Woman's Hour - Glenda Jackson; Tantrums; Women, decision-making and Covid-19

Episode Date: March 21, 2020

Glenda Jackson tells us about her latest work playing the poet, writer and critic Edith Sitwell and what books she would recommend during a period of isolation.The Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd discusses why women need to be more involved in Covid 19 decision making with Caroline Criado Perez author of Invisible Women and Simone Schnall from Jesus College Cambridge.The curator, writer and lecturer Bolanle Tajudeen tells us how black feminism has influenced the work of black female fine artists.Last week’s budget saw a series of big public spending and investment projects announced, focusing on physical infrastructure. But what about social infrastructure? Diane Elson of the Women’s Budget Group and Caroline Abrahams of Age UK discuss.The Scottish Government is currently consulting on a Bill to reform the Gender Recognition act – should transgender people be allowed to self-declare their gender or should it be a medicalised process? Rhona Hotchkiss a former governor of Cornton Vale prison in Stirling and James Morten of the Scottish Trans Alliance discuss Why do some children have such ferocious tantrums and how should you as a parent deal with it? We hear from Emily Jones a Professor of infant neurodevelopment and autism at the Birkbeck Babylab.Presented by: Jane Garvey Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Lucinda Montefiore

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. Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. You'll hear from the former Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, on the programme today. She'll talk about why women need to be more involved in coronavirus decision making. And we'll also talk about parents dealing with the difficult combo of self-isolation and children. I mean, it's going to be a challenge, a huge challenge for a lot of families, particularly those like us who live in a small flat, don't have a garden. It's going to be very difficult to be able to go out.

So I think really thinking ahead about what kind of routines we can set in place, clear expectations for children, as many different activities that we can think about, that we can do in place, you know, clear expectations for children, as many different activities that we can think about that we can do inside as possible. That's a little bit later. We'll talk about the budget. Remember that? What did it do for women? And what kind of work do galleries want from black female fine artists? Major galleries like to showcase black pain. They want to showcase work that isn't necessarily reflective of the kind of work they want to make. If it doesn't have trauma, you've got institutions

and then you've got actual galleries that represent artists and sell the work. And sometimes these have competing ideas of what artwork by black artists is important. That's all coming up in this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour. First to Glenda Jackson then who played the poet, writer and critic Edith Sitwell in a new play, Edith Sitwell in Scarborough. It was on Radio 4 this week and of course you can now find it on BBC Sounds. Glenda was a Labour MP between 1992 and 2015 and only went back to acting in a series of Radio 4 plays after she quit Westminster. Last year, she got rave reviews for her role in the television drama Elizabeth

is Missing, playing a woman with dementia. I talked to Glenda just before the news of the school closures across the country. But first, we discussed Edith Sitwell. Who was she? She was the eldest child of, I don't know how to put this politely, crazy parents. He had land, I mean, he had a title, as did her mother. Her mother was a drunk. Edith, when she was a child, because she had some kind of curvature of the spine, was put in this terrible metal kind of bodice her mother thought her nose should be straightened so she had put a thing on her nose she desperately wanted to go to university um edith but that was completely out of the question um and yet she turned out to be this wonderful writer. And I mean, you must have heard of Fassad, which was her books.

I mean, I remember reading The Queens and the Hive when I was doing the telly series. And she was just a remarkable, remarkable woman. She presented herself to be looked at in a most autocratic, individual, innovative way. And she succeeded. Her parents, were they just classic people of their time? Or were they uniquely horrible? I couldn't quite make it out. Certainly, as far as she was concerned, they were uniquely horrible. But the boys certainly were treated, it would seem by their parents, in an infinitely more grown up way than she was. I

mean, because the whole ethos, as far as her mother was concerned, was that Edith should be well married off, and she regarded Edith as being not only physically plain, but also physically disabled. Well, the play is really interesting. You go back as an older woman and meet your younger self and take on your parents and actually show them your triumph, because you are very much somebody,

and they don't quite know how to take it, do they? Well, it's not that they don't know how to take it, they simply discount it, because their opinions are, for them, the only opinions that matter in regard to Edith. What I found particularly interesting about the play was that the young Edith presents a different perspective on what the old Edith regards, in essence, as physical torture visited upon her by her parents. And that throws a whole new light

on things. I hardly dare ask this, but I'm going to ask it. I'll take my life in my hands. What do you say to people who, they must say this to you, why on earth did you waste all that time at Westminster when you could have been doing your brilliant acting? Well, curiously enough, they don't. I mean, that's very curious, but I think it's partly the English. I mean, they do let you do your work and go home, slightly less if you're actually an MP. They tend to pursue you rather more. But no, I never got

that. No. You don't regret it yourself? Oh, no. I mean, you know, what I saw happening to my country under Thatcher and her regime was simply dreadful. And no, I mean, I value that opportunity to do my little bit to try and restore the basic morality, if not the economy, of this country. Would you go back there now? No, because I really genuinely am now, I think, too old for it. I don't necessarily mean in years, but when you saw the absolute shambles that they managed to make of our political system during the whole Brexit thing, and I have to say now, we have to wait and see, because of course, everything has been taken off the political register because of this pandemic.

Well, I was going to ask you about that, of course, inevitably. Brexit seems a distant dream. And actually, there are many people getting, frankly, nostalgic for those halcyon days when that was all we had to talk about. Well, exactly. In one way, it's that curious mixture of being able to say not again, not Brexit again, to saying, oh, perhaps we could have a little bit of Brexit now because it's all coronavirus-19. Now, I've just done a phone-in on Woman's Hour. We had a lot of emails and some calls from the over-70s who are, not to put too fine a point on it,

livid about the prospect of being isolated for weeks on end. What do you think about that? Well, I think it will be impossible for people to live isolated in that sense for weeks on end. I do think the government is genuinely concerned, not only the government, but are genuinely concerned to protect the, certainly my generation.

I think it's been very badly presented, not least because, you know, we are in fact all living longer. And the fact that you've got to 70 doesn't mean to say your brain has ceased to work. No, and there are many over 70s, as they pointed out today, doing really important voluntary work. Absolutely. And also, this again is going to cause another problem, I have no doubt. But if the schools are closed, who's expected to look after the grandkids? Someone who has been on Grandma Patrol more than once, I can assure you that you are expected to do it well, pal, 70.

Are you still on Grandma Patrol? Not at the moment, no, because this has sort of taken over. And also, my grandson is getting to the age where, you know, he can virtually, well, he can't look after himself, but you know what I mean, he's not a baby anymore. No. What was a Glenda Jackson Grandma Day like? I always found it interesting. I mean, the best thing in a way is there comes a point where you can say, look, I've had enough of this, you go home now, do you know what I mean? Without feeling guilty. Yeah, but have you ever been to a soft play centre? I have indeed, yes, and I like to join in.

It takes them time to accommodate you if they don't know you, but after they know you well enough to be able to ignore you, you can join in and they wouldn't go so far as to say they actively welcome you, but they'd actually scream at the sight of you. OK, so you would get involved and get on the equipment, would you, if necessary? Well, if I didn't have such a bad leg, I would be delighted. If I can get on the equipment, I certainly will. Elizabeth is Missing is, certainly I watch that.

When you get scripts like that, are you somewhat depressed by the storyline or do you acknowledge it as actually something really vital that needs to be on television? Much more the latter than the former because I have been banging on and nobody listened to a word I said for a considerable period of time as to how we as a nation deal with the fact that we as individuals are living longer. Alzheimer's and dementia has risen and we do not have sufficient care for people who are suffering from it. It's there, it's a big black hole. There was nothing in the budget that was specific about this aspect of the way our population is changing. Well of course you really feel at the moment for people

with dementia perhaps in the early stages. Absolutely. And their families. That I saw not every day in and out, but when I was still the Member of Parliament, I would visit old people's homes and day centres and things like that. And it is, it can be. Well, it is. I mean, it's just deeply, deeply shocking when you see people where the parent no longer recognises their children. Yes, no, it's absolutely terrible. You're 83. What about the future? Do you spend a great deal of time thinking about it? I mean, I'm probably typical of the average middle aged person with elderly parents and young kids at the moment, younger kids, slightly obsessing

about what the next couple of months might hold. What's your mindset? Well, my family have told me that they're going to be under lockdown and I've taken notice of that at all. I do think it is something that we have to address because it's the possibility of passing on infections, I think, which is the real issue here, without making people feel that they're completely outside the human family.

So what are you planning for the next couple of weeks and months? Do you have any work? I'm planning to do what I always do, which is get up, struggle around, getting washed and dressed because my leg's bad, do a bit of shopping if we're allowed to go to the shops. I'm very fortunate. I mean, my family are very close, so they can do bits of shopping for me. But I think the last thing one wants to do is to be stuck inside.

Is there a book or a series or something you'd recommend for anybody who was holed up for a length of time? Is there something that people might not have thought of that you'd like to draw attention to? I'm working my way through the last part of the Hilary Mantel trilogy, and I can strongly recommend it to everybody. But a book that I always read, I read on a biannual basis. It tends to be Rebecca West's The Birds Fall Down. I just think it's a wonderful, wonderful book. And of course, there's always war and peace if you really want a good long read.

I'm not that desperate, Glenda, I'm really not. You don't know what you've... It's a treat. Dip into it. Well, that was Me Told, and that play was Edith Sitwell in Scarborough. It's available on BBC Sounds. That was Glenda Jackson. Now, the former Tory Home Secretary, Amber Rudd,

tweeted this week during Gov briefings, am I the only one thinking where are all the women? Why are there no senior women in the war cabinet or used to convey those critical messages? Equality means better decisions. Don't pack the women away during a crisis. Well, I talked to her on Friday's programme, and we also heard from Caroline Criado-Perez, author of Invisible Women, Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, and Simona Schnall, a reader in experimental social psychology and director of studies in psychological and behavioural sciences

at Jesus College, Cambridge. I asked Amber Rudd, first of all, about the current Home Secretary, Priti Patel. Has she been cited? I mean, that's a very good example. She holds one of the most senior roles in government, and she should be at the top with the Prime Minister, helping to make those decisions. What I find so surprising is that all the top voices, and as I said in my tweet, the so-called war cabinet, is being promoted and run by men. I don't understand why the very senior, capable women who are in government, at the top of government, are not also being included. Well, apart from Priti Patel, who else do you want to see and hear from?

Well, there's the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Therese Coffey, there's Liz Truss. But my point really isn't about the individuals. It's about the fact that there are senior women embedded at the top of government. I know I was one. I served under three prime ministers in three cabinets. And women are not there as window dressing. They are there playing important roles, raising their voices, being heard and influencing policy. And it is absolutely wrong that at a time of crisis, somehow those women have been packed away. And I think the government needs to rethink it for two reasons. One is because, as we know, and I'm sure we'll hear more about this, diversity means to better choices, better decision making. And secondly,

because in my experience, it's only women who raise the really important issues about women's lives, their working lives, their home lives, what's going to happen to domestic abuse rates during the crisis. There is an awful lot to get at. We should say, of course, that had this awful, awful string of events happened, say, about six or nine months ago, the prime minister was female and so indeed was the chief medical officer. So the optics would have been somewhat better from your perspective back then, wouldn't they? Not just the optics, but the reality. You have to have women in bed in these decision-making processes. And you're right, there's an element of it being a coincidence, but it's a coincidence that needs fixing, which is why I'm so keen to raise it. Right. What decision, already made, already announced,

do you think would not have been made or announced had women been consulted or involved? Well, I can't comment on that because I'm not in the room where all the discussions are taking place. But what I would feel reassured of if there were women in those discussions is that these elements to do with home life, to do with domestic abuse, to do with education, would be being raised. That's my concern rather than the broader decisions that we're now seeing. What about use of terms like war cabinet? Yes, I mean, that wouldn't be my choice. We're not at war. We're not investing in arms. We're investing in our NHS. I'd rather see a different approach, but that's the Prime Minister's decision.

Caroline, let's go to you. What would you like to bring to our attention here? Well, what we have here is a situation where women are likely to be the most exposed to this pandemic, both physically and economically. So physically, because women tend to be at the front lines of any kind of disease outbreak, because they are the nurses, they're the cleaners, they're the unpaid carers. You for example in the Ebola outbreak in 2014 women made up 75% of those who died that wasn't because they had a biological sensitivity to Ebola it's because they were the ones doing the unpaid care work

so that's a huge concern that I don't see being factored into the response and then there is also the economic fallout so women are much more likely to be employed in service sectors which have been the hardest hit by the pandemic so far. They're most likely to be on insecure and zero hour contracts, much less likely to have statutory sick pay. And where are the policies that are accounting for this? And, you know, as Amber says, this is the kind of thing that evidence

from history shows that if you have women involved in decision-making processes, these are far less likely to be forgotten. I mean, your point about the war cabinet, I found very funny because actually, if you look at the difference between what men and women focus on, this was research done specifically in the UK Parliament, men are much more likely to use war language and talk about arms and the military. And women are more likely to talk about care and education. You know, the more women that are involved in parliament across the OECD, the more spending goes on education and social care. So there's very clear evidence that the sex of who is in the decision, the decision making room does matter. And so yeah, I am really concerned that in this crisis situation, we have reverted to old habits.

What we do know or appear to know, and I'm being very careful here, is that so far men are more likely to die of COVID-19. But you're saying, Caroline, that long term, unfortunately, it's unfortunate for everyone, obviously, there is a chance that actually more women may die as a result. It was like in the Ebola outbreak, you know, women weren't the ones originally who were dying more. You know, that wasn't happening. It was because of women's dramatically increased exposure and more likely to be in jobs. Like, for example, cleaners in hospitals, laundry workers in hospitals who aren't offered the same level of protection, who we aren't talking about, and nurses as well, who are doing much more of the intimate, involved in patient care work. And do they even have personal protective equipment that fits their faces? I was talking to a doctor yesterday who was telling me that a lot of the small face masks, you know, the smallest that they have, you know, it's small size for men. And so women are not necessarily having personal protective equipment that is protecting them.

And I don't see this being spoken about at the highest levels of government. And it's extremely concerning. And this is before we even get on to the issue of pregnancy. Well, yes, we have discussed pregnancy, I should say. If anybody missed that, earlier this week on Woman's Hour, you can find that via BBC Sounds. That was Tuesday morning's edition of the programme. But to be fair, there's not a great deal known about COVID-19 and pregnancy, it would seem. Let's bring in Simona Schnall.

What do you want to respond to that you've heard so far, Simona? Well, there is actually quite a bit of psychological research that speaks to some of these issues when it comes to how men and women differ in terms of decision making, and especially decision making in times of uncertainty or as far as risk is concerned, which is, of course, exactly what we're dealing with right now, where it's not quite clear what the right course of action is, both in terms of what governments and policymakers should recommend to the general public, but then also what individuals

should be doing to protect themselves and others. So it's very difficult to know for any of us what we need to be doing. And when that is the case, it's been shown that women tend to be more risk averse. So they tend to see greater risks in various situations than men do. So there's been some work, for example, asking about the risk of dying in a plane crash or from gun violence and so on. And any sort of risk of personal harm and danger, women tend to feel like those risks are greater than what men would experience. But this is mainly white men, am I right? So this is interesting now, exactly.

So there are these gender differences in general. But in addition, it's also been shown that the finding that relative to women and ethnic minorities, white men will experience or perceive risks to be lower. So they won't see dangers and challenges where other people might feel they're present. Caroline, what do you see changing, if anything, over the next couple of days? What would you like to see changing? One of the major things I would like to see, actually, is for the data which is coming out from vaccine trials, from drug trials, to be presented in a sex disaggregated manner. At the moment, most of the trials just say adults, and it's impossible to know whether or not women are being included and also whether or not there are any sex differences. Now, that really matters because we know from history,

you know, all the medical trials that have been done that, for example, there are sex specific responses to vaccines. And in fact, you know, you mentioned about men being at the moment more likely to die. You don't exactly know why that is, because we have been so bad at doing sex disaggregated research in the past. But there are two potential reasons. One, that the data is coming out of China, and therefore it's related to men being much more likely to smoke in China. But also, women do have a more active immune system. And that means that women are more likely to develop autoimmune diseases.

And also means that women are more likely to develop autoimmune diseases and also means that women are more likely to have more frequent and severe adverse reactions to vaccines. And so if we're going to be creating a vaccine for this, particularly given what we were talking about earlier about women being the ones who are going to be most exposed, we want a vaccine that's going to work for men and women. Yeah. None of the research that's coming out is telling us that and it does seem frustrating yeah i mean more than frustrating this is potentially exceptionally dangerous and it does appear that in spite of all your good work not much has been learned well you know one of the things i do write about in in invisible women is about how when things go into a crisis, this is what tends to happen. You know, you saw in the responses, I'm sure, to Amber's tweet,

why are you worrying about gender now? This is a crisis that, you know, we can't worry about this. Let's just focus on people. And people don't really get that actually gender is not this sort of minority concern. It's not a distraction. It needs to be central to any response to a crisis because gender is central to the way our society is structured. Caroline Criado-Perez, Amber Rudd and Simona Schnall. Now, many of you, it's worth saying, agreed with everything said there and believed it was extremely important that we had the conversation. However, here we go. Bernadette Balance is right back. Bridget says, Hi, I'm a 47 year old woman and I'm shouting at the radio in the car. This is a difficult time for all of us. Many men and women are pulling together, doing our best as a team.

When do we start talking about how we work together and not worry about how we identify sexually? If you speak to young women, they think us oldies are obsessed with gender. I have to say it's not been my experience, but anyway. And from Roseanne, for Amber Rudd and for you as a programme, at a time like this to be making points about the fact that the fronting medical and ministerial staff appearing on the news are male is trite. Let's just be grateful that we have a government that's doing its best in the most difficult of circumstances.

Well, I said on the programme or after the programme on Friday, I'll say it again now, if you listened to what was said during that conversation, I really hope you'll understand why it is so important. You can always go back and listen to that conversation in its entirety on BBC Sounds. The Women of the World Festival at the South Bank Centre recently featured a lecture from Balanle Tajadeen called Art in the Age of Black Girl Magic. It was about how feminism has influenced the work of black female fine artists.

Balanley is a curator and a writer and a lecturer and the founder of Black Blossoms, dedicated to promoting their work. She talked to Jenny about notable black artists, their work and their struggle to be seen. So our image of Black Girl Magic is about contemporary and historical practices by black women artists. Today I'm specifically doing the genesis of black feminism in art so I'm looking at like how black feminist theory intertwines with black women's art practices. How has feminism affected black female fine artists and their work? So you've got artists like Faith Ringgold, who was in the cusp of black feminism and the black arts movement, who've campaigned against museums

like the Whitney Museum in 1971 to show a more reflective artworks within their institution. So Faith Ringgold campaigned for like, she wanted to see 50% more black women artists in the museum. They set up groups. This has also inspired um artists

like labaina himid sonia boyce within the black arts movement to also campaign for black women within the arts and then you see it happening again now this like you've got platforms like black blossoms babes campaigning not necessarily campaigning but showcasing the work of black queer women artists how successful were those women in the 60s and 70s in trying to make changes i very much doubt that they achieved 50 50 definitely because it's still very difficult to find work by black female artists they definitely weren't successful but what they were successful at was creating careers for themselves because they're excellent artists. So as much as they were campaigning for better representation

within art institutions, they were still making work, they were still doing work. With all the setbacks they had, they still managed to create vast amounts of work. So we're talking about the 20th century at the moment. How far back can you go to seek work by black female artists and find it difficult to find? Yes, it is quite difficult. Colonialism and slavery has erased a lot of the histories of black women around a number of fields including art

so the earliest I found is a woman called Mary Edmonia Lewis who was born in America in 1844 and she was born a free woman in New York and she studied in Ohio and then she became a sculptor she was one of the first recognized sculptors she was half African-American half Native American and she received prominence for her work she went on to with the help of abolitionists she went on to go to Rome and she worked under a number of great artists and then she also sort of built her own sort of legacy through her work, which combined African-American and her Catholic beliefs. So, for example, there's a piece of work called Forever Free. When you look at the sculpture, it has European features at the time.

That's the kind of work that she would have had to make in order for it to sell, for order for it to have been classified maybe as fine art. But within that work, she's talking about two African-Americans who have been set free and they're rejoicing at that moment. So you can go quite far back, but I'm sure even though she's recognised, how many other of the women who were making art at the time are not recognised and it's not even not being recognised were they given this space were they allowed to make work or were they in jobs that didn't give them the time to make the work

they wanted to make. How much did things improve in the latter part of the 20th century because I know Sonia Boyce was I think the first woman of colour to have work bought by the Tate yeah so Sonia Boyce is an amazing artist she works across photography paint performance I guess her work was bought in the 80s and now in the Venice Biennale is in its 59th year and she's the first black woman artist to represent Britain I don't necessarily know if that's an improvement or a shocking indictment on the art world itself that there's 59 years worth of British art and no black woman has represented them. And black women have existed in Britain. What sort of work are the major galleries looking for then?

At times, a lot of the artists that I talk to will talk about that major galleries like to showcase black pain, they want to showcase work that isn't necessarily reflective of the kind of work they want to make. If it doesn't have trauma, if it doesn't have... Or then it goes to the complete other side and it's completely abstract work. So, yeah, it's a confusing one, really, because you've got institutions and then you've got actual galleries

that represent artists and sell the work. And sometimes these have competing sort of ideas of what artwork by black artists is important and it's like that trying to box black artists in. Who are the notable artists that we should be looking out for now? Michaela Yawudan, she's an amazing abstract artist. Rosa Johanna Udo as well, she works across ceramic and performance. Lynette Kamala, who's been an artist since the 90s, she works with Kali Graffiti. She currently had a show on on Lambeth Town Hall looking at the legacy of Olive Morris and that's another thing really is that the way black women artists work they're usually trying to highlight other black women that history has erased and that is the genesis of the black feminism in art.

Bolanley Tajadeen talking to Jenny. Now the budget was on the 11th of March it's easy to forget that now but it saw a series of huge public spending and investment projects, focusing on physical infrastructure. But what about people? Professor Diane Elson is from the Women's Budget Group. Caroline Abrahams is the Charity Director at Age UK. She told Jenny what she made of the budget. We understood that actually the government hadn't decided quite what it wanted to do about social care yet and therefore for that reason they weren't going to bring forward any measures in the budget. But of course, you know, we saw, as you say, lots of money for all sorts of other things. And our worry at that point was, well, is there going to be any left for social care?

And now, of course, we feel like we've been completely overwhelmed by events. And I think a lot of people are feeling if only social care was more robust, we'd be in a much better position to weather what is to come over the next few months. Dan, why said it was okay to borrow to invest in things, to fill the potholes in the roads, for instance, or build new bridges, but you couldn't borrow to invest in people, you couldn't borrow to pay the wages of staff in public services. And that had to be covered by tax revenue. And I think they so far have stuck to those rules, but they've been unwilling to grasp the implications of raising enough tax revenue

to properly fund public services. And social care has been a particular Cinderella. So from what Caroline just said, it seems that was a very false economy. A very false economy because now we're in a situation where we really could have done with a very robust system of social care so that people who are in hospital and their medical needs have now been met would be able to go home and find there was a package of social care to support them there. We're not in that situation. How concerned, Caroline, are people contacting Age UK about carers and care homes right now? I think pretty anxious is the honest truth of it and you know anybody who has anything to do with the care system, you're bound to be asking yourself questions about exactly how it's going to manage over the next few weeks.

There's just loads of different issues. I mean, for example, with home care, which supports absolutely hundreds of thousands of people around the country. The worry is that care workers will start to go down with the virus, almost inevitable, and there just won't be enough to go around. And then they're going to have to reallocate people. And I'm sure they'll do it the best way they possibly can. But that's, of course, a huge worry. And then in care homes, you know, just as worrying, but slightly different issues in the sense that, again, often understaffed to start with. And you have people coming in and out I'm sure they'll do everything they can to keep the virus out but you know I imagine at some point it will get into some care homes where you have a group of obviously very vulnerable older people all living together. And Dan the government has indicated this week that it will address social care this week, they've said,

and they now tell us they're going to be making further announcements and further spending will follow as the situation develops. How much is this seemingly renewed concern tied directly to coronavirus? Oh, I'm sure it is. But actually, I'm not so optimistic as you because what I've been hearing is talk about packages for businesses to pay the wages of workers who are employees of businesses which have closed their doors to prevent them from becoming unemployed. But I haven't heard anything signal that specifically

they're going to make more money available for social care. They could easily have increased the funding for local governments. I think this is really, really important that they should do that because the increase in the minimum wage, while it's very welcome, will mean that the cost of providing a funding local care for local governments has risen, but local governments aren't getting any more allocations to cover this. So I think there are things they could do immediately to make it easier for local government to manage the undoubted crisis that's going to be that Caroline has talked about.

We need this now. They are thinking of tearing up the rule book that's previously governed budgetary allocations. Now's the time to do it, I think, and to make a big package available immediately for trying to deal with the social care crisis. So Diane, what are the most immediate problems that need tackling right away when investment is made available? The most immediate one is the funding to pay staff. The increase in the minimum wage, as I said, is very welcome, but unless local governments have more money to cover the cost, they're going to not be able to provide as much care because they've got to pay the increase in the minimum wage.

That's the quick thing that can be done. More money for local government, they should do that immediately. The capacity of local government to manage this crisis, it's going to be on the front line, isn't it? At local level, there are going to be decisions that have to be made. They can't all be made in Whitehall. So definitely more money for local government. And then I think they need to do much more to address the financial distress of people who, including many care workers, who will be being told to self-isolate at home because they have symptoms of the virus. And it's not at all clear that they're going to get adequate funding. But the Chancellor did, Diane, make changes to ensure

people off sick would be paid statutory sick pay from day one. Why do you have concerns about the position of care workers now? The statutory sick pay is very low. Can you live on, what is it, £95 a week? So the statutory sick pay is too low and it's far lower than in most European countries. That's something that could have been addressed immediately. And also care workers who aren't direct employees, who are subcontracted workers, who don't work full time, whose pay is below the minimum that you need in order to get

sick pay. I don't see anything in this package for them. Caroline, the government has published new guidelines for dealing with the virus in home care and care homes. How much confidence has that given people in this sector, both workers and families, who are concerned about the people in their family who need the care? I think it's definitely helped. The gap at the moment, which we hope will be filled in the next week, is the lack of any kind of advice for informal care. It's for the 8 million or so informal family carers often right across the

country, often older people themselves. And of course, in practice, if you think what goes on in real life, you know, thinking of my own situation, my mum has a living carer, and she has domiciliary carers that come in and out, and she has me as a part-time informal carer. So all these things are mixed up. So, you know, it is quite confusing for people, I think, for families to know exactly what to do and what's likely to happen. And of course, it is a time of huge uncertainty. Diane, social care has preoccupied successive governments for, I think, about 20 years. Do we have a chance now to start tackling it and have an open discussion about the cost of it?

I think we do, because I think there is an appetite now for new thinking about public expenditure and taxation to deal with the crisis. So I think it is a good opportunity to address the point that we will never have an adequately funded social care system unless we address the issue of raising more taxation from wealth in particular. There's always a lot of resistance to this, but I think the crisis conditions actually give an opportunity to forge a consensus that this is the time to actually call upon people to make higher tax contributions, those that are able to, in order to fund the social services that we all need and social care and health service in particular. Professor Diane Elson and Caroline Abrahams. The Scottish Government's consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act ended this

week. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon supports the idea that transgender people should be able to self-declare their gender rather than going through a medicalised and bureaucratic process. But not everyone, even in her own party, agrees. A number of other prominent SNP politicians, including Joanna Cherry MP, are worried that single sex spaces for women and girls may be lost. I talked this week to Rona Hotchkiss, the former governor of Caunton Vale Prison in Stirling, and she's concerned about this, and to James Morton, manager of the Scottish Trans Alliance. Has the Scottish government got it right? Getting a gender recognition certificate purely changes the sex on your birth certificate.

So it would still be the last document that you change. You'd still change everything else first. You've always been able to change those documents when you start living permanently in your gender, rather than requiring any particular medical treatments or diagnoses or medical reports. So we think it is right and proportionate to make it a little bit simpler to change that last document. Simpler and quicker crucially. It's

mostly about making sure that people aren't held back from getting it by red tape. So for example there's a number of trans people who transitioned a number of years back but the psychiatrist who originally diagnosed them aren't on the very small list of about 75 or so specialists that are allowed to write the report for the gender recognition panel. So people would have to go back in

the system and get re-diagnosed in order to get their certificate at the moment. So it's about trying to make sure that one document isn't left out of sync for trans people who are living permanently in that sex. Rona, what are you concerned about? So the way James outlines it there it sounds perfectly reasonable and quite simple but if you scrape under the surface this bill would open up a whole horrible can of worms. Crucially it would remove the biologybased meaning in law of man and woman. And it would mean that any person who wants to can declare themselves

to be the sex opposite to the one that they were born. We have concerns. I mean, I speak for the LGB Alliance and I'm a supporter of For Women Scotland. And we have concerns around the safeguarding of women and girls because women will no longer be able to challenge anyone they think should not be in their safe spaces. Can I just interrupt? When you were a prison governor,

did you deal with exactly that situation? Yes, I did. I did. The prison service, like many other bodies, has already started to behave as though self-declaration of gender is legal. And they regularly put male-bodied people in with female prisoners to their distress. Right. James, what about that?

So it's actually not true that the legal definition is purely biological for men and women. Since 2004, there's been recognition that you can be legally female and still have what would be considered a typically male body. I'm legally male, I'm a trans man, I transitioned from female to male. There's aspects of my body that are not typical for the average man, but I'm still recognised in law as male. But you'll understand the significance of what Rona said there about male-bodied people in settings like a female prison could be extremely intimidating. Many prisoners of both men and women, I should say, many prisoners are pretty vulnerable people who've been through some tough times themselves. Yeah, including some trans prisoners. And we support the current process that the Scottish Prison Service uses, which is a really comprehensive risk assessment-based process.

So they can keep somebody, say somebody was a sex offender, they could keep them in the male estate because they're a sex offender and they would be a risk to women in the female estate. But if someone's a low-risk trans person, then they could be in the female estate. You wouldn't force someone to share a cell with them. You wouldn't force people to shower with them. But they could still be in the female estate.

Let me put that point to Rona. Most people are low-risk. So why not follow James' idea? So there's two issues there. Firstly, the risk assessment currently doesn't take any cognisance of the emotional impact on women, on their well-being, of having male-bodied people living in quite intimate spaces. And secondly, our concern is that this bill, if it becomes law,

would further blur the boundaries there. And the clash between the rights of someone who has a birth certificate says they are female when they were actually born male, and the rights under the 2010 Equality Act to exclude such people have not been tested in law. Well, can I briefly ask you, James, will it become law? Sorry, what do you mean? Well, is the law likely to change? Bearing in mind there are many, many other things going on and many people doubt that it would actually make it through the Scottish Parliament.

OK, so there's no proposal to change the Equality Act that Rona refers to. going on and many people doubt that it would actually make it through the Scottish Parliament. Okay, so there's no proposal to change the Equality Act that Rona refers to. So there would still be the ability, if it's proportionate, to treat a trans person less favourably and perhaps even exclude them from a single sex service. That's not what you want though, James. You want that to change. Can I finish, please? And it's very hard to tell at the moment whether the gender recognition reforms will go through or not, particularly with the coronavirus. That was James Morton. And you also heard from Rona Hotchkiss. Now, let's talk tantrums. Many people are going to be cooped up. I was going to say incarcerated, but that is going a little bit far. Cooped up, I think we'll settle for

with young children over the weeks and possibly months that lie ahead. It's going to be difficult for lots of people, depending, of course, on what sort of children you have, what age they are and how much space you have. But tantrums are likely. I mean, let's be honest, we've all had a tantrum, at least one in the space of the last week. The conversation you're about to hear was recorded before schools were shut down formally.

Emily Jones is the speaker. She's a professor of infant neurodevelopment and autism at the Birkbeck Baby Lab. So I asked her, is it inevitable? Do all small children have tantrums? Almost all, yes. There are some children who won't tantrum very often um but but most go through a fairly typical phase when they're 18 months to two and a half that they'll have fairly regular tantrums and is it in fact a sign of um good health it yeah it is it's showing that they're developing their own um ideas their own goals their own thoughts about things and that's all really important in that age range and what unfortunately happens is their communication skills can't keep up and particularly their ability to be independent

can't keep up and that's what can lead to tantrums. So looking at it from the other perspective if your child is around the age of two and isn't having tantrums should you be concerned? No some children just naturally are either better able to control their emotions earlier on or are able to have more control. So, you know, if you're an only child, for example, often it's easier for you to, you know, have some control over your life than if you're a younger sibling and you're having to compete with an older one. So no, it's certainly not something to be concerned about. Well, actually, that's something that is going on in your household, I imagine. Your children are eight and four.

Eight and four, yeah. And the four-year-old, I understand, had a meltdown this morning. She did because she wanted to wear her brother's trousers that he had on that are, of course, far too big for her. And she found that quite challenging. So, yeah, a lot of her tantrums are to do with wanting to be able to do what he can do or what he has. Now, how do you deal with it? I mean, I try in the beginning to sort of head it off at the pass if I notice.

So I try to distract her, you know, find something exciting for her to wear, give her something else that he has. But sometimes there's just no way of avoiding it. And, you know, I have to let it kind of burn out. And then we talk about it afterwards. Is it true that actually the adult has to be in the right frame of mind in order to tackle a tantrum? Yeah, it certainly helps if you can be calm and you can try to sort of keep your head. That's the best thing. If you get wound up, they'll get even more wound up. But obviously, it's massively difficult to do when your child's having a meltdowndown particularly in a public place or when you've got to go to school the public place is is the really key thing here

isn't it because there's no doubt about it other people will judge you and your child yeah i mean i think it's often a worry for a lot of parents that people would judge them i think often actually people aren't as judgmental um as you think they might be because a lot of people have got the same experience and a lot of people will be looking at you thinking that was me six years ago, and I'm glad it's not me anymore. So I think people are less judgmental than maybe you feel like they're going to be when you're out and about. Let's say your child is having a tantrum in a crowded shop. Tell me what I do. So the ideal thing is if you can sort of cut it off before it gets to that point so um trying to

you know avoid the toy aisle if you can at all possibly do that or you know setting up clear expectations in the beginning trying to head them off at the pass distract them as soon as you see the early signs but if they get to the point where they're having a full-blown tantrum sometimes all you can do is stand next to them and wait until they've finished sometimes all you can do is carry them out of the shop to a safe place and wait till they've finished because in that moment they're not really capable of sort of processing very much other information and what neurological mayhem is unfolding inside them so one thing that's probably happening is that their body's releasing a lot of stress hormones so things like cortisol um things in the body that

make you feel anxious so the sort of flight or fight response we all feel when you know we hear some scary news um or when something happens um that's that's frightening or when we get frustrated they get those those feelings too and what happens is these these hormones are released and that ramps them up so their heart rate starts to go up they start to feel even more angry or even more stressed. So reasoning with them just won't work at that point? Not when you get, no, not once they've got into that spiral where they're just not processing any information

because what happens is it's a bit like the flight or fight response in adults. You can't think properly. You're sort of reacting at a very basic level and you're not able to consciously process and regulate and particularly at their age they struggle with that anyway. Now, at the moment, everybody is tense, everybody is concerned, and children, however young, must be picking up on the tension around them. Are they more likely to be having a tantrum right now, do you think?

Quite possibly, yeah. If they sense that you're stressed and that you're anxious, they do pick up on that. And, you know, particularly also, we're going to get to a point where their choices are going to be reduced, their routines are going to be changed, the uncertainty is massively higher. So it is quite possible that kids will be finding that difficult. And this is how they express it, right? Some children will express it through tantrums. Now, the thought that you might well have to lock down and be in a confined space with small children.

What would you say about that? I mean, it's going to be a challenge, a huge challenge for a lot of families, particularly those like us who live in a small flat, don't have a garden. You know, it's going to be very difficult to be able to go out. So I think, you know, really thinking ahead about what kind of routines we can set in place, you know, clear expectations for children, as many different activities that we can think about that we can do inside as possible, those kinds of things. But it is going to be a challenge for an awful lot of families. Do you have any, you say activities and you also say you live in quite a small flat. What kind of activities? Well, I mean, one challenge is going to be when you've got like I have an older an older one and a younger one, because you're going to have to find stuff that they can both do.

So the older ones can ideally do work on the computer. If you've got a computer, schools will be sending worksheets home, you know, things that they can do independently so that you can then create a routine for the younger one where maybe they're working at the same time as the older one is. You know, they often like that, feeling like they've grown up. But trying to have, we're going to try and have a visual schedule so they can see what we're doing at each you know time of the day lots of breaks for snacks because that's what they have at nursery what they used to you know if your child is at nursery if you can mimic the schedule as much as possible so you know snacks at the same time nap at the same time lunch at the same time as they do at nursery that all might help and explaining the situation to them what are you going to be saying

yeah i mean so my eight-year-old has this game they play in the playground called zombie infection where they have to try to not get touched by other people so he sort of understands from through play some of the key concepts of social distancing so there are you know things that they can understand through what they understand from the games that they play might be helpful. With the little ones, we do a lot of modelling with her toys. So we play toy nursery, but now we're going to be playing our toys stay at home. Any way you can just try to explain to them simply, but without increasing their anxiety about what's happening. And so far, we've assumed that your child is neurotypical. If they're not, if they have autism, for example, what then?

So it's going to be particularly challenging for families who have children with special educational needs or developmental difficulties like autism, ADHD particularly is another one. Because children who struggle with being confined or need a lot of activity need a lot of exercise or children who struggle particularly with uncertainty um so kids with autism often find it really hard when their routine changes if they're uncertain about what's happening next so for them things like visual schedules are going to be really critical a lot of families use them anyway um but you know being able to set up a routine in the home and and having support wherever possible from you know people who can sky Skype them if they're able to access that, people who can send packages of activities, you know, anything like that might help. yourself about about what might lie ahead because an awful lot of people are faced with a string of

of potential situations that they might they would never have expected they really wouldn't oh for sure i mean i'm like yeah i've got to figure out a way of working full-time whilst homeschooling an eight-year-old a four-year-old in a small flat um so yeah it's challenging but but i was talking to the eight-year-old this morning and we we came up with a lot of creative ideas of actually fun things we could do at home you know making little youtube videos he's already into pokemon so he's gonna i don't know he wants to make little videos of him opening pokemon cards like the grown-ups he likes to watch so there were lots of you know creative fun things that you know maybe we can think of to do with our children we're gonna skype with his friends so they can do their maths together you know we can try to come up with

things that actually could make this a you know an unusual but an interesting experience for them that was emily jones professor of infant neurodevelopment and autism at the burke beck baby lab and over the coming weeks and months we obviously want to hear from you we need to hear from you um we're very very keen that you tell us what you want to hear discussed on the program um family life is likely to be challenged has at no time before certainly in my living memory and we really want to be at the heart of that conversation with your help so email us with your ideas and your problems and hopefully some positivity and some solutions as well. You can do that through the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. Please make sure you're with us on Monday morning.

We're live as ever just after the news at 10 o'clock. Amongst the voices you'll hear next week, Goli, who's an Afghan-born refugee who used to live in Iran, now settled in Denmark with her younger daughter. Her older daughter attracted attention all over the world when she was found at the age of four in the back of a van belonging to a former British soldier. That story might begin to ring bells with you.

It is the subject of a brilliant new BBC podcast called Girl Taken. You can hear from Sue Mitchell, who produced that podcast, and from Goli on Monday's Woman's Hour. Join us then, and I hope you have a reasonable weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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