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A report out today from the Fawcett Society looks at whether low paid women are benefiting from the recovery.ÌýMany women at work face issues such as the gender pay gap, the challenge of returning to their job after maternity leave, and the provision of flexible working. Jane is joined by Dr Eva Neitzert, the Deputy CEO of the , and by the , Jo Swinson MP.

Three and a half years ago journalist Sarah Wilson, former Editor of Cosmopolitan in Australia, author, blogger, and wellness coach, decided to quit sugar. What started out as a new year experiment became something much more.ÌýShe stuck with it, launched an eight week programme to help other people give up sugar, and wrote several books on the subject. Jane spoke to her recently while she was here promoting her latest book, I Quit Sugar for Life.

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I Quit Sugar for Life by Sarah Wilson is published by Macmillan

In May 2014, published a report highlighting the overwhelmingly low numbers of women directors working in British television, and showed that the numbers are dwindling. When they presented it the industry was shocked. So why are there are so few women behind the camera in the UK, and does it matter? Jane discusses with Susanna White, director of Bleak House and Parade’s End, with Amy Walker, factual series producer and founder of , and with factual director Anna Keel.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin is seen as one of the most important novels in the history of American women’s writing. Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centres on Edna Pontellier - a middle class woman whose attraction to a young man over one long, hot summer awakens her sexual desires and longing for independence. Edna feels smothered by marriage and motherhood, yet as a woman she is expected to be a good ‘mother-woman’ who surrenders her sense of self for her family. Helen Taylor, Professor of English & American Literature at the University of Exeter, joins Jane to discuss why the book is celebrated as an early feminist work, how it still speaks to feminists today, and why it provoked an outcry when first published in 1899.

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The Awakening by Kate Chopin, with a new introduction by Barbara Kingsolver, is published by Canongate. And this week’s 15 minute drama is an adaptation of The Awakening by Janice Okoh.