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Woman's Hour: Zoe Saldaña, Yomi Adegoke, Guardianship, Lunar module engineer

Zoe Saldaña, Yomi Adegoke, Guardianship, Lunar module engineer

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Zoe Saldaña, Yomi Adegoke, Guardianship, Lunar module engineer

The star of Avatar and Star Trek joins Nuala to discuss her new series about female spies.

Zoe Saldaña has appeared in the top three grossing movies of all time – Avatar, Avatar: Way of Water and Avengers: Endgame.  You may know her as Uhura in the Star Trek reboot films, Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, or as Neytiri in Avatar.  Now Zoe is taking a break from sci-fi and fantasy to star in a new, Earth-based TV series called Special Ops: Lioness.  It’s a spy thriller about a covert programme that trains and dispatches women around the world as undercover operatives.  Zoe joined Nuala to record an interview last week, before the US actors’ strike was called. 

The Metropolitan Police has started using counter-terrorism tactics to hunt down the 100 worst male sexual predators targeting women.  Nuala gets the reaction of former Inspector of Constabulary Zoe Billingham, who led the 2021 review of the policing response to violence against women and girls, calling for it to be treated with the same priority as terrorism. 

15 countries in the Middle East and North Africa still apply laws that require women to either 'obey' their husbands or seek their permission to leave the marital home, work, or travel. That’s according to a new report from Human Rights Watch, which compares the state of male guardianship laws across the region. The report finds that, although women’s rights activists have been successful in winning some freedoms, new restrictions are still being implemented – particularly in areas of conflict such as Yemen and Syria. Rothna Begum, Senior Women's Rights Researcher, joins Nuala to explain the findings.

Yomi Adegoke is the co-author of the bestselling guide, Slay in Your Lane: A Black Girl’s Bible. Now she’s stepping into the world of fiction with her debut novel, The List.  Journalist Ola and her fiancé Michael are getting married in a month, but their excitement is shattered when a database of men in the world of media, and allegations of sexual harassment against them, is anonymously posted online. And Michael is on it.  How will the couple navigate the fall out? Yomi joins Nuala to talk about why she wanted to write this story.

For the first time in fifty years, humans will soon be returning to the moon. Sara Pastor is the project manager and Chief Engineer of the International Habitation module – the place where astronauts will live and study scientific findings in space as part of the Artemis Mission, set to happen in the next few years. Sara joins Nuala to talk about why this is such an important project for human exploration, and how women are at the centre of it.

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Zoe Saldaña, Yomi Adegoke, Guardianship, Lunar module engineer

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