100 Women

Award-winning screen director Tope Oshin celebrates a new generation of Nigerian women film-makers who are currently reinventing Nollywood, the largest and most prolific film industry in Africa. She explores their distinctive approach to telling screen stories that better represent women’s lives and aspirations in Nigeria today.

Brazil is the C-section capital of the world. In a country where caesareans account for over half of all births and 88% in the private sector. BBC correspondent Julia Carneiro investigates what some call the “C-section epidemic”.

Indonesia has just conducted its first ever national survey on domestic violence. It found that 41% of women had experienced some form of domestic abuse. We hear about the work of a pioneering crisis and counselling centre offering holistic support, the first organisation of its kind in Indonesia. In Behind Closed Doors Claire Bolderson reports from three different countries: Kenya, Peru and Indonesia. The issue that unites them all is domestic violence. It’s not that the problem is unique to these countries - the World Health Organisation estimates that one third of women worldwide suffer physical or sexual violence by a partner - but in each of the three countries, we hear about different and often inspiring solutions aimed at combating it. Image: Ibu Yanti at her roadside foodstall, Credit: Claire Bolderson

Rates of domestic violence in the Peruvian Andes are particularly high - nearly double the national average. The shocking case of violence against Arlette Contreras Bautista, was caught on hotel security cameras, led to calls for greater action against domestic violence. In August 2016, tens of thousands of people marched through the Peruvian capital, Lima to protest against the country’s shockingly high rates of violence against women. We hear how some inspiring women are working together to raise awareness about domestic violence and putting pressure on their government to act. In Behind Closed Doors Claire Bolderson reports from three different countries: Kenya, Indonesia and Peru. The issue that unites them all is domestic violence. It’s not that the problem is unique to these countries - the World Health Organisation estimates that one third of women worldwide suffer physical or sexual violence by a partner - but in each of the three countries, we hear about different and often inspiring solutions aimed at combating it. Image: Peruvian women of the Andes, Credit: BBC

Unity is a village without men set up by Samburu women in response to domestic abuse. Claire Bolderson reports from three different countries: Peru, Indonesia and Kenya. The issue that unites them all is domestic violence. It is not that the problem is unique to these countries - the World Health Organisation estimates that one third of women worldwide suffer physical or sexual violence by a partner - but in each of the three countries, we hear about different and often inspiring solutions aimed at combating it.

All over the world women hold families together, work hard all hours of the day and have little power to change their lives for the better. To make that happen they need to organise. In a small corner of the Buenos Aires district of Argentina one woman has achieved something remarkable by doing just that. Aymara Val has been working with her neighbours to change their living conditions for eight years.

For the past two years, Russian athlete Yuliya Stepanova, her husband Vitaly and their three year old son, Robert have been on the run. They fear for their lives, after they exposed one of the greatest sporting scandals of all time – the systemic Russian state sponsored doping programme. With very little money or support from any sporting authority, a life of solitude and uncertainty is the prize for the whistleblower who brought down Russian sport. Lucy Ash meets the couple who have been living like fugitives in a secret location in the USA ever since they decided to blow the cover on the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs among Russian athletes. Yuliya’s husband Vitaly was an anti-doping official who was sincere about cleaning up Russian sport. He encouraged his wife to secretly record coaches and fellow athletes over almost two years as they urged her to take banned substances. The evidence she collected helped to kill off Russia’s dreams of gold in this year’s Rio Olympics, so many of her compatriots view her as a traitor. But in the wake of the scandal, President Vladimir Putin has pledged tighter controls and reforms. In the second half of the programme Lucy travels to Moscow to ask if Russia is really cleaning up its act. In the meantime Yuliya is training hard every day – her dream is to compete under a neutral flag at the World Championships in London next summer. (Photo: Yuliya Stepanova, 2006. Credit: Getty Images)

Sun City is one of America's biggest retirement communities and home to the Poms, a group of amazing women aged between 55 and 85. We follow the Poms as they rehearse for one of their biggest parades of the year. Their story is one of courage in the face of mortality and a high-kick against ageism.

Among the women that history overlooked are Yelena Malyutina, Queen Muhumuza, Dame Janet Vaughan, Rosalind Franklin, Nazma Akter, Sizani Ngubane, Salika Amara, Mercedes Doretti and Morfydd Owen. This special edition of The History Hour explores the lives and achievements of women scientists, fighters, musicians and trade unionists. Yelena Malyutina served in the women's bomber regiment in the Soviet Airforce during World War II. She was hit by anti-aircraft fire but managed to land her plane and survive internal injuries. Queen Muhumuza was an anti-colonial rebel leader in modern-day Southern Uganda. She and her supporters fought the British, the Germans and the Belgians during the early 20th Century. Dame Janet Vaughan was a doctor and scientist, and expert in blood diseases who worked in London in the mid-20th Century. Rosalind Franklin was a chemist who contributed to the discovery of the DNA double-helix. Her colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel prize for medicine for this work after her death. Nazma Akter is a trade union organiser in the garments industry in Bangladesh. She remembers the terrible factory fire that first shocked her into union activism back in December 1990. Sizani Ngubane founded the Rural Women's Movement in South Africa 20 years ago to help protect women's access to vital farming land. Salika Amara is a French Algerian theatre director. She takes us back to the 1970s in Paris when she staged her first play about the lives of immigrant women. Mercedes Doretti is a forensic anthropologist who has dedicated her life to uncovering the evidence of human rights atrocities. Morfydd Owen was a young Welsh composer who died in 1918. Her compositions have been rediscovered and published, and performed for the first time. With guests Professor Jane Humphries of Oxford University and Dr Amrita Shodhan, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. Image: Group of women, Credit: Thinkstock

In 2004, Kenyan Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was an environmentalist and human rights activist who founded the Green Belt Movement in the 1970s. She focused on the planting of trees, conservation, and women's rights but repeatedly clashed with the government while trying to protect Kenya's forest and parks. Witness speaks to her daughter, Wanjira Mathai.

Sun City is one of America's biggest retirement communities and home to the Poms, a group of amazing women aged between 55 and 85. We follow the Poms as they rehearse for one of their biggest parades of the year. They train hard, squeezing into unforgiving sequined leotards, doing the splits and balancing as human pyramids. Aside from being a funny journey, their story is also one of courage in the face of mortality and high-kicking against ageism.

Why is feminism still regarded by many as a word to avoid? Despite an ongoing gender pay gap, and a lack of female business leaders, why does the word continue to raise an eyebrow? Why is empowerment proving to be a great marketing tool, but feminism is not? The BBC's Katy Watson hears from the self-styled 'factual feminist' Christina Hoff Sommers on why modern feminists may have gone too far. She speaks to Ana Flores of We All Grow Latina, who explains why many US Latinas prefer to brand themselves as feminine rather than feminist. Katy also meets the campaigners behind the iconic Ms Magazine, and the co-founder of Amy Poehler's Smart Girls, Meredith Walker, who explains why young girls need better role models.

Rachida Dati is a Member of the European Parliament and a Paris mayor. One of twelve children from a devout French/Moroccan Muslim family, her rise has been remarkable. A former Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati has never been far from controversy. She's made a career of challenging the comfortable ways of the French establishment; she rails against what she considers to be French anti-Muslim discrimination and blames it, in part, for the extremism behind the French terror attacks of the last two years. She's never afraid to challenge the elitism that she says restricts the lives of the poorest. Yalda Hakim talks to Rachida Dati for the BBC's 100 Women season.

Simone Biles is being called the greatest gymnast of all time, a sporting superstar who stunned audiences at the Rio Olympics. But now, at 19, she is ready to reflect on what lies ahead and to look back at the circumstances that have shaped who she is. Adopted by her grandparents as her biological mother struggled with drink and drug addiction, Simone Biles' life story is almost as remarkable as her leaps and tumbles.

Women from rural parts of India are bucking the trend and working in jobs traditionally done by men. In Rajasthan, Divya Arya drops in at the Barefoot College to meet ‘Solar Mamas’ learning solar engineering to take electricity to their remote villages and meets a widowed railway porter who has taken on the tough job her husband used to do, the women finding a voice in local radio, and those learning the traditionally male-dominated trades of boat building, masonry, carpentry and farm management in Kerala.

Born in Uganda into a land-owning family, Shriti Vadera was exiled to India following Idi Amin's expulsion of all of Uganda's Asians. At the age of only 7, she insisted that her parents find the money to pay the school fees of her tutor, who couldn't afford them herself. At 15 she went on hunger strike demanding to be sent to boarding school in England and it is in the UK that she has stayed, building a reputation as a formidable economist.

The working life of Denmark's Tine Bryld, a radio personality, social worker and writer recently voted the country's most important woman in a century.

In 1996, England won the inaugural Home Nations championship in women's rugby. It was a major victory in the English players' fight for official recognition for their sport. Robert Nicholson talks to Gill Burns and Nicky Ponsford about how the women's game overcame entrenched sexism and official indifference.

Alicia Keys started writing music at 15 years of age and her first album, recorded when she was only 19, won a record five Grammy awards. She talks about growing up in New York's Hell Kitchen, her determination not to be pigeon-holed as a performer or as a woman and how choosing to wear no make-up - even on stage and on camera - has left her more free to be herself. Presented by Babita Sharma.

Two presidential speech writers reveal their top tips for crafting a really memorable speech. Sarada Peri is Special Assistant and Senior Speechwriter to President Obama. She says a good speech writer is like a ghost, and that her job is really to inhabit the President's mind on any given topic. When the first female President of the Republic of Kosovo came into office in 2011, it was Garentina Kraja who she turned to for her speech writing prowess, as well as her policy expertise.