Last week’s all-female Today proved women make for a more uplifting show

Boy, we’ve had to wait a long time for this. But last Thursday morning something unusual happened on Radio 4; something so unexpected, so rich with potential. It happened at peak time in the morning. Eight o’clock. The Today programme. And it began with the news, read by a woman — Corrie Corfield. Of course, there’s nothing unusual about that these days. It’s been decades since the BBC was forced to admit that women can enunciate just as clearly as men and that their ‘lighter register’ is not more difficult to pick up for those who are hard of hearing. Afterwards, though, we had a female presenter, a female co-presenter, a female doctor as a guest, a female Cabinet minister and, wait for it, a woman talking about sport. It was brilliant. I swear that the programme sounded different; less heavy, combative, weighed down by testosterone. Instead it felt lighter of tone (not lighter in content) and less doom-laden. Not less serious, just a lot more hopeful.

Mishal Husain was on only her second day in the job, but straightaway she sounded at ease; her voice calm, measured, totally in control of the situation. There were no half-hysterical high notes, or anxious intakes of breath. Husain, of course, has had her passage through the ranks paved for her by Sue (MacGregor) and Sarah (Montague). They proved (and are still proving) that a woman could ask questions of the big cheeses in politics, industry, the media (mostly, of course, male) without becoming shrill or bursting into tears at the first hint of contradiction. What’s different, though, is that for the first time on Today the studio has been occupied solely by women — as the newspaper pictures showed the following day. We also had 30 minutes, a full half-hour of peak-time radio, totally controlled by the female sex.