Ladies, We Need To Talk

Guess who is way worse off in pandemics? Yup — women. While we're leading the charge on the frontline by slogging away in jobs like nursing, teaching and aged care, our purses are copping a flogging now and into the future. More women than men have lost their jobs during this crisis and there are no prizes for picking who does the lion's share of home-schooling. COVID-19 is creating a gendered storm of pandemic proportions (sorry, we couldn't help ourselves).The good news is, other women are the ones helping us through this crisis. Gender inclusion commentator, Amy Haddad, says we have some very finely honed skills in just shovelling through shit. And, you know, we just keep on shovelling.

Most of us have a secret we've never told anyone. Secrets are self-protective and universal, but some are hard to keep and impossible to share. If your secret is eating you up or has the propensity to blow up your entire life — should you share it? Are secrets better out than in? Dr Katie Greenaway says it depends. Psychotherapist Gillian Straker walks us through the shame some secrets bring and what kinds we're keeping from ourselves.

What if you could read something that would radically change your sex life and your whole relationship dynamic? What if, a few pages could actually make you feel like sex with your long-term partner?Cue the case for erotic literature — the nerdy aphrodisiac you didn't know you needed. Low sex drive affects many of us, including Sally, who says erotica has increased her libido 10-fold. You'll also hear from Kate Cuthbert from the Victorian Writers Centre and Gina Gutierrez from an audio-erotica company on how erotica is evolving.

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.