Woman's Hour - Tracey Neville, Working as a Barrister, Vaccinations

Episode Date: February 16, 2019

Head coach of the England netball team, Tracey Neville tells us about her work to get netball recognised as a professional sport.New research shows almost two thirds of those who left the Bar on the Western Circuit over the last six years were women. Why is it so difficult for women to progress in a career as a barrister? We hear from Sarah Langford who specialises in criminal and family law and Arlene Small, a specialist in family finance and children work. Cases of measles in Europe have tripled between 2017 and 2018 the highest recorded this decade according to the World Health Organisation. Helen Bedford, Professor of Children’s Health at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and Samantha Vanderslott a social sciences researcher at Oxford Vaccine Group discuss the recent outbreaks in America and why some parents are reluctant to get their children vaccinated.The day before Valentine's Day has now become Galentine's Day, a day to celebrate female friendships. Claire Cohen Women’s Editor at the Daily Telegraph and Rachel Pashley a marketing consultant and the author of New Female Tribes discuss the marketing of gal pals.Breast ironing is a way to stop teenagers' breasts from growing. It’s painful but mothers in some communities call it tradition and believe it will protect their daughters from sexual assault. It happens in some African countries but has been recorded in the UK too. Milly Kerr from the National FGM Centre tells us what the UK government is doing to tackle this form of child abuse. The textile artist Clare Hunter tells us about the importance of sewing when it comes to protest banners and story telling tapestries.Fran Thomas, who can have up to 15 epileptic fits a day, tells us how her seizures are linked to her menstrual cycle. Dr Simona Balestrini, an epilepsy expert, explains why new research should bring better and new treatment options to women.Presented by Jenni Murray Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed Edited by Beverley Purcell

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Good afternoon. In today's programme, the girl in a famous sporting family. How Tracey Neville became the coach of England's gold medal winning netball team. Yes, this week it was Valentine's Day, but it was also Galentine's Day, a time for celebration of female friendships. Is it maybe a commercial step too far? Sure, absolutely. Send your friends a text message and tell them how much they mean to you today. Or if you've let a friendship slide slightly, maybe send an email and say, hey, we haven't met up for a long time. Why don't we do that? I think those sentiments

are really brilliant. But what really worries me is that we're not looking at the grey areas of female friendship at all. It's painting this very surface, glossy picture. As cases of measles triple across Europe, what motivates parents to reject vaccination for their child? The control of epilepsy. What's the impact of a woman's menstrual cycle on the condition? I developed epilepsy at 15 and I spent years, and I do mean years, even over a decade, trying to explain to the doctors that my fits followed my menstrual cycle and they got much worse. They just didn't listen. They didn't believe me.

The ironing of breasts, now officially designated child abuse. But why do mothers do it to their daughters? And the thread of life, a history of the world through the work women have done with their needles. Now this week, the Western Circuit, a body which represents the interests of barristers in the south and southwest of England, published the results of research into the number of women who are leaving the bar and the reasons why. We've also read about complaints from one young barrister who warned her male colleagues to cut out what she called their stag-do behaviour.

Two-thirds of those who left the profession in the Western Circuit over the last six years were women. Almost all the men who left went on to become judges or retired. The majority of women who walked away were in the middle of their career. So why are they doing it? Arlene Small is a practising barrister who specialises in family finance and children. Sarah Langford's speciality are criminal and family law and she's the author of In Your Defence about her own experience. At the moment she's on maternity leave. What significance would Sarah attach to the new research? I don't think that

there has been a report which has broken down practice area like this is done so we've got stats we've got statistics from the bar standards board who are our regulators about how few female qcs there are and how few women barristers there are but what is really significant on the ground from someone who's done it is where we lose barristers is in court-based practices, like crime and in family areas as well. And that's because of the practical difficulties of the job when you've got children, especially very small children. What are the practical difficulties? It's a very unpredictable lifestyle,

especially at the junior end. You don't necessarily know where you're going to be, sometimes tomorrow, sometimes next week. And you don't necessarily know if your trial's going to get up and running. You don't know how long you're going to be at court, which means that you have to have very flexible childcare, which, if you're paying for it, means it's very expensive childcare. And the rates, as we all know, in criminal practice

are incredibly low. So you are in a situation where you're probably paying more than you're earning to allow you to have this flexibility. Arlene, how important would you say the research is? Historically, it's an area that nobody has really wanted to address. We've just all ploughed on as if it's all fine i always think of that image of the duck going across the water looking quite calm but underneath we're all paddling furiously so this report very much shines a light on what the reality of life is like for most particularly women and parents at the bar why sarah did you make the decision that she had set up and I couldn't match it with what my resources were and my family support wasn't in

London or near where I lived and it just didn't work practically for me or financially for me and I think reading it was incredibly emotional for me because I felt very guilty about not going back I thought maybe if I just tried a bit harder or had managed to work my finances in a way I could have done it what's wonderful when you read this report is as well as all the statistics like 29% of barristers over 14 yearyear call of women. That's all. They all shed in the 10 to 14 years after qualification. There are lots of personal anecdotes as well woven amongst them, and they resonated with me so strongly.

They were exactly how I felt. It was almost a relief to be given permission to have made the decision that I made because I'm clearly one of many who've gone through the same difficulty. Arlene, you did go back after having your child in court this morning. Yes. How did you make that work?

I think generally guilt is the working woman's burden. And we're very good at beating ourselves up quite repeatedly about the things that we're not doing. And it was all about personal choice. I absolutely love being at the bar and I'm very passionate about being able to advocate for others who can't advocate for themselves. And so I think I probably did it in reverse. I made the decision that I was definitely going to go back to the bar and then try to shoehorn everything else

as far as arrangements were concerned. But practically, how did you manage it? I mean, if you have to be in court in Leeds tomorrow and Manchester next week, how do you manage it with your child? It's a combination of things. I mean, I don't live near my family, but I have good friends in terms of a support network. And of course, there is my husband who is incredibly understanding about the times when I say I'm on my way home and then I turn up sort of five hours later, having been delayed on a telephone call with a client or something like that.

So I think it is important to have good networks. It's very important to have supportive chambers, my chambers, clerks room. Thankfully, they are not the sort of clerks who will put things in my diary and tell me about it afterwards they're aware of my personal situation and so they will ring me and say this is what we're thinking of doing is that going to work for you as opposed to I've popped out for a sandwich and I come back and I'm going to Kilimanjaro in the morning so they're incredibly sensitive to the fact that they want to retain women at the bar and they're supportive as I say by managing my diary accordingly. Sarah what did you make of the

complaints which I read about in the newspapers yesterday made by Joanna Hardy who spoke of male colleagues with stag do behavior? Yes I mean that can create a very male aura in a court. And it is, again, as I said at the beginning, the criminal cases particularly that tend to be quite male heavy because they are very demanding on time and finances. So I recognised some of the comments that she said. How often, Arlene, would you be asked to make the coffee, organise the dinner? Thankfully, I've never been asked to do any of those things. Which is what Joanna said she'd heard a lot of. Well, when I first started out and I did crime, I think everybody does crime when they first qualify, I do recognise that the situations

that she was talking about only in as much as there clearly was a sense of the male barristers ruling the roost and the female barristers just being sort of tolerated but I had thought it had moved on so I was a bit surprised to see those comments. Despite an awful lot of talk, Arlene, of diversity in the profession, how is your career influenced by the fact that you are something of a rarity as a black barrister? It's interesting, actually. I think when I first qualified, I mean, you could hear the sharp intake of breath as you walked the corridors, particularly when I was doing crime and you're dressed in your wig and gown. And it was a mixture, really, because I think people from the ethnic background, I'm a black British Caribbean,

and you would almost see a sense of pride in people's faces as you walked by, sort of recognising that you probably went through a lot to qualify and get where you were. And then there'd be sort of an equal look of surprise from colleagues at the bar who I think just weren't used to seeing black barristers around. But again, thankfully, things have improved. And I would hazard a guess that if I were to qualify now, my experiences would hopefully be much different. What is interesting, though, is I think wider society

is still expecting barristers to be predominantly white, predominantly male and elderly. And I was sort of, as I was reflecting on coming onto the programme, thinking about an experience that my husband had when he told somebody that I was... He was asked, what does your wife do? And he said, she's a barrister. And he was asked if I was, he was asked, what does your wife do? And he said, she's a barrister. And he was asked if I was white, because just the possibility that, you know,

I could be a black barrister was clearly something that was alien to this particular person. So that's been my experience. So if some things are improving, what actually at the root needs to be done so that women don't feel they have to leave their profession. I think when courts are listing multiple cases at the same time, which mean that you have no idea when you're going to get home, obviously that has an impact on witnesses and defendants and so on as well. Or when you're dealing with a warned trial, which is a trial which might come in on any day, given a given period, that's incredibly hard to plan for. So on the most basic level, the ability

to predict your diary is fundamental to making this balance of affordable childcare possible. I was talking to Sarah Langford and Arlene Small and we had an email from Gail who said, I qualified at the bar in 1978. 40 years later, I still practice, although semi-retired. I have three children and practiced throughout. So you might like to know that I took my first baby, now 31, to court with me to breastfeed in 1988. Nothing new under the sun. Now, measles cases in Europe have tripled between 2017 and 2018, the highest number recorded this decade, according to the World Health Organization. And in America, two states are experiencing an outbreak. Samantha Vanderslot is a social science researcher at the Oxford

Vaccine Group and Helen Bedford is a professor of children's health at University College London's Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. Why does she think some parents are reluctant to get their children vaccinated? Most people get their children immunised, that's the first thing to say. But those who don't, it tends to be the big issue for parents is, are these vaccines safe? So safety of vaccines has always been prominent right since vaccination came in. Some people are very vehement in their beliefs about vaccination and they have no vaccinations for their children at all. But actually that's a very small proportion. What proportion?

It's only about 2% and it's been the same for decades. So most people get their children immunised and think it's the normal thing to do. Does that suggest then, bearing in mind it is such a tiny proportion, that there's over- of that minority who go against the general, the majority feeling, the anti-vaxxers? Certainly there's a very powerful anti-vaccine sentiment on social media, so they have a very loud voice, but they don't reflect the majority view. Samantha, what do you think influences parents or just concerned people? Yeah, I definitely think there's an over-representation of anti-vaccine sentiments.

So you often see in media stories a portrayal of there's an increase in anti-vaccine movements and groups, but it doesn't really drill down to the many complex issues why people might refuse vaccination. And that is attached to not trusting the government, not trusting pharmaceutical companies. Also having an appeal of other very persuasive ideas, such as alternative health and natural products. So there are lots of reasons why people might not vaccinate. And that differs over time in different countries and in relation to different vaccines. Yeah, tell me, first of all, about the different approaches in various different countries. Yeah, so either you have compulsory vaccination, where it's the law, it's a legal requirement to vaccinate, or you have mandatory vaccination where vaccination is associated with state services.

So going to school, getting childcare. And then finally, what we have in the UK is vaccination being recommended by the government. Recommended but not insisted upon. Exactly. But what about panic or hysteria or campaigns against immunisation? How do countries differ in that area? There's been a lot of controversies over vaccination and the government responses do vary.

Whenever a government decides to look into ideas about problems with vaccination, that tends to be labelled as a ban. So you do see governments listening to populations about having adverse effects from vaccination. And during that time, the government might recommend that vaccination to be better explored, but then that gets labelled as a ban. And we've seen that in Japan. We've seen that in France. Okay, what's happened in Japan? So in Japan, the HPV vaccine, the human papillomavirus vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer and other types of cancers. In 2013, the government didn't recommend that vaccine while it was exploring claims of adverse effects of the vaccine. So neurological effects that were reported by girls who were taking the vaccine. And then that got widely

reported as a ban. Sally on Twitter says there is a vaccine damage payment unit because vaccines are not 100% safe. That's true, isn't it? It's true that there's a unit. There is a unit. And when people say vaccines aren't 100% safe, nothing is 100% safe. But vaccines have a very high safety profile and they have to have that because they are given to healthy children, to all healthy children. So more than many medications, you have to be absolutely certain that the vaccine is as safe as possible. And before a vaccine comes into use, there will be lots of trials. And after it comes in, safety monitoring continues. And it's really important. And there are lots of examples of things happening. So in America, there was a vaccine introduced, rotavirus vaccine.

And it emerged very quickly that some children were getting a particular bowel complication. And the vaccine was withdrawn. Safety monitoring is taken very, very seriously. Let's go back to what measles, for example, can do to a child or to a person. I didn't have it because I had the vaccinations. I don't actually know anyone who did. But what does measles do? Well, I did have measles because I was too old to be vaccinated.

And I remember it now. I was very unwell. It makes children very unwell. It makes children very unwell. So it's a viral infection. And what it does is it gives you a high fever, a rash, a cough and complications can occur. So about one in 200 children will have febrile fits. About one in a thousand will have inflammation of the brain. And it kills about a one in a thousand people with measles. And we've seen a lot of deaths. We've seen 70 deaths in Europe last year from measles, which is a shocking statistic.

But you say that because that tiny number of people are not getting their kids vaccinated, how is that? Forgive me, I'm not a statistician or a medical person. How is it possible then? We need to have about 95% of the population immune to measles. Oh, is it gone? But we have pockets where there's much lower uptake. So the safety of MMR about 20 years ago, lots of young adults, older teenagers were never vaccinated. And they are pockets of susceptibility.

And we've had outbreaks amongst those groups. I also know that around that time, because my oldest child is 19. So I'm in exactly that group of parents, people were having the single jabs, weren't they? They were having the three separate jabs instead of MMR. Presumably those children are entirely, they're fine, they'll be all right if they've been immunised that way. If they've had two doses of measles vaccine, then they will be protected. But some of the other single vaccines that were available at that time

weren't so effective. And this is part of the problem, why the government never introduced single vaccines. To what degree, Samantha, is the panic around vaccinations restricted to pampered Western societies? You can get it in a lot of different societies. It doesn't have to be just in the West, especially rising middle classes. They're very influenced by views that are held in other countries. And you see anti-vaccine ideas travel right across countries. So in Japan, the panic about the HPV vaccine, that spread to the Philippines and even further away to Nigeria.

It's interesting, isn't it? I'm looking at Twitter and this is totally honest because it's live and it's right in front of me. This is from Hannah. One-sided discussion. There's no balance amongst your guests on this subject. Helen? Well, there's no balance because the science is firmly in favour of vaccination. There's absolutely no question. And if we think about in the period between the year 2000 and 2017, measles vaccination prevented 20 million deaths. There's no argument that vaccine is the best thing to do. It is interesting. I mean, fundamentally, I guess we're now, you could argue,

and many will, that we're being sidetracked into worrying about the possible side effects of a vaccination because we aren't seeing the illnesses and the diseases anymore, are we? Absolutely. Now, I've got two children, they're young adults, and I was just reflecting on their childhood. The worst thing they got as children were coughs and colds, and they had chickenpox, but they weren't really ill with that, although you can be, obviously. We are not used to seeing children being really ill at all

because of vaccination. They just don't experience these childhood diseases anymore. We're incredibly fortunate. Helen Bedford and Samantha Vanderslot were talking to Jane. Nim sent an email and said, I take my children's health very seriously and feel that just giving trust to the pharmaceutical industries is not enough. But through my own research and family circumstances,

I've chosen what's right for us. I find we're massively judged by the rest of society for these choices. People can get very angry. And so I find it best not to talk about it with anyone I'm not close to. And then Margaret said in an email, I was born in 1946, so 73 this year. I vividly remember my mother bathing my eyes which were closed for several days. I remember the fever and eventually opening my eyes. My playmate from down the road also had

measles at this time and as I recovered I can still hear Susan's mother, Grace, screaming in the road that Susan was dead. Please take measles seriously. Valentine's Day is the day before Valentine's Day. That's the 13th of February and hopefully not an unlucky 13. It's a day to spend celebrating your female friendships. But to what extent is the adoption of the title as a day to be marked nothing more than another opportunity to make money? There are a number of examples of the commercialisation of gal pals, including identical pyjamas, matching jewellery and apps to help us make friends.

Rachel Pashley is a marketing consultant and the author of New Female Tribes. Claire Cohen is the women's editor at the Daily Telegraph. At what point did she become concerned that female friendship was being marketed everywhere? I do applaud the sentiment of Galentine's. I mean, I think it's very important to celebrate female friendship. And it's a really good message that happily ever after doesn't have to look like a romantic relationship and that female friendship is just as important. But what really concerns me about Galentine's Day, and when I first started to notice it becoming commercialised, if you like,

was a few years ago on social media. And I mean, I put the blame slightly on Taylor Swift, sorry, Taylor. But she started posting all of these photos of her girl squad. And I mean, I put the blame slightly on Taylor Swift. Sorry, Taylor. But she started posting all of these photos of her girl squad. And this became quite a big thing around 2015. And she invited her glossy posse of best friends into her music videos. And she went on tour and invited them on stage. And I just thought, you know, this is not a realistic portrayal of female friendship. It's very aspirational, sure. But it's sending a message out that if you don't have a perfect gang of female friends to bake cookies with and make cupcakes with and have sleepovers with all the time, which is what they were portraying each other doing on social media, that there must be something wrong with you. And that certainly

doesn't relate to my own experience. I struggled to make female friends growing up and in my teens and twenties. And it's really only in my thirties that I have got a solid group of female friends. So it just made me think this is quite worrying for young women and not a great message to be sending to them. Rachel, when did you begin to notice it was becoming a marketing tool? I think around about the same time. And something that we see in the marketing world, it's often said that women don't just buy brands, they join them.

So they seek sort of deeper connection with brands. in the marketing world, it's often said that women don't just buy brands, they join them. So they seek sort of deeper connection with brands. And I think as a result, BFF marketing, so best female friend marketing, I know I should hang my head in shame for using that term. So I'm sorry. But it's but it's now kind of a thing. So brands are adopting this sort of personal dialogue with women in a bid to sort of mimic being your best friend and I think where a business has a female founder so like Goop in the early days when it was smaller or Deliciously Ella I think there's an authenticity to adopting that sort of personal narrative but I think where it's you know M&S giving me permission, as they are at the moment on Galentine's Day, to put my feet up, ditch my to-do list, why I only get one day to do that, I have no idea. You know, we're in it together, girls.

You know, we can relax today and buy some homeware from M&S. I'm sure there are other shops that you could buy homeware from. Yes, exactly. then I think I'm sure there are other shops that you could buy homeware from yes exactly it's not just homeware I brought with me a few just a handful of the emails I've got this week and it's been Galentine's cupcakes Galentine's beetroot burgers beetroot foot spas silicon face massages pajamas reading fries before guys I mean I've got a list here about 20 things the beauty kits yeah you should make yourself more beautiful on Galantizer because we're not worrying about that nearly enough. I just find it so infantilising and cynical when I say.

But, I mean, what essentially is wrong with, let's say, buying your mate a piece of jewellery or even an app for making friends? I just think it's sad that we feel like we need to commercialise and, as Rachel said, have a day for doing this. I mean, sure, absolutely, send your friends a text message and tell them how much they mean to you today. Or if you've let a friendship slide slightly, maybe send an email and say, hey, we haven't met up for a long time, why don't we do that? I think those sentiments are really brilliant. But what really worries me is that we're not looking at the grey areas of female friendship at all.

It's painting this very surface, glossy picture. You know, female friendships have up and downs and, you know, it's not always perfect. There was a study out this week I found really interesting which said that a lot of young women still look at Monica and Rachel's friendship from the series Friends as the ideal female friendship. And that's, like, what, 20, 25 years old now?

And actually, what's interesting is that i mean yes sure it was a glossy american series but it wasn't perfect all the time they did have fallings out and it's clear that young women now who perhaps weren't even old enough when that series was out are looking for a relatable model of female friendship and just aren't finding it and what they're seeing on social media is there one currently that you can think um i mean i mean friend is a long time ago, although it does show all the time on television, doesn't it? I have to re-watch the entire time series.

I look at, you know, Girls a Few Years Back or Big Little Lies, I think, for a more authentic, sort of messier depiction of female friendship, where you have sort of realities of friendship, the competition, the falling outs, the arguments, the, you know, it's not always perfect. And I think it was a celebrity who said, Sarah Jessica Parker, actually, who said, you know,

for a good marriage, I think it's okay to hate your other half for four minutes of the day. And I think that the same is true in friendship half for four minutes of the day. And I think that the same is true in friendship. You know, it is an imperfect relationship. We don't love them all the time. So how do you reckon, Rachel, advertisers are seeing it? They're just seeing it as the perfect thing that female friends just love each other. I think where it's done well, and I think there is a sort of an upside to this, is celebrating the importance of women coming together and having important women in your life. And I think one of the problems that we have with advertising is for too long, it's always portrayed women just through the lens of their responsibilities. So woman as wife or mother, forgetting that she might have her own agency,

her own hopes and dreams or a life outside the home. So I think putting a positive spin on this, brands who are celebrating the importance of women having other female friends and having inspirational women in your life. So your own female role models, and those don't have to be celebrities, other you know female friends and and having inspirational women in your life so you know your own female role models and those don't have to be celebrities but they could be women who've inspired you you know my mother-in-law I find her greatly inspirational you know she was one of the women of Greenham Common um and and she's really inspired me I have to say what would you do to

celebrate Galentine's Day today Claire? Oh am I celebrating it at all? Not really. I'm going to my pottery class this evening which is full of women so I should think I shall celebrate with them and on Valentine's Day itself I'm meeting a female friend for a drink but no I'm not buying a pair of matching pyjamas or a hamper with a teddy bear holding a heart in it. I just think I will use it as an opportunity to message female friends and tell them what they mean to me and not fall into the trap of feeling like I have to spend money to do that. Rachel what about you? Well I've got my daughter, I've got a one-year-old so I've bought her a Valentine's card so I'll be giving that to her this evening. So you'll give it

to her on Galentine's Day rather than Valentine's Day. I wouldn't mind getting one for my mum. I was talking to Claire Cohen and Rachel Pashley and Tina said in an email the eve before my 58th birthday I was divorced and having moved to a new area was friendless. I posted on the village Facebook page friends wanted. I was terrified to post it, fearing I would appear a desperate loser. The positive comments back were amazing, life-affirming almost. As a result, I set up a ladies' friendship group. For the past few years, December, when everyone is out celebrating the run-up to Christmas, have been painfully sad. This December was the best I've had for many years.

The group has been a lifeline for me and for several others. Still to come in today's programme, threads of life, a history of the world through the work of women with their needles. The control of epilepsy, how is the condition influenced by the menstrual cycle? And the girl in a famous sporting family. The boys went for football.

Tracey Neville is now the coach for England's gold medal winning netball team. We have become very familiar in recent years with the scandal of female genital mutilation. And there has now been a conviction as a result of the law which bans it in this country and aims to prevent girls being taken abroad to have it done to them. Breast ironing has only recently begun to be discussed and we learned this week that the government has described it as child abuse, suggests the police should prosecute any offenders under assault laws,

but doesn't intend to introduce a separate law to cover the practice. It happened to Lucy Ndromo when she was a child in Cameroon. The people that did it were my relatives, which are more my aunties, who used a wooden spoon or a nice round stone, hit it on the fire side, hit it and they used oil and sort of massage it around. It's sometimes painful and at the end of it, fold the scarf and tie it around my back, around my chest to prevent it from developing. When it was being done, it was painful, but at the time, I feel happy that

it's being done because it's not just myself. They would tell me that this is to prevent us from getting involved in marriages or even unwanted pregnancy or even rape. It's not to reduce the size of my breasts or for any other reason. It's a way of protecting me. Well, it was the Guardian newspaper that revealed anecdotal evidence of dozens of recent cases being carried out in the UK. Millie Kerr is the Children's Services Manager at the National FGM Centre. Millie, it does seem to be mothers largely who are doing this, certainly in this country. Why are they doing it in the UK?

Breast flattening is primarily undertaken practice by mothers, girls, female relatives of the girls, aunts, elders, grandparents, primarily under the auspices of protecting their girls, basically, from unwanted advances from men within the community and feeling that it's actually going to keep them safe from things like that, sexual advances and rape and things like that. And what exactly does it involve? What do they do? It involves using often stones, spatulas, sometimes hammers which are heated over hot coals or a fire and

then the heat from those implements are compressed on a girl's breast to either prevent the growth of the breasts or to delay the development of the breasts. And how damaging is it? It can be very damaging not just physically but psychologically. It can cause problems like cysts and itching and tissue damage and disappearance of the breasts completely or a deformity of the breast. And presumably it can be very painful. And it can be very painful. And at times when the hot implements are used, it can also cause scarring and burning.

Now, there are claims that there have been 1,000 cases in the UK. How accurate do you reckon that number is? I think that figure has come from a recent Guardian article that indicates that there are a thousand women and girls living in the UK who've undergone the practice. And although we are aware that it's anecdotal evidence, we are aware that sometimes what happens, as with FGM, you need to raise awareness, basically, at times, for the breast-flattening issues and concerns to actually come to the forefront. Because people are not always aware of the practice or what to do about the practice or who to talk to, refer it to. So what should schools, and one of the Guardian articles mentions border controls. What should they be looking out for?

Schools, I think, should be looking out for girls who may be withdrawn from PSHE lessons or sex and relationships lessons, because parents might not want them to be involved in those lessons to learn about sex as well as their human rights. Girls may also want to withdraw from physical activities that they may actually need to be taking part in at school. They may also come from a family where breast flattening may have been practiced by their mother or they may have cousins or aunties, other female members in the family who have practiced FGM. And in terms of Border Force, we are already working with Border Force,

in partnership with Border Force, anyway, and the police, around Operation Limelight, which focuses on trying to actually engage with communities around FGM, forced marriage and breast flattening as a safeguarding issue. The government has said assault laws can be used and they've defined the offence of breast flattening as child abuse. How satisfied are you with that response? Is that law strong enough? I think what we actually need to recognise is that it may well be a hidden form of child abuse but I feel that we have sufficient legislation

in terms of childcare legislation, as well as other legislations that could potentially prosecute someone for this type of harm to children under the common assault legislation under offences that relate to grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm. I was talking to Millie Kerr. Talent with needle and thread has generally been considered to be something women have and there's no doubt that historically it's

been women who've made the tapestries, the banners, the furnishings and probably the clothes for the family. Claire Hunter has traced the history of the world through the stitching of women. Her book is called Threads of Life. Sewing's always been a way of people marking out their identity, of campaigning, of commemoration for people they've lost. It's a language. It's a way of people actually voicing things that they care about. And, of course, many of those voices and time have been lost, you know, through cultures and centuries, because sewing itself has been

demoted to being thought of as just a domestic craft. Yes. Much more than that. Done by women, therefore. Done by women, therefore. Not that important. Exactly. Allegedly. Let's go back then to the Bayeux Tapestry, which is the place, I suppose, I

perhaps rather crudely assume sewing starts. But of course, it's not actually sewing anyway, is it? It's not woven. It's not a tapestry. It's an embroidery. And so it is sewn. But with the Bayer Tapestry, it's one of those textiles that actually has survived through time for 900 years, remarkably. But when I went to see it in France, where it is, I was very surprised that actually the people who had made it, who we think of as women from the nunneries in England, are not actually acknowledged in any way. While we champion it as the great piece of needlework

of all time in European needlework history, then actually the people who made it are unacknowledged. Which, well, I have to say that doesn't surprise me. It did surprise you that they don't work history, then actually the people who made it are unacknowledged. Which, well, I have to say that doesn't surprise me. It did surprise you that they weren't acknowledged. It did surprise me that they weren't acknowledged. Just simply because of the skill that is so visible in the piece itself. I had thought that maybe it would just seem to be like a sewn reproduction of a design which was created by, we think, Bishop Scotland, a male designer. But actually it was much more than that.

It was, you know, because I do sew, I could see the kind of detail of how they'd kind of use tension to loosen off a thread or tighten it up to make a very thick clustered pattern or to get, you know, the kind of curve of a chin

in an anguished soldier's face. It was just very, very, very clever. When you describe it like that, it really is an incredible skill you describe there about the chin. I'd never thought of that. There are also examples in your book about sewing being used as a cry of anguish, actually, particularly women in asylums. There's one notable example of a young woman

who was trying to express her, well, it was more than misery, in a jacket? Yes, Agnes Ritzner's jacket. She was a German seamstress in the 19th century, but she had been a professional dressmaker. And so she had actually taken the very shapeless uniform that she was put into in the asylum and remodeled it into something that was actually very chic with a lovely peplum and fitted her beautifully. But then she inscribed it inside and out with a torrent of words, mostly in old and new German, which we can't totally decipher what she was talking about.

Ich, the word for I, is repeated throughout it. And in some ways, what it seems to be is an expression of her mental state, that while she could sew very, very beautifully, she chose to sew these words

very erratically, very almost clumsily. And in that way, it was a kind of visual representation of what she was feeling what her brain felt like to her in that state and it has survived again like the Bayer tapestry as one of the very rare visual representations of what mental distress feels like. I think it's really important because we tend to associate sewing with these days people might think of it

as a mindful activity something gentle but actually as you say there are examples of the absolute opposite end of the emotional spectrum that's right i think if you think of the banners of the women at the green in common where they then brought and the suffragettes and the suffragettes uh the green common they brought um they created banners using lots of textiles from home discarded discarded clothing from their young ones, etc. But then they put them together in a very bold, very emphatic way to show that actually they were women who were politically active, women who actually were using their energy

to say no to nuclear war. Claire Hunter was speaking to Jane. Threads of Life was Radio 4's Book of the Week and you can listen to all five episodes. All you have to do is search Book of the Week on BBC Sounds. There are 600,000 people in the UK with epilepsy. Its impact on women is said to be much greater than its effect on men because women have to face decisions about taking medication when they're pregnant and some women have more seizures at specific points in their menstrual cycle.

The Epilepsy Society is hoping that a new genomic research programme, which will cost 2.5 million euros, will bring hope of a seizure-free life for people with the condition. Dr. Simona Balestrini is involved in the research. Fran Thomas's epilepsy is linked to her cycle and she can have up to 15 fits a day. I have lots of different kinds of seizures. I have grandma seizures, so the ones that people normally associate with epilepsy, the ones where you fall to the ground and chew your tongue, quiver. They happen once a month in general, follow my menstrual cycle. At what point in your menstrual cycle? So if you think about the average menstrual cycle for a woman,

let's just say is 28 days, mine's actually 26. Generally speaking, for me, they happen between day four and seven. So it is literally quite distinct as to where they come and what do you do around that time do you stay in do you save your life well you can't really can you you've got two small children especially you've got two boys who are 11 and 9 i'd like to see them try so what do you do they give you a special drug which is a valium based drug called clobazam which you can take during that time. But it doesn't always work.

It doesn't always help. And you can only take it for a certain number of days every month because then it becomes completely redundant. On top of that, I also have partial fits. Now, these partial fits can be anything from two seconds to a minute or even slightly longer. And they happen I just went I just came out of the epilepsy centre in the Chalfont centre in just in Gerrard's Cross and the video telemetry showed that I have between 7 and 15 seizures in any 24 hours so those fits

obviously. But these can happen. You were explaining earlier, you can be walking the boys home from school and then? Yeah, I've had a conversation with Oscar and Kurt recently. So Oscar's 11 and Kurt's 9. And I said to them, well, can you give me a couple of examples of the kinds of things I do?

And they said, well, look, the thing that you do the most at the moment is that when we're walking home, you go into the wrong house. And if you see something like a cat, you'll pick up the cat and say, oh, look at this cat. I didn't know we had a cat. And I'll be standing there saying, mommy, this isn't our house. We don't live here.

We don't have a cat. It's just like, oh, right, OK. But when you were pregnant, I gather, you didn't have... No, I didn't have any fits at all. And actually, the interesting thing was, is I developed epilepsy at 15. And I spent years, and I do mean years, even over a decade, trying to explain to the doctors that my fits followed my menstrual cycle, and they got much worse. Did they not want to hear that? They just didn't listen. They didn't believe me. And when I got pregnant, and the fits disappeared, they sent me to an endocrinologist, which obviously is a doctor who

looks after hormones. And that endocrinologist said obviously is a doctor who looks after hormones and that endocrinologist said well obviously you've got catamenial epilepsy which is epilepsy which follows your menstrual cycle and I just looked at him and thought nobody could have told me this like 15 years ago would have been quite useful. Right lots of questions for Simona. First of all why didn't the doctors listen when Fran was pointing out that her menstrual cycle was absolutely pivotal here? Well, probably they should have listened to this. I mean, in women it is quite common that the hormonal pattern does play a role in seizure occurrence. The direction can be variable really because actually in some women,

seizure can get worse during pregnancy. So it's not always the case that seizure improves. The link between hormones and seizure is still to define and so I think it is one of the directions where our research should go really because of course in women this is a very important aspect. We've discussed on this programme before that a lot of medical research is not done on women or doesn't take into account women's hormonal cycles. Is that going to carry on being the case or are we really going to start to change this? Yes it's part of our programme so what we are focusing now in our research programme at the Epilepsy Society in Chalfont is to try to understand much better the mechanism leading into epilepsy. how all the information about our body function, how this information is stored in the genes,

and obviously is in our gene that is where it's written how our hormonal pattern works. And so we really hope that trying to explain better this mechanism between genes and hormone, we will then also be able to identify mechanisms on how to target the dysfunction. I see. Did you inherit epilepsy? No, no, no, not at all.

They don't actually know where it came from. I mean, there are two possibilities. I had a febrile convulsion at 18 months and I had a deoxygenated birth. But there's a recent test being done. And this is the possibility now that they're looking at the idea that it might be genetic. And if they do do the tests and if they do find that it's genetic, then that will obviously open up a massive group of ideas for me. Because at the moment, I take four different kinds of medications.

It's virtually impossible. Well, it's impossible to control it. Just from the point of view of the hormones, I'm just thinking, I mean, the menopause, will that mean the end of this form of epilepsy for Fran? At the moment, difficult to answer because, again, it's very variable. There are women that go much better after the menopause,

but there are women where, unfortunately, the seizure continues after the menopause. So it's very difficult to predict. And because Fran has had sons, they can't pass this on or they could? Well, if we find genetic change in Fran, there is a risk that this will be inherited. Although we need to be careful because genetic doesn't always mean inherited. It could also happen that a change in the genes happen as kind of a new change in the person and has not been necessarily inherited by the parents.

Dr. Simona Balestrini and Fran Thomas. And in an email, Jane said, I had four seizures in my teens, adolescence, one four weeks after delivering my first baby and two in my 50s menopausal. I've always felt there was a link to hormones but no doctor I have seen has been interested in this. And Kerry said thank you Woman's Hour. A different condition granted but we spent years telling doctors that our daughter's migraines followed her menstrual cycle. And it was only after I took her to a specialist migraine clinic that this was recognised. When it's so apparent, why don't they listen? Tracey Neville was born into a rather sporty family.

Her mother played netball, her two brothers Gary and Phil went for football, and Tracey followed her mother to the netball court. We've all played netball at school, it's the go-to sport for girls everywhere, but it's not had much recognition professionally. But last year the England netball team brought home the gold medal from the Commonwealth Games, and the win was dubbed BBC Sports Personality of the Year Moment of the Year. Tracey is the team's head coach. What was that winning moment like for her? It was a little bit surreal I think because during the game the momentum kept shifting between us

and Australia. It was a game that we probably weren't expected to win. Australia had come through the tournament quite easily we'd obviously come out of a semi-final where we'd only won by one so it was one of them things where I remember the ball going off the back line for the Aussies and thinking we've got something like 20 seconds to get that ball down to the other end and score and one of our main shooters obviously just didn't set a shot threw the ball at the ring then we got the rebound and then Helen missed the next shot so it was like

then the umpire pulled it back and I went this can't be happening because you know if I was to put the ball in anyone's net it would be Helen Housby's and I think when it happened I was just so shocked that like you feel like sometimes that looks on your side. And I think when you win, you know you've worked so hard to get there, but when you do win with such slight margins, you just think, that was so lucky, we just got that opportunity to take that goal. But what effect has it had on the profile of netball? I don't think we underestimated what the impact of winning that gold was

and coming out of that, we've seen a huge increase in our sport. We've had something like 130,000 people engage in the sport within the first two to three months or come back to netball. And that is quite pleasing for me because I think every single girl in the country has played netball at some time and we've had such really rewarding stories about people who, you know, they may not be able to play anymore but they've come back to volunteer or they've come back to be a manager or to support and coach on the sidelines. So from my point of view,

on just a participation level, that's been really pleasing. In respect to the performance side, the amount of commercial interest that that gold medal has driven us as a sport and obviously the accolades that we've had on the back of that has been absolutely huge and you know having such a global company like night come on board vitality and it's just increased um the attraction of our

sport and been able to do much more as you say that we've all played netball if if we're girls almost guaranteed to have played netball. But what was it about netball that really got you? I think it was my mum. It was that really close connection of going out with my mum on my own. Obviously, I have two brothers. Our house was very football and cricket orientated. And just to spend that special moment with my mum, going watching a play, picking up a bib,

filling in when they were short. And then she actually coached the first external netball team outside school that I actually participated in and I don't know it was just such a special time and even now she never misses my game she comes and watches me everywhere and it still is a bond that we we've never lost sport has been our connection the way we've had some girly time together. It's not been well-funded, unlike probably the sports that your brothers were involved in. That must have got you really annoyed that their sports got so much attention and yours didn't.

I think the turning point for me was when I was about 14 and my two brothers signed for Man United on a four-year deal. And we were always very competitive. We were at the same level. I think we were at county level. And I think that was the first change I knew in the difference between male and female sport. And I think for the next 10 years, obviously,

I have to obviously self-fund myself. And I think Sport England coming on board when I was 19 in our first Commonwealth Games was the first time that I was actually funded to actually be able to play my sport and although that was a minimal funding it was also supported by some of the external things so I think now with the win and victory always brings success and brings more on board i think it's enabled us to you know put more into professional try and professionalize in our sport try and compete with the other countries that are actually doing that and who's top dog sports person now you

are your brothers um i think i'm more light but i don't think that says much I think Gary's quite renowned in the sporting world for his work on the media but I think in coaching at the moment I think I'm the first Neville to have an head coaching role at an international level so hopefully Philip can come and equal my achievements at the World Cup

this year and we can run as we've done through all our lives where we've been successful on the same sort of line so yeah. So how's training going for the World Cup which is coming up? So we've just come out of an international phase you know we've had some disappointing results we've had some successful results I think from my point of view is the consistency of some of our results against the world number one and two so we've just finished in a quad series although we went out to win it we obviously maintained our position in second so and I think we've had a real positive outlook from the international calendar and obviously

we've actually looked at some succession of players and competition for places so over the next few months the girls are back in their club sides all over the world and this is now a time for me to regroup and get our programme in place for the world cup in liverpool in july and how is it going towards olympics maybe i think the uniqueness about netball is that we don't have that male counterpart and if you look at olympic sport they always have a male equivalent to that sport. And although there are men who actually participate in our sport, the funding to support men is not there. And I have to say, Jenny, I'm a little bit greedy that, you know,

we get very minimal funding and I want that at the moment to be in progressing the women's game. And although we have a uniqueness, I think I quite like that specialism of the sport where we are a women in entity although that sometimes has its downside in respect to some of the commercial interests that we can attract. But with those sponsors you mentioned earlier your funding must be improving hugely. Yes definitely and you know congratulations to our commercial department England Netball

you know they've really tried to increase the success and benefit on the back of the sport and we're not sure how long this wave will last so just capitalizing on the Commonwealth Games has been absolutely instrumental in pushing our sport forward and getting as much investment in and you know Sport England I have to thank them on a daily basis because they've now increased our funding where the noose around our net was about the gold medal at 2019 but now you know they're backing us to that Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in three years time so you know I have to thank them hugely and they've been there from the start and hopefully they'll continue to support us. How much do you still love actually playing it? I have to say Jenny my body

is not where it used to be. I think my mum's probably the most active person and goes out playing every night. I think, do you know what? It's interesting now, if someone was to give me the opportunities to play or coach, I would choose the coaching role

because I do now value that actually I'm probably a better coach than I ever was a player. I was a great team player. But when I look at the talent and the uniqueness of the players and the calibre that are actually out there, I feel that potentially I could have made it just because of my team. I love the team spirit and I love being part of a team.

But the hardness that you have to train now, I'm quite happy to be sat on that bench in a coaching role. I was talking to Tracy Neville. Now, do join Jane on Monday, if you can, at two minutes past ten. She'll be talking about films and ahead of the Oscars, she'll be looking at films by women that deserved more recognition. And she'll be discussing Womanhood, the Bare Reality. That's a book all about the vulva. Two minutes past 10, Monday morning from me for today. Enjoy the rest of the

weekend. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.