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Jenni Murray

Bea Campbell

Antonia Quirke

Hugh Davies

Fleur Strong

Jodi Ann Bickley

Beverley Purcell

Woman's Hour: Lillian Gish; Bea Campbell; One Million Lovely Letters

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27/02/2014

Lillian Gish; Bea Campbell; One Million Lovely Letters

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Lillian Gish; Bea Campbell; One Million Lovely Letters

First Lady of US cinema Lillian Gish. Plus is it time to re-evaluate our society?

American cinema's First Lady, Lillian Gish. Writer Jodi Ann Bickley's One Million Lovely Letters. Why feminist activist Bea Campbell thinks it's time to re-evaluate our society.

As we gear up for the Oscars on Sunday a treat from the Woman's Hour archive collection - an interview with Lillian Gish described as the First Lady of American Cinema. In a career that spanned 75 years she talks about playing her last heroine part at just 17 because she was beginning to look too old on screen, being cast in Birth of a Nation and the change from silent films to talkies.

In the light of the many cases nationwide of grooming still being investigated and prosecuted, how has the judiciary, the CPS and the government responded to remedying how young girls are treated once they are in the legal system? 

Writer and feminist activist Beatrix Campbell tells us why she thinks the time has come to re-evaluate our society. She says we need a new way of thinking in order understand why violence against women has increased, rape is still committed with impunity and the struggle for equal pay has made so little progress.

And why Jodi Ann Bickley wants to spread happiness. She believes everyone deserves to hear they are loved. She's written to thousands of people to encourage them to never give up hope. She talks about the One Million Lovely Letters project and how it feels to receive emails from strangers all over the world sharing their problems.

Presenter Jenni Murray
Produced and Edited by Beverley Purcell.

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