Woman's Hour

Following, Elon Musk’s announcement that Twitter will permanently suspend any account on the social media platform that impersonates another, Nuala McGovern is joined by crime writer, Denise Mina who changed her twitter display name to ‘Elon Musk’. Jenny Tough is an endurance athlete who's best known for running and cycling in some of world's most challenging events. For a forthcoming film - SOLO...

Hailing from theatrical royalty, daughter of Judy Garland, actor and singer Lorna Luft is recognised as an iconic star of stage and screen. About to embark on a UK tour playing housekeeper Martha Watson in the much-loved musical White Christmas, she joins Emma Barnett to explain what draws her back to this role time after time. The Prime Minister is in Sharm El Sheikh for this year's COP27 UN clim...

Beth Mead was Player of the Tournament at the Euro's earlier this year, and runner-up in the Ballon d'Or which decides the best player in the world. Beth plays for Arsenal in the Women's Super League, and has a new book out called Lioness: My Journey To Glory. After Donna Patterson's maternity leave, her employer Morrison’s gave her a full-time role, despite her only working part time. She represe...

Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers are the producing partners behind some of the biggest American TV dramas of modern times – and they are always female character led. They include Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and of course the Netflix hit Bridgerton – adapted from Julia Quinn’s racy novels set in the Regency era in England. The first series was released at the end of 2020, and...

Dame Sharon White is the first ever female chair of John Lewis Partnership and was recently named the UK’s most influential black person in the 2023 Powerlist. She became the chair of the John Lewis Partnership in January 2020 just as the Covid pandemic hit and is responsible for turning around the fortunes of John Lewis and Waitrose in what is widely seen as the most challenging time in the compa...

Chan Marshall, better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer, songwriter and producer. After three decades in the music industry, she has eight original albums under her belt but has also made three cover albums. The most recent saw her singing everything from the work of The Pogues to Lana Del Rey. This Saturday she will be recreating Bob Dylan’s iconic 1966 Royal Albert Hall co...

Glasgow has become the first city in the UK to officially adopt a feminist town-planning-approach. Emma Barnett speaks to the woman behind the proposal Scottish Green Councillor Holly Bruce and the author of ‘Feminist City’ Leslie Kern. What's a feminist city look like and what changes can we expect to see in Glasgow. One in five female doctors say they have considered early retirement due to meno...

After Donna Patterson's maternity leave, her employer Morrison’s gave her a full-time role, despite her only working part time. She represented herself in a tribunal and she won a £60k pay-out for maternity discrimination. Donna joins Emma Barnett in the studio. As the clocks go back - and the nights draw in- it can get harder to find the motivation to get outdoors and exercise as the couch beckon...

According to the OECD, the UK is the third most expensive country for childcare. ‘March of the Mummies’ organised by the campaign group Pregnant then Screwed are demanding for government reform. Its founder Joeli Brearley told Elaine Dunkley why. 25-year-old Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate who launched her own climate movement in 2019 protesting outside the gates of the Ugandan parliament....

According to the OECD, the UK is the third most expensive country for childcare. An estimated 1.7 million women in England are prevented from doing more hours of work by childcare issues, while a UNICEF report this week shows that almost 1 in 5 parents on low incomes are skipping meals to pay for it. On Saturday, 12,000 mums will descend on 11 locations across the UK to demand government reform in...

In a shocking report out today MPs say too many women who’ve survived domestic abuse are ending up in appalling accommodation operated by rogue landlords who exploit housing benefit loopholes to cash in on a ‘gold rush’ of taxpayers’ money. Some women and their children find themselves housed in mixed-sex provision, or even alongside their perpetrators. The current rules mean anyone can set up wha...

The new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has appointed his team of top ministers but out of 31 members there are only seven women in his team. The BBC’s Leila Nathoo joins Jessica alongside Dr Meryl Kenny. Film critic and journalist Hanna Flint has been covering film and culture for nearly a decade. She's now written a book, Strong Female Character: What Movies Teach Us in which she reflects on how cine...

Twenty-one year old university student Libby Squire disappeared after a night out with friends in Hull in January 2019. Last year 24 year old Pawel Relowicz was jailed for 27 years for her rape and murder. A new Sky documentary 'Libby, Are You Home Yet?'available to watch on Sky Crime from 27th September and streaming service Now explores the case. Libby's mother Lisa joins Jess to explain why she...

In China, the leader Xi Jinping has moved into a historic third term in power. He has just revealed his senior leadership team at the 20th Communist party congress in Beijing, and for the first time in 25 years, no women were included. We discuss what this means for women in China. A new BBC documentary looks at how deepfake technology is being used to create hardcore pornography of women without...

Geena Davis is a two-time Academy award-winning actress, known for her role as Thelma in Thelma & Louise, among countless other parts she has played. She joins Jessica Creighton to talk about her impressive career as an actress, athlete and model – as well as why she’s such a champion of female representation in media, and why she chose the title of her new memoir, ‘Dying of Politeness’. Anne...

Anne Sacoolas - a US citizen - has admitted causing the death of 19 year old Harry Dunn, outside an airbase in Northamptonshire in 2019. Yesterday, she appeared at the Old Bailey via video link and pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving. She'd been charged with causing death by dangerous driving -- but her guilty plea to the lesser charge was accepted. She will be sentenced next month...

Comedian Jayde Adams and her Strictly Come Dancing partner Karen Hauer speak to Woman’s Hour about their performance on Saturday’s show which was dedicated to Jayde’s late sister Jenna Adams. They’ll be talking about how their journey dancing as a female sex couple has been, reflecting on the public support and reaction, as well as giving us an insight into what’s in store for their next dance. A...

An independent review launched after up to 15 babies died at a hospital trust will be published later this morning. The report into maternity services at East Kent Hospitals, which is expected to be "harrowing", examined up to 200 cases involving mothers and babies. The medical experts reviewed an 11-year period from 2009 at two hospitals in Margate and Ashford. Two mothers who lost their babies a...

In her memoir "Dying of Politeness" the Oscar winning actor Geena_Davis talks about her roles from a housewife-turned-road warrior and an amnesiac assassin to the mother of a rodent, and the president of the United States. Plus she shares with Jessica Ceighton how she could have swapped acting for athletes and her passion for female representation. Many of you got in touch after the journalist Mer...

Jasmin Vardimon is one of the UK’s leading choreographers and was awarded an MBE for services to dance in the late Queen’s final birthday honours list in June. This month Jasmin is bringing ALiCE - a new interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland - to the Sadler’s Wells. She is also opening a purpose-built dance centre in Kent where the Jasmin Vardimon Company will be based. She...

Nicole Hockley lost her son Dylan when he was 6 years old, during the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut in 2012. She talks about her son, her feelings of loss, her activism and her reaction to the trial of Alex Jones, where a jury decided he should pay nearly 1 billion dollars in damages. Do you feel comfortable voicing your opinion? Are you afraid of the ‘cancel culture’? Actress Juliet S...

This week, in a defamation trial in the US, Alex Jones, founder of the Infowars website, was ordered to pay nearly one billion dollars in damage to eight families and an FBI agent. He had falsely claimed a mass shooting of twenty young children between ages of 6 and 7 and six adults at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in 2012 was a hoax. Because of his lies grieving families were ha...

The Doctor’ first opened at the Almeida in 2019 Juliet Stevenson’s performance was described as ‘one of the peaks of the theatrical year’. Now on stage in London’s West End the play has again been highly applauded by the critics. Juliet joins Emma Barnett to discuss playing Dr Ruth Wolff, medical ethics, identity politics, anti-Semitism, media witch hunts and the way institutions protect themselve...

Based on the Salem trials in Massachusetts in 1692, where young girls accused their elders of satanism, a new production of Arthur Miller's modern classic The Crucible has just opened at the National Theatre in London. Actor Erin Doherty, best known for her portrayal of a young Princess Anne in Netflix series The Crown, plays Abigail Williams, the girl whose spurned affections spark the witch hunt...

The Royal College of Nursing, the world's biggest nurses' union, has a culture of bullying and misogyny, according to an internal report. Jessica Creighton speaks to Pat Cullen, the General Secretary and Chief Executive of the RCN who commissioned the report. Helen O’Hara is a violinist and composer who plays the ear catching violin on the massive No.1 hit Come on Eileen. She joins Jessica to expl...