WomenKind Collective

Link to Order Our Best Selling Book: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tackling-Gender-Bias-Healthcare-System/dp/1805018817

Today we are Spilling the Tea with Dr. Ravi Gill, a health psychologist who has spent over 15 years helping people navigate anxiety, depression and the mental load of physical health conditions, from early intervention services to older adult NHS care. She also trains organisations on mental health awareness and crisis management, and volunteers supporting people in emotional distress.

Today we're talking anxiety: what it is, what it feels like, and why perimenopause can turn the volume up.

In this episode:

1. What anxiety actually is: generalised anxiety vs "normal" worry, and the line between everyday stress and something that needs support.

2. What anxiety feels like in the body and where people notice it first. Many women are thought to have cardiac or gut issues when it's anxiety (or vice versa), so how can we tell the difference?

3. What’s happening in the brain when we're anxious, and why anxiety latches onto specific worries like health, money and relationships even when it's really about something broader.

4. Perimenopause and anxiety: why anxiety can appear for the first time, or come back with a vengeance.

5. What to do in the moment when anxiety spikes, plus the go-to grounding techniques Ravi actually recommends.

6. What does real progress looks like, whether anxiety can be managed long term, and when to see your GP rather than self-manage.

We are still buzzing from our book launch and chat about the night and the incredible people who joined us.

Jinty's found an interesting article on what palliative care Drs and death doulas can tell us about 'Living well'!

Stick around for some beautiful inspiration to carry you through the week.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here: Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

This episode is for information and support, not a substitute for medical advice. If you're struggling, please speak to your GP.

Dr Ravi Gill

Web: http://www.smartmindhealth.co.uk/

https://www.buckinghamshirepsychology.co.uk/dr-ravi-gill/

Instagram: @dr.ravi_gill

LinkedIn: @Dr. Ravi Gill CPsychol, AFBPsS

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we're spilling the tea on how AI is affecting women, work, and happiness. Our guest is Giselle Goodwin, a self-help author, former business owner, and the woman behind Can Women Really Have It All? A Happiness Handbook for Working Mothers.

But don't let the "self-help" label fool you, Giselle's approach isn't about "finding your inner goddess." It's honest, it's grounded in research, and it's backed by a PhD in women, work and wellbeing that she went back to university to complete after twenty years of running her own businesses. She's spent years asking one deceptively simple question: how can life actually be better for women?

In this episode we talk about:

• The "having it all" myth, the promise the 1980s sold women, and whether it ever delivered

• How flexibility, hybrid working and micro-shifting can quietly become a trap for women at work

• The basics of how AI is already affecting women's jobs, and which sectors are most at risk

• Why AI's gender bias matters from AI safety and regulation to non-consensual AI-generated images of women and girls

• Why Giselle calls the impact of AI on women the next "she-demic," and how worried we should be

• The domestic gap nobody talks about and the research showing that when men do more at home, women are less depressed, arguments drop, and divorce risk halves

• The three things Giselle would change tomorrow in policy, culture and technology to make work genuinely work for women

Plus, we catch up on our week (we've been gadding off to the cinema), and this week's book club pick is a shameless plug, t's our very own book, Tackling Gender Bias in the Healthcare System: What Patients' Stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change, out 21 September 2026!

And stick around to the end for some beautiful inspiration to carry you through the week.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you'd like to, you can buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you — email us your ideas: Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

Follow us on Instagram, Apple Podcasts and Spotify for more.

Giselle Goodwin

Website: https://gisellegoodwin.com/

Book: Can Women Really Have It All? A Happiness Handbook for Working Mothers. Giselle Goodwin. AGG Associates Ltd. 2024

Instagram: @gisellegoodwinwrites

Substack: @Giselle Goodwin

LinkedIn: @Dr Giselle Goodwin

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: https://uk.jkp.com/products/tackling-gender-bias-in-the-healthcare-system

Discount Code: THOMSHEER15

Today we spill the tea with Julie Lee and Polly Chadwick, a perinatal trauma counsellor and a maternity specialist who, between them, hold space for the things antenatal care often doesn't have room for. Rainbow pregnancies. Matrescence. The silence around loss.

Julie explains what a rainbow pregnancy actually is for anyone who hasn't heard the term, and Polly talks us through her more hands-on work, pregnancy massage, hypnobirthing and the benefits for birthing people.

We ask why miscarriage and baby loss are still so hard to talk about openly even now, whether that's shifted since Julie and Polly started this work, and what women most often wish someone had told them before pregnancy and birth.

We also talk about what it's like supporting women through a period of birth trauma inquiries and maternity investigations, what the disorientation of early motherhood is actually made of hormonal, social, or both and what Julie and Polly would say to anyone listening right now who's feeling that guilt or disconnection.

For our listeners supporting adult daughters, friends and family through loss or the fourth trimester, we ask what's most helpful, and what well-meaning people often get wrong when trying to help.

We also discuss free or low-cost help and support.

We also chat about our weeks, the importance of saying yes and going out, and Jinty talks about hypermobility, how it might affect your vision, and prism lenses in glasses could help.

Stick around for some beautiful inspiration to carry you through the week.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

Julie Lee: 

Instagram: @julie_lee_therapy

LinkedIn: @Julie Lee MBACP

Web: https://julieleetherapy.org/

Polly Chadwick:

Instagram: @bumpbirthbabyuk 

@themulberryrooms

LinkedIn: @Polly Chadwick

Web: https://www.themulberryrooms.com/practitioners/

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: https://uk.jkp.com/products/tackling-gender-bias-in-the-healthcare-system

Discount Code: THOMSHEER15

We are back for series 17, and our guest today is a dear friend of ours, Elle Mace.

Elle is an ILM Level 5 Coach and Mentor, a Master Practitioner in eating disorders, obesity and body dysmorphia, a nutrition and weight management therapist, and a life and positive psychology coach.

Elle says she's "always been passionate about health and fitness,” but for years, that passion sat alongside an unhealthy relationship with food that started when she was just ten years old. She's spent the years since learning to free herself from what she calls her "food demons," and falling back in love with her body.

That journey is now a book, Food Freedom: How to Find Peace from Food Anxiety and Reclaim Your Body Confidence, an empowering guide for women rebuilding their relationship with food, body image and self-worth. Grounded in positive psychology and Elle's own experience as a qualified Eating Disorders Practitioner, it looks at how diet culture harms all of us, the different faces of disordered eating, and how to trade self-criticism for self-compassion. The book is brilliant, we went along to her book launch, where Elle spoke about her own journey and the power of positive psychology, and we knew you would want to hear this conversation.

We chat about how Food Freedom actually came about, and what it was like for Elle writing it, digging back into her own story, including the book's subtitle, How to Find Peace from Food Anxiety and Reclaim Your Body Confidence. 

Elle takes us into her chapter on Body Dysmorphia and seeing yourself clearly, timed with the first ever Body Dysmorphia Disorder Awareness Day, unpacking what BDD actually is and what it isn't. We talk about diet culture and where "healthy eating" tips into disordered thinking, including whether something like fasting can become disordered when taken too seriously, especially with so many conflicting expert opinions out there. Elle also opens up about swapping self-criticism for self-compassion, including how she came to name her own inner critic, and shares tips for anyone struggling with theirs. We can't ignore what's happening right now with GLP-1s either, so we ask Elle, someone who has spent years untangling this stuff, what she makes of a moment where women are shrinking and even Hollywood stars are starting to look frail rather than "healthy." She tells us the one thing she wishes someone had said to ten-year-old her, and shares the smallest first step she'd want anyone to take today if they recognise themselves in her story.

We also chat about our summer, there's a new Weekly Invitation, and stick around for some beautiful inspiration to carry you through the week.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment! If you would like to, you can buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here — Jinty & Lou: [email protected]

👀 Join us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3 And all your favourite podcast platforms.

Thank you for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elle Mace

Book: Food Freedom. How To Find Peace From Food Anxiety and Reclaim Your Body Confidence. Elle Mace. Vermilion. 2026

Website: https://www.ellemace.com/

LinkedIn: @Elle Mace

Instagram: @iamellemace

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tackling-Gender-Bias-Healthcare-System/dp/1805018817

Series 16 Finale: Book Club Special with Ruth Newton, author of The Carrier

For our series finale, we're doing something a little different: a book club special. We're joined by Ruth Newton, writer, campaign producer, and author of the best-selling debut novel The Carrier, a dystopian story where women absorb other people's pain as a form of labour.

The Carrier has already picked up serious recognition: longlisted for BPA's First Novel Award, shortlisted for the Hodderscape x The Science Museum Debut Science Fiction Award, and winner of the Jericho Writers' Friday Night Live competition.

In this episode we talk to Ruth about how much of the real world shaped the invented society of Eudaimonia, why she chose to make her protagonist Vivian a true believer rather than a sceptic from the start, and why every carrier in the book is deliberately a woman. We get into the visceral extraction mechanism at the heart of the story, the role men play in the resistance and what it says about allyship, and where The Carrier sits on the spectrum between cautionary tale and reflection of something already happening. We also ask Ruth about Vivian's traumatic awakening, whether her tipping point changed during the writing process, and what she most wants readers, particularly women, to sit with once they've turned the final page.

We also discuss our favourite reads of the year so far, and there’s something in there for everyone!

Stick around for some beautiful inspiration to carry you through the week.

The first women only trail race in Switzerland - SWISS WOMEN’S TRAIL, 1st edition on September 12, 2026

Switzerland’s first women-only trail is a 100% women-focused event designed as a gateway to mixed-gender trail races and long-distance formats.

The SWISS WOMEN’S TRAIL aims to address challenges by providing a competitive, demanding, and supportive environment tailored to women’s specific needs.

Two accessible race distances will be offered: 19 km with 750 m elevation gain and 38 km race with 1,400m elevation gain.

Find out more here https://www.swisscanyontrail.com/en/pages/swt?srsltid=AfmBOoq58MrBhc_CT4t7_1-_aXu7MS5hlEIIx6TDPdy5Qj_nZiEUIV80

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ruth Newton:

Socials:

Instagram: @ruth.e.newton

LinkedIn: @Ruth Newton

Book: The Carrier. Ruth Newton. Transworld Digital. 2026. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carriers-propulsive-page-turning-speculative-Severance-ebook/dp/B0FK346DWV

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tackling-Gender-Bias-Healthcare-System/dp/1805018817

This week we are Spilling The Tea with Nicky Denson-Elliott, a professional feminist, community builder, award-winning podcaster, and the woman asking a question that, once you hear it, you can't unhear it.

We're talking about the word hysterectomy, a word one in five people don't even realise means the removal of the uterus. A word rooted in "hysteria," a diagnosis used for centuries to dismiss and pathologise women, only struck from medical record books in 1980.

Nicky had a hysterectomy herself this year, and it crystallised something she'd already been thinking about as a feminist campaigner. She's now petitioning NHS England to retire the word "hysterectomy" in favour of uterectomy, clearer, more accurate, and free of centuries of baggage.

Today we're talking medical misogyny, language, and why the words used for our bodies matter more than we think. 

We ask her about the petition and the moment that made her think "this word has to change"; how living through her own hysterectomy this year sharpened her view on the language; the real history connecting "hysterectomy" and "hysteria," and whether people actually know it; why a procedure that around one in five UK women will have has never had its language challenged before now; how she's finding getting the petition out there given the algorithm's treatment of women's health content (following our chat with the CensHERship Campaign last week); whether she's faced any opposition or the response has been entirely positive; and what NHS England and clinicians have said so far.

We also cover the new terminology for PCOS, now PMOS, and what this name change could hopefully mean for people living with it.

Stick around for some beautiful inspiration to carry you through the week.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to, you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here — Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicky Denson Eliot

Petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/768726

Socials: 

Instagram - @nickydensonelliot. 

Substack: Nicky Denson-Elliot

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: https://www.waterstones.com/book/tackling-gender-bias-in-the-healthcare-system/louise-hockings-thompson/jinty-sheerin/9781805018810

The history of women's bodies is, in many ways, a history of what men decided women should and shouldn't know. From Aristotle's declaration that the female form was a "defective" version of the male, to Freud's wildly influential and wildly wrong theories about female psychology, medicine has long been shaped by shame and a striking resistance to progress.

Today, the censorship has simply migrated from the anatomy textbook to the algorithm: the word vagina can get your content suppressed, women's health ads get pulled without explanation, and gynaecological cancer campaigns get taken down.

This week we're joined by Clio Wood, women's health advocate, journalist, author of Get Your Mojo Back: Sex, Pleasure and Intimacy After Birth, and founder of wellbeing retreat company &Breathe together with Anna O'Sullivan,founder of FutureFemHealth, they co-founded CensHERship,an advocacy and research initiative tackling the censorship and bias affecting women's health online.

We talk about :

• The moment that pushed Clio to act, the compromises creators make (swapping "vagina" for a grapefruit emoji)

• Whether that reinforces the very shame they're fighting,

• The eye-opening data: 95% of the 150+ organisations they surveyed had experienced censorship in the last year.

• We also dig into the double standard between men's and women's health content,

• The real-world cost of suppressed information, self-censorship and body shame,

• Algorithms, and what's going on here

• Where CensHERship is actually seeing change.

Plus, Jinty's got a stack of fun fly facts that you can impress your friends with, and stick around till the end for some inspiration to carry you through the week.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you'd like to, you can buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you — email your ideas to Jinty & Lou at [email protected]

👀 Join us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite podcast platforms.

Thank you for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Web: https://censhership.com/

      https://andbreathewellbeing.com/censhership

Socials: Insta: @censhershipcampaignofficial 

       LinkedIn: @CensHERship

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: https://www.waterstones.com/book/tackling-gender-bias-in-the-healthcare-system/louise-hockings-thompson/jinty-sheerin/9781805018810

She was 16 years old, newly separated from her home country, when she received a diagnosis that would reshape everything she thought she knew about herself, her body, and her place in the world.

Natalia Shvarts was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome, MRKH, a rare condition affecting over 10,000 women in the UK, where the vagina and uterus are underdeveloped or absent.

It would take years, and a memoir, to find her way home to herself.

In this episode, we sit down with Natalia, solicitor, speaker, MRKH advocate, and author of I Don't Matter: In Search of Home, for an honest, unflinching conversation about what it means to be told, as a teenager, that your body is different, and to spend years rebuilding your identity from that moment on.

We explore the diagnosis itself, what Natalia was told at sixteen and how she made sense of it; what MRKH actually is and why it remains so widely undiagnosed; the profound question she found herself asking in those early years: "If real women bleed, what even was I?"; navigating vaginal dilation as a teenager, largely alone and without adequate support; where gender bias shows up in MRKH care and how the medical system fails women with the condition; the loneliness, secrecy and shame that surrounded her diagnosis and her family's reaction to it; entering the UK's first womb transplant trial and the moment she made the decision to withdraw; the link between her diagnosis, people pleasing, and finding herself in a relationship involving coercive control; her mental health reaching a crisis point and why she speaks about it publicly; and what reclaiming her identity and reaching acceptance has actually looked like in practice.

This episode also features our women's rights quiz and it makes for genuinely shocking listening.

And this week we have something quite special: a Jinty Joke to make you smile through the week.

Natalia's memoir is raw, necessary, and deeply human. This is the kind of conversation that reminds you why we spill the tea.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment — it helps more women find us!

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💬 Email us your ideas: [email protected]

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Further Information on MRKH:

Web: https://mrkhconnect.co.uk/

https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/mrkh/support

Books:

I Don’t Matter: In Search of Home. Natalia Shvarts. Independently Published. 2025.

Vagina Uncensored: A Memoir of Missing Parts. Ally Hensley. Whitefox Publishing. 2024

Socials:

Natalia Shvarts: @kiska115

MRKH Community: @mindovermrkh

Charity: @mrkhconnect

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

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If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/42KniEtc5WGQhNvREsN1WP?si=e14a83c93a304bb3

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Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: https://www.waterstones.com/book/tackling-gender-bias-in-the-healthcare-system/louise-hockings-thompson/jinty-sheerin/9781805018810

In this episode, we are joined by Fay Peace, a woman whose experience of navigating the healthcare system is both deeply personal and heartbreakingly familiar.

After visiting her GP in 2019 with symptoms she knew felt wrong, Fay spent nearly two years being dismissed, told it was probably the perimenopause, or perhaps a UTI before finally being diagnosed with stage 3 womb cancer in 2021.

Womb cancer, also known as uterine cancer, is the fourth most common cancer in women in the UK, with around 9,800 new cases diagnosed every year.

Incidence rates have risen by nearly 60% since the early 1990s. And yet it remains one of the least talked-about gynaecological cancers which is exactly why conversations like this one matter.

In this conversation, Fay takes us back to the very beginning: what her early symptoms were like, why they were so easy to explain away, and at what point she began to sense something serious was being missed.

She talks honestly about what it felt like to have her instincts dismissed, including the moment her surgeon told her it was stage 1 and "nothing to worry about" only for that to change.

She shares what it was really like to go through chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and brachytherapy, and what kept her going.

We list the main symptoms to look our for, the need for early detection diagnostics and the importance of primary care listening to a patients real concerns and symptoms.

Fay didn't stay silent. She channelled her experience into action, launching her campaign #CheckYouOut she’s on a mission to get the symptoms of all five gynaecological cancers (cervical, womb, ovarian, vaginal, and vulval) onto everyday product packaging. She's already secured a significant win, convincing Bodyform to redirect their QR code to The Eve Appeal and she's just getting started.

We also discover the surprisingly delightful origin of the word "berk," and close, as always, with something beautiful to carry you through the week. ☕

If you're experiencing symptoms you're worried about, please speak to your GP.

For more information on gynaecological cancers, visit The Eve Appeal at: https://eveappeal.org.uk/information-and-advice/gynaecological-cancers/ovarian-cancer/

You can folow Fay on social media https://www.instagram.com/cancercampaigner?igsh=aXVob3N2YXlzNWpo

☕ Enjoying the podcast? Subscribe, leave a review, and share with someone who needs to hear this.

💛 Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

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Available on all your favourite podcast platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

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And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change: https://www.waterstones.com/book/tackling-gender-bias-in-the-healthcare-system/louise-hockings-thompson/jinty-sheerin/9781805018810

This week on Spill The Tea, Lou and Jinty are joined by Sarah West, a nurse, ADHD coach, and passionate advocate for women who've spent years being everything except correctly diagnosed.

Sarah first joined us in Series 12, Episode 3 to share her own story. Now she's back as part of our Gender Bias in Healthcare series, and this conversation goes deeper.

• Together we explore how ADHD research was almost entirely built around hyperactive boys and
• the lasting legacy for generations of women and girls who simply didn't fit that picture.
• We discuss why girls tend to internalise where boys externalise, and whether that's still playing out in referral pathways today.
• We examine why so many women receive anxiety, depression, or even bipolar diagnoses before anyone considers ADHD and what it does to a woman to have her neurology repeatedly mistaken for a mood disorder.
• Sarah also tackles the topic of perimenopause and how it can dramatically unmask ADHD symptoms,
• the emerging research linking ADHD and autism with hypermobility,
• the "over-diagnosis" backlash and whether that criticism is actually a gender bias story in disguise,
• plus what still needs to change, and what good post-diagnosis support should look like.

We also share what we’ve been up to this week, and stick around for some beautiful inspiration to carry you through the week.

☕ Subscribe for honest chats on women's health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment! 🙏 Scroll down ⬇️

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💬 Email Jinty & Lou: [email protected]

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Sarah West:

Web: https://www.sarahwest-adhd.com/

LinkedIn: Sarah West

Insta: @sarahwest_adhd

 ADHD & Menopause Book by Dr Helen Wall - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Menopause-ADHD-neurodivergence-Vermilion-Empowered/dp/178504642X

Sarah West ADHD & Menopause, previous episode here - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/adhd-late-diagnosis-with-adhd-coach-sarah-west/id1557937820?i=1000687993934

Further Information: & Support

Web: https://adhduk.co.uk

Books: Menopause and ADHD: How to Navigate Hormone Flux and Neurodivergence. Dr Helen Wall. Vermillion. 2026

☕ SUBSCRIBE for honest chats on women’s health, feminist issues, sisterhood & smashing the patriarchy, one cuppa at a time.

💛 Enjoying the podcast? Please share, leave us a review or comment!

If you would like to you can Buy us a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/womenkindcollectivepodcast

💬 We love hearing from you, email us your ideas here Jinty & Lou @ [email protected]

👀 Join us on instagram here https://www.instagram.com/womenkindcollective?igsh=ZmxmbGs2d3BjcXA1&utm_source=qr

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/womenkind-collective/id1557937820

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And all your favourite Podcast Platforms

Thank you for Listening

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.