Radio 3’s excellent stalwart Private Passions put Martha Lane Fox of lastminute.com fame in the hotseat for International Women’s Day, with a moving and revealing interview. Michael Berkeley lets his guests and their song choices do the talking, and Lane Fox has a relaxed style, breezing through Judy Garland’s Get Happy and sharing her thoughts on equality.
Back in the dotcom days, she was “often the only woman in the room”, but had high hopes that her gender would be well represented one day. “It didn’t feel this industry was locked down and I thought it’d end up being much more diverse,” she says, reeling off what she describes as “hideous” statistics. Only 4% of software engineers are women.
“It’s really not OK,” she says, her voice rising as she talks about such inequality in an industry that’s not even 30 years old, and where code written by women has been assessed as better than that written by men.
She reflects on the time after a car accident in Morocco, when she learned to walk again after a stroke and multiple injuries, and, touchingly, she talks about the strength of her “incredibly wise and intuitive” mother.
Since that accident, Lane Fox walks with a stick and admits she’s not as confident as she seems. “What I try and do is flick the switch in my brain, which goes from feeling a bit wobbly … to ‘Say something’,” she says, encouraging other women to do the same.
Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour doesn’t need any excuse to speak up for itself. But on Radio 2, Chris Evans celebrates IWD by asking Jane Garvey if the show is all about cake – and if there’ll ever be parity between the sexes. Garvey delivers a quick explanation of how girls outperform boys at school but get paid less, and then goes off to debate the EU referendum and disruptive innovation. It’s lemon drizzle-free.
Over on 1Xtra, A.Dot has assembled a Female Cypher crew including C Cane, Melody Kane and Lady Lykez. Dotty’s three-hour show is “hijacked by women”, as she spins Lil’ Kim, Destiny’s Child and Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s satisfaction anthem Push It. “All women are fly,” they state, in a celebration of being young, female and brilliant. It’s a house party atmosphere and a goosebump moment.
