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Woman's Hour

Arwa Mahdawi, Cinderella & Sexual Harassment in Schools

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2021

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Do women make better leaders? If so, what can they teach us? Strong Female Lead - Lessons From Women in Power, a new book by the journalist Arwa Mahdawi, argues that a rigid and masculine model of leadership is not up to tackling the complex problems we are facing in the world today. Arwa says ‘If we want to save the world, it’s time we stopped telling women to act like men and started telling everyone to lead like women.’ She draws on the pandemic and beyond, to showcase the leadership skills women are displaying that she believes everyone can learn from.

This week MPs have backed a ban on virginity testing in England, after the government called it "indefensible". Anyone helping girls or women get the tests, which includes an intrusive vaginal examination, could face up to five years in prison. But campaigners have also said they want a ban on hymenoplasty, a practice involving cosmetic surgery to reconstruct the hymen. Natasha Rattu, CEO of Karma Nirvana, an organisation that supports victims of honour-based abuse and forced marriage, tells us why this further step needs to be taken.

Presenter Zara McDermott’s new BBC documentary explores sexual harassment, teenagers, and what impact school is having. We speak to Zara and two contributors who feature in the documentary - activist Zan Moon and 14 year old Trinity.

This week the Home Affairs Select Committee released a report revealing that only one in five of an estimated 15,000 eligible claimants had applied to the Windrush Compensation Scheme, and only 5% of victims have been compensated. They’ve called for the scheme to be transferred from the Home Office to an independent organisation. We’re joined by lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie to discuss the findings.

We discuss the ongoing appeal of the Cinderella story with Faye Campbell who is playing Cinderella at York Theatre Royal and Dr Nicola Darwood who recently co-edited a new book with Alexis Weedon called Re-telling Cinderella: Cultural and Creative Transformations.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Fladiated.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:25.0

searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC Sounds.

0:29.0

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts.

0:35.0

Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.

0:40.0

Morning all, here's a question for you.

0:42.0

Do women make better leaders than men?

0:45.6

Men have run things for a very long time,

0:47.4

businesses, countries, barbecues,

0:49.8

and they've done it in their way

0:51.2

and built a certain culture, a culture that often women have to

0:54.7

fit into to get ahead, but can things be done differently? What do you think? Have you had a female

0:59.6

boss, manager, team leader? Did it make a difference to the environment?

1:03.1

We've had a tweet in already that says the best bosses I've had have been women,

1:06.5

largely because they knew how to deal with people. Do you agree?

1:09.7

You can text us on 84844, you can contact us via social media as well it's at

1:15.5

BBC Woman's hour or of course you can email us through our website with your

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