Homes; Debt; Contraception in Africa; Women and Careers

The architect Corbusier called it ‘a machine for living in’, writer H G Wells, ‘the jackdaw dream’. On his desert island Robinson Crusoe set about creating one as soon as he possibly could. All three were referring to the concept of a home. In a new book ‘The Making of Home’ Judith Flanders challenges our understanding of what home means tracing the evolution of the house across northern Europe and America from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. She guides Jenni on a tour from the humble shack to the modern high rise.

‘The Making Of Home’ is published by Atlantic Books.

In 2011, Alinah Azadeh and her husband were issued with a repossession order for their home where they had lived with their children for five years. After that this British artist of Iranian heritage resolved to make debt the subject of her next artwork. Her project called Burning the Books has been touring the country for the last three years. She joins Jenni to explain exactly what it is all about.

Burning the Books

Photo courtesy of Lilian Simonsson

When it comes to setting career horizons are too many women still their own worst enemy? A new book ‘Imagining Women’s Careers’ takes a new look at the different ways individual women regard their career. It’s based on a research study which followed the career stories of seventeen women in one northern city across seventeen years. The women were first interviewed in 1993 during a period of recession. At that time they had all made the decision to set up their own business and become self employed. In 2010, in the middle of another recession, the women were interviewed a second time and asked to reflect on how their career had developed and how much their career attitude had changed in the interim. Jenni talks to Laurie Cohen, Author of ‘Imagining Women’s Careers’ and to Carole Fossey, Managing Director of BeResources recruitment consultancy. 

A new easy-to-use contraceptive device in the form of a little syringe is to be made available to women in 69 of the world's poorest countries for just $1. So what difference will this device make to women living in poverty and how unique is it?