I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and having sex with pop stars, I also nursed a desire to appear on Woman’s Hour. As a shy, provincial virgin, the programme opened up a world of women’s troubles from anorexia to zuigerphobia – and I was keen to have A Complicated Life.
Here was the wet hand of today’s lily-livered sensibilities I had anticipated
From my twenties to my fifties I appeared on it several times; my last outing was in 2016, as – like most other institutions – it was captured by the trans cult, leading to the show’s best presenter, Jenni Murray, leaving in 2020. Since then, the programme might more accurately be named What Is A Woman’s Hour. As Mumsnet noted, around 43 trans activists have been invited on to the programme over the years, compared with just 13 from the gender-sceptical side.
After half a century of listening – in which my emotions have run the gamut from longing to contempt – I decided to listen to a solid week of it and give the show an MOT. The lead item on Monday was about what Kemi Badenoch’s appointment might mean for women. I was pleasantly surprised that the presenter, Clare McDonnell, didn’t nag; she mentioned ‘structural racism’ but that’s practically mandatory on Radio 4 programmes – I fully expect the Shipping Forecast to slip it in soon.
The next guest was Julien Alfred, the St Lucian Olympic-champion sprinter. It was lovely to hear ‘race’ only being used to mean a thing that one aims to win; lovely to hear a story of female triumph without any moaning. It was like being back in the 1980s. Next up was the young writer Eliza Clark speaking up in favour of putting content warnings on books, including her own; here was the wet hand of today’s lily-livered sensibilities that I had anticipated, chucking a bucket of cold water over any idea of female resilience.
On Tuesday, we were asked what gendered words annoyed us. Mine would be ‘cervix-haver’, but of course we’re only allowed to get upset by the old, dying, sexist terms rather than the new, thriving, non-binary kind. Pointless mention of trans rights complicated a discussion about the wisdom of holding a women’s tennis championship in Saudi Arabia (which is full of men in dresses anyway), as did the attempt of a female contributor to align the USA with a land where women practically need a guardian’s permission to breathe.
Wednesday’s show aired as it was becoming obvious that the Blessed Kamala was heading for an early bath. There was a lot of predictable blather about Roe vs Wade but a resolute refusal to engage with the simple fact that Donald Trump had won the US election because he talks to ordinary people whereas Kamala Harris – like Hillary Clinton before her – talks at them. That the Democrats have facilitated male cheats in women’s sport and rapists in women’s prisons was completely ignored.
The alleged comedian Hannah Gadsby talked about anxiety, grief, the trauma of fame and her dog dying. The presenter tittered like a smitten schoolgirl. Gadsby is a they/them, which seemed accurate, as she did strike me as a composite of a dozen really dull people. So smug were Gadsby and her fangirl that it made me wish I were a US citizen so I could have voted for Trump.
There was masses more Trump Derangement Syndrome on Thursday, and an attempt to inject some ‘laughs’ by asking the question: ‘Do you have a first date red-flag question?’ Personally mine would be: ‘Do you think women can have penises?’ Friday brought yet more Trump, as the programme dealt with the inconvenient fact that the President-elect had just appointed the first ever female White House chief of staff, 67-year-old grandmother Susie Wiles. Hang about, I thought he only valued women for their youth and beauty?
What a week of woe it was. Woman’s Hour has become a circle-jerk of miseries licking their wounds and picking their scabs. Do weird teenage girls still dream of appearing on it when they grow up? No – no one’s that weird.
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