The Conversation

We meet two women who earn a six-figure salary by sharing their lives, fashion tips and their most personal moments on social media. Kim Chakanetsa delves into this digital world of influencers and finds out how to be successful in marketing online. French-Cameroonian Freddie Harrel left her career in banking to start a fashion blog. She also writes about her own personal struggles and hopes to in...

Why do women earn less than men across the world, and what can be done to narrow this gender pay gap? Two experts from Italy and Kenya give their ideas on how to make the workplace more equal and pay women what they are worth. Paola Diana (@paoladiana_) is the founder of PariMerito or Equal Merit, an organisation through which she lobbied the Italian government to pass new equality laws in the wor...

Planting, pruning and giving the orders - Kim Chakanetsa meets two female head gardeners who are challenging the idea that gardening is a hobby for women but a career for men. Sharon Cooke runs Andromeda Botanic Gardens in Barbados, the only Royal Horticulture Society Partner Garden in the West Indies. The garden was created in the 1950s by award-winning horticulturist Iris Bannochie. After Iris d...

Women making history on the snow and ice. Kim Chakanetsa meets two female athletes who are pioneers in their winter sports. Simidele Adeagbo is a Nigerian who is the first African woman to compete in the skeleton category of the Winter Olympics. Originally a track and field athlete, she set out to break barriers in winter sports but was faced with the challenge of no snow or tracks to practise on....

Explosions in classrooms and a commute threatened by bombs and bullets - academics from Yemen and Syria who found themselves working through a civil war. Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women who are passionate about educating their country's next generation, but were forced to leave them behind when they fled to safety in Europe. They discuss why they had to make that painful decision, and how...

Travelling alone while female - what's the reality? Kim Chakanetsa brings together two wanderlust women who won't let sexism stop them from adventuring into different cities, countries and hemispheres. Meruschka Govender is a travel activist, and experience seeker from South Africa. She regularly backpacks around the continent, but says she always felt that there was a local voice missing in Afric...

What does it take to be the world’s best teacher and win a million dollars at the same time? We meet two women who have won the Global Teacher Prize for transforming the lives of their students. Andria Zafirakou is deputy headteacher at a community school in a deprived part of London which has one of the highest murder rates in the UK. Violent gangs often try to recruit the children at the school...

Feminism! Freedom! Identity! When it comes to frank discussions, podcasts by and for women are leading the way in creating communities where nothing is off limits. Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women who are seizing the mic and recording their own stories and conversations. Their podcasts are all about challenging assumptions about gender, race and sexuality and building armies of like-minded...

Promoting women's writing around the world - Kim Chakanetsa brings together the heads of pioneering feminist publishing houses in Australia and India, and asks how they stay relevant in an age of self-publishing and e-books? Susan Hawthorne runs Spinifex Press in Queensland. She and her partner Renate Klein set it up in 1991 as a response to what they saw as a dearth of diversity in Australian pub...

Two women re-define what it means to be a bread-maker. While women and baking have always been closely associated with each other, the billion dollar industry is actually dominated by men. This week, two young women speak to Kim Chakanetsa about becoming the face of bread-making, taking on the family business, and the sacrifices it takes to make the perfect loaf. Apollonia Poîlane's grandfather op...

Professional female gamers excelling in a male-dominated environment. Emily Webb unites one of the UK's most successful live streamers, and a champion e-sports player from Canada to discuss their gaming highs, lows and strategies for dealing with trolls. Leahviathan has amassed almost 150,000 followers on the gaming website Twitch, streaming footage of herself playing video games such as Destiny 2...

Women who are acting as religious leaders in two Muslim communities in Europe. As women doing this is highly unusual, and is not accepted by most Muslim scholars and believers, Kim Chakanetsa asks them how they have been received and why it's so important to them. Sherin Khankan set up the feminist Mariam Mosque in Copenhagen in 2016. She calls herself a 'female imam' and she hopes to revolutionis...

Fighting fires and stereotypes at the same time - Kim Chakanetsa speaks to two senior fire women in India and the UK. Dany Cotton joined the London Fire Brigade at 18, just a few years after it opened up to women. She has worked her way up to be the force's first ever female Commissioner, and is now spearheading a campaign for the general public to stop using the term 'fireman' because it's sexist...

At the 2018 Women of the World Festival in London, Kim Chakanetsa brings together two extraordinary women who have been instrumental in the fight against racism and police brutality. In 2013, three women came together to form an active response to systemic racism in the US. They'd just learned that the man who shot dead an unarmed black teenager called Trayvon Martin had been acquitted for the kil...

Marching with fellow women for a cause - Krupa Padhy meets two women who have tackled violence against women head-on, by organising eye-catching and sometimes controversial street protests. Finn Mackay is one of the UK's most influential feminist activists. She founded the London Feminist Network in 2004, the same year that she revived the Reclaim the Night marches, after seeing shocking statistic...

Is there a secret formula for finding love and marriage? Two modern-day matchmakers working within the Jewish community and the Hindu community share their unique insights into dating and relationships. Aleeza Ben Shalom is a Jewish-American matchmaker based in Philadelphia, USA, who describes herself as a love coach for marriage-minded singles. Her approach is not necessarily to find someone a ma...

Two women who shape the look of a film, from sets to props to locations - and have huge influence on our screens. But despite their success, this is still a field dominated by men. Hannah Beachler has translated the African fantasy world of Wakanda onto the big screen in the much-anticipated new superhero movie, Black Panther. She is also the creative force behind the look of the Oscar-winning fil...

Two swimming stars look back on their extraordinary careers and talk frankly about sexism in the sport, how they overcame major challenges to keep competing and how they dealt with their period ahead of a race. Natalie Coughlin is among the greatest female swimmers in history, with 12 Olympic medals to her name. However when she was a teenager, and already a rising star in the pool, she suffered a...

Can women stop their intimate photos being published online without their consent? Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women fighting back against so-called 'revenge' porn Nyika Allen is President and CEO of the New Mexico Technology Council. In 2015, Nyika's ex-boyfriend began posting compromising photographs of her on Twitter. As they were viewed by complete strangers she was overwhelmed by shock...

Cutting off men's ties, throwing sequined stilettos and storming City Hall - carnival may at first appear to be a frivolous occasion, but Joanna Impey speaks to two women who say that feminist and even revolutionary ideas are at the root of carnival traditions, and are still highly relevant today. Staci Rosenberg is the founder of one of the few all-female Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans. When s...

Are women treated unfairly on social media, and is the situation worse for women of colour? Krupa Padhy meets two social activists who unexpectedly found themselves at the centre of a digital storm, and asks what happened next. Munroe Bergdorf is a British model, DJ and social activist who came to public attention in 2017 when she was employed as the first transgender model in a L'Oreal cosmetics...

Two women who are spellbound by the power of storms talk to Kim Chakanetsa about why they are drawn to danger, what it feels like to be trapped inside a Category Four hurricane and the thrill of the chase. Karen Kosiba is a scientist based at the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado. She chases extreme weather events to study the wind structure inside tornadoes and to measure th...

Do women wield any real power in the boardroom? Kim Chakanetsa gets together top female executives from India and Ireland to discuss. Named one of India's most powerful women by Fortune India, Roopa Kudva has extensive experience of sitting on the board, both as a CEO and as an independent director. She currently leads the philanthropic investment firm, Omidyar Network, in India and also sits on t...

Two award-winning photographers on the importance of having women behind the lens. They tell Kim Chakanetsa what drives them, the challenges they face in the field and how they justify the amount of travel they do in the name of reversing climate change. Cristina Mittermeier is a Mexican photographer who grew up alongside indigenous Mexican tribes, and witnessed their struggle to maintain their wa...

Braving rough seas to make a living - it's not easy being a fisherwoman, but for our two guests it's about much more than the catch. They talk to Kim Chakanetsa about working in the open air, forming unique bonds with their crew and about their hopes for a sustainable future of fishing. Claire Neaton is one half of Salmon Sisters, a commercial fishing and nautical clothing company, based in Alaska...