Woman's Hour

We'll be taking a closer look at The Squad: the Congresswomen at the centre of Twitter comments made by President Trump. Who are Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar? Why are these four politicians of colour causing such a stir, not just with Republicans but also in their own Democratic Party? Professor of Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies, Wendy Smooth and journalist for USA Today and Washington Post and a former House Committee Republican Counsel, Sophia Nelson join Jenni. Could the law around abortion and same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland change this week? We find out with Jayne McCormack, BBC political reporter in Belfast. Today the House of Lords decides on the Northern Ireland Bill which includes recent amendments to these two important social issues. The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) Centre for Social Justice says women’s work is most at threat from advances in automation, but it also say robots and AI could create opportunities to make things better for women. Jenni 's joined by Carys Roberts, Chief Economist at the IPPR and author of The Future is Ours: Women, Automation And Equality In The Digital Age.

Live from Liverpool's M&S Bank Arena for the Netball World Cup, we're joined by BBC Sport's Hazel Irvine, former player Sara Bayman and Commonwealth gold winning England Netball captain Ama Agbeze to discuss the tournament so far, predictions for the rest of the week and prospects for the growing popularity of the game. We'll also be talking to CEO of Scotland Netball, Claire Nelson. What does it take to organize a World Cup? We’ll be talking to the Event Director, Lindsay Impett. We're also joined by volunteers at the event to tell us about what they love about the game and why they're getting involved. And we hear from under 11s in Hertfordshire learning netball on a Saturday morning - and Laura Vila and Corinne Askey who set up Mighty Netball to encourage girls to love playing sport. Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Jane Thurlow

Black women in Britain are now five times more likely to die as a result of complications in pregnancy than white women. This is according to the latest study from MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK). And the risk has been increasing year on year. On today’s Woman’s Hour we concentrate on these disturbing statistics – released late last year, but receiving very little attention. We discuss why this could be happening with Elsie Gayle, an independent midwife and nurse with 30 years’ experience in the NHS; Daghni Rajasingham, a consultant obstetrician who speaks for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists; Jenny Douglas, the founder and chair of the Black Women’s Health and Well Being Research Network and a senior lecturer at the Open University; and Mars Lord, a doula. We also hear the birth experiences of some of the many women who contacted us, and are joined in the studio by Remi Sade, a writer and podcaster, and Candice Brathwaite, the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse. And we look at historical attitudes to black women’s bodies in obstetrics and gynaecology. Deirdre Cooper Owens is a Professor of History who explores how the field of gynaecology developed through the experimental treatment of black slave women in the American south. She is professor of history and medicine at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynaecology. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Helen Fitzhenry Interviewed guest: Elsie Gayle Interviewed guest: Daghni Rajasingam Interviewed guest: Jenny Douglas Interviewed guest: Candice Brathwaite Interviewed guest: Remi Sade Interviewed guest: Mars Lord Interviewed guest: Deirdre Cooper Owens

Cash Carraway tells us about her life as a working class woman and mother living in poverty today. We discuss the importance of parental leave policy transparency and why only 23 FTSE 100 companies make their maternity and parental leave policies available to the public with Jo Swinson the Liberal Democrat MP, Mairead Niger the chief Human Resources Officer for one of the 23, Diageo and Deborah Hargreaves the founder of the think tank, the High Pay Centre. The novelist and writer Sohaila Abdulali who was gang raped as a seventeen year old in Mumbai talks about the continued assumptions around rape and consent. The teacher and author Emma Kell offers advice around the move from Primary to secondary school and we hear from listeners Jane, Tony and Velda. We discuss girl code, what it is, how it’s broken and whether it has a place outside the tv show Love Island with freelance writer Moya Lothian-McLean and Lifestyle editor at the Metro Ellen Scott. And the Lebanese songwriter Tania Saleh and Palastinian poet Farah Chamma share their experiences as women artists in the Arab world. Presented by Jane Garvey Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Karen Dalziel

The dress historian Amber Butchart has been finding out about the history of some of the summer wardrobe staples we all buy or dig out every year - today, sunglasses. Jill Halfpenny on her new role in the TV drama Dark Money. She plays Sam, the mother of up-and-coming young actor Isaac who accepts a pay-off to keep quiet about the abuse he suffered at the hands of a predatory Hollywood VIP. Cash Carraway recounts her experience of temporary housing, refuges, violence, loneliness, forced self-employment, sex work and food banks in her memoir Skint Estate, about her life as a working-class woman and mother living in poverty in Britain. And we have a round-up of the week’s news with Joy Lo Dico, columnist at the Evening Standard, Lara Prendergast, assistant editor of The Spectator, and writer and comedian Nuala McKeever. Presenter Jane Garvey Producer Beverley Purcell