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Woman's Hour

Pensions gender gap, Rape investigations complaint, Women and AI

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There's been a stark warning to MPs about the number of women pensioners living in poverty. The house of commons work and pensions committee has been hearing the pension system is dysfunctional, and contributing to more gender disparity, that's according to the feminist economic think tank the Women's Budget Group, which gave evidence yesterday. Anita Rani is joined by their incoming director Dr Daniella Jenkins and Sarah Pennells, consumer specialist at Royal London finance company.

New figures revealed in a super-complaint suggest tens of thousands of sexual offence investigations are taking years to complete with some stretching beyond seven years to complete. Campaigners say excessive police delays are causing serious harm to survivors leaving them in limbo and may even be breaching their human rights. The complaint has been submitted by a coalition of legal and support organisations including Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre. Anita is joined by one of the co-authors, Ellie Ball, an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor Manager, who’s helped survivors of sexual violence navigate the criminal justice system for over a decade.

Madeleine Gray’s first book Green Dot was a big hit and she's just published her second novel – Chosen Family. She joins Anita to discuss her fairy tale debut novel story, how then writing a second was daunting and why your ‘chosen family’ is so important.

Is there a gender gap when it comes to using AI? Journalist Olivia Petter says the men she meets are obsessed with using it but believes that women are far more cautious. Studies show women are less likely to use AI in the workplace. As the government rolls out free AI training for every UK adult, the question is: what happens if women don’t feel equally confident or equally protected in this new AI driven world? Olivia and Prof Gina Neff from the  Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge join Anita to discuss.

Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts.

0:05.7

Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked.

0:12.7

But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes,

0:18.2

The Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylan, and comedy specials

0:22.2

from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommashranganathan. However, and maybe I'm biased,

0:27.9

it's really all about the traitors uncoaked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and

0:32.6

podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.

0:40.6

Good morning, welcome to the programme.

0:42.9

Tens of thousands of sexual offence investigations are taking way too long to complete,

0:48.7

with some cases stretching beyond seven years,

0:52.1

while a coalition of campaigners has brought a super complaint to the

0:55.5

police. We'll be finding out more. Also, the government has announced free AI online training for adults,

1:01.9

but do women and men feel differently about AI and its use? Are men the early adopters and women

1:07.5

more resistant? If so, why? Maybe you want to tell me about what's happening in your

1:11.3

household and how you feel about AI. Also, Madeleine Gray, the author of Green Dot, is back with

1:18.2

her second book called Chosen Family. It's a coming-of-age story about friendship,

1:22.5

finding your tribe and your sexuality. She travels between Eve's life as an adult and a single lesbian motherhood and back

1:30.2

to when she's a young teen.

1:31.8

She describes what it means to be a teenage girl trying to fit in and find your place

1:37.3

in the chaos that's teen hierarchical groups in excruciating accuracy.

1:43.2

It took me right back. The varying cleaks, how you figure out where you belong. So this morning I'm transporting all of you back in time. Tell me about fitting in or not as a teenager. Were you ousted or ditched by a friend or a group of friends? Did you change who you were just to fit in with the cool gang?

2:02.9

Were you the poor kid with the rich girls?

...

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