Woman's Hour - Stacey Dooley, Lily Gladstone, Ask for Angela, Motherhood

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

In the documentary Growing up Gypsy Stacey Dooley gets to know three young English Romany Gypsy women. Invited into the traditionally private community, Stacey discovers the complex balancing act the young women face growing up in one of Britain’s most maligned ethnic minorities. She meets 23 year old Chantelle who prides herself in keeping with the ‘old’ Gypsy values her granny Rita taught her and shares her ‘Gypsy Cleaning’ videos on social media where she has nearly 400,000 followers on TikTok and 15 million likes on her page. Chantelle joins Kylie Pentelow to talk about her life, alongside Stacey Dooley.If you've been in a pub you might have seen the posters which tells you to Ask for Angela at the bar if you feel unsafe. In response to hearing the word "Angela", trained staff should offer to help you leave the property safely. The national scheme was set up in 2016 to help anyone who is feeling vulnerable on a night out to get the support they need. It was named after Angela Crompton, who was killed by her husband in 2012. Her name becoming the codeword. However, recent BBC secret filming revealed that more than half of venues visited failed to respond correctly, with many staff members completely unaware of what to do. Angela's daughter Hollie explains why she is calling for government action to ensure it is implemented properly.The Oscar-nominated actor Lily Gladstone is the first Native American woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award – and the first indigenous woman to win a Best Actress Golden Globe, both for her role as Mollie Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon. Now she's starring in the romantic comedy The Wedding Banquet. Lily explains her character's journey through IVF, how she chooses roles and the responsibility she feels in representing her community.In the 1970s, British sociologist, Professor Ann Oakley, led a ground-breaking project called Becoming a Mother. She spoke to over 50 first-time mothers before and after they gave birth. What she found reshaped how we think about motherhood and started a sea-change in practice and policy around maternity care. Now a new project takes that legacy forward. It’s called 50 Years of Becoming a Mother and is led by Professor Ann Oakley and Dr Charlotte Faircloth at the UCL Social Research Institute. They will revisit the original mothers, and study 55 new mothers, to understand how women’s experiences of motherhood have changed over the last 5 decades.Presenter: Kylie Pentelow Producer: Kirsty Starkey Editor: Karen Dalziel

Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Thank you very much for your company. We have plenty coming up today, including you may know her from her straight talking documentaries exploring topics like poverty and human rights. And now Stacey Dooley is back and this time she's been invited into one of Britain's most malign ethnic minorities, the Traveller community. Stacey's coming into the studio with one of the women she met, Chantelle, who has become somewhat of a social media star by posting videos of her cleaning regime. Also coming up back in the 70s, a sociologist wanted to find out if women's expectations of birth and motherhood match their reality. The study

was groundbreaking and changed maternity services. And now it's being carried out again. I'll be talking to Professor Anna Oakley, who led that study 50 odd years ago, and also the woman who's leading it today. So as Mothering Sunday approaches, I want to hear your stories of your expectations of what being a mother would be like versus the reality. Maybe you heard about the negatives of bringing up a baby and were actually quite surprised by how much you enjoyed it. Let me hear your thoughts. You can text the programme as always the number is 84844. On social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email

us through our website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100444. And also coming up, Hollywood actor Lily Gladstone. She was the first Native American woman to be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars and the first Indigenous woman to win a Best Actress Golden Globe. She'll be talking about being raised on the Blackfeet Reservation, IVF and her new film. But first, if you've been in a pub, you might have seen the posters which tell you to ask for Angela at the bar if you feel unsafe. In response to hearing the word Angela, trained

staff should offer help to you to leave the property safely. The national scheme was set up in 2016 to help anyone who's feeling vulnerable on a night out to get the support that they need. It was named after Angela Crompton, who was killed by her husband in 2012, her name being the code word. However, recent BBC secret filming revealed that more than half of venues visited failed to respond correctly, with many staff members completely unaware of what to do. The BBC since contacted 340 councils across the UK, finding that 34 have made Ask for Angela a condition of granting new alcohol licences and some authorities have warned that businesses failing to operate the safety scheme properly could lose their licenses.

Well, Angela's daughter Holly is now calling for government action to ensure that it's implemented properly. And I'm delighted to say that Holly joins me now. Hi, Holly. Hi. Holly, can you just start by telling me a bit about your mum. Hi, yeah. She was amazing. She was so much fun. Always the life of the party. Very bubbly, very creative. I think all the other parents at school were always jealous of her. What's it like for you? You've been growing up for a mum. I think she died when when you were just 15. What's what's it been like for you growing up without your mum? Yeah, I mean, it's been really difficult.

I mean, I think those years, sort of from 15 upwards, is when you yourself, I think, start to become an adult. So I think you start to have a very different relationship with your parents. So I think that was just taken away from me at a time when we were starting to get a very different kind of bond. And we were talking about the Ask Angela scheme. You're calling for the government to make sure it is implemented properly. Can you just tell me a bit about it?

Yeah, of course. I mean, the Ask Angela scheme is so anyone can go up to a bar or restaurant or anywhere and ask for Angela and then they'll be given help. But it's so important that these places implement it properly in order to safeguard these people that are asking for help. So tell me about what you'd like to see, what you'd like to see changed. So tell me about what you'd like to see, what you'd like to see changed. I think it definitely has to start with there being a very low level of it being mandatory. So at least just the posters and the staff at least knowing what it is, is just like the minimum that can be happening. We said that the BBC did some secret filming and it revealed that more than half of the venues

failed to respond correctly. Many of the staffs are unaware of what to do. What did you make of it when you heard that? It was really disappointing. It was disappointing as well because, you know, this scheme has been around for a long time. And I mean, even I personally see it everywhere. And it's not exactly a complicated sort of process or scheme to follow. So I think it was really disappointing to see that there was places that were still just completely unaware of it. And I believe that you heard that you worked in pubs yourself, didn't you? So how important do you think this kind of scheme is? Yeah, I worked in pubs for years and lots of my friends do as well. I mean, there's, it's like the statistics are crazy.

Like 80% of all women in the UK claim to have been assaulted in a public space. And then 53% of those is in a club or a pub. So this is like such large numbers, like this needs to be taken seriously. Like women's safety can never be guaranteed but at least this helps us in the right direction. And the BBC since contacted, since that secret film has contacted 340 councils across the UK, 34 made our scandalous condition of granting those new alcohol licenses 67 more possibly to follow suit. Do you think it should be made a condition of granting new alcohol licenses? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, unfortunately these are the kinds of environments where

these things happen a lot. So again, this is pretty much the bare minimum people can be doing to at least help safeguard these people that are feeling vulnerable. I was reading too that this scheme's been rolled out across other countries, hasn't it? What does that mean to you? Yeah, I mean it's amazing. It's amazing that something so almost small in the grand scheme of things and we were just normal people. It's amazing to see that this is, you know, global now. I think it's gone as far as Australia. And it, you talked about your mum there and what it was like using losing her at 15. It is of course a Mothering Sunday this weekend. I imagine it's a very difficult day for you.

Yeah, it's a difficult time. I mean, obviously it's so difficult in the way that she was taken from us. But I really do think that all of this positive that has come out of this horrible situation has I think given us actually quite a lot of closure. We asked for a statement from our home office, from the home office, and they say our mission is to halve violence against women and girls in a decade and we've introduced a range of measures to make progress towards that goal including new action to tackle the spiking of drinks and to protect victims of stalking. We welcome the work of schemes like Ask for Angela in helping venues and businesses to support vulnerable women and while the scheme

is independent of government we strongly share its objectives to ensure that women feel safe in all areas of their lives including when enjoying a night out. Whilst the scheme is independent of government, we will continue to keep all policy and current legislation under review. Just finally to you, Holly, what do you think your mum would have made of this and this scheme having her name attached to it? I think she would be really proud and I think she would be pleased to know that her name attached to it? I think she would be really proud and I think she would be pleased to know that her name is, you know, helping so many other people. Obviously, her being a woman, a mother, I'm sure she would just be amazed that she was helping

other, any people, any vulnerable people, I think she would be really pleased. Holly, it's been lovely to speak to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, if you've been affected by anything you've heard on the programme so far today, you can go to BBC Action Line where you will find links and support. Now, in the documentary Growing Up Gypsy, journalist and documentary maker Stacey Dooley gets to know three young English Romaniomani gypsy women. Invited into the traditionally private community, Stacey discovers the complex balancing act

the young women face growing up in one of Britain's most maligned ethnic minorities. She meets 23-year-old Chantelle, who prides herself in keeping with the old gypsy values that her Granny Rita taught her, and shares her gypsy cleaning videos on social media where she has nearly 400,000 followers on TikTok and 15 million likes on her page. And I'm delighted to say that they are both live in the studio now. Hello to both of you. Kylie, how are you? Are you well? Well, very well. Thank you. How are you two doing?

Spot on, actually. I'm good, thank you. How are you? Yeah, good. So Stacey, can you just tell me why you were drawn to this subject in particular? Sure. I suppose the ambition of the film was to really try and understand these communities on a slightly deeper level. Do you know what I mean? I think arguably, particularly the travelling community, the Romani Gypsy community, I think outsiders, the rhetoric has been pretty one-dimensional. Do you know what I mean? And we've seen the kind of, you know, my big fat Gypsy wedding, you know, we've seen that angle,

but I just was desperate to hear from the women themselves, spend proper time with them in their homes and understand what life looks like day to day, what's important, what your values look like, what does it mean to be a Romani Gypsy traveller in 2025. And actually Chantelle, I'm not saying this because she's sat next to me, was a delight from start to finish. So accommodating, so candid, very forthcoming, very transparent, taught me through everything. I'm delighted with the end result. Yeah, I think we were happy. And I guess for people who don't know that your kind of work that you do, you do kind

of immerse yourself in the community that you're in as part of the film. Did you know much about the Romani Gypsy way of life before you started filming? Not a huge amount. I mean I had Romany Gypsy friends because actually and this is completely coincidental we found out when we started filming, Chantelle's husband Swaley lived in the site directly opposite my school so you know I had pals who live within that site but I hadn't spent a huge amount of time in the chalets with the families on a Sunday. I think it was always I was sort of an outsider looking in. And that is it, isn't it Chantelle?

You don't see many of these types of documentaries. Is that because, from your perspective, were you a bit worried about the filming process? Did it take a lot of thinking to decide whether you wanted to be part of it? It took me a long time to decide to do it because you always get painted bad in the public eye of, you know, gypsies are bad people, gypsies this, gypsies like that. I was honoured to do this, you know, with Stacey and she made me feel so, like...

I can't get the words. No, you're doing brilliantly. Like comfortable. Yeah, comfortable. She made me feel comfortable and it was a big thing to let people in to see this side of us, you know? And it was really good and we've had a lot of positive feedback from it. From within the community?

Yeah, within the community. So, and this is like one of the first real shows that's been on TV that showed this such positive side of us, not just the bad. Yeah yeah you it is a really fun watch and you are really honest in it. Was there anything that you said to Stacey I don't want you to film? No not really Stacey asked questions. Apart from your spare room actually you said don't go to my spare room because it's a mess. We've all got one in them rooms.

We've all got one of them rooms. We've all got one of them rooms. Nice to my house. And a cupboard, all the same. But you know, Stacey never asked any questions that was like out of place. Everything was the way I want it to be in my head. And when it come on the TV, I was proud to say that I'd done that with Stacey and just the feedback on it's been amazing.

Can I ask you about the term traveller and gypsy? What do you think about those terms and what do you prefer to be called? Well, my granny's an old fashioned, like she's a gypsy Romani. Years ago, everyone was, when they said gypsies, it was just travellers. But nowadays, people says travellers for Irish gypsies.

But I've been brought up to say gypsies and travellers are basically the same. What did you think about that Stacey? Were you keen to get that right? Yeah, I said to the girls early doors, you'll have to sort of forgive my ignorance and tell me at the start what you prefer. And some of the girls, there were three girls that we filmed with, all of Delia. And some of the girls preferred traveler and some of our girls preferred gypsy. So I've obviously been led by them. But, you know, a lot went into pre-production. We had a consultant, a lady from, you know, Chantelle's community, who was very, like, super helpful in terms of language and, you know, what we couldn't

talk about. You know, there were obvious boundaries, which we completely respected entirely. So actually we were led very clearly from the start and then just yeah it was a collaboration really you know Chantelle and I would sit down and you know what we hoped to achieve what do we want to get across. Yeah and I think you did a brilliant job I really really do. I loved filming it it was good. It was lovely I had a really great time I like thoroughly enjoyed you know their company and Swaley's a delight. Chantelle's husband, Swaley's a total gent. And you chatted through with him presumably beforehand as well about the filming because he's in it. Was he supportive? Well gypsy people

they're very quiet people, they don't like people knowing a lot what goes on in their life and we sat down and I was like Swaley I've been asked to do this. He was like well listen, listen, you're going to get backlash. Everything you do in life, you're going to get backlash. He said, if you want to do it, do it. He's like, me number one top supporter. And he was like, go for it. Oh, the love between you is so far.

It's like such a modern day love affair. I can't tell you. They're so starry eyed, the pair of them. Yeah. Really. It is beautiful to see. Let's talk about your cleaning videos that you put online on social media. What are they for people who haven't seen them? What do you do in your videos?

So I start cleaning and I talk about all different types of things. I feel real strongly about mental health because I suffer with that myself. And I talk about like, oh, today I got up cleaning and I didn't feel like doing it but I'm doing it and I start talking about all these different things that I go through in life and people just like responded like I'm feeling that way too so then my followers went up quite big and I had a lot of good like feedback from that as well and I just like show people this is how I make the bed this is what I do in a day spend the day with a gypsy so we're kind of big.

That chalet was immaculate there was a a girl that come round, so Chantelle's got a cleaning dealer, right? And she come round, didn't she, one day when we were filming, she was like, Stace, I'll get you, like, I've got a gypsy bundle. Chantelle calls it a gypsy bundle. My house was sparkling. I had this fancy glass cleaner that, yeah, that I'm very into now, which is tragic because I'm a 38 year old woman who's really impressed by a certain glass cleaner. I wonder if you've had any backlash though on those cleaning videos because obviously it's that stereotypical image isn't it of the woman staying at home and doing the cleaning.

What has the response been like? I've had a lot of people saying, oh but every woman cleans. I'm like, I understand that but like I'm sharing you what my life is really like. I have a lot of women in our gypsy community saying, oh you shouldn't be talking about that, you know, that's private situations like with the cleaning and I talk about like obviously my mental health and they would say like, oh my god you're making us look like idiots but this is just me. What you see with me is what you get. And doing this cleaning video has helped a lot of people just by talking about certain stuff in it. So I will continue to keep doing it. And you talked about losing a baby too. Why did you decide to share that?

Well in our community we don't talk about certain things and having a miscarriage is something that we don't talk about. I've never heard another woman talk about it. Really? Yeah like within our own community because they're just so quiet and proud people they don't want people to know they're struggling. So I struggled really hard with my third one really hard and I was like to Swaley I want to talk about it and he said okay if you want to do it you do it but be prepared for the bad comments. So I done this video and I did breakdown on the video. And the people started messaging me saying,

thank you for speaking up about that. You know, that's a very hard subject. And I was so proud that I helped people and it gave me a bit of comfort to know that I wasn't alone. And like, even outside of the community, women were saying, like, don't worry, you're going to get there.

I've been through it 11 times. There's so many people and I ain't spoke about enough. That must have been so hard if people haven't heard about losing a baby before in your own community, and then you go through it three times. Well, after I finished filming the documentary, I went through it another time as well. Oh, I'm so sorry.

So on the third one, it was very, very hard. And like I said, you never really hear about it. There's things like in our community, you will not be, like it won't be spoke about. And since I have, like a lot of girls in our community has opened up. And there's like, I had a girl call me a few days ago crying. It's like, thank you.

She said, I needed someone to talk to. I was like, listen, you might, you don't know me, I don't know you, you, you'll call my phone anytime you want to have a chat. And it's helped a lot of women. And your Granny Rita as well, she, her opinion felt really progressive because Granny Rita, Chantelle's nan was saying, you know, Stacey, back in my day, you would just shut the curtains on the chalet and you'd be in there for a couple of days, gather your thoughts and then be expected to sort of be back on form. But she is hugely supportive, isn't she, in terms of how vocal you are. And you described what Chantel's doing in the documentary as radical. It did feel radical, quietly radical, because to echo what Chantelle's just quite clearly said, you know, this is not a usual conversation that plays out in homes like Chantelle's.

So I felt enormously proud to be able to, you know, facilitate that in some small way. Yeah. You spoke to other women as well. Can you tell me about them? Yeah, Ebony and Serena. So Serena's really impressive. She kind of works with horses, which again is quite unusual. She is like a, I guess she runs a stud farm and she's 18 and she's super switched on. She's

really hugely entrepreneurial. And Ebony, she was interesting because she said she sort of had a foot in both doors, you know, the gorger world, the non-travelling world. Gorger is a term that travellers use to describe non-travellers essentially. Yeah, yeah. So she had one foot in the non-travelling world and then one foot in the travelling world and she was talking about trying to navigate that, you know, sometimes it's tricky territory. But she felt really supported by her peers and she works in a beautician. So yeah, she was talking us through her training.

One thing I was interested with Serena, who you were saying runs the works in a stable, that she kind of doesn't tell people that she's a traveller. And she has a different persona almost. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, she's kind of a bit living two lives. Yeah, essentially having to hire two she is. I mean, it's like a kind of a version of a telephone voice, isn't it? You know, we sort of feel like we have to put a certain foot forward to be taken seriously. And that must be very taxing. You know, day to day having to hide like fundamental parts of who you and your family are.

It feels really disappointing that we're still having these conversations in 2025. And I would argue, you know, racism towards the travellers is the last accepted form of racism. You know, there is a tendency to not really take it as seriously as other forms of racism. Why do you think that is? I've no idea, actually.

I've no idea. I think the stereotypes that have been peddled for decades has probably contributed to that. What do you think about that Shantel? I had it all through school. I got discriminated for who I was. I used to get called all types of names because of what I was and I used to try and hide it all the time. Even if I go into a shop, like I've been kicked out of shops, I've been kicked out and I haven't even done anything wrong. There was one time we went to a shop and my husband was innocent, we got accused of stealing and the man said I know what you are, he said I know what type of people you are and it made us feel so small. Can you go and can you report that to the police? Would

you take any action? I reported it to like the main office of what shop I was in and they did take that further, but there was nowhere, nothing really you could do. And to make this clear as well, I was really surprised by this. Chantelle's staying there and Serena's sister taught me this as well, going through school, just hassle all the while. Sometimes off the teachers, not as outright as maybe some, you know, gobbly kids or whatever, but kind of subtly suggesting that they were a bit different

to the other kids. When you're a kid, all you're desperate to be is exactly the same as your peers, do you know what I mean? So highlighting differences in front of, you know, an audience is hugely unhelpful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Do you think Stacey you've come away then after doing this with with a different kind of you it's changed your those preconceptions I sort of try to go in with you know an open mind and actually I'm so fortunate I you know I hang out with people different to me all of the time and I have been hanging out with different people for nearly 20 odd years. So I went in just very grateful because the access, I mean, you know, it wasn't unprecedented

but it felt very special. So it's different. Yeah, I didn't take it for granted and, you know, recognize that there was, you know, real responsibility to make sure that these girls were taken care of and looked after. But I thought they were all brilliant. I thought they were, yeah, they did a great job. Let's just talk about briefly, we were talking about being a mother. Oh yes. You've got a little girl, Minnie. That's it, yeah. So we've asked for our listeners for their thoughts about what it's like to be a mum and maybe their expectations versus the reality. What's it been like for you?

Kylie, where to start? Yeah, we've only got about three minutes. I'm actually doing a book tour at the minute. I wrote a book to my little girl, it's called Dear Mini, and the premise is really straightforward. We seek to load to mums and they pen a letter to their kids. But I suppose I went into it very... I just hadn't organized a thing, Kylie. I hadn't organized a thing. I hadn't read any books. I hadn't listened to any podcasts. I thought, oh, you know, it's innate. I'll be absolutely fine. Really? You didn't research?

Not a thing. Not a thing. Ridiculous. Especially considering what you do. Yeah. I thought, oh, we'll be absolutely fine. I actually ridiculously thought, it just can't be that hard. Low. And then I tell you what, a year later, I thought, oh, I'm never going to sleep. Yeah. I'm going to sleep. I'm going to sleep.

I'm going to sleep. I'm going to sleep. I'm going to sleep. I'm be absolutely fine. I actually ridiculously thought it just can't be that hard. Low and then I tell you what a year later I thought I'm never going to sleep again. I'm never ever ever ever going to sleep again. The sleep deprivation was off the chart but she's magic now. This is my favorite. I found the really six months really exhausting but it does get easier. It does and actually she's golden like she's chat chat chat now. So it's my favourite stage. But I need to strap in, I'm telling you I've got my work cut out. She's no one's fool, yeah.

She's her own woman already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Well, just to say that Growing Up Gypsy is available on the iPlayer now. It's a really good watch. Yes, the girls are brilliant, they're really brilliant. Thank you so much to both of you for coming in, to Chantelle and to Stacey Dooley. And just to mention that if you've had anything that you are concerned about and you want advice, go to BBC Action

Line. So we've had so many comments coming in about those expectations versus reality. I'm going to read you a couple of them now. Julia says says becoming a mother in my mid-thirties was a scary prospect The thought of being responsible for a new life was daunting the big surprise when my son arrived was that he knew exactly What he wanted and all I had to do was meekly follow his lead He had an iron will so I really had no choice I've got one of them getting him into a routine was a non-starter and I soon realized with resignation that he had imposed his own eccentric routine on me I wonder if much of the stress of motherhood comes from others trying to follow the dictates of so-called experts when the baby has other ideas That's interesting. You know, maybe maybe Stacey not reading anything was was good for you

This one here this one says this person says I'm an older mum yeah. This one here, this one says, this person says, I'm an older mum, 54 of twin six year olds. I had them after a long IVF journey. When I realized I was having twins, I was both ecstatic and terrified in equal measure. The reality was nothing like I expected. The amount of love that I had at that moment, they were born and how much it's grown since

was something I was unprepared for. The moments of joy have been amazing, but it's coupled with a deep tiredness that has only just started to go away. Now they're six, life is much easier and we're able to do much more together and they're able to ask for what they need and sometimes they even help. Motherhood was a miracle for me. But with all wishes it also came with lots of unintended consequences. Thank you so much for all your comments and please do keep them coming in 84844. Now Oscar nominated actor Lily Gladstone, the first Native American woman to be nominated for Best Actress and the first Indigenous woman to win a Best Actress Golden Globe both for her role as Molly Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon is in a new film. Lily plays Lee in The Wedding Banquet, a romantic comedy and remake

of the 1993 film of the same name. It's a little different to the 1993 version as it follows a gay man, Min, and his lesbian friend Angela who make a deal, a green card marriage for him in exchange for IVF treatment for her and her partner, played by Lily. To complicate matters even further, Min has his own partner, Chris. I'm sure you can imagine the twists and turns that scene follow. Now I spoke to Lily earlier and she began by telling me about her character Lee. Lee, more than anybody, she needs to be a mother in this narrative.

And we all know somebody like that, just that friend you've had forever that you're like, you're gonna be such a good mom. And I think that's really lovely when you're watching the film, you just see how nurturing she is, not just to her partner, not just to her chosen family, but that her whole job revolves around making sure that unhoused queer youth are taken care of,

that folks in the queer community have a safe space. I definitely leaned into the warmth of my family on that one. My parents have always provided the most nurturing, accepting, loving environment. And when I was in middle school, my dad actually remarked, I kept saying that I had so many friends come out to me in middle school, which is pretty young. And I was wondering what that was. He's like, it's because you accept people for who they are. So I kind of just wanted to preserve that from my family

and bring her into the character. So she is indeed trying to become a mother with her partner Angela and is struggling like many women do with IVF and of course that's kind of the only option in a same-sex relationship if you want to have your own biological children and yeah you meet Lee and Angela after their first failed attempt. There's been a second implantation they're waiting to hear the news on and then doesn't go their way.

So they've run out of money, they've depleted their savings. And that's where the kind of farcical element of the whole film comes into play because their chosen family is another queer couple living with them in Lee's family home in the carriage house. And Min, played by Han Gichon is in America on a student visa that's about to expire dating Chris

played by Bo and Yang and proposes Chris is a little bit of a commitment phobe for his own reasons that he has to get over so of course a little why don't Angela and Min get married fake Fake marriage, everybody's happy, I'll pay for your baby, I'll get my green card. So of course everything goes to plan. It's funny, it's endearing, the characters are extremely likeable, particularly your character. This is different though to things that we've seen you in in the past. What drew you to this project?

You know it's funny, my origins with acting performance started when I was a child and I was kind of the rambunctious class clown sort of kid. I learned pretty young. I could make people laugh and I just defaulted to that. It's my favorite deflection when things are uncomfortable is to make things funny. So it's anybody who knows me well and has seen me doing this since I was a kid always expected I was gonna do a comedy. I was gonna go into some kind of sketch comedy or stick with theater particularly. So when my film career started lifting off it was I don't want to say surprising it was just funny that my work has been very dramatic, it's been very minimal, it's been very stylized and naturalized. So it kind of feels like

it's a return to origin in some way. I think the analogy I used at our talk back last night is I feel like I've taken my coat off, like the wings I've been hiding for so long, I get to finally like stretch, be like, all this is this is me in my natural form. You talked about IVF and that storyline. What was that like for you to play? I've been through IVF myself you know it's very difficult for anyone who has been through it and in a same sex couple as well was how was that story for you to tell? You know that was when I read the script the one hesitation I had about it because I don't particularly have a strong drive myself to be a mom not to the point that I would ever pursue IVF if I had made that decision

to have a child and I don't think I would put the time and energy and just I know several women and several of my friends have gone through it and I know what a trial it is So I was a little hesitant to take that on because I wasn't sure would be something I could access very authentically but it's it's always surprising the capacity that comes out of you when you commit to a character and Lee more than any character I've played has demonstrated this to me that I care about the characters I play the way I care about my closest friends and Kind of the volume and the stakes turn up for me when it's about somebody I love versus myself

so it was actually I don't want to say easy because it's it is a challenging headspace to to step into the I It is a challenging headspace to step into. I think the most uncomfortable spaces to go as an actor, at least for me, are not necessarily heavy emotional losses. It's grappling with your own feelings of inadequacy that are really unfair. And I think that was the thing that was surprising to me

about this, I guess, simulated IVF journey that I went on through my character's experience. And it's not something that even my friends that I'm close with that had gone through IVF ever vocalized or really talked about to me explicitly, but there's a strange amount of shame that you carry with it if it doesn't take. You wonder what's wrong with me. You, um, your heart on yourself. It's like well maybe they're right. Maybe I am too old. Which you know there's so little science and so little data collected about women's bodies. It's just

remarkable. But yeah feeling all of those things it's like there's a there's a level of defensiveness because you know when you're when you're taking up for other women you have those talking points, you have those recollections, you do the research when you're wanting to support a friend, at least I do. And then on top of it, it's such a quiet but powerful statement in the film,

I think, especially when you're talking about a queer couple, where that is your option. And the amount of resources, not just personal, emotional resources financially, what it takes to have a child. In Lee and Angela's case, they both got solid jobs. Nobody's getting rich, but they're comfortable enough. Comfortable enough to the extent that they also have to take on two boarders, their best friends, to help with the mortgage because that's the reality of the world we live in now. But life savings,

you know, two women that are in their mid and late 30s committing their entire combined life savings to two failed IVF attempts and then that's it. You've obviously had huge success in your career so far. How do you choose a role? How do you choose which characters you play? You know, it's just very much a gut thing. The second that I try intellectualizing a role to myself because maybe the trimmings of it are really appealing, maybe there's an actor in it that I'm dying to work with,

maybe the filmmaker themselves is somebody I really admire, the second that I start bargaining with myself about a role, I know it's not right for me. It's either, it's really either a yes or a no. And with this one, there was, you know, some career conversation around it, I guess, that it was a supporting role in an ensemble or an ensemble role. When, you know, after you're coming off of the campaign that I had last year in the scope of the project that I was on with, you know, a Scorsese film with DiCaprio and De Niro, it's like, where do you go from there? Especially if that's your big introduction to most people.

You mentioned Killers of the Flower Moon, the Scorsese film that you did that I guess most people listening will know you for playing the role of Molly Burkhart. Groundbreaking, of course, in so many ways, including gaining a Ewan nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Awards, the first Native American woman to be nominated in that category. In 96 years. And that story was based on a true historical account. Did you know much about that story before you came to the project?

I knew kind of the anecdote that most of Indian country, as we say in the States, if you're Native American, we just call it Indian country. I knew the anecdote that most of us did that maybe didn't grow up close to proximity, because Oklahoma nations know about it. Although, that being said, like any sort of shared communal historical trauma,

there's a lot of generations of folks from within the community that heard nothing about it, because people don't want to talk about it. But my dad would talk about the story everybody hears that Osages would buy a Rolls Royce or some really fancy car and run it until the gas ran out. And they'd be like, well, time to go get a new car and then go back and buy a new car. Yeah, doing the film and then you contextualize it. It's like, oh, you have that moment in the beginning where the salesman is encouraging that.

Cars are new to the nation and they're like, you know, they always talked about the Osage price or the Osage tax, it's like was marked up tremendously by just everybody who descended on the nation and was making a dollar off of Osage wealth. It's interesting, I didn't hear know about the implications of that funny anecdote until really making the film or reading, really reading Brand's book ahead of making the film.

Did you have any concept of what being part of that film would would be like? How it would change your life? Knowing that this was something that I could do, knowing that this was going to be something that was going to land with audiences and really anchor the humanity of the whole story in a Scorsese film. I mean it would have been naive to think that my life wasn't going to change after that. So there was definitely a couple of months leading up to it where I had the quiet little voice in my head like every morning I'd wake up. It's not too late to say no. It's not too late to back out. They can find somebody else

But you know that voice is it's self-preservation. All it's based in fear. It's based in facing the unknown and you were fearful of I think just maybe the In some ways the fame aspect of it. Yeah. Knowing that that was going to come crashing down or whatever. And some people seek that but not not for you. It's, it's always kind of been something that just makes me really uncomfortable. Like I love when a project I'm doing

garners attention. I love when a role I've played is something that speaks to people. And when the attention is truly about the work, then absolutely. And the campaign felt like that. The more leaning into the story, leaning into this history, centering Molly, centering the Osage experience, as best as I could as a non-Osage,

but doing the best work that I possibly could and grounding in the community, where I still visit often and have a lot of very close friends You don't just cut those ties with the movies over you keep them going Have you felt that your your heritage has? led you into activism I think to a degree I Feel like my heritage is so grounded in a sense of your place in a larger community.

So from a very young age, your community identifies a sense of the multiple intelligences. It's very central to our culture. It's what you would call it, I guess, in sociology now or human studies. But you identify what kids are good at very young. They're praised for it, called out for it publicly, develop a sense of self within that. And by the time you're five or six years old, you kind of know what you're good at, what you love to do. And then you're encouraged along that path.

And I feel like I definitely grew up in a community that did that with me. Like it's a very native experience and people talk it about a lot how good it feels to have like the aunties or the grandmas say like, you're doing a good job, you know, just having that really warm encouragement from a young age. And for me, that was always related to how, like I said earlier, I learned pretty young. I can make people laugh.

I learned pretty young that I liked the feeling of Having you know not fame, but just having Having an effect I guess like being able to do something and make a somber tone turn into a light tone or to Really like disappear into this sort of character and have people enjoy that. Like I was encouraged from that from a very very young age and I think that gives you such an innate sense of community and that gives you a responsibility to your community which I think kind of wears itself as activism but it's just an extension of standing up and speaking as yourself, for yourself,

but knowing that however you do represent yourself and where you focus your energy reflects on your whole community. That's also particularly true when your community is underrepresented, and then suddenly you're somebody who's out there speaking about, you know, I can speak in a sense of communal Native American experience and history with the US government, same policies affected every nation, just affected every nation differently. So Blackfeet experience was very different than Osage experience.

So there was an element of like, I know I'm representing a huge community that people tend to homogenize into a one sort of, there's still folks who want, if they believe that we still exist, because there's a vast population in the States, if you just do a blanket survey on the street, people don't think Native Americans exist anymore. It's just we're kind of creatures of the past, or we fully assimilate it, or whatever it is.

A lot of that driven by the old westerns. But if people do acknowledge that, yeah, we're around, there's also this sort of quiet assumption that we have one culture, one language, we're all fluent in whatever that one language is. My character in The Wedding Banquet, for example, I chose to make Duwamish. Duwamish is Chief Seattle's nation, who Seattle is named after where this story is set. The Duwamish don't have federal recognition. They have no legal claim to their ancestral land

unless they hold deed to it, unless they're property owners. So that was a choice I made in the wedding banquet to drive the stakes up for why is it so important for Lee to have her own child versus adopting. the wedding banquet to drive the stakes up for why is it so important for Lee to have her own child versus adopting. It's continuing that legacy when 95% of your people were eradicated, when your nation is not acknowledged by the federal government, when you're basically told you don't exist. It's an act of resistance to continue your line forward and then also to hold on to the lease for your

house. That was actor Lily Gladstone speaking to me there and her new film The Wedding Banquet is out in UK cinemas from the 9th of May. Now as we've been saying, Mothering Sunday is almost upon us. It's a day for celebrating mothers and maternal figures, but it might be your first Mother's Day maybe as a new mum, or indeed your 80th. For some, it's a time for joy, and for others, a time of reflection. But how does it feel to become a mother? In the 1970s, sociologist Professor Anne Oakley wanted to find out if women's expectations of birth and motherhood matched their reality.

She spoke to over 50 first-time mums before and after they gave birth, which led to a groundbreaking project called Becoming a Mother. When what she found out in that study reshaped how we think about motherhood and started a sea change in practice and policy around maternity care. Well now a new project takes that legacy on and looks at what's changed over the past five decades. It's called 50 Years of Becoming a Mother and it's led by Professor Oakley and Dr Charlotte Faircloth from the UCL Social Research Institute. I'm delighted to say they're both here with me now in the Woman's Hour studio. Hello.

Hello. Hello. So Anne, can I start with you? Tell me about that original project and what led to it? Well, what led to it was that I had just, 52 years ago, I was just finishing a study of women's attitudes to housework and what many of them were saying to me was the point at which their lives really changed was when they had a first baby. It became difficult to pretend that gender equality existed when there was a baby in the house. So I looked for research on the experience of the transition to motherhood and there was very little around so I thought somebody

needs to do this. I got in touch with the local hospital and that's the origin of the project. Charlotte, how important was ANN's study at that time? I mean hugely and I think it remains hugely important. It became one of the kind of foundational texts in this whole area now of really vibrant social science scholarship, you know, so across lots of disciplines and actually beyond academia as well. And I think perhaps that was what made this project quite so impactful was that it was read very broadly by, for example, midwives doing their training. And so now actually, with this new phase, we're constantly being contacted by people who've been practicing for many years saying, oh, this book was wonderful for me. It really, you know, changed my thinking. And I think because it

then had an impact on the policy at the time that's why it's created such a sea change. And what were some of the most interesting things you found about what women were telling you about that transition into motherhood? What they were talking about was the discrepancy between what they expected and what happened. They felt very unprepared for almost everything. So you know in the 70s there was no internet, there was very little information around, there were no groups that people could join. So it was

everything from you know the shock of going for antinatal care, usually the first experience of going to a hospital. And antinatal care in those days was very assembly line. You know in the hospital where I was doing this research women were told to take their knickers off when they were waiting so it would be easier for the doctors to examine them. So that sort of thing and the experience of childbirth fathers were not allowed to be present and then the baby. They weren't allowed to be in the room. So my first child was born in 1967. He's now retired. Things go on. And his father was not allowed to be

in the room. So, you know, a lot has changed. But there are some themes that I think we are going to find still characterise this process in women's lives. Things to do with continuity of care, support, consent, all of which came out in the original study and they were a bit of a shock, I think, to many people, particularly health professionals, who had not realised the difficulties, the extent of the difficulties that women were having. We've been asking our listeners for their comments about expectation versus reality. We've had a lot of comments, as you can imagine. This person here says, I read loads of books. I thought I completely understood what motherhood would be like. I had it all organised. Then I woke up to

the reality. I felt I had to cope on my own. None of my friends had children. I didn't understand the need for a support network. It was so hard, but we all survived. Working full time in a rural location without family nearby is tough. She says I would do it differently if I was having a baby now. That's really interesting isn't it? Did many of the mothers that you spoke to and talk about that support network because obviously it's very different. My support network is honestly it's on my phone. I don't live near my family so my support network is my WhatsApp group of friends.

What were women telling you was their support network then? Family. Friends if they were fortunate enough to live in a community where they had friends. But some of the women I talked to were very young. I think the youngest was 19. And her family were in Ireland. She had basically no support. I was the person who got asked the questions. Really? Yes, because in that case and in some others, yes, which led me, this is a different subject, led me to think about the whole role of interviewing and social research. But yeah, so support, some women had a lot of support and some had none.

You were actually in the room too for some of the deliveries. I was in the room for some of the deliveries. What was that like? It was rather hair-raising actually because it was during a junior hospital doctor's strike that often I was the only person in the room and he had these fatal monitoring machines that go into red alert and I never knew what to do. I mean looking back on it, it was horrific. I should never have been allowed to be in that kind of position. But you know given that the fathers were playing a fairly minimal role, I was a familiar

face. Now it would have been better if that familiar face had been a midwife that a woman had got to know during the pregnancy and you know so that she was being cared for by someone who wasn't a total stranger. Charlotte listening to this I mean this is it's very different isn't it the way I guess you're approaching this study now? Yeah I mean as Anne says I think there's going to be some quite interesting continuities. And actually, I was just reflecting when you were asking that, that sort of sense of shock and surprise, you know, however much preparation one does, or however many expert guides, blogs

you follow, TikTok accounts, whatever it might be these days, obviously, but weren't there previously, I wonder if there's sort of some inability to really understand what it is like until one sort of enters this, you know, new way of being, the sort of relentlessness of the demands of a new baby. It's really hard to understand until you've sort of, you know, experienced it. And so I remember that, you know, people would sort of tell me, but I just couldn't hear it, I think. you know, people would sort of tell me, but I just couldn't hear it, I think. So, yes, I mean, I think, I mean, certainly things have changed and partners, for example, these days are very much expected to be, you know, typically at birth. But I think that sense of isolation that a lot of women feel is still going

to be quite sort of prevalent in those early weeks and months, you know, of having of having a baby. I think you're right that the digital side has obviously really improved things in many ways in the sense of sort of having a network and being able to stay in touch with people. But it's quite a double-edged sword. I think it's also bought its own sort of expectations

around kind of performance of motherhood. Judgment. Exactly, yeah. Feeling like perhaps you're not quite doing it right, you know, when there's so many different ways of doing it now. That sense that you're kind of maybe falling short of the ideals, yeah. Why this study now? What's, do you think it can have the same kind of impact

that what you're working on, Anne, 50 years ago could have? I mean, we hope so. I should say that Anne and our good colleague Meg Wiggins, what you working on, Anne, 50 years ago could have? I mean, we hope so. I should say that Anne and our good colleague, Meg Wiggins, who we're running the project with in the Social Research Institute, have already done one repeat study based on the same kind of methodology.

And they've also followed up with these women once. And those were both about sort of 15 years ago. But even since then, I think there've been some pretty dramatic changes in the world. Obviously COVID, austerity politics, there's so much going on, there's a kind of declining fertility rate.

And I think some of the findings from this study might help inform some of those broader conversations that are going on. Why aren't people having so many babies? What does that mean for society? Is it actually a problem? What might we do to actually create, make sure that this period is a period where people could not just kind of survive and get through, but maybe even flourish, you know. So that's the hope, really, that we'll be able to speak to, I think, two areas of policy making, particularly that are

often kept a bit separate, which is, you know, maternity care on the one hand, and then early childhood education and care on the other. There's so much sort of in between. So we're really glad to have a retired health visitor on the advisory group actually for the project to sort of speak to both her experience of working in health visiting for many years, you know, during the period of the study, but also to speak to that kind of period where parents do need the most support, I would say the end of you know maternity leave let's say and the beginning of childcare that's often where these you know these effects on gender equality certainly come through. And I understand you're going back to

some of the original women that you spoke to. That's correct and we actually are very fortunate we have one of the original women on our advisory group, so that's very good. We did go back and see 36 of the original 55, 33 years on. So we have some follow-up interviews, which were very interesting in terms of the memories that people have of the birth, which are in most cases were extremely vivid all that time on, you know, accounts of feeling very lonely often and concerned at some of the some of the technology that was going on, which is something else that's changed. Yes, so I just wanted to say that one of the reasons that

I did the original study was because of this label postnatal depression, which was handed out so very readily by health professionals. And so when I talked to these women and when also when we did the repeat study, their accounts didn't suggest depression in the sort of clinical mental health sense. What they talked about was total exhaustion, the experience of doing a new job without any previous training because that is what first-time motherhood is often like, a period of institutionalisation in hospital and often surgery. Now all of that will be enough to drive your average man into something approaching a mini breakdown. So why this label?

You know the label often, I mean of course there are some women who are really depressed and I'm not talking about them but the general label is a way of dismissing the validity of women's experiences. label is a way of dismissing the validity of women's experiences. Charlotte, you are, it is a small section isn't it, a small study and it is only in London, so are you conscious that you know this might be the reality for those women in that urban environment? Yeah, we're very conscious of that and I think we've had lots of conversations in the team about you know sticking with the same hospital, the same area, but I think what we're very conscious of that. And I think we've had lots of conversations in the team about, you know, sticking with the same hospital, the same area. But I think what we're trying to do is build that into our analysis and recognise that London is not the UK. Of course, it's not. And that the particular kind of group of

women that we're going to be working with at the same hospital 50 years on represent a much greater kind of diversity in terms of their characteristics, obviously in terms of ethnic balance, also in terms of class backgrounds, but also we're going to be sort of actively sampling for women who are maybe slightly older these days as representative of sort of national trends, people who have used reproductive technologies to create their families for example, women who decide to become mothers you know by choice as it's called. So we're sort of actively trying to make sure that we sort of build that into the the study analysis and I should say actually one of the sort of things that we're most excited about with the project overall is that we're going to be making Anne's archive, as it were, sort of more available

to other researchers. So all of these tapes that were taken in the 1970s, currently as cassettes, they're being digitised, they're going to be transcribed, and that's all in partnership with the British Library as part of their acquisition of Anne's archive. And we're really hopeful that, you hopeful that all the phases of the study will then be included, including the latest ones, to really provide other researchers with this amazing data set to take forward their own inquiries.

It's gonna be really interesting to hear those findings and then compare them. Thank you so much to you, Charlotte, and to you, Anne, for coming in. I just wanna take a bit of time to read a few of your comments here because we have so many coming in. This one here says, I fell pregnant at 18, unmarried with no support from the father.

I was so lucky that my parents gave me total support and integrated my lovely daughter into the family. The downside was that I never really felt in control. The second child was planned after I married. I didn't have a clue. A difficult baby. And I struggled. So two different very very different experiences there. And also this one here that I want to read from someone saying, listening to Anne Oakley today, I'm so grateful as a mature

student in 1985 I read Housewife and it resonated so much, found my voice and my world became much bigger. Thank you Anne, she says.. Now on weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow, a former boxer and survivor of domestic abuse who is now using boxing to help other women who've experienced domestic violence. Thank you very much for listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. From BBC Radio 4. They remind me of the beauty of the everyday. next time. and human experience at its very heart. You can see the people walking, bewildered, absolutely bewildered. Nobody really knew what to think. The programmes you'll find here explore the reality of contemporary Britain and the world.

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