Woman's Hour - Working From Home, Domestic Violence, Useful Tech

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

We're being told to work from home if we can, so how's it going? What if you're sharing your home with someone else #WFH? Do you have enough space? As well as the paid work you're doing, how are the chores getting divided up? And what about looking after children in the middle of it all?Victims of violence in the home are being reassured that there's still help available for them despite what's happening. Sarah Green from End Violence Against Women describes how dangerous the lock-down is for victims of domestic abuse. We hear from Kate Elisabeth Russell, author of My Dark Vanessa. It's about an American teenager who's been groomed and raped by a teacher. At the time that it's happening the character thinks it's love, but realises when she's older that is was abuse. And how we're using tech to stay in touch. Lara Lewington from BBC Click gives us some tips on Zoom, Whatsapp and Houseparty.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and somehow we've reached the end of March. This is Woman's Hour on Tuesday the 31st of March 2020. Hello, good morning and we are going to be talking about the increase in domestic violence on Woman's Hour today. We're also talking about a controversial new American novel. It is called My Dark Vanessa and you can hear from the author Kate Elizabeth Russell on Women's Hour today. And we'll explore tech, the wonderful world of tech, everything it makes possible, particularly how it allows you to keep in contact with other members of your family. We'll get some advice from the presenter of the BBC show, the BBC tech show, Click, on Women's Hour this morning. And as ever, we want your stories and experiences

at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter and Instagram. And email us through the website if you've got anything really good to say, something important to add to the first conversation, which is about working from home in the current circumstances. You can use the hashtag WFH if you're contributing on Twitter at BBC Women's Hour. Anna Harris works for a marketing and ad agency. She's got four children. They are aged seven, six, and then she's got three-year-old twins. She's also attempting to homeschool with her husband.

She joins us from her home in Macclesfield. And Caroline Whaley is the co-founder of Shine, which is a coaching consultancy aimed at women and leadership. She's in Dorset. So Anna, take us through a day in your life at the moment. How's it going? Oh, well, we've had to completely redesign the way that we're working. So my husband and I both work four days a week, which has massively helped. So what we're doing at the moment is my husband starts work at seven and he works through till one. Then I pick up at one and I work through till seven. But quite often that seven becomes eight and quite often he then has to pick up at eight.

And sometimes I might then have to start at six the next morning to get on top of things that I know are going to happen while I'm while I'm looking after the children. And in between that time, we're attempting to homeschool, but it's far from easy, especially with children of different ages. I think there's a lot of tips for people working from home and homeschooling saying, oh, you know, just get them off working while you're doing some schoolwork while you're working. But it sort of doesn't allow for the fact that they've got different needs and they're different ages so it's quite difficult and everything's blurring into everything else it's relentless at the moment. Now we don't want to ask too many questions about your employer but are they understanding? Yeah they've been very open about flexibility and making it work in a way that suits you but it doesn't mean that it's easy.

It's still very difficult. What have you found the most difficult thing? I think just the fact that we're, well, we've also been in isolation because I've had some symptoms. So we've not left the house and it's just non-stop. So it just, I mean, normally on a normal working day,

I would have my husband around to help a bit with breakfast and then I would be home at bedtime. And then obviously the children are catered for in their various care arrangements at lunchtime. But at the moment, I'm doing breakfast on my own. I'm doing lunch on my own and he's doing tea and bedtime on his own. So we're all in the same house, but there's just additional pressure on everything. And I think what's quite difficult is that where normally we'd be able to reach out to our traditional friendship groups,

I think within each friendship group, there's a big divide about how people are making it work. And so you wouldn't have a normal support that you would have in a sort of normal environment. So some people have got, you know, they just have a lot more free time, whereas others have just completely deluged with work and parenting responsibilities. Yeah. Let me bring in some listener comments. Emily says it's going OK. I'm on week three and a routine has settled in. Challenges, boundaries with teenagers and dogs, no one else working and Wi-Fi draining. That, of course, is a real problem um wi-fi can let you down there may only be one laptop in the house who gets control of the laptop and when is an issue and

this is an email from rachel i'm a single mother trying to work from home with a soon-to-be three year old so far we've managed to get by with mixed success using youtube live stream toddler groups and cartoons but i really don't like him spending a large amount of time in front of a screen. Do your experts have any strategies for keeping him occupied whilst I'm working? We have done craft and play and learning together, but he is of course too young to be occupied by himself. Well, you've got the three-year-old twins there, Anna. Any advice? Well, I think although I have four children, and in normal circumstances, people would kind of look at me with some sort of pity,

which I try and ignore. I think actually, you could argue that I've got it easier at the moment, because there's four of them so they can play together. Whereas I think that it's the single parents with one or two children that are really feeling the pressure right now. And I'm hearing from my friends who are single parents who are just finding it so hard because this kind of this mum guilt that we usually try and keep at arm's length is really staring us in the face because we've got this sort of marketing deluge of all these beautiful activities that we should be doing with our children like making rainbows and you know all these things and it's just completely inaccessible for so many women so I think normally you can kind of ignore that kind of stuff on Pinterest, but it's so in your face at the moment that I think it's just piling the pressure on people who've got additional caring responsibilities.

Now, the fathers are there too, or other partners, of course, not necessarily dads. You've been very careful not really to get into the gender politics of this, Anna, and it does seem like your husband is really pulling his weight, I think would probably be the right term. But I'm sure you know other people, I've certainly seen stuff on social media, suggesting that some men, not all, are rather good at making sure that their working lives continue

without having to do a lot of the domestic stuff. Yeah, and I think that's really unfair. I think this whole situation is really shining a light on the unfairness of, you know, the caring responsibility falling on the women, even when they have full time work to maintain. It's just unacceptable. We've cultivated quite carefully over the last few years, a sharing of work. And that's really helped us out in this situation but I really feel for families where that hasn't happened and they're really being forced to re-examine their home and working practices right now because it's just otherwise it's just impractical practical.

I'm going to bring you in now Caroline I know that I've already mentioned to you the report today from the Institute for Economic Affairs, which disappointingly says that fewer than one in six home workers will be able to work productively during the coronavirus outbreak. Now, it's only their research. It may not be very big research. I confess, I don't know exactly how big the study was. Do you find that disappointing, though? I do find it disappointing because, well, I think it's unhelpful at the moment anyway, because what we need is to be able to do what we can do. And as Anna, you know, clearly shows that people are absolutely pulling out the stops.

That's what we're seeing everywhere. And to be actually sort of putting that across right now is just, I think, is a fairly unhelpful piece of news, to be honest. Well, how do you make it work? Anna points to all the challenges she has and she also acknowledges her own good fortune. What about people who are really wrestling with a whole range of challenges, may not have any kind of domestic space at all? Yeah. So I think the biggest thing here is don't beat yourself up. Okay. So everybody's situation is different right now. We work with thousands of women across the world. And if there's one thing that we keep seeing is this idea that, you know, whether it's the mum guilt or

I'm not good enough. And the trouble is the more we take on these roles, the more we expect to be great at all of them and which is really helpful and certainly never more than it is now so it's kind of a moment to go you know what let's let's put that inner critic into self-isolation and give ourselves a break because until we do that I think the pressure will just continue to to to mount there is an onus though isn't there on decent employers to behave decently at a time like this. I was reading stuff over the weekend about one of the people who responded to a tweet I put out on Sunday that she'd been told by management that having a child at a Zoom meeting was unprofessional. It's outrageous. I mean, businesses have just got to take this on board.

If they're expecting people to work from home, then the reality is we are going to have kids in the background or video calls or dogs popping into camera shots. And actually, our experience is that people are telling us that they actually are getting to know their colleagues on a more personal level than ever before, which is actually bringing a huge benefit, actually, rather than it being a downer. How is it a benefit, would you say? Well, you know, we need to see the world of business becoming more human anyway,

in order for people to actually thrive in the future we need people to be able to be to turn up and actually be themselves so the fact that we're actually seeing each other people are now having conversations with each other on a much more personal level than they ever did before in fact we're also seeing our partners working where we may have never actually seen them work before so we're starting to get to know people on completely different levels you might fall in love with a partner all over again when you see them working. Oh, that's rather sweet. You never know.

You never know. But one piece of advice would definitely be don't criticise their style. Go on, Anna. It's been interesting ear-wigging on my husband's kind of work conferences, and I'm sure he's been finding it interesting ear-wigging on mine too. I'd just like to make a point about that report that you mentioned jane yeah um the the article that's written about it i find it really frustrating that the photograph accompanying the article has a picture of a woman working who's clearly trying

to manage children there's pictures of she'll be one of those those women who've had children that you hear about yeah but it's just like the when they're talking about issues like this it's always trying to shine a spotlight on women who are struggling when it should be about men and women who are struggling this is an opportunity to create a new blueprint for sort of future ways of working we can level the presentee and presenteeism playing field but it's articles like this that are just really unhelpful and are kind of sort of perpetuating that unhelpful narrative that, oh, we always said women going into the workplace wouldn't work, which have started to see creep out in some parts of the media. Yeah, no, I wouldn't disagree with that at all.

Here's an email from a listener who says, oh, it's quite a long one, but she says, I'm very tired. I'm coordinating the homeschooling with my partner. If I can't not deliver on my deadlines it's like swimming in sand uphill um i often cry my friends text about homeschool and the school sends endless emails the message is not to worry about your child's education but the emails just keep coming oh my goodness yeah it's hard not to feel you're messing it all up she says yeah so on our on our school whatsapp chat um somebody suggested putting a collection out for the teachers who are sending It's hard not to feel you're messing it all up, she says. Yeah, so on our school WhatsApp chat, somebody suggested putting a collection out

for the teachers who are sending all this schoolwork. And I just thought I would pay them not to send this out because it's just making everything so much harder. There's another great line in this email from Katie, is the name of the listener. She says, if the prime minister can run his country from his bedroom, the rest of us white-collar workers should be able to carry out our duties from home. That is, of course, true,

although I don't think anyone's asking the Prime Minister to, in self-isolation, run the country and think about his kids' homework. But you never know, I suppose. Do you think, both of you, that you've both suggested this might happen? Here we are at a real turning point in the way we as a nation work. What do you think, Caroline?

Yeah, I, you know, it often takes these sort of catalytic moments. And I do, I mean, my greatest hope out of this is that there's, that there are going to be, you know, we have, we're going to have more equal and collective ways of living, just by redefining and sharing roles as everyone's talked about. And I think, you know, if we can get past this report as well, I think we are proving finally that flexible working can and does work. You know, it's been such a battle for women over the years. And now we're actually, you know, everybody's having to do it. And so we can prove that flexible working is the reality of the future. And then I come back to this fact that I think we're going to get to know each other on a much more human level, which will allow us to support each other and be much more kind and empathetic than we ever have been. Now, Anna, as you speak to us, I'm assuming that your husband is in charge of everything else. Is that right?

He is right now. Yeah, he's taken an hour off his morning schedule so that I can do this, but he'll have to make it up later. Yeah. I mean, don't tell him you finished at 17 minutes past 10. Oh, no, definitely not. I mean, take the whole hour, Anna. All right. Thank you both very much. I really enjoyed talking to you. And thank you for the positivity. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. Thank you very much. Take care. Any more

thoughts on that then? Working from home, how is it working for you? And is it a real positive? Should we harness all that energy and make our working lives change as a result of the last couple of weeks and indeed the weeks ahead? You can

let us know via email through the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour or you can get involved, of course, on Twitter as well at bbcwomanshour. Now, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, did attempt to offer some reassurance to victims of domestic violence over the weekend, telling them that even during the lockdown,

we have not forgotten you and we will not let you down. That was her message. Well, as you may well have heard this morning, the bodies of four people were found yesterday at a house in Sussex. Police are not looking for anybody else in connection with these deaths. A man in South Wales has been charged with the murder of his wife and in Barnsley, a 31-year-old woman died after being stabbed outside her home and a man has now been charged with her murder. Sarah Green is from the organisation End Violence Against Women,

one of the domestic violence organisations and charities that issued a joint statement about the likely increase in domestic violence during the lockdown last week. Sarah Green, good morning to you. Morning. So where do we start? We were warned that this would happen and indeed it has. I'm afraid yes it is predictable. It's predictable that in an unprecedented crisis like this where so many of our regular public services are feeling shut down and where we know that disasters of all kinds lead to increases in domestic and sexual violence that this will happen. It's already happened in the other countries like China and Italy who are further down their road with corona so it's very

predictable and what I would say is that because it's predictable we need to plan for it so planning for how to respond as best we can to an increase in domestic and sexual violence needs to go in at the highest level at COBRA planning, because we must not look back on this period as somewhere where we kind of accepted this was inevitable and it's a secondary consequence of corona. Right. And now the former Conservative Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, was on Women's Hour about 10 days ago now, making exactly that point, pointing out the relative absence of women, at least publicly in the government statements surrounding the lockdown and coronavirus. And she was concerned that the message on

domestic violence was being lost in the mix. You're saying the same thing, but it doesn't look as though anything has changed. It is really problematic that there are probably not enough women's voices and the women with the right expertise at Cobra at the moment. And we've got to get it in there because we need Cobra to recognise that this is predictable and it's perhaps already happening. That is more domestic abuse actually in households where perhaps neighbours might be aware of it, but others who are not seeing women are less so and then similarly we need to think about how Cobra can get round to cascading down to all police leaders to council leaders and to health workers that we're staying on high alert for domestic violence we're making sure that emergency calls will be answered and we're getting the message out not so much to victims who are going

to find it harder actually to make a call if the person they're frightened of is right by them but actually to neighbours and friends that if you're worried do call about this because most of us should stay at home but home is not safe for everybody and if you're worried about someone next door then make a call and it will be taken seriously that message needs to go out arguably at that number 10 press conference every day well that would be something wouldn it, if one of the contributors at the daily briefing, which is normally around tea time, were actually to refer to domestic violence and make that point that actually we all, as citizens, now have a duty to get involved, however uncomfortable that might be for us. I think it is that it is. It's a time when, you know, we're seeing lots of really good action in the community, mutual aid groups bringing up people talking about how they can help their neighbours and friends. This is a really difficult area of life, but I think it's somewhere where we need to now charge up the awareness and make people aware that you can get in touch. You can support somebody that you're worried about adults or children so for example what the

domestic violence charities have found so far it's quite early for detecting trends but their helplines are having different levels of use than usual but their web traffic is very much increased so it feels like women and perhaps friends and family and neighbours might be seeking help online and I think that's a change that's happened at a time when the services frankly are run on a shoestring as ever and they're having to quickly switch over to making sure they've got as good a service as possible available online so I would say of course that when Cobra gets around to examining this to predicting it and to having the best possible response they need to

reach out to the women's charities who work in this area ask us what we predict and what we know might happen help us shift quickly to as much web-based service as we can and help us deal with the complicated arrangements around isolation because you can't run a refuge very well when you have to isolate and we need support with that okay i get that completely i mean basically you're saying people cannot ring because they're not safe to ring but it might be you can maybe more furtively make contact online somehow. Yes definitely and there's a spike in searching for help on the web and also a spike in the pages I believe where people ask about a third party so what do I do if I am worried about a friend or family member?

I would say that the other services really need to continue. So life-saving sexual violence and domestic violence counselling makes a massive difference. And it's shoestring service. It needs to go on. Similarly, there are women who are more invisible than others, homeless women, women living in destitution, a lot of immigrant women, always less visible to our services. I'd say that council leaders and others need to get on proactively

finding and locating where those women might be and making sure that we're able to keep them safe because sofa surfing is not ideal in this context and you really risk being forgotten. Right. We also have to, of course, bear in mind that the police themselves, that their strength is somewhat depleted because police officers are off, either self-isolating or unwell. So although the best intentions might well be there, they literally haven't got the feet on the ground at the moment. Yeah, I understand that police might be, different police forces are planning for a lot of their workforce just being off necessarily. So people who are actually ill and people who are isolating or need to isolate with people at home so the police force being depleted at this time is a worry

similarly with health workers and with many others on the front line so this is why it's so important that women's expertise is brought to the table as soon as possible we need to look at the implications of a depleted social worker workforce and police and health workers and really get their domestic and sexual violence experts in to say this is what we would do we need to shift up to web we need to be able to make these arrangements around isolation but most of all we need to get the message out to women who won't be able to seek help and the women who would never approach the police anyway so we need to to get that message out to neighbours that if you're concerned, you can call and you can get in touch on behalf of,

and in an emergency, always call the police. Right, but what you really want to see, and you'd like to see it sooner rather than later, is an acknowledgement of domestic violence at that daily briefing and maybe some helplines given out. That would be something. Or website addresses as well, crucially. Absolutely.

Really appreciate you. Perhaps also messages to perpetrators. I mean, this is something, an area that Respect, a really great organisation, are working on. This might be the time when we can escalate some of that work and get the message out to the men who can be reached that if you're worried about your behaviour, if you're worried it's going to get worse, there are services for you. There's a really good helpline and you can get in touch before you do some harm that you will regret. Appreciate that. Thank you very much indeed, Sarah Green from the organisation End Violence Against Women. Respect was the perpetrator's organisation that she referenced there. I'm sure you'll be able to find details online.

Now, My Dark Vanessa is a new novel that's been making headlines and causing some controversy in the States. It's the story of a 15-year-old girl, a pupil at a boarding school. Her name is Vanessa Wye, and her English teacher, Jacob Strain, a man in his 40s. He grooms her and starts an abusive sexual relationship. Years later, she's in her early 30s, and another of Strain's former students

accuses him of sexual abuse. Vanessa is adamant what she went through wasn't abuse. She wants to believe it was love. But it's 2017 and the Me Too era and more and more allegations are being made against powerful men. The author of My Dark Vanessa is Kate Elizabeth Russell. I asked her to describe how Vanessa's faring in 2017. She's struggling. I mean, she has a job. She works at a hotel. She's had the same job for many years.

And she is taking sort of small steps to try to make her life better. She's in therapy, for example. But at the same time, this teacher is still in her life. And you sort of see through the novel that he's still very much in control, despite her being 32 and this relationship having begun when she was 15. There's a particular part where it's actually an extract from an episode in which the characters are meeting again in 2017. And Vanessa says, Him kissing me used to be fodder for rumours that spread like wildfire. Now when we touch each other, the world doesn't even notice. I know there should be freedom in that, but to me, it only feels like loss. Now that that sprang out

at me and I found it really troubling because it suggested a kind of a glamour and an excitement in this forbidden relationship, which I'm afraid, although upsetting, it's undeniable, isn't it? Absolutely, especially for her, because she felt that so much as a teenager. And I think the way that this relationship played out for her and certainly the way that the teacher strain encouraged her to experience it, it put her on a pedestal. It made her feel unlike other kids, unlike other humans altogether. And so I think when you see her in her 30s and she's lost that sense of being special, of being illicit, there's an enormous amount of grief that she sort of carries with her every day. And also threaded throughout the book is her repulsion. Sometimes she finds him repulsive.

She finds him comic. She finds him comic. She finds him ugly. And she knows she does, but it doesn't stop and it doesn't stop the relationship. I tried to write her in a way where she had no expectation, I guess, of finding him attractive or even getting that much pleasure out of the sexual encounters. What she loves about him is the way that he makes her feel. And so his physicality and even who he is almost becomes irrelevant. She just needs to feed on what he gives her feeling-wise, if that makes any sense. Well, it does make sense. I suppose it's illustrated in some ways with quite simple things.

He doesn't know who her favourite singers are. He's never heard of them. That's because he's from a completely different generation. Yeah, yeah. And the age difference between them, there's one line when she's 32 and she admits that she thought that the age difference between them would seem smaller the older that they get, but it's always there and it's always this huge sort of canyon between them. But at the same time, she sort of tells herself that it has to be that way,

that he has to be old because that's the only way that she can stay beautiful. What is really effective and powerful about this book is that he, at strain, the teacher in question, always makes it about her. It's her responsibility. He was helpless, powerless. There was nothing he could do. And this is something that we hear a lot

in these sort of stories, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. And it's a very seductive idea. I think especially for when she's 15, the thought of having that much power is really appealing to her. And I think he knows that. And so he sort of performs this weakness and helplessness, knowing that it sort of makes the situation easier to manipulate. But she feels real power in that situation. And I tried to honor that and try to get the reader to understand why this relationship would be so attractive from her perspective, even while knowing that it is manipulative, it is abusive and wrong.

But does she understand that it is abusive and wrong? She certainly doesn't when she's young. And this is why the book has been so controversial, because people are deeply troubled by, well, by the notion that the central character, and even when she's 32, is revisiting this as a sort of love story. She doesn't want to be a victim, does she? No, no. And she views victimhood as something that's chosen, that you can choose to be a victim and you can very much choose not to be a victim. And it was important for me to write her that way because I think that's how I was taught to think about victimhood, to think about abuse,

that sexual violence is a matter of state of mind. And if you choose not to see it that way, then it didn't happen to you, or it was just sex, or you weren't a victim at all. And so I tried to be true to that, though I think she's a character who can be hard to wrap your head around and she can be frustrating in that way. Yeah. And the danger is, of course, that gives license to abusers to carry on abusing. a victim who's been manipulated for so many years that I think it's fair or at least understandable to call her brainwashed. But at the same time, she absolutely doesn't see herself that way. She's very lucid. She's very smart. She's very perceptive. And I think the reader gets the impression that she one wouldn't really care what they think of her. And even if you could reach through the book and try to talk some sense into her, she wouldn't hear it. There has been a lot of controversy about the authenticity in telling stories,

in the telling of stories in contemporary and not so contemporary American fiction. And you, because you have said this is a work of fiction, some people have questioned your right to tell this story, haven't they? Yeah, yeah. It's funny. That's an interesting question to me, interesting in sort of an academic way. It's the sort of the line between fiction and nonfiction

is something that I thought a lot about and studied during my PhD program. But to find myself in my book in the middle of a situation like that has been a little disorienting at times. Well, just for the benefit of our listeners, obviously in the UK, the practicalities are that you were dropped, was it dropped from Oprah Winfrey's book club? Yeah, yep, yep. On the grounds that you were not the person to tell this story? Oh, I'm not sure if that's exactly the thinking behind it, but that was part of the context in which that happened, I guess I'll say.

Do you, and I hate to ask this question, but do you feel that you have enough personal experience to be able to tell exactly this story? about this novel to come from the place of assuming that this is autobiographical, that seeing the parallels between Vanessa and I would make the reader think that this was just thinly veiled memoir. And those questions are still coming, but then they're coming from the other angle too. Whereas like, are you the one to tell this story? Do you have enough connection to this material? It's an interesting thing, both being firm about it being fiction, but then advocating for myself by saying, absolutely, I'm the person to write this story. There isn't a doubt in my mind. Lolita is referenced throughout this book. Actually, I've never read Lolita. I'm not sure I want to. Should I? What's

your view of it? Oh, Lolita is still my favorite novel. I don't know how many times I've read it. And every time I read it, I get something new out of it. And so the way that I wanted to sort of handle Lolita in writing My Dark Vanessa is I wanted the text of Lolita to be present in my novel. And, you know, Strain gives it to Vanessa and she sort of internalizes the novel in this very intense way. But at the same time, there's also the Lolita, the cultural trope that shows up in the novel. Lolita, what we've sort of made Lolita into as this sort of teenage seductress. And that shows up in cultural references like Britney Spears or even the lyrics to a song like My Sharona that Vanessa hears when she's in the car with her parents. So I wanted Lolita, the Nabokov novel to be in there, but also Lolita, the cultural trope that we've sort of created since the novel's release. That the trope is what the teenage temptress no man can resist. Right, exactly. Because that is such a large part of what's shaping Vanessa's idea of herself. Because she's trying to figure out, okay, I'm having this relationship with this

older man with this teacher. So what does that make me? And the Lolita trope is right there. And she really adopts that. Let's say teenage girls do read this book, and I'm sure they will. What do you want them to take from it? Oh, gosh, teenage girls. I mean, I hope they would find solace in it. And I certainly hope that they would relate to Vanessa. But though this novel is written from Vanessa's point of view, and it's written in a close first person,

where you are experiencing this story through her eyes. And at times, that can be frustrating. The moral compass of the novel, I think, is very clear, where you can see the strain's manipulations, you can see how she's being taken advantage of through the whole novel. And so I hope there might be a lesson in that as well. But at the same time, it's an adult novel. I wasn't imagining teenage readers on my mind when I was writing it. But to be absolutely clear, Strain is a rapist and a paedophile. There is no doubt about that. No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's the author Kate Elizabeth Russell, and her book is called My Dark Vanessa, and it's out in the UK today. Now, tech is something all of us have had to learn more about in the last couple of weeks.

Well, I'm sure some of you were up to speed already. It's a way of keeping in contact and keeping work going as well, of course. Lara Lewington is a presenter and a reporter for the BBC TV show Click. Lara, good morning to you. Welcome. How are you? Good morning. I'm good, thank you. How are you doing? Well, I'm not as bouncy as you, Lara. I need to take a few lessons, I think, in bouncing up my general demeanour. But it's good to have a bit of energy. Thank you very much for being with us.

Now, Zoom, first of all. Zoom is a way of connecting that I vaguely knew about but hadn't done. But now everyone's doing it. They must be making a packet over at Zoom, whoever owns Zoom. Well, I think there are so many different functions and it's actually free to use for up to 100 people in a meeting for up to 40 minutes. But I think a lot of people are probably signing up for the premium account so they can have more than 40 minutes because if you want to be streaming a dinner party, playing games, doing exercise classes,

a lot of these functions it's now being used for, you're going to need more than the 40 minutes. Right. Are people really Zooming a dinner party? That fills me with absolute terror. Well, they are. It's a very easy way to have people around without having to actually cook for them. But I think people are really trying to engage as much as they can online with friends,

because we don't know how long this is really going to be for that we can't see people. And especially for those who live alone or just really want to relax and have some distraction in the evening, meeting up with friends online is actually a really pleasant thing to do. And I would say I've been doing it quite a lot. And I would say it's probably 50 to 60% for me of the real experience. Obviously, I work on a technology program. I'm probably not your average person, because I'm very happy to engage with technology. And some people may just not feel the same about it. Can we talk about safety? I particularly want to focus on house party. Now just very briefly define house party,

the app, what is it and what does it offer? Sure, well the house party app is a way of having a virtual house party. Embedded within the app are games, things that are a bit like drawing pictures and you guess what the picture is, games of charades. So it's a platform that makes it very easy to play those games without having to set them up yourself in front of a camera when you're video calling people. The app has become incredibly popular recently. It's been around for a few years though. In its earlier days, it was more teenagers using it and it was actually quite controversial because parents were worried about kids being left out of parties and all of the issues surrounding that. But obviously, in the last few weeks, it's brought on a whole new meaning as to what you can do at home. Is it safe?

Well, there has been a bit of a controversy this week. It all started with online rumours that downloading the app led to other sites like Netflix and Spotify, your account being hacked on them or you having your account blocked. Now, the company says there's no evidence to back up these claims. And whilst the app can access your Facebook or your Snapchat contacts, if you give it access to do so it doesn't even access Netflix or Spotify. Now Epic Games the owner of Houseparty has actually offered a one million dollar reward for evidence that the app has actually been the target of a smear campaign. So if you have children under the age of 15 for example or even younger who will be using this and using it very efficiently, can you be assured that they are as safe as you can be when participating in an event on House Party? Look, I think when it comes to apps and doing anything online in general, there are security protocols we should all be using. But the thing is, everybody has been thrown into this situation at great speed.

And I don't think most of us have been prepared for it, especially in terms of when you're giving a computer to a child to do some homeschooling. Some of us are just handing it over at great speed, not actually dealing

with the right parental controls. But just briefly back to House Party, if the chat isn't locked, then anyone can join in and you don't know who these people are. Well, I actually spoke to a cybersecurity expert yesterday about Houseparty and Zoom specifically, and they're in the midst of some extensive research as to exactly how safe these apps are. Now, I haven't actually had the feedback from that research to really be able to give you something cast in stone.

But I think the company has defended itself here. It has said it's not accessing any of these platforms, that it's being accused of doing so. So that is one thing that's going on. But in terms of the security in general of apps that we're using, we need to be reading the small print. Apps are tracking a lot of our activity particularly free apps it's not a hard and fast rule but generally they will be tracking more than the ones that you pay for and a lot of that tracking is legitimate it'll be it'll be data sharing in a legitimate way i mean basically that you don't get anything for free do you if if an

app is free to get then chances are somebody somewhere is getting some info out of you that might well be lucrative. Of course, of course, you don't get anything for nothing. But it's a balance. And in a lot of cases, we don't mind giving away the data if we're getting a good service back in exchange for it, as long as that data is safely used and the privacy policies are in place that need to be absolutely okay can we just move on to older people um my parents who are both 86 i should say are using skype rather more enthusiastically than i've ever used it um i've got it's surprising what people can do with a few bits of info over the over the phone good old-fashioned technology

we shouldn't um write off the older generation should we absolutely not no absolutely not and there are some very easy way ways of doing things and of course some of the older generation are more tech savvy than others but even something as simple as a whatsapp call you can actually have four people on a whatsapp video call and if you have a whatsapp group all you need to do is make a call to the group and all the people will be called and they may not all answer it. You may end up with three people on the call instead of four. But there is some very, very simple ways of communicating. Even through using Zoom, the person who actually sets up the meeting, which is pretty simple in itself, sends that invite. So all somebody needs to do is click on the link and then accept using your

microphone and camera. So when you're speaking to relatives who aren't that tech savvy, and you want to make it easy for them, you can make it easy from your perspective. And of course, there are also the voice control devices where they would be giving very simple instructions. So that's also a very, very easy way to do it. And so they might be a suitable gift for an older person. Send them one of those voice activation machines. I'm not going to mention the name. No, no, we mustn't.

And it might very well be a real help. Indeed. I think one of the issues is it is, I wouldn't say fiddly to set up, but it probably takes somebody who is a little bit able with tech to actually set it up. The instructions are straightforward, but I set up one of these devices for my mum on what was probably one of the last few days I was actually be permitted to go and visit her. That's the problem, of course. We can't do that at the moment. Lara, thank you so much. Really enjoyed talking to you. My pleasure.

That was Lara Lewington of the BBC TV show Click. And it was just perfect, wasn't it? She was on Skype and it was a bit intermittent. It dropped off. It came back. It went away again. I got worried. Then she returned.

Isn't technology marvellous? I think in five years' time, it probably will be. That is Lara Lewington, the presenter of Click, the BBC TV tech show. And she was talking to us on Skype. And yes, the eagle-eared of you will have noticed that at times during that conversation about the wonders of modern technology which was conducted via Skype

Lara's signal sort of went in and went out and collapsed a bit and then faded away and then came back. So it was all a bit nerve-wracking but hey, that's live radio this isn't live radio, this is a podcast so we're entirely safe. Loads of stuff from you today.

Let me go through some of your thoughts. Sarah, this is a good point on working from home. How can we tell children no screens when we're dependent on screens if we're lucky enough to be able to carry on working? Helicopter parenting is just not appropriate right now, she says. And Gloria, on the subject of tech actually and its wonders, says that Zoom has opened up a whole new experience. We're in our 70s, my husband and I.

We meet up with friends in our writers group. My husband is jamming with his guitar playing mates. We are not feeling isolated as we are seeing and laughing with virtual friends and it's fun. Another listener takes issue with our, well, it's in the place of the drama this week, but it's Sir Ian McKellen reading a bit of Wordsworth and some people are obviously loving it, but I have to say not everybody is. But anyway, we're reading all the tweets.

Keep your thoughts coming. Let's have some positivity from Catherine. My husband is working from home and he's constantly on conference calls. I am seeing him in a new light and it's nice. We're lucky as I'm a classroom assistant so I can spend the time teaching our children and keeping on top of the housework. And for now, the whole thing is working. We're also reconnecting, getting a better understanding of each other's lives. The bits that we don't normally see.

So there you go. That I think is positive. This is from Heather. And the reason I want to read some of this is that she says at the end, feel free to ignore it, she says, I'm not even sure why I'm sending it. And I think the reason you're sending it, Heather, is just because you want us to give us an insight into the challenges you're up against at the moment. And I think the reason you're sending it, Heather, is just because you want us to give us an insight into the challenges you're up against at the moment. And I think it's worth us all hearing, frankly. I'm a single self-employed parent of a nine-year-old and it's tough, you say. I have a good relationship with my son's dad, though he isn't able to contribute financially as he has early onset Parkinson's and can no longer work. We're self-isolating, my son and I, as his dad's girlfriend, who is lovely,

is working as a chef in charge at the local hospital cafe and is at a higher risk of contracting the coronavirus. To add to the mix, I was diagnosed with early breast cancer in August of last year at the age of 48 and had surgery in October. In November, I was cancer and pre-cancer free. Amazing. However, recovery took longer than expected, despite being really healthy and fit before the op. I'm now back to pretty much full energy and I've been working all of this year just getting back on it.

Now all this has happened and who knows? I work from home designing and developing sports and active wear. And she goes on, but that's just one life and one set of circumstances. And Heather, honestly we do read your emails and I know you said I was, or we were free to ignore

it, but thank you for that insight into your life and you were just getting back up and running again. And then all this happens. And I really wish you all the very best and to your son as well. Now, for people trying to teach their kids at home, this is helpful. This is from Alison, who says, I'm an early years teacher and I feel huge compassion for parents and carers at the moment.

Here are some thoughts that might help. Remember, no matter what guilt-inducing things you see on Pinterest or Facebook, children are the play experts. They don't actually need adults showing them how to do it. Learn to dismiss as useless the perfect-looking activities that you see. Children learn through play. They're learning when they're playing. Leave them to it as much as possible, commenting, praising and showing encouragement where appropriate. Children play best with open-ended real things like pegs, cardboard boxes, sticks, pieces of fabric, a washing up bowl full of water with bowls and spoons from the cupboard. Observe your child and see what they

respond to with the most interest what children need most at the moment is to know they're safe and that you're there to love them they'll be looking to you to know how to respond to what's happening try not to get anxious about learning and what schools are asking you to do indeed feel free to ignore it if you can okay and, and yeah, I think that's good. And thank you very much for taking that time. That was Alison, who is a lead teacher. So thank you for that. And here's an interesting view on the conversation I had about the book, My Dark Vanessa. A listener says, that's a very commonplace story. Don't underestimate the rush of excitement felt probably for the first time in your story. Don't underestimate the rush of excitement felt

probably for the first time in your life as you feel the power of your developing sexual attraction. Think about that film, Rita Sue and Bob Too, which handled this topic with humour and pathos. There we are. And Christine says, I've just switched on to yet another American on Woman's Hour. Hardly a day passes, says Christine,'ve just switched on to yet another American on Woman's Hour. Hardly a day passes, says Christine, without hearing one on this programme. Are there no interesting or expert British people among the 60 million or so of us? I read that out because that is quite, it's quite a regular complaint that too many Americans. The thing is, they do speak the same language as us. They don't speak the same language as me from The Sound of Things. And that is a very, very controversial new novel.

I hesitate to say it's a good novel because although it is very well written and it's a very interesting subject, there are elements of it that people will find really quite troubling. I thought she was an excellent contributor and really her nationality is pretty much irrelevant. But anyway, I know that some American guests don't go down well with some sections of the audience. And I should say, actually, I did ask Kate Elizabeth Russell about how life was like for her right now. And she, like the rest of us, is just holed up. She's just in a flat with her husband in Wisconsin. She did say that it's a small town, not a lot going on

and they're relatively recently married. So let's leave it there. They're not bored at the moment, but who knows? I think there are probably worse situations to be in than relatively newly married and unable to leave the house. Now, just to mention to Brenda, Brenda emailed to say she's absolutely sick of hearing about the coronavirus and would like Women's Hour to be free of it.

The reason it can't be, Brenda, is because the whole situation challenges women in rather different ways. I know there are people who don't want to hear about it incessantly. We make sure that every day not the entire programme is devoted to it. Although I think we could make a case for devoting the whole programme to it at least one day a week. Women's lives are different. The problems we face are different. And therefore, I think we are absolutely well placed to keep on discussing the coronavirus for the present time.

But anyway, keep us informed. Let us know what you're thinking about that. You can always tweet the programme or email us via the website. Jenny is here tomorrow. Thanks for listening today. Hi, I'm Catherine Bell-Hart. And I'm Sarah Keyworth. We're comedians separately and a couple together. And we're the host of You'll Do, the podcast that gives you a little insight into perfectly imperfect love. Yeah, forget nights in with this one and hashtag couples goals we want to know the whys and hows of sticking with the people we love and asking a few of the questions that are meant to help us develop intimacy so why not give it a listen and subscribe to you'll do

on bbc sounds I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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.