it's International Women's Week so I went to celebrate black female doctors!
The Queenager: Eleanor's Letter (March 4th 2024)
Did you know 5 times more black women die in childbirth and that women's health gets only 1% of available funding? In IWD week let's shine a light on inequity!
Dear Queenagers,
Hope you have all been having a good week! I’ve been busy. I sent all the last corrections for my Queenager/Noon book off – very exciting. It will be published in July and the big announcement will be at the London Book Fair next week.
In other news, we’ve launched booking for our May 2024 (24th-28th) Retreat at Broughton Sanctuary! We released the rooms last Thursday to those who had already expressed an interest and are already nearly half sold out. Also there is the Zoom Link for our online Noon Birthday Zoom at 6pm this Friday, March 8th – for all Paid Subscribers, so everyone can join. I am so excited about seeing lots of you there, as I know not everyone can make it to London. In fact we are planning more countrywide Noon Circles – if you’re interested in running one in your area, send us an email to jackie@inherspace.co.uk.
Ok that’s enough housekeeping!
This time of the year is particularly hectic because of International Women’s Day.
I do more pubic speaking now than any other time. My husband says it is like Christmas … it definitely felt that way when I got all togged up in my blue sequins and new Ganni white shoes (ooh how do I love them! There is a very silly video here) and went to the Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden for the inaugural Black Female Doctors UK Awards and Dinner Gala called Cura-H.
Now usually I detest an Awards ceremony – in my old life it was always rooms full of sausages (pale, male, stale chaps with sweaty pink faces in black tie, usually leering) – but this one could NOT have been more different. I have never seen such a vibrant and glamorous awards ceremony – the music was great, the cabaret funny, the dancers impressive and the guests? Wow, can these Queens rock an evening gown! In anything other than sequins I would have been woefully under-dressed.
It was such a joyful night. About half of doctors in the UK are now women, but less than 5% are Black women. This is the first time there has EVER been an event like this to celebrate Black female medics. The intelligence, purpose and power of the women in this room was off the charts.
Many of the older female doctors who won prizes wept when they came up on stage and looked out at the audience, full of Black women GPS, and professors, and consultants, and health researchers and dentists and midwives. “Bless this room of professional Black women,” said Dr Joan St John, wiping away tears as she accepted her prize for being a Wellness Champion. “It’s a hard path to get through medical school, get qualified, get working. Well done all of you!”
Her words were echoed by Dr Janet Fyle, the overall winner who said, “It’s not about winning. It’s about what we do for others in the engine room, moving things along. It’s about giving more than receiving; that’s an African thing! I don’t know about a lifetime achievement award … I’m only just getting started!” I cheered that in particular as Dr Janet woman must have been at least in her mid 60s … a great Queenager sentiment that she is just getting going. What a pioneer!
Another winner, Dr Evelyn Mensah, talked about being born and growing up in Newcastle, going to Imperial to study medicine in 1986 and how she’d been “called the N word – I’ve spent my career battling systemic racism. It’s outrageous that Black women are more 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. It’s disgusting that people think Black women’s skin is thicker than other’s, that we don’t feel pain. We need to do things by us and for us to change things for black women.”
She got the biggest cheer of the night.
But what was so encouraging was the enthusiasm and change that is being enacted by these women in that room. One talked about going to A&E and being looked after by a Black female consultant: “Immediately my shoulders went down, I knew I would be listened to, that I would be heard, not ignored, my symptoms taken seriously. I have never had such good care.”
To sit in that room was to be humbled. By the grit and fortitude these Black women doctors have showed to win through – and by the huge difference they are making for others. I went as the guest of great Noon Queenager Tina Backhouse, who runs Theramex, a women’s health firm that’s determined to “call out inequity in healthcare and shine the light on the incredible work these women are doing”.
More funding needed for women’s health issues
She gave a passionate speech about how women of colour, or religion, or who are working class get far worse treatment in the NHS, have less access to the drugs they need and are less likely to have their symptoms believed or taken seriously. Those in the poorest areas of Britain, for instance, are half as likely to get prescribed HRT as those in the richest areas.
Only 1% of health research funding goes for women’s issues (other than cancer) and for conditions such as fibroids, which are way more common in Black women – there is currently no research into why that should be or what could be done about it.
As someone who has suffered from fibroids myself – I had one as big as a grapefruit in my womb during my second pregnancy and would have had to have a hysterectomy if I hadn’t been given a Mirena coil by a private doctor – I feel the iniquity of that.
Why should women have to suffer like this?
I bet if men had babies and periods there would be proper research! I can’t believe that in 2024 when we can spend billions sending rovers to Mars or the Moon we can’t fund some research into Black women’s wombs and fibroid treatment!
Why women’s health matters now
I think this is an important topic to raise in International Women’s Day week because we will see lots of backslapping about achievements when the reality is there is still so much work to be done. Women’s health, like the funding received by women entrepreneurs (again less than 1 per cent) is one of those areas where the gender gap is gaping. And don’t even get me going on the gender pay gap, or worse the gender pension gap (a real problem when women live longer than men).
This week I will be speaking all over the place about Queenagers, gendered-ageism and how telling a more positive story about what is possible for older women extends the runway for ALL women. But I also feel passionate about the intersectionality of all this – I am very aware of my own privilege as a posh white woman – and I am worried by the way recent political discourse from the likes of the ghastly Lee Anderson (once Deputy Chair of the Tory Party) backed up by Rishi Sunak, talking about Islamists taking over Sadiq Khan and London, affects campaigners in this space.
This populist rabble rousing impacts real lives.
The most worrying conversation I had at Cura-H was with Noon Advisory board member and great friend Dr Nighat Arif (who was also at the Black Female Doctors Awards being celebrated for her brilliant book The Knowledge). As a very high profile Muslim female GP, she has been receiving all sorts of horrid threats on social media. She gave an impassioned speech about the importance of reaching out across divides “in our shared humanity”. She and others like her are incredibly brave. Nighat is the daughter of an Imam, wears a veil and talks about vaginas and women’s health issues; not an easy combination anyway, but way harder when the populist temperature rises.
But the women she reaches need her advice more than anyone; often she is their only source of information on women’s issues from vaginal atrophy to menopause to painful sex. She is passionate about continuing but I could see the anxiety in her face last night; she has three little boys. We love you Nighat! Keep up the good fight. As Jess Phillips MP said in her interview with me last week, “I’m not going to live in a cage, I’m going to keep speaking out and fighting – otherwise the haters have won.”
These are difficult, incendiary times. There are many scary forces at play in the world as half the globe goes to the polls this year. Much is at stake. It is up to all of us to use our voices and play our part. It matters. And the encouraging news is that WE CAN have an affect.
The awards ceremony was the brainchild of 7 Black women doctors who came together to raise others up. They are bringing on the next generation and making a huge difference. Dr Nighat has helped millions with her insight and knowledge.
And last week we had a victory on another women-led campaign I’ve been part of, which was to stop Jeremy Hunt changing the definition of High Net Worth individuals from those worth £100k to £170k – a change which would have wiped out funding to female entrepreneurs (as most female angels are worth less than 170k). Sarah King who ran that campaign said on her note when we had won: “Your voice matters, raising it has changed something.” We all need to remember that this year.
So I look forward to seeing lots of you on Friday for the Birthday Noon Circle. If you aren’t a Paid Subscriber yet, take the plunge and join us!
Then you can unlock all the awesome paid content we provide!
And DO come to the big Broughton Purpose & Power Retreat. I can’t wait!
Love
Eleanor
Hello lovely paid subscribers
- Earlybird VIP link for the Noon Purpose and Power Retreat
- Link for the Noon Third Birthday Zoom is below, 6pm March 8th online
Noon is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Noon’s Birthday Circle Zoom Meeting
Time: Mar 8, 2024 06:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83064590423
Meeting ID: 830 6459 0423
By Eleanor Mills