Woman's Hour - Davina McCall, Highland Games, Essex accents

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Davina McCall, one of TV’s most popular presenters has a new book out, Birthing, co-written with the midwife, Marley Henry. Davina joins Anita Rani to talk about her stellar career so far, including hosting Big Brother for 10 years, campaigning for better menopause care and building a fitness empire. What makes her tick? And what drives her forward to clear hurdles such as an usual childhood, drug addiction and most recently, brain surgery for a benign tumour that she nicknamed Jeffrey.Funding of at least £2 million a year needs to be restored to help combat Female Genital Mutilation in the UK, according to a new report by the Women and Equalities Committee. It says that access to health services for FGM survivors in the UK is inconsistent and a postcode lottery. Anita hears from the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the Labour MP Sarah Owens and from Hibo Wardere, the educational lead and co-founder of the charity Educate Not Mutilate.Last month Scottish history was made at the Glenurquhart Highland Games as the World Female Heavy Events Championship was held for the first time. The Championship brought together women from across the globe to compete in the heavyweights, including tossing the caber. As we reach the end of the season, athletes Elizabeth Elliott and Emmerleigh Barter, who competed in the games, join Anita Rani to discuss how it felt to compete at this level on home soil.If you're making your way through Essex on the train in the coming days, you might notice poems being read over the PA system, with young women and girls sharing how they feel about their accent. It's part of a new project from the University of Essex and c2c Rail, celebrating the Essex accent. Anita is joined by Dr Tara McAllister-Viel who led the project and the comedian Esther Manito who is from Essex.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt

Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. It's a classic Woman's Hour today. Lots of impressive women speaking their minds. TV Queen and All-Round Game Changer. Davina McCall is here to talk about her new book. We're going to be talking about everything from birthing to menopause and everything in between. Caber tossing and hammer throwing. I'll be chatting to two women making history in the Highland Games. and accents, specifically Essex. The University of Essex has done some research and found that some teenagers were changing the way they spoke

because of negative stereotypes about their county and their accents. Well, this is rich territory, accents. How do you feel about yours? What does it say about you? Have you actively made a decision to change the way you speak? Did you feel you'd go further if your voice was nondescript? People make a judgment about your class or your ethnicity or both, but does that mean we should change our accents?

Were you made to take elocution lessons? I need them. Or are you firmly fixed with your vowel sounds and geographical pronunciation? It's who you are and why should you not be proud of that? Get in touch with your thoughts on accents and anything else here on the program in the usual way. The text number is 84844.

You can email the program by going to our website or you can WhatsApp me on 0300-100-444. and if you'd like to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. Now, you will no doubt know my next guest, Davina McCall, one of the nation's favourite TV presenters from at least one of her shows, the mass singer, my mum, your dad, long-lost family,

or her new dating show stranded on honeymoon island, or Big Brother, of course. Davina has also hosted the Brit Awards, comic relief, the BAFTAs. She's campaigned for better menopause care and has built a successful fitness empire. But apart from the small screen, She's turned her hand to podcasts.

She hosts Begin Again, which aims to empower people to embrace midlife and making the cut with her partner, the hairdresser, Michael Douglas. Almost two years ago, she hit the headlines for undergoing brain surgery, a successful outcome, I'm happy to say. And she's now back at work with a new book. She's co-written called BIRthing. Davina, welcome to Woman's Hour. Madly, it's almost one year ago I had the operation. And how are you? Yeah, good.

Like really good. I mean, I feel like I am me again. Can I just quickly say something, Anita? Please. It's so nice seeing you work. I see. I was watching you talking, going, wow, look at Anita go. She's doing her job.

Look at her. She's being all good and everything. On Radio 4. Yeah, it's really nice. Thank you. It's such a pleasure to be in your presence. Yeah, it's same. And there's so much that I want to talk to you about.

Great. And it's good that you're feeling. Yeah, I feel great. When on earth did you find the time to co-author another book about birth? thing. And why did you want to specifically, because your time is precious, want to put your name and be involved in this one? What was quite funny was I knew I needed to get most of it done before my op because I wasn't quite sure what I was going to be like after my up and what I was going to be capable of. I knew I would get, if I survived the operation, I knew I

would get better, but I didn't know how long my recovery would take. So I thought, well, I need to get most of it done before the op. But the reason, it feels a bit out of order, doesn't it? Because it feels like you should do birthing first, then menopauseing. But when I wanted to write my book birthing up, when I'd had three great births, and I never heard women saying that. And I thought long and hard about why did I feel that they were great? And it was because I felt empowered to ask for the birth that,

I wanted. I have no judgment at all on how anyone wants to give birth, but I felt able to ask for something and I got the birth that I wanted. And I thought actually, over the last 20 years, I feel like we are being disempowered more and more as women. It felt a little bit like we were going more American, where it becomes more medicalised and less in hands of midwives who know how to deliver babies brilliantly. The only time, time and obstetrician really should be brought in is when there's a problem. And women know their own bodies. Yeah, and women know their own bodies. And it's

I love Marley who's the midwife that I wrote the book. So Midwife Marley I found on Instagram. I literally looked up, Googled midwives on, you know, or not Google, but searched midwives on Instagram because I wanted somebody who was a good communicator. It's such a brilliant way to find

a good communicator on social media. Can they get the message across? Can they can they communicate, sometimes quite medical and complicated themes or explanations for things in a way that we, as late people would understand. And you make things accessible. So you need someone who can do that with you.

And she really can. She's brilliant. She's passionate. And she feels exactly the same as me. She's totally non-judgmental. You get the birth that you want. I'm going to give you the information to help you to get it. So she does all the medical.

I do personal stories and feelings. my story of my births but members of the public have written in and it's those firsthand stories and it is every single kind of story you can imagine it's partner's stories it's people giving birth stories but it is it is those stories and some of them are tough to read some of them are very sad some of them are about traumatic births some of them are ecstatic beautiful brilliant births

some of them are with medical intervention and some of them aren't. It's everything, the whole gamut. And this is from conception. So it is from trying. You know, it is from fertility. It's from the thought of I might like to have a baby all the way through to postpartum.

And I am really, really, this is the book I wanted. And you must post you doing all the incredible work, the national conversation that you started around menopause. Gave women permission to talk about it. You've opened it up and you know that. You know what you've done. I just quickly want to big up the women that came before me because obviously Mariella, amazing, Kate Muir,

she'd written books before me on the menopause. And all of us, you know, started a wave together, a collective force around the menopause. And it is continuing on because everybody that's found out about it now, I love the network of women. I love being a woman. It is really challenging, but that is why when you meet a woman in a loo of a nightclub. Best place, you know, best conversations.

My God, you know, within two minutes, you're showing each other your underwear and you're, you know, a scar or something happens, sharing a lipstick. You know, it's amazing. So I wouldn't change it for the world, but you tell one woman something. You give one woman a piece of information. She tells 10. And it's really interesting that you're talking about birthing. and that this is a story you've wanted to talk about for a long time because you've probably had three of the most famous bumps on TV.

All planned around Big Brother. All planned around Big Brother. All September babies. Yeah. So I was like, over my dead body is someone else going to present this show. This is how that. I mean, it's terrible, isn't it? Well, no, it's real.

I love that show so much. And bless my ex-husband, you know, we got like, it was like Christmas, New Year. Let's go. Bang, bish-bosh. pregnant every time Lucky Yeah Then we're very

I mean Listen Having written this book I know how lucky we are Have you heard of Harry Baker He's a poet No tell me about Harry And please get him

On here to recite his poem It's called trying And it is about the journey Of trying to get pregnant And I posted it On my Instagram account And it got a million views

that's how good it is He is incredible He's gifted me his poem in this book But I know how hard it is to get pregnant So I know how I don't want to sound glib Saying that but all my babies were born in September And I totally, it's so on Davina brand That it was planned and it was all around work

And it all slotted in, can I just reveal to everybody I arrived very early in the morning at the BBC Davina ran in this morning She ran to never in the history of BBC Women's Hour guests. Has anyone been that dedicated? But I just, yesterday was so frustrating and I'm not the person that arrives late or doesn't make it. I hate that.

So I thought this day, this day is the day where I'm going to take control back and I'm going to power myself. There we go. And that kind of, just that sentence gives us an insight into how you become you. You just are that devoted and dedicated. don't be late so having your babies big brother three children big career change that was a massive pivotal moment in your life and i feel like we meet you again at a huge pivotal moment new

relationship yes host geoffrey yeah the operation um we're going to talk about the relationship a little bit later but you you've already talked about at the beginning of the interview you know your post operation tell us about geoffrey so um jeffrey is what the name i gave my tumor i called him Jeffrey because I don't know anybody called Jeffrey and I felt like I could abuse Jeffrey in my mind and be angry. I was very angry about it because I felt like it was like having a cuckoo, unwanted guest in my brain and I was amazed to hear that it was a colloid cyst so it was very rare and it had been in my brain since I was in utero probably. Like it's from your mother's, I think it's a piece of placenta or something.

something to do with that. And so it had been there quietly growing. And I thought that I was asymptomatic. So it was found by chance. I was gifted a health check by a company that I did a menopause talk for. And I was like, I don't need a health check. I'm divina. Yes.

I'm healthy. I'm fitness lady. It's what I'm known for. I felt fantastic. I felt the best I'd felt in years. And they went, well, look, they do a dexas scan. And I hadn't had a dexas scan. I thought, oh, well, that would be quite useful.

And a mole map. And I thought, well, that's quite useful. I was sunbed queen in the 80s. I'm ashamed of that. You didn't know any better about that. I didn't know any better. And so I had the health check, and actually what it flagged up was I had, I heard the word benign. And I just want to say to anybody listening that knows anybody with a benign brain tumour,

benign does not mean fine. And that's a really important thing to say because benign cysts can be devastating. They can be inoperable. They can kill you. Just because it's not cancerous doesn't mean it's not deadly. And the other thing is I just thought I heard the word benign. I heard you've had it in there since you were born,

so I just didn't do anything about it. And then a few months later, somebody called me and said, we think you should go and talk to somebody at least about it. And when I went to talk to a neurosurgeon about it, I understood that actually what I was hearing was them sort of saying, we think you should get it removed. So I went through a long process of getting second and third opinions and then came to the realisation that I did need to get it taken out.

And you're friends with the surgeon. I mean, I love this guy. Yeah. Kevin, it's very funny. Oh my God, I've got to tell you this. Please. So I can wink. and I couldn't wink before the operation

so whenever something happens now so something will happen and I'll go oh my God Michael I just winked and then I look and I go I can wink with the other eye no I couldn't do this before the operation and then we always we look up to the sky

as if he's some kind of deity and we go thanks Kevin so sometimes I'll put on a dress and I'll look in the mirror and I'll go God I'm feeling like amazing and I go thanks Kevin like literally just thank Kevin Thank you. I thank Kevin for being alive.

You know, Kevin O'Neill, by the way. Big round of applause for Kevin O'Neill, my brain, surgeon. We need to give him a round of applause. And I love that you can now wink at yourself in the mirror when you're wearing an ice dress. How mad is that? I used to just blink sideways when I wanted to wink so nobody could see the other eye.

You say you've got to, you're crediting him with saving your life and he did. So I wonder what went through your mind when healthy, successful, life is great to Vina is potentially staring at death. My kids, that's the first thing, I think. You know that, right? Like, you're going to be thinking they're going to be all right. And I thought, right, I'm thinking about the room full of people in the operating theatre.

And what they don't want is for me to go down there and go, please do the best job you can. I've got three kids. Please take care of me. don't kill me like I want to live I thought I need to get to a place where I can walk into that room and look at everybody and go

you are all amazing people and not just the neurosurgeon and the anaesthetist the nurses the people that clean the rooms like you know all of you are an amazing team and I know I don't need to ask you to do the best job

I know you're going to do the best job you can that's who you are. You wouldn't be in this profession if you didn't want to do that. So I've got to let go of the outcome. How do I do that? I've got to let go of what's going to happen to me and just have faith in whatever's going to happen to me

is the right thing. So how did you do that? We don't know. We're all going to die. Life is terminal. We've all got a terminal illness and it's going to get us in the end. So I did a lot of work on myself.

But the main thing was, are my kid's going to be okay? And I got to a wonderful place where I knew that if I didn't make it, they would all be okay. It's amazing. And I'm still, I've still got that. Yeah. Did you have, how was that conversation with them? I didn't, I didn't talk to them about it because I didn't want to freak them out. But it was in my head.

I looked at each one of them and studied them as people where they're at in their life. where they're going their relationship with each other their relationship with our families the support that they have and that you as a mother have done your thing yeah I've done it

we are on Women's Hour so I want to talk about some of the women in your life and we're going to start with your mum yes it wasn't the easiest of childhoods she wasn't a conventional mother no

so my birth mother I'll call her her because I've got an amazing stepmom and I'd love to talk about her later. We're going to talk about Gabby, definitely. She was like if you met her Anita, you'd have been like wow, she's quite something.

She was like a whirling kind of hurricane of sexy Frenchness free. She slept with everybody and her catchphrase at the end of that was like it's only bodies but she'd leave in

her wake devastation you know broken art of people broken relationships but there was something about her that was magnetic but it was

she was a difficult mum to have and she wasn't parented and I've Michaels really helped me forgive her so I said to him a couple of

years ago you know you would have loved my mum she was extraordinary he said i've met her i said you haven't met because she's she died before i knew and see he said he put his hand on my chest and he said she's in here i obviously started crying straight away and um he said all my favorite bits about you are thanks to your mum all your slightly naughty bits um where you're you know dancing or you're kind of wanting to go out somewhere or your willingness to kind of do something crazy that I want to do on the spur of the moment. You said magnetic. I mean, that is you.

Oh, really? Yeah. Come on to Vina. Yes. You know that. You know that. And go on, what does that make you think? You know, it was really interesting when I was younger, when people used to say, you're just like your mum.

it was the worst thing someone could say to me if anyone can relate to that and I always thought that it was an insult when somebody went, you're just like your mum it would be like you are just like your mum that's how I heard it but now I think that maybe they were saying your desperate need to kind of dance all the time

or perform or be seen or your extrovertism that's not really a word is it But anyway, it is now. Thank you. That's all my mum. So where does Gabby, your step-mom, fit into that? Well, what was interesting was that for Gabby, my dad was broken when Gabby met him. My mum had broken him and devastated him.

And he was so sad. And he met my Gabby and she is a rock. She is a solid, grounded, beautiful woman. and they came together and mum was amazing for dad right up until the day he died he had Alzheimer's for the last eight years and the way she cared for him through lockdown

which was devastatingly difficult but I felt like because I kept people kept saying I was like my mum that I misread Gabby's intention to me I had planted an intention in Gabby that wasn't correct So I thought she thought, oh, you're just like Flo, you know, trouble.

You're, you know, so she would say something to me and I'd be insulted by it. But I'm going to give you an idea of what I mean. So before I went into hospital last year, everything changed. So Michael had changed the way I saw Gabby because he kept saying what an amazing woman she was. And every time he met her and I was like, she really is extraordinary. She's 75. She went to see Coldplay for the first time last year. Right.

She went to Valencia to go and do an immersive Spanish course. You know, she's like really mega. And I was like, yes, she's amazing. And then she said to me, what kind of sleepwear have you got for the hospital? Because I know what you're like. And I started laughing and I suddenly saw her intention. And it wasn't, I know what you're like. You're just like your mum.

This is terrible. She was laughing. What was the sleepwear? So basically, she's absolutely. right normally i would wear something quite glamorous and sexy but i was like i'm going to hospital but i am i do still want to bring it so i'd gone to um a shop and i'd bought shorty pajamas so the shorts were quite short my was like i put the top on and it was like but they're fleece so we went through this whole thing i was like they're fleece but the shorts are short and we were

really really laughing she's going to what is your brain surgeon going to think and everything changed that day and we started really laughing about everything. So it can change at any time? At any time. Just change your intention? I was 57 when I first saw my stepmother's true intention towards me and it was pure love. That's beautiful. I've had a message in from Dickie who says thanks to Vina. My beautiful strong wife has a benign brain tumour and acoustic neuroma. It's scary but she's dealing with it so bravely. Thanks for talking about this.

Yeah, it's a pleasure. Sure. You must get that a lot. I must say that if anybody is concerned and after what we're talking about, then, you know, please do contact your GP if you have any concerns. Absolutely. And also, the sooner you do deal with it, the better the outcome will be. Tavina, I've got so much to talk to you about you. We're going to have to do a special together. But I need to talk to you about finding love. Yeah. Because you are part of one half of. of such a, you're so in love, aren't you? Yeah. With Michael Douglas. It's nauseating.

No, it's wonderful to see. I mean, we love you. Like, you're part of our relationship, I feel like. Do you feel like you're in a sort of a new life, a second place? Like, where do you feel that you are? Do you know what is quite funny? We've come up with a term and it's kind of second time rounders. So you meet people and they may have been in a long-time relationship.

and we were very lucky to have been in our old relationships because we've got amazing kids and we were with exactly the right person for that phase of our life and then for whatever reason we've ended up here together and it's good fun it's great you know I'm having the time of my life it's brilliant

well we look forward to maybe the next book which could be about blended families or whatever it is you know I know what I'm going to write next go on dying I want to get us all to a place where we're ready to let go with peace come back and talk to me about it we look forward to it

thank you Davina Anita I love you you are really good at your job and thank you for interviewing me always generous always generous thank you so much thank you beautiful special human being

Davina thank you 84844 is the number to text Now, funding of at least £2 million a year is needed to be restored to help combat female genital mutilation in the UK. That's according to a new report by the Women and Equality's Committee. The committee says that FGM is both taking place in the UK and that UK citizens or residents are being taken abroad to undergo this form of gender-based violence. While the committee is calling on the government to restore home office funding to previous levels at an annual spend of at least £2 million. It also says that access to health services for FGM survivors in the UK is. is inconsistent and a postcode lottery.

While I was joined earlier this morning by the Labour MP for Luton North Sarah Owens, who's the chair of the Women and Equalityies Committee, and by the educational lead and co-founder of the FGM charity, Educate, Not Mutilate, Hebo Wadare. I started by asking Sarah about the latest funding. It's been reduced steadily over the last 10 years to over half what it was in 2014-2015.

And in terms of the evidence that we need to see more funding, I think a huge part of this is we don't have the data. And I think that's partly because the funding has been cut. So we don't actually know the prevalence. What we have is anecdotal evidence. We have evidence from fantastic organisations and charities and healthcare workers and members of the community that are saying that actually this is still continuing

and it is a problem that's on the rise. But without the funding, we don't know the true extent and the widespread nature of the problem of FGM in our society. The latest estimate, which was collected 10 years ago in 2015, found that there are 137,000 women and girls living with FGM in England and Wales. What do you think, Sarah? Conservative estimate. How were these figures collated?

I'd say it's a conservative estimate because the way that evidence is collected varies greatly across the country. It varies greatly between trusts and hospital trusts. Even the word FGM may not ring true to some victims of female genital mutilation. They may very well call it something completely different. And during COVID, we know that there was a real spike for many young girls. And a lot of that has gone underreported and undernoticed, really. So I think we're sitting on a bit of a ticking time bomb because a lot of this comes forward

when women are of child-rearing age and they suffer huge complications. and we are seeing that I have survivors of FGM come to my constituency surgeries even and the problems come when they are when they are trying to have children Hebe I'm going to bring you in here yeah that figure I mentioned 137,000 it's from 10 years ago you work at grassroots level yeah what do you think about that figure how many women and girls do you think are affected by FGM in the UK we actually have through the NHS we have 174,000. And this is true the, you know, the pregnancy route data, all that. But that is, as Sarah said, that is just the tip of iceberg. It's like nobody has ever done proper research,

really nitty-gritty, proper research into FGM and how many survivors and, you know, victims do we have in UK? Because nobody, government wasn't bothered to do that. Government didn't pay attention to that. Government didn't see, you know, the children that were born or raised here. There are British children didn't bother to protect it because, as Sarah was saying, the funding kept on being cut, but the figures that don't, just the tip of ice back. Sarah was just saying there that, you know, when women are having children, that when they're coming in to see their doctors, then that's when you can really see that essential healthcare is needed.

Yeah. What do they need in terms of health care? First of all, it's the first time a woman, most likely. a woman will say something about FDM when she becomes pregnant. And because we worked with the health minister a long time ago, who made a part of the question when a woman becomes pregnant now, no matter whether you're black, Muslim, Christian, it doesn't matter.

You will be asked if you are cut, mutilated or circumcised. So that is the time that woman will ever open that door. And opening that door, it's like opening a kind of worms because you are running from your trauma so much. You're suffering in silence because it's a normal. It's normalized for you to suffer because that's how communities deal with it. And all of a sudden, somebody's asking you, are you cut? Most of the women will say, I don't know how to answer that.

My head is running away. And the services that used to be there for them isn't there anymore. So you're opening kind of worms with nothing to offer. So it has become really, really horrific. But midway free and the doctors are the first people to ever know if this lady has undergone FDM. And when it comes to training for the health professionals, it's a must. It's a must for them to know how to be sensitive, how to understand this woman, how to offer services, how to make them feel it's okay to talk about you. It's okay, you know, to say what happened to you.

It's not shame. It's not you attacking your family or your community. You are human being. You are allowed to discuss your pain. But unfortunately, that's not what's happening. And from what Hebo is saying there, Sarah, in terms of healthcare, very specialist needs are required, counselling, pain, body dysmorphia. Absolutely, Hebo's right.

And I think if we can do, there shouldn't be as specialist as it is. We are seeing very patchy services. And even within midwifery, patchy knowledge about FGM and what the next steps are. we've had examples from the committee where people have disclosed to their GP even and questions about reconstructive surgery and their GP's just been quite dismissive and said no I'm sorry this is about a plastic surgery this is cosmetic it's not women don't just have issues with fertility they have issues with ongoing pain they have issues with incontinence it's a huge healthcare crisis in terms of what this does to a woman's body and well-being and so I don't think the the training should just be for specialists the training should be for specialists the training should be much more widespread because we need to pick this up as early as possible. And so with the women's health hubs, it would be great. And the committee did stress it would be great to see knowledge of FGM and training for FGM awareness actually within these health hubs as well.

So then can you explain why this money comes from the home office? I think that there has been longstanding issue with female genital mutilation between people that want to be able to see. perpetrators prosecuted because this is abuse, absolutely right. But actually, I think when it comes to a woman coming forward, quite often they know the person that's done this to them. They quite often are related to the person that's done this to them. Prosecution isn't always the first thing in their mind. It's actually, how do I stop living in pain? Yeah. And so I think even if the money does come from the home office, it's really important that this is delivered through services that have understanding and isn't necessarily, prosecution isn't the first thing in their mind.

It's about the health and well-being of that woman. Hebo, give us some more context then. What is happening with these young women? Because you go into schools. What are you telling them about FGM and to enable them to stop it from happening in the first place? Anita, you'll be shocked. I deliver training to the health professionals, police, teachers, students.

My favorite, favorite work hands down is working with students. And it is quite so shocking to know that girls that come from that community and boys especially don't even know it exists in their community. And the girls, when you're teaching, you can see their eye twitches. Some of them you can feel they've undergone because the reality started to link in their head. All the information I'm giving, how their body changes, how you might feel, when you get period, when you got it. You can see in their head they're, you know, putting the dots together. How old are they when it's happening?

I teach from year seven. So from zero, from zero, actually. From zero, babies are cut. And it's one of the most cruelest, cruelest child abuse that's out there. And what is so sad about this is our communities never see as a child abuse. They see as a part of their life. It's part of their tradition, their culture, their heritage. But it's a practice that is killing and it's a practice that is living you.

with the lifetime traumas that have so many ages to it, you do not know which way to avoid. And for me, I'm coming back to what Sarah was saying about health efficient. The cost cutting to FGM, literally if we want to do the cost cutting to FGM, we must to see it as a human right issue. We must use prevention, which is absolutely education. For me, it's the youth that have the power on their hand to end this nightmare. And in terms of services, we are treated like, I don't know, fourth, fifth class in this country.

It doesn't, women who have undergone FGM are not seen that way. The whole, you know, psychology and all those things, therapy that is created. It's not created with people like us in their mind. It's created for different, which is why women don't take, you know, therapy on board because it's not what you want. It's not designed for you and we need to change all that. Sarah, you rely on the work that charities and women like Hebo do to prevent FGM. What are their biggest barriers?

The biggest barriers are funding, I think. And for those that are actually granting funding, such as ICBs, the understanding of what it is that they're actually providing. And I think Hebo is absolutely right. This is violence against women and girls. And this should be part of the agenda for the government in its aim to half the violence against women and girls. And it is people that are getting much younger as well. Absolutely right that the Home Office said, we're going to monitor and ask extra questions

at immigration for families that are travelling with young girls to certain parts of Africa, where we know FGM is prevalent. But people are just circumnavigating that. They'll go to another stop-off before they go to their final destination. So I think we've got to really review some of the practices and standards that we have in place as well and make sure that they're actually working because otherwise we are just going to be, which is going to continue with this problem and it cannot. And I think with regards to the support, we actually said as a committee, we need to have survivors' voices

at the centre of any of these solutions. Hebo, what would prosecution be a deterrent or do you think that would drive the practice further underground? I think, first of all, prosecution would do that, but prosecution is very important. It's absolutely important. We can't do this work without people being held accountable for doing something that is illegal in the country that you live in. And the thing for me is it's about a human right.

As a woman, you are very much pleased about your rights, about, you know, what you can do things for yourself that you didn't have in your own country. You come here and you violate that exact right that you treasure on your child. I think persecution is a massive tool that we have. but also education is even bigger, bigger than anything else. And I hope, I hope, I hope that, you know, politicians realize that getting to our young people is the key to end FGM. Education tool is a massive, massive, massive deterrent and protection and prevention for our young people.

And I think we need to drive that. We need to talk to the education department. You know, we're teaching the young girls from primary school from year two. You know, your body is very important. And FGM is not that different. And I want them to make that part of the mandatory as well in primary school, which they shied away. Michael Gove shied away from that. But we're teaching everything in primary school.

So what is the difference? FGM is always segregated. When it comes to violence against women in all, when, you know, the sectors are tackling it. FGM is the back of the line. But why? Why is the back of the line? This is one of horrible, hidden, you know, cruel abuse that has taken a toll in our lives.

I'm a survivor and I know what I'm talking about. I live with it. I will die with it. The consequences I've suffered and continued to suffer is what drives me every day to get up and go to schools, go to midwifery, go to universities. I do the most, you know, nitty gritty grasswood. Our charity is absolutely,

not any other charity does what we're doing UK. Well, you're working across, Every sector. You're talking to institutions. You're talking to young people. But also you're trying to make a cultural shift happen. It's a huge undertaking. What are the biggest obstacles for you? Funding. Funding. Funding has been the worst part of everything. But for me, even if I have zero funding, it never stops me. Because in my head, I'm like, there's a young girl who might end up like me. There's a young girl who has already been done. I want to see her.

There's a future for you. There's a life for you. It's not what you're thinking in your head. There's a lot of work that we're doing and we just need funding. And government has been such a slow to do that. And it hasn't been slow in any other violence. We've had this from the Home Office. A spokesperson said no woman or girls should ever have to experience female genital mutilation

through our landmark mission to help violence against women and girls. We're working across government and the NHS to support this. victims of this deeply harmful practice and ensure those responsible face justice. This includes a £13 million investment in a new care centre, in a new centre to improve the police response to violence against women and girls, £50,000 uplift for the Carmen Nirvana's National Abuse Helpline and a new study to assess the prevalence of FGM in England and Wales. Sarah, what's your reaction to the money the government's saying it's committed in this area?

Any of that money is obviously welcome, but there's a huge part of that that's missing. It's very much focused on the police response and not. the reconstructive surgery that women will need. It's not the specialist support and counselling and to get over the trauma and to cope with the trauma and live with the trauma. And the word education wasn't mentioned there once. Education settings for teachers and teaching assistants to be made aware of the science of FGM. There wasn't anything around education for young people to know about their bodies and what's right and what's right for them and to keep them safe. And there wasn't anything around educational training for health

professionals as well. So I think education is the huge bit that was missing from that statement and any funding would be welcome and we would love to see it in that area. Sarah Owens and Hebo Wadara who was speaking to me earlier this morning and if you've been affected by anything you've heard

in today's programme, there were links to support sites on the BBC's Action Line website. Now, women have taken part in the Highland Games across Scotland for a number of years but this year Scottish history was made as the World Female Heavy Events Championship was introduced for the very first time hosted by the Glencan Art Highland Games

women from across the world competed in the heavyweights celebrating women's strength, skill and determination as we reached the end of the season Elizabeth Elliott and Emily Bartow who competed in the championship join me now from Scotland to tell us more welcome both of you Emily I'm going to come to you first what are the heavies at the Highland Games

tell us about the events that women compete in so we have five events at the moment and sometimes up to eight we would start with our shot butt we then go on to wait for distance we have our hammer throw which I'm sure everyone would kind of throw about and then the wait for height and our very iconic one the cable toss how did you get into it

mine was completely off the bat so I've never actually been to Highland Games before it and I have the May Highland Games very close to me one of the ones that the King visits just really far up north and my cousin and myself were going to go anyways and we made a bet and if she ordered her own dinner

then I was going to put myself out there and try the games even though I'd never touched in the equipment and my first day there there was eight women they were absolutely amazing, lovely and I gave it a go and ended up doing pretty well

for someone who'd never done it before so I continued with it. I'm sure eight very powerful and inspiring women like Liz, let me bring Liz in Liz, you became interested 15 years ago. What was it like when you first started? So I first got involved in Highland Games when I met my husband. I also had never been to Highland Games before until I was 27 years old.

So Highland Games has changed a lot since I first went along. Have women always been included in the heavyweights in these particular challenges? So when I first started off around 15 years ago, There was men competing and we kind of concentrated in the bowling games because my husband had a lot of highland games. What happened was there wasn't a lot of men. Maybe you need about eight to ten for a good competition. In some of these competitions we were only getting like six or seven. And one of the organizers was coaching at the time, a couple of young ladies hammer and shop-up and thought that it was going to be a great idea to include the ladies in the

highland games events. But to make it a couple of competition you maybe need three people at least three um so then i was often kind of drafted in just to help and be the third person um i did that for a couple of years um was always encouraged to do it had a great time had a bit of fun and then from there just moved on to a bit of strength training how strong do you have to be uh to lift a caber and do the weight over the bar of you it's good if you lift weights you need to be strong how how heavy is a caber it can weigh anything between what 25 to 50 kilo yeah that'll do it you need to be pretty strong for that one

Emily you've now both been able to participate in the world championship does this feel like a huge moment for female athletes yeah we've definitely made history in Scotland there congratulations yeah it's definitely it's an incredible incredible movement in the women's face definitely you've both had some incredible experiences competing but it's not always been positive, has it? Some feedback that we get from the Highland Games

when we approach them to see if we can have Highland Games on the field, we have some responses back that, yes, we can come along and throw, but we can throw the men's equipment. That's not the most positive response or response that we're looking for, if I'm honest. So how do you stand up to that? What do you say? Not a lot.

I would like to walk over and pick up a four-kilu shots. put instead of picking up a 7.25, I'd like to go over and pick up my 28 pound weight and throw that for height as opposed to throwing a 56 pound weight for height. And I'd also like to go over and pick up a 35 kilo cabber as opposed to a 65 kilo caber. So the games, unfortunately, we need to stay away from. What do you think needs to change then to still make the Highland games more inclusive? Yeah, come on in, Emily. Sorry, so my opinion's obviously a bit different because I've came from a women's sport already of rugby

where it's so body positive and everything is always about how powerful you are and like you show up at games and you have like amazing people like Alona Maher, Sarah Byr and Woodmen from the Black Fairns and you have these women to look up to

that are so so powerful and always praised on just how it doesn't matter what they look like does not, not what they wear nothing it's always about how good they are and what their body can do and I know that I've definitely had experience at the games where that's not been the case, especially

like with men commenting on rather like the size of my kelp than how powerful or how much I've progressed in a year, which is some insane movement like my hammer's been 50 foot progress, but tends to not go towards that and actually go towards the fact that I've changed my kilt to be a sports kilt. So how do you hold your own then? Because you're there you are as an athlete,

conducting yourself as an athlete. I have some amazing inspirational women that I watch and I am not scared to tell them straight away that actually you shouldn't be focusing on this and actually you should be focusing on the fact that I have grown and that the sport has another opportunity and another woman to grow it. Yeah, I'm not afraid to say it.

Well, good for you. What a brilliant positive role model you are for the next generation and there are younger women coming through, aren't there, Liz? Yes, there most definitely is. Going back to Glenark at Highland Games, we had eight ladies thrown from around the world. young Juliet Ramsey She's 16 years old

Yeah we had Eve Robson also along with Emily Barter who's a young athlete herself so yeah we have some really great incredible throwers coming through which is amazing to see And there are thriving women's competitions in the US, Germany and Australia

and some of which you've competed in So how does it feel to compete at this level on Scottish soil? Oh I was very emotional It was a very, very, very proud day. To think back, like all the years ago, there was maybe only about seven Highland Games that hosted ladies.

A couple of years ago, there was around 19, 20 Highland Games and just by a big push of all as ladies contacting Highland Games, reaching out, saying that we can do this sport, we're in the high 20s, and then when we got a phone call and the announcement came out

that Glen Arkip were going to host a Ladies World Championship, it's wow, it's just got such a wow factor to it. There's so much credit to these guys, the committee, the helpers, the volunteers, the sponsors, and it just said that this could happen and it can happen in Scotland. Incredible. The posts have been shared around the world. It's been absolutely fantastic. I was just, I was so emotional. It's good to hear. I'm sure I'm relating to that. Good to hear. Thank you both for taking the time to speak to me.

Best of luck in the future. Emily, brilliant role model and Liz You, role model and pioneer. So thank you, both of you, Highland Games athletes, Elizabeth Elliott and Emily Barter there. Now, how do you feel about your accent? If you're making your way through Essex on the train in the coming days, you might notice poems being read over the PA system, with young women and girls sharing how they feel about their accent. It's part of a new project from the University of Essex and C2C Rail celebrating the accents. Dr Tara McAllister Vale led the project,

speaking to pupils at Westcliffe High School for Girls, who wrote and recorded their own poem, as spoken word poems. Well, Tara joins me now alongside comedian Esther Manito, who is from Essex, Tara and Esther, welcome to Woman's Hour. So Tara, what inspired this project? Oh, thank you very much for having me. This project was three years in the making.

It started very simply. I have daughters who are born and raised here in South End. And a couple of years ago, they were coming home, telling me that they were getting some negative message. about their accents. Well, I've been a professional voice and speech teacher for 30 years, so of course I told that there is nothing wrong with your accent. But they needed a little bit more than just mother's encouragement. They needed some strategies for talking back to stereotype. So I approached my daughter's high school and I said, what do you think about this? Is there

anything in this? Do you want to work together? Because this is my research area. And they said, yes, let's do it. So we started with spoken word poetry because it's fun. And it also starts with an auto-ethnographic, you know, beginning point for students so they can put their own life experience on a page. But then after writing their poems, they can lift those poems, put them in their body, speak them out loud, and sometimes just hearing your own thoughts out there in the air for others to listen to is really empowering.

And it also gives an opportunity for the listener to change their mind, to listen again. Shall we ever listen? I know we've got an extra from an excerpt from one of the poems. It's called This Is My Voice, My Home, by student Jay. My voice is powerful, unique, changeable, influential, spectacular, proud, emotional, historic, futuristic, worthy, iconic, distracting, yappy, succulent, recognisable, projective, reflective, free.

Esther, and fist bumping. Oh, it's great, isn't it? Before we talk about, you know, the empowerment of that poem and the work that Tara's doing, remind us what the stereotypes are that women face who have Essex accents. I mean, I don't know if we have it so much, you know, but I remember growing up. in the 90s, the Essex girl was a really, really negative stereotype, really negative, and obviously there was a lot of misogyny around it. I do think there are certain things that go along with the accent that assume that maybe you're not as academic. So you get

those kind of stereotypes. But also I think there's a lot of positive stereotypes along with the Essex accent. I do think people are quite, they find it quite endearing. And I think people enjoy the Essex accent in terms of conversational, in terms of, yeah, like small talk, conversational chit-chat. I think there's something that just makes people relax a little bit with the Essex accent. I think it's quite a kind of warm, warm accent. This is where you'll get loads of people going, oh, oh, well, well, let's see. I mean, people are messaging us, actually.

I'm going to read a couple out. Suez says, I grew up in Essex in the 1960s. My parents tried very hard to ensure I spoke properly in inverted commas. so I had a home accent and a school accent. I went to uni in Bristol, aged 18, and I instantly knew that it was the home accent I needed to use. Still now, I'm 66 years old, I keep my accent in check. There's always been, and still is, significant prejudice

against an Essex accent. Tara, what other young women that you've been speaking to at your daughter's high school has been telling you? Well, they've told me that they've had lots of negative messages about their accent. These are 14-year-olds. I was a bit surprised, so young. But, yes, they've been told they don't speak properly. You have marbles in your mouth.

You sound stupid. I mean, yeah. Who is telling them? One student told me. Oh, one student told me. I feel if you open your mouth with a really overly accent, and even if you have something important to say, they will automatically get written off.

And that can really do a number on your self-esteem. Esther, what attitude? have you experienced? I've had things where people have just assumed that they can correct. And you're like, you wouldn't do that if I had a more plummy accent. So they might just go, and they'll find it funny. They're joking. And isn't it funny how you say that?

And you're like, I mean, it's just the way I say it. And I assume that people with lots of different regional accents get that. And that can be quite frustrating. I was actually talking to a friend of mine who, In a doctor's appointment, she was describing her ailment, and he corrected how she pronounced something. He said, actually, it's whom, not whose, or something along those lines.

And I was like, he wouldn't have dared do that if you had a more plummy accent. So, yeah, there is this kind of assumption that you're, you know, a little bit secondary. Tara, we've just, that message I just read out was somebody saying that they had their home accent and their away accent. And some of the girls who took part in the project spoke about code switching, changing their accent based on who they are. Absolutely. Or who they're with.

Yes, yes. I think they hear those messages. And it's no wonder that young people who are just trying to figure out who they are or who they want to become, when they receive that kind of judgment, they choose then maybe to self-silance or to code switch. And it's really such a shame because an accent is so much a part of your identity. It is literally inside your body. It's shaped inside your mouth. You hear it and it's caught in your ear.

And we assign meanings to those sounds. And we can change the way we assign meaning to those sounds. It doesn't have to be like that. Did you find in your research that women with their sex accents are judged differently to men? That wasn't my research, but there is research out there exactly looking at those different demographics. I work with young people. The students who wrote those poems were only 14 years old.

I think they're very mature and well-thought-out poems. They have these thoughts that perhaps a teenager, a female teenager from Essex just isn't taken seriously. another message here I'm going to read out saying so for years being from Birmingham and moving down south I really repressed my accent from the age of 19 to about 31 due to others and myself with a Birmingham accent we were judged to be uneducated and in the art school setting I first lived in uncultured it took me until I was doing well in my industry later in life and having an accent slip and someone laughing for me to realise that my accent should not define what I did or my skills I've now spent the last eight years reclaiming it and also reclaiming the pride I

have in where I'm from through habits I still so repress it in some situations but I'm conscious of it and try more to let my accent out in all situations let it out um Tara have you ever tried to change it is this something you've ever done a home and away accent no sorry esther oh um yes all the time and and I think that I totally relate to the code switching I think it's it's something that you do really naturally. And I think especially if you've got family who are from a different country, which I did, you would naturally adjust the way you speak. So you almost adjust the way you speak for them

and then adjust the way you speak with your friends. But even in a positive way, like my children, we still live in Essex now, but my children, they notice that when I'm kind of trying to enlist somebody to help me out or anything, but mum just goes to all Essex and she's like, scoves me, can you help me? And you're not even aware you do it

But it's almost like That's the way of me going Here's no I don't know Just lowing a guard and going Oh you know I am a really nice person So it's almost like if I want you to like me more

I go more Essex Which I hadn't even That's something at you know At 43 I'm like wow I never even noticed that before My kids to point it's to point it out I think the code switching is really interesting Because I always associate it with being

From a different ethnicity Because it's not just about voice It's about cultural shift as well It's understanding what's required of you in a certain situation. Esther, exhausting, though. Isn't it? But do you not find,

I think it's a really useful tool to have as well, though, because it does mean you can kind of slip in and out of different, you know, social situations, cultural situations, you know, there's all sort of things where you can just, but yes, yeah, but I don't,

to be honestly, I don't think I've even really noticed it until I had kids myself. But then I was suddenly like, because they reflect back everything, do you? And they'll do it publicly. They're like, why is it when you speak into your auntie, you speak like that? But why is it when you're speaking to so-and-so next door, you speak like that?

And you're just like, oh, I didn't even notice that. So it is funny. Tara, what do you make of it? Because it is, I mean, it is snobbery, isn't it? This is about class and snobbery. It is, but it can have material effects on your life. There are plenty of studies out there to suggest that accent bias can affect your ability to be hired or promote it at work

or to get into the university that you want. Some research done out of the University of Cambridge said that accent, bias can affect arrest rates, witness testimony and harsher sentencing. It can affect the perceived competency of health professionals. It can impact health care safety, quality, and patient experience. Goodness me. So it can impact so many things,

which is why Esther, more power to you and your Essex accent. And Tara, really great that you have been doing this work with young women to empower them to be proud of the way they speak because sometimes Yorkshire accents are even allowed on radio for now, which I thoroughly approve of. That's it from me. Join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. Thanks to all my guests and thanks to you for taking part. Sophie Ellis Baxter will be talking to me tomorrow.

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