I miss the old R4 Woman's Hour. I don't tune in anymore.

[flashbac]

I don't/can't listen to Woman's Hour anymore. It's lost its magic. I miss having it in the background and listening to interesting points of discussion. Now I find it gets on my nerves. It's crap.

I’ve resorted to listening to the R4 podcasts. Very soothing World Routes music series presented by Lucy Duran who has a more calm and informative manner...

I like Anita Rani and I REALLY like that it is an actual hour now without the insult of the so-called Woman's Hour Drama.

You mean the dramas largely written by men, about men?

Yeah, that's right. The dramas that also appeared elsewhere in the regular schedule without any Woman's Hour label attached that we were supposed to be too stupid to realise were the same.

You mean the dramas largely written by men, about men?

What an interesting point! In half a century I've never stopped to think about the relationship of those 15 minute serialised dramas to Woman's Hour itself.

But actually, the things that spring to mind did quite often have women as the main character: Gudrun, the thing about a detective (?), the thing with an emergency services telephone responder ... It's appalling that so few have stuck in my mind.

Surely someone's fine done research on this?

... 'done some research' is what I meant.

@MayIDestroyYou, I'm pretty sure there would have been outcry from the listeners to the 7.45pm drama if it had indeed been by women/about women/for women. And since it was a repeat of the Woman's Hour Drama....

I listened to about 3 minutes of Woman's Hour this morning.
Dancing was the topic.
"How much do you love dancing, how much do you miss dancing!"

I have zero interest in dancing.

Yup, just as boring as ever.

However, she is quite good on issues which affect her- endometriosis, to name just one. I think her sharing her own experiences brings something.

I do like Emma Barnett, unlike most pp. Her interview with 2 women with opposing views /experiences of Judaism last week allowed them to express themselves without it becoming a slanging match. It was sensitively handled

These comments illustrate the problem to me. Where EB has personal insight or interest in the topic the interviews are much better. Where its just a "job" she does the research but her style often overtakes the interview and it becomes the EB show.

The combative style is old fashioned and dated, interviewees with any experience are prepared for it. The slightly quieter, more interrogative style of a Jane Garvey or Emily Maitlis or Mishal Hussein actually gets more answers. I miss Jenny Murray but she was plainly muzzled for the last few years and it showed.

I have liked Anita Rani in the past but her focus on making it "everything hour" just makes it irrelevant.

Overall the show seems to have lost its woman centred focus. I wasn't always interested in Delilah who started a company painting mushrooms but I really appreciated the whole as a forum for a wide range of women's interests - that magazine format.

The other change I feel (and this is very subjective I know) is that we have gone from two white WC presenters to two ethnic minority MC presenters and yet the show feels less diverse and whiter. I can't put my finger on exactly why, its not overt, but I find less to identify with. Maybe its because its just lost that heart of being woman centred to a wishy washy "lets all be nice and men will magically be lovely" type feminism.

I thought EB was white?

I think the PP is referring to the fact that she is Jewish

The other change I feel (and this is very subjective I know) is that we have gone from two white WC presenters to two ethnic minority MC presenters and yet the show feels less diverse and whiter. I can't put my finger on exactly why, its not overt, but I find less to identify with. Maybe its because its just lost that heart of being woman centred to a wishy washy "lets all be nice and men will magically be lovely" type feminism.

TBF that’s not change along the more diverse/whiter axis. It’s shifted further down the more feminism/less feminism axis.

Which is saying something as the feminism had been muzzled anyway in recent years, as PPs have observed.

It gives it an overall feeling of greater conformity and credulity, I think.

I’m another one who grew up listening to R4 with my mum, and from the point that I started to take notice of WH, I always found it lacking. Every other article seemed to be about breastfeeding or the menopause or caring for elderly parents; the articles that were relevant to me (exams, university, health) massively missed the mark, were often dismissive. Even if younger women weren’t the target demographic, there is still value to presenting their stories with their own voices - it creates a talking point for listeners within their own families if nothing else. I also remember always being irritated by the assumption that listeners had children, even when there was scope within a story to look at it from both angles.

It was definitely due a shake up, and although I’ve yet to listen to the new format, I’d definitely be willing to give it a go now.

C8H10N4O2

Do WC and MC mean working and middle class in your post? I'm assuming yes?

Agree with so many other posters. Anita Rani is better than the terrible Emma Barnett, but the gravitas, wit, intelligence and humanity have generally fallen off a cliff since Jenny and Jane left.

Do WC and MC mean working and middle class in your post? I'm assuming yes?

Yes sorry.

It shouldn't matter than Jane and Jenny were both grammar school girls made good (although Jane's was under the old direct grant model and subsequently went independent I think) but I think it did. Or maybe its just that they had more of a focus on the most fundamental issues women face, which affect us all before you add in other factors.

I'm not really sure but there is a shift away from women and the magazine format in the programme (EB really struggles to feign interest in many of the less newsworthy items) and it stopped being a regular listen for me. It feels like EB would really prefer to be on Today/Newsnight and is trying to turn WH into a more newsy everything hour with far more men in focus. OTOH maybe I'm just not their target demographic and teh 20 somethings are all lapping it up.

C8H10N4O2 Thanks for the confirmation.

I'm not sure about working class though because Jenni M has said herself that she exaggerated her 'humble origins'.
I'd say she and Jane G are pretty firmly middle class even though their parents might have been working class originally. Social mobility etc. But in this case, I don't think it matters anyway.

I doubt most twenty somethings are even aware of WH. Radio 4 is hardly on their radar at the best of times but the BBC are a bit obsessed with 'reaching a younger demographic' at the expense of those who actually listen!

I do think that the programme was tired and needed a reset and I was hoping for eg that they'd, finally, have fewer mediocre female musicians but that seems to be continuing. There are plenty of serious, successful, innovative female musicians around so they need to be braver. Just a personal gripe there.
I suppose it very much depends on who is actually editing and steering programme content, not just the presenter.

It used to feel like a meaty discussion with good female friends. It’s a bit ordinary and just like everything else now. At first I was finding it annoying and now I’ve just forgotten about it and only hear it in passing. I used to love the Saturday recap show as I was cooking dinner.

I'm not sure about working class though because Jenni M has said herself that she exaggerated her 'humble origins'

Yes maybe what the old acorn groups called C rather than D/E in origin but certainly made very good. I'm possibly over focusing on that trying to pin down the actual problem. Or maybe it overlaps with a frustration that I meet so many young professional women who think equality is a done deal and don't raise their eyes to see less fortunate women around them, let alone look ahead to when they may have children and the lack of equality bites.

I doubt most twenty somethings are even aware of WH

Possibly but I was a twenty something new mother when I started listening regularly. I had certainly listened before but then it seemed to be one of the more relevant R4 programmes to me and I acquired the habit. (Didn't it used to be repeated in the evening before replays were a thing?). I may be wrong but at one time I thought the WH serial specifically showcased women writers and dramas centering women's lives.

Agree on some of the mediocre occasionally from the arts. I generally put that down to budgets and cronyism resulting in using what agents into producers rather than going out to seek. Even with the mediocre though Jenny and Jane manage to bring a story out of the person rather than do the "oh how interesting whatever you just said" routine.

It used to feel like a meaty discussion with good female friends. It’s a bit ordinary and just like everything else now

Yes this may well be it. Its a bit dumbed down pale imitation of R4 at its best. No clear purpose, just a "be nice to everyone, especially the poor men" schtick. The edge isn't there.

Ah yes, the old Woman's Hour where they got one of the actors from I May Destroy You on as part of a discussion about the many, many issues raised by the groundbreaking series and Jenni Murray proceeded to ask her nothing but if she had a body double during her sex scenes. So deep, so insightful.

Well, considering Michaela Coel dedicated her Bafta to Ita O'Brien, the intimacy coach on 'I May Destroy You', the body double question was quite possibly very relevant.

I stopped listening ages ago anyway, because it seemed that every time I did, they were talking about breast cancer. Yes, I know it’s important, but I didn’t want cancer rammed down my throat non stop, esp. when family members were suffering from it.
And TBH I never liked Jenni Murray.

I once bought a Joanna Trollope novel after browsing the first few pages, purely because I identified with the central character, who switched off her car radio because it was WH banging on about breast cancer yet again.

Jenni Murray proceeded to ask her nothing but if she had a body double during her sex scenes

At the time that was one of the issues Michaela Coel was focused on - the situation of actors filming intimate scenes in the era of #MeToo and raising awareness of the importance of the role. Should more time have been spent on the wider issues? Possibly. Were the wider issues regularly discussed on WH under J&J - yes.

Or maybe it was just a duff interview. I wouldn't pretend for a moment that every item was perfect or even good, what feels different to me is that in that time the programme always felt as if it were by women for women focused on women's interests and issues.

There have been other presenters - Martha Kearney springs to mind, plus ocasionals such as Bidisha and Ritula Shah - and the feel has always been of a woman centred programme. That is what has changed. Why does woman's hour have to become more inclusive of men? There have been various attempts at Men's Hours with varying success (Tom Robinson's was good I thought) - why not continue those rather than making WH into Everything Hour?

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER there was an utterly brilliant R4 comedy by the late Linda Smith called A Brief History of Timewasting. One of the recurring jokes was that whenever she turned on the radio it would be Jeni Murray saying, “…misery of infertility.”