Everything Hour to replace Woman’s Hour
Last week BBC 4’s Woman’s Hour had host Anita Rani interviewing Paris Lees, who is a man who identifies as a woman. I took the trouble to listen to it and found that Anita Rani was strikingly gushy toward him. Some women on Twitter were critical of this choice of subject and Rani’s gush. Her response:
If Woman’s Hour is a space to discuss everything then why is it called Woman’s Hour? Why isn’t it called Everything Hour?
More specifically, why do women have to empathise with men who identify as women at the expense of women? Why do they have to give up part of this one BBC hour that’s about women for the sake of yet another “story” from and about a man?
Why do women have to put up with having the subject changed from women back to men yet again even on a radio show that’s literally named woman’s hour? Why do we have to put up with being told to shut up and move over and share our hour with men even on Woman’s Hour? Why can’t we have one thing that’s for women?
1. Yes yes and yes to all of this.
2. Yay, go for it, Maggie!
3. Have you seen the two-and-eight of Lees’ book? This is what Woman’s Hour was talking about: https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/a-revolution-of-medicore-men
I find it hard to believe that’s really from Lees’ book, but I’m told it is.
The two and eight, that’s a new one for me. [For fellow Yanks: rhyming slang for “state.”]
I haven’t. I’ll now read Graham’s post (complete with amusing typo in the headline).
Yes, and coming, presumably, from “two shillings and eight pence” although if this sum of money has any significance other than the rhyme then I don’t know what it is.
I wasn’t sure whether that was deliberate irony or not but decided it was probably just the lucky kind.
Oh right – I was wondering what “two and eight” could possibly mean and forgot about the old coinage. But as you say, two and eight is just random, like saying 42 cents. Two and six, yes, but two and eight, huh?
Half crowns were such a nice coin – so solid and heavy. Made you feel rich.
Yes, two and six is still (occasionally) used to denote a small amount of money, not worth worrying about. I use it fairly often because I enjoy the anachronism. But two and eight? It feels as though it ought to have some significance, but I can’t find any.
I was born just after decimalisation so my only experience of the old-time coins is playing with leftover ones as a child. I liked the thruppences. And the (older) farthings, because they had a wren on the back.
42 is never random.
WaM, I trust you have your towel?
It was a particularly surreal day for Woman’s Hour. First a man talks about his (horrific) childhood and teenage years and pretends throughout the interview that his experiences were those of a girl, whilst also referring to himself as a rentboy. Then an item on the the possible effects of the covid vaccine on periods has the health expert talking about “people’s menstrual cycle” throughout, with “womenandtransmen” only mentioned in the the intro. I do wonder what the average Radio 4 listener makes of all this.
iknklast,
Of course, though I rarely need it, living in a place that’s mostly harmless.