Woman's Hour

Anoushka Shankar is a respected sitarist and composer who has just received two Grammy nominations for her new live album Between Us. She joins Anita to talk about the her new song, In Her Name, in memory of the young girl from Delhi, referred to as Nirbhaya, who 10 years ago was gang raped on a bus and was subjected to an attack so badly that she died from her injuries. The incident sent shockwav...

Rachael Watts has spent her life hiding a secret. Now 40, she was seven years old when Russell Bishop - known as the Babes in the Wood murderer - abducted, attacked and sexually assaulted her in 1990. It is a crime that should never have happened, as back in 1987, Russell Bishop had been charged with the murders of two nine-year-olds, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway. But police were unable to sec...

Dr Rosemary Coogan has been selected as a career astronaut by the European Space Agency (ESA), becoming the first British woman to join their astronaut corps. She joins Emma in her first in-depth BBC interview to discuss the tough selection process, upcoming training and hopes for her first mission. On Monday’s Woman’s Hour, we heard from the American TV show host Ricki Lake who has produced a new...

Today is day two of an international conference held here in the UK to prevent sexual violence in conflict and Emma Barnett will be talking to Lord Ahmad, who’s the Prime Minister’s special Envoy on this issue. It’s ten years since the conference began and Woman’s Hour will be looking at what progress has been made to date as well as hearing the testimony of Lejla Damon who was born after her moth...

Ricki Lake is widely known for her American talk show in the '90s and early 2000s. She's an actor and a producer as well as an independent filmmaker. Emma talks to her about her role as Executive Producer, on a new documentary "The Business of Birth Control" which looks at the complex relationship between hormonal birth control and women's health and liberation. The head of the Royal Navy has defe...

To mark ten years since stalking became a specific crime in England and Wales, we speak to crime reporter and presenter Isla Traquair. In her day job Isla is used to confronting murderers and travelling to dangerous places but it was in a quiet village in Wiltshire where her stalking ordeal took place. In August this year Isla's neighbour, Jonathan Barrett, was found guilty of stalking. This follo...

The comedian Katherine Ryan has been in the news this week after she spoke out on a recent documentary with Louis Theroux about confronting an alleged sexual predator while making a tv show. She says this ‘star’ has sexually assaulted women she knows and despite it being an ‘open secret’ in the industry no one has managed to nail him down because he has ‘very good lawyers’. In the documentary she...

Lady Glenconner, Anne Tennant, the eldest child of the fifth Earl of Leicester, was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret for three decades. She says her mother brought her up to cope with a fundamental truth of her class and time: women must put up and shut up, and so had been taught to smile through life in high society despite the brutality of a husband who left her deaf in one ear. After the su...

Some may say that football and politics don't go together but anyone watching yesterday's matches might think otherwise. The Iranian team declined to sing their anthem & Wales fans showed their support for LGBTQ+ rights last night by wearing rainbow bucket hats. So how useful are these shows of solidarity? Laura McAllister, the ex-Wales footballer & Beth Fisher, freelance sports reporter &...

The actor Andrea Riseborough has taken on roles ranging from Margaret Thatcher to Stalin’s daughter. But now she’s playing someone quite different: Mrs Wormwood in the new Matilda the Musical film, which will be released in cinemas on Friday 25th November. The film is an adaptation of Tim Minchin’s hit West End musical of the same name, and stars Emma Thompson as Mrs Trunchbull and Stephen Graham...

To mark ten years since stalking became a specific crime in England and Wales Woman's Hour has a special programme looking at what’s changed in that time. We have exclusive data on how this is being dealt with by police. The BBC's Gemma Dunstan joins Emma Barnett in the studio to go through the findings. One question we wanted to answer is what efforts have been made to get to the crux of the prob...

Monday marked 100 years since the BBC began broadcasting on radio. To celebrate that centenary, we commissioned a poem by Kim Moore and created a soundscape to show how much women’s lives, and the noises that surround them, have changed - using BBC archive from the 1920s right through to the present day. Why did the BBC get its nickname ‘Auntie’? And what kind of aunt would she be? We discuss with...

The Internet Watch Foundation has been tracking the increasing trend of perpetrators grooming children online and coercing them into sexually abusing themselves on camera. The foundation has recognised a lot of what they are seeing as Category A, the most severe kind of sexual abuse, due to it including penetration with an object. Some of the child victims of this online sexual abuse are as young...

The Big Swing is the world’s first double female-fronted big band. It is led by jazz musicians Georgina Jackson and Emma Smith. On Friday 18th November they will be performing at EFG London Jazz Festival and Cadogan Hall, where they will present their own unique interpretations of the old-school big band jazz tradition, adding their own brand of style and charisma. They join Emma to discuss why th...

Poet Joelle Taylor won the Polari Prize last night and the TS Eliot Prize in January this year. Over a long career as a writer for the page and the stage she has explored butch lesbian counterculture and told the stories of the women in underground communities fighting for the right to be themselves. She joins Emma Barnett to explain how joining the literary establishment fits with a lifetime of p...

The imagery around pregnancy is often of glowing women doing yoga with calm expressions. For many women through it can be a time of anxiety about the birth, the baby, the future. All perfectly natural but it can be hard to ask for or access help. A new book ‘Break Free From Maternal Anxiety’ A self-help Guide for Pregnancy, Birth and the First Postnatal Year’ offers CBT-based support. One of the a...

Today it is 100 years since the BBC began broadcasting on radio. To celebrate that centenary, we have commissioned a poem by Kim Moore and created a soundscape to show how much women’s lives, and the noises that surround them, have changed - using BBC archive from the 1920s right through to the present day. We also ask why did the BBC get its nickname ‘Auntie’? And what kind of aunt would she be?...

The Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter and actress LeAnn Rimes joins us in the studio. Her unforgettable ballad "How Do I Live" holds the record as Billboard’s Hot 100 all-time #1 hit by a female artist. She talks about the inspiration her latest album, God’s Work. A woman who served in the Royal Navy for 20 years speaks for the first time about how she was raped and sexually assaulted during...

The Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter and actress LeAnn Rimes released her first album, Blue, aged 13 and at 14 she won "Best New Artist”. Her unforgettable ballad "How Do I Live" holds the record as Billboard’s Hot 100 all-time #1 hit by a female artist. She joins Anita Rani to talk about the inspiration her latest album – god’s work – which features artists including Ziggy Marley and Aloe...

A woman who served in the Royal Navy for 20 years speaks for the first time about how she was raped and sexually assaulted during her career. Speaking to Emma Barnett on Woman’s Hour she describes experiencing several other incidents of sexual harassment during her time serving, including a colleague putting his penis on her shoulder. She says that when a senior colleague discovered she was pregna...

England's Rugby League Women's team play their next World Cup match against Papua New Guinea tonight. Joining Emma to talk about how to get more women involved in the game are the official Women's Ambassador for the Rugby League World Cup Jodie Cunningham and the Captain Emily Rudge. Jodie is also an Ambassador for the RLWC's Social Impact Programme which champions inclusive volunteering. We hear...

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...