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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Woman's Hour

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Factual: Life Stories

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Rebecca Holman

Anne Perry

Helen Gilbert

Caren Hartley

Gloria Dominguez-Bello

Shazia Malik

Jenni Murray

Corinna Jones

Woman's Hour: Beta women, Vaginal seeding, Bikesmith, Mum break-up, Upskirting

Factual

Beta women, Vaginal seeding, Bikesmith, Mum break-up, Upskirting

24/08/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Beta women, Vaginal seeding, Bikesmith, Mum break-up, Upskirting

Alpha v beta women; bikesmith Caren Hartley; estranged from mum; safety of vaginal seeding

Quiet girls leading; how safe is vaginal seeding? how to cope if you are estranged from your family or children; listener experiences of upskirting; bike maker Caren Hartley.

There's a stereotype that bosses are Alpha characters and assistants Beta. But Rebecca Holman, author of Beta: Quiet Girls Can Run The World, is one woman boss who identifies very much as Beta. She discusses what makes an Alpha or Beta female with Anne Perry who has won awards for her work in publishing and who has always identified strongly as Alpha. 

When a man took an upskirt photograph of Gina Martin at a music festival last month, she went straight to the police. But she was amazed to discover that there is no specific law against upskirting in most of the UK (only in Scotland). After the police closed her case, Gina began a petition to get it reopened, and now she is lobbying for a change in the law. We hear from listeners who have also been victims of upskirting.

In the Woman's Hour series Life After, we heard from three women who were estranged from their mothers. Following on from that, Jenni speaks to Helen Gilbert, a psychotherapeutic councillor at the charity Stand Alone about how to cope if you are estranged from your family or children.

In the next of our interviews with the 12 twelve finalists in the Woman's Hour Craft Prize, in partnership with the V&A and the Crafts Council we hear from the former jewellery maker Caren Hartley who now makes hand-made bicycles. Corinna Jones went to meet Caren to find out what had encouraged her to work with metal.

'Vaginal seeding' or exposing a child born by Caesarean to bacteria that would coat their skin if they were born vaginally has become more popular in recent years - but is it safe? A Danish report has cast doubt on the legitimacy of the practice as a way to protect babies against infections. We speak to Gloria Dominguez-Bello, who has carried out the only existing piece of research into seeding and Shazia Malik, an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist.

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