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When I was a kid, I used to sit on the bonnet of an HR Holden and watch my dad play country footy.

I thought I understood the game.

But years later I realised something strange: I had only ever been watching half of it.

In this episode of The C-Word, I look at what happens when women step into sporting spaces that were never originally built for them.

From ill-fitting guernseys and dodgy change rooms to online abuse aimed at women players, commentators and umpires, women’s sport still provokes reactions that go well beyond the game itself.

Along the way we talk about:

• why women’s sport suddenly grows when it becomes visible

• the history of women being pushed out of football despite drawing huge crowds

• why gay women seem to find space in sport while gay men still struggle to come out in the AFL

• and why being a woman in sport can sometimes feel like being a vegan handed a chicken schnitzel.

Technically you’ve been served dinner.

It’s just not made for you.

Content Note

We discuss women’s bodies, medical systems, trauma, and other hard-to-talk-about stuff. Also, I swear. A lot.

Support

These resources aren’t included as a formality. Catharine has personally used several of these services during hard and frightening times.

Australia | 24/7

• Lifeline 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25)
• 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732
• Emergency 000

Outside Australia, local crisis services are available.

Community

Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/zjooshyoursocials

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/catharine.redden/

Support the podcast
https://catharineredden.substack.com

https://buymeacoffee.com/CatharineRedden

Credits

Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.

Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley

https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au

https://www.instagram.com/ridleyfarmstudio/

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The C-Word with Cath...

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If you’ve ever wondered what a panic attack actually feels like, this episode is a very honest answer.

This episode was recorded while I was recovering from a panic attack. Earlier that morning I found myself lying on the floor of the self-checkout at Woolworths, with a bag full of ice cream, fresh salmon and milk — more worried about getting the groceries home to the fridge and freezer than the fact that I’d been nanoseconds away from passing out in public.

For me, panic attacks don’t look like hyperventilating into a paper bag. They look like shaking at 4am, feeling freezing cold, not knowing where I am for a moment, and sometimes spending hours trying to convince myself I’m just being lazy rather than recognising what’s actually happening.

In this episode I talk openly about living with anxiety and depression as a 54-year-old woman, the strange realities of panic attacks, CPTSD, medication, childhood trauma, and the quiet ways these experiences shape everyday life.

This conversation includes discussion of depression, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, trauma, childhood abuse, medication, fainting and domestic violence, so please take care while listening.

If you’re struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or a support service like Lifeline.

And if you’re listening because you live with anxiety too, I hope this episode helps you feel a little less alone.

Content Note

We discuss women’s bodies, medical systems, trauma, and other hard-to-talk-about stuff. Also, I swear. A lot.

Support

These resources aren’t included as a formality. Catharine has personally used several of these services during hard and frightening times.

Australia | 24/7

• Lifeline 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25)
• 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732
• Emergency 000

Outside Australia, local crisis services are available.

Community

Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/zjooshyoursocials

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/catharine.redden/

Support the podcast
https://catharineredden.substack.com

https://buymeacoffee.com/CatharineRedden

Credits

Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.

Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley

https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au

https://www.instagram.com/ridleyfarmstudio/

About

The C-Word with Cath...

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This episode of The C-Word with Catharine Redden comes to you from a spare bedroom in Loxton, South Australia. The sound is a little echoey. The ideas are not.

Today is not a rage episode. It’s a recalibration.

Using the Macquarie Dictionary definitions of sexism and feminism as a starting point, I walk through 115 years of legal, cultural and structural change for women in Australia and beyond. From the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act to the criminalisation of marital rape in 1992. From the marriage bar to paid parental leave. From my Nana’s life, born in 1910, to the unfinished business of 2026.

This episode asks:

What does it mean when women are not counted in the design phase of life?

What does progress actually look like?

And what is still unresolved?

Feminism is not hostility toward men. It is structural correction. It is generational recalibration in systems that were not designed with us in mind.

This episode is dedicated to my Nanna ~ 

Evelyn Maud Eime (née Smith)

Born 14 February 1910 – Died 2010

Never far from my heart.

Further reading and influences for this episode include 

‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’ by Caroline Criado Perez

‘The Beauty Myth’ by Naomi Wolf. 

I’ll also be writing on Substack about other texts that have shaped my feminism and understanding of structural inequality.

Content Note

We discuss women’s bodies, medical systems, trauma, and other hard-to-talk-about stuff. Also, I swear. A lot.

Support

These resources aren’t included as a formality. Catharine has personally used several of these services during hard and frightening times.

Australia | 24/7

• Lifeline 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25)
• 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732
• Emergency 000

Outside Australia, local crisis services are available.

Community

Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/zjooshyoursocials

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/catharine.redden/

Support the podcast
https://catharineredden.substack.com

https://buymeacoffee.com/CatharineRedden

Credits

Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.

Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley

https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au

https://www.instagram.com/ridleyfarmstudio/

About

The C-Word with Cath...

Send a text

If you are a survivor of sexual assault and you are experiencing re-trauma because of the release of the Epstein Files this episode is for you (big warning though ~ only if you feel safe & well. Please get the help you need) 

Just to be clear, I stand with all victims of sexual assault, including the victims of Epstein and his cronies. 

Our world has changed, but it changed for the Epstein & Co. victims a long time ago & still there is no justice. None. 

Content Note

We discuss women’s bodies, medical systems, trauma, and other hard-to-talk-about stuff. Also, I swear. A lot.

Support

These resources aren’t included as a formality. Catharine has personally used several of these services during hard and frightening times.

Australia | 24/7

• Lifeline 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25)
• 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732
• Emergency 000

Outside Australia, local crisis services are available.

Community

Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/zjooshyoursocials

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/catharine.redden/

Support the podcast
https://catharineredden.substack.com

https://buymeacoffee.com/CatharineRedden

Credits

Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.

Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley

https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au

https://www.instagram.com/ridleyfarmstudio/

About

The C-Word with Cath...

Send a text

This episode is dedicated to Irene. The strength you showed as a little girl foretold the remarkable human you would become. Thank you for trusting me, and my listeners, with your story.

Episode 2: Bloody Horrendous ~ First Periods, Shame, and Sisterhood

Fun fact: over a lifetime, the average woman will menstruate for about seven years ~ end on end.
And yet we still whisper about it.

In this episode of The C-Word with Catharine Redden, Catharine talks about first periods. The confusing ones. The painful ones. The ones that arrived with a pad but no instructions. It’s about euphemisms like “the curse,” blue liquid in tampon ads, and the quiet expectation that girls should endure discomfort without complaint.

Alongside Catharine’s own story, women from across generations share what their first periods were really like. Awkward, frightening, funny, and often bloody horrendous. It’s also about the small, practical ways women have always looked after each other, even when no one else did.

Periods are not a failure of the body.
They’re evidence of endurance.

Content Note

We discuss women’s bodies, medical systems, trauma, and other hard-to-talk-about stuff. Also, I swear. A lot.

Support

These resources aren’t included as a formality. Catharine has personally used several of these services during hard and frightening times.

Australia | 24/7

• Lifeline 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25)
• 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732
• Emergency 000

Outside Australia, local crisis services are available.

Community

Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/zjooshyoursocials

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/catharine.redden/

Support the podcast
https://catharineredden.substack.com

https://buymeacoffee.com/CatharineRedden

Credits

Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.

Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley

https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au

https://www.instagram.com/ridleyfarmstudio/

About

The C-Word with Cath...

Send a text

This episode is dedicated to ABF, the first man who said the C-word about my body in a way that was tender, affirming, and entirely without contempt.

Episode 1: Oh, Cunt Where Art Thou?

In the first episode of ‘The C-Word with Catharine Redden’, Catharine starts where few podcasts dare: with the word cunt. Loved, loathed, weaponised, reclaimed, how did one word that names a life-giving part of women’s bodies become one of the most explosive insults in the English language?

With humour, storytelling, and a proudly non-academic feminist lens, Catharine traces the word’s journey from medieval England (yes, Grope Cunt Lane was a real street) through class politics, religion, Victorian moral panic, and into its strange modern life as both taboo slur and affectionate Aussie greeting. Along the way, she asks bigger questions about language, power, women’s bodies, and why some words are policed harder than others.

This is not a rage-bait podcast. It’s a curious, funny, thoughtful exploration of what it’s like to be a woman in a world largely designed by and for men, making space for complexity, contradiction, and conversation. If you love words, feminism, cultural history, and smart swearing, you’re in the right place.

Content Note

We discuss women’s bodies, medical systems, trauma, and other hard-to-talk-about stuff. Also, I swear. A lot.

Support

These resources aren’t included as a formality. Catharine has personally used several of these services during hard and frightening times.

Australia | 24/7

• Lifeline 13 11 14
• Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25)
• 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732
• Emergency 000

Outside Australia, local crisis services are available.

Community

Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/zjooshyoursocials

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/catharine.redden/

Support the podcast
https://catharineredden.substack.com

https://buymeacoffee.com/CatharineRedden

Credits

Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.

Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley

https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au

https://www.instagram.com/ridleyfarmstudio/

About

The C-Word with Cath...