How to subvert the negative stereotypes about older women? Kim Chakanetsa brings together two women - both in their late 70s - to discuss how to grow older with purpose, passion, and a certain playfulness.Chilean author Isabel Allende is one of the most acclaimed writers in the world. Her novels, which draw on her own eventful life, tell stories of love, exile and loss, and have sold more than 70 million copies and have been translated from Spanish into 42 languages. Now aged 76, she has spoken openly about how to live passionately at any age.Also aged 76, Lynne Segal is a British-based feminist academic who has grappled with the paradoxes, struggles and advantages of ageing in her book, 'Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing'. Originally from Australia, Lynne is also a seasoned feminist and social activist and is Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck College, London.Produced by Jo Impey for BBC World Service.Image: (L) Lynne Segal (credit Andy Hall/Getty Images) (R) Isabel Allende (credit Lori Barra)

What happens when you share your family life online with millions of other mothers? And what responsibilities does it come with? An Indian blogger and British vlogger who both focus on motherhood discuss with Krupa Padhy. Louise Pentland is a parenting vlogger who was recently named as Britain's top 'mumfluencer' by Mother & Baby magazine. Her YouTube channel has more than 2.4 million subscribers who watch her sharing her life with her two daughters Darcy, eight, and Pearl, one. She says no-one tells new mothers how lonely it can be, and while not shying away from the worst bits, her main aim is to bring positivity to her audience. Louise is also a successful fiction writer and her new novel is called Wilde About the Girl. Shweta Ganesh Kumar is the founder of the blog The Times of Amma – amma being the term for mother in several South Asian languages. It has been listed amongst the top ten Indian mom blogs to follow on multiple parenting sites, as has Shweta's Instagram account. Shweta started blogging to connect with other mothers, particularly ex-pat ones like herself. Her message is simple - it's OK to not be perfect. Shweta is a writer too, and her books include The Beginner’s Guide to the Indian Mom Blogging Universe.Image: L: Louise Pentland credit Nicky Johnston R: Shweta Ganesh Kumar credit Sagar Rajgopal

What does your body hair say about you? Can the decision to remove it be a sign of patriarchal oppression? Yassmin Abdel-Magied meets two women who decided to go against social norms and stop shaving and waxing their legs, underarms and pubic area. They discuss what's at stake for women in different parts of the world when it comes to body hair, and the unexpected reactions they got from their own family when they decided to let it grow.Busra Erkara is a Turkish writer who works for Year Zero, a bilingual magazine based in Istanbul. She was initiated into waxing by her mother and grandmother at the age of 13, but began to question why women remove body hair when she encountered feminist narratives about hair removal in Sweden and in the US. She’s written openly about her own conflicted approach to body hair as a Middle Eastern woman. Busra will soon take on the role of Director of Content at Odunpazari Modern Museum in Eskisehir, due to open in the summer of 2019.Emer O’Toole is an Irish writer and theatre scholar who has written extensively about body hair after her own decision to stop removing it as a feminist statement some eight years ago. She says it was hard to deal with the shame and embarrassment of being ‘hairy’ and even harder to deal with her mother's disapproval, but now she’s proud of what it says about her. Emer is Associate Professor of Irish performance studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and author of the book Girls Will Be Girls: Dressing Up, Playing Parts and Daring to Act Differently.Image: L: Busra Erkara Credit: Naima Green R: Emer O'Toole Credit: Next Gen

Women are still the ones expected to be on top of household organisation, so does that make tidying up a feminist issue? With the 'decluttering' trend going global, Yassmin Abdel-Magied discusses with two women from Kenya and Belgium, who help people to organise their stuff professionally.   Annelies Mentink became a professional organiser in 2016, following burnout from a stressful job in the banking industry and post-natal depression. 'I discovered that helping people to sort stuff was a real job and I love doing it.' She has since published a bestselling book in Flemish, Cleaning Up Makes You Happy! and started her own training academy for budding declutterers.As the youngest of 13 children, Faith Kaimba always had to be extremely organised with her own stuff. So it was a natural leap for her to go into the growing decluttering business in Kenya. She now trades as Faith the Organizer, and says because the modern African woman is expected to do it all, they need someone like her to help them reduce the household chaos.L: Faith Kaimba (credit: Dennis Kibaara) R: Annelies Mentink (credit: Wilfried Verreck Fotografie)

Breaking the silence on sexual assault. Two women tell Kim Chakanetsa how they worked through the trauma of sexual violence, and then decided to speak out to help others. Brisa De Angulo supports young survivors of sexual abuse in Bolivia, through her charity A Breeze of Hope. At the age of 15, she herself was raped by a member of her extended family, but when she tried to report the crime to the authorities she was ostracised and belittled. At just 17, Brisa decided to set up an organisation which provides medical, social and legal services to fellow young rape victims, so they didn't have to go through the ordeal she did.Winnie M Li is an author, activist and founder of the Clear Lines Festival. Winnie was working as a film producer in the UK before her career was disrupted, at the age of 29, when she was raped by a stranger. This prompted a long period of recovery, followed by a change in career. Winnie decided to focus on addressing the issue of sexual assault through the media, the arts and academia. Her debut novel, Dark Chapter, which was based on her experience of sexual violence, won The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize 2017.L Winnie M Li (credit: Grace Gelder) R Brisa De Angulo (credit: Parker Palmer)

How to break the 'celluloid ceiling' in the movie industry, a term used to describe the under-representation of women in Hollywood? The numbers are particularly shocking when it comes to film soundtracks. In 2018, 94% of the music in Hollywood's highest grossing films was composed by men, according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. Nelufar Hedayat asks two successful female composers why the numbers are so low and what can be done to close the gap?Hildur Guðnadóttir is an Icelandic composer, cellist and singer who is at the forefront of experimental pop music. She has composed a number of film scores, including Sicario: Day of the Soldado and the 2019 Joker film, starring Joaquin Phoenix, both of which have been described as 'macho' big budget features. She says she got in through the back door, because of the particular experimental style she has developed, and was surprised by the response she got when she arrived in Hollywood.Lolita Ritmanis is an Emmy Award-winning American composer, who is best known for the memorable themes she’s created for iconic superheroes, including for the animated series, Justice League. Lolita is the co-founder of the Alliance for Women Film Composers, which aims to increase the visibility of female composers in the film industry.Image: (l) Lolita Ritmanis. Credit: Thomas Mikusz (r)Hildur Guðnadóttir. Credit: Antje Taiga Jandrig

Discovering how your family was caught up in major historical events...two women from India and Singapore tell Kim Chakanetsa why they started digging into family secrets, how these stories were lost or deliberately forgotten, and the role that gender played.Aanchal Malhotra's grandparents fled what is now Pakistan in the chaos of Partition in 1947. Until she began to research her book Remnants of Partition: 21 Objects from a Continent Divided, she never knew their traumatic migration stories. They had buried them deep. Aanchal managed to persuade her grandmothers to reveal their secrets using the few objects they managed to bring with them. Aanchal is an artist and oral historian.Sim Chi Yin's grandfather was caught up in two different conflicts, the Malayan Emergency and then the Chinese Civil War. He was executed by nationalists in China in 1949. When Chi Yin discovered this history, taboo in her family for decades, it became the starting point for her photographic project One Day We'll Understand. She has since gone on to gather oral histories from the remaining leftist rebels of the Malayan conflict. Chi Yin is a photographic artist and nominee member of Magnum Photos.L Sim Chi Yin (credit: Keyyes.com/Joel Low) R Aanchal Malhotra (credit: Aashna Malhotra)

Nigeria is a country where women take leading roles in business, media and the arts yet for many, feminism is a filthy word. The country recently went to the polls and out of a list of 73 presidential candidates just eight of them were women. One of them, Eunice Atuejide sparked a fierce debate when she announced, “I am not a feminist”. She went on to say, “And who is a feminist? So what is Nigerian feminism? This is a country that has a history of legendary women, from the warrior Queen Amina of Zazzau to the 1929 ‘Women’s War’ where thousands of women came out in protest against British tax collections. Yet according to a recent UNICEF report, one in four girls in the country have experienced sexual violence, while 23% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 have experienced physical or sexual violence in the home. The Conversation has come to Lagos to meet a panel of successful and outspoken women, each leaders in their field, to challenge pre-conceptions and break some myths about what it means to be a woman in Nigeria. They discuss the highs and lows of their experiences with an audience of some of the sharpest young minds of the future, students from the University of Lagos.Fatima Zahra Umar is a lawyer, writer and gender activist behind the popular blog #DivorceDiaries. Ijeoma Umebinyuo is described as one of the top ten contemporary poets from Sub-Saharan Africa. Ijeoma says "I am always sharpening the blade of my pen". Bisola Aiyeola is a Nollywood actress, singer and Reality TV star. Oluwaseun Osowobi is the founder and Executive Director of 'The Stand to End Rape Initiative'. She is also 2019's Commonwealth Young Person of the Year for her role in fighting gender based violence.There is also a special ‘anonymous’ guest appearance by storyteller, blogger and cultural commentator ‘Diary of a Naija Girl’.Presented by Kim Chakanetsa and produced by Andrea Kennedy.Image (L-R): Fatima Zahra Umar (Credit: Ami Mansur), Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi (Credit: Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi), Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Credit: Ijeoma Umebinyuo), Bisola Aiyeola (Credit: TMPL)

Empowering women with self-defence skills is the aim of our two guests, who have both adapted traditional martial arts to create classes for women. They tell Celia Hatton about the transformation they see in their students when they first realise their own strength, and the power of self defence to change lives. They also discuss the potential danger of putting the onus on women to deal with violence, rather than tackling the problem of the perpetrators.Catalina Carmona Balvin runs The School of Self Defence for Women in Bogotá, Colombia, a country which has high levels of street harassment and domestic violence. Catalina teaches a form of Hapkido, a Korean martial art characterized by its emphasis on deflecting an opponent’s attacks instead of on forceful blocking, but she makes sure her classes provide a fun, safe environment, more inspired by salsa dancing than by hard-core, macho moves.Susie Kahlich runs an organisation in Berlin called Pretty Deadly, which teaches self-defence courses tailored for women. Originally from the US, Susie turned to martial arts after she became a victim of violent crime in Los Angeles nearly 20 years go. Susie invites her students to wear whatever clothes they would usually wear, from long skirts to headscarves, in order to make the moves easily adaptable to everyday scenarios.L: Catalina Carmona Balvin (credit: Andrés Epifanio Becerra García) R: Susie Kahlich (credit: Sahand Zamani)

Protecting lions in Kenya and grizzly bears in the US - two women tell Kim Chakanetsa about their experiences and achievements in the male-dominated field of wildlife conservation.When Shivani Bhalla realised that lions - her country's national symbol - were in trouble, she established a project in northern Kenya to protect them. She works with the whole community to prevent lion deaths. This includes the traditional Samburu women, who are leading their own conservation efforts under the title of Mama Simba, which means Mother of Lions.Louisa Willcox has spent the last three decades battling to protect the grizzly bear population in the US. In 2018 she helped get the bears back onto the endangered species list, meaning that planned trophy hunts on state lands had to be cancelled. There are around 700 grizzlies left in the Greater Yellowstone area, and Louisa says the females count the most, because they hold the key to recovery.L-Background image: Lion Credit: Ewaso Lions L-Image: Shivani Bhalla Credit: Nina Fascione R-Image: Louisa Willcox Credit: Louisa Willcox R-Background image: Grizzly bear Credit: Richard Spratley