Scotland's hate crime law, Motherhood and art, Actor Rachael Stirling
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2024
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Scotland's new hate crime law came in to effect yesterday. The Act creates a crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. To discuss the concerns some women have Emma Barnett is joined by Susan Smith, co-director of the group For Women Scotland, and The Times journalist John Boothman.
A new play at the Hampstead Theatre – The Divine Mrs S - explores the life of Sarah Siddons, who was the first truly respected female actor in theatre, achieving a huge level of celebrity at the end of the 18th century. April De Angelis’ backstage comedy explores the origins of celebrity culture and portrays Siddons, played by Rachael Stirling, as a pioneer in command of her own image and craft. Emma talks to April and Rachael about what inspired them to bring Siddons back to life.
Why have women with children long struggled to be taken seriously as artists? Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood looks at the joys and heartaches, mess, myths and mishaps of motherhood through over 60 artists and 100 artworks. Art critic Hettie Judah who curated the exhibition and artist and senior lecturer at the Royal College of Art Hermione Wiltshire who has two pieces of work displayed in it join Emma.
In January 2023, Eleanor Williams was found guilty of perverting the course of justice after inflicting injuries on herself and then posting pictures of them claiming they were a result of rape and grooming. Why would she lie? That’s the subject of a new podcast, Unreliable Witness, which looks into what happened before, during and after the accusations made by Eleanor. Sky News Specialist Producer Liz Lane joins Emma to talk about the new discoveries about the story she made while looking into what happened.
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, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:41.0 | Hello I'm Emma Barnet and welcome to Womensa from BBC. podcasts. weekend. Perhaps chocolate was consumed, perhaps sunshine was felt. Perhaps you did very little at all. Or maybe you felt rushed off of your feet. |
| 0:58.0 | Either way, we are here. We are back on the other side of Easter. I spent my weekend in broad stairs for the first time and |
| 1:04.8 | it was bracing and charming in equal measure. Delicious fish and ice cream were consumed but not |
| 1:10.8 | my host to at the same time and I can't quite still find myself getting to |
| 1:15.2 | grips with embracing being cold on the beach despite how lovely the sound of the |
| 1:19.6 | sea and the sight of it is but J.K., one of the world's most successful authors and |
| 1:24.4 | famous women, spent part of her bank holiday weekend challenging police in |
| 1:28.5 | Scotland to arrest her. This is because as of yesterday Scotland's new hate crime law came in. |
| 1:35.0 | The Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021 creates a new crime of stirring up hatred relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender |
| 1:44.8 | identity or being intersex. Noticeably the law does not protect women as a group |
| 1:50.6 | from hatred. The Scottish government is expected to include this later in a separate |
| 1:54.9 | misogyny law. J.K. Rolling, the Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh in a series of social media posts, |
| 2:01.9 | described several transgender women as men including |
| 2:05.3 | convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures. |
... |
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