Woman's Hour - Jacinda Ardern, Women leaving teaching, Abuse in sport

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

When Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister in 2017 at the age of 37, she was the youngest female head of government in the world. She also made history as only the second elected leader to give birth while in office. She resigned in 2023 after more than five years in post saying she no longer had enough in the tank and, since then, has engaged in global work focused on empathy in leadership and the prevention of online extremism. As a new documentary film, Prime Minister, comes out out in cinemas, Jacinda tells Kylie Pentelow about the highs and lows of trying to lead with empathy. We examine new data that reveals the number of teachers leaving the profession after becoming parents. We’ll ask why, and what’s being done about it. Emma Shepherd is the founder of the Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher Project and Branwen Jeffries is the BBC's Education Editor.British Olympic and Paralympic athletes are being offered a new form of artificial intelligence-based protection from online abuse for the first time. UK Sport has signed a contract worth more than £300,000 to allow thousands of athlete's access to an app which detects and hides abusive posts sent by other users on social media. BBC Sport Correspondent Natalie Pirks and Olympic badminton player Kirsty Gilmour discuss. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced he is launching an independent review into rising demand for mental health, ADHD, and autism services in England. Women's historic underdiagnosis has started to improve in recent years. What role might this play in the increase that the government now plan to examine? We hear from Dr Jessica Agnew-Blais - senior lecturer in psychology at Queen Mary's University in London who researches girls and women with ADHD.

Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Thanks for your company this morning. Now, today we'll hear from Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand. There's a new documentary about her time in office, which covers the defining moments of her premiership, but is also an intimate look at her life during that time, including how she found out she was pregnant just days before she came, became Prime Minister. Also, we know how widespread it is for high-profile women, particularly those involved in the sports profession, to receive abuse on social media.

Well, today it's been announced there's a new app for Olympic and Paralympic athletes to try to stop that abuse getting through. We'll be speaking to a top badminton player about how this could help her. Plus, the rapid rate of teachers leaving the profession after having children. New figures show just how many are leaving and when.

So we'd like to hear from you on this. Are you a teacher who decided to leave because you couldn't make it work for life with your own children? Or maybe you're on maternity leave now and are thinking about how it'll all work for you in the future. Do let us know how you're feeling. As always, you can text the programme. The number is 84844.

On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website too. Send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note using the number 0-3-700-100-444. But first, as you may have heard in the news, Health Secretary West Streeting has announced today his launching an independent review into rising demand for mental health, ADHD and autism services in England.

Now, he's previously suggested mental health conditions are being over-diagnosed, and the government's argued that increased pressure on the system has led to long waits for people with an urgent need for help. We know that historically, women have... have been underdiagnosed, particularly in autism and ADHD. But in recent years, that's changed as we've learnt that the numbers have risen as awareness has increased. So what role has this played in the increase that the government now plans to examine?

Well, for more on this, I'm joined by Dr Jessica Agnew Blaze, who's a senior lecturer in psychology at Queen Mary's University in London, and researchers, girls and women with ADHD and often their late diagnosis. Thank you very much for your company here on Women's Hour. Given the rise in the number of women being diagnosed and, as you've looked at, often later in their lives in 40s, 50, 60s, what could this review therefore mean for women? Well, my hope would be that they do an assessment to determine how to better perhaps triage cases so that people who are experienced a lot of impairment aren't on these wait lists that are years and years long. I think it is a real problem that people have been waiting so long and I know in some locations the ADHD clinics have even close. their weight lists. So you're having people being left without recourse, basically. So your research

focuses on women and girls and ADHD, but how similar is the situation for those needing, wanting a diagnosis for autism? There are some similarities. So I think both conditions are things that historically have been thought of as more male disorders. So historically more diagnosed in boys than girls. And I think there's increasing recognition for both ADHD and autism, that this is something that women can experience as well, even though it may not have been as obvious or presented in a classical way in childhood for both conditions. And for both conditions, we see that sometimes girls might be kind of compensating for

their symptoms or masking their symptoms and presenting in a different way, such that they might not realize that they have some symptoms of these conditions until later life. So there will be people out there listening who may be waiting for a diagnosis, at ADHD or autism, what impact do you think this news might have on them? It's a great question. I mean, optimistically, I would hope that addressing a long wait list would be something hopeful. And I will say that, you know, it's very frustrating to wait a long time for a diagnosis, but there are some good resources often by other people who are living with ADHD or autism

that can help people cope. So even if you don't have an official diagnosis, you might find some, you know, really helpful things there about how to cope in the meantime. But I do hope that this will be something that will help address this long wait list because the current state of care is really lagging behind. As we said, West Streeting has previously suggested mental health conditions are being overdiagnosed. Do you recognize that overdiagnosis is taking place? I think usually people find there's kind of a combination of over and under diagnosis that some people who need a diagnosis aren't getting it. And then in some cases, it may be that, you know, the symptoms of ADHD, for example, are somewhat general. And you can be, for example,

distracted for example, distracted for different reasons. So you might be distracted because you have ADHD. If you're quite anxious, you might also be distracted. So I do think that it's important to have a good clinical assessment or try to kind of piece things these things apart. But hopefully, you know, this will this will kind of shorten these wait lists so that people are able to get care. I mean, the issue that has been discussed is cost, isn't it? And whether the the prevalence of diagnosis and waiting lists means that the effort is being put there rather than those with acute needs. who may be suffering delays, what would you say to that?

I mean, I would point out that there's also a huge cost associated with underdiagnosis and for having people on the wait list for a long time. So we know that people who have kind of a misdiagnosis of ADHD are more likely to have a lot of other issues and a proper diagnosis might actually alleviate some of these costs. So I think having that be more streamlined so we get people care sooner might actually end up in cost savings. We mentioned that more women are being diagnosed.

in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and you explain the reason why that might be. But there has been the criticism that if those people have been living with ADHD, for example, for that long, why do they even need a diagnosis at that stage? Well, I think sometimes people may, you know, be coping with something, but that doesn't mean that they're kind of living to their fullest potential and that having a diagnosis can be helpful in a lot of different ways. I think, you know, in the case of ADHD, people may benefit from medication. I think also people may benefit from just a kind of better understanding of themselves.

And thinking back to their earlier lives, you know, they may have thought of themselves or people may have made them feel lazy or ditsy or, you know, not keeping on track. But if you can think of these things in the context of neurodiversity, I think often people feel a sense of better understanding and maybe a bit of kind of forgiveness for their younger selves. Dr. Jessica Agnew Blaze, thank you very much indeed. You can read more about this story on the BBC News website. Now, why do so many teachers leave the profession after having children and what can be done about it? Well, there are questions that have been asked in teaching for some time,

particularly as the sector has hit a recruitment crisis. Early this year, teacher vacancies hit a record high in England. And my next guest thinks that if more attention were paid to parents returning to work in education, then the teaching profession could keep more talent. an experience in its ranks. The Maternity Teacher Project, a UK charity for parent teachers, has recently gathered data

that shows just how many teachers leave the profession in the four years after becoming parents. Emma Shepard is the founder of that project and is here to tell us what she found and I'm also joined by Bramwin-Jefford's BBC Education Editor. Good morning to you both. Emma, if I can start with you. So you actually did a freedom of information request

to get these figures. Can you explain exactly what you found? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's almost, that's one of the most important points is that we do not have free access to this data unless we make the request for it's not something that the government publish. It's not something that's prioritised when we look at our workforce statistics. And so what we found was that over a four-year period after returning from maternity leave, an average of 3,835 teachers leave the profession. And that particularly peaks in the first 12 months after they return to work. where on outrage over that three-year period, 1,774 teachers left the profession within 12 months of returning from maternity leave. And then going forward after 12 months, how do the figures change after a number of years? Yeah, we see a significant drop-off in terms of the rates of leaving after that first 12-month period. But there is a steady sort of leaving the profession.

But actually what that data shows is that if we can retain them beyond, that 12 months, the risk of them leaving reduces. And actually, if we can retain them over that four-year period, these mother teachers become one of our most reliable retention demographics and they remain in the profession long term. Why was it important to gather this data? As you said, you know, you had to do a freedom of information request to get it. So why is so important to have this information at your hands? Well, I mean, we are a very small charity. We've been running since 2016. And in 2016, we had absolutely no data available about why women age 30 to 39 with a large demographic leaving the profession every year. And so we've been piecing the data

together to understand exactly how much the motherhood penalty is damaging our workforce and weakening the quality of teaching and learning that we're able to provide for our children. And now that we have this data, it really shows that we need to stand up, pay attention to the needs of these mothers and actually do something about it for the good of our workforce and for the good of the quality of education we're providing for our students. And how do these numbers compare to other professions? Is it greater in teaching? Yes. So actually we've got some comparative figures, but this is actually an area that is under-researched in many, many industries. Unfortunately, working motherhood tends to be a bit of an

invisible demographic. People turn away from it. But we know that in the armed forces, for example, after one year of returning from maternity leave, they retain 13.5% of their maternity returners in comparison to between 17 to 20% of teachers. So they have a much higher retention rate. And in the NHS over a two-year period, they only see 10% of their maternity returners leave instead of 27% over a two-year period in teaching. So in those two comparable public sector industries that we can find data for, yes, the figures are much higher in teaching. Emma, I want to talk about why this is in a moment, but I just want to bring Bramwin in here. So Bramwin, as education editor, you've been looking at these kinds of issues for a while, haven't you? Were these figures a surprise to you?

In some ways not, sadly. And of course, it's worth restating that this is overwhelmingly a female profession. So it is really, really important to work out how to keep women because it's hard to get people into teaching. Effectively, the government is trying to fill a bucket that's got a hole where people are leaking out in their 30s and that's mainly women. They are doing well on that.

Actually, some figures we've had in the last half hour show an increase, a marked increase in the number of people this year starting teacher training, going into the pretext. profession with a lot of commitment and vocation and dedication, but then leaving this big group of women leaving in their 30s. And we know that flexibility of work and maternity pay are two of the key factors. So Emma, let's talk about that flexibility. What does that flexibility mean? Is it as simple as, you know, part-time working, job sharing? I mean, there are so many ways to do flexible working and some of those absolutely work within within the education profession

and some of those unfortunately don't because you have to be physically present in the classroom teaching or doing your duties or delivering assemblies but in general the education profession is lagging behind that creativity and thinking around flexible working and also the willingness there's a real traditional concept of having to be in the building at all times in order to do your job or not wanting to open the floodgates. That's a phrase that's used a lot to more creative ways of working. But realistically, teachers and leaders are dealing with so many things on a daily basis that actually that's sort of long-term strategic workforce thinking that requires headspace and courage and change is actually sometimes beyond the capacity that leaders have.

Randwin, has there been any improvements since these figures were recorded? And what's the government kind of saying about this issue? Well, the government has recognised that women aged 30 to 39 are the single biggest group leaving the profession. It has issued guidance to schools about how to encourage flexible working. And we're beginning to see some quite innovative experiments like a nine-day week across one big academy trust. Other schools or academies I've spoken to

are experimenting with things like flexibility about early starts and early finishes or later starts to give women that wiggle room. But I just want to sort of come back to that point about maternity pay. It's four weeks on full pay and two weeks on 90%. You could go and work for a supermarket as a manager

and get 26 weeks on full pay. So I wonder if one of the patterns that we're seeing in these figures is women having one child and then thinking how on earth am I going to afford to have another? What do you think about that, Emma? Do you think that's a contributing factor? Yeah, I mean, just to add to that, we do then have a 12-week period of half pay

after that six-week period. So it is enhanced if we meet certain qualifying criteria. And I agree, it's shocking. in comparison to some other industries, particularly graduate professions. It's particularly galling that the Department for Education get 26 weeks fully paid leave for both parents, so any parents. And I think one thing, a trick that we're really missing is that we talk a great deal about maternity pay and flexible working for women and for mothers, but we don't include fathers and non-birthing partners in this conversation. And actually, if we want greater equality for women in the workplace in all industries, we absolutely have.

have to incentivise greater equality for men at home so that our male teachers and the partners of teachers, female teachers, are at home in the first 12 months of their children's lives, taking on this responsibility as theirs instead of the very traditional caretaker breadwinner roles that our national policies and our sector policies push us into. So men in the teaching profession only get two weeks paternity leave at statutory pay if, again, they meet certain qualifying criterias. And I know that the maternity payers is not as good as other industries, but that to me is a huge, huge problem.

We've had so many comments on this already. I want to read this email here that we've had, someone who didn't want to give their name. They say in teaching, it's impossible to manage all your responsibilities within working hours. There's an expectation that we will do much of our planning and admin at home. That was stated clearly and with frustration towards me by head when I raise struggles with workload and children.

There was the feeling that I should feel grateful for my part-time role. This person says, I absolutely don't blame school leaders. Everyone is so stressed. Money's been draining out of school for years. As the money's gone, so if there's staff around the teachers, teachers are left to choose between letting children's needs go unmet or working more than we're able. Most of us choose to work more.

There many of us come to a point when we cannot keep going. I was burnt out and have stepped out. It's really upsetting to hear that, isn't it? Clearly, this is somebody who's very passionate. Is that what you're hearing as well, this extra work that seems like it's expected from teachers? Absolutely. And what you just described there is just so typical of so many of the qualitative research and diffuse that we've completed since 2018 as part of our data gathering.

And as Bramwen called it, it's this leaky bucket concept and the consequences of that. So everything that was described there is a capacity issue. The more money that we're spending on recruitment and retention, the more we're not saving in order to increase capacity. The limited capacity that we have increases workload for those that are left. And actually, if we can retain some of these very experienced teachers who become mothers, then we're increasing capacity. And that alleviates workload for everybody. But actually what we see is that these mother teachers are act like the canaries in the coal mine. So our 24 missing mothers report that we completed in in collaboration with the new Britain project that Brown one actually covered last

year demonstrated that just like every other demographic workload is the principal reason that these women aged 30 to 39 are leaving because they're then going home to do a double shift when they're taking on the majority of the caring responsibility at home. But that's something that is a problematic of the whole sector. It's just that these mothers with double caring responsibilities are not sustain it. Bramwin, just finally from you, why is it so important that we make sure that mothers stay

in the teaching profession? I mean, obviously there's a reason why teachers should care about this and women should care about other women's maternity rights, but I think there's a broader point, which is the single and most important determinant of the quality of education for every child is the experience and skill

of the teacher in front of the classroom. They are absolutely essential to the quality of our education. And the other reason we should care is child development. Those early months, that first year, is absolutely crucial for children. This is a profession which is all about children. And yet women who go into it then find themselves becoming mothers and struggling to balance the needs of their own children with their professional obligations. Bramwin Jeffers and Emma Shepard, thank you so much.

And just to reiterate what Bramwen was saying there, the Department for Education said that we recognise women aged 30 to 39 and the largest group of leaders from the teacher workforce. That's why we're taking action to promote and expand flexible working opportunities in schools and provide support for those returning following parental leave. We have, as I said, had a lot of comments from you on this. Please do keep them coming in and I'll read some out a little later in the programme. the number, as always is 84844.

Now, when Jacinda Ardern became New Zealand's Prime Minister in 2017 at the age of 37, she was the youngest female head of government in the world. She also made history as only the second elected leader to give birth while in office, but it was her response to mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019 that drew praise for her leadership from around the world and is considered by many to be a defining moment in her premiership. Here is Jacinda Ardenne speaking at the time. Many of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting

may be migrants to New Zealand. They may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home and it is their home. They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not. Would Jacinda Ardenne enter Parliament in 2008? Her path to the premiership was swift.

She became deputy leader of the Labour Party in March of 2017 and five months later became leader after Andrew Little resigned less than two months before the general election. Eventually she was made Prime Minister in a coalition government. But by the time she'd resigned in 2023 after more than five years in post, she'd faced significant criticism at home, including for her response to the COVID pandemic, which some felt was too extreme.

Since then, she's engaged in global work focused on empathy and leadership and the prevention of online extremism. A new film, Prime Minister, out in cinemas tomorrow, is an intimate portrait behind the scenes of her leadership. Well, I spoke to Jacinda earlier this week. We started by talking about how being leader of her party wasn't a job she thought she wanted.

It was not a job I sought. I speak often of the fact that it was not a job I thought I was necessarily well equipped for either, but that's very different from a scenario where you suddenly find yourself in that position and know that it is your responsibility to step up to the plate and lead regardless. And what about then the step to becoming prime minister? On election night, it wasn't clear. It wasn't clear who would be able to command a parliamentary majority.

And so we went immediately into negotiations that lasted about two weeks with one minor party, talking with both us and our opposing National Party and at the end of those two weeks making me the Prime Minister but about three days out from that that was when I found out I was pregnant astonishing yeah it wasn't the word I used at the time if I recall correctly if you knew that you were pregnant would you have been aiming to be Prime Minister what do you think you would have done

look it's a good question I remember thinking very you know this flash of thought coming into my head of what's the better scenario here? Is it better to find yourself as Prime Minister or is it better to find yourself pregnant in opposition? And I remember dismissing it very quickly as a selfish thought because the idea that I would give up on the opportunity after nine years of building an agenda on inequality and homelessness and poverty and climate change to then reduce it down.

down to such a personal, how does this affect me? I remember feeling a little ashamed for thinking of it in that way. Your term in office was tricky for a number of reasons and one defining moment of your leadership was your response to the Christchurch mosque attacks where 51 people were killed. You received widespread praise for your empathy and your decisiveness, including that swift gun law change that you made. But at the time, were you thinking about those decisions that you were making in that way, thinking that I need to be empathetic here? I don't recall thinking about that particular question.

You know, in the early hours, it wasn't clear whether or not it was a coordinated attack, whether there was more than one perpetrator. But it was only really a few hours in that I did start to think about how, after I'd seen some of the, images from Christchurch. How do I ensure that I talk about this and give the reassurance people need without letting my own personal emotions come to the fore? No one asks you to be inhuman. In fact, they want you to bring your humanity and those values into your leadership. But they also just want clarity, decisiveness, action. And there is a place for both in leadership. Do you think that those values that you have, you know, you talked about them, empathy, kindness? Honesty. Do they hold up, do you think, in today's polarised political climate?

More than ever. More than ever. And I think one of the challenges of this time and place in area that we're in at the moment is because, of course, what we're observing of that particular style of for better want of description, strong man leadership, you know, we're seeing it in Western liberal democracies. We think, well, okay, because these are democracies, this must be what people are seeking, but I think we have to look beyond electoral outcome to some of the other markers that tell us how people are feeling about politics. And we've seen some of the highest levels of distrust in politics. We're seeing a high sense of grievance now. And as a result, you see when polled, people feel justified in hostile acts, in spreading disinformation, engaging

and even in some cases in acts of public vandalism because they have that sense of grievance. So that to me says that it's pretty one-dimensional to say people are seeking that kind of leadership when so many other indicators tell us that they're not. And so there's a job to be done for people in politics, not to give in to the idea that what people want is almost this single-minded show of strength. Yes, they want strength decisiveness, but I'd also like to think they want the same values they teach their kids, curiosity, compassion. and all of those things can be held in a singular way in leadership as well. You've spoken about experiencing imposter syndrome and anxiety from a young age. Can you explain how that would manifest itself? Yeah, I always describe myself as a warrior.

You know, just someone who worried about the world, worried about things. I think I used that language so as not to put myself necessarily to trivialize the experience of those who have a diagnosable condition or that experience with their mental health. But I do talk about, you know, as a kid who worried a lot or was a bit thin-skinned and pretty empathetic, you know, is there a place for you in politics? And I certainly when I first came and thought, I've chosen a really terrible career.

But all of these, if you have all of these character traits, actually you feel quite, you know, suited to that environment. I remember coming out of the debating chamber one time and just feeling absolutely brutalised. Our debating chamber is a bit like the UK system. A couple of people in the chamber It had a real personal goal at me And I came out thinking

Oh, I have got to harden up You know, otherwise this is just going to be a misery And I asked the toughest guy I knew in our team His name was Trevor He'd been around for decades He kind of came across like a high school rugby referee And I went and asked Trevor And he was horrified at the idea

That I saw him that way But that's when he said to me Don't toughen up Don't try and build thick skin because if you do that, you'll lose your empathy. And I don't think I'd ever seen that perceived weakness as being attached to a strength. And yet it was. And so I just made the decision that actually I valued that strength more than the weakness it gave me

and that I just needed to carry them both. I think that some worry that when women talk about things like imposter syndrome, even kindness, empathy, it reinforces those stereotypes about women being less confident or capable. And yet, when you think about it, you know, if you're saying, look, I've got a bit of a confidence gap, I think maybe I might not be as prepared as I need to be for this particular role. Then that triggers set of behaviours, you know, it triggers you towards preparation, research, bringing in others, experts, advisers. Essentially, you're expressing humility. Why in leadership would we want to enforce the idea that we should only have people who assume absolute knowledge, who lack,

the humility to seek the advice of others. Actually, I think we should seek that in leadership and I understand that in expressing it, there might be a view that maybe voters will be less confident. Well, I'm talking about it now having led, hopefully now

with a few proof points and not asking leaders to stand up every day and to publicly doubt themselves, but if they privately are, don't rule yourself out of leadership. Some of the best leaders I know brought that kind of humility to the job and we need more of it.

Can we talk a little about your upbringing? You were brought up Mormon. Something that you went on to reject it later. Can you tell me a bit about how that might have shaped you? I was brought up in a household with a strong sense of faith and community. And yes, I left in my early 20s, but I bear no ill will to that experience.

And I can't tell you how much religion did or didn't shape me, but it certainly gave me a sense of service. Probably gave me a little bit of guilt. But I think again, if you channel that in the right way, maybe it's not a bad thing. But it also gave me a respect for people who do have a strong sense of faith and personal belief. I happen to leave mine because I couldn't reconcile the church's position on issues of equality for the LGBTIQI plus community. And in the end, my sense of fairness and justice and equality meant that I left.

But with no will, will, and no doubt with a lot of it having shaped who I was as a person. I'm a very good door-knocker as well. I want to talk a bit more about Neve, your daughter. You mentioned how you found out that you were pregnant. What was it like having that job and having a baby? Well, I guess I can't tell you what the alternative would have felt like because I only did it with that one way. And maybe that was a bit of a blessing and a gift.

I can tell you the first 20 weeks where I was new in the job of Prime Minister because of that and because like anyone else, I didn't want to prematurely share news that I might not hold on to. You know, I tried for a long time to have a baby unsuccessfully. I was, by definition, a geriatric mother. We don't like that to him. I mean, everyone who's ever had it said to them has said the same thing. Why don't they call it something else?

So I had all of that. And I also didn't want anyone to think that the role I'd just being elected to hold wasn't important to me. And so I hid it for 20 weeks through pretty bad morning. sickness and nausea and not wanting to let on that in any way it was affecting me doing my job. I'm not going to lie, those first 20 weeks were hard, but they were also doable. I wanted to be able to prove that you could both be a competent leader and a present mother simultaneously.

The media and others did question whether you could do it. Yes, they did, but that wasn't my overwhelming experience of sharing with New Zealand that I would become a mother. I was very worried about making that announcement. Usually I felt like my intuition was pretty good on where the New Zealand public would be, but I'd only managed to share that news with close family. And so I just had not, I just felt like I'd lost my intuition. And so we made the announcement on Instagram. And the overwhelming response was just one of joy. You know, in fact, my team who worked in the correspondence team reported that they'd never had so much incoming mail before and they compiled

it into a book for me and it is so large that I have to put it on the bottom shelf of my bookcase because it requires reinforcement and a number of booties and little hats as one of the reasons Neve's middle name is Tearoja which just means the love in Māori because it was a way acknowledging just the overwhelming response we felt when we shared that news. It's Clark, your now husband, who captured a lot of the moments that we see in the documentary. Some of them are very personal, for instance, struggling with breastfeeding. Why was it important for you to share those? And did you know at the time that you were going to make those into a film like this?

Yeah, no. So my husband is a broadcaster. So he had his own fishing show, he was both in front of the camera and behind it. And when I suddenly became prime minister and when I suddenly became leader, he had the thought someone should capture this and if nothing else for us, for our family. I think you can see from the footage that there's not really a consciousness about what might happen to it. And that helps in a way because I'm obviously not that worried about the fact I'm in a bathroom or I'm in bed. or indeed I'm breastfeeding, not realizing it would be one of the last times.

I was quite surprised to see that you didn't have kind of a whole load of childcare. It's completely plain, of course, if people do have child care. Of course. It very much was your now husband doing a lot of the childcare and having knee very close to you. And our mothers. Yeah. So with, you know, the global attention on you as a working mother, Do you think that your experience might have helped shift those perceptions of what workplace culture and leadership as a mother can look like?

I don't remember thinking about the scale of it at the time, but I do remember getting letters. I remember someone writing to me and saying that they heard on the radio. They would, that very day, they were having to face talking to their employer about finding out they were pregnant. They had a lot of anxiety and trepidation about it when they heard me announce that I was having a baby. and that it just completely changed their perspective on going in to have that conversation and I think I underestimated that I think we probably all underestimated

it's one thing to have a policy on paper but how welcoming do we make that news how easy do we make that experience of people taking up what is there within a company policy so culture really matters and if we can lead from the front I think that makes a significant difference

we saw what was happening for you was the COVID pandemic struck, and New Zealand was known for having some of the strictest lockdowns closing borders. New Zealand's Royal Commission's inquiry's first report found the early response prevented deaths, but that some measures including prolonged mandates cause social and economic impacts and eroded trust. Do you looking back think the government ultimately struck the right balance across the pandemic? I don't disagree with any of their findings. You know, one of the consequences of leadership in the pandemic, this was certainly the case.

No one will ever say, hey, bang on. Or they really do anyway. But if you offered me the choice of the critique being you did too little or you did too much, as much as I'd rather that you get it perfectly right, if the only choice was between those two, I'd rather be accused of doing too much because that was always an aid of saving people's lives and I do think that that was the right value to hold to through that really difficult period. In August of this year you and other Labour ministers were criticised for declining to appear before the second phase of that inquiry. Why did you decline? It wasn't actually

a second phase. There was a inquiry into COVID. It reported. Then a new government was elected and they instigated a second inquiry and tradition usually holds that yes you may have leaders and ministers called as I was in the first one I was called in the first one and I was

called in the second and I contributed to both but in the second they discussed the idea of then holding public hearings but ultimately they then made the decision not to go ahead with those but my commitment always was absolutely to contribute

and I did. I was interviewed twice for a number of hours, again, because in both cases, my view was we have to be willing to contribute to making sure that should it happen again, we learn from every experience and provide every insight we can. You've faced unprecedented levels of abuse and threats, and it's been reported there have been a number of prosecutions. In the film, you talk about how your family paid the price. You moved to the USA, undertaking three fellowships at Harvard University, and you're now based here in the UK. Has that abuse influenced your decision to relocate? No. And the opportunity came up to spend three months at Harvard, and we thought, oh, that would be a nice experience. And it was, you know, and so we actually extended just because as a family, we were having a great adventure.

and I know people speculate a lot about those decisions but for any family who relocates for new opportunities or different jobs you'll all know there's a bunch of factors that play in. Globally I think we saw those who governed during COVID did have a different experience and perhaps those who governed in a different period of time. That I think is what was unprecedented and we did so at a time where there's a range of really difficult factors

at play for politicians now, disinformation, the online environment, woman overall, having a very different experience in the online environment. So I don't think anything of that is unique to me, but I do think it requires thought and responses that mean that the political world isn't a place where women shy away from, because actually my overwhelming experience of being in politics was a positive one. Let's talk about when you resigned. You said that you did it because you didn't have enough energy in the tank. It came at a time when popularity in the polls was lowest. Your party had been waning in popularity.

How much did those factors play a part in your decision not to fight that election? I think I had been lower than I was when I left. I'm not sure that that's an argument I should be making. But I think actually my recall is that when I left, my numbers were sitting about the same place is when I was first elected. But granted, off a pretty unprecedented 2020 election where, you know, there we got a 50% of the vote, that was not a normal election.

It was in the middle of COVID. I was very purposeful and wanting to leave at a time when actually there was nothing particularly at play. We were in a fairly regular part of the political cycle, relatively small margin with the other party, gearing up for a new election. That was the critical factor, though. Going in, I felt like I needed to say, I'm here for another three.

And I could have kept going, could have completed that term. But did I have another three years in me when the last five had felt like ten? And all those things I valued in leadership, curiosity and not being defensive, I just felt them waning. That was a big part of the decision. One other part, which I often find hard to articulate is, We were a progressive government. We did a lot, a lot.

You know, we didn't just manage crisis. We increased paid parental leave. We did a huge amount on child poverty. We increased benefit rates. We'd ban conversion therapy. We decriminalised abortion. We engaged in drug reform. We banned smoking.

We did a large number of things, including on Indigenous rights. And I didn't want them to roll back. You mentioned child poverty there. You didn't quite achieve what you wanted to on that. So do you look back and think, I wish I'd done better on that All of the things that I cared about Whenever things you'd get done in

You know, three years let alone Or five years They were all things that were going to take time Which was why for me it was How do I lay the groundwork in such a way That if I'm gone in three or if I'm gone in six It keeps going There are critics who say that your leadership

Was style over substance What would you say to them Well I could bore you with a list of achievements But you know at the same time it feels very unkiwi to me just sit here and be like you know well we've built more houses than any government since the 1970s

putting groundbreaking legislation on climate change and increase the minimum wage and a number of other things I could go on at length about that so yeah you'll always have your critics but happy to rebuff them too it's been reported in some newspapers that you could be the next Secretary

General of the United Nations It was a smooth segue there wasn't it What do you think about that? I've seen that speculative reporting, and I have no idea what that's based on, but I would say no. That is not on the cards. So if it was offered to you, it wouldn't be... It doesn't really get offered, but either way, no, no. We've talked about the fact that you went to the USA and you're now in the UK as part of Oxford University's world leaders circle.

How do you think you can affect change when you're not in power? One of the things I often say is that particularly when you look at a really critical long-term issue like, say, climate change, where, you know, if you're an activist in that space, it's very easy to become disheartened if you feel that politicians aren't moving at the rate that's required. And my argument there is, of course, for an issue like that, politicians set the rules of the game. You know, they're the ones that are speeding the game up or they're slowing it down, but they are not the only players on the field. and the same holds for a number of issues. And so my point there being to anyone who's in civil society or the private sector, everyone has a role to play for some of those really significant, difficult issues that we need to address. When it comes to, though, how do you generally affect change when your area of concern might be political leadership in itself?

I have a fellowship now where I work with people who are in politics, and my goal there is not only to, support them in their roles, but to reinforce that those values that got them into politics are values worth holding on to. Because actually, there's not a lot of headlines over this, but I do believe that voters are looking for more compassionate leadership. What's next for Jacinda Arden? I think I'm doing it. Yeah, the empathetic leadership program really fills my cup. I still work on violent extremism online. I still work on climate change. And I'll forever be working on being a mother. That was

Jacinda Ardern there and Prime Minister is in cinemas from Friday. Now we're talking earlier in the programme about the recently gathered data that shows just how many teachers leave the profession in the four years after becoming parents and lots of you have got in touch on this. Sarah

says nearly all teachers, I was one and then a head teacher for 30 years, want to do a great job. It's a vocation and you put a huge amount of your personal commitment into it. Being a parent and being a teacher is often incompatible where you want to be the best parent we can be and there simply are not enough hours to do both. Thanks Sarah for that comment and this one here from Emily. Emily says

my heart was aching listening to your segment on teachers leaving the profession. I've been teaching for 13 years after having my daughter returned part time. The only way I could continue to do the job I love and be present for my own child is to work part time. This means on the days my daughter is in school I do school work so I'm able to be a mother at the week. weekends. Thanks so much for your comments. I will try to read some more out. Now, it is three weeks today, would you believe, until Christmas Day. And for our Christmas Day program, we're looking at the importance of Christmas rituals and would love to hear yours. So do you always have a Christmas activity that you do every year? Perhaps it's something that only your family does that makes

sense to no one else. And as friendship groups or friends must become more popular, which traditions have survived and flourished in these new groups, is always contact. us in the usual way. Text on 84844. Social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour and email us for our website. WhatsApp number is 037-144. We love to hear from you. Now, we often talk here on Women's Hour about the online abuse that women, particularly high-profile women, receive. Last week, the head of Offcom, Dame Melanie Dawes, told Nula that urgent action is needed as the regulator release guidelines for social media firms. Or one group ofcom singled out as being particularly targeted is female athletes.

Well, today it's been announced that all Olympic and Paralympic athletes will be able to access an AI-powered app that proactively detects and removes abusive comments in real time. Joining me to tell me more about this is BBC sports correspondent Natalie Perks and three-time Olympic badminton athlete Kirstie Gilmore. Thank you so much to both of you for joining me on Women's Hour. Natalie, can I start with you? Can you just tell us a bit more about this app? How does it actually work? Sure. Well, you essentially download it and you link your.

your social media accounts to it. So that's Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. And it acts as a sort of antivirus running in the background, searching for more than 2 million abusive words and phrases within its database. You can actually also put your own upsetting words bespoke to you into it. So it filters those out too. And any messages containing abusive terms are automatically deleted from the comment sections or replies to athletes.

and they're put into a kind of quarantine zone where they can be then flagged to police if they're needed. And the designer of the app is in Australian with a background in counter-terrorism. And he described it to me as a sort of fly screen for abuse. So it's available for British and Paralympic athletes in the lead up to the L.A. Olympics. So who will be able to access it?

Just them or family friends? How does that work? So they've rolled it out already to 30 sports. They're starting to onboard the athletes now. Ultimately, it will be available to, 1,200 athletes if they want it and then 300 of their wider circle so that's coaches and families

too. It has to be said it's not perfect so the one thing it doesn't cover is X for my known as Chris because of the way their app is set up and it would cost a lot more money if they wanted to

cover X it also doesn't cover direct messages apologies we're having a few problems with your line there, Natalie. So I'm going to bring Kirstie on on this. So Kirstie, you've actually experienced this app. So what's it like? Honestly, it's like a little step up from the kind of a little more cohesive than the things I've used in the past. And I got a kind of demonstration of it in real time and it was really quite unbelievable. And as Natalie was saying, I can kind of filter words that are kind of a little triggering to me. So like for instance, I get a lot of kind of, if I've

had a bad performance or a lot of mine is based on people gambling on my matches, I should say. So if I've had a bad performance, a lot of people like to tell me to retire. So I've flagged retire or retirement or any of its kind of iterations for me personally. So those get whipped away faster than I can even receive a notification for them. And it's just really, really nice to see UK sport kind of stepping up and kind of leading the charge on on athlete safety. I think that's really, really important. I want to pick up on what you said

about gambling there. So the abuse you get is kind of gambling related. How does that work? Yeah, so as an athlete when I was young, I never kind of considered that my name would, I would enter these tournaments and these

tournaments are obviously on betting websites. And so I kind of consent to being on those websites. It's not something at consideration I made when I was growing up. And the way I know that the messages I get or the comments I get are to do with gambling is because people love to tell me the score

line of my matches. And also, I'm quite outspoken about LGBT issues and kind of social issues. And the comments are rarely about that. So people are not taking the time to go through my profile and find, you know,

you know, it's not a challenge to anyone but those are kind of easy targets for something for someone to disagree with but it's always scoreline based so yeah, that's how I know. Natalie, let's come back to you. I think we can connect to you now. What a meta and X trying to do

to limit the abuse that people receive on their platforms? Well, they've both got tools. So for example, on Instagram they bought out tools to restrict and block certain people on comments. You can delete comments you don't like. X also gives you the ability to block key words,

so you don't have to see them. I guess the point of something like this, though, is it's a far simpler way of athletes ensuring they just don't have to see any of it. They can be sort of safe in the knowledge. They're not going to see it. And increasingly, we're seeing sports clubs and governing bodies taking their own action into a response

as what it sees as apathy, I guess, from social media companies. And yesterday we learned that Chelsea women have hired the data science company signify to help them flag abuse in real time, as well as so that it helps them to deal with their own fans who send abuse. They can take proactive action to ban them from their stadium so that they don't have to deal with it. And I think a lot of clubs and governing bodies are really starting to get on the front foot with this. UK sport have spent a lot of money on this particular app, haven't they, £300,000? Is there an argument to say that there are sufficient safeguards built into these platforms? I think we talk a lot in sport about marginal gains, things that will give you that extra

1%. And Kirsty will be sort of better on this than me. But when you think about the fact that it's often said women are 27 times more likely than men to be harassed online, you're talking gendered abuse, misogyny, rape threats, for example, that rises significantly for women of colour. So if you're looking at the extra 1%, if an athlete can go onto a track or a court or a pitch not having seen this, I guess the hope from UK sport, which of course gives money to elite athletes in this country, the hope is that this could be the difference perhaps from a first round exit or a gold medal. And they're in the business of gold medals. So this could really help in that instance. Kirstie, what would you say about that? Do you think it could

make a difference? I think absolutely. I think one of the most important things for me is when we talk about kind of combating against online violence, it's quite reactive or kind of in the victim-blamy kind of sphere of like, well, just don't go on Instagram, don't go online, you know, report and delete. But this feels a little bit more proactive. You can kind of stop it before it starts. And one of the other like incredible parts of the social protect app is that if a troll made a comment, goes out and decides to come back to, you know, admire their work and sees that their

comments not there, they might try to rephrase it and they may take out the kind of swearing or the abusive elements of it. And then that comment can be posted, but then that just becomes like a kind of, you know, feedback, you know, and to me that's kind of teaching people how to behave online a little bit better. So it does seem like a little step forward rather than just a total like wiping the slate clean. It kind of might encourage people to, you know, refine their vocabulary online. You have had serious threats, death, death and rape threats. How do you cope with that? I think I've got good support in the in the Bampton world. BWF often take, the World Federation take these messages quite seriously. For me, it all kind of depends on when I read

those messages and what state of mind I'm in. If it's straight after coming off court, debriefing with my coach, and then I immediately read those messages when all my emotions are still like raw and fresh, oh, they can get at you. But if you're sitting later at dinner and you're all kind of like, oh my God, I got this message earlier and I got, you can kind of bounce off each other. That's a little bit, makes it a little bit easier. But it's never, never nice. And I hope something like this can, you know, just the younger athletes might not have to have these things sitting in the back

of their heads and that's really what I hope that comes from this. Just finally, Kirsty, I want to talk about something positive to end with. I want to talk about how your training's going. Is LA 2028 something you're working towards at the moment? Yeah, I think so. I think that'll be my fourth Olympic Games.

I think if I can keep my standard, you know, where it has been for the last 15 years or so, then I could see myself qualifying for my fourth. Yeah, I'll be on the precipice of 35 by that point. But I think I could squeeze one more out of it, you know, health dependent, health and body dependent.

So, yeah. Well, we wish you're the very best and hope to speak to you again around that time, maybe. Kirstie and Natalie, thank you so much. And, of course, if you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this story, you can visit BBC Action Line. I just want to take a bit of time to read some of. of your comments out. We were talking about the data that shows teachers leaving the profession in the four years after becoming parents. We've had so many comments on this. This one here says

I was a teacher all through my children growing up. I got the holidays with them, which was the upside, but I bitterly regret it now. They had a permanently tired and often stressed or sick mum. I feel I gave other people's children my energy and didn't have enough left for my own. But whilst they were growing up, I couldn't afford to switch careers. The moment my daughter left school, I quit and have never regretted leaving the profession. This one here from Anne, who said I became a teacher in my early 30s for the very reason that I had two children age three and four when I started. I was in the IT industry before, which made no allowances. So teaching gave me the opportunity for part-time working and school hours. I then worked

every evening with marking, etc., something we were hearing about earlier, having to work in your own time. And this one here from a father and a teacher says, we lived in Sweden when my children were born. Both my wife and I was supported throughout with generous parental leave. Within 12 months of returning to the UK with children age 4 and 6, I was forced to leave the profession as we couldn't make it work with children. It was principally the last lack of flexibility that made it impossible. I was a good teacher and I still miss it four years later. Thank you so much for your comments. I'll be back tomorrow so please do join me then if you can. But for now, thank you very much indeed for listening. That's all for today's

woman's hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Nula McGovern and I want to tell you about a BBC podcast called Send in the Spotlight. The number of children with special educational needs is increasing. Too many parents are having to fight to get those needs met and councils are spending money that they do not have. Against a backdrop of government reform, I bring together families, teachers, experts and decision makers to reimagine the system. Listen to send in the spotlight on BBC Sounds.