Woman's Hour - Highflying care-leavers, Freebirths, 'Trouser-less' trend

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

This summer, the region of Manipur in India made headlines after two women were viciously attacked and assaulted by a mob of men. With a similar case happening this month in the south west of the country, Krupa Padhy is joined by Geeta Pandey, BBC Women and Social Affairs Editor in Delhi, and Professor of Modern Indian History at the University of Nottingham, Dr Uditi Sen, to find out why these incidents continue to happen and whether anything is being done at a higher level to stop them.Just 14% of care leavers go to university, compared to 47% of young people who didn’t grow up in care, according to a report by the think tank Civitas. The figures have barely changed over the past 10 years and at the current rate of progress, it will take 107 years to close the gap. Two care-experienced young women who did manage to smash the so-called care ceiling share their experiences with Krupa; Rebecca Munro, who graduated with a masters in business and is now an Education Liaison Officer at the University of St Andrews and Lucy Barnes, a barrister.A freebirth is defined as giving birth without a healthcare professional in attendance. It is also known as an unassisted birth. Anecdotally, more women are making this choice in the UK - but why? What sort of experiences are they having and is it a safe and responsible decision? Krupa speaks to Naomi Nygaarda, a psychotherapist and a mother who chose to freebirth both her children and Mavis Kirkham, a retired midwife and emeritus Professor of Midwifery at Sheffield Hallam University and co-editor of Freebirth Stories, a collection of stories from women choosing to give birth this way. Would you swap your trousers for a pair of statement knickers? Julia Hobbs from Vogue tells Krupa about the new trouser-less trend that's been sweeping the catwalks and social media, and the reactions she got when testing it out on the London Underground.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Rebecca Myatt Studio manager: Emma Harth

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupal Bharti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good to have you with us. We are a few days off New Year's Eve and if you are celebrating, you might be getting your outfit in order, maybe having a browse in the shops or online. I wonder whether you'd consider trying out one of 2024's fashion trends, pants on the outside. You might, like me, think the Wonder Woman style isn't for you. Vogue's fashion editor Julia Hobbs is going to tell us how it went for her when she went out in a pair

of golden bejeweled knickers. What is the most outrageous fashion trend that you have tried? Maybe you don't think it's outrageous at all. What have you deliberately worn to get attention? You can text the programme on any of the stories that we cover. That number is 84844 on Instagram and ex formerly known as Twitter. We are at BBC Women's Hour. You can email us through our website and you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. All of our terms and conditions can be found on our website and a special request on this, do send us any photos you might have of your attention seeking clothes if you can. Also on the programme, getting the grades, going to university and graduating is an achievement for many young people. And family support, may that be moral, emotional or financial, will be an important part of that educational journey.

We're going to speak to two care experienced young women who have achieved all of that and more against the odds without that support network. And this year has been yet another difficult one for our maternity services. Just last month, two thirds of England's maternity units were called dangerously substandard by the Care Quality Commission. We're going to explore unassisted births, women having babies without a health care professional present, and whether the anecdotal rise in these is a response to the failings of our maternity systems. All of that's coming up, but we begin in India. And just a warning, in this item,

we will be talking about violence and sexual assault. Earlier this month, in the state of Karnataka, in the southwest of India, a 42-year-old woman was stripped, tied to an electricity pole and beaten for hours. This was all because her son had eloped with his girlfriend who was supposed to marry someone else the following day. There was another case back in the summer which we discussed here on the programme. It took place in Manipur in northeast India and made headlines around the world when two women were stripped naked by a mob of men,

paraded and allegedly gang raped. A video of the pair went viral on social media. To find out more, I'm joined from Delhi by Geetha Pandey, the BBC's Women and Social Affairs editor from BBC Online in Delhi. Good to have you with us, Geetha. Let's go to the beginning of all of this. Can you tell us what happened in Karnataka? Well, in Karnataka, this 42-year-old woman was alone at home at night and she was sleeping when about a dozen men barged into her house. They dragged her out, they stripped her, they paraded her naked through the village, then tied her to an electricity pole and she was assaulted for several hours until the police who were informed about it and they came and they rescued her. She is now recovering in hospital. The reason why all this happened was because her son had eloped with his girlfriend, who also belonged to the same village.

And clearly the girl's family did not approve of the relationship. And they decided to take it out on the mother. So this woman was punished for something that her son had done, which the girl's family considered a huge transgression. Punished and clearly suffering. In terms of the legal framework around this, first of all, where are we with that? What's happened with this case in the courts? Well, the case has been taken up by the judges of the Karnataka High Court of their own accord. And they have, they summoned the police

and it's become a fairly big case now. The judges were furious. They were also shocked. They said that they could not imagine that something like this could happen in modern India. And we have been told that more than a dozen people have been arrested by the police and they are in police custody. And at least one police officer from the local police station has been suspended for dereliction of duty. And the police said that they have formed a committee which is investigating the case. So we would know more about the case, I guess, in due course of time. But of course, it's something that the spotlight is on, and more so because the court has taken

a very strong stand on the issue. Another line from the judges that stood out to me, Geetha, was them calling for collective responsibility. One of them talked of collected cowardice and that all of those who witness this should essentially be punished. I wonder how that's been received. That really stood out for me. Well, yes, because, you know, if you think about it, I mean, there were about 50 to 60 people who watched this atrocity and no one intervened. According to the court, there was only one person who tried to intervene. He was beaten up.

He was also assaulted, but the rest of the people just stood by and watched. And if you think about it, they just did not watch because clearly there were people who were taking pictures, who were making videos, which was later on shared, until it came out and it became viral and police and the authorities took action.

But think about it. What does it say about people? I mean, it's like the kind of voyeurism that actually accompanied something, an incident that was so horrific, that was so horrible. Yeah. You know. Geetha, just explain to us then, what is the current legislation around this practice?

Well, the Indian law, basically, there is one section of the Indian law which deals with cases like these, which is essentially, I mean, it's called assault with intent to outrage the modesty of a woman. Right. And yeah. And, you know, so it includes something of this kind, which is so heinous because it involved disrobing. So the people who were arrested have been charged under this act. But it's an act which also deals with cases of street harassment or somebody passing a lewd remark or someone groping or touching or making lewd gestures. So some of those cases are not so serious. But something like this, disrobing a woman and parading her naked, humiliating her in public, is also something that's dealt with a law like that, which essentially means a prison term of three to seven years, which lawyers and campaigners are saying is grossly inadequate, and it's not enough.

For a bit more context, Geetha, a lot of the women we hear about in the media who have gone through this are from the Dalit community, that is a member of the lowest class of the traditional Hindu social hierarchy. But does this affect women from all backgrounds? We just don't hear about it as often? Well, in this case, let me clarify that both the families belong to the same community and they lived in the same village. So there was no question of any caste or any other angle being involved here. This was essentially a conflict between families, between two different families. But I think you're right when you say that, you know,

a lot of the women are from disadvantaged background, whether it comes to caste or whether it comes to financially disadvantaged background. So a lot of women come from, you know, families like that. You would rarely ever, if ever, hear a case involving a woman from an affluent family, from an affluent background, you know, or from someone of an upper caste. I mean, those cases are extremely rare if they happen at all. Yeah. Stay with us, Geetha. I want to bring in Dr. Uditi Sen, a professor of

modern Indian history at the University of Nottingham, specialising in gender and feminism. Good to have you with us, Dr. Sen. Do we have any data around this? I mean, I guess what I'm trying to get at is how rare an event is this in India? Thank you for having me. I think the first thing I would like to say looking for, you know, instances where women have been, you know, stripped or paraded naked as somehow this special kind of category of instance. And I think in that case, but is used against the entire family. It's a statement of power, of control, of authority against the family, against this boy who's dared to love a girl who this family considers is to be above his status. So they are from the same community, no doubt, but the girl's family is better connected. The girl's family is economically superior.

The boy's father is a truck driver and he's an outsider in the village. So though it's from within the same community, there are clear incidents, like there's clear relevance of class here, where, you know, the boy has seen to be, you know, to be an upstart. So this is the, this act of attacking an entire family or an entire community through attacking a woman is what is happening here. And I think we will miss the point if we just focus on, you know, a particularly outrageous act of a woman being publicly humiliated or, you know, publicly stripped. Because what is at stake here is this publicly humiliated or, you know, publicly stripped. Because what is at stake here is this notion and this, you know, Indian feminists have been fighting against this for decades now.

It's this notion that the honour of a family or a community, you know, lies in the woman's body. Yeah. Just to go back on what you were saying about how focusing on one aspect isn't sufficient um but it it is the public humiliation aspect of this that is that that has brought this case and others to not just national but global attention it is true but i think you know we do need to look at you know if we just stop at the public humiliation, we do not understand what's at stake, because what's at stake here is the autonomy of women. So the autonomy of a woman which has been denied is also the autonomy of this 18 year old girl, who's now an adult, and has clearly eloped with this man. Now, the focus on, you know, this, because it's almost, you know, it's Game of Throne-ish, you know, it's, you know, it's almost speaks of, you know, that kind of, you know this oh because it's almost you know it's a game of thronich you know it's you know uh it's almost speaks of you know that kind of you know um we have to acknowledge this that there's a

voyeur in all of us right uh clickbait works you know nudity works you know sex works it sells right so if we focus on that what we are ignoring is somewhere in karnataka is an 18 year old girl who's terrified and is hiding and is wondering what will be her punishment for daring to elope with this 24-year-old boy. Now, there is no law against forced marriages in India, right? The law focuses on child marriage. There's no law against marital rape in India. So a wife can be raped by, you know, her husband with impunity. And all of that leads me to question the relationship that women, particularly vulnerable women, might have with the police, whether they'd feel comfortable going to the police

if anything happened to them. They don't. But I think we also have to look at this in the current context of law and order in Karnataka and in India. Because you're right that this is a public case of humiliation, a public case of violence. The truth of it is that there has been an alarming rise in public violence against weaker communities in recent years. This is not a hangover from some medieval period. This is a political, you know, modern situation we are looking at, where there are vigilante groups who are acting with impunity against the weaker sections of society, whether it be Dalits, or whether it be Muslims. And this has been given a cart planche by, you know, the rise of, you know, Hindu right sentiments or the Hindutva ideology, which places morality and social policing above law and order.

Right. So we have politicians who've gone on record saying, oh, you know, if sentiments are offended, there'll be action and reaction. So if you dig deeper into this, what you'll find is that some of the men who participated in this are known assailants. These will be people who have a track record of violence and are roaming around with impunity. And they probably don't have a track record of violence against women, but against Dalits, against Muslims. So the idea of collective responsibility to be placed on the villages is therefore grievously wrong because what are they going to do in a political culture where these kind of elements

have been allowed to, you know, believe that they have the right to morally police society? Dr Sen, you've highlighted clearly the problems and I've not left sufficient time for the answers and the solutions because I'm sure they are extensive and complex. But we know that there are so many women's rights groups in India trying to work on these issues, find a solution. I mean, I imagine it's hard for them to operate. What are or what is being worked on both at grassroots level and national level?

I would like to name two organisations here. There's the Mahila Durjanya Virodhi Akuta and the Jagruti Mahila Vakut. We don't hear of them because these are local grassroots organisations. They work with local villages. They work on education. They work with primary school children to change their views on gender. And they work with differently abled, they work on education, they work with primary school children to change their views on gender, and they work with differently abled, they work with transgender women, they work on right to education, right to health. So what women's organizations have is a holistic view of the problem, right, that you cannot just treat this as a law and order problem. Yes, we need the laws to change because the laws also reflect a certain

kind of conservative patriarchal mindset, right? But at the same time, you also need to change the mindset of people. So people have been working on this for years. They have protested against this incident and they will continue to work. Unfortunately, what we also have is this incident being politicized. So now it's been politicized as you know a blame game between the two key political parties which is the Indian National Congress and the BJP where each of them are accusing the other of failing to protect women adequately now this is the same patriarchal mindset of you know who did better by whose women but again you know there's a loss of autonomy of you know women as you know equal citizens uh and there's a blame game amongst men um, you know, there's a loss of autonomy of, you know, women as, you know, equal citizens.

And there's a blame game amongst men. And, you know, the West is also guilty of that, that we can try and feel better that, oh, here women are not treated as badly. Well, look how horrible it is in India. But I think really, if we are going to look for solutions, we have to, you know, look at what Jagruti is doing. They have a website. You have to look at what, you know, Mahila Dorjani of Viradhi Okuta is doing. These are not one-time solutions, these are long solutions and they are working at the ground level.

The problem really is, is this change in political climate which makes moral policing and vigilante violence acceptable. Dr. Aditi Sen, I'm going to stop you there, but fascinating insights from you. Thank you for introducing us to what is a really complex and multi-layered dilemma in India and what is

such a diverse nation as well. Thank you so much for your insights and Geetha Pandey from the BBC for that update on that case that is getting significant attention in India. Thank you both for your time. Our next conversation is about changing fortunes when you've not had the best start in life. According to a report by the think tank Civitas this year, just 14% of care leavers go to university compared to 47% of young people who didn't grow up in care. And those figures have barely changed over the past 10 years. And at the current rate of progress, it will take over 100 years to close that gap. But joining me now are two young care experienced women who have bucked that trend.

They care passionately about girls going through similar life experiences and they want to share what they have learnt. Let me introduce you to Lucy Barnes, a barrister and Rebecca Munro who graduated with a master's in business and is now the education liaison officer at the University of St. Andrews. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Lucy, you're here with me in the studio. I want to start with clarifying the language around what we're talking about.

When we say care leavers, experience what does that mean personally I prefer the term care experience because the term care leaver implies that care leaves you and it and it really shouldn't because in a normal traditional family environment your family don't leave you so you know when your care experience it's a positive term it connotates a community which is actually really supportive on the whole community which gives you a sense of okay others are here they can do they can do it too but care lever makes you feel somewhat isolated and that you're different in some way yeah i'm glad i asked that first because it almost changes the direction of the rest of our conversation thank you for that

um i want to hear both of your stories rebecca, I'll start with you. Both of you have excelled academically. You both entered the care system aged 13. Take me back, Rebecca, to those days. What's care been like for you? So care has been multifaceted, I would say. I think I didn't know about the care system before I entered it. And when I entered it, I was alone. I was split from my sibling.

And it was just a really daunting experience to just kind of be, you know, at one point with the family, regardless of how dysfunctional it is, then being in a space with strangers, but people who are there and wanting to kind of support me and just kind of feeling so out the loop and I think that came with lots of disruptions in my high school education and with the run-up of me moving into care you know that required a lot of social work involvement that made disruptions to my high school experience and you know that just wasn't

something that I wanted to be happening but but I suppose it had to happen. And it was the people around me, the people who were making decisions for me, who felt best for me to go into care. So I think the sort of big emotions on that time were kind of feeling isolated, feeling scared, but also kind of accepting what was happening because I knew what was going on elsewhere wasn't great so I knew what was happening to me moving into the care system was for the best and it was good for me. Yeah and how did that experience go? I think it went it's you know it's almost two-sided so I spoke about being scared of strangers but at the same time it helped me kind of think outside the box and look on it look in on my life like previously from outside the box and it kind of made me realize that you know the sort of path that may have been set up for me being in the sort of family home will not take me where I am now and so I think I was then able to get a good glance at what could be and the sort of support that's out there and and that could help me get to where I want to be whereas if I was back where I came from

it wouldn't be the case so it gave me a sort of fresh perspective on life which I think in a roundabout way it wasn't a great situation but kind of catalyzed my sort of need to kind of succeed. Just to clarify what was your housing setup specifically um where sorry what do you mean your kind of residential setup were you living with a family were you living by yourself with a with a foster family yeah okay sorry um yeah a couple of things actually I got to experience foster care that didn't work out that well because with care experience people when they move from one family into another family you know there's there's difficulties there with trying to just kind of live your life in a stranger's home you know there's there's sort

of there's difficulty like I say I also then experienced sort of a residential home which was just myself and that was just kind of staff who were on rotation and that I think was the turning point for me where I kind of got to have time to myself and start that sort of reflection process that I kind of spoke about so you experience that foster care and then later a bit later in my later teens I then was fortunate to be taken in from a family member which we consider in Scotland as kinship care so I then lived with a family member for a couple of years as well and you know yeah. And for a short time I should highlight you entered the homeless system as well. Yes unfortunately yeah when I became 17 just as I left high school at the end of my

education in high school I yes entered the homeless system but although that sounds really negative and horrible yes it was in principle but actually I had amazing people around me in the homeless accommodation that really supported my aspirations and dreams and just didn't discourage me only encouraged me and so although I was homeless I had amazing people around me that made sure that I kind of got to where I wanted to go regardless of the circumstances. I'm hearing all of this and I'm thinking this has all happened between the ages of 13 and 18 this is complex enough as it is for kids who live in I mean I say ordinary quote-unquote families I can't imagine what a roller coaster it was for you during that time let me bring you in here,

Lucy, because you also entered the system at 13 when your family could no longer care for you. Yeah, that's right. I was kicked out by my biological mother. And then I went into foster care with a family I knew. So that made it easier in some ways, but more difficult in others, because I was questioning myself and thinking, where do I fit in in this notion of family? Like, I'm not really part of this family, but I'm also not part of my biological family. So that was a really complex situation. And then what happened? So probably due to complex trauma building up, eventually I was kicked out at 16. So I had to

go back to, because I didn't hear from a local authority at that point, my social workers stopped contact at 16. So I had to go back to my biological family, which was very, very difficult. Those two years prior to university were very, very challenging in my development. But I kind of just had it in my mindset that the only way to escape was uni so I had that sort of tunnel vision um and I was so determined um from my foster father who had first instilled the idea in me to become a barrister except before that I had no idea what a barrister was I'll be completely honest um so I don't think many young people when they're 16 17 18 actually know what these terms for various professions are so absolutely understandable yeah and i think what's a what's

a tragedy as well as in schools you don't get anyone from that in neglected schools in particular um you don't get that anyone from that line of work it's like it's like a gap in in your educational or what you want to be because you're expected to know what you want to be but no one's coming to your school to talk about what a barrister is so how are you supposed to figure that out and there was a whole period from 16 to 18 where you know having zero connections in the legal profession I was like okay I really need to get creative here how am I going to find an in in this in this industry because it's what I want to do and I was fortunate enough to have found that bizarrely from a random lady who

gave me her business card when I worked at Waitrose so yeah and that was my first in and then it was it was it was definitely difficult to build that network that I feel like my peers just sort of had already but I was very determined to to change that. That's so striking that it was the drive to escape from your testing situation I mean that's putting it mildly from those difficult circumstances that you were growing up with that drive to escape is what motivated you to study and that guidance from your foster father as well Rebecca what was the driving force for you you know I can totally echo Lucy's statements and two things you know that you know you always kind of feel like an outcast and two the drive was education because definitely for me through high school I just couldn't get the grades with so much

disruption but it was you know becoming independent for a couple of years that I knew I wanted to go on to education and even if that meant a college course I just wanted to kind of take that first sort of baby step and then from there that just led on to one thing another and I just the more I was in education and I feel that education is the sort of safety blanket that helped me because that was you know the next sort of six or seven years of my life in the future and it also it transformed me to this young naive ignorant young girl to someone who is articulate and has two degrees from St Andrews and I just it was just so validating I think I've always kind of sought out that validating factor with education so it's always been my drive and

um I joke you know my educational journey probably isn't finished after this master's it'll probably go on just because it never ends it never ends and it never should end should it I want to put this response from the department for education to you both every Every child deserves equal opportunity to succeed in school, regardless of their background. We will continue to support disadvantaged children, including those in care, through the pupil premium, which has risen to almost £2.9 billion in 2023 to 2024, the highest cash terms rate since the funding began. Our virtual schools heads specifically champion the needs of children with social workers helping schools understand how best to support them while our national tutoring program helps level the playing field for disadvantaged children. Lucy how well do you think schools are set up to deal with children in your position? I can only speak from personal experience because I didn't have virtual school experience,

which does sound like a really good idea, but not well at all from my experience. It's difficult because there are so many complex needs related to traumatic experience. And it just feels like I echo what Rebecca was saying about feeling different, feeling like an outcast or feeling different. And in some way, it's really difficult to grapple with. So I do think there needs to be better funding and better understanding. And beyond that, not pitying us. I think that's the backhand of prejudice. I think there's actually, we're calling out for someone to see what's amazing about us. And there's always something amazing about every single child, particularly young people in care, actually.

We always bring a little spark in some way. And that's just waiting to be found. And the saddest part is that's not been found yet. So I think schools need to be better equipped at seeing our strengths in as much as they do our weaknesses, because at the moment it's just trauma, you know, all the darker stuff. But actually there's really, like, beautiful talents waiting to be discovered. Yeah. Rebecca, I was watching an interview you did with the University of St Andrews where

you talked as a collective about the stain of shame associated with growing up in care I wonder when you got to university how easy it was for you to be open with your peers potential friends about what you experienced or whether you chose to hide your history from those new relationships that you were building? Yeah, I think it was more the latter. And I think that's just the context of the University of St Andrews and I suppose the prejudice that we all have about St Andrews and that it's just filled with people who are not the same as us. But actually, you know, it took me, you know, first year, you know, you kind of find your feet a little, but it wasn't until second year that I really found my feet and found my friends there. And that was when I began to be

a bit more vocal about my care experience. I would say in first year, you're just kind of making sure you're surviving to the end of the week and getting through lectures. And I definitely kept that to myself. But come second second year I started doing a little bit of work with a charity in Scotland called Who Cares Scotland and that helped me come up my shell a little bit and kind of use my care experience don't fall into the stigma that other people have for me but actually shine a light on my successes which Lucy has just kind of spoke on as well and just saying okay although the statistics are against me in a general sense actually that's not who I am and so I use my care experiences as much more powerful factor of my

my personality of my characteristic and always speak about that in a very positive light whereas I would say probably 10 years ago I was hiding that and kind of really fell into that stigma and that kind of stain of shame and but it never leaves you I don't think it leaves you I think it's always there niggling away and depending on who you're speaking to or the sort of context you're in it might just come up that you're you suddenly feel like that young 13 year old scared self again you know it never leaves you what about you Lucy yeah I definitely um echo that. I think there's ways that you can make it your strength. And that's definitely what I did on my scholarship and pupillage applications. It actually the first time when I applied, I was very ashamed of it and didn't speak about it at all. And I wasn't successful that year. But the second year I was like, actually, no, I'm going to take ownership over this because I do see some strengths. that's not to glamorize the position every care experienced person deserves the best therapeutic support but there is some sort of strengths of the resilience and that's what I was echoing in my interviews and

I think that's why I was ultimately successful so whilst it never really left me it also transformed me in a way. And we talk a lot about imposter syndrome and I wonder whether that factored in, especially in the workplace, as you're going into the world of legal work. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. It can, it can constantly make you feel like you're different, particularly in the in the legal industry, where people seem to have this built up network or tend to be from, you know, private school educated background, which is certainly not me. I'm from a counselor state. So it couldn't be further, you know, private school educated background, which is certainly not me. I'm from a council estate. So it couldn't be further, you know, from that experience. And it can be isolating, I still find networking events really difficult now, because I can't relate to the same conversation. It's a different culture, it's a different language, and you feel like you're not a part

of it in some way. And also then, you know, being proudly care experienced to some that can be difficult because there is that pity and that is stigma associated with i brought it up before and i've just like cricket silence because i don't know how to respond and actually what i would like is like a humanistic response and being like wow you've come a long way that's great tell me a little bit more about that but what i get is oh silence, people don't know how to react to it. And I think that that really should change because, you know, if you're very proud of your background, why shouldn't you speak about it? Absolutely. Rebecca, you are speaking about it. You've created a handbook. Tell me more about it. I've created a handbook. Oh, I do apologise. I thought you'd been, well, I've obviously got my facts here, but you've got plenty of words of wisdom.

You should create a handbook but what advice are you giving in the role that you are working in as the education liaison officer to children or young people you might be in your situation yeah i definitely do that with outreach programs i'm part of the university st andrews and you know rather than kind of um singling care experience people out that we work with i try and make kind of general statements and this kind of ties into what Lucy was saying. I really try and speak about care experience in very normal conversations

and don't kind of allow that sort of reaction. So like my little sister's in care and when somebody asks, my little sister lives three hours away from me and when I talk to, when I talk about her, I say, oh, you know, she lives here and, you know, and people are saying, oh, why is she there? I'm like, she's in care.

She's been there from a young age. So I try and speak about it in a very normal capacity. And I try and do that with the young people that I work with. Not to single them out, not to group all the keen experience people together, because there's probably trauma in that. But I kind of talk about it as if it's normal. I try and bring that into the normal discourse. That's what I try and do

and you know continue to ramp that up just so that it's in everybody's conversations and we don't get that oh reaction it's the this is normal and this happens to people but let's work on how we can make it better thank you so much Rebecca Munro and Lucy Barnes both of you should write books by the way thank you both for your time. Thank you for inviting me. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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 was 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.

Available now. On to something very different now. How would you feel about walking down the street in your knickers? Now, this is not the start of a joke. I'm talking about a new trouserless fashion trend spearheaded by the likes of Beyonce, the actor Emma Corrin and the model Kendall Jenner. Seen on the catwalk at brands like Prada and Chanel,

the look involves swapping a pair of trousers for a pair of statement knickers. If you've tried it or are daring and want to try it, please let us know. 84844 or at BBC Women's Hour. To tell me more about it, someone who has tried it, Julia Hobbs, acting European fashion features director at Vogue. Thank you for coming in. I was looking for the sparkly pants that I've seen you wear in the magazine. Are you in them today? I'm them today I'm not I can't

see them I know but I am in my pants I thought I was going to put a pair of trousers on today group and I thought it's a bit disappointing if I was I mean you know without or you know in uh in trousers so here I am in my pants as outerwear but they're not my sparkly knickers they're not your sparkly knickers those were a particularly special pair they were gorgeous I thought they were gorgeous they were gorgeous they were very heavy they were a pair of muumuu knickers designed by Mrs Prada they retail at a rather staggering 3,750 my goodness yeah they're not made from real gold let's just put that out there not made from real gold and they were very heavy so it's sort of like wearing a sequined diaper. So as you say, I road tested them in a very warm day at the end of August.

And I wore them on the tube. I wore them to the Vogue offices. Did a day's work in them. And how was that received? By my colleagues with sort of very little surprise because we're kind of used to that kind of thing, I guess, happening in the office. Yeah. Couple of quizzical looks on the tube. But actually, there is an image of it where I'm wearing, said, very heavy, bejeweled pants on the tube.

And the picture was actually taken by a female passenger who was sat opposite me at the time. And I said, you're going to think I'm mad. I work at Vogue and this is for a feature. You know, you could call it investigative journalism. Would you mind taking a picture? And she was like, of course. She didn't bat an eyelid.

Embraced it. Yeah. I think we need to describe the trend that we're actually talking about because I look at them and I thought, well, they're just hot pants, aren't they? Are they? They're a little bit more extreme than that I think what we're seeing now is a sort of return to very elemental dressing and we are seeing this revival of a very 1960s look which is wearing a pair of simple black briefs over a pair of tights. It's a look that was associated or is perhaps most famously associated with Edie Sedgwick. She's, of course, a very tragic figure. She was a Warhol superstar, but has had a really sort of lasting mark on

fashion. And she was photographed for American Vogue in 1965 as part of a youth Quaker story. And she is pictured doing an arabesque on her coffee table in a pair of black opaque tights with briefs over the top and a gray t shirt. And if you imagine in that context, it really was something very revolutionary she was a debutante and she shed her clothing quite literally she sort of shed the the trappings of that time and reinvented herself so with Edie Sedgwick a look that was about dance and she herself was uh she studied jazz ballet so a look that was seen almost through the prism now of wellness culture a look that was um sporting became something quite edgy and

hedonistic in her hands yeah so she's one of the most famous proponents of the look but actually if we rewind a little bit earlier to 1960 there's a wonderful Marilyn Monroe moment in the film Let's Make Love where we see Marilyn styled almost as a beatnik and she's wearing this wonderful oversized Aaron sweater with tights and her sort of ballet knickers over the tights and I re-watched it last night actually and it's one of those moments in cinema that's so charming and it definitely feeds into what we're seeing now you know I think barely a week goes by where we don't get the celebrity notifications or see on Instagram celebrities wearing a jumper just with a pair of tights or a jacket and a bare leg. And tights feel central to styling this.

How do you style a big pair of knickers? The question you never thought you'd ask today. The question I never thought I'd ask today. Tights are essential to it. And I think that's one of the things that's very unifying about this trend is the tights I'm wearing today is an ever faithful pair of black M&S opaque tights. It's eight quid for a pack of three. You could you can wear them with you know this sort of cinching black knickers over the top and then just a polo neck and you probably think it doesn't have

to be casual on top. Yes the whole look is very casual. This isn't this isn't something that's in any way sort of seductive you know I feel and it's something we've we're seeing coming very much to the fore in fashion now is this sort of shedding and people wanting to be themselves and how they dress and I think really is a shedding yes it is quite literally a shedding I can imagine trying this out a couple of decades ago when I was at university. Absolutely. I'd be wearing a pair right now for this festive season. Now I'm not so sure.

Can, should any age, any body shape be trying this out? Yes, absolutely. And I'm urging you to do it, Krupa. We're going to be watching your social channels on the internet. I'm going to watch you to see if you're going to do it. I need to take you shopping with me. But there'll be people who might be reluctant saying this is this is not for me. No matter the season, I'm not going to put a pair on. But I think we should feel confident to embrace this. And I think it's interesting looking at the popularity of this trend in the context of

skims and the rise of shapewear you know kim kardashian skims label is now worth i think it's an estimated four billion and her broad size range and really showing women in these um very powerful adverts all different shapes and sizes looking great in their shapewear i think it does lean into this attitude of sort of take me as I am and feeling great in your own skin and owning it and I love seeing people tag me regardless of gender regardless of anything um tagging me when they're out and about in their underwear um and seeing it and I think it's just a sense of having fun really I had a colleague at Vogue Japan he's a male colleague I was going to say are men catching on yes he replicated the story um by going out in a pair

of boxers right and I thought it was not quite the same though is it it's just well maybe it is I don't know on that uh message here from a listener saying didn't Superman first start that stylish look of pants over tights back in the 50s? Well, I did quite Wonder Woman earlier, didn't I? Did Superman? Well, I don't want to credit Superman for that. I think we want to put it more on Wonder Woman or Marilyn.

Anne says, Jack D on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has surely been at the forefront of this fashion trend with their In My Pants section. And Patricia in Belfast says the embarrassment of girls joining the boys at PE wearing nothing but blanket pants and an Airtex top to do national dance at secondary school was traumatic enough. Thank you for all of your messages. Thank you, Julia. If you come in next time, I want to see you in those gold bejeweled knickers or another pair, something snazzy.

But on that, fashion trends for 2024, briefly? Oh, my goodness. Okay, great run in the knee-length pencil skirt. I think that's one of my key pieces to invest in. A bit safer than the pants. A bit safer, a return to real dressing. Go buy now in the sales a great grey cashmere sweater. As boring as that sounds,

that's possibly the chicest item you could have in your wardrobe right now. Thank you for your words of wisdom. Julia Hopps there from Vogue joining us on this new trend of big knickers, not trousers, in the place of trousers. Thank you for coming into the Women's Hour studio. An unassisted birth or free birth is defined as giving birth without a healthcare professional in attendance. Anecdotally, more women are making this choice in the UK. But why? And what sort of experiences are they having? And is it safe and a responsible decision?

Naomi Nygaard is a psychotherapist and a mother who chose to free birth both her children. And Mavis Kirkham is a retired midwife and emeritus professor of midwifery at Sheffield Hallam University and co-editor of Free Birth Stories, a collection of stories from women choosing to give birth in this way. Thank you to both of you for joining us here on Women's Hour. Mavis, I'm going to start with you in some context. Do we know how many women are choosing this option in the UK? No, it's impossible to count an absence from statistics. And many women who choose and plan to free birth actually do not tell healthcare professionals and may book NHS home births and just say, oh, it was quick. The baby was born or we didn't ring you up. So it is absolutely impossible to get stats on this issue.

And therefore, how did you come to be interested in this way of giving birth? And why did you decide to collect these stories? We heard more and more stories of women who were free birthing. And we decided to collect these stories because we wanted a collection of them that was easily available. There are wonderful websites, but they're very specialist. And we wanted them to be available to women because they're inspiring stories of how wonderful undisturbed birth can be. But we also wanted them to be available to health care professionals because one of the motivations of free birth is previous feeling that women were really damaged by their previous experience of the healthcare system. And that's important because we should make it clear that all of the women you spoke to

had the NHS as a fallback option. Some of the women chose free birth for their second, third or fourth births and some for their first. Did you get a sense, therefore, judging by what you've just said there, that it was a better option for women who had already experienced childbirth with professional assistance? Individuals vary vastly. Some women spoke of a long, long journey towards free birth and over a number of pregnancies or even over a lifetime. And some women like Naomi chose it for their first baby. Let's bring Naomi in so with your first pregnancy you had planned to give birth with the assistance of NHS maternity services but

then what happened? So the start of my pregnancy the first 16 weeks I was in Spain so I wasn't able to access the usual sort of series of scans and appointments And by the time I got back to the UK, I kind of, well, okay, what do I do now? Called my doctor, they put me in touch with maternity services. And the maternity services were extremely stressed out by the fact that I wasn't ahead of schedule on schedule with their protocol. And their stress really has a big impact on me they wanted to put me in for three or four procedures at once I found myself going from feeling like my pregnancy was going very well I could feel that even though I felt a bit sick I felt strong in myself I felt that everything felt right in my body somehow and I somehow absorbed their perception that I was a bit of an accident waiting to happen.

And also a bit of a nuisance to them, you know, because they didn't know me. They didn't know all the things that their scans would have told them about me in my pregnancy. And it sort of went from bad to worse from then really their perception of me um stuck it had a big impact I really wanted to work with them and was very I guess looking back I felt feel like I was quite naive but I was very open to to having the kind of birth that I wanted and I want I I persisted in in wanting that until very very very late on in fact basically the day that I chose to have an unassisted birth and how was that received not to call them well you said that you that you didn't call them so they weren't aware

that you were going to give birth this way no I guess I wasn't either until the very until it all unfolded um I'm so, so extremely lucky to have an amazing, wonderful support network. So I just want to stress that, that having an unassisted birth was not me on my own giving birth by myself. It was me surrounded by a couple of retired midwives I know in their 70s who obviously have 40 plus years experience have seen many many births I could ask them questions they could share pictures with me videos of women having babies um my husband was extremely supportive my mum I had a doula and I was just and lots and lots of women like Nobis said you know women sharing stories about giving births what is it like asking questions about these things?

That gave me a circle of support, the circle of support that I needed to give birth without a midwife. And Mavis, that circle of support, is it crucial if women choose to give birth this way? I imagine not everyone has access to a community of retired midwives or even supportive family members all the time. Are there women choosing to do this who don't have that circle of support? There are a few women who really choose free birth because what they want is privacy and they really want possibly their partner there, maybe not even their partner. But most of the women in the book wanted people they trusted to support them. And they went out and they found these people.

And there are good networks. There are online networks. There are doulas. And there are midwives who are willing to be incredibly supportive, although they're running a lot of risk if they're employed. Yeah. And Mavis, I should make it clear that whilst you've written this book, co-edited the book, and you describe yourself as not pro-free birth, just explain your position on this. who are supportive. It is tragic to me that for these 50-odd women, those were not healthcare

professionals as a career-long midwife, but I feel it is women's right to give birth where they feel safe, and these women did not feel safe in NHS care. Naomi, does that resonate? Did you not feel safe in NHS care? 100%, 100%. And I resonate with Mavis that safety was 100% my main focus and the reason that I didn't call a midwife. I was really optimistic, interested in the idea of continuity of care, so getting to know a midwife or small group of midwives that would be the one that was present at my birth,

getting to know them, talk with them, and feel the kind of person that they were, feel that they trusted my capacity to be able to give birth. And actually, that just wasn't on offer. I was told that it was very unlikely that I'd know the person that came. I couldn't really take that risk. I didn't know what they would be like inviting them to my home because I was planning a home birth and in the end I opted to have one of those retired midwives present at the birth along with my mum my doula my husband that was for the first birth and then

with my daughter with my second child it was so clear to me that I didn't want to invite that negativity that I'd experienced in antenatally with my son, that I decided not to tell the NHS about my pregnancy. And actually just my sister and my husband were present in that birth. Were you ever fearful throughout any of this? Were you ever fearful about things going wrong? Because it's important to stress that, you know giving birth is is is huge and it can be dangerous and it you know there are risks for both mother and child that is um that that is very fortunate that I had these two retired midwives in their 70s that I could ask questions of I knew that they had seen all manner of things and and if there was something I needed to worry about they would tell me and I kind of got I realized that there were three sort

of big risks that I needed to sort of understand and know about and I became well versed in what I would do if those things came came up for me but really the message I got strongly was as a healthy woman who just had a healthy pregnancy. This was also my second child. It was extremely unlikely that something, for example, like a postpartum hemorrhage would happen to me. And I knew I would do if I if I did come across that. So I felt very confident. Yeah. Maybe it's on that. You include a chapter of stories about when things go wrong with free births. Just explain what you learned

and just how prepared women are for the fact that sometimes things do go wrong. Well, first of all, I want to say this is a very UK book in the sense that all these women, apart from one who opted to give birth overseas, all these women had the NHS as a safety net. And on some occasions they called upon it. And this makes the book very specific to this country. But they chose to give birth where they felt safe. And one thing I learned from this book is that the women were incredibly perceptive. When no one was interfering with their focus on their bodies and their birth and their babies, they were incredibly aware of what was happening. I mean, there was one woman, for instance, who had the classic obstetric emergency of a prolapsed umbilical cord. And she did all the right things. She adopted a knee chest position.

She dialed 999 she was taken to hospital she had an immediate cesarean and she talked about her body trying to suck the baby back in in this terrible emergency and i'd never heard that said before because although i've seen this emergency before i'd never seen it in a woman who was so tuned into her own body so of course not everybody will have that instinct. And I wonder if there are some women... They were very, very well prepared. These women read, they researched, some had got professional qualifications before they even got pregnant. This was not a spur of the moment decision. Are there some women, in your opinion, Mavis, who should not consider this option? I think we have to trust women's judgment. A lot of women would not dream of this

option and would feel safe in hospital and would entertain this idea. And that's fine. What I'm advocating is their choice. I want to read this response from the Royal College of Midwives. We did ask them to comment on the fact that more women are choosing free births because they've had a negative or traumatic personal experience of maternity services and feel that they have more autonomy at home. They said, whilst we recognise and respect every woman's right to develop a birth plan that's right for them, having a qualified midwife or other skilled medical professional present throughout childbirth significantly reduces the risk to both woman and child.

If a woman has any concerns about their pregnancy or wishes to change their plan, we recommend that you contact your midwife or maternity team. And I also want to bring you a statement from the Department for Health and Social Care, who said that they published new guidance on providing

mental and physical health checks six weeks post delivery, ensuring women who decide not to give birth in the presence of a health care provider can more easily access medical care and advice. So again, stressing more guidance for clinicians

to ensure that women who choose to have birth this way are more prepared and participating. I wonder, Mavis, do you think this is a sign that things are changing? That the NHS is more accepting of women wanting to give birth these ways? I think they're accepting that this is how things are. But the problem is that we're working on the wrong model. There's no good having the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. We need to create a system where people feel safe with healthcare professionals. The problem is we've got an industrial model where women feel

they're on a conveyor belt, that services are standardised, and people don't come in standard packages. If we respect the autonomy of women, and we give them continuity of care, which we know greatly improves clinical outcomes, then not a lot of free births would be felt by the women to be necessary. We have the means of overcoming a lot of the problems, but we're not doing it. This is partly because the service is grossly underfunded and understaffed, but it's also because it is on the wrong model. Birth is not a mechanical thing.

It's about relationships. Where people know and trust their midwives, the situation is very different. And midwives are very different. Mavis Kirkham and trust their midwives, the situation is very different. And midwives are very different. Mavis Kirkham and Naomi Nygaard, thank you both for your insights on this story. And to the many of you who have sent in comments on this as a retired midwife, this one on free birthing,

as a retired midwife of 40 years, I've seen situations where free birthing has been an instrument of coercive control by the partner. It's always important to be alert to this happening. Thank you to the many of you who have sent in comments on this story and the others. And do join me again for tomorrow's Woman's Hour. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds. Hello, this is Marion Keys. And this is Tara Flynn. We host a podcast you might like for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

called Now You're Asking. Each week we take real listeners' questions about life, love, lingerie, cats, dogs, dentists, pockets, or the lack of, anything really, and apply our worldly wisdom in a way which we hope will help, but also hopefully entertain.

Join us, why don't you? Search up Now You're Asking bbc sounds tanking you i'm sarah 11 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 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. Available now.