Woman's Hour - Crazy Cat Ladies, Female QCs and Rough sex as defence

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

If you are man and own a cat, you are a man with a cat. If you are a woman with one, you are a crazy cat lady. Recently the term crazy cat lady has been reclaimed in a positive way on social media but many say it is a pejorative term used against women who break from tradition. Alice Maddicott is the author of Cat Women and writer Kat Brown has two cats, Ambridge and Genevieve and has written about the support they gave her during fertility treatment. Next week 114 new QCs will receive their silks at a ceremony in front of the Lord Chancellor at Westminster Hall. Of those 114 just 30 are women. So what’s holding women back? A children’s nurse on the edge of physical and mental collapse is at the centre of a new novel Rest And Be Thankful. The author, Emma Glass is a paediatric nurse herself so she knows all about hands red raw from washing and how to support grieving parents so why did she decide to write a novel using her experiences? Rough sex is sometimes used as a defence in court cases involving sexual violence. The government says it’s going to look at these rough sex laws as part of the Domestic Abuse Bill, which had its First Reading in the House of Commons last week. Parliament being prorogued and then the election in December delayed the progress of the Bill. To get the latest on the Bill is the MP and Mother of the House, Harriet Harman.Presenter: Jenni Murray Interviewed guest: Alice Maddicott author of Cat Women Interviewed guest: Writer Kat Brown Interviewed guest: Sian Mirchandani QC from 4 New Square Interviewed guest: Rebecca Tuck from Old Square Chambers Interviewed guest: Author Emma Glass Interviewed guest: MP Harriet Harman Producer: Henrietta Harrison

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 11th of March. Good morning. The mother of the house, the MP Harriet Harman, has long campaigned for a rough sex defence where a woman has been killed to be made illegal. As the Domestic Abuse Bill has its first reading in the House, is she reassured that her demands will be met? Rest and Be Thankful is a novel by Emma Glass

about the stress suffered by a paediatric nurse while she used her own experience on the wards to create a fiction. And a woman and her cat. Why does it make her a crazy cat lady when a man with a cat is just a man with a cat? Now next week, 114 barristers will receive silk and become Queen's Council. Of the 114 who will appear at the ceremony in front of the Lord Chancellor at Westminster Hall, Only 30 will be women. Across the profession, where there are currently 1,834 QCs, only 298 are female. That's a mere 16%.

What holds women back from making an application for what is effectively promotion? Well, Rebecca Tuck will be one of the women at the ceremony on Monday. Sian Mirchandani became a QC last year. Sian, what do you see as the barriers to women becoming QCs? Well, the process and the application is based on a number of cases that you put forward as demonstrating your excellence. The number is 12. It's been 12 for some time. And for each case, you have to get a judge referee. That's the current

application process, as well as listing your opponents and your client. Now, that would be fine for everybody, but the cases have to be able to be described as substantive, law-changing, high-value or sensitive. And they all have to take place within three years. Now, that makes it quite difficult for women who have perhaps had a career break to effectively get the number of cases of that standing within the time and then have no scope for a case that perhaps didn't go the way they wanted. 12 cases is just a very large hurdle to get over.

How did you manage to get your application in, Rebecca? There is an element of being in the right place at the right time. There is an element of making your own luck. We have quite an active pro bono world at the employment law bar, which I operate in. So one of my cases was a pro bono case, which I went looking for. Which means you do it for free. But I think the first thing is that you have to be instructed on these cases. And some of the big magic circle solicitors firms are just looking at their statistics. And one of them has announced that 88% of their instructions go to male barristers. But who do you depend on to get your instructions?

Is it the clerk of chambers on whom you depend? I think that dependence really depends on the sector of the bar you're in and very much the set you're in. The dependence is almost historical for some sets. It's really not present. You make your reputation. It's based on the name of your set and your own performance. The clerks will, to some some extent assist you in your promotion.

In other sets, the clerk is absolutely instrumental in terms of getting the work to the particular barristers. So there's no one answer to that particular question. How did you manage to get your impressive cases? I'm very active in the employment law world I was chair of the industrial law society and I have quite a big network of solicitors who many of whom have been very phenomenal and supportive I agree that the power of the clerk can change depending on area of law and set because solicitors do at a certain level phone in for a particular barrister, but then if they phone in for your eminent head of chambers

and he is not available, then it depends who the clerks say. But would you like X instead? When you look back on the application that you made, Sian, what cases would you say really impressed? I think the case that was really the one that pulled me into being able to apply and take Silk was a long trial where I had to cross-examine a lot of witnesses, both factual and experts. And that would be described as a substantive case. So it actually went to trial, full trial and judgment,

which meant I had a judge referee, which meant I had an opponent referee. I was in fact asked by my opponent to be her assessor for her application the year before me. So this particular case was unusual in the sense that we had two females, juniors, who were the trial advocates, not led on case that had fairly high value and a lot of witnesses. We also had, for my part, female partner solicitor. And we did have a male judge, but there wasn't the sense that you often have where all the participants except yourself is a male. And that case was probably the one that was most discussed at my interview. There were most points to arise out of it. But I have to say, making up the 12 cases, I don't mean imagining them, but putting them into the table and in the mix, that was quite hard. Because quite a lot of the cases that you do, you just don't imagine that there's enough to it

to actually put it forward. But if you are in the countdown to making the application, you end up with very little choice and you just have to put forward what you have and get the referees. The process of the application is just jolly hard work, 65-page form, for example. We've spoken to

to a number of women in your profession saying how hard it can be to meet the demands of chambers when they have children how have you managed that rebecca i'm lucky that i'm in an area of law which has enabled me to earn enough money to pay for very good childcare and I've got a very supportive husband so when I came back to work after my first child he went part-time because he's got a more standard job which enabled that and I also politically think that until men start stepping up and taking more childcare responsibility we're not going to get towards the goal of equal pay. So for me, it was very important on lots of levels that he went part-time. Joan, what about you?

I'm similarly in an area of law that enables me to pay for childcare, but it's not without some costs. So the payment of the childcare means that effectively I'd have to earn double that money because it's out of my post-tax income in order to stay still and just remain at the bar. There's a huge demand on women at the bar to be present, to attend, to be on committees. And that's in addition to your hours spent on your actual practice, which is then in addition to the care role that you have in your household. It is a huge thing.

It was certainly a factor for me in putting back my application that I just didn't feel I could add anything further to my mix. Now, I know you're now divorced. What impact did that kind of workload have on your marriage? Oh, it definitely had an impact, I would say. It isn't just that you are doing those hours in your work. There's a lot of extra hours that you have to do around it, on practice development, on your continuing professional development.

And we are human, so at the end of a 16-hour day working on your case, you haven't really got much left to give and of course you end up giving it to the children first. At your ceremony when you had made it and you were to become a QC who was seen to have supported you in getting so far? Well this was an an interesting part. There are all these bowing ceremonies which one goes to and all the judges of the divisions do short speeches to the new silks. And they mention that the application for silk is very much a team effort and it involves clerks, your professional support and your family. And my sister-in-law, who is herself a Magic Circle partner solicitor,

said, well, you did it on your own, which is probably the first time I actually thought about it in that way, because I have a fantastic support team in Chambers, but I hadn't really appreciated that everybody else also had the family. So it was definitely something I realise now. And it's something I will point out to female applicants, which is that, you know, pull your family in as your team support to make this application. There is evidence, Rebecca, that when women do apply, they're often successful and men are often not. Why? I think there's certainly truth to a man looking at a form and saying I can do 70 to 80 percent of that I'm going to go for it and a woman looking at it and saying there's 20 to 30 percent of that that I can't do I'll wait I think that is an element but we are now improving with our role models so Baroness Hale is phenomenal in employment, we've got Lady Justice Ingrid Zimler

and Mrs Justice Eadie, who have both been very encouraging of female juniors taking the next step, and that's been really important for me. And Sian, what are the benefits of actually being a QC? I would say that the biggest benefit is that you are very much more involved in strategic roles on cases rather than doing the nitty-gritty of producing documents perhaps. So you have the more exciting role of being asked what do you think, what should we do and directing the case and so you end up jumping from case to case. You often have a lot of cases where

you have a small role, but it's a very signal role. And that's quite exciting, exhilarating. And then you also get invited to do a whole range of other things. I mean, for example, today's broadcast, but also to speak at schools. I've been invited to be a speaker at the speech day for girls' schools to encourage them to look at applications into becoming a lawyer. And roles like that are interesting. It's new. It's not something you necessarily get invited to do as a junior. Well, Sian Marchani QC Rebecca Tuck QC congratulations Rebecca and I hope you enjoy the ceremony next week thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning. Thank you. Now two years ago Emma Glass published her first novel Peach was widely praised

and was described by the Man Booker Prize winner George Saunders as renewing one's faith in the power of literature. Well, now there's a second novel. And as Emma is a paediatric nurse, it's perhaps not surprising that Rest and Be Thankful is set in a children's hospital. And her central character, Laura, is also a paediatric nurse. She's on the edge of physical and mental collapse. Here she's trying to resuscitate her child. A medical team, all dressed in different shades of blue, are working together to try and save her life.

I turn my head to the window and see her mother. She has one hand covering her eyes. No, not covering, clawing at her eyes. One arm pressed against the glass. She is bent in half, barely standing. A nurse is behind her, one hand on her shoulder, another arm ready to catch her. A position we have all been taught. We are all taught to brace. I look back down at my threaded fingers, locked in. Pain rages up my arms and across my shoulders. I keep going. Each compression means everything, and this could all mean nothing.

The darkest blue asks me to pause. The world stops. I watch her face as she comes close to me. She reaches for the little arm. She presses deeply for a pulse. The determination on her face is years deep, cracked like unloved concrete. She steps back and nods. She touches my aching shoulder and says, you'll sleep well tonight. Emma, we've had recent autobiographies of neurosurgeons, junior doctors, midwives. why have you decided to make your experience as a paediatric nurse into a novel rather than an autobiography? I think fiction allows you to go deeper in some ways. What I really wanted to get across with this novel is the physicality of nursing. It's not just showing up to work. It's not just saying hi. It's

not just being amenable. It's about the changes your body goes through during that period that you're on the ward. It's all about washing your hands, how you feel after a stretch of not eating, not drinking, and how that impacts you then when you get home, when you're completely exhausted. Now, the physical is really prominent in the novel. The smell of somebody being sick all over her, dry lips or hands from over washing. But what about her mental state? How do you explain the fact that she is burnt out?

I think for Laura, for the main character, at the start of the book we already see her when she's so far gone. She's already burnt out, but she isn't able to see that for herself. And she goes into autopilot. She functions and she still gives everything. But how much more can you give when there's nothing left? There's no reserves for her. It's interesting. We talk about burnout. It's this occupational phenomenon. But actually, the impact that has on your mental state, it's not just not being able to function properly at work, how that impacts on your family life financially. I wanted to really bring that to public consciousness so that people have an understanding of what that's like to live through that. And what I hope people will be able to do is come through that, come through that period of burnout, but some people aren't able to.

Have you been through it? Yes. Yes, I think I have. And I don't think I realised that I had until I started putting my ideas down for this novel. As a nurse, when you go through your nurse training, it's such a privileged job to be in. And you get so much from your colleagues, from the work that you do, from the families that you work with. But it does take a little while to realise the impact of giving and giving and giving, what that does to you. And I hadn't quite realised, certainly, the kind of psychological impact until I started writing this novel. How did you come out of it then? Was it writing about it that made things improve?

Yeah, so my sort of outlet is writing. That's why I write. It's as essential as nursing for me. It's how I express my feelings when I come home from a hard day. You pull everything into yourself. It's how I express my feelings when I come home from a hard day. You pull everything into yourself. You absorb all the hurt and the trauma from your patients. And there's got to be a way of expelling that.

And for me, that is writing. But it's how I release that in a healthy way. For me, coming through burnout meant speaking to colleagues, taking support from what was available to me at work, but also varying my days. I worked in an acute ward for a long time. And I recognised that after a while, if I was to continue nursing, I needed to sort of change and have a refresh um there's a lot of opportunities in nursing that I think people don't really realize you know it's not just about being on an acute ward there are so many different things so many different um directions the career can take you so I've looked to those opportunities to to sort of be able to continue. I mean we see in Laura's case just how much responsibility a nurse

has that we heard in the extract about the nurse standing behind a mother ready to catch her in a position we've all been taught what is that position? It's kind of a mixture. So we have manual handling training. And particularly in elderly care, if somebody is unsteady on their feet, there's a position that you take to help them to fall so that they don't physically feel the impact of the floor. But I wanted to use that to describe how we emotionally carry people's burdens as well. I mean, it's not entirely for the nurse to take on all of the emotions that come with nursing a sick child, but there is a lot more that we do than just provide the physical care.

So I wanted to use that image to kind of convey how we take on that emotional burden and try to relieve that from people going through the worst times of their lives. There is a really chilling reference in the novel, when a child is close to death, to the box. What is the box? The box. So in my experience, all of the wards that I've worked on, and before I became a children's nurse, I worked in elderly care as well. It's actually a purple folder, which doesn't quite have the dramatic impact that the box does in the novel. But it contains the resources, everything that you would need on the ward to nurse somebody who's at their end of life.

And that includes sort of bereavement, counselling, information and guidance. But the box for me, when I was working in elderly care, was a little container of a Bible, some dried flowers, and then some clothing that we would wrap the bodies in and sheets. And it was just everyone knew where that was kept for that situation it's not surprising that laura's private life suffers terribly as a result of her burnout how common is that that you know a relationship really suffers i think it depends on on the person

really it's about um being resilient um i i have experienced that it nursing has impacted on my on my personal life because you're working unsociable hours um seeing friends is really challenging sometimes particularly when your friends are all nurses often they're working the opposite shift to you it can be it can be a struggle my mother trained to be a nurse when my sister and I were in our early teens and we both remember the impact that of the hard work and sort of the lack of sleep that that had on family. But it's important for nurses to feel that network of support. I'm very lucky to have a supportive partner and a supportive family. You have to make time for each other.

Nursing seems for you to be a compulsion, is it? Yes, I think it is. I actually didn't ever think about being a nurse I always wanted to be a writer and I came into nursing after graduating with my creative writing degree and it was around 2008 when the recession was in full swing and the job market in Swansea where I'm from was hit really badly and only then it occurred to me that I may not be able to have a creative career and I come from a very practical and hard-working family and they sort of steered me towards a profession where I would always be useful always be able to support myself and I wasn't convinced, but my first shift, I remember having my first patient contact

and thinking, this is for me, this is what I want to spend my life doing. And I'll continue to do that for as long as I can. Emma Glass, thank you very much indeed for being with us and congratulations on Rest and Be Thankful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now still to come in today's programme, Cat Women. Why does owning a cat suggest someone sad and lonely? And where does the idea originate? And the serial, the eighth episode of The Leopard. And last week, I'm

sure you remember, we broadcast the programme live from the Women in the World Festival at the South Bank in London. We've published an article with advice from the guests on that programme about how women can encourage change in the world. You'll find tips from Jude Kelly, Leila Saad, Yomi Adegoke, and more on the Wobbins Hour website.

And earlier this week, you may have missed Table Manners with Jessie and Lenny Ware, the podcast and now the cookbook, and yesterday, Christina Lamb, chief foreign correspondent for the sunday times on sexual violence in conflict if you miss the live program you can catch up all you have to do is download the bbc sounds app and search for women's are now you may remember in december 2018 i spoke to the labour mp and Mother of the House, Harriet Harman, about the death of Natalie Connolly. She had died six months after starting a relationship with John Broadhurst, who claimed in court that her terrible injuries had been caused by consensual rough sex.

He was charged with manslaughter and given three years, eight months in prison. Well, there have been a number of other cases where the rough sex defence has been used in court, giving the impression that if a woman died, it was her fault because, well, she asked for it. Harriet Harman has been campaigning for such a defence to be made illegal. And now the government has said it will review the law in the Domestic Abuse Bill, which has just had its first reading. And Harriet Harman joins us from Nellbank. Harriet, how confident are you that the rough sex laws will be part of the Domestic Abuse Bill? should be the opportunity to end the really appalling situation of men killing or very seriously injuring women and then claiming in court that although they took the actions that killed or injured the woman, that they're not guilty.

In fact, it was her fault because she was asking for it because it was rough sex gone wrong. And there is mounting evidence of this really shameful defence being used in courts, both in grievous bodily harm cases and in homicide cases. So really, this bill is the moment to take action. And the government has said they're going to review it, which is incredibly encouraging. But this review has got to end up not just in guidelines or protocols or extra training for judges or conferences in the Crown Prosecution Service. It's got to be a change in the law,

which outlaws this defence. Now, long ago, we talked about provocation, and I think it was sometimes known as the nagging and shagging defence, rather coarsely. And it was abolished in 2009. But there does seem to be evidence that it's still used. How can that be if something is made illegal? Well, I think it's really important that we did win that change in 2009. And as you say, there had been a long campaign against the argument that it should automatically be not a murder charge, but a manslaughter charge on the basis that it's provocation, because it's her fault, because she provoked him by having an affair,

or by nagging him or just not being a good housewife. And that has been dramatically narrowed down by the change in the law that we got. And we need a change in the law here as well. And I'd just like to pay tribute to this organisation called We Can't Consent to This. And if people are interested in all of this this they can look online because this is the organization which is gathering all the evidence and the information because at the moment neither the police or the crown prosecution service or the government government are actually collecting the information about what's actually going on in courts here and mark garnier who's the tory mp who represents the family of natalie connelly who was killed, the case that you mentioned.

He's reflected on the fact that we won the campaign for anonymity for rape victims. We also won the campaign that previous sexual activity should not be used in court. And yet, if the man goes the whole hog and kills the woman, not only does she not have anonymity, obviously, but she also, all his allegations of her previous sexual activity are used in court. And it's almost like, and he describes this as post-mortem domestic abuse. So not only does he kill her, but he absolutely trashes her reputation. He defines her. So he then gets a shorter sentence because she is the guilty shameful one

and he was you know it just went wrong it was a sex game gone wrong so we must have the law changed for this there may of course though be occasions where rough sex was consensual and has gone wrong how will that be dealt with well may be. But what Mark and I are saying in our amendment, which we're putting forward to this bill, and what we're asking the government review to do, and in fact, we're off to see the ministers, Victoria Atkins, who is really knowledgeable about this, who's a minister in the Home Office responsible for the domestic abuse bill, and the Justice Secretary, Rob Buckland, me and Mark, are going to see them this afternoon to talk about this. And what our case is, is this, is if he puts his hand around her throat and that it is pressure from his hands that stops her breathing and that results in her death,

then he has to take responsibility for that action. It is irrelevant whether she asked him to choke her or not. If his hands did the strangulation which stopped her breathing, then he has to take criminal responsibility for that. And the same with inserting objects which cause internal injuries. He, you know, unfortunately, Jenny, I just feel out of respect to the families and also because of the listeners I can't even describe the injuries in these cases but if he did the inserting of the object that caused the hemorrhaging and caused the damage to internal organs which killed her he cannot say even if the fact is she was saying please insert you X, Y or Z instrument into me. He can't say that because it was his hand that put the thing up her which killed her.

So really, we just leave the issue of what she wanted completely out of it. It's what his hands did. He will know that when he's engaging in consensual sex or rough sex, he will know that he will ultimately have to take responsibility, that if it goes wrong, it's on him and he will not be able to blame her. And therefore, he better be very careful if he's going about strangulation that he doesn't end up killing her. Just one final question, Harriet. We've heard this morning about Nadine Dorries and the coronavirus. As Mother around the country, and also thousands of people working in and around the Palace of Westminster, that we don't become a way of spreading the virus, but also we must have parliamentary accountability. So they're working to ensure that even if it's a slimmed down, a scaled down version of Parliament, we still have a situation where ministers are called to account for what they're doing in terms of resourcing the health service, what they're doing on paying sick pay and supporting industries. So really, they're working very, very hard on this. rough sex question said, our bill will better protect victims of domestic abuse, making sure they have the support they need whilst more offenders are brought to justice.

We've committed to ensuring the law is clear that this defence is unacceptable and are looking at ways to achieve it. Now you may have seen in the papers this morning the rather sad story of the death of Ollie, a 16-year-old Siamese cat

which was given to Ricky Gervais in 2003 by Jonathan Ross. Ricky has described Ollie as the sweetest little soul I've ever known. Thousands of people have expressed their sympathy on Twitter and nobody has called Ricky mad. Now, picture the same scene where a weeping woman was grieving for her cat. I'll guarantee someone would call her a mad cat lady. Why is there such a difference in the way men and women are seen when it comes to cats? Well, the appropriately named Cat Brown has two cats, Ambridge and Genevieve. Alice Maddock is the author of Cat Women. Alice, A Cat Called Dylan inspired this book. How did you come by him?

So I had moved down to the middle of nowhere in Cornwall and one day I was walking on the street and I saw the village cat I'd admired for years sleeping in a flower pot and I gave him a stroke and he followed me home and pretty much from that day on, he decided to move in. And the bond was quite extraordinary. I'd always loved animals, but I hadn't realised till that moment just how close you could be to another non-human creature, as it were. And how did you, Kat, come by Ambridge? Who I also nicknamed Kat Brown for probably the first two years that I had her. I was in my late

twenties and I'd just bought my first flat and I was going for a run at lunchtime really prosaically when I suddenly realised that the only thing stopping me from getting a cat of my own was me. And that everything was in place for me to be able to go and have a cat.

And so I just popped off to Battersea um had a look around and this incredibly angry looking black and white monster came and sat on my lap and proceeded to scratch me and she was the last cat left for adoption so rather warily I took her home and then Stockholm syndrome ensued and I've loved her ever since and then came Genevieve Genevieve yes, yes. I literally turned out of my therapist's office at the end of November, this Christmas just gone, and there was this cat there. And I don't know about you, but I've been working around the Soho Oxford Circus area for 15 years, never seen a cat at any time of day or night. So I whipped her off to the vet to get her microchip checked.

She didn't have one. She was in quite a bad way. So I whacked her into an Uber, took her to my vet in Streatham and checked all the notice boards and everything. And that's how I ended up with another rather expensive cat. Cat. Dylan died, I know, in... Alice, sorry, Dylan died in 2016. And now you have two more cats.

Yes. How did they come along? Well, when Dylan died, the and now you have two more cats. Yes. How did they come along? Well, when Dylan died, the grief was quite overwhelming and kind of inspired why I started really investigating the issue of cat women for the book. But I made the mistake of going along to a rescue centre with the idea that maybe I would volunteer as I was missing having a cat in my life,

which as a complete creature person is a very silly thing to do because of course I came home with two cats um you know so um so yes that's how Tariel and Sindri came into my life they'd been returned within 24 hours when someone previously had tried to adopt them which of course to me meant I had to have them. But when you look back to Dylan and what Dylan did for you, what was it? It was quite extraordinary. It was quite a strange time in my life. There wasn't one big dramatic thing that had happened, but I was certainly feeling I'd had this sudden move. I'd been living in a big city with all my friends. Suddenly I was sort of in a small village where I only knew relatives. And it was like he chose me.

And it felt rather than something like, oh, I've become this strange lady hanging out with her cat. I just felt this is a really positive thing. I feel really honoured. And at that time, when I was feeling very lost, the companionship of this lovely creature, you know, almost sort of saved my sanity. Not that I was going mad, but just it was such a lovely thing. He used to come to the pub. He would come to the beach with me and sort of play with the seaweed. He would come on walks, quite dog-like, you might say. You know, if I was feeling ill, he would just wouldn't leave my side.

So he was a real sort of friend, actually, which really got me thinking about lots of people don't think you can be close friends with an animal, but I think you really can. So he really, yeah. And what about Ambridge? What did Ambridge do for you? Well, for a cat that sort of feels more like a cross between a Harry Potter horcrux and a witch is familiar than an actual animal. I am so surprised by her. I have ironically given talking about crazy cat ladies and a whole litany of tedious mental health problems. And actually, one of the things that she's given me is consistency. It doesn't matter

if she's eaten a lot or if she's having a fat day, she will always be clean and presentable and she will always go upstairs and sleep under the duvet for eight hours before coming downstairs and demanding dinner. So when I've had a depressed time and haven't wanted to shower or bathe, just literally seeing her going about her day in a completely calm, comfortable, unbothered fashion has actually been rather inspiring. And similarly, when my husband and I were going through the mind-bogglingly tedious experience of IVF last year, when I was lying down and doing my injections and that sort of thing, she'd just come and sort of sit next to me. Mostly because she was just like, oh, you're lying down. I see a lap. How super. But she's always come and been with me if I've been in bed or anything like that and it's just it's there is such a comfort there and I mean I love dogs and I'm a horse rider as well but there is something

so particular in what a cat gives you and you have to earn that and that's really special. So Alice what's the root of this idea then that a woman with a cat must be mad? Well I think it goes way way back into history so if we go back to ancient culture actually women and cats together were seen as a very positive thing in some ways the first cat lady were actually cat ladies were actually goddesses so if you go back to ancient egyptian culture you have various female cat deities um notably bast um who for like 2 000 years um had sort of a cult following. Then if you go back to Norse culture, you have Freyja,

who's the goddess of motherhood, fertility, love. This is what a lot of female cat deities have in common, is that they are the goddesses of these things. She had a cat-drawn chariot, which I think is a rather unpredictable choice for a form of transport, but it's really interesting. But then when you get to the middle ages things start to change people did keep cats and they seem to have relatively normal lives um as mouses um religious orders often kept cats but when you start to see things

like um the persecution of witches then you really start to see a suspicion of women with cats in two ways one is metamorphosis and that witches actually were seen to turn themselves into cats and there's lots of interesting accounts of sort of women being found with strange injuries that corresponded to injuries that someone had given a cat the night before. But that's women as cat. Women with cat, I think you mentioned familiars. I mean, I think that is where it really starts to come in because they were seen as actually a gift from the devil on initiation into witchcraft and could do their own nefarious magic,

almost like a very sinister version of Gobolino. You see, you almost made the little joke about your familiar cat. What's your response if somebody calls you a mad cat woman? Well, one of my best friends bought me a sweatshirt with Ambridge's face embroidered on it a couple of birthdays ago, so I'll probably go with that. I think the landscape has really developed with the advent of social media, particularly and forums like Reddit. We've really seen people love a cat. They're cute. They're weird. They're bonkers. And, you know, just post a lovely picture of a cat and people will want to share it.

I do. I think if we go back to 2018, when Carol Cadwallader was called a crazy cat woman by Andrew Neil, she made the extremely valid point that being a middle aged woman without children, that that was almost one of the last acceptable groups to slate in that way. She called it slut shaming for the over 30s. And I think that as much as Instagram accounts like the cartoonist Hannah Hillam or Girls and Their Cats are really sort of expanding the landscape of female cat owners. There is still that cliché that a woman and her cat is something to be avoided. Alice Merrick at Cat Brown. You've both got cats, and so have I.

And we would like to hear from you, too. If you have a cat, how much do you love your cat? How much does your cat love you? And what do you think about being called a mad cat woman? You can tweet us, you can email us, you know how to get in touch. Thank you both. I was talking to Kat Brown and Alice Maddicott.

On QCs, Mick said, listening to your item this morning about women QCs raises the question for me whether or not issues of gender equality in the professions are really about equality between privileged males and females. I wonder how many of those women elevated to be QCs will be from genuinely working class homes, or even if that question is being asked. I noted a while back that Baroness Hale

said she looked forward to there being parity of gender on the Supreme Court, but I wonder if there will be proportional class representation. In saying this, I don't wish to diminish the hard work all the candidates have done in reaching the stage where they can apply to be QCs. And Sidney wrote, To pursue a career as a practising barrister is equally challenging for men and women. Employment at the bar is on a self-employed basis. The chambers and clerk is not an employer. Therefore, as a self-employed person, you have to take care of yourself. In the same way, there is no network or support for other self-employed, such have to take care of yourself in the same way there is no network or

support for other self-employed such as electricians builders the same is true for barristers qcs or not and whether male or female on emma glass and her novel about laura the pediatric nurse bonnie said i've worked as a therapist on a children's cancer ward and seen many nurses totally exhausted, mentally, physically and emotionally. They're simply not given enough support. I experienced emotional burnout myself from years of repeatedly witnessing

the second-hand trauma and grief of parents. If you've never experienced burnout, you have no idea what the symptoms are or what's happening. Both doctors and nurses need more support and training on this issue, or we continue to lose valuable staff after only a few years on acute wards and then to cats and stephanie crazy cat lady i am one and proud i have four i don't get the insult but have never had it said to me in anger i do use use it myself. Claire said, Charlotte and Emily send their love and luck from sunny Huddersfield. They bring joy and much amusement to me and my husband on a daily basis and I love them from the top of their little furry heads down to the tips of their

toes. Jane Alexander said, Nadine writes, Now, Woman's Hour is talking about cat women. Bertie Archie, HRH Princess Strozzi, and kitten stroke junior cat Cornelius would like to protest that the cat's opinions are never sought on how they feel about how time-consuming their human pets are. And Dr. Amy Eckert said, I've been Thelma's human for the past five years. She's now almost 13. She gets me out of bed in the morning and is a constant source of cuddles and love. Thelma has definitely helped me get through difficult times. Cats are amazing.

Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner, the bloke from the funny history podcast You're Dead to Me. I've got good news. We're back for a second series where historians, comedians alike will join me in learning things about, well, Mary Shelley, the ancient Greek Olympics and their history of chocolate. Find us on the

BBC Sounds app or wherever you get your podcasts and you'll be able to hear comedians ask historians questions like this one. This is Tim Minchin asking about Neanderthals. Do they have penises like us? Search for You're Dead to Me on the BBC Sounds app. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on on Zap. 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.