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Mar 2023
51m 10s

International Women's Day

Bbc World Service
About this episode

Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories celebrating women who made history including a ground-breaking, African American science fiction writer and the first presidential hopeful in Mexico.

Plus the UN's first ever all-female peacekeeping unit, a woman who helped bring peace to Northern Ireland and a child goddess in Nepal.

Contributors:

Dr Brenda Stevenson - Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women’s History at St John’s College, Oxford University. Nisi Shawl - friend of Octavia Butler. Rosario Piedra - daughter of Rosario Ibarra. Nick Caistor - journalist. Seema Dhundia - member of India’s Central Reserve Police Force. Lesley Pruitt - author of The Women in Blue Helmets. Monica McWilliams - one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. Chanira Bajrycharya - former child goddess in Nepal.

(Photo: March for International Women's Day in Mexico City in 2023. Credit: Getty Images)

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