Woman's Hour - Zeinab Badawi, Singing and periods, How is the debate over abortion shaping the US election?

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

The broadcaster Zeinab Badawi joins Krupa Padhy to discuss her first book, An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence. The book has taken her seven years to research, travelling across 30 countries. She explains how the female African leaders that shaped their countries have often been written out of history. At the start of the year, acclaimed opera singer Sophie Bevan took to Twitter to ask if other female singers also had voice struggles around the time of their periods. This led to her discovery of premenstrual vocal syndrome, which is when hormone changes cause vocal issues. She talks about the impact this has had on her career, alongside Dr Alan Watson, specialist in the biology of performance at the University of Cardiff.Democrats in the US state of Arizona are attempting to repeal a law from 1864 that bans nearly all abortions. Also the US Supreme Court will hear arguments in an Idaho hospital case, on whether hospitals can override state abortion restrictions in order to save a mother’s life. New York Times correspondent Elizabeth Dias explains how abortion rights are shaping this year’s presidential election and which camp could benefit from the abortion debate. Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Olivia Skinner

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupa Bharti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Thank you for being with us. It's been 10 months since university students Barnaby Webber, Grace O'Malley-Kumar and 65-year-old Ian Coates were fatally stabbed in Nottingham by Valdo Calocame. Today we hear from Barnaby's mum Emma. As we were hearing in our bulletin there in an open letter to the Times newspaper she has urged a police staff member who she said wrote a graphic post in a police WhatsApp group about the killings to I quote show the respect that was not given to her son. We will

learn more about her concerns shortly. Zainab Badawi, the broadcaster and president of SOAS, travelled the African continent over seven years for her debut book, An African History of Africa. Along the way, she met a local academic in Congo who told her that women have been specifically omitted from the history books of Africa. Well, Zainab's book aims to do its bit to change that.

We'll be learning more about these extraordinary women, including Lucy, a celebrity in the world of paleontology. And I want to get your thoughts on some research that we spotted this morning. Psychologists from the Simon Fraser University in Canada and the University of Sussex have found that people are just as hesitant to reach out to an old friend as they are to strike up a conversation with a stranger, even when they have the capacity and the desire to do so. Many of us will have lost touch with friends and family that we were once close with.

Have you been too nervous to pick up the phone to call them? What is holding you back? And if you have called them after many years, what's been the outcome? Do text us. That number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Get in touch on X, formerly known as Twitter,

or on Instagram, at BBC Women's Hour. You can email us through our website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Terms and conditions can be found on our website. Who is that old friend that you miss and would love to talk to again?

And what would you say? I look forward to reading your messages. And if you're a singer, have you ever heard of premenstrual vocal syndrome? We'll be hearing from the opera soprano Sophie Beavan, who woke up one morning to find her voice was, well, different. She happened to have her period at the time, so she took to Twitter and posted this. Warning, I'm going to mention the unmentionable periods. I want to know if anyone else suffers like I do with their voice when they start their period.

And the response was an overwhelming yes. So we'll be speaking to Sophie and an expert in the biology of performance to better understand why. But we begin in the US. Since the conservative-dominated Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections back in 2022, Democrats have made the issue a top campaign priority. Speaking in Florida yesterday, where on May the 1st, a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy is set to go into effect, President Biden said that there is one person responsible for this nightmare

and he's acknowledged it and he brags about it. Donald Trump, he said. And it's not just Florida where reproductive rights are back in the spotlight. Late today, the US Supreme Court will weigh in on Idaho's strict abortion ban in medical emergencies. Meanwhile, Democrats in the state of Arizona will try to repeal a law from 1864 that bans nearly all abortions. Abortion has become one of the key issues in the race for the White House this year. There is lots to understand.

So joining me now is the national religion correspondent for The New York Times, Elizabeth Dias. She's also co-authored the book Fall of Rome. Good morning, Elizabeth, and thank you for waking up in the early hours for us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Well, let's start with those two cases that are unfolding today. First of all, start with explaining what's happening in Arizona. Well, all eyes are on what's going to happen in Arizona later today. It's been a drama unfolding over the past few weeks. The state Supreme Court recently reinstated a near total abortion ban from 1864.

It has almost no exceptions only for the life of the mother, not for rape and incest. And there's been a lot of outcry over this newly reinstated law, especially because it's from just so long ago. The Arizona Senate last week, I was out there for this, they put forward, the Democrats, along with a few Republicans actually, put forward a bill to repeal this law. But the Arizona House, the other chamber in the legislature, did the opposite. It was quite dramatic. The Republicans refused once again to allow a repeal vote to come to the floor. So the legislature there meets again today. And it's most likely that we may be at a status quo again. However, there's many activists out there.

There's been lots of lobbying going on behind the scenes. And we're watching to see if the measure, if it is able to advance in the Senate, what will happen when it goes back to the House. OK, so that happening a little later this afternoon, UK time. Also, Idaho, what is going on there? An extraordinarily interesting case. Yes, so Idaho, it's a state up in the northwest of the United States. And this is the second case coming to the Supreme Court in a matter of just weeks about the fate of abortion rights.

You know, everything's just changed in so many states since the end of Roe v. Wade two years ago, as you mentioned. In this case, once federal abortion rights were removed two years ago, many states like Idaho instituted near total abortion bans. And now what's happening at the Supreme Court in Washington, this case that's coming from Idaho, there's a question about a national law. And that law is called, they call it INTALAriage care. She's maybe about to miscarry at about five months of pregnancy, and she needs emergency medicine care. But what happens in a state where abortion is basically illegal? Are the providers at the hospital required under

the national law to perform the abortion? And the state of Idaho is asking the court to consider that because these two laws, the state law and the federal law are at odds. Fruly interesting, the state law up against the federal law. And I'm really keen to learn from you what doctors make of this, because from what I've been reading, they're finding themselves in a real predicament. We hear this over and over from doctors in all states at this point, really, really worried about what their responsibilities are going to be forced to be versus maybe what they believe have been trained to offer as medical, real medical care. You know, we've been hearing about the increased number of emergency

helicopter medical flights in places where abortion is no longer allowed, women needing emergency care needing to be flown to other states. And I think doctors are in a really difficult place because they're mostly focused on providing the care. And then there's another set of doctors, a much, much smaller set of doctors who's been active in the anti-abortion cause. And they're saying the opposite. They're coming forward. We saw this at the National Supreme Court in Washington a couple weeks ago at a case where a group of anti-abortion doctors were arguing actually for what would end up being great limits on access to medication and abortion. So it's just it's been quite difficult. And the stories from doctors, I think, end up being quite moving for many Americans listening to the practical reality of what's going on. Absolutely. So from Arizona to Idaho, let's cross to Alabama and check in on the situation there because it was only weeks ago that the Alabama ruling came into play that essentially

frozen embryos have the same rights as living children. We then had Donald Trump intervening. What is the latest there? So as you can see from all of these states, it's really just created so much upheaval bouncing around the country, as you said, with all these different laws, different provisions. Alabama is in the South. It's historically a very anti-abortion state in terms of the lawmakers, in terms of the conservative leadership, largely driven by conservative Christians who have had power down there for quite some time. After the state Supreme Court there ruled, as you mentioned, about frozen embryos being given similar protections as

born children. There was, again, great national outcry. This was just such a new level of the implications of the anti-abortion movement. And I think, you know, after the outcry, we saw state lawmakers realizing they needed to do something because this was just unbelievably chaotic and also really detrimental for Republicans. So they passed a law issuing some protections against this so women could continue, families could continue to pursue IVF treatment. It's still some, there's still some question about loopholes in there. A lot remains unknown, especially, I think, just for fear for families trying to navigate, well, what does this mean? And then there's the business side of it. Will the clinics themselves stay open or what are they worried about in terms of their own

necessary legal protections? So I think really the impact too has just been this fear and wake up for so many people, not just in the southern state, but thinking about, well, what are the logical conclusions of an anti-abortion movement that believes that human life is deserving of rights at conception, which would just really dramatically change American law. That debate, of course, continues. But I want to focus in specifically on

Donald Trump and President Biden, Trump specifically on the issue of abortion. There's almost seems to have been a degree of backtracking, might we say. Where does he stand to your understanding? Well, the thing about former President Donald Trump is that he has changed many times on this issue. He supported abortion rights. We're talking decades. This has been a flip-flopping issue for him. He supported abortion rights. Then he said he opposed them. Then he supported them. He opposed them. And when he ran for president in 2016, he was able to win the White House in large part because he had the backing of anti-abortion activists. And so basically, they cut a deal on this. And for them giving him their support, he would work to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he did. But the thing that's happened now is the

entire political environment has changed. It's no longer a beneficial issue for Republicans to argue, to mobilize their base, to turn out in the polls ahead of an election. And instead, it's Democrats who have the real upper hand because of just how popular abortion rights are across the country. It's a majority popularity issue. So former President Trump has been doing another complete turnaround, and he's actually been publicly attacking and being hostile towards the leaders of the anti-abortion movement in order to position himself to the public as more moderate on the issue. However, I think so many Americans in the world know that he was also the president

who bragged about being the most, quote, pro-life president in American history and who appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court who voted in favor of ending abortion rights. And just on that, that more moderate stance that you mentioned, does that impact his more conservative religious voters? You know, it's interesting. I ask people a lot about this question. And I really think the bigger question for them is, well, what would it take for them to support President Biden instead? And so I think I've talked to people who are unhappy about former President Trump's position on this and what he's saying.

But I'm really unsure about a material impact in terms of voting in the fall in the elections. Moving on to President Biden Biden then, considering the number of issues at play facing the US right now, I mean, everything from China, migration to the conflicts in Ukraine, in Gaza, it really feels like they have made abortion the centre of their campaign, that winning card almost. I mean, is this a strategy that people predict may work, may be effective? Well, it's quite fascinating to watch because we have not had a presidential election in the United States in half a century where federal abortion rights have been on the line. And it's absolutely clear that support for abortion rights is a majority position in America. And so it's no longer

this controversial issue for so many Democrats. It's a really unifying issue instead of so many of the others that you mentioned, where Democrats are clearly splitting, especially over Israel and Gaza. And we heard Vice President Kamala Harris just earlier this week, even, you know, she was giving a speech and she really focused on abortion rights amid protests and in the environment about Gaza. So I think it really is helpful politically for Democrats. And it's also something that they know that so many Americans really care about, and it's affecting their daily lives. And have you any insight on how this might all impact swing voters as well? You know, we'll see. I think here, many people have made up their minds about President Biden and former President Trump. I mean, we did this election four years ago,

but the environment has really changed. So in terms of these practical implications, particularly on abortion rights. So I think the separate question is, well, would anyone stay home, right? Like how will this effect turn out, even if the margin of movable voters is thin? Although I have spoken with some nominally Republican women who are reconsidering just how to think through abortion politically,

given the new climate. Really interesting. And just before I let you go, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade back in 2020, the implications, as we've just been discussing, they've been significant. There is concern amongst the pro-choice camp that a ban on contraceptives could be next. There is. You know, I've been writing about the anti-abortion movement for so long now. And, you know, at the heart of the most ideological for what they really believe, there is a purity of thought, which for many, especially for conservative Catholics, does have implications for potentially ending contraceptive rights. I mean, that's even less of a widespread position publicly, but they've really had to take a step back in terms of any indication that they might want to do that in the future. But if there's anything to think about for the anti-abortion movement, and I just finished this book that's coming out in June here and in the UK, the fall row about this. What we really learned in that reporting is that you can't count the anti-abortion movement out. They think in decades, it's very long term.

So they are thinking about a long term strategy, even if it's not something that many people might think could happen in the immediate term. Fascinating to get your views. Thank you so much, Elizabeth Diaz from The New York Times, joining us here with those insights from the United States. We will watch for the outcomes of those hearings later. Today, updates here on the BBC. Next, Zainab Badawi is the broadcaster and president of the School of Oriental and African Studies, also known as SOAS, here in London. She is an expert in her field and she has written her first book. It's called An African History of Africa from the Dawn of Humanity to Independence.

It has taken over seven years to write and research. She has travelled across more than 30 countries. But what did she discover, particularly about the part African women have played in their history? Zainab joins me now in the studio. Welcome. Hello, Krupa. Lovely to be with you. Good to see you as well. Why did you feel it was important to write this book? You know, Krupa, I had three objectives, really, when I set about writing this book. I wanted to bring an African perspective to African history, the views, the scholarship of African historians, archaeologists, paleontologists, and cultural experts. I also wanted to provide the reader with an overview of the history's continent, starting from the year dot with the origins of humankind,

because so much history has focused on post-colonial history, and when the Europeans arrived on the continent. So I wanted to really show that there was a great deal of history in Africa before the arrival of the Europeans. And my third objective was to try to excite the reader to want to learn more about the particular aspects that I had drawn on in my book. And I obviously couldn't cover everything in just one book, but I believe I have provided enough of a kind of, you know, perspective of North, South, East, West, Central Africa. And I'm delighted to say, may I brag a little bit, please, Krupa? Absolutely. You know, it was publication date was the 18th of April, and it's already hit the Sunday Times bestsellers list for hardback nonfiction.

So I'm delighted. Hopefully it's indication I've done something right. It's enlightening. I'm working through it slowly. And I feel like it's one of those books that you need to absorb. And I wonder, you just talked about it being quite a mighty task. I mean, covering the lengths and breadth of the continent. Did you feel daunted at any point at the challenge you were taking on? Of course, it's a very daunting task. And obviously, it's one where I had to be very selective about which characters, which regions I had to cover. So you do approach a task of this size with a great deal of trepidation. And I'm sure there'll be lots of people saying,

oh, but you didn't cover this, you didn't cover that. But I tried where I could to focus on personalities because I believe that history is best understood if it's seared into the imagination. And that, I believe, is best done if you do try to relate history through people. So everybody knows about the English Reformation, Reformation in England through Henry VIII and his six wives and so on

and so forth. So I kind of followed that model. You've shared so much in this book. I wonder for you whether there is a personal favourite period of African history that you've captured and written about and why? I think you'll have to forgive me for being biased, but I have lived in the UK since I was two years of age, but I was born in the Sudan, in northern Sudan. And so I would have to choose chapter three, which was the ancient kingdom of Kush in northern Sudan, because I think that I related to that particular aspect of Africa's history, because what I like about history is it doesn't just tell us about the past. It also informs the present and shapes the future. And I could see some of the ancient Sudaneseese, the Kushites, did not eat fish, although there was an abundant supply in the River Nile. Look, I've got a brother who doesn't eat fish. And actually, the Sudanese to this day eat a disproportionately low percentage of fish compared to, say, the Egyptians who also enjoy the fruits of the Nile.

So just little things like that made me think, you know what? You can't consign history to the past. It's also about what's going on now, you know what, you can't consign history to the past. It's also about what's going on now, you know, millennia, many, many years later. One thread that comes out throughout your book is this sense that women haven't been given the prominence that they deserve in African history. So let's talk about a few of them. And there are so many females, women who you talk about in the book. But let's start with Lucy. Okay, I'll start with Lucy. Just by way of an introduction, you're absolutely right,

that it was the wonderful Congolese scholar in Brazzaville, scholastic Diane Zinger, who said to me, look, we always talk about the fathers of the independence movement in Africa. And I felt that we take the HIS in history a bit too seriously and look at his story. So where I could, I tried to feminize history. And indeed, I begin chapter one with Lucy or Dinkanesh, which means you're marvelous in the Amharic language. She lived 3.2 million years ago. And of course, she's a superstar in the field of paleontology. She's a real icon. I was privileged to touch her bones, which are kept under lock and key in the National Museum in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. And I mean, you know, yes, starting with her, because although, strictly speaking, we modern humans did not descend directly from Lucy, but she is part of the lineage that forms our early story.

And so I gave a bit of a pen portrait about what she would have been like. You know, she stands a meter tall. She weighed about 30 kilograms. She would have walked on two legs for most of the time. And that bipedalism was very important because it freed her hands to sharpen twigs that she could, you know, go in to kill small animals or go into reptile nests and that kind of thing. She would have slept in trees. So it's ironic that actually she probably,

excuse me, died when falling from a tree. Interesting. And there's much more on Lucy in the book. There was one period that you focused on, the slavery, the period of slavery. You talk about the transatlantic trade. And you also talk about the Arab trade almost, that is the Indian Ocean slave trade, which isn't spoken about as extensively. That has really stayed with me, the way in which women were used as slaves in a different way.

Absolutely. So I do look at what is sometimes referred to as the Eastern trade, which is the Arabs and their partners when they enslaved African people across the Indian Ocean predominantly, but also across the Red Sea and trans-Sahara trade from Africa going up to Arab families who lived in North Africa. And in the transatlantic slave trade, men really outnumbered women greatly because they were preferred to women because obviously they did the backbreaking work on the plantations. In the Eastern trade, women were preferred because they were often used as concubines, sex slaves, essentially. But there were vital differences. So for example, if an Arab man had a child with his enslaved African woman, that child would be born free and could

indeed rise to occupy a high position in society by dint of the fact that he had Arab blood in him because very patriarchal society. In the transatlantic slave trade if a white man sired a child with his enslaved woman then that child would be born a slave and in fact there are many examples in history of these the product of such relationships being put to work on plantations themselves. So there were key differences between the two. The so-called Eastern trade, Indian Ocean slave trade, lasted much longer, accounted for probably about 14 million people.

The transatlantic slave trade, about 12.5 million. But there were key differences, And I do look at both in the book. And then there were these women in Senegal, in a small village in Senegal. And again, that story stood out to me. They refused to accept enslavement. Yes, this was a story that was told to me by various historians, Professor Essie Sutherland in Ghana at the University of Accra there. In 1819, in the small wallow village of Nderre, which is now in present day Senegal, a number of women heard that there were enslavers coming to take them to work in North Africa as concubines and, you know, sex slaves. And they managed to fight the Arabs off. Actually, the men had been working in the

field at the time, only a small number had come. But then a larger number came. The women knew that they would not be able to defeat them. So under the guidance of one woman, they decided to go into a hut and set fire to the hut so that they would die as free women rather than live as slaves. But there was one heavily pregnant woman who was gasping for air and she made a bolt for it. And they were going to stop her and then they thought, you know what, let her go. So at least our heroism, as they saw it, can be known about by our, you know, progenyy by our great grandchildren and our grandchildren and indeed that story has persisted and to this day at this village in Senegal every one Tuesday in

November everybody stops working out of respect for the women of Endare. That is so powerful thank you for sharing we have to talk about the queens as well, the many queens of Africa. Queen Idia of Benin in West Africa, 90% of Benin bronzes are of men. But here we have Queen Idia. Queen Idia, of course, the very, very famous Benin bronze, the bust is in the British Museum here in London. And she lived around the late 1400s. And she was the first woman in the Benin kingdom, which is in Nigeria, not the country Benin. And she was the first woman to have a Benin bronze

made for her by the cast of the bronze casters, the guild of the bronze casters. And the reason why is her son Esigi, who was the king or the oba, as the people of Benin call it, was so grateful to his mother. She'd helped him get to the throne. And she really was a key source of support for him during his long reign, which began in 1504 and lasted until 1550. She kept an eye on his health. She preserved a small regiment in the army to help keep him secure. She helped him with the day-to-day

process of running government. He created the position of Ioba for her, which means Queen Mother. And when she died, he was so grief-stricken he had for the first time a bronze head made for a woman. And that's why that tradition started. And it's ironic that today, actually, Queen Edea has eclipsed the fame of her son, Esigi, for whom she worked so assiduously. Just before we wrap up, I want to talk about something that will be personal to you because you talk a great deal in the book about the overthrowing of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan back in 2019. I remember covering it. Young people at the forefront, women especially, as you rightly highlight. Now, five years on, Sudan is in a very different place. Civil war. Women, children are bearing the brunt of hunger, displacement and violence. And I know this is personal for you because your own grandfather championed the well-being, the education of girls in Sudan.

I wonder how you reflect on what's happening there. I mean, it's absolutely awful. Yes, indeed, it was my great grandfather who was the pioneer of female education in Sudan at the turn of the last century. So you could say that female education is the kind of family business. I mean, he'd be turning in his grave to see just what has happened. I mean, my whole family who live in Sudan, my extended family, have all taken flight mostly to Cairo, to Egypt, some in Port Sudan. And it is always, as you say, the women and the children who bear the brunt because women in Sudan in this awful conflict

have been subjected to the most awful, you know, sexual violence, mass rape, people performing it with impunity. And it really, we're all at a loss as to why this conflict has now persisted for a year. It broke out on April the 15th. And it was such a glorious revolution five years ago in April when Emura Bashir was toppled. And women were very much in the vanguard.

And they were referred to as kandakas, which is an ancient northern Sudanese name for the queens and queen mothers. And so, you know, therefore you have that continuity of history again, whereby the women who were leading the marches were referred to as the queen mothers, the Kandikas. So I really had to loss Krupa as to say, you know, when we will find some kind of end to this madness. Well, thank you for coming on to Woman's Hour, sharing your insights, your expertise. And Zainab's book, An African History of Africa from the Dawn of Humanity to Independence is out now. Great to have you with us.

Thank you so much, Grupa. Pleasure to be with you. 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 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. Thank you. And thank you to the many of you getting in touch with your messages about friendships,

getting in touch with old friends. Maybe you're nervous about getting in touch with an old friend, as research shows that we are. Hilary writes, thanks, I've been listening to the start of the program i googled a friend and that that i made on our year abroad in lyon in 1985 i found a work email address and i have pinged her an email well hillary if she gets back in touch why don't you get back in touch with us brilliant to hear that you've acted on my call at the very start um and this one uh writes this this this one from, in fact, says my husband and I are just finishing

visiting family members that we haven't seen since before COVID. We live in Liverpool and have travelled down to Hereford and the surrounding area. It's been fantastic and we will definitely

keep more in touch from now. Good to hear that, Sandra. Hope you had a wonderful time and please do keep your messages coming in. It is 84844 on text or on instagram we are at bbc woman's hour now to something that is dominating our headlines this morning the mother of the nottingham attacks victim barnaby weber has written an open letter in the times

asking police officers to think about the way that they speak to victims and all speak about victims rather following the attack it has been reported that some police officers used a work whatsapp group chat to exchange graphic messages about the victims describing them as having been I quote proper butchered. Barnaby along with another student Grace O'Malley Kumar and 65 year old caretaker Ian Coates were fatally stabbed by Valdo Calocane in June last year. In January, Calocane was given an indefinite hospital order for manslaughter by diminished responsibility. Nottinghamshire Police are being investigated over their handling of the attacks and Emma Webber joins me now. Thank you for being with us, Emma. Hi, Grupa. You're welcome.

Why have you written this letter, this open letter to the Times? Yeah it's a letter that I'd written anyway or partially penned. I wanted it to go privately to that group of officers and actually there's a few other officers that weren't just in WhatsApp group that were you know the ones that had viewed body cam footage and accessed files and unfortunately the Chief Constable has denied us the opportunity to do that privately. And it's something I felt so passionate about and so compelled to do that the only other option was to release it openly, which I've done.

And the Times has kindly supported and printed it in full. And obviously, you guys are reporting on it today. So that's sort of how it's come about really. We did contact the Nottinghamshire Police for a statement and a spokesperson said it would be inappropriate to comment further due to the ongoing independent investigation by the IOPC and the review by the College of Policing. Emma, just highlight for those who haven't read the piece

what your concerns have been. Yeah, it's just the dehumanisation, the disrespectful and desensitised manner in which the officer, particularly that wrote the message in the early hours of the morning that my son was so brutally murdered, that chose to use that kind of language, it's wholly inappropriate. And it's not isolated to us. It's been widely reported, hasn't it, in the news, with regards to other forces taking photographs, sharing graphic information. And I think we have to do something about it. We have to be vocal about it. And it's very painful to share such distressing language that was used about my precious child. But if I didn't, then I would have been silenced because Kate Maynall, the chief constable, won't show the letter privately. and change the opinion of future officers, emergency service workers,

when they're handling such traumatic, difficult situations like these. You speak incredibly eloquently. Your letter has been incredibly powerful, but you do write in that letter that their actions have caused more trauma than you can imagine. Can you tell us the impact that these comments have had on you and your family, especially when you first read them? I think when I didn't read the message until the 20th of February, we were never properly informed about all of the various levels of misconduct in the police force in Nottinghamshire with their staff. And when I read the transcript of this particular message it was a visceral

reaction. I felt physically sick and cried enormously, had huge rage, anger, grief, all of those really difficult negative emotions. I haven't written the letter to try and get anyone else publicly named and shamed i don't feel the police uh leadership um and the police standards department handled the complaint at all well um and the investigation seems very flawed with regards to identifying officers and and the action that was taken um but uh i'm I want it to be educational and human and emotional rather than angry tirade of abuse from me. It's hard to think that it hasn't even been a year since Barnaby was killed. And yet you're taking all this action, you're in the depths of the investigation.

But how are you? How are you and your loved ones yeah hanging on by our fingernails i think if i'm completely honest it's it's so difficult um and obviously the situation we were thrown into in in june's a catastrophic devastating life um event event for all of the families concerned. But we're trying our best. And I, you know, there are so many aspects to this whole sorry situation that are being uncovered, investigating, investigated rather, so many failures and ineptness that it's hard to know where to begin. But I think I've got a clarity of mind because it's my son, it's my child, it's my other son's brother, and obviously my husband's son as well. So I have to do it for Barney, but I also have to do it for David and Charlie and Grace and Ian's family as well. We are very united as those three families of the lost loved ones

how do you how do you stay strong you talk about caring for others how do you stay strong i i don't i think it's easy to um when dealing in this kind of situation um i i can speak and and try to try to not be too overly emotional uh it's those private times, it's the private moments and the bit I wrote in the letter about the clothes that Barney was wearing, where they came from, who bought them for him, the fact that he nicked his brother's T-shirt he had bought for Charlie for Christmas. And walking past Barney's bedroom every day and seeing his shoes and the like, I think it's showing this is a person this is a human being

and it's it's pain beyond imagination so there's going to be goodness me years and years of therapy ahead I should but at the moment have to do this for them. Forgive me but I do want to put this to you because there will be some who will say that such WhatsApp groups, whilst they don't always use the most sensitive of language, they are considered by colleagues to be a safe space to offload in what can be very high pressured situations. And above all, they would say that these are private spaces as well. What would your response be to that? I think I recognise, and again, I put it in the letter that I have the utmost respect for for the emergency services and all the personnel that you know work so hard and so professionally

but using words like properly butchered and using words like in and out and everything and ready for a big shift guys it's that that is disrespectful and there's a big difference between realism and a traumatic scene and voyeurism and grotesque language. We also have had in writing from the Chief Constable of Nottingham that officers are not permitted to have WhatsApp on their work phones and they should not be used for work purposes. Clearly, that's not the case. We haven't been furnished with information about whether this WhatsApp group is on private phones or work phones. But nevertheless, it's to do with an attack, with a horrific crime. So it's still discussing those matters. And we also are aware that officers have a duty to report if they are made aware or see messages or actions by other officers,

which do equate to misconduct, which this does in this case. And again, we've not been advised how many officers, one were in the group and two, how many reported the matter and the grotesque use of that particular language. Okay. And again, I'll stress that the Nottinghamshire police have said that they feel it's inappropriate to comment further on this ongoing independent investigation. Can I ask how you found out about these messages? Yes we were never directly told by the police force that there had been any misconduct at all by any of the members of staff. And there were over 179 requests for access to files pertaining to Calicane. There was viewing of body cam footage. There was this WhatsApp group.

There was other accessing of files by front desk staff. We were never told that. We've only found it out subsequently through having to dig and through lots of questioning and discussions between ourselves and putting it back to the leadership of Nottinghamshire Police. And I found out on the 20th of February about the details of the WhatsApp message. And we found out about the initial tranche of mis with with the one officer that's been named and publicly disciplined and shamed on the week of our sentencing trial when we were in nottingham in the court listening to all of the disgusting evidence of what happened to our children and

sat feet away from valdo calicane um we were first made aware that there had been any form of misconduct through somebody in the media who'd been sent a press release the previous Friday with regards to this one misconduct incident. Okay. Next month, the Court of Appeal will review whether the hospital order given to Valdo Calacane was unduly lenient. Now, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was found to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the attacks, which the judge said significantly contributed to him carrying them out. Can I ask what you are hoping for next month? Yeah, well, we appreciate the Attorney General having recognised

that this sentence, in her office's opinion, seems unduly lenient and therefore are taking this forward to the Court of Appeal. What we want is a penal element because Callaghan was diagnosed in 2019 with paranoid schizophrenia. We've never, ever denied that he isn't mentally very unwell. But during this period of time, he completed his degree at Nottingham University. He had jobs. He had a tenancy's accommodation. He also attacked other people viciously and had an outstanding warrant, which was never acted upon. He had a rucksack full of weapons. He planned his attacks. He hid in the shadows and waited and lured Barney and Grace over. He didn't charge at them. And there was no recognition in custody whatsoever that he needed any mental health support. He didn't receive anything until

mid-September. The doctor's diagnosis and reports, we feel, were wholly used for culpability in the sentencing. And as best as we understand it, doctors should not be deciding culpability for a criminal. And for acts of violence like these, it should be for a judge and a jury. Emma Webber, mum of Barnaby Webber. Thank you so much for coming on Woman's Hour and sharing your concerns with us and all the very best to you and your family. Now, for some of us, periods can be a real hindrance to our careers. But what is it like when your time of the month alters something key to your job, like your voice? Sophie Beavan is an acclaimed opera singer who spends her life performing in

some of the world's most prestigious venues. Sophie took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and she asked her fellow female singers if they also struggled with their voice when their period was due. And this led to her discovery of something called premenstrual vocal syndrome, where our hormones impact our vocal cords. Sophie joins me now to tell us about her experiences and she's joined by Dr Alan Watson from the University of Cardiff also on the line he specializes in the biology of performance. Welcome to you both. Hello thank you for having us. Good morning Sophie let me start with you tell us about your experiences with your period and singing. well all my life i've sort of known

that when i'm on my period that my voice um is somewhat different um and this is something that we amongst ourselves as singers might talk about but it's not anything that we were taught about when we were studying at conservatoire for most of us studied for between five and seven years but this was never discussed and it's something that we I think as singers have always felt rather embarrassed to talk about we operate in quite a small competitive pond and so therefore I think we're reluctant to admit when we're struggling because we're terrified that any admission of weakness might be held against us and then we'll therefore be overlooked for a job so we we tend to keep any weakness to ourselves and and even though it's incredible that this might be seen as a weakness um it is because you know we are judged on our voices and when you say Sophie that your voice is different how what happens to it

so basically I mean most people don't really know anything about this because they don't use their voices in the extreme way that opera singers do so our vocal folds um which lie inside our larynx mimic exactly the glands inside our cervix which was which is incredible to me i had no idea about this um at the time of menstruation our hormones fluctuate as we know but this also means that our vocal cords thicken and swell and this can lead to hoarseness and a breathy tone a loss of range we use we have a huge range as opera singers um especially, you know, we have to amplify our voices over whole orchestras into huge auditoriums without any amplification at all. Tiredness, feeling unsure about tuning and loss of stamina. I mean, this is very different for very, very,

for very, for different women, sorry um so this isn't the same for everyone but I found as I've got older and after having children that it's become worse and when I'm when I start my period as I did on that particular day when I wrote on Twitter I suddenly found that I had nowhere near the normal amount of control that I do over my voice and I was standing in front of an audience feeling like feeling terrified feeling as though I had no control what was going to come out of my mouth was everyone there going to think oh Sophie can't sing anymore and therefore my career would be over and just struggling sweating to kind of do what was normally completely easy for me.

Dr. Alan Watson, let me bring you in there. Sophie's touched on an introduction as to what it is, but just explain it to us more scientifically, how premenstrual vocal syndrome happens and why. Well, what Sophie has said provides the essence of it, and that is that there are lots of hormone receptors in the larynx, as of course we appreciate, because if you're singing middle C, the folds are vibrating 250 times a second and double that if you go an octave above, then anything that changes the properties of the folds is going to have a very dramatic effect.

And of course, if you're a singer whose use of the voice is highly trained and the use is very subtle then even small changes and many of these are not particularly small is going to disturb the voice so the retention of fluid for example by by the vocal folds that's like retention of fluid you might see elsewhere and the body bloating i suppose might be the symptom elsewhere is something which makes it much harder for the folds to vibrate because they have more mass. On top of that, the surface may become dry. So you have this paradox of a swelling and fluid in the fold, but a dryness, maybe a thickness of mucus on the surface of the fold. And that just makes it harder. And there are some other factors,

I don't know whether some of Sophie's colleagues might have experienced this, and that is you get an enlargement of some of the blood vessels within the vocal folds as well. And these are more likely to rupture at that point. So this is vocal fold hemorrhage, something which produces a very rapid effect in the singer. And effectively, as a result, you get bruising, which, of course, can take quite a long time to resolve and occasionally leads to the formation of polyps and that sort of thing subsequently.

But I think she's touched on some very important areas in terms of education. In the 18th and 19th century, it was known, particularly in European opera houses, that female singers needed to be nurtured. I guess it's because they were the team who were in the local opera house and they had grace days, which they were allowed not to sing.

Now, of course, the life of a singer involves booking venues and being booked for performance months and months, even years in advance. It's very difficult to manage that. And then we have this problem of, I think, perhaps singing teachers, even if they do know, maybe being embarrassed about talking on these matters,

which are absolutely central to female singers. And I run a module in the Royal Welsh College, and because I'm a biologist, I'm happy to talk about these things because it feels quite natural to me. But for singing teachers, and perhaps even more in the States than in the UK, there's a reluctance to address these matters and it's a great pity. Well, one person who wasn't afraid to speak out about it was you, Sophie. You took to Twitter and you put that message out there.

Give us a sense of the responses that you got. Well, it was incredible, really. I had a huge response both on and off social media. Many people emailed me and sent me private messages as well and said, this is exactly what happens to me. Thank you for talking about it. Somebody said, I'm at a concert right now about to go on. Thank you so much.

I felt like bursting into tears when I read this because this is what I'm going through right now and it gives me strength knowing that I'm not the only one and that maybe we can start talking about it and people might understand a bit more and what helps you um well that that knowledge helps what would help would be speaking to the what would help would be speaking to the conductor beforehand and saying I might not be my best today um somehow getting it out there maybe by writing it on twitter or your social media so that if people they're thinking why is she not singing her best why is he or she not

singing their best they might be able to look us up and then we've written a little statement saying today I've started my period or I'm not feeling well. The transparency, essentially, that space, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder from a medical perspective, Alan, are there any solutions to this? Well, not if you are undergoing regular menstrual cycles. It can help. Things can be stabil stabilized if people are taking contraception but again that varies in terms of how acceptable it is to to singers in terms of the vocal effects

apart from anything else there have been some studies obviously it's very difficult to have a study where you have high level singers involved if you're going to test something which may or may not improve matters. But when this has been done in non-singers, there are indications that for some at least, it can increase voice stability. The thing about any form of medication is it's exceptionally important to discuss this with a clinician because in the past, there have been some pill formulations which had components that were like male hormones. Now that's not generally true now but it does raise another really important issue and that is that there are some medications which do use

androgens, these male hormones, and they're used for things like perhaps endometriosis or after hysterectomy. And those can have dramatic and sometimes irreversible effects in the voice in terms of deepening voice and bringing on almost something that's like a menopausal type of symptom. So there are many things which I think it's very important that singers know about in terms of the effects of hormones in the voice. Sophie Beavan I'm hoping that your conductor or conductors are listening. It would be wonderful also my husband is a conductor and he thought it was incredibly

interesting that we this phenomenon that we don't really talk about either that women who work together often become in tune as it were with each other um and so we all are on our periods at the same time and he conducts you know orchestras with a huge number of women in them and choruses opera choruses um and you know maybe it's useful for them to know that there might be a certain day a certain few days where half of the people that they're working with started to know that there might be a certain day a certain few days where half of the people that they're working with started their periods and they might be feeling incredible pain yes incredible tiredness and hopefully yep and hopefully this has started that conversation thank you also important to stress we didn't get time that this also impacts women going through

the menopause as well that that is it from this edition of Woman's Hour. Thank you for your company and do join us again tomorrow. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds. To the uninitiated, I would describe my family by saying we are very passionate people. I'm Cardiff born, Cardiff bred and when I die I'll be Cardiff dead. We're musical. There's a lot of big personalities. All of our family perform in some way whether entertainment or just emotionally performing. We are hilarious to be fair. Extraordinary. I really do enjoy life. I don't worry about dying tomorrow because tomorrow's never going to come. That's how I would describe my family. I'm Charlotte Church, and I'm inviting you to listen in on a series of intimate and special conversations

about belonging, working-class identity and the unbreakable bonds of family. So come and kick back with the Cardiffians, babes. Listen 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.