Woman's Hour

It’s fifty years since six newly elected female traders entered the floor of the London Stock Exchange for the first time after 200 years of exclusion. The number of women working in finance reached a peak in 1997 at almost six-hundred-thousand, but has dropped by more than thirty percent to around four-hundred-thousand last year. Half a century after the first women were allowed onto the floor at the London Stock Exchange, the ‘inequity’ that has held women back in the industry has still...

Taking any type of hormonal contraception could increase your risk of getting breast cancer, according to a new study by the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford Population Health, which is part of the University of Oxford. It’s one of the first big studies into this type of birth control assessing the risk of breast cancer. But headlines like this will be alarming, so, what do we need to know and do? Dr Charlotte Porter, Vice President of Speciality at the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive...

On a special phone in edition of Woman's Hour we look at trust in the police following the review by Baroness Casey into a toxic culture at the Met Police. She found the 'the force has lost the trust and confidence of the people it is supposed to keep safe' and gave shocking examples of sexism, racism and homophobia. The report was commissioned in the aftermath of the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by PC Wayne Couzens, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Since then, we’ve also had...

Baroness Louise Casey has today published the final report on her review into the Metropolitan Police. Joining Nuala McGovern to discuss the findings are a female metropolitan police officer, Deputy Commissioner of the Met Police Dame Lynne Owens and London Victim's Commissioner, Claire Waxman, who works alongside the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that victim's voices are heard and discriminatory barriers are tackled. The music journalist Emma Warren has...

Known for shows like Love Island and The Only Way is Essex, social media influencer Georgia Harrison talks to Nuala McGovern about her new TV documentary. It follows her successful legal battle against her former partner who filmed and shared a sex video of the two of them without her consent on the OnlyFans website A couple’s creative bus stop marriage proposal has captured the hearts of social media users, after Nuala spotted and shared it last week. We hear from Alice Ehrlich who tweeted...

Paris Hilton has been called ‘the first influencer’ and is known for being an ‘it-girl’. But behind the paparazzi pictures there’s a darker story. Now for the first time, Paris is telling her story in her own words in her new book Paris: The Memoir. She joins Anita Rani to talk about her life, why she wanted to write her story now, and being a new mother. A major report has been published looking into the experiences of survivors of FGM in accessing post-FGM healthcare in the UK. Nuala...

Anita and Annie are joined by Kalpona Akter, an ambassador for The Circle who worked in a garment factory when she was just 12 years old. The government’s first Menopause Employment Champion Helen Tomlinson joins the programme to discuss how she will advise employers on improving workplace support for women experiencing menopause symptoms. And we hear about a revival of Tennessee Williams’s 1947 drama of passion, delusion and mental illness – A Streetcar Named Desire. Following a run at the...

Paris Hilton, reality TV star, so-called 'inventor of the selfie,' and business woman, joins Anita to talk about her new book 'Paris: The Memoir.' The former socialite first appeared on-screen in the early noughties with her hit reality TV show, The Simple Life. Now she’s opening up about her life in the spotlight. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has unveiled the contents of the Spring Budget in the House of Commons. What has changed for women? Anita is joined by Sarah Pennells, Consumer Finance...

Today’s budget announcement is expected to include an expansion of free childcare provision for working parents in England for one and two-year-olds. The plans will be outlined by the Chancellor in full later today. Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson joins Nuala McGovern to talk through what the changes could mean for parents looking to get back to work. A major report has been published today, looking into the experiences of survivors of FGM in accessing post-FGM...

Nicola Williams’ new novel Until Proven Innocent sees the return of Lee Mitchell, a young barrister from a working-class Caribbean background, who is strong-armed into defending a supposedly corrupt racist police officer charged with the death of a 15-year-old pastor's son. Nicola served for many years as a criminal barrister, one of the few black women in that job, and draws on her experience of the criminal justice system in her writing. She joins Nuala to discuss juggling being a...

As a new Channel 4 documentary is released, Nuala McGovern hears more about her life from director Charlie Russell. Who were the female winners at the Academy Awards last night? What were the surprises and omissions? Who gave the best acceptance speeches? We talk to the film critic Karen Krizanovich and speech writer Heidi Ellert-McDermott. Five women who say they were denied abortions despite risks to their lives are suing the State of Texas. In June last year the US supreme court...

What happens when a friendship breaks down? How can you repair it? Should you even try? In this special Sunday podcast, Nuala McGovern brings together all the interviews from Woman's Hour's 'Forever Friends?' series. Annie and Lizzie first met at school, and Lizzie said she believed they were ‘kindred spirits’. But soon after Annie’s first child was born, Lizzie decided to cut off contact. They reflect on this period of silence and how their relationship has changed since they have rekindled...

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education activist and the world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate. Since she was shot by a member of the Taliban at just 15, Malala has spent nearly a decade fighting for the educational rights of girls and women across the globe. Now she’s turning her attention to Hollywood, as Executive Producer of the short documentary film Stranger At The Gate. She shares why she’s made this move into the world of film. What happens if you and your partner disagree on...

Singer-songwriter Mae Muller has been announced as this year’s British entry for Eurovision, she joins Krupa to discuss how excited she is to represent the UK. Watch out Notting Hill, there is a new romantic comedy in town… and this time it’s set in Peckham. It’s called Rye Lane, and it stars David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah as Dom and Yas, two twenty-somethings who are both reeling from bad break-ups. It is the directorial debut of Raine Allen-Miller. She joins Krupa to discuss her journey...

Emily Watson is starring in a new film ‘God’s Creatures,’ set in a remote Irish fishing village. She plays a mother torn between protecting her son and her own sense of right and wrong. When she provides an alibi for him, the lie rips apart their family and local community. Emily joins Woman’s Hour to talk about her character, women in the oyster farming industry and her career up to now. Krupa Padhy talks to academic Kathleen Stock about The Lesbian Project, a new organisation she is...

On International Women’s Day we talk to the foreign secretary, James Cleverly MP, as he travels to Sierra Leone to launch the UK’s new international women and girls strategy. Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is one the most senior fire fighters in the UK. The current Chief Fire Officer of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service has in her 22 year career covered major incidents such as the London Bridge terror attack, the Finsbury Park terror attack and the aftermath of Grenfell. Last month on Woman’s...

On last night’s Panorama, Twitter insiders told the BBC that the company is no longer able to protect users from trolls, following lay-offs and changes under the owner Elon Musk. Lisa Jennings Young is the former head of Content Design at Twitter, and worked on safety features aiming to protect users from online hate, including misogyny. In October 2022, Lisa's entire team was laid off, and she herself chose to leave in late November. To find out more about her time at Twitter, and how...

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education activist and the world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate. Malala was just 15 when, on the way home from school, a member of the Taliban boarded her bus, asked for her by name, and shot her in the head. In the decade since, Malala has continued to fight for the educational rights of girls and women across the globe through her charity, the Malala Fund. Now she’s turned her attention to Hollywood, most recently as Executive Producer of the short...

Five women. Five inspirational stories. Earlier this year, Woman’s Hour spoke to women from all different backgrounds and professions about the moment they found their voice. When was the moment they realised they had to speak up? And how did it change them? For International Women’s Day, Anita Rani brings you all of the interviews from the ‘Finding My Voice’ series, in a one-off special episode of the Woman’s Hour podcast. Elika Ashoori was an actor and baker who rarely kept up with...

Schoolgirls in Iran have been admitted to hospital this week after reportedly being poisoned by gas whilst at school. Many Iranians suspect the poisonings are a deliberate attempt to force girls’ schools to close, although the government has not confirmed. Faranak Amidi, BBC Near East Women's Affairs correspondent and Azadeh Pourzand, human rights researcher at SOAS discuss. In new book Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began, NHS midwife Leah Hazard seeks to explore the organ she...