Woman's Hour - Women and PTSD. Tackling gender equality in the police force. Re-shaping the landscape of gaming

Episode Date: November 20, 2019

Following our series of interviews with the wives of veterans who had PTSD we hear from a listener called Sarah who got in touch to share her story. As a woman who suffers from the condition she tells us why it can be just as difficult for a woman to acknowledge having it as it is for a man and why it’s often ignored. Marie-Elsa Bragg is an author, a priest in the diocese of London, therapist, a spiritual director and Duty Chaplain at Westminster Abbey. Her new book Sleeping Letters is an exploration of grief, loss, healing and faith, that looks back to the childhood moment when her mother took her own life. Maternity and menopause are being talked about today to try and address gender inequality in the police force. How to recruit more women is also on the agenda, as well as what crimes women police inspectors and detectives investigate when they’re in the job. It’s part of a Gender Equality Summit that ALL 43 forces in the country are taking part in. They’ve already signed up to ways which should improve equality, but how will it work in practice?And as statistics show 46% of gamers are women and the number of women working in the games industry is also growing, we ask how are women re-shaping the landscape of gaming? Presenter Jane Garvey Producer Beverley PurcellGuest; Marie-Elsa Bragg Guest; Marijam Didzgalvyte Guest; Superintendent Miles Ockwell Guest; DI Liz Warner

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. Hello, good morning. We're going to be talking about the UK's first ever gender equality policing summit. It's today and we're going to talk to a couple of participants at the beginning of the programme today. And later on you can hear from Marie-Elsa Bragg. She'll discuss recovery from her mother's suicide when she was just a very, very young girl. She's written about it in a new book called Sleeping Letters. And she's one of our guests on the programme today.

So to that summit, conference, call it what you like. It's the first ever UK policing gender equality event. It's taking place today and all 43 police forces are taking part. Now, women make up about 28% of the police workforce across England and Wales, but just over 20% in the ranks of chief inspector and above. So what's happening? I guess you could be forgiven for thinking

all this problem has been solved. After all, Cresta Dick is the boss of the police, but it isn't quite as simple as that. Superintendent Miles Ockwell is here from West Sussex Police. Welcome to the programme, Miles. Good morning. And also with me, Detective Inspector Liz Warner from West Mercia Police in the Midlands.

Now, you started something called the Uncover Your Potential, hashtag Uncover Your Potential campaign, Liz. What's all that about? Well, back in January this year, I saw a tweet from a lady to West Midst Fire and Rescue and the tweet said that that morning her four-year-old daughter Esme said that she wishes that she was a boy because she wanted to be a fireman when she was older and that makes me angry it made me angry it upset me And the way that West Midst Farm Rescue responded was to put together a 20-ish second clip of female firefighters saying hello to Esme. And I saw that tweet. I saw that the uptake it had from the public and the effect and the impact it can have on young people.

And I thought, I want to do that for the police. And you did. And I did. And what happened? So we got some volunteers from the police force in West Mercia and Warwickshire Police. These are from volunteer roles, firearms officers, dog handlers, detectives, etc. We went to Worcester University and their creative media department put together for us a one-minute video showing women in traditionally male roles within the police. OK, can I stop you there?

I mean, forgive me for my, it's probably my own ignorance, but you work in adult vulnerability and safeguarding. Correct. Which I would imagine is actually exactly the area that female police officers specialise in. Is that right? Yes, it is. I'd say safeguarding per se,

maybe not so much a frontline response role or detective role. Doesn't mean it's not important, of course. Of course not. But throughout my career, I never really considered going into roles such as firearms or roads policing. And whether or not that's because that's not my skill set, I don't know but it's just something I didn't consider. Is that significant Myles what do you think about that?

I think it is I think what we find is actually a lot of the sort of gender stereotypes that men and women conform to within policing tends to dictate the type of areas that they go into so we have real challenges in terms of um the the proportion of women for example in specialist roles such as firearms and um that really can translate into the culture within some of those departments as well and become a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of certain parts of the police service that women feel that they're not potentially welcoming even though they do want to go into those areas. Have you ever felt that you have spoken to a woman in a way that wasn't acceptable or perhaps underrated a woman's capabilities?

When you think back over your police career? I'd like to think not, but I can't say the same for all of my colleagues, probably. You know, I have three sisters. I know you're actually one of triplets i'm one of triplets yeah so two triplet girls um and hopefully i'd like to think that i value women in my life i bet you've had no choice to be honest but absolutely absolutely but there is a real impact presumably in the sort of policing that occurs on our streets if if women don't feel that their work is valued or they feel there are certain parts of policing that aren't suitable for them there's going to be an impact isn't there? I think

that's absolutely right. I think you know it's really important for us as the police service in terms of getting legitimacy with our communities that we actually reflect the communities that we serve and that we are sensitive to their needs and if we've got certain parts of our service that is heavily male-dominated, for example, then we're probably not doing as good a job as maybe we could do in terms of protecting those communities. Liz, have you ever felt that people have not valued your input? Have you ever felt ignored? Not directly, no.

However, the police force should be a reflection of society. There is overt sexism, of course there is in society. However, there's also hidden sexism, that unconscious bias, and if that's in society, then certainly it is in the police force um but i wouldn't just say that any influence on women in policing is from the police force directly if i talk from personal experience you know i've got three three children three boys and when i had my children suddenly all these other influences from society were impacting on my life so you know i'm at work my husband's a police officer too guess who the school and nursery ring when the children are sick I'll give you a clue it's not my husband so it's not necessarily same rank as him or are you I am now yes you are the same right okay carry on yeah so so it's not necessarily about what we just experience in in work it's about how we're

pigeonholed into a role by society and so it's up to us to go to the schools, and that's just one example, and say, actually, you can ring my husband when the children are sick, because we both work. We're about to hear, actually, after I've finished speaking to you, from a woman who has suffered for quite some time with PTSD after a period of service in what was,

when she first started the RUC and became the Police Service of Northern Ireland. And she does talk about the machismo and the culture of her working circumstances, Miles. And that can be a very corrosive and destructive one, can't it? It can. And I think that gets to the heart of part of what we're doing, particularly internally, with addressing cultural issues and gender imbalance within our police services because our officers and staff experience on a daily basis really traumatic events.

And it's really important, actually, that they're able to talk about their feelings and how situations have affected them. And actually, that's a benefit to women, but also to our male colleagues as well. And in terms of roles like armed policing, is there any reason why a woman couldn't do that job? I mean, I'm talking purely in terms of strength. I'm talking about being able to carry something for long periods, for example.

No, not at all. I mean, I think, you know, traditionally, some of those areas, probably there were explanations as to why women may not be able to do certain things. There were excuses rather than... Absolutely. And when you drill into them, actually, you realise that, of course, women can do it just as well as men. I think you're talking about a whole range of subjects today, everything from encouraging more women to apply for promotion in the civil nuclear constabulary which a lot of people won't even know exists that these are the people who guard nuclear facilities yeah and are there very are there many women in that particular branch of policing or there are women in there but again that's that's an armed service the civil nuclear constabulary just as police service of

northern ireland for example are an armed police service and they manage to have fairly good representation of women or similar to other police forces. And you're also encouraging people to talk about the menopause, Liz. Why that? Because it's a really important part of, it's the reality of what we go through as women. And if we want to recruit and maintain 50% of our workforce as women then it's a topic that we need to talk about it affects our day-to-day life you know we now talk about maternity and there are policies and procedures and guidance in place for maternity but actually it's one thing to recruit women into the police force but it's another thing to to retain them and so it's really important that we support all our workforce

and would that be a simple case of a woman perhaps going through the menopause and feeling anxious and incapable for whatever reason and just perhaps needing a period of support at work while she went through it absolutely and it's also about being able to have that conversation and yeah to acknowledge it in the first place of course and be able to go to your to your boss whether that's male or female and say you know I'm experiencing menopausal symptoms I might need some support but how many people

in the police and outside of the police are confident enough to have that conversation because as a society menopause can be a dirty word a lot of the time. Oh not here Liz, believe me. Liz thank you very much, Miles thank you very much for your help as well today and that summit,, I keep calling it a conference, it's a summit and it starts at what time, Miles? It's at two o'clock this afternoon. Oh, one o'clock, sorry.

One o'clock. I'm sure he'll have a good time, right, for him to say. Right, hope it goes well. Thank you both very much. Thank you. quite recently actually with the wives of veterans who had post-traumatic stress disorder and they talk very powerfully about the impact it's had on their lives their family relationships as well and a woman we're calling Sarah was listening and she made contact to point out that women do get PTSD too and it can actually be just as difficult to talk about it. It isn't her real name but Sarah joined what was known at the time as the RUC, now called the Police Service of Northern Ireland, back in the late 1990s and a number of people from her family had also been in the police service and this was seen as a relatively stable job at a time when decent jobs were hard to get in Northern Ireland but it wasn't easy. In terms of

living my life on a day-to-day basis, it meant I had to be quite careful. Who knew that I was in the police? I had to be careful about my own security. You had to be careful if your neighbours knew, etc., because police were being shot. Historically, there were bombs underneath cars. It was quite normal for police to check under their cars before they drove off. And you were telling me earlier that there were even designated dry cleaners

who were willing to do the uniform for you. Well, yes, you had to make sure you took it to a dry cleaner that you would trust to some extent that wouldn't necessarily tell other people that you were in the police. These are things that the rest of us would never have thought of. That gives us an indication. So the Good Friday Agreement came in. The RUC became the police service of Northern Ireland.

Yes. When you first joined the RUC, though, was it a very testosterone-driven, macho environment? Yes, it was. And I think because of the problems, I think we worked in close proximity with the army. So we had quite a lot of training, which was quite similar to the army. We used the army facilities, like the gun ranges and that sort of thing. We had our own personal

protection weapons and armoured cars, flak jackets, high security. I just want to know a little bit about how your colleagues treated you. Not really very well. I mean, to begin with, in the training centre, it was slightly more PC, although saying that it was almost some of the training that we were given was in a way to sort of harden you a little bit. So, for example, we were shown quite graphic videos or photographs in order to sort of, I don't know, make us emotionless in a way. So whenever I started work in the police, I had an awful lot of awful comments said to me, which, you know, because you're a minority woman, you don't want to make a fuss. You don't want to

prove everyone right. But I had things said to me like, you know, when are you going to get pregnant and go on maternity leave? You shouldn't be here. You should be working in the supermarket. You know, I had my own inspector call me a slut. You know, it was just constant. I had colleagues beside me talk about graphic sexual experiences like I wasn't even present. Just to test you out to see if you... No, I just don't think they cared less. I think partly they really didn't think I belonged there. There must have been other women around. Very few. Very few.

Yeah, very few. And did you seek each other out? I think we did. I think either there was a culture of either silence or else women really trying to kind of outdo men, be maybe slightly more masculine in their approach, which, you know, I did try to try to do. I mean, I was riot trained and I worked in riots. I got a police commendation for my work in do. I mean, I was riot trained and I worked in riots. I got a police commendation for my work in riots. I threw myself into lots of dangerous situations in order to try and, I guess, make them think that I was worthy of the job.

I don't want to upset you, but obviously most of us have never been in that kind of situation. Can you describe what it's like to be in a riot? Well, the interesting thing was that I was in my 20s, you know, and I was in this riot gear, head to toe, so you could only see my eyes. I'm quite a tall person, so I would have people shouting at me, you think you're such a big, tough guy. And actually, you know, I was a 20-ish old woman, 20-year-old woman. And in riot situations, yeah, we had petrol bombs thrown at us. We had industrial wheelie bins set alight and pushed towards us, bricks, missiles. On one occasion, we heard that someone had a firearm, you know, and at one point I was in a police vehicle and

it was overturned by rioters. I don't know if I've blanked it out really, but it's a bit hazy. But you were really young. I can't emphasise that enough. You were in your early 20s, dealing with situations that most people will never experience in a lifetime. Did you give yourself credit for that at the time? No, I didn't. No, I didn't, actually. I think the worst thing was that I would deal with these situations and then I'd go home to an empty house.

I'd never be able to share it. And actually, you couldn't share it within the police because there was this bravado, this gung-ho kind of male bravado. I wouldn't say totally male, but it certainly is a very much male culture. I don't think it's evolved at all since the hundred years that they allowed women to join. There was no kind of counselling service or a place where you could... No, it was seen as a weakness any mental problem was definitely not seen as a a real problem did people self-medicate oh absolutely alcoholism was rife yeah i mean if you don't give anybody any other option how are they supposed to deal with these things when did you leave and why i think the lack of support to put it very mildly with my colleagues

really chipped away at how i was feeling about how I was feeling about the job and then after one particularly bad riot I physically just couldn't I mean I tried to go into the changing rooms to start my next shift and I physically couldn't leave so I was told to take some time off at the intention of back, but I didn't go back. How often do those scenes from riots play through your mind now? Straight away, my sort of way of dealing with it was just to shut it down, just to block it out and never speak about it or refer to it or ever sort of try to think about it. I think it helps sort of being in England. Whenever I'm in Northern Ireland, especially Belfast,

I think has recently changed massively, but it is more vivid, yeah. And your family and friends, what about the impact on your partner now? Yeah, I mean, he would say it's significant, and I think my children also. My son went through a period of, for years, saying, Mummy, why are you so sad? Every night I tucked him into bed. So my children, I think they have, we've all had therapy and counselling, including my children, because they had what was called high anxiety, which I feel is a sort of generational anxiety. You know, I've unwittingly passed it down to them somehow, you know.

Because perhaps you've been more watchful. Definitely, that is the case. I mean, there are upsides to that, to being more watchful. But I think with therapy, we have learned to communicate much more effectively. So when we see something's wrong we can we can talk about it together and and that that's the key I think you know it doesn't banish it doesn't get rid of it but at least you can communicate it you now live in a part of England that is always described as leafy I don't need to mention where it is but do you meet people now in your social circle maybe your kids social circle you haven't got a clue about northern ireland yeah i mean they i've known people for like a decade and

they know nothing about me it's something that i haven't been able to to share very well this is actually probably one of the first times that i have spoken about it publicly even my i would say my my family the parents at my children's school, they know nothing about it. It's not something you can easily bring into conversation. You know, it always felt to me like there's never a right time to talk about this. When do you bring it up? You know, people don't want to necessarily listen. So, and that's part of it. That's very isolating. And can you explain why some people will have been through similar experiences to you, not identical, and will sit here where you are now with me and say, oh, I'm fine. No, didn't nothing. I'm all right.

Well, I think a massive amount of that it's to do with how much support they get. You know, if you come from a family who are very, very supportive and always communicating, always talking, or it doesn't have to be a family, it could be a support network like a church. That can make a big difference, I think. Being able to communicate as it happens and then change something, change the narrative somehow. And when did you acknowledge or begin to acknowledge that you had PTSD? Well, I really just shut it down because of the whole mindset around it and pretended that I'm OK, this is fine, and that may be part of it,

that may be something that other people do as well. By then, were you living in England? Yes, yeah. I thought if I don't think about it and if I don't talk about it and if I pretend it never happened, then maybe it'll go away. But it didn't. It just kept coming back. And you had the children by then as well? Yeah, I had the children. I kept breaking down.

And eventually, you know, I just had to go. It felt like a last chance for me that it was this or, you know, nothing good was going to happen. And in terms of managing it now, how do you do it? I have good days and bad days, and I batten down on the bad days and just try to wait for the good days. So that's how I manage it.

I mean, I still have therapy, and I think one of the key things for me is I don't drink alcohol, because, you know, alcohol, although it makes you feel like, you know, you're drowning your sorrows or you're, you know, you're relieving, you're relaxing yourself or whatever. But actually, it's a depressant. It contributes to anxiety, and it makes you feel a hell of a lot worse. Did you try it for a while oh yeah you know I think everybody did you know so um but it's definitely doesn't help does exercise exercise it really really helps you know and in terms of it's a good stress relief it gives you the endorphins gives you times to think and to meditate while you're sort of moving and if you've got confidence in your body at some point that might filter through to your mind. I have been extremely lucky because I've been able to self-fund. You know, it got to a stage whereby I knew I needed help and we were able to get it.

We were able to access it. If I hadn't been able to access that help or had the support of my partner, I wouldn't have been able to pay my mortgage. You know, I wouldn't, I would have been in the same situation. You know, I'm incredibly lucky that I can sit here and vocalise, you know, and be able to speak to you today and tell my story. Well, that is a woman we're calling Sarah, and she served in the police service of Northern Ireland. And we have a statement from them, from the Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin, who says, policing is by its very nature, a high-risk and challenging profession. Every day, officers and staff encounter difficult circumstances, and as a result, many can experience trauma or mental health difficulties, including PTSD.

However, we take our responsibility to support them very seriously, and since its inception in 2001, the Police Service of Northern Ireland have invested in ever-improving occupational health and wellbeing services. So that's a statement from the police in Northern Ireland. And Sarah, again, not her real name, did what you're very welcome to do. She contacted the programme and told us, I've heard something on Woman's Hour, I want to add to that conversation. Anybody can do that. Please do email the programme via the website, bbc.co.uk slash womanshour.

Now, tomorrow, I really hope you can listen to the programme tomorrow. Here's a little taster. A mother is going to tell us about her autistic daughter who went into hospital at 14. She's now 28 and she's never come home. That first night my husband took our daughter there, he'd come back

and he cried. Yeah, and it was almost if this is possible to do it's almost like he aged and we thought what can we do to keep our family together? That's a very troubling story and you can hear it on Woman's Hour tomorrow.

And a date for your diary, December 4th is the Woman's Hour election debate programme. We will feature a cross-section of leading female voices from the political parties. We've got 90 minutes for this. It's a sort of double 45-minute Woman's Hour, if that makes any sense. It's live. We'll be taking your calls. We'll have some top politicians on that programme. Starts off at 10, the normal time, goes on until 11.30 on December the 4th for the 2019 Woman's Hour election debate. We would love your involvement. Now, Marie-Elsa Bragg is here, author, a priest in the Diocese of London. She's a spiritual director,

a therapist and a duty chaplain at Westminster Abbey as well. And yes, she is the daughter of Melvin Bragg. Her new book, Sleeping Letters, is an exploration of grief and faith and loss. And it looks back to the horrific moment in her childhood when her mother, Marie Elizabeth, took her own life. Marie Elsa, welcome to the programme. Lovely to be here, thanks. It's such a very difficult subject, obviously, but something that you feel... Would it be fair to say you feel a compulsion to write about it? How did this all come about? I did feel that it was...

Maybe I'd seen enough of life, or it was the right time, that I really wanted to have my voice and somehow have a sense of my mother's voice and write them both letters, but also write for myself and for me, write to God, really. It was a sense of, I'm ready to talk about this now, but more honestly, I think, with myself than I ever had before. You were really tiny when it happened.

Yeah, six. Just six. Yeah. What, if anything, do you remember, or is it stuff you've been told? No, well, I do remember, and this book helped me remember, just in the way I wrote it, because I went into a silent retreat and used a kind of ritual to help me go in. And there it really was, almost like reliving those moments.

It was incredibly painful, but strangely it was incredibly loving because I somehow got to meet her again and talk to her as a woman. Tell me a bit more about that. Well, it was a sense of being able to, I think with grief, often we shelve the love because we just can't take the pain of having lost it. And if we're able to find something that helps us get through it, then we're able to feel the love and allow it to continue. And that happened to me. And there was something also about being able to meet my mother now as a woman and talk to her with sort of more full-life honesty, being able to look everything as much in the eye as I could.

And obviously you've never stopped missing her, have you? No. You can't. You can't. You never do. But you learn to live with that, and you learn to be able to love in a different way. I think when we have long-term relationships and our partners or our parents or our friends pass on,

one of the important things is to realise you're allowed to still live with them and still love them. Now, even in the absolute depths of her despair, she tried to look after you and protect you the the absolute depths of her despair she did try she tried to look after you and protect you didn't she? Yeah she did. Just describe what happened around when when she took her own life. Well she um well I think it was a desperate summer for her um but um once she'd got to the point where she decided it was quite calculated so she left a note with a lady next door saying that she'd had to leave because of a telegram to get me up.

Unfortunately, I used to go into her bed early mornings to find her. And the door was locked and I couldn't get in. I don't think, I think when people are in incredible pain, it's almost an equivalent to when people are really shut down. They don't know the damage they're doing to other people. She would have never done anything to hurt me. I know that. And yet we do things to each other that hurt.

That seems to be part of the human condition. Your grandparents played a very significant part in in looking after you didn't they yeah yeah my Cumbrian grandparents yeah so did you go to stay stay with them for long periods of time long periods of time and my grandmother came to stay with us incredibly close to my grandmother and of course both of them had lost their mothers in different ways so they absolutely knew what I was going through. And my grandfather was from a family of quite a few siblings, and they all just enfolded me. And one of the gifts of that was I was able to join and belong to a very old Cumbrian culture

that was two generations back that didn't even use telephones um and so i got to to to to feel a sense of my heritage in a way that we're needing to work to to keep going now can i ask did you go to your mother's funeral no i didn't well for the benefit of people listening who might be going through and i hope they're not but obviously but but similar experiences what is there a rule what would you suggest i don't think there is a rule? What would you suggest? I don't think there is a rule. I think one of the things that we have learned is that if, as adults, our approach to death is one that is healthy, if we can think about it throughout life, just like birth, if we can get used to it being an honourable thing to go through

and that we need to be able to help people go through it as well as possible. If we can come to terms with that, then that's best for the children as well because everything that we feel kind of rubs off on them. So going to the funeral may not be right if there's an open coffin and they're not used to that. But in lots of cultures,

you have the person with you in your home overnight. And because the whole family know that it's healthy to be around that, then the children automatically feel that it's a loving thing to do. And obviously now, as a minister and as a chaplain, do you enter homes where terrible things of this nature have happened? Of course, yeah. And do you conduct yourself on the basis of your own experience as somebody who was bereaved in this way?

Well, I have a lot more life experience after that as well now, and I've been a priest for a while. So, yes, every ounce of my life experience will go into how I would be alongside anyone in a difficult situation. But I've studied, and I'm a trained therapist, I do, and continually need to learn about how to be really close and stay close no matter what. And I think that's partly what the book is about.

It's about saying that there is nowhere that you can go that you can't come out of. There's nothing that you can't face, that you can't actually find healing with if you just have somehow the companionship or something to hold you and it doesn't need to be christian no i'm hoping that this book is is kind of universal for everybody but there's there there are that there is a real way to be held through anything and what about your relationship with your father? Because your mother was in despair, partly because, perhaps only because her relationship with him had ended. Well, I think the despair is complex. I mean, different people are affected in different ways.

What I've seen is that when people are not aware of what they're doing, and I know for sure that my parents deeply loved each other and my father really loved my mother, that in the long run, both sides are really harmed by it. And the healing is to be had from both parties. And I think that's what my book was about, because I know for sure that my father has lived with incredible guilt and throughout my life I just haven't been able to work out how

to help him see the reality of that and move forward and have a chance at a still being able to love her and a good life because he really does still love her. Thank you very much. The book is fantastically interesting and I really hope it will be a help to people who are going through a similar but, heaven knows, challenging experience. Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me. That is Marie Elsa Bragg and the book is called Sleeping Letters. Thanks very much. Now, to move from that to this is a difficult one, but I'm going to do it anyway. Google, can't say it, Google Stadia launched yesterday. It may not mean anything to you, but it's the technology that allows gamers to play without a console.

It's a kind of sleeker version of PlayStation and the rest. And you might well, like me perhaps, stereotype gaming as being something for men, specifically young men. But actually, recent figures from the Entertainment Software Association show that almost half of all gamers are female and there are now more adult women playing games

than boys under 18. And the number of women working in the games industry, and it's a big industry and it's absolutely full of money, you wouldn't believe it, is also growing up from a measly 4% to 14%. Mariam Dijgalavita is a journalist and co-founder of Game Workers Unite UK. Mariam, good morning. Welcome to the program. Good morning. Great to be here. I didn't quite get the sentence out right, but it's worth a lot of money, this industry, isn't it? It's far bigger, actually, than the film industry. Right. Yeah. So 135

billion. These are the annual profits internationally in 2018. That was a whooping 11% rise from 2017. So video games industry is now bigger than music and film industries combined in terms of profits. That gives people a clear idea of what's at stake here. So why are more women getting involved? Well, again, as any cultural outlet, we see bit by bit women's voices being heard and being seen. This is now something that the film industry and the Hollywood is pushing for. And us in gaming thinking, you know, we are even bigger than you guys. And yet a woman's voices

is hardly ever heard. So only 15% of the games released in E3, which is the biggest exposition of video games in Los Angeles, were non combative, you know, games that are not to do with war. So there is such a poverty of stories. You've got to be a bit careful here, I guess, because some women will enjoy playing those games. Oh, I'm one of them. Quick champion, fragging, I love it. All right. OK.

But what do you think women would enjoy more? Some women would enjoy more. Again, 100 percent. So this is a difficult conversation, right? Because, you know, on one hand, I want to say know we need more we need more narrative driven games we need more I suppose sensual and I suppose deeper stories

and that will bring in women that is clearly a stereotype I'm sure more men would be interested in that as well as not all women are you know that's their cup of tea but that's precisely it there's just such a poverty of stories all together there's just you know, that's their cup of tea. But that's precisely it. There's just such a poverty of stories altogether. There's just, you know, we don't have enough voices from,

you know, so let alone those, that 14% of women working in the video games industry. Some of them probably are not the artists as such. They probably are in quality assurance or marketing. So not all of them even get to create stories, let alone women of colour, let alone non-binary people, let alone obviously working class women.

We just don't have enough voices there. And I am actually quite optimistic because the growth is so huge. I feel your passion. I'm blown away by that. Women who say, oh, I don't do gaming, but they might be the women i see on the tube every morning playing games on their phone they are gaming absolutely

yet they wouldn't call themselves that there is a certain element that yes as we see you know women most of the time if they play those puzzle games they do it on the way to somewhere or to relax from something which is also a very gendered role to be in, I suppose. You know, they don't necessarily see themselves as gamers because they don't do it socially with other people or they don't log on to the forums or, you know, or esports events that are happening. So they do it very, very separately from the everyday. Right. And presumably we're not that far away from esports being in the Olympics, are we?

I mean, that will probably happen relatively soon. Yes, there are murmurings about that in the next decade or so. In a way, I see it as a step backwards, because I think, so what I, what the beauty of video games to me is that you don't have to be in the same locality to be playing with someone else. So you know, for instance, I don't know, Palestinians and Israelis couldn't be in the same server, or Ukrainians and Russians. I think that's something that we ought to emphasize for our older listeners. It's not actually for loners anymore. Maybe it used to be, but now you can play with loads of people all over the world.

A hundred percent. And whereas now I think with the Olympics, we'll have to again add this sort of nationalistic angle to it, which I think is a step backwards. So tell me about some of the games up and coming that feature women in roles I might be surprised by. Again, there is a sad poverty of games that would feature flawed women. A lot of the time we see women in action games and or women protagonists that are perfect in one way or another. But what we need are women that, yeah, can make mistakes. So her story is a one is a very fascinating game that actually uses filmed images, it has nothing to do with computer generated imagery, it's just film that deals with issues of domestic violence. Last of Us is a

beautiful portrayal of a father-daughter relationship. And the daughter is the protagonist, who is flawed, who is growing through teenage years and is trying to figure that all out. So I think we just need to, I'm hoping for more stories of women that are not the action figures. Yes, okay. I mean, the Lara Croft is, I gather even she has modified her appearance over the years, or she's been modified. Is that right? Yes, correct. I had the first iterations of Lara Croft's feature,

you know, with a very stereotypical figure, and that has then been subdued. But yeah, so we are taking steps forward, and I'm hoping that um with narrative in the future there will just be difference but not only just women but different types of women coming from different places in the world from different classes and from different experiences so the more women involved in the industry the more it will change and the more it will appeal to to younger women and indeed older ones. 100%. So there are 215 gaming-related undergraduate courses right now in the UK.

215 game-related undergraduate courses in the UK. And I'm just really hoping that anyone listening here would, well, women particularly, would look into really being in their career there. And that was the incredibly enthusiastic Mariam Dijelavita, journalist and co-founder of Game Workers Unite UK. And interestingly, she is speaking at the Folkestone Book Festival over this weekend. She's appearing on Saturday. So if that intrigues you, make sure you go along to that. And Woman's Hour is going to have a special series in the new year with stories and experiences about women and gaming i mean it did sound from that

conversation with mariam that women are entering the space because there is there is a real career opportunity here i didn't realize there were so many undergraduate courses in the area as well and interestingly uh listening to mariam uh her interview with me was marie el sabrag who had finished her interview which preceded it and they were talking later and um actually mariam said that there really was plenty of opportunity for games about really difficult subjects like grief we tend to think that computer games have to be all about combat and high octane adventure but actually marne was pointing out there is a real opportunity now for people, possibly women,

to move into that space and create games about the human condition and about experiences like loss and grief. So it's very much an area we need to explore more in the future, I think. Now, to your tweets and emails about the rest of the programme today. This is Lizzie.

Just to mention, there is still a problem with mental health stigma in the police force. My best friend became a police officer this year. She's also in her early 20s. And I've often been concerned about her shifts when she tells me about the things that she has seen. I've asked what support is available, but she says nobody would accept the counselling on offer.

It is seen as weak to do so so that's interesting there's still that perception there uh jen says i don't know why you're not talking about bodies how police women might be excluded because uniforms aren't designed for them i know this is a topic that we have actually to be fair to us discussed on the program before so i probably should have mentioned it today uh things like breasts menstruation menopause etc shift work can be a challenge if you need regular stops to use toilets etc says jen jory says why on earth would anybody want to discuss the menopause with their employer in my generation and you don't tell us which generation that is but anyway um jory continues in my generation nobody discussed it

even the close family members i think this tell-all narcissistic social media society is disturbing women have been coping with their biology since time immemorial without needing to discuss it with the whole world yeah well that's that's one point of view uh i kind of feel it's better to talk about it really because unfortunately back in the day there was a great deal of suffering going on behind closed doors which i don't think helped anybody anna says i'm listening to your conversation about women in the police force and shouting at the radio please can you stop asking questions about why the inequality still exists along the lines of is it because women aren't strong enough to carry heavy equipment for a long time? To be asking questions like this, which seem seated in some antiquated view that women are weak and incapable of doing a physically

demanding job, does nothing but perpetuate the sexism by providing a sort of justification. Women have disproved this outdated view through their actions in many spheres of life, and it's frustrating to hear this kind of thing being asked by a national broadcaster on a programme focused on women's issues. I'm an endurance swimmer. I've completed swims in excess of 24 hours in a very physically demanding sport where women consistently outperform men. Please change the narrative to reflect what's happening in the world. And again, my fault. I take your take your point absolutely thank you very much of course i should make clear that clearly some women wouldn't be capable of hauling around bits of heavy equipment for large parts of the day and some men wouldn't be either but of course we are very grateful to the many highly physically capable women and men who can carry

out these jobs so successfully. Rebecca says, I want your programme to keep talking about difficult subjects because it really helps. I'm menopausal, I'm bipolar and I have fibromyalgia. All three are stigmas. I talk about all three openly to try and reduce stigma. And it's not always easy, she says. Thank you for that, Rebecca. And well done to you for

speaking out and that of course is in direct contradiction to jory's view earlier that we should all go on in our own way without talking about it but i guess jory's opinion too is perhaps it's work for her who knows but clearly rebecca believes in discussing stuff anonymous says it isn't only adults that get PTSD. My parents and wider family were in the forces and I grew up during the mainland bombing campaign and I now recognise that I have anxiety and probably PTSD from growing up in that environment. What the woman today was talking about, not being able to speak to anyone about this and keeping a low profile due to security issues, has affected the whole of the rest of my life

and probably my children's lives too. There needs to be support, not just for the employed individual, but recognition for the effects that occur across the whole family. And from Molly, lots of people have complex PTSD and are told it's just anxiety and depression. There are many ways of experiencing trauma and PTSD is just ignored or dismissed because it's expensive to treat.

It's short-sighted, it wrecks lives and revolving door anxiety and depression can be the result. This has been my life. Thankfully, I am now being treated and at 67, I do have a chance of life. Molly, sorry to hear that. And I'm glad that things have changed for you recently. And I hope that help continues to get you through.

Tomorrow, we're discussing women and cryptocurrency. Hope you can join us then for the program and the podcast. I'm Sarah Trelevan. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who 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.