Woman's Hour - Nadine Dorries, Dame Donna Kinnair, Women and safety, Organised crime, mafia and gender.

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

The Health Minister Nadine Dorries joins Emma to talk about her plans to cut deaths caused by Strep B infection in newborn babies, as well as nurses' pay and the government’s new consultation on a women’s health strategy. The row over the government's proposed one per cent pay rise for NHS staff shows no sign of quietening down - with the attention having moved towards nurses' wages in particular. Strike action has been threatened by nurses' unions over the proposals and the Prime Minister came under fire yesterday about nurses - especially considering the role they have played on the front line fighting the pandemic. 90 per cent of nurses are women. Emma discusses the issue with Dame Donna Kinnear, nurse and chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing.Today we are thinking of Sarah Everard - the 33 year old woman who went missing walking home to Brixton from a friend's house in Clapham, south London, on March 3. Reclaim The Night are organising a vigil following the disappearance of Sarah Everard. But how have things changed since the original Reclaim the Night march which took place on 12th November 1977? Emma speaks to Al Garthwaite, now a Leeds Councillor for Headingley and Hyde Park, she was one of the original organisers, and to the writer and journalist Joan Smith, whose latest book is called Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists. She has also written a book called Misogynies, and she is on the London Mayor's board about tackling violence against women and girls.From the Godfather to Goodfellas and The Sopranos, we are fascinated by movies and series about the mafia. But women are often portrayed as symbolic or the ‘sexy wife’. How much power and agency do they actually have? Felia Allum is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Italian at the University of Bath. Her research' Women, crime and culture: transnational organised crime as an equal opportunity industry' is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She joins Emma to tell the stories of women she’s spoken to from the Neapolitan mafia.Presented by Emma Barnett Producer: Louise Corley

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. Today we are thinking of Sarah Everard, the 33-year-old woman who went missing walking home to Brixton from a friend's house in Clapham, South London, on March 3rd. We still don't know what has happened to her, but yesterday the news broke that in the police search for her, human remains were found. Detectives have not yet been able to confirm the identity of the remains, which were discovered in Woodland near Ashford in Kent.

It comes after a serving Met police officer was arrested on suspicion of Sarah Everard's and murder. To put the spotlight back onto Sarah, what we do know is that she had started a new job as a digital marketing executive. She'd moved to London 12 years ago, having grown up in Surrey. Her uncle Doug describes her as a lovely, lovely girl, saying she's very kind-hearted, would always go the extra mile for friends or anyone in need. A description which chimes with the loving messages shared by her worried and devoted friends. Her disappearance has sent shockwaves through the UK, with many women taking to social media to express their distress, but also to share their own personal

strategies to cope with the fear of attack when they walk alone, at night or in the day. Indeed, the Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick, has tried to reassure women and convey her understanding of how anxious some women may be feeling. Londoners will want to know that it is, thankfully, incredibly rare for women to be abducted from our streets. But I completely understand that, despite that, women in London and the wider public, perhaps particularly those in the area where Sarah went missing,

will be worried and maybe feeling scared. It is important to keep the risk level in proportion. Hear this from Marion Fitzgerald, Visiting Professor of Criminology at the University of Kent, talking earlier on the Today programme. The fear is real and it's always heightened when something major like this is in the news. That doesn't mean to say that the risk has changed. It hasn't changed much over many years. Women account for about a third of all murders.

Men are far more likely to be murdered. Men are far more likely to be murdered. Men are far more likely to be murdered by someone they don't know. Men are far more likely to be murdered in public places. Women are far, far more likely to be, if they're murdered, they're far, far more likely to be murdered. It's about 11% of females who are victims of homicide who are murdered in public play, in anywhere, streets, whatever, public places, compared to 35% of men. You know, let's not get this out of proportion and let's not wind each other up to be... An important message, but what those statistics do not take on board

is why women feel so worried to walk alone at night, the fear of harassment and assault while out after dark and in the day, and that that fear is utterly pervasive. Why so? Why do you feel this way if you do? Have you felt the need to reclaim the night, as it were? We'll hear from someone shortly about that original movement and how it hit the UK. Do you have particular strategies you deploy? And you can, of course, share them with us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. But why? Why do you have that fear? What is it for you? Is it experience or is it of things

that you've heard or were you always told to perhaps have your keys in your hand as you were approaching home? Some would say that's not a good idea either, but whatever it is, why is it there? On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour or email us your views, your experiences through our website. There's even fresh evidence out this week that it's not just a hunch. Let me share this with you. A YouGov survey for UN Women UK, that's the United Nations, has found that almost all young women in the UK have been subjected to sexual harassment. Among women aged 18 to 24, 97% said they'd been sexually harassed. 80% of all women said they'd experienced sexual harassment in public spaces.

I mentioned Reclaim the Night. Reclaim the Night, if you like the modern version of it, if I can put it like that, the reincarnated version of it, are organising a vigil following the disappearance of Sarah Everard. The vigil will begin at six o'clock on Saturday at the bandstand in Clapham Common. Attendees are being asked to wear masks and practice social distancing. But of course, it is illegal to meet in large numbers. So we must say that message to you and get that across.

The organisers are demanding that the capital streets be a safe place for women. But how have things changed since the original Reclaim the Night march, which took place on the 12th of November in 1977. We thought we'd journey back there with Al Garthwaite, now a Leeds councillor for Headingley and Hyde Park, but she was one of the original organisers. Good morning, Al. Good morning. Can you take us back and give us some context as to what was going on then for women to come together in this way? 1977, the Women's Liberation Movement had been going for seven or eight years in this country, and we were increasingly angry and aware about issues like sexual harassment and sexual abuse, rape, to which women were subjected. Now, at that time, the general attitude was, don't go out alone,

don't go out at night as a woman, and if you do, and if something happens, it's your own fault, so don't expect any sympathy. That was very pervasive, or you were just not believed. So we were increasingly angry about this, and having read about the actions of some women in Germany who'd gone out and about challenging this, we decided to, in Leeds, to have a Reclaim the Night march. And then we thought, why not spread this right to other groups of women's liberation groups across the country and suggest that we all have it on the same night so we can get maximum publicity. And indeed, that did happen in leeds we met 30 to 40 women probably in two groups where basically where we lived and where there'd been attacks on women including a serial killer who

was around we later knew to be peter sutcliffe um and we marched down the street at 10 30 at night chanting however we dress wherever we go yes means yes and no means no and women unite reclaim the night because we were just really angry and we were not going to put up with it any longer and we felt that no one was listening we marched into the center of leeds had a rally and then dispersed to our homes. And, you know, there was transport so that no woman was then walking home alone. And since then, there have been loads of Reclaim the Night marches in Leeds and elsewhere. First of all, just the grassroots activity of women later on, co-organised by local authorities like Leeds City Council, where I'm now a Labour councillor. And it's a movement that's carried on and is sadly still very necessary, even today.

Did it have an impact? Do you feel straight away or did it take some time? Because what you just described there is different. We can come to how you perhaps don't think things have changed enough. But the climate that you just described, the idea of if you went out at night, you know, you shouldn't be and it's your fault, is different to how it is now, even if women still feel they need to take certain precautions. How long did it take to have impact, do you think? Oh, well, from then, I think we were just seen as completely crazy like why were we challenging this held belief and i remember um a couple of years after that having a conversation with uh

someone a woman from bradford who was saying well nice women don't get raped and I think that was a very common attitude at the time and I don't think people would say that now which is just as well but I would say it took at least 10 years before it really got into the mainstream and of course rape crisis centres were being set up then by by feminists uh uh refuges for women subject to domestic abuse and so on. It all went together as a campaign for women against violence against women. What did it feel like being at the vanguard of this? Of course, when you're at the vanguard, perhaps you don't quite know you are, but I wonder if you could take us into the atmosphere.

It was a lot of organisation, as anything like this is. We knew we were definitely going beyond the limits of what women at the time were supposed to do. But then we'd been doing that for quite a long time anyway. So that was nothing new. We also knew that it wouldn't be understood and that we couldn't expect at the time any help from the police. We did know that. And that was there was we were out there.

We were out there in the front, really fighting for the right to just the right, the right to just be the right to be be. The right to go out at night as and when we please, go to work, go to an evening class, go and meet our friends. Just have freedom of movement. How does it make you feel? I mean, putting aside the law at the moment, we're in very unusual times about gatherings. But how does it make you feel that there's one of these gatherings happening this weekend? Well, obviously, I'm sad that it's still so necessary. But I'm glad that women have not given up, that we're still asserting our right to have freedom to do these things. And of course, there is a lot more now that has happened in mainstream politics. We're not just groups of women in feminist groups meeting in our own homes. But the fact that it's still so necessary is a sad thing and a bad thing,

but it is necessary. And I'm glad that women are still standing up and saying, yes, we won't put up with this. And there are still a lot of things that we can do as a councillor I've instituted training for bar and club staff on recognising and dealing appropriately with incidents and reports of sexual harassment and partner abuse things like that happening and working generally to raise awareness and we can put CCTV, we can look at making misogyny. And all these things are very important. But in the end, we have to keep campaigning, demonstrating and fighting for our rights to go out safely, without fear. Algarth, thank you very much. A member of that original Reclaim the Night march,

which took place on the 12th of November 1977. of course as I say something else very similar being planned for this weekend but just to stress meetings are illegal at the moment those large gatherings we are still in lockdown. Joan Smith is a writer and journalist her latest book is called Homegrown how domestic violence turns men into terrorists of course also the author of Misogynies and on the London's Mayor's Board, excuse me, about tackling violence against women and girls. Joan, how meaningful do you think it is for the statement from Cressida Dick, what she's had to say in this context, especially when we've just been hearing about how the police were not on board in the 70s? I don't think that women will be very impressed by it. I mean, I understand what she's trying to do. But the thing is that most of

us are not worried about being abducted and murdered. What we're worried about is everyday street harassment. It's about sexual assault. It's about rape. And if you look at the crime survey for England and Wales, 560,000 women every year report sexual assault. These are huge figures. If we look at what happens in rape cases, around 55,000 women a year in England and Wales go to the police and report a rape. Many, many more don't. Of those, maybe 1,400 result in a conviction. What we feel is that we highlight this problem all the time. And yet there is a sort of there is a kind of culture of inevitability about it as though, yeah, well, if women go out, men are like that. Men are predatory. What can you do? You know, women can take precautions. That's all that can happen. And it's very, very pessimistic.

And it doesn't chime with women's experience because women women are angry and upset about this, and they want change. In a way, is that worse, then? The justice system, it feels and seems like it should be helping as much as it can, but doesn't seem to be from what you've just said. Yes, I think that's exactly right. And, you know, I appreciate everything that Al was just saying, because, of course, I remember those murders in Leeds and other northern cities. And, you know, we look at how badly the police handled that case, which they did. But is it true that they're doing much better now with not so much murder, but rape and sexual assault and street harassment. The figures are just awful. And most women know that and wonder why the criminal justice system is broken in relation to this. And the question always comes up, why did this woman go out at this time? Why didn't she get a taxi? Why didn't

she get a bus? Why didn't she get a man to walk her home? The question should be, why are some predators carrying out this behaviour? And why is there so little sanction on their behaviour? There's been people tweeting feeling like they have an unofficial curfew still, that they can't go running at night. And if they could go running at night, or if they do, they would never wear headphones, for instance. Exactly. And, you know, I've also seen it described as an unofficial guardian system that if women want to go out at night, they need to go in pairs or they need to have a man with them. I think this is the lived experience of most women and girls. And I think it becomes second nature to us. You know, I mean, a couple of years ago, I was at the Hay and My Festival

talking about my book. I went for a walk along the river and Hay is a very busy town during the festival. And then I realised I was completely out of sight of anybody. It was in a river valley. I felt uncomfortable and I turned back. And I thought most men would not have this thought that I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing and would turn back. And that's second nature. I was going to say, and that's what we're trying to get to. And the story that the statistics about how rare abduction and murder is do not tell that that fear and that identity, actually, that you're talking about, that this is just a bit risky right now. And I shouldn't be doing it. Thank you for sharing a personal experience as well. I think that's very valuable because it will encourage others to get in touch, which they are doing. Joan Smith, writer and journalist there, with her view on this, especially with those statistics around reporting. I have a long fear of lonely places, even in day and time.

I live on the Isle of Wight, which has over 500 miles of beautiful cycle and walking routes, and I adore walking, but lots of these paths go through isolated woodland, where I would never venture alone. Why? Because I don't want to be that woman who meets the psycho where no one would hear my cries for help. No walk or beautiful landscape is worth that. Sadly, this is a feeling I've instilled in my daughters too, in the hope they won't take the risks that render them vulnerable. I hate myself for this, but I can't seem to overcome it. I'm strong, independent, forthright, outspoken, but this is my secret fear that impacts my enjoyment of a very basic joy

in life. That's from Sally. Sally, good morning to you and thank you for getting in touch. Keep your messages coming in on 84844. To move to a row that's going on with regards to the government's proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff, that particular row shows no sign of quieting down. In fact, the opposite, the attention also having moved towards nurses' wages in particular. You may be affected by this, of course, do get in touch on anything to do with this. Strike action has been threatened by nurses' unions over the proposals. The Prime Minister came under fire yesterday specifically about nurses, especially considering the role they have played on the frontline fighting the pandemic. And we should remind you that 90% of nurses are women, 77% of the entire NHS workforce is female.

In a moment, I'll talk to the Health Minister, Nadine Dorries. But first, I'm joined by Dame Donna Kinnair, Nurse and Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. Good morning. Good morning. What pay rise do nurses feel would be acceptable? Why don't we start with that? Well, when we when we surveyed and talked to our nurses, they felt that given the years of lack of pay rises and the fact that our pay hasn't kept up with or commensurate with the knowledge and skills, because it is a skilled profession,

they asked us to put to the government 12.5%. So that's where you're coming in at. And you have obviously heard what the government has had to say, and the public will have heard as well. And, you know, of course, the near universal support from the public over the issue of nurses generally and your lives and what you've been doing, it reflects as well, with a lot of them also chiming in on the pay row, the high regard nurses are held in and the acknowledgement by the public

of your hard work and sacrifice during this pandemic. Do you not believe the government when they say 1% is all they can afford? Matt Hancock says, for instance, the Health Secretary, it's what's affordable as a nation. Well, I tell you, this government's track record speaks for itself um when when the government says that and just remember when we talk about track and trace it is nurses that are predominantly health nurses like myself we you know any kind of infectious disease we've been out there and nobody has offered us six thousand pounds a day so for for nurses in this country, when they see that, when they see the advantage over a number of years that have been taken of their skills and their knowledge, we have to question how you can bring someone in and pay them £6,000 a day to do something that we have been doing throughout our entire existence, whatever pandemic, whatever disease,

and we know we needed it on a far grander scale. But let's just think about who would have advised those people on how to track and trace, because whether it was HIV, we were risking our lives, we didn't know the origin of it. Even in this pandemic, we were risking our lives, and we were tracking and tracing. So why is it now that other skills, the same skills that we've always shown, have come in and they're worth £6,000 a day? You're talking about consultants and some of the fees that have gone alongside with that. Would a one-off bonus stop strike action? And how much would that bonus have to be? Well, according to our nurses, they don't want a bonus. They want a decent wage. They're more than

just pay. This conversation that we are having with the government is more than pay. It's about a safety of our system. It's about how you attract and keep experienced nurses. Now, it's all very well for the government to say, well, we've brought enough people in from overseas and we've got new nurses joining the profession. But what we're talking about is the experience and skills of a profession now that has demonstrated over the last year that we're not just angels, we're highly skilled, critical people that are needed to keep people alive. So it isn't so much just a pay argument. It's about going into this pandemic with 40,000 less nurses in England because we don't pay them enough to keep them.

And that's the issue that we need to correct. So actually, it is a political choice whether we want to run a health service with a decent amount of staff. So in answer to my first question, actually, around believing the government, it sounds like you don't believe that the government doesn't have this money, because you're talking there about, just to make it specific, the likes of senior members of the Boston Consulting Group have been paid over £6,000 a day with regards to test and trace. So is that fair to say you don't believe the government doesn't have the money? It's made a political choice? Well, I think they do have the money when it suits them. The very fact that they can pay.

Sorry, so just to keep going with this on the bonus side of things, you're saying a one-off bonus from your position wouldn't work. Because, of course, there are reports out today from one of your colleagues that perhaps a one-off bonus could stop strike action. That's why I asked the question. Not according to what my members have said. They were very, very clear in our surveys that a one-off bonus wouldn't do. They would want to see their pay increase that's commensurate with their skills and knowledge. And to the health minister who's listening, Nadine Doris, who I'll come to in just a moment, who's stressed the fact that new nurses have experienced a pay rise

over the last three years, a considerable one. She'll make the case in just a moment. What would you say to that? Well, I'd say that Nadine Doris has come out with that as an issue, but actually it continues that reverse patriarchy that we see around gender in our profession. What I'm talking about is paying people for their skills. Sorry, what do you mean by that? The reverse patriarchy? Well, actually it's that thing about, you know, we do it as a vocation. They're heroes, they're angels. They don't need

to be paid. We absolutely have the same rents, the same issues that everybody else has. So it just isn't good enough to say that gender biased issue that we've faced all of our profession, what we need is proper pay. But she would argue, I don't want to put words in her mouth, but she would argue that actually new nurses have got a better deal. She, of course, used to be a nurse. Do you not accept that? So new nurses have required a better deal. But actually, what we need to pay for is the skills and experience of nurses staying in the profession. And that is what they have. Final question, if I can, because I have to go to the health minister, but we appreciate your time.

It is very valuable with the work that you're doing. There are calls for a slow hand clap tonight from the trade union Unison for people to show their disapproval for this pay proposal of 1% pay rise. Will you be joining in, Donna? Well, what I'd say to that is that actually it's not about clapping, is it, whether it's slow or whatever. It's about the government facing up to the fact that they need to review their recommendations and really understand that we've faced a real terms pay cut, as many of their backbenchers and others have been saying. Dame Donna Kinnear, thank you very much, Nurse and Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. We're listening to you, that is the Health Minister, Nadine Dorries.

Good morning. Good morning. Let's get to that, if we can, a bit to come back on. And as I say, you did train as a nurse. You do have real insight into the work involved. Can you understand the disappointment after the year that nurses have had? Well, Emma, if I could quote a nurse manager of a vaccine centre that I spoke to on Saturday, this is what she said.

I'll quote her words. And if you don't mind, I'll just come back to some of the points that Donna raised. She said to me, we have two children in our house. There are two of us, two wages coming in and one mortgage going out. She said, if I had to choose between my husband being furloughed until the autumn or a pay rise,

I would choose my husband being furloughed any day because now we have the security that our mortgage can be paid. And she also said to me, I completely get it. And I understand that because, you know, anybody who manages a budget, there is a limit on that budget. And we have had unprecedented pressure over the past year in fighting COVID and dealing with COVID on the nation's purse strings. But it was important that in order to recover, important in order to have an economy to fund our NHS, that we did everything we can to keep people in jobs, to keep people paid and protect those people's jobs. And that is why, you know, we have to make tough choices and the choice was one of the choices was to do that and to continue furlough and I do think that most nurses get it but if they

they know they have partners husbands they get it that they they understand that that's a really important decision that we had to make and it was also an incredibly expensive decision to the public purse. So you, do you stand, I understand that. Do you stand by the 1% pay rise then as the health minister? Look, Emma, we are every year, this isn't, this isn't something unusual. It's just happened because of COVID. The government always puts down its position to the pay review body in terms of what the public purse can afford. And, you know, you quoted me quite accurately. You know, newly qualified nurses have had a 12% increase

over the past three years, and doctors, junior doctors' pay scales are increasing by 8.2%. This is a healthcare sector pay review, not just nurses. No, I understand, but you have come out defending it. That's what I'm saying. You've used that figure repeatedly around, and it's factual, you've used it repeatedly around new nurses to defend it.

So that's why I'm asking if you stand by it, because you sound like you do. And yet Boris Johnson at the dispatch box yesterday seemed to distance himself slightly from it, saying he's waiting to see what the independent pay review body says. So where are you as the health minister? That's exactly exactly quite right that's what we have to do now so that's our our offer that we make to the pay review body you know they will then consider what um donna and i

know who i have the hugest respect for they will consider what donna and the rcn have put forward is what they believe but just going back to the newly qualified nurses point there is a very complex pay spine in the NHS and the average pay of all nurses is £34,000 a year quite rightly and it has risen in the past two years and those pay spines are still there they're still in play on the agenda for change so you have to bring that into account we have new nurses but we also have the continued agenda for change pay structure, which nurses are paid on. All very important points. But when you make that point about the new nurses, true, but it doesn't deal with what Donna was talking about there, which is those nurses going through the system, retaining and keeping skilled nurses. So

it's very nice that new nurses have got more money. But what about those who've had an absolute year of it, starting this fight against the pandemic with barely appropriate PPE? So, well, the PPE question, Emma, was a global problem. It was countries all over the world. There was a limited amount of PPE across the globe and every country was competing for that. Every country in the world was struggling with PPE at the beginning of this pandemic. So I take that point, but I just want to put into context.

They had to go in. They're not, you know, they don't think about every country in the world. They look at £6,000 a day going to a consultant to help with test and trace when they're the foot soldiers. And then they hear somebody like yourself, who's been a nurse saying, well, new nurses have got a good deal. 1% is all we can afford, but here's £6,000 a day to a consultant. So that 12% increase in newly qualified nurses is over three years. And as I said, and just about the retention point that you made you know we have a an increase of 34 percent of applications of people wanting to apply to become nurses and no but we don't made the point that um about attracting nurses we've had a massive

increase in the number of people wanting to become which is a good thing sorry but you're answering a question I haven't asked. You're comparing apples and pears. I'm talking about nurses in the system that have heard 1% might be what the pay rise is. After the year that they've had, do you really think that's going to incentivise them to stay? So, as I said, we cannot pre-empt the recommendations of the independent pay review body. But what's your human response? We will carefully consider the recommendations when we receive them from the pay review body.

But on a human level, having trained as a nurse, do you understand why some of them might just think, I'm going to jack this in? So, again, as I said, the average pay for a nurse is £34,000. When I was nursing nursing it was nothing even anywhere near the equivalent in terms of and quite rightly so you know if it was if it's up to me I'd be paying nurses millions it quite rightly so that they have seen their pay increase in recent years as a result of agenda agenda for change and you know we all hope moving forward but this year has been a very difficult year for the nhs and for the government for nurses but also in terms of you don't know the economy is in the at the moment

and we all want to see that economy recover because without a strong economy we can't fund the nhs and that's very important but you're you're not you're just just on the record as health minister you're not worried about retention after this if it goes through so that's well so first of all workforce isn't my portfolio it's not an area i'm i'm um an expert but i wondered your view i don't know i can't quote you the retention figures at the moment but what i would hope is that nurses will stick with us now i'll go back to my vaccine centre manager who told me nurses get it. They actually get it. And they understand that protecting jobs

when we have to choose priorities in the face of, it's only a year ago we were looking at the face of this. We're now coming out of it. Nadine, just because I'm conscious of time, I want to get to something that you are very across

and looking across the whole piece. This week you did launch, part of launching a government consultation on the women's health strategy. You're calling for people to come forward with evidence. I know it's very important. One issue in particular you want to raise awareness of is strep B, the most common cause of life-threatening infection in newborn babies, including pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis. It's a bacterium that can be carried by the mother passed to the baby during childbirth. And each year around 800 babies develop strep B, and of those, around 50 will die, the majority within the first 24 hours of life.

More will be left with life-changing disabilities, including brain damage, and require a lifetime of personal care. You've said controlling strep B infection and newborn death is one of your five key priorities. How has the pandemic impacted your work in this area? So it was my number one priority. I was post-op and patient safe 18 months ago. That was my number one priority, that if we did one thing, the team,

as a result of my taking that role, it was that we got a trial underway for group B strep and got to the point where at 35 weeks of pregnancy, every single woman was tested for group B strep and, if appropriate, offered antibiotic therapy before she went into labour. So that was my number one objective. My first hurdle was getting the National Screening Committee on board, which we did, and they agreed to run a GBS3 trial testing 320,000 women across 40 Trust. Sadly, it has, like everything else, been impacted by the pandemic. So we need 40 Trust to sign up. Coming out of the pandemic, it was stalled because of the pandemic.

And, you know, I understand why. But we now only have 15 Trust who signed up now that we started the trial running again. And we really need hospitals to step up and become part of the GBS free trial. And it seems to me there are ways of doing this. And one way of doing this is to get all pregnant women to walk into their delivery suites or to their 35 week check or their antenatal checks and ask, are you screening me for group B strep? Is this trust part of the trial. It's quite unorthodox for health ministers to do this, but I just feel that this is about empowering women with the information and empowering women to be part of this battle to help trusts who are coming out of the pandemic, who obviously have many competing priorities. But, you know, women's voices not being heard is a central theme of many reviews that I've seen coming through recently as Minister for Patient Safety. And this, for me, is important.

So any woman listening, if it's your daughter or yourself or anybody you know who's pregnant, please ask that woman to ask at her antenatal appointments or when she goes in for delivery, are you testing with a group? It's a very powerful message. Nadine Doris, thank you for your time, Health Minister. A lot more we could have discussed, and perhaps you can come back soon to get to that, not least the fact we've seen this health inquiry opened, but also what we've seen with some of the changes around,

for instance, potentially the contraceptive pill being made available to kinds over the counter during this time. We've talked about that here on the programme and also with some of the changes with regards to swabbing at home for the beginning of a smear test. We'll come to that, I hope, again with you. Thank you for your time this morning. Nadine Dorries there, the health minister. Now for something completely different. From The Godfather to Goodfellas and The Sopranos, we're fascinated by movies and series, it seems, about the mafia, but women are often portrayed in this world as symbolic or the sexy wife. How much power and agency do they actually have? For International Women's Day earlier this week, that's how we started all of this, there were a set of public

screenings, an event called Donna de Mafia, which shed light upon women in Italian mafias by exploring their portrayal in contemporary Italian cinema. The mini film festival included six feature films and documentaries telling the story of the contradictory and harsh lives of women who are often active, knowledgeable, complicit, violent, determined and scared in the different roles they play and the space they inhabit. Donna de Mafia was based on a research project by Filia Allum, who's a senior lecturer

in politics and Italian at the University of Bath. Her research, Women, Crime and Culture, Transnational Organised Crime as an Equal Opportunity Industry, is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She joins us now to discuss her research into this area. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. Why did you want to do this, first of all? Because I've had the opportunity over the last three years to really delve into the roles of women in different criminal organisations. And also being an Italian specialist, it allowed me to go back and have a look at what actually was taking place in Italian mafias. And I've been struck over the years about how women are just in the background women are portrayed um as bystanders you know

by standing in the in the air in in the kind of um shadow of what's going on and it struck me that you know we needed to kind of revisit all of that because from my research and from talking to various former criminals um it seemed that you know we had a male gaze it was a predominant male gaze and we were kind of not giving them agency and we were not seeing them for what they are. I'm not saying that alpha women and, you know, Italian mafias are all female bosses going around shooting everybody, but I'm just questioning the fact that we've for too long adopted a male gaze and we're not really kind of asking the right questions and looking at them perhaps as partners in crime, where they have a certain amount of agency, they have a certain amount of power, and they have a certain amount of influence.

So it kind of, you know, triggered a kind of intrigue in me to go back and have a real look. And the films that you referred to kind of have all a different aspect that kind of go into questioning that and seeing that women, you know, can be victims, but they can also be perpetrators. But we need to look at that better. If we understood the role of women better, I know you've been looking specifically at the Neapolitan mafia, but if we understood their roles and women were telling their stories,

do you think it could also run the risk of glamorising, as it's been accused of when male directors, male storytellers put goodfellas in front of us? I don't think it glamorises because we look at a kind of, we adopt their lens, we adopt their perspective, we're listening to their voices and their concerns. Obviously, we've got to be careful that we don't get kind of taken in by their story if they're sort of glamorising it too much. But it's a starting point to hear their voices, to hear their concerns.

And you have heard their voices. Is there a particular story that you could tell our listeners, tell us all, that changes your view and of how women are in this? Well, I mean, yes, as you said, I've been lucky enough to talk to six, actually, six former Camorra women

who all have very different stories from being a boss, or being a kind of, you know, leader, to being a manager, to also being a drug dealer. What I was fascinated by was the fact that when I asked them clearly the question of their own agency they were aware of their own agency they were aware of their own influence to actually make decisions and to take action and I thought that was particularly interesting and particularly important but at the same time as women they also sometimes didn't give

the other women the weight and the power that they had so um i one particular drug dealer that i kind of interviewed you know on the one hand was sort of saying that the leader in the clan was the brothers and the husband but in actual fact then when it was a question of who was actually making decisions about um sending you know sending off a group of killers it It was the woman. So it's kind of very contradictory on how we kind of look at it, but also how people actually live it to actually sort of say, hang on a second. Actually, it's not the men who are deciding, it's actually the women. But I think society means that we kind of have this gender bias where we don't recognise the power of the

women. And I think that's what, you know, these films have kind of unpacked to a certain extent and pushed that kind of discussion forward to sort of say, let's look at the women. And with your conversations, were you frightened of the women? Were they imposing characters? How would you describe them? Well, first of all, I saw them, they were under protection. So it wasn't kind of in the middle of the street where people were kind of identifying that, you know, they were talking to somebody. They were they'd made a clear decision to turn their backs on the life of crime. So, you know, they were we met miles from Naples, in Turin, in Bologna. They were courageous, courageous. And one in particular was very courageous because usually these women take their whole family network with them.

So it's quite, you know, they're surrounded. But this one particular woman who is the partner of a big, big, important boss left on her own, left her children, left her whole context. And when she called her daughter, her daughter of 25 turned around and said, you know, this is the last phone call that you'll give me because as far as I'm concerned, you're dead. So they're very courageous. They're very kind of strong. And they also believe in love. They believe in the power of love and education to bring their children up in a different world. At the same time, there are a whole group of other women who don't want to make that change and who hark back to what the Camorra and what organised crime stands for. So we have these kind of contradictory,

if you want, positions of some women who like that kind of criminal organisation and structure and norms and the values that it has within, you know, their own group in the society. And then other women who understand that, you know, illegality is not the way forward and that their children deserve a future, not one where, you know, maybe they'll get killed when they're less than 20. Did you come across any women in boss-like positions? Yes, there were two or three. But at the same time, some of them were incapable in recognising that they actually had that status. I mean, there was one in particular where, you know, she was telling me certain things. And then if I went to have a look at the way that the judge had seen her, she was very much a boss.

She was very much having an influence and calling the shots. So it's kind of, you know, it's their recognition of the power at the same time. So on the one hand, you have male judges and male police officers collecting information, but not actually taking them into account or giving them agency to actually have a role within the criminal organisation. And at the same time, they don't necessarily recognise their own power to influence and to shape their husband, their sons or their children's future. So it's quite complicated and multifaceted if you see what I mean. It's absolutely fascinating. As you say, people perhaps have never even thought to dig in to this.

Thank you for bringing us the benefits of your research. Thank you very much, Emma. Thank you for having me. Ophelia Allum, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Italian at the University of Bath. Her research, just to remind you, is called Women, Crime and Culture, Transnational Organised Crime as an Equal Opportunity Industry. Looking into the women behind,

perhaps always seen as behind the scenes in the mafia, but maybe not quite so, is what she was saying. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, Greg Jenner here. Series 3 of Radio 4's top comedy history podcast, You're Dead to Me, is now in full swing.

That's when you find yourself in the pocket of big Asclepius. We like to learn and laugh about the past by pairing up a top historian with a top comedian. That is hangry at a new level, isn't it? So far in this series, we've met the Irish pirate queen, Gráinne Ó Máli, explored the strange world of ancient Greek and Roman medicine, and discovered the dramatic family life of the Borgias.

All I know about the Borgias is from Assassin's Creed 2. So make sure you've subscribed to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds. 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.