they're not a virgin and they're petrified about their future husbands finding out that they're not. And the consequences that this will have not only upon themselves, but upon their family and their status to the degree where they're strategizing how they can prove their aversion by buying fake blood capsules to prove that they bled on consummation of the marriage. These are the lengths that some women and girls are having to go to and that's why we support the bill because we need to challenge those attitudes I think that are out there in the society that people have.

But also the women and girls that think that it's OK for this to happen, that it's OK for their families to have that degree of control. Well, we can hear from a story of one young woman, 19-year-old Alma, but the story obviously has been revoiced to protect her identity. Let's have a listen. I had a very emotionally abusive relationship with my parents who wanted me to have an arranged marriage. One day an elder from the community saw me out with my friends and said to my mum that one of the boys in the group was my boyfriend. There were lots of rumours in that community about it.

My parents and the family of the man they wanted me to marry said I had to have a virginity test to prove that I was still a virgin so the marriage could go ahead. I was scared and I really didn't understand what it meant. I felt like running away was my only option, so that's what I did. I mean, it's incredibly sad and shocking to hear. Natasha, are the authorities sometimes guilty of not taking these issues seriously enough,

as was the case with FGM and honour-based violence, because they see them as some kind of cultural issue? I think the fact that we haven't seen it in the government's Borg strategy today shows that I don't think it is on government's radar at all. But I think we have a real opportunity because there is a Home Office consultation open at the moment, where we can influence what the future strategy will look like so i think there's a real opportunity to get it on their radars i think the fact that it is so hidden hasn't helped richard and natasha have you spoken to each other about this are you working together we have and we are yes um in fact we spoke earlier this week actually

great i'm going to bring dr naomi crouching on this i mean naomi what what is your view on virginity tests? Thank you. It has no medical validity at all. So the whole concept itself is a nonsense. There's no way of being able to tell if a woman or an adolescent has had any penetrative sexual intercourse at all. So not only is it intrusive, discriminatory and a form of abuse,

but it also makes no sense. So it's a sham? It's a sham. It's a sham. It has nothing at all that can be proved. I think we should talk biology. I would like you to describe and explain exactly what the hymen is and how reliable, as you said, it is or isn't an indicator of virginity. Well, we found out that it isn't.

So the hymen's a piece of skin that's a centimetre or two just inside the vagina. And it sort of represents where the upper vagina and um a piece of skin that's a centimeter or two just inside the vagina and it sort of represents where the upper vagina and the lower bit of the vagina join together when we're all developing inside our mums um and it dissolves a little bit and it leaves sort of like a polo ring really of tissue and that can be stretched on sexual activity but it also can be stretched and damaged with other activities as well. So that could be horse riding or occasionally using tampons. So for all sorts of reasons, then it's just it's no reliable indicator at all of whether any sexual activity has taken place.

Richard, I mean, what what will be the outcome when this when this bill goes through? Will it be a prison sentence for anybody who's continuing to do this? I mean, what will happen following on from it? Are you going to call for more education? I think the key thing is a bit like what Natasha was just saying before, is that one of the reasons we don't have evidence on this is because it's legal at the moment. So there's nobody's tracking whether or not these are taking place because it's a legal procedure. And as Natasha said, people mention this in passing generally way down the line when things have got much more serious in terms of honour-based violence. So I think it's part of a panoply of things that we have to do to work against violence against women.

This wouldn't still be legal if it was something that was done to men. That would have been changed a long time ago. The fact that it's something that is just done to women along like fdm is just uh it's just crazy and um you know that's what we've that's why that's why it's so important we do it down the line uh prison sentences well i think i've put a notional one of up to 12 months uh in my uh in my I mean, that's something which will get discussed much more extensively if we get to committee stage. But I think that, you know, we've got to get to a position where we're not allowing fake science to be peddled by doctors to make money out of people, and at the same time, allowing abuse of women and girls to continue.

Natasha, how important is education around this? Education is important with all issues, but absolutely with this, I think for women and girls importantly, because sometimes because of their conditioning and their upbringing, they legitimise that this is okay for their families to do this to them or to have this degree of control. So there needs to be education that this is harmful, this is abusive and it's not acceptable. And like Richard said, when we do have law, which is quite clear that an abuse is an abuse, do we then see that we're tracking such things? We understand the scope of the issue. We take it out from hiding. So I think that's going to be massively helpful to get the issues on the education radar too.

I mean, Naomi, Richard described this as something that seemed medieval. There's lots of archaic language when it comes to examining women. For example, is there still something called a virgin speculum? Why are these terms still used? Yes, that's a really good point. There has been such a thing as a virgin speculum. And of course, it's a bit of a misnomer anyway, because if somebody has not had any penetrative intercourse, there wouldn't be a reason for you to be examining the upper vagina. So, again, it doesn't make sense at all.

And I understand that due to a tweet recently from a junior doctor, then actually the manufacturers have changed the name and they now just refer to it as a size. so we would have different size speculums but it's no longer referred to as a virgin speculum and quite rightly too and the Royal College wouldn't support outdated language I think language is really important and it needs to move on. Absolutely Richard how much support have you had and what happens next? I've had massive amounts of support, I must say. So I've had people like Jeremy Hunt, former health secretary, coming on board, Maria Miller, a lot of my colleagues, Sarah Champion, who's done a huge amount in the wider sphere, and there's a Labour MP, and Meg Hillier, my colleague on the Public Accounts Committee, is a Labour MP from London. So this is proper, you know, cross-party

support, so that's really good. What happens next? Well, there's the Violence Against Women and Girls call for evidence, which is happening at the moment. So we'll definitely be submitting stuff to that. And hopefully, we know that the private members' bill stays delayed, but we'll hopefully get a slot later this year and at least keep the pressure up,

basically, on the government. And then if we can get pressure up basically on the government and then if we can get the government convinced on side then we can either get an amendment in government time or maybe the government would adopt the bill as well. Okay well thanks to all of you for joining me this morning that's Richard Holden MP, Natasha Rattu Director of Carmen Havana and Dr Naomi Crouch. We've had a tweet in from Tom Durr and it says shocking report on Women's Hour about virginity testing. The concept of virginity is in itself nonsense. The idea you can test it medically is double nonsense and very harmful and misogynistic nonsense to keep your thoughts,

tweets, messages coming in on any of our stories that we're talking about this morning. Now, as Wonder Woman 1984 hits video on demand service this week, a new generation is introduced to the superhero styled as Diana Prince. Now, later this year, she'll celebrate her 80th anniversary. And doesn't she look good on it? So what's her story? And what makes her so culturally relevant still? G. Willow Wilson is one of the women who's written the comic series. I asked her how daunting it was to take on an octogenarian with superpowers who's so well loved. You know, it was a really big challenge, I have to say, because I think due to Wonder Woman's popularity, the fact that she's

well known across the world, really, whether or not you've actually read the comics and so many stories have already been told about her the big big challenge was to find something new to say that would speak to both her traditional audience and maybe a new audience and also stay true to her character and and sort of the ethos of Wonder Woman that people grew up with and know and love I mean she's a character that everyone knows but but not everyone knows about her. So let's take it back a little bit and talk about her origins and what makes her so special. Give us the backstory of Wonder Woman. So Wonder Woman is an Amazon, which is kind of a comic book version of this ancient Greek mythology of a society composed solely of women who train to be

warriors and live separately from the world of men. And in Wonder Woman's case, her birth is somewhat unusual. And I think like all myths, whether modern or ancient, there are conflicting versions of how she comes into the world. In one version, she's the daughter of Zeus. In another, her mother made a daughter out of clay and it came to life and it became Wonder Woman. So no matter what you sort of go by in terms of continuity where her origin story is concerned, in all of the versions, she grows up groomed to lead her people. Her mother is the leader of the Amazons and sort of the most revered among Two, she becomes drawn into the events of the world of planet Earth. You know, so the world that we know, the world that is not hidden in the mists like Themyscira, which is her homeland. And how radical was she, Willow, when she spun onto the scene in her red corset and massive blue knickers? You know, I think that early iteration of her is in some ways the most radical.

You know, she does, she wields a lasso, which makes you tell the truth. And she spends a lot of her early life kind of tying up men in positions that are, you know, a little bit eyebrow-raising, I think. And, you know, at the time, I think she was quite an unexpected and somewhat shocking figure on the scene of the comics world. I mean, you're not the only woman who's written her, but she has been disproportionately written by men. How much do you think that's changed her character over the years? You know, that's an interesting question. And I think, you know, by the way,

that there have been some fantastic teams of men who've written some absolutely amazing Wonder Woman stories. But something I did notice as I was going back and reading all these years of material is that when men write her, they seem to be a little bit afraid of giving her any kind of flaws. You know, she's kind of not allowed to have imperfections. She is never angry or cross. She doesn't, you know, snap at people.

She's not sort of irritable. She always knows what the right thing to do is. She doesn't have to sort of hesitate. And, you know know if there are conflicts that she has to resolve that are sort of beyond a black and white narrative of good and evil um she never has a selfish motivation you know it's it's always very austere i think is the word that i would use um whereas i i think if you look at some of the most beloved male superheroes like Spider-Man or Superman or certainly Batman, Batman is 95% flaws. They're allowed to be flawed. You know, they have serious defects that are part of what we love about them. But Wonder Woman, it seems, is not allowed to have those. And that was very interesting to me. Now, I'm going to hop onto another comic book

superhero that you have created I'm really excited to talk to you about this young woman because normally we've mentioned a few superheroes they tend to be male white and American but you have created uh Kamala Khan aka Ms Marvel who's the first Muslim Pakistani superhero. I'm cheering and whooping. In fact, I think I did when I read that this character had been created. Why did you create this character? Well, I can't take all of the credit. I got a phone call in, let's see, it would have been 2012, from Sana Amanat, who was a editor at the time at Marvel. And we had been talking

off and on for a few years about what we could possibly do together. And she and her editor, Steve Wacker, called me up and said, hey, we have this idea. They'd been talking about Sana's own experiences as a young Pakistani American woman growing up in the United States. And Steve had said to her, why don't we have a character like this? Why don't we have a superhero that reflects this experience? And so they got very excited about the idea and called me and said, we want to create a new young female Muslim superhero and give her her own ongoing monthly comic book. And I was shocked. I was like, wow, are you sure? Because I think monthly comics are, or at least were at the time, a somewhat conservative medium. You know, it kind of tells a lot of the same stories

over and over again. It adheres very closely to the classics. It's rare that a new character has enough momentum to sort of carry them over that initial skepticism and get them to the level of the superheroes who've been around for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. And so there was a sort of understood logic at the time that new characters don't sell, female characters don't sell, minority characters don't sell. And this was going to be all three. And how does her religion inform, you know, her superpowers and who she is? It's a big part of her ethos. And that actually is what I think Sana and I spent the most time developing. We knew that we sort of wanted to model her backstory on Spider-Man's, another beloved Marvel character,

this idea of an ordinary kid living an ordinary middle-class life who suddenly, and for unknown reasons, gets superpowers and then has to decide what to do with them. They're not billionaires like Batman. They probably don't have super strength or this amazing backstory like Superman. They're really just ordinary kids and they have to figure everything out on their own.

And in the case of Kamala Khan, Sana was very, very insistent that we had to find a Muslim version of the great Spider-Man line with great power comes great responsibility. That's sort of his tagline. And we thought for months about how that would be different in this particular scenario. I was reading bits of the Quran. I was like, how do you distill this way of life into a tagline that will be useful to whoever picks this book up, no matter what their religious background is. And eventually, after months and months and months, I was writing this

and I had this very limited amount of space in this word balloon to get this down in a critical point in her development. And I wrote, good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do. And we knew we had it. That was it. I love it. I love it so much. I'm going to put it on my Instagram tomorrow. It's going to be there. It's going to be in the square. What was the reaction to her? So here you are, you're knowing full well that, well, it's sad to say that you thought the reaction would be that nobody's going to respond to her because she's a woman, she's a woman of color, she's a Muslim. But what was the reaction? The reaction was astonishing. I was sort of prepping myself for a major backlash, which is what had happened in my experience. You know, I couldn't really write to fill in issues

of Superman without certain elements of the internet coming out and saying this is covert sharia this is this is you know a secret indoctrination these people shouldn't be allowed to write comic books and I was expecting that that's what I thought it would be except more so and there was that backlash but it was absolutely muted by the swell of support and love and enthusiasm for this character that happened immediately. I mean, the first issue went into eight printings. We were seeing DIY costumes within the first week. People were doing fan art. There were just, you know, like groups of fans who were sort of spontaneously organizing themselves into fan clubs. It was it was just absolutely incredible. And I've never seen anything like it before or since.

And it really, in many ways, renewed my faith in humanity that that more things are possible than what we have been led to believe. And, you know, I think Kamala is really a symbol of that. And I'm sure we'll be talking about her again in the program because they're turning it into a TV series. Can't wait. Now you are getting in touch about everything we're talking about. And Virginity Tests has really got you responding. And we've had an email from an anonymous listener who says, I'm listening to the programme just now about virginity tests and I was reminded of a horrible experience

I had at the age of 15. I'm now 73. I was in boarding school and I climbed out of the window one night as Laurence Olivier's Hamlet was on at the midnight screening at the local cinema and I was a studious child. I was caught by the school matron on the way back in, accused of sneaking off to be with boys, She says,

Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. If you would like to contact us about anything you can you can text us on 8484844 um or you can get in touch via our email through our websites or even social media at bbc woman's hour we're also asking you what you're doing to unwind and relax this weekend um text in saying this weekend i'll be gathering up all the jars and pots of loose change in the house counting it all in the jar and getting all the family in their separate households to guess the amount the winner gets to choose the charity we donate to and a hug from every every member of

their household and that's from Lucy in London so much change kicking about everyone's homes. I think that's a really good idea. You've inspired me. Now, sex, scandal, intrigue, handsome princes, beautiful young women, stunning dresses, and an even more stunning cast. I am, of course, talking about the Netflix series Bridgerton. It rose to the top of the streaming platform within days, with 63 million people already devouring it. So what makes it so appealing to so many people and across generations, which is quite important? I'm joined now by writers Marion Keys and Catherine Flett and star of Bridgerton, Catherine Drysdale,

who plays Genevieve Delacroix. Welcome to Woman's Hour, ladies. I'm going to come straight to you, Catherine Drysdale. First of all, you must be absolutely thrilled with the reception it's had. So congratulations on that. Tell us for the three people who haven't seen it, what Bridgerton is. Describe it. I would describe it as it's a regency romance. It's soapy fiction. It's scandal. It's sexy. It's beautiful to look at. Lots of colour, escapism. It's diverse. It's, you know.

And tell me about your character. Who do you play? So I play Genevieve Delacroix, also known as Madame Delacroix, because in those days, when you were a successful dressmaker, you were always called Madame. She is a French designer dressmaker, or so we think. The good thing about Bridgerton is that each character has a secret that they are trying to keep. And one of the exciting things about it

is is that as as the stories unfold the audience you know are with these characters wondering you know whether they're gonna be exposed or not and and katherine you're a successful young actress you know you've we've seen you on our screens you've been in a uh a period drama before you're in Vanity Fair but how excited as a young um black actress do you do you get when you get a script like this that says you know diverse cast Shonda Rhimes producing Netflix period drama you've got a a young black duke I mean what what did you think when this came through your letterbox or your email well as soon as it came through because that's the thing you know you leave drama school and you know uh certain you're there are limitations especially when it comes to period

drama and actually that genre is my favorite genre you know I'm obsessed with regency romance and and and you you you don't have high expectations unfortunately but when when there was there was you talked about Vanity Fair and when I was younger I read the novel Vanity Fair and knew that that was the only literary figure around that time that existed that was mixed race and so when I was younger I was like I have to play this when I become an actress I have to play this role because it's my only shot at doing a historical you know period drama but when I got that I was just squealing because you knew that you you know that there was a chance of landing it there was an actual chance of of being part of something that you know a normal Caucasian actress

would perhaps take for granted but you know I mean Shonda Rhimes is just an extraordinary woman so I think that you know I just was fizzing. You're making history Catherine, you're making history. Let me bring in Marion Keys and Catherine Flett. Marion what drew you to Bridgerton? hi Anita hi everyone and the look of it I mean it's just utterly beautiful to look at there's so much color and so much beauty that the clothes are gorgeous the interiors are gorgeous the men are gorgeous you know there's an awful lot to look at that is is very delicious and then I suppose there's there's no real sense of peril you know that nothing terrible is actually going to happen to any of the characters I mean there's a little bit of fake

peril in each episode but at a time when there's so much peril in the outside world it's nice to be in a little universe where where there isn't really any I mean we know that the right people are going to end up together so it was safe safe and just this kind of deluge of gorgeousness. And Catherine, why do we love, Catherine Flett, why do we love a period drama so much? It's Catherine Flett. Well, it's escapism, isn't it? It connects you to the past in a sort of contemporary way and what I loved about Bridgerton

so much was that you know it had its clever in jokes so things like the music orchestral versions of songs by Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande you know may have been lost on most of 50-somethings I had to be told by a young person, of course. But, you know, things like that made it accessible to audiences. Oh, Catherine's lines. And they're kind of in jokes. Marion, I mean, what does it say about our lives now, though? You know, here we have women with heaving bosoms,

desperate to marry the handsome prince and with no agency why why are we still watching programs like this what is it about them Marion? I mean to be honest I think if you focus too deeply on the underlying dynamics of Bridgerton you mightn't enjoy it so much I mean I made a deliberate decision to not mind that, you know, this is a world where the women are like cattle and they are desperately almost doing hand-to-hand combat in order to get the most eligible, chinless wonder to marry them. Focusing on that does not make me happy. So I decided instead to focus on true love will triumph. You know, our girl will get the handsome prince. Can I come back to what Catherine said?

I normally don't like period dramas. I find them very, very stiff and stilted and I don't believe anything. But the dialogue in this, it's got Shonda Rhimes all over it, which is just, it makes it so accessible. You know, you have characters saying things like um is that a problem and I'll handle it and it feels like it just it came straight out of Scandal which is one of my most favorite shows ever another of Shonda Rhimes so the whole thing is slightly tongue-in-cheek I think and and again with the music as Catherine said you know you're there and you're listening to a song you think think it's beautiful and think, what on a second? That's Billie Eilish. So there's a certain complicity

between the show runners and the audience that it kind of removes it from, I suppose, the ugly truth of what it was like to be a woman in Regency England in, you know, 1813. Yeah, I'm totally in, I have to say say I think it's exactly what we need right now at this time of year it's just a perfect thing confectionery to disappear into and there are some very exciting sort of modern characters in there as well quite like Eloise Bridgerton she's the younger sister she's got some fire in her belly hasn't she um just just on this because we are asking people what we can do to help ourselves relax and unwind what else are you watching at the moment Catherine Drysdale apart from Bridgerton um I was watching Queen's Gambit I mean at the moment um you know obviously because of the success of Bridgerton it's I've not

really had that much time to watch anything but Queen's Gambit I think beautiful beautifully acted beautifully written the design is gorgeous. That's on one of my top lists as well. Catherine Flett, recommendations? Oh, well, I am beside myself with excitement about the final series of Call My Agent, which is just one of the great shows of all time. And it's going to make, you know, the rest of January bearable. And I think it drops on Thursday.

Oh, I can't wait. On Netflix. Totally with you on that. Totally with you. Absolutely superb television. I want to be mates with all of them. And Marion Keys, what are you doing? Give us some recommendations.

OK, well, I love a murder in a cold place. So I've just finished watching Valhalla Murders, which is about murders in Iceland. And I'm also watching Rebecca Martinson Arctic Murders, which is about people being murdered in the north of Sweden. And then there's Nordic Murders. And, you know, it's just, it's got the crime storyline, but they're always in such beautiful places. So it's a bit like travel. It's the closest i'm getting to travel at the moment um so any of them are are great uh ladies thanks so much uh for joining me on woman's hour and brilliant marion keys catherine flatt and catherine drysdale and uh bridgeton is on netflix if you haven't seen like say for the two people haven't seen it um it's if you want something to disappear into it's there now ella adu Kisi-Debra was just nine years old when she died in 2013. She had a rare and severe form of asthma and lived 25 metres from the South Circular, one of London's busiest roads. An inquest in December saw Ella become the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as one of the causes of death. This concluded a seven-year

battle by her mother and Woman's Hour powerlister, Rosamund, to find out why her daughter died. Anjali Raman Middleton is 17 years old and went to school with Ella. She co-founded Choked Up with three other teenagers to lobby against the pollution that contributed to Ella's death. And Anjali, a very good morning to you. You were only nine when Ella died and obviously her death had a huge impact on you. What do you remember understanding at the time?

I remember understanding that Ella had asthma so I would see her in the playground and she would have her asthma pump but it was it was never something that I really paid much attention to because there were lots of other children in my year who had asthma and it was kind of a background until suddenly it wasn't and I was told that she had died and that was something that I think took everyone by shock because it was just so sudden and I had seen her a few days before and she had seemed completely fine completely normal and yeah it was it was just so sudden and I had seen her a few days before and she had seemed completely fine completely normal and yeah it was it was a shock to everyone. And how did the so how did the community respond to the event? Well at first there was just there was a lot of sympathy for

her family and a lot of understanding but then this slowly changed into anger when we found out that it could have been related to air pollution. And now it's been proved that it was. So once we, because that was something that kind of developed gradually. We didn't know that at the beginning when she had died. We found that out a couple of years after. And it's obviously something stayed with you because you're 17 now and you formed Choked Up. Tell me, tell me about Choked Up. Tell me how it came about and what you're campaigning for. So Choked Up was formed when I joined Advocacy Academy,

which is a group that lets young people campaign on issues that are close to their hearts and meet other people who feel the same. So there I met the other co-founders of the campaign and all of us are equally passionate about air pollution. We all live in polluted areas ourselves. This is an issue that's really close to our hearts and our main goals are to change clean air legislation to make it stronger so it actually protects people

because currently it is so weak um you wouldn't believe it um we also want to raise awareness for the intersectionality of this issue so yeah you you you describe yourself as a group of brown and black teenagers who want to want the right to breathe clean air to be made law why is it important for you to point out your ethnicities um well it has been proven that uh people of color are disproportionately affected by air pollution and poorer communities generally have worst um have worse air and obviously this disproportionately affects people of color and you can see this in the case of Ella as well. It's no coincidence that she was a black girl herself. It's no coincidence that the area she lives in

is a very ethnically diverse area. And name the other young women who are involved with you. Because you're all quite remarkable, all three of you. So tell me about the other two who are involved um so the other um people involved in this campaign are um destiny who campaigns about this issue because her younger sister has asthma and um she has seen the effects it has on her family um near letty who lives in a polluted area herself and sees the effects that this has on her community. And Kaydeen, who also lives in a polluted area and understands this issue. And you grew up less than five minutes from the South Circular. So what was it like living so

close to that road? Well, it was, I would walk along it every day, not as long, not for as long as Ella did, but for about 10 minutes. And you can see the pollution, you could see it coming off the cars, you can still see it today. And looking back, I wonder what kind of effect that has had on my lungs. And whilst I can't see it right now, because I don't have any underlying health conditions. I'm not particularly vulnerable myself. I wonder if it will have any impacts on me in the future. And we've got a statement from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and from the government. They say our thoughts remain with Ella's family and friends. We're delivering a 3.8 billion plan to clean up transport, tackle NO2 pollution, going further in protecting communities from air

pollution, particularly PM2.5 pollution, going further in protecting communities from air pollution, particularly PM2.5 pollution, which we know is particularly harmful to people's health. Through our landmark Environment Bill, we're also setting ambitious new air quality targets with a primary focus on reducing public health impacts. Are they doing enough fast enough for you, Anjali? No, they are not.

And I know they talk about the Environment Bill and I agree this is a remarkable opportunity for them to put very clear clean air targets into law but I personally do not feel and everyone at Choked Up feels that these targets aren't strong enough and the government simply must do more. I'm always amazed at how remarkable the younger generation are and how switched on you are when it comes to particularly environmental issues tell us what we can do practically to to just help so one thing that you can do is um do individual actions yourself so try and drive less i know that may be hard during this time because public transport and covid do not mix well but if you can um try

and cycle if you can try and walk um something else you can do is email your MP and bring this to their attention. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. This is how the pandemic ends, not with a bang, but with a shot, or rather billions of shots. I'm Tim Harford, the presenter of More or Less and 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy. And in a new podcast series from the BBC, we'll be covering the defining story of the crisis, the search for a vaccine. We look at the cutting-edge biotechnology behind these vaccines

and the underrated business of fridges and vials and porter cabins that will be essential in a huge public health campaign. And of course, there are the other questions. Who's going to pay for this? How will we persuade people to take the vaccine? And who gets to go to the front of the queue of several billion people? That's How to Vaccinate the World, available now 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 was faking pregnancies.

I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.