This week we ask why new research has named UK women the angriest, saddest and most worried in Europe, and whether medical misogyny, the pay gap and invisible labour might have something to do with it. Then we get into romantasy and the moral panic over Bad Girl Books, Britain's first romantasy bookshop. Why is fantasy treated as high art when men write it and trash when women do? Expect dragons, smut, the 250-year panic about women reading, and the question of whether everything really has to be Proust.

Topics covered: female rage, women's anger, medical misogyny, NHS waiting lists, gender pay gap, invisible labour, romantasy, Sarah J Maas, Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing, Bad Girl Books, BookTok, moral panic, midlife women

This week, the Hannah Spencer "Gucci" shirt that wasn't. A patterned blouse in Parliament got branded a £2,000 designer piece online, when it was really a £15 charity-shop find, so we get into why women's clothes draw scrutiny men's never do, and how one post hardens into "fact".

Then to China's so-called "leftover women", the label the state coined for educated, single women in their late twenties, and the brilliant way women have flipped it from leftover to victorious. From Christmas cakes to pickles to childless cat ladies, we ask why a single woman keeps getting branded as food past its date.

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@FearlessAt50Topics covered: Hannah Spencer, Gucci shirt, charity shop, women in politics, misinformation, leftover women, sheng nu, China leftover women, reclaiming language, childless cat ladies, JD Vance, birth rate, pronatalism, spinster, midlife women, feminism

New research says films are more likely to star a talking animal, or a leading man called Chris, than a woman over 60. This week we get into ageism in film and TV and the midlife women who vanish from our screens around 40, only to reappear as somebody's grandmother or a witchy old hag. Why do older women keep disappearing? Do reboots like Practical Magic and And Just Like That count as progress, or just nostalgia? We talk about what The Substance and Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl get right, who's missing from the writers' room, and whether things are finally starting to shift.

Then: cosmeticorexia, the unhealthy skincare obsession gripping girls as young as eight. We unpack tween skincare routines, glass skin, retinol burn and anti-ageing products being marketed to children, the Sephora kids pipeline and the brands behind it, the parents footing the bill, and why a child influencer earning 50,000 a year should give everyone pause. Whose fault is it, the brands, TikTok, or us?

Topics covered: women over 60 in film, ageism in Hollywood, midlife women on screen, representation of older women, cosmeticorexia, tween and kids skincare, glass skin, anti-ageing, Sephora kids, social media and parenting.

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