We have been bringing you women's voices from Israel and Gaza since the start of the war. Yesterday, you will have heard on the programme Rachel Goldberg, mother of a 23-year-old hostage Hersh Goldberg Polin, kidnapped by Hamas from a music festival in Israel. Today, we hear from a mother in Gaza. Nour Swirki is a journalist with two children living in Khan Younis, a city in the southern strip of Gaza, with her husband, mother and sister - they have had to leave their home in Gaza City for safet...
Nov 09, 2023•58 min
Jilly Cooper began her career as a journalist, wrote columns on marriage, sex and housework for the Sunday Times, and numerous works of non-fiction before turning to romance novels - to great success. She has sold more than two million copies of her books including: Riders, Rivals, and Polo - taking us into the glamorous worlds of show jumping and classical music. Her latest novel Tackle! takes us to the football pitch and features her legendary hero Rupert Campbell-Black. Jilly joins Emma to ta...
Nov 08, 2023•57 min
Caster Semenya is one of the most decorated athletes of her generation but she is also one of the most scrutinised. The South African shot to fame in 2009 after winning the 800 metres at the World Championships in Berlin. Her performance was so astonishing it was met with questions about her sex and gender, with some asking publicly if she was really a woman. Caster's career, for all its highs, has been defined by a battle between her and the sport's governing body World Athletics about her righ...
Nov 07, 2023•56 min
An unidentified Conservative MP has been accused of rape by several women. These allegations are mentioned in a new book by former cabinet secretary Nadine Dorries. It comes after reports the Conservative party's former chairman, Sir Jake Berry, wrote to the police to make them aware of the claims after leaving the post last year. The deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, has denied a cover-up by the party when he was the chairman. Emma Barnett hears the reaction of Isabel Hardman, Assistant Edi...
Nov 06, 2023•57 min
This week, the Maternity Safety Alliance group has called for a full statutory public inquiry into maternity safety in England. They joined Jess to explain why they’re calling for this inquiry as did Presenter Krupa Padhy, who has produced a documentary on Radio 4 which investigates this issue. Writer and comedian Alison Larkin avoided love most of her adult life but in her 50s, she found true love for the first time with an Indian climate scientist. Then he died. Alison joins Krupa to tell her ...
Nov 04, 2023•54 min
There is huge pressure in the rental market and women are being hit hardest of all, according to The Financial Times. Average rents have increased so much that “there are almost no affordable one-bedroom lets in London and the East of England for the average single mother”, according to ONS and rental market data analysed by the Financial Times. Women, and especially single mothers, are being forced to relocate away from networks of family and friends and even their children’s schools, in order ...
Nov 03, 2023•54 min
Former deputy cabinet secretary Helen McNamara gave evidence at the Covid Inquiry yesterday, saying that she thought that the culture in Number 10 was toxic and sexist. She was particularly critical of the explicit and misogynistic language the former chief advisor Dominic Cummings used to describe her. Krupa Padhy is joined by Lucy Fisher, Whitehall Editor for The Financial Times, and Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, to discuss what this says about the treatment of wo...
Nov 02, 2023•56 min
As the Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit starts at Bletchley Park today, we look at the growing issue of AI generated child sexual abuse imagery. Jessica Creighton speaks to Emma Hardy from the Internet Watch Foundation and to Professor Gina Neff, Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at Cambridge University. Science writer and poker player Alex O’Brien explores how the game's rules and strategies could help us to navigate the world, in her new book The Truth...
Nov 01, 2023•57 min
A group of families affected by failures in NHS maternity care are calling for a full statutory public inquiry into maternity safety in England. Emily Barley from the Maternity Safety Alliance group told Jessica Creighton why she thinks fundamental reform is needed. And presenter Krupa Padhy draws on her own personal story of baby loss in her BBC Radio 4 investigation, How safe is maternity care? The Covid inquiry is already under way and has heard about an internal report into the culture at th...
Oct 31, 2023•57 min
Bianca Williams and her partner, fellow athlete Ricardo dos Santos, were stopped outside their home in London in July 2020. They had their three-month-old baby with them in their car. Both were handcuffed and searched on suspicion of having drugs and weapons. None were found and neither was arrested. A police Misconduct Hearing was held involving the five officers present. Last week that hearing found that two Met officers must be sacked as the stop and search was found to have amounted to gross...
Oct 30, 2023•58 min
Leigh-Anne Pinnock - a name you may know, as a member of one of the biggest girl bands in the world, Little Mix. This year - almost two years since the band announced a hiatus - Leigh-Anne has embarked on her own solo career. She tells Anita Rani about her new memoir Believe, all about her life growing up, what it was really like going through The X Factor and how she found her voice. Ukraine claims it has identified 20,000 children who it alleges have been abducted by Russia since the start of ...
Oct 28, 2023•56 min
Leigh-Anne Pinnock has embarked on her own solo career, almost two years after her band, Little Mix, called a hiatus - and has already released two songs. Now she's got a new book out, Believe, all about her life growing up, what it was really like going through the X Factor and how she found her voice. She joins Anita Rani to discuss it all. The Black British Book Festival is now in its third year. It aims to celebrate new and emerging Black British authors across all genres of literature. To f...
Oct 27, 2023•56 min
Britney Spears has been in the news again after spilling personal stories in a memoir. Are women being pressured to overshare in order to sell books? And are men also expected to publicise their personal lives? Nina Stibbe, whose newest memoir is Went to London, Took the Dog, and Caroline Sanderson, Associate Editor of The Bookseller, joined Emma Barnett to discuss. Mary Turner Thomson found writing a memoir cathartic after discovering that her husband, William Allen Jordan, was not a spy as she...
Oct 26, 2023•57 min
As the Israel-Gaza war continues, aid groups are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as power shortages threaten the lives of vulnerable patients, including women and children. UN agencies have estimated that one-third of hospitals in Gaza and nearly two-thirds of primary health care clinics have had to shut due to damage or a lack of fuel. The Israeli government says Hamas is stock-piling thousands of litres of fuel. The biggest aid provider in Gaza, the UN, says its fuel will run out tonight, unle...
Oct 25, 2023•58 min
Liza Mundy is the bestselling author of Code Girls, a book about the American women who broke codes during the Second World War. Her new book details the lives of spies and intelligence agents behind some of the biggest operations in postwar history including locating Osama bin Laden, and rescuing the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Around 80 Israeli rights groups have signed a letter calling on the organisation UN Women to condemn acts of violence against women by Hamas. The letter was add...
Oct 24, 2023•58 min
Ukraine claims it has identified 20,000 children who it alleges have been abducted by Russia since the start of the war. Arrest warrants have been issued to President Putin and his Commissioner for Children's Rights. It's the subject of the latest work from film maker Shahida Tulaganova, whose documentary Ukraine's Stolen Children airs on ITV tonight. Now you may have heard of German composer Felix Mendelssohn but what about his sister, Fanny? A composer in her own right, Fanny was long ignored ...
Oct 23, 2023•57 min
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has launched a ratings system to let patients see which IVF add-ons are backed-up by evidence. Emma Barnett is joined by Professor Tim Child, chair of the HFEA's Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee, and Jessica Hepburn, who spent over £70,000 on unsuccessful fertility procedures. In October 2019, Coleen Rooney was concerned by articles appearing in newspapers that could only have come from stories on her private Instagram ac...
Oct 21, 2023•54 min
A new report out today from the CQC - the Care Quality Commission - says that almost two thirds of maternity units provide dangerously substandard care that puts women and babies at risk. It has rated 65% of maternity services in England as either "inadequate" or "requires improvement", an increase from 54% last year. And yesterday saw the first debate in Parliament about birth trauma and the injuries suffered by some women in labour. The Conservative MP Theo Clarke has campaigned for better sup...
Oct 20, 2023•53 min
Dr Lisa Cameron was the SNP MP for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow from 2015 until a week ago when she decided to join the Conservative Party. She has described the move as equivalent to leaving an abusive marriage. In her first radio interview since her defection, she joins Emma Barnett to discuss what led to her making this decision. Listeners who have been through IVF treatment will be familiar the extra – and often very expensive – add-on services that many clinics recommend. The Hu...
Oct 19, 2023•57 min
If the current polls are to be believed the next chancellor of the exchequer could be a woman. That woman would be Rachel Reeves, the current shadow chancellor and the MP for Leeds West. Originally from Lewisham, South London, she attended a state school, made it to Oxford University then into the world of finance working as an economist for the Bank of England. Labour have yet to announce their manifesto and detailed costed policies to put to the electorate, but we can examine the philosophy be...
Oct 18, 2023•57 min
As the war in Israel and Gaza heads into its 10th day, Emma talks about the role of hostages in this conflict with Rachel Briggs the CEO of Clarity Factory and an associate fellow at Chatham House. BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet also provides an update about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Are we becoming afraid of our phones? A recent survey suggest half of 12 to 26 year olds don't answer the phone to their parents and a third of them feel awkward speaking on the phone ...
Oct 17, 2023•57 min
The queen of pop returned to London's O2 this weekend for her Celebration Tour, performing more than 40 songs from her four-decade career. During her opening performance on Saturday, 65-year-old Madonna thanked her children for supporting her while she was ill earlier this year with a 'serious bacterial infection' which saw her admitted to intensive care for several days and forced her to postpone the tour. Some of her children then joined her on stage. Emma Barnett speaks to two women who were ...
Oct 16, 2023•56 min
Dawn French has been making people laugh as a writer, comedian and actor, for more than 30 years. Her celebrated shows include French and Saunders, The Vicar of Dibley, and Jam and Jerusalem. She joins Emma Barnett to discuss her new book about the hilarious gaffes that she has made in life, as part of her one-woman mission to celebrate what it means to be gloriously, messily human, rather than striving for Instagram-style-perfection. It’s one of the things we’re most embarrassed to talk about –...
Oct 14, 2023•53 min
Shirley Ballas is best known for being one of the judges on BBC Strictly Come Dancing and her stellar career in Latin dance that earnt her the title, ‘Queen of Latin’. She joins Krupa to talk about Strictly, the menopause and her new book, Murder on the Dancefloor. Last weekend’s earthquake in Western Afghanistan killed 1,300 people and injured many more according to UN figures. UNICEF have said more than 90% of those who died were women and children, as they were more likely to have been at hom...
Oct 13, 2023•57 min
Nearly 350,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, since Israel launched retaliatory air strikes and created a blockade of the area. In Gaza's hospitals, where thousands of people are being treated, power is running out. Women and children are chief among those affected. Emma speaks to Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Najla Shawa, a humanitarian worker who lives in the west side of Gaza City with her family and Adele Raemer, a grandmother in Israel. Emmy winning actor, L...
Oct 12, 2023•57 min
We heard reports last night from Israel that a massacre had taken place at the weekend in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Women and children were among the dead and we were told that beheadings had happened too. A group of journalists were taken to the scene by Israeli soldiers. Emma is joined by Bel Trew, Chief International Correspondent for the Independent, who was one of the journalists. And, focusing on women's lives in the region, Emma speaks to Adele Raemer, who survived an attack on her home, and we h...
Oct 11, 2023•57 min
After the Hamas attacks at the weekend and Israel’s order of a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip in response, we talk to two people from the different communities involved. A few years ago, Bassam Aramin lost his 10-year-old daughter, Abir, who was killed by an Israeli soldier, and Robi Damelin lost her 28 year old son, David, after he was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Neither were killed in this latest stage of the Israel-Gaza conflict but as members of a cross-community group called the Par...
Oct 10, 2023•55 min
Images of children, mothers and grandmothers are flooding media and social media two days after a coordinated attack by Hamas on Israel. Israel has since declared war. Emma Barnett speaks to the BBC's Anna Foster, who is in Israel, not far from Gaza, who talks about the impact on women on both sides of the conflict. Also Emma hears from the son of a 74-year-old Israeli former headmistress and Arabic teacher who is believed by her family to have been kidnapped from her home, and Alicia Kearns MP,...
Oct 09, 2023•58 min
Female teenage soldier Jaysley Beck is believed to have taken her own life after a period of relentless sexual harassment from one of her bosses, an Army investigation has found. Gunner Beck was serving in the Royal Artillery and was found dead at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire in December 2021. Her mother, Leighann McCready, speaks to Emma Barnett. Nicknamed 'the Taylor Swift of classical music', Anna Lapwood is one of the world's most famous organists, and Director of Music at Pembroke College, Ca...
Oct 07, 2023•54 min
We hear from food writer Grace Dent about her new book, Comfort Eating, inspired by her podcast of the same name. She'll explain why she's so fascinated by the foods to make us feel better behind closed doors. The Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat’s latest work is called The Fury. It is a short film and series of photographs which explore the sexual exploitation of female political prisoners in Iran. Shirin left Iran as a teenager to study in the US and has lived in exile there since the 1990s...
Oct 06, 2023•58 min
