meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Woman's Hour

Cush Jumbo on playing Hamlet; Reaction to our equality poll; Day of the Scientist

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Radio DJ Emma Wilson believes that the policeman Wayne Couzens who kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard exposed himself to her in an alleyway some 13 years ago. Emma reported it to the police at the time – no action was taken, but she has decided to speak out now because when she did report it she was not happy with the response.

One of the key findings of our equality poll to mark our 75th anniversary has been the extent to which women don’t feel equal when it comes to issues of sexual abuse and exploitation. Almost 70% of the women we asked said it was a concern and the issue is currently front and centre of the news agenda following the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa to name just two women. Emma Barnett talks to the writer Joan Smith and the former Victims Commissioner the Conservative Peer Baroness Newlove who is unimpressed by Boris Johnson’s unwillingness to recognise misogyny as a hate crime and is trying to change the law on the issue.

Probably best known to most for her television role as lawyer Lucca Quinn in The Good Wife and then the follow-up series The Good Fight, Cush Jumbo is currently playing Hamlet at the Young Vic in London. Delayed for a year by the pandemic, the play sold out months before opening. As the first woman of colour to play the part in a major production on a British stage she joins a list that goes back to 1741 of UK female actors playing the Prince of Denmark. Cush joins Emma.

On Radio 4's Day of the Scientist, we looks at women's trust in science. The latest Public Attitudes to Science survey found that women are less likely to feel connected to science in their everyday lives; less likely to actively engage with science; and were less trusting of scientists and media reporting of scientific issues. What's going on to put women's faith in science on such shaky ground? Emma speaks to Megan Halpern, assistant professor in the history, philosophy and sociology of science at Michigan State University, and Dr Emily Dawson from University College London, who researches how people learn about and engage with science – and why so many women are being put off.

Image: Cush Jumbo in Hamlet at the Young Vic Credit: Helen Murray

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:05.4

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

0:10.8

Hello and welcome to the programme and a big thank you to everyone who called me yesterday

0:16.1

in response to our Woman's Hour 75th Anniversary poll about equality.

0:20.1

I couldn't get to lots of you in the end and it was that classic thing of so many of you

0:23.1

getting in touch when you started to hear the conversation and we only have an hour.

0:27.2

But we try and make the best use of it with your help, so thank you again and many messages

0:31.3

and emails still to go through.

0:33.2

And we're going to reflect on more of the findings of that poll a bit later on in the programme

0:37.7

mainly around women's safety and the perception of it and violence in society which brings

0:43.3

me on to my first guest today because the radio DJ Emma B has spoken out today because

0:48.9

she believes 13 years ago she was flashed by Wayne Cousins, the police officer, you

0:55.1

now know the name of for murdering Sarah Everard.

0:58.8

She was pushing her primer, I should say, Emma at the time and reported it to the police

1:02.6

not long afterwards, which she says in response to, they laughed when she described the graphic

1:07.8

bits and what she was doing and they thought that part, which we'll get to, was particularly

1:12.7

funny.

1:13.7

I'll be talking to Emma next, but there's a separate story today you may have heard

1:17.2

earlier with my colleagues on the today programme about a woman who was mugged and when

1:21.2

reporting it to the police, she alleges the police officer made a pass at her.

1:26.3

Today I want to hear your experiences and I know this is one of the driving forces of

1:30.4

Emma talking out today, good as well as bad of reporting something that happened to you

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.