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Woman's Hour: Women and sheds, Environment Minister Rebecca Pow, Rape threat insults, Declining birth rate in China

20/05/2021

Women and sheds, Environment Minister Rebecca Pow, Rape threat insults, Declining birth rate in China

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Women and sheds, Environment Minister Rebecca Pow, Rape threat insults, Declining birth rate in China

Women and sheds with Joanne Harris, Environment Minister Rebecca Pow on the prospects for a greener future, rape threats used as common assault, the declining birth rate in China.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, shed sellers have seen a surge in demand - especially those that can be used as home offices. And existing summerhouses and garages have been commandeered, particularly by women, as a growing number expect to be working from home. Instagram is awash with images of so-called "She Sheds". Emma discusses the attraction with Joanne Harris who writes from her shed and Gill Heriz, author of A Woman's Shed.

What does it say about society when protestors threaten to rape their enemies’ mothers and daughters? This is what happened in North London at the weekend when protestors waving Palestinian flags passed through a Jewish community in Finchley. Four men have now been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences. We look at the wider issue of how rape is threatened as a common insult, used for revenge in gangs and in the wider context of war. Emma talks to the writer and feminist activist Julie Bindel and to the historian Sir Antony Beevor.

This week the government has announced a range of measures to protect the environment, from banning peat in garden centres to increasing the rate of tree planting and reversing the loss of species diversity. A 10p charge on single-use plastic bags will also come into force on Friday. But what difference will these policies - and others made in the run-up to COP26 - make to the crisis facing nature and the climate? Emma Barnett speaks to Environment Minister Rebecca Pow.

Five years after China scrapped its one-child policy in favour of allowing families to have two children, the country's population growth has slumped to the lowest levels seen since the early 1960s. What's behind China's falling birth rate?   We hear from Dr Ye Liu, a senior lecturer in international development at Kings College London.

Presented by Emma Barnett
Producer: Louise Corley

Image by Nicolette Hallett © CICO Books, taken from A Woman's Shed by Gill Heriz

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