Note to the BBC: Knowledgeable women: What's your area of expertise?

[alexpolismum]

The BBC seems to think there aren't enough women to choose from as guest speakers, etc.

I have heard some of the men who talk on my subject area, and I am certainly just as knowledgeable and in some cases more so. I have also read some very insightful, analystical and well-informed posts here on mumsnet. I refuse to accept that they cannot find women to talk to, they are just not trying. So let's make it easy for them. Let's:

(a) suggest women they can invite
(b) tell them what WE can talk about

I'll go first.

I am a translator, with experience of TESOL, and one of my main hobbies is etymology.

I would like to suggest Dr Sheila Cameron QC as someone they can invite

Or Dame Mary Perkins (co-founder of Specsavers)

Will have to have a big think about this, and add names later. The Beeb is inherently patriachal as it is.

Out of curiosity, have they ever had a female EP for EastEnders?

Professor Anne Glover is the cheif scientific adviser for scotland (soon to be for Europe), and yet i've never seen her interviewed when there's a science/science policy story on the news.

[It may be because she's not based in London, but they always manage to get Hugh Pennington from Aberdeen when it's a bacteria story]

well i doubt i'd make a bbc guest but:

-i'm a qualified teacher, counsellor and diving instructor (eclectic is my middle name)
-i spent a year living in egypt studying islam and the indigenous view of global politics as well as general stuff on religion and gender
-i have degrees in anthropology and a degree level qualification in hindu philosophy.

my sister is an expert in european business practices having worked in several european countries. she is a translator having specialised in legal translation and she also has extensive experience now in waste disposal and environmental costs and benefits of various systems and how different european countries approach these issues and what the pros/cons are.

i'm not suggesting either of us should be on the bbc but if i can find this level of expertise within my family i doubt the bbc can't find female experts out there in the wider world.

i've spent nearly a year now reading female writers only and can assure the bbc there are many, many informed and fascinating female experts out there.

how about when you need an expert on something phoning top research universities and asking them who they have who are experts in those fields, getting a list of names and sometimes choosing female ones - especially given often the top expert doing the breakthrough research WILL be female.

Yes, this is a great idea. If they are are complaining that they don't have a list of female names then we should give them one ( even if this is a bit like wife work).

I think one of the main problems is that men and women have different areas of expertise.Women are very good on Homeopathy,Acupuncture,Reiki and Indian Head Massage and men are good on Engineering,Science,Computing,Architecture,Mathematics and Sport.
But it's Christmas so I think we should call it a draw!

that's a strange post - so we're all fluffy healer types?

please, please female scientists come forward now and identify yourselves as real actual people not freak anomalies to some gender divided reality.

lolly please tell me that was a joke?

What a lot of rubbish lollygag
Shurely a wind-up.

Is Alice Roberts sciencey enough, lolly?

Arlene Sierra composer and musician

Gillian Clarke poet, playwright and translator

It has barely taken me 5 minutes to find these names. The BBC is really not trying hard enough!

I'm a Geneticist and worked with many very knowledgeable women. Attending conferences there were just as many women giving talks and seminars as there were men. I suggest they look to one of the scientific societies if they cannot find enough women, the societies with be able to give them lists of female experts.

thank you. i was terrified i was going to come back to some drivel about left brain/right brain shite and our overwhelming desire to gather berries.

glad to hear your input chrisrobin.

What? Well I'm certainly no good at reiki or homeopathy!

Alexpolismum,
This is really spooky but Alice Roberts and Gillian Clarke both have men's names in their surnames and Sierra is Spanish for saw and that's definitely something a man would use! Cue Twilight Zone music.

SNORT

Quick, ladies, take this saw off me before I injure my pretty little hands!

I would like to see Prof Wendy Scase on the BBC. She's a research into medieval literature (surprise surprise since that''s my interest) and she is just finishing a project where she worked and a team digitized a huge manuscript that was made in the West Midlands and analyzed its contents in all sorts of ways to learn more about how people made and used books in the late fourteenth century. So far so academic.

But what is brilliant is that she then took the book back to the West Midlands where it was made, and got local people with West Midlands accents to read bits of the medieval language. Lots of people felt that their West Mids accent was looked down on, and seen as all very modern, industrial and not 'historical', and they were really pleased to find that there were echoes of the way they spoke in this old book, which was very beautifully made and hugely expensive in its day. It was a way of making people in a relatively depressed area of England feel very proud of themselves and their heritage and I thought it was a fantastic project and a great way to get out of the university and into the community. So I would love to see her on the BBC.

I would also love to hear more from Charlotte Moore, who writes journalism and books about her autistic sons and her observations about the condition, as I think she's really good.

Jocelyn Burnell would be great. I knew her a few years ago in a non-science context and she's really personable, a great speaker and knows well, at least a bit about science.

In Our Time with Melvin Bragg on R4 seems to have lots of knowledgeable women guests. Maybe we should suggest the news programmes consider employing their researcher if they're having issues finding suitable women guests? I'm not joking by the way

I recognised that name KRITIQ and I knew I had heard Jocelyn Burnell on radio 4 recently; it was in the "life scientific" on 25 October so she is definitely known to radio 4!

I had a quick look at the schedule for the life scientific though and it seems to suffer the same problem as all other radio 4 scheduling that you must not have more than 1/3 speakers being women.