Woman's Hour - Pretty Privilege, Baby Deaths Report, Thea Gilmore, Victory for rubbish stink woman

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

Are you familiar with the phrase ‘pretty privilege’? A new trend on Tik Tok is seeing young women sharing stories about when they first realised good looks can get you far in life. From relationships, to work, and even within the legal system – the association between beauty and talent, social success and health is a real thing. Anita Rani talks about the issue with model Marike Wessels, and Caterina Gentili from the Centre for Appearance Research.A new report investigating the serious harm or death of babies is calling for midwives, health visitors and social workers to provide more support to fathers. The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has looked at the lives of 23 babies who were known or suspected to have been seriously harmed or killed by their father, step-father or male carer, with the aim to understand what led the perpetrators to do it, and what could be done to prevent similar incidents. Panel member Mark Gurrey and working NHS midwife in Scotland, Leah Hazard discuss the issues.Rebecca Currie has won a High Court battle to limit the stench coming from a landfill site near her home which she says was damaging her son’s health. We hear about her campaign and her reaction to the victoryAnd there’ll be music from Thea Gilmore who talks about her new album AfterlightPresenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineer: Duncan Hannant

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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Morning all. Pretty woman, walking down the street Pretty woman, can I lie to me Pretty woman So here's a question for you. Do you feel pretty? Pretty woman. Can I lie to me? Pretty woman. So here's a question for you.

Do you feel pretty? Do you ever look in the mirror and just fancy yourself? The reason I'm asking is we would like to talk about pretty privilege today. Do you know that you are going to get exactly what you want just because of the way you look? Do you recognise your pretty privilege? Or maybe it's the other way around and you've never felt pretty and see that others get an advantage simply based on how they look and who sets the bar for what's seen as beautiful in the first place we would love to hear from you this morning and can you see it happening in your daughters doors opening simply

because of their gorgeousness your thoughts please You can text us on 84844. You can also email via our website or contact us via social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Also this morning, I'll be talking to the Erin Brockovich of the North. Becky Curry won her case against a landfill site near her home in Staffordshire as the noxious gases were so detrimental

to her son's health. It's a real David and Goliath story. And we also have music today from Afterlight, the artist formerly known as Thea Gilmore. She'll be telling us about finding a new voice after leaving a relationship. Now, whatever we discuss on the programme this morning, of course, we would like to hear from you. 84844 is the number to text. First, a major new report by a police watchdog has concluded that tackling violence against women and girls should be as much of a priority as counter-terrorism. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services said that the police have made vast improvements over a decade in dealing with this epidemic of violence. But there were still huge variations between police forces. An example of this is a police power which allows officers to tell women that

a partner has a history of violence known as Claire's Law, which the report found was used so differently by individual forces, it amounted to a postcode lottery. The report commissioned by Home Secretary Priti Patel after the murder of Sarah Everard earlier this year also found that three quarters of domestic abuse cases are closed early without the suspect being charged. So your thoughts, 84844. Earlier on the Today programme, they heard from an anonymous woman who suffered abuse from her ex-partner. Here's a clip. There was a threat to burn the house down. There was a threat that he himself would commit suicide.

And then there was a physical assault where he assaulted me. And the police did take it upon themselves to arrest him, but he was released without charge. The police officer who called me back to tell me he'd been released said to me it was a he said, she said, and there was no substantial evidence, even though they'd had enough evidence to arrest him in the first place. Of course, then I very much suffered the rough of his behaviour when he came home afterwards. To take the courage to report it to the police takes a huge amount of courage.

I've been in this relationship for years. And so the point when somebody is released without charge really signifies to the victim that it's not worth ringing the police because they won't do anything. And here's Zoe Billingham, author of the report, out today. This is what she had to say earlier this morning. One woman is killed by a man every three days and there are 1.6 million female victims of domestic abuse a year. And half the women that we surveyed, Nick, feel unsafe in public spaces. So there is a real sense, I think, in the wake of this epidemic of violence, a sense that enough is enough. And first of all, we think that there needs to be an uplift

in the prioritisation of violence against women and girls' offences. And we contrast this, Nick, with other high-harm areas of policing, like terrorism, like responding to county lines. Well, joining me now to discuss this is Ruth Davidson, CEO of the charity Refuge, and Lisa Townsend, Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey. Morning to you both. Ruth, let me come to you first. What's your response to the report? Morning, Anita, and thanks for having me on the programme. I think as Refuge we really welcome this report. It calls for very strong radical action to say that the priority given to tackling

violence against women and girls needs to be taken as seriously as terrorism, sends a very strong message about the scale of the need and the urgency with which we have to address this. So we welcome the report and we very much call for action to implement it. We're pleased Priti Patel as the Home Secretary has commissioned it. Now we want to see these words turn into real action. Lisa, why is the epidemic

of violence against women not treated in the same way as other national priorities, as was mentioned, counter-terrorism and county lines and drug gangs, which the report says benefit from a clearer focus,

better funding and relentless pursuit of offenders. Why not the same with violence towards women? That's exactly the question, Nita. And I think that's what as police and crime commissioners and as women and as campaigners, we're all trying to see happen. Now, we've seen as the report highlights and Zoe Billingham has said said there's been an enormous um enormous amount of work has been done particularly over the last decade and we are getting there but it's absolutely terrifying as Zoe said 1.6 million women um a year I mean that's we've got a population in Surrey of 1.2 million that is more people than live in Surrey are experiencing domestic violence every year it's absolutely terrifying and I hope that these numbers, which are incredibly stark and very, very worrying, are a really stark reminder to everybody in the police and beyond of how

important it is to tackle this issue. The report calls for a fundamental cross-system change. What kind of funding, what kind of money will that take to get that change in your view? Well, I think it's a combination of two things. First of all, it's absolutely funding. And I would absolutely, you know, lead calls for more funding too. But it's also about culture change. And our police have come an enormous way. There is still clearly an awful lot of work

to be done within the police. I have to say, I'm particularly proud of Surrey Force, who really have made some really great strides on this area in the last few years. But there is clearly an awful lot of culture that needs to be changed um and it was it's very worrying listening to your caller earlier talking about um the sort of he said she said we've got to get rid of that that's just got to go um but also working with partners is vital i mean within surrey i work very closely my office works very closely with our local uh refuge service, with women's aid, with organisations like Your Sanctuary.

The county council are absolutely vital in this. So it's not just money. It is also about us all having the will and coming together to really, really tackle this right at the root. And why has it taken so long to get to this point? Why has it taken a report to come out that says, you know, it's an epidemic? We know that this has been happening for years and years and years the women the victims of domestic violence have known this you know the figures better than anybody why does it take a report and another murder for in 2021 for us finally to be having this conversation i think within forces i think what you'd find and certainly amongst police and crime commissioners and certainly in surrey this conversation has been ongoing for a really long time, actually.

I've certainly been having the conversation with my force since I took office in May, so I haven't been in for very long. But already I've had a number of conversations. I've visited women's refuges. I talk to women all the time about this. So I think that this national report is really important, but what it actually does is put a spotlight on conversations that we're all having locally i think that issue around the postcode lottery there was a really important one and what i hope it will do is it will force others to have this conversation and to have the conversation nationally not just in our little pockets locally as well because it is it is clearly a national issue and it's not just a surrey issue or a force issue either because where women come into refuges they won't necessarily in fact they're not likely to be coming into refuges in Surrey from Surrey.

So we will take women from from Kent or from Essex or from Sussex or Hampshire. So it really does have to be a nationwide conversation that we're having. Ruth, how much of this is about money and how much of this is a deep rooted societal problem? Yeah, it's both. I think I agree with what Lisa's saying, but for refuge, the time for conversation has to draw to an end and it has to move into a time for action. Conviction rates are falling. We're seeing two women a week killed by their former or current partner. It's not just one more death. Sarah Everard's tragic murder made huge headlines, but there are women dying

every single week. So yes, there's more money needed, but we do also need this cross-systems approach. The police alone can't tackle this. It has to be the CPS, the police, the judiciary, government across all departments of government working with us as frontline organisations to make change now. And that does also link to culture change in society. We're right that the root cause of this

is misogyny and patriarchy. It has to be unacceptable for violence against women and girls to be treated differently to other crimes. And yet it remains acceptable today. And what are the current state of affairs for women and girls in the UK when it comes to prosecution rates? Yeah, terrible. And as I've said, I think rates are declining. So although the report says big progress has been made, it's clearly not enough. We saw that between April and March last year, so April 2014, sorry, and March 2020, the number of domestic abuse cases that were referred to the CPS by police fell by 37%. And we're seeing similar declines in prosecutions. Only 9% of cases referred in the year ending 2020

related to domestic abuse actually led to the police charging people. So how do women have any confidence to come forward? We heard your very brave survivor, unfortunately, happened to be interviewed anonymously, and I don't blame her. How can she have any confidence when it's not safe to report, it doesn't result in a conviction? And as we heard in relation to Claire's law, that can be more dangerous for women. Impartial, incomplete information can give them false reassurance that they're safe in a relationship when a man is a perpetrator, but that's never come to a prosecution. Yeah, Lisa, because we're continually seeing cases closed

before the subject is charged, aren't we? Yeah, it's a real problem. The other problem the police are facing, and as Ruth highlighted, is how long it's taking to get to a prosecution. This is incredibly frustrating, I should say, I think for all partners involved and very much so for the police. Not helped, as we all appreciate, by the COVID backlog in the courts. And what unfortunately we're seeing is it's taking so long

for convictions to come that women are just giving up and dropping out. And that's a real shame. So we're losing witnesses as well, which is a terrible, terrible thing. So it comes back to, as I said, working together and making sure that we can get the CPS working together with the courts, with all of our partners, because we have to do more for these women

than we're doing right now. So what would it look like then? How would it be tackled with all the agencies working together in the same way that, you know, how would it be given the same level of priority as has been suggested as terrorism? What would that look like?

What would change? What fundamental changes need to happen? Yeah, well, from a, you know, from a personal point of view in Surrey and police and crime commissioners all over the country, I'm certainly making violence against women and girls and ending that and preventing it a really key component of my police and crime plan, which will be used to

hold the the police in surrey to account and that and that will be because that's what the surrey public are asking me to do and i'd like to see that happen all over the country i'd like to see all agencies making preventing violence against women and girls a real priority whether that's at a county council level whether it's in the cps because i think it's only when we treat it as ruth has said and as o billington has, as serious as any other form of terrorism and violence, that we'll really start to get some real action on this. And what would change look like in real terms for women, Ruth? I think it would mean that if something happened to you, you would have the confidence to go to the police and report it, knowing that you are likely to be taken seriously, believed in the first case, and see that go all the way through to justice so

that you and other women can be protected going forward. I think we would have really high confidence if you see a suspicious package, or if you're concerned about terrorism, you have confidence that that will be taken seriously. It's just not there at the moment for women. The society and the culture we operate in means that our concerns and the issues affecting us including very serious crimes are just minimized and pushed aside um we just had a text in um someone saying one of the reasons that violence against women does not have the priority it should is that all too many women who are the victims of violence fail to cooperate with the police in prosecuting the perpetrator. As a lawyer who used to deal with domestic violence cases,

it was incredibly depressing how often we would move heaven and earth to get legal aid and an injunction application only for the woman to abandon it all at the last minute and say that she'd forgiven the perpetrator. Eventually, this leads to a great deal of cynicism and severely affects the motivation of lawyers and police to assist other women in the same situation. What would you say to that?

Well, I'd say that that's a very unfortunate comment. To victim blame is deeply, deeply damaging. It takes incredible courage for a woman to leave an abusive relationship. It takes incredible courage to report a crime. We are in a culture where these crimes are minimised. You've just heard that response from someone who's texted you to this interview. We are seeing this is completely acceptable to say the woman has to do more.

As a woman, I have to make a risk assessment of whether it's safe or not to walk home after work. As a woman, I have to make a risk assessment every single day about my own safety. Why is that all on us as women? And when are we going to start saying how do we solve this problem upstream? This is looking today specifically at the police. And we know that police officers who are charged or accused of domestic abuse, sorry, are accused of domestic abuse are one third less likely to be charged than non-police. You know, the entire culture works against women having confidence to come forward. And that's what we have to tackle within the police and beyond working together. Lisa, isn't one of the issues, the biggest issues, is that women simply don't trust the police to protect them? I think there are a lot of issues. I think women are very

sceptical and very distrustful of agencies more widely. We know that it's certainly in Surrey, it takes over 30 experiences of domestic abuse before a woman will pick up the phone and call the police or call another agency to report it. So clearly there is a massive issue here. As the first female PCC in Surrey, it's certainly something that I've taken as an absolute priority, because I do think it's really important that not just as women, but all of us, we're really hard to make sure that women feel confident and safe. And, you know, as a woman, I absolutely recognise everything that Ruth said about having to do that risk assessment every time you walk home, every time you park your car, you couldn't get as close to your home as you wanted to. We couldn't get as close to the train station as you wanted to. We all recognise that and we have to all the number to text. And Jane has messaged in to say, part of the issue is the passive focus of language.

Violence against girls and women doesn't focus on the problem, male violence. You can also email us via our website. Now, she's the UK's answer to Erin Brockovich. It is a real David and Goliath story. Becky Curry is a Staffordshire mum who, as of yesterday, has won a high court battle over the regulation of a landfill site accused of emitting noxious gases that risk

shortening her son's life. Lawyers representing her five-year-old son Matthew Richards say hydrogen sulphide gas from Wally's quarry in Staffordshire has worsened his underlying health issues. The Environment Agency must now take more action to control emissions. Well, Becky joins us now. Good morning, Becky. First of all, congratulations. How do you feel today? Still in a whirlwind, I think.

I don't really know. I just can't believe it's happened, really. Well, let's go back to the beginning and sort of understand when all of this started. When did you first notice something was wrong? Matthew's not been well from when he was first born really but we actually lived on the same site in the same estate as the landfill and he was having operations done and you know he had lots of tests done and then when he was three and a half we moved off the estate just on half a mile down the road and in January this year the gases were absolutely horrendous so you know we were taping doors up

plugs in sinkhole it was just horrendous what was it like what was it like in your house it was like a gas chamber there's no other word for it it you know I'd walk in Matthew's bedroom and it was just like a brick wall hitting you of the toxic gases and he was coughing and he was choking and it you know it's just been horrible and then in just how worried were you for Matthew's health well I didn't really at that, I didn't really know. You know, I was getting scared because it was like, why is he choking like this?

And it was every time the gases were in the home. So I had an appointment with one of his consultants at the Royal Stoke Hospital. And I just asked him, I said, you know, is these gases why Matthew is so poorly and he basically said to me well yes um you know that this gas causes irritation of the upper airways nose eyes throat and every symptom Matthew had got and when a confirms that, what does that do to a mother, knowing that you've lived there before he was born,

you were pregnant with him, he's been poorly since he was born, he's been coughing, you said yourself walking into his room was like a gas chamber. When a doctor confirms that it is those gases, what does that do to you? I was just heartbroken, I really was heartbroken. I also kept thinking to myself, I've took my baby home and basically I've let him be poisoned.

When you take your children home, it should be their safe place. And you've lived on this same estate for a long time. Did you think at that point we should move? No. What, when I found out? Yeah. Or at any point Becky you know well when when you know when it was confirmed it was a landfill the thing is Matthew's got um a lot more complex needs as well and I do need the support with him so moving it wasn't really

I couldn't you know it wasn't really an option otherwise you, if I'd got moved away from my support bubble, I would suffer myself mentally. My mental health would really suffer. Yeah, it's your community. Yeah, and all my family are here. My mum's just up the road. My brother's on the same estate. If I need any of them to help me with Matthew, they're there.

And your family have been really supportive in all this in fact there's been a face group community group called Stop the Stink Cap It Off and where other people with similar complaints about what's happening with their homes and their children have been infected like Matthew just how important is that Facebook group been? It's been absolutely amazing it really has I mean I've had messages off people I don't even know I mean there's 11,000 people on that group you know and I've had hundreds and hundreds of messages people I don't know and I mean yesterday the messages I haven't even got through to them all yet I've not replied you know to quite a few of them they've all been supportive so becky when did

you get the courage and decide that you were going to take the environmental agency to court over this basically my brother approached me because i didn't know which way to go i knew i'd got to do something i knew this is my child and if i can't help him, nobody will. So my brother approached me with some information about solicitors and QCs. And it just went from there, really. And I just thought, you know, I know something's not right. And any parents would feel the same. So I had to fight. And I didn't give up the fight until he's won.

It's incredible. It's such a, it's an amazing story this i think just thinking about where that courage came from or maybe you just have no choice when your child is suffering you decide this is what we have to do you i didn't have a choice really and it was it's like i say if i can't help my own child you know nobody's going to help him. So I just carried on fighting and fighting for him. Well, what an amazing mother you are because you won, which is incredible. So what happens now? What's next for you and Matthew? Are you going to stay on the estate?

Yeah, hopefully we can stay here now because like I say, hopefully Matthew has managed to stop the stink and we're not going to be forced out of our own. And how is he? How's his health? He's going a little bit better, but not really. You know, he's still coughing. You know, we were running in the house the other day, screaming to him, he's like, mummy, mummy, my nose is burning.

Put water on my nose. You know, that's from the gases as nose you know that's from the gases as well um and that's from the gases as well yeah yeah um well it is it is an incredible story and i described you as the erin brockovich when i introduced you um do you feel like erin brockovich everybody i need to watch this film i need to to watch it because everybody is on about this name to me. Yeah, you do need to watch it. And maybe there will be a film made about you, Becky. Thank you so much for speaking to us this morning.

And congratulations once again. Now, a new report investigating the death or serious harm of 23 babies by men is calling for midwives, health visitors and social workers to provide more support to fathers. The Independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel assesses serious child safeguarding cases when a child dies or suffers serious harm and abuse or neglect is known or suspected. The aim of this latest review is to understand what led the male perpetrators in these 23 cases to harm their children and what can be done to prevent similar incidents. They found that although women should be the focus of maternity services, not enough attention is given to men, particularly those

that exhibit significant risk factors before a baby is born. But do maternity services have the capacity to do this? Is it their job? Here to discuss this with me is a panel member and trained social worker, Mark Gurry, as is Leah Hazard, author of Hard Pushed, a midwife story, and an NHS midwife working in Scotland. Mark, let's start with you. Tell us about what you've found in this report. Yeah, good morning, Anita. Thank you. So as you said, this is the report, the safeguarding panel. The panel meets very regularly to look at all incidents of abuse and harm to children across the country. And we've been in place since July 18. And since that time, we've seen over 250 cases of babies, babies under one who have been physically harmed,

sometimes quite significant, and sadly, too many one who have been physically harmed, sometimes quite significant, and sadly, too many of them have died. And it's a number and it's a terrible consequence for those babies and the families that required us to review and explore the circumstances. And we focus particularly on the role of men for two reasons, really. One was a sense that, well, a knowledge, really, and research to support that men are disproportionately the perpetrators of that abuse on the one hand. And on the other hand, too much evidence from the reviews into those cases that describe men as invisible or hidden or unseen or unengaged. So we were faced with what we felt was an unacceptable tension between those who present the biggest risk to babies being the ones we know least about.

So the report said focused into the role of men and to examination of the services, not just maternity services, but right the way through to children's social care and into court and care proceedings about what the current services to men were and how they could be improved and developed. And how can they be improved and developed? What did you decide?

Well, partly it's moving on. The report is very deliberately called the myth of invisible men. And one of the things we found is that too many agencies and too much of the safeguarding system enables men, men who often don't want to be engaged, men who are very difficult often to be engaged, men who might be aggressive, threatening, violent and difficult to work with. The agencies and the system has said is to work hard enough to get beyond that and to listen to them, to engage them and to identify the risk factors that this report sets out. And what do you believe the role of the maternity services specifically should be in this? Well, the maternity service obviously are the first point of call

when women are pregnant and when a baby is due and is in its early years, early weeks of life. And I think in that instance, the first point is to have some engagement in men, to have some kind of knowledge about, well, who are they? What's their histories? What's their background? What's been their experiences of family life and of childhood? One of the things we found was that the men in our studies, all of whom had a fairly abusive and dysfunctional experience

in their own family life, we found men who had a disproportionate use of substance use, particularly drugs and particularly cannabis, and that that was often underexplored or sometimes unexplored. There was a sense that the use of substances were taken for granted by the system and the damage that it can have on the individual's functioning and their ability to manage the normal stresses and strains of parenting, babies crying, vomiting, sleeplessness,

the normal things that all of us as parents have had to face, that those stresses and tension is a source of risk for that baby. I'm going to bring Leah in here. Leah, you're a working midwife. Should it be your responsibility to assess fathers? Well, I mean, the actual fact, Anita, is that it already is. This is already part of our remit. It's something that we engage with as much as we possibly can within the time and resources available to us. It's actually part of the routine questionnaire in the woman's very first booking appointment in pregnancy to explore the partner's past, his involvement with social work,

any substance misuse, criminal justice engagement. So we do definitely ask those questions and we do try and engage. Now, the difficulty is that even pre-COVID, midwives were already under-resourced and overworked, already quite difficult to have time to sit with dads and engage with them. And now, during the pandemic, those opportunities to meet fathers, even to see them, let alone to spend time with them. And now during the pandemic, those opportunities to meet fathers, even to see them, let alone to spend time with them, maybe even in their own homes after the birth, you know, those opportunities have been severely limited. So it is problematic. So yeah, what are your major concerns about this?

Well, I mean, I think in spirit, you know, all midwives would say that they are very keen to safeguard the mother and her child and to, you know, preserve the health and well-being of the family unit. But if we're being asked to add some other level of surveillance or investigation to our already quite challenging role, we need to be resourced adequately for that to happen. Mark, is it the job of midwives to be acting on behalf of the other services, to be assessing fathers as well as mothers? They do it already, but that extra level of assessment, surveillance, if you like, as Leah put it. Yeah, no, it's not the job for them to act on behalf of other agencies. The report is very clear in saying that actually all of the agencies from the universal provision, which include midwife, health visitors, GPs, hospitals, right the way through to children's social care,

adult mental health services, substance misuse services, services for domestic abuse, all of those have a joint and collective responsibility to better identify and assess and meet the needs of the men, because it's the risk that these men present that babies are being harmed. Our perspective is very clearly from the baby's point of view. babies being harmed and sometimes killed as a consequence of the collective system's difficulties and challenges in in engaging with and seeing men which is why as i said earlier we called it the myth of invisible so how do we how do we how do so what so what let's clearly define what you'd like to see happen then because you've worked in the field of social work for several decades. Yeah. You know, in social work,

it's assessing and supporting fathers. It's surely the remit of social workers and not just midwives and health visitors. So how... No, no, exactly. So lay it out. How would you like to see things change? Whose job would it be to do what?

How can we improve the situation? Okay. So the report comes with a number of kind of key recommendations. One is to say that at the moment, there are a number of already existing, pre-existing national policy drivers, which are very pertinent to this field. Andrea led some review into the first 1001 critical days, including a focus on the development of family hubs, the supporting families program, the implementation of the Domestic Abuse Act, and a better birth document from the NHS. All of those kind of speak to this agenda. And one of the things we're saying is they all a need for some investment in this area and particularly to invest in some.

We are recommending two pilot sets of investment. One is specifically in social care because that's the sharp end of safeguarding work and where they need to develop some better models of practice in working with uh with the most uh at-risk men but also to develop some what we call end-to-end pilots so some area has been funded to have a service for men which starts at the universal starts in fact with public health with kind of all the messaging about uh about how to manage sleeplessness and crying and so on and so forth uh goes all the way from the maternity service and

into social care uh and beyond and to develop those uh pilots to develop models of good practice and best practice that then can be disseminated across the country. And some of it is about, as I said, capacity, but some of it is about social workers and others being more actively engaged with men and seeing men in the same way as they see women and mothers. Social workers would classically do good, nuanced, rounded, sophisticated assessment work with women. They would identify strengths, weaknesses, support networks, etc. So we need to see the same sort of practice happening with men.

And what will all of this cost? Well, that's for further debate with the central government and part of their work, as I said, in all those big reviews would be to identify costings. But just to be clear, the cost of not doing this, the financial cost is quite significant. Some of these babies end up, sadly, particularly those who have experienced abusive head trauma, will end up with some pretty life-limiting and lifelong conditions. And that costs an enormous amount to the state in terms of ongoing health care and ongoing social care.

So there was a study in Canada, for example, which said the cost for just 64 babies over a period of time was £250 million. So this is not simply asking for more money, it's asking for a better investment of money into preventative services rather than into those services which have to pick up the cost of injured babies. And Leah, what are things like for midwives right now? What's the reality of the work that you do? Well, I mean, I think that's a whole other programme, Anita, and I would be delighted to speak about that at length. Well, I mean, I think that's a whole other program, Anita, and I would be delighted to speak about that at length. As you can imagine, we're really struggling at the

minute. I mean, our dedication to keeping women and their families safe is unflagging, but unfortunately, the pressures of the service that existed pre-COVID have only been exacerbated by the added demands of the pandemic. So we're really, really struggling to give the kind of gold standard care that every one of us wants to give. And in relation to this report, I mean, again, we are committed, I think, to the same goals as the authors of the report. It's every midwife's worst nightmare to send a baby home, you know, to face some kind of injury or death at the hands of a parent but if we are going to be asked to add another dimension to our already quite compromised role then you know that needs

to be done in a way that's safe and manageable. Okay thank you both for speaking to me this morning and I'm sure we will be coming back to talking about the role of midwives and women's very soon. Lots of you getting in touch with the programme about various things we've talked about this morning. An anonymous email here from someone saying five years ago, I left my husband. He became violent and assaulted me. The police visited the house and my now ex-husband told the police that I was having an affair.

The officer attending turned to me and said he could see why he was angry and upset. It was as if he felt the violence was justified. There needs to be zero tolerance to domestic violence. There's no justification for this sort of behaviour. Annie emailed in to say, how many times do women have to discuss this topic amongst ourselves? We need to involve men in the discussion.

We need to help men challenge each other and make this an issue for them and not just for us women. Another anonymous email, my experience was fantastic. My ex-partner was picked up straight away, kept in custody over the weekend, straight into court on Monday, and then he pleaded guilty and was remanded. They installed a button in my home and kept him totally informed. A little bit later in the program, we will be talking about the privilege of being pretty. And some of you have already

started getting in touch about that. And Arabella says, I've been told I'm pretty, attractive over the years. and sometimes I've felt that people particularly men don't take me seriously I have hang-ups about not being intelligent or interesting enough that people are just interested in the surface there have been times when people women have felt threatened by me when talking to their partner I feel I can't just be normal and talk to people how I would like to. Keep your thoughts coming in. We will be talking about Pretty Privilege in just a moment. But first, 25 years ago, Thea Gilmore was just 16 when she began a career in music.

To her fans, she was known as a fearless singer-songwriter. She made 19 albums, three of which made it into the top 40. She's now rebranded herself as Afterlight with a new album of the same name and is speaking out again about moving on from difficult relationships. Here is a track from the album. Lover, can you tell me How to run faster than the dogs I was bound so tightly

I forgot, I forgot what I was I wrote you a letter Tried to tell you why I don't know what works better The words or the fear in my eyes Oh, but here we are Thank you. And those teeth are tearing at my heels The odds are stacked Parallax

You came on so quickly A terminal release Forgot what I brought with me My punk ghost party piece That was Parallax from the album Of All The Violence I Have Known. And Thea joins us now. Or is it Afterlight?

Should I be calling you Afterlight now, not Thea? Well, I mean, I'm happy to be referred to by either. But at the moment, my work is coming out under the name Afterlight. Your voice is absolutely stunning. Beautiful. That's really beautiful. But, you know, it's a beautifully uplifting song with really hard-hitting lyrics, as is the album, of all the violence I have known.

And the clue is in the title. Well, so that's the first track off the album. The album is actually called Afterlight. It's an eponymous album for the first time in my life. But, yeah, of all the violence I've known is a poem, actually. And, yeah, it's an account really of the sort of control, coercion, gaslighting that I experienced in my marriage and kind of held against other experiences I've had in my life outside that relationship. And it was kind of an exploration, really a kind of discussion, I suppose, with myself about that feeling that so many of us have where if there's no bruises, there's no damage. And I really wanted to explore that. And that's what a lot of this record is exploring,

is the idea that coercion and control does an equal amount of damage. And you're not in the marriage anymore? I'm not, no. And he's heard the album? He's heard parts of it. We have children together, so there's an ongoing discussion between the two of us. And he has issued a very firm mea culpa to me,

which I appreciate. You know, I think that these conversations are so delicate and so important to have and to keep those lines of communication open. And I feel, in some respects, quite privileged to be able to have that conversation with him and to have that discussion with him. I mean, you went into a relationship when you were only 16 years old

and there was a big age gap, wasn't there? Yeah, he was 23 years older than me. And I was a typical 16-year-old girl who thought she knew everything, who was in love with the idea of being in love. And somebody, you know somebody loved me it was it was an extraordinary feeling but of course I was not aware of what a functional relationship should look like because I'd never had one um and I wasn't a fully formed person

because I was effectively still a child so it did leave me open to you know being controlled being manipulated being my whole life kind of just became bound to one person not just my romantic life but my working life because we worked together and in very very close confines as well so every aspect of my life became bound to him and you were together for how long 23 years so how hard was it to eventually leave? It was incredibly hard in one way and incredibly easy in another because the reason that I left was about somebody else it wasn't about me I think we very often particularly as women have this conversation with ourselves where if it's happening to me it doesn't matter you can reduce it to to an experience it's only you know it doesn't matter it's only me but as soon as I saw um that his behavior was affecting other people that's when

I actually thought I can't I can't be in this environment anymore. I mean you're an incredibly prolific singer-songwriter you know 19 albums three in the top 40 how different was it writing this one being out of the marriage it was a kind of an unusual process because I was writing it very much as the marriage was breaking down and as you know there were all sorts of revelations there are all sorts of discoveries that I was making about things that had been happening in my marriage that I didn't know about and and my songwriting was a very direct and very sort of guttural response to exactly what was happening at the time and then I would sort of send these songs I have a patron site so I would send these songs out to my patrons and I would kind of almost forget about them and the real kind of

catharsis I think came when I put the songs together and listened back to them with a bit of distance I'd sort of got a bit of distance from my relationship and I and I suddenly saw this sort of arc of a story of a kind of emergence almost of the person that I think I probably should have been all along but just never was able to be. How are you hoping this album's going to help other young women and girls? Well I think I what I would really hope for this record is that is that it just that it might just flag up in somebody's head this is not a normal situation you know I I lived in in such a controlling environment and I knew no different and it was only getting out of that and actually having other people's opinions

particularly a therapist's opinion that I it actually flagged up to me that that this was an incredibly toxic environment and I would love to think think that just by shining a bit of a light on the idea that control and coercion is incredibly damaging and that somebody might actually just look at their situation and think, hang on a minute, I recognise that, and somebody else is saying that's not normal. It's that strength in numbers, that idea that, you know, there are other people going through the same thing. Yeah it might inspire change it's interesting that we're talking

to you today on a program where we've spoken so much about domestic violence and you know the role of men in in relationships and bringing up children and just how is the society we need to sort of change a fundamental culture um but you talk about you you know, control, coercion, but it's violence without the bruises. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a conversation I have to have with myself all the time as well, because, you know, the idea of domestic abuse, most of us, what springs to mind. And very often the two come together. But equally serious is coercion and that erosion of self, that erosion of the ability to leave, the ability to run the support networks around you that everybody needs to be able to feel like a complete person within their own environment. And I listened to the album last night. Your voice is stunning and it's a very powerful listen, I must say. And I just have to ask, you're only young, you're only in your early 40s. How does it feel putting music out in such a competitive market now? I've always been on the sort of outside of the music industry. I've always been a bit like a sort of cough in a hurricane.

So that's kind of normal. But it always amuses me, I think, that the music industry doesn't seem to think that older people, you know, older people, but have much to say. It's kind of like all that vitality and the danger comes from youth. And actually, I don't think there's anything more vital or dangerous than a woman over 40. So I'm sticking to that. I'm with you on that. Absolutely. Thank you so much for speaking to us this morning. Afterlight, the album is out now

um now are you familiar with the phrase pretty privilege while a new trend on tiktok is seeing young women sharing stories about when they first realized good looks can get you far in life from relationships to work and even within the legal system the association between beauty and talent social success and health is a real thing. So how much of a role do we all play in the power of pretty privilege? Well, Marike Wessels is a model living in London and Katrina Gentile is a research fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research in Bristol. And both of them join me now. Let me begin by asking you, Katrina, how prominent do you think pretty privilege is and what are the examples of it? Morning, Anita. Thanks so much for the invite being here. So pretty privilege,

of course, I come from an academic research perspective. And if we look at the research that is done in the field, we don't really use the word pretty privilege. You would not find much in PubMed if you were to use that exact set of words. But we talk about appearance-based discrimination. And there's lots of studies that actually find how appearance-based discrimination can encompass and shape so many areas of our life, areas of society, especially in a society that is so invested in appearance. So in brief, having pretty privilege means embodying a certain set of um physical characteristics that and allow you to not be discriminated because of your appearance this means looking thin for example uh looking white and look looking transgender looking heterosexual and looking muscular looking young is a is a huge one so on and so forth and and i've got

no chance then the thing is i'm right i'm making a note of all of it thin white cis muscular young um yeah uh let me um what evidence or research is there into how how this is actually a real thing? Yeah, so thanks for asking. So we know that kids as young as four are invested in appearance standards. So this is quite shocking, but it brings to light how much our society is based on appearance and looks because we know that from a report from mental health foundation in from 2019 that 79 percent of kids between 11 and 16 think that their look is very important and 52 percent of them often worry about their look this tells us that and everybody knows deep down that their appearance is going to shape the way they navigate society. And then looking at like specific examples, for example, in the workplace, we got data

from even back to 2008 about the fact that the way a candidate presents themselves in an interview and whether they meet those society standards will highly impact their success into getting a job. And this is particularly true for women. And then something really interesting is that some mixed method studies found that although women in the workplace are highly encouraged to meet the society standards of so-called beauty. And they also receive objectifying comments once they meet those standards. So since pretty privilege comes from oppression, it's not really, you can't really win.

It's not a game that can be won. Yeah, and some of the messages that we're getting kind of basically are examples of that. Someone has said, pretty privilege has worked in both ways in my experience and is dependent on context and those perceiving and in control of the advantage. Good looks are immediately disarming and do affect response. But I've found that despite empathy and intelligence, good looks often engender a negative response for no other reason than a form of power play.

I'm going to bring in Marika. Marika, you're a model. Much of your career has been defined by your looks. How much do you think about pretty privilege? Do you wake up in the morning and think, gosh, I'm beautiful? You are beautiful. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're both beautiful. Can I just say that? Yes, I agree. Yes, I'm Marika and I'm originally from South Africa. I've been living in London for over three years and I'm with BMA Models in London, which has been really great.

I think pretty privilege in my industry is so significant because it plays such a major part of one's role within the industry where you constantly get judged on the way that you appear. I think there's such a big factor placed on how you are perceived from only an outer perspective. And I think it's so important that who you are as a person inside should be known as well. And it shouldn't just be based on the way that you look. Yes, it's a very important part of our job. And it's my responsibility to look good, be healthy and give that image out um within the you know in the market um so yes I think it's it's very important and what I'm interested in what it's like for you outside of work just like going about your business I was having this

conversation with mates the other day actually I've got an absolute stunner of a friend she's Danish um there you go that says it all and I just looked at her just thought what is it like what must it be like navigating life looking like you just doors open I heads turn when she walks into the room do you do you notice it definitely I definitely notice it but um I'd never take advantage of it. I think it becomes something that's almost normal, and it has been for quite a few years. When I was really young and when I started within the industry, you don't necessarily notice it because you're very insecure,

and the constant judgment that you get as well of people judging you on how you look, it actually does the opposite, where you then become insecure, and then you don't necessarily notice the positive effects where people actually appreciate the opposite where you then become insecure and then you don't necessarily notice the positive effects where people actually appreciate the way that you look. So now on my daily life, I'm totally aware of it, yes. But I just, I take it very easy. This is really playing out on social media though, isn't it?

Yes. Yes. I mean, you obviously, Marika, you know, because social media is where you're kind of getting lots of attention and katarina this is um this is where women young is generally women men as well is it the same for men you tell me is it the same for men that it's playing out as an advantage on social media and how is it working on social media yeah thanks for the question it's a very interesting point. So from a research point of view, we have way more data on women rather than on men when it comes to appearance and body image research.

However, we know that, for example, again, in cases where someone is accused of violence against women, for example and good looks and i you know and i say good looks to to to mean like meeting certain certain societal standards uh do lead to um you know an easier an easier forgiveness because we are conditioned to think that looking good uh is being good like in in ancient greece there was an expression that said palos kai an expression that said which means beautiful and good and so this association in our mind is really really strong and this definitely play a role for all genders but of course when we look at appearance and pretty privilege it's important to have an intersectional lens and and judge and evaluate the appearance discrimination from this point of view from a social justice point of view and we know that

women are way more affected by objectification and this is true you know this since like 1996 even from the 70s is an important theory called body objectification theory that literally lays out all these mechanisms of how women's body are objectified, how this objectification gets internalized. And so then we become invested in appearance. And we think that appearance is the best cards that we hold. And that in a way is true, because we get compliments or criticism about our looks at all times as women. But again, privilege is temporary. And it starts from such a young age, doesn't it? As a little girl, you know whether you feel as pretty as the other girl in class. Exactly. And research confirms

that you know whether you fit in for your looks or not. And you know that that is going to be very important in the environment you're in. But it's important to distinguish pretty privilege from body image issues. And I think this is something that is often not understood, especially, you know, in social media. And I think this is also why pretty privilege is such a hot topic and can upset many people

who might have pretty privilege, but also feel very insecure about their bodies. Is using your pretty privilege, Marike, to your own advantage a bad thing? Do you think it's anti-feminist? No, I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I think if you are very confident in yourself and you have good looks, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yes. And you can still be a feminist using your

advantage because you're beautiful. Well, yes. I guess, you know, there's always going to be many different opinions from coming from all different, you know, types of people. And I think the way that one responds to that is actually also what's really important. I mean, something that jumped out to me instantly, Katrina, is when you said what we define as pretty, thin, cis, muscular, young, white, you know, that instantly is alarm bells. And I'm sure lots of women of colour listening know that. You know, we've known it, we all know it. And that already your race will put you on a different level to everybody else yeah exactly and that and that's and that's a real that's that's a serious concern and we're

talking about this as kind of something quite light-hearted but this is serious stuff yeah it is definitely serious stuff like um pretty privilege is linked to appearance-based discrimination and appearance-based discrimination encompasses so many identities and research confirms that. Before we briefly mentioned how appearance and meeting those societal beauty standards can bring advantage to the workplace, to being hired. Well data from 2017 shows that the appearance privilege does intersect with race and in fact when looking at unemployed women and men living in larger bodies and when looking at the people who had experienced eight to seven times higher discrimination in the workplace those were and people also received racial discrimination so

and this is a bit of a complex sentence to say that the data confirms that these things overlap and they go together well this is uh we i feel like we've just barely scratched the surface of this but we're running out of time katarina and marika thank you very much for joining me um arabella says i've been told i'm pretty over the years and sometimes i've felt that people particularly men don't take me seriously and someone else says, I've been told I'm pretty over the years and sometimes I've felt that people, particularly men, don't take me seriously. And someone else says, just because you're a beautiful woman, it doesn't follow through that you feel like that inside. I've suffered from lack of confidence for much of my life. That's it for me. I'll be back tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. Have a lovely weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

Hello, this is Jane Garvey I'm with my broadcasting friend Fee Glover, come in Fee Oh thank you darling, thank you, how are you? Oh alright, we do a podcast together called Fortunately It has been surprisingly successful and you'd be, honestly

you'd be really quite quite choked with emotion to discover that other people have found us some of them have quite enjoyed it other people like carping we welcome all comers we don't care who you are where you are what you do or what you think as long as you're prepared to join with us in well what do we do fee we kind of unravel we unburden we unload what do we do we're a self-help group of two that other people quite like to witness and we don't really mind if you laugh with us or at us you're just welcome aboard a slightly rickety

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