Woman's Hour

Mental health nurse Rachel Luby has been discussing her shopping addiction with a UK newspaper. She says it led to her ordering thousands of pounds worth of presents for staff and patients on her ward and was receiving parcels every day. She feels her shopping addiction was trivialised - rather than being seen as a red flag. So how common is this? And why is it a problem to think that shopping is...

Police have said they are searching for the parents of three new-born babies, all abandoned in East London between 2017 to 2024. The search is focusing on about 400 nearby houses. Anita Rani spoke to Met Police Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford and clinical psychologist Professor Lorraine Sherr, head of the Health Psychology Unit at UCL. Nuala McGovern was joined by the best-selling author Is...

How do we teach children to have grit? That's what the Government is suggesting needs to be a new focus in schools, to bolster children's mental health. To discuss how parents can help their children develop resilience, Anita Rani is joined by Sue Atkins, parenting coach and author of Parenting Made Easy and child psychologist Laverne Antrobus. We are currently hearing different perspectives on th...

Police have said they are searching for the parents of three new-born babies, all abandoned in East London between 2017 to 2024. The search is focusing on about 400 nearby houses. Anita Rani speaks to Met Police Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford and clinical psychologist Professor Lorraine Sherr - head of the Health Psychology Unit at UCL. Actor Rose Ayling-Ellis also joins Anita to discuss h...

Nuala McGovern is joined by the best-selling author Isabel Allende about her latest book My Name is Emilia Del Valle. It follows a young female journalist intent on covering the civil war in Chile in 1891 despite having to write under a man’s name. This week we'll be hearing different perspectives on the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman under the Equality Act, and how it co...

Kate, not her real name, has spoken to BBC Radio 4's File on Four Investigates and has revealed that her husband was secretly drugging and raping her for years - in a story that has echoes of the Gisele Pelicot case which rocked France, and the world, at the end of last year. Nuala McGovern speaks to BBC reporter Jane Deith who explains that Kate had to fight for justice and also to Dr Amy Burrell...

Rising to fame at the age of 20, Kate Nash soon became a staple of the British music scene in the late 2000s. Her first album, Made of Bricks, reached number one in the UK and stayed in the UK charts for more than forty consecutive weeks and she’s won a Brit Award. But she’s spoken openly about not being able to afford to tour and choosing to subsidise her income by selling images of her body on O...

Four years ago the broadcaster Naga Munchetty spoke out on air about her own awful experience of getting a coil fitted, and received a huge response from listeners. It led to her talking about her debilitating periods and an eventual diagnosis with adenomyosis aged 47. She’s written about this and included the experiences of other women. Naga spoke to Anita Rani to discuss her book ‘It’s Probably...

Four years ago the writer and broadcaster Naga Munchetty spoke out on air about her own awful experience of getting a coil fitted, and received a huge response from listeners. It led to her talking about her debilitating periods and an eventual diagnosis with adenomyosis aged 47. She’s written about this and included the experiences of other women. Naga speaks to Anita Rani to discuss her book ‘It...

As WeightWatchers has filed for bankruptcy in the US, we ask what this means for the company and for the diet industry. Kylie Pentelow is joined by Daniel Woolfson, senior business reporter at the Telegraph. Health experts are calling for more UK clinical trials to focus on finding new treatments for women, as “concerning” data reveals they are severely under-represented, with 67% more male-only s...

A BBC News documentary The Sex Detectives: Keeping Kids Safe follows a groundbreaking project in Bristol which engages the help of street sex workers to protect children and young people at risk of sexual exploitation. Avon & Somerset Police have teamed up with children’s charity Barnardo’s and partnered with Bristol’s street sex workers to gather intelligence about dangerous offenders and pae...

A wave of female designers have been appointed to some of the leading high street brands - most recently Jacqui Markham at Whistles, Maddy Evans at M&S earlier this year, and Clare Waight Keller, the former Givenchy designer who joined Uniqlo last year. So how much of a difference does it make for consumers that women are at the helm? Nuala McGovern speaks to Jacqui Markham, who has only just...

In a special programme exploring 'mistakes' and our relationship with the word Nuala McGovern speaks to clinical psychologist and best-selling author of Open When, Dr Julie Smith, and hears why we dislike making mistakes in our personal and professional lives. Journalist Nicole Mowbray tells Nuala how she felt when her mistake at The Observer caused an 'international incident'. Are women judged mo...

The negative effects that smartphones and social media access can have on students has become a national conversation in recent months, with differing views on who should take the lead in protecting children. Anita Rani was joined by secondary head teacher Emma Mills, whose school in Warrington has banned smartphones. Birchwood High attracted national attention two years ago when teenage student B...

Headteachers are gathering today in Harrogate for the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers. The negative effects on their students of smartphones and social media access has become a national conversation in recent months, with differing views on who should take the lead in protecting children; the Government, schools, parents, or tech companies. Anita Rani talks to secon...

A recent investigation has unearthed previously unknown information about the death of a female Ukrainian journalist who had been looking in to war crimes in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Viktoriia Roshchyna, herself Ukrainian, was captured in 2023 whilst reporting from the occupied territories. She died in 2024 after a year in detention, where she was held without charge and without le...

For the last decade, Frances Ryan has been a columnist and reporter at the Guardian. She joins Nuala McGovern to discuss her new book - Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life. Part memoir, part manifesto, it explores six facets of life: education, careers, body image, health, relationships and representation, as well as how to survive life's bumps in the road. Groomed: A National Scan...

London Grammar frontwoman Hannah Reid joins Nuala McGovern to discuss more than a decade at the helm of the band, their fourth album The Greatest Love, and what it’s been like navigating the music industry as a new parent. With US President Donald Trump reaching the 100 day mark of his presidency, who are some of the women in his cabinet? And what impact have those first 100 days had on women's li...

Paula Radcliffe broke records and redefined women’s long-distance running, holding the marathon world record for more than 16 years. The four time British Olympian secured the Six Star Medal last week - and has now run all six original marathons: Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York City. Recently she has had her resilience tested in a whole new way - supporting her teenage daughter Is...

After suffering complications during the birth of her son, Leo, in 2021, former Made in Chelsea star Louise Thompson developed PTSD. She posted about this to her followers on social media and has now written about it in her new book, Lucky. She told Clare McDonnell about her experience and why she is trying to break the taboo surrounding birth trauma. People who have committed murder, manslaughter...

The onset of menopause has resulted in 10% of women leaving work for good and more than half having to take time off, according to the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development. These findings were presented to business leaders yesterday at the launch of the first advisory group for menopause in the workplace. Mariella Frostrup is the Government's Menopause Employment Ambassador and she jo...

This morning, the UK regulator Ofcom released its Children's Safety Codes. These are the regulations that platforms will have to follow to protect young users and abide by the Online Safety Act. Platforms will have three months to carry out a risk assessment and bring the codes into effect. Ofcom can start enforcing the regulations from July. The most significant aspect is the requirement for stro...

Trans women should use toilets according to their biological sex, according to the equalities minister Bridget Phillipson, this is in response to the UK Supreme Court’s ruling a week ago on the legal definition of a woman. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer has welcomed the decision, saying it provides much needed clarity, and his office has confirmed that the Prime Minister no longer believes trans...

After suffering complications during the birth of her son, Leo, in 2021, former Made in Chelsea star Louise Thompson developed PTSD. Now, she’s been trying to break the taboo surrounding birth trauma by posting about it to her 1.5 million followers on social media. Louise was invited to Parliament to hear women addressing the Birth Trauma Inquiry last year, led by MP Theo Clarke, and wrote about h...

Spring cleaning is in the air - so whether you’ve woken up with the urge to clear out the ‘drawer of doom’ this Bank Holiday, are feeling too overwhelmed or time poor (or both) to know where to start, or have just decided to ‘bless the mess’, join us as we take a deep dive into decluttering, our relationship to our stuff and the impact clutter can have on our lives. Presenter Nuala McGovern is joi...