PC Andrew Harper’s widow Lissie says she has cabinet support for a new law – under which anyone who kills an emergency services worker would be jailed for life. PC Andrew Harper was killed last summer in the line of duty. The three teenagers who were responsible for his death were jailed for manslaughter. She joins Jane to talk about why she’s campaigning for a new law – under which anyone who kills an emergency services worker would be jailed for life. Blogger Stephanie Yeboah has been a part o...
Sep 08, 2020•48 min
What do we know so far about COVID – clinically and scientifically – in women, including those who are pregnant. Jane talks to Professor Louise Kenny a clinical academic from Liverpool Women’s Hospital We’ve all heard of ‘tidy desk, tidy mind’ but is there any truth in the well-known phrase? With all of us spending more time at home during lockdown, many people used that time to have a clear out and get rid of some clutter. After so many TV shows appearing where we watch people tidy others’ hous...
Sep 08, 2020•49 min
Forty years since Willy Russell’s play Educating Rita was first performed we hear from some real life Rita’s, Willy Russell and Julie Walters on the films influence Sam Baker, the former editor of Cosmopolitan and Red and author of The Shift, Kelechi Okafor who’s an actor, director and podcaster and the journalist, Rebecca Reid, who’s written The Power of Rude on how to be assertive without coming across as angry and unapproachable . We hear how a book, A Match Made in Heaven, featuring stories ...
Sep 05, 2020•57 min
Hilary Swank, the two time Oscar-winning actress of Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, stars in new Netflix drama Away. She plays Commander Emma Green who leaves behind her husband and daughter to lead an international crew of astronauts on a perilous three-year mission to Mars. She talks to Jane about being an astronaut, dealing with claustrophobia, caring for her Dad, Devon cream teas, and parrots. 1 in 4 women will lose a baby during pregnancy or birth. During lockdown NHS maternity serv...
Sep 04, 2020•47 min
In the latest of our How to guides, we discuss the art of being assertive and explore why it can be so difficult for women to stand up for themselves, assert their own needs and make themselves heard. Jenni is joined by journalist and author of the Power of Rude, Rebecca Reid, Journalist, broadcaster and author of The Shift, Sam Baker, and actor, podcaster and writer Kelechi Okafor. Recently we spoke to 16 year old Rhea in Shetland about the stories she had collected about sexual violence in her...
Sep 03, 2020•48 min
The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, talks to Jenni about working with women in the community to help combat violent crime. She wants both the victims of things like domestic abuse and knife crime and those around them have the confidence to speak out about what’s happening in their area. She’s been working closely with mothers who’ve lost children to violence and is exploring how the Force can work with them to help protect our young people from being drawn in to, or beco...
Sep 02, 2020•45 min
Annette Bening stars in a new film 'Hope Gap' about the collapse of a marriage after 29 years. She joins Jane to discuss the disintegration of that union. The Covid realities project from York and Birmingham universities chronicles the experiences of low-income families during the lockdown period. Jane hears about the project from Dr Maddy Power, Research Fellow at the University of York and founder of the York Food Justice Alliance, and from Shirley who is taking part in the project. Ann Cleeve...
Sep 01, 2020•51 min
This summer marks 40 years since Willy Russell’s landmark play Educating Rita was first performed. The funny and moving story of a 26 year-old Liverpudlian hairdresser studying for an Open University degree has barely been off stage since. Dame Julie Walters played the lead role in both the original theatrical production and the later film, for which she was Oscar-nominated. She joins Jane to talk about what playing the role has meant to her, and how much Rita/Susan’s experience chimed with her ...
Aug 31, 2020•43 min
Louise Somerville thinks we need to talk more about nits. She feels that increasingly schools are inconsistent in how much they help parents deal with nits and that clear advice is lacking. We ask how best to deal with nits and head lice, and the stigma attached, and why it matters. With entomologist Richard Jones and Joanna Ibarra from Community Hygiene Concern. Daisy Leigh was 23 when she felt an unfamiliar kicking sensation and was shocked to discover she was 30 weeks pregnant. She had just t...
Aug 29, 2020•56 min
Presented by Jenni Murray. A 16 year-old young woman looking at universities came across the St Andrews Survivors page on Instagram with more than 100 stories of sexual assault. She only read a couple but consequently wiped St Andrews off her potential university list. Her mother, a Woman’s Hour listener, wrote to us to saying she felt universities are not doing enough to address this problem, and was concerned with the impact this could have on young women going to university. Jenni is joined b...
Aug 28, 2020•46 min
LISTENER WEEK: Josie Channer and Teresa Devereux are both listeners who felt that they had to write novels about what they’d experienced through their work. Josie’s written Diary of a Prison Officer and Teresa’s based her novel Broken Lives on what she saw and heard as a social worker. They tell Jane about how they published their work and what they hope readers will get out of their books. Sarah Fraser is an associate professor at Princess Nourah Bint University in Riyadh, the largest female-on...
Aug 27, 2020•51 min
Marva Yates who lives in London got in touch because she wanted us to talk about the importance of sisterhood throughout history... Marva and her sister Sabrina – who currently lives in New York - started the @sistoryuntold podcast about it during lockdown. They wanted not only to learn more about those often forgotten women of history but to show that support, both good and bad, from the “sisterhood” can be a crucial part of success. Shortly after turning 50, Jo Hogger was made redundant from h...
Aug 26, 2020•53 min
Would you consider walking 880 miles around the Wales Coastal Path? Two listeners, Helen and Rhian, tell us about their experiences, and they are joined by academic Kerri Andrews, author of Wanderers: A History of Women Walking. Daisy Leigh was 23 when she felt an unfamiliar kicking sensation and was shocked to discover she was 30 weerks pregnant. She had just two months to prepare, mentally and practically, for becoming a mother. Nine months on, she says her daughter is the best thing that's ev...
Aug 26, 2020•54 min
All you need to know about nits
Aug 25, 2020•12 min
Women and Paddling: kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding, rafting what are the attractions, what is involved, how can paddle sports help physical and mental health and where are women in these water sports? Following an email from a Woman’s Hour Listener who is passionate about women paddling, Jane speaks to Cadi Lambert, who runs the ShePaddles programme for British Canoeing, and Emma Kitchen, who has started training to be a coach to help people improve their paddle skills and is returning to p...
Aug 24, 2020•52 min
Becky's father went to prison for sex offences against children. For a BBC documentary, Can Sex Offenders Change?, Becky met three sex offenders who didn’t go to jail, but had rehabilitation treatment in the community. We hear from Becky and Professor Belinda Whynder, Research Director Centre for Crime Offending, Prevention and Engagement at Nottingham Trent University and a co-founder of the charity Safer Living Foundation. Former Love Island contestant Camilla Thurlow worked in explosive ordin...
Aug 22, 2020•56 min
Marion ‘Crawfie’ Crawford was a young Scottish trainee teacher who wanted to educate children in the slums of Edinburgh but ended up as governess to a young Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret. How much did she influence and shape their lives? Writer Wendy Holden on how she's brought her story to life, in a new novel ‘The Governess: She Came from Nothing and Raised a Queen ’. Earlier this year Rhea, a sixteen year old girl from Shetland, put out an appeal using an anonymous app, to anyone...
Aug 21, 2020•49 min
Described as a ‘tender portrayal of experiencing dementia in lockdown’ Watching Rosie is an online play starring Miriam Margolyes. Portraying grandmother Alice, and Louise Coulthard, her granddaughter Rosie, Miriam joins Jenni to discuss the bond between the two as they face change and confusion. Sinead Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with terrifying secret. No one knows it; not her fellow patients in hospital, and certainly not her family. She’s only confided in a shiny...
Aug 20, 2020•46 min
Advice on supporting your child's mental health during the Coronavirus pandemic
Aug 19, 2020•8 min
Three producers on the Ellen DeGeneres Show in the US have been fired amid allegations of misconduct and sexual harassment and reports that it was a "toxic workplace". As one of the highest paid and popular stars on TV Ellen ends her talk show with the catch phrase "be kind to one another". What is the impact on her popularity and reputation following the sackings? Jenni speaks to New York-based journalist and broadcaster Jane Mulkerrins. At the age of 23, Camilla Thurlow was accepted by the HAL...
Aug 19, 2020•45 min
Becky’s father was convicted of sex offences against children and sent to prison. He has since been released but while in prison he undertook a sex offender rehabilitation programme. For a BBC documentary Can Sex Offenders Change? Becky meets a growing number of sex offenders who have not been sent to prison, and have received treatment in the community. She tries to understand what drove them to commit these horrific crimes, whilst seeing what treatment is available to stop them committing any ...
Aug 18, 2020•48 min
Fawzia Koofi, a member of Afghanistan's peace negotiating team survived an assassination attempt on Friday. This come after the Afghan government announced a new council to safeguard women's rights and interests, amid fears peace talks with the Taliban could lead to the loss of hard-won gains. Mahjooba Nowrouzi from the BBC Afghan Service explains. In 1973, Julie Welch became the first woman to report on football for a British national newspaper. In her new book 'The Fleet Street Girls' she talk...
Aug 17, 2020•49 min
On VJ Day we hear from Patricia and Jean Owtram who both served their country while their father was a prisoner of war in the Far East. We discuss the findings of the BBC Sport Elite British Sportswomen's survey 2020 published this week. Karen Maine tells us about her new film Yes God, Yes about 16 year old Alice growing up a Catholic and attending Catholic school in the early noughties in the American mid-west. Plus as President Alexander Lukashenko is re-elected in Belarus, we talk about the w...
Aug 15, 2020•43 min
To mark VJ Day 75 we’ll be speaking to two sisters, Patricia and Jean Owtram whose father was a prisoner of war in the Far East. At the time both sisters were serving their country. They are the last two living sisters to have signed the official secrets act in WW2. Patricia received a Legion of Honour for her interception of enigma code for Bletchley park as a WREN tapping into German shipping radio while Jean was a code & cipher officer in Egypt and Italy supporting secret agents and parti...
Aug 14, 2020•46 min
With nightlife on pause during lockdown how have DJs been adapting? DJ Flight has been at the forefront of drum and bass for over two decades. Signed to Goldie’s label Metalheadz, she’s played all over the world and is founder of EQ50, a project aimed at improving gender equality in drum and bass. Ngaio Anyia is a singer and DJ from Bristol who runs Booty Bass, a collective who offer DJ lessons for women. Jenni talks to them about livestreams and how their work has changed with COVID-19. With cl...
Aug 13, 2020•47 min
Alexandra Wilson on her new book “In Black and White”. The story of breaking down barriers of race and class to become a barrister. She explains how losing a very close family friend to knife crime made her pursue a career in law and how she has overcome her family’s fears of becoming “part of the system” Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for President in this year’s US elections has finally named his running mate as Kamala Harris. Senator for California, she was Biden’s former rival for the Dem...
Aug 12, 2020•43 min
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for Britain and France to work together to stop migrant boats crossing the Channel to Dover. On Friday a record number of unaccompanied migrant children arrived in the UK. The 23 youths were taken into the care of Kent County Council, on top of the 70 who arrived in July. According to the latest Home Office Statistics 90% of young (under 18) unaccompanied refugees who come in to the UK every year are male. What happens to the ten percent who are female? We...
Aug 11, 2020•46 min
Presented by Jenni Murray. Every few days we hear of more jobs going. The Bank of England said at the end of last week that unemployment is likely to hit 2.5 million this year. That means the jobless total would almost double by Christmas. Tonight there’s a Channel 4 documentary series starting which focuses on a job centre in Leeds and the people who use it. Jenni is joined by Olivia, who is a single mother mum and unemployed, Jan Baxter, who works at the jobcentre in Leeds and Helen Barnard, A...
Aug 10, 2020•44 min
The multi award winning writer Zadie Smith on 'Intimations', a collection of personal essays about lockdown. Photo courtesy of Dominique Nabokov. The rise in families with children under 5 needing help from baby banks has risen significantly since the pandemic began. We hear from Lauren Elrick who has a fifteen month old daughter and uses Abernecessities in Aberdeenshire. Sophia Parker, chief executive of Little Village baby bank in London and Tracy Thorn, an NHS family nurse. A television tampo...
Aug 08, 2020•57 min
Would you stand up for your mate if she was being discriminated against? Would you stick up for her, even if it caused you problems? Today we discuss how to be a good ally. Whether it’s racism, sexism or homophobia what’s the best way to speak up and support your friends? We're joined by Chloe Laws from Glamour Magazine, Richie Brave who presents Brave Conversations on BBC 1Xtra, and Danielle Dash who's a freelance writer. Victoria Cilliers’ story made headlines in 2015. We heard how her husband...
Aug 07, 2020•47 min
