Woman's Hour

Anita Rani talks to Emma-Jean Thackray about her debut album Yellow, which has debuted at number one on the Jazz & Blues Chart. Will the young women smashing it at the Olympics in the new urban sports of BMX freestyling, Skateboarding and Sport Climbing inspire a new generation of girls to follow in their footsteps? We talk to skateboarder Hannah Shrewsbury and BMX freestyler Kayley Ashworth.Cricket legend Baroness Rachel Heyhoe-Flint is to be honoured with a gate named in her memory at Lords and we hear reaction from her son Ben Heyhoe-Flint. A drug that has been used to treat critically ill patients suffering from Covid may also help women who struggle with heavy periods. A small trial, in development long before the pandemic, has found that the steroid Dexamethasone, a cheap anti-inflammatory drug, could help reduce heavy menstrual bleeding. We hear from Dr Pamela Warner, the lead author of the research.Sex worker Charlotte Edwards explains how she applied via her bank for the government’s Bounce Back Loan, which is available to small business and the self-employed but she was initially declined due to her occupation. The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation, although profession is not currently a ‘protected characteristic’. We explore the implications of financial exclusion for sex workers with Charlotte and to Niki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes.And we hear from the American disability rights activist Judith Heumann. Paralysed from polio at eighteen months, she has campaigned tirelessly for decades in the Disability Rights Movement, both at home and abroad. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineer: Gayl GordonPhotograph by Joe Magowan

Bette Davis was one of the biggest names in Hollywood, nominated for ten Oscars and her extraordinary career spanned almost sixty years. An outspoken and dedicated actress, she created some of the most compelling characters in cinema history. As the BFI launches a whole season dedicated to her this month, we hear about her life and legacy.The new NHS England chief Amanda Pritchard has urged people aged 18-30 to come forward and be vaccinated. 3 million under 30s have yet to be jabbed, and one in five people currently in hospital in England with Covid are in the 18-30 category. Professor Susan Michie tells us what can be done to address young adults concerns. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's political career hangs in the balance, as the pressure for him to resign mounts. He's been accused of sexual misconduct by 11 women and an independent report corroborates the stories. If he goes, the first female New York Governor is likely to be elected. Cuomo denies the allegations and has shown no willingness stand down over them. Stephanie Stark worked in his office, and has separately done research on how sexual harassment accusations impacts voters. Steven Erlanger is from the New York Times.Love Island is one of the biggest reality TV shows in the UK. And this season, one contestant has become the first disabled person to feature on the programme. Emma speaks to Joy Addo, who has a podcast where she talks about her life as a blind, single mum, and Kelly Gordon, the Disability and Inclusion Lead at sex toy company Hot Octopuss, to discuss the realities of dating with a disability.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Frankie Tobi

The shift to mask wearing and homeworking saw many of us ditch our make-up during the pandemic. Perhaps not the best time to launch a new beauty business – but that’s what Bobbi Brown has done. She talks to Emma Barnett about her new beauty range and her career in the industry.Phantom of the Opera was first performed 35 years ago in London’s West End. It’s the second longest-running musical here, the longest running show in Broadway history and has been performed worldwide and seen by more than an estimated 130 million people in 145 cities across 27 countries. It has just reopened and Lucy St Louis is playing the female lead – Christine Daee, the first Black woman to play this role. From George Eliot to JK Rowling, it is no secret that there is an assumption some men are put off by reading works written by women. But with figures showing men are four times as likely to pick up books written by other men than women, whereas women are just as likely to read books by men as they are by women, what is going wrong? And, does this affect other areas of writing? We talk to Andrew Billen a columnist with the Times, and to the author Mary Ann Sieghart .And we kick off a new series about Women and Money with two financial experts Catherine Morgan, the host of the In Her Financial Shoes podcast and Julie Flynn who's a financial adviser specialising in working with women who have lost their partner. We’ll focus on financial secrets - Do you have money secrets that make you anxious? That you can’t face and make you want to dive under the duvet? If so, we want to hear from you.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Engineers: Jo Langton and Tim Heffer

All eyes were on Laurel Hubbard at yesterday's women's Olympic weightlifting. That's because she's the first transgender athlete to compete in the Games, but it was Team GB's Emily Campbell who made history. Five years ago, Emily was working with children who had special needs, but now she's the first British woman ever to stand on the Olympic podium for weightlifting, taking home the silver. We talk about women and weightlifting with Sam Prynn from StrongHer Gym.Women trash-talking men and attempts to redress the gender imbalance have gone too far: that's what the journalist James Innes Smith believes. He shares his viewpoint with Fiona Sturges, from the Financial Times and the Guardian, who doesn't agree.Some NHS trusts have issued guidance stating that people should stay on hospital wards based on the gender they identify with and can choose which showers and toilets to use. That's according to today's Daily Telegraph. But many people feel that the privacy from single sex wards is part of their recovery. The merits of mixed versed single sex wards has always been debated and policy has changed as a result. We speak to Sally Sheard, a health policy analyst and historian.Porn made especially for teenagers: what do you think? In a now deleted but much discussed and decried tweet last week the journalist Flora Gill suggested "entry level" porn should be made available to teenagers as an antidote to the hard core material they’re already accessing online. Does she have a point? We talk to journalist and author Eleanor Mills, and Lucy Emmerson from the Sex Education Forum.Introvert or extrovert? Which are you? Are you in a relationship with the opposite, and has lockdown made it tough? We speak to Ali Roff Farrar who's an introvert whose husband is an extrovert, and Sonya Barlow who's an extrovert and is going out with an introvert.

Over the weekend Carrie Johnson announced she was expecting another baby describing it as a "rainbow" baby because she'd experienced a miscarriage earlier this year. Ruth Bender Atik from The Miscarriage Association talks to Andrea. Journalist Miranda Levy describes her new book, ‘The Insomnia Diaries’, as a ‘self-help’ memoir looking at eight and a half years of disabling insomnia. Miranda recovered and has used her experience to explain what she thinks we should do when facing insomnia and- what NOT to do. Daisy Maskell is a tv and radio presenter. In a soon-to-be-aired BBC 3 documentary she says she realised at the age of nine that she didn’t sleep like other people. They join Andrea. Watching the Olympics on TV is not what Amber Hill imagined she would be doing. The night before she was due to leave the UK for Tokyo, the 23 year old shooter had to withdraw from the Games after testing positive for Covid. She was due to compete in the Women's Olympics Skeet competition, in which she was a finalist in Rio in 2016. This time she was number one in the world and hopeful of a gold medal but had to watch the American, Amber English, take the medal. Are vaccine passports gendered? Dr Clare Wenham who's an Assistant Professor of Global Health Policy at LSE says introducing them will limit women’s public opportunities and further entrench the gendered norms of men at work and women in the home which have been compounded over the last year. British saxophonist, composer, DJ and bandleader Nubya Garcia has been nominated for a Mercury Prize, and is one of the brightest of a new generation of jazz talent. She makes her Proms debut later this month, performing music from her album Source.Presenter: Andrea Catherwood Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

The writer Jeanette Winterson tells us why women need to be at the heart of the Artificial Intelligence revolution and about her new essay collection which covers 200 years of women and science.The British stand-up comic, writer and actor London Hughes tells us about making it big in America and the difficulties of dating during a pandemic.The singer-songwriter, Josie Proto, tells us about her frustration towards the extreme measures women feel they need to take in order to simply get home safely. She performs the new song it has inspired ‘I Just Wanna Walk Home’.We hear why the government’s new violence against women and girls strategy ignores the needs of black and minoritised women. We hear from Ngozi Fulani, the founder and director of Sistah Space, a small charity that offers specialist support for African & Caribbean heritage women affected by abuse and from Professor Aisha Gill, an expert criminologist working on violence against women and girls in Black and minoritised communities for over 20 years. Helen Thorne, the other half of the Scrummy Mummies duo, tells us about finding out about her husband’s infidelity during lockdown and finding happiness after divorce. And the paralympian Stef Reid will represent Team GB in Tokyo next month in the long jump. She tells us how sport helped shape her sense of self and why she’s working to encourage girls to take up sport and stick with it. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Kirsty Starkey

Since moving to the US last year, the British stand-up comic, actor, writer and presenter London Hughes is making it big. Her stand up special To Catch A D*ck - originally performed at the Edinburgh Fringe - has been adapted for TV and is streaming globally on Netflix. She’s also one of the hosts of Netflix's weekly chat show Afterparty and a new comedy Hot Mess is set to follow with Universal. Her success in the US comes not long after she spoke out about the lack of opportunities in the UK given to black female comic talent to shine. She speaks to Anita from LA. Has the pandemic contributed to an increase in stalking? The number of stalking and harassment offences rose by 28 per cent in the year to March 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust say that half of the one hundred and eleven stalking victims they surveyed, had experienced an increase in the behaviour either online or offline during Covid lockdowns. Anita is joined by their Chief Executive Suky Bhaker to discuss.It is estimated that 1 in 25 children is affected by a genetic disorder in the UK - this can range from mild to life-threatening. For the women living with an inherited condition, pursuing motherhood can be a scary and challenging process. We speak to two women about their own experiences, the support they received, and advice for other soon-to-be parents in a similar position. Carlie lives with Cystic Fibrosis and has a young son. Francesca has Sickle Cell and two young daughters.Gymnastics have been at the centre of coverage of this Olympics after Simone Biles withdrew from a number of events citing issues with her mental health. She's been cheering her team mates on from the side lines, including Sunisa Lee who won the gymnastics individual all round gold medal yesterday. Anita finds out more about Lee, the 18-year-old daughter of refugees who fled Laos for the US at end of the Vietnam war, with the Telegraph's Women's Sports Reporter Molly McElwee.Just a few days before the national lockdown in March 2020 Helen Thorn’s life imploded. The comedian - you might know her as half of the Scummy Mummies duo - found out her husband had been unfaithful. She tells us how she navigated the heartbreak, divorce and single parenthood with home-schooling, enforced social isolation and only being able to leave your house once a day for exercise. Her book ‘Get Divorced, Be Happy’ details her first year of separation.Image credit: Ryan Pfluger

Jeanette Winterson talks about her new essay collection which covers 200 years of women and science, from Mary Shelley to AI. She asks what love, caring, sex and attachment will look like when humans form connections with non-human helpers teachers, sex-workers, and companions? And what will happen to our deep-rooted assumptions about gender? Will our own bodies be enhances by biological and neural implants making us trans human and keeping us fitter, younger and connected? When Ena Miller gave birth to her baby called Bonnie just over a year ago - she expected to receive the standard comments..."Oh she's so beautiful, aww look at her little nose, she's so cute, aww what a big baby..." She did get those, but she also got negative remarks from friends and strangers about the colour of her baby's skin. Ena realised she was not alone and went to meet two other mothers Fariba and Wendy to talk about their experiences and ask for their advice.Colourism, which is also called shadism or skin tone bias, is prejudice in which people of colour with light skin are privileged over those with darker skin. Colourism can occur both within and between racialised groups. Natalie Morris, journalist and the author of Mixed/Other: Explorations of Multiraciality in Modern Britain and Dr Aisha Phoenix, Social Justice lecturer at King's College London discuss the history of colourism and how it impacts people of colour.Paralympian Stef Reid is heading to Tokyo next month to represent team GB at the 2020 games in the long jump. She's a five-time world record holder and a triple Paralympic medallist. A boating accident at the age of 15 resulted in Stef having the lower part of her right leg amputated. Her parents and teachers encouraged her to keep playing sport. After new research showing one in three teenage girls drop out of sport, Stef is now on a mission to keep girls involved.Presented by Jessica Creighton Producer: Louise Corley

An estimated 50% of women in the UK will have a urinary tract infection at some point in their lives and between 20-30% are likely to have a recurrence. For some, these recurrent infections can lead to a significant impact on their health and way of life. Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster, a medical historian from McGill University with a personal history of UTIs has produced a documentary with two others, to shine a light on the experiences of women with UTIs. She and Dr Catriona Anderson, a GP specialised in treating UTIs, discuss why some women feel failed by the system. We need to rewrite the rules of child protection says Professor Carlene Firmin. She talks to Jessica Creighton about her work in this area, how it differs from previous approaches and how it might help the ‘disappearing girls’ Woman’s Hour has talked about recently – those young girls, often in care, at risk of sexual exploitation who regularly go missing. Anna Holland a consultant social worker for the NSPCC joins them.Rising singer-songwriter, Josie Proto, started out playing her grandmother’s guitar. Her frustration towards the extreme measures women feel they need to take in order to simply get home safely has inspired her new song. She talks about her music and performs live with “I Just Wanna Walk Home”, described by Radio 1’s Annie Mac as “The Hottest Record in the World”.There are three months to go before the start of COP26 negotiations in Glasgow - the 26th attempt to agree on actions to combat the climate crisis. But if the past 25 meetings haven't provided a solution, what needs to change to get the results the planet needs? Bianca Pitt, one of the co-founders of the campaign SHE Changes Climate, is convinced that the key is having a lot more women leading at the negotiating table. Bianca explains why women will make a difference. She is joined by environmental lawyer and expert in international climate negotiations, Farhana Yamin - who describes her experience of getting 197 countries to agree, and what she thinks women can bring to a sustainable future. Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Dr Agnes Arnold-Foster Interviewed Guest: Dr Catriona Anderson Interviewed Guest: Professor Carlene Firmin Interviewed Guest: Anna Holland Interviewed Guest: Josie Proto Interviewed Guest: Farhana Yamin Interviewed Guest: Bianca Pitt

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.