Woman's Hour - 16/03/2010

With Jane Garvey. Juliet and her Romeo, currently playing at the Bristol Old Vic, is a reimagining of the Shakespearean play that transforms the teenage lovers into octogenarian residents of a care home, and their parents into the staff and offspring caring for them. Sian Phillips, at the tender age of 76, is playing Juliet, and she joins Jane to discuss performing the role. As the election draws closer, the political parties are targeting female voters in a more methodical manner than ever before, from interviews on the daytime TV sofas to mums online. Next it is the turn of the glossy magazine. In its upcoming edition Red Magazine features interviews with all three party leaders. How powerful are the women's magazines in influencing women voters and have the parties got the right strategy in terms of trying to win the women's vote? Jane discusses the issues with editor of Red Magazine Sam Baker, Siobhan Kenny, who was responsible for setting up the government's non-news strategy in 1997, and Amanda Platell, former press secretary to the Conservatives. On Thursday the Cheltenham Festival will be hosting Ladies Day, where 12 women riders will be taking part in a charity race. The Ladies Charity Sweepstake is a flat race over one mile and five furlongs and participants are committed to raising at least 5,000 pounds each for Cancer Research UK. Jane talks to one of the jockeys taking part, Camilla Henderson, the daughter of top trainer Nicky Henderson, and to the BBC's sports correspondent Clare Balding. In Latvia, 41 per cent of the country's managers are women, the highest proportion of female managers in the EU. And it's not just the ordinary Latvian woman that enjoy success; some of the country's top jobs are held by women. In her new book Profiting from Diversity, Gloria Moss says that Latvian women simply don't understand the concept of 'the glass ceiling'. One of the reasons seems to lie in Latvia's past, as for many centuries Latvia existed under Swedish and Russian rule. Now an independent country, it appears to have taken the best from Scandinavian and Soviet attitudes to female emancipation. So what are they doing right?