Family secrets, Who was Mary Macarthur? Poet Fatimah Asghar, Gender pay inequalities in UK nursing

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.1 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More Family Secret, today we hear from Prue who's niece brought her a DNA kit for her 70th Birthday. When she found out that she could find people with matched DNA, she was shocked to discover that the man who brought her up was in fact NOT her biological father. Since then she's been trying to find him. Reporter Jo Morris meets her at her home to talk about the impact the news had on her.

Nursing is predominantly a female occupation in the UK, but men still hold one in five of the best paid jobs, according to a new study by London South Bank University . Jenni talks to Professor Alison Leary, Chair of Workforce Modelling, who headed up the study called ‘Nursing pay by gender distribution in the UK - does the Glass Escalator still exist?’

Rouse, Ye Women! a folk opera is currently on tour around the country. It tells the tale of Mary Macarthur, a female trade unionist in the early part of the twentieth century who relentlessly fought for better working conditions and pay for women. We hear from actor and singer, Bryony Purdue who plays the activist and Mary’s biographer, Dr Cathy Hunt.

And Fatimah Asghar, is an impassioned voice on the experience of young Pakistani-American women and the voice behind the web series Brown Girls. She shares some of her debut poetry collection which examines daily microaggressions and the long term trauma that the Indian-Pakistani partition has had on her culture.

Presenter Jenni Murray Producer Beverley Purcell

Guest; Bryony Purdue Guest; Dr Cathy Hunt. Guest; Fatimah Asghar Guest Prof. Alison Leary

Reporter Jo Morris

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.6	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.4	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable
0:14.3	experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC
0:20.4	makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	BBC Sounds.
0:38.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:41.0	Hello Jenny Murray welcoming you to Wednesdays edition of the Women's Our
0:45.6	Podcast. Fatima Asgar's collection of poetry is called If They Come for
0:51.4	us. Why is a 29 year old woman writing about the impact of an event that happened long before she was born,
0:58.2	the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947? The next in our series of family secrets, how Peru at the age of 70
1:08.5	discovered her history through a DNA kit she'd received as a birthday present and who was Mary MacArthur.
1:16.0	Her story is told in a folk opera, Rous ye Women, which is touring the country.
1:22.0	Now you may have heard on the today program this morning that six weeks before the deadline
1:27.2	when companies have to publish their gender pay details, the BBC is worked out that of those that have submitted results already,
1:35.0	four out of ten private companies have a wider gap than they had last year.
1:40.0	Of course, the whole picture may change when the full results come out, but there is no doubt about the results of a new study by London South Bank University into the gender gap when it comes to nursing. Nursing is largely a female occupation
1:56.5	but men hold one in five of the best paid jobs. The profession says the report has a sticky floor rather than a glass ceiling.
2:06.0	It's gender opportunity rather than a pay gap that's the problem.
2:11.0	Allison Leary is professor of health care at the South Bank.
	...

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