The Conversation

Why is classical music still so male and pale, and what can be done about it? Kim Chakanetsa talks to two leading female musicians who are working to challenge the status quo and open up orchestras to more women and people of colour. Of Nigerian-Irish parentage, Chi-chi Nwanoku realised that 30 years into an illustrious career as a double-bassist she was still one of vanishingly few non-white face...

Nelufar Hedayat unites two women with disabilities from Toronto and Mumbai, who are challenging misconceptions about their sexuality and what they’re capable of achieving. Maayan Ziv is a fashion photographer and entrepreneur from Toronto, Canada. She uses a wheelchair and became frustrated with the lack of information about accessibility of venues in her city. Having discovered early on that tech...

Take your baby into prison or leave them behind? Kim Chakanetsa speaks to two women from Kenya and the US faced with that reality when their lives were up-ended by their wrongful imprisonment. They talk about how they found a purpose while serving time, and have since gone on to support others. Sunny Jacobs was sentenced to death for her role in an alleged double murder in the US in 1976. Separate...

Gowns, glittery bikinis and a lot of hair spray: thousands of women around the world wear them on stage every year, hoping to win a beauty pageant. Many say these pageants are demeaning and outdated but others argue that beauty pageants can be life changing experiences that help contestants to go on to academic and professional success. Kim Chakanetsa brings together two beauty queens to find out...

The most extreme hate crime against women is femicide, the act of killing a person because they are a woman. But there is a growing movement of women who are taking a stand against this crime and demanding that their community takes it seriously. Nelufar Hedayat talks to two activists from countries where the death toll for women through violence is high: Mexico and Pakistan. Khalida Brohi grew up...

Campaigning for gay rights in Uganda and Sri Lanka - Kim Chakanetsa speaks to two women activists in countries where homosexual acts are punishable with a prison sentence. Kasha Nabagesera has been described as 'the face of Uganda's LGBT movement'. Since her twenties Kasha has fought for the rights of her fellow lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, which has brought her into conflict with the...

Is women's sport still not taken as seriously as men's? What needs to happen to achieve the same pay, prize money and media coverage as their male counterparts?  Presenter Kim Chakanetsa talks to two women about how they have fought to get equality with men in their chosen sport.   Kathryn Bertine was a professional cyclist in the US for five years. She was shocked to discover that the average ear...

Traditionally made by men and often criticised for sexism and colourism, Kim Chakanetsa asks two top female directors if the portrayal - and the power - of women in music videos is now changing. Kemi Adetiba is the only high-profile female video director on Nigeria's thriving music scene, working with artists such as Tiwa Savage, Wizkid and Falz. Now branching out into feature films, she still dir...

One year ago a #MeToo tweet by Hollywood actor Alyssa Milano encouraged an outpouring of women using the hashtag to talk about experiences of sexual harassment or assault. What followed were allegations against high profile figures in entertainment, the media and politics with many of the accused denying any wrongdoing. Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women who have made public allegations of s...

Does the beauty industry fuel insecurity and undermine a woman's choice to look how she wants? Kim Chakanetsa brings together two beauty entrepreneurs from Singapore and the UK who say they have lifted women up. Sharmadean Reid is a British Jamaican entrepreneur who founded WAH Nails, which she believes changed the beauty landscape with its millennial voice, feminist attitude and innovative salon...

How do you improve women's access to good healthcare? Two female doctors talk to Kim Chakanetsa about the issues they face in two starkly different places - Somalia and the United States. Paula Johnson is an American cardiologist who has dedicated her whole career to thinking about health from a woman's perspective, focussing on the different ways men and women respond to diseases. When Paula lear...

What is it like to put yourself in danger fighting for your rights as a woman? Kim Chakanetsa unites two women from Iran and Saudi Arabia, who decided to defy their governments' discriminatory laws - and suffered huge personal sacrifices as a result. In Iran women must cover their hair in public, according to the dress rule enforced after the Revolution in 1979. Masih Alinejad says she began to de...

Two female plumbers on what puts women off from entering the industry, the messy reality of the job and the joy of solving problems with your hands. Judaline Cassidy has worked on the pipes of some of New York City's most iconic buildings in a career that has spanned two decades. She grew up in Trinidad & Tobago and came to plumbing because she didn't have enough money to go to law school. But...

Just 12 women have won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine since it was founded in 1901. Kim Chakanetsa brings together two of these female Nobel Laureates - both extraordinary scientists from Norway and France. Professor May-Britt Moser won the prize in 2014 for the discovery of a type of cell in the brains of rats, which helps them locate their position in space.  She won the prize jointl...

The lost role of women in the development of the computer industry is brought into focus by an internet pioneer and a computer historian. Radia Perlman is an American computer programmer often described as the 'Mother of the Internet' for her invention of the spanning-tree protocol, an algorithm which allowed early networks to cope with large amounts of data. She describes it as a 'simple hack' an...

Two award-winning African writers sit down with Kim Chakanetsa to talk race, gender and getting published in your early 20s. Nigerian author Chibundu Onuzo started writing her first book aged 17, became the youngest woman ever to sign to her publishing house at 19, and released her first novel, The Spider King’s Daughter, at the age of 21. Chibundu is based in London and her second book is called...

Is it possible to end child marriage in a generation? Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women working to make it a thing of the past in Malawi and in the United States. Memory Banda's sister was just 11 when she was forced to marry the man who'd made her pregnant. Determined not to have the same fate, Memory persuaded local leaders in Malawi to change their minds about this cultural practise and...

Can hats be liberating for women? Nelufar Hedayat brings together a hatmaker to the British Queen and a turban designer to Beyoncé. Rachel Trevor-Morgan is a London based milliner who has been making hats for the Queen for over a decade. As well as royalty she also sells to top fashion retailers, and thinks it's a shame that we don’t wear hats as much as we used to. Rachel is not trying to push th...

Can translating a book be a feminist act? Kim Chakanetsa brings together two female translators from Egypt and the UK who explain why it matters that more women, and particularly more feminists, are translating texts into Arabic and English. Emily Wilson is the first woman to translate Homer's The Odyssey into English. She says she often found sexist language in previous translations by men which...

Body shaming is discrimination against 'non-perfect' bodies and it is usually directed at women. Kim Chakanetsa sits down with a Danish comedian and a British blogger who are challenging society's perceptions of a beautiful female body. Chidera Eggerue - aka The Slumflower - is a British blogger whose hashtag #saggyboobsmatter started an online movement, empowering women who were considering plast...

The professional kitchen is often seen as a place where bravado, machismo and sexism are standard. Kim Chakanestsa brings together two top female chefs to ask why there are so few women in the industry - and what if anything is holding women back? Dominique Crenn is a French chef living and working in San Francisco. She has two Michelin stars at her restaurant 'Atelier Crenn' - the first woman in...

Can financial markets transform women's lives? Kim Chakanetsa unites two financiers from Nigeria and Bangladesh who are trying to increase wealth for women in very different ways. Durreen Shahnaz was one of the first Bangladeshi women on Wall Street, and later founded Singapore-based Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) through which she set up the world's first social stock exchange. She recently lau...

Their children became sick, and they wanted to know why. Nelufar Hedayat brings together two women who identified toxic water supplies that were poisoning their children and their communities. Phyllis Omido is a Kenyan activist who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015. Phyllis was working for a smelting factory in Mombasa, when she found out that her breast milk was giving her baby lead poi...

What does it take for a woman to excel in the ruthlessly competitive, male-dominated world of chess? Kim Chakanetsa meets two outstanding female players from Hungary and China to find out. Judit Polgar is the strongest female chess player of all time. As a child prodigy she broke Bobby Fischer's record to become the youngest grandmaster, aged 15. She went on to beat the World No 1 Garry Kasparov,...

In the art world, how much power do women hold? In 2017, of the top 100 artists whose work fetched the highest amount at auction, just 13 were women. Two female art-dealers who have pioneered Czech and Asian art on the international scene, discuss how that affects the way they value and sell art made by women. Pearl Lam is an iconic art dealer and a pioneer in raising the profile of Chinese art. S...