Woman's Hour

Schools in England should not teach about gender identity, according to new draft guidance from the government, due to be published in full today. There is also a plan to ban sex education for under-nines. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the new guidance would ensure children were not "exposed to disturbing content". Anita Rani talks to Elaine Dunkley, BBC Education Correspondent to find out the latest.

Talking about her new bo...

Over half of female footballers book pitches, only to find they’ve been reallocated to men. With twice as many women as men considering quitting the sport because of this, Arsenal forward and England Lioness Beth Mead tells Nuala McGovern about her concerns.

A BBC investigation published today has highlighted the concerns of parents of vulnerable children sent hours away from home for urgent eating disorder treatment. They say ther...

How many women have decided not to have more children after a traumatic birth? The UK’s first inquiry into traumatic childbirth has found that too often poor care is normalised, with devastating effects on women’s mental and physical health. Nuala McGovern talks to one Woman’s Hour listener who decided she couldn’t face having another child after a traumatic birth, and to the author of the report, Dr Kim Thomas, about its recomme...

A female officer in the military says she was raped by a senior officer who was responsible in the Royal Navy for behaviours and values, including sexual consent. Speaking exclusively to Woman’s Hour, the female officer, who we are calling Joanna, reported the incident and her allegations to the military police who brought charges against the officer. However, the Services Prosecution Authority later said that they wouldn’t be taki...

The number of children in care is continuing to rise each year, and thousands of new foster carers are needed. The comedian and writer Kiri Pritchard-McLean has done just that. During lockdown, Kiri and her partner embarked on a journey to become foster carers in north Wales and she’s ‘evangelical’ about the role. It’s the subject of her new seven-month comedy tour, Peacock.

The debate on assisted dying is often framed around the is...

Five babies have died from whooping cough this year as cases continue to rise in England. Medical doctor Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who currently has whooping cough herself, joins Clare McDonnell to discuss. Author, journalist and campaigner Dame Shirley Conran has died aged 91, days after receiving her damehood. Journalist Felicia Bromfield joins Clare to discuss her legacy. What would happen if you could only speak the truth – and n...

The debate on assisted dying is often framed around the issues of choice for the terminally ill, but what about the rights of the disabled ? Actor and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr has major concerns about potential changes to the law that she believes could leave people with disabilities at risk. She joins Clare McDonnell to discuss her documentary “Better Off Dead” which explores the debate from the perspective of disable...

Now that women’s sport is advancing, we need clear safeguarding rules for women and girls about what is and isn’t okay when it comes to talking about female health outside the realm of medicine. That’s the call from Baz Moffat, one of the co-founders of The Well HQ, which aims to break barriers in women’s sport and champion education about female health. She joins Hayley Hassell to tell us more about their new Safer Sport poster ca...

What’s like to start again with nothing? On New Year's Eve of 2018, journalist Helen Chandler-Wilde lost everything she owned in a storage unit fire in Croydon, where she'd stowed all her possessions. She has written about it in the book, Lost & Found - 9 life-changing lessons about stuff from someone who lost everything. She joins Hayley Hassall to describe her experience and explain why we get so emotionally attached to our b...

We are all ageing, if we're lucky, so in this Woman's Hour special programme, we're exploring how women can age well.

Anita Rani is joined by a panel of women of different ages to talk about the possibility of re-invention and the wisdom of age, as well as the difficulties and barriers women face as they get older. What we can learn from each other and how can women of different generations support each other? Author and psychol...

What is it really like to be a co-parent? Hayley Allen’s son spends the weekdays with his dad and she takes care of him at the weekends. Carly Harris’ two children spend 80% of their time with her and are looked after by their dad every other weekend. Clare talked to Hayley and Carly about the difficulties and benefits of co-parenting.

As talks reach a conclusion in Ottawa this week on a legally binding global treaty on plastic poll...

On today's Woman's Hour phone-in we ask what it's like to be a boy in 2024 and how society is shaping our future men.

On Monday we spoke to Catherine Carr about her Radio 4 series About the Boys. She spoke to boys up and down the country about how they felt about subjects like sex and consent, masculinity, friendship, life online and education and she found out that boys were experiencing confusing and often troubling messages abou...

Over the past few weeks, Woman’s Hour has been having a frank conversation about pornography. Four women spoke about how porn has shaped their relationships, sex lives and self-image. Three men spoke openly together about their attitudes to and experience of porn. The film-maker Erika Lust explained why she wants to make ‘ethical’ porn and Dr Fiona Vera-Grey explains what she’s found out through the research and surveys she has don...

Lawyer Harriet Wistrich is the founder and director of Centre for Women's Justice. She joins Anita Rani to talk about her new book, Sister in Law, which looks into 10 of her hard-won cases over 30 years. They include Sally Challen’s appeal against her conviction for the murder of her husband, the victims of the taxi driver John Worboys, and the women caught up in the 'Spy Cops' scandal. Cases that she says demonstrate that "terrify...

Being evicted from your home is an incredibly distressing time for anyone. Something 56-year-old Heidi Dodson is about to experience, she's being evicted by her private landlord from her home. She approached her local council for priority housing but was declined. In a letter from Thurrock Council, she was told she should be able to function 'reasonably well' if she ends up on the streets. Thurrock Council say they are 'truly sorry...

Research by internationally-renowned sex expert Dr Debby Herbenick from 2020 found that 21% of women had been choked during sex, with this being nearly twice as prevalent among adults under 40. Why are more young people including this as part of their sex lives and what are both the short and long-term health consequences? Dr Debby and Medical Director of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, Dr Catherine White, talk to Clare...

Catherine Carr has two teenage sons and, through talking to them and to other parents of teenaged boys, she became aware that boys were experiencing confusing and often troubling messages about their role in society. Catherine decided to speak to boys directly and, in a series which is running all week on Radio 4, About the Boys features the voices of teenage boys around the country discussing topics like sex and consent, masculini...

The deaths of 21-year-old Diane Jones and her two young children, in a house fire in October 1995 shocked the community of Merthyr Tydfil. The police originally thought it was an accident - but in the days following the fire launched a triple murder investigation after petrol was found on the carpet. Just months later, Annette was charged with triple murder, manslaughter and arson with intent to endanger life. She was found guilty ...

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood film producer, has had his 2020 rape conviction in New York overturned. The New York Court of Appeals has ruled that he did not receive a fair trial, because prosecutors called witnesses whose accusations were not part of the charges against him. The trial was pivotal in the #MeToo movement, the awareness campaign against sexual abuse. Katie Razzall, the BBC’s Culture and Media Editor, and ...