Woman's Hour

In a special programme, Woman’s Hour comes from the Crossed Wires Podcast Festival in Sheffield. Anita Rani and Nuala McGovern are on stage at the Montgomery Theatre, in front of a live audience.

Joining Nuala and Anita on stage is Anoushka Murtanda-Dougherty, host of the BBC Podcast Fame Under Fire, which focuses on celebrity court cases. Anoushka talks to Nuala about how the way women are treated in court, especially in cases with high media interest such as the trial of P Diddy, influences culture. They are in conversation with Dr Kathryn Higgins who has written about misogyny in the media in her book Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt.

When award-winning poet and author Helen Mort became a stepmother, she went in search of some literary role models, but was sadly disappointed. From the fairytale ‘wicked queen’ to the put-upon parent of the modern blended family. She talks to Anita about writing her new collection Stepmother, which explores the origins of these maligned female archetypes alongside her own real-life experiences.

Lisa Lloyd is a campaigner for SEND children and the author of the best-selling book Raising the SENBetweeners. Following her own diagnosis with autism in her forties, Lisa explains how becoming a mother led her to discover she was autistic, and the challenges of parenting when you’re neurodivergent. Lisa is joined by Prof Megan Freeth from Sheffield University’s Autism Research Lab, who explains how autistic women experience motherhood.

And Nuala and Anita are also joined by Sheffield sportswoman Vanessa Ellis, head coach of the Sheffield Hatters Women’s Basketball Team. She explains how she’s followed in the footsteps of her mother, Betty Cadona, who set up women’s Basketball in Sheffield in 1961.

Presenters: Anita Rani & Nuala McGovern
Producers: Olivia Skinner & Sarah Jane Griffith
Editor: Karen Dalziel