Woman's Hour

It looks like Serena Williams is leaving tennis. She's won 23 grand slam titles and four Olympic golds but has suggested it's time to move on. She's made the announcement in Vogue, where she's said retirement - "causes a great deal of pain. I hate it." So she hasn't explicitly said she's giving up but she's given a large hint, saying she wants to focus on her family. Jessica Creighton speaks to fo...

The British-born actor and singer Olivia Newton-John has died at the age of 73. Best remembered for playing the iconic role of Sandy in the musical film Grease. We pay tribute with Stockard Channing who played Rizzo in Grease, and the film critic Karen Krizanovich and Olivia Moore who is currently playing her in the stage version in London's west end. Brit & Mercury prize winner Heather Small...

In 2020, a black 15-year-old schoolgirl, known as Child Q, was strip-searched by police while on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis. A safeguarding report on the incident concluded it was unjustified and racism was "likely" to have been a factor. New data published by the Children’s Commissioner has found what she calls a “concerning” number of children have been strip-s...

This time last week we were looking forward to the big match: The Lionesses at the European Championship Final at Wembley. We hoped, but we just couldn't predict what would happen, but what a great moment when they won against Germany! But don't let the success of women's football overshadow the sport that's been with us all along: netball. At the Commonwealth Games, the English team - known as th...

Last week we talked about the Spanish equality ministry’s summer campaign promoting body positivity on the beach featuring diverse women of different shapes and sizes. But the campaign has received a lot of criticism since as it used multiple women’s images without their permission. We hear from one, Juliet Fitzpatrick who had a double mastectomy, who believes her face was manipulated and put onto...

Kansas is the first state in the US to decide in a referendum to protect abortion rights in a major victory for pro-choice groups. What impact could this have across the rest of America after the overturning of Roe vs Wade? Professor Fiona De Londras, Chair of Global Legal Studies at Birmingham Law School updates us. The Lionesses win is still being celebrated, with thousands gathering in Trafalga...

The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham are underway and for the first time in a major multi-sport event, more medals will be awarded to women than men, with the medal programme confirming a total of 136 events for women compared to 134 for men. Jessica speaks to BBC Sports presenter Clare Balding as well as the first ever female Chef de Mission for Team Scotland, who for the first time have more wom...

In today's Woman's Hour we dedicate the programme to Women's Football after the Lionesses won the Euro 2022 Championship last night. Rebecca Myers is a journalist for The Times and a prominent voice in Women's Sport, she joined Andrea to give a match report and described some of her favourite moments. What will the legacy of last night’s Women’s Euro 2022 be? The former lioness and second highest...

The actor Samantha Womack on her new role as the White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. As the Lionesses reach the final of the Euros on Sunday let's not forget that the FA, the Football Assocation, banned the women's game for fifty years. Jacqui Oatley, the first female Match of the Day commentator, reflects on the women's game. Women with learning disabilities die on average 26 yea...

We talk to journalist Fiona Govan based in Madrid who writes for Olive Press about the controversy surrounding a new ad campaign in Spain proclaiming “All Bodies are Beach Bodies”. Posters including women of all shapes and sizes, including women with mastectomies with a slogan “Summer Belongs to Us too.” Helpful messaging? Or “absurd” as some opposition politicians claim which is creating “a probl...

Friends and business partners Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin have become stars of pandemic feel-good TV, with their Netflix show Get Organised with The Home Edit. They go into someone’s home – be it a Hollywood celebrity or a stressed family of five - and transform a cluttered space into something beautiful and functional. The emphasis is firmly on giving busy women back some time and headspace th...

It’s been just over a month since Roe vs Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in the United States. On this programme we’ve covered the aftermath of this ruling many times, but what about the woman at the centre of it all? Jane Roe, or a name you might be less familiar with, Norma McCorvey, the real person behind the Roe vs Wade court case of 1972. Her eldest daughter, Melissa Mills, joins Emm...

After an eight month UK tour the children’s classic, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe comes to London's West End with Samantha Womack - best known for playing Ronnie in Eastenders - taking on the role of the White Witch. Following last night's first TV debate Emma's joined by two women who will have a vote but have yet to decide whether to back the former chancellor Rishi Sunak or the foreign...

The BBC’s first Green Sport Awards has announced the winner of its Evergreen Award. Leilani Münter is an American former professional stock car racing driver whose environmental activism has been central to her career. Leilani used her race car as “a 200mph billboard” to get environmental messages in front of the 75 million race fans in the USA. Leilani joins Emma. A new reoprt by MPs says the NHS...

TV personality Vicky Pattison shot to fame on the reality show Geordie Shore, where her extreme party-girl lifestyle in Newcastle was lived out in front of the cameras. Now, she’s taking a long, hard look at her past in a new documentary which centres around her father’s struggle with alcoholism for most of his adult life. She explains how this has, in part, contributed towards her own unhealthy r...

Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward from Bananarama come into the Woman's Hour studio to talk about how it all started, their friendship and their new album, Masquerade. The Baby is a new TV drama about a woman who suddenly gets a baby. It literally lands in her arms without warning. What's she going to do when she never wanted a baby in the first place? We have Michelle de Swarte who plays 38-year-old...

TV personality Vicky Pattison shot to fame on the reality show Geordie Shore, where her extreme party-girl lifestyle in Newcastle was lived out in front of the cameras. Now, she’s taking a long, hard look at her past in a new documentary which centres around her father’s struggle with alcoholism for most of his adult life. She explains to Nuala McGovern how this has, in part, contributed towards h...

Today the government launches its much awaited Women’s Health Strategy for England. For generations women have lived with a healthcare system that is designed by men, for men. Despite making up 50 percent of the population and living longer than men, women have been under-represented in research, with little known about some female-specific issues, spending a greater proportion of their lives in i...

It’s being called medicine’s Me Too moment. Two female doctors have launched an online campaign gathering testimony about sexual harassment and a culture of sexism in the world of health care. Dr Becky Cox and Dr Chelcie Jewitt join Krupa to explain why they launched Surviving in Scrubs. Last week we looked at radical solutions to the ageing population and slowing birth rate, including a tax on th...

American author R J Palacio talks to Krupa Padhy about her latest novel "White Bird" Following the overturning of Roe V Wade in the US more women have talked openly about having had an abortion but many never speak openly about their experiences. In a series first broadcast in 2019 we hear five different personal testimonies from women. Today, a woman we are calling Amanda who only came to terms w...

A formal apology should be issued by the government to the thousands of unmarried mothers in England and Wales who had their babies taken for adoption in the 50s, 60s, 70s. In a report published today, the Joint Committee on Human Rights says the Government bears ultimate responsibility for the pain and suffering caused by public institutions and state employees that railroaded mothers into those...

Since the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the United States here on Woman’s Hour we’ve looked at what this will mean for women in America, and also what the status of abortion is here in the UK. But what right do women around the world have to an abortion and could the overturning of Roe vs Wade in America lead other countries to follow suit? Macarena Saez is from the NGO Human Rights Watch and join...

Conservative MPs start voting in the first round ballot to see who will take over from Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister - 4 women and 4 men ,after the candidates were reduced to eight contenders. Some of the policy areas being debated are familiar: tax, immigration and our relationship with the EU. Some are less so and quite new to the political battlefield as defining...

The online platform TikTok has become one of the most popular social media apps in the world, with more than one billion monthly active users. Young people in particular love watching and creating videos and the content is often funny and upbeat. But author and content creator Tova Leigh contacted us to say she has noticed more and more disturbing content on the site that encourages violence again...

Angélique Kidjo is a 5 time Grammy Award winner from Benin who has been called "Africa's premier diva". Later this month she will be headlining the WOMAD world music and dance festival. She’ll be talking on Woman’s Hour about why she sings in five different languages and how music can be a greater force for change than politics. A recent article in the Sunday Times asked whether we should tax the...