Woman's Hour - Under-age cosmetic surgery, Housing for Women, Labour leadership

Episode Date: January 14, 2020

Today we look at under-18 access to procedures carried out at cosmetic clinics. A listener contacted us to voice her concern over the way these places are regulated because, in the last 18 months, her daughter who is now 17 has accessed more than 20 clinics for around 30 procedures. She was never asked to prove her age despite being asked to sign paperwork saying she is over 18. We hear from our listener and Miss Caroline Payne, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and a member of British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons.Five candidates have secured backing from 22 MPs or MEPs, to see their names go on the ballot to become the next Labour leader. The names of four women and a man will go forward: Rebecca Long Bailey, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Emily Thornberry and Keir Starmer. After the Conservative Party selected its second woman Prime Minister many senior Labour politicians have insisted that the next Labour leader must be a woman. But does it need to be a woman who can win back the women voters the party lost? What do women voters want to hear from the next Labour leader? And is it a problem if the party fails to select a woman once again?We’ve had a phenomenal response to our interview last week about women and concussion. Dr Priyanka Pradhan - a Woman’s Hour listener and consultant neuropsychologist at St George’s Hospital in London – got in touch to share her expertise in managing concussion and post-concussion syndrome. Jane also reads out a selection of your emails. We speak to the heads of the UK's only two women’s housing associations - Zaiba Qureshi, Chief Executive of Housing for Women and Denise Fowler, Chief Executive of Women’s Pioneer Housing - about how central the issue of housing was to women’s suffrage campaigns, and whether the housing needs of women have changed much since then.Presenter - Jane Garvey Producer - Anna Lacey Voice actor - Heather Craney Guest - Caroline Payne Guest - Jenny Chapman Guest - Yasmin Qureshi Guest - Dr Priyanka Pradhan Guest - Zaiba Qureshi Guest - Denise Fowler

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. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Today, up five candidates for a women, but will a man still get to lead the Labour Party when the results announced in early April? Also today, why housing is a women's issue, and more on concussion, because we are still getting emails on the subject of women and concussion

after we discussed that subject a week or so ago. First then, I think this is something that is going to shock and surprise many people. The rules surrounding under-18s getting cosmetic procedures. You're about to hear one listener's experience. Now, she contacted the programme because her teenage daughter had accessed more than 20 clinics for around 30 different procedures without ever being asked to prove her age. I should say she was asked to sign paperwork saying that she was over 18. Now the woman's words are going to be spoken by a BBC actor. I asked initially why her daughter had wanted to pursue the idea of any sort

of cosmetic procedure. I think it stemmed from when she was younger, when she had developed an eating disorder. She had anorexia, which she was treated for with an eating disorder clinic. She made a more or less good recovery. She was discharged. And then her thought processes, because she's quite a rigid thinker, her thought process moved away from obsessing over food and became obsessing over her looks. It was particularly about her nose that she became obsessed with, really. I think it stemmed from her very, very low self-esteem and then sort of from anorexia became body dysmorphia, which is actually quite common. When did she get that diagnosis of body dysmorphia? She got that diagnosis probably about 18 months ago, maybe a bit less.

She recovered from her anorexia more or less. I mean, it never completely goes away, I don't think. And she completed her GCSEs. She's an academically very high achiever, very bright girl, very perfectionist. And she started a new school in the sixth form because she'd been at a grammar school and she hadn't been very happy there. Recovering from anorexia when you're at school is actually quite tricky. So she moved into sixth form into a new school and she struggled to settle there really I think because we've since

found that she's got high functioning autism stroke Asperger's. So that social connection is it's very difficult for her. So she started then obsessing about her nose and going to get treatments and things like that. So we then took her back to see a psychiatrist and she was diagnosed then. And was she talking to you about what she perceived to be her inadequacies in terms of her appearance? Yes, for a long time she was obsessed about her nose.

She would say, the only thing that would change how I feel about myself is my nose. And she'd say things like, I'm actually a very shallow person, that's all I need. I know I'm clever and I know I could probably go to Oxford because that's what the school has said to me. So I know I probably could, but actually I really can't cope without having my nose changed because that's affecting everything in how I feel about myself. And in the end, she did have a nose procedure. Well, what happened was over quite a long period, she was approaching various beauty clinics and having non-surgical treatments done.

With your permission and... No. No, she wasn't getting our permission and she was stealing my credit card. And she took my husband's credit card one time. With your permission? get to the bottom of what that even means. All sorts of fillers in her nose to fill the bump and then to try and turn it up at the end. And then not only was she getting that done, but some of the clinics were saying, well, actually, why don't you have lip fillers done as well just to complement what you've already had done? So she was doing things like that as well.

And she was still a teenager? It started when she was 16. So I think what has been the most staggering thing about all of this is that not one of these clinics, and she's probably approached about, probably about 20 in the last 18 months. That you know about? That I know about.

And the ones that I've been able to identify from my credit card, because presumably their finance departments don't necessarily put the name of the clinic on there when it comes up on your credit card. They have not once asked for any ID from her. So all she needed... Well, she didn't even need to present my credit card, because every single time she's been able to book these appointments and pay for them either online through PayPal, through various apps that she's been able to download, through a

couple of websites that set up the appointments on behalf of the clinics. So she's never actually had to present a physical means of payment. So actually our incredibly well-connected high-tech world has presented her with the perfect opportunity. Well, it absolutely has. And she's under 18. She's a child. And they've never once, not one of these clinics have asked for any form of ID. And where are these clinics? Well, initially, she started going to clinics that were local to where we live. And then the vast majority have been in and around Harley Street. Harley Street is the medical street in central London. Well, I suppose you would think of it as reputable. Yeah, and the ones that I've contacted, the ones that I've seen that she approached,

they all have doctors on as part of their staffing and they should have a duty of care and they should actually be acting in the best interests of a child. But because they don't know she's a child, because they've never asked for ID. When she turned up for the treatment, I can appreciate, presumably you pay up front, do you? Yep. You book the appointment and you pay for the treatment and then you go and get the treatment. Right. When they saw her, they still didn't question it?

No. Not once. Not once. Not once. After about six months or nine months, my husband got his credit card statement one day and he rang me he said what have you just spent all that money on this six thousand whatever pounds six thousand five hundred pounds and I said oh yeah I haven't spent anything and we both immediately knew what she'd done and it turned out that very next day she'd arranged to have a surgical nose job and my husband and I were up most of the night saying well what should we do what should we do should we just let her go ahead with it she'd begged she'd pleaded to have this done and in the end we said all right you can go ahead with this and sorry if it's any consolation I think I'd have done the same it's actually quite you can go ahead with this. And, sorry.

If it's any consolation, I think I'd have done the same. It's actually quite extraordinary, really. So it just so happened that the appointment she'd made was the very next day. So my husband took her, and this clinic was a well-known, very good, we'd looked at it very carefully, the doctor involved was highly reputable. So he took her in

the morning and I drove into central London at the end of the day to pick her up. But again, that had all been booked online. We knew nothing about it. There was never any ID requested. You must have to give your date of birth. Well, she lied about it. She usually says she's 20. Right. Does she look 20? Well, no. But then it's very difficult to say whether she looks 20 or not. I mean, some 20-year-olds look 15, so I suppose they don't question it. How is she after having that procedure? it's made no difference whatsoever to how she feels about herself. And I think that's part of why she feels even worse over the last few months. She thought it was going to be the answer to

everything. She thought once she'd had this nose job, she was going to feel different and she was going to be completely different. It was going to be the answer to everything. And it absolutely wasn't. You look at all the information about clinics and about what's supposed to happen and there does appear to be quite a lot of grey area here to put it mildly. It's an absolutely a grey area I mean I literally spoke to someone just before Christmas because she'd had another procedure done I think it was on the 20th of December and I contacted this woman and she said oh well we thought she was 20 she told us she was 20 and I said well is it not policy to ask for ID well no actually no no don't really no it's not very well regulated

and I said well you do realize she didn't actually show you a physical form of payment she's stolen my card to pay for this oh Oh yeah, well, you're right. Yeah, I agree with you. We do need better regulation. So in some cases, I think you have had your money back, haven't you? Well, quite often I have had my money back. In other cases, they've made it very difficult. And my husband has had to go in quite heavy handedly about reporting them to the GMC, things like that. And a couple of them have tried that, oh, it's data protection, we can't mention client confidentiality and all that. Some of them have actually been quite hard to deal with

and some of them I haven't been able to track because my daughter has been a bit cagey about which clinic it was. What is it you'd like to change? What we find absolutely staggering is that my daughter, who's had some very serious mental health issues and underlying an Asperger's difficulty, which makes her thinking very black and white and very, very rigid, so her perceptions about the world are slightly different, is that someone with such mental health issues, who is still actually a child, has been able to access probably 30 different procedures over the last 18 months. And I think the minimum that the industry must do is ask for some form of ID. You can't go into a supermarket or even the local corner shop to buy a bottle of wine without a formal ID. Can I just check the figures you mentioned? You said 30.

I think she's probably had about 30 different types of procedures, a lot on her nose. Total financial outlay? I think the last 18 months, it's about £15,000. What made you contact the programme? I contacted the programme because I just wanted to. It wasn't about, oh, woe is me. This is a dreadful thing that's happened to me and my family and my lovely daughter. It was about how this industry is so unregulated that a child like my child

could access all these unnecessary, inappropriate procedures. I just wanted some kind of awareness made of how I would say toxic this industry is becoming really. And I just think it's sort of bordering on dangerous because it's become so commonplace. Well, they are the words of a Woman's Hour listener and a very concerned mother, as you can hear from that. But the voice there was that of a BBC actor. We just need to make that absolutely clear. Caroline Payne is here, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and a member of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. What do you think of that, Caroline? It is quite astounding and it is not unusual and that's really quite sad, is that this is not the first time I've heard of this sort of case. And it highlights the problems with the cosmetic industry at this time.

So many questions. I mean, you yourself operate a reputable business. You operate out of Harley Street sometimes, not all the time. But there are, to put it bluntly, cowboy outfits in the same street, aren't there? Totally. I mean, it's trying to understand what the cosmetic industry actually is and how people need to get more educated in what they're trying to seek, the treatments and the practitioners that are going to undertake those procedures. And there are lots of things that people just don't understand about the cosmetic, aesthetic and plastic surgery point of view. And the only thing that's regulated in this country, which is a specialist training, is in plastic surgery. There is not a GMC register

for cosmetic or aesthetic surgeons. So when it comes down to many of these clinics, it's actually who operates out of them that needs to be looked into as well. The clinics are regulated if they are undergoing surgical procedures by the CQC or the Healthcare Commission. Well, who actually is in charge here? Because I've been trying to work out. There are so many different bodies. There's the BMA, there's the General Medical Council, there's the Department of Health at some point, presumably. There's the CQC, there's also the JCCP, that's the Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners. There's the Royal College of Surgeons. And you had a few more. I do have many more. And that is where all the confusion is about the regulation. When you look at regulation and say it's non-regulated,

that means there's no rules, no permissions and no laws. Well, on the cosmetic surgery, the surgical procedures, then there are rules and regulations that are associated with the Department of Health, the CQC, the Healthcare Commission, the GMC. So you should have these registers of people. It's the non-invasive, which... Can you define non-invasive? So yeah, when you stick a needle in someone, that is, as far as I'm concerned, invasive. So what we tend to say is non-surgical cosmetic procedures. And this is the biggest industry. It's about 70 to 80 percent of all the cosmetic procedures that are undertaken in the country are the non-surgical. And this is a bit of Botox and they'll whiten your teeth.

That's right. So where is the certification of accreditation? That is what we're looking for. And the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery is working hard with the government, the Royal College of Surgeons, the GMC to try and get certifications. That is somebody that has passed a proposal, have an application, have um a course in professional standards and also that is really pertinent to this particular case is a psychology there's a psychology course i was going to say that that is absolutely at the heart of all this

and we should say the young woman involved here is a vulnerable young person she'd been through a really really rough time but her experience tells you all you need to know about how easy it is to get this stuff done and sadly it is i mean there should be a very rigorous consent and i do totally agree with the proof of identification why should you have to show identification to get a bottle of wine or a tattoo for example so the tattoo industry is something that i don't understand is why so regulated what is the harm in a tattoo when it comes down to it you don't like it you use the fixes you go and get it redone but that industry has but it actually got itself organized

yes so you have to have that is absolutely against the law to tattoo an under 18 year old and also every tattoo parlor has to be a local authority accredited and they have to show that certificate in their parlour. Why not every single cosmetic unit has to have the same accreditation? I think that's a perfectly valid point. And I imagine plenty of people will be nodding their heads along to that. But what is at the crux of all this is the fact that the statistic is actually heartbreaking when you look at it from a female perspective.

92% of these cosmetic procedures are carried out on women. Now, what does that tell you about the way we are made to think of ourselves and value ourselves? So if you look back at some of the reports, say 10 years ago, it was where the difference between what was the difference between cosmetic surgery and the other surgery. And they said that cosmetic surgery, there is a want, not a need. And now because I think of the social media, you want to look like your Snapchat face, then what you have is now the want because you don't like something, but a need because you think you will not get ahead in society or in your job if you don't get a change. Yeah. Have you seen Love Island?

I mean, it's a serious question. Oh boy, yes. Thank you very much. I'm really looking forward to reading some of the emails on this subject. Please do contact the programme. Of course, you can do so as well on social media at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter and Instagram. That was Caroline Page Page who is a member

of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons and a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. Thank you very much for coming on the programme this morning. Now we have to wait until April the 4th, which is quite a long time actually, to find out who the new leader of the Labour Party is going to be.

The candidates are Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Emily Thornberry and Keir Starmer. Now, many people said it was high time the Labour Party elected a female leader. Will it happen this time? And is that the way to win back voters? Some of those Labour voters who we are led to believe,

not least by the Prime Minister, lent their votes to the Conservatives at the election in December. Jenny Chapman is here, former Labour MP for Darlington, which I know is your least favourite way to be introduced. I need to do something else quickly. OK, well, you have because you're the chair of Keir Starmer's leadership campaign. And also joining us, Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East

and Shadow Justice Minister. You are backing, well, I say backing, you have voted for Emily Thornberry. Are you going to keep on voting for her? Well, I have nominated Emily Thornberry, but she knows that I'm actually backing Keir Starmer. And I've lent, as it's called, my support to her to be able to get on to the leadership. OK, so it was significant enough for you to back her this time to allow her to get on the ballot, but you're not going to vote for her and you don't want her to be the leader of the Labour Party. Emily knows that I'm supporting care.

I think we have excellent, genuinely, I think we have a really excellent group of people who are standing forward to be the leaders of the Labour Party. We have a membership of about half a million who will make the ultimate decision. All right. Well, we actually have ended up in the studio with two women, both of whom are back in Keir Starmer, which is interesting. And let me quote Dan Hodges in the Mail on Sunday. He's somebody who writes regularly about Labour politics. And he says, when it comes to the crunch, it looks like the party's going to do it again, fall obediently into

line behind the white, heterosexual, liberal, middle-class man. Jenny, is that true? No, and I would say I'm more... But you're backing him! Not only are you backing him, you're the leader of his leadership campaign. I would say that Yasmin and I are both more feminist than Dan

Hodges and it's a very provocative thing for him to write but I think I mean the serious point is that women and we all I expect would agree with this that we want to support women getting into prominent positions and we understand the importance and significance of female role models in public life particularly in politics yes but we also understand that that on its own doesn't change the lives of the women that I used to represent. And what I think does change their lives is getting somebody that they can trust, that they can believe in, that they will want to vote for. And, you know, looking at the people who've had the guts to put themselves

forward, and that's no small thing, you know, it's a people who've had the guts to put themselves forward, and that's no small thing. You know, it's a tremendously brave thing to do, to put yourself forward, to be leader of the opposition. So what do you say to someone like... I think he's the best person. Okay, what do you say to someone like Margaret Hodge, who I understand today has decided, made public in the Telegraph, I think, that she is backing Jess Phillips. Because she really does believe it is high time that your party had a female leader. It does look woeful. I mean, the Conservatives are always going to be able to have one over of you.

Well, two over on you now in the light of Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher. I think that just because you have a woman leader doesn't mean that you're doing right by women. And I think that, you know, I admire Jess greatly and I admire Margaret too. And I think that Jess being in this contest is a very good thing and you know she has something to say and my goodness she will make sure she gets it heard so that's great but I do think that you know yes it's it's not great that the Labour Party hasn't had a female leader but it's more of a concern that we haven't won an election in a very long time. Take me to the doorstep then. During the election campaign, Yasmin, what were people saying to you?

What were women saying to you about what they wanted and needed from Labour? OK, so obviously Brexit came up quite a lot on the doorstep, bearing in mind in my constituency 63% of the people voted to leave. So that was a big issue on the doorstep and they wanted us to get Brexit done. And I think the Tory message on the fact that we're going to get Brexit done resonated. Clearly cut through. Did they mention Jeremy Corbyn? Well leaders of the Labour Party I think and Prime Minister always get mentioned

and he did come up on the doorstep. There were people who loved him and then there were people who thought that he shouldn't be the leader of the Labour Party. And I'm afraid to say that this allegation and the mudslinging on him that he's a terrorist and a terrorist sympathiser. They objected to that. Sorry? They objected to that. that nonsense and and it is i'm sorry to say it was oh so yes i understood that they were they actually believed it so of course it cut through that as well right but he's not going to protect our country uh on the issues of uh rights people's concerns they really they wanted obviously you know labour government that um would look after people who are vulnerable issues of

health education and things like that. And that's, I think, really the important point I want to pick up on, Jenny, is we haven't won an election since 2010. That's four general elections that we've lost. We want somebody who's going to win us the general election. So we have a Labour government that can actually bring in things that will help women. And although the Conservatives may have had two female prime ministers, if you look at what they actually did for women, nothing.

So it's all very well having a female leader, prime ministers, but what did they achieve for women? Nothing. In fact, the most cuts made were to women. Women are routinely being mentioned, not least on this programme, that in fact women are at the sharp end when it comes in particular to cuts to public services. We know that. So Jenny, in your experience, you lost your seat. Was it because of Jeremy Corbyn? I think leadership was part of it. I mean, there were a whole range of issues and the Labour Party will be analysing them to death, I have no doubt, for years and years and

years. But yes, you know, people said to me very clearly that they want somebody that they can trust with their pensions, their mortgages, their children's futures, with the future of this country. And I often would ask them when we're having this conversation, you know, is there anybody you can see in the Labour Party that you feel would fit that criteria? And they say? And they would say Keir Starmer. And I'll tell you one instance. I'm on a doorstep. It's pouring with rain.

It's dark. It's freezing cold. I'm talking to a woman. She's a retired police officer. She would not let me off her doorstep until she had told me all the reasons that she thinks Keir Starmer should be the next leader of the Labour Party. She was not voting Labour. No. But that stuck with me.

Yes. And I think that, you know, you can do a lot worse than actually listening to what women are telling you. And women seem to, there is an appeal about Keir. Okay, I get that. First of all, the notion that Labour needs a woman leader who isn't posh and didn't go to private school is slightly knocked out of the park by the fact that so many so-called traditional Labour voters voted for an old Etonian and a man. Obviously, you can't, I understand, girls are not currently admitted to Eton. So that is a troubling aspect. But also, tell me why Keir Starmer is the person. Can you remind me of some of his sparkling moments in the House of Commons, for example, Yasmin. Remind me. Yes. So I saw, and I know Jenny was part of his team, about the Brexit negotiations.

Now, I think a lot of the people in the country were quite confused, I think, as to what was going on, what particular provisions meant what, why withdrawal. And Keir Starmer, to me, was the only person I found who could actually explain in a very concise in a very simple way what was actually going on what the issues were what was the problem what was the problem with withdrawal agreement and for me. So you see him at Prime Minister's questions performing better more pithily more wittily more efficiently cutting through to the

people who don't follow politics on a daily basis better than, for example, Jess Phillips or Lisa Nandy? Well, I think that from what I've seen of him and the way he went through the whole process, it was a really complex piece of legislation. He was the man who made it very simple for even MPs who were sometimes finding it hard to follow what was going on, you know, with different particular aspects. It was very complicated and he made it very simple and i think also let's face it any leader of the labour party is going to have most of the media against them and care the way he is interviewed the way he deals with the media is i think superb i mean i'll give you a classic example recently a few days ago the media in this sort of you know bit of mischievousness were asking the leadership candidates how to rate Jeremy well Keir was the only one but that's a reasonable question no no

if we explain what the answer was Keir's answer was I don't rate colleagues he said that you know Jeremy has led us to a very difficult time I respect him but the important thing was I don't rate colleagues he didn't indulge in that and to me that actually might be a very small thing but that shows you the matter of the man in the fact that he's not he is going to be able to do with a very hostile media I think more effectively I'm not saying the other I mean the other characters are great I don't get me wrong you know Emily is a great performer the others are also great performers. But I think in my opinion, and I may be wrong, but I think that Keir is going to cut through.

OK, really interesting to talk to you both. Thank you very much indeed. Yasmin Qureshi, MP and Jenny Chapman. I'm not going to give that introduction she doesn't like again. She is the chair of Keir Starmer's campaign. Thank you both very much for coming in. Now, we had a phenomenal response last week to the conversation we had about women and concussion. And all that prompted Dr Priyanka Pradhan to contact the programme. She's a listener and also happens to be an NHS and private consultant neuropsychologist working in and around London.

And she wanted really to share her expertise, particularly about the subject of post-concussion syndrome. That is it, isn't it, Priyanka? I'm right. Correct. I mean, I think it's, listening to the show, it was about thinking about this injury. And first of all, the issue around diagnosis, is this something that's going to have long-term effects? So it's thinking about two groups.

The first group are the people that have an impact injury or a shake to their head. And there's things that you can look out for and take care of and this whole issue about rest. Maybe rest for one person is one other person's day at the office. Thinking about how you moderate on an individual basis and thinking about diet and sleep. So there's things you can do in those very early days

after you've had an impact to the head. But you do need to be told to do it, don't you? It doesn't seem as though everyone is getting the right advice. No, and they get a leaflet from A&E. Most people, you should go and seek medical attention, and go to A&E and you have a CT scan, but more often than not it's completely fine, it's completely clear, which is good news.

But then it's about monitoring the symptoms over a period of time. But if things are put into place, such as making sure that you're sleeping well, you don't put yourself under physical and psychological stress, you watch what you're eating, anything that's inflammatory, you know, reduces inflammation really. Now I see the ones that are prolonged symptoms so you could say that my my view of the population is perhaps somewhat biased but it's these um clients patients individuals that have the ongoing symptoms and i think it's then that neuropsychological physical and neural neurology treatment should be brought. So the first protocol is going to the GP.

And sometimes people, women, are dismissed as having psychological things going on. You know, there's some views in this world that anything beyond three months is psychological and that it hasn't got an organic basis. In my clinical experience, that's quite far from the truth. They have ongoing physical symptoms, ongoing new behavioral symptoms so anxiety and agitation but also cognitive symptoms such as poor memory, slow thinking. So this condition really needs a holistic approach looking at physical symptoms, light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, looking at balance so then you

go down a physical route equally looking at um how people belief systems about how they function and this issue around rest and adapting and adjusting so using much more compassion focused approaches and i know that you're keen to emphasize that it is true i know it's a generalization but women don't always have the opportunity to take that necessary rest. Exactly. I mean, when a woman is ill with any condition, when do they have time to actually rest? And they've got household load, workload and emotional load that lots of women carry. And also then you're met with many male doctors

and it's about perhaps this discord between the two. Well, I really have already said it. I'll say it again. We are still getting emails about this subject. And I think we are going to have to revisit it again when we've got more time. But a lot of people are pointing to Headway, the charity, and really recommending them. It's worth saying again, they're worth contacting, aren't they? Yes, and your GP for your local neurosciences, so accessing specialists in the field. Thank you so much for taking the time to contact us.

Thank you. And of course, I can't say it often enough. If you have something to add to the conversation conversation to something you've heard on the programme, please do email us or contact us via social media. Now the country has got just two women's housing associations. They are both based in London. Both have their roots in the suffrage movement of the early 20th century, when housing just like now was a vital concern. Denise Fowler is the Chief Executive of Women's Pioneer Housing and Zeba Qureshi is the boss at Housing for Women. You'll hear from them both. First, I asked Denise about the link between the vote

and secure housing for women. Well, I'm Chief Executive of Women's Pioneer Housing, which was established in 1920 by a group of suffragists and suffragettes. And I think what it really shows is that the women's movement at the beginning of the last century was not just about getting the vote. The vote was a means to an end to tackle the other issues that were relevant to women's disadvantage in society, or to gain the emancipation of women, as our founders said.

And so by 1920, all these women who thought, well, we've done this, what's next? And some of them were personally finding it difficult to find affordable, safe, secure accommodation in London. And so the driving force behind Women's Pioneer, this Irish suffragist, Ethel Dred Browning, got together a group of passionate campaigners who'd been involved in the women's movement or in the Garden Cities movement because she was employed by the garden garden cities association and they that from there they set up women's pioneer and they got money in from people with more money in the suffrage movement to buy houses and do them up right women let's just drill down a little bit to this you say

that getting the vote was a means to an end. And what people need to understand is that the paucity of women's rights before the vote is just extraordinary. They didn't actually have their own children. They belonged to the father. And in terms of when was it women could get a mortgage in Britain? In the 1970s. I mean, I was already a teenager before women could get a mortgage. It's incredible.

It's incredible. And the situation is not much better today, to be honest. Women can get mortgages, but women are still locked out of the housing market. We've been doing some research with the National Housing Federation and with the Women's Budget Group. And they've shown that on a women's average income, women couldn't afford an average private rented flat in any region of the UK in any any region and for men men on an average male salary can afford a private rented flat in every region except London and even in London it's less affordable for women than it is for men and this is why I suppose it's so important that women's pay is sorted out to make sure that everybody is equally treated yes

and it's it's important that when we look at the gender pay gap, we don't just look at the hourly rate, which is still 17.8% per hour, but we also look at the overall salaries, because women are much more likely to be working part-time or taking breaks. So we did some work which showed that women's actual average salary difference with men is 34.3%, So a third less than men. So their ability to access housing on their own, even rented, not necessarily, it's really difficult for most women to buy on their own anywhere in the country,

but even to access average private rented flats is very difficult for women. When your organisation was set up then, put very simply, who was it designed to help? It was designed to help working women of moderate means. The government, I think Lloyd George, had made a commitment to housing for heroes, but that was aimed at men. Did women get chucked out of places then? Landlords preferred to let men rather than women, partly because they felt that they should go to men returning from the war, but also because women on lower incomes were less likely to pay for laundry services or to have their meals cooked and all the additional services which made money for the landlords.

I see. I'd never thought about that. It all comes down to money in the end, doesn't it? It does. And also an awareness. So the London County Council, for example, produced hostels for men, but didn't do any for women. So the whole issue Council, for example, produced hostels for men, but didn't do any for women. So the whole issue of affordable housing for women workers, and 40% of women were working before the First World War. And then that was increased after the war, women who'd become nurses and ambulance drivers, and other things were more likely to also stay, partly because their fiancés or their husbands or their fathers had been killed in the war. Sabah, you're the Chief Executive of Housing for Women. How do you differ from the work that Denise is doing at Pioneer Housing?

Well, I think in terms of our histories, they're very much aligned. We were set up in 1934, really to focus on the needs of single women who were considered to be older and elderly in those days. The name of our organisation was the Over 30s Association, which indicated how old you needed to be to be considered to be old in those days. Depressing. Which is very depressing. So we were set up primarily to provide respite for women who were single,

who perhaps didn't get a hot meal meal but also may need to have some clothing or just some advice really around how to get back into the employment market because they were considered to be on the shelf or unemployable essentially looking at, let's say, waitressing, looking for younger women who might be doing some of those jobs or even secretarial sort of work. The fact that you still exist and still have to exist is very telling. Yes, I think it's quite sad in a way, in some respects, because I think you would expect that the situation for women

should have improved quite considerably over the last 100 years, essentially. But that's not the case. I mean, we have one of our first properties was donated by Georgina Brackenbury, who was a suffragette and artist. And that was actually the property that was used for, was known as Mouse Castle, where suffragettes were, again, provided respite. And where is that? That's in Kensington. And we continue to use that for women in need of accommodation. It's interesting. Kensington was a real source for the women's movement at the beginning. It's now known as an extremely wealthy part of West London. Was it wealthy then? Why is it significant? Well, the majority of our properties that were bought were around what's now Notting Hill.

And they were large Victorian properties which were growing out of fashion because people couldn't get the servants. And so they were divided up into flats for single working women. It was very much the idea. And I think Housing for Women also has this idea of a home for a woman, not a hostel. So there were very nice, high quality properties with lovely bay windows. And women were free to have friends in and to make their home there and feel safe, secure. And the aim was that then they'd be able to achieve in other areas. The Sex Disqualification Act had come in in 1919. So some of our first tenants were women who then went on to become architects, accountants, lawyers, journalists, all the things that they'd previously been barred from.

So let's talk, if you don't mind, about the, there probably is no such thing, but the average woman you help today. Zabah, describe her if you can. So I would say a lot of our women come through housing allocations. From what does that mean? From the local authorities. So they're seen as being in housing need.

We're seen as a sympathetic landlord, I would say. So a lot of those women have experienced domestic abuse and that might be combined with mental health issues, either as a result of or, you know, something that they were suffering before. They escaped domestic abuse. There might be complex needs. I think what we're seeing coming through is women who have much more complex needs, perhaps, than previously over the last sort of 10 or 20 years, really.

Is that the same for you, Denise? We get 50% of our nominations from local authorities and those are women who've been homeless. And often at the point that they come to us, they've been through a lot of trauma. But what they're looking for is a long-term permanent home. And your focus is on women on their own? Yes, largely single women.

Is that true for you too, Sue? No, we've got women with families, but we also provide specialist services for women who are escaping domestic abuse, women who've been trafficked and women coming out of prison. So they're very specific projects that aim to meet a specific gap that isn't provided for through statutory bodies. I really am interested in how affordable the rent is.

I mean, you still have to pay your rent. This is not charity, is it? So how do you make sure the rent is affordable for everybody you help well the the target rent is set by the government so we offer social housing tenancies so not the affordable tenancies which can be about 80 of the rent although in future we might do a few of those for women who why don't you do them now um we haven't developed new ones so the existing properties are all set at the social housing rents which are very low but we've realized that there is an issue for women who will never get access to social housing could afford to pay a bit more but can't afford to pay the market rent so at the moment we're developing some properties for those women

i think a good comparison is the median earnings for women in london is about 25 000 pounds a year and the average private rent is £1,700 a month. And our rent on average is something in the region of £500 a month. So you can see quite starkly that it's significantly more affordable. I mean, affordable rents should be 30% of an individual's earnings. So the majority, lots and lots of the women who come to us, because we get some from the nominations some from referrals from specialist agencies which is largely around domestic abuse honor-based violence uh homeless women and then we still have a waiting list for 25 and the women who come there often women who've lived in really poor accommodation for years like in their 50s

are still living in shared housing arguing about the milk yeah and it's a grim as someone who's done that in the past that that is a grim prospect. But we don't want to focus too much on London. I know you're both based in London. What about rent affordability elsewhere in the country for women? Well, as we've said, the work we did with the NHF and with the Women's Budget Group shows that there is no region in England where a woman on average earnings can afford an averagely priced rental property.

So what we have here is the realisation, and it can't come too soon, frankly, that housing is a women's issue. It is. Housing is definitely a feminist issue. And the gender pay gap leads to a housing affordability pay gap. There's structural inequality in the way that housing is set up, essentially. And we've talked a little bit about that this morning. I think the work of the Women's Housing Forum is really there to raise awareness um for other housing providers both in the social housing sector but also in the private housing sector as to what some of these issues are because between between our two organizations we're providing some less than two two thousand properties you know that's massively oversubscribed we can fill them all so there's a massive demand which we could never meet. So your waiting list is currently how long?

You don't have a waiting list. We don't operate a waiting list. We have one and we realised we couldn't keep one permanently so we opened it for two weeks a year and in the two weeks that we opened it we had ten times as many applicants as we have properties. So 200 just for our general needs properties in two weeks of women who needed specifically,

one of our criteria is they specifically need women's housing. So these were women who were facing sexual harassment in their house shares or who had experienced domestic abuse or who just wanted to get away from everyday sexism really and felt that they wanted to be in a women's community. I think also critically we empower women through the tenancy. So we issue the tenancy. Although we provide family housing, we will issue the tenancy to the woman as the head of the household, which isn't really the usual state of affairs in regular housing associations.

Really important in issues of coercive control because women will always keep the power. You heard there from Denise Fowler and Zeba Qureshi. And we do want to hear about your own experiences of housing, where you're living now, where you'd like to live in the future, affordable rent or not. Is it possible to get together enough money for a deposit for somewhere to live, wherever you are in the country,

whatever your current housing situation? We would like your modern day experiences or your memories about what happened in the past or your own thoughts about what happened in the past or your own thoughts about what should happen now to ensure decent secure housing for everybody so at bbc women's hour on twitter and instagram but i think really what we're after is your thoughts via email which you can do through the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. Some emails that have already come in. Mel says, I'm 55 and I cannot afford to buy a house where I live, which is Bristol.

I'm from a working class background and I didn't go to university. My earnings have always been very low, even when I work full time from the age of 16. But I now have chronic fatigue syndrome and I think it's caused by long-term stress, not least due to financial struggles. I have some funds but I would need to double it to afford a house in an area of my city that isn't rough and doesn't have a feeling of danger. This is a typical scenario for working-class women, I'd say.

Such women can also stay in unsuitable relationships with men as they can't afford a decent home if they left. I've also been in this situation. Well, that's a pretty sharp dose of reality from Mel. Thank you very much for that. Chris says, just to say how proud I am of my mum, who managed to get a mortgage from Ealing Council for her small terraced Edwardian home on her own when I was 10 back in 1957. She was an amazingly independent woman and a role model for myself and my two daughters. Chris, thank you for that. It's a bit hazy, actually, when and where women could get mortgages without a male guarantor. Quite a few of you have emailed in on this subject.

Joy says, just heard your piece about women and housing. I was buying a house with my partner, who later became my husband in 1968. I earned more, I had the down payment of £1,000, and I did all the negotiations as he was working away some of the time. And nothing was said to me, but when we got the documents for exchange and then completion on our joint mortgage, I was referred to as another. This story I have told so many times to young women who just cannot believe it. Yeah, there we go. And Joy was the one with the money at the time, as she points out.

Lorna says it isn't true to say that women couldn't get mortgages before the 1970s. There we go. And Joy was the one with the money at the time, as she points out. Lorna says it isn't true to say that women couldn't get mortgages before the 1970s. I got one from the Abbey National back in 1963, and it was on a brand new Neo-Georgian flat in Canterbury in London. I was 27 and I didn't get a guarantee from anyone. Admittedly, Lorna says, I did put down a reasonably large deposit, all from my own savings. Right. There you go. So more housing stories, please. More experiences and more of your thoughts about what needs to happen right now to sort out what is undoubtedly a housing crisis.

Now, cosmetic surgery, that was a shocking conversation, wasn't it, at the start of the programme today. Paula says, the poor young woman who'd subjected herself to plastic surgery would surely be better served by in-depth psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Well, yes, I suppose that's possible. Nikki says, we just need to stop selling a fear of ageing across our culture. It's abusive to women and it's prompting girls as young as 14 to seek Botox. I mean, Nikki's absolutely right. That's why I mentioned that figure of 92% of cosmetic procedures being carried out on women.

It is significant that and it's actually horrifying, isn't it, really, when you think about it. Sophie says, I agree. This needs better regulation. We need to step up to protect young and vulnerable people. Mary, I'm very sad listening to this conversation. I'm 49 and I had to show ID and proof of age to get a tattoo done in London, Soho. It's interesting. As our guest pointed out, the tattoo industry is pretty well regulated. I mean, obviously, that's a generalisation, but on the whole, they seem to be ahead of the game.

Another listener, I'm sorry, but I don't have sympathy here for this mother. The parents should have been prepared to pay for help with their daughter's mental issues and not paid for the procedures. The industry is wrong, but I think the parents facilitated the surgery. Well, as I said to the lady who was the actual mother, her voice was not her voice, if you see what I mean, on Woman's Hour today, that was a BBC actor. They were her words though. I do have sympathy. If you've got teenagers or you've had children who are desperate, you will do anything to help them. I'm sure, I'm sure, I probably, can't be certain,

I think I would have done the same. Sharon says, shocking behaviour on the part of clinics, but why on earth didn't these parents make it impossible for the daughter to get her hands on their cards? They could even have cancelled them. This is from Doug. I've been listening to your item, initially very moved by the personal story, then angered by the irresponsible behaviour of private clinics, and finally horrified at the prospect this is what awaits us all if NHS privatisation

is allowed to continue. That's Doug's view. Kate says, I'm now in my 20s but I know numerous girls to get surgery when we were in our teens some of my peers would convince their parents that their confidence and mental health was impacted by their body image and get breast enlargements when they were under 18 I still cannot understand how this was legal and briefly briefly on the Labour leadership, Joe says, I'm annoyed. I was increasingly annoyed as that interview went on. I'm a feminist and would give my eye teeth to see more women in top positions. But ignoring an outstanding male candidate in favour of any woman is not the way to do it. I think that one's going to run and run. And we are hoping to interview more candidates for the Labour leadership or any of the candidates for the Labour leadership

as that contest continues. Isn't over until early April. So time is on our side. Jenny is here tomorrow with Woman's Hour. Join her then. 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.