Woman's Hour - Rosamund Pike; Violence against grandparents; No-fault divorce; Florence Given

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

We look at the first UK study into the physical, emotional and financial abuse of some grandparents who are looking after their grandchildren as part of kinship care arrangements. Jane talks to the author of the report Dr Amanda Holt, a Reader in Criminology at the University of Roehampton and to Lucy Peake, the CEO of the kinship care charity Grandparents Plus. The scientist Marie Curie is recognised throughout the world but how much do you really know about her and her ground breaking Nobel prize winning discoveries? The Oscar nominated star of Gone Girl and A Private War Rosamund Pike on playing the Nobel prize winning scientist Marie Curie in the film Radioactive.The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill currently before Parliament means that “no fault” divorce is set to finally become law. Under the proposed law, a spouse could start divorce proceedings by stating a marriage has broken down irretrievably, rather than allege adultery, unreasonable behaviour or desertion. Family lawyers have long called for the reform to reduce unnecessary conflict between couples, especially where children are concerned. We discuss what it will mean. Florence Given is a 21-year-old artist, writer and feminist. In 2019 she was named Cosmopolitan’s Influencer of the Year. She has over 400,000 followers on Instagram. She has just written her first book, Women Don’t Owe You Pretty. She joins Jane to talk about body image, relationships, sexuality and why girls and women don’t owe prettiness to anyone.Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Sarah Crawley Interviewed guest: Dr Amanda Holt Interviewed guest: Lucy Peake Interviewed guest: Rosamund Pike Interviewed guest: Liz Trinder Interviewed guest: Holly Atkins Interviewed guest: Florence Given

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. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. It is Tuesday 9th June 2020 and this is the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, good morning. We've got a cracking line-up today, including the actor Rosamund Pike, who will talk about playing Marie Curie in her latest film Radioactive. And you'll hear too from Florence Given. She's only 21. She is an influencer, an artist and now an author.

Her book is called Women Don't Owe You Pretty. If you don't know her name, I bet your young daughters do and they'll be really interested in what Florence Given has got to say on the programme today. And no fault divorce could be coming your way soon, she says cheerfully. So that's later in the programme. Your thoughts on that, welcome, at BBC Women's Hour.

On Twitter, we're on Instagram as well. And you can email the programme via our website, bbc.co.uk slash womenshour. Now, we know that more than 200,000 children in the UK are being looked after by relatives or friends because their parents can't care for them. Often grandparents fulfil that role. Just 5% though of those grandparents are formerly foster carers getting financial help. So they're up against it in money terms, but also they can be facing challenges in other areas too. And heartbreakingly, one of those areas is domestic violence,

which is hard enough to talk about in the more usual circumstances, still terrible circumstances, I should say, but really difficult in this area. Dr Amanda Holt is a reader in criminology at the University of Roehampton. She's done research into the financial, physical and emotional abuse that grandparents can face. And Lucy Peake is the CEO of the kinship care charity Grandparents Plus. We'll start, first of all, just briefly with you, Lucy, if you don't mind. Kinship care, just exactly what is that?

So it's when a relative or friend steps in to raise someone else's child. And as you said, there's 200,000 children in kinship care, which is about two and a half times more than in foster care in the UK. So it's quite a significant issue. It is a significant number of children, a significant number of often older people, not getting financial support from the state and really up against it. That's right. So about half of kinship carers are grandparents. So they tend to be an older, poorer group and often in worse health.

So there are quite significant issues and challenges that they face. And generally, they're not well supported or recognised by government. Amanda Holt, I know that you initially wanted to conduct research into this very very difficult area of domestic abuse between grandchildren and grandparents and what actually happened was that you were contacted overwhelmingly by kinship carers is that correct? Yes that's correct and I was kind of taken aback by it but I think it was possibly because I didn't really know at the time what kinship care was and the nature of that particular relationship. Well, tell us about it, because on the whole, are these kinship carers willing to do the role or is it, unfortunately, in some cases dumped on them slightly? The kinship carer grandparents that we interviewed, most of them did feel a little bit coerced into taking full time responsibility of their grandchild.

Some of them, you know, did take it on willingly, but quite a majority said that they felt coerced by the social worker. And some of them actually said we were actually told if you don't take the child, they will be either adopted out or put into local authority care. That's quite an emotional load, as well as a financial one and a practical one. I imagine that the kinship carers didn't find it easy to tell you that or to admit to it. It didn't. I mean, there were quite long, rich, detailed interviews. Most of them lasted over an hour, sometimes two. And we went into all different aspects of their family life. And I think one of the key kind of challenges is their relationship with the child's birth parent or parents, because obviously in a great many cases, the child has been removed from their birth parents.

And often the grandparents had to manage the supervision of contact between the birth child who was their child and the grandchild. Now these people are not all elderly I think some are only in their 40s and 50s. That's right I mean the age range we interviewed was between 40 and 74 which probably covers the you know the average range of grandparents. So some still working. The majority female? Yes, we interviewed 24 out of the 27 grandmothers who came forward experiencing violence and aggression. Now that doesn't mean that they didn't have a male partner in the home. They may well have had the grandfather there as well. Yes, two thirds were married. So there were grandfathers. But I think, I mean, we might come on to this. But one of the really interesting findings was that it seemed to be the grandmothers who kind of bore the brunt of it, because quite

often, as a way of coping with the violence, the grandfathers often remove themselves, either emotionally or physically from the home, you know, spending 12 hours at the allotment or kind of becoming sort of emotionally distant from the situation. So it was, I think, the grandmothers bearing the brunt of the violence. Right. I mean, to speak up for men here, of course, it is only a very small sample. So we don't want to suggest that grandfathers don't want to play an active part in this.

But tell me about the suggestions, or more than suggestions, the reality of the domestic abuse. The reality was that often on a daily basis, but certainly weekly, there was a combination of physical violence, financial property violence and emotional violence and aggression coming from the grandchild towards the grandparents. And sometimes it was both grandparents. So the physical violence might have manifested in pushes, punches, scratching, threats with knives. There was often damage to property, theft of money. And then in terms of

emotional abuse, often name calling, you know, comments like you're going to die anyway, I hope you die soon. You know, attempts to kind of humiliate and undermine the grandparent as well. So it looks a lot like domestic abuse. Well, that's because it is domestic abuse, isn't it? Well, the thing I would just say about this is that we're talking about children who are, you know, in the main under the age of 16. So domestic abuse only applies to perpetrators over the age of 16. And we are talking about a very traumatised group of children. Yeah, of course. And thank you for making that absolutely clear. Lucy is this

something that crops up a lot in your experience? Yeah increasingly so. So what we've seen as lockdown has progressed is more and more grandparents coming forward with this issue. So even people who've never experienced it before have said that the pressure of lockdown is just creating a bit of a pressure cooker within their households. So we do have a group of carers who are frightened themselves of getting the coronavirus because of their age and health conditions. They are experiencing poverty. They are exhausted because they've been at home on their own caring for children 24-7 for a long, long time now with no respite at all. So no schooling, the places where the children might go, football clubs, wherever it may be that give those carers respite. And at the same time, what they're seeing is that the impact of lockdown on their children is having sometimes devastating consequences.

So anxiety levels are rising amongst children um they their routines have gone and as amanda said these children are they're like the children in the care system so they really uh often need support and if they were having therapeutic support it stopped abruptly and that's having all kinds of consequences. So I think because of all of those factors, we're just seeing this rise in child and care violence. And I do think that the longer lockdown goes on, the harder it is for some families to cope with that. You know, homeschooling is hard enough,

but if you don't have the kit, you know, the laptop and the data to support that child's learning, it's even harder. And we have lots of carers in poverty, as you said, who are just finding it even harder than other parents. About accessing financial help, Lucy, how much has been done to help these grandparents? So during normal times, it's a postcode lottery so i think most kinship carers are not foster carers so they're not entitled to an allowance um they are getting a different amount depending on where they live what legal order they have there is no rhyme or reason to it it's not based on the needs of children and that leaves lots of carers financially

vulnerable so half of our kinship carers are giving up work when they take on a child they're mainly women as we've said a third of them are lone carers and they are really plunged into poverty by the system so their costs are going up as they take on the children but their income is dropping so unsurprising that we think about three quarters of children in kinship care are growing up in a deprived household. This is a quite stark reality of kinship care and poverty going hand in hand. What you did find out, Amanda, was actually how helpful in many cases the police had been. Yes, absolutely. I know that we're finding this in domestic abuse generally, you know, currently as well.

I think the problem is that there were so few support services available for grandparents that at least the police did turn up when they called them and they were able to, during the crisis situation, come in and, for example, remove the child for a period of time or talk to the child and actually diffuse the situation. So of all of the different services we asked them about, domestic violence services, schools, children's social care services,

it was the police that they actually said were the most helpful. Which is wonderful because actually we know that the police do a huge amount of what is effectively social work, but it's not really their job, is it? No, absolutely not. And the grandparents recognise this. They all said, we don't think it should be the police coming in, dealing with highly traumatised and distressed children. It isn't their role. But of course, with the pulling back of the state, there's very little else to cover the gap apart from the police. And in terms of schools going back, I might have thought that at least it provided a structure to the day and a safe place for the children to go but of course

in health terms at the moment if you are an older person doing kinship care a return to school well you might worry it would pose a threat to your health. I think that's true I mean Lucy I know picked up on the problem that older people of, are often shielding at the moment and have bigger concerns about their health. But you're quite right. A lot of the grandparents that we spoke to said that school was the only respite that they got from the violence and aggression. And with that sort of safety net removed, it's hard to think about what they're going through right now. Thank you both very much indeed for talking to us. It's depressing stuff in many ways and hugely challenging for the people involved. The last speaker there was Dr Amanda Holt from the University of Roehampton. And you also heard from Lucy Peake, who is the CEO of the kinship care charity Grandparents Plus.

I'd be really interested in hearing from anybody who is going through exactly that right now. You can email Woman's Hour through the website. There are some links as well on the website, which I hope will be helpful to anybody currently experiencing these sorts of problems. bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour. And that's how you can email us too. Now, it's difficult at the moment to, well, it's impossible, in fact, to go to the cinema, you can't. But you can still watch films in a variety of ways on various platforms. Rosamund Pike is currently promoting her new movie Radioactive, in which she plays the part of Marie Curie, and she joins us now. Rosamund, good morning to you.

Morning, Jane. How are you? Are you all right? Very well, thanks. I'm calling in from Prague, actually. I'm living in the Czech Republic at the moment. Because you're working or because you're about to work? I was working and I moved my family here for an extended job,

which was going to take a long time. And so my children started going to school here in Prague and we stayed during lockdown. Right. Well, I haven't been, but I know it's beautiful. How is lockdown there uh well the czech government took a very stringent um policy of right from the beginning and um we had very i would say quite extreme measures compared to the uk at the time you know to the

point that you know going out and wearing a face mask became normal and it seemed quite shocking that when i saw pictures of London, that people weren't because it's interesting how quickly something that feels so strange becomes your new normal and how rapidly you sort of adjust to the, to the new imposition. And, and now we're opening up again, you know, there were sort of 10 weeks of total, totally deserted streets and schools closed and shops all closed. And it was it was very surreal.

And but they took control of the situation very effectively. I'm so a very safe place to be. Yeah, I'm so jealous. So can you just tell us, can you go out for a coffee? You you you can now. My my my other half, more of a more of a coffee drinker so he he's definitely been been doing that but um you know it's changing all the time at one stage you could just buy a takeaway but uh and not actually drink on the premises but now i believe you can right okay

public i've seen a variety of face masks including ones with flaps so that you could drink a beer through it because the Czechs do love their beer. As soon as beers are allowed to be drunk on the streets again, face masks with flaps appear. Right. This has been an extraordinary time in all our lives. One thing I've learnt over the last couple of months, amongst many other things, is how little I know or understand about science, which is my lame way of reintroducing the topic you're here to discuss,

which is the film Radioactive, in which you play Marie Curie. Did you have, how much of a scientific education did you have? I found science interesting, particularly chemistry. I think I was very drawn to the order and structure of the periodic table. I found it very satisfying. I think I've, as someone who perhaps is a bit more unruly than I appear, I think when I see representations of order like that, I'm quite drawn to them because I don't feel I can sort of maintain or keep that order in my life. So that was, funnily enough the the science

of the three that that I was most compelled by and then so it was odd that I ended up playing Marie Curie and I took chemistry lessons again because I thought when you're playing someone with as as sort of radical and as fierce a brain as Marie Curie it's very important that I would have some idea of what she might be thinking when we're shooting the scenes in the lab and also understand the context in which she was working because her discovery, and I think a lot of people in the UK won't actually know this, is that Marie Curie coined the term radioactivity.

It was her work that led to the revealing of that phenomenon. She discovered two radioactive substances, polonium and radium, which she was, you know, as you can, if you discover a previously unknown element, you're allowed to name it. And she named them and put them on the periodic table. climate in which she was working, you know, it was at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, electric light was lighting up Paris where she was living for the first time, you know, the Eiffel Tower was being built, the railways were starting to run and x-rays had just taken photographic impressions of the insides of our bodies, you know, that was enormously exciting and new and, you know, so her discoveries were coming out of this sort of fervour and appetite for science, which perhaps we're seeing again now, as you rightly say.

Well, let's play a clip from the film. Here you are as Marie Curie. This is after the death of Marie's husband, Pierre, and Marie Curie has gone to a meeting at the Sorbonne. Welcome, Madame Curie. I do not know why I am here. You're here because the panel would like to consider you for Professor Curie's position at the university. You wish to give me Pierre's seat?

We don't want to give you anything. We're interviewing a number of candidates You wish to give me Pierre's seat? We don't want to give you anything. We're interviewing a number of candidates and we thought due consideration should be given to you taking the post. And if I don't want the post? Then that is one less candidate for us to consider. I'd wish to be considered on my own merits. If you wish to give it to me out of pity, don't. If you wish to give it to me to follow some agenda or other, don't.

Well, what say you? I have nothing else to say. It is not a job I want, but it is a job I will take. And if my science doesn't speak for itself with regard to my quality, then you have gravely misunderstood my science. That is Rosamund playing Marie Curie. And it is fascinating, Rosamund, that she was, well, she has been criticised for being a somewhat spiky and difficult character.

What a cheek for a woman with such a mind to be in any way spiky or troublesome. I know. It's been a sort of amusing journey, really, because you realise that so many films have been made about male geniuses and people are so tolerant that, you know, if he's difficult, well, of course he's difficult.

He's a genius. Or, you know, if he's rude or abrupt, then, you know, he's given a sort of free pass because he's a genius. And now we come to make a film about a female genius and suddenly it seems that the same free reign isn't accorded to her. And it's very, very revealing that, you know, we've always, we've sort of looked so benevolently on the sort of tortured or difficult soul of somebody who's brilliant as long as he's male. And Marie Curie, you know, if she was sweet and lovely and kind, she would not have been Madame Curie. You know, she would not have got done what she got done. You know, she wouldn't have been the first female professor at the Sorbonne. She wouldn't have been the only woman

to win two Nobel Prizes and when she'd won one in physics to retrain herself in chemistry in order to actually reveal the element that she proved existed and win a second Nobel Prize. And she wouldn't have transformed the French Interior Ministry's approach during the First World War and taken x-ray machines out onto the battlefields. I mean that was radical. She went before the French ministers and said, look you're chopping young boys' arms and legs off and you're amputating them and that's because

you don't know where the shrapnel is located. If you take my x-ray machines out onto the battlefield they can tell you and we can save many lives. And, you know, she did that towards the end of her life. And, you know, you don't become a force of nature like that if you're sweet. You know, some people might, but generally, you know, it wasn't really about that for her. But the film actually, and I sort of half hesitate to mention this, does hint at the fact that perhaps she might not have excelled at motherhood. And even as I say that, I mean, you know, what genius male is a brilliant dad as well?

Often they're not. Well, that's an interesting point. I mean, I think, you know, she even acknowledges that later on in our film that to her daughter, who became a brilliant scientist, Irene Curie also also won an Herval Prize. In a way, she was a very passionate person, Marie Curie, and I thought that was one of the reasons I was very drawn to play her. Yes, she was very direct. Yes, she had this sort of abrupt manner,

which I actually find charming because I find it a sort of eccentricity rather than something cold or rude. I find it very, very appealing. But in a way, the discovery of radium, which was made by her and her husband, was almost the child they treasured the most, I think. Their scientific discovery and the birth of this element was sort of more significant in their lives than the birth of their children. It's a difficult thing to talk about, but you know, her and Irene,

there was a lot of respect between mother and daughter, and she had her way of caring for her children. There's a scene in our film where she's measuring their heads and the length of their arms. And, you know, she's a scientist. So her way of loving was to take very, very detailed records of her children's growth. You know, in a way you could say, God, that's so cold. But on another level, you could say, well, that's her way of showing, you know, great care. Are you allowed to tell us what you were making in Prague? What project was abandoned for lockdown?

Well, I'm doing a television series based on a series of fantasy novels by a man called Robert Jordan. They're called The Wheel of Time. They have a huge following and I didn't know them prior to getting involved with the series. But it's an incredible world to escape into. Interestingly, one in which women have a power that was taken away from men after they abused it. And Robert Jordan wrote the books in response to his experience serving in Vietnam. And I think he wrote them in response to a world he saw torn apart. And it was his attempt to make order out of chaos.

So they're a very rich, rich world. And we got to the nearly to the end of our first season. We're short two episodes, but we will complete them before the end of the year. And you're such a composed woman. Please tell me that in lockdown you're such a composed woman. Please tell me that in lockdown you've done a sort of, I mean, I just find myself endlessly eating, mindlessly gawping at my fridge and just eating cheese at about 5.30 at night out of...

Well, it's funny you should say that because I do, I did, I have wondered when I found my spoon in the Nutella jar and I've thought, I don't even like Nutella. What am I doing with the spoon in the Nutella jar so I mean there are I think you have to look very benevolently on those sort of oddities that manifest you know

you have to. Can we just all cut ourselves some slack I think that's the point especially if you're a mother doing homeschooling I've actually I've been there and for 10 weeks and my children are now back at school but if you are a mother listening who is doing homeschooling I've actually I've been there and for 10 weeks and my children are now back at school but if you are a mother listening who is doing homeschooling you know I think you know whatever you do will be remembered I think that's amazing it's a very been a very interesting time yeah interesting is the catch-all adjective I think most of us will probably apply to March

of 2020 thank you very much for talking to us appreciate it. Radioactive is Rosamund's latest film. It's about Marie Curie and you can buy it on DVD in July and it's available digitally from the 15th of this month. Radioactive is the name of that film. Yes, The Spoon in the Nutella jar. How many of us can relate to that? Perhaps Florence Given can. She is 21. She's an artist, a writer, influencer, over 400,000 followers on Instagram 2019. In 2019, she was named Cosmopolitan's Influencer of the Year. And she has just written her first book. It is Women Don't Owe You Pretty. Florence, good morning to you. How are you? Hi, I'm OK, thank you. I'm feeling very politically charged at the moment, given the protests that are happening all over the world against police brutality.

And I'm having lots of uncomfortable conversations, but I'm feeling so charged right now. Good. That's how I'm feeling. Full of energy. I'm not OK. I'm not numb. I'm feeling very charged, yeah. All right. How are you? Well feeling I'm not okay I'm not numb I'm feeling very charged yeah all right

how are you well uh I've only ever been average um and um I'm certainly no better than that now I do I want to harness some of your natural energy but I also take it on board that your generation is feeling a lot at the moment and feeling very passionate. We're very angry. Yeah, well, with good reason. Women Don't Owe You Pretty, I love the title. It comes from the lexicographer Erin McKean. Can I just quote from her? Because I do love this. Sure.

You don't owe prettiness to anyone, not to your boyfriend, stroke spouse, stroke partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilisation in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked female. Right, on you go. Tell me why you were so inspired by that, Florence. I think that quote encouraged me to analyse how I show up in the world and how everyday rituals such as

shaving my body hair, putting on makeup, making myself quote-unquote presentable, I realised how much of it was a performance to receive better treatment, not just by men but by the world in general. And to analyse prettiness, I also had to analyse how me existing in the body that I do as a thin white cisgender woman I actually have a lot more privilege whether that's comfortable to acknowledge it or not in so many interactions in my life just because I exist in the body that I do and because it reflects the beauty standard that has been set by racist patriarchy. And although women experience this kind of, this pressure to perform prettiness to receive better treatment,

marginalized women, such as black women and trans women and fat women, experience this a lot more in society. And I think it's really uncomfortable for women to acknowledge that we have this kind of privilege because first we have to call ourselves pretty, which a lot of us don't want to do right we don't want to acknowledge um that we look good because we've been encouraged to

um kind of shy away from that and point to our flaws instead can i just i remember something graffiti on the toilet at my university back in the early 80s, which I think I've quoted before on the programme, which was women who shave are collaborators. Now, I remember reading that in 1982, 83. This isn't new, but, you know, you're onto something here because I did shave my body hair. What was that all about? I mean, I can tell you exactly what that's about. In the early 1900s, Gillette wanted to make a lot of money selling razors to women.

And there simply wasn't a market for it. Women before the early 1920s simply did not shave their body hair. And it wasn't until Gillette planted the seed of insecurity in women's minds through manipulative ad space on billboards and in magazines, women's magazines that they know women go to, to feel better about themselves, to tell them that, oh, you're going to start shaving your body hair now. And it's just become a norm. It's not, it's not normal for women to be these hairless angels. It's, it's an, it's a capitalist insecurity thing because they want to make money.

And I think also, again, going back to my argument about prettiness, I don't care if a woman wants to shave her body hair, that's her choice. And also, I understand, all women understand that, okay, I feel like most choices that women make now, if they're aware of feminism and of systemic oppression, they make the decision of either, do I apply feminist morals and feel better that I'm a better feminist or do I conform to just survive?

And I think it's a survival tactic. And I don't shame any. I grow out all my body hair. But that's something for me. That's something that I love. It's something that has encouraged me to feel very comfortable in my body because I resented it for a while. OK. I suppose you are.

I'm not when I sounds patronizing. I suppose you are, I'm not, it sounds patronising when I say you're only 21. You could change your mind, I guess, as any of us could at any point in our lives. Of course,

it's your body, your choice. That's the whole point. And I think it's very important though for women to understand where these decisions come from. Yes, you're shaving your body hair, but are you doing it

because you like the way it looks or are you doing it because of how people look at you? And I think a lot of the time women don't really look at themselves. You know, when we talk about the male gaze theory, we talk about how women don't look at themselves in the mirror. They look at themselves being looked at. That's a quote by John Berger. And it's something that I constantly think about. I rarely do things as a woman without thinking about what I look like while I'm doing it. I know that you are passionate about being as inclusive as possible, but you are aware of your own privilege. Of course. the book. I sit high on the scale of desirability, being slim, non-disabled, white, cisgender and feminine. People open up to me and see me as nice and innocent before I even get a chance to open

my mouth. Tell me more about that. So there's this huge trope and stereotype which was perpetuated intentionally by racists in America. For example, the film Birth of a Nation depicted a white woman being chased around by a black man, although it wasn't a black man, it was a white man dressed up as a black man. So he was in blackface. And that film set the stereotype as black men being sexually deviant and white women being innocent. And this was to instill fear in the public about black men. And we see this today with white women calling the police about black men and we see this today with uh white women calling the police on black men simply for existing and that quote in my book about how i'm viewed as nice and innocent it's a direct link you know it exists in dribbles today um obviously of course it's not as

extreme as that as it is today but it still exists in that people approach me because i'm white people open up to me because i'm white. People see me as innocent. It's disgusting. But people are more likely to open up to me because of my whiteness. So I speak up about very passionate things, but people almost view this passion as some kind of cute thing. Whereas when black women speak up about their very righteous anger, they are often dismissed as the quote-unquote angry black woman.. But I wonder whether I mean, this is a difficult one, your book

has you've been published for a start at the age of 21. You are Cosmopolitan's 2019 Influence of the Year, you have over 400,000 followers on Instagram, you would probably acknowledge that none of this would have been as likely to happen had you been a young black woman. Absolutely. Absolutely. It wouldn't have because of the systemic disadvantages that black women have in education and how they are perceived and then how that interferes with their interactions. Racism affects absolutely every single aspect of our lives. Can I ask just a bit about your own family? Are you someone who, you have a brother I know, are you telling't make it drink. We have to take on that work ourselves.

And I think it's a balancing act of being able to kind of encourage people and give them the tools and the resources. And as white people, we have an access to white people that black people simply do not have because they are dismissed so often for bringing up the same issues. So within my family, I do have a lot more tolerance because I have the privilege of having that tolerance with them. So I have the privilege of being able to slowly talk them through things to get them to the place that they need to be to be anti-racist. Really enjoyed hearing from you. Thank you very much, Florence.

Best of luck to you. Women Don't Owe You Pretty is Florence Givens' book. She is, as she illustrated there, very, very passionate. And thanks to her for coming on the programme this morning. So-called no-fault divorce is getting a bit closer to becoming law. The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill could get royal assent by the end of this week under the proposed law, a spouse could start divorce proceedings by stating a marriage has broken down irretrievably rather than having to allege adultery, unreasonable behaviour or desertion. So this could be, in theory, an end to the blame game. Now, I've just been told a booming voice in my headphones has alerted me to the possibility that neither of the two guests on this subject are currently available.

But I'll tell you who they are anyway. Holly Atkins, who's a family solicitor at Slater Gordons in Manchester, and Liz Trinder, who's Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at Exeter University. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Florence Given was still there, but I'm not sure whether she's still there either. Let me just find out about that. Florence, are you there? Holly is there instead. Well, Florence, it would have been good to go back to Florence,

but it doesn't matter because I can talk to Holly Atkins, family solicitor at Slater Gordons in Manchester. Holly, good morning to you. Good morning. How are you? I'm well, thank you. Tell me a little bit about the notion of no fault divorce. Why has it been so controversial? Oh, gosh. Well, this is this has been something that family lawyers and people going through family situations have been looking for for a very, very long time. At the moment, in order to get a divorce, if you want to do it straight away, you have to appoint blame on your spouse, so whether that's an affair or unreasonable behaviour, and all that does is cause so much more conflict in an already difficult situation, an already traumatic time.

But what we're seeking for is no-fault divorce, which simply means you state that your marriage has broken down irretrievably. So that could be for a number of reasons. They could have fallen out of love, it might just not be working, there could be all sorts of reasons. But essentially, you're just starting the divorce process straight away without having to list a number of reasons why your partner or ex-partner has done something wrong. Slater and Gordon, the law firm that I work for, did a survey two years ago now and said that one in three people going through divorce had to exaggerate reasons why their spouse had committed unreasonable behaviour. Yeah, and I think some people getting divorced have said in the past that actually they might have set off as amicably as you ever can possibly begin divorce proceedings only to find that the whole thing got much more unpleasant as it went along.

Absolutely I have clients coming to me all the time saying my spouse has submitted a divorce petition to the court and they've listed all these terrible things about me which which simply aren't true and it just causes a great deal of upset and when people are going through divorce they need to be focusing on the children and putting their interests first but if you're starting to cause this blame game and causing the parties to fall out even further all that does is it's put greater strain on the children and if they're old enough to understand it really upsets them yeah obviously i'm sure it does um liz trinder is back with us liz um the critics and there aren't actually that many of them but there are some and we need to bear

their beliefs in mind they do believe that this will make divorce too easy make couples less likely to try to avoid it what do you say about that uh good morning it's good to be here um it's good to be anywhere at the moment. Yes. I mean, it's an argument that's been used for quite a long time, but all the research and sort of just common sense experience would tell us that, you know, people don't file for divorce unless there's an irretrievable breakdown, and it's only at that point that they will then start thinking about the legal divorce. So what we found in our research, and the experience of many lawyers would confirm this, is that most people don't know what the grounds for divorce are when they start to file for divorce. They're actually really surprised to know, to find out that it's based on fault. Well, it's three, isn't it? There's adultery, desertion, unreasonable behaviour, or your other option is just to live apart for two years, but not everybody wants to spend that two years doing that. It's a very, very long time. Two years is the minimum separation period, and that if the

other party consents. But in some cases you some listeners may remember the case of teeny owens a couple of years ago her husband absolutely refused to give consent even though the marriage is broken down irretrievably and her only option there was to separate four five years which is an exceptionally you know, two years is unreasonable for many people. They either have to live separately. Most people, you know, particularly in London, I would think, couldn't afford to do that. Or they can live under the same household. But the case law says that if they do live under the same roof,

they're not allowed to have family meals and make it comfortable for the children, which is absolutely crazy. Right. I mean, that just the idea you couldn't have family meals. I mean, how horrendous would that be for absolutely everybody involved? And if there were children there, that's potentially utterly ridiculous and extremely painful. Is the timing, though, somewhat insensitive, Liz, bearing in mind that this is not an easy time in anybody's life? No, I mean, the discussions about law reform have been going on for, you know, 20, 30 years, and this bill started a couple of years ago. But I think it's important to recognise that nothing is going to happen very, very quickly, even if the bill goes through in the next few

weeks, which we hope, it will take at least six months or so to get all the formalities in place. And then under the new law, people can file for divorce and state that their marriage has broken down irretrievably. But then that divorce can't be granted for at least six months. So the first divorces under the new law would take at least a year. And this is England and Wales, isn't it? Yes, that's right. What happens in Scotland?

Scotland have a different system. It's similar in many ways to the current law here. There's fault or there's a separation for one year with consent or two years. So shorter separation periods than here i think holly a lot of people who've been divorced i'm one of them um would like the whole business to be cheaper um is that is that likely to happen as a result of this um it's difficult to say really it is certainly possible i'm not i'm sounding desperately cynical but might it it possibly be a positive here?

Potentially. It is possible to do divorces online yourself, but the divorce process itself is quite straightforward. It's when it comes to dealing with the matrimonial finances and dividing assets that can take a long time. That can be the costly bit. But if you can remove the blame game and have no fault divorce and the parties, you know, if the if the if husband and wife can get on better, they're more likely to reach a settlement quicker and likely to save costs in the long run. So it will certainly have a positive impact. What do you think about that, Liz? I agree with what Holly is saying. I mean, it's certainly possible even currently to do the divorce yourself. But if people can possibly afford it, it is very good idea to get legal advice to sort out the matrimonial finances, because the law in that area is incredibly complex. And very briefly, if you can, Liz, we should say that women often don't push for pension sharing. Is that still happening? Yes. I mean, the pension sharing is a really complex

and quite expensive process. And so, you know, we know that the latest data on pension sharing is that there are very few orders being made. So it's partly about awareness, but it's also it's just an expensive process. And in many cases, that will be the biggest asset in the family. So long term consequences. Yeah, be aware. Thank you very much. Liz Trinder, Professor of Sociolegal Studies at Exeter University. And before that, you heard from Holly Atkins, who is a family solicitor with Slater Gordons in Manchester. To your emails today, some really interesting, differing opinions, particularly on Florence Given. We'll get to that in a second or two.

I thought she was brilliant, but we're here not to please, but to occasionally irritate as well as inspire. That's what we're here to do, I think. I thought the conversation about kinship care and about domestic violence in this area was, it's a troubling part of our family life isn't it it's not often discussed I think because it frankly it is so upsetting um we'll keep everybody anonymous here but listening to your piece on kinship care

both my grandchildren have been adopted we were put under considerable pressure by social services to take on their care ourselves. But we were in our mid-60s at the time and we felt this was inappropriate, both for the children, who'd be better off with younger, more energetic carers, and for ourselves, as we didn't want to go back to child-rearing again. Fortunately, we are articulate and clear about our position and we were able to resist the pressure. Both the adoptions have worked out very happily and we keep in close touch with them. For us and our grandchildren, adoption has been the best option. It's a great pity that it seems to be so stigmatised

currently. I think that's really interesting. Perhaps that's something we should definitely investigate further. The grandparents who said, no, we can't do it. We just don't feel able to do this. It wouldn't be the right thing to do. Another listener, listening to your piece on grandparent carers, I can testify to the fact that caring for adult children with mental health issues is equally difficult. Our son has Asperger's, which brings with it challenging behaviour.

For the last eight years, he's also had significant mental health issues as well. Prior to lockdown he's been an inpatient in a London institution but he then came home to us. Ensuring that he has his medication and that he's adhered to lockdown has been extremely stressful and we are experiencing bullying behavior 24 7 pacing eating through the night etc complicated with medical services from another area with no support from local mental health services that sounds extremely challenging doesn't it this is another situation i'm 46 i'm an auntie with a special guardianship order with my husband for my niece, who is seven. And she's been with us for four years. Violence happens mostly against me. And it's daily. It does involve name calling. I hate you, etc.

Picking up knives and threatening to hurt people. Being hit is normal and I tell the school that this happens and they say, well, it's happening at home so it isn't their problem. We know we are raising a child that's been through really significant trauma and neglect and we make allowances for that. We do use therapeutic parenting techniques to manage the situations we find ourselves in and they do work. I do accept it isn't her fault. Because we are special guardians we get no support at all. If anyone ever asked me about becoming a special guardian and they're already fostering I would tell them

don't. Stay in fostering. You get far more support financially and more training and they get emotional support for the child. The listener goes on, we are raising three other children, we're holding down jobs and we're trying to look after our own health and wellbeing at the same time as raising this child with so many additional needs. And this is another email, another situation.

I'm 71 and I'm a grandmother and a kinship carer for my grandson who is 10 i am fortunate because i have an ehc plan that is a legal document that i gather does guarantee you a certain sort of support because you're bringing up your your 10 year old grandson and the listener goes on, he has various challenging behaviours, including violence at home. He has been able to go to school as he's classed as a vulnerable child. I don't know what we'd have done if this hadn't been possible, as he flatly refuses to do anything connected to homeschooling, and we'd be having terrible physical and mental battles. I sympathise with kinship carers who haven't been able to get access to their school

as I know exactly what they must be going through. My husband probably does more for my grandson than I do in the way of physical activities, but like so many other carers, most physical violence has been directed at me. So there we go. There's something that backs up what our contributors were saying. But

also, I think it's important that listener points out that her husband is a great help. It was suggested in that conversation that some grandfathers perhaps absent themselves from situations they find too difficult. But clearly, that is not the experience of everybody. Now, Florence Given was our guest this morning, a hugely influential young woman. She is an influencer, literally, over 400,000 followers on Instagram. And as I said, you might not know her name,

but your children, particularly your daughters or your granddaughters, will certainly be aware of Florence Given. Women Don't Owe You Pretty is the name of her new book. Pat wrote to say, it was ever thus when I was at uni in 1970 and inspired by similar feelings to Florence's, I chucked out my makeup, chucked it out of my bedroom window.

But less committed than Florence, I went out the next morning to try to find it again. As a woman who's always taken my career very seriously, I've had to be mindful at job interviews not to appear pretty to the men on the panel, whilst, oh sorry not to appear pretty to the men on the panel whilst oh sorry to appear pretty to the men on the panel whilst not annoying the women so I've had to think very carefully about legs and shoes that show when you walk in but stop showing when you sit down behind a desk and start talking sense Zoe says I'd like to thank Womizel for featuring Florence Given.

I'm a 46-year-old relationship psychotherapist and Florence Given is a name I've had to familiarise myself with as it frequently crops up in my work with young women. She's part of a welcome movement making significant changes to the relationships women have with themselves, others and the world at large. She is a long-awaited breath of fresh air. From Gemma, excited to hear Florence talking about body hair this morning.

I'm 55 and only shave in the summer when my legs and armpits are exposed to public view. Fortunately, I'm an older woman, so the general public don't really notice me anyway. I'm particularly angry about the recent trend for young women to shave their pubic hair. It's there for a purpose, for God's sake, and it's very itchy when it grows back. Florence, keep up the good work. Support there from Gemma. Deborah, not so enthusiastic. Listening to Florence's strident bandwagon feminist views has given me a headache. Another young woman determined to see prejudice everywhere while droning on about privilege, that awful new buzzword.

OK, that's what Deborah thinks. From Caroline, come on, Woman's Hour. Florence at 21 isn't saying anything original at all. We all heard this in the 60s and 70s. Caroline, yes, but I mean, I didn't hear it in the 60s because I was only six when the 60s ended. And my children, as far as they're concerned, it's all new and they want to hear it from Florence. They're not going to hear it from me. They couldn't give a damn what I think. It's really important that Florence Given is out there.

And from Bettina, I'm 70, happy to be female, left of centre politically, have been a feminist from my late 60s. However, the drivel put out by the empowered young woman you've just been interviewing is maddening. I dress, put makeup on, shave my legs, largely to peace myself and keep myself fit, etc. It's already enraging to be considered vulnerable due to my age. But this patronising twaddle is too Well, you won't hear this then, will you, Bettina? But I think, to go back to what I say, those of us who feel we've heard it all before, perhaps we have. But lots of people want to hear it from somebody else. And they are very, very eager to

hear Florence's way of delivering the, it's the same message, you're right, I'm not disagreeing with that. But we need to hear it from today's 21 year olds, not from has-beens like me. Thank you very much for listening and engaging this morning. Jenny is here tomorrow. Amongst other things, she's going to be talking to the author Penny Winsor about her book about caring, which is so important at the moment. 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 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.