6. Check Your Privilege

Because the action takes place in London's poorest and most diverse neighborhoods, the midwives are often confronted with situations in which they need to reassess their perspectives. Past seasons have highlighted the discrimination faced by women of color shunned by their mostly white neighbors, but nothing hit quite so hard as this season, when a pregnant Somali woman presents for her check up and gets lectured because she is unaware that the female circumcision she was forced into having as a child isn't the norm in her new country. What's more, when her birth doesn't quite go as planned, she is told that she's now "repaired," because the male doctor has set the damage right. No man will ever cut her again. Now, let's be clear — I'm not endorsing forced female circumcision. But what could have been a problematic episode is turned on its head, when that very same woman replies that in her country, women keep their name and are proud of who they are. The person who performed the ritual was a woman, not a man. Her customs are her own, even if they have caused her unspeakable pain.