Where are the women in the coronavirus 'war room'?

On the government response to the coronavirus crisis, the former cabinet minister Amber Rudd tweeted: “During Gov briefings am I the only one thinking ‘where are all the women?’ Why are there no senior women in the “war cabinet” or used to convey those critical messages? Equality means better decisions. Don’t pack the women away during a crisis.” Many were quick to reply that this was no time for quotas and that ability matters more than equality. But what are the problems with not including the different perspectives and lived experiences of women in decision making?

Jane Garvey speaks to Amber Rudd as well as Caroline Criado-Perez, the author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, and Simone Schnall, Reader in Experimental Social Psychology and Director of Studies in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge.