4.2 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Introduced in 2003, statutory paternity leave, allows most new fathers and second parents in the UK to take up to two weeks off work. As a result, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath, women continue to shoulder most of the care burden after childbirth. The report calls on the UK government to introduce six weeks of well-paid paternity leave, arguing the move would promote gender equality, support working families and boost economic growth. Nuala McGovern is joined by co-author of that report Dr Joanna Clifton-Sprigg.
This summer, women's sport takes centre stage across the BBC and especially here on Woman's Hour where we'll be keeping you up to date across all the action. The UEFA Women's Euro 2025 championship starts on Wednesday but today is the first day of the Wimbledon tennis championships. A total of 23 British players are competing in the men's and women's singles this year - that's the most since 1984. And the women's line is reported to be the strongest since the 80s. Playing today are British number 2 Katie Boulter and British Number One, Emma Raducanu who faces another Brit- 17 year old, Mimi Xu. Molly McEl-wee, tennis journalist and author of a new women's tennis book 'Building Champions' and Naomi Cavaday, former British player and part of the BBC commentating team at Wimbledon this year discuss.
The French-Tunisian documentary filmmaker Hind Meddeb joins us to discuss her latest film Sudan, Remember Us. For four years she was embedded with Sudanese activists in the country capturing the start of a sit in protest at Army headquarters in Khartoum in 2019 which led to a massacre and subsequent civil war. She is joined by Yousra Elbagir, Sky News’ Africa Correspondent who will explain the significance of that sit-in in 2019 and why the war in Sudan shouldn’t be dismissed as just another civil war but as an uprising that affects us all more globally.
The women’s Euros start this week, with teams from both England and Wales taking part. The Lionesses won the Euros in 2022 and much was made of the number of openly lesbian players both in the England squad and across the other teams. In a new graphic novel called Florrie a football love story, Anna Trench tells the story of the ground breaking women footballers from the end of the First World War and highlights the pioneering lesbians players of the past. Rachael Bullingham, Senior Lecturer of Sport and Exercise at the University of Gloucestershire joins the discussion.
Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey
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0:00.0 | Hello, podcast fan. |
0:03.0 | Consider this your invite to the UK's biggest podcasting party. |
0:06.7 | We're heading to Sheffield from the 4th to the 6th of July |
0:09.0 | for the BBC Sounds Fringe at the Crossed Wires Festival. |
0:12.8 | We'll be joined by some of the biggest names in podcasting, |
0:15.3 | including Sarah Cox, Charlie Hedges, Russell Kane, |
0:18.4 | and some bloke called Greg James doing his radio four show called |
0:22.1 | Rewinder. You can watch live shows of your favourite podcasts and the best part is free. To book your free |
0:28.8 | tickets, go to crossedwires.com, forward slash fringe. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
0:43.1 | Hello, this is Newell O'Goveran, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. |
0:45.4 | Hello, and welcome to the programme. |
0:49.6 | Well, it is hot out there today, as no doubt you have heard. |
0:53.7 | Anyone considering some intense competitive exercise perhaps? |
0:56.9 | Well, Wimbledon, as you were also hearing in the news bulletin, |
0:59.6 | will be getting underway in 34 degree heat, |
1:02.3 | expected to be the hottest ever opening day. |
1:06.8 | Now, some are saying it also opens with the British women's tennis game the strongest since the 1980s. |
1:09.9 | So what happened to create that scenario? That conversation |
1:13.4 | coming up. Also, did your family use paternity leave? Why? Why not? Well, there's a new report |
1:20.4 | from the University of Bath and it's calling for an extension of paternity leave for fathers |
1:25.1 | to six weeks and paid at 90% of average earnings and also |
1:31.4 | available from day one of employment. Now I'm wondering would that have made a difference to you. |
... |
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