logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2025
26m 28s

Guided by women: Feminist city walks

Bbc World Service
About this episode

Two women in Iceland and Bolivia talk to Ella Al-Shamahi about creating female-centred walking tours that help people get to know the cities of Reykjavík and La Paz.

Tinna Eik Rakelardóttir from Iceland says that the urban planning of her country's capital doesn't necessarily reflect its progressive values. Inspired by a tour she took in Ljubljana in Slovenia, Tinna combined her expertise in anthropology and business development to launch the Reykjavík Feminist Walking Tour. The walk highlights 200 years of the nation’s drive for gender equality as well as the experience of being a woman in contemporary Icelandic society.

Emma Rada Villarroel is a Bolivian feminist communicator of indigenous heritage and one of the co-founders of La Paz: The Feminist Tour. The tour explores the historic and ongoing struggles of the women of the city. Weaving her way through the streets of the highest city in the world, Emma shares stories about what’s it’s like to live in La Paz today as a student, an immigrant, a mother or merchant whilst also spotlighting the powerful women who have contributed to the city's history.

Produced by Hannah Dean

(Image: (L) Emma Rada Villarroel courtesy Emma Rada Villarroel. (R) Tinna Eik Rakelardóttir courtesy Tinna Eik Rakelardóttir.)

Up next
Yesterday
Supporting women with endometriosis
It's thought that around one in ten women of childbearing age have endometriosis, yet it often takes years of excessively painful periods and struggles to conceive before a diagnosis. And while there's no cure, surgery can help relieve symptoms. Datshiane Navanayagam talks to wom ... Show More
26m 27s
Mar 16
How mother tongue moulds us
Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to two women who research what happens to our thoughts, feelings and behaviours when we speak many languages. To what extent do we have a “mother tongue” – and what happens if we stop using it?Dr Aneta Pavlenko is a Ukrainian-American linguist who loo ... Show More
26m 28s
Mar 9
How to share a top job
Ella Al-Shamahi talks to women in Switzerland and the UK about how job sharing can boost a career and bring many benefits to both work and home life.Irenka Krone-Germann is Swiss and has written several books about job-sharing and part-time working. She co-founded the information ... Show More
26m 28s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2024
Judy Blume
<p>Bestselling children’s book author and literary legend Judy Blume takes us back to her childhood New Jersey kitchen in the ‘40s, where she ate lamb chops and baked potato scrapings as a baby. She also shares a precious memento: her mother’s little yellow recipe box, filled wit ... Show More
36m 35s
Nov 2024
How a macabre country childhood spawned a best-selling dressmaker’s tale
<p>Author Rosalie Ham grew up in a country town three blocks long and three blocks wide. She paid close attention to the characters there, like the woman at the shops whose face was frozen into Munch’s scream. This eye for detail led to her first novel, which became a hit movie s ... Show More
53 m
Mar 2017
Arundhati Roy
Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer, Arundhati Roy. She won the Booker Prize for her first novel, The God Of Small Things, which has been translated into 40 languages and became the best-selling book ever by a non-expatriate Indian. After a gap of 20 years, her second novel wil ... Show More
35m 33s
Sep 2025
Weekend Woman’s Hour: Davina McCall, Papua New Guinea, Jung Chang, Fawning, Sophie Ellis Bextor
Davina McCall, one of TV’s most popular presenters has a new book out, Birthing, co-written with the midwife, Marley Henry. Davina joined Anita Rani to talk about her stellar career so far, including hosting Big Brother for 10 years, campaigning for better menopause care and buil ... Show More
55m 13s
Feb 2021
Tanya Heaslip - An Alice Girl
Tanya was raised on a cattle station north of Alice Springs during the 1960s and 1970s. The stories from her childhood sound like something out of book – too wild and wonderful to be true. As it turns out – they are so extraordinary Tanya has published them into a memoir called A ... Show More
1h 21m
Dec 2024
Claire Keegan: “Small Things Like These”| Oprah’s Book Club
Oprah’s Book Club: Presented by Starbucks premieres with a New York Times bestseller which the newspaper named one of their 100 best books of the 21st century: Small Things Like These. Oprah sits down with award-winning author Claire Keegan at a Starbucks café to discuss this 109 ... Show More
51m 29s