Verdi's heroines; Conservative women; Ladybeard Magazine; Giving advice

The government and Labour have both had reshuffles. There are now four more women in government than before, so how has the prime minister done on promoting women and is this likely to persuade more women to vote for him? Isabel Hardman, Editor of the Spectator’s Coffee House blog and Helen Lewis, Deputy Editor of the New Statesman discuss.

Ladybeard is a new, print-only quarterly feminist magazine, which aims to provide a radical alternative to glossy magazines. The first issue takes the body as its theme. It is created by university students Sadhbh O’Sullivan and Kitty Drake who join Jane in the studio to discuss why they felt there was a gap in the market for a new take on the glossy.

Malala Yousafzai  is the 16 year old Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot her almost exactly a year ago by the Taliban because she had campaigned for girls' right to an education. She was the subject of  a very moving edition of Panorama last night, she’s  written a book, with Christina Lamb, “I am Malala”,  and on Friday, she’ll find out if she’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala and her family now live in Birmingham. To many she is an inspiration.  In Pakistan, it’s not so simple as Aleem Maqbool explains.

From Sinead O’Connor telling Miley Cyrus not to be a ‘prostitute’ of the music industry, to a heated Mumsnet debate entitled ‘advice from childless friends’, the subject of unsolicited advice has got tempers flared in recent weeks. But who is entitled to give advice? Should you ever give advice to someone you don’t know? Jane talks to agony aunt Denise Robertson and psychologist Beverley Stone and about their experiences and strategies.

Gilda is one of the great tragic heroines of opera. Rigoletto’s daughter is young, beautiful, gullible and doomed. She dies singing of her great devotion to the seducer who betrayed her. So how do modern women approach the challenge of creating Gilda on stage? To coincide with Verdi’s 200th celebrations, conductor Jessica Cottis talks to Jane Garvey about the challenges of conducting Verdi’s great heroines.