Woman's Hour - Can trauma in childhood become a driving force for success in later life?

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

In their book What I Wish I’d Known When I Was Young, they interview the likes of Ruth Davidson and Mary Portas and explore the psychology behind their experiences. Hayley is joined by Alice Thomson and also by the science writer David Robson, who investigates the potential issues with the psychological concept of Post-Traumatic Growth. The latest political workplace scandal centres around Plaid Cymru in Wales where the party’s leader Adam Price has resigned after a report described it as being a toxic workplace with evidence of misogyny, harassment and bullying. But such claims are or have been found in all the main political parties despite each putting codes of conducts and complaints procedures to address concerns in these areas. Are behaviours like bullying and abusive behaviour concentrated in certain work places, whether its politics, or institutions like the police or fire service? We hear from the former Welsh Assembly politician Bethan Sayed about the situation facing her former party Plaid Cymru and also to the journalist Kate Maltby, Dr Nicola Thomas from the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield and Baroness Dame Louise Casey who conducted a review into the Metropolitan Police.Cinematic feminist pioneer Nina Menkes speaks about her new docu-film about the objectification of women in film, and the male gaze, called Brainwashed: Sex-Power-Camera. And the issue of when to allow your children to get a mobile phone with Molly Kingsley from the campaign group UsForThem.Presenter: Hayley Hassall Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Bob Nettles

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm Hayley Hassell and I'll be guiding you through this morning's topics of conversation as we discuss the revelations of last week's politics, which led to Adam Price resigning as the head of Plaid Cymru in the Welsh government after Project Pob revealed extensive harassment, misogyny and bullying within the party. Well, I'll be speaking to some of the women affected and concerned about that report and I'll be asking them if such bullying and abusive behaviours

are prevalent across politics and our workplaces. I'll also be speaking to the esteemed film director and filmmaker Nina Menkes about her new film on how nearly every male-directed film objectifies women to extremely dangerous consequences. Her new film, Brainwashed Sex Power Camera, looks at a multitude of film classics you'll know and love and shows how they have been filmed in a way that sidelines the women characters in them

and turns them into just sex objects. Well, it's definitely changed the way I look at films, and it'll be interesting to find out what you think. Plus, I'm joined by Alice Thompson, The Times journalist, who's interviewed hundreds of the most successful people on the planet. And she's noticed that the distressing thing that happens to them in their youth or their childhood can somehow result in them making positive changes or succeed where you may otherwise have not done. Well, I'd love to hear from you. Has there been a difficult time in your life?

Is this something that you can relate to? And has that difficult time in your life some way made a positive change or helped you succeed when otherwise you may not have done i'd love to hear from you and if you feel able to share your stories with me you can do here on woman's hour you can text the program the number is four eight four four sorry eight four eight four four i'll get that right in the end text will be charged at your standard message rate you can also contact us on social media we're're at BBC Woman's Hour and you can email us through our website or you can send a WhatsApp message or voicemail using the number 03700 100

444. Now, data charges may apply depending on your provider, so you might want to use Wi-Fi if you can. Terms and conditions can be found on our website. But first, if you've seen any of the papers this morning or checked online, you will have seen the glittering array of awards from the BAFTAs last night. It was a huge BAFTA success for Kate Winslet and her daughter Mia, as I Am Ruth won the best single drama. It's about a mother's relationship with her teenage daughter and the difficulty that the mother faces and the hurdles

she faces when she tries to tackle her mother's obsession with mobile phones. Well Kate Winslet came on Woman's Hour a few months ago and she talked about this relationship and the difficulties she finds with young people on mobile phones. We don't want our children to hate us. We want to do the right thing. That's why so often parents will say, well, you know, you have to let them have social media because all their friends have had it. And how do you say no? And well, you can say no, you can intervene. It just takes an enormous amount of courage and you have to follow through. And, you know, I don't have a rule book. I don't have a manual. I'm like any other parent who's made it up as I've gone along well.

But I can tell you for sure that, you know, when you can hear that your child is using a phone excessively, you slightly have to kind of let them do it and hope they're going to stop and hope that they might listen to you when you say, oh, go to bed now, darling. You know, we've all been there. I have been there too myself. And we wanted to take the character to a point that she had to intervene because she could see that what was happening to her child was without question actively damaging and truly harming her mental health. And that's when the story really cracks open. Yeah, it's very pertinent as well, for lots of reasons that you've said. But also, I was just looking back on this, the Children's Commissioner

for England, Dame Rachel D'Souza, has said, we're going to look back on this with horror, as to the fact we gave smartphones to children, and what they've been able to see. Her research has said kids have seen, we know about porn, of course course but also beheadings online by a very young age and the message that came from her was do not buy your children a smartphone what do you make of that she's right she's right i don't want to be accused of being a celebrity standing up on a soapbox but it is possible to just say no my children don't have social media and haven't had social media there are many fake accounts out there for myself and also my children, weirdly, so I'm told. But it's possible to just say, no, you can't have it.

You can't have it because I want you to enjoy your life. I want you to be a child. I want you to look at the clouds and not photograph them and post them on your Instagram page and then decide whether or not the clouds were worth looking at because someone thought that they were rubbish. It's tampering with sometimes a very basic level of self-esteem, but on a bigger and darker scale, it is tampering with young people's self-esteem to the extent that they are completely losing a sense of who they are and don't know how to communicate with not just their friends, but their families. And it's making them depressed. It's clearly making them depressed. It's obviously a huge problem. And she's right.

Don't let your children have a phone if they are too young to know what to do with it. Well, that was Kate Winslet there talking to Emma back in December. And you can listen to the whole of that interview on BBC Sounds but I'd love to know what you think you can of course text the programme 84844 and you can contact us on social media at Woman's Hour too

but joining me now is Molly Kingsley one of the founders of the Us For Them campaign which wants to ban smartphones for under 16s Molly thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. It's a pleasure. Kate there talked about it being actively damaging, harming mental health. I mean, what are your views on it? Yeah, I mean, look, I, you know, agree with every word that Kate said. And it's great to see this issue get the level of visibility it deserves because you know the data is clear like we have a child and adolescent mental health crisis in this country and actually and you know

many other countries to Canada and America are seeing the same and and that can be traced back at least in part to the explosion of smartphone use amongst this cohort in about 2012. There's a well-known psychologist, he's called John Haidt, and he's done a lot of research on this. And what he says is actually we are beyond the point now where we can claim that there isn't a causal link. You know, we've known for some time there's correlation. Well, there's also causation,

and smartphones are a real, real problem for our children. I mean, you want to, part of your campaign is asking for it to be banned completely for under 16s. I imagine that's incredibly difficult for any parent to do. I mean, I have a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. I think you've got children of a similar age. And the pressure I feel to get them a mobile phone not not from them but from other families other parents of the children who do have those mobile phones I imagine trying to make that stretch to 16 is incredibly if not impossible yeah and actually the campaign is a little bit

more nuanced than that so you know what we say is at the moment we have a product which manifestly is unsafe for children like that is clear you know we can imagine a world where you have a I guess a kind of dumbed down phone with GPRS we know a lot of parents feel that's important and we understand that and text and call functionality that is okay for kids so we're not just saying you know children should have no phones forever but we are recognizing the reality that where we are now is just it's become unworkable and you know I know obviously there are attempts to deal with this via the online safety bill and you know criminalizing the most egregious and extreme content is is welcome but I think we have to realize that that will only really combat a

fraction of the problem because you know in fact the, obviously, you know, the I Am Ruth was a really good example, actually, of content that wasn't illegal or extreme in itself. You know, the daughter in that programme got addicted to Instagram, I think it was. So that wouldn't be touched by the online safety bill and you know that applies for so much of the um very addictive and inherently i think we would say problematic content and apps on smartphones so until that can be made safe we are saying yeah take they shouldn't be supplied to children they should be treated much in the same way that any other dangerous product would be you know nicotine is the example we use and cigarettes let's have health warnings on the packages and. And let's actually be honest about the damage that this product is doing to our children. So it's not about the phones themselves. It's not about

WhatsApping or messaging or contacting your parents. It's about the access to harmful content that is actually on the internet, but it's so easily accessible in your hand on a mobile phone at a very young age. It is. And it's about the fact that, you know, I think you said it yourself, Hayley, because all the kids have them, it's become a cohort problem. So with the best will in the world, you know, we can all try and do what Kate Winslet did. And I'm sure many of us will feel quite wedded to that idea. So, you know, my guys are six and nine and we have begun having the conversation with my nine-year-old that actually, you know, you won't be getting a smartphone. That sounds really good at this age when none of her friends have smartphones you know what's

going to happen and I do worry about it when she's 12 and 13 and suddenly they all have them and actually the really really awful statistic on this is Ofcom and according to Ofcom, a 2022 report, 91% of 11 year olds, 11 year olds now have phones. The vast majority of those are smartphones and they spend an average of three hours and 20 minutes a day on them. And that it just breaks my heart. Yeah, because the pressure is that the spiel we're told from our from our friends, but also from the other children around us is that you need it when you go to high school. You need to be contacted. But I didn't have it when I went to high school. I did all right. But how do you go about having that discussion with your child? Because practically speaking,

as parents, you know, how do we say what everyone else has, you can't have? Yeah, I think this is the that is the problem. And I think this is why we are saying, you know, we need state help here, we need the government to intervene and take away this problem for the cohort, because it is almost impossible when they all have them. And actually, you know, the other problem here is the schools. So many schools now either don't ban the phones in classrooms. And in some cases, they encourage the kids to do homework on smart tablets, whether that's a phone or an iPad. And that's so problematic because that just totally undermines parents' work in this. You know, how can you say no when actually school is saying, well, you're going to have to have

a smartphone to do your homework? So I think it's, you know, I think we are at the point where we're going to have to treat this or we would like to see it treated in the same way we see other products, which which you know the control of which is out of out of control. Yeah because it's very easy saying parents take this responsibility and you be the bad guy but is it not government that is actually allowing harmful content harmful content to exist on the internet is it not bigger than that because even if we don't have a mobile phone that harmful content is out there isn't it yeah I mean there are two issues so you know if even if the kids didn't have a phone at the moment they would still be exposed to some of that content um you know via

just normal computers and laptops I think instinctively as a parent I think many of us feel a bit less nervous about that because of course if it's if the content is being accessed from a computer it is likely to be being accessed from home so there is a degree of control there I think the problem we're seeing now is the kids who have um you know like you say the phone in their pocket and actually it's totally out of parental control and although there are you know ways in which in theory um you know kids access to certain apps or certain apps for a length of time can be controlled the reality is that just isn't working and as soon as someone in the classroom has the app or the phone well it all falls down anyway exactly they show everybody else but molly it's something we're talking about always on

woman's hour so thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about it with us this morning. That's Molly Kingsley from Us For Them. It's something that has sparked your interest. Lots of people are getting in touch with the show already. And this text says, the bullying that goes on via social media is so damaging. You are spot on with depression and children. Parents do need to have the courage to say no. And Heather has tweeted to say, it's much easier for Kate Winslet to say her kids aren't going to have smartphones.

People still will make the effort to connect with Kate and her kids. That's not the case for the average high school student who will miss out because they don't have WhatsApp in their pocket. We'll keep those comments coming in. It's definitely a talking point we need to progress further on the show. But for now, let's move on to the latest political workplace scandal, because it centres around Plaid Cymru in Wales, where the party's leader, Adam Price, has resigned after a report described it as being a toxic workplace with evidence of

misogyny, harassment and bullying. But such claims have been found in all the main political parties, despite each one putting codes of conduct and complaints procedures in place. Now, we've spoken about misogyny in the workplace so often here on Woman's Hour. And it's made me want to ask, are behaviours like bullying and abusive behaviour concentrated in certain workplaces, whether that's politics or institutions like the police or the fire service? And is there enough being done to tackle it and make women feel safe at work? Well, to find out more about this, I'm joined now by the former Welsh Assembly politician Bethan Syed, who can talk about the situation facing her former party, Plaid Cymru. She's on the line, but also Dr Nicola Thomas from the Institute of Work Psychology

at the University of Sheffield is also on the line. And the journalist Kate Maltby is here with me in the studio, plus Dame Louise Cassie, who's recently wrote the report into the Met Police. She's here with me to give her perspective. Well, welcome to you all. Thank you so much for coming on this morning. I'm going to start with you first, Bethan, if I can, because let's start with me to give her perspective. Well, welcome to you all. Thank you so much for coming on this morning.

I'm going to start with you first, Bethann, if I can, because let's start with the report, Interplied Cymru by Nerys Evans, because this report has been almost six months in the making now and its revelations are honestly shocking. I mean, it starts by saying the vast majority of women that Nerys has worked with have experienced sexual harassment and many have experienced sexual assault. But most of them didn't make formal complaints. Now, for me reading this report, I expected to be told tales of inappropriate behaviour because, after all, that's what this report is meant to do.

But to have in the first paragraph that the majority of women she's worked with have suffered sexual harassment. I was taken aback by that. Were you? What did you make of this report? I wasn't taken aback because I think it's something that is particularly rife in politics. And it's one of the reasons why I stood down, not only because I had a child during Covid, but because I felt that the culture in politics, not just in Plaid Cymru to be fair, is pretty toxic. It's pretty individualistic and it breeds a culture of attracting a certain type of individual who is obsessed with power, as opposed to looking perhaps sometimes at the gains we can get for our constituents. And I think that's really sad. And I think Nerys's report reflects a lot of the

problems that are to be discussed as part of the wider political stratosphere if you would and we need to be thinking about how we can attract more women more diverse people and my worry is of course with the report is that it may detract people from coming but you know it's up to us as a party to clean it up. It's up to everybody to try and make politics a more attractive place to work. But that's going to take a lot of change and a lot of culture change. Well, of course, and to be honest, after reading this report, it's not going to attract more women, is it? But as you say, things need to change and things need to change quickly because like yourself, there are women there working in this environment. I mean, you call it toxic. What do you mean by that? What is it like?

I think it's just because you feel like you're working on your own quite often. You feel like everybody is trying to get one up on you or to compete with you or to not support you when you raise things. So, you know, I understand why people didn't put reports in, because as a politician, for example, you're trying your best to come in on debates, to represent your constituents. And if you put a complaint in, you may be doing so against a colleague. You may then lose support amongst your local membership. You may then face backlash yourself, which a lot of women do. And so then people just try and get on with things in a very difficult way. And so the other issue is people going out socially. So I think many of the issues Nerys

might talk about is how perhaps senior politicians would treat female staff or female politicians when they go out socially, having some drinks comments that are made or people touching other people in an inappropriate way and people feeling that they can't raise those concerns because the processes are not as such that they can raise that in a fair way um those are some of the things that i think um would be part of aneris's experience in writing this report although i'm sure she would have been party to more serious information that, frankly, I am not party to. But you were there and you were part of that. You did see a lot, but you didn't report it. Do you regret that? Yeah, I mean, I regret it because, you know, in hindsight, you think, well, I'm always telling other women to do these things

and to raise their voices. And at a time when I could have done something, I didn't. But, you know, it's really difficult because especially if politicians are your seniors and you are. I was 25 when I was elected. So I was I was new. I was particularly vulnerable and naive. And I think, you know, in hindsight now, I would be a much stronger and much more bolshie person. But at the time, no, I didn't report things. And yes, I should have done. And that's something that will stay with me, I'm sure. I'm sure. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty as well, Bethann. But I want to bring in my other guest now, Kate Maltby. Kate, your background

is in politics. You worked for a think tank, Bright Blue, and moved in conservative circles. And that's where in 2018, you made a complaint about Damien Green, the then Deputy Prime Minister, about his behaviour. Now, I won't go into details of that right now, but you've since campaigned on this issue, facing staff working in politics. So you must feel incredibly frustrated or even angry when you read a report like this. What is your reaction to what's happening implied? I think my reaction is sort of a wary cynicism, I'm afraid. I mean, just to be clear on that, it was 2017 and it was about an incident quite much further back in the past. But as you say, I haven't just campaigned on these issues. I think

what happens if you become someone who makes a complaint against someone quite prominent, and of course, there were a number of us who did that in 2017, because it was a global wave of standing up around sexual harassment, it was very much kind of international network of solidarity, is that you become someone other women come to or indeed other men this this is an experience that happens to young men often to young gay men and you become someone who people come to for advice um it is still the case that the overwhelming number of people who come to me for advice about making a complaint about sexual harassment in politics don't end up making that complaint um and why is that as Bethan, their fear of the backlash or they're more

concerned about the cause of the work they're doing so they don't want to put a halt to that? Why do you think so many women are going through these instances but not feeling they can report it? They're coming to you to talk about it but that's not going to change anything, is it? No, I think there are lots of different reasons. I think in politics in particular it remains the case that politics relies on very tight groups of people with very strong loyalty to each other within a much broader viper's nest of brutal political competition. So politics is a very nasty business. But you will have, if you're a senior politician, a very tight team around you of the very few people who you do actually trust. And if I would say that a large number of these cases and Plaid is actually an

example. Obviously, we can't talk about individual cases. But this is something that lies behind the Plaid report, if you look at the private details is that you have people who are very important as loyalists or advisors to the senior politician. And it's not the senior politician who's the perpetrator. They're not a sex pest. They haven't done anything wrong in that sense. But they rely so much on their right-hand man or their right-hand woman, and frankly, it is usually a man, that they're just not prepared to police this kind of behavior. I would say, I mean, I said weary cynicism or even wary cynicism both um i'm quite you started this segment by by

describing it as the latest workplace sexual harassment scandal and you then went on to talk about how you know women's hour finds itself discussing this a lot and women's hour is brilliant on this issue and you know you cover this subject seriously, but with all due respect to your brilliant programme, I find it quite sad that here at the BBC, it is always Women's Hour talking about this issue. Because actually, the biggest problem around this, the culture of sexual harassment in politics, and I think later we're going to go on to talk about is this something that exists across institutions, is that it's something that women care about. Some young men increasingly care about it

and a lot of queer people care about it because they're disproportionately targeted. But fundamentally, it's something that senior men don't take seriously. And that is also true at newspapers. And I'll let you move on to the other guests in a minute. But the last point I wanted to make is that when it comes to Plaid, it has been known for quite some time that there were issues around the sexual harassment culture in Plaid. And it hasn't been picked up by national media. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that however important, you know,

the Welsh Assembly, it's a national government, the Senedd, it wields real power. And yet, from a national media perspective across the United Kingdom, this to a lesser extent is true of the way we look at the SNP from here in London in Westminster. I'm afraid people simply, news organisations don't give it the attention it deserves. The other thing is I have talked to women who've had experience at supply before is I have talked to women who've had experiences in fly before. I've talked to editors. I'm not the only one. I know of other journalists who have talked to editors who have actually tried to do this story before. I spoke to someone very recently who's a very senior reporter, much more experienced than me, a woman reporter, tried to

get this story published by a national newspaper. Male senior editor just didn't think it was a story. You make some very good points. But I mean, we're here on Women's Hour and we are talking about it. So we're trying to raise that as much as we can. And it's something we will continue to talk about. But I suppose what interests me is that it's not just something that is happening with Implied, is it? It's something that you have drawn across. It might be across the board.

It's happening perhaps to all parties. Many parties have had similar issues in recent years relating to bullying and sexual harassment. The Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Conservatives, Labour. In fact, there is a current issue in Labour which illustrates that point. You know, an aide, as you specified, advising a front-bench politician

is reported to have had two complaints upheld against him, but he's still in the job. Is this something that is happening across the board, do you think? So, yes. I should just say for clarity, that particular aide was finally forced to stand down, but only after it became a national story. There were two complaints upheld against him

by the independent process within his own party. And they allowed him to keep his job. It was only when outrage followed in the media that he stood down. But this is a every single party has this problem. And we tend to forget sometimes the scandals in their closets. I mean, this is it is now 10 years, I think this year, since the scandal broke surrounding allegations made around Chris Renard, the Lib Dem peer. He is still a Lib Dem peer, despite a QC's report finding those allegations broadly credible all those years ago.

And these things, the examples you give are just illustrating again, how even when you do report it, that it doesn't give women confidence to report it in the future because these people, not much is changing and not much is happening. Now, I want to bring in you, Dame Louise Casey, because this is something you've looked into across many organisations and spectrums. Your review into the culture within the Met Police found alarming instances of bullying, ignoring women, sexual harassment and racism. So what is it about these workplaces that is allowing this to happen? So I think you can't necessarily put them all in the same bucket, as it were. So I think politics and political parties, as Kate said,

loyalty is just so important to them. You know, people having their back. It's a very backstabbing environment. In order to be successful, they have to sell themselves constantly. It's quite a brutal environment. So good people that go into politics, I think, can end up in a place where actually their ruthlessness to get to the top, the greasy pole, the whatever expression you want to use,

becomes more important, actually, for some of them than the dignity of getting something right. I mean, Kate called it a viper's nest. Is there a tribalism? There's a tribalism. There's a, you know, the cultures within those organisations don't lend themselves to sort of openness and transparency. And, you know, you would be pretty brave if you were going to come forward and make a complaint about a senior politician. That would take some gumption and the sort of kickback from that would be great. I think it would be huge, not great as in good, great as in massive. And I think the other thing that is really interesting about it that I've got a real, you know, bee in my bonnet about for all of these institutions is that if there are no consequences,

all those consequences aren't acted upon quickly, then the rot sets in. And the rot sets in, which then means that people look at that and think, well, why would I say anything? And the other thing that certainly we found in the Met, and I would not be surprised in the Metropolitan Police in London, forgive me,

is that I think the other thing that is really disturbing is that people that do make complaints, the sort of comeback on them is huge. So we had enormous numbers of women in particular and people who were black or from an ethnic minority, whereas they put their heads above the parapet, they essentially get shot down and brutally. So people would plan their payback, they would counterclaim, they would, more often than not, it's the woman that gets moved if she makes a complaint rather than the perpetrator. So all of the things, there's an irony to this, that in the criminal justice system, the theory is that we believe the victim, and we come behind the victim. Yet the very institution that starts with those victims are the people that do not come behind the victim. And I thought the one that when I published and I was keen actually to get to a Women's Hour

audience is that 85% of complaints about police-perpetrated domestic violence, so these are police officers or staff who have been accused by their partners or others of domestic violence, their complaints go nowhere. 85%. So in a way that tells you all you need to know. What has happened since? I mean, have changes took place? Have they listened? Because those revelations are shocking in themselves. How has it landed? Well, I mean, we're a month in to the publication of the report, and therefore it's very early days.

And I don't really want, you know, the jury is out for me at the moment as to whether the Metropolitan Police has taken it seriously enough and has put action in place to respond to the report. And I think in a way, it's because people in institutions don't see what's happening deep in their organisation. So I also did an inspection into Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in 2016, excuse me, forgive me, that looked at essentially child sexual exploitation. And the saddest thing, apart from the horrific torture and abuse of those young women, was that good people, police officers, social workers, council staff, knew that it was happening and they did nothing.

And so I think what's very interesting if we don't discuss institutions and we don't discuss issues like misogyny and sexism, is that essentially bad stuff can actually happen. And it happened in I think that's exactly right but in something like the police where 50% of London now is not white it's black or a minority ethnic background and let's face it 50% of the population are women if your organisation is still marching on a white male mis, misogynist, racist culture, you are not serving the people that, in theory, are as a taxpayer and paying you to service. So I think where institutions have to get their heads into in the 21st century is that, actually, we serve the public, and the public aren't all white, and they aren't all male,

and they're not all misogynists. And this is, of course, what you've asked for and what your report asked for. And I know you say you're only a month in, but I just want to press you on that because a month in is still enough time for some changes to take place and a hope for those changes to take place. Is there any sign of that at all? So I was disappointed at the publication that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Markley didn't accept the findings in full. He accepted the findings, but then he went down a rabbit hole of deciding whether he would or wouldn't use the word institutional, which I thought was crazy, to be completely honest, and also disrespectful to black and minority ethnic Londoners. And so I was disappointed with that, you know, the Metropolitan Police, whether you call it systemic, organisational, institutional, whichever word you want to use,

it has deep into its organisation, the inability to actually get it right for black people and also for women. So for example, in misconduct cases, you are less likely if if you're a woman, to have your misconduct case go forward. They're much more likely to be dropped. Why? Because the Metropolitan Police remains 80 plus percent male and 70 plus percent white. And so until those sorts of things change, the organisation won't change. So they're on, you know, for me, I want them to change. I'm desperate for them to change. But it's not happening soon by the hands of it, which is extremely disappointing. You have to, in order to change, you have to accept what's shown you in the mirror. You have to dig deep and you have to work out what it is you want to change.

Well, it sounds like there's a battle you've just started and we're going to continue pushing forward there. But I'm going to bring in Dr Nicola Thomas, because Nicola, you focus on the psychology within work and institutions like the government, but other organisations too. I mean, all the parties and parliaments around the UK have complaints procedures in place, including big organisations like the police. So what's going wrong if this behaviour is still occurring? Yeah, definitely. I think Kate, Bethan and Dame Louise, you've all brought up incredibly poignant points that sort of hint at why this is happening. I think when we look at different sectors, for example, we can see that research has found that across public sector organisations compared to other sectors,

there are higher incidents of instability, bullying, and harassment. I think this is an incredibly important point to make when we consider why in political parties, for example, as opposed to in more private businesses, there's a higher incident rate of this. And it comes down to things that we've already talked about in this discussion. For example, power, power imbalances, politicking and political behaviors in the workplace, as well as systemic factors like racism, misogyny, and other factors which are obviously going to impact bullying. So I think there are sector differences. For example, when we look at healthcare, academia, charity, army, police, political parties, these are sectors that are heavily influenced by bullying and harassment.

And Kate talked about the viper's nest. Louise talked about this greasy pole. Is power within the workforce got a part to play in this? Absolutely. That really comes down to sort of the heart of bullying and harassment. When we look at power, it really sort of impacts how people are performing at work. So we know that power has a corrupting influence on people. So studies have shown that sort of prolonged exposure to power can corrupt and influence people on an individual level. It often leads them to have more self-serving decisions and potentially abusive behavior. So when we look at organizations that have quite a strong hierarchy and a lot of

power imbalances embedded within the organization, we can see that these power dynamics are related to the way that people act. And this is particularly important when we consider the impact of power. So power has been shown to promote stereotyping, devaluing of others, selfishness, aggression, reductions and sensitivity to social disapproval, reduction, empathy and compassion. So this role of power is really, really significant when we're specifically looking at political parties and the police, for example, these roles in society that do have a lot of power. And lastly, this is something I want to put to you all, actually. I mean, we could talk about this for so much longer. There's so much to say, but we do have to move on.

I mean, from Nerys's report in particular, there was her talking about so many staff members felt that they couldn't even complete the survey, never mind report what had happened to them. Now, these are supposedly strong, intelligent women who their job is to fight for the rights of others and they're afraid. What sort of culture is this that we have created that is stopping women even filling out a survey about their experiences?

Yeah it's one I think of victim blaming where people don't feel comfortable to report instances. It's a horrible sign of misogyny and not a good indication of how in society we do not appreciate and take people at face value. Thank you. We will have to wrap up there. Sorry, Louise, do you just want to say something lastly, quickly? Yeah, just really quickly that I think the difference in something like the health service, but specifically in the police is the police is a command and control structure. So it orders people to do things. And that is very different to the other environments. I mean, the police is a command and control structure. So it orders people to do things.

And that is very different to the other environments. I mean, the army is similar, but it's not on our soil. It isn't policing our own citizens. So the power that we give police officers and therefore their structures is more than any other organisation in public life. And that's why that comes with the responsibility to do good to its own people and I think but it can also be abused it can be abused and I think the key thing here is people have to face if you have standards you have to enforce them. Thank you, thank you Dame Louise Casey,

thank you Kate Mulby, thank you Dr Nicola Thomas and Bethan Syed as well, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Now we're going to move on to our next topic because it's an important one that many people have been contacting us online about. Can trauma in childhood become a driving force for success in later life? Having spent their careers interviewing successful people from prime ministers to CEOs,

the Times journalists Alice Thompson and Rachel Sylvester noticed that many shared an experience of trauma in their childhood and younger years. Their new book, What I Wish I'd Known When I Was Young, contains interviews with the likes of Angela Rayner, retail guru Mary Portis and best-selling author Maggie O'Farrell and explores how they feel their experiences in childhood may have informed their careers. Well, to discuss this further with me and to interrogate the psychology behind this post-traumatic growth, I'm joined by Alice Thompson and also by the science writer and author of Expectation Effect, David Robson.

Alice, thank you for coming on the show and talking about this. The book sounds like it's jam-packed of these stories, which I can't wait to read. But what prompted you to write the book in the first place? Well, Rachel, Sylvester and I have spent the last two decades actually interviewing probably over a thousand people. And they tend to be the people in the Times who were the people of that week. So they are either CEOs or they were archbishops or politicians, authors, actors. And they're all very much at the top of their profession. And what we discovered over those years was that almost all of them had had something

that had gone wrong in their childhoods. And sometimes it's quite minor, but for them, it was really, you know, traumatising or affecting. And they all have these stories about themselves. And I think that depends. I mean, you've got Andy McNabb, who was left in a harrods bag outside a hospital when he was born you had james dyson whose father died when he was 10 and a lot of them do have parents who've died and you see that particularly in politicians and in prime ministers that a third of them have had a parent since 1725 i think it is who who has died before they were 15.

And that is quite extraordinary. I mean, you've spoken to some amazing and inspirational women. Who stands out for you? Because I know you've had Ruth Davidson, for instance. Angela Rayner, we've talked about. Kirsty Alsop. Who has stood out for you? And how do you believe their trauma informed their career?

I think people like Maggie O'Farrell have been exceptional because they've had so many near death experiences and that she kept going and that's informed her writing. But it's probably the politicians that have stood out for me because I think they have to be so brave and keep going. But also, I think that that's what's helped them, that they want to take back control of their lives, particularly the women. And they want to then prove themselves and they need to be in the public eye so I'd say Arlene Foster and Ruth Hitson and Lorena are particular examples of this when they've all had really awful things happen and can you can you tell us about them what happened I mean you say Maggie Farrell had so many near death experiences what do you mean well she just kept she just kept, she was, you know, she was nearly raped, she was abused. She had this terrible illness when she nearly died. And she heard the nurses talking about having nearly died when she was in hospital. And she was in hospital for nearly a

year, which is, you know, extraordinary when she was very young. And I think that that helped her to write probably. And then she's had times when she dived off a cliff when she was at school and she was swimming and she very nearly drowned. And it's rather extraordinary that she really did have so many different experiences that went on to inform her writing. And her daughter now has she's very, very allergic to nuts and has a lot of allergies. So could also find it very difficult at any time. They're worried about having to rush her off to hospital. So she's particularly aware of death and I think Arlene Foster's the same in that she was head of the DUP and she nearly died three times her father was shot at he was a policeman and he was a farmer and he was shot at by the IRA and she had to drag him aged eight with her grandmother

into their farmhouse and he just survived and then she went into a safe house they moved house but a few years later she was on a school bus and she had forced her best friend to sit in the aisle because she wanted to sit by the window and someone came on and rolled a bomb down the bus which exploded and her friend was very badly injured and again Ennis Gillen she was there at school and her head girl, and she very much wanted to become head girl and someone else had. The head girl got killed in the Ennis Gillen bomb. So she had three appalling incidents. My goodness. And do they believe that their trauma did inform their career then? I think they all do, because actually, I think it can either give you, it gives you extraordinary resilience.

It can make you very angry or very driven or very much more empathetic. With her, she said, when I was interviewing her, I remember her daughter rang up and had forgotten her school PE kit and was worried about it. And I said, how do you cope with children now having such small anxieties when you nearly died? And she explained it by saying, it's all really actually whether you think it's normal. So as a child, so many things have happened in Northern Ireland that she didn't think she was different or abnormal. Whereas if you nearly died three times now, or your parents did, as a child, you would feel you were being appallingly picked on. You'd feel

you were desperately unlucky. Yeah, and I mean, I suppose it may be, you talk about her sat next to somebody who got harmed and being in the wrong place at the wrong time as well. Those near misses as well sometimes make you reflect on your life but I suppose there must be lots of other people who of course did not succeed after they went through these traumas and so I'm going to bring in David now because you of course are a science writer is there any science behind this? I mean the science

of post-traumatic growth is very conflicting, actually. There's evidence for both sides of it. I think the balance of the evidence is now changing. I think in the 1990s and early 2000s, there seemed to be a lot of evidence that post-traumatic growth was very common. Sandberg and Oprah Winfrey who quoted these statistics that up to 70% of people who've experienced a trauma experience some kind of growth afterwards. But now we know that some of that science was quite flawed over kind of methodological problems that had overinflated the prevalence. And so it looks now that post-traumatic growth really isn't as common at all as we thought. You know, most people who experience trauma are more likely to get PTSD, to have depression, to have worse outcomes. So while I wouldn't deny at all that there are people who have grown from their trauma, I think those are quite rare outliers, really, rather than the kind of experience that most people should expect.

And it begs the question, are those people strong and determined before the trauma? Were they always going to succeed? I suppose you'll never know, but it definitely springs to my mind. Yeah, I think that's absolutely the issue is, you know, are these people kind of excellent despite what happened to them or because of what happened to them? And my hunch is that for lots of these people, it's maybe despite what happened to them or because of what happened to them and my hunch is that for lots of these people it's maybe um despite what happened to them i think it's also to record or important to recognize the kind of amount of support that these people had to maybe help them to cope with all of those traumas you know i think that can be we know social support is one of the biggest

predictors of uh people's, health outcomes after trauma. So, you know, it's not just the individual's kind of strength, it's the help they're getting. So all of these factors can be really important. This has got lots of people talking online and getting in contact with the show, actually, David and Alice. And I'm going to read a couple out to you because it definitely rings true with what you're saying. Someone's just texted in to say,

I don't believe power corrupts a person. Power reveals what is already present in that person. But someone else says, there's a systematic problem of sexism in the workplace. And that they, oh, sorry, that's about the previous topic, which I'll discuss later. But it's definitely a point that these people are strong in their own rights.

And are we necessarily saying that the tragedy in their life created that? Alice, I'm just interested because the people you've spoken to, I wonder how they are, they may be successful in their career, but how do they feel emotionally? Is their happiness fulfilled

or has the trauma affected that in possibly a negative way? We were very careful in our book, actually, to make it clear that they often are very successful and have become successful, but they're not always happy. And I think in general, they're probably less happy because they've put getting to the top, succeeding, proving themselves before having a family and relationships. And you have to be quite self obsessed, I think, to get to the very top. Some of these people, you have to sacrifice a lot and they're prepared to do that because they want to prove themselves.

I also think it is true. We did talk to a lot of people when they haven't been fulfilled. And we also talked to people at the top whose siblings haven't done well. And that's very clear that it's often just one child in a family when something goes wrong that really propels themselves forward. And it's not everybody at all and I think you have to be very clear to recognize that you can have terrible traumas in your childhood and it is impossible to overcome those but there's some very good research showing that I think some children just are naturally more resilient they're dandelions they can grow everywhere and some children are more like orchids and really do need the right conditions to thrive.

And of course trauma can lead to things like as David mentioned PTSD and other issues as well. It's something lots of you are getting in touch about. I'd love to hear if you have a story or an experience that resonates with that. You know how to contact the programme. Please do let us know your thoughts but Alice, David thank you so much for joining us this morning and thank you very much for your thoughts. Good luck with the book. And it'll be lovely to speak to you about its response. Now, I'm moving on to the issue of film and what we see on our screens before us. What was the last film you watched? Can you remember the women in it?

I mean, probably. But were you aware of how that woman was filmed? And how did watching them make you feel? Well, for filmmaker and director Nina Menkes, watching how women were portrayed on screen always made her feel a bit revolted. So now to explain what The Male Gaze is and why objectification of women on film is so damaging. She's made a new film, Brainwashed Sex, Power and Camera. And I'm delighted that Nina joins me now in the studio. Good morning, Nina.

Hi. Now, I thought the film was so powerful. But also, if I may say, it was very uncomfortable, actually. Because on the one hand, it made me open my eyes to how women are filmed that I hadn't really taken notice of before. They're very much made into these sexual objects. But it also ruined a lot of my favorite films for me films like Some Like It Hot and Gone With The Wind. I don't think I can watch again after seeing your documentary. What is the response been? I've heard that actually quite often, like women telling me I

loved your film, but you ruined all my favorite films. Actually, the film I hear the most uh often is Blade Runner the original Blade Runner people love that film and when they see the uh rape scene that turns into a love scene um kind of broken down people kind of get pretty upset a one critic told me she had to take a Valium after she saw my goodness so I mean it is very difficultium after she saw the film. My goodness. So, I mean, it is very difficult for me to describe the film, actually, because it's part lecture, part documentary, part archive driven. Can you tell us about Brainwashed and why you decided to make it in the first place? Yeah, well, first of all, a little bit about the film.

It contains 175 film clips from A-list movies. Because sometimes when people hear about, you know, this phrase, the objectification of women, they think of sort of the B movies or sex comedies. And no, we're looking at the top directors of the world, the sacred cows of cinema, whether it's Martin Scorsese, Sofia Coppola, Spike Lee, really top directors and how everybody pretty consistently over decades and also over genres uses a specific kind of visual language that serves to objectify and disempower women. And then we tie that to the twin epidemics of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and employment discrimination against women. This is sort of like, I call it a devil's knot. So because, as you say, you kind of connect the way women are filmed to the employment of women, actually, and the treatment of women.

I mean, you go as far as to say this power imbalance results in sexual harassment in the workplace. Can you expand more on that? Well, the way that women are photographed, a lot of people have thought about and talked about the representation of women. And when we talk about representation, it usually has to do with the character that they're playing or the script or the dialogue. Is it a maid or a sexy babe or is it a CEO? The characters. But what we're looking at in Brainwashed is the actual shot design and how the shot design disempowers women, even when that woman is a protagonist, even when the director is a woman, even when the content of the film

is ostensibly feminist, you might see shot design that disempowered position and you know even be silent in the face of sexual harassment and assault which we've seen you know that really erupted with the me too movement that you know it was a silent epidemic well you talk about the meeting movement in the film actually because obviously, when we're thinking about women in film, that springs to mind. I mean, that you'd hope has prompted a real change in the industry. Has it, do you think? And have you noticed any positive outcomes? Yeah, I think we've seen, you know, we've seen a change, we've seen progress, you know, there's more people speaking out. We just had the verdict, the Trump verdict, you know, we had the successful prosecution of Harvey Weinstein. But that said, there's probably

hundreds of thousands of other perpetrators who are, you know, not taken down, who are still out there doing their thing. Although I do feel that because of all the awareness around this issue, it's not quite as prevalent as it was before. I wouldn't, however, go so far as to say, you know, we're out of the woods. Really? I mean, you go even further in the film and to pick up on the lack of consent that's shown in films, many scenes, I mean, I talked about Gone with the Wind, but there's lots of instances. Many scenes, I mean, I talked about Gone With The Wind, but there's lots of instances where women are saying, no, no, no, and then it continues.

And then in the end, they're happy about it, which of course is not the same in real life. That was quite uncomfortable to watch. Why did you feel that was important to display? Well, it goes, you know, it's a trope that is very, very common. I mean, we could have made a two get the idea that, you know, being very pushy is the right masculine way to act. You know, in reality, most women who are pushed and forced into a sexual situation are not very happy about it. So how do we change things then? How do we go about that? Is it about changing the sex of the people who are making the films? Do we ban male directors? What do we do? Well, I'm of the belief that consciousness is transformational. And I really think that the

more awareness is brought to bear on all of these issues,, you know, my personal contribution to the story is this shot design element, which is a very, in a way, both subtle but very powerful meta message that underlies all sorts of storylines and all sorts of genres. It's always there, this way that shot design disempowers women. if we become aware of it, we won't be so affected by it unconsciously. And we'll be able to say, like, oh, I know why when I was sitting in that movie, let's say with my boyfriend, he was really loving it. And I felt a little weird, and I felt a little uncomfortable. And I didn't really know why. And I suppose what something that many women would say is a kind of counterpoint that for many actresses, their sexuality is their power.

Absolutely. They've made it on the screen because of that. So you can't eradicate that, can you? The sexual objectification and the beauty of a woman actress is her main calling card. And therefore, you know, her value goes down after, let's say, age 35. I mean, that's one of the problems, you know. I mean, men are trained to be, you know, the way I break it down in the movie, I think it's important is, you know, we've all heard this phrase, the objectification of women, right? But the, a woman as object doesn't exist by itself. The object always exists in relationship to a subject, right? And the subject object relationship is a power relationship, where the subject has the power and the object is there to please or otherwise.

Back to that power again, of course. Yeah, and it's something you can clearly see in the film. In fact, lots of people are getting in touch talking about this. So we just had a text here that says, I watched High Society last night. It's a story about breaking a woman's spirit and forcing her to prioritize men and their desires. It totally made me see it in a different light. That's from Marge in the Midlands.

So it is definitely in our consciousness now. And it's something that you are going to be showing in not only Brainwashed, but there's a series of your films playing at South Bank here in London. So we will be able to watch that, of course, on the big screen. And thank you, Nina Menkes. Thank you. The Brainwashed Sex Camera Power is in cinemas now with an accompanying film season,

Cinematic Sorceress, the films of Nina Menkes running all May at the Film Institute on the South Bank. So thank you very much. And thank you for your text this morning. Lots of you are talking about misogyny within the workplace. And this one here says there's a systematic problem of sexism in the workplace. Just think of the language we use in schools, for example, male teachers are sir and honorific while women teachers are miss and diminutive, it's ingrained in our children and it's ingrained in all our work life as well. Thank you for that, Sophie. Also, lots of people getting in touch about giving your mobile phone to children. Patsy says, I have two children, daughter 14 and son 13.

My daughter has just accepted a mobile phone after refusing one for years. People know where to find me if they want to speak to me. Well, thank you very much for all those comments this morning. We, of course, are back tomorrow. But for now, that's it and see you tomorrow at 10am. Well, thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour on BBC Sounds. Opening Lines, a series from BBC Radio 4, in which I'll be looking at books, plays, poems and stories of all kinds that have made a mark and asking, what makes them work? This stuff is jaw-droppingly shocking. I'll be asking lots of questions.

What's at the heart of the story? How does it achieve its effect? What makes it special? History is usually written by winners, but he wants to give a voice to people who are not usually heard. I'll be hearing from people who know and love these works. Writers. We do have an orgasm evoked on the page. Dramatists. Biographers. It's worn better as a book about England than it has as a book about sex, I think. And directors too. In the end, I'll be asking,

what makes this work worth reading now? Join me to find out in opening lines from BBC Radio 4 and available on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.