Woman's Hour - Fran Lebowitz, Parent Blame, Heiresses

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

She's been described as the funniest woman in America. We talk to Fran Lebowitz, the American writer, social commentator, humorist, and New York legend. She shares her opinion on everything from gender, Covid and marriage. We hear from our political correspondent at Holyrood about proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland. Do you have a child with special educational needs, and are you getting the support that you need? We hear from one mother who's been trying to do the best thing by her son, and feels like she's the one being blamed. And ever fantasized about what you'd do if you inherited a fortune? A famous heiress once said: “Life is less sad with money.” Maybe. We speak to Laura Thompson who's analysed the stories of women whose wealth has been passed down to them. She's written a book called Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies.

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, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to today's programme. And we wanted to add our congratulations to cyclist Dame Sarah Story, who's just beating her own record over and over, winning her 17th Paralympic gold to become Great Britain's most successful Paralympian of all time. Definitely wanted to mark that.

But on today's programme, a real treat for you, the wisecracking writer, humorist and all-round New York legend, Fran Lebowitz, who's recently found a whole new army of younger fans through her Netflix documentary series, which you may or may not have checked out. But she turned 70 during lockdown. And we talk about a whole range of things, not least the fact that she thinks we're in the era of the old lady. She has several reasons for why she thinks women like herself and fellow writer Joan Didion,

who she's keen to stress is older at 86, are finding their work to be more popular than ever. You'll hear Fran's reasons shortly. But I wanted to ask you, what is it about being an older woman, if you are one, that we should appreciate? What are the things that you can do, say or feel that you couldn't perhaps when you were younger? What are the stereotypes about old ladies, in inverted commas, I'll say that out loud, that you find infuriating? And if you're a younger woman, what do you learn from the older women in your life? For instance, my godmother with a glass of cold white wine by six o'clock on the dot, perhaps a cheeky cigarette on the go hiding it from her husband, always made me laugh well into her 90s, never took herself too seriously.

And my favourite thing, there wasn't a problem she couldn't address. Sometimes it would just be to sit in silence and then find some way of making me smile. It was that experience, that broader view that I always came to treasure and feel that I wanted to indulge myself in. But often when we do talk about older women, we put it as 50s and 60s. Sometimes we end up linking it to the menopause

or the health side of things but this isn't that today this is about what older women have to say and think tell me your take on this the era of the old lady 84844 are we living in that do you count yourself in that what do you want to say about that on social media get in touch with me at bbc women's hour or email me through the women's hour website also on today's programme, are parents of disabled children treated unfairly when they try to fight for the best social care and educational support for their child?

I'm going to be talking to one parent who felt blamed when she pushed for help. And what would life really be like if you never had to work? You might be dreaming of that right now. Well, one writer has some surprising insights for you never had to work. You might be dreaming of that right now. Well, one writer has some surprising insights for you and for us all. But questions about sex and gender and the ways in which people should or should not be able to self-identify is back in the news in Scotland. Later this morning, there'll be a protest outside Holyrood by groups against

proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act. These are changes that would make it easier for trans people to legally change theirition Act. These are changes that would make it easier for trans people to legally change their registered gender. It's a subject that the SNP and Greens have signalled as a priority in their new co-operation political deal. And yesterday, the National Records of Scotland published guidance on answering the what is your sex question in Scotland's forthcoming census. Unlike England, Wales and Northern Ireland,

the organisation has decided to stick with allowing people to self-ID without the need for legal documents such as a gender recognition certificate. The BBC Scotland political correspondent Lindsay Buse is here. Lindsay, on the census, if we start there, first of all, is this a big change? Well, it isn't a change because in the 2011 census, Emma, there was a question which allowed self-identification on sex. I guess what has happened is National Records of Scotland have provided guidelines basically to make it clear to people how they can answer this question and how they can self-identify regardless of the details on their birth certificate or whether they have a gender recognition certificate so it's really clarifying what had happened before and I think

one of the reasons why it's hit the headlines though is because of the huge debate that's happening here right now over gender reforms and the fact that we're expecting in this first year of the new Parliament and the new government that they will bring forward those reforms that they had talked about in the last Parliament to make changes to how easy it is to achieve a gender recognition certificate. Let's come back to that in just a moment. But sticking with the census, it's also presumably newsworthy because it's been different with the census for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The ability to self-identify was overturned by a High Court challenge. We covered it here on the programme. Yeah, that's right. So there is that point of difference now. And that point of difference has been welcomed by the Scottish Trans Alliance, for example, and campaigners on that side of the debate, who I think had perhaps been a bit fearful that Scotland might go down the same route as had happened in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with that change. And another thing that is new in this census is a voluntary question about transgender status or history for those over 16.

So that's now included for the first time to try to build really a bigger picture, a better picture, a more informed picture about sex and gender across Scotland. As you say, it is this backdrop against the census finds itself with changes or potential changes to the Gender Recognition Act. When are things going to change? Because there had been expectation they might have already, but they haven't. That's right. Yeah, this was a promise to review and reform this law in the SNP's 2016 manifesto. And then during the last parliament, they held a consultation. They took responses to that. They published draft legislation. They then said that they were going to hold a further consultation. So in the middle of 2019, those reforms were put on hold while they did that. And then when COVID hit, they paused this legislation

in the middle of the year, last year. And obviously we've just had the election. So people had been, because it had become more controversial and the debate had become really quite toxic in some quarters here, people were looking carefully to see what would appear in the SNP's

manifesto going into this election. And just to be clear, what would the changes, if the SNP were to stick to their manifesto, stick to its manifesto, what would the changes be? Sure, so they want to make the process, as they say, less onerous for people to achieve a gender recognition certificate. So under their proposals, anyone applying would no longer need a clinical diagnosis or a medical report. And the two year period you would have to show that you had been living in that cases would be handled by the Register General for Scotland rather than the UK-wide gender recognition certificate panel. Because, of course, again, just to do a comparison here, the UK government decided in December of 2020 not to change that criteria. With the Equalities Minister and Minister for Women, Liz Truss, saying this is the government's view that the balance struck in the Gender Recognition Act is correct and that there are proper checks and balances in the system

and also support for people who want to change their legal sex, just to quote her on this. So this would represent, again, another diversion from that. The protests that you're, I believe, going to be covering later present, of course, a very different view of this. Yes, that's right. Yes, there has been a lot of opposition from some parts of society to this change,

not least from within Nicola Sturgeon's own party. There are some senior figures in the SNP who have their own concerns about these changes the group who are going to be protesting outside Hollywood today are a group called For Women Scotland and they are a grassroots organization which has kind of grown in in in status and size as this debate has continued and they are very concerned about what they say would be conflating sex with gender, how that will affect a range of different policies and services that are delivered. They say that changing the definitions, as they see it, of male and female is a matter of real significance. about the potential impact of allowing people to self-identify their gender when it comes to safe spaces for women, women-only shortlists, women's prisons and services for women, such as rape crisis services

and things like that. So they have some... I was going to say, because of this opposition, because of these protests today, because of the opposition within the SNP itself as well, and yet mindful of the fact that there's just been a political deal done with the Greens where they are in agreement about these changes potentially coming down the track. Is it definitely going to happen? Well, we were all watching the SNP's manifesto very closely to see how much of a commitment they made to this.

It was pretty emphatic, they say they remain committed to making these necessary changes at the earliest opportunity. And that deal they've just done that you mentioned, Emma, there that with the Greens makes a commitment to bring this legislation forward in the first year of this Parliament. Because one thing that we shouldn't forget is there is equal pressure on the other side from the trans community and from their allies to get moving with this legislation. They've been very frustrated at how long this has taken. Now, Nicola Sturgeon, with that deal with the Greens, now has a solid majority in the Scottish Parliament that she didn't have before that deal. The Greens are much more emphatically as a party on board with making this change. This will come down to whether or not she can convince

some of those doubters within her own party to vote for this legislation. But they did all stand on that manifesto commitment to make this change when they stood for election in May. So it does look like this is going to happen here in Scotland. I'm sure we'll talk again. BBC Scotland political correspondent, Lindsay Bewes, with the latest on that situation. Now, I did say we have a real treat for you, and we really do, in the form of Fran Leibovitz, who I'll tell you about just in a moment.

But I asked you about the idea of being an older woman, what you can learn, because Fran Leibovitz, the American humorist, social commentator, the writer, has said we're living, quote You Can Learn, because Fran Leibowitz, the American humorist, social commentator, the writer, has said we're living, quote unquote, in the era of the old lady. And Yuli, who's got in touch to say, old lady is what I object to. I'm a woman. For many of us older women, I'm 65, we grew up in an era where girls and women were frequently and condescendingly referred to as ladies by men. Please, Woman's Hour, drop the lady. Just to clarify, that's not ever a word I think you'll hear in my scripts or in fact how we refer to women. But I take the point

and perhaps also being said, quote unquote, by Fran, perhaps from a headline she's also seen, or maybe it's the American side of this. I wanted to read that message out. Kate's got in touch on email who says, my beef as a 73 year old is that if I was to appear in a newspaper because of something that happened to me, I would be described as a 73-year-old grandmother, pensioner, and not be defined by my career, talents, or experience. Kate, thank you very much for that. We'll refer to you just as Kate. Keep those messages coming in about whether you think we are living in this era of the old woman, perhaps what's changed, some of the ways that you get infuriated still by how older women are described and what you've learned from the older

women in your life. But she is described by the Washington Post as the funniest woman in America. She's known as a New York legend, Fran Lebowitz. You may have seen her Emmy Award nominated Netflix series, Pretend It's a City, in which Fran was talking to her friend, the film director Martin Scorsese, about life in New York where she's lived for over 50 years. It became cult viewing for some during lockdown as people craved city life. Fran, who's Jewish and gay, shares her opinions on, well, everything from gender, technology, politics, parenting and more. And if you're not familiar with her caustic wit, she'll be on tour in the UK next year. And her new book, The Fran Leibovitz Reader, has just been released. Well, sometimes women do say they feel invisible when they get older, but the opposite seems to be the case in terms of 70-year-old Fran.

And I asked her about this when we spoke earlier this week from home. I think that's more of a concern of straight women than it's ever been a concern of mine. But I know it's true because everyone says it. And well, that doesn't usually make things true. But I know it's true. This is probably also true of old men. But no one cares anymore, including me. Although some people have said to me, not just in a sexual way, the invisibility can be very liberating. It can be a superpower because you can walk around and not be noticed in a way. When I was young, New York was, still is, but they were different kind of guys, was full of construction workers. And the construction workers would sit on the sidewalk at lunchtime eating. And I hated when I was a young girl to walk past these construction sites because they would yell at you, whistle you, talk to you. And I did not like that. But some of my straight friends, when they stopped doing it, when you're like 30, they were upset by it. So to me, I do remember thinking, great, that's over.

There's also the career side of it. So the ageism that can happen in Hollywood. We obviously hear a lot about that, but through to the boardroom, through to regular jobs. I just wonder how you feel that may have changed as well, being a woman, I believe. Are you 70? I'm 70.

Congratulations, Mazel Tov. Who would make that up? Some of the people, 70 or 70. I said, yes, who would make that up? Well, I suppose if you're 80, you would make it up. It's a stunning thing, by the way, when this happens to you. I know it's true.

I say it. But it does, it seems kind of unreal. Well, not that this is linked at all to your age, but I did read and wanted to ask you about this brilliant line you said, where the type of women, certainly in America, that are most liked are dead women. You're talking in reference to art and how people are received at the time. They love dead women.

Yeah. It's all these women artists, for instance, because there's this, you know, big thing in the last few years of women artists that were artists their whole lives, you know, but they weren't really noticed because women couldn't be artists. For instance, there was recently a big Alice Neel show at the Met, and someone called and said to me, do you like Alice Neel? I said, yes, of course. I love Alice Neel. I said, people didn't love her this much when she was alive.

They love her because she's dead. I mean, she was the same painter. And this is true of tons of women artists. This is particularly true of artists I've noticed, because it was always easier for women writers than painters say. In fact, when I decided to be a writer, it never occurred to me a woman could be a writer in an era where women could be practically nothing. You know, for instance, I never saw a woman doctor, but there were always women writers and I was reading them. So I'm not sure whether it would have had an effect on me one way or the other. But there used to be huge articles in The New York Times. Why can't women be artists?

Why are there no great women artists? And they would answer this question with because, not because you say so, but because there's some actual reason for this. It's also the era of the old lady, Joan Didion, who is much older than me, by the way, I'd like to point out, is a big favorite of young women, much more than when she was younger, by the way. Some of it is just, I guess, surviving. Some of it is an interest in

the era in which you were young. With me, I think a lot of it is that I was young in the 70s. New York in the 70s is such a preoccupation of young people. It's like Paris in the 20s or something. And I think that's also part of it. Do you think it's also because you have a boldness that perhaps is lacking in the younger generation because you say what you think without worry? I think that's probably true. It never occurs to anyone young. I've done in the last year, 100 million interviews from all over the world. And they often ask me, did you say this because of this? Or did

you say this because of that? It never occurs to anyone young that you say anything just because you think that there's no idea that that's true. You know, they're so aware of a reaction from other people all the time. It's like being in junior high school your whole life to think this way about people. So there's definitely a lack of people believing me, which drives me crazy when I say, why did you say that? Did you say this in order to elicit? No, I just said it because I think that's why I say it. I would prefer that that's what everyone said. Imagine how, you know, the lack of problems we would have if people said what they thought.

But hardly anyone does. And so that's why no one believes me. Or if they do say what they think, they can be now at times forced to apologize for it if it's not the prevailing thought. Yeah, I'm not talking about that kind of thing so much. I know that, you know, when people get into this huge trouble, it's mostly men who do, and not because women are better morally. It's because people get in trouble because they have some prominent position and those positions are mostly occupied by men. He said this six years ago. Some of these things are horrible, by the way, that people say.

So I think, well, what difference does it make when he said it? If he said this particular thing, it's horrible. And also people seem to have no understanding that no one says anything they don't think. So when they say, this isn't really showing who I am, this isn't the real me, I think, of course it is. When people are drunk, they say stuff and then they have to apologize. And they say, you know, I was drunk. And I always say, you know, people, when they're drunk,

they say the truth. I hold people more accountable for what they say when they're drunk. It's interesting because you say it because you believe it. You say it because you think it. How do you actually form such clear views? Because that's very consistent in the work that I've seen when you are being interviewed. And even, you know, with your friend, Martin Scorsese, you talk so clearly and you seem to know exactly what you think. Have you thought for a long time? No.

I mean, the things I say, I don't think about. In other words, you know, they just come. The only time that I can recall, certainly in my adult life, where I was wishing I knew how to think about something was when COVID first appeared. I didn't know how to judge anything. I did not think about this. Because, you know, truthfully, by the time you're my age or even it should be way before, most things are like other things. But this was like nothing I'd ever experienced in my life. And that is very unusual to have such a new experience at this age. And, you know, I remember very vividly thinking very directly, I wish Tony was alive. I mean, I always wish Tony was alive, Tony Carson, because she would know how to think about this. You know, now kind of I know how to think about it, but it's too late. You know, I don't mean my thoughts would have saved this,

but I mean, people at the beginning, and some people still answer this question, kept asking, well, what do you think of the vaccine? You know, what's your opinion about the vaccine? And I think like, I don't have medical opinions. How can I have medical opinions? What would they be based on? You know, my idea of a medical opinion is ask a doctor, ask a scientist, okay? And I've always felt there was no one further

from being a scientist than me, but it turns out there are many people further because they don't even ask the people who know. You're right. A lot of people now seem to become medical experts or vaccine experts or epidemiologists, whatever, overnight. You've mentioned New York. It is the place that you are synonymous with.

I do love that you worked as a taxi driver for how long? Less than a year, for sure. How was that? Horrible. But first of all, I hate working. And finally, I realized by the time I was in my middle 20s and I kept switching these bad jobs I had, I finally realized, Fran, you don't like to work. It's as simple as that. You, Fran, would have made a fantastic heiress.

Like, I have known in my life people who never had to work and they often complain about it, you know, and I think like, honey, change places with me because I've never had the slightest problem thinking of what to do if I didn't have to work. So driving a cab when I drove a cab. Well, first of all, it's considered very dangerous because it was in the very early 70s, probably 71, 72. And New York was very dangerous then. I mean, crime wise and cab drivers were being held up all the time because there was cash. Nothing ever happened to me like that. The reason I became a cab driver was because I could do it. In other words, I know how to drive. You know, when I came to New York, I was a kid. I hadn't finished high school. I didn't know how to type. And so I thought I could do this. I know how to drive. This is something, a skill I actually have. Were you a rarity, a woman driving a cab? Or was that more of a thing?

I kept hearing there's another woman cab driver, but I never saw her. This was very upsetting to the cab drivers, by the way, that I was driving this cab. The stereotypical cab driver in the 70s was a working class Jewish guy smoking a cigar. And that was true. And these guys would look at me like with hatred because I think they were thinking, is this what's going to happen to the profession? Like this is what's going to happen.

They just refused to talk to me. I was very unpopular then. You obviously turned your hand quite quickly to writing after that. I know you did a few other things too, not least working for Andy Warhol's interview magazine and starting to write columns and all of that but you mentioned when we were talking earlier about artists and women you always thought you could write but how did you feel people would take a woman being funny being witty how are funny women treated because

you are Jewish and there is a great you great comic history there for you to draw upon. Did you feel you could be included in that as a woman? I really didn't think about it. I skipped a lot of stuff. And in retrospect, you know, on the one hand, people say, well, that's not good. You should be more thoughtful, philosophical. On the other hand, it enabled me to just do stuff. I just didn't think about it.

I mean, when I was a kid in school, like 12, 13, my mother said to me, don't be funny around boys. Boys don't like funny girls. Unfortunately, by the way, that turned out not to be true. I wouldn't mind if it was true, but it was not true. And when I was in junior high school, when I graduated in the ninth grade, which was the last time I graduated from anything, there were like awards at the end of the year. And I got this like trophy and it was a class wit award. And I was afraid to tell my mother because I thought she'd be angry at me. So I think I never told her. You know,

when I was a kid, especially at large holiday meals with like my grandparents and my aunts and uncles, I very rarely got to the end of the meal because I would be told to leave the table, leave the table. You're being fresh, you know, you're talking back. So, you know, mostly the things that I was paid for when I got older, I was punished for it when I was young. Also in school, I was also, you know, thrown out of class all the time for making remarks from back of the classroom but I I didn't really concentrate on the fact that I was probably getting punished more because I was a girl because of course there were also boys in school who were making jokes and you know I didn't really think how come he's

not being thrown out of class all the time did your mom and dad ever find you funny though when you were older? Did they see what others saw? Because I mean, you've been called the funniest woman in America. I don't know. I really don't know. I guess they did. I mean, one of my father's friends said to me, so I guess you get your sense of humor from your father. And I said, my father's funny. I didn't know my father was funny. He wasn't funny around us. So, you know, the distance between parents and children when I was young was so much bigger than it is now. I mean, I think the description of your needs as smoking cigarettes and plotting revenge could definitely be something that most people would say sounded like a very cool day. So, you know, I was just wondering if they'd signed up to it, but is that still an ideal day?

Yeah, the planning revenge probably is less important because I've actually seen so much revenge. And when people say, you know, by the time this thing happens to the person you're angry at or whatever, you don't care. But I've always cared. I've always enjoyed it. It could be 50 years later.

I think I could. I wouldn't tell people that it's not true that it's not enjoyable and that it's always enjoyable yeah no there'll be a lot of people nodding along when they listen to this are you a feminist I guess so when feminism I'm not I I don't know when it first started it was like you know 100 100 years ago. But I mean, when it first became this big political thing, I was never involved in it. I've never been a political activist. I never thought it would work. It seemed ridiculous to me. And so not being, you know, notably self-sacrificing, I never thought, why don't you spend your life trying to do something that's never going to happen? And actually, for a long time, it didn't work. Probably in the last couple of years, it worked much more than it worked in

the preceding 50 years. And it's astonishing to me that it's working at all. And of course, it doesn't work perfectly and it never will. I always said and thought that it is more likely to be an end of racism, not that there's going to be one, but more likely than an end of misogyny. And I really thought that because racism is a total fantasy. So it is possible that people will give up a fantasy. It hasn't happened. Now there's racism is a fantasy of superiority. There's actually zero difference between races, zero. But there is a difference between men and women. There are numerous differences between men and women that are real, by which I mean biological. And this is something that fuels and enables misogyny.

And so that I thought, this is never going to end. And so like when the Me Too movement started, I knew almost every single one of those original guys. I knew them personally. I heard a zillion stories about these guys. I believed every one of them, but there were some of the stories I never heard. I never heard the stories ever. And I knew some of these girls and it's because women don't tell weird stories. It's too horrible. They don't tell them. They don't tell them to me anyway. Someone said recently, nothing really changes. Look, this is horrible. And I say, you know what? Harvey Weinstein is in jail. That's a huge change. He's in jail. This is someone who ruled Hollywood for 25 years. I mean, ruled like a king. This is really a good thing. And so there has been change. That Me Too movement was shocking,

especially how fast it happened. I said to someone, being a woman was the same, you know, from like Eve until 10 minutes ago. Gay rights movement, I was never involved in that. People are always kids coming up to me thinking, thank you, friend. Thank you for fighting so hard for gay marriage. I never heard of gay marriage. It was not a thought ever came into my head. You know, I never heard of it. No one. And when I was young, this idea didn't exist. It never occurred to me that it would work. I was going to say with two examples that I'm not saying we're there yet with feminism or equality or the end of misogyny, however you want to term it. But do you think you're too cynical? No, I think that it's a really surprising thing that it worked, I have to tell you. I think, in other words, even though I turned out to be wrong, I still felt like I was right.

I don't think that all the progress of gay rights, which I'm well aware that perhaps you're not even supposed to call it gay anymore. Whatever you're supposed to call it, tell me what you want me to call it, I'll call it that. I don't keep up with the every single second. That in retrospect, you know, maybe it was a more likely thing to happen because it can happen to anyone by which I mean, you know, any family can have someone or many people who are gay. And so I never really thought about that before. So perhaps that's a reason. But it's an

astonishing thing to me. I mean, it's so succeeded that even the right wing, you know, people, they stopped talking about it. They know they lost. They're still fighting the Confederate war. I mean, the Civil War, you know, that they're not willing to give up, you know. But this, they've even started talking about it, mostly. Can you imagine ever being married? No, no. The first thing, when I first started making my marriage, I thought, no, not me. Like, I actually thought it was a horrible idea.

I thought, who wants to be like street people? To me, it seemed like a kind of a movement to free the masters. You know, I feel like I would never want to do that. And then when it became like really a big thing, you know, as long as it's not mandatory, I'm for it. It's OK. It's still something that, you know, in no way appeals to me. You know, zero. I see that it has this huge appeal. New York, we didn't vote for it. In some places, they actually had it on the ballot. We didn't vote for it. If it had been on the ballot, I would have voted for it because I know a lot of people wanted it. And I especially hated the people who didn't want it. But I thought, not me, no thanks.

You live in an apartment with 11,000 books? Well, I think there's probably more now because one of the things that happened is that bookstores were closed. Also, I don't have a computer. I have no way to order a book on the internet because I don't have the internet or whatever. So I was totally dependent on a friend's account to get books. And so instead of doing what I usually do, which is to go into a bookstore, open a book, and I am able to read the first page or so of a book, and I could tell whether I like it or not. I'm 99% right. Not always right, but usually right. So I was completely dependent on people telling me about books

or reading reviews of books. And so I ordered a zillion books that I don't like, that do not deserve to live in my house ever. She'll be moving them out soon, I'm sure. Fran Liverwitz is now my icon following this interview, says Barbara. Well, Fran's book,. Fran Liverwitz is now my icon following this interview says Barbara. Well Fran's book The Fran Liverwitz Reader is out today and she is going to be on tour here in the UK next year. She was talking about older women, the era of the older lady to quote Fran Liverwitz

for some of you who don't particularly love that phrase but a lot of you not caring about how it's referred to but wanting to say something about being an older woman or the older women in your life a message here, has anyone noticed how older women and men are keeping everything going if it wasn't for volunteers over 65 so many things would just collapse another message here I can scratch my boobs without having to raise my arms so high very good like that practical insight older women it has some wonderful privileges says this message i'm only 74 and i have an optimistic

outlook at my age i can talk to youngsters and i'm treated with respect i can flirt with no consequences i'm glad not to feel that i have to be on social media with all the heartache and upset it brings i can look back on the events and innovations i have seen but i do have some sadness and fear about what the future holds for my wonderful 13-year-old granddaughter and her peers. Judy says, I'm steaming with rage every time I see an old lady depicted as being stupid. This is particularly prevalent in TV advertisements where we're also encouraged to feel shame for being older

as well as completely out of touch with the modern world. I also hate the phrase little old lady, if only. And Leslie says, being 75 means I just don't care what anybody thinks of me, which is terribly liberating. You sound like you'd get on well with Fran Lubowitz there.

And many of you getting in touch to share the love for her. And if you've not heard of her, you certainly seem to be connecting with her from her words and she doesn't mince them. But earlier this week, I spoke to two women about trying to get a diagnosis for their children with special educational needs. A lot of you wrote in responding with your stories.

But what happens when that child gets further along in life after diagnosis and needs more support? Crucially, are parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities treated unfairly when they try to fight for the best social care and educational support. Do they, in fact, end up being blamed for poor parenting and aren't listened to? Many parents in this position certainly think so. And health and social care professionals are raising this as a problem, I'll be able to talk to one woman who says she was blamed for her plea and that her plea for respite care was turned in to a traumatic safeguarding investigation, which left her feeling violated, as she puts it. But first, I can talk to our disability affairs reporter, Carolyn Atkinson. Carolyn, tell us more about this. Well, this is all about how social services respond to disabled children and their families when they need support for their

children. Now we're talking about everything from very practical social care and rest site breaks or things about going to school and how to get the right professional support at school so things like speech and language therapy or physiotherapy. Now clearly many parents do get very good support and they have wonderful relationships with their social workers and with their schools and they feel they're backed up really well albeit some of them will say to get that back up there has been a battle to get to that point but others certainly don't and a recent report by the University of Leeds called institutionalizing parent care of blame which they began in 2017 and just published, investigated families' interactions with children's services in England.

And they came up with a conclusion. They warn that there's a one-size-fits-all approach. And they say that some families who just want some general support end up in a safeguarding situation where they feel they're being blamed or they're suspected of being very bad parents. How did they come up with their findings? where they feel they're being blamed or they're suspected of being very bad parents. How did they come up with their findings? So the research based itself on contacting 143 English children's services and they surveyed 92 parent carer-led support organisations.

So they spoke to both sides of the equation. Now, these researchers say the social services approach was the same, whether there was evidence of neglect or abuse or not. So for example they say that 80% of the English children's services required the assessor to confirm if the children's bedroom had been seen regardless of whether there was any evidence to suspect that the child was being neglected or abused. And 87% said they had to see and communicate with the children alone. Many people would say that that seems very sensible. Of course, parents who are abusing or neglecting or abusing or indeed anyone else abusing a child are not going to flag that up, are they? Well, they're certainly not. And that's exactly the

problem for social workers. And I went to the British Association of Social Workers and asked them what they thought. They say their key aim is collaboration, not to do social work to people, but with people. team and they point to lots of brilliant stories of social workers doing excellent work with disabled children and their families. As to the examples in this report which they point out they weren't consulted for they say they are in the minority and they do find them to be completely unacceptable but they are very clear they say ultimately the role of the social worker is to focus on the child to give the children a voice. Now, of course, that involves working closely with parents, but giving children a voice is key. And they point out that disabled children are eight times more likely to be abused. Sometimes they're much less able to communicate what's going on.

And there may be things going on in their lives that they don't feel they can say in front of their parents so the social workers say giving them a safe space to explore those feelings and share their concerns is crucial thanks carolyn i'll come back to you in just a moment but let's talk to someone who's been through parts of this process and has a lot to say about it not all of it uh favorable leila welcome to woman's hour good morning morning hi emma i understand you have a 13 year old disabled son tell us about him first of all okay so he's actually 12 he's a wonderful boy no no worries um he's very funny he's very creative he's very um what's called high functioning autistic um he's very intelligent very able very interested in cars

planes all sorts of transport engineering stuff but he also has this diagnosis of PDA which as I say is a form of autism stands for pathological demand avoidance and I think probably the best way I can describe how that looks in life is it he has such high levels of anxiety that they actually immobilize him from actually doing things and that can be all the basic things of life so that's getting out of bed in the morning that's cleaning your teeth that's getting dressed that's coming to the table to eat food or every simple little thing is highly anxiety provoking and therefore needs a huge amount of support from me in a way where I have to sort of do it playfully jokily to sort of take the pressure out of it, take the demand out of it, so that he can access things. So it sounds like an enormous amount of effort from you and to keep

going with that. What sort of support do you get or need? Yeah, it is exhausting. You don't get any support, to be honest. When you get a diagnosis, you think you might get some support. And other than being put on the waiting list for an autism course where I could learn about the condition there was nothing so it's all been down to me to learn about the condition to access support groups and that sort of thing um so so yes so what and what but what started to happen at home oh so if you don't support these kids correctly um then they can um they'll end up getting into sort of meltdown so you can't just sort of tell a child to put their shoes on and to go to school you have to really help them and if you do start telling them or instructing them then they they will potentially get very

sort of aggressive and violent and and destructive in their behavior so you have to kind of relearn parenting um to support these children so um i don't know if you want to talk about how it was at school for him. Yes, no, because I wanted to understand what happened with him being able to go to school and then how the authorities, as it were, got involved. Yeah, so going to school is obviously a massive demand for anyone with PDA. So by the time he was about nine years old,

he was really, really struggling to go to go to school to the point where he would just resist going and doing anything in his power to sort of protect himself from having to go because his anxiety about the day ahead was so hard so he'd do things like get inside his duvet cover and stick all his pillows and teddies and clothes and everything and sort of button himself in there with it on top of a high sleeper so that we physically could not get him down so great was his sort of fear of the day ahead and um and there was one time where we um so we lived close to the school we'd normally walk and actually my husband and i drove him up there trying to get him on site because obviously you've got this obligation as a parent to try and get your child to school and um and when we got there poor little thing um we tried to get him out the car and he just

made his way to the passenger footwell and was just curled up cowering in a ball just shaking and distressed like please don't make me go in please don't make me go in and and when you see that as a parent it is just absolutely heartbreaking you know and it was at that point where i just thought we can't do this to this child we've got to find another way and and that other way you thought was to go to a GP in the first instance yes I did so yeah my mental health suffered hugely through this and um 10 months down the line of him not being in school was was sort of when it I was really beginning to crack and and I don't mind saying I was incredibly depressed, stressed, because as well as the sort of day-to-day of having this child at home with you

and having to give up my work, having to give up exercise classes, my social life, anything that was keeping me going and, you know, saving my sanity, I had to give up all of that. And I'm also advocating to try and get him an education because nothing was forthcoming. This was all pre-COVID when nothing was online or anything. So I had to arrange private tuition for him and all sorts. So my GP suggested, among other things, that I contact social services,

which I was very wary of doing. Ultimately, I felt I had no option and did that and called in my right for a parent carer needs assessment because I had no family locally to support me or anything like that so um when I rang them up they initially sort of fobbed me off and told me it didn't exist and I fought for it but they said that the only way they could do it was via what's called a single assessment which is what you referred to earlier really in my view this sort of one-size-fits-all policy which basically is like a safeguarding assessment so what happened was the social worker rang me up out of the blue at about two or three o'clock in the afternoon and said

they needed to come round so I instantly thought oh well can we make an appointment for that in my naivety and they said no we need to come around now and I was like but I've got a dentist appointment in an hour and a half and they were like well tough you need we're coming around and we we need to see your children as well so instantly alarm bells are going off in my head because i can't say no to that because if i do and you know then then it really might become a safeguarding issue and they might think of child protection concerns at stake so um so of course i let them in um and they come in and they instantly make you sign a load of forms and consent to you don't really know what

you're consenting to and I was like well why couldn't I have been sent this in advance so I could know seeing as this is a self-referral what what I'm sort of letting myself in for um but anyway that basically I was sort of bullied into the process I felt and they had to go and check the children's bedrooms um check the bed sheets I actually witnessed that was absolutely horrified because there was no evidence in our family we're highly known to the education systems various medical professionals no evidence anywhere along the line for anything to do with child protection so why they were doing this i was absolutely appalled felt um as you said violated demeaned totally intruded upon really traumatized um and they wanted to

go ahead and speak to my children alone um after the event in their school settings which again i was not happy about didn't see the necessity of so it just absolutely awful there's no empathy you know understanding that we were a family on our knees um and asking for sort of some some kind of help so I could keep going in my caring role and being able to support my son in everything he needed. Leila, thank you for sharing that with us. And we'll have to say we're getting quite a lot of messages along similar lines from people who've been through those sorts of experiences. Carolyn is still with us, our reporter. Is Leila's experience an unfortunate one-off or are you

hearing also of other people in this situation? Well, I think it goes wider than Leila's experience an unfortunate one-off or are you hearing also of other people in this situation? Well, I think it goes wider than Leila. As well as the recent Leeds University report, this idea of parent blame is actually being raised by professionals too. There's a couple of reports I can tell you about. A joint report earlier this year by the government's chief adults and chief children's social workers warned that, and I quote, some assessments are being done through a child protection lens rather than through a family support lens, with families being unnecessarily pulled into the child protection process, as Leila described there. And they also warned this could actually mean that some people don't come and ask for help at all. And a second government commissioned independent review into children's social care, which is being led by Josh McAllister.

That's still going on, but it's published its first phase of the report. There is more to come. And in that, it also says that families are consistently saying they're navigating a system that's set up for child protection, not for support. Now, this is impacting on families as well as Leila, who'd say they're already exhausted. They're already weary. Listen to this woman, Amanda. She has a disabled son and she told me she found herself in just the same situation. My son has a chromosomal disorder. He's nonverbal and he does have an autism diagnosis.

But the biggest thing for him really is not being able to communicate and having absolutely no sense of danger. So although he's now 11, nearly 12, it's like having a toddler in an 11 or 12-year-old's body. As lovely as he is, he needs one-to-one support throughout the day from the moment he gets up, which could be as early as 4.30 30 to the moment he goes to bed so it's it's full-on all day long it's it's exhausting and that affects the whole family so the relationship between myself and my husband the pressure on the other children you can almost liken it to having a wild animal in the house at times when he's very overexcited, just running around with no sense of danger.

It's, yeah, it's very hard to describe, but it's intensively hard work. When my son was, I think, about two, that's when I started trying to ask for help. And that's a big thing to do anyway, because you need to kind of acknowledge that your child has special needs and then that you need help, that you can't just do it yourself. So that's a massive barrier to get over anyway. And then you have to pluck up the courage to then try and work your way through the system and find out how you might be able to get help. And when I asked social services for help, I was initially told they couldn't do anything to help me because his disability wasn't severe enough and then a few years later things were

very difficult and then my next dealing with social services was through a section 47 child protection inquiry which was completely unfounded and we then complained about that situation and all our complaints were upheld but that was a very distressing situation to go through which resulted in having two uniformed policemen banging on my door at seven o'clock in the middle of winter demanding to see my child. You feel completely humiliated. You feel like you're being judged. People come into your home and you lose all sense of privacy. It's a very strange situation. You feel like you have no control over anything. And you do feel rather powerless that these authorities can come in and do what they wish. My fear was that all the children would be taken away from me

and all I wanted was help to have a bit of a break, to be able to sit down and have a cup of tea for ten minutes, to be able to help one of the other children with their homework and just to catch up on a little bit of sleep it's just basic stuff I remember saying to social workers I'm not asking for a spa weekend here this is just basic stuff that people need to function you need food water and sleep and we weren't getting the rest so no one can do that without help. That's Amanda. And the problem is it can push people to breaking point. I received an email from one woman who said she'd been begging

for help for years. It was so shocking. It stopped me in my tracks when I read it. This is what she told me. I had to make the heartbreaking decision last October to leave my child and his suitcase at social services doorstep and force them to accommodate him. I couldn't cope anymore. I've dealt with many traumas and this was the most traumatic thing I've ever had to do. Carolyn Atkinson, our disability affairs reporter. Thank you for that report. The Children and Families Minister, Vicky Ford, gave us this statement. Every young person deserves an excellent education that sets them up for life, including those with special educational needs and disabilities we are increasing high needs funding for pupils with more complex needs by a third next year to 8.9 billion pounds and have invested millions more in strengthening the support available for families and schools but we know the system needs to work better for children

and families that's why our send review review, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review, is looking to further ensure that the SEND system is consistent, high quality and integrated across education, health and care. Messages coming in. This is appalling to hear, says Liz. It would be interesting to hear the views of social workers also on this. Is this what they signed up for when they went into the profession, how it feels from their perspective and other parents also getting in touch with their stories, which we will follow up on and stay with this story. So thank you for that. 84844 is the number you need. Now, I did mention that we had an interesting perspective for you from a writer who's been looking into what life would be like in a very different way if he didn't have to work. We heard from Fran Liebowitz, the humorist and social commentator earlier, saying she realised she hated work from a young age and would have been fantastic as an heiress. Well, by absolute chance, Laura Thompson is on the programme. Good morning. And your new book,

Heiresses, the Lives of Million Dollar Babies, is a bit of a survey into this. First of all, why did you want to look at these women's lives? Yes, wasn't that interesting that Fran Leibovitz said that? Because I had thought exactly the same thing. You know, I'd make a great heiress, never having to do anything, just having life sort of life like one's own plaything, as it were. But of course, when you interrogated it, it really wasn't like that at all. I sort of came to it by default. There were a couple of women in the book that I'd thought of writing about, but they didn't quite make books. They were a bit too one-dimensional in a sense. And then the whole sort of theme started to rear up at me. little rich girl is that true it suddenly obtains in fiction is it true and what about the women who did manage to enjoy their lives and so in a way it became a bigger thing about the lives of women and um you know how more choices how equality sort of became a part of all our lives how the heiresses changed because they really did.

Being thin seems to be a big theme. Let's talk about Barbara Hutton, first of all, the Woolworths heiress, married seven times. Is that right? Known as the million dollar baby. Yes. I mean, she's like the kind of uber heiress to whom I keep returning because she does exemplify sort of talk about heiress bingo you know you can check the unhappy childhood the constant need to be loved for herself because they had so much that that that you then embark on this existential quest to find meaning in a life that sort of is like this kind of sumptuous blankness almost. Because why is money so lovely? It's because it alleviates not having it, as it were. And if you always have it, there's this lack of

perspective almost. So she was the Woolworth heiress. She was born in 1912. By the time she was 21, she was worth 50 million dollars. She died in 1979, nearly all gone. She married seven times. By the end, it was almost like a reflex. I mean, she married for 53 days to this guy, Porfirio Rubirosa, who had already got twenty five thousand dollars a year from Doris Duke, who was another heiress. He just sort of did the rounds of these heiresses um she was married to him i think it cost her sixty thousand dollars per day of her marriage why did she do that you know you're kind of um it's almost like a helter skelter of self-destruction it's almost like because the money itself doesn't interest me i mean who cares how many yachts she had it's the scene really what interested me was the psychology and almost this kind of latent guilt that she said in an interview, you know, I'm only a generation away from the girls who served at Woolworths.

Whether in some psychological way she wanted to divest herself of the money because she would just give it away compulsively. She married men she would the last one walked off with two million dollars he was with her for two years it's the psychology did did really interest me and the psychology of the men actually of what they were doing going through well yes and particularly if you went earlier, because pre-late 19th century, you know, women were supremely unprotected in law. And if you married, you became one person in law, i.e. him. So there was like a roaring trade in heiresses from, well, my book begins in like the late 17th century. And I was, you know, I almost had to rein back on some of it because your jaw was just dropping. These men

would abduct girls up the streets. They would take them off to be raped. They would anything to get them to the altar so that they then, you know, could get their hands on the money. Well, I think what's also striking is that some of the, sorry, interference there on the line, but some of the happiest women were either single or gay. Yes, yes, that was really interesting because as, so as the law sort of became, you know, as the dim gallop towards the world of feminism could be sort of heard in the late 19th century so so voice did become much more of a an issue in their lives and you did start to get women who did something positive thank god um and who had a kind of sense of agency in their lives and um

the the first one i really write about is that Winaretta Singer, who was the sewing machine heiress. And somebody said, oh, my name's much better than Singer. And she said, not at the bottom of a check. And she was, but she became, she was a gay woman. Yes. You married twice. The first one, the story was she spent the night on top of a wardrobe saying, if you come near me, I'll kill you. Probably not true, but, you know, a good tale. Yes, exactly. And the second one was a gay man. So that worked very, very well. And those things, which were kind of the domestic arena whereby women could achieve power before they were allowed out into the public sphere,

as it were. So a lot of these women did that. They had the money to be able to offer people entertainment and a good dinner and a hot, warm you know warm dining room and all that kind of thing so they people like emerald cunard that kind of person whom it's easy to sort of dismiss as a you know superficial what happened but they were patrons of the arts and in a way it seems to me it was the only way they could um sort of spend their money in any significant way because women still weren't really, you know. But having had a look at all of these heiresses and that famous heiress once saying life is less sad with money, it seems to be one of your main conclusions is they didn't have much to strive for. So they never had that feeling of actually getting something that they

really wanted because they wanted for nothing. Exactly. That's exactly it. It actually made me quite glad to be, you know, relatively broke. Well, you need to tell Fran Lebowitz this. Hopefully she's listening, that perhaps her aspiration when she was younger wasn't quite as on the point or on the money as she may have thought. But it's a brave woman who tells Fran Lebowitz anything. Laura Thompson, the book's called Heiress is the Lives of the Million Dollar Babies. Thank you. And thank you to Liz in Exeter

and to all of you for your messages today. But she says, we're going back to older women or old ladies, the era of the old ladies, Fran Lebowitz put it. My philosophy is growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional. Liz in Exeter, good morning to you. Thank you very much for all of your company and messages today.

And we'll come back to some of your stories as well when we're looking at further items to discuss and research. We'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Stopping climate change is a tough job, but we know the people who can do it.

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