Woman's Hour at 80: Jane Garvey reveals the continued power and presence of the BBC staple

It is a quirk of history to raise a wry smile, that when Woman’s Hour was first heard on the airwaves 80 years ago next week, it was with the voice of a man – presenter Alan Ivimey, whom the Radio Times described at the time as a specialist “in writing for and talking to women”.

Of all the controversial decisions made among the higher echelons of the BBC, this does seem an avoidable clanger. What on earth was he thinking? “I guess the bosses supposed that women at home would be missing their husbands and would like to hear a male voice telling them what’s what,” reflects Jane Garvey, presenter of the programme from 2007 to 2020.

Garvey reports that the eclectic offerings in that very first outing included “a talk from one woman on how to put on a face of makeup, while another segment explained how to cook whale meat”.

While such topics may now seem to come from another planet, they do reflect Woman’s Hour’s mission from the start to focus on women’s stories and interests, something that has never changed, although it has significantly evolved.

“For eight decades women’s voices and experiences have been at the heart of Woman’s Hour,” current editor Karen Dalziel tells RT. “Women’s lives have changed dramatically and we celebrate that progress.”

Now, Woman’s Hour is marking its own birthday with a specially themed year, Use Your Voice. This reflects the many conversations through the years with women (and many men along the way) who have driven change and transformed their own lives and others’ over the programme’s 80-year history.

Presenters in that time have included Violet Carson, Judith Chalmers, Sue MacGregor, Dame Jenni Murray, and current-day line-up Nuala McGovern and Anita Rani. Guests have included Hillary Clinton, Mary Quant, Gloria Steinem, Maya Angelou and Margaret Thatcher, while campaigns championed on the show range from the elimination of plastic in menstrual products to equal pay legislation.

“I’m very proud of having presented it,” says Garvey now. “I still have people coming up to me and saying, ‘When you did that episode of Woman’s Hour...’ You realise it’s very much a part of the fabric of people’s lives. Every day, I learnt something about the lives of people, many less privileged than myself, and the country’s social history.”

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Garvey experienced a shift in focus on her watch. “We tried to make it more diverse, both in terms of workforce and choice of guests. We started to be more interactive, reading out messages from listeners on air, asking their questions of the guests. I felt it become livelier, especially when I read a critique aimed at myself. There grew more levity to balance the serious subjects.”

To those who question the need for a daily hour on national radio dedicated to women in 2026, Dalziel says, “The programme continues to give women a prominent national platform to discuss their most relevant and pressing issues. It’s clear women still have a lot to say about the unfinished business – including confronting and contesting the stereotypes and laws that limit them or questioning society’s view of how they behave.”

With such a wide-ranging scope across one half of the population, Woman’s Hour both naturally reflects society but is also instrumental in changing it. Garvey shares, “I’ll be sitting at home watching TV and see programmes picking up on a particular issue relating to women as though it’s the first time it’s occurred to anybody. I say to my daughters, ‘I covered that on Woman’s Hour 10 years ago’.”

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Woman’s Hour is on Radio 4, Monday–Friday at 10am, Saturdays at 4pm.

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