Ladies, We Need to Talk goes deep on the women's health and relationship issues that are setting your group chat on fire.
Come hang with the fabulous Yumi Stynes as she takes a candid, non-judgemental and often hilarious look at the deeply personal stuff that's hard to bring up, even with your closest mates.
You'll meet incredible experts to help you improve your wellness, manage the mental load; survive break-ups and prioritise your mental health.
With sensitivity, personal stories from real women, and serious smarts, this show is for women who feel the squeeze between work, their private life, and their pelvic floor.
Get in touch with episode ideas, feedback or just say hi! Ladies@abc.net.au
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What happens if you want a baby but you're running out of time? Maybe you haven't found the right partner, or you've found the right one, but they don't want kids? You just can't seem to get pregnant or you're simply too busy having an awesome life and heaps of fun to have a baby. And then suddenly, your 'fertile window' starts to close. Yumi Stynes finds out what it's like to have one last shot at pregnancy. Featured in this episode: Dr Karin Hammarberg (VARTA), Senior research fellow, School o...
Have you noticed that most women have long hair, and most men have short hair? And how grey-haired men are silver foxes and women old and witchy? What's with these unspoken hair rules? And why the hell are we conforming? Yumi Stynes gets to the root of why women's hair is such a big deal and teases out why we're so tangled up in knots about our locks. Featured in this episode: Author Tara Moss; Kellie Scott @Hairlossboss; Shantel Wetherall, Host of Hey Aunty podcast.
Nearly one million Australian women live with persistent pain in their pelvis. Yumi Stynes finds out what the hell it is, what causes it and most importantly, how to get through the day with a raging pelvis. If you need help dealing with your pelvic pain, www.pelvicpain.org.au has loads of helpful advice. Featured in this episode: Dr Susan Evans, Gynaecologist and Pelvic Pain Physician; Gabrielle Jackson, Associate News Editor of Guardian Australia and author of Pain and Prejudice....
Saggy boobs, cracked vaginas, being invisible, loneliness. Getting older can't all be this grim? CAN IT?!? Yumi Stynes finds out how to stay awesome, mentally and physically, as the years tick by and the mammaries get lower ... and it's not all bad news for our sex lives — HOORAY! With thanks to the amazing group of women at the Bowral Country Women's Association. Featured in this episode: Professor Cassandra Szoeke, Director of the Healthy Ageing Program at the University of Melbourne; Dr Kathe...
What really turns you on? Getting your toes sucked? Latex? High-heeled shoes? Fetish is a word that can be overused without us really thinking about its meaning. Sexologist Dr Sarah Ashton helps us figure out what a fetish actually is, where fetishes come from and why it's A-OK to have one. We'll also find out what it's like to be the object of someone else's fetish.
Ladies! Listen up: we're back and we've missed you! Join Yumi Stynes as she dives right in to all the taboo lady-business that women find tricky to talk about. Whether it's your fetish, what the hell happens to us in old age or dealing with the rage in our pelvis — Ladies, we've got your back. We love your feedback so please leave us a voicemail on 1300 641 222 or email ladies@abc.net.au. Follow Ladies, We Need To Talk now so you never miss an episode, oh, and tell ALL your girlfriends.
Sex, babies, periods, discharge. Our vaginas do a lot. But how well do you really know your vagina? Get comfy for a guided tour of your vagina with Dr Elizabeth O'Farrell. Plus, you'll meet Deanna, owner of possibly the world's most adventurous vagina, and Louise, who learnt something about her vagina at 53 that completely changed her life.
Pubic hair — it's one of the most scrutinised patches of hair on our bodies. Research says 80 per cent of women groom their hair regularly. But why? What's really behind our choices? Data journalist Mona Chalabi muses on the perceived link between women's pubes and our sanity. Podcaster Maeve Marsden and comedian Christina Zheng debate to pube or not to pube.
Monogamy is the default, but for lots of people it doesn't work. More and more people are actively looking for alternatives to monogamy, according to research. So why are many of us abandoning monogamy in favour of polyamorous and open relationships?
It can take months or years to get through a breakup, and the fallout can be totally devastating. Whether it's money, legal stuff, kids, or all the feelings, we're giving you practical tools to break up well and flourish afterwards. Writer Zoe Foster Blake teaches us how we can keep our dignity in a breakup and see it as a 'gift'.
Warning: explicit content. One in five women in Australia has had anal sex. It's everywhere in porn and many of us, especially young women, are feeling the pressure to do it. It's uncomfortable discussing anal sex, so let's talk about it. Dr Nikki Goldstein sets out how to negotiate anal sex including consent and Professor Cicely Marston tells us how anal sex typically plays out for young people.
A movement's begun to expose the mental load women shoulder. All that relentless, unpaid, thankless and invisible work women do. Naming it is powerful, right? But we want solutions! Author Eve Rodsky breaks down the mental load and teaches you how to spread the mental load more evenly with our partners — hallelujah!
Delving into the insidious nature of emotional abuse, this episode reveals how it can erode identity and trust without physical harm, affecting one in four Australian women. Experts Jess Hill and Inez Carey join survivors Ruth and Diana to describe various forms like gaslighting, control, and isolation, and the challenges of recognition. It offers crucial insights for identifying abuse in oneself or others, and provides advice for seeking help and rebuilding self-worth.
When most of us picture our clitoris, we think of it as being the size of a tiny jellybean. But sisters, your clitoris is so much more than that! It's going to blow your mind just how amazing the clitoris is. You'll hear from the woman who 'discovered' it, Australian doctor, Helen O'Connell.
Women are pretty bad at saying no — we're socialised to please and serve others. Author of F*** No!, Sarah Knight, political commentator Jamilla Rizvi and emotional intelligence coach Rachel Green are going to teach you how to say no, and do it unapologetically.
Caring for partners is something women do well and often. But what's the limit, how do you know if your support is causing more harm than good and how do you do it without sacrificing yourself? We speak to women propping up their partner through issues like depression, addiction and suicide. Lifeline: 13 11 14Beyond Blue: 1300 22 46 361800 Respect:1800 737 732
You'd think a pandemic would stop all romance and the dating game. But it's seen an acceleration of relationships and romance as some single people panic bought partners like toilet paper. Ladies Producer Cassandra Steeth takes a look at love in the time of coronavirus and lets us peek into her new relationship too.
It's no secret women spend way more time, energy and hard-earned cash on our appearances than men do. But what else could we be firing our mental bullets at if we weren't so worried about what the hell we looked like? Researcher, Dr Phillipa Deidrichs, says the focus many of us place on what we see in the mirror is stopping us from fully functioning.
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 th...
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 ...
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. Lifeli...
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 Esw...
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.
