Category: Women

World Breastfeeding Awareness Week

Every year, we celebrate Breastfeeding Awareness Week to highlight the critical importance of breastfeeding for both mothers and their babies. This week is a time to spread awareness about the numerous benefits breastfeeding provides, from essential nutrients and antibodies for infants to reduced health risks for mothers.

Our library is dedicated to supporting breastfeeding mothers and their families. We offer a wealth of resources on breastfeeding.

During this week, let’s come together to support and encourage breastfeeding mothers. Whether through providing accurate information, or simply offering a listening ear, each of us can make a difference.

Podcast

Bookshelfie: Maggie O’Farrell

Source: Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast

What better way to discover new books than through recommendations from the shelves of inspiring women?

In this episode 2020 Women’s Prize winner Maggie O’Farrell joins Vick Hope and reveals what it was like to win the prize over a zoom call and what level of research is really required to write a masterpiece like Hamnet – a moving exploration of death and grief in Elizabethan England told through the story of William Shakespeare’s real life son Hamnet.

Listen to the podcast here

World Menopause Day

Menopause: Continuing the conversation

For World Menopause Day 2022, the British Menopause Society has partnered with ITN Productions Industry News to produce a news-style programme ‘Menopause: Continuing the Conversation’ to cut through the noise to give straight talking, clear guidance and advice from BMS menopause specialists, healthcare professionals and BMS members, with information from industry experts, providing support for women to recognise and improve their symptoms.

Hosted by Louise Minchin, it will feature expert interviews, news items and reporter-led sponsored editorial profiles from leading organisations filmed on location.

The programme will launch on World Menopause Day, 18 October 2022.

House of Commons Justice Committee

Women in prison

Women represent less than 5 per cent of the total prison population. They are often sentenced to custody for non-violent, low-level but persistent offences, and are more likely than men to be sentenced for short periods of time. Female offenders are often the most vulnerable in society and have varied and complex needs. Many have experienced mental health problems, substance misuse, homelessness, abuse and trauma in their lives. The Ministry of Justice recognised these challenges in its 2018 Female Offender Strategy, which set out its strategic priorities to see fewer women coming into the criminal justice system; fewer women in custody (especially on short sentences); and a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully, with better conditions for those in custody. This report assesses its performance to date against those priorities.

For more information click here.

Women and Equalities Committee

Menopause and the workplace

Source: The King’s Fund

This report explores menopause as a health issue, a workplace issue and, fundamentally, as an equality issue, in relation to which people need better legal protection. It seeks to raise awareness across wider society, drive change among employers, and encourage a proactive and collaborative approach by the government.

Podcast

Bookshelfie: Joy Crookes

Source: Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast

What better way to discover new books than through recommendations from the shelves of inspiring women?

In this episode singer and songwriter Joy Crookes talks about rude awakenings and the feeling of being ‘slapped in the face’ by books.

Joy was initially recognised in 2013 for her cover of Hit the Road Jack which she posted on YouTube, gaining over 600,000 views (one of whom was to be her manager). Three years later, she released her debut single, New Manhattan, at just age 17. She went on to release her debut EP, Influence, with Speakerbox and Insanity Records, performing one of the songs on global music platform COLORS. Since then, she’s won two UK Music Video Awards, a Remarkable Women Award and performed at Glastonbury Festival. Her music focuses on themes of mental health, relationships and culture.

Podcast

Bookshelfie: Gina Miller

Source: Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast

What better way to discover new books than through recommendations from the shelves of inspiring women?

Campaigner, Gina Miller tells Vick Hope how she has taken adversity and turned it into power.

Gina is a businesswoman and dedicated philanthropist who strongly believes in standing up for what she thinks is right, no matter the cost. She has shown this through her social justice work, her True and Fair Campaign, and through the legal challenges she launched against the government during Brexit. Her memoir, Rise, tells Gina’s remarkable story.

Podcast

Bookshelfie: Gabby Logan

Source: Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast

What better way to discover new books than through recommendations from the shelves of inspiring women?

Join this season’s new host Vick Hope as she talks to Gabby Logan MBE, sports presenter and former gymnast, about the three M’s – midlife, motherhood and her MBE. 

Gabby is a broadcaster, prolific writer, podcaster and former gymnast. She became a familiar face on our TV screens in the 1990s, and since then has presented every major sporting event in the UK. In 2020 she received an MBE for services to sports broadcasting and the promotion of women in sport. Gabby tells us about the loves and losses in her life, through the books by women that have influenced her.

Women’s Prize for Fiction

Grazia First Chapter competition

Source: Women’s Prize for Fiction

Are you an aspiring writer waiting for inspiration to strike? Ever wondered what it would be like to co-write a story with a former Women’s Prize-winning author? Here is the perfect creative prompt for you in the form of the Grazia First Chapter competition. 

Visit the Women’s Prize for Fiction website here for details.

First Chapter

Podcast

What women want: addressing women’s health inequalities

Source: The King’s Fund

Host Helen McKenna speaks with Professor Dame Lesley Regan and Dr Janine Austin Clayton about women’s health journeys from start to finish. They explore why women can struggle to get medical professionals to listen to them and the impact this has on diagnosis and treatment, as well as the mental and physical effects on women themselves.

Listen to the podcast here