Woman's Hour - Frances Ryan, Grooming gangs, Dressing up for work

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

For the last decade, Frances Ryan has been a columnist and reporter at the Guardian. She joins Nuala McGovern to discuss her new book - Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life. Part memoir, part manifesto, it explores six facets of life: education, careers, body image, health, relationships and representation, as well as how to survive life's bumps in the road.Groomed: A National Scandal is a new Channel 4 documentary from award-winning filmmaker Anna Hall, looking at the issue of gang grooming. It puts the experiences of five women who have survived unimaginable abuse at the heart of a story that spans more than 20 years. Nuala speaks to Anna and Chantelle, one of the survivors featured in the film.How much does what you wear to work matter? In today's I newspaper, the journalist and columnist Anniki Sommerville says she loves dressing up for work but her Gen Z colleagues laugh at her blazer. She joins Nuala along with Carolyn Mair, Fashion Business Consultant and author of The Psychology of Fashion.Pioneering Maori scholar, Mākereti Papakura is to receive a posthumous degree more than 100 years after she began her studies at Oxford University. Born in New Zealand, Makereti is believed to be the first indigenous woman to enrol. Professor Clare Harris, Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography tells Nuala about her life and work.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. What life advice would you like to pass on to your children? Remember that failure is not a sign of defeat, but an opportunity to learn and grow. What challenges would you like to prepare them for? Death is part of life and we need to talk more about it. Dear Daughter is a podcast from the BBC World Service, sharing words of wisdom from parents all over the world. This is who we are, this is what we do.

Dear Daughter, listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. In a moment, Anna Hall on the film she hoped she'd never have to make about grooming gangs. Anna will be joined by Chantel, who's one of the survivors of a gang who tells her shocking story of sexual abuse in the documentary Groomed, which will air tonight on Channel 4. So that in just a moment. But also today we have the journalist Frances Ryan on her new book Who Wants to be Normal? The Disabled Girl's Guide to Life. It is part memoir, part manifesto and I'm looking forward to you hearing her thoughts. We'll also hear

about the Māori woman who is to receive a posthumous degree a hundred years after she studied at Oxford University. And a column today caught our eye. It's by Anneke Somerville. She's now in her early fifties. And she says she loves dressing up for work, but that her Gen Z colleagues laugh at her blazer. And I'm wondering, do you have an office blazer,

perhaps known to keep a pair of heels under your desk? Well, Anneke did and although she appreciates the now more relaxed attitude to work wear, she also appreciates the armour, aka the blazer, the red lipstick, signalling you are in work mode. So I'm wondering how have you navigated what to wear to work? Maybe it's decided for you with a uniform or maybe you've created your own work uniform. I don't know if you've ever heard the mantra, maybe you live by it. Dress for the job you want not the job you have. So do you dress up for work or is that for the dinosaurs of the workplace? You can text the program the number is 84844 on social media or at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or a

voice note use the number 03700 100444. Anakyi will be on with us a little bit later. But I want to first turn back to January when you might remember the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a three-month rapid review into grooming gang evidence and also five government-backed local inquiries. Well then, to this week the Home Office Minister Jess Phillips said she expects there will be more local inquiries and will provide more details once an audit into the scale and nature of the problem is published. That audit is expected from Baroness Louise Casey later in May. And so tonight on Channel 4 comes a very timely documentary.

It's called Groomed, a national scandal, and it's from the award winning filmmaker Anna Hall. It follows five young women, many of them who are speaking about their abuse on camera for the first time, and through their personal testimony, they reveal the lifelong damage caused by harrowing child sexual exploitation, which we will be discussing. And their stories expose the failings by police and social services spanning decades and also show how children are still being let down to this day. I'm joined by Anna Hall and also Chantelle, one of the survivors who has taken part in Anna's film. Welcome to you both. Hello, welcome. Thank you.

Chantelle, let me start with you. And I understand it must be very difficult to talk about what happened to you as a child. And I want to make sure that we acknowledge that and also your courage in doing so. After what you've gone through, why did you want to speak publicly? I wanted justice and I wanted to just let everyone know, like I've been fighting with the police for six years to get these men put behind bars and to get justice and just to get what I deserve really. And if I take you back, if you're comfortable talking about this,

some of what happened to you started when you were just 11 years old. Such a little girl, really. How did it happen that you became involved in this grooming gang? Basically, just being in the care system, being vulnerable. And I think in my eyes, I've been no one really there who cared for us. And so meeting somebody who, from the film, as I understand, you considered a boyfriend or having a relationship with was the kind of gateway to then being exploited by this larger grooming gang.

Yeah. Yeah. It's the stories are so difficult, Anna, and Chantelle is one of the brave five women who spoke to you. There's also Jade, Scarlett, Erin and Steph. Do you see a thread running through their experiences? Yes, I think what I have learnt, I mean, this is my fourth film that I've made on this subject for Channel 4, and what I have really learnt through making this film, and you know I knew this but it's really come home to me as a result of spending time and interviewing these women, is that they were all children,

and I know that that's a really obvious thing to say, but they were kids, they were not complicit in their abuse and there is a pattern that emerges and the pattern is those young, young children and Chantel was the youngest at 11 but in the film 11, 12, 13, 14 those are the ages where young girls started to be abused and you know they were vulnerable through all sorts of different reasons but they were preyed on and you know they were not complicit in their abuse and I think that that's really really important for us to get across and I think that that's one of the things that Chantelle has really been able to vocalise in the last year or so and for some of the other victims as well, that as they've looked back as women in their 30s, they've realised that they were children

and it should never have happened. And with that Chantelle, as you look back to that 11 year old girl who was being sexually exploited, horrifyingly so, I mean what do you think when you think of that little girl? I know you have children of your own. I was really embarrassed and ashamed but now as an adult I don't feel any embarrassment. I feel quite proud of myself as who I've become today and I just want people to hear like what I been through, so we can try and make change and try and protect other girls and get justice for not just me, for everyone.

What do you want people to know about what you've been through? I just want people to know, obviously, I've been working with the police now for six years. I didn't know any names of any of my abusers. And I just want justice. Like, I've been working and working and fighting and I'm still sat here begging the police to like, put these men behind bars, you know. Everyone deserves justice.

They know what happened. They're the ones that contacted me. I don't know names, don't know anything. I've supported the investigation. Do you know, I just want to say someone held accountable for what's happened. And I do have a longer statement that I'll read in a moment from the Greater Manchester Police. They do talk about in relation to your case, Chantelle, that a complex criminal investigation continues into the abuse that you suffered with a number of suspects being investigated to date

relating to two victims and five arrests made so far. But I do understand that you feel that is not enough that's been done and that you've been speaking to them for a long time. I want to go back, Anna, to something I suppose really related to Chantelle in a way, which she was just 11 and you mentioned that it's always much younger girls like under 16 years of age. There was a very chilling clip in your documentary that talks about why they don't approach 18 year olds for example. Yes and that is the point isn't it? I mean it doesn't just relate to this pattern of child sexual abuse.

You know, children are exploited because they are vulnerable and they are easy to manipulate. And if there's one message that I want to get across in this film, and that is the pattern that all of these women experience, is that, you know, when you're a child you're frightened. And I think that the other thing that's really important is that often, often, often in child sexual abuse there's either a fear of violence or there's a fear of silence. People are told, do not tell anybody. This will happen if you tell anyone. And you can see from cases like Erin's case for example in the film, she says that she was threatened. I ask her, how was she threatened? What would they threaten to do?

They would threaten to rape my mum and fire up on my house. Now, I have to say that in all the years that I've been investigating that, I've heard that same story over and over again. So there's a fear of violence and there's the fear of you must remain silent. I do also want to get across to our audience the scale that you describe within the film. One woman, Jade, who you speak to, I mean, she believes she was sexually exploited by hundreds of men, and that is just one girl, now woman.

You also say at the end of the documentary that you believe it is thousands and thousands and thousands of girls that have been affected. Absolutely. And you know, I mean, I first found out about this whole pattern of gang grooming in 1996 when I was 28. So I say that in the film. But you know, over the course of that period of time, you know,'d think Rotherham was one city, they think there were 1,400 girls in Rotherham. Rotherham is not an exception. There's all sorts of cities and we didn't add up the exact number of perpetrators from the women in our

film. Jay told us that she thought it was hundreds and hundreds. You know, we know that, you know, if you were to ask Chantelle now, or if you were to ask any of the other women in our film, the answer would also be in the hundreds, I suspect. So the scale is absolutely massive. And this, of course, some people will have seen some of the details with the grooming gangs, but also an issue of transparency with our audience. These children were raped repeatedly. There was multiple people at certain times held in flats for a number of days at times.

I mean, the details are so. I don't even know if I can find the correct word, horrifying is one that you might use. But I'm also wondering as you look at this, since you have done since you were 28, as you talk about it, some people want to put that in the past and say that's something that's a historic crime that happened, that things have changed. Yeah, and I guess that that's one of the reasons why, when we started to think about would I go back and do this, and I say that very clearly in the film, I didn't, this was a film I hoped I'd never have to make,

but my last film on this subject was in 2013, and then Rotherham happened, I explained that in the film, and then at that point, I thought things were starting to change. And the reason that we started to investigate again is about three years ago I knew that the anniversary of my first film was coming out called Edge of the City and I just started to go back to my you know context that I've had over the years to say is this still happening today is this pattern still happening what is

going on on the ground and people were telling me that, you know, one source told me that it was worse than it was when I did Edge of the City in 2004. We say in the film, a care home manager from Blackpool tells us that street grooming is the worst she's ever seen. I've had attacks this morning from somebody I know who's a social worker looking after, looked after children, who tells me right now one of her young people is missing and the police are not responding properly. So, you know, we can't pretend that this, we have cracked how to deal with this gang-grooming situation. Why do you believe this abuse continues to this day, as you describe, and also one of

the young women, Scarlett, that happened to very recently in your film. Despite the attention, the inquiries, you know, we saw it even this week in parliament that people seem to agree that there is an issue, might not agree on the scale or the scope but how do you understand it? I think that child sexual abuse is going to happen in any community, every community, right? We are not going to get rid of child sexual abuse. I'm sorry, I've made lots and lots of films on child sexual abuse in my career. We're not going to get rid of it. So this pattern is going to continue.

This particular pattern that happened to Chantelle is going to continue, this particular pattern that happened to Chantel is going to continue. But so that's the issue for us as a society is how do we really get to grips with it now. And that's, you know, the other purpose for us in making this film is we wanted to put the voice of survivors right at the heart of this question so that, you know, there's as we've seen, there's been, you know, their lives have been played in a game of political football over the last 20 years and we wanted people to hear from the survivors, put their voices right at the heart of it and, you know, Chantelle speaks not just for child sexual abuse in this particular way, she speaks for all victims of child sexual abuse who are able to realise that what happened to them as children,

they were not complicit in their abuse. And that's really, really important for any victim. And how did you get there, Chantelle, to be able to understand what happened to you, that you were a little girl that was being exploited by this gang? It was through the support of the Maggie Oliver Foundation. All the support that Maggie's given me, she's given me the strength and the understanding that I was only a child. Because still as an adult when I started working with Greater Manchester Police 2019, I still had that embarrassment and that shame but over the years just the support, the conversations we have, you know, it's amazing what the Maggie Oliver

Foundation can do. And Maggie has been on this program many times, she's a former Manchester police detective and has been involved with survivors and also in trying to get to the bottom of some of these cases. How much, Anna, as you see it, has the ethnicity of many of the men in these grooming gangs played a role in it not being addressed? Because that has been a question that many have raised. Well, I think that what happened looking back now as I've been making this film, you know, looking back over the 30-year period that I've known about it, I really think that the lack of the fault happened between 1996 and 2010. So in those 14 years, we did not get

to grips with what was happening. There was pussyfooting around, everybody was frightened of being called racist and we didn't tackle this head-on and you know Chantal says in the film very clearly she didn't know whether it was because people were frightened of being called racist or whether it was because people genuinely didn't care about her. So I think and then I think it's since 2010 we have started to get better. So police forces are starting to do things, social services are starting to do things, you know, so there has been progression. And so I don't think, I think now for me the ethnicity is an issue which, you know, we need to do more work and Louise Casey's

doing this scoping exercise. We do need to understand the extent of it, we do need to understand the figures, the figures still are not accurate. So there is work that still needs to be done to understand what is going on. The last lot of CSE task force figures, only 34% of cases came back as being recorded as data. So we don't know the full extent of it yet and so work definitely needs to be done. And also for those that haven't been following it as closely, the ethnicity was of British Pakistani men within the community that were some of the perpetrators within some of these cases. There's a lot in it, just even as you talk back about those years and

how some of the authorities described Chantelle or others. I'm also wondering with you, Chantelle, when you saw how you were described as a child and when you actually went to complain to the police and I think that they just didn't see that you were a little girl. No, I don't think they did. Like how can you label children prostitutes, you know, we're all crying out for help, we're all missing children, there is the same pattern and yet they are far away. From different areas, I've seen it in the documentary myself, Yorkshire, Manchester, there was all labelling us all as prostitutes, you know, it's sickening.

And that was the thing which I found very shocking, child and prostitute, those two words being put together, Anna. Exactly, and I think that that's, you know know as we've done all the work in in looking at all the paperwork that these women had that was a continuing pattern and it does continue the language has slightly changed but you know we've seen paperwork recently where someone was was called engaging in the escort business when they were under 16. I mean how can that possibly happen that's outrageous isn't it? But how do you understand that? How do I understand that it's happening? Yes. I think that you know we need to understand and

that's why this is so important that we understand these children are children. They are not, it's not a lifestyle choice. So that where the repetitively, the languages, so and so is engaging in a lifestyle choice, no they're not. They're children who are being raped and taken from wherever they are and violently abused. That is not a lifestyle choice. So, you know, we need to absolutely understand that this is about sexual abuse, violence and exploitation and social services and the police, you know, they need to get to grips with this language. They cannot be calling children that.

You know, the thing is, children are still seen as problem children. You know, this case that I know about right now, somebody is going repeatedly missing. That's exactly what was happening to Chantelle in the early 2000s. If someone is going repeatedly missing, are they a problem child because they are engaging in a lifestyle choice that they're choosing? So we've got to understand that that is not the case. You know I started this item talking about Yvette Cooper for example the Home Secretary talking about the inquiry and also Jess Phillips earlier this week talking about other inquiries that might

take place. What's your thoughts Anna? Does there need to be a national inquiry? No I think what needs to happen is that the government, this film is about holding the government to account for sure, the government need to implement the 20 recommendations from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse that Professor Alexis J spent seven years working on. It reported in October 2022 every single person listening paid for that inquiry, it cost 70 million quid and as right now not a single recommendation has come into law. Yvette Cooper announced mandatory reporting in January, Jess Phillips has

subsequently announced that they will bring in a child protection agency and the child protection agency recommendation in the Alexis J report is vital because that means that you're setting up an independent Child Protection Agency that would encompass all child sexual abuse, right? So not just this pattern, you know, we've seen again and again, you know, we've seen what's happened in the Church of England, for example, in the last two and a half years. An independent Child Protection Agency would then bring in all the other recommendations from ICSA and that's what needs to happen and we all need to hold the government to account to do that right

now. Another enquiry into gang grooming will take another five or six years and it will push everything down the line and people like Chantelle do not need that. All these victims need action right now. Chantelle, I'm happy to say you do have your own family now and you've created a happy environment for you and your children. It must be quite something to go through what you have with Anna talking about what has happened to you, but you must be very proud of yourself.

Yeah, well about myself. I want to thank you for coming on, and I also want to let people know that they can watch Groomed, a national scandal at 9 p.m. tonight. It's on Channel 4 or any other time on the Channel 4 streaming app. And if you've been affected or had experience of what you have just heard please do go to the BBC Action Line website for links and support. Again I want to thank you Chantelle for coming on and speaking to us and the filmmaker Anna Hall as well. I do want to read some

of the statements that we have had in response to what has been raised by this documentary. A Home Office spokesperson has said our hearts go out to Chantelle and other victims of grooming gangs and child sexual abuse throughout the country. This government is strengthening the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Task Force, giving victims more powers to have their cases reviewed and making it a criminal offence to cover up any report of child sexual abuse. We have also commissioned a rapid national audit, led by Baroness Casey to uncover the true nature and scale of the grooming gangs issue in the UK, including a proper assessment of the ethnicity of those involved. And we're supporting local areas to hold their own independent local inquiries

so we can deliver the meaningful change that victims deserve. You heard there, Anna's take instead that she prefer the J recommendations to be implemented. Instead to the Assistant Chief Constable Steph Parker of Greater Manchester Police. They said we badly let down vulnerable girls when they needed us most. It's vital it never happens again. She also says our multi-agency teams protect vulnerable young people and identify offenders across every town and city in Greater Manchester. And our specialist unit investigating non-recent child sexual exploitation currently has 95 specialist staff working with survivors

at a pace that they're comfortable with. These victim-centred investigations have resulted in 86 arrests and 71 years worth of convictions with further suspects currently before the courts and one offender awaiting sentencing in May. And I do want to turn to Manchester City Council as well, which is related to Chantel. They say, we are deeply sorry that Chantel went through this appalling ordeal. Not enough was done to protect her and other vulnerable young people in similar circumstances in the late 90s and 2000s. She was let down by the system at a time when both social work practice and management were nowhere near the high standards we now deliver. There's been a

fundamental approach, a change of approach since Chantel's experience based on better joint working across agencies and improved national understanding of the issues. The young people themselves are at the heart of everything we do and they can now be confident they will be listened to, understood and supported, whether they're currently at risk of sexual exploitation or were the victims of it in the past. And of course you heard Chantel's thoughts on that. Thanks to both of them for joining us. I want to turn to something completely different. I want to turn to something completely different, to a Maori woman. Here's a quote about her.

No people ever had a better ambassador and interpreter than the Maori had in her. That's how one person described Maka Reití Pātbhacura, the pioneering Maori scholar, to receive a posthumous degree more than a hundred years after she began her studies at Oxford. She was born in New Zealand and believed to be the first indigenous woman to enroll at the University. Well to tell us more about her is Professor Clare Harris, Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. Welcome. A lot of people, this will be the first time they have heard her name. Tell me a little bit about her background.

Well, Lula, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity to share this amazing news about Makareti Pakapura, who is just an extraordinary woman in every respect. She was exceptional in her lifetime and is now very much recognized as such, especially in Maori communities in Aotearoa and New Zealand and around the world. So this posthumous degree is absolutely about acknowledging the achievements of someone who otherwise,

yes, as you say, many people will never have heard of, but she is quite extraordinary. So let's hear about some of her achievements. I saw she was so we have her name Macarete Papakura. I also saw her named as Margaret Patterson Tom. Yes, that's her original name, yes. She has multiple names in the course of her lifetime, basically. And according to legend, shall we say, her name Macarete Papacura is actually created in the context of one of the things that she became very famous for in her life in Rotorua, which was as a guide at the famous hot springs in Rotorua, where there was a mountain nearby called Papakura. Someone had asked her, what is your name? Can you explain your name? And she just kind of invented this name at the time. So she becomes known as Macarete Papakura and is still known, I think, predominantly, especially in New Zealand as Macarete. She seemed to have so many,

what would I say, interests. So we're talking about tourist guides. She was an entertainer in some ways. She also studied, of course, which ended up in Oxford in 1922. Why was she such an accomplished woman? Well, I gotta say, there'll be many ways of explaining that. I mean, I think we need to go back to the roots of her, the beginning of her life. She was born in 1873 to a Maori mother and an English father, but she's very much brought up by her iwi, that is her kind of tribal group. And so she's very embedded in the culture and the community of the Maori in New Zealand, but she also starts learning English at the age of 10.

So she's a kind of bicultural figure. She's right from the start, a kind of intermediary between different communities. And that then becomes obviously a huge strength to her when she then sort of moves into becoming this guide where she, many of the skills that actually she started learning from what I've read, you know, literally at the feet of the mothers and grandmothers

and aunts and others of her iwi, then become actually really powerfully important for her representing her community actually in these contexts of these tourist sites. So for example, I mean singing, performing, telling stories, all these kinds of things become skills that she uses very much in New Zealand and then actually carried on around the world as she starts to tour. She has a tour group where she brings performing groups from her community and takes them eventually

to the US, to Australia and to Britain for the Festival of Empire in 1911. So yes, I think it was impossible to encompass all her skills, but those are just some of the ones that start her early part of her career and bring her to Britain in 1911. So she studied anthropology, exploring the customs of the Māori people, and she died sadly before her thesis was published, I do believe it was published later, Old Time Māori. But how does it come then that she is being awarded this degree? But how does it come then that she is being awarded this degree? Right, well, I just want to say that, yes, it's absolutely crucial that she is this pioneering figure who studies anthropology in Oxford in the 1920s, the first Indigenous woman to

do that. Even a woman at that stage is quite… Well, exactly. There are a few other women around at Oxford at that point. They start getting awarded degrees in 1920. But the fact that she's a woman and an indigenous woman, that is an extraordinary combination. And the kind of work that she does is also extraordinary

and very important now because she's a pioneer in the writing of the kind of ethnography that we would now call maybe a kind of auto-ethnography, an ethnography that is very close to her own community based on her own experience. She writes about what she remembers from her childhood and she also writes about she returns to Aratora later in her life and to produce this thesis. So the thesis is completely pioneering because no other Maori scholar has produced a work of that kind which we call ethnography, a study of every single aspect

of the social customs and so on of the people of her community. But importantly, from a female perspective, she covers topics like menstruation. She talks a lot about children. And to be honest, you know, the emerging ethnographies of that period, 1920s, 1930s, the presence of women even is often not acknowledged. Most of these ethnographies are being written by outsiders

to a community, often white men who come to visit communities all around the world and then write them up. So the key thing about Macareti, which is why we amongst the many reasons we want to celebrate her, probably the most important is because of this pioneering work that she does in a different kind of anthropology, a different kind of ethnography and an ethnography that is so significant for her own community now. There will be a plan to hold a ceremony later this year I believe. Yes, yes, yes. So you asked also about them. So

because Macaretti tragically died just two weeks before she was due to present her thesis for examination at the University of Oxford, that means she wasn't awarded a degree in her lifetime or immediately afterwards, but we have now managed to arrange for that for the posthumous award of a degree of MPhil which is a degree that recognizes the quality of the research that she did and that will be in a ceremony conducted at the Sheldonian with the Vice Chancellor of the University present who I know is also extremely excited and very much supportive as we all are at this university at the moment of acknowledging the skills, talents and presence of women in our university in

the past and in the present. Professor Clare Harris thank you so much for telling us more about Macaretti Papakura although I was also reading she ultimately became so famous that international mail addressed to Maggie New Zealand would reach her. I think then you know if you're just going by your first name, you've reached. What life advice would you like to pass on to your children? Remember that failure is not a sign of defeat, but an opportunity to learn and grow. What challenges would you like to prepare them for? Death is part of life and we need to talk more about it.

Dear Daughter is a podcast from the BBC World Service, sharing words of wisdom from parents all over the world. This is who we are, this is what we do. Dear Daughter, listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Good having you. Thanks for all your messages coming in about dressing up in the office or workplace. I regret years of dressing up for work. At the beginning of my career, I conformed to what was the norm in my workplace, an accountancy

firm of wearing pencil skirts, fitted shirts and high heels, all of which was incredibly uncomfortable and impractical. The women in the office dressed in what I now realise was a sexualized way. At the time I'm not sure I noticed or gave it much thought. I see now it separated and highlighted the differences between men and women and damaged my ability to be recognized as an equal rather than a potential partner. Here's another. I was a teacher. We didn't have a uniform but we did have a dress code. Nothing too short, too tight, too skimpy. Some members of support staff were cautioned about tops with spaghetti

straps or visible G string. When I retired, all my work shirts and some jackets went straight into the charity shop. One more. I used to work for a company that introduced Dress Down Fridays. Then they introduced Dress Down every day. I was much older than my colleagues and continued to wear my work suit as couldn't function as well if I didn't feel in work mode. See like Anarchy, our guest who's coming up, may have been a coincidence,

but the standards of work fell rapidly, oh dear. And mass redundancies followed. I feel it's important that you dress for work. 8-4, 8-4-4, if you'd like to get in touch, lots of you have. Now, my next guest, we'll get to the dressing a little later in the hour. My next guest is Frances Ryan, an award-winning journalist and author. And for the past decade, Frances has been a columnist and reporter at The Guardian. She was named Commentator of the Year in 2024. Her work has made the front pages of the New

York Times, The Guardian and British Vogue. And now Frances has a thought-provoking new book out, Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girl's Guide to Life. It's part memoir, part manifesto, it explores education, career, body image, health, relationships and representation as a disabled woman. Frances says that disabled women are by far the biggest minority group,

but the least visible. She was born with a muscle weakness and has used a wheelchair from childhood, but her condition has been more challenging since contracting flu in 2017. And also, you might remember in March, the government announced benefit savings of five billion pounds, including tightening eligibility for personal independence payment and non-means tested benefit to support people with everyday tasks.

And the government say that without radical reforms to the benefit system, it could cost the taxpayer as much as 70 billion pounds annually by the end of the decade so we touch on some of those headlines too. When I spoke to Frances Ryan I asked how first she went about defining disability for her book. Actually you know over one in four women in the UK now have some sort of disability and that can be anything from a mental health condition, you know, a chronic illness to a visible disability and it was super important to me to include everybody and to kind of

challenge that sort of stereotypical view of disability that people might have and to say actually includes so many of us and in people that you might not think of. Yeah, so whether it was Jamila Jamil, for example, or Katie Piper, Fern Cotton, we get some of their stories weaved through the book as well. But I was struck when I was beginning your book that you said, I went to the pub, I got drunk on cheap wine and caught the flu. And then your life imploded. It's so stark.

I mean, you put it like that and it sounds almost dramatic, doesn't it? It sure does. It was, I mean, obviously it's a joke. You've got to laugh at that point, really, haven't you? But I think what I was trying to say, though, was that I think illness and disability, you spend half your life genuinely worrying that something's going gonna happen to someone you love or you think about it in these bureaucratic terms but actually so many of us, it just randomly happens isn't it?

Whether it's a cancer diagnosis or a car accident or in my case a post-viral illness, you can't see it coming, it just randomly happens one day and it's just part of life. Yes I mean but it's interesting that the point that you make there, Franz, is that it's so pervasive, right, that lives can change from one minute to another. I remember I had one guest once who was on about caring that says, you know, we live in these breakable bodies. And when it's so pervasive, why do you think there's so little visibility or awareness? Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? Because disability is the biggest minority

in the country. It's the biggest minority in the world. But you could easily argue, and the stats back up, that it's the most ignored, it's the most misrepresented. And disabled people are still segregated in many ways from mainstream society. You get very few disabled people in leadership roles, in the media. So we're not the ones telling the stories. You break your book down into various chapters, so whether it is taking a look at education or careers, for example, if we begin in the workplace or perhaps the path to the workplace,

what do you think people should know about the barriers that are there that are not well recognised for disabled women? I think we're seeing at the minute aren't we a lot of headlines about disabled people not working. I think we've all seen those front pages. And I think there's so many things I could say about that. But one thing I hope my book does say is that there's huge value in people whether or not they're able to work and that's a really important point that disabled people often sort of view as burdens on society and you can only prove you're not if you show you a taxpayer but

actually there's a huge amount of value to every single person and you don't have to have a nine-to-five to. And secondly, for disabled people that are able to work, and most of us are, we're still often discriminated against, and we're still often sort of kept out of the workplace, if you like, because of barriers such as, you know, simple stuff like not having reasonable adjustments, i.e. your legal rights to certain adjustments in the workplace that disabled people often still struggle to get, for example. Or things like whether someone will simply hire you. Disabled people have to send out, on average, 60% more CVs than other people

when we disclose our disability on a CV TV simply because there is so much prejudice still about disabled people that bosses are straight out refusing to hire people. So I think in the current news agenda should we say more than ever it's so important to sort of create a much richer and fuller picture of what it's actually like out there. So we have a lot of the legal or the workplace situations that you talk about, but a lot then of instead of the professional or the public shall we say, a lot of the personal is in the book too. Whether that's relationships for example, dating? A really big issue for disabled women is that weird prejudices, shall we call them, mean that a lot of people still assume

that disabled women don't have relationships like other people whether that's going out on a night out with friends or having sex or getting married or having children. It's still really taboo subject and people genuinely still find it quite shocking that same women are having the same desires or interests and or social and relationships that the other people so-called normal people if you like, have. I'd say it's probably one of the biggest issues that people are still so, so prejudiced about and they're so scared about talking about it. So yeah it was great to

really delve into that and to talk to all these fantastic well-known women about their own experiences. To just show really, it's not something to be ashamed of, it's not something you need to hide, and it's definitely something happening. Is there an example you want to share from either one of your contributors or yourself? I loved Rosie Jones' part on, she was talking about her experience as a gay woman on the apps, as she called it, and that kind of tension of should you disclose your disability, it was a really common theme, should you put in your profile that you're disabled, and the fact that if you do, you often

don't get any matches at all, but if you don't, as Rosie said, she kind of felt like she'd be accused of catfishing, that she was somehow misrepresenting herself. And just those really small things that you feel like you can't even describe as this part of you, because society has told people that that makes you less attractive and I thought that was such a common thing. But you do talk about, there was a line that struck me, Frances, which was like embrace your disabled identity. Yeah, I think it's what those things were. So I think as women generally, we're fed messages all the time, aren't we we about how we should be whether it's you know being skinny or whatever society does a really good job of giving us those instructions and for disabled women we get all those but we get a load of extra ones too it generally comes down to that we have a duty to

to hide our disability and whether that's not using um a mobility aid when we're out the house or being ashamed if we have something like scars for example and that's a really awful way to live those sort of toxic messages that you're sent really constantly by the museum and culture. And I think one thing I hope the book does is um sort of set out a bit of a comforting sense of solidarity if you like, that there are so many millions of women who are going through these feelings every single day and they all have different advice of how they sort of cope with those feelings. But the general message I think was that we all have these moments of self-doubt, we all know where they're coming from. It's not coming from ourselves, it's coming from the

society that we live in, but actually we don't have to accept those toxic messages. We can find you know a sense of community in other women and we don't have to hide and feel ashamed of a disability even if there's so many messages telling us that we should. There is a related in some way I was shocked by one of the lines I read also, Frances, that was a man you encountered that said you're too pretty to be in that chair, love. I mean, how do you even respond to that? It's a lovely compliment, isn't it? Lovely.

I love a random man telling me that I'm attractive. I think if you read it as a non-disabled woman, you're probably quite shocked at certain things. If you read it as a disabled woman, you nod your head and you go, oh yeah, that's me too. Because these experiences are funny and weird and angry-inducing, but they're so common. Like literally, I would be amazed if any of your listeners with a visible disability hasn't had a random man come up to them at some point and say something like that to them. They love it. It just reminded me again, Frances, of one anecdote that online, for example, there's the

video of the bride on her wedding day that manages to stand up from her wheelchair and walk up the aisle assisted. And you asked the question of like, why is that the ideal instead of her using her chair to get up the aisle, for example, to be married? Yeah, I think those videos are funny, aren't they? Because if that's her choice, and if she's really happy doing that, absolutely. But generally it's not about that is it it's about how happy her family are her friends are in the comments are complete strangers going you know how wonderful it is that she's not having to use her wheelchair and that isn't really how most people who actually are disabled feel about

themselves of course we have what you might call internalised ableism, i.e. we take on those shameful messages that society sends us. But actually for most people those things like wheelchairs are the tools that enable us to live full lives. But society sends you messages that says that somehow a woman should be embarrassed or ashamed for using something like a wheelchair. No one sends those messages to people that wear glasses anymore, but when it comes to something associated with disability like a wheelchair or a cane or something like that or a hearing aid, it's something that women supposedly should have to remove from themselves in order to look attractive or to be happy. You can't possibly have the happiest day of your life

whilst looking disabled is the idea. But I think that's really interesting isn't it? That you can't associate things like being happy, being loved, being beautiful with being disabled. happy, being loved, being beautiful with being disabled. And I'm wondering how you see that changing around. There has been progress made, which you say as well, compared to a few decades ago. And women in public life, Greta Thunberg, Billy Eilish, Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga, women with disabilities winning Oscars, leading communities, legislating in parliament, for example. So, I don't know, is the road going in the right direction even though there's a long road ahead?

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the messages is hope, really. I think people are surprised about that because, yeah, there's loads of inequality, there's loads of things we need to change, but there's also millions and millions of disabled women doing incredible things every single day contributing to society in a thousand ways and we need to have that narrative more than ever now. Frances Ryan her book is Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girl's Guide to Life that's out now I have to say so thought-provoking for those who are not disabled as well. Thanks for all your messages coming in about dressing up for work. I've been asking, do you dress up for work? Also wondering what are you

wearing if you're in the workplace today? Could it be a blazer, smart shirt or do you go more the route of jeans and a t-shirt and trainers? And does it matter how you dress at work? I'm asking because in today's eye newspaper, the journalist and columnist, Anakhy Somerville, says five years on from Covid, slob chic remains the norm. Now, Anakhy says she loves dressing up for work, but her Gen Z colleagues laugh at her blazer.

And she's joining me now along with Dr. Carolyn Mayer, who is fashion business consultant and the author of The Psychology of Fashion. Welcome to you both. OK, Anachie, let's talk about your column. What is it that you miss about dressing up for work? I think what I talk about in the column is just the kind of formality that we used to have. It makes me sound a little bit like a dinosaur, I know, because I actually am quite a creative dresser. Like today I've got like a pink jumpsuit know, because I actually am quite a creative dresser. Like today I've got like a pink jumpsuit on. So I just think it was the effort that went

into thinking about it. So I used to go to work in a market research firm. Usually we had blazers on the back of our chairs. So funny enough, we would come in, we would, and sometimes we'd have to borrow a colleague's blazer. Because if you were going to an important meeting or a presentation, the whole understanding was that you had to have your blazer on. It was just a rule. Equally, we always had trainers that we wore into work, and then we got changed into heels.

And that seems slightly absurd now, because you imagine walking around the office, we had wooden floors with these ridiculous heels on. Thankfully, that's something that's definitely, I think, gone out of fashion. What I loved about it, what I kind of miss, is that there was this sort of separation between your home identity and your kind of work identity.

And I do solidly believe that when you're wearing certain things, they make you feel more professional, more competent, a bit more like I find like earlier today I was wearing jogging bottoms, and actually my youngest daughter who's six, she said, mommy, you've not even got dressed. So, I, funnily enough, I spend most of my life working from home now as a writer, I still tend to dress up, I still tend to have that instinct to want to put on a mask and assume a different identity, and then I love coming home,

or even when it's the end of the working day and going back into my, you know, slob chic. Yeah, it's interesting. I love the armor that you talk about as well. So you talk about kind of the difference that you feel there. I want to bring Carolyn in. What about that psychology of how we dress for work

and the power that you might have with certain armor or maybe people find the power in being really relaxed? Hi, yeah thank you very much. You're absolutely right. I mean there are all sorts of psychological tendencies that are important in this behavior that we have at work. So for example, using our clothing as armor, it gives us this protective buffer. And this is particularly important

in high stakes environments. So for example, when we go to an important meeting, we might have wanted previously, or always done, put on a blazer. And now we might do that, depending on our beliefs about what we wear and also our generation so When we wear clothing as as armor it can help us regulate our emotional state

In fact, there are studies from neuroscience which show that the clothing we wear, particularly more formal, professional, I'm doing inverted commas here, type of clothing, can decrease our cortisol, the stress hormone, and in fact increase feelings of control, particularly in high-stakes environments. And this was shown... The symbolic meaning of clothing was shown in a study by Adam and Galinsky in 2012, which has become known as the Enclothed Cognition Study. And they showed that having a strong belief, and it's super important here to understand the power of belief.

So if we have a very strong belief about the power of our clothing, for example, it makes us feel more professional, it makes us feel more competent, and we wear it, then it can actually enhance the behavior that we have the belief about. Their study was about attention, but it could relate to multiple other behaviors. I only found this study this morning, Carolyn, actually, this in clothed cognition, first time I'd heard that term, and so wearing a lab coat, especially when associated with a doctor or scientist, can improve performance on attention related tasks, which is just fascinating. So many comments have come in.

Let me read a couple to you and Anike. Hi, I work entirely from home, but always dress for work. It helps me focus on what I'm doing. And I feel that it is a signal to my brain that today is a work day. I don't dress as formally as I did when in an office, but always choose smarter combinations or dresses, often a blazer. Conversely, when I'm not working, it's lovely to wear different clothes and draws a line between work and home life.

A little of what Anakhy was saying. Also, it gives me an excuse for a whole different wardrobe. That one from Cathy 84844. Here's another. I love clothes. Where is the fun in wearing the same thing day in, day out? There's nothing quite like the thrill of a new sharp suit. My particular bet noir is armpits in the office. That's funny, he's mentioned that. And I'm not even finished, Anneke. Commuting on a hot day, get ready for it, lads, today and tomorrow. You would think half the women on the Tube were going to the beach. That one from Leah. Anneke. Well, it's funny because it brought up a sort of memory that I tried to shut down,

which was in our office. And it's obviously quite challenging in the summer months because it gets really, really hot. But some particular quite senior guy on my team he used to wear sandals with his feet coming out so that was quite a common thing and I remember actually having a big meeting where we discussed was it okay for guys to have their toes out because it seems quite sexist to say okay it's okay for women to wear open-toed sandals but we can't have this from guys but the interesting thing was that back then nobody had pedicures so you were trying to talk to

somebody and have quite an important kind of decision-making meeting but your eye would be drawn to this very overgrown toenail which would immediately I think rob them from authority because you'd kind of be like oh my goodness I just don't want to actually see that at the moment. So I'm definitely not a fan of open-toed shoes, even on myself, because I would say like actually nobody needs to see those feet at the moment, you know. We're going literally from top to tail at the moment. Here's another, don't have a name, but it's I am a private cleaning housekeeping lady plus a carer. I always do full hair, makeup and dress smart casual. Today I'm wearing a pretty summer dress.

It's true to who I am and it keeps my mood. Here's another. I used to love dressing up for work. Even when I was traveling in London in the city with work, I'd carry my high heels and throw them on before each meeting. It gave me a sense of professionalism. I miss not dressing up as I do charity work now, so it's just not practical.

I gave a lot of my work clothes away to the charity SmartWorks, but kept some as I secretly wish I could wear them still. That one coming in from Edinburgh and from Lesley. Thanks for getting in touch 84844. It's kind of fascinating, Anachie. Most that have gone in touch this morning, I think, are resonating with you that they they miss the dress up. But I suppose if you're surrounded, as you described in your column, by colleagues that snicker perhaps a

little bit at your sharp blazer, we do often conform, right, to the clothing that's around us. We want to belong. We do and I mean I'm now fully freelance, but in the past, I was moving in and out of different office environments. And I think we've all had that when we've turned up for a new job and we're wearing something different to everyone else.

Yes. I would often turn up in my blazer on the first day, and then I would try and shrug it off. And then maybe I'd be frantically Googling some of the brands that I was seeing my sort of other colleagues wearing. I've never really worn a hood top and I've never really been seriously into athleisure kind of wear. But I definitely try and morph a little bit into my environment.

Like now, if I go into a magazine or a newspaper, I worry a lot about what am I going to wear? Am I going to be fashionable enough? You know, am I going to be judged? Is it last season? to wear, am I going to be fashionable enough, you know, am I going to be judged, is it last season. So I think each workplace brings with it particular expectations of how you should dress, but my advice to sort of younger, and in particular we haven't really discussed women versus men, because I feel that... Well we discussed feet, we'll continue, yes. We get a lot of comments when I was moving up the ranks and in fact I went up to managing partner at the firm where I worked and actually a lot of the advice was often on my appearance you know it was often like you perhaps you should think about wearing less makeup or perhaps you should think about

dressing more formally. I think I definitely realized mid-term in my career that I needed to dress up more in order to be taken seriously in the environment I was in and that's an unfair pressure I'm not saying that that's an unfair pressure. I'm not saying that that's right at all. You've started the conversation, Anneke Somerville, her column is in the eye today. Dr. Caroline Meyer, fashion business consultant and author of The Psychology of Fashion.

Thanks to both of you. A consultant doctor says, I miss being able to wear my smart work dresses as we remain in scrubs despite the pandemic. And the dresses made me feel I was in my senior role. Conversations after sex tomorrow with Anita talking about those intimate connections, why it's sometimes easier to be honest with a stranger than a partner we know well. I'll be listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. News moves fast, but understanding takes time. In a world of misinformation and constant

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