Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

I listened to a solid week of Woman’s Hour…

What a week of woe it was

There was a resolute refusal to engage with the simple fact that Trump had won the US election because he talks to ordinary people, whereas Kamala Harris talks at them. Photo: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images 
issue 16 November 2024

I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and having sex with pop stars, I also nursed a desire to appear on Woman’s Hour. As a shy, provincial virgin, the programme opened up a world of women’s troubles from anorexia to zuigerphobia – and I was keen to have A Complicated Life.

Here was the wet hand of today’s lily-livered sensibilities I had anticipated

From my twenties to my fifties I appeared on it several times; my last outing was in 2016, as – like most other institutions – it was captured by the trans cult, leading to the show’s best presenter, Jenni Murray, leaving in 2020. Since then, the programme might more accurately be named What Is A Woman’s Hour. As Mumsnet noted, around 43 trans activists have been invited on to the programme over the years, compared with just 13 from the gender-sceptical side.

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