Woman's Hour - 22/04/2009

With Jenni Murray. Linda Sturdy had worked at a teaching hospital for 17 years when she was passed over for a job running breast screening services. She was 56 and the new job was given to a younger, less experienced candidate: a tribunal found that hospital managers tried to force her to take a lesser role and her grievances were not dealt with properly or promptly. She has just been awarded 39,000 pounds damages, which includes the biggest ever payout for injury to feelings in a discrimination case in the UK. Jenni talks to Linda about her victory and discusses its wider implications with Michelle Mitchell from Age Concern. Azar Nafisi is the author of the bestselling Reading Lolita in Tehran, which documented her creation of a book group with seven female students which met in secret in post-revolution Iran. Now she has written another memoir - this time, about her family. Azar joins Jenni to describe her stormy relationship with her family and her country, through the years of the Shah during which her mother became an MP and her father was imprisoned, to the revolution in 1979 which brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power and saw Azar sacked from her university post for refusing to wear the veil. Many people feel utterly lost when a pet dies. Some find it more difficult to cope with than the death of a relation. Those who have had their pets put to sleep on humane grounds feel needlessly guilty. Jenni is joined by agony aunt Virginia Ironside and celebrity vet Bruce Fogle to find out how best to deal with the death of a pet. And Grammy award-winning, Irish singer and songwriter Sinead O'Connor joins Jenni to discuss her career, living with a bipolar disorder and being a mother of four. She also performs two tracks, including her international best-selling hit Nothing compares to you Including drama: Lady Audley's Secret.