Over half of female footballers book pitches, only to find they’ve been reallocated to men. With twice as many women as men considering quitting the sport because of this, Arsenal forward and England Lioness Beth Mead tells Nuala McGovern about her concerns. A BBC investigation published today has highlighted the concerns of parents of vulnerable children sent hours away from home for urgent eating disorder treatment. They say there isn’t enough specialist mental health hospital care available l...
May 15, 2024•57 min
How many women have decided not to have more children after a traumatic birth? The UK’s first inquiry into traumatic childbirth has found that too often poor care is normalised, with devastating effects on women’s mental and physical health. Nuala McGovern talks to one Woman’s Hour listener who decided she couldn’t face having another child after a traumatic birth, and to the author of the report, Dr Kim Thomas, about its recommendations. Journalist Decca Aitkenhead regularly sleepwalks. She tal...
May 14, 2024•57 min
A female officer in the military says she was raped by a senior officer who was responsible in the Royal Navy for behaviours and values, including sexual consent. Speaking exclusively to Woman’s Hour, the female officer, who we are calling Joanna, reported the incident and her allegations to the military police who brought charges against the officer. However, the Services Prosecution Authority later said that they wouldn’t be taking the case forward to a military court. The female officer, who ...
May 13, 2024•55 min
The number of children in care is continuing to rise each year, and thousands of new foster carers are needed. The comedian and writer Kiri Pritchard-McLean has done just that. During lockdown, Kiri and her partner embarked on a journey to become foster carers in north Wales and she’s ‘evangelical’ about the role. It’s the subject of her new seven-month comedy tour, Peacock. The debate on assisted dying is often framed around the issues of choice for the terminally ill, but what about the rights...
May 11, 2024•52 min
Five babies have died from whooping cough this year as cases continue to rise in England. Medical doctor Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who currently has whooping cough herself, joins Clare McDonnell to discuss. Author, journalist and campaigner Dame Shirley Conran has died aged 91, days after receiving her damehood. Journalist Felicia Bromfield joins Clare to discuss her legacy. What would happen if you could only speak the truth – and not even tell white lies? That’s the subject of a new book by Radhika Sa...
May 10, 2024•57 min
The debate on assisted dying is often framed around the issues of choice for the terminally ill, but what about the rights of the disabled ? Actor and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr has major concerns about potential changes to the law that she believes could leave people with disabilities at risk. She joins Clare McDonnell to discuss her documentary “Better Off Dead” which explores the debate from the perspective of disabled people. Singer songwriter Rachel Chinouriri is one of the music...
May 09, 2024•53 min
Now that women’s sport is advancing, we need clear safeguarding rules for women and girls about what is and isn’t okay when it comes to talking about female health outside the realm of medicine. That’s the call from Baz Moffat, one of the co-founders of The Well HQ, which aims to break barriers in women’s sport and champion education about female health. She joins Hayley Hassell to tell us more about their new Safer Sport poster campaign and why it’s needed. Once one of Russia's biggest pop star...
May 08, 2024•56 min
What’s like to start again with nothing? On New Year's Eve of 2018, journalist Helen Chandler-Wilde lost everything she owned in a storage unit fire in Croydon, where she'd stowed all her possessions. She has written about it in the book, Lost & Found - 9 life-changing lessons about stuff from someone who lost everything. She joins Hayley Hassall to describe her experience and explain why we get so emotionally attached to our belongings. The BBC Series I Kissed a Girl started over the weeken...
May 07, 2024•57 min
We are all ageing, if we're lucky, so in this Woman's Hour special programme, we're exploring how women can age well. Anita Rani is joined by a panel of women of different ages to talk about the possibility of re-invention and the wisdom of age, as well as the difficulties and barriers women face as they get older. What we can learn from each other and how can women of different generations support each other? Author and psychologist, Dr Sharon Blackie’s book, Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Ha...
May 06, 2024•58 min
What is it really like to be a co-parent? Hayley Allen’s son spends the weekdays with his dad and she takes care of him at the weekends. Carly Harris’ two children spend 80% of their time with her and are looked after by their dad every other weekend. Clare talked to Hayley and Carly about the difficulties and benefits of co-parenting. As talks reach a conclusion in Ottawa this week on a legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution, we speak to film director and campaigner Eleanor Church. ...
May 04, 2024•29 min
On today's Woman's Hour phone-in we ask what it's like to be a boy in 2024 and how society is shaping our future men. On Monday we spoke to Catherine Carr about her Radio 4 series About the Boys. She spoke to boys up and down the country about how they felt about subjects like sex and consent, masculinity, friendship, life online and education and she found out that boys were experiencing confusing and often troubling messages about their role in society. She joins us, along with Richard Reeves,...
May 03, 2024•58 min
Over the past few weeks, Woman’s Hour has been having a frank conversation about pornography. Four women spoke about how porn has shaped their relationships, sex lives and self-image. Three men spoke openly together about their attitudes to and experience of porn. The film-maker Erika Lust explained why she wants to make ‘ethical’ porn and Dr Fiona Vera-Grey explains what she’s found out through the research and surveys she has done about pornography and by talking to 100 women for her book Wome...
May 03, 2024•1 hr 45 min
Lawyer Harriet Wistrich is the founder and director of Centre for Women's Justice. She joins Anita Rani to talk about her new book, Sister in Law, which looks into 10 of her hard-won cases over 30 years. They include Sally Challen’s appeal against her conviction for the murder of her husband, the victims of the taxi driver John Worboys, and the women caught up in the 'Spy Cops' scandal. Cases that she says demonstrate that "terrifyingly often, the law is not fit-for-purpose for half the populati...
May 02, 2024•57 min
Being evicted from your home is an incredibly distressing time for anyone. Something 56-year-old Heidi Dodson is about to experience, she's being evicted by her private landlord from her home. She approached her local council for priority housing but was declined. In a letter from Thurrock Council, she was told she should be able to function 'reasonably well' if she ends up on the streets. Thurrock Council say they are 'truly sorry for the language used in this letter and the distress it has cau...
May 01, 2024•58 min
Research by internationally-renowned sex expert Dr Debby Herbenick from 2020 found that 21% of women had been choked during sex, with this being nearly twice as prevalent among adults under 40. Why are more young people including this as part of their sex lives and what are both the short and long-term health consequences? Dr Debby and Medical Director of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, Dr Catherine White, talk to Clare McDonnell. As talks reach a conclusion in Ottawa this week on a ...
Apr 30, 2024•58 min
Catherine Carr has two teenage sons and, through talking to them and to other parents of teenaged boys, she became aware that boys were experiencing confusing and often troubling messages about their role in society. Catherine decided to speak to boys directly and, in a series which is running all week on Radio 4, About the Boys features the voices of teenage boys around the country discussing topics like sex and consent, masculinity, friendship, life online and education. She joins Clare McDonn...
Apr 29, 2024•57 min
The deaths of 21-year-old Diane Jones and her two young children, in a house fire in October 1995 shocked the community of Merthyr Tydfil. The police originally thought it was an accident - but in the days following the fire launched a triple murder investigation after petrol was found on the carpet. Just months later, Annette was charged with triple murder, manslaughter and arson with intent to endanger life. She was found guilty with the charge of arson and sentenced to 13 years. After two-and...
Apr 27, 2024•56 min
Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood film producer, has had his 2020 rape conviction in New York overturned. The New York Court of Appeals has ruled that he did not receive a fair trial, because prosecutors called witnesses whose accusations were not part of the charges against him. The trial was pivotal in the #MeToo movement, the awareness campaign against sexual abuse. Katie Razzall, the BBC’s Culture and Media Editor, and Rowena Chiu, who claimed she was sexually assaulted in a hotel ro...
Apr 26, 2024•58 min
The system of one word ratings for schools in England 'should stay' and has 'significant benefits' according to the government. It said the grades, such as 'Inadequate', 'requires improvement' 'good' and "outstanding" gave parents an important summary of local schools. Teaching unions have called for more nuanced ratings Simon Kidwell is the President of the school leaders union the NAHT and joins Anita Rani to explain. The Internet Watch Foundation annual report has said that children under six...
Apr 25, 2024•57 min
The broadcaster Zeinab Badawi joins Krupa Padhy to discuss her first book, An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence. The book has taken her seven years to research, travelling across 30 countries. She explains how the female African leaders that shaped their countries have often been written out of history. At the start of the year, acclaimed opera singer Sophie Bevan took to Twitter to ask if other female singers also had voice struggles around the time of their p...
Apr 24, 2024•57 min
Ten Men, A Year of Casual Sex is a new book from the author Kitty Ruskin. It follows a year of her life when she attempts to embody Samantha from Sex and the City and enjoy all the advantages of being young, free and single. As she details 10 men in 10 chapters, the stories range from sexy and funny to at times deeply confronting and violent, including rape. Kitty joins Krupa Padhy to discuss. Today, the government has accepted an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill they say could be a b...
Apr 23, 2024•57 min
The Kenyan distance runner Peres Jepchirchir won yesterday’s elite women's London Marathon, breaking the women’s only record with her time of 2:16:16. She beat the previous record set in 2017 of 2:17:01. This was the fastest time in a race without male pace makers. More than 50,000 people ran and some gave themselves an even bigger challenge than just running the course. Laura Bird from St Ives in Cambridgeshire ran with a fridge strapped to her back - aiming to earn a place in the Guinness Book...
Apr 22, 2024•57 min
Over the past few weeks, Woman’s Hour has been telling the stories of young people, staff and parents involved in SHiFT in Greater Manchester. SHiFT is a new approach to helping young people at risk of getting into serious trouble and it is all about relationships. Skilled professionals called ‘guides’ work with teenagers for an 18-month period and they just keep showing up. Our reporter Jo Morris went out and about with the team and spoke to teenagers and a mum about the impact of this new appr...
Apr 21, 2024•58 min
This week, Ruth Wilson explains why she’s running this year’s London Marathon for an Alzheimer’s research, following in the footsteps of her father who ran the first London Marathon in 1981. Tuesday was the deadline to register to vote in the local elections on May 2nd. The most recent data suggest that 4.3 million young people in England aren’t currently registered. We hear from Sharon Gaffka, who’s supporting the Give an X campaign, that's calling on young people to get involved. A survey by t...
Apr 20, 2024•56 min
Nearly a quarter of five-to-seven-year-olds now have their own smartphone according to OFCOM. Social media use also rose in the same age group over the last year with nearly two in five using the messaging service WhatsApp, despite its minimum age of 13. The communications regulator in its annual study of children's relationship with technology warned parental enforcement of rules 'appeared to be diminishing'. It also said the figures should be a 'wake up call' for the industry to do more to pro...
Apr 19, 2024•57 min
Ruth Wilson explains why she’s running this year’s London marathon for an Alzheimer’s charity, following in the footsteps of her Father who ran the first London marathon in 1981. During the Women's Rugby Six Nations, the Welsh Rugby Union is using a new technique to assess the impact a player's periods can have when they suffer a concussion. It's the first time data on concussion and periods has been gathered collectively and the hope is it'll help players adapt their training if necessary. Jo P...
Apr 18, 2024•57 min
Nat Sciver-Brunt is the first English woman to be honored as Wisden's leading cricketer in the world. She joins Jesscia Creighton to discuss the accolade and her career in the sport. Smacking children should be made illegal in England and Northern Ireland, say the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Striking a child is already illegal in Scotland and Wales, and in many other countries around the world. Dr Rowena Christmas, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, talks abo...
Apr 17, 2024•57 min
Deborah Snyder has produced some of the biggest blockbusters and action franchises in the last decade including Wonder Woman, 300 and Watchmen. Her newest work, Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver arrives on Netflix this week. It's the second instalment of the Rebel Moon series, a space opera set in a fictional galaxy with a female protagonist. Deborah produced it alongside her husband and long-term creative collaborator, director Zack Snyder. She joins Jessica Creighton live in the studio. A p...
Apr 16, 2024•57 min
Australian police investigating the fatal stabbing of six people at the crowded shopping centre in Bondi Junction, Sydney say they're looking into whether the attacker deliberately targeted women. Joel Cauchi killed five women - and a male security guard who tried to intervene - before he was shot dead by police. Eight of the twelve injured who went to hospital, including a baby, are also female. To find out more Jessica Creighton is joined by BBC Australia correspondent Katy Watson based in Syd...
Apr 15, 2024•57 min
This week, it was announced that 883 actors, writers, comedians and creatives had signed an open letter in support of Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, the star in a new production of Romeo & Juliet, due to run in London's West End next month. The open letter came after a statement was published by the Jamie Lloyd Company, "Following the announcement of our Romeo & Juliet cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company..." It was co-auth...
Apr 13, 2024•53 min
