Is Our Justice System Failing Women? With Barrister Charlotte Proudman

**Mia Sorenti** (0:00)
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, Where Great Minds Meet. I'm producer Mia Sorenti.
Recent high-profile legal disputes with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have renewed public debates about gender, power and credibility in the courts. But beyond the celebrity cases lies a deeper question. How fairly does the justice system treat women? In this episode, Mythili Rao speaks to barrister Charlotte Proudman about the gender bias and misogyny she argues remain embedded in our legal system. Drawing on her work in the family courts, Proudman examines how women seeking protection from domestic abuse, forced marriage, child abduction and female genital mutilation can be failed by processes that were not designed around their experiences. Together, they explore the culture of the legal profession, the treatment of survivors in the family courts, and the reforms Proudman believes are needed to secure fairer outcomes. At its center is a question about justice itself. How can equality before the law become more than ideal? This conversation contains strong language and discussions of adult themes including misogyny, sexual and domestic abuse.
Let's join our host, Mythili Rao, now with more.

**Mythili Rao** (1:13)
You're listening to Intelligence Squared. I'm Mythili Rao. Today, I'm speaking with Barister Charlotte Proudman about her new book, He Said, She Said.
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, Charlotte.

**Charlotte Proudman** (1:24)
Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to speak with you.

**Mythili Rao** (1:27)
Charlotte, this is a very eye-opening book. You write in really devastating detail about how women and children who are trapped in abusive dynamics at home, then so often experience still more suffering as they try to navigate a legal system that is supposed to afford them some protection.
There are a lot of heartbreaking stories in this book, but what also comes across very clearly in the book is how much you relish your role as an advocate, and how gratifying this work can be, particularly when you find opportunities not just to help individual clients, but to make changes in the system, small or big. I wondered if you could start with your desire to be a barrister, which emerged at a pretty young age for you. Can you talk about your childhood background and your journey into the legal field?

**Charlotte Proudman** (2:19)
Yes. For me, I come from a non-traditional law background. I was brought up by my mom, a single parent. My father died when I was four, which is obviously quite a formative experience at such a young age. He was an alcoholic and violent.
I think reflecting back on some of those experiences, writing the book, which my editor really encouraged, I think it helped me trace perhaps my journey from a child to a teenager, adolescent to now, obviously, as an adult, as to how I've ended up where I have. So, as I say, my father is an alcoholic and violent, and then he died in a car accident in which he was drunk and killed another woman as well.
And obviously, that would have had a profound impact upon me as a child, being exposed to abuse within the household. And I think as a result of that, it's made me more understanding and empathetic with the women and children I represent in family courts, and wanting to advocate on their behalf to ensure that they do obtain the protection that they say desperately require, and that the law does provide some semblance of justice for them as well. So I think that my very early childhood experience has definitely been a motivator. And within law as well, I think, you know, particularly undertaking work experience within that field, I was able to see how very few young women from non-traditional law backgrounds, particularly from working class backgrounds and state school educated, that actually are in the legal field, and how important it is to have more diversity so that the legal profession actually represents the society and people that, you know, we go into court and fight for and advocate for every day.

**Mythili Rao** (4:16)
It was a bit shocking to read about people who actively discouraged you from this line of work, taking the assumption that you had the wrong kind of background, you had the wrong profile, you weren't going to make it. There were several times where people who were supposed to be teachers or mentors just said, no, you can't do it. I was really struck by that.
I don't know if you wanted to say anything about that as well.

**Charlotte Proudman** (4:38)
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, going to a state school growing up in Leek and Saftridge is a small, very, very small town. It's one of those places where everyone knows everyone. And you walk around the town and you recognize the same phases. And you'll have some sort of connection with people within that small town. And I'd never met a barrister before I went off to university and did work experience. So I can understand, I suppose, within my school that, say, you wanted to be a lawyer or solicitor or barrister or so forth, there's probably quite an alien concept in many ways. So I remember my teacher, when we were discussing as a class, what we wanted to do when we got older. And I said at that point, I wanted to be a solicitor.