Woman's Hour

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Woman's Hour: The case against Bill Cosby, Live music from Chloe Matharu, The world of incels, Texas abortion law

The case against Bill Cosby, Live music from Chloe Matharu, The world of incels, Texas abortion law

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, The case against Bill Cosby, Live music from Chloe Matharu, The world of incels, Texas abortion law

Why did Andrea Constand's case against Bill Cosby result in a 3 year prison sentence?

Andrea Constand's new documentary looks at the impact of Bill Cosby's criminal conviction for aggravated indecent assault being overturned.

A judge in Texas has ruled that women who experience pregnancy complications are temporarily exempt from the state's abortion bans. The ruling comes after a group of thirteen women and two doctors sued the state of Texas in March of this year, calling for a clarification of the law. However, the injunction is only temporary until the lawsuit is decided - and the state of Texas has appealed the ruling. Dr Emma Long, Associate Professor in American History and Politics at the University of East Anglia, joins Clare McDonnell to explain the significance of the ruling.

Author and researcher Dr Julia Ebner has spent the last two years immersed in one of the darkest corners of the internet, the world of incels. She has been pretending to be an unhappily single, unemployed, male in his late 20s who is tired of feminism. This is part of her decade-long work going undercover investigating different extremist movements and how they pose a risk to democracy. Her new book, Going Mainstream, looks at the rapid spread of extremism into our mainstream social and political discourse.
 
Chloe Matharu is an award-winning, singer songwriter and harpist. She has cultural roots in Scotland, Wales and the Punjab, and draws inspiration from her time in the Merchant Navy and the natural world as experienced at sea. Her debut album, Small Voyages, was selected for Celtic Music Radio’s Album of the Year. At Celtic Connections she was awarded the revered Danny in February this year. She joins the programme live in the studio to talk about her music and to perform The Silkie of Sule Skerry.

More than 60 women have made allegations of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment against the US comedian and actor Bill Cosby. But only one woman, Andrea Constand, was able to gain a criminal conviction. In 2018, he was sent to prison for three to 10 years on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. At the time it was celebrated as a major win for the #MeToo movement. Less than three years later, he was freed when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction on a legal technicality. In a new two-part documentary exclusively for ITVX from 10 August, The Case Against Cosby, Andrea tells her story.





Presenter: Clare McDonnell
Producer: Kirsty Starkey

00:00 Opener       
02:50 Texas abortion
13:16 Julia Ebner           
29:58 Chloe Matharu
38:52 Andrea Constand

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