‘I’ve been dragged through the mud for years now... I have been publicly humiliated, lied about and abused every single day for years’
Dr Jessica Taylor is a leading expert in her field, BUT says she still faces challenges in life Because of her Upbringing on a council estate on the ‘fringes’ of Stoke-on-trent
WOMEN’S rights campaigner Dr Jessica Taylor was brought up in poverty in the Potteries and was still a teenager when she became pregnant with her first child.
But despite the hardship she has faced, the 33-year-old is now a psychologist with a PHD from a renowned university, and a Sunday Times bestselling author with three books under her belt.
But she says her peers in the world of psychology still look down on her because of her working-class background. She claims to have been shamed by many people during her career because she openly talks about what it was like to grow up poor in a deprived city.
The mum-of-two mental health professional, who lives with her teenage sons and wife, says she’s now proud of her council estate upbringing, even though that wasn’t always the case.
She wrote on X: “I remember growing up poor as **** and hating living on a council estate. Now I love that I grew up there cos it gave me the connection to real poverty & real life I need to be a great psychologist and activist. Ain’t enough of us in this field,”
Speaking to Mailonline, Dr Taylor – a self-confessed swot at school – revealed it was this classism in her field of academia that led to her writing her latest book, Underclass, which has just been published.
She said: “I never expected to be framed as stupid, dangerous and unsophisticated just because of where I come from and my childhood.” Writing on X, she added: “I’ve been dragged through the mud for years now. I’ve been isolated and outcast repeatedly. I’ve been publicly humiliated, lied about and abused every single day for years.”
Dr Taylor also told the BBC’S Woman’s Hour, she was told to stop talking about her upbringing altogether, as well as the abuse she faced and her teenage pregnancy.
It wasn’t until one colleague allegedly sent an email to Dr Taylor’s entire department saying she would ‘bring the entire field into disrepute’ because of her background that she realised her past wasn’t so far behind her.
“I just couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said. “I thought I was here because I was smart, I thought I was here because I was capable.”
But as far as her colleagues were concerned being raised poor meant Dr Taylor wasn’t ‘one of them’. Despite this, Dr Taylor says her upbringing gives her more of an ‘edge’ as a psychologist.
“I have been in situations that other people have only read about,” she said. It’s these hard-hitting experiences that she said make her better at her job, not worse.
Now Dr Taylor, who attended Kingsfield First School, hopes to bring attention to the classism people face in her field of work, as well as in UK universities.
She said: “So many working class academics and professionals are treated like they are thick, uncouth, uncivilised and incompetent.
“The class system in the UK is one of the worst in the world – and we barely even speak of it.”