Woman's Hour

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

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Woman's Hour: Tennis icon Serena Williams, Recruiting women to the armed forces, Afghan women radio, Stem cell donors, Women and bodybuilding

Tennis icon: Serena Williams, Recruiting women to the armed forces, Afghan women radio, Stem cell donors, Women & bodybuilding

Tennis icon Serena Williams, Recruiting women to the armed forces, Afghan women radio, Stem cell donors, Women and bodybuilding

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Tennis icon Serena Williams, Recruiting women to the armed forces, Afghan women radio, Stem cell donors, Women and bodybuilding

Tennis icon Serena Williams has suggested she's moving on from tennis to spend more time with her family.

It looks like Serena Williams is leaving tennis. She's won 23 grand slam titles and four Olympic golds but has suggested it's time to move on. She's made the announcement in Vogue, where she's said retirement -  "causes a great deal of pain. I hate it." So she hasn't explicitly said she's giving up but she's given a large hint, saying she wants to focus on her family. Jessica Creighton speaks to former tennis player, Jo Durie and sports journalist Natasha Henry about the tennis icon.

The Armed Forces are not reaching their targets in terms of recruiting women. The MOD is hoping to increase the proportion of women in the armed forces to 30% by 2030 but they have not met the target set for 2020. One of the barriers to change is thought to be visibility  - new research has found the UK public knows little or nothing about female veterans. Lauren Godier-McBard led the research and Ria Jackson is an RAF veteran and founder of the blog The V word.

BBC Afghan have a new radio programme called 'Women' which focuses on women and girls, especially those in rural areas, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's presented by Shazia Haya in Pashto, and Aalia Farzan in Dari who fled their home country last August when the Taliban retook control. It aims to inform, educate and empower its listeners. Faranak Amidi is the presenter of World Service's The Fifth Floor. She spoke to Shazia and Aalia. 

This spring more than two million people had registered to become potential blood stem-cell donors in the UK. That’s regarded as a milestone by DKMS, which is the biggest stem cell-register in the UK. And it gives one mother in Northern Ireland some much-needed hope. Anne Greer’s youngest son is in a critical condition in hospital. Daniel was fit and well, but in May after complaining of back pain that was coming and going, he was diagnosed with leukaemia. The family want people around the world to donate blood to see if their stem cells are a life-saving match for Daniel. 

On Woman’s Hour we talk about girls a lot, their safety, their mental and physical health but we don’t often talk to them. For an occasional series called 'Girl’s World' Ena Miller went to talk to groups of girls at their schools in their friendship groups, not necessarily about the big ‘issues’ but about what makes them laugh, who they laugh with…what they care about. Today, India and Alice are both aged 13 and they live in Stroud. 

Today we're going to be talking about women in the world of elite bodybuilding where in the UK alone there will be more than 200 female bodybuilding shows this year. Kate Bishop - co-creator of the book Core which includes 42 photos of ‘muscly women’ doing what the book describes as 'subverting the archetype of femininity' and one of the bodybuilders in the book, Louise Plumb, discuss.
 


Presenter: Jessica Creighton
Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Interviewed Guest: Natasha Henry
Interviewed Guest: Jo Durie
Interviewed Guest: Laura Godier-McBard
Interviewed Guest: Ria Jackson
Interviewed Guest: Shazia Haya 
Interviewed Guest: Aalia Farzan
Interviewed Guest: Anne Greer
Reporter: Ena Miller
Interviewed Guest: Kate Bishop
Interviewed Guest: Louise Plumb

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Tennis icon Serena Williams, Recruiting women to the armed forces, Afghan women radio, Stem cell donors, Women and bodybuilding

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