Sylvia Pankhurst and Working Women Today

Women and girls facing or affected by domestic violence, sexual exploitation, homelessness, substance abuse and mental ill health are to be supported by a new initiative which will be announced by the Big Lottery Fund on Thursday.  It comes at a time of real uncertainty about the investment and provision of services for women and girls across the country. Emma Barnett talks to Ambreen Shah Deputy Director, England – one of the directors of Big Lottery Fund about the support on offer and what she hopes it will achieve.

In 1907 the suffragette and journalist Sylvia Pankhurst made what she called a pilgrimage through the north of England and Scotland to find out about the lives of working women.  She spoke to women working in the potteries, the fisheries, farm labourers, chain makers and boot factory workers.  She chronicled their lives in detail.  All were working double shifts – doing all the housework, childcare, cooking and cleaning as well as working long hours in often appalling conditions.  Sylvia wrote and illustrated a series of articles about the women she met and published them in 1907 hoping to draw attention to – and change – the grind of these women’s daily lives.

Inspired by Sylvia’s pioneering work Emma Barnett has recorded a series of features for Woman’s Hour about the lives of women now.  Some are working in the same trades to the ones Pankhurst studied – potteries and agriculture -  some in newer industries – supermarket workers and carers.  She talked to the women in detail about their work, their home lives, their ambitions and hopes for the future.

The series starts on Thursday 18th June with Emma’s visit to the Dudson Pottery Stoke on Trent.

The case of Rachel Dolezal has caused a huge race row in the US. Dolezal, a civil rights activist, was born to two white parents, but has been presenting herself as black - or “identifying” as black, as she describes it. It has created much discussion about how race forms identity, and some seem to have conflated the issue of adopting a different race with the experience of being transgender. Emma Barnett is joined by guests in the studio to discuss gender, race, and identity.

Joining Emma Bartlett are the writer and academic Emma Dabiri and Jane Fae, a writer on political and sexual liberty issues...