The Department for Work and Pensions has just published statistics on the number of people affected by the so-called two-child benefit cap, which restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households. Some campaigners have called the cap the biggest driver of the rise in child poverty in the UK and are demanding the new Labour government scrap it immediately. So what is the future of the policy? Anita Rani talks to BBC political correspondent Hannah Miller,...
Jul 11, 2024•53 min
Irish soldier Cathal Crotty was given a three-year suspended sentence after beating Natasha O'Brien unconscious in May 2022. Now, in the latest development, he is due to be formally discharged from the Defence Forces. Nuala hears Natasha's reaction and speaks to Diane Byrne, a spokeswoman for the Women of Honour group, to hear what impact this could have. Hannah Mills is the most successful female sailor in Olympic history, having won medals at the London, Rio and Tokyo Olympic Games. Now she’s ...
Jul 10, 2024•57 min
Former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal speaks to Nuala McGovern about his independent culture review of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which is the independent regulator for nurses and midwifes in the UK. The report is highly critical, finding that a "dysfunctional culture" at the council has "threatened public safety and puts nurses at risk." Sir David Warren, Chair of the Council also joins them to respond to the findings of the report. Women are turning to increasingly risky ways to get weig...
Jul 09, 2024•56 min
There are a record number of women MPs in the new parliament. Nuala McGovern is joined by former Mother of the House and now chair of the charity the Fawcett Society, Harriet Harman, who wants to set up a Women’s Caucus made up of female MPs. We also have political reaction from journalists Rachel Cunliffe and Caroline Wheeler. Is sports day something that teaches children invaluable life lessons, or simply an annual event that demoralises? Nuala is joined by journalist Esther Walker and comedia...
Jul 08, 2024•57 min
A new series was released this week on Netflix. It is called Man with 1,000 Kids, and Netflix is billing it as the true story of Jonathan Meijer, a man accused of travelling the world, deceiving women into having his babies - via sperm donation - on a mass scale. Nuala McGovern talks to Jonathan Meijer, the sperm donor, to mums Natalie and Suzanne, who had a baby conceived with Jonathan’s donor sperm, to Natalie Hill, the executive producer who pitched the original idea for these films to Netfli...
Jul 06, 2024•44 min
It’s 25 year since the New York Times’ best-selling author Lisa Jewell published her first novel, Ralph’s Party. Since then she’s written another twenty-one novels, and more recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs and the award winning None of This is True. She joins Krupa Padhy to discuss her latest work – Breaking the Dark – which is a Jessica Jones Marvel crime novel, exploring the world of the private detective and former superhero....
Jul 04, 2024•57 min
A new series has been released this morning (3 July) on Netflix. It is called Man with 1,000 Kids, and Netflix is billing it as the true story of Jonathan Meijer, a man accused of travelling the world, deceiving women into having his babies - via sperm donation - on a mass scale. Nuala talks to Jonathan Meijer, the sperm donor, to mums Natalie and Suzanne, who had a baby conceived with Jonathan’s donor sperm, to Natalie Hill, the executive producer who pitched the original idea for these films t...
Jul 03, 2024•57 min
British scientist Dame Carol Robinson, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a trailblazer in the field of mass spectrometry, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award during this year’s European Inventor Award 2024 ceremony. She will be first ever British winner. She is receiving the award not just for her outstanding work but also for championing women in STEM. She joins Nuala McGovern to explain why she’s passionate about women in science. Woman’s Hour has already spoken to...
Jul 02, 2024•57 min
Gabby Logan joins Krupa Padhy to talk about her new book The Midpoint Plan. She’s challenging the stereotype of middle age. With fewer insecurities, children leaving home and perhaps a bit more money in the bank, she believes we should see it as the best point in our lives. Plus, if we look after ourselves in midlife, we’ll be happier in old age. Monday 1st July marks the first day of this year’s Wimbledon. Players will be donning their whites to play at the All England Club. Molly McElwee, free...
Jul 01, 2024•57 min
Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights' has become a popular placard at women's rights events around the world. The singer behind the anthem that inspired it is none other than Cyndi Lauper. She joins Anita Rani to reflect on her 40-year career, becoming a feminist figure and performing on the iconic Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. Wimbledon starts next week and amongst the usual pre-match discussions about favourites and performances, there’s also been a serious conversation about how top-lev...
Jun 29, 2024•49 min
'Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights' has become a popular placard at women's rights events around the world. The singer behind the anthem that inspired it is none other than Cyndi Lauper. She joins Anita Rani to reflect on her 40-year career, becoming a feminist figure and performing on the iconic Pyramid Stage. Corinne Bailey Rae's latest album is a complete departure from her previous work. Black Rainbows is inspired by a trip to Stony Island Arts Bank, a Chicago-based archive of black...
Jun 28, 2024•53 min
In the next of the Woman’s Hour interviews with the leaders of the main political parties in the run-up to the General Election, Clare McDonnell speaks to John Swinney, Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party. What does it mean to be an adult orphan? Does the term still apply if you lose both parents when you’re no longer a child? Playwright Naomi Westerman was writing about death rituals when she lost her whole family, turning the academic into the deeply personal...
Jun 27, 2024•57 min
Woman’s Hour has invited the leaders of all the main political parties for an interview in the run-up to the General Election. Today, in place of the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, Nuala McGovern is joined by Christine Jardine, the party’s Women and Equalities spokesperson. Danish actress Sofie Gråbøl is best known to British viewers for her role as Sarah Lund in Scandi Noir crime drama The Killing. Now she’s returning to our cinema screens in a new film, Rose. Sophie plays Inger, a woman...
Jun 26, 2024•57 min
With just over a week to go until the UK heads to the polls for the general election, what’s the situation for women voters in Northern Ireland? BBC Northern Ireland political correspondent Jayne McCormack joins Nuala McGovern to discuss what political candidates there are offering women. Days ahead of a UN summit on Afghanistan, which is set to exclude Afghan women, reports are surfacing from teenage girls and young women arrested by the Taliban for wearing 'bad hijab' that they have been subje...
Jun 25, 2024•56 min
Rachel Stevens was one of the founding members of S Club 7, the pop band that took the world by storm in the early 2000s. She joins Anita to talk about her memoir Finding my Voice: A story of strength, belief and S Club, which covers her time in the hit-making band, her solo career and what it's been like being in the public eye. In a special extended 90 minute programme, Nuala McGovern hosted the Woman's Hour Election Debate. Senior women from the main political parties of Great Britain outline...
Jun 24, 2024•56 min
Novelist Helen Heckety joins Nuala to talk about her debut work, Alter Ego. It’s about a young woman who decides to leave her old life behind and move to a new place where no one knows she is disabled. Helen, who has a physical disability that can sometimes be invisible, was compelled to write about a disabled character she had never seen represented in literature. According to The Times, Labour – if elected – would make it easier for people to legally transition by removing the need for them to...
Jun 24, 2024•57 min
Paloma Faith is an award-winning singer, songwriter and actor. She has released six albums, including her most recent The Glorification of Sadness, received a BRIT Award, been a judge on The Voice UK as well as an actor in films such as St Trinian’s and TV’s series Pennyworth. She is also the mother of two daughters. She joins Clare to discuss her book – MILF - in which she delves into the issues that face women today from puberty and sexual awakenings, to battling through the expectations of pa...
Jun 22, 2024•43 min
Stealthing is the crime of removing a condom during sex without consent and is a form of rape. Clare McDonnell discusses why this is an under-reported crime with Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Local Policing, Helen Millichap, who leads the Met’s focus on violence against women and girls, and Gemma Lindfield, Barrister at Five St Andrew's Hill Chambers. Actor Jill Halfpenny has starred in popular TV series such as Byker Grove, Coronation Street, EastEnders and The Cuckoo. S...
Jun 21, 2024•57 min
Rachel Stevens was one of the founding members of S Club 7, the pop band that took the world by storm in the early 2000s. She joins Anita to talk about her memoir Finding my voice: A story of strength, belief and S Club, which covers her time in the hit-making band, her solo career and what it's been like being in the public eye. Anita is joined by Ella Janneh who has won a civil case against her former therapist, over claims he raped her during a therapy session at his clinic in London. She has...
Jun 20, 2024•58 min
A survey published today by Women in Football shows that 88% of women working in the industry believe they have to work harder than men to achieve the same recognition and benefits - the research also found that 74% of men agree with them. It also found that 89% of women working in the game have experienced discrimination in the workplace. Nuala speaks to Yvonne Harrison, Chief Executive Officer Women in Football. Can you ever really be just best friends with the love of your life? Laura Dockril...
Jun 19, 2024•58 min
In a special extended 90 minute programme, Nuala McGovern hosts the Woman's Hour Election Debate. Senior women from the main political parties of Great Britain outline their priorities for women and answer your questions. Taking part are: Scottish National Party spokesperson for Consular Affairs and International Engagement Hannah Bardell; Reform UK candidate Maria Bowtell; Green Party spokesperson for Housing and Communities Ellie Chowns; Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Daisy Cooper; Con...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 29 min
Last week, listener Charlotte got in touch with the programme to share her story. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer in April and was told she might only have months to live. She talks to Nuala about staying optimistic, juggling the admin of an illness with childcare, and the impact it’s having on her family. Adrienne Betteley, Strategic Advisor for End of Life Care at Macmillan Cancer Support, discusses dealing with a terminal diagnosis, how best to tell your children, and the support that'...
Jun 17, 2024•52 min
Earlier this month, the British Olympic Association announced the 42 athletes selected to represent Team GB in rowing at 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Among them is the two-time Olympic gold medallist Helen Glover competing at this level for the 4th time as part of the Women’s four. In 2015 Helen was ranked the top female rower in the world and went on to become the first mother to row for Team GB in 2021. Now having had three children she has her sights set on the podium once more - joining the ...
Jun 14, 2024•53 min
Up until the 1980s, stillborn babies were swiftly taken from their mothers who weren’t always told what had happened to them. Now one of those mothers is calling for an apology after finding the grave of her stillborn son more than five decades after he was born. Gina Jacobs talks to Anita about how she found where her son Robert had been buried and how she’s working to help other women do the same. In April the European Court of Human Rights passed a landmark ruling saying that Switzerland was ...
Jun 13, 2024•54 min
Paloma Faith is an award-winning singer, songwriter and actor. She has released six albums, including her most recent The Glorification of Sadness, received a BRIT Award, been a judge on The Voice UK as well as an actor in films such as St Trinian’s and TV’s series Pennyworth. She is also the mother of two daughters. She joins Clare to discuss her book – MILF - in which she delves into the issues that face women today from puberty and sexual awakenings, to battling through the expectations of pa...
Jun 12, 2024•57 min
Thornaby Football Club’s committee is facing criticism after they announced that the Teeside-based club would be dropping all of its women’s section. First team manager Abbey Lyle tells Clare McDonnell what this means for the women and girls in the club, the support they’ve received since, and what it says about grassroots women’s sport. Clare also discusses the issues with Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, former Paralympian and Chair of Sport Wales and the CEO of Women in Sport, Stephanie Hilborne...
Jun 11, 2024•53 min
Nearly 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers during the Emma Caldwell murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time, the BBC has learned. 276 reports of sex crimes made by sex workers working in Glasgow during the murder inquiry were filed away and not acted upon. Investigate journalist Sam Poling, whose work was pivotal in bringing Emma Caldwell’s killer, Iain Packer, to justice in February of this year, joins Clare McDonnell to discuss, along with former Detect...
Jun 10, 2024•57 min
Scotland's most senior law officer has asked nine of the country's judges to overturn an 87-year-old rule on evidence in cases involving rape and other sexual offences. Since she became Lord Advocate in 2021, Dorothy Bain KC has often spoken of her desire to improve the criminal justice system for victims, particularly women and girls. She is now seeking radical changes which would allow more rape cases to reach court. Anita Rani talks to David Cowan, BBC Scotland's home affairs correspondent. A...
Jun 07, 2024•57 min
The singer-songwriter Natasha Khan, known by her stage name Bat for Lashes, joins Anita to talk about her new album, The Dream of Delphi. Named after her daughter Delphi, her new music explores motherhood through lush orchestral sounds. She discusses having a baby during the Covid lockdown and how the experience informed her song-writing. Vengeance is award-winning journalist and writer Saima Mir’s second novel, and the sequel to her crime thriller debut The Khan. The book continues the story of...
Jun 06, 2024•57 min
Tina Fey, a colossus of the comedy world for more than two decades, is also the creative force behind Mean Girls. The original movie in 2004, starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams, spawned a Broadway musical in 2018, and many of the songs were featured in this year’s modern movie remake. Tina is now bringing an updated stage version of Mean Girls The Musical to London, opening at the Savoy Theatre this week. She joins Nuala. The youth organisation Young Farmers has been accused of having a p...
Jun 05, 2024•58 min
