The Women's Podcast

Jasvinder Sanghera, a survivor of a forced marriage and founder of Karma Nirvana, a charity that supports both men and women affected by honour based abuse and forced marriages, joined Razan Ibraheem, a Syrian journalist living in Ireland, for Plan International Ireland's #LostGirls event at Smock Alley Theatre last night.

Also on the panel was Irish Times journalist Sorcha Pollak who writes the New to the Parish series. Róisín Ingle MC'd the event, which we bring to you as a bonus episode of The Women's Podcast.

This episode also includes a musical performance by Dubliner Farah Elle.

Two years ago journalist Catherine Mayer accidentally founded a political party, The Women's Equality Party or WEP, after the Women of the World conference in London. She is now the president of the WEP, until recently a senior editor at Time magazine and a published author. Her book is called 'Attack of the 50 ft Women - How Gender Equality Can Save The World' and she spoke to Kathy Sheridan all about it.

The Irish women’s soccer team held a press conference at Liberty Hall in Dublin on Tuesday, where they aired their many longstanding grievances about their treatment, particularly when compared to the men’s teams.

On Thursday morning the FAI announced that following mediation overnight, all of the issues highlighted by the players would be addressed.

We bring you a conversation between Róisín Ingle and one of the players, Louise Quinn, who she spoke to yesterday afternoon just ahead of that mediation session.

Later in the podcast, Kathy Sheridan talks to Alexandra Cousteau, the granddaughter of legendary Jacques Cousteau, who taught her to scuba dive when she was four years old.

Alexandra tells Kathy about her less mentioned grandmother, Simone, without whom The Calypso might never have set sail.

Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Emily Logan, joins Kathy Sheridan for a wide-ranging conversation about the work of her office and her career.

Recently she went before the UN expert committee which put a spotlight on Ireland’s compliance with the UN Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination. She speaks about those findings and where we can go from here.

Originally a nurse by trade, Emily Logan has brought her experience as assistant nursing director at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, director of nursing at Crumlin children’s hospital and director of Tallaght hospital, to all of her work, from her position as Ireland’s first Ombudsman for Children, to her role as the Chief Commissioner of the IHREC today. She tells Kathy Sheridan that her mother was a big influence on the path she took.

To celebrate our 100th episode, we've gathered 100 quotes from all over the place to represent Ireland and women.

They are read by Irish Times journalists and in some cases there is audio from The Late Late Show, from The Women's Podcast and from other sources.

Happy 100th birthday to us!

This week we are talking about modern feminism, in relation to a new book by Jessa Crispin called Why I am Not A Feminist. Jessa joins us on the line from New York, while in studio we have lifelong radical feminist Ailbhe Smyth and Mairéad Enright, one of the authors of the excellent Feminist Judgements project.

Picture a construction worker and you probably don't see a woman.

The Construction Industry Federation is trying to encourage more females into the sector, so here at The Women's Podcast we decided to shine a light on some of the women who are already there.

In this podcast you'll hear from Krystyna Linkowska, Tara Flynn and Catherine Murphy - three female bosses in the building trade.

Later on in this peisode, we hear from the feminist writer responsible for getting a woman on an English banknote for the very first time. Caroline Criado Perez is a self confessed #nastywoman and she spoke to Irish Times journalist Elaine Edwards in London recently.

In this episode we are talking about clothes. G-strings, Bum Bags and Crocs are all on the catwalks for Spring. We speak to Irish Times fashion columnist Corina Gaffey about these frightening trends, as well as some much more pleasant ones. We'll also talk about the transformation of some of our favourite retail outlets, including the very swanky Dunnes Stores.

In the second part of the podcast we bring you the first in our Women in STEM series, which sees our co-producer Jennifer Ryan sit down with some women who are trailblazers in the science and technology fields.

It's St. Patrick's Day tomorrow, or St. Patty's Day if you're in the US, so we get the lowdown on what's happening Stateside with our woman in Washington Suzanne Lynch.

Also in this episode, Kathy Sheridan talks to Labour MP Harriet Harman about her memoir, A Woman's Work, which details her life and career as a champion for women's rights.

Waking the Feminists has caused ripples in all sorts of ways and part of the impact has been to inspire younger women in theatre to make things happen for themselves.

Síofra O'Meara, Grace Fitzgerald and Bláithín Ruadh came in to talk to us about founding Kill the Cat Productions, their new theatre company and their first play they're putting on at Smock Alley Theatre, This Looks Bad.

Also in this episode, it was a big week for women last week and we bring you a taste of what happened on International Women's Day with a report by Jennifer Ryan.