Woman's Hour - 17/08/2009

With Jane Garvey. Including: In an attempt to win a marginal seat in September 2009's general election in Germany, the Christian Democrat candidate Vera Lengsfeld has produced billboard posters with images of herself and of German chancellor Angela Merkel displaying their generous cleavages and the strapline 'We have more to offer'. So how much cleavage should a woman show? And if you're a politician, should you be showing it off at all? Domnica Radulescu grew up under the shadow of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. It was an era characterised by food queues, censorship and suspicion, with the ever-present threat of 'disappearance' at the hands of the secret police. In 1981, when she was 20, she won the National Prize for Short Story Writing, but left Romania a few years later under the pretence of taking a holiday in Italy. Once there, she claimed political asylum in America, where she now teaches French and Italian literature and women's studies at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. She talks to Jane about her debut novel Train to Trieste, which is based on the events of her life. As part of a new project, families who have lost a loved one in military service have been spending their holidays together. Woman's Hour hears how from some of the women and children who have been attending the new activity break camps. Jane will be finding out just what support is available to families who lose loved ones while on active service. And reporter Jane Corbin has recently come back from another trip to Afghanistan, where she heard the stories of the women living there. She examined whether their situation has improved since the fall of the Taliban and met women who are putting their lives at risk in order to create an equal society. She talks to Jane about what she discovered.