International Women's Day 2024: Dr Stella Kingett

Dr Stella Kingett reflects on her first year as Chair of the Women and Mental Health Special Interest Group (WMHSIG) and her time spent 'listening to inspirational women and finding the data'.

My first year as WMHSIG chair has been a real joy. It has been a privilege getting to know some amazing women on the WMHSIG executive committee and senior women within the College and having an opportunity to contribute in the field of women and mental health, building on many inspirational women who have gone before.

My first experience of joining a WMHSIG event as chair was in June 2023, when Dr Raka Maitra WMHSIG secretary organised an important and fascinating Women in Mind event 'On confronting racism denial – in conversation with Professor Camara Phyllis Jones and RCPsych President Dr Lade Smith CBE'. Dr Maitra opened the event with a lovely poem and then we got to hear Professor Jones’ allegories for understanding and addressing the harm of racism – the event was a powerful example of the potential of stories and creativity to unlock understanding, community and action.

My first WMHSIG conference as chair focused on the theme of learning from our foremothers. On December 8 2023 WMHSIG held our conference 'Listening to Matriarchs and Inspirational Older Women'. All the speakers were women over 60 with a lifetime of experience including in medical leadership, running services for women and feminist writing and activism.

The idea for this conference started from thinking about female archetypes in stories – such as the wise woman, the mother, the maiden. Then we realised most of our ideas were about wanting to hear from older women so we decided to focus just on the wise woman or matriarch and learning from their stories and experience.

I would like to share some detail of the conference talks and discussions.

Our first plenary was 'Focusing on Women' – chaired by Dr Syeda Ali who is a forensic psychiatrist and medical director of a woman-only secure hospital. The panel shared experiences with humour and warm connections in spite of serious topics which included Laila Namdarkhan talking about her journey to feminist advocacy for women in secure settings and informing the audience about the Istanbul Convention, and importance of single sex secure accommodation; Stella Dadzie author and founder of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) in the 1970s talking about stereotypes that Black women face; and College historian Dr Claire Hilton discussing mental hospitals in the 1920s including experiences of female patients, carers and staff.

The second plenary was 'Old and New Challenges' which I chaired. We heard first from Naomi Stadlen psychotherapist about the challenges and shock of new motherhood in today’s society which many in the audience related to, then from Dr Jane Morris chair of Scottish Council discussing the harms of social media for young people, especially girls and acknowledging our own addictive behaviour to social media. Then Anna Fisher from Nordic Model Now brought the room to absolute silence listening to a talk about the harms of the sex trade including harrowing first-hand quotes.

During lunch, there was a tribute to Dr Fiona Subotsky past medical director of the Maudsley and Honorary Treasurer and Honorary Archivist of the RCPsych and past President of Medical Women’s Federation by our President, Dr Lade Smith CBE and Fiona also spoke about her groundbreaking career before cutting her cake which included a nod to her one of her books, Dracula for Doctors.

After lunch, Dr Pearl Hettiaratchy past Vice President of the RCPsych presented the essay and poster prizes before speaking at the third plenary, 'Women in Medical Leadership'. We heard about her trailblazing career across six decades of psychiatry including a video clip about her vindication after medical managers were referred to the ombudsman after ignoring her advice about the discharge of vulnerable elderly patients from hospital to private nursing care. Then Professor Susan Bewley spoke about her family history and career in obstetrics in conversation with Dr Saadia Muffazar, including advice from her father and past President of RCPsych Dr Thomas Bewley about expressing hostility tactfully which is not always easy to stick to!

The final plenary was 'Listening to Elder Activists' chaired by co-Presidential lead for women, Dr Philippa Greenfield. We heard from Ann Furedi, past CEO of BPAS about abortion rights and changes she has seen as to how women view abortion during her career. The final session was Hannana Siddiqui from Southall Black Sisters talking about the history of this organisation and their work which includes activism against honour-based violence and fighting for rights of migrant women with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) who are especially vulnerable to domestic violence.

We had lively and interesting questions from the audience, both on-line and in the room and were able to discuss some potentially difficult topics openly and with respect. We had some lovely feedback, including that it was 'riveting', 'joyous', 'vibrant' and had a 'palpable sense of community', 'like finding your own tribe'.

We want to build on this in 2024. The WMHSIG has well-established and active working groups addressing Violence Against Women and Girls and for Complex Caring Responsibilities both of which contribute hugely in areas of education and policy within the College and more widely. We are making plans for our 2024 conference which will be about trauma and the female body. There are also some plans about a webinar looking at how the criminal justice system can be harmful for women and women’s mental health. We have had an internal webinar about the importance of single sex spaces for women to help us think about and understand data in this area. We are contributing to College work around the menopause and the gender pay gap.

I am particularly looking forward to International Women’s Day as WMHSIG chair, and our webinar which I have helped organise alongside the WMHSIG finance officer Dr Katie Clyde and the Presidential Leads for Women, Dr Philippa Greenfield and Dr Cath Durkin. The theme is, 'Still the Second Sex? Data, Disaggregation and Discrimination'. We have amazing speakers including Dame Lesley Regan who will speak about her work as Women’s Ambassador for the national Women’s Health Strategy including the importance of data and also Professor Alice Sullivan who will speak about her work leading a government review analysing the collection of research and statistics by all pubic bodies on sex and gender. Dr Greenfield and Dr Durkin will also talk about their future Women’s Mental Health Matters strategy.

I will finish with a couple of quotes from Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex which was of course the part of the inspiration for our IWD webinar title.

“The division of the sexes is a biological given, not a moment in human history… this is the fundamental characteristic of woman: she is the Other at the heart of a whole.”

“…we will describe the world from the woman’s point of view such as it is offered to her and we will see the difficulties women are up against.”

It is the woman’s point of view within the mental health sphere that I think is important for WMHSIG. To understand this, we must listen to women; we must have good quality data and evidence; and we must understand that this focus takes time and resource to do properly.

By Dr Stella Kingett