Every time a female scientist, historian or economist pops up being interviewed on the news, my husband asks: ‘Is she one of yours ’? And often she is…’one of mine ’.
I was the presenter coach for the BBCs Expert Women training days that took place across the UK. And many of the very talented women who we coached are now regular faces and voices on TV & radio.
So when I see them pop up on-screen, I do feel a sense of almost-parental pride in seeing how well they’ve done. They’ve been on Newsnight, hosted their own Radio 4 programmes, fronted documentaries. So many of them have found their place in the industry.
The idea behind the days was to up the number of women appearing as experts in traditionally male-dominated areas – science, politics, business etc.. Various studies had shown that programmes on all networks were often weighted heavily with male voices. This training was supposed to give women the confidence to redress the balance and put themselves forward to be interviewed rather than pass the journalist over to a male colleague. And confidence was definitely what some of them needed.
It’s seems so strange that someone can be super-qualified with umpteen letters after their name, be a leading expert in some amazing scientific or legal field – and still worry they’re not qualified to be an expert on television.
That was the common theme between many of the women that turned up to be trained. They felt they didn’t have the right to be the expert; they were imposters. The amount of qualifications in the room but the lack of confidence was astonishing.
So what’s happened to them that means they can now happily say yes to TV appearances? Watch the video and find out for yourself.
Click play on the video above for a film about the training days – you can see me in action at the beginning!
