Ladies, We Need To Talk

While one in three women will experience anxiety in normal circumstances, when COVID-19 hit, for many it was the first time they'd ever felt anxious. And for many of us, that feeling isn't going away because there's a lot to be anxious about - pandemics, climate change, money, kids and the list goes on. To help, we're revisiting an episode we did in season 2 in which Dr Charlotte Keating coaches us through climate change anxiety. Her advice is super relevant for if you're feeling anxious. Lifeline: 13 11 14 Beyond Blue: 1300 22 46 36 Headspace: 1800 650 890

Whether you're juggling working at home with kids or figuring out how to pay rent as a single mum after losing your job — life just got a whole lot tougher for women. Many women are on the front line of fighting coronavirus at home and self-isolation is feeling like total chaos. In the first episode of season 4 Yumi Stynes dives into your corona shitshow and talks with clinical psychologist Dr Jacqui Winship about ways you can make lockdown a little more bearable.

You’ll have heard of the glass ceiling — the invisible barrier that stops women getting ahead at work. For women of colour, that ceiling is actually concrete. And while you can (sometimes) shatter a glass ceiling, the concrete ceiling is a much tougher barrier to smash. At a live recording of Ladies, We Need To Talk, Yumi Stynes speaks with a panel of brilliant women about what it’s like looking up at the concrete ceiling. Our guests were Professor Sujatha Fernandes, Shy Magsalin and Shyamla Eswaran.This episode is a part of the ABC’s Australia Talks project, which aims to find out what Australians are really thinking and feeling, and uses those findings to help us all learn something about each other.

Boobies, tits, cans, your rack. Ladies, we want to celebrate your boobs. Despite what the beauty mags tell you, boobs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are big, some small, some are great at breastfeeding, others are not. Some women love their boobs, others get new ones. This episode talks about, and celebrates, all the boobs.

There’s a whole lot of mythology around the so-called sacred mother-daughter bond, but it isn’t always reality. Mumming is hard work. It’s a tonne of unpaid emotional and physical labour, and mums don’t always get it right. We speak to women who’ve navigated very fraught relationships with their mums.

One in five Australian women over the age of 15 have experienced sexual violence. 1.4 million Australians have lived through childhood sexual abuse.So if that’s you, how do you find the courage to be intimate again? For this episode we speak to women who’ve struggled to have sex after sexual assault, and others who now have a healthy sex life.Life Line: 13 11 141800 Respect: 1800 737 732

Around four million Australians have had an STI at some point in their life, but who ever talks about it? STI’s are shrouded in loads of shame, secrecy and regret. And it’s not just young people getting them — women in their 30s and 40s get them too. In fact, the number of older people getting them is actually growing. We smash the stigma and learn that women living with an STI aren’t alone.

Women are still expected to be primary caregivers — but what happens when they choose to walk away from this role? In season one we heard from women who "broke the motherhood contract". They were no longer living with their kids and felt society judged them harshly for it. We check back in to see how those women are going now.

At a certain point in life, making friends gets trickier and feels super awkward. Many of us want and need new friends though — so how do you do it? At a live recording of Ladies, We Need To Talk, Yumi Stynes and a panel of amazing women chat about why having good friends is so important and give advice for making new ones.

Do you feel embarrassed if you have to poo in public? You're not alone. Whether it's poo, farts, discharge or sweat — women are constantly self-conscious about our odour because it's considered 'unladylike' to smell. But if everyone on the planet needs to poo to survive, why do we have such poo shame? And if poo is on top of the list of things we feel awkward talking about, how do we know when something's going wrong with our bowels? So, Ladies, let's talk about poo.