Rachel Johnson's Difficult Women

This week's difficult woman is the Scottish journalist, producer and TV show host, Isla Traquair. Best known for her work in true crime, Isla's reported on countless cases throughout her career, and was even known in the early days as the "queen of the death knock". Together, Rachel and Isla talk about her smash hit true-crime series 'The Storyteller: Naked Villainy'. Isla also tells Rachel what it was like when she went from repor...

Penny East is the Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, the UK’s foremost campaigning charity for women’s rights, working against misogyny. A seasoned charity boss and campaigner, she helped shape the Domestic Abuse Bill 2021 and launched the UK’s first domestic abuse perpetrator programme. Together, Rachel and Penny discuss how the ever changing scene of social media is affecting misogyny, as well as how a disp...

This week Rachel is joined by the writer, speaker and leading advocate for music education: Dr Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason. Matriarch of what The Times has described as ‘Britain's most musical family’, Kadiatu tells Rachel about what it takes to raise seven musical children. Kadiatu and Rachel also discuss the inspiration behind her latest memoir ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’, after one of her children read the ...

This week Rachel is joined by the journalist, author, broadcaster and podcaster, Bryony Gordon. Having worked at the Telegraph for decades, Bryony is now a Daily Mail columnist and host of 'The Life of Bryony' podcast. She is the author of multiple bestselling memoirs, mother of one, ten years sober, and has a fancy for running marathons in her pants. She manages to do all this alongside a range of activism and advocacy for mental ...

This week Rachel is joined by the author Ela Lee, whose debit novel 'Jaded', took the literary world by storm. Ela became a secret novelist during the pandemic, switching her job as a City lawyer to delve into her passion for writing. Together they discuss the difficult process that came with writing her second book, 'Minbak', an intergenerational story about a family of three Korean women facing ruin following the 2008 financial c...

This week's Difficult Woman is Nimco Ali, co-founder and CEO of The Five Foundation, a global partnership working to end female genital mutilation. An FGM survivor herself, Nimco tells Rachel about her experience returning to the UK after she was cut in Djibouti at just six-years-old, where her teacher told her “this is what happens to girls like you”. Nimco was later inspired to speak out publicly against the procedure...

In this episode of Difficult Women, Rachel sits down with the author Amanda Craig, known for her ‘state of the nation’ novels that explore British society through an often satirical lens. Ahead of the release of her new book ‘High and Low’ in May, they discuss what Amanda believes are the key ingredients for a novel. She also tells Rachel that people have forgotten books are supposed to be entertaining, and ...

This week Rachel is joined by the author and activist Tilly Rose, who spent 20 years in and out of hospital as a ‘medical mystery’. When Tilly was told by a doctor all she could be offered was 'comfort care' rather than a diagnosis, she decided to share her situation online. With the help of the internet, she finally received the treatment she needed. Tilly’s now documented her journey in the award-winning book &l...

This week’s difficult woman is the chef Olia Hercules, who before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was mainly known for celebrating Eastern European cuisine through her recipes. In 2022 she co-founded the #CookForUkraine initiative, and later released her family memoir ‘Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family History Through War, Exile and Hope’. Olia joins Rachel on the week of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s i...

This week Rachel is joined by Baroness Kishwer Falkner, the recent chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. During her time in the role, Baroness Falkner found herself at the centre of one of today’s most politically charged debates: the argument over sex and gender. In her first sit down audio interview since the end of her term, she tells Rachel about the hostility she faced both externally from activists as well ...

This week Rachel is joined by the writer and historian Rachel Cockerell, whose debut book ‘Melting Point: Family, Memory and the Search for a Promised Land’ tells the story of the long-forgotten Galveston Movement. Together they discuss how Rachel stumbled upon the significance of her great grandfather, David Jochelmann, in the movement, after she searched his name as part of her research for her family memoir. Rachel a...

This week's difficult woman is the senior firefighter, psychologist and author, Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton. From joining the fire service at just 18 years old when nationally only one per cent of firefighters were women, to being part of the response team for the aftermath of Grenfell, to becoming the first female to be Chief Fire Officer of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight, she tells Rachel about the prejudices she's faced throughout ...

This week’s difficult woman is truly a first for the podcast. First Minister of Wales Eluned Morgan, aka Baroness Morgan of Ely, joins Rachel in the studio. From growing up in a home at the centre of Welsh Labour, to becoming the first woman to lead the country, politics is in Eluned’s blood. Together they look ahead to May’s Senedd Election, which could mark the end of Labour's dominance in Welsh Parliament since...

This week’s difficult woman is the writer, researcher and intellectual Cat Bohannon, best known for her New York Times bestseller Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Millions Years of Human Evolution. Rachel is mind-blown as Cat tells her about the time she lived in a car for three months so she could continue teaching her students at the University of Arizona. Rachel also asks Cat about her upcoming book, which looks at why s...

In this week’s Difficult Women, Rachel is joined by Investigations Editor at the New Statesman, Hannah Barnes. Hannah led BBC Newsnight’s investigation into the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Her work helped lead to an extensive NHS review, and was nominated for an array of awards. Hannah is also the author of Sunday Times bestseller Time to Think: The Insi...