Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

On Start the Week Anne McElvoy explores the state of feminism today. It's fifty years since Betty Friedan's landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, questioned the role of women in society. Anne McElvoy discusses that role today with the Living Dolls author, Natasha Walter, the proponent of erotic capital Catherine Hakim, the radical feminist Finn Mackay and the journalist and academic Shereen El Feki who has been looking at the changing sexual attitudes and behaviour in the Arab world.

This programme will be followed by a phone-in edition of Woman's Hour on feminism. If you would like to take part in the programme you can email now via the Woman's Hour website or phone from 0800 on Monday 4th March on 03700 100 444.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Bridget Kendall discusses the role and future of the Commonwealth. As its Secretary-General at the turn of the century, Sir Don McKinnon reveals its inner workings. But the journalist Frances Harrison is critical of the organisation for failing to challenge human rights abuses. The MP Kwasi Kwarteng questions whether the Commonwealth can ever shed the baggage of Empire, and Sir Ronald Sanders asks if it can survive the rise of China. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Lisa Jardine discusses how complex maths has broken free of the laboratory and now influences every aspect of our lives. James Owen Weatherall applauds the take-over of the financial world by physicists, Marcus du Sautoy revels in the numbers and Kenneth Cukier explores how big data will change everything from disease control to bargain buys. But the cultural commentator Tiffany Jenkins sounds a note of caution about a world where everything is measurable.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

Bridget Kendall discusses the roots and reach of Islamist terrorism from Afghanistan to Africa. The historian William Dalrymple looks back to Britain's First Afghan War where many Afghanis rose in answer to the call for jihad. Nadeem Aslam's latest novel ranges across the Afghan-Pakistan border where the past and the present are locked together. Dr Christina Hellmich explores what has happened to al-Qaeda since Osama bin Laden's death. And as David Cameron calls the response to Islamist terrorism in North Africa a "generational struggle", the political analyst Imad Mesdoua looks at the parallels with Afghanistan.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

Start the Week Allan Little explores the legacy of George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language. Joan Bakewell, Tim Montgomerie, Chris Mullin and Phil Collins discuss Orwell's warning that evasive language, euphemism and insincerity dominate political writing, and assess the impact of today's political diaries, blogging and tweeting.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week, Tom Sutcliffe talks to Howard Goodall about 40,000 years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, to chart a history of innovation and entertainment. The composer John Adams contrasts European and American traditions as he conducts two concerts at the LSO. The award-winning writer Stephen Poliakoff brings the true story of a black British jazz band in the 1930s to the small screen. And Barb Jungr's cd of cover versions harks back to a tradition of musical re-interpretation. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Anne McElvoy talks to the environmental campaigner Tony Juniper about putting a price on nature, and reframing the importance of the natural world in terms of finance. But the writer William Fiennes believes it's the imagination and not discussion of dividends and capital that will inspire the next generation, and Ngaire Woods argues that governments and business should be run by goals and values, and not the balance sheet. The Tory MP, John Penrose, looks at whether we should be doing more to protect city skylines and townscapes. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr begins the new year talking about lies and secrets, and the increasing blurring of public and private. Deborah Cohen charts family secrets and shame from the Victorian times to the present day, while Sarah Dunant and TV producer Alex Graham discuss how confession became entertainment, and the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz listens to the hidden feelings of his patients. Producer: Katy Hickman.

In a special recording of Start the Week, Andrew Marr explores the power of the human voice. From the emotional intensity of the tenor Rolando Villazón, singing Rodolfo in La Boheme, to the art of writing for the voice with the composer Mark-Anthony Turnage. Mary King trains the voice, and the neuro-psychiatrist Michael Trimble examines our reactions to it.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Peter Wothers about modern day alchemy, as we enter a new era of chemistry. In the past some scientists dismissed the vast majority of the human genome as 'junk DNA', Ewan Birney argues for renaming it 'enigmatic DNA'. And curiosity gets the better of Sanjeev Gupta as he explores the terrain on Mars. But science doesn't have all the answers as Helen Bynum charts the history of tuberculosis, from the medieval period to the present day, and looks at how this killer disease continues to spread and evolve. Producer: Katy Hickman.