The Women's Podcast

Ambitious women are scary, right? Female leaders must do everything they can to avoid being perceived as pushy, aggressive, or competent. Comedian, blogger and vlogger Sarah Cooper's new book, How to be Successful without Hurting Men's Feelings, is a tongue-in-cheek guide for women to get ahead in the workplace. She talks to Róisín Ingle about the experiences that informed the book, people taking...

The “Out of Silence” report published by the National Women's Council this week documents for the very first time the specific mental health needs of women and girls in Ireland. It is based on interviews with 100 female patients at St Patrick’s University Hospital in Dublin and has made some stark findings, including that Ireland has the highest suicide rate for female children in the EU. Orla O'C...

On today's podcast we bring you a talk by Luke and Ryan Hart, who say people must be braver about confronting domestic abuse when they see it. The brothers, whose father murdered their mother and sister, were addressing the Safe World Summit organised by SafeIreland at Dublin’s Mansion House recently, an event that grapples with the realities of domestic and gender violence, its manifestations and...

In this episode we bring you a talk by Egyptian feminist activist Mona Eltahawy who spoke recently in Dublin at the International Safe World Summit on gender equality and gender based violence. New York-based Eltahawy is a Egyptian-American journalist and social commentator, writing about women's rights, Egypt and the Islamic world. Her permanent credo is 'Fuck The Patriarchy' and you’ll hear her...

Susan Wood is an American photographer most notable for her work on location of the 1969 film Easy Rider – starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. In a career spanning more than 50 years, she has photographed John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, John Wayne, Betty Friedan and hundreds more. Her latest book puts Ireland into focus, a country she has strong connections to (she married two Irish men...

In her latest book, Eve Was Shamed, British barrister Baroness Helena Kennedy QC forensically examines the pressing new evidence that women are still being discriminated against throughout the legal system. The law holds up a mirror to society and it is failing women, she says, and the #MeToo campaign has been in part a reaction to those failures. So what comes next? She talks to Róisín Ingle. Lat...

From a very young age Rebecca Bourke knew that she wanted to be in the film industry in some capacity. Her dad convinced her to give college a go as a backup plan, but stints working in Windmill Lane Studios and on the Late Late Show as a runner only served to affirm what she already knew - she was in the right place. Fast forward to 2018 and she is the founder and executive producer at Assembly,...

Róisín talks to Women's Aid director Margaret Martin about domestic violence sentencing and how it affects victims. The conversation comes in the wake of a case this week of a man who hit his wife twice across the head after dragging her upstairs and removing her jeans by force. The man, who pleaded guilty, walked free from court after being given a suspended sentence. Read the details here: https...

Self-taught makeup artist Violette talks to Róisín Ingle at the BT Style Summit about her career, which led her to become Global Beauty Director of Estée Lauder. Later in the show, Niamh Maher, presenter of the Girls With Goals podcast, talks to Jennifer Ryan about the Her.ie/Ella One survey of contraception and sex habits of Irish 18-24 years olds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

Feminists Don't Wear Pink (And Other Lies) is a collection of writing from extraordinary women - from Hollywood actresses, to teenage activists - each telling the story of their personal relationship with feminism. The collection is edited by journalist and activist Scarlett Curtis and features contributions from Irish actors Evanna Lynch and Saoirse Ronan. On today's show, Scarlett talks to Róisí...

Ailbhe Griffith was 21 years old when she was subjected to a violent sexual assault by a man on her way home from work in 2005. Her attacker was caught and sent to prison, but nine years later Ailbhe decided to meet the man who had left her seriously injured and psychologically scarred. That event is now the subject of a film in which Ailbhe plays herself. She talks to Róisín Ingle about The Meeti...

Feminism might not be something often associated with Maeve Binchy's writing, but looking back on her work now it's so obviously there. Ahead of the Echoes festival in her honour this weekend - in her hometown of Dalkey, Co Dublin - Róisín Ingle and Henrietta McKervey discuss the writer's 'quiet feminism'.Later, we bring you an interview Róisín did with the makeup artist Katie Jane Hughes at the B...

Our Book Clubbers Irish Times journalists Bernice Harrison and Niamh Towey and septuagenarian book lover Ann Ingle discuss The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien. The book was published in 1960 and described as a “smear on Irish womanhood” because of the way it laid bare the lives of young women in 1950s Ireland. It was famously banned and burned by the parish priest in O’Brien’s home county of Clare....

In this episode, Roisin Ingle talks to Sarah Monaghan from the Abortion Rights Campaign about the 7th ARC March for Choice which is taking place at 2pm Saturday 29th of September in Dublin. Why are we still marching? Monaghan explains that as well as a celebration the march signifies the work still to be done in ensuring the legislation ensures as wide as possible access for girls, women and peopl...

"HEROIN is the story you were never told about the republic that never happened, of the person you never saw, of what we built and then demolished. It’s the big one, the bad one, the one you never thought you’d try."Grace Dyas is back with her THEATREclub campaigning show HEROIN, updated to reflect the current state of Ireland's drug problem, with additional writing by Rachael Keogh. They talk to...

On today's show, Róisín hears about Anna Parnell, pioneering Irish feminist, founder of the Ladies Land League and younger sister of Irish Nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell. Anna has long since been written out of Irish history, but Lucy Keaveney has been working hard to reverse that. She talks to Róisín about Anna and about her commemoration at Ilfracombe in England this weekend. Lucy is joined...

On today's show, Róisín Ingle talks to Alice Malseed and Sarah Gordon about their hilarious Fringe Festival production, BILLY, which takes a disbelieving look at the reassuring rituals of our pastel-coloured, neatly organised, turbo capitalism-fuelled world. Later, Bernice Harrison talks to actor and playwright Gina Moxley about her latest work, The Patient Gloria, which has been called “a timely...

The world’s first gathering of women’s parliamentary groups is being held in Dublin Castle as part of its commemoration of a centenary of female suffrage in Ireland. The two-day conference is being arranged by the Oireachtas women’s caucus, which was founded in Leinster House last year. We talk to Catherine Martin, Chair of Oireachtas Women's Parliamentary Caucus and Fiona O’Louglin FF TD about wh...

Belfast woman Suzanne Connolly was 11 when her adoptive father John Rossi began sexually abusing her. He did so almost daily until she was 14 when after disclosing the abuse to a school friend she was taken out of her home and placed into care. Despite telling the police about the abuse and Rossi admitting his crimes in the 1980s, it took 34 years for the case to be heard. This week John Rossi was...

The German Ambassador to Ireland, Deike Potzel, has been touring the country since her appointment last November in a bid to learn about Ireland from the Irish. Her Excellency has worked in the diplomatic corps since the late 1990s, with postings in Singapore and Tehran in the past. On today's podcast Ambassador Potzel speaks to Kathy Sheridan about growing up in East Berlin before the wall came d...

Pope Francis touches down on Irish soil this Saturday morning 25th August, for the second papal visit in Ireland's history. For many Catholics this is an occasion to be celebrated, but for countless other people the arrival of the pope stirs up feelings of anger at the legacy of the relationship between church and state in Ireland. Maeve O'Rourke is a senior research and policy officer at the ICCL...

Irish Times journalist Rachel Flaherty did what many people are understandably wary of doing, she opened up about her unhealthy relationship with food and her challenge to become fitter and healthier. In an article in the Irish Times, she explains why she made the decision to do something about it when at five stone overweight, she found herself struggling to climb the stairs. She speaks to Róisín...

In case you missed, it the Irish women’s hockey team made history last week, becoming the first Irish team ever to reach a world cup final. They lost to a formidable Dutch side in that match, but they were already winners by then, having entered the competition as underdogs and never expecting to get so far. In this episode Kathy Sheridan speaks to two of those amazing women, forward Anna O’Flanag...

In this week’s episode, Roisin Ingle talks to Portlaoise novelist Helen Cullen who is causing a stir with her debut novel The Lost Letters of William Woolf. Cullen explains how she went from working in RTE to writing her first novel which to her delight was snapped up by Penguin. The book is being described as Up-Lit, short for ‘uplifting literature’ and an antidote to the doom laden global politi...

Ten of Ireland's leading theatres, drama festivals and theatre companies have agreed to a range of gender equality policies, which in some cases will see “gender-blind casting” or ensuring that half of new shows will be written by women. The gender equality policy for the theatre sector, launched by Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan, arose from the Waking the Feminists campaign to address the u...