Iranian women using song to protest and whose voices do we pay attention to ? On International Women's Day, Shahidha Bari hosts a conversation with the authors of books called On Being Unreasonable and Who Gets Believed, an artist and a researcher looking at Iranian women using song. Michelle Assay is an academic specialising in music who was born in Iran and had to leave the country. Dina Nayeri is an Iranian American writer now based in Scotland and Kirsty Sedgman studies the behaviour of audiences. Alberta Whittle represented Scotland in the Venice Biennale and has exhibitions on at Bath's Holburne Museum and in Scotland.

Alberta Whittle: Dipping below a waxing moon, the dance claims us for release is at the Holburne Museum until May 8th. Alberta Whittle | create dangerously runs at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from Sat 1 Apr 2023 - Sun 7 Jan 2024 Kirsty Sedgman's On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the Rules and Making Things Better is out now https://kirstysedgman.com/ Dina Nayeri's latest book is called “Who Gets Believed? https://www.dinanayeri.com/ You can hear more from her in a previous episode of Free Thinking called Language and Belonging https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fh9 Free Thinking has a whole collection of programmes Women in the World with conversations ranging from fictional characters including The Wife of Bath and Lady Macbeth to Arabian queens, landladies, women warriors and goddesses ttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p084ttwp

Producer: Jayne Egerton