Woman's Hour - Spiking, The pill, Family dynamics at Christmas
Episode Date: December 21, 2023The Met Police have reported that cases of spiking - putting alcohol or drugs into another person's drink or body without their consent - have quadrupled in London over the last five years. This week ...the Home Office set out new provisions to provide training for venue staff and test-kits for customers. Campaigner Sharon Gaffka joins Jessica Creighton to talk about whether that's enough for spiking victims. As we gear up for Christmas, some people might be considering the age-old question: How do you survive the big day without falling out with your family? With unwanted questions about your parenting style, your career or even your love life - tensions can often rise over the brussels sprouts. Camilla McGill is a parent coach and joins Jessica to give us tips on how to manage anxieties and stress with loved ones.A 16-year-old girl died last week from what is thought to have been a blood clot - three weeks after being prescribed the contraceptive pill. According to the NHS, there is a very low risk of serious side effects from taking the pill. Dr Janet Barter is a consultant in sexual and reproductive health at Barts Health NHS Trust in London – she tells Jessica the facts we need to know around the pill.Last year, female-owned businesses received just 2% of all venture capital funding, Parliament’s Treasury Committee found. Entrepreneur Grace Beverley wants to raise awareness of the female funding gap. She joins Jessica to talk about her business model and using her platform to empower women. If you are a woman who is adopted, then the decision to have children of your own can be a complicated one, as your own birth family’s medical history may be a mystery to you. How do you know what you are passing on through your genes? Writer and journalist Katharine Quarmby has been looking into this issue because she has had to grapple with it herself. She joins Jessica to discuss. Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Lottie Garton
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Hello, I'm Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast.
Good morning and welcome to the programme.
Now, we're already midway through the week and, of course, Christmas is getting nearer and nearer.
Of course, it can be an exciting time for many people, but it can also be a very stressful time, particularly if you're expecting to have those invasive questions thrown at you over Christmas
dinner. Now, you might have experienced those, shall we say, inquisitive family members bombarding
you with questions about your career or your parenting style, or even your love life, or
lack thereof for some people.
And when the criticism comes, how do you handle it?
That's the question I'm asking you this morning.
What types of prying questions have you been asked by family members at Christmas?
Get in touch with us because I'd love to know.
Did you bite your tongue or maybe you bit back? You can text the program using the number 84844.
Remember that text will be charged at your standard message rate.
Perhaps you feel like a message simply won't do it this morning
and you need to talk to me.
You need to tell me about these questions from family members.
So you can send me a voice note on 03700 100 444. Just be aware that data charges may apply. So you might want to use Wi-Fi if you can. We're always on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour and you can email us through our website as well. I can't wait to hear your stories. And a bit later in the programme, we'll be speaking to an expert about this who helps coach people through these exact scenarios.
And I know for me personally, I will definitely be needing some tips. Now also this morning,
I'll be talking to a woman standing up for female entrepreneurship after figures released earlier this year shows that just 2% of venture capital funding went to female owned businesses.
And also, the difficult journey of finding out your medical history if
you've been adopted and why it's especially important if you're a woman. All of that to
come this morning, but first, more training for door staff and funding for testing kits
are among a new set of measures announced this week to crack down on spiking, that is,
putting alcohol or drugs into another person's drink or
body without their consent. The Home Office has said the law would also be modernised to make it
clear spiking is a crime. However, it won't be made a specific offence. We know that the majority
of victims are women in their 20s and yesterday the Metropolitan Police revealed that drink spiking
offences have more than quadrupled in London
over the last five years. Sharon Gaffker is a violence against women activist who campaigns
on this issue and she joins me now. Good morning Sharon. Good morning. Thank you for coming on. Now
spiking has been in the news a fair amount this week so were you shocked by the drink spiking
offences quadrupling and those figures being from just one single police force?
No, I can't say that I'm surprised at all. I think that drink spiking is not a new crime.
It's been prevalent for many years, you know, even before I was born.
But I think that more people are willing to come forward and talk about it. And I think that now that we are coming out of the pandemic, and people are going out and
socialising more, I'm not surprised to see that these numbers are rising.
Yeah, it's definitely becoming an increasing issue in terms of people talking about it now
that we are out and about a lot more. How much do you welcome the government's new
announcement on this then and that they will be modernising the law?
You know, I can completely empathise with the fact that it takes a significant amount of time to create a standalone offence.
So, you know, this is the quicker route to modernising legislation to say that drink spiking or spiking in general is wholly illegal.
Obviously, the fact that I've been campaigning on this for over two years,
the fact it's taken over two years to get to this point kind of says that,
to me, it says that, you know, it's not a massive priority
and that it's kind of just doing it now just to kind of keep campaigners quiet.
Obviously, I do appreciate the additional measures that are being introduced
alongside the updated legislation,
because updating the law will mean nothing if you're not accompanying it with additional measures to tackle the crime.
You know, as somebody who's been spiked myself, had I had an adequate drink testing kit made available to me
or door staff or venue staff that were adequately trained to be able to spot the signs of drink spiking
and be able to advocate for me when it came to talking to paramedics
or talking to the police, I might have been able to get a criminal conviction.
Yeah, and so you do feel like these new measures will certainly help.
But you wanted, as you say, it to be made a specific criminal offence.
What difference would that have made?
I think for me, it was more focusing on societal and policing attitudes
towards this crime you know
when something is made criminal in law people start to look at it very differently especially
when it's got its own piece of legislation you know if we're seeing numbers as big as they are
we want survivors and victims to feel like they are being protected and that they can come forward
one of the biggest reasons I've noticed that survivors don't like to speak about their own experiences or have taken years to come forward is that people still don't see it as as being a crime against the person.
They see it as, you know, somebody who has been irresponsible or made a decision and then changed their mind.
Why do you think that is? Where does that come from?
I think it's the stereotypical reason.
So people automatically think that spiking is a date break drug and a drink at a dodgy event of some kind.
When actually what I've experienced when I've been talking about this is that, you know, no person is safe from this.
It can happen to anyone at any venue.
You know, I was in a restaurant. I was fully clothed, like fully covered, broad daylight.
And that because these crimes tend to disproportionately impact women as opposed to men for the purpose of sexual offences,
a lot of the time we hear the same rhetoric about how a woman might have done something and then changed her mind and actually it was completely out of her control.
I'm sorry to hear you went through such a traumatic experience.
Do you mind talking about it? Do you mind telling us what happened exactly? It might help a lot of people listening today. Yeah, I mean, so I mean, I don't mind talking about it at all. And I think
it's important for me to talk about it to be able to highlight the issues. So for people that don't
know my stories, it was after it was the first time we were allowed out after the first national
lockdown when restaurants started to open, we were allowed out after the first national lockdown
when restaurants started to open we were still under very strict covid restrictions um you know
i wanted to see my friends just the same way anybody else did we went out for lunch
um our order was pretty much the same as it used to be before the before covid and before the
pandemic um except the only difference is the last drink i had I turned around to my friend said I don't feel
very well something doesn't feel right and I'd gone to the bathroom I'd locked myself in a cubicle
my friend came out of her cubicle thought that I'd gone back to the table waited five minutes
when looking for me in the restaurant couldn't find me went back to the bathroom the cubicle I
went into was still locked they picked the lock and found me unconscious between
the toilet and the cubicle door. And, you know, I thought me locking myself in the bathroom
just happened to be by chance. But I've spoken to a lot of people that have spoken to a lot of
survivors. And one thing they found very common is that people do lock themselves in the toilet
when they feel unsafe because they know that they're in danger they feel it inside them but they don't know why so they try
and find a place of safety and that must have been what was going through my thought process at the
time what a scary experience and i suppose you must be very grateful to your friends coming
looking for you after quite a short amount of time five minutes is is pretty quick it's pretty
responsive yeah so I think I
will I always be so grateful to the women that I had around me for being so vigilant because
had they not been the outcome of what had happened to me could have been hugely different um and it
might not have been A&E that I regained consciousness in you made a specific point of telling us what
you were wearing as well why because i i
again because i think societal attitudes think that it's automatically well i've had a lot of
backlash talking about my story and campaigning on this um and i've always had messages from people
being like well what were you wearing where were you going um and it i want to make a point of the
fact it has nothing to do with what a victim or a survivor is wearing. It has nothing to do with what a victim or survivor where they were, because I've had 1,500 people come to me with stories of their own experiences.
And sometimes these are people that have never spoken about it before until they felt comfortable coming to me because I shared my story and these are people ranging from 14 to 65 in a vast different array of venues
wearing a different array of clothing so I make that point to prove that it can happen to anyone
at any time. And you've had people come to you like you say that haven't reported it and you
didn't report it to the police why not? I think that because of these, I felt a lot of shame and guilt.
I think that because of these societal attitudes, because of the things that people said to me when they're trying to troll me about this campaign,
is, you know, you start to question, you know, did I do something wrong? Could I have done something differently?
And especially as a woman, when you grow up, you're always told, don't leave your drink unattended.
Don't do this. don't do that.
And you're like, did I do all of those things?
Is there something that I could have done differently?
But it's not about that. And I think that that's why a lot of people don't want to report it to the police,
because a lot of the time policing have similar attitudes.
Now, we have these figures obtained by the BBC that suggests that while there were nearly 5,000 reports of spiking related incidents to forces in England and Wales in 2021-22, there were just 40 convictions in the preceding four years.
So why do you think it's so difficult for the police to bring a case? I suppose, again, does it play into this idea of societal attitudes and victim blaming?
I think because it's not been taken seriously as a crime against the person, it's been very hard to be able to collate evidence.
So, for example, I had a drink spiking test kit made available to me.
We knew which drink it was. We could have tested it at the time.
We could have had trained staff advocate for me. We could have caught that person before they even left the venue um but that wasn't possible so therefore i would never been able to get a
conviction had i reported it to the police i also think as well that when sexual offenses take place
as a secondary crime to spiking sometimes the victim doesn't even know that it's happened to
them because they've been completely unconscious i probably wouldn't have known it would happen to me if it did.
Or that when people are spiked for the purposes of theft or robbery,
that they probably got a conviction under that,
if they could prove that, as opposed to spiking.
So I think it's always as an afterthought, as opposed to, you know, this is the first thing that somebody did,
and they did it with intention to cause harm to somebody for something else.
Sharon, I appreciate you sharing your experience with us this morning i think a lot of our listeners will have definitely taken away something from this particularly as we go out
over christmas um and the need for us to be perhaps extra vigilant sharon gaffer thank you
very much for coming on to to woman's. Sharon Gaffigan there, a violence against women activist.
We do have a statement as well from the Home Office.
Home Secretary James Cleverley has said,
The public should be under no illusion. Spiking is a serious offence.
And I urge anyone who suspects they have been a victim of this to contact the police now.
The government has already gone further than ever before
to protect the public from harm
and ensuring that women and girls can live their lives free from fear
is one of the top priorities as Home Secretary.
Now, Christmas is just four days away.
Those celebrating are likely to be in the thick of preparations,
food, presents,
all of that type of stuff. But there might be another aspect of Christmas that we need to prepare for, and that is surviving the big day without falling out with your family.
Oh my goodness, I feel stressful just thinking about it. You might have experienced those, shall we say, unwanted questions about your parenting style or your career or even your love life or lack thereof.
But worry not.
My next guest is an expert in navigating tricky family dynamics and has some very helpful tips for you.
Kimina McGill is a parenting coach and joins me live in the studio now.
Good morning.
Good morning. Good morning.
OK, we'll start with the parents aspect of this first.
What anxieties and worries do parents come to you with at this time of year, in particular, particularly at Christmas?
Yeah, I think there's sometimes parents haven't taken their children to see relatives for some time. You know, Christmas may be the only time of year when they visit grandparents or other relatives. And so the
stakes are high. As a parent, you're constantly wanting to sort of show your relatives how
lovely your children are. And when the children really do also pick up on our own anxiety they're
like little sponges I always tell my clients this you know think about your child as a little sponge
and so if you're feeling particularly anxious about how your child might behave when you take
them to see grandma at Christmas they're going to be picking up on that and then it's sort of into the mix is
grandma's expectation of how a child should behave
which is often vastly different from the parents
which is often vastly different from the parents
and so you can just you know
it can start even at the hello
your children can get quite, the stress of anticipation can make them withdraw.
And so, you know, the door opens, grandma's there, arms open, and your child sort of hides behind your leg.
And grandma's saying, well, you know, come on, give me a hug.
And then you're, as a parent, you're then sort of stuck between the two,
wanting your child to show affection,
but also having sympathy that they're feeling overwhelmed.
So it really can get very, very tricky.
And you feel judged as a parent.
And that's the idea of judgment, isn't it?
It's the idea of judgment.
And I think, you know, the people that we most want our approval of is our parents.
And so, you know, there's that.
Then you're sort of saying to your child, go on, say hello, say hello.
And they don't want to.
So it can, yeah, it can just really make things tough.
And this can happen at any time of year, understandably.
But what is it about Christmas in particular that makes it so much more tense? I think it's that just,
you know, you know what it's like, the hype, the songs, the images of happy families.
It's just that hype that Christmas in particular, it should be this really happy family occasion.
That's a big expectation.
It's the big expectation.
Exactly.
And it's just that one day.
So I think that's probably what makes it worse at Christmas.
Then there's also the whole gift giving that, you know, comes into it.
And you can get a child that says,
they open it and they say, I didn't want that.
Children are brutally honest at times.
They are, exactly, exactly.
We've got lots of messages coming in about this because our listeners have been in this conversation,
as have many of us.
I'm sure you have come to your particular tips in a moment.
But people are getting in touch to say,
difficult questions around Christmas. Okay, i remember a new year's eve party and being asked about when i was going to have kids yeah privately going through a long and grueling fertility
journey always a difficult conversation and i wish more people were sensitized to that happily
i now have a nearly 12 year old which is great which is great to hear. So I suppose there's a, is there a balance between perhaps biting your tongue to try and keep the peace,
but also wanting to stand up for yourself, defend yourself?
Yes, yes, absolutely.
I mean, interestingly, I had this very experience.
I'd lost my first baby during pregnancy. And I, my mother-in-law, bless her, of, you know, say something nasty back. But also,
I wanted to defend myself. I wanted to open, you know, have a voice for that feeling. So I actually
thought about it. And the next day, I said to her, we went for a walk. And I said, you might not have
realized it, but it was very painful. She was so upset. She cried. She said, I just didn't realise. So I think the other thing,
I think if you're anticipating these sorts of questions, whether it's, you know, what are you
doing with your career? Or, you know, are you still single? It's quite good to think it through
in your head beforehand. So play the scenario in your head and work out your response? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm always advising parents to have a response that is sort of clear and assertive, but doesn't necessarily blame the other person for the question that they've asked.
OK, we have another message here that's come in from someone. They've texted us to say, I was asked how my partner and I planned on having children. We're lesbians, so it's not quite as straightforward. We don't want kids
didn't seem to be the answer they wanted. So it's not just parents, it's those people,
even without children, that are having to handle these invasive questions about their love lives,
about many things. So what are your top tips for dealing with those uncomfortable family conversations?
It's a great question and I guess it would also it would come back to that assertiveness it would
say I'm sure you're really keen to know that answer and actually it's not one that I feel
comfortable in giving you. Okay. I think that's just quite a good it's it's always set some
boundaries without being defensive, without being defensive.
I can understand why you'd why you'd want to know. And it's not it's something we've not decided to share.
There's another dynamic here that often comes into play at Christmas time as well.
And that's when you're back with your family, back with your siblings, falling back into those behavioral patterns from when you were growing up, when you were children together,
particularly if you're going back to the family home.
So how can people deal with that as adults?
I think it's also, you know,
it's sort of trying to think these are actually adults.
You know, my bossy older sister,
my brother that lounges on the sofa,
they are still adults.
They are still having an adult life.
I feel like you're talking about my family right now.
And I suppose it's trying to relate to them in that way
rather than trying, you know, it happens when we go back.
It doesn't, if you go back to a school environment
and you sort of revert back to that person you are at school,
I suppose it's just thinking, you know, I'm an adult.
So maybe I could say, look,, you know, I'm an adult.
So maybe I could say, look, are you going to help with the washing up without, again, that kind of defensiveness.
Another top tip is coming from one of our listeners.
They say, I like to add, and you, to the end of my questions,
or any questions that they receive, to difficult questions,
because it gives them a taste of their own medicine,
to have to answer their own question.
Yes, yes. And what about you?
Good tip.
Yeah.
What do you do?
What do I do when I'm asked a difficult question?
I mean, I think I've often had it more around my children.
So, you know, it might be, isn't he walking yet?
Or is she still in nappies?
And I would sort of, I would probably,
if I was going to come back, I would kind of maybe make a joke.
That's quite a good one.
So is she still in nappies?
Yeah, as long as she's not out of them by the time she goes to university, we're okay by that.
But tell me about you what's
going on in your life so you can cut you know whether it's a direct related question or on
indirect just you know again kind of like you say just putting putting the emphasis back on that
other person okay i'm going to be honest with you. I always field these types of questions from family members.
I tend to just walk away, which I don't think is the best response. Is there a reason for perhaps sometimes arguing the case that we need to be less defensive when we ask these questions?
Should I be less defensive?
I think it's going to help. I mean, if we're talking about navigating tricky family dynamics,
you know, what I'll always say to the parents that I'm coaching is,
and this is very much sort of related
how you relate to your child as well.
Think about the result that you want.
If you don't want a child to have a massive tantrum about it,
about something, then just think, well, if I speak to them in a really harsh tone of voice, I'm probably going to fuel it.
So if I say so, but equally, you know, just walking away, it's just always better to try and talk things through.
And, you know, you can still defend yourself if it's in your sort of situation.
But when related to a child, just think about what result do I want?
Am I doing this to please the other person?
Am I saying something to my child
because I know that grandma wants me to scold them?
But actually I know if the result that I want
is that I've showed my child that I've really understood
they're feeling embarrassed, they're feeling a bit stressed,
they're feeling anxious,
then scolding them is not going to help that.
That's a great point. And actually you've given us some really practical tips there
in the run up to Christmas. Camilla McGill, parenting coach, thank you so much for coming
on to Women's Hour this morning. I found that really useful.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you. And someone else has got in touch to say, I was almost 35 when my son was born,
but I can't remember anyone asking me when or if I was going to procreate. The only thing that really seemed to offend older female
relatives was my inability to drive. I was told repeatedly that I had to learn. Now in my 70s,
I still haven't. Thank you, Julia, for that message. Now, 16-year-old Leila Khan died last week from a blood clot.
Her family claims a GP misdiagnosed her symptoms as the stomach flu
just days before she was pronounced brain dead.
This happened just three weeks after she was prescribed the contraceptive pill.
Now, we should say that there is no indication that the blood clot
was a direct result of her taking the pill,
but with stories like these, it's very easy
to get concerned. According to the NHS, there can be serious side effects from taking the
contraceptive pill, including blood clots and cervical cancer, but these are very low risk.
So let's just remind ourselves of the facts around the pill. I'm joined now by Dr. Janet Barter,
a consultant in sexual and reproductive health
at Barts Health NHS Trust in London. Good morning, Janet.
Good morning. Thanks for having me on the programme.
Oh, a pleasure. I appreciate that you're going to just lay out the facts for us now. And I know
that you can't talk specifically about Layla's case, but how common is it for people to develop
blood clots after taking the contraceptive
pill? So first of all can I say I'm speaking as president of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive
Healthcare which is an organisation that produces guidelines and training for practitioners
in sexual and reproductive health. Yes of course course. Thank you. And of course, you're absolutely right to say
that I can't speak about this particular case,
which is so tragic.
And I think we would all want to send our condolences
to the family.
I think managing risk is really difficult.
We tend to think that if we don't do anything,
then there's not any risk.
And of course, in life, that's not the case.
So we do know, as you say, that when you take the if a woman takes the combined pill, it does very slightly increase the risk of blood clots.
So if there is if a woman is not taking the combined pill, then the risk is about two per 10,000 that she will have a blood clot. So not nothing.
If she takes the combined pill, depending on factors about herself and also which pill it is,
the risk would be between five and 12 per 10,000.
So you can see the risk is really, really low, but not nothing.
But of course, what we do have to say is the risk is far higher in pregnancy and post-pregnancy.
So protecting yourself from pregnancy is actually a very good way of protecting yourself from a blood clot.
OK, what are the other risks that people need to know about, though?
So, well, that's the main one.
We also talk about side effects of the pill.
So we know that one of the things about the pill is that women can sometimes get...
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Headaches, nausea, mood changes. Which pill you take can make a difference so it's very important
to talk to a health care professional about which is the right pill for you um and if you do have
problems with the pill then it's important um to talk to somebody and to get really good information
like from the nhs website that you quoted earlier. Okay but as well
as learning about the side effects there are benefits of taking the combined pill? Absolutely
so and this is one of the things that we talk about a lot because people don't always realise
this so apart from preventing pregnancy and of course there's lots of different ways of preventing
pregnancy so the right thing to do is to find the right contraception for you.
But the combined pill can be really beneficial in terms of controlling some of the side effects of our menstrual cycle.
So it really can help with heavy periods, with painful periods, with premenstrual syndrome.
Sometimes migraine is a complicated one, but some migraines that occur around the time of the period can be better with the pill.
So there are definitely lots of advantages.
It's also quite helpful for women later in life, so long as they don't have particular risk factors, because it can help with some that there was a very slight rise in the risk of blood clots when women on the pill were taking certain types of painkillers.
What can you tell us about that? I think, again, it's quite a small risk, isn't it?
Yes, I think it is quite a small risk. And I think at the moment we don't have enough information to say that that's clinically significant. Whenever a woman is
prescribed the pill, whether that's from a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist, there will always be an
assessment of her risk. So it's very important. I was interested to see that you're talking about
this later in the programme. It's very important to understand about your family history.
So the risk of thrombosis is increased if you're overweight, for example. It's increased if you
have severe migraines, particularly migraines that affect your eyesight. But it's also increased if you're overweight, for example. It's increased if you have severe migraines,
particularly migraines that affect your eyesight.
But it's also increased if somebody in your family has had a thrombosis.
So I think it's really important, particularly for young girls,
to actually talk to their mothers, particularly,
and understand what there is in the family, because we don't always know what our parents have suffered in the past.
Yeah, we will be talking about that, particularly why it's important for women who have been
adopted to know about their medical history, not just in terms of what they can pass on
to their children, but also what they might be more susceptible to through their genetics.
But from this month, when we were looking at the contraceptive pill, women in England will be able to get the pill from their local pharmacy without having to contact their GP first.
Do you think that's safe? How safe is it?
This is a really interesting scheme.
And it's been developed because we know that access to contraception is not as good as it should be.
So women can get into sexual
health services, they can get into general practice, but it's not easy. And there's also
quite a lot of stigma sometimes about going to a service like that. So we think that going to
your pharmacist may be very suitable for some women. Now, of course, pharmacists are highly
trained professionals. They have had particular training so that they can go through those risk factors and advise women whether the pill is safe for them or not, which pill might
be best for them, how to take it, all the things that you need to know. So I think it is a good
scheme, but I think it's really important that healthcare professionals work together.
My particular worry is for those women for who the pill might not be suitable.
It's really important that those women aren't just sent away, but that the pharmacist has the connections with primary care and with specialist services so that that woman can be helped to find the right contraception for herself.
And again, for all our listeners, what is your advice to anyone who might be worried about what they're reading right now and whether they're at risk or what the risks are when they're taking the pill? Thank you that's such an important question. So
one of the things to remember about the pill is that the risk of thrombosis is actually highest
at the beginning of taking it or taking it after you've had a break. So if you have been on the
pill for some time the first thing is don't stop because the risk of thrombosis in pregnancy is far, far higher than the risk of a pill.
So if you're on the pill, don't stop it.
If you're worried about any symptoms, then you need to talk to somebody in a specialist service or a primary care or a pharmacist because those symptoms almost definitely aren't anything to do with thrombosis
because it is very rare but for somebody who's newly taking the pill it's always the same with
any medication if you start taking a medication and then you get side effects or something that
worries you then don't ignore that and it's always a good idea when you first start taking the pill
to be using condoms as well so that if you do need to stop it because of side effects or worries, you're not at risk of pregnancy.
Dr. Janet Barter, thank you very much for that recap.
And thank you for coming on to the programme this morning.
We have this statement from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
Dr. Alison Cave, the MHRA chief safety officer, said this,
We are saddened to hear of the death of Leila Khan and we extend our deepest condolences to
her family at this very difficult time. The risk of blood clots associated with using the
contraceptive pill is very small and has been known about for many years. The decision to
prescribe or use the pill should take into consideration any risk factors for blood clots, which includes any family history of thrombosis.
These are very safe, highly effective medicines for preventing unintended pregnancy and the benefits associated with their use far outweigh the risks for the majority of people.
Now, just taking a look at the messages coming in, I did ask you about the awkward
questions you might be asked over Christmas and what your rebuttal might be. Lots of you are
getting in touch. Someone has said here via text message, I've just realised that my new Christmas
tactic of trying not to talk too much about myself by asking questions might look invasive.
I always think it's nice, though, to show interest in family. I think that's probably what older generations are trying to do. But sometimes
what you're struggling with on the inside, you can hear questions as criticism. If you work on
your self-esteem, you won't feel bothered. And indeed, that is what our expert was saying in
terms of trying to feel less defensive. Mary, though, is coming at it from a different angle.
She says, I didn't get married till I was 50. So for years put up with questions, why aren't you married? Or how comes you're still
single, etc, etc. My standard reply was just lucky, I guess. It worked a treat and shut the topic down.
But with a touch of humour, I'd thoroughly recommend it. I might be using that this Christmas,
I'll be honest with you. Now, I wonder if my next guest has any rebuttals over the Christmas dinner table,
because figures released this year show that female owned businesses received just 2% of all venture capital funding.
That's according to the Parliament's Treasury Committee.
Grace Beverley is an entrepreneur who founded three businesses, the first when she was just 18.
Her activewear brand
Tala secured 4.2 million pounds worth of investment earlier this year and won the Every Woman brand
of the Future Award just a few weeks ago. Congratulations. At the awards, she made her
speech and took the opportunity to shed light on the female funding gap. And she joins me
live in the studio. Good morning, Grace. Good morning.
So do you have any rebuttals over the Christmas dinner table when you get asked those awkward questions?
I mean, I'm sure I do.
They'll probably be more off the cuff,
but very prepared for them always.
I feel like it's important to be.
Well, our listeners are flying in with the tips
and the offers of support and help for us.
So don't worry.
We've got you covered. We've got you covered. But let's talk about this funding figure and this
funding gap. Less than 2% of female owned businesses receiving venture capital funding.
It really made me sit up, I have to say. Now you yourself have said, in what other industry would there be a 98% gender disparity and only a muted level of sanitized outrage?
Have you been able to answer that question?
No, I actually haven't, which I think sheds a lot of light on the reality of the situation.
And I think it is easy to look at it and kind of say, OK, well, this is an entrepreneur specific issue. I think that the fact that it's not being talked about probably shows how much it is still almost seeming like an old boys club. But also, if we think that every single company started from entrepreneurship, then that's a pretty severe issue. It might not be an issue for you at the moment. But we also know that women hire more women as well. So women in leadership positions hire more women in leadership positions,
especially at a C-suite level,
even at childbearing age,
which might sound wild to some people.
But so, you know, it is a problem
that reaches further than just entrepreneurs.
But I just, I can't believe how many people
don't know about the statistic.
And I actually didn't know about the statistic
until I really looked into it.
And that's why I'm being so loud about it. I've been fortunate enough to receive
funding. And I'm in the position where, you know, instantly upon that funding round was pretty much
top 20 or something within the UK women who've raised funding. And for that to be the case,
is shocking. And I would very outrageous, I would say.
Yeah, I'm interested in how you first got into
business because as a young entrepreneur you started your first business whilst you were still
a teenager just 18 then at 22 you you launched your activewear brand where did the idea come
from initially? In terms of for the activewear brand or starting a business? Well for both I
suppose because at 18 to decide right I'm going to be an entrepreneur,
I'm going to start my own business, I'm going to go out on my own.
It's quite a life changing decision.
And it does really sound like a big jump.
And at the time when I was, I was actually my first time at university,
the kind of origination story is actually quite funny because I actually received an email from my university saying,
well, your student finance hasn't come in.
We haven't received your tuition fees. So you're actually not allowed to return to campus. This was in Christmas holidays. Yeah. And so I completely freaked out and actually started the business within a week,
not expecting to make enough to pay for that.
Did you know what you were getting yourself in for? To start a business in a week?
No, not really. I was more looking at it as starting a way to make a bit of money as soon as possible.
And the way I did it was by creating PDFs that I then sold online, which were workout plans,
that everyone can kind of start on the same date.
And that's obviously a very high margin product because each PDF you sell,
you don't need to pay more to make the next one.
So it's truly just, it's a marketer's dream, really.
So at that time, it was actually
just a reaction to Oxford saying, oh, no student finance for you. And me being like, oh, okay,
better make this happen. So I wasn't expecting for it to even pay for that. But it did. And it
really took off. So that was very, very exciting. But the second business that I started in my final
year at university, I actually, the whole reason for that had come from the fact that I'd moved away from fast fashion in my everyday in terms of kind of, you know, the majority of clothing that I was buying.
And I realised as someone who was both a student and going to the gym a lot, so wearing activewear pretty much every single day, I realised that activewear was actually just a kind of big hole in my purchasing patterns where I was shopping the same as I used to shop mainly because the most sustainable options when it comes to fashion are rental and
pre-owned and I don't know about you but activewear being rented or pre-owned isn't too appealing to
me so it really felt like it's wholly attractive it doesn't feel like a complete substitute so I
actually you know felt at a loss at that area of the industry. And so I looked into more sustainable
options, they were generally about two and a half times the price of the non sustainable material
kind of equivalents. So set out to create an activewear business that was going to create
more sustainable, and it's important to say more sustainable, because fashion will never truly be
sustainable. So you're using the term more sustainable rather than simply just sustainable,
because that is very subjective.
It's very subjective.
You know, if you're buying one pair of leggings every five years
when your previous one falls apart,
buying a pair of our leggings is not sustainable for you.
Whereas if you are currently buying fast fashion activewear
and you're switching to us, then that is more sustainable.
So what we like to do is actually...
Why do you say it's more sustainable?
Because in terms of, you know,
shopping with a fast fashion brand for that active wear.
So we talk about what we do do
and then our whole messaging on our website, for example,
is let us tell you what we do
and then you can decide whether that is sustainable for you.
So you're trying to be transparent with your customers?
Exactly.
I mean, I think that's the...
When it comes to sustainability and fashion,
it is oxymoronic.
Sustainable fashion...
I mean, fashion is about getting people to consume. So if you're getting people to consume,
that is antithetical to sustainability. So it's really important to highlight that.
And you say you were making that transition away from fast fashion, but your activewear brand is
sold on ASOS, which many would contemplate to be a fast fashion website.
Yeah, so we made that decision about three years ago now. We have a tiny proportion of our stock that is sold on ASOS. The decision was made because
actually it is important to be where the customer is. And with that, in terms of, you know,
disrupting the mass market, we need to be in the mass market. And I completely understand. And,
you know, even being in fashion in the first place is, you could very much argue, unsustainable for our customer in terms of size range, in terms
of availability, in terms of all of these different things. We absolutely have to engage in normal
fashion practices in terms of where we are and distribution wise in order to be able to disrupt
their purchasing patterns from more fast fashion equivalents. But completely agree, there's no
right or wrong answer at any time. And what is the decision that we made then might be different
to a decision we make now. But realistically, for us, it's really been about getting everyone just
to ask more questions about their activewear in particular as well. How difficult is it being so
public facing because you have millions of followers across your social media, but you often
use yourself and your, I suppose your face to sell your products. Is it difficult? Because you've got consumers coming directly to
you, I suppose, and there can be backlash, there can be trolls, there can be negative comments.
How do you deal with it all? It's a very quick feedback loop. I'll definitely say that. I would
say, though, that that is a privilege for any business owner. Receiving feedback and engagement
from your customers is literally just what you want. That is the main aim from any business owner, receiving feedback and engagement from your customers is literally just what you want. That is the main aim from any business owner. So whilst you know, it often does
come directly to me, Tala has an enormous audience that is completely separate from me as well. And
so in terms of that, that's kind of, you know, I get some of the feedback that but the majority of
it will go to the business as well. And actually, you know, having that engagement from our customers
that do really care about what our next design looks like or whatever it might be is hugely important.
Anyway, so I'll take that any day.
Is that a welcome tactic for you to use your face to help sell the brand?
Because we see a lot of social media influencers doing that more and more these days.
Well, I think it's interesting because I think actually when someone speaks about their own business on social media in terms of, you know, what they're doing, why they designed something a certain way, it is received differently from if you kind of had a
brand deal with another company. I would really like to change that because I think especially
with women, there is a heightened level of kind of seeing women's kind of business,
whatever it might be within their business as a kind of more gossip side versus seeing a man,
you know, as an entrepreneur on
social media with a bigger platform, just saying, Oh, well, you know, they're doing their business.
And actually, I think that there is definitely a difference in how it is received kind of either
way. So, you know, I, my main aim is to get the visibility of female business owners up. So more
women, especially younger women who are
deciding what they want to do with their lives and careers can see people in, you know, positions
where they are running businesses. Yes, they are receiving criticism. Yes, they're making wrong
decisions. And that is not, you know, that is against this kind of girl boss narrative that
we've built up. You know, women are going to make mistakes, especially if they are so in the public eye when building a business in public. And I think the more we can
show people making mistakes in public, the more it's going to kind of take down that strong reaction
when women do, which is just a very classic part of being a business owner.
Yeah, and I think you're clearly doing that. And also, I know you speak about that on your podcast
as well. Grace Beverly, it's been really interesting to talk to you. Entrepreneur Grace Beverly, thank you so much
for coming on to Woman's Hour this morning. Now, if you're a woman who is adopted, having children
can be a complicated decision if you don't know your birth family's medical history. How do you
know if you're passing on certain conditions through your genes? And then later in life,
you may have no idea about your potential increased risks of things like strokes or heart attacks, or when and what to expect during menopause. Writer and
journalist Catherine Quamby has personal experience of this and joins me in the studio. Good morning,
Catherine. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. Great to have you on. Now you were adopted and
you've spoken about this at length. Just tell us a bit about your experience. So I was adopted when I was three months old
and I was adopted from an Iranian birth father
and an English birth mother, adopted in Leeds.
And I was a relatively straightforward adoptee.
But like other adoptees at the time when I was adopted in the late 60s,
I was tested for syphilis.
I was checked for TB and really seen as I had to be handed over as a baby who didn't have any problems to my birth family.
But the other side of that is no one really thought about what inheritable conditions I might carry and what problems that might cause in later life.
And does that change now? That was very much in the 1960s.
Has that changed now?
Because I think the focus back then when you were adopted
was the threat that perhaps you might pose to your adoptive parents.
Absolutely.
And I think it is changing a little bit.
But as of yet, as I found out when I wrote about this recently,
NHS England still doesn't have any guidelines for adult adoptees,
indeed, or for their children. I've now got adult children who might be contemplating having
children themselves. So I don't know what inheritable conditions I'm passing down to them.
I think for children in the larger sort of care experienced background, there are more details
available. But for adoptees, there's very little information
given to prospective parents. And then you made the decision to try to track down your
birth parents, which was possibly a difficult decision in itself, made more difficult because
your birth father was Iranian and in Iran. Tell us about your experience and how difficult that was. It was really difficult to find him. Obviously, between the time when I was born and when I was
tracing him in the late 1980s, 1990s, Iran had gone through the Iranian revolution. And as it
happened, and I didn't know this at the time, he had actually been imprisoned in Avine Prison, notorious prison, and he and other family members had been tortured. So I was
very, very lucky. I actually was able to meet him. And that was through Iranian friends who
are journalists. So it took a long time. Now we'll get to the family history. But I mean,
meeting him for the first time, emotional, nervous, excited. How was he feeling? What was the experience like?
Strange. You know, he actually had got a visa to come to the UK.
So I met him in the UK and I'd just done press day at the newspaper I was working at.
And I went up to meet him at St Pancras and there was this stranger walking on a station platform.
But he had exactly the same
smile as me. So that was really nice, and also really strange. And then we had went and had
lunch nearby with the Iranian friend journalist who had kind of helped to put us together,
and talked a little bit about his history, which was also my history.
Of course. How do you even broach that subject? Because there must be a whole array of questions that you want to ask outside of finding out about your medical history. But you need to with him, that wasn't the first bit of history that I wanted to broach. I wanted to find out about him and the life that he had lived because he'd first met, the time he'd ever met me was as a baby in a hospital in Leeds. And I'd never seen a photograph of him until I got in contact with him in 2006-7. Wow that's such a long time away isn't it
my goodness me so what medical information did you eventually find out? I found out that
eventually I found out that he had a hip condition but it wasn't the same as the one that I've
ended up being diagnosed with which is osteoarthritis like many people in their 50s
so again there's sort of sort of black holes really around what I do and don't know about
any inheritable conditions I mean there's I also talk to other adoptees and their experience in it
if anything has been more serious than mine because so far so good I haven't inherited
cancer stroke heart disease but some people have inherited
more serious conditions. So what happens when people like yourself who have been adopted go
to the doctors, go to the hospital, and they can't give a family medical history?
There's usually just an embarrassed pause. And quite often the assumption is, well,
then you're all right then. And of course, the assumption should be you're not all right.
It should be turned on its head. But doctors, fair to them haven't received any training so the general medical council told me
when I was writing about this that there were no guidelines for treating adult adult adulties or
indeed adult adulties contemplating having a family which is obviously where these risks sort
of come into play in particular and also when you get later in life, you get a bit older,
how is this lack of knowledge affecting you in your life now?
I think I went through the menopause
and I think if I had known that I might develop a genetic,
a largely genetic condition, osteoarthritis,
I would have taken different decisions around my treatment at that time.
So I think it really does affect you because you enter your 50s and that's
when you know there's this phrase I think I saw it on mum's net of sniper's alley of you know all
of those heritable diseases suddenly come at you thick and fast and you've got no idea where they're
coming from perhaps exactly exactly that I just don't really know I have very little medical
history what would you like to see changed? And where does this start? You already
said there's no real specific guidelines from the NHS. What needs to change? I think even a step
back from that is we need to know how many adopted people there are in the UK. We don't even know
that. There's no survey, household survey question, no census question. And really data is at the heart of this. Then when we are adopted,
our original health record is sealed
and we get a new health record.
I think that needs to be unsealed for adoptees,
even if it's in an anonymized fashion
so we know what risks we carry.
And I think there needs to be specific training
for doctors encountering adopted people.
One thing that you have mentioned
as one of our listeners has also mentioned is, for doctors encountering adopted people. One thing that you have mentioned,
as one of our listeners has also mentioned,
is she says, Elizabeth has texted in to say,
one thing which is particularly annoying when filling in medical questionnaires online
and being adopted is being faced
with a long list of conditions
and being asked if there are any of the following
within your family history.
There is never a box to tick saying,
I don't know my family medical history
sometimes you can't continue through the form until you've ticked one of those boxes so your
only choice is none which could be totally untrue it's hidden discrimination against adopted people
because they're not acknowledging us yes and I think we need to be acknowledged as a cohort of
at least several hundred thousand people in the UK,
some of whom were forcibly adopted and faced that trauma as well,
as the adult adoptee movement have written and campaigned about so eloquently.
So they face an extra trauma, especially during childbirth, where they might have some knowledge of their birth mother having a baby forcibly relinquished
and then they're going through having a baby themselves.
There's so much to unpack here for adoptees
that we've barely scratched the surface
of the kind of issues that adoptees face
as they go through life.
And do you feel like you're getting support now for it?
I mean, I have an amazing family,
so I'm very, very lucky.
Not everyone has a successful adoption,
but for me my family
are my family and I also have a very good relationship with my birth father in Iran
and his wife and my half sisters my half birth sisters so I'm one of the lucky ones I don't feel
I need any additional support but I have many friends who are adopted who I feel haven't had
such good experiences and this is for them and it's for all
our you know all our children and for every adoptee who's facing that moment where they're thinking
I'm going to start a family what risk do I carry? I just noticed you smiling there when you mentioned
that you're in touch with your birth father as someone that you searched for high and low for
20 years how does it feel being back in touch with someone that helped bring you into this world?
It's wonderful.
I know that he didn't want to give me up.
He tried very hard to take me back to Iran.
And obviously that wouldn't have been a great outcome given the revolution.
But that knowledge that he loved me and didn't want to relinquish me is kind of at the heart of our good relationship now, I think.
And has it helped you find out more about yourself?
Yes, I think so.
Not just genetically I mean but you know emotionally spiritually as a person. Yeah I mean I love
Iranian art, I love Iranian food, I was at an Iranian restaurant last week with colleagues
so I really feel like I've got this very rich cultural history both from my birth family
and from my adoptive family and I think there's a lot of richness in adoption but there's also a lot of trauma and we need to acknowledge those two those two kind of poles
of adoption and yeah. But you've mentioned that not everyone has that happy ending so you've
spoken to a lot of adopted adults that perhaps aren't able to make contact with their birth
parents or simply their birth parents don't want to stay in contact with the child with the child yes and also people where they have been adopted and the adoption hasn't been as successful
and so um you know often you you might make you might have a reunion with your birth family and
that can be very successful or with one parent or with a sibling and that can work but you can also experience a second rejection
where the birth family turns away from you so it's a it there's a lot to kind of deal with
as an adopted person and you can find that your adopted family perhaps isn't as welcoming
once you've gone for reunion with your birth birth family. That did not happen with me. My family were very, very welcoming and excited for me.
But it's tricky emotionally on so many levels for people.
Yeah, of course.
Now, you've mentioned you would like to see further guidelines,
better training from medical staff.
What about genetic screening?
Has that got a place to play in this?
Absolutely.
I really do feel it's got a place to play
because if you look at where the government is going with healthcare,
it's about very precision-based healthcare, preventative healthcare.
Now, we as adoptees, as Liz said when she texted in,
we can't tick those boxes so that we can get preventative healthcare
because we can't prevent something we'd have no knowledge of.
So I think there's a huge, you know, that there's potentially,
we should have genetic screening ourselves as a cohort within the NHS
so that we don't have to pay for ourselves.
And indeed, other groups might actually benefit from this approach as well, right?
I think so.
And I was wondering about surrogacy and also kind of our wider friends
in the care experience kind of movement some of
whom also don't have a lot of information my mother was telling me about someone who came
to repair something in the house who was a foundling so so abandoned at birth in a phone box
now his history how does he know what to do as he goes on and has a family himself so there's lots
of us in this boat I think think we're just, we're the
canary in the cage because we have a voice. We're very lucky in that way. And we have a,
we have a movement really of people wanting to talk about this.
Catherine, it's been really interesting speaking to you. I found out a lot that I didn't know about
before. I appreciate you coming on. Catherine Quornby coming on to speak about being an adopted
adult. Now, I should say as well that we have this from NHS England and they told us that there is no national training and no guidelines, but that it
is recognised that there is a gap and then they will be looking at how adoptees can be best served
until a solution is found. Now, just taking a look again at the messages coming in from our listeners,
I asked about the awkward questions that you might have to field over Christmas dinner over the next couple of days.
Betty has said it's not just older members of a family who ask annoying questions.
Those of us who are older are frequently subjected to questions like, do you think you should be doing that at your age as a mother?
And do you really think you should be going out so late in the evening?
So yes, younger listeners,
think about how you will respond to questions,
but also about whether you are similarly guilty in relation to your parents and grandparents.
Thank you so much, everyone,
for getting involved.
Just time to tell you about tomorrow,
a live, last live programme before Christmas,
all-girl retro band and vocal harmony group Elle and the Pocket Bells will be singing live in the studio, adding to your Christmas cheer with a couple of seasonal songs.
Really looking forward to that.
Thank you to everyone for listening and for all of the people that got in touch.
I'll be back tomorrow, just after 10.
And that's all for today's Woman's Hour.
Join us again next time. for Being Roman, a new series for BBC Radio 4.
There's a young bride avenging the murder of her parents and an emperor flirting outrageously with his nervous teacher.
Listen to Being Roman wherever you get your podcasts.
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.