Women’s Rights Network

Send us Fan Mail Mary Howden is joined by Lisa Mackenzie and Lucy Hunter Blackburn  from the policy analysis group Murray Blackburn Mackenzie to discuss their research report examining how the UK charity sector - particularly women's charities - has responded to legal frameworks and rulings regarding single-sex services and beneficiaries.  They highlight key findings on the pressures faced by...

Send us Fan Mail Has Feminism made women more free? -  WRN National Conference 2026 It's tempting to think that the big problems of women's inequality have been solved, but is this true or have the problems simply changed? Is life better for young women than their mothers, or do they just have different challenges?  When feminists strove for equality, they wanted to remove the barriers t...

Send us Fan Mail In April 2026, Féile an Phobail (Festival of the People) accepted a proposal from Women's Rights Network Northern Ireland (WRN_NI) to hold a panel event 'Respect, Rights & Reality' as part of that year's festival programme. With just two weeks to go before the event, Feile cancelled WRN_NI. You may have seen some press coverage about the attempts that the w...

Send us Fan Mail Discussing the challenges for honest reporting in a media awash with ideological language. Jane Sullivan is joined by Janet Murray , a British freelance journalist and commentator based in London, discusses the challenges of writing gender critical pieces in the field of journalism where media is still swimming in ideological language at the expense of honest reporting. We hear ab...

Send us Fan Mail Is the social contract between women and the State broken? - Women and the Law - WRN National Conference 2026 Over the last decade+, public bodies and employers embedded policies and procedures that impacted women and girls and their relationship with those organisations. As the public sector became overtaken by ideology, there has been an erosion of women’s rights. Promotion of ‘...

Send us Fan Mail Eloise Schultz is a law and politics student at the University of Leicester, and Founder of the university's new Women in Sport Society, in conversation with Faye McGinty and Jane Sullivan. Eloise draws on her own experience in contact sports, including kickboxing and ice hockey, to explain her views on fairness and safety in mixed-sex sport, and traces her path to gender cri...

Send us Fan Mail James Esses, a former barrister turned psychotherapist, has spent years fighting back against dangerous ideologies that have taken over the world of psychotherapy and impacted upon the wellbeing of clients.  In a candid conversation, WRN’s Jane Symons and James explore the chilling effect the UK's proposed conversion therapy legislation would have on freedom of speech - parti...

Send us Fan Mail Kathleen Richardson is the Author of Sex Robots The end of love, Professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots & AI at De Montfort University. Kathleen joined our afternoon panel at the Derby Women’s Festival in May 2026 - an event organised by the Women’s Rights Network Derby and Staffordshire group. Kathleen chaired our morning session - Mother - and gave a speech in our afterno...

Send us Fan Mail Heather Binning is joined by two of the Darlington Nurses - lead claimant Bethany Hutchison and Lisa Lockey. In 2023, eight nurses from the Day Surgery Unit at Darlington Memorial Hospital filed a discrimination claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust for for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. Female staff were forced to share their female changing r...

Send us Fan Mail Heather Binning is joined by Nick Wallis, one of the UK's most distinguished investigative journalists.  Nick's groundbreaking work on the Post Office scandal followed by his book, The Great Post Office Scandal, has received widespread praise for its detailed and compelling account.  Today, Nick lifts the lid on the frustrating roadblocks he continues to encounter in the...

Send us Fan Mail Heather Binning is joined by Fiona McAnena - a woman who has spent years at the sharp end of the fight to restore and protect women's rights. After five years as Sports Campaigning Lead at Fair Play For Women, Fiona joined Sex Matters in 2024 as Director of Campaigns. In this conversation, she reflects on the pivotal moments that sparked significant surges in the movement, th...

Send us Fan Mail Ruth Lewis, founder of Moma Breastfeeding, joined our morning panel at the Derby Women’s Festival on Saturday 9 May 2026 - an event organised by the Women’s Rights Network Derby and Staffordshire group Ruth was here to talk about “Breastfeeding support and the mother-baby dyad” .  MoMa is a mother-led, not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to providing mother-to-mother support fo...

Send us Fan Mail Faye McGinty is joined by Sophie Power, an elite ultra-runner who, whilst famously known for completing the gruelling 106-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) while stopping at aid stations to nurse her three-month-old baby, is also a fierce advocate for structural change. As the founder of SheRaces, she is leading a vital movement demanding that the running industry dismantle it...

Send us Fan Mail Lexi Ellingsworth, co-founder of Stop Surrogacy Now UK, joined us at the Derby Women’s Festival in May 2026 - an event organised by the Women’s Rights Network Derby and Staffordshire group. Lexi was here to tell us why we should ban all forms of surrogacy and what people can do to work towards this aim. Lexi spoke on  ‘Surrogacy - Erasing Mothers: the exploitation of women and den...

Send us Fan Mail We met Sorcha Nic Lochlainn of The Countess at the Derby Women’s Festival in May 2026 - an event organised by the Women’s Rights Network Derby and Staffordshire group. The Countess is a non-profit, volunteer-led organisation formed to promote the rights and interests of women and children in Ireland. Sorcha was with us to discuss the importance of language with her talk, ‘These wo...

Send us Fan Mail Olympian Sharron Davies is joined by a trio panel of Susan Smith of 'For women Scotland', Kate Harris co-founder of LGB Alliance, and employment and discrimination law barrister Naomi Cunningham. This live event was co-hosted by WRN Wales and Merched Cymru. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to hear more, go to womensrights.network/wrn-podcast to lis...

Send us Fan Mail Step behind the scenes for an exclusive look at the work of the Women’s Rights Network (WRN) and hear directly about one of its most significant recent campaigns.  This session offers a unique opportunity to learn about WRN’s extensive Freedom of Information venture, to hold local councils across the nation, to account over their unlawful policies and practices.  Beginning in May...

Send us Fan Mail Heather Binning hosts guest Menno Kuijper, better known to the world as Mr Menno. Menno describes himself as a 'satirist, songwriter, performer, woo woo buster'.   Menno takes us through his profound personal journey from a young gay man sympathetic to a seemingly innocuous gender movement to his startling realisation that it is unapologetically motivated by homphobia an...

Send us Fan Mail Heather Binning is joined by Michael Foran, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at Keble College, specialising in public law, equality, and anti-discrimination law. Drawing on cases including Sandie Peggie and the Good Law Project's latest challenge to EHRC guidance, Michael cuts through the legal complexity to explain — in plain languag...

Send us Fan Mail This week, Heather Binning is joined by barrister Akua Reindorf KC to discuss the legal and institutional fallout from the Supreme Court’s April 2025 judgment. Akua was closely involved in the developments surrounding the case, both through her work as an Equality and Human Rights Commissioner and through her prominent role as a public legal commentator.  Drawing on that experienc...

Send us Fan Mail Faika El-Nagashi is the founder and director of the Athena Forum, a European initiative for sex-based rights, democratic values, and political courage.  Political scientist, human rights advocate and former member of parliament in Austria, Faikia has spent over three decades advocating for women's rights within Europe.  Faika explains the convoluted political structure within...

Send us Fan Mail Join Heather Binning in conversation with special guest Kemi Badenoch, Leader of HM Opposition, Leader of the UK Conservative Party and Conservative MP for North West Essex. After a career in IT and then in the financial sector, she turned her sights to politics, taking her seat in Parliament in 2017.  Amongst her many roles in Government and in opposition, she has been Minister f...

Send us Fan Mail Heather Binning hosted this interview with two British sporting legends, Sharron Davies and Tracy Edwards. The refusal of so many sports bodies, regulators, unions (and currently the UK government) to recognise the importance of delivering fair sporting opportunities for women and girls, be it recreational or at elite level, inspired Sharron and Tracy to set up the Women’s Sports...

Send us Fan Mail Join Heather Binning who hosts this week’s special guests Louise Irvine, co-chair of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender and Terry Patterson from Thoughtful Therapists. Louise and Terry explain why there are enormous concerns from sector experts regarding the ethical grounds and outcomes competence of the UK puberty blockers trial called ‘Pathway’, a medical trial whic...

Send us Fan Mail Claire Lonergan hosts this week’s guests, Jo Bartosch and Rob Jessel, co-authors of 'Pornocracy', a research rich expose of the neurological shifts caused by porn use, the normalisation of violent sexualised behaviour fed to our youth and the dystopian potential for A.I. to destroy the value of what it is to be human. Jo is a journalist who has written for the Telegraph,...