Woman's Hour - Award-winning actor Vanessa Kirby; Sexual harassment, assault & abuse in schools

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

There are widespread allegations of peer to peer misogyny, harassment, abuse and assault of girls in schools. This eruption - which has been bubbling since last week - has been described as the potential me too moment for schools - as pupils flock to a website called Everyone's Invited which was set up last year as a place where victims can post anonymous accounts of abuse they had suffered. It has now received more than 7,000 testimonies - including accounts from children as young as nine. Many of the accounts are about sexual harassment, abuse or even rape in schools or involving other school pupils. There is some discomfort about what some children being invited to shame each other and the idea of allegations of rape culture flying about - tarnishing lots of innocent boys with the same brush. But at the same time - schools have been accused of covering up sexual offences to protect their reputations and girls have said their reports have been ignored. A police helpline is now being set up to report incidents, after thousands of allegations were posted, most of them about the behaviour of other pupils. What should schools, the police and parents do next?Vanessa Kirby is perhaps best known for her award- winning portrayal of Princess Margaret in in the first two series of 'The Crown'. She's now receiving rave reviews for her performance in the film ‘Pieces of A Woman’; which you can watch now on Netflix. She has just been nominated for the best actress award at the OSCARS and at the BAFTAs. An important but devastating story - not often told on screen but one that unfortunately a number of women can relate to. Vanessa joins Emma to discuss the film.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Kirsty Starkey Interviewed Guest: Ava Vakil Interviewed Guest: Rachel Fitzsimmons Interviewed Guest: Anne Longfield Interviewed Guest: Lorraine Candy Interviewed Guest: Vanessa Kirby Photographer: Matt Holyoak

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. It is Monday again, or Happy Monday, as it's been described by some of the papers, because on a day when many in England are rejoicing at greater levels of freedom with the end of that stay-at-home message, soon to follow in Northern Ireland and Scotland. It's already happened in Wales. There are, it seems, a lot of unhappy children, schoolchildren, because there are widespread allegations of peer-to-peer misogyny,

harassment, abuse and assault of girls in schools. You've just been hearing about it in the news bulletins. And this eruption, which has been bubbling since last week, has been described as the potential Me Too moment for schools, as pupils flock to a website called Everyone's Invited, which was set up last year as a place where victims could post anonymous accounts of abuse that they'd suffered. It's now received more than 7,000 testimonies,

including accounts from children as young as nine. Many of the accounts are about sexual harassment, abuse or even rape in schools or involving other school pupils. There is some discomfort about what some children are being or people are seeing it like this that some children are being invited to shame each other and the idea of allegations of rape culture flying about tarnishing lots of innocent boys with the same brush. But at the same time, schools have been accused of covering up sexual offences to protect their reputations and girls say that their reports have been ignored. A police helpline is now being

set up to report incidents after thousands of allegations have been posted and most of them, as we say, about that peer-to-peer relationship, the behaviour of other pupils. What should schools, police, parents do next? That is what we're going to explore on Woman's Hour today. This morning, one of the country's most senior police officers, Chief Constable Simon Bailey, advises parents, take your son to the police if you discover they are responsible for abuse. Have a listen to what he had to say earlier on the Today programme. I think parents have a responsibility to ensure that their children, both their sons and daughters, recognise and understand what good values are, what respect and trust and honesty are, how to treat people. And I think they should be educating them to also have that difficult conversation around

that you are inevitably viewing pornography. That is not real. That is not a relationship in any way, shape or form. And in exactly the same way, the school sector, I think, should be reinforcing those points. And within their own sex education classes, they should be making that point very, very clear. It's so important that within schools, the culture is created where actually misogyny, sexual harassment and abuse are simply not tolerated.

And if the culture changes in schools, then we'll start to make some progress. But if parents are aware that their son or their daughter has been a victim of abuse, then please come forward and report the abuse. Your son or daughter, their account will be believed and we will deal with it appropriately. If as a parent, you are aware that your son has been responsible for a sexual assault, then I think you should again be taking your son to the police and saying, look, I've now become aware that this is what my son has done.

Simon Bailey, Chief Constable of Norfolk Police and the National Police Chief Counsel Lead for Child Protection. Take your son to the police if you discover that they are responsible for abuse. What are your thoughts on that? Your initial reactions, perhaps you've also been mulling this over the past few days, perhaps the school that your children, if you have children attend, have been in touch with you. Tell us where you come out on this. 84844 is part of, of course, a much bigger conversation about the society we live in, the culture that is around young people. And of course, what has changed since all of us were at school is online pornography and the devices that everybody now holds in their hands to wield all

sorts of power, let's put it like that, for good or for bad. 84844 is the number you need to text. Tell us where you think we should go next with this. What you think should happen next on social media at BBC Women's Hour. Message straight in about this to say, pornography is to blame for the thinking and behaviour of boys. Another one here, Jane says, have you heard the vile lyrics of music and songs that young people listen to? It is beyond disgusting. Well, it's about what to do next.

That's what we're focusing here at Women's Hour on today. And we want to hear your experiences and what's going on with your daughters and sons, or you directly, or perhaps this has made you think back to when you were at school and what went on. And it may not be that long ago. My first guess, that's certainly the case for Ava Vakil is a 19 year old student. She left the independent girls school, Wimbledon High School, a year ago, the unofficial sister school of nearby independent boys' school, King's College, Wimbledon.

Ava posted on Instagram asking for people to share their experiences of sexual harassment and violence from students of King's College School and around the area to collect and share with the headmaster what she suspected was a problem. Within 24 hours, I believe, Ava, you received over 70 responses. Yeah, that's right. In the first 24 hours, I had about 75. And in the couple

of days that followed the letter, I had nearly tripled the responses. For people who may be thinking, what sort of incidents are we talking about here? Could you give us an insight into that? Yeah, so this ranged from everything from cat calling and verbal abuse. There was also a huge culture of ranking and rating girls based on their appearance. So it would be a score of 2.5 for their bum, for example, to add up to an overall score of 10. Then there were really serious instances of rape and sexual assault and groping, both in public areas, in houses, and some instances of groping within the school itself. So it is a whole range? Yeah, absolutely. And these testimonies were coming from girls as young as 12 and 13,

all the way up to pupils who had left the school 10 years ago. And tell us about, there was a word you didn't actually understand, yat, was it? Yeah, so I started seeing this word come up so much in the messages that were being sent to me. And I was thinking, what does this mean? And I asked one of the girls, and she said it stands for yappy and thick. So this was a common term, just as a way to address women and a way to address young girls that just helped to feed into that overall culture of misogyny. So there's the culture of misogyny. I know you almost you were trying to categorise this, weren't you yourself. And then there's also what was going on with phones and people using their

phones to film each other. Yes, so a lot of image-based violence was included in these testimonies, whether that be sharing girls' naked photos in group chats or posting them online. And I think we've got to a stage here where we simply are not caught up with social media and what young people are doing on it. And so we're not therefore equipping them with the skills that they need at school to deal with that. Why did you want to do this? Why did you want to set up a mini forum on your Instagram page? So I was actually feeling really overwhelmed. I think it's been a difficult few weeks,

especially for women, between Sarah Everard, Meghan Markle, International Women's Day it felt like there was this absolute mountain of misogyny that I just had no way to tackle so I took a little step back and I thought well actually here's an example in this local boys school of this culture really close to home and I thought if I can't tackle that big, wider problem, if we can all make little steps in our local community, the effect of that overall is huge. So that's what I decided to do. I was not expecting this response at all. And I think, if anything, it just demonstrates just how widespread this issue is. Do any of the girls behave badly?

Yeah, so there has to be an element of complicity from girls in this but there's also a huge amount of social pressure that leads to that when this culture is so widespread and pressure is put on so many young people to take part in it you face a kind of social ostracisation if you don't take part and so I think it's really important to remember here that yes you have people who are perpetrating this violence and who are catcalling then you also have a whole group of people just caught up within it and that's why it needs to be addressed as a culture problem because it's something that we all need to tackle because all of our behavior in some way feeds into this.

The reason I was asking as well, though, is if girls film boys against their will or any of that side of things, do you see a difference in the culture between girls and boys? And how would you describe that? So I didn't receive any testimonies personally about those instances. I'm sure that that does happen but I think the difference there is all about power and in this case when we're talking about misogyny power has historically lay with men and so it is a different thing for men to be behaving in this way towards women because for women that leads to violence and that leads to a lack of job opportunities. The actual long term effects of it are really, really deep rooted and widespread. So I think when we're talking about this, we have to remember that this feeds into life after school as well.

A lot. Jan sent an interesting message saying this is nothing new. I'm 65 and this kind of behaviour was everywhere at school. Differences that we girls were brought up to regard as normal, acceptable and we were expected to deal with it. And for some who've described this as the me too, potential me too moment for schools. What's your view on this is the same as it always was and it's been bubbling and it's reached a kind of crescendo or as some are putting it, it's completely different because of online porn and what's going on with the climate that boys are growing up in with girls well i think this

culture has always been there we have historically objectified women for centuries and centuries but there is something new here in the form of social media and we haven't caught up with that i mean before our sex education update last year, the sex ed curriculum hadn't been updated for nearly 20 years. So it makes no sense that when there's a new app every few months, or every few seconds probably being created, that we've got a curriculum that is only updated every couple of decades. So it's the same culture, I agree, that we've had for ages of objectifying women and seeing them as second-class citizens. But the speed at which these things and these actions can occur is different because it's no longer a printed out photo of a woman. It's

something being uploaded online that hundreds of people can see in a matter of seconds. What do you want to happen now, Ava? I think this is something that needs to infiltrate every aspect of life. I think parents need to be speaking to their kids more and more about how they're interpreting the media, how they're treating those around them. more infrastructure in order to make sure that young girls and young boys coming forward who have faced these kind of actions feel supported and feel listened to and we need to balance that of course with a sense of accountability that when these instances do happen and when there are images that have been uploaded online for example that people face consequences for that. Well we will get to accountability a few messages messages, as you can imagine, coming in about

that, especially about that chief constable's statement on that. Let me just thank you, Ava, and this message from this statement from King's College School in Wimbledon, giving the statement to the media. We are very far from complacent. We see that from the, and we see from the troubling testimonies of girls and women who've come forward that there is clearly more work we can and will do. But they added since the publication of the open letter around this, we've been contacted by many current and former pupils and parents to say they do not recognise the description of the school's culture and that they recognise our commitment to safeguarding and educating our pupils on such matters. Well, let's talk about education with Rachel Fitzsimmons, a sex and relationship educational specialist. Rachel, there's been a lot of talk for a long time,

some would say lip service, around the need to improve sex and relationship education in schools. But let's just put this phrase to you, rape culture as part of the culture that our boys and girls are growing up with. What's your view of that? Well, sadly, that's what's going on. I mean, we have needed to improve sex education for a long, long time. We actually deliver sex education in schools and train teachers and work with parents on this. It's quite shocking when you hear that rape culture in schools. But what you're seeing

on a daily basis is lots of little, well, I don't like to say little, but smaller incidences that feed in to that rape culture. And I think Ava's been really articulate in sort of explaining exactly what's going on for young people right now. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of access to pornography. And I think it seeps in. And then the behaviours in school and out of school, sadly, I see widespread across the board, isn't really improving. And what's your view on, because it's one thing to say this is all the things that we need to do in school. It's another thing, and we'll talk to a parent who's written a whole book about this in a moment, and it's another thing to say parents need to talk

to their children. But you know, as well as I, that it's not teachers or your parents you think of when you're at a party. No, the adults in their lives, yes, they need to have these conversations. It needs to be multifaceted. It needs to be senior leaders in school, zero tolerance. I mean, the guidelines have been there since 2018 about sexual harassment in schools. It's really clear not to dismiss this culture of banter. Boys will be boys. Misogynistic language. And to come down hard on it.

And so the responsibility lies with them. I believe we need to work with boys, though. We need to work positively with boys because there's a fear of them. There's already murmuring defensive about this, you know, that whole, well, it's not all boys. And the girls are getting really frustrated with that comment, quite rightly, but we do need to work positively with the boys. We need to give them the confidence and skills to confront peers.

We need to obviously give them education around consent, respect, and pornography, as has already been mentioned has is a massive part so we need to be having these conversations Ava said it's just become statutory that's just this year so previous to this year we did not have to teach porn we've always done it anyway we go in and do it but it hasn't been statutory um now COVID they haven't actually got there yet a lot of schools haven't been able to deliver a comprehensive sex education package because you can't do that on zoom effectively you can do elements but you can't do the nitty-gritty porn consent you know all the really really tough conversations um that's only

just beginning now and there's a lot of pressure on schools to do covid catch up anyway and what where do you come out on education versus punishment because you know we've just heard a police officer say if you think your son's done something wrong, basically shop him to the police. And we've got a message here saying that police officer is living in a dreamland if he really thinks a parent is going to shop their own child. Andrew says, if we're giving police officers a national platform to deliver moral education, particularly as it relates to women, families and relationships, we're in trouble. It's a statement, isn't it? Shot your kids to the police. It's a headline, isn't it? I think it's a universal problem. It's a massive problem.

I think parents are responsible to have those conversations with their sons and their daughters about respect and communication and porn. And quite frankly, we haven't been we haven't been up to scratch with that so far. So it's schools, it's parents, it's working with those boys. We do peer education in schools. So we train sixth form boys and girls to work with year seven and eight about respect, healthy relationships, and become almost ambassadors of respect within the school. But it's not working, is it?

Not your programme, but generally. Something's gone wrong here, it seems, or maybe not. I mean, you tell me, do you think this is a real moment where something has come to the fore and things are going to change now? I hope so, Emma. When Me Too happened three, four years ago, I was having conversations with girls and boys, and I don't know, something, they disconnected with it,

the 13 and 14-year-olds, the younger ones. The older girls did connect with it. This they're connecting with because it's all over TikTok,ok it's all over their social media platforms i had conversations last week with a bunch of girls 13 14 and they almost feel they're crossed they're you know they're hearing each other's voices and they're going nothing's been done or we've we've raised this with this and they've said oh boys will be boys and we escalated it and we're escalating i think schools are hearing it and taking it seriously. I think they always have, but it's so widespread.

It's the subtler things that we need to clamp down on and work with boys. We don't want to lose them. They need to be part of the solution. Do you think schools have been covering it up though? Covering up's a big statement. I don't think when there's a sexual violence or a sexual assault claim, I wouldn't like, the schools I work with do take it seriously.

But I think it's the banter in the corridors. It's that sort of the really hard to pin down where I've had girls where they've gone to the loo and then another boy in another classroom seeing them go to the loo and they sort of subtly follow them. That presence, that intimidation. It's really hard for teachers with everything else they've got to do to kind of see that as a come down hard on that i think it needs there's the spotlights on it i think this is a moment it's a moment let's very importantly get a parenting voice into this and plenty messages coming in lorraine candy parenting columnist for the sunday times the daily mail and also written a book mum what's wrong's Wrong With You? 101 Things Only, Mothers of Teenage Girls, coming out later this summer. If I say to you, Lorraine, first of all,

your reaction, you're the mother of girls and boys. What's your reaction to the police officer saying shop your son to the police? Yeah, I have two teenage girls, a nine-year-old and a 14-year-old boy. I think it's really unhelpful. I think what happens now is the media focuses on that headline. It becomes witch hunt against innocent boys. I think that's incredibly unhelpful. This is about child protection. This is about abuse in schools. And I think if you start talking about protecting boys now at this stage,

I mean, not all boys, again, incredibly unhelpful. I think one of the things that I've learned in the talking to parents and being a parent myself, writing the book is that you just do not know your child as a teenager, you simply cannot know everything about them, they lead and must lead because they're separating quite a private life. And there's a huge amount of denial, I think, amongst the parents, especially boys at the moment about what is going on. There's a huge lack of awareness. Even in the piece I wrote in the mail, there's many comments saying not my son.

We have values and standards and morals at home. But you are sending your son to school in a culture that normalises violence against women. And I know that sounds really extreme. And I really didn't want to be that extreme. When I talked to my girls, my teenage girls last week, and they used the word rape culture, I find that a very difficult word to use having been a journalist for a long time covered rape trials. But the more they told me of what was going on in their schools, the more I realised that was an absolutely accurate description of what they were encountering in schools. And, you know, this is a really terrible place to be with our teenagers at the moment, particularly after a pandemic where they really struggled with their mental health and everything's kind of been taken away from them for the last year. So we really need to

take them seriously. We really need to listen to our boys we need to get incredibly engaged not to live in an echo chamber of not our boys the our boys are kind our boys have moral values they're not going into that environment at school clearly or among their peer groups and the social pressure on boys as ada has said is extraordinary as well so we have to understand how that is affecting their behavior we've we've really got to get alongside them with this and get into what they're seeing online. I can't believe sex education hasn't been updated for 20 years. No, no, and that is, but just to push on from that moment, because I recognise it's a very big subject,

but do you think, what will make the difference, do you think, with boys' behaviour as a whole? So not that, you know, I understand the difference between, you know, victimising individual boys and maybe that now going in that direction, that discussion. But do you think it's about education or punishment?

Because what's going to make the difference? I think the girls have to feel that they're being listened to and action is taken. There are consequences. I think boys need to see consequences.

They're clearly not seeing that at school. And what sorts of consequences do you think? Well, I think you need to, we've got to work as parents with educators around calling out this behavior we've got to enable and empower young boys to call out this behavior among their peer groups abusing girls whether they do online or in person is seen as the flex my daughter's told me this is respect it gives them respect this is we've got to This is, we've got to reverse that. So we've got to start small. As your experts have said, this banter has got to stop. This allowing this banter to occur,

this rating of girls on apps. And it's not just sexism, it's racism as well. That kind of culture has got to be stopped in schools among boys. So we've clearly not been listening to boys. We've not been talking to them properly and we've not been talking to them in the right way and now we're punishing them instantly and it's very confusing for teenage boys their brains all teenagers brains have been completely remodeled over a five-year period it's so much for them to take on but we've got to listen to them properly and find out what why and also that this kind of the pornography has an effect on them but there's also so much fake news that's coming at them on social media. The kind of the kind of fake news that girls are lying about assaults, that this is part of what girls can contribute together, talk about doing to boys.

All of that is bombarding them, coming up through their Snapchat and their TikTok. And I don't think teachers know about that. I don't think any teachers. How would you feel if you're if the teacher at your school reported your son to the police? Well, you would hope that there would be some many, many conversations before you got to that point. I think that is the point here as well. These are little conversations you've got to start having all the time with your boys. But again, I think it's really unhelpful to start talking about reporting boys to police. Only because that's what happened over the weekend, of course, with Dulwich College in London, a boys school.

And a lot of people, there was an anonymous mother who wrote in the Sunday Times yesterday reacting to that. So it's about making sure we give a voice to the reaction as to how, as we say, make sure there are consequences. Yes, exactly. You do need to make sure boys know there will be consequences because there are legal consequences to this behaviour. And again, how are we communicating that to boys? I don't think standing in front of all the boys at an assembly telling them that is the way to communicate. And as far as I can tell from my son and other boys, that's what's happening at the moment. I'm sure other schools will say they're putting into loads of small detailed meetings, et cetera, et cetera. But it doesn't feel like that is happening.

Standing in front of a group of boys telling them that they will go to prison if or it doesn't seem to be getting through that message. Get the experts into schools. Talk to boys, former pupils as well. We often when we talk about teenagers, this group that we have nothing to do with, we don't bring them in. We don't get them to tell us things. We don't you know, we say things like, well, it's because of the lyrics on their music they listen to that's an incredibly patronizing thing to say to a teenager i just feel that that is part of the problem not understanding that that's not the way in and those things are not to blame it's the culture and how we change and how

we talk to them and longfield listening to you there lorraine candy long time campaigner for children and families rights former children's's Commissioner very recently. Anne, what do you think needs to happen now? We're being told a helpline's being set up. Well, helplines are useful, of course, and they also symbolise that actually somebody's taking something seriously, but it's going to go, it needs to go way beyond any one helpline or indeed any one kind of national change at this stage or changing guidance. I really do think it is a moment. I think it's a moment if girls and pupils make it a moment as well, which I think is what we've seen happening. And I hope that every family will be talking about this over the Easter holidays that are just starting today.

You know, this is something that can't wait until an inquiry is finished. It can't wait until a school decides its piece of work is complete. This is something which needs to change radically. And I think this discussion we've had today shows the scale of change that's happened, that schools and society more generally just hasn't kept up with and also the disconnect between actually teenagers lives and we're hearing it very young as well and what adults perceive them to be and there is a really strong and required response here from society and I would like to see in a complete culture change within schools.

Some schools, of course, will already have that culture. So it's a case of reaffirming. But I think at this stage, it needs to be absolutely one of the top issues on schools agendas as they return. Please give schools and teachers a break, Emma. They do their utmost and have had a really difficult time in the pandemic. It's not their fault. The sex and relationships curriculum hasn't been updated for 20 years. Many schools which have have policies which could inform the government directives. And then we're also hearing this should be all about what the parents are doing.

Where do you see this landing in terms of who's going to make it change? So I think it has to be a societal wide issue. It has to be parents talking with their children, but also schools have such a strong agency in changing this culture. And we heard from Ava some of the really practical things that schools can do. It needs to move beyond something which is contained within one lesson a week into the absolute culture of the school. You know, when you see prospectuses coming out from schools in years following years, I would like to see this as the number one issue, keeping kids safe in school and having that culture of respect for other pupils and owning that respect as well.

Now, that's a big conversation, especially when you have it alongside the digital messages that are coming through 24-7 and the like. But there are serious consequences here. We heard about that ranking and rating of girls in schools. Well, it's little surprise that we've seen a rocketing in the number of referrals to eating disorders over recent months and years. It's little surprise that mental health prevalence is absolutely rising, especially for teenage girls. So this is something which needs to be a solution for everyone. At the moment, I think it's being seen as, you know, it's being seen as part of life, and girls haven't been believed as this being a serious issue for them. That really needs to

change. Anne Longfield, former Children's Commissioner, thank you. We did invite the government on and no one was available, but a spokesperson said, we're very concerned by the significant number of allegations recently posted on the Everyone's Invited website. The abuse of children and young people in all its forms is abhorrent. The vast majority of schools, colleges and universities take their safeguarding responsibilities very seriously.

So it's particularly shocking when allegations of abuse are made in connection with a place of education where everyone should feel secure and protected. Working together, the Department for Education, Home Office, National Police Chief Councils are in contact with the website everyone's invited to provide support, protection and advice. As a government, we're determined to improve outcomes for victims and survivors of all ages and backgrounds.

We encourage anyone in this position to raise their concerns with someone they trust whether that's a family member or a friend a teacher a social worker the helpline or the police keep your messages coming in i'll return to them shortly but vanessa kirby perhaps best known for her award-winning portrayal of princess margaret in the first two series of the crown is now receiving rave reviews for her performance in the film Pieces of a Woman, now showing on Netflix. She's up for an Oscar for it. It's an important but devastating story, not often told on screen, but one that unfortunately a number of women can relate to. Martha and Sean are a couple on the verge of becoming parents when their lives change dramatically as a home birth ends in tragedy.

The film deals with the birth, trauma, grief and fallout from the loss of their baby. Vanessa has been nominated for the Best Actress Award at the Oscars and at the BAFTAs for her performance. Vanessa told me she was looking for a part that scared her. It did scare me and I always think that's a good sign. It would almost demand that I push into a corner of myself that perhaps I haven't been in touch with. And that's always such a, without being grand, a kind of profound experience, you know, where you come out the other side of something different because of it. And I really do sort of always seek that in a way. But it is profound. I mean, it's literally life and death, this film.

And the birth scene, everybody who's read anything about it or seen it won't forget that scene because it's not anything I've ever seen on screen before can you tell us about what it was like to make that what was it in one take how long did it take so it was in one take and I remember when I first read the script I couldn't believe that you know page 10 the birth was still going on page 20 and it was 35 pages or something and the intention was to do it in one continuous take which we did without any cuts and I remember being halfway through it being so struck by the fact that my eyes had never seen it black and white on paper before in a script the most in-depth birth scenes that I'd ever read or seen really were fleeting

and a sort of passing moment of a few pushes and then baby baby was out and I realized I was becoming conscious then as I was reading it of the fact that oh look this is a female writer writing about her female experience and we're still in such early days of women really being able to take space generally but particularly as writers and having movies financed about the woman that gives birth for a quarter of the film and then loses her baby. So I found out, discovered a little spoken about in society. And I really believe that it should be just because we'll get to that, won't we? We will. We will. But the reason I asked about the shooting of of it is of course, your job is to act, but something like that, you have to get some level of insight or experience of, and I know you haven't yet had a baby yourself. What did you do to prepare for that?

Well, yes, that was also what scared me so much is I just thought I can't get a second of this birth wrong because it's such a responsibility to sort of do women justice in the true experience that birth is so I started watching a ton of documentaries home birth videos anything I could find and after hours and hours and days and days of research weeks I realized I didn't know how to act any better than when I started and that was because that even in the documentaries it was sort of edited or sanitized in a way. You'd see little moments, but you wouldn't see it in its full entirety. You wouldn't see in a sort of the messiness of it.

And I asked a lot of my friends and a lot of their birth stories they couldn't quite remember, which also told me a lot about the journeys that they had all gone on individually. So I ended up writing to obstetricians and I wrote to one amazing woman called Claire Mellon who works at the Whittington Hospital she allowed me to come on the labour ward and so I spent many days with midwives there who were really wonderful to me and so generous and we went through the birth scene and they were showing all the different positions and there was one woman on the last day I was there. She's nine centimetres dilated and her name is Erin. And I was like bowled over by her allowing me to be there in one of her most sacred moments, I imagine. And so I watched her for eight hours go on this most incredible journey. I bet she had a few other words for it as well I know well do you know what she was actually there was a woman down the corridor

that was really screaming but um everyone's birth is I guess so different and that's what I was trying to take and how your body reacts is very different yeah but I saw her thinking mind switch off and her body just take over and it was so much power and it just taught me everything but as you've mentioned this isn't a birth that ends with happiness, to put it bluntly. And I know that the other part of the research that you've taken very seriously is around understanding stillbirth and understanding how women have coped on the other side of that when they've gone through all of that journey to not end up with a baby at the end that they can take home or keep home

you actually do a home birth in the film how how did you prepare for that I spoke to so many women that had been through different stages of miscarriage stillbirth or neonatal death at different points obviously and the one thing they had all in common was that they felt like society finds it really hard to talk about and actually it might be the first time they've really properly been asked or been heard or someone wanted to hear it you know in a way um so I've become obviously really passionate about I mean the fact that I learned that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage and yet if you think about the conversation in society it doesn't reflect that 25% of women having gone through it but there was one amazing woman called Kelly who lost her baby Luciana and in a very similar way

to Martha's and she was always with me every day of the filming and I really spent time asking her how it felt so that I could just all I knew my job was just to try and feel it you know on behalf of them and try and distill sort of collected experience into one woman in a particular character and a particular nature of character into her to be able to hopefully represent that for them, which I guess felt like a bigger responsibility simply because I feel like it hasn't been so much yet. I'm hopeful that that will change. I mean, I think it's a very important point you're making there. And may I add, you do it so powerfully. I watched this film on my own. I wanted to watch it on my own and sort of sit with it and be on that journey. Because I think films do have a long way to go to redress the narrative around not only getting pregnant, birth, and then what happens afterwards. Because

so many films, you know, certainly when I was growing up was, you wanted a baby, you got pregnant, there's the baby, boom, you leave the hospital. And I was very struck by something that you said in one of the interviews I read with you, where you talked about, I want to see those big, raw journeys that female characters used to have, and that you want to make films that the women around you say, I know her. I guess that's my belief in cinema, really. I know that when I watch a film, I want to be emotionally engaged with it or connected. I feel it's important to reflect and represent all sorts of different aspects of the human experience. I feel privileged to be a small

part of being able to do that. I've also been struck, though, by some of the narrative around this film, in the sense of you've now been nominated for the Best Actress Award at the Oscars and at the BAFTAs. Congratulations for that, I should hasten to add. But there have been some that said, well, perhaps it may or you may not win because people don't want to award misery. You know, this is not necessarily a film you run towards. And this isn't a film that runs away from its misery. Because why should you move on after a stillbirth?

Why should you do anything other than what Martha's character does, which people will see? What do you make of that? That some people say, oh, gosh, it's just so miserable. Yeah. I mean, I fully hear them and acknowledge it um I sometimes have that thought in the making of it but then I thought about the depth of experience and pain actually that a really um intense loss causes I now feel extremely sensitive, you know, to someone feeling something that perhaps on the surface, they don't show it. And I think when we go through these really intense grieving periods,

whether it's a loss of anything, relationship, a person, someone we love, end of a time in your life or chapter or whatever, you have to grieve. And I think grieving is the most universal human experience and it's uncomfortable and it's hard. And sometimes those days feel like they go on forever. And yet the world around you feels like it's just continuing on, just buzzing onwards. And you're sort of on your lone journey. And I guess I always felt that the film sort of would just hope in some small way to speak to that experience.

For anyone that's going through it right now and feels that they're alone with it do you think men will want to watch the film i mean i hope so i thought a lot about the birth but oh no there's gonna be so many men watching this that have watched women do it and so they'll know if it seems phony yes they'll also know i mean but also they're the other half of the grief i suppose it's just uh know, it's when you want to think about how you appeal to everybody. And it's called Pieces of a Woman. And, you know, it's very important that men are heard in this. But it's not even been told from a female perspective yet. Yes, totally.

And I watched a few brilliant stillbirth documentaries. And almost every single couple that went through it had a completely different grieving experience at the end. And had to go on such a singular, lone journey with it. And often couldn't reach each other because they were so in their experience, it was really hard to access or reach or let in the other person. Which is reflected also in the film, the damage to relationships. Yes, damage to relationships without having tools or support or help to be able to navigate it side by side, but in completely your own way. Everyone has a completely different reaction and experience. And I think more than anything, I think we all hope that the film would speak to that. Most people do not go and watch another woman give birth anyway, full stop. But they certainly

don't do anything like that maybe before they have had a child. I wonder how it's impacted. I don't know if you were ever thinking of that. And I wouldn't wish to pry. But I wonder if it has impacted your view of potentially becoming a mother. And if so, how? Doctor said to me before I went into the labour ward, he said, oh, I just want to warn you, it might put you off if you see one. I went, oh, no, I don't. I mean, maybe, but honestly, watching her do it,

it just made me so excited for hopefully, maybe if I'm lucky enough to do it myself. And now when I see a pregnant lady or someone's about to give birth, or we're talking about it, I feel so connected to them. myself. And now when I see a pregnant lady or someone's about to give birth, or we're talking about it, I feel so connected to them. And then I feel that's such a fraud because of course I haven't remotely even gone near, you know, done it at all. I'm just an actress that's pretended. You're like when I was going through it, you know.

No, I did. My friend, one of my best friends from school is about to give birth. And I said, okay, so, so basically you have to make sure you just, you know, I was giving all this advice. And I thought, oh, God, this is so weird. I'm literally just, you know, an actress having having pretended. Perhaps we'll talk again as and when, if you are in that boat. I feel completely different. We'll have some comparisons, I'm sure, to talk about those those war stories, as some like to call it.

I wanted to ask you about something that we got a letter here from one of our listeners. And it was about the depiction of women in film, in television, and the violence against women and girls that is often part of a storyline. And I have to say, it was after a whole week of coverage, and we'll continue to talk about this, after the killing of Sarah Everard. And I know she actually was a very similar age to yourself, being 33, walking home. I know you also grew up in South West London, I believe. I don't know how you feel about this,

because what we were talking about is the influences and how we show the way men and women interact and how media plays a big part in that, not just film, of course, but how we write things up. Have you been affected by what's happened to Sarah Everard? And have you reflected on the way that we represent women and the way the interplay with men and women? Definitely. I think we all felt it.

I still think of it all the time. I think it's very much in our collective conscious now and I think it's so important. And I do think film and media generally has a responsibility and I really feel that now. And everyone is part of it to take responsibility for that. I think there is space opening up for female writers to come in, of stories that are reflected on our screens, because women are now being invited into the space and actually taking hold of it.

I think a big part of it is really representing what it is actually to be a woman, not a movie type of woman, not a sort of cartoony type. At the Venice Film Festival, after the film was first shown to people for the very first time, a few women came up to me and sort of grabbed my arms and said, oh, thank you for burping. And, you know, I laughed with them and I sort of said,

I was really touched by them saying that. And this is in the birthing scene, just to be... In the birthing scene, yeah, just not generally for burping and screaming, which I'm sure I might have done. But anyway, and it took me a while to process why they were thanking me for that. And then I realised, oh, have done but anyway and it took me a while to process why

they were thanking me for that and then I realized oh I think it's because it was important to reflect the the things that we might perceive as being unpleasant or unpalatable or uncomfortable or unattractive or whatever you know and I just what? But being a woman is so imperfect and messy. And, you know, there are ugly parts. There are beautiful, exquisite parts. And that's what it is to be a human being. And so if I can burp in all my films, I think I'd be happy, to be honest,

because I don't want to show a perfect version of a woman that I don't identify as being like me. Vanessa Kirby there. You can watch Pie version of a woman that I don't identify as being like me. Vanessa Kirby there. You can watch Pieces of a Woman on Netflix now. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, I'm Vanessa Casile

and there is nothing I love more than a great documentary. I'm woken by the sound of gunfire. There's something about a true story told well that changes your perspective on the world. It trusts the wrong people and it's obviously cost them his life. Radio 4 is home to the world's greatest audio documentaries. A film showing bright pink bottoms sitting on victorious sponge cakes is projected onto a screen over the stage. And you can find the best of them all in one place, twice a week. Although we can see and hear these animals,

they're literally living their lives at a different speed to us. The podcast is called Seriously. Subscribe now on the BBC Sounds app. 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.