Woman's Hour - The Squad, NI Abortion, Jobs

Episode Date: July 17, 2019

We'll be taking a closer look at The Squad: the Congresswomen at the centre of Twitter comments made by President Trump. Who are Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar? Why are these four politicians of colour causing such a stir, not just with Republicans but also in their own Democratic Party? Professor of Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies, Wendy Smooth and journalist for USA Today and Washington Post and a former House Committee Republican Counsel, Sophia Nelson join Jenni.Could the law around abortion and same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland change this week? We find out with Jayne McCormack, BBC political reporter in Belfast. Today the House of Lords decides on the Northern Ireland Bill which includes recent amendments to these two important social issues. The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) Centre for Social Justice says women’s work is most at threat from advances in automation, but it also say robots and AI could create opportunities to make things better for women. Jenni 's joined by Carys Roberts, Chief Economist at the IPPR and author of The Future is Ours: Women, Automation And Equality In The Digital Age.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Wednesday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. Now, as you may have heard, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution last night condemning President Trump's remarks in which he told four Congresswomen of colour to go back to where they came from. The four women are known as the squad. Who are they and why are they causing such a stir in the politics of the United States? Automation and the future of the workplace. Why is women's work considered most at risk from new technology and artificial intelligence? And crib sheet, Emily Oster is an American economist who's ploughed

through the data to find what advice to pregnant women and new parents has a scientific basis and what doesn't. You may remember last week two MPs, Stella Creasy and Conor McGinn, proposed that two amendments should be added to the Northern Ireland Bill. The House of Commons voted to support the legalisation of same-sex marriage by 383 votes to 73, and for abortion in certain circumstances to be made legal by 332 votes to 99. Well, today the Bill is being debated in the House of Lords. If the Lords are in favour, the changes will happen if the Parliament at Stormont is not restored by the 21st of October. How realistic

is it to assume things in Northern Ireland will change? Well, Jane McCormick is a political reporter there and joined us from Belfast. The proposal on abortion is only in some cases. So how different would the position be from what it is now? That's right, Jenny. I suppose just to set things out for listeners, Northern Ireland has some of the most strict laws on abortion. The 1967 Abortion Act, which made it legal and decriminalised, it partially in england and wales doesn't apply here at the moment the only cases in which abortion can be granted in northern ireland is if a mother's life is at risk or if her mental or permanent or physical health is at risk of being damaged permanently and what we saw by stella creasy last week was an attempt to try

and legalize it in other cases. So, for example, if there's a risk of fatal, fatal abnormality where the baby wouldn't survive outside the womb or in cases of rape and incest. And so that's what we think would happen if this amendment does go through. Of course, I should say that there's a caveat that even if the bill gets through the Commons this week, it still needs to, we have to wait until the 21st of October. That is the date that people should mark in their diaries because this will only happen if Stormont is not restored by then. At the moment, we don't have a government here in Northern Ireland. There hasn't been one since January 2017.

And so basically the amendment that was put down was that these law changes will only take effect if government hasn't been restored by then. There has been very strong opposition to such a controversial change being made at Westminster rather than in Northern Ireland. Where is the main opposition coming from? That's right. And I think it's important to remember there's a lot at stake for people here because Northern Ireland isn't just the only part of the UK where abortion is restricted in many circumstances. Remember, the Republic of Ireland voted last year to change their laws as well. So people who are opposed to abortion in Northern Ireland feel that they are kind of the last bastion of opposition, if you like. So what we've seen over the weekend, we saw a letter come forward from Baroness O'Learn, the former police ombudsman for Northern Ireland. She has had that signed by 16,000 people, she claims, who are opposed to Westminster legislating over the heads

of people in Northern Ireland. And she wants it to be put to public consultation first before any of the changes can go ahead. Now we know that she was intending to hand that letter into Downing Street but I think it's safe to say we've heard from the government since the vote in the Commons last week they feel that Parliament expressed its clear will that there should be a change to abortion and same-sex marriage laws as well if Stormont isn't restored by the 21st of October and they say that they will follow that through. What generally is the feeling in Northern Ireland? You know, it should have a devolved government.

It clearly doesn't at the moment. But what does the majority in Northern Ireland think about this? Well, you'll know. Look, there are always two sides to every issue. And particularly in Northern Ireland, abortion is such a divisive issue. It depends who you look to. Pro-choice campaigners will say that this should have happened an awful long time ago. MLAs and people opposed to abortion gave up the right to call for Northern Ireland to legislate, given that we haven't had a government for more than two years. If you look at the polling, there was a poll done by Amnesty International last October, which suggested that two thirds of people in Northern Ireland felt that Westminster should legislate for abortion reform. The other side of that, I think, Jenny, is that we've seen opposing polls from anti-abortion campaigners who have actually claimed the

complete opposite, that they want to see local politicians taking decisions on abortion reform. It's not simple. It's not clear-cut. And then, of course, there's the wider impact for people in the medical profession who say that the current guidelines on abortion issued by the Department of Health back in 2016 are confusing and there needs to be some kind of progress on this and they don't really mind where it comes from. Why are they confusing? The problem is, at the moment, those guidelines I mentioned that were issued in 2016 don't really specify how medical professionals should carry out the procedure. So for example

I mentioned that those cases of rape or incest or fatal fatal abnormality they don't automatically qualify if a woman wants to seek an abortion and it also doesn't talk about the likes of a personal opinion of somebody in the medical profession who may feel that they do not want to carry out an abortion procedure. Where would that put them regarding the law? So there is an awful lot of this

that is not simple. And if you compare it to the amendment that Conor McGinn put forward on same-sex marriage, that is a lot more clear cut. If that goes through and we have no government in store by the 21st of October, then certainly in the coming months Northern Ireland would have same-sex marriage.

Clear-cut, very simple. Abortion, there are so many differing circumstances of that that it's hard to see how exactly the law would change. And I think that's what the government, along with Stella Creasy and her team, are working on at the moment. So if things do change same-sex marriage may become available quite quickly but

abortion not so? Yeah, well we're only going based on what we're being told. So the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commissioner Les Allenby had said last week that he felt Stella Creasy's amendment wouldn't decriminalise abortion entirely, but it would make it available in those circumstances and allow women more access

to abortion services. But it's hard to say. It's not going to become implemented immediately. I think it'll take an awful lot more work to go through the likes of this because, of course, there are so many human rights standards regarding abortion. And I think we'll have to wait and see what happens with that. But at the moment, it's certainly not as simple and straight down the line as the same-sex marriage one. How likely is Stormont to be restored before the 21st of October? Well, I hate making predictions because so often in politics, it's so easy to get them wrong. But at the moment, it seems very unlikely that Stormont will be restored by the 21st of October and for listeners who may not be aware since the government collapsed back in 2017 we've had a snap assembly election we've had several failed talks processes

and the most recent talks process began back in May after the murder of the journalist Leora McKee by the new IRA and at first there seemed to be a push by the parties to try and get back around the table. But given the vote in the Commons last week, the Democratic Unionist Party, who are opposed to the law changing on abortion and same-sex marriage, they think that this could now

hamper progress in the talks because the other parties in Northern Ireland would quite like to see the law change on the same-sex marriage and abortion. So it may not suit them to go back into government before the 21st of October. So at the moment, it looks unlikely. And if we get to that date, the 21st of October, and there isn't government up and running, well, then we could be in for some big changes in Northern Ireland regarding abortion and same-sex marriage. Jane McCormack, thank you very much for joining us this morning. And by the way, tomorrow,

I'll be talking to Vicky Trimble and her wife, Roz. Vicky is the daughter of the leading Northern Ireland politician, David Trimble, who surprised the House of Lords last week by announcing that Vicky was married to a woman, despite him having voted against same-sex marriage in the past. Now, as you may have heard, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution last night condemning President Trump's remarks, in which he told four Congresswomen of colour to go back to where they came from. The House approved a mostly partisan vote of 240 to 187 and formally rebuked the president's comments as racist, an accusation he denies. Only four Republicans voted with the Democrats, while the four women are known as the squad. Here's what they thought of what the president had said.

Sadly, this is not the first nor will it be the last time we hear disgusting, bigoted language from the president. We know this is who he is. I urge House leadership, many of my colleagues, to take action to impeach this lawless president today. This is a president who has openly violated the very value our country aspires to uphold. Equality under the law, religious liberty, equal protection, and protection from persecution. And to distract from that, he's launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the United States House of Representatives, all of whom are women of color. I encourage the American people and all of us in this room and beyond to not take the bait.

He does not know how to defend his policies. So what he does is attack us personally. And that is what this is all about. So who are the squad and why are they causing such a stir in the politics of the United States? Well, I'm joined by Sophia Nelson, a former House Republican Counsel who writes for the Washington Post and USA Today. She's in Washington. Wendy Smooth is Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University. And she joins us from there. Wendy, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York, what's her background? So glad to be with you today. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has risen as a media phenom upon election to Congress as a representative from New York who comes in on the tales of the U.S. resistance to Trump's

election. She has become one of the social media stars that represent this new American electorate, as I refer to it, which represents a much more racially diverse electorate, a younger electorate, a more religiously diverse electorate, and an electorate that is united in some way by differential class statuses. And what about Rashida Tlaib of Michigan? What's her background? Rashida Tlaib of Michigan is one of the first Muslim American elected women to the U.S. Congress. She, along with Representative Omar, who was also a part of the squad, she rose to national prominence in challenging one of her fellow congressmen, Congressman Meadows, as a racist on the U.S. House floor.

So these women have made a name for themselves as outspoken advocates of progressive politics. Sophia, what about Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, the other two members of the squad? Well, good morning. Yes, of course, Representative Omar is the other Muslim woman that was elected in the 2018 elections from Minnesota.

She was a state senator in that state before becoming a congresswoman. She's only 37 years old. As you know, she's been very controversial and been the target of a lot of threats and all kind of vile smears. And she has some positions that are, of course, not probably in line with everyone who seems to fall in line with Israel. And she's been critical, and that has not made the president like her at all, as you can imagine. And the other individual, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who I know, she's a delightful woman, amazing, powerful. She pulled off an upset victory. She was a city councilwoman and ran also against an incumbent

Democrat in Massachusetts, making history as the first Black woman ever elected to Congress from the Massachusetts delegation. I think she holds the seat that a young John F. Kennedy once held, if I'm not mistaken. So both powerful women, all four of them, you know, changing the game. Women of color, young, fresh, outspoken. Wendy, what do you suppose led President Trump, without naming them, to make the comment he made? So as your listeners well know, we are in the midst of an election season. The comments that Trump made are very much doll-quistle comments to motivate his base to stand strong with him, with this type of nativist attack, this idea that America at its core is a white nation. So all of these women motivate those threats and those concerns for the whiteness and the

preservation of whiteness in American politics. Now, they had, we have to say, Wendy, been involved in a row recently with Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Democrat and Speaker of the House. Why were they rowing with her? So these women mark the most progressive end of the most progressive spectrum of the Democratic Party. As Sophia alluded to, Representative Omar has questioned America's stance in relationship to Israel. AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for radical revision of our economy for a more green economy. These women are challenging the status quo of both the left and the right. And so their ideas, their new ideas as young members of Congress, their ideas as representatives of immigrant communities are not the status quo.

They are disrupting business as usual in the U.S. Congress. Sophia, I know that Ocasio-Cortez, AOC as she's known, told the Washington Post that Pelosi had been outright disrespectful and accused her of singling out newly elected women of color. How fair was that comment from her? Well, I'm not really interested in fair. What I'm interested in and the piece that I wrote for USA Today that I know that you guys have up and that you've read, I talked about this actually the morning that President Trump went on the rant against the four young women. And this is called intersectionality.

This is classic race and gender in America. And it happens all the time when powerful white women and women of color clash because we never really talk about the racism within gender. So whether or not Nancy Pelosi is a racist, I don't think she is. I know her. We've worked with her through my sorority. She's a good woman. The problem is she's from a different generation, and she's not used to these outspoken, powerful, young women of color, two Muslim, one African American, one Latina, who speak their mind, who are demanding change, who don't want to play by the rules. And so it's not about fair or not fair. It's about the right of these women who are elected

members of Congress to have a say and to represent their constituents and their point of view. And so let's be clear with your listeners there in the UK and here in America that this all started, like you said, with a row, a rift between the Democratic leadership and these four young women, the squad. And then President Trump decided to weigh in and cause a big mess that you see that we have going on. Sophia, you said in that article that Pelosi is threatened by them nipping at her heels. What evidence have you got for that? I don't need evidence. I just explain that to you. It's everyday living as a black woman in America, as I'm sure Wendy would agree with me. We deal with this all the time. You are either angry if you're a black woman,

you're fiery if you're a Latina, you're radical if you're a Muslim. These are labels. They're used to silence us. Nancy Pelosi made a big mistake when she said there's only four of them and they ought to stay off of Twitter. And that was her trying to put them in check and put them in order and telling them to fall in line and stop voting against bills, the border bill that they voted on with the Defense Authorization Act. And that's really where this all started. And context is so important. And when I say they're nipping at her heel, I'm saying that this is a woman that's in her late 70s. She's fabulous. She's Speaker of the House. But she paid her dues to get there.

Alexandria Ocasio, in particular, is 29 years old. She's the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives and probably will be the first Latina president. I fully expect that from her someday, female president, if not first. Wendy, how is the American electorate responding to them? Somewhere you sit in the electorate. There is a huge following, as Sophia alluded to around AOC, the other women as well have garnered tremendous support. What you have to, and I would want to underscore about these conversations, these women are bringing in new ideas of Americans who have not been fully represented in US politics. And when they are challenging the status quo,

these attacks become more prevalent. So I want to underscore that this is the difference between what we talk about and... Ah, Professor Wendy Smooth, we seem to have lost the line to you, but thank you so much for joining us. And Sophia Nelson, thank you too. Wendy, we're very sorry we've lost you, but thanks both of you for joining us this morning. Pregnancy and the Early Years of Being a Parent, written by an economist who ploughed through the data to find what advice has a scientific basis and what doesn't. And the serial, the third episode of Moon. Now, earlier in the week, you may have missed Monday's special programme about black women in the UK who are five times more likely to die from complications surrounding pregnancy and childbirth than their white counterparts. And yesterday, of course, Jane was in Liverpool at the Netball World Cup. If you miss the live

programme, you can always catch up. All you have to do is download the BBC Sounds app. Now, in Late Night Woman's Hour this week, Emma Barnett's guests are the journalist Yomi Adegoke and Xing Zheng, and the comedian Sophie Hagen. Yomi Aragoke has been wondering if she's overdosed on feminist Kool-Aid. One of the kind of byproducts of faux feminism, mainstream feminism, has been this kind of weird scenario in which we either absolve women from behaviours and emotions that everybody has

and pretend that if somebody does something that's really sort of nasty and bad and they're a woman, that for some reason it's not, you know, that it's kind of linked to something else. This is the patriarchy's fault. It's like there's this new kind of conversation that we're having that almost suggests that women are just intrinsically good. And I'm like, no, seriously, some women are just dicks. What about using?

Any of this ring true with you oh I mean I think this is the thing about contemporary feminism right where we are you know we are in this position now where even the bullies even the nasty people who are who happen to be women have now realized that they can play this card of but I'm a really nice person because I describe myself as a feminist so you're just going to have to take my word for it. I mean if Mean Girls and it was Mean Girls was rebooted wasn't it but very badly and it didn't actually take off. If Mean Girls

was rebooted it would be rebooted with the central character being a kind of fake feminist who said that she was best friends with everyone but actually is going around backstabbing everyone. In a way it kind of makes me miss the old high school movies where the villain was just an out-and-out horrible person and was very unafraid to claim that.

Like, you know, the lead girl, the lead Heather in Heathers, for instance. So, yeah, I think a lot of that speaks really true because, you know, you'll see some people on social media who talk an enormous game about being feminist, about caring about equality and social justice. And you know them from day to day interactions. And you think to yourself, you don't treat me very well or you don't treat this other person that I know very well. And yet you're here kind of retweeting, you know, your book recommendations for Pride Month.

So what's up with that? And I think it's because there's this now perception where being branding yourself as a feminist, branding yourself as being interested in equality issues is considered cool, because it's right. And it's right that it's cool that it's right. But as a result, you get a lot of people kind of jumping onto the bandwagon hoping, well, in some cases, maybe they even know that putting up this front will make people give them the benefit of the doubt. And of course you can subscribe to the Late Night podcast if you haven't done it already through BBC Sounds. Now a new report published by the Institute of Public Policy Research Centre for Social Justice says the development of new technology, automation and artificial intelligence threatens to widen gender inequality because

it's women's work which will be most at risk. But there could also be a plus side and there could be an opportunity to change the workplace to benefit women. So where are the threats and where are the opportunities? Carys Roberts is the Economist at the IPPR and the author of The Future is Ours, Women, Automation and Equality in the Digital Age. Gareth, what type of work would you say is at risk? So we look at all kinds of work and what we find is that actually automation is going to transform pretty much everybody's work in the economy. But certain jobs certainly have a greater proportion of tasks that could be automated. So in particular, we look at jobs such as kitchen and catering staff, cleaning, and waiters and waitresses. And we find that actually, there's a very high proportion of tasks in those jobs that could be automated. That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be at risk.

So one of the arguments that we make in the report is that actually while people are cheaper than machines, we're not seeing that automation take place. Rather, what the real risk is, is that some people will be stuck in low paid work, doing quite menial tasks while others pull away in the new jobs in the economy. But the jobs that you mentioned there, whether it's kitchen work, waiters, waitresses, they're done by men or women and women. Why do you reckon women's work is more at risk? So if you look at the proportion of men and women doing those jobs, you actually find that a greater proportion of women are doing those.

So, for instance, 9% of jobs that women do are in this kind of high potential group for automation compared to 4% of men's. So there is actually a big potential for automation that could affect women separately. And that's because men and women do different jobs in the economy. We know that women are concentrated in low paid work. And these are the sorts of jobs that we're looking at. Three quarters of these jobs with high potential for automation are actually paid less than £9 an hour. Now clearly the word robot comes up in this discussion.

We know a lot of women do caring work. Is that the kind of area where robots might take over? So I wouldn't say robots will take over, but there's certainly, you know, we have this assumption that actually care couldn't be automated. But in fact, there are lots of elements of a care worker's job that could be automated and this is one of the things we look at in the report so whether that's for instance automatic sensors within the home that can check whether someone has had a fall or if they need medication whether it's better scheduling of care workers time so

they spend less time traveling there's actually huge potential of how automation could not just replace care workers but could in fact make their jobs easier and could make the service that they provide better. So that's why we call it potential, not risk. So in what other actual jobs do you see automation creating opportunities for women? So we know that what automation is going to do is it will reduce how many people are required to do certain jobs, but it's also going to create new jobs. So for instance, the technology sector is expected to grow. It's a well-paid sector. There should be good jobs that are accessible to everybody. But if we look at the current structure of the labour market, we've got

just 16% of people working in tech being women. If we don't change that, what we might see is that, you know, the essentially well-educated middle class men taking those jobs at the expense of women who are less able to get them. So to what do government, business and education need to direct their attention? So there are three key things that we think that the government should be doing. The first is actually recognising the potential for automation to raise productivity in certain jobs, and that's what's needed to get a much-needed pay rise. That needs to be done with workers at the heart of it.

The second is making sure that the new jobs in the economy are accessible to women. So again, that education piece of making sure that it's not just boys who go on to do STEM subjects, for instance. But the third is also thinking about how we use technology and what we use it for. So one of the things that we argue in the report is that if technology means we can do more with less, that could actually enable a reduction in working time. So we recommend, for instance, increases in annual leave entitlements, which would free up time. We know that women disproportionately bear the brunt of childcare and those sorts of things. Annual leave entitlements could enable more time for family, more time for care.

So thinking about those three different ways of looking at the problem. But you wouldn't get paid any less if you had a longer annual leave. You're still thinking women's jobs will be well paid as long as they get the right education. So, yeah, that would be without a loss of pay. We've seen historic rises in annual leave entitlements over the years. We think that that isn't over. We haven't seen working hours drop since about the early 1990s, but we think that's a fight that should be worth having

and that it's really a feminist fight to ensure that women who do a double shift of paid work and unpaid work have more time and we can enable a more equal distribution of unpaid work between the genders. You say in the report that you'd like to see a managed acceleration of automation. Why acceleration? So the reason for that is if you look at over history, how we've achieved higher living standards, higher pay in jobs, it's been through productivity gains.

And a lot of that has been enabled by technology. If we don't pursue a managed acceleration of automation, what we'll see is that actually jobs don't become better paid. They stay low paid with, you know, the kind of reduced worker control that that implies. And some other parts of the economy will pull away. What we know, however, is that technology is not destiny. We can control this process. And that's what our report argues. Okay, Robert, thank you very much indeed for being with us. Now, there are plenty of books you can read when you become pregnant or when you're coping with the early years of your new baby's life. But how do you know what is really the

right thing to do? For instance, is the vapour from nail varnish dangerous for a foetus? Should cats be avoided because of the risk of toxoplasmosis? Are certain soft cheeses dangerous when you're pregnant? Well, Emily Oster is a professor of economics at Brown University in the United States, and she's the author of a book called Cribsheet. She plied her way through the scientific data on the questions that worry parents to find out what merited attention and what didn't. So what prompted her to do the work and write the book? What happened is I got pregnant and I found myself faced with a lot of recommendations and a lot of rules and sort of trying to sort through what was really a rule I should follow

or a recommendation I should follow and which ones were less supported by evidence. And I found myself doing a lot of the kinds of research that I do in my job in the service of my pregnancy. And so the first book and then the second book are really kind of a way of trying to bring rigorous data analysis tools to the kinds of problems that we are encountering as pregnant women and then as new parents. One of the first things that you were advised was to measure how much your new daughter urinated and defecated when you left the hospital. How did you challenge that advice? The doctor told us, you know, keep track of how much she's pooping and peeing. Reflecting on it, I think what they meant is just, you know, try to pay attention.

If she's not peeing at all, that's something to be worried about. But we kind of took it to a little bit of an extreme. And my husband had a spreadsheet, which he had set up, which could record every time she peed and pooped and how much she ate, every number of minutes of breastfeeding. So that, of course, turned out to be a little bit more extreme than we actually needed. And when we showed our pediatrician, like, here, we did a great job on this. She was like, okay, stop doing that. Like, that's not what I meant. That's too much. What other things were you advised to do

that you thought we need to challenge this? One of the things I spend a lot of time on is talking about breastfeeding because I think that particularly in the US and my guess is also in the UK, there is a lot of emphasis on the importance of breastfeeding and on the idea that it's not only important for health in the newborn years, but that actually the choice

to breastfeed has impacts on your kid well out of the time that they're breastfed. So it'll make them smarter. It'll make them thinner. It'll have all kinds of positive health effects. And when I looked into the data, I found that some of those benefits are supported. So in particular, breastfeeding does seem to improve some aspects of digestion in the first year, maybe some impacts on rashes and other kinds of allergens in the first year. But a lot of these claims about long-term impacts, about IQ effects or obesity, I don't think that those are supported in the best data.

And I think in some ways, I wish that that message were out a little bit more because I think a lot of women, particularly if they struggle with breastfeeding or if it doesn't really work for them, find themselves feeling really shamed about not being able to do that. And I think that if we were a little bit more realistic about the benefits, we say, yeah, breast is best, but the amount that it's best is maybe not what it's cracked up to be. I think that might provide a little bit of relief for a lot of moms. On the question of exposing children to allergens, it's often said, don't do it when they're little because you might create an allergy. Others say, do do it because you will help them not have allergies. What did you discover in the data?

The data in this case is quite clear that exposing kids to allergens early is an extremely good idea and does seem to prevent allergies. So the biggest study of this is in the context of peanuts, which obviously can be a really life-threatening allergy. And where a lot of parents were told, even as recently as a few years ago, you don't give your kid any peanuts until they're a year or two years because they could develop an allergy. In fact, giving kids access to peanuts, giving them peanut butter, say, when they're very young, four or five months, seems to reduce the risk of allergies by a lot, maybe as much as 80%. So in fact, the advice to wait is sort of exactly the opposite of the correct advice. The current sort of state-of-the-art evidence-based advice is to do this as soon as possible,

pretty much as soon as kids are getting any food. Now, advice on sleep seems to keep on changing. Let them cry themselves to sleep is fine. Don't leave them till they're fast asleep. Never leave them crying. What's the latest in the United States? In the US, people are recommended pretty heavily against sleeping with their infants. But the idea of using cry it out, of using some kind of sleep training, I think is pretty widely accepted. Most pediatricians here would recommend the use of that. And when I look in the data, I think the concern a lot of parents have is, if I let my kid cry themselves to sleep, will they fail to form attachments with me or will

this have some kind of long-term damage? And I don't think the data supports those concerns. I think in general, it looks like infants who are left to cry it out are better sleepers and don't have any more complications or problems emotionally when you look at them later in childhood. What about the anti-vaccination lobby? What did you find in the data as far as vaccination is concerned? Vaccinations are safe and effective, which I realize is something that you probably hear all the time from the NHS, but is true. And I spent a lot of time with the data on this because I think it's a place where there is a lot of misinformation and there is a lot of behavior which puts other people at risk. So not vaccinating your kid for diseases means they might get those diseases and they might spread them to other people. When we look at the evidence on vaccines,

there is simply no evidence that vaccination causes autism or has the kind of big negative impacts that people worry about. There is good evidence that vaccinations prevent disease. They are extremely good at that. And so I come down quite strongly on the idea that people should be vaccinating their kids and that the anti-vaccination lobby is really responsible for a lot of illness and probably death. What about the stay-at-home mother versus the goes-out-to-work mother? Also a subject of great debate. What makes the difference? When people talk about, you know, should I stay at home with my kids? Should I work? A lot of the emphasis tends to be on what is the best for the kid? You know, what is the way to make the best kid, the most successful kid, whatever is your metric? And when you look at the evidence, there simply isn't any good evidence suggesting that kids do better with one family structure

or another on this space. So kids who have a stay-at-home parent have the same kind of outcomes, the same test scores, the same behavior issues as kids who have two working parents. And so in that sense, I think the question which we often ask here is just, what's good for my kid? And the answer there is like, any of these is fine for your kid. And so instead, perhaps we should be asking the question, what works for the parents? What works for the family overall? Is this something, do both parents want to have a job? Is it something that we need financially or would it be better if we had a different structure? You do suggest that marital satisfaction tends to decline after children. Why is that?

There is some data which shows that people are on average less happy after they have kids. And I think people who have had kids probably can reflect on some of the reasons why that might be. You have less time for your spouse. You probably have less money. There are more stresses associated with the kinds of decisions you need to make around your kid or who gets to sleep and who doesn't. And so I think that all of those things contribute to these declines. I will say that the happiness does seem to, on average, recover, but also that it declines less for families who seem to be happier beforehand and for parents who planned a kid. So I think unplanned children tend to have a bigger marital satisfaction hit than children who were planned. You've spent an awful lot of time plowing through an awful lot of data. How

much does following the data make you a better parent? I think with a lot of the parenting data, the message is not so much that you should follow what the data says. I mean, there's a few examples where the data is pretty clear, like vaccines or this allergen stuff. But there are many more cases where I think the data helps us structure the decision and helps us think about, okay, how should I weigh the costs and benefits? But ultimately, the data doesn't really give an answer because you have to combine the data with some idea about what is going to work for your family, about family preferences. That means that the same data is going to lead parents to sort of different choices ideally to choices that are correct for them and I think that message is not so much about being a

better parent but really being a more confident parent and saying there are a lot of good ways to parent you don't need to do things differently to be a better parent but if you feel good about the choices that you're making you can be a a confident and happy parent, which is also super important. I was talking to Emily Oster. Now, responses from you on abortion in Northern Ireland, you tended to agree with each other and said, it's my belief that the DUP will not go back into working government in Northern Ireland until the abortion and same-sex marriage laws are imposed by Westminster. That way they can pretend to have the moral high ground with their fundamentalist voters. And Goretti said,

not only opinion polls say people in Northern Ireland want abortion law reform, Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, equivalent to the British Social Attitudes, shows a clear majority for reform And then on the squad, there was quite a lot of agreement from you too. Andrew said, never mind their politics, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's father was born in the Bronx, so she is at least as USA born as Donald Trump. Perhaps he should be told to go back, though I would prefer to his paternal grandparents' home rather than to Scotland. Paul said Donald Trump's approach to truth and evidence seems to have spread to some of his opponents.

I'm firmly on the side of the squad, but their supporters need to recognise that beating Trump requires more than just preaching to the choir. Jen said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a super impressive woman and glad to hear she's got a squad now at tiger rose said 100 agree with your comments today thanks for bringing brits up to speed with these fab women and then on women and automation jennifer said re-automating carers i'm incandescent at the thought that we only need machines to make life better we need personal contact more than anything else, even if it's only a short visit. Otherwise, isolation is unbearable and threatening. Amanda said, whilst I agree with the sentiment of how the developing workplace can benefit women, I do object to the constant reference to bearing the brunt of childcare. It is difficult to juggle and often very inconvenient, but I wish we'd stop referring

to it as a burden. It's a privilege that goes by all too quickly. Enjoy it while it lasts. And then on Cribsheet and looking at the data on pregnancy information and childcare, Carly said, fascinating stats on parenting. No difference in outcomes between children whose parents both work and those who have an at-home parent. Not surprised in the slightest. What makes happy children is happy parents. Working makes me a better parent. Susie said, love Emily Oster. She's talking so much sense about being a parent. Marital satisfaction does decline after having kids, but parents who share care, communicate well, and continue to have sex have happier marriages

and make better parents. Now, tomorrow I'll be talking to Professor Dame Sally Davies as she prepares to step down from her post as the Chief Medical Officer for England after nine years to take up a post as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. And I'll also be talking to Vicky Trimble and her wife, Ros. Vicky is the daughter of the leading Northern Ireland politician, David Trimble. He surprised the House of Lords last week by announcing that Vicky was married to a woman,

despite the fact that he'd voted against same-sex marriage in the past. Join me tomorrow, two minutes past 10 if you can. Bye-bye. Hello! Sorry to interrupt your content consumption, but can I quickly suggest a podcast you might like? It's called Grown-Up Land. Every week, comedian Heidi Regan, podcaster Ned Sedgwick, if that is even a job, Syrian dreamboat Steve Alley, and me, comedian Sophie Duker,

are joined by a brilliant guest to discuss the bewildering pursuit of adulthood. We talk sex, jobs, rejection, jealousy, sex, all with help from BBC Radio 4. That's the Grown-Up Land podcast. Make sure you subscribe on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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's 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.