Woman's Hour - Pregnancy discrimination, Prue Leith, Femcels, Social workers on screen

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

An employment tribunal has ruled that describing an expectant mother as 'emotional' at work was discrimination. Described as a David and Goliath case, Nicola Hinds, who had been an account manager at Mitie, a FTSE 250 company, represented herself. The judge upheld her claims of pregnancy discrimination and constructive dismissal saying she was 'inexcusably' ignored by her boss and portrayed as 'hormonal'. She is now in line to receive compensation. Nicola joins Emma Barnett.82% of social workers are women, and they are fed up of seeing themselves portrayed as baddies on screen. Social Work England says they end up depicted in dramas as dragging children away from their families. Reporter Melanie Abbott talks to social worker in training Ceira Walsh about the impact on her. And Sarah Blackmore from Social Work England and screenwriter Emma Reeves, responsible for Elaine the Pain in the Tracy Beaker series, discuss with Emma Barnett what changes could be made.Emma speaks to Dame Prue Leith, the chef, author and TV personality, who took part in her first ever catwalk this week at the age of 84. She wore clothes designed by the brand Vin and Omi, who've collaborated with the King to use plants grown in his garden to make their sustainable clothes. What are femcels? The female version of incels, or involuntary celibates. are the subject of a new Channel 4 documentary, Emma speaks to Dr Jilly Kay from Loughborough University to hear more about research into this group and what their online activity looks like.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Are you an interfering woman? One of my guests proudly describes herself as just that, Dame Prue Leith. I'll be talking to her or you'll be hearing from her a bit later in the programme. The restauranteur, cookery writer and broadcaster is on mainly to talk about taking to the catwalk for the first time as a model aged 84. But we also touch on her campaigns and interventions. And I ask you that question because I'm interested in hearing from you today about

when you've decided to step up and take a stand or say something to someone if something isn't right. Also, when you've chosen not to. Maybe it was safer, maybe it was the right thing for you at that point, maybe it was not good for your health, maybe there were all sorts of reasons why you felt compromised and perhaps you've come to regret that or you've realised it was all you could do at that time. Today, and my first guest I should say, I'll be talking to a woman who took on her employer, a FTSE 250 company, after her manager started treating her differently when she shared that she was pregnant. Nicola Hines represented herself in her employment tribunal

and won. The judge said that her male boss had stereotyped her as an emotional, hormonal, pregnant woman when she raised concerns about her workload. She's now entitled to compensation, but says that she took the fight so other women wouldn't have to go through what she did. You will hear from Nicola very shortly in her first broadcast interview, but I'd like to hear from you. Throughout the programme, it may not have been a tribunal, it may not have been anything to do with a legal process, but when have you interfered, to use Prue's word? When have you put yourself forward?

When have you found yourself not being able to stay silent or not speak up in some way? It may not have been for yourself. It may be for someone else. It may be something on your street. It may be to do with how, you know, those around you are living. It may be to do with your child's school, if you have a child who's at that stage or a child at all. What is it? What did you do? or maybe what didn't you do and why 84844 that's the number you need to text the program on social media at bbc woman's hour email me through our website or go for whatsapp with a voice note or a message on 03700 100444 and as i always say just

watch those charges wi-Fi may be better. Also on today's programme, the majority of those in social work are women, those working in that field. But is it time for a rebrand of how we perceive them and their work? And we're going to be finding out what we can about fem cells. All that to come. But first, an employment tribunal has ruled that describing an expectant mother as emotional at work was discrimination. Seen as a David and Goliath case,

Nicola Hines was a senior manager at Mighty, a facilities management company in the FTSE 250, which provides services such as security for many national organisations, including, I should say, here at the BBC. Nicola represented herself and the judge upheld her claims of pregnancy discrimination and constructive dismissal, saying she was inexcusably ignored by her boss and portrayed as hormonal. And as I said, she's now in line to receive some form of compensation. And this is her first broadcast interview. Nicola Hines, welcome to Woman's Hour. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here. I wonder, maybe we start there about that description of David and Goliath. How does that feel? How did it feel to represent yourself? It very much felt like that the whole way through the process um it I felt like the little person uh and I was up against somebody very mighty in in every sense of the word um but I I felt I needed to uh take this challenge on to not only rectify the the sort of the pain that I'd felt whilst employed by MITEI, but to ensure that nobody who does work for MITEI or thinks about working for MITEI

goes through the same sort of challenges that I did. I should say at this point, we did approach MITEI for a statement, but a response that came back just said, we don't comment on individual legal cases, so won't be commenting on this. But you have this ruling now, and I suppose before we come to what that process was like and going through the tribunal and doing it on your own what led up to it um can you take us back to that point what was the the change of the way you were

treated yeah it I mean it seems like a lifetime ago now because this actually started in 2020. I became pregnant with what I describe as my miracle second child after 12 years of not being able to add to the family. And up until that point, everything was going great. My career path was, you know, exactly where I wanted it to be. I'd worked really, really hard to get to the position that I was in and I've you know devoted a lot of time and attention to to sort of working my way up the ladder unfortunately attitude sort of shifted once I'd made that pregnancy announcement we were in the middle of the pandemic there was obviously a lot of other factors sort of happening in the outside world. But it was just everything just felt like it was going in the wrong direction from that announcement.

There was pay discrepancies. There was reluctance to address any of my concerns. Or if there were being addressed, I wasn't seeing the output of that. And things just seemed to escalate. And it got to a point where my workload became so huge. I didn't know how to deal some support so that I could focus on a handover process going into maternity leave. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to change. And I had panic attacks sort of quite late on into my pregnancy, which did affect my own well-being and

the health and well-being of my baby and my baby did actually stop growing for a period of time um it coincided with the the two weeks that I was suffering quite severely with panic attacks um so a decision was made by my consultant you, that I should sort of cease working and go on maternity leave early. Throughout my maternity leave, I felt ignored. I didn't feel like there was any support there. My keeping in touch days were sort of neither use nor ornament to both me and the business. And the return to work was, it made me feel like a huge inconvenience. Just before we get to that point when we talk about and I mentioned some words and it's

interesting already we've got some of our listeners getting in touch but I use the words hormonal, emotional, how are those words used by those around you when you were pregnant before we come to returning to work? Yeah, it's a shame that that is the way that the situation was viewed. You know, yes, I was pregnant, there's no denying that, but the hormones or the emotional feelings that I was going through at the time was not because I was a pregnant woman it's because I was an exhausted employee I was working longer hours than I'd ever worked before I was working on a project that I'd had little experience in doing prior to to picking this project up and my work environment had changed and it wasn't the pregnancy that had changed it it was the environment itself so to be labeled as hormonal and it must be because she's pregnant is is hurtful and and

that was a manager who said that it was yes yeah and at the time were you able to say anything back you know that would be a very difficult situation in any case. But, you know, when you are also pregnant and you're going through trying to cope with a job that's changing around you and you're doing a lot more work, it's possibly even harder and, you know, very confusing perhaps how to respond. Yeah, to some degree I'd lost my voice.

You know, prior to this I would have said that I was a confident individual. You know, I rooted for the underdogs. You know, I'd speak up if I thought something, you know, wasn't quite right. I was sort of known, you know, to be that kind of person. But unfortunately, my confidence had been chipped away at over a period of time. And I completely lost the confidence to speak out about how it made me feel and when I actually did the result was I was labeled as hormonal um because of my pregnancy it's uh it's very evocative for a lot of people that, you know, the idea of that being used against you in that way.

And you started to say that because I know you also encouraged, if I could use that word, and it's probably the wrong word, to change role as well. And this was also going on. Yeah. So shortly after announcing my pregnancy, I mean, I'd served 10 years in the operational side of the business. And shortly after announcing my pregnancy, I was heavily encouraged and somewhat pursued to undertake a more administrative role. And there were comments used that it would suit me better now my circumstances have changed. So there was some stereotypical sort of comments being made by my line managers and those that were there to, you know, sort of allegedly support me within my career path. Again, a situation many of those listening may be able to identify with.

You started to talk about coming back to work and keeping in touch days and how that felt. Take us to that place and what then led to an employment tribunal. How did you realise or what was it that made you think I need to do something? Yeah, so it's not obvious at the time. You know, sometimes you look back and with hindsight, you think, do you know what? That wasn't OK. But at the time, you don't realise, you don't recognise. So it was a long sequence of events, you know, stemming back from my pregnancy announcement. When I was on maternity leave, there was very little to no contact with my ex-employer, with my line manager.

I felt completely ignored. I was nervous to return to work. I was nervous as to whether I still had a position in the company because they certainly didn't give me that confidence whilst I was on maternity leave. And once I had returned to work, the way that my return to work was handled made me feel like nothing had changed or no lessons had been learned from how I ended up departing onto maternity leave early. So I needed to take some extra time. So I did end up taking some sick leave and it was during that period of sick leave that there were further issues that I encountered with my pay and contractual terms and conditions that had somehow been changed along the way. And I just felt that I couldn't no longer work for a company that was continuously making me feel like I was an inconvenience.

It felt like they wasn't supporting me. It felt like they was trying their hardest to change everything around me, to make me feel uncomfortable. Eventually, I constructively resigned, and that's how the beginning of the employment tribunal process started and i mean all the while we should say you know you have an older child and you've got your very new baby while this is going on still um just just do you think that is relevant you know it's not relevant you're pregnant when you're trying to do a harder job but it is relevant to

the you know the situation you were in at this time and you represented yourself I did yes um it was a tough decision it really really was um there are obviously um solicitors out there that can support you but I actually came across um pregnant and screwed um and I read some of the stories from the ladies that had had support through pregnant then screwed before um i found myself a mentor through pregnant then screwed and i was given some confidence uh back from a group of women that had been in a similar situation to me um and i thought you know what let's get that old nicola back the one that's got the voice the one that sticks up for Nicola back the one that's got the voice

the one that sticks up for the underdogs the one that says no when things are not right um and I thought you know what I'm going to do this myself because I need to do it for me uh I want to be the one that looks them in the eyes um across the courtroom to say you, this isn't right. What you've done is wrong. And I want you to change. I want you to take this and learn from it. You mentioned Pregnant and Screwed there. It's the campaign group. We've had them on the programme several times, set up by Jolie Brearley. But for those who aren't sure what that is, what a thing to do. How did it feel doing it? It wasn't an easy task, by all means. As much as I want to encourage every woman out there going through a similar situation to give them, you know, the confidence, the hope, the empowerment to, you know, to take on their ex-employer if they've got you know the the confidence to do that but it's not an easy task it's it's it has its ups and downs it's a very long process and there were times where I felt

like giving up um it felt impossible it felt like um the whole system was was against me but I persevered I rid the storm and I got the result that I was hoping for what did that feel like when you heard the result um it was bittersweet there was a lot of sadness in that it was there was no you know sort of moments of you know fist punching in the air you know there was no sort of jumping up and down in celebration it was I felt sad that I'd had to go through this process and it had taken such a long time um just to get acknowledgement that what I'd um suffered was was what I'd suffered it was it was to get that endorsement really that you know this what I experienced wasn't okay um and I'm still

processing it I'm still processing what I've achieved um but I really want to use that achievement and and turn it into something positive now. Have you been okay in yourself have you have you also been able to to if you don't mind me asking make ends meet you know these are difficult times to to not have your usual work support structure pay packet yes you may be you are entitled for some form of compensation now but it doesn't uh reflect perhaps what's what's the process that you've been through yeah there's been some difficult times um from a mental health point of view you know I've probably hit the depths of of mental health um and with a lot of support I've you know I've got myself back out of that pit of despair

um well done in terms of financial you know yes it's been a struggle but I've got a lot of family and friends that have supported me up until this point and you know sort of without them um I may never have made it this far so massive thank you and appreciation to to that circle of family and friends is there anything you want to add or say at this point because you know there'll be those listening thinking we've got the laws we've got the protections in place and yet these things happen we know that they happen we know if we broadly call it maternity discrimination, and we know that it's not enough to say it sometimes. You have to go and take action. Is there anything you wanted to add at this point?

Yeah, I mean, I'd absolutely love all employers to sit back and question themselves. You know, do we have the right policies? Do we have the right people leading our people? Because unfortunately, sometimes these companies do on paper have the best policies in black and white but if they're not being put into practice then you know that they're always going to fail and I really want employers to take this seriously you know they are it's we're not just employees with numbers through payroll you know we give our life um to to our careers uh we sacrifice a lot to provide a service to them and their clients and all we ask for in in return is a bit of respect a bit of sympathy and a bit of empathy um but also for them to stick to the the letter the law. Well, Nicola, I can hear you still processing it,

but I have to tell you, to a lot of women in particular, you'll be definitely a form of hero, that you not only did this, realised it was happening, did it, and represented yourself, you know, yes, with a mentor. But thank you very much for coming to talk to us today. Thank you so much for having me. Nicola Hines there. Messages coming in.

I took my employer, a large NHS trust, to tribunal after I revealed a colleague's harmful practice and they sacked me. Another one here. I was told not to, from Lisa, even think of applying for a role as I was pregnant and wouldn't be considered. Marked down in lesson observations

which were audited before I was told my grade and then dismissed as being emotional due to my pregnancy. Claire also messages in to say who hasn't been called emotional as a put down or form of gender disagreement. Bullies also portray their target as emotional after reducing them to tears. Carrying on with the theme of when you've stepped up or not but perhaps there's a reason listening to nicola is making me relive relive my own trauma when at the hands of a news editor and his cronies it made me seriously ill it continued after my child was born until i left seven years later now anyone who threatens me is faced with my fury and reaction it's very hard when you're in something isn't it

as nicola was saying to sometimes realize what what's actually going on and what's not okay michelle says and you know your livelihood depends on it michelle says two subjects collide on your show this morning as a retired social worker we'll be coming to that shortly uh i can tell you that the very nature of our role is to step outside of our comfort zone to push and push barriers and redress injustice and equality in all its forms social work in its simplistic form is a desire to fight for the underdog after 30 years i can confirm it's exhausting but worth it and i interfered with my daughter's school uniform policy when she was around eight she wanted to wear trousers this public school she attended didn't allow for this, having encouraged her to bring it up at school and council to no effect.

I ended up challenging the headteacher. I'm not usually very assertive, but I said she would be going in on Monday wearing trousers since it was clear the uniform policy needed updating in line with the school's values. No name or further update on that. Did you get into trouble? Did it change for everyone? Interesting to know. Thank you for those messages. Keep them coming in. Can you envisage yourself, though, starting a new career in your 80s? You may have seen photos in the papers of Dame Prue Leith, the chef, author and TV personality, taking part in her first ever catwalk show at the age of 84. She's wearing clothes designed by the brand Vin and Omi, who've collaborated with the king

using his food produce and parts of his garden to make their sustainable clothes, and the brand was celebrating its 20th anniversary. It's safe to say Prue looks like she's having a wonderful time. I did catch up with Dame Prue earlier and I asked her about how she felt about making her catwalk debut well i was i was really quite scared because um we didn't get any rehearsal or anything oh that's not quite true we had a walk through it um just before but i didn't have any um a chance to say no it was either you know take a chance and do it or and take a risk and I was quite scared that I would actually fall over because you have to walk really fast and I think I'll trip because I you know I'm quite clumsy anyway I mean all my life I've been clumsy and also instead of being I had thought a catwalk

would just be sort of 25 paces forwards and then turn around and 25 paces back on a catwalk. But this was in a hotel at the other house, which is a, we walked through all the rooms in the hotel on two floors. So we went through the dining rooms and the sitting room and they were all lined with the press and the guests and everything else and photographers everywhere. And sort of zipping around, we went through the kitchens, through the dining room, up the stairs. You weren't tempted to stop in the kitchen and make a spot of food? That didn't occur to me. I was concentrating so hard on not. And also, you know, I can't do that model walk. But I reckon I'm not there really

as a model. I'm there just because I'm a friend of Vin and Omi and they asked me to do it. And it was huge fun. I mean, I like to do something I've never ever done before. So it was fun. Well, amen to that. And the vision to describe here, I mean, how do we describe what you were wearing? You weren't doing it in high heels. Let's start with that. You were in flats. I was wearing my own trainers. I was wearing white trainers with multicoloured laces because Omi just said, turn up in whatever shoes are comfortable. So I said, well, that's certainly trainers. And I didn't know what the dress was going to be like. So I thought, well, that's certainly trainers. And I didn't know what the dress was going to be like. So I thought, well, if I put every color of laces in the shoes, it'll be all right.

And so that was the shoes. And the dress and jacket were made out of willow bark from the Sandringham estate because the king has been working with Vin and Omi for four years now on sustainable alternatives to fashion. And so all of the, you know, there's going to be an exhibition at Sandringham, I think in the Ball somewhere at Sandringham, where they're going to put all Vinenomi's amazing collection, 30 or 20 different dresses, all made out of things like, you know, wood chip mulch. And my dress was made out of willow bark, you know, nettles.

Well, just to say, in case people are imagining you, and I'm sure they'd never imagine you in only brown, but they hear the word bark and they may think that. The Times described it as cake icing pink shawl coat, a cake icing pink shawl coat and a white and pink T-shirt dress sporting your signature colourful specs and some white trainers, actually say some knackered white platform trainers. There you go.

They don't mention the rainbow laces. I think they look excellent there. And a fabulous necklace as well. Yes, the necklace was mine and the earrings and the shoes. But the dress and jacket were all made by Omi. And, I mean, it's amazing, this fabric, because it feels like linen. It's quite heavy and it hangs well. And it feels both soft and heavy.

I mean, it's extraordinary. And pink, we should say, dyed with beetroot. Oh, yeah, probably. I like to get the ingredients, especially when talking to you, Prue Leith. It is something that you, though, care deeply about, I know, sustainability. You've campaigned around it, certainly around people eating leftovers and trying to think a bit more about that. And that's gone through to your fashion side of life as well. Absolutely. Yes. I'm not as purist, I have to say,

as Vin and Omi are. I mean, my husband buys a lot of my clothes and he does occasionally sink into internet, never mind where it comes from. It doesn't cost much money and it looks amazing. So I'm not totally good, but I'm trying a bit harder now. And do you want to model again, Prue? Not at that rate. I mean, it was so fast. There were 30 of us or 29 models and me.

No, 28. And Jo Wood was there too. She was lovely. She's an old friend of theirs as well. So 28 models, and they walked tremendously fast. And I came up right at the end. And I was supposed to have the same distance between the last person and me. But I can't walk that fast.

And at one point, I had to go up the stairs. And so they said, oh, go in the lift because, you know, it'll be easier for you. So I went in the lift and that took ages. So I was really late. And when I got out of the lift, Omi was there and he just grabbed my hand and pulled me along the corridor. And he ran so fast. I was sort of staggering up. Skiing behind in the air.

I was skiing behind in the air, being towed by Omi. Your billowing bark dress. And also, I mean, just looking through who's been modelling lately, who perhaps hasn't before, last October Dame Maggie Smith was chosen. Yes, I know, looking fantastic. So there's a sort of a flurry of dames and Dame Mary Berry enlisted by Burberry as ambassadors alongside Dame Joanna Lumley. It's lovely, I suppose, to try something new, as you say, but also to see older women. Well, I think what's happened is that the manufacturers have realised that there are more older women and there are young women.

And, you know, that's one of the problems with our demographics at the moment. There are lots and lots of older women. So it's a market that they shouldn't ignore. Just finally, we're talking on the program through today and getting some of our listeners views on this about when you step up or when you decide not to, those moments in life. And I know you've called yourself an interfering woman. And one of the other causes very close to your heart is the right to end-of-life choice.

I know you're a patron of dignity in dying. You have this open letter to party leaders calling for a debate in Parliament on assisted dying when the next government's in dying. You have this open letter to party leaders calling for a debate in Parliament on assisted dying when the next government's in place. Currently has more than 235,000 signatures. What exactly are you asking for? Do you think it will be the Conservatives in power to do it? No, I don't think it will be the Conservatives in power. I think it will be Labour. And I think they will do it. I think Keir Starmer has said all the right things. And actually, I think all the politicians are beginning to realise that they should be listening to what the people think. Something like 80% of the population

would like to have the choice. It doesn't mean that they want to have an assisted death. It just means they want the security of knowing that they can have it if they get into the stage when they're having a perfectly horrible life to no purpose because they're dying anyway. But why have the last three weeks of your life in misery when you could just step out? Yes, it's quite specific, the part of it that you're talking about. People can familiarise themselves with it.

And I know for some, it will not be at all what they want to go towards. And some have argued for improved access to care and pain relief is the answer, rather than perhaps what you're discussing. But interesting to hear you think it will be taken on. Interesting to hear you think it will be a Labour government. We still don't know when the election will be. But as a self-described interfering woman, who also does happen to have a Conservative MP quite close in the family, maybe you have had some discussions about whether he'll still have a job or not.

Your son, Danny Kruger, I don't know. Well, we have had some discussions about that. Of course, he has no idea whether he'll... But he will fight the election very hard. And he is opposed to the sister dying. We made a film together where we put both sides of the argument. And I think that the main thing is to get people to discuss it and to think about their death. Because I've had the most wonderful life,

and I just don't want the end of it to be awful. And I think a lot of people just don't want to think about death. But if they do, they will probably be writing to the MP and saying, look, can we vote for the right side in this cause? And in the meantime, you're hitting the catwalk and you're taking on new jobs as a model. Thank you very much for coming to talk to us today, Prue. All the best with the new career.

I'm not going to do it again. We'll see. We'll see. We will see. Dame Prue Leith seeing new things at the age of 84 and continuing,

but also what she's interfering over. More messages coming in. And in answer to my question about the school uniform interference by one of you who got in touch, you say, because I said, did it work to get trousers for your daughter? Whether I was on the,

I didn't get into trouble, but my daughter told me other girls were told in assembly they couldn't wear trousers unless there was a specific reason. Oh, please. She's now moved to a much more diverse state school and is much happier.

Thank you. I do like the end of of stories if I can but last week you may recall on Women's Hour hearing about some of the guides who are helping young people in danger of falling through the cracks. Many of those doing this valuable work are women. Social work of all kinds in fact skews female with women making up 82% of the workforce and some of them are fed up with their profession being painted as baddies on screen. They say little of the positive side of what social workers do is presented on TV and film. Instead, they say you're more likely to see a social worker dragging children away from their family

or even acting outside of the law. The regulator Social Work England has launched a campaign called Change the Script and our reporter Melanie Abbott has been finding out more. Melanie, tell us, when you think of a good depiction of a social worker in modern media, does anything come to mind? Well, this is the problem, isn't it? What the social workers are saying is that when you think of them, it's the bad ones that come to mind. And they give examples.

Think, unfortunately, ofbc's own east enders the slater family there has had run-ins with social workers over the years there's this clip it's from when the children in the family were still small social workers arrive at the house to talk about stacy's son arthur after there have been reports of bruising on his arms. Who's there? Hello, I'm Fiona Payne. I'm from Social Services. Could we come in, please? Why? Well, we've received a call about the welfare of your son, Arthur Fowler. What's been said?

Look, I don't want you to be alarmed, Stacey, but we just need to follow up on a report that we've had. We just want the best for Arthur. But we've heard that he might have been hit or hurt in some way and we just need to look him over. No-one's taking him. Tell her, Mike. Of course they're not. Is there anyone else in the family that could have the children just for one night?

Children? Hang on a minute. What has Lily got to do with this? They're my babies. Both the children do get taken away to stay with someone else for the night. And it's an episode which prompted the British Association of Social Workers to write an open letter to the BBC. They described the social worker in the programme as a cardboard cutout with no empathy or responsiveness. And they said that a child wouldn't be taken away like that without being properly medically assessed. And that placing children with an unvetted family member, like happened in that episode, just would never happen. Now, the police were also there at the house too in attendance,

which the association said was unlikely and amounted to what they felt was coercive pressure on the parents. Now, the association did offer to work together with the BBC earlier on in the stages of script development for EastEnders. But a few years later, again on EastEnders, the now 12-year-old Lily Slater finds herself pregnant and her mum, Stacey, gets an ultimatum from a social worker. Reveal who the father is or Lily goes into care. I'm sorry, but due to the seriousness of the investigation,

we have to consider that there's an element of uncertainty about Lily's safety in the house. No, there isn't. She's perfectly safe here. Look, the father doesn't live in this house, OK? That's all I'm saying. I'm afraid that's not enough. We are talking about the sexual abuse of a child. She's told you she hasn't been abused.

Yeah, but what if she is lion's taste? We have to investigate, consider all possibilities. What does that mean? It means it might not be safe for Lily to stay here. Not safe. And if that's the case, I'm afraid you left us with no choice but to take her into police protection. So that was the cliffhanger on which the programme ended. Now, social workers say that there would be ways to work more gently with the family, to get Lily to tell them who the father is without threatening to take her away. It's not just the BBC, though, is it? It's not. I mean, social workers are talking about all kinds of TV dramas and film too. Coronation Streets had a similar storyline.

Last year, Gemma Winter was separated from her children. Silent Witness, BBC again, showed a social worker acting on her gut instinct over child safety. There's been Broadchurch as well. It's depressing for those like Keira Walsh who trained to be a social worker and was in care herself. I just think it is so wrong on so many different levels because social work is underpinned by law so there's no big decision like removing a child

or acting on gut instinct that a social worker could do because ultimately it's all underpinned by legislation. Big decisions like that social workers wouldn't make single-handedly which I think is really poorly represented as well because I suppose we do see in the media, don't we, that a social worker will make a decision and it's the social worker's decision and nobody else has come into that. Does it make you angry when you see storylines like that? I think more so now because there is automatically from the time you start the degree a really big stigma. I wake up every day and count myself so lucky to be where I am. However, I would never actively choose to tell somebody that I'm a social work student because they think that you're going into a career to

take children away or to act on that instinct or to think that you know everything. So you're embarrassed to talk about doing something that you love? Yeah, I think so. And it's not so much because of the job. It's because, like I said, I count myself so lucky to be in the position I'm in. It's because people will make, because of what they've seen in the media, they'll have a perception of you as a person. When you do tell people that you're training to be a social worker, what kind of reactions have you had? It's difficult. If people know that I've got lived experience, they're a lot more supportive, I think because they make the assumption that I understand or I want to support people. If people don't know that I've got lived experience, I get quite a few

things. I'm quite young, I'm 22. I get a lot of things like you're so inexperienced. You're really young. You've got no children. That's why you want to take other people's, which is hugely uncomfortable. Things like that, which obviously isn't why I'm wanting to go into the career. What did make you decide to go into social work? You talked about your lived experience. You presumably have seen the other side of the coin. I had social workers from when I was four onwards and I went into care when I was 16 but after I'd gone into care when I was about 17 to 19 I had a social worker who really just got it and it was I suppose not big decisions

she was making for me but really little decisions like I wanted to paint my whole flat because I hated the color magnolia and she painted the whole thing with me on a Sunday. Things like my uni interviews, I completely thought like there's absolutely no way I'm getting into uni. Why did you think you would be rejected? Going through care and out of care, you know that that already is a stigma.

And with the stigma comes things like missed gaps in education. I missed a lot of education I had to do a lot to make up qualifications like access courses foundation years additional years of a levels like I really really did it all but because of that I knew that it might not look great on a CV and I got interviews for them all but then I was really anxious about things like my written test and the director of children's service at the time who was a social worker obviously spent hours of his time that he didn't need to spend helping me with my written test reading over it for me being on the phone on the morning of my uni interviews even

though they were on a Saturday and then being on the phone again when I had really good news after the uni interview so I suppose it's that like they were there for the good things rather than just being there when things had gone really wrong so there was that better relationship right because they knew things like my favourite colour and what my favourite food was rather than just what date I went into care but I suppose had it not been for them I don't even think I would have got as far as applying. They really changed your life? Yeah I don't even think I would have applied because I think I would have applied because I think I would have just kept thinking like there's no way and I think when you've got no one giving you that little bit of hope it's really easy to just go okay there's no point then.

You'd like to see some stories like that then perhaps on screen? I think even to help people that are going through it at the time to know that actually your social worker doesn't just want to cause you harm. I think social workers can feel quite deflated, or social work students even can feel quite deflated because of a stigma. But I also think that people with lived experience of social work can feel absolutely terrified at the perception in the media. Hero Walsh there. What do the broadcasters have to say about this campaign?

Well, I reached out to the BBC and to ITV and invited someone from EastEnders onto the programme, but they declined. We did get a statement. It says, when researching our storylines, EastEnders consults with social workers who advise on the accuracy of our scripts to ensure social workers are portrayed sensitively and as true to life as possible. Now, they can't tell me when this practice began, but the BBC points out that some of the examples complained about aren't from within the last five years. For example, the silent witness scene, where a social worker refers to her gut instinct in a courtroom, that's from nine years ago. ITV, I'm afraid, hasn't got back to me yet.

Thank you to Melanie there, Melanie Abbott, our reporter. I can now speak to Sarah Blackmore from Social Work England and Emma Reeves from the Writers Guild, who worked on the story of Tracy Beaker, a girl who grew up in a care home and featured the social worker, Elaine the Pain. Let me come to you, Sarah, about changing the script. How do you think we can do that? Well, good morning, Emma. Thank you so much for giving me the time this morning. It's great to be here. I just wanted to provide some context. So we recently celebrated Social Work Week, which is a week where social workers come together to celebrate their profession and reflect on the very many different

aspects of their work and as part of that social work england as the specialist regulator for the profession was really excited to launch this change the script campaign which calls on the entertainment industry to change the way that social workers are portrayed in the media and you've just been talking about you know some of the the examples from east enders coronation street there's also hollywood films like precious and others where social workers are frequently And you've just been talking about, you know, some of the examples from EastEnders, Coronation Street. There's also Hollywood films like Precious and others where social workers are frequently shown playing those roles, which can appear really intrusive and neglectful or, you know, are forcibly taking children away from their families. And all of that leads to perceived negative outcomes for the people that they're supporting. And it's often a really inaccurate way of showing what social workers do every day. And now, from research that we've done

through YouGov, many social workers believe that these storylines are actually contributing to mounting recruitment and retention challenges in the profession. It's interesting, we're getting some messages as we talk. And one here saying, you know, they felt tarred by the baddie stereotype, those who qualified. But actually, this person left frontline social work because a lack of staff meant caseloads were far too high, which didn't allow this person to do what they felt a proper or safe job. And another message here, I'm a social worker. I spent 18 years in care. I became a social worker to help others and act as an advocate. I've met many social workers, particularly those who work with children who do misuse their power and make judgments

about people's lifestyle. I suppose it's about getting that balance, Sarah, and you feel it's not in the right way at the moment. Absolutely. I mean, what's awful to think is that through the research we've done is that one in 10 social workers don't feel that their work is understood or valued by society. And 39% think that they will leave the profession in the next five years. And that rises to 48% when you look at social workers from ethnic minority backgrounds. And we're really concerned that these negative media stereotypes, which you'll be aware have such a significant influence in what people think are now contributing to recruitment and retention issues in the profession,

which is the last thing that's needed at the moment. You know, we need social workers, we need to encourage people to come into the profession, like Ciara, who you've just heard from. And we need to tell the stories of really positive experiences that people have with their social worker. She just set out. You can't sanitise, I suppose, at the same time that there will be, and we know of, difficult experiences. And I suppose just you talked about storytelling there. I'm sorry to cut across, but I do want to just make sure I bring in emma who's on the line emma good morning uh good morning uh telling stories then that's what you're in the business of and and bringing people together around stories what what do you make of this campaign well i think it's very important i mean i'm um you know i think

it's really concerning i was talking to a friend last night who's a psychiatric nurse, and she was saying that she sees the impact of that there just aren't enough social workers. There's a crisis in recruitment and retention. And I think if negative portrayals are affecting that, then I think it's important we do something about it. I think seeing aspirational positive figures can be really good, particularly for inspiring young people to go into a profession. So I think, yeah, let's try and improve this. I mean, just to say the numbers are actually going up at the moment, the numbers of those becoming social workers, they increased by, I'm told here, 2,800 from 2022 to 2023. But the point, I suppose, is how you feel about that work. And also maybe when you get into the work, how much work comes across your desk. But is there, I mean, you will know the pressure, Emma, of making sure that stories are interesting. People often want, you know, drama in that sense of the word. Is there a concern about, you know, if you're trying to inspire people, what then happens to drama?

Yes, I think there's always a tension between sort of trying to tell a good story and, you know, I think if you sort of create a character who's perfect and completely unflawed and nothing ever goes wrong, then that could be sort of seen as undramatic. I think with things like EastEnders, you know, I've spoken to some of my colleagues who work on soaps,

and I think because sometimes the social worker character is there to serve the story of the main character, there is a risk that they can come across two dimensional. And but but but but on the other hand, they do assure me that that that they do sort of research and they speak to social workers. When it's interesting, you mentioned Elaine the Pain, who is a character from the story of Tracy Beaker, originally based on a book by Dame Jacqueline Wilson from the 90s. And it's quite it's quite interesting because she is Elaine Boyack is known as the pain, but just as the children's home where Tracy lives is known as the dumping ground. And that's because the original books are told from the perspective of a 10 year old girl who's quite imaginative and certain some of her fantasies are at at odds with reality and i think um if you sort of and i

think it's it's it sounds um quite sort of complex for children to understand but i think i do think they get it that um that it's sort of what tracy thinks she wants is to be back together with her mum and therefore she resents Elaine, the social worker, and calls her the pain. But actually it turns out that Tracy's mum is not really capable of looking after her. And Elaine, if you talk to Nisha Nair who plays Elaine, she's very defensive of her. And I think she is not an evil character. She doesn't want to snatch children at all, but she makes some mistakes along the way. And she became quite a sort of beloved character. And there's a thing on TikTok with sort of young people saying, oh,

you realise that you've grown up when you realise thataine is not the baddie um and in a recent um in a recent sequel which we did the beaker girls we kind of had a a bit of a redemption story for elaine and um where sort of tracy was kind of called out for um calling her elaine the pain and we realized that elaine and tracy's daughter comes to realize that elaine actually is a good person who is driven by wanting the best for young people. Well, there you go, Emma, on that note. Just quickly back to you, Sarah, there's a message here from Penny who says, as well as bad portrayals, what about Maxine Peake's brilliant portrayal of the wonderful social worker who fought to bring the abusers of the girls in

Rochdale to justice? That's based on true life. So there's some good examples coming in too, Sarah. Well, I think what's important to reflect on is just the range and breadth and variety of social work that takes place every day across the country um i've been in this profession for a long time now 27 years in fact and i'm still blown away by the variety of roles that social workers play and the different areas they work in the majority of the workforce sorry as i as i said at the beginning, are women. So it's hugely important to discuss On Woman's Hour this morning. Thank you very much for coming on, Sarah Blackmore from Social Work England and for all the work that you do and your

colleagues and Emma Reeves there from the Writers Guild. I did say we would find out what we could about fem cells. You may know the term incel used to describe young men, let me tell you, active on social media platforms who see themselves as involuntarily celibate, feeling like they'll always be alone. Their online forums are associated with the angry messages of hate and misogyny, with some members of this community then choosing to take their violence off screen and into the real world.

Over the last few years, a new group has been emerging, FemCels, as mentioned, groups of women who also feel they are unable to date. For some, these forums offer reassurances they're not completely alone, but others can very quickly, for others though, it can become an echo chamber of misandry and disturbing posts. The journalist Ellie Flynn has been investigating this area in a new Channel 4 documentary called Radicalised Are Femme Cells the New In Cells? Have a listen to this. This is one of the darkest corners of the internet, a space where women calling themselves femme cells are posting extreme and sometimes violent content. There's jokes about killing all

the men, having a plague, getting rid of them all. Disgusting moids. What's moids? Like a derogatory term for men. I know that incel misogyny broke out of the internet forums and into the real world when Elliot Rodger shot and killed six people in 2014. Tomorrow is the day of retribution. Is there a genuine risk that fem cells might go the same way incels have? Journalist Ellie Flynn there, we may come to that specific case in America later in our discussion. But joining me now, Dr. Jilly Kaye, a specialist in feminist media and cultural studies at Loughborough University, who's been researching the fem cells scene for the last four years and consulted on that particular documentary.

Just to start us off, have I described fem cells accurately tell us a bit more well yeah thank you very much for having me um well fem cells um on the one hand you know it's the simple definition a fem cell is simply a woman who identifies as being involuntarily celibate but it is actually a very complicated and complex um identity um so yeah I've been researching umcells since 2020. And really, it was about 2018 that the kind of the femcell identity began to emerge on platforms such as Reddit. And the biggest one of those was called True Femcells. So that was a subreddit community. And it arose kind of in response to male incel culture, that was sort of policing the boundaries of who could be involuntarily celibate. So male incels had this idea that no woman could genuinely be an incel because of this pervasive idea that any woman can get sex or romance if she really wants to.

So they kind of emerged in defensive reaction against the incel community to carve out a space for themselves. What then tended to happen was that they were actually mirroring a lot of the culture and language and vocabulary of the incel culture. So whereas incel culture is obviously very highly misogynistic, femcell culture then sort of mirrored that by using very misandrist language. And I am very cautious about using the term misandry because it gets used in lots of bad faith ways. Anti-feminists use the term misandry to dismiss all feminists as sort of man-hating. But I think what you do see in some of these fem cell communities is a deep kind of hatred of men and this idea that men are the kind of oppressor class who will always and women are the oppressed class. And it's this very fatalistic idea that men are hardwired to act in some ways. Women are hardwired to act in other ways.

And there's nothing that we can do about it. So it's very much characterized by kind of deep fatalism, even nihilism and a kind of lack of hope that anything could ever get better. And are you or are people looking at this, taking it seriously in the same way that there might be concerns about offline violence in the same way that we've seen with some concerns around incel and then some real cases yeah so obviously with with um male incel groups that has spilled over into real world interpersonal violence and atrocities um there is this kind of ongoing question about whether femcel communities have that kind of similar potential to spill out into real world physical um violence um my own sense that, and this comes through in the documentary, is that obviously you wouldn't want to write off that possibility, but it seems deeply unlikely, given that incel violence is a kind of an extreme form of violence against women,

and obviously male violence against women is a large structural problem that we have. You just don't have the same kind of context or social conditions of, you know, of women's violence against men. So it seems very, it seems very unlikely. And what you tend to get much more in fem cell communities is this kind of, rather than this kind of anger, which is projected outwards onto the world, you know, in cells, male in cells project their anger out onto the world against feminism, against women. Fem cells tend to internalise that anger, internalise. And that's the kind of the key difference, I would say, between the two communities. Which, you know, women will be able to perhaps have a knowing nod about in the sense of blaming oneself and

even in this sort of setup. That's interesting. So men blame women for being, if they are straight, as a lot of them present in this in cell world, for being the reason they can't get a woman and women in the fem cell world blame themselves. That tends to be the case, yeah. And that obviously replicates kind of the broader kind of gender power politics where, you know, where women's anger tends to be suppressed, tends to be turned inward. So you definitely get that playing out in these communities too. And do you identify as a femme cell? You know, where are these groups going on? Because there may be some people listening to this who, you know, perhaps have very good cause to be scared of men, very good cause to be wary of those relationships and then do get into a place where they can't trust men or feel OK about men.

I'm not talking about general men hating. I'm talking about survivors of abuse or of violence of some kind. But what makes you have that sort of worldview versus what makes you a fem cell, I suppose? I'm trying to kind of understand where that boundary is and where you hang out if you are one. Yeah, so this is, again, a kind of complex question. And fem cell communities, like in-cell communities, are very diverse. There are lots of different kinds of fem cell communities like in cell communities are very diverse there are lots of different kinds of different kinds of fem cell communities so much are much more kind of extremist nihilistic some are more places where women get together to share their experiences of loneliness of hurt of pain of bad of bad experiences with men um so you know so um reddit was a big place where um fem cell communities gathered.

There was a wave of bans on Reddit. So a lot of these groups were banned in 2021 for hate speech. They've now kind of dissipated and gone into kind of different corners of the Internet, some on Discord servers, some on other kind of more niche platforms so the um but then you also get a more kind of playful ironic um sort of um iteration of fem cells on tiktok and this is a more of a kind of yeah sort of social media aesthetic which is more about a kind of general disappointment with heterosexuality a disappointment in men you know and it's much more of an aesthetic kind of vibe around you know associated with things like listening to l Del Rey or reading Sylvia Plath novels and that kind of thing. So there are all of these different iterations of FemCell. So it's really it's really difficult to kind of pin down one particular.

I mean, Lana Del Rey seems to have become a soundtrack for some on this with only Lana Del Rey tracks on so-called FemCell, Spotify, Playlist or wherever you stream your music. A Reddit spokesperson said Reddit site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability, including incel related content. We continue to monitor our platform for this content and take action as appropriate. I should say we also approach TikTok and Discord for comment as to where else fem cells may be, but haven't heard back. Thank you very much to Dr. Jilly Kay there for pushing us in the picture of a growing trend that she's been looking at that perhaps hasn't had the lens, but interesting to hear more. Thank you so much for your messages about being interfering women. Long may that continue.

Keep it here with us on Women's Hour tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. bit so we can say what we like. In Young Again, we're joined by some of the world's most intriguing people. Bill was the CEO at Microsoft at the time. And I ask a simple question. If you knew then what you know now, what would you tell yourself? Be very, very careful about the people you surround yourself with. I gave too much power to people who didn't deserve it. Subscribe to Young Again on BBC Sounds. I'm looking forward to your company.

I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.