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.

Follow us

@FridayImInBed
@GemmaSeager
@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.

Follow us:

🎙 Podcast: ⁠@FridayImInBed⁠

💋 Gemma: ⁠@GemmaSeager⁠

✨ Kate: ⁠@FearlessAt50⁠

💌 Subscribe to The Zine for bonus content and Friday extras: ⁠https://mailchi.mp/a0c1ccf41dd8/ifww96xyhc

It's Pride Month, so naturally everyone's arguing about toilets. This week we get into the new EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces, what it actually says about the trans toilet debate, and why we don't think this was ever the crisis it's been sold as. We also dig out the quiet bits nobody covered: the protections around breastfeeding, menopause and pregnancy.

Then we turn to Stephen Bartlett's viral confession that three glasses of wine ruined his life, and the bigger question of whether tracking and optimising every waking moment is wellness or just a very expensive new way to feel like a failure. Dry, funny, no advice, no wellness.

In this episode:00:12 – The Moan In: rogue capital letters, sneaky sports bra pads, "you never call me," and Gem's vanishing memory.13:37 – The new EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces, the toilet debate, and why we think this was never the crisis it's sold as.38:17 – Stephen Bartlett's three glasses of wine, and whether tracking and optimising everything is wellness or a new way to feel like a failure.

Follow us:@FridayImInBedPodcast | @GemmaSeager | @FearlessAt50Get The Zine, our weekly newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/a0c1ccf41dd8/ifww96xyhc

Topics covered: EHRC guidance, single-sex spaces, trans rights, gender recognition certificates, the toilet debate, Pride Month, breastfeeding protections, menopause, pregnancy and maternity, Stephen Bartlett, three glasses of wine, sobriety, wellness culture, tracking, optimisation, biohacking, diet culture, midlife women.

This week on Friday I'm In Bed we get into nonnamaxxing, the TikTok trend telling twenty-somethings to live like an Italian grandmother, and ask whether it's lost wisdom or just wellness culture with a tomato plant. We also unpack the backlash to the Department for Education's post-16 campaign fronted by Gemma Collins, and why parents and teachers called it tone-deaf on SEND support. Plus another round of the Moan In.

Dry, funny, midlife cultural commentary, no advice and no wellness sermons.

In this episode

• (00:12) The Moan In: the heat, paid online returns, gym etiquette and Instagram drops
• (09:41) The Gemma Collins SEND education campaign and why parents are furious
• (35:45) Nonnamaxxing: living like an Italian grandmother explained

Follow us on Instagram:@FridayImInBed@GemmaSeager@FearlessAt50

Sign up to The Zine, our newsletter, for more midlife cultural commentary

Topics covered: nonnamaxxing, Italian grandmother trend, maxxing, TikTok trends, Mediterranean lifestyle, tradwife, loneliness, Gemma Collins, Department for Education, SEND support, post-16 education, Bridget Phillipson, midlife women.

Content note: the first topic discusses sexual assault. There is a warning at the top of that section and chapter markers if you would like to skip ahead.Married at First Sight UK has been pulled from Channel 4 after three former brides made allegations against their on-screen husbands. We use it as a way into a bigger question: what does reality TV actually ask people to consent to?

This week also brings a new segment, the Moan-In, where we rule on the small things winding us up, from subscriptions to badly designed pub toilets. And we get into the very tempting idea of the adult gap year, prompted by reports that Tess Daly wanted time out to travel.

Along the way: the BBC Panorama investigation, the Jeremy Kyle and Love Island welfare scandals, contestant consent and image rights signed away forever, and whether your 50s are the perfect time to step back and reinvent.

If anything in this episode affected you: Samaritans, free on 116 123, or Rape Crisis England and Wales, free on 0808 500 2222.

Follow us:

🎙 Podcast: ⁠@FridayImInBed⁠

💋 Gemma: ⁠@GemmaSeager⁠

✨ Kate: ⁠@FearlessAt50⁠

💌 Subscribe to The Zine for bonus content and Friday extras: ⁠https://mailchi.mp/a0c1ccf41dd8/ifww96xyhc⁠

At what point does commenting on women’s bodies stop being something we all just do, and start being the actual problem? This week we look at how school PE shaped a generation of women’s relationships with their own bodies — and why 4.1 million British women in their 50s and 60s are still avoiding exercise because of it. Then Kate takes us to Olivia Rodrigo’s baby doll dress and the internet meltdown that followed.

Age UK’s new “Act Now, Age Better” campaign builds on research showing 40% of women aged 50-65 still remember feeling self-conscious in school PE, 40% were picked last for teams, and almost half dreaded the lesson. Gem (40-something personal trainer, regular parkrunner) takes us through what’s really being asked of midlife women when the wellness industry says “just move more.”

Then Kate traces Olivia Rodrigo’s baby doll dress back through its history — 1940s pin-up, 60s mod, 90s grunge — and asks why female performers are still expected to wear less than the men they share stages with. Plus the bit nobody quite wants to say out loud: when does objecting to what women wear stop being a feminist concern and start being its own form of policing?

Follow us:

🎙 Podcast: @FridayImInBed

💋 Gemma: @GemmaSeager

✨ Kate: @FearlessAt50

💌 Subscribe to The Zine for bonus content and Friday extras: https://mailchi.mp/a0c1ccf41dd8/ifww96xyhc

Helpful links:

• ​Age UK Act Now, Age Better campaign: ageuk.org.uk/actnow
• ​Age UK's full research on PE trauma: press release
• ​Women's Running coverage: womensrunning.co.uk/news/act-now-age-better

This week on Friday I'm in Bed; we're looking at two ends of the spectrum- young people who aren't going out, and older women working out who they actually want to live the rest of their lives with. Different demographics, same quiet rewriting of the script.

Kate kicks us off with the slow death of going out. A pint has hit £10 in some places, two pubs a day are closing in the UK, and a quarter of late-night venues have shut since 2020. Gen Z, broadly, isn't picking up the slack- they're at the gym, they're on coffee, they're saving for houses, and they don't fancy ending up as a blurry shape in someone else's TikTok story. We get into cost of living, sober curiosity, the think-25 rule, and the Mediterranean model of slow evenings, family, and food that we keep gesturing at. Gem fondly remembers a bottle of La Mancha and ten Silk Cut for under a fiver. Kate remembers her mum giving her taxi money she absolutely did not spend on a taxi.

Then Gem brings us the story of Pat Dunn, a Canadian woman who, after losing her husband and finding herself googling how to live safely in her car at 70, set up a Facebook group looking for housemates. It now has hundreds of members and has paired up dozens of older women into shared homes. We use it as a springboard for the bigger question: who are we actually planning to grow old alongside, and why do we keep assuming the answer is a husband or kids? We talk about the pension gap, the 1 in 5 over-50s in the UK without children, the 70% of over-65s living alone who are women, and Gem's conversation with a friend about writing each other into wills. There's a Golden Girls scenario for everyone.

Follow us on Instagram

@FridayImInBed

@GemmaSeager

@FearlessAt50

Sign up to The Zine for bonus bits and useful links

https://mailchi.mp/a0c1ccf41dd8/ifww96xyhc

Topics covered: pub closures UK, £10 pint, Gen Z drinking habits, sober curious, late-night venues closing, Mediterranean drinking culture, grassroots music venues, Senior Women Living Together, Pat Dunn, older women co-housing, female friendship in midlife, ageing without children, chosen family, women's pensions gap, planning for retirement.

Helpful links

• Senior Women Living Together (Pat Dunn's organisation)
• Ageing Without Children
• Older Women's Co-Housing (OWCH)
• Gateway Women / Childless Collective