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’s guest is bestselling author and health journalist Penny Parkes. Penny has topped both the Audible and Kindle charts, written for The Telegraph, and appeared at literary festivals across the country.

But her seventh book, How To Talk So Your Doctor Will Listen, is the one she’s been waiting a lifetime to write.

Living with multiple invisible and...

Women’s Health Made Easy: The GPs Closing the Gaps in Medical Training and Women’s Healthcare

Today we’re joined by two incredible guests who between them bring decades of experience as GPs, menopause specialists and sexologists.

They’ve written the book that probably should have existed in medical training for the last fifty years.

Dr Angela Sharma is a Notting Hill GP who leads her own NHS menopause service and supports women with everything from heart disease to sexual health.

Dr Carys Sonnenberg, who some of you will remember from her...

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

Strength Training, Protein & Collagen: Menopause Myths Busted with Jane Wake

With so much life-hacking, quick fixes and outright lies flying around on social media and in marketing, it’s hard to know what to believe, so we needed an expert to help us cut through it.

Our guest has 35 years in sports science, is one of the most respected names in...

Midlife pivots, HRT patch glue and building Nudi spray, with Amy Simpson

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

This week we spill the tea with Amy Simpson, a midlife entrepreneur and co-founder of Nudi Spray. She wasn't looking to start a business. She was just sick of scrubbing glue marks off her skin every time she peeled off an HRT patch.

A dancer turned florist turned entrepreneur...

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...

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...

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 h...

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, tha...

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 s...

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 an...

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 t...

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, an...

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, a...

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.

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

Description: Internalised Misogyny in Healthcare

Have you ever been told you're too much? Too emotional, too sensitive or not sick enough, not convincing enough, or just not the right kind of patient? And have you ever walked out of an appointment with a female doctor feeling like that was somehow worse?

You're not imagining it. This week, we're talking about why.

We...

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 WKC Spill The Tea we sit down with Jen, a Menopause Awareness trainer, cancer charity volunteer, and mental health advocate, who experienced the credibility gap first-hand. She went to her GP with real symptoms and was asked if it was all in her head. It wasn't. Dismissed by her consultant, Jen was eventually diagnosed with Medullary Thyroid Cancer, a rare cancer and her journey since has tr...

This week, Jinty and Lou sit down with Rosie Taylor, award-winning investigative journalist, broadcaster, media consultant, and host of the Mother Bodies podcast. Rosie has spent a decade reporting on women's health and family life for some of the UK's biggest publications. But what sets her apart is this: she hasn't just reported on the crisis in maternity care, she's lived it. Her own experience of birth trauma sent her on a mission to understand what is going wrong in our maternity system, and she has been reporting and campaigning on it ever since.

In this powerful...

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

Our guest today is Neelam Heera-Shergill, founder and CEO of Cysters, a community-led charity with national reach working at the intersection of menstrual health, maternal care and mental well-being.

When we talk about gender bias in healthcare, we're really talking about a system that has historically been designed for men. But what happens when you exist outside that narrow template in more ways than on...

This week on Spill The Tea, we're having the conversation the NHS seems reluctant to. We sit down with Jocelyn, who at 36 went into premature menopause, and years later underwent a hysteroscopy a procedure she was wholly unprepared for.

What followed was agonising pain, zero adequate warning, and a long road to discovering she was far from alone. Jocelyn found her way to Hysteroscopy Action, a UK campaign fighting for patients' rights to proper pain relief and informed consent and she's here to help make sure you're better informed than she was.

Together we unp...

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

Welcome back! Series 16 is here, and we're spending the whole series investigating gender bias and misogyny in healthcare, building up to the publication of our book in September.

And what better place to begin than to Spill the Tea with Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting and Women's Health Minister Baroness Gillian Merron? We ask them about the revised Wom...

BBC South West journalist Emily Wood first joined us, a few moons ago, to talk perimenopause.

Today, she returns in an entirely different capacity, to share one of the most personal and compelling investigations we've ever heard.

Emily has created True Crime Tuesday currently airing on BBC Radio Devon Daytimes and it’s a deeply personal reinvestigation into the murder of her great aunt, Eva Porter, killed in Clapham in 1935.

What began as her mum exploring the family tree became something far bigger: a cold case reinvestigation, a journey through the London Archives, 83 pages...

Today we’re spilling the tea on Imposter Syndrome, or Imposter feelings,  with someone whose work we think so many of you are going to connect with instantly.

Dr Lee David is a GP, CBT therapist and author with over 20 years of experience supporting people with their mental health.

She is the founder of 10 Minute CBT, bringing brief, practical mental health tools into real-life settings.

Lee is known for making psychological ideas genuinely accessible, warm, and sometimes even a little bit funny when that’s what’s needed.

Lee works with health pr...

This week on Spill The Tea with WKC, we’re joined by chemotherapy nurse Gemma Reeves, who has witnessed first-hand the heart-breaking rise of breast cancer in younger women.

Gemma recently launched a petition calling for routine mammograms in the UK to begin at age 40 instead of 50 a campaign focused on earlier detection and saving lives.

In a major step forward, the petition has now passed 100,000 signatures, meaning it must be considered for parliamentary debate.

Currently, the NHS Breast Screening Programme invites women aged 50 to 70 for a mammogram every three years. Those guidelines are based on ev...

This week on WKC Spill The Tea, we’re joined by psychotherapist, feminist thinker and author Jennifer Cox to discuss Anger and her ground-breaking book, Women Are Angry, named The Times Self-Help Book of the Year 2024.

For generations, women have been conditioned to stay quiet, be agreeable and not make a fuss. But suppressed anger doesn’t disappear it manifests as burnout, anxiety, depression and physical symptoms. Jennifer draws on decades of clinical experience to explore how rage is often a rational response to inequality, injustice and the emotional labour placed on women.

In this episode...

This week on Spill The Tea, we’re joined by Jacynth Bassett, founder of Ageism Is Never In Style, a global platform working to change how age is understood, represented and valued.

Jacynth approaches age through a feminist, intergenerational lens, challenging how women are judged, marketed to, and treated as they get older — and exploring what becomes possible when we shift the narrative.

In this episode, we explore:

• What “ageism” actually means and where it shows up in everyday life

• Why ageing feels tougher for women, particularly around appearance and credibility

• The emo...

Birth is often treated as timeless and unchanging but the way we give birth has always reflected power, politics, and gender.

In this episode of Womenkind Collective: Spill The Tea, we’re joined by cultural historian and novelist Lucy Inglis, author of Born: The Untold History of Childbirth, to explore how childbirth has been shaped and controlled across history.

From Neolithic birthing practices to ancient contraceptives, from upright labour to the medicalisation of birth, Lucy charts the moments when women were pushed out of decision-making and examines how patriarchal systems and medicine became deeply intertwined.

We...

This week on Spill The Tea by Womenkind Collective, we’re joined by the brilliant  Siobhan O’Donovan, physiotherapist, biomechanics expert, and founder of Posture Fitting, a science-led approach helping women understand the real impact of breast weight, posture, and movement on everyday health.

We first met Siobhan, at the Hands on Hub & STA Conference, where she captivated the room even before taking the stage. Through a simple yet powerful exercise, she demonstrated just how much lighter and freer the body can feel when breast weight is properly supported and lifted.

With a background in sports reha...

This week on WKC Spill The Tea, we’re spilling the tea with Mandy Hickson, former Royal Air Force fast jet pilot and the first woman to fly the Tornado GR4 on frontline operations.

Across a remarkable 25-year military career, Mandy flew 45 missions over Iraq while navigating the intense pressure of a male-dominated environment all alongside raising a young family.

In this powerful conversation, Mandy opens up about what it was really like to be judged as “a woman” rather than a pilot, the pressure to prove herself, and the realities of balancing ambition, fear, and...

We’re delighted to be back for Series 15 of WKC Spill The Tea, and we’re kicking things off with our brilliant friend Karen Newby, registered nutritionist, author, and menopause champion.

With over 15 years of clinical experience in women’s health, Karen is passionate about helping women understand how food can be a powerful ally during perimenopause and menopause.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The most common nutrition mistakes women make during menopause

• How to support our hormones naturally through food

• Practical tips for improving sleep during menopause

• The one piece...

We’re wrapping up Series 14 with a phenomenal guest, the one and only Leslie Horton, Canadian broadcaster, feminist powerhouse, and the woman who went internationally viral after responding on live TV to a body-shaming email with pure grace, humour, honesty and unapologetic power.

Leslie has been keeping Calgary moving for decades, but in December 2023 her clip reached millions worldwide, inspiring women, especially those in midlife, to say: “This is what women my age look like”. Even Hollywood took notice.

Beyond the screen, Leslie leads a major annual charity campaign bringing holiday support to families in need, and she’...

This week on WKC Spill The Tea, we sit down with Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, Guardian columnist, author of The Vagenda and her latest book, the acclaimed The Republic of Parenthood. Known for her sharp wit and fearless feminist insight, Rhiannon joins us for an honest conversation about motherhood, identity, care, politics, and the chaos and tenderness of raising tiny humans.

Even though our own babies are now adults, we LOVED this book, especially the “What Worked / What Didn’t” reflections at the end of each chapter.

Because this isn’t just a book about nappies and night feeds. I...

This week, the Womenkind Collective Spill The Tea Podcast tackles one of the most urgent issues in modern medicine: the systemic gender bias that has shaped women’s healthcare for centuries. 

We dive deep into the systemic gender bias baked into healthcare and we’re beyond excited to introduce a guest who is fighting for change.

After hearing countless stories from listeners, guests, and our own lived experiences, one thing is clear: 

For years, we’ve uncovered story after story about the massive gaps in women’s health research and this episode proves once again...

This week on WKC’s Spill The Tea, we’re joined by the fabulous Nicky Hambleton-Jones - the fearless stylist from 10 Years Younger and Drop A Decade, now author of Bolder Not Older: Dull to Dazzling in 12 Weeks.

We dive deep into midlife confidence, menopause, and rediscovering your style identity.

Nicky shares her own experiences of body changes, and confidence dips - and how she’s helping women everywhere embrace their boldest selves, wrinkles and all.

It’s a warm, funny, and uplifting chat that’ll inspire you to revamp your wardrobe and your mindset. 👗✨<...

This week on the Womenkind Collective Podcast, we’re spilling the tea (again!) with Caro Giles — writer, teacher, and mum of four.

We first met Caro in Series 7, Episode 3, where she shared the story behind her book 12 Moons. She’s back to tell us about her powerful new memoir Unschooled — a moving and deeply honest look at the cracks in our education system, and the unseen, undervalued labour of caring and advocating for children.

Caro’s story captures the exhaustion, love, and resilience of mothers and carers everywhere, and the freedom that can...

Today on Spill The Tea, we chat with Anna Cofone, the award-winning session hairstylist behind iconic looks for Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa, and countless fashion campaigns.

Beyond her artistry, Anna is the founder of Hair & Care, a ground-breaking initiative making the beauty industry inclusive for people who are blind or have low vision.

Inspired by her late father, Anna’s mission bridges creativity and community, proving that beauty and self-expression should be accessible to everyone.

Join us as we explore her journey, her vision for inclusivity, and the future of accessible beauty.

Stick...

In this empowering episode of Spill The Tea from the Womenkind Collective, we’re joined by Sarah Newman, founder of Get Me Back, Cancer & Exercise Specialist, and Breast Cancer Rehab Coach.

After her cervical cancer diagnosis in 2018, Sarah was thrust into surgical menopause and discovered how transformative exercise could be for recovery both physically and mentally.

Today, she helps women regain strength, confidence, and control after cancer, creating safe spaces where no one has to feel alone.

We chat with Sarah about:

⭐️her own cancer diagnosis,

⭐️how Get Me Back began,

⭐️...

In this WKC Spill The Tea episode, we’re joined by the extraordinary Fiona Clark,  award-winning journalist, women’s health advocate, and author of MenoWars. 

Fiona brings fire, humour and expertise to the menopause landscape which has become muddied with commercialism and mis-information. 

Fiona’s career spans continents and causes- from reporting in Moscow on the collapse of the Soviet Union, to writing for The Lancet, and now to tackling menopause- one of the most misunderstood and politicised topics in women’s health.

We chat about:

💬 The booming menopause “industry” - hype, divides & money

...

In this Menopause Month episode of Spill The Tea, we’re joined by the remarkable Dr Juliet Balfour — GP, menopause specialist, and advocate for improving women’s health across the UK.

With over three decades of NHS experience, Juliet has played a pivotal role in shaping menopause care, from leading the Somerset NHS Menopause Service to advising the British Menopause Society.

Together, we explore everything you need to know about Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) — from foundational facts to the latest guidance:

• What HRT is and how it supports the body

• Who benefits most, and wh...

Not everyone can, or wants to take HRT for menopause symptoms. And even for those who do, it doesn’t always fix everything. 

So, what else can help with hot flushes, brain fog, insomnia, joint pain, or the emotional rollercoaster?

This week we’re joined by the brilliant Hazel Hayden from Bristol Menopause and Well-woman Clinic, she’s Consultant Nurse, British Menopause Society Registered Specialist, CBT therapist, Insomnia therapy specialist, nutritionist, and speaker.

Hazel takes a holistic approach to menopause, exploring everything from sleep and mental health to cardiovascular care and nutrition.

Wheth...

This week, we’re joined by the brilliant Dr. Manpreet Dhuffar-Pottiwal - psychologist, TEDx speaker, and unapologetic mental health disruptor.

With over 15 years’ experience, she brings a feminist, anti-oppressive lens to her work on intergenerational trauma, multigenerational families, and behavioural addictions.

She’s the founder of MultiGen Zen, on a mission to decolonise therapy, bring healing to minoritised communities, and challenge the systems that silence us.

Dr. Manpreet says:

"We all exist in family trees. There are the roots which carry our DNA and where we find ourselves in the world, the leaves are t...