Woman's Hour - Sexism in football, Mum rage, China's MeToo

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

The managing director of AFC Wimbledon has resigned after being secretly recorded making sexist and abusive comments about a female colleague, just two months after publicly committing to tackling sexism as part of the Her Game Too campaign. Emma Barnett gets reaction from Lewes FC Chief Executive Maggie Murphy and Yvonne Harrison, CEO of Women in Football.Minna Dubin is the author of Mum Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood. It's a book inspired by her own experiences and she then spent three years speaking to other mothers, to build up a picture that goes beyond her own domestic sphere.In 2021, prominent Chinese journalist and #MeToo activist Sophia Huang Xueqin was arrested and jailed. Unseen for the last two years, the Chinese Government announced that her closed-door trial began on Friday. Journalist Jessie Lau joins Emma to discuss the latest in this case.Emma talks to author Ysenda Maxtone Graham about her new book Jobs for the Girls which gives a snapshot of British women's working lives from 1950, through cardigans and pearls, via mini-skirts and bottom-pinching, to shoulder pads and the ping of the first emails in the early 1990s.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. There's a story we want to bring to your attention today. One that perhaps has not had enough coverage, especially in light of the Lionesses' international success and a great deal of public commitment by the football world to so-called diversity and inclusion. I say so-called because it's this. The managing director of a men's football club has been secretly recorded using sexist and abusive language, specifically calling his female colleague a slut and a slag and joking about murdering her.

You don't have to care about football to pay attention to this story because at the heart of it is seemingly a perfect example of a business and a person, a leader, saying one thing publicly and a very different thing privately. And yes, the person in question didn't know he was being recorded. I'll get to that in that detail. There are valid questions about that. But on today's programme, I would like, as always, to hear from you about when you have known that someone is saying something publicly, which is very different to how they have shown they feel in private. I remember a well-known business leader, a male business leader,

once very helpfully saying to me at an event, Emma, sexism hasn't gone away. Men, some men, have just got a lot better at hiding it. You can get in touch with me here at Woman's Hour on 84844. That's the number you need to text. Text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media. You can let rip at BBC Woman's Hour or email me through the Woman's Hour website or send a WhatsApp message or voice note on 03700 100 444. But let me tell you some more about this story, broken by the Times newspaper.

The managing director of AFC Wimbledon, Danny Macklin, has resigned after a bug hidden in his office recorded him apparently calling a female colleague a slut, a slag, and as I said, joking about murdering her. He was talking about a woman who is the club's head of supporter service and ticketing. She's called Rebecca Markham. And it happened just two months after both he and Rebecca publicly committed to tackling sexism as part of the Her Game 2 campaign, which you may be familiar with. He himself, this guy, this managing director, the former managing director, has also appealed to supporters of the club to not use sexist songs, to not sing them. He said, That's a bit about him on this subject.

A security guard working at the club secretly recorded Macklin's comments after being concerned and becoming concerned about the alleged abuse of staff. I should say at this point, we've invited the club on. No one's available. There is a statement. I'll get to that.

And I also want to say that I'm thinking of Rebecca Markham this morning and how she must be feeling having her name out there and like this without her having done anything at all. So I just want to make that point here on Woman's Hour because she isn't here to speak. Maybe she will be. I would very much welcome her to come here. This is a space, I'll talk to Yvonne Harrison, the founder of the group Women in Football. Maggie, good morning. Thank you for being here. Good morning. I'm the chief exec of Lewis FC,

so I cover the men's side as well. You are the chief exec. I did not mean to demote you. Apologies. But that's relevant because we're talking across the game. So you heard this story, you read this story whenever it first crossed your path.

What is your response? I think that my first thought was, well, first of all, the language. No one can say I've listened to the recording and it's pretty shocking the language that's used, the way it was, the tone. So I was, was I surprised or shocked? I don't know. I think the thing that really resonated for me was that there was a culture that that language wasn't being checked or challenged. And I think that was the key thing. I think that he was actually in conversation with

a female member of staff at the time, which shows that there's potentially a culture there where you're not allowed to speak out or say hey that language isn't okay and I think the other thing that that maybe resonated was the fact that it took the office to be bugged for it to materialize and that suggests that probably maybe conversations have happened behind closed doors but it either didn't land or it wasn't working or or it was dealt with potentially aggressively as well. So I think those are the kinds of things that went through my mind when I heard it.

But I also didn't think it was probably going to be that rare. And if you bugged clubs up and down the country, you might hear similarly. I mean, perhaps that speaks to your experience of this world versus someone like my own. But I found the recording, which we aren't able to play, but as I say, it's through the Times website. You can check that out.

And if we were to play it, it would mainly be bleeped out because we're on a national radio station, certainly at this hour of the day as well. It wouldn't be perhaps appropriate, or can we do that in terms of who owns that recording and how it was procured, which I've also made a point of. But it's striking to me that perhaps you're not that shocked no I think that football for a very very long time has operated in very closed off spaces and where you have closed off spaces you have language or behavior that can go unchecked and I think that

only now are we starting to shed a little bit of light there's a chink in the door there's more people involved and as soon as you get more people involved more um diverse people you know not just your the people all at the same then you're going to get people going hang on a sec that's not okay i don't like that i don't appreciate that and also people from outside the sector coming into the sector and saying hang on a sec why is why is it in football you're allowed to talk like this whereas in any other normal business culture that just wouldn't that wouldn't be tolerated so i think those are the things this is perhaps evidence of the football sector opening up a little bit um and the light shining on i was going to say though it's at the same time you know we've covered various uh campaigns here

on women's hour and across the media it's at the same time that people like this are going out publicly and signing these campaigns. So where should the public put their belief? Personally, I think it is far too easy for people to take part in what I call the wear a T-shirt campaign. So one week you'll be wearing a T-shirt which is about tackling racism. The next week you're wearing a T-shirt about environmental sustainability. The following week it might be on gender equality. And when those sustained campaigns happen, but without the thoughts, it goes into actually how do we tackle problems and issues and how do

you make systemic change? I think that's the problem. It's far too easy for a set of t-shirts to arrive at your club doorstep for you to put on the players and put on management. But unless you're actually stopping to genuinely do the hard work, I worry that people think they've done the right thing. They've checked the box and then they can move on. The chief executive of Women in Football, Yvonne Harrison, is listening to that. Yvonne, what was your response when you saw and read and heard, perhaps, the details of this story? Initially horrified. I think as Maggie pointed out, the tone was so aggressive.

It was disgusting. And I really felt for both the person he was talking to and also the individual he was talking about. I mean, what could have happened in a workplace to be so aggressive about a colleague? And then I think you come back to the point of leadership. This is a managing director. It's such a position of responsibility.

And as Maggie said, it's very difficult for somebody, any colleague really, that is in that situation and having to listen to that to be able to respond because there's a power dynamic there. Whether that was a female or male colleague that was on the receiving end of that sort of tirade, I think it's just disgusting. But sadly, we know from a survey that we did just this year, that 82% of women working in the football industry experienced discrimination. Sorry, if I may, just before we go on to the next bit of data, is that in the football industry, the men's game and the women's game or just the men's yeah so it was we we have over 8 000 members and the people that responded to our survey work across men's and women's football um there were not too many um kind of differences between those

working just in the women's game and those working across men's or both um i think that will come as we see more and more people working in the women's game and but working across men's or both. I think that will come as we see more and more people working in the women's game. But it's significant. And that was up from 66 percent back in 2020. We also know that nearly one in two women are experiencing sexism in the workplace and very few women are reporting it. And the reason they tell us that they don't report it is because very little happens. They don't see action. So I think, you know, to Maggie's point, we don't know the details because very little happens they don't see action so i think you know to maggie's point we don't know the details of how the club have handled this they've talked about dealing with it and in line with their values and so on which is great and we want to see action and

we recently called in our open doors agenda for action and clear pathways and policies for reporting but dealing with and having consequences for behaviour like this. Have you seen anecdotally or evidence wise, just to talk about leadership, have you seen any evidence, Yvonne, of men in the football world being disgruntled, shall we say, about women moving into men's football as a as a workplace um i think i think anecdotally you see it more on social media than actually in conversations um with colleagues and there are some fantastic um advocates male advocates and one of our board members paul barbro ceo of brighton you know real advocate for women in the workplace and women's football. I'm less interested in the good guys today.

I'm more interested in what we don't hear. I'm often more interested in what we don't hear. It's very easy to come on the radio and say the good stuff. It's very hard to talk about the difficult stuff. I would really like Danny Macklin to come on. You're very right. There are many, many men who welcome it. There are men who are turning themselves towards the women's game.

All of that has happened. But I suppose just to keep the spotlight muggy, to come back to you as Chief Executive of Lewis Football Club across the men in the women's game, let me ask you the same question. Away from social media, have you ever heard or had perhaps a meaningful conversation

about men feeling uncomfortable about women in football? Yeah, yes, inside my own club. So there's certainly instances where equality can feel like oppression if you're not used to it. And so I have had instances where I've spoken several years ago now to coaches who felt that they were not being elevated or promoted because they were not women. At the time, at the time, I actually didn't have a single female coach working in our pathway. And so that was a conversation where it was evident that he thought that women were being prioritised.

And yet I didn't have a single woman on the books. I think those I think there can be, and it's difficult sometimes for men to raise their concerns because I think that some of this does go underground. I think your comment about people get better at being sexist, you know, it goes a little bit quiet, it goes unseen. I think that people can harbour thoughts that they're not getting the promotions that maybe they thought they would have been deserving of because there are more women in the workspace. I think that they equally I have plenty of men a bunch of guys that work here that are really grateful to be working in a much more diverse

workplace because probably Lewis is more diverse than most clubs and I know that they really appreciate it and perhaps did not find their place in other clubs where it was all male and perhaps the environment or the culture wasn't one that they liked. Yes I mean Yvonne your work is incredibly important for trying to change things and change those perceptions whether they're voiced or not. I mentioned thinking about Rebecca today, Rebecca Markham whose name is now out there. Yeah that's a difficult place for her to be isn't it and I know you've supported women working in football yeah it is and that's why networks like ours are so important because the biggest thing that our members tell us is the fact that they're part of that community they don't feel alone we offer free legal advice to advice to people in our community that need

that and that's really important I mean the spotlight on you is something else and in such a way you know that's not what she wants to be known for she wants to be known for a talented person who's really succeeding in football and we want to champion that but at the same time we're here to to offer offer that support of course and to your point around you know I've spoke to colleagues who've been in football club boardrooms and they've been assumed to be the wife of the director and not the director themselves and this has not happened just you know six years ago this happens frequently so there is still a real cultural piece to be done in football around women belonging and being there because of their merit and what they're good at

and what they bring to a team in that dynamic and not you know just because they're ticking the box that's absolutely not the case. I think again there was something I think my sorry my voice just came out slightly on the on the way that we're doing this interview I have apologies for that but just looking across around the women's game and the women's football game in terms of England, there's something that also perhaps didn't get that much press last week, which I wanted to ask you both about, that the Lionesses have negotiated performance-related bonuses with the FA. It seems relevant to bring that up as well with the inching towards the men's game

and parity with the men's game. What's your thoughts on that, Maggie? So I haven't seen the details. I do think that it's a real positive that they were able to negotiate on their own terms in a way. So they decided when to stop negotiating as they went into the World Cup and then they picked it up afterwards. I think that's a real positive because it shows a level of respect,

actually, between the FA and the players in order to be able to have that conversation. I think that we're still very far from parity, but uh pretty inclusive but also brave and resilient and tough and fearless um and it's quite special and unique and i think that we're entering into an interesting phase where the more professionalized that women's football gets does it and the more that unfortunately the more dependent that women's football gets on men's football to sustain the finances through some of the big bigger clubs is that going to affect the beautiful culture that's been developed? That's one of the things that I am concerned about in the future. That's really interesting. Well, maybe we will talk again. Thank you very much.

Two chief executives on the line, the chief executive officer of Lewis Football Club, Maggie Murphy, and the chief executive of Women in Football, Yvonne Harrison. Thank you to you this morning. I should say, Danny Macklin has not put out a public statement on this. I did say that he's mentioned on his social media feeds that he's taking a mini career break. We got a statement from the football club, from Wimbledon AFC here. But if anyone from the club would like to come on, that is an open invitation.

The statement is, AFC Wimbledon takes its obligation to act properly and set an example, as well as its duty of care towards employees and fans extremely seriously. Behaviour such as that is being alleged was and is not tolerated, nor is it representative of the culture at AFC Wimbledon.

Once we became aware of the matter, we acted appropriately in accordance with our responsibilities and values to promptly resolve it. Your messages have come in on this, a couple here. Unfortunately, most businesses are still run by white men who are over the age of 50, a large percentage of which don't value female skills in the workplace. That's an anonymous message there and a very specific of which don't value female skills in the workplace.

That's an anonymous message there and a very specific take. I'm sure there's responses to that as well, depending on your experience. And I'm not sure if that is actually the case, but that's what's being put forward. It's certainly the case, I believe, in some of the larger companies. That still probably rings true.

Of course, it's quite hard to draw that right now here on the radio. Hi there, sexism is rife everywhere. I work for a global tea company and was told by a senior male member, male colleague, to make sure that my next recruit had big, and this is stardom, I presume it's saying breasts, in the same business, the head of technical told my male teammate

that he would have to wait for some documents to be signed off as the person in front of the queue for his attention had bigger breasts and was prettier than him. HR got him to apologise about the fact that the comments had upset my team member but he wasn't punished for sexist remarks. The head of HR was a woman. Your examples please of perhaps one thing being said or done publicly and something else going on altogether behind the scenes because that is what this particular story seemed to have shown. Now, my next guest is Minna Dubin. She's the author of a new book called Mum Rage,

The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood. It's a book inspired by her own experiences and she then spent three years speaking to other mothers, building up a picture that went beyond her own domestic sphere. I spoke to her just before coming on air, and I started by asking about her own mum rage. You know, it didn't start probably until I started weaning when my son was about a year old,

and it feels like and has felt like a constant irritation buzzing beneath my skin. And it mostly kind of came out of my husband, but also would come out towards my kid when things were feeling really frustrating. So up until that point, because I know you've spoken to a lot of women, but it'd be good to hear where this began for you, which is why women have spoken to you. Up until that point, you hadn't had this fizzing. You know, I had it in blips, but I didn't know what it was. And I thought perhaps, you know, perhaps it's the four month sleep regression or, you know, I made sort of excuses for it. But at one point, by the time I was weaning, it felt like it was constant. It was such a problem that I was like, I need to look at this. Can you describe how it would manifest? So that maybe that's how it feels a bit inside,

but what were some of the ways it came out? It would come out as yelling as kind of like hitting my palm against the counter, like, you know, during a heated conversation, getting out of the car and slamming the car door, slamming a door in the house. Did any of your the manifestations of your rage, they sound like they were taken out on objects or to yourself or I imagine as well, maybe to your partner? Yeah, I mean, I have never, you know, partner yeah I know I mean I have never you know physically touched anyone I very much you know hold my hands and yeah it never came out on anyone um

but there's like there's definitely there is a physical feeling of it like uh people who rage have different tells like physical tells things you do like for me my hands will come together like a duck kind of and I'll get very like as I'm talking my I start gesticulating and um I want to clap if I'm talking to my kids if I'm like really like brush your teeth you know like my hands get involved and so there's a physical element to it yes but but you're obviously drawing the the distinction I imagine quite importantly for people who are reading your work between what it then could lead to with rage leading to violence. Yeah, but I do talk about mom rage separate from abuse. I think that every mother who has mom rage holds the fear that it could go there. And that's what's so scary about it. But mom rage is not synonymous with abuse.

And in terms of knowing, it's interesting for you, I mean, we're talking on the radio, but I can see you. So just to say to our listeners, you were doing an action with your hands, your hands coming together, you described it. But what do you do in those moments then to try and deal with it? I try and actually leave the situation if I can. I will try to be like, we're going to take a break and I'm going to go in the other room for a couple of minutes and we're going to come back when we're calm. And sometimes, I mean, now my older kid is 10.

Sometimes he'll do it and he'll be like, let's stop. Like we will figure it out. And so I think taking breaks is like one of the best strategies actually that I've learned is to, to go away and come back when I'm a calmer person. Have you got to the root of the cause for you? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of causes. I mean, there's, there's the personal causes, like there's the triggers. Every mom who rages has personal rage triggers. So you might be yelling over something like a kid not tying their shoes after you asked them 20 times.

And so it seems like you're yelling about that. But actually, there's all this stuff underneath it that's happening. So your personal rage triggers, mine tend to be around patriarchy and feeling like I'm being disrespected or dismissed or ignored. And they feel very woman specific. But then there's also just the larger systemic issues of mothers not having very much support and being expected to do the majority of the labor. Which also I will get to because I know you've got some, as is an author's way now,

handy hints for those who want to think about how to help support. Because it is very important if you're shouldering a lot of this on your own to talk about why then that manifests and can manifest in rage. But in terms of, you know, the feeling in you now and that sort of fizzing and all all of that is that still something that can come out or have you learned to with some of these ways that you've thought about for you to to not suppress it but calm it I would say the answer is both I think that I am much better than I used to be I think I am much kinder to myself than I used to be so that I don't stay stuck in the feeling of shame and I can move forward. And that's like, I think the biggest change. And also, I just think that my kids have gotten easier. They're six and 10 now. They're not, you know, their brains are more fully functional. We can actually have a real conversation and work things out much easier than we used to.

And just on that point, again, you know, each person's scenario is specific, but you have connected with so many women, because you've spoken about this, and a lot of women do not who feel similarly, because of shame, which again, you just mentioned. But in your specific scenario, is it right that one of your children had additional needs and you didn't know? Yes. My son, my older one, was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder and autism spectrum disorder. But we didn't, no one said anything to us. He was kicked out of two preschools. And nobody had ever said, you know, hey, maybe you should get the sweet kid checked out. Like, maybe something else is going on here. And so we really didn't have support for some pretty critical years that we should have had support.

And when you know that now and you look back on how you were doing and how your family was doing, what is your view? Because there will be a lot of our listeners, and we talked about some of these issues yesterday with regard to the care system in the UK and how those are supported and educated here in the UK, those families with children with additional needs. How do you look back on it in your family and how it had an impact on you? The biggest impact is that it took so much of my time.

Once I started the process of getting him diagnosed and then getting him the support that he needed, it was a full-time job. And then also, I mean, I'm in America, so maybe it's different, but dealing with health insurance, and I was constantly on the phone trying to get this provider covered and that provider covered. And so it was just chauffeuring him to occupational therapy appointments and social skills groups. It was just, it could take over a life life and so I think that that felt like the largest thing for me is how much time it took over and that I had to connect all the dots like no one was doing it for me and so I felt you know as many mothers do in motherhood in general just kind of like at sea yeah and you're holding all those tabs open in your mind right constantly you know

you know even if you write it down, it's still there because you don't want to forget, as you say, how it connects. And health care and care is a full time job of one person. Right. And it was a luxury, right, that I had the financial luxury to really to be able to spend that time doing that because so many parents don't. Yes. And so the kids don't get the services they need because the mother can't spend the time looking for all of it. There's real shame admitting the rage. I've spoken to some women before and some men, rage and a whole other range of negative emotions, if we could just put it like that in inverted

commas, associated with looking after anyone in your family, including children who have additional needs of some description. There's this huge shame about that. And then there's huge shame about anything less than enjoying motherhood as you've been finding. Yes. Yes. And there's shame around so many parts. Like I interviewed one mom actually in the UK who struggled with infertility for, you know, so long trying to have a kid. And then she finally got this kid at like 51 years old and she was experiencing mom rage. And there is extra shame around that because it's like, I tried so hard to have this kid

and now they're finally here and I'm losing my mind you know um but yeah I think that mothers who experience mom rage are at this intersection of shame because women aren't supposed to be angry and then an angry mother is like the opposite of what we see mothers are supposed to be right we're supposed to be gentle and patient and nurturing and so if you're an angry mother you're like the worst kind of woman and the worst kind of mother. Is that why so many women have wanted to talk to you? I think so many women have wanted to talk to me. Yes, because they feel shame. And so talking to me makes them feel relief. And also, I just think mothers are so isolated. And we don't know that everyone else is struggling because we don't talk about it.

Do you like the phrase mum rage? Did you come up with that? Because it's an interesting thing, isn't it? You know, in one sense, especially with an American accent and you say mum rage, it sounds quite sweet to me in a way. It's funny because Americans say that about mum rage, that mum rage sounds so gentle. Right. Okay, so it does sound quite a gentle,

like we're used to the word mum being next to something else, like a cake or sweet or something. But mum rage makes it, I don't know, like a cute new brand for your face or something. But what do you make of that? Because for some people who have never felt what you're feeling, whether they're men or women reading your work, might find it really frightening. You know, they might think, is she OK? In a caring way, not in a shaming way, not in a, you know, just is everything all right there? Yeah. I mean, I and I get those emails like I get emails from people that are, you know, sometimes mean, but sometimes very concerned. And I think that people don't understand that actually mom rage is a very common experience.

It's just that no one's talking about it. And so I'm saying it out loud and people are like, oh, something might be wrong with her. And I'm like, no, I think this is actually really common. But do you and the reason I asked about the name is, do you think it's more serious, and I use that word kind of lightly, if I can, I'm trying to explain something, than people, women, saying, oh, my kids are annoying me. Like, it's in between a space of, you know, really, really something wrong

and, you know, needing to see a doctor and that sort of thing, or violence, let's put it over there in the serious, serious side, and your kids getting on your nerves. Do you think it occupies a different space? Yes, I do, actually. I think it is in the middle. And I think that it is, you know, it's malleable. I think that moms who feel mom rage sometimes are just in the my kids are being annoying I think that moms who feel mom rage sometimes are just in the my kids are being annoying phase and moms who feel mom rage sometimes they're like I need to see a therapist yes you know I think I think that's life right our feelings can shift and and to answer your question I did not make up the term mom rage but it seems like the perfect term for what I'm

trying to describe and how's everyone in your house since you've come out? Everyone got the memo? Sort of saying it. I'm sure they knew maybe already. But I wonder, has it helped naming it for you and being a part of that name? It has helped to name it in this whole process of talking to moms, writing the book, doing all this research about it, it has helped me to have a sort of mindfulness about it so that when I start to get revved up inside, I'm more aware and I can be like, oh, it's happening. I need to I need to take a break.

So it has helped me just to like be constantly talking about it. And I would say my family's fine. Yeah, well, I was gonna say not to give women more jobs of how to help themselves only. You are and you have turned your mind to how others can help with this. And I wondered if you could share a few tips for those who are listening. We also do have a large male listenership who are thinking, I see some of this, and I'm not quite sure what to do. Sure. So one of the biggest things we need is systemic change, which is not the answer to your question, but I just always want to say that because it is not really mother's fault. On Woman's Hour, we often come to the end

of a discussion and there is a call for systemic change. I can tell you that. It's important. It's important. So that's number one. But in the home, what you can actually do, the most important thing for me has been to get curious about your rage. Because we're so ashamed, we push our rage as far away from ourselves as possible. But my suggestion and what has helped me is instead to get really curious about it and to be like a researcher wondering, you know, okay, I just had this rage. What were the circumstances? When was the last time I ate? How much did I sleep last night? What was the location? Were there other people around? You know, really starting

to take notes as if you're a sociologist on your own rage. And then also using your, if you have a partner, using your partner, because your partner can observe you when you have a rage and tell and start to notice things that you do right before you rage so that you can get smarter at stopping a rage before it starts. They might not feel good about telling you those observations just before it starts. So maybe a different point. Yeah, but also, for myself, and for some of the moms in the book they've come up we've come up with code words or code terms yes that that the mother has chosen that won't trigger her so she doesn't go are you saying i'm crazy you know yeah i was just playing that out and and thinking where that might go yeah code words code words, code words are good.

And then some of what you've advised in the particular extracts I was reading in one of the newspapers was around, you know, some of that stuff of genuinely sharing the load. So not offering to cook a meal, but offering to do it right from the start, which is meal planning for the whole week, buying the food and then making it. That's right. And cleaning up and so that there is not a crumb left behind, getting the kids to clear the table. It is like, you know, I call it doing dinner from the real start to the real finish so that there's nothing occupying the mother's brain about dinner if it's on the other parent's night. Mina Dubin, the book is called Mum Rage,

The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood and some of the recollections from her conversations with other women. Here's a text off the back of that. There have had quite a few. I don't think mum rage is a real thing. I think many people today lack the resilience to be parents. I'm going to park that there. You can respond to that.

No name on that. No idea if that is a mother or a father or what relation to parenting that person has, but that is one person's take on it. My mother's rage was one of the defining griefs of my childhood, reads this other message. She didn't realise quite how angry she was and I wish she'd received more support. She really needed it.

Another. Women are supposed to be self-sacrificing and never complain about motherhood, which is why mum rage is a taboo. Stepmothers have been constantly portrayed as evil in popular culture, yet are held to even higher standards and expected to be saints. Society in general punishes women for expressing anger, yet it's acceptable for men. These are patriarchal norms that need to be deconstructed. Thank you to Woman's Hour for opening up this conversation, says Gemma, listening in Paisley.

Thank you to all of you for messaging. I say that we really want to hear what you think, and that means all of the reviews that are perhaps coming to mind, you can share them here, and I'm sharing them with you in turn. Keep those messages coming in. There's some I want to return to about our very top story as well, and I'll return if I can shortly. But let me tell you about something happening and something changing a woman's life in China. In 2017, the hashtag MeToo exploded on social media,

with many women coming together to expose abuse and ignite discussions around the globe. It's a movement that has been seen as having good and sometimes bad consequences. In China, its uptake was largely down to one woman, the journalist Sophia Huang-Schweitzer. She extensively researched and sparked some of the first Me Too stories in the country, convincing women to come forward. Her work became so renowned, she managed to secure a scholarship here in the UK to the University of Sussex in 2021. But on the way to the airport to take up that opportunity, she was arrested, put in prison, and after two years of being behind bars,

we finally had an update. On Friday, her closed-door trial officially began, and the journalist Jessie Lau joins me now to tell us some more. Jessie, good morning. Hi, thank you for having me. What do we know of her trial and what she's accused of? So Chinese authorities haven't publicly commented on the status of the case, but supporters say that she and the activist that's been arrested with her, Wang Jianbing,

were both formally indicted for inciting subversion of state power. Now that charge normally carries a sentence of five years, but can be longer if the cases are deemed more severe. And the court proceedings because there's been a you know no one's really been knowing what's been happening to her for a while this is allowed a little bit of an insight. Yes so they have been largely held incommunicado for the past two years cut off from friends and family and And so there really is very few updates on their case and their condition. There's two individuals, I should say. So I

only mentioned Sophia. Yes. So she was arrested and detained with a friend, Wang Jianbing. He is a labor activist who has also been a huge supporter of the feminist movement in China. And we haven't known much, but we know what now and do we know what's going to happen next? So it's really difficult because it's a closed door trial. And I think activists say that these proceedings usually are delayed to sort of or like victims are usually held for lots of years and delayed without trial. And this is something that's quite typical when it's a politically sensitive case. The updates we have had include earlier this year, Sophia's supporters say that her health has deteriorated. So they were saying that she experienced significant weight loss and she stopped menstruating. So they're very concerned about her condition. A BBC Eye investigation

last year in 2022 found that both individuals were being held in solitary confinement detained in secret locations known as black jails as well. Yes so when they first disappeared in September 2021 there was about a month of not really knowing what happened to both these activists and then later we found out that they were held in black jails in China for about a month and then transferred to a detention center in Guangzhou, where they were then charged with inciting subversion of state power. And in that time period, about 70 of Wang and Sophia's friends were questioned and interrogated. And we, in our investigation, we spoke to some of these friends who were questioned by police. And they say that they were forced to sign statements, giving evidence against the pair. And some of them have now had to leave China as a result of the crackdown. Can you tell us a bit more about her work with the Me Too movement? What's led to her now being in this situation. How did her activism first come to prominence? Sure. Sophia is probably one of the most prominent MeToo activists in China and the

work that she's been able to accomplish in an increasingly repressive media environment has been really astonishing. She sparked the MeToo movement, as you mentioned, by reporting on the first cases. She helped a grad student go public with allegations of sexual harassment against her PhD supervisor, went on to report on many other MeToo cases. She frequently spoke up for minority groups in China. In 2018, she released a landmark survey investigating sexual harassment in China's media industry. And that survey found that over 80% of female journalists have experienced sexual harassment, and over 60% chose to remain silent. And she herself was inspired to conduct the survey because she is a victim of sexual harassment

herself. And she was very outspoken about her experience and lifting up the amplifying the voices of others in a time in which it's still really stigmatized for women to speak out about these issues in China. So it's really amazing what she's been able to accomplish. And in 2019, actually, she also attended a protest in Hong Kong during the pro-democracy movement. And she wrote a reflection about her experience, which she published online. And she was detained for three months as a result of that and was prevented from taking up a graduate position at the University of Hong Kong.

When you say, for instance, she published a survey, she gave an insight into women's lives in China, where has she published those things is she working with groups or on her own websites yes so she she's a journalist so she's worked with like various media organizations in China and she's given talks um in Hong Kong and elsewhere as well and is this something in China to be censored because it's it's not um it's not good news, as it were, or is this something that Chinese society can engage with? So I think the MeToo movement in China has really blossomed. I think it's probably one of the biggest social movements in China in the past decade.

But because it's become so big, it's frequently in recent years been come under a lot of crackdown and censorship. And it's not just it's not specifically gender issues. But I think the Chinese state is really concerned with activism in general, and being able to control freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And so lots of activists, including feminists, when they speak out about certain issues, for instance, feminism, feminism is then branded as a sort of Western import. And so activists are accused of colluding with foreign hostile forces. And this is sort of what leads, it's this kind of gathering and this mobilization that is seen as a threat to the Chinese state. For Sophia and Wang Jianbing in particular, in the year leading up to their arrest, they were organizing these weekly gatherings at Wang's apartment where they were gathering like-minded progressive people talking about LGBT issues, gender issues, labor rights. But they were also playing board games and like watching movies together. And they were really trying to create a space for people to connect when civil society has been increasingly decimated and fragmented. And it's really shocking to see

the severity to which they've been treated as a result of these gatherings, which are seen as a threat. So it's not necessarily the feminism, per se, or the subject of it. Right. It's the fact that it could subvert power yes exactly and because you know the severity with with which their cases have been treated has i think the opacity of the case has a huge chilling effect on civil society because people don't really know what the red lines are which makes it very difficult now to to organize any sort of activity, you know, within mainland China, because if people can, you know, be arrested for having these informal gatherings,

it's really difficult for activists to continue working on social issues. And to know where those lines are, like you're saying, because she's in her 30s. Is that right? Yes. So and this has been going on since 2021 in terms of her arrest and detention. How long until there's a verdict? So we don't know. But it's very common, as I said, for these political cases, for victims to sort of have year long delays without trial. And unfortunately, I think it's activists say it's part of this crackdown on a new generation of activists in China. And so now I think a lot of the activism that you see is overseas. And so

there's a huge flourishing of like diaspora activism and people campaigning overseas in the UK, elsewhere to release Sophia and Wang Jianbing. Do you have hope that she'll be able to ever get to that degree, that scholarship at the University of Sussex? I do hope so. I mean, I think regardless, Sophia's story is astonishing and I think she has inspired so many Chinese people, not just Chinese people, people worldwide, with her bravery, her tenacity

in reporting, and her willingness to do whatever it takes to speak up for people who are from disadvantaged groups and to do what's right. And I think that that's really, that's an amazing thing that she's been able to accomplish. Jesse Lau, thank you for putting us in the picture and reminding us of the work of Sophia Huang-Shuixin, which will stay with that story as it develops. You've been getting in touch throughout today's programme. Let me give you a flavour of it. To our discussion about mum rage, there's a message here which is anonymous. For goodness sake, mum rage, four question marks. I'm a mum of four, a grandmother and a GP since 1989.

This is capital letters normal in any caring situation when you have to subserve your needs, desires or wants to someone else. My feeling is that it has been acknowledged and discussed for years. Question mark. Another one. When my boys were about seven and eight, they were being absolutely horrendous in the car. And I just happened to be driving past a police station. I drove in, told them I was taking them to the station. To be told off, they were terrified and I felt awful. But it stopped them from being naughty, exclamation point. And more to those particular stories. And just to go back to our first story this morning,

one that we felt that hadn't perhaps had as much attention and we wanted to bring to your attention is what has gone on at the men's football club AFC Wimbledon where the managing director has resigned after a bug hidden in his office recorded him apparently calling a female colleague

a slut and a slag and also joking about murdering her. This is a colleague he had worked closely on promoting the club's gender equality and lack of tolerance for sexist chants at the ground. Your views come in around when you've heard somebody say one thing, but you know in the background or behind the scenes they say something else. One from Jane here says,

I think we need to be very careful about how we treat things people say when they're with their friends. We all exaggerate in friendly conversations. Take a common example. A group of friends are chatting and one recounts something someone else has said or done. Immediately their friends say things like they should be shot. These responses are exaggerated expressions of outrage making the disapproval of what has been said or done and showing support for the victim not a genuine wish to see the perpetrator executed. It is wrong to take such private remarks at face value.

Well, as I said, when I introduced this subject, there is a live discussion about how these comments were heard and secretly recorded. It was actually by a security guard, we understand, at the firm. This is all in the Times exclusive report on it. But Jane, to your point, and context is all, this was not a man, as we understand it, with his friends. It was a man with a colleague talking about another colleague. Context is all, but Jane, I would put that fact back in the limelight in response to your message. And so those messages keep carrying on. There's a very important one, I think, to read. And it's actually about the workplace, which will bring us to our next discussion about and how women are and jobs for the girls and for women as the next book is about just let me read you this

i had an awful experience before i left teaching with my then boss the head teacher of the school while i was on maternity leave she privately told me to shreds to the person covering me she told her i was awful and that she would much rather her do the job than me. To my face she was lovely saying how she couldn't wait until I returned. She did this repeatedly with different members of staff. We all knew she was scathing about us behind our back especially about the female members of staff. It was awful and I ended up very low as a consequence of how she treated me. Thank you very much for your honesty and feeling like you could share that with us, no name on that particular message. And while there are still many battles

for women to win at work, my next guest, as we bring today's programme to a close, can tell us how life really has improved in many ways for today's women across the board compared to, say, our mothers and grandmothers. I sender-Graham has just published a third part of her trilogy of oral British history about the working life of women from the 1950s to the 1990s. The book is called Jobs for the Girls, How We Set Out to Work in the Typewriter Age. Isenda joins me now. Good morning. Good morning.

Isenda. Isenda. Yes. I was going to check I'd got that right and you've helped me out. Lost Worlds, you say your books are about. In what sense lost? Yes, well, I love capturing post-Second World War life, life in living memory, really, before it vanishes.

It's a small detail. So my first book was about girls boarding schools, life in girls boarding schools, what happened in those weird institutions down the end of gravel drives run by pairs of old ladies. And my second book was about those amazing summers of our childhood when we were neglected and our parents had no idea where we were as we cycled around the neighborhood never went rarely went abroad and this one is

about what happened at that strange moment this is from 1950s to the 1980s when girls I call it jobs for the girls because they were girls really were tipped out of their childhood of their schools into the world of adulthood what on earth happened next to what extent have they been given any preparation by their parents careers advisors scripture teachers um to have any sense of ambition in the world and what really happened and i didn't go in with an agenda i really wanted to hear what people told me and i picked up some fascinating um anecdotes and details and that's what and i wove them together to make this book, Drops for the Girls.

Let's get to some of that detail, but you spoke to, I understand, around 200 women and adverts were put up in local areas? Yes, I did. I really love to talk to people from all four corners of the country and all strata of society, really. So I sent messages to libraries in Leeds and Manchester

and Sunderland and Cornwall and I said, please, can you ask anyone to get in touch with me who might like to chat? And people did. There's a very memorable quote. One woman, when getting in response to some of these adverts and getting in touch with you, said she recalled her father saying she didn't need to worry about work because she was perfectly bedworthy. Darling, there's no need for you to have a career because you're perfectly bedworthy and will get married. That was lovely. Bedworthy. I know, not even marriageable, bedworthy. In a weird way. I mean, her father probably meant it as a kind of compliment. This was mid-1950s. Don't worry, darling, there's no need for you to. So if you, you know, the inference being if you

weren't the best looking, you needed to get out and have a job. Yes, I think there was that. But then once you did, if you weren't the best looking, also, it was then quite hard to find a job because I think employers were quite luckiest. So it was a tricky world. But I think the world was in those days divided more clearly into pretty and plain. What did you take away from some of your conversations? What quotes or learnings have stayed with you? lack of self-pity in a way for these women. They were victims in a way, more than, or as much as, some of the people we've been hearing about today. But they sort of just expected it. I think girls' self-esteem had been quite tamped down at schools. You're always told not to blow their own trumpet, keep out of the way, make yourself useful. And one woman I spoke to, Penny Graham,

found herself wrapping up the editor of the Daily Express's Christmas presents while he was interviewing her, because that was sort of being useful. And it was just this expectation that you would be in quite lowly jobs. But I did also find that I wanted also some of the great fun of working days, working worlds of those days, the marvellous sort of tea trolleys

and clattering down steps with ice buns for elevenses, as well as the sort of strange, menial jobs that secretaries had to do. Also found that perhaps in a good environment, there was more porousness between the layers. As a secretary, you could start out and somehow you could float up through the layers. I met one woman who started as secretary and became a lawyer without ever having done a degree because somehow she just found herself working on the job.

It carried on. Yeah, that would never happen now, I feel. No. So a few odd benefits, perhaps, in this nascent world. Definitely. It's very easy to put a single narrative on the past, and I think it was much more nuanced. That's why it's good to pull out some of these individual stories.

What did you find out about how women were educated and different class backgrounds, and what that then meant about working? Well, i did find at the very top as it were that that the high posh end of the social spectrum and at the other end and this piece of paper called the maths o-level was strangely elusive and secondary modern girls what sort of often didn't get a math o-level because they either left at 15 on the moment they the term they turned 15 if it was october you you left by Christmas and got a job in a factory or shoe shop the next Monday without any qualification.

And at the posh end of the social spectrum, there was no sense that you needed a maths O-level. Girls were giving up maths at the age of 12 and found it a bit hard, which made it impossible even to become a nurse, let alone a teacher. Why was maths the what? Yes, it's strange in a way that maths has always been, that maths and English I suppose were the two that were considered absolutely vital, perhaps to show that you could actually think and do a calculator radius Ever since I was told off by Carol

Vorderman on the radio for saying I wasn't very good at maths, I've never said it again, but I'm going to say it again, I really wasn't, it still brings out the, I don't know, English side of things, but it's interesting that that was still the barometer. Yes. The idea of those wells being captured,

some of the anecdotes from women working in offices, you know, box files being thrown, bottom pinching. One woman told you her bottom was pinched so hard, is that right, that it left a bruise for two weeks? There was a bit of that going on. And there was a lot of the expression no thank you, I'm quite happy standing, which we now say when someone offers

a seat on the tube, that's what secretaries used to say when their boss asked them to sit on their knee. That's the line. Do you think there was a kind of, without it necessarily being called as such, and obviously I know this is going on at the same time as another wave of feminism, but do you think there was a kind of sisterhood and a code between some of these women

as to how they were navigating this one? Yes I think they used to grimace each other across the room while one was having her neck tickled they used to sort of go smile and grimace each other there was a kind of more us and them us and them feeling I think in offices. And yes at the same time it was a key place where a lot of women would meet their husband. Well yes there, there's a lovely chapter called Lust and Love in the workplace, making it clear that there is both. There is lust, yes, sort of in a way the bad side, instant sexual side, but also real long term Drain Austin level romances were formed in offices because you were working with people for years and there could be a lovely, gentle relationship. And I think nowadays, if you have a relationship in in office you have to declare it to HR straight away there isn't that freedom for office romances to blossom perhaps that there was then and I met a I had a lovely story about a woman falling in love at initial towel supplies in Leicester and falling

in love with Alan. At a towel supply? Yes. Right. Driving her van. She fell in love over the soft lovely smell of freshly milled towels. Yes. So, you know, it wasn't all bad. There was sort of, in a way, there was more gentleness. Perhaps not every single ounce of work was squeezed out of you. There was a bit more sitting around in offices, chatting, laughing. Yeah, trips to the pub, lunch hours.

Yes, long lunches. There's a line as well, before capitalism stole the lunch hour. Yes, I know. People used to go to a restaurant and have spaghetti bolognese, then have their hair done. All fitted into the hour while the men went off. Spaghetti bolognese and a blow dry. I mean, that sounds like an absolutely brilliant lunch hour. Can you sign me up for that every single day? I'd be very happy with that. Do you think you got across the whole spectrum?

You know, when you're doing an oral history, you know, there know, do you think you really got to lots of different types of women? I really hope so, because there's a great central stratum, which is sort of the grammar school girls who are, in a way, the luckiest, because they got in at 11 plus, and then there was just more of an expectation that you would go to university. And I really wanted to hear their stories too. But when they got to university in the 1950s and 60s and even got to Oxbridge,

then they were still expected to apply for jobs as secretaries. Yes, I heard one woman, a scientist, be told that we don't send women on the milk round. We're not going to put you forward for working at ICI. So she had to go and do it herself. Well, do you think you'd prefer the work there or now? I mean, what's your view having taken this look? It's a very good question.

I do find offices can be quite silent places these days and there was a lot of clattering of typewriters and chat and going off to the loo to sell things and listen to your Walkman. And there was perhaps more fun in those days and I did want to capture that, the fun of the office world. Fun, but also I suppose having to avoid certain things as well at the same time. It's a mixed bag. But again, I'm sure you writing this or certainly publishing it post the pandemic with working from home is another lens that someone in the future perhaps may, I don't know, think about capturing.

That's right. I think they will. And I think that people long to get back to their offices perhaps after that time of solitude. Well, the book is called, as you say, Jobs for the Girls, How We Set Out to Work in the Typewriter Age. Thank you so much for talking to us this morning. And thank you for all of your comments.

Tomorrow, Dame Joan Collins on the programme, who at 90 has published a new memoir. I'm sure she won't be short of a few things to say. I'll talk to you then at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, I'm Nick Robinson.

I want to tell you about my Radio 4 podcast, Political Thinking. It is about why people think the things they think. What is it in their lives, their backgrounds, that explains who they are and what they believe? My is it in their lives, their backgrounds that explains who they are and what they believe? My mum was a very community-minded person. That's what brought politics to life for me, actually. These are conversations, not newsy interrogations. Lucky, ruthless, probably a bit of both. And they're not just about rows or problems. They're quite often about the good politics can do.

There is nothing like government. Good government gets things done. That is what democracy is all about. That's Political Thinking with me, Nick Robinson. Listen now on BBC Sounds. 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.