Woman's Hour

We hear about the thousands of women suing the breast implant manufacturer Allergan over alleged links with a rare cancer. We have an exclusive interview with a woman who has received a payout from the company after falling sick. Susan Axelby told our reporter Melanie Abbott that she ended up being diagnosed with cancer after having an operation which was supposed to prevent it. Plus, Nuala McGove...

The Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died, after being doused with petrol and set on fire. She is the third female athlete to be killed in Kenya in the past few years. To find out more about what's going on, Krupa Padhy is joined by the BBC's Deputy Africa Editor Anne Soy and Joan Chelimo, a fellow athlete of Rebecca's. Carol Klein is one of our best loved horticulturalists – most know...

Eluned Morgan is the first woman in history to be first minister of Wales. She was appointed earlier this summer after her predecessor, Vaughan Gething, resigned. What does her appointment mean for women in Wales? What policies will she be focusing on? She joins Anita Rani to discuss all this and more. From spongy flesh to wandering wombs, there have been many theories about the inner workings of...

We hear about the thousands of women suing the breast implant manufacturer Allergan over alleged links with a rare cancer. We have an exclusive interview with a woman who has received a payout from the company after falling sick. Susan Axelby tells our reporter Melanie Abbott that she ended up being diagnosed with cancer after having an operation which was supposed to prevent it. Plus, Nuala McGov...

Head teacher Ruth Perry took her own life in January last year whilst waiting for the publication of an Ofsted report she knew would grade her school as "inadequate". Ruth’s sister, Professor Julia Waters, has been campaigning for change in the way Ofsted rates schools ever since. A review was published today into Ofsted's response to Ruth Perry’s death, and yesterday the Government announced chan...

One or two-word Ofsted inspection grades for England's schools are being scrapped immediately. Early next year, school improvement teams will be set up in every area, and the Government says it will continue to intervene in struggling schools. By September 2025, parents will be able to view a new "report card" describing what inspectors have found at a school. BBC Correspondent Ellie Price joins N...

A new Netflix series, Kaos is a modern, darkly comic retelling of Greek mythology that will perhaps have you seeing the gender politics of ancient Greece in a new light. Stage and film actor Janet McTeer stars as the Queen of the gods, Hera. Janet joins Anita to talk about Hera’s sexual power as well as her previous roles and what has changed in the industry. If you were watching the Paris Olympic...

Nicki Chapman is well-known for presenting shows like Escape to the Country and Wanted Down Under and also a regular presenter on BBC Radio 2. She started out as a record plugger in the music industry – and now she’s written a memoir, So Tell Me What You Want, which lifts the lid on what it was like managing and touring with the likes of David Bowie, Take That, and S Club. She joins Anita Rani to...

Protests have been happening across India after a 31-year-old junior doctor was raped and murdered in a hospital in Kolkata earlier this month. Her death prompted marches and strikes nationwide over safety issues for female doctors and this soon developed into a talking point for women’s safety in general. BBC Delhi Correspondent Kirti Dubey joins Anita Rani to report on the latest news, along wit...

The Real Thing is a play within a play currently on stage at the Old Vic in London. It encourages the audience to question why we fall in love, what is fact and what is fiction. And can we can ever really know if the love we are experiencing is the real thing? Actors Susan Wokoma and Bel Powley star in the production and join Nuala in the Woman’s Hour studio to discuss. Over the summer Woman’s Hou...

The Paris Paralympic Games begin tomorrow. Nuala is joined by Paralympian turned broadcaster Rachael Latham to talk us through the women we should be looking out for over the next 12 days. Composer and singer-songwriter Errollyn Wallen joins Nuala after being appointed the new Master of the King's Music. The position has existed since the 17th century and is awarded to musicians who have added to...

Whether you have a sister or not, it’s a relationship that has long fascinated us. In this special edition of Woman’s Hour, Nuala McGovern explores what makes the female sibling dynamic so compelling. If you were watching the Paris Olympics, you might have spotted identical twins Lina and Laviai Nielsen taking to the track. The Olympic duo join Nuala to discuss competing together at an elite level...

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU! We hear from listener Siobhan Daniels. She wrote to us on Instagram: 'I would love you to talk about van life and an alternative way of living.' Siobhan is 65 years old and after selling her home and possessions has lived in her motorhome for five years. She joins Nuala McGovern on the programme. Listener Kitty Dow...

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU! Woman's Hour listener Elaine asked the programme to discuss the issue of having sex in later life. Elaine is in her seventies and her partner would like to resume a sexual relationship. They are both negotiating medical conditions and she feels reluctant. Elaine would like to know what is typical or normal in your...

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU! What is it like to parent a neurodivergent child when you are neurodivergent yourself? Anita Rani speaks to listener Rachel, who discovered she had ADHD after her daughter was diagnosed, and Jo, whose children have dyslexia. How one moment or person can change your life’s trajectory. Listener Bettie tells Anita how...

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU! As part of Listener Week we have been asked by widows to discuss one side effect of bereavement – hyper-arousal, and the term ‘Widow’s Fire’. Nuala McGovern explores these ideas with listener Lizzie, Stacey Heale, who has written a book – Now is Not the Time for Flowers - about her experience of being widowed, and...

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU! Why do so many of us feel bad about our tummies and why are the rounded or wobbly ones never celebrated? That’s what listener Carole wants to know. Content creator Lottie Drynan created the IBS blog The Tummy Diaries and #mybloatedwardrobe and has learned to love her rounded stomach. She joins Nuala McGovern, along...

Welcome to Woman's Hour's Listener Week, when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU! On today's programme, we hear from listener Siobhan Daniels. She wrote to us on Instagram: 'I would love you to talk about van life and an alternative way of living.' Siobhan is 65 years old and after selling her home and possessions has lived in her motorhome for five years. She joins Nuala...

Fresh from the Paris Olympic Games, the Team GB weightlifter Emily Campbell joins Jessica Creighton on the programme. Best known for her no-nonsense attitude, fabulous hair and of course, lifting extremely heavy weights, she joins Jessica to discuss adding bronze to her silver medal from Tokyo. In 2020, Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott had the case against her alleged rapist dropped by the CPS. They...

A new study just published says that perimenopausal women are more likely to experience bipolar and major depressive disorder. Cardiff University academics worked with charity Bipolar UK and the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database, to look at nearly 130,000 UK women and focused on the four years around the last menstrual period. Dr Clare Dolman, an ambassador for Bipolar UK and patient a...

Fresh from the Paris Olympic Games, the Team GB weightlifter Emily Campbell joins Jessica Creighton on the programme. Best known for her no-nonsense attitude, fabulous hair and of course, lifting extremely heavy weights, she joins Jessica to discuss adding bronze to her silver medal from Tokyo. A Glasgow parents group is taking legal action against the city council over planned education cuts. It...

Throughout the summer we’ve been taking a look into the world of 'genre fiction' – the women who read it and the women who write it. In the latest of this series, we’re going to discuss science fiction. Seen by some as 'a genre for men,' there are lots of women authors and readers who think otherwise. Bafta-nominated screenwriter and playwright, Moira Buffini, who's written The Dig and TV series H...

Annie Ernaux’s Booker-nominated book, Les Années, traces her journey from childhood in post-war France to old age in the post-9/11 era. Now adapted for the stage, Gina Mckee, Deborah Findlay and Romola Garai, alongside Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner, are the five actors portraying different stages in the life of an ‘unnamed’ French woman. Romola Garai joins Nuala McGovern in the Woman’s H...

For the first time in history, the Paris 2024 Olympics saw an equal number of men and women competing. But that's not always been the case - in fact, back in 1912, the father of the Olympic games Pierre de Coubertin said that having women compete in the games would be 'impractical, uninteresting, ungainly and, I do not hesitate to add, improper'. Luckily, the Olympics didn’t just have the father o...

Lottie Tomlinson rose to fame as the younger sister of One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson. At 16, she went on tour with the band as a makeup artist and a decade on, has become an entrepreneur. Lottie’s mother and sister died within a few years of each other, when she was just 20-years-old. She joins Anita to talk about her experience of grief, which she’s written about her new memoir, Lucky Girl. Mad...