Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S3 Ep11: Bookshelfie: Jess Phillips

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

Outspoken Labour MP Jess Phillips tells Yomi why she was always destined for a life helping others, and how her favourite book helped her realise she was pregnant.  Jess has represented Birmingham Yardley in parliament since 2015, and currently serves in Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet on the front bench as Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding. She’s never been afraid to be outspoken - be it about her dislike of Jeremy Corbyn, critiquing current domestic violence legislation, or revealing the mass of abuse, trolling and death threats  she receives simply by virtue of being a female Member of Parliament who’s not afraid to speak her mind.    Jess’s book choices are ** Wild Swans by Jung Chang  ** How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran ** Heartburn by Nora Ephron ** Peepo by Janet and Alan Aalberg  ** The Color Purple by Alice Walker   Every week, join journalist and author Yomi Agedoke, and inspirational guests, including Elizabeth Day, Sara Pascoe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as they celebrate the best books written by women. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and has been running for over 25 years, and this series will offer unique access to the shortlisted authors and the 2021 Prize winner.  This podcast is produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Star Wars Andor streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. Cassian Ander, Empire is choking us. I need all the heroes I can get. From the creators of Rogue One. There is an organized rebel effort. Get a hunt started. Witness the beginning. This is what revolution looks like.

Of rebellion. I'm tired of losing. Wouldn't you rather give it all up to something real? Star Wars Andor. Original series streaming September 21st, exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast,

celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Yomiyo Degahay, your host for Season 3 of the Women's Prize podcast. We have a phenomenal lineup of guests for 2021, and I guarantee you will be taking away plenty of reading recommendations. Each bookshelfy episode, we ask an inspiring woman to share the story of her life, to five different books by women. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Bookshelfy.

We are still practicing safe social distancing and this podcast is being recorded remotely. During this recording, I had a couple of technical issues with my microphone, so please do ignore any hiccups with the sound. I'm excited to tell you that this year's short list is out and the six brilliant authors and their books can all be found on our website www.women's prizeforfiction.co.com.

Today's guest is Labour MP, Jess Phillips. Jess is one of Westminster's most outspoken members who has forged a formidable reputation as a people's champion and defender of the underdog. She has served Birmingham Yardley since 2015 and has been shadow ministered for domestic violence and safeguarding in Kirstarmes' opposition front bench since 2020. She's also an author. Every woman released in 2017 is part memoir, part reflection on womanhood. And truth to power, seven ways to call time on BS, is her pragmatic guide for calling out bullies, cheats and liars. whilst imparting her signature style of straight talking wisdom into the mix. Her forthcoming book, Everything You Really Need to Know About Politics, My Life as an MP, is out in July,

in which she lifts the lid on the systems and rules that govern us all, and in her own inimitable style shows us what's really going on in British politics. So welcome to the podcast, Jess. How are you doing today? I'm quite warm, and I'm in an airless room in London. But other than that, I'm all good. Good, good, good. Now, would you say most of the reading you do is political or do you use reading as a means to escape? Yeah, hardly any of the reading that I do is in any way political. It's a bit like when there's a new documentary about domestic abuse and people are like, oh, did you watch that? And I think, no, I'll watch the bake off. Yeah.

I tend to like to escape from the sort of stuff I have to deal with at work. Yeah, I very rarely read political books or political memoirs. I tend to read easygoing literature before I go to bed at night. Obviously, I have to read reams and reams of papers very, very quickly and take on board information very, very fast every day. And so, you know, reading could become a massive chore to me. But so that's why I tend to go for the sort of more easygoing slash fantasy. And have you always been a big reader?

I like to say that I have. I definitely was when I was a kid. I read prolifically when I was a kid. But then there were years when I remember when my, youngest son was three and a half years old. So my eldest would have been seven. And I read a book for the first time since having a baby. So there was seven years of my life when I didn't read a single book.

And I remember being on a campsite and reading a book while my children ran around this field where they were completely enclosed. And I read a book for the first time in seven years. And I don't think I'd even really read the newspapers or even anything really. in those intervening years. I mean, that's not true, actually. I read a lot of children's books in that time. But, yeah, no, I really didn't read very much in those years. Do you remember what the book was that you went back to?

Yeah, it was, I can't remember the name of the author, although it was a woman, and I almost exclusively read books by women, incidentally. It's a way of me just basically, I feel like it's a seal of approval, and I don't have to find out that much about the book when I go on to the next book on my Kindle that's been suggested to me. But it was called the American wife. And it was, it, you didn't, I mean, I don't want to spoil it for people,

but it's about one of the presidents, it's a sort of fictionalised reality of the first, the life of the first lady. I won't say which one, because it becomes apparent throughout the book. But I didn't realise, when I was reading it that that's what it was about. I thought it was just a story of this woman.

And then you realised that who it's about and it becomes even more fascinating. It could have been literally the worst book in the whole world, but it was the first book that I had read in other years. And so I was like, this is a massive. Just great thought. Would you say that lockdown has changed your reading habits at all and tastes? I've definitely read more over lockdown. I don't think it's changed my taste, but again, I think it's made me really, really, really lean into sort of much more real life fiction, like niceness, like 30-something woman seeks love sort of fiction, rather than, you know, I did really, I mean, I'm a big fan and always have been of dystopian novels.

And so I really don't want to read about dystopia at the moment when living through it. Not what's living in it. Yeah, exactly. I think of it like this is just too real. So, yeah, but I've definitely read more books during lockdown. And it made me encourage my sons to read a lot more as well because frankly it is a quick and easy way to home school is to say, read like I made my sons read all of the Adrian Mole books,

which are my favourite books in the world. and then I re-read them as a sort of, you know, so that we could, I could test them to see if they'd actually read them and ask them questions about the themes and the political themes in it because it was an easy way to homeschool. It was not on their syllabus and it will not help them pass their GCSE. But I'm sure you enjoyed it and so did they. Yeah.

There is no time in my life and I can't read the Adrian Marl books and just enjoy them weekly. Thank you so much, Jess. So getting on to your. first bookshelfy book, which is Wild Swans by Zhang Chan. Can you tell me a little bit about what this book is about? So the book is about three generations of women, political women, before the cultural revolution in China, during Mao's Cultural Revolution and then China Post. I mean, not China Post as it is today.

because this book was written some 25, 30 years ago now. But I read it, I read it, oh gosh, it must be 20 odd years ago now, yeah. But it's basically the sort of untold story of the history of communism in China through the experiences of women who were part of the military, who were part of the political scene. and it's a generation, so it's her grandma, her mother and then her. And it is just, I think that I didn't realize at the time it's very easy to paste back. My husband taught me the term backronym yesterday, which is when an acronym is made up post time.

I had never heard of that word before. But it's very easy for me to paste onto my experience of reading Wild Swans as some sort of revelation about the idea that there were women involved in history at all who weren't monarchs, that there were, because I studied history and I'd read it whilst I was studying a degree in history, that there were women who were intrinsic to the story and the movement forward of the politics of the time. And now I look back and I think, you know, I absolutely loved this book. And I definitely just read it because it was the thickest book on my mum's bookshelf. And it looked like a sort of like, I was at university and, you know, you were a bit like, you know,

pretentious when you're at university and so i was a bit like oh you know it's like one of those books like you have to have read sort of thing so i thought i'm going to read this but i absolutely loved it and i remember being on a campsite in on the border of france and spain i'd gone to see my boyfriend who was surfing there for the summer i mean i'm literally saying like some sort of terrible student um and i'd gone to stay with him and um and there were all these surfers and we were all living in this sort of commune and it was it was very you know it was very liberating and exciting and i just lay in a tent and read this book for almost the entire time i was there because i loved it so much and it will forever in my head be associated with a terrible

french pop song about the shams a lise which played in the bar near my as i was reading it it played like on repeat you know back in their 90s when like you'd like a yoreau pop sensation and it played on repeat and so whenever I think of wild swans of the cultural revolution I think of this song thank you jess would you say that you came from a political family growing up yes 100 percent my family are deeply political it wasn't an option it was like religion you it was what you did at the weekends and in the week um you you were activated so on like a monday the women's group would come around and sit in my house and then on Tuesday it would be the people who would organize the co-op for the vegetables for the community it would be like you know the CND meetings

would be happening in your garden on a Thursday and everything in between I went to women's liberation play group which was set up by the political women in my in my area because the women we didn't have organized childcare back then but the women decided that they wanted to go out and work so they basically set up a cooperative childcare system where everybody did a day and, you know, they raise money to have some what we used to term nursery nurses. I'm sure that's particularly politically incorrect now, but that's what we used to call them. And the women would take it in turns to do their day so that women could go out and work. So yeah, my upbringing was so political.

At the weekends, I would be made to make leaflets on an old like duplicator. in my dad's garage. And then we'd go and put up posters. We were always campaigning for something. I was always like releasing balloons, making handprints for Greenham Common to ban the balm. Yeah, so it was really, really, really political. And every single day, we would sit around it in a table

and we would talk about, you know, the politics of the day. And this was Thatcher's Britain. So there was a huge amount of debate in my house. So that being said, were your ambitions always political and did you sort of know from a young age that you wanted a career that involved you know sort of advocating for others?

Yes, basically. But then there's lots of reasons why I think. So I always wanted to advocate for others because from birth my parents had basically told me that that's what you do. You know, you stick up for people who can't stick up for themselves and you recognise all your privileges all the time. And so that was really beaten into me.

But also, like, that's what both my parents did. My dad was a teacher in Hansworth in Birmingham, and he specialised in teaching from the 1960s until the 1980s in teaching kids who were newly settled migrants to our communities. And so my dad, quite unbelievable, especially now he's nearly 80, can speak an absolutely perfect patois, which is one of the funniest things you will ever see. And he can speak from Jambu. And so he was an English teacher,

but he really, he sort of massively dedicated his teaching career to teaching kids English when either it wasn't their first and common language or teaching migrant community. throughout the, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 80s. Like, it was, it was never just like you can just be a teacher. It was you have to, you have to look at the people who need the most input and be working with them. And my mum, similarly, she worked either in charities or sort of like quasi-ci civil service working to improve things in the NHS.

But she mainly focused on the fact that in the sort of health inequalities, in the West Midlands. So in the 90s, for example, there was, you know, one in three babies born in some parts of Birmingham died because of, you know, whether they were refugee communities or newly settled communities and the massive health inequalities. So whatever your chosen field was going to be, you had to, you know, that's what my parents did,

that you pick the thing that is going to, you know, that's going to equalize things, for people. So yeah, there was no real alternative to me. And so when I went to work, I didn't. My political ambitions, whilst, you know, I really enjoyed politics and talking about politics and everything, my political ambitions were much more about becoming like a person who works in an organisation that seeks to equalise things rather than being like, you know, a political frontline player. That's interesting because you know sometimes when somebody's grown up with parents that have, you know, particular, operate within particular spaces,

they kind of rebel and are like, I'm going to go the opposite way. But it seems that there must have been a real kind of like, I don't know, like reverence for your parents' way of life and political ideology that you decided to follow from quite an early age. It doesn't sound like you went through a phase where you're like, you know what, I'm just going to do something completely different, did you? No, I would never, I mean, my biggest rebellion would have been being conservative. There is almost nothing I could do that would have offended my parents

or that they wouldn't have been tried to be cool about. But apart from, had I been really Tory or married a Tory, I think that, although I think that now, my dad would have been really conservative, or that would have been, they would have found that really, really deeply difficult, I think. There's never been a moment where they wouldn't have been proud of the jobs that I'd taken up, I have to say. So your second bookshelfy is How to Be a Woman by Catlin Moran. Please tell us a little bit about the book and when it was that you read it. So the book is the first, I would say, of what is now a very well-trodden genre of sort of modern-day feminist texts.

So obviously I was raised by a feminist mother who, you know, read Simone de Beauvoir and the female eunuch was in. constant discussion by some women's group in my house or fear of flying and fat is a feminist issue and all of those sorts of books from the era before. And then there was a fallow period in say then I'd say that the late 1980s, the early 1990s where the sort of Thatcherism was saying, oh, women have it all now. You've got it all. You've got work. You've got everything. And there was a sort of lull in the idea of feminism. And then Cately Moran wrote her book. how to be a woman. And it was the first of, hang on a minute,

I'm not entirely sure that everything is all right. But it was written. It's funny. It's not like sort of angry women, which was very much my experience of feminism in the 1980s, was basically people doing primal screams in my living room and being really cross about everything. And this, it is a joyous book that tries to sort of rebirth feminine.

I think it did it very successfully, I have to say, it was wildly successful, but also it's sort of bred this, what we would call, call this new wave of feminism that we have now, that seems like it's, you know, there's new books every year that come out, and obviously the sort of popularity of things like The Handmaid's Tale, and in the zeitgeist, there is this issue of feminism. But then there really, it was really in the building blocks. So the book is just about, like, you don't have to be really cross, but these are the things that are a bit more rubbish for women. And it was written by a working class woman from the Midlands.

And so I felt like, oh, look, I could be a sort of feminist activist. Like, that's okay. I don't have to be cross like those women where in the early 1980s around my house. It can be like a joyous thing as well as a really important thing. And so the book is about that. It's about sort of like what sex is like. for women. It is about like, like women, it's the first ever book, I think, that I read where a woman talked about masturbating. And like, you know, that nowadays, that seems like passe, but then

it was just a bit like, oh, yeah, look. Oh, yeah, she's going to say that she's going to do it. It's like massive oversharing. Also, it was the last book my mum ever, my mum read it and gave it to me, which she used to do all the time. My mum was, you know, I've never met a prolific reader. like my mother, never. Like she would literally, on holiday, she would take like three t-shirts and just a whole suitcase full of books and she would have read them all by the end of the week.

But she never remembered a single bloody detail about any other books, but she could read really, really bad. And she absolutely, she consumed books. She was one of those kids who went the library and as a sort of lonely working class kid. And so she absolutely consumed that. And it was the last book that she gave me before she died.

And she said you should read this book. And she died just a few months later. So, you know, I think that that is why it is for a number of different reasons. Also, Katlin is now my friend. So one of my friends said to me, you only became a politician. So Katlin Miran would become your friend. So also speaking to, you know, the feminist that you described and the image of feminism that you described in the 80s and 90s women that were, you know, angry.

And obviously, you know, having good reason to be angry, but still that not necessarily being the only sort of representation of feminism that you wanted to see. Do you feel that there has been a shift now in terms, or at least a meaningful shift, in terms of how feminists are viewed? Or do you feel that we still have some way to go? Because feminism has definitely found its way into the mainstream. But simultaneously, there are still conversations about, you know, I guess maybe you talk less of angry feminists, but like SJWs in terms of social justice warriors and women can be sort of characterised as angry in a slightly different way.

But I want your thoughts, not mine. I think we're in dangerous territory here of the angry feminists actually. You know, nowadays, the sort of angry moniker gets given to not just feminists more generally, although, you know, it's definitely been said about me, but it is definitely an intersectional. feminism, like a tool used to bash intersectional feminists, so black feminists. But, you know, the idea of the angry black woman is never far away. And so it's without question, we have a long way to get. Huge amount of progress that still needs to be made.

But I do think that when feminism has become the mainstream is both a plus and a minus. So the fact that more people, like my sons who are 16, and 12, like they are completely o'fane, a way that my husband certainly wasn't when he was 60 or 12, or even my brothers weren't when they were that age as being raised by very stridently,

my husband also went to a women's liberation player group as well. So our eyes met across the test. That's like we all together then, obviously. But the the trouble, so my son's

are much more affay with the idea of consent, for example, I'm much more able to recognise the experiences of the girls in their school in a manner that they understand why things have to be different for them and accept that things have to be different for the girls rather than being annoyed and angry that, oh, you know, apart from still, that this will never ever go away, the idea that girls get out of things because of their periods and I keep saying to my sons, would you like to have periods? because that's the alternative, my friend.

But so there is definitely, and there is definitely more of a sense amongst young women today of what should and shouldn't be tolerated than there was, even when I was a teenager, when we tolerated so much. Even though the same bad things are happening, the level of tolerance to them is massively, massively down now, and that is a good thing.

However, the mainstreaming of feminism is inevitably becomes like a mind. marketing tool. And the trouble is, is that, you know, it's big companies ask me all the time to come and talk to them about feminism. And I always say, well, what is your gender pay gap before I'm going to turn up? Because the reality is, is that you can't just talk about these things. Activism actually matters, like actually setting up a women's liberation playgroup so that the women can go to work, rather than just talking about how it's unfair that you child care is rubbish. Like activism for change means something and it can't just be covered. It's a bit

like mental health awareness. Like I'm glad that mental health awareness is much, much better than it was when I was a kid. But I think it sometimes acts as a screen for any actual change in the area. And services are still so hard to reach. Like they're really for a very tiny minority of people will ever be able to activate mental health services. Yet the fact that, you know, I get on the train and they're saying have a cup of tea for mental health awareness. And it's just a bit like, I don't want a sticking plaster. I want to change. And so that is where I think that we have to be really careful about the zeitgeist versus what actually that means in the future. Thank you, Jess. And speaking of sort of change and, you know, real change, how do we feel about what it is to be a woman in, you know,

the very traditionally male world of British politics, do you feel as though, I mean, obviously, I suppose, it is certainly more representative than it ever has been historically in terms of, you know, gender representation. But do you feel, you know, as though there has been meaningful change? How difficult is it still, as a woman, to navigate that world? And I suppose what do you think, quite a big question, but what do you think should potentially change to make it, you know, easier to navigate that world as a woman?

Yeah, I mean, there's so much that needs to still change. I mean, even just the very institution is exclusive, isn't it? You know, like every day you can read in the newspapers about money being spent on X, Y and Z, and it just feels so distant from most people's lives. And the place is built to seem distant from people's lives. And it is, you know, almost phallic in its sort of dominance on the landscape. So the, but, you know, it is, it is better. And I have to say personally, on a personal level, I don't, I haven't particularly,

I mean, I haven't particularly struggled in the building with the pomp and with the things that are meant to keep me out. Because the more that I feel like I'm trying to be kept out, the more. I feel like I should kick the door in and be more who I am. And so I lean into that and I get strength from that. Obviously, I have suffered terrible abuse and harassment and threats on my life and the life of my children in a way that male politicians just simply don't. And so, but the thing that I think is hardest for a woman in politics is the constant having to explain yourself. like it your situation and it's the same in almost every walk of life is that your experience isn't

the default and until the woman's experience of politics of Westminster of an online political space until a woman's experience is the default you spend your whole life precursoring every single swark of change more generally with well this is what it and it's just so bloody tiring isn't it It's so tiring. It's a bit like after the BLM, you just felt for, especially black women, just having to constantly explain what it's like to be a black woman. And it is just, it's so tiring that you still put in the position.

I don't, none of us mind doing it. Like, I don't mind doing it. That's fine. I understand that I've got to be there. The whole point is to be there, to be the voice of a different sort of experience of those who've always had the voices. I don't mind that. That's the gig.

But it's so tiring when you get into a meeting and you think, oh, God, am I going to have to do this again? And you will then get pigeonholed for being like, oh, you know, this is when it's like for women. And it's just like, you don't understand how tense and horrible it is to never be the default experience. So in lockdown, when we went into lockdown, the idea that a working woman with children was the default experience that they were sitting planning in that room is so far from the reality of what happened. No one talked about childcare, no one talks about domestic abuse, no one thought about people who were on certain contracts. Like the wedding industry is a really good example of the one that was absolutely decimated without any thought for how those people are employed. And that's because they are almost exclusively all women.

And it is just so tiring. That is the thing that I find hardest is that we are 100 years away from a woman's experience being the default. we are 200 years away from a black woman's experience being the default. You know, it's like, and it's this constant labour that you have to do. When you could be the labour that you're doing, it should be like, you know, being ploughed into something that's more productive than just explaining the basics. I was thinking after the Sarah Everard murder, when everybody was talking about all the things that they have to do,

like the way we have to plan our routes and bring our friends, and we spend so much time risk assessing our own lives. And I thought, God, if I had all of that time back, I could have made a really good stop frame animation film with the time and patience that I've put into my own personal safety. This podcast is made in partnership with Bailey's Irish Cream. Bayleys is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women,

celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Babies is the perfect adult treat, whether in coffee, over ice cream or paired with your favourite book. Enjoying the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast? Share the literary love and be part of the future of the Women's Price Trust. They're making a one-off donation to support our important workers to charity. Donations of all sizes help us to continue empowering women, regardless of their age, race, nationality or background, to raise their voice and own their story. Search for Support the Women's Prize to find out more.

Your third book, Shelfi book, is Hot Burn by Nora Ephron. Tell us a bit about the book and why it is you love it. Oh my gosh, I absolutely love this book and I've only just recently read it and I cannot believe that I hadn't read it before because it is just absolutely brilliant. So it's a book about Nora Referon's actual life. Now, Nora Ephron, much more famously than writing this book, wrote when Harry met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle. She is essentially the darling of the sort of intelligent New York rom-com. When I said the darling, I was about to say, the only other person I can think of who falls into that category is certainly not a darling and that is Woody Allen.

Yeah. So less said about that. Nora Ephron is, and this book is about. her husband running off with another man and it is just so delightfully acerbic and I think the reason that I love it is because it is clever and it is funny as hell and there's loads I have to keep looking at words when I was reading it because there's loads it's about she's a food writer she the sort of fictionalised version is she's a food writer and she's a Jewish woman and she wrote all this stuff, all these sort of Jewish recipes and I've been looking them all up, I'm going

to cook them all. But it is just so funny and it made me realize that, like, the brilliant and intelligent and funny writing of women that has been put into the category of chick lit and, like, rom-com. You know, it made me think, oh, you know, it was okay for me to love those films and see myself, in them and not feel like a guilty feminist about it because this book is one of the cleverest and funniest books that I have ever

read and it is just like there's no rules. As somebody who writes books you sort of try and stick to sort of narrative arcs and linking things from one thing to the other it is literally just a crazy stream of consciousness of a woman

who's been stuck and that is like I just I found it so like oh look we're allowed to be like a little bit like crackers and like, fuck you basically to your ex-husband. I just really, really, really loved it and it made me feel much, much, much more like, like not even angry at the way that that sort of literature gets presented, but at like it made me really like chuffed that like those,

those brilliant, funny, witty women. And I absolutely love like that sort of the books where, you know, I really like 30-year-old woman moves to works in an advertiser. What are they always working in advertising? Always. Like they're either a writer or they work in advertising. Those are the only single women. Not even young.

Not those two jobs. I have no idea why. If you're in your 30 and you're not in one of those jobs, you're probably married already. That's everything I can assume. But I absolutely love those books, and I think that they should be considered to be funnier than they are. So I read a huge amount of Mari McFarlane books, which are essentially like rom-coms in a book, but they're really funny.

They make me laugh out loud. And so, yeah, the Nora Referron, I mean, I feel like I just grew up with Nora Refron all, my life there has been some, you know, film playing in the background that I loved but pretended I didn't because the boys wanted me to like Apocalypse now, which by the way is really boring. Don't feel you ever have to pretend that you enjoy at Apocalypse now. It's very dull. And Heart of Darkness isn't even that good a book. I've read it as well because that's how much I wanted to pretend to boys in the 1990s that their culture was better than mine. And now I say, You watch Luke's in Seattle, it's way down.

Oh, God. Would you say that Nora Ephron's writing has inspired yours in any way? And if so, or even if not, which other female writers do you feel have shaped the way in which you write in your approach? Because you've spoken so nicely and eloquently about, you know, how women's writing, especially when it's funny and kind of irreverent and lighthearted, can be just kind of shoved into the chick-liped. category, but that's something that you're kind of embracing now in terms of how you consume media. So yeah, I'm interested in what your influences have been. Yeah, I mean, I think my influences are people like Catlin Moran without question.

But also the sort of capturing that sadness, so much of my activism comes from seeing sad things really hard. and difficult things. And so the idea of capturing sadness to inspire people, I think, is much, much better done by women writers. Women writers writing about their childhood, write them differently to male writers writing about their childhood. And it rarely seems like, you know, for one of a better word, misery memoirs, it rarely seems like misery, it rarely seems like misery. it seems like something that has to be changed. So I read like oranges are not the only fruit when I was only about 11, 12 years old

and it is about this young woman growing up in a very, very, very religious background and being a lesbian. And the way she draws the sort of sadness of the characters in her childhood, it's always about making change and, you know, well, what are we going to do with this sort of pain and how are we going to, you know, it's got to be better.

We've got to hope, strive for better. And so, and I think that women writers do that much, much, much better. I think that from the women writers that I've, obviously there's some crap ones, but from the women's writing that I read, I think that they are much, much more hopeful about sadness. and I find that really, really inspiring. I wrote a very short book recently about my mum dying and what that had meant to me.

And the whole time I was expecting to feel really, really sad, but I just felt really happy about the sort of sadness that I'd had to go through as if it was, you know, a good part of me. And I think that women are much, much better at that because I think that every day they face more challenge. Your fourth bookshelfy is Peepo by Janet and Alan Orberg, which is a classic book for young children. I'm interested in what it is you like about it and when it was you first read it. I literally like everything about it.

I like the pictures. I could literally give it to you verbatim now. I could read without looking at the book, even slightly, I could read it out to you from reading it to my children. But I was read it as a child and it has stood an enduring test of time. The mother in it, whereas her hairnet, there's literally a line where it that says her hairnet on her head and she looks like my grandma.

It is a story of a baby and the things that he can see from his, whether he's in the push chair or in the garden and what he's talking about is his family. I could literally cry, talking about it. I absolutely love the book, Pippo. It is almost certainly my favourite book of all time because it meant something to me when I was a kid. And also just the imagery,

because it's like based in, I think it's like the sort of 19, 40s or 50s, where you assume it's the 40s. The imagery of the sort of back-to-back housing that they're seeing is the, you know, the housing of my grandparents that I grew up in and like the tin bath and there's all this sort of stuff that the baby can see that is sort of gone away now that it's nostalgia but it was hanging on in my childhood and certainly not hanging on in the childhood of my children who I read people to pretty much every single night of their lives until they were about eight um so I read it for a solid

every night for a solid like 13 years and never once got upset and I remember Vivi my favourite memory of reading the book people, although I'm not entirely sure I was that chuffed about it at the time. No, I think I was the second time. There's a scene at the end where he's looking at his parents in the hallway from his cot, the baby, and what he describes he can see is his father, who's in a uniform, kissing his mother goodbye, and the sort of the idea being that it's the war,

and either his father is going away or like he's like on the home guard. You know, you don't know. It's like it's written from a child's perspective. You don't know. But there's this moment where the line is and his father kissing him good night. And I burst into tears when I was reading it to my eldest and Harry. And in that moment, without taking a test, without knowing or anything, I went downstairs to my husband and I said, I think I'm pregnant.

because I literally, I've read this book so many times, and I just burst into tears at this line. And, yeah, so I, and I took a test, and I was pregnant with my second baby dying. Whoa. Yeah, so it, like it... Women's intuition, bloody hell. Also, just cry out of tired a lot in early pregnancy,

so they're quite tired. I was like, I swear to because I'm pregnant, and my husband went and got me a tear. and I was pregnant. But yeah, it is. And obviously I don't read it to my children anymore, but I buy it for every baby that comes into the world in my life. I buy a copy of PIPA for them.

And it is just, it's just a perfect book. I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. Can you tell me a bit about your book, Mother, and the process of writing it and, you know, why you felt it was. important to write and I suppose how you felt writing it. So that's lots of questions in mind. It's funny because I wrote my second book, Truth to Power, gave seven examples of people

who had taken on powerful institutions and, you know, as the ordinary person. And the whole point is to inspire people to do something. And I was asked to talk about it. At like, a publishing event for the publishers, Hashet. And I stood on the stage and the story I told was not one that was in the book. The story I told was the story of my mum, taking on ICI, the drug company, for giving my nan a drug that had made her go blind and over a 10-year period,

finding hundreds of people who'd been in the same situation, and ultimately simming them for nearly 10 million pounds by 1981. And I told this story of my mum. And I then thought, why the hell did you not write about that in the book, you idiot? Like, I don't know why. I genuinely don't know why. I feel like I don't know enough about it and I didn't ask enough questions of my mum about it while she was alive. Because it wasn't something that she talked about a lot.

And it was before I was born. But we all know that she'd done this thing and we all know that it had happened. and that she was like Erin Brockovich essentially. She did it while she was 24 and had two children and lived in, like, you know, in a terrace house in the black country. So she was by no means they didn't have phones to find, or the internet to find all those people. She went up and down the country searching for them,

holding meetings and knocking doors and things. Yeah, so like, you know, Anne took on a drug company. But I don't know why I didn't include it. So I thought I should write about this. Also, a very famous writer was at this event and said to me, you know, you should definitely write a book about your mom. So then I was a bit like, oh, maybe I can do this. So then the opportunity came up by a Birmingham publisher who did just this sort of crowdfunding

publishing. And I knew him. I grew up with him. It's like a village. We all know each other. I know there's a million people there, but honestly, my dad definitely lent your these ladders in 1974. We all are connected somehow.

So I knew this bloke and he came, got in touch with me and said, would you do something? And I thought, well, this is a good opportunity for a Birmingham publisher, a place my mum grew up and loved to write the story of how my mum had done this amazing thing. But also talk about, it's like an opportunity then to talk about how she, what it felt like to lose your mom and the idea, the political idea of being a mom and why it gets put on a pedestal and how that holds us back.

And I got to do all that while putting my mom on a pedestal. And it was, yeah, and also tell your mom gags, which I have always wanted to basically write a book of your mom gags. The first time I ever went on, have I got news for you? You know, the blanks round where they have like the headlines. and they've got bits blanked out. My husband said to me, you should just say your mom for every answer.

We are now on your fifth and final bookshelf for this week, which is The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. What is it about this book that resonated with you? And when did you do it? I read it as part of my A-levels. I studied A-level English, which I can't say I enjoyed very much, I have to say. But I think it was the only book that it was,

I didn't enjoy it very much. I kept being told that I wasn't very good at writing. actually incidentally um ironic yeah yeah i'll fit it's like one of those moments where i'll find that teacher but it's probably right because it's probably too busy smoking fags and not paying a sentence class um but i think it in my memory from the text that i studied in fact it definitely was it was the only one that was written by a woman um and um i remember vividly there is a scene of sexual violence in the colour purple. And I remember during my GCSEs, we had read Tessa the Derbaville's.

And obviously there's a scene of sexual violence in that as well. And I remember vividly thinking about the difference between the way a man had written, you know, an act of sexual violence and a woman had written an act of sexual violence. And I think that that, and I remember watching it on the, with, We watched a film. It's got Whoopi Goldberg and I believe it's got Oprah Winfrey in it as well. And I remember that was probably the most exciting thing. We're like, oh, look, it's Oprah Winfrey, because that's how much we paid attention at school.

But I remember the way that it was sort of tried to be done, sort of this sort of element of sexual violence is tried to be sort of done off screen. And I remember our teachers talking to us about it as if we wouldn't understand it, even though the vast majority of us absolutely did understand issues of sexual violence. And I think it just stayed with me forever, the book, The Color Purple. I just remember thinking it was the only book really that I read that I ever was asked to study that I felt any sort of connection to. Jess, you and I are both contributors to the feminist book Society's book.

This is how we come back stronger, feminist writers, turning crisis into change and your essay was about the epidemic within a pandemic and about, you know, the rise of domestic violence, something that you've spoken about at length. You worked at women's aid before getting into politics. I'm interested in, you know, your thoughts essentially on that rise of domestic violence within the pandemic and lockdowns, especially, I suppose, the response to it because it does feel like that. like that conversation was very sort of belated in terms of people realizing what, you know, the logical outcome of women being locked down with, you know, potentially abusive partners

would be. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was absolutely maddening. The second that it was happening in China, we were getting reports in the sort of women's sector from concerns around domestic abuse during the lockdown in China, but also the sort of miss, the potential, whether, you know, no necessary evidence that it was happening, but the potential for mis-categorising people's deaths and how this might give impunity. And so that was my very first concern.

And this was long before, this was in December, before we were going into lockdown. So we were discussing it, and we were trying to raise it through the right channels in government and talk to people about it. When the lockdown hit, the fact that the messaging, and, you know, no political messaging, not take back control, not make America great again, has ever been as good as stay at home.

Literally, it was so clear. It was like, that is the instruction. And to me, it was just absolutely maddening. And we were begging four weeks for the messaging to be, unless you are not safe at home, in which case this does not allow for, account for victims of domestic abuse. And so for the first few, like the first month of the initial lockdown, it was like whack-a-mo. trying to find all of the issues that women were facing. And do you know what?

I genuinely don't think I thought that referral would go up in the way that it did. I didn't see that coming, I have to say. I didn't think that the pandemic would cause more domestic abuse and I still don't think that it did. But it gave people a moment to be like, do you know, I can't be locked in here. I'm going to have to ring a service now rather than the idea. I absolutely don't like the idea and it's what we've seen a huge amount of as the court cases for the murders that happened in initial lockdown, start to roll through the courts.

It's this idea that people snapped in the lockdown. Like, you know, I had a stressful first bit of lockdown. You know, I was dealing with a huge amount of logistics in my constituency. I didn't kill my husband because I was stressed. about it. And so I think we have to be really, really careful about how we talk about it. But the thing that was really difficult was like all of the things that women have been complaining about for a long time, whether that's like the child services, child financial services agency, the people who make sure that your husband's paying you your maintenance. And like, you know,

and also their family courts. These are issues that have been raised with us for many, many years that there was always problems with victims of domestic abuse, they immediately, all of the systems sided with the men. So it's like, oh yeah, if he's been furloughed, he doesn't have to give you any money anymore. She's like, yeah, well, what about me? I've been furloughed. That means I've got no money to feed my kids. And then they were like, oh, you know, there were incidents where visits were forced with

previous partners. There were kids who were left like on a day visit to somebody. and then COVID was being used in the excuse while the kid couldn't be returned to the mother. It was also, you know, it was a manipulator's dream come true. And so in the early days, what we were trying to do was to find all these incidences of where the system in lockdown was going to fail

as well as the issue of, you know, the fear of women not being able to leave the house was so palpable to us all. But, you know, what I do think happened during, the pandemic with regard to domestic abuse is I think that the country cares about it more than it did before and I think the response to the Sarah Everard murder for all of the reasons why people have questions about why that woman, why that woman caused the outpour that she did. I don't and there's, you know, huge amounts that could be said with regard to that that

you should absolutely be listened to. But I cannot help but think that it was the timing during a global pandemic when for the first time, everybody had had a universal experience of being locked in their home. And people were for the first time able to actually physically check their privilege. You know, it's that sort of the throwaway thing that gets said, isn't it? But for the first time you heard people saying, like my constituents, when they'd get in touch with me, they would be like, thank you for doing what you can.

I understand I might have to come. You know, don't worry about me today. There are other people who need your help more. and there were people who say, you know, it's terrible. I really want to see my mom. I'm hating it, but at least I'm safe in my home. Like there was this overall sense of people checking their privilege. And I think that victims of domestic abuse and children who were being abused in their homes

became the top of people's list. And, you know, that is a silver lining to the world's greatest cloud. But what we have to now do is make sure that we keep our foot on the pedal. and we don't allow a system breakdown to happen again and that we use it as an opportunity to listen to the things that the women were telling us. Like we're brilliant at risk assessing, women have been telling us what was going to happen if something bad happened for a long, long time

and not enough was done about it. We are done with your bookshelfies. You've been a brilliant guest. Thank you so much for your time. But I do have one last question, and as ever it is the most difficult question saved to last, which is, pick one of your book shelfies as your favourite. I kind of think for once I might actually know

which one you pick. I might have a feeling here but which of the books is your favourite and why. My favourite book in the whole world is paper. I'm sorry that this is written by man and a woman. but it is just it is everything to just as it feels like it's about my family and it also feels like it's about my mum and dad's family and it also feels like it's about my son's family and that is in a lovely little timbre of and the way that you read it is so lovely that you know the thing is is if I had to get rid of them you can't take it away from me because I can just repeat it Thank you so much, Jess. I'm Yomi Hedega-K

and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Head to our website www.womenpricedforfiction.com. Where you can discover this year's shortlist of six incredible books. You definitely want to click subscribe because in our next episode, we will be jumping into Piranesi by Susanna Clark and how the one-arm sister sweeps her house. by Shiree Jones in our final shortlist book club.

Please rate and review this podcast. It's the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. Thanks very much for listening and see you next time.