By Dr Emma Clare

People often assume my work is all about death. It isn’t. It’s about living as fully as possible until the very end.

I’m the CEO of End of Life Doula UK, and I support people who are dying, alongside the people important to them. The role of an end of life doula - also referred to as a death doula - is non-medical. We sit somewhere between professional services and the community, helping people navigate practical decisions around their care while providing emotional, social and spiritual support. We advocate for what matters most to someone, helping them have the death – and more importantly, the life – that feels true to them.

I never planned to become an end of life doula. I studied psychology at university and took a job in domiciliary care while I was training. Nobody mentioned that many of the people I’d be visiting would be in the last weeks of their lives. I thought it would be heartbreaking. Instead, I found myself drawn to those moments.

Growing up helped prepare me in ways I didn’t appreciate at the time. I was raised by my mum and my grandparents, and death was never treated as something frightening or taboo. We spent the majority of our free time exploring the Peak District, fascinated by nature. If my grandad found a dead bird on his bike rides, we’d examine it with curiosity rather than fear. Death wasn’t hidden away, it was simply part of life.

When my grandmother died suddenly while I was 21, I experienced my first significant bereavement. Sitting with my family in A&E, I found myself instinctively helping everyone make space to say what they needed to say to her before she died. I stayed with my grandad while he spoke to his beloved wife one last time. Even in a hospital side room, there was room for tenderness, dignity and love. Looking back, that experience shaped everything that followed.

Later, I discovered end of life doula training almost by accident. I signed up thinking it would simply be useful professional development. Before I’d even finished the course, someone I knew contacted me because their father was dying. I felt completely out of my depth, but I quickly realised something important: people weren’t looking for an expert with all the answers. They were looking for someone willing to have conversations that everyone else was avoiding and explain what their dad was going through was the normal dying process, gently but clearly.

That remains one of the biggest misconceptions about my work. Families are often overwhelmed not because death itself is terrifying, but because nobody has explained what’s happening. Sometimes all they need is someone to calmly translate medical language into something human. I also get to know the person dying, the life they’ve lived, and what matters most to them. My job is to advocate for them and help relatives if people aren’t on the same page.

One of the most distressing experiences for families is watching someone who is actively dying when they don’t understand what they are seeing and hearing. Changes in breathing, fluctuating consciousness and the so-called “death rattle” can seem frightening if you’ve never witnessed them before. Often, the person who is dying is peaceful, while it’s the people around them who are suffering most. Much of my role is helping families understand what they’re seeing is our body’s way of preparing to die so they can stop fearing every moment and instead spend meaningful time together.

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I wish we talked about death much earlier. We all know we are going to die, yet many of us wait until we’re standing in a hospital corridor during a crisis before having conversations that could have happened years earlier.

People often ask whether schools should teach children about death. I think they should. Children are actually remarkably good at talking about death until adults teach them that it’s something uncomfortable or inappropriate. We would all benefit from becoming more comfortable with grief, loss and mortality long before we desperately need that knowledge.

Working in this field has also transformed my own mental health. That surprises people. They assume thinking about death every day must be depressing. For me, it’s been the opposite.

Every day I ask myself a simple question: if my life ended sooner than I expected, would I be happy with how I’m spending my time?

That perspective has made me less anxious, more grateful and much more intentional. I don’t sweat the small stuff in the way I once did. I notice birdsong. I appreciate ordinary days. Death has made my life bigger, not smaller.

One woman I supported put it perfectly. After receiving a terminal diagnosis, she said to me, “Since I’ve been diagnosed, my life is more colourful.”

I hear versions of that again and again. Faced with mortality, people suddenly start seeing the world differently. They notice the trees, the changing seasons and the people they love. I don’t think we should have to wait for a terminal diagnosis before we start living that way.

People often ask what dying people regret most. The popular lists online don’t always match what I’ve heard. One of the most common regrets people have shared with me is staying too long in relationships that no longer brought them joy. Many women describe sacrificing themselves to keep everyone else happy, only to realise, at the end of their lives, how much of themselves they gave away.

That says something much bigger about the expectations placed on women. Care is still seen as women’s work. The adult child who contacts our charity because they’re exhausted caring for a parent is, more often than not, a daughter. Women carry enormous emotional labour, often alongside work and family responsibilities, and society still undervalues that care.

That’s something I’m passionate about changing. Care work matters. Compassionate communities matter. The people supporting us through the biggest moments of our lives deserve to be valued.

My own leadership journey has challenged assumptions too. At 35, I’m now CEO of End of Life Doula UK, something I still occasionally find surreal. Early on, I thought leadership meant becoming harder, more detached and more authoritative. Then I found myself crying during a difficult meeting with someone who’d had a bad experience. I was mortified. I thought I’d completely failed as a leader.

Instead, that moment built trust.

It taught me that empathy isn’t a weakness. Sometimes our humanity is exactly what leadership requires.

I’m also autistic and have ADHD. There are countless misconceptions about what that means, including the myth that autistic people lack empathy. My experience couldn’t be more different. I’m deeply empathetic, and the way my brain works helps me juggle complexity, spot patterns and lead an organisation that has grown rapidly over the last few years.

We receive around 30 requests for end of life doula support per month, and this has risen sharply since Nicole Kidman announced in April that she is training to become an end of life doula, joining a number of other high-profile figures including Hamnet director Chloe Zhao, Riley Keough, and Ruby Wax.

If there’s one thing I wish everyone knew about death, it’s this: don’t wait for the perfect moment to talk to your loved one about the impact they’ve had on your life and what memories you’ll treasure in the future.

One thing that has surprised me most is how ordinary death can be. It’s always portrayed as dramatic on TV and in films, and I don’t want to ‘positive-wash’ death, but it can be very simple, peaceful and beautiful. And often families sit with their person for days, pop out for 15 minutes and that’s when they take their last breath. It is common for people to wait until they’re alone to die, and it’s nothing for relatives to feel guilty about.

Television has taught us to expect profound final speeches and neatly scripted goodbyes. Real life is rarely like that. Say the things you want to say now. Tell people you love them while they can hear it. Have the conversations you’ve been avoiding.

The reality is that working with death has made me more hopeful, not less. It has shown me that life isn’t measured by how long it lasts, but by how present we are while we’re living it.

For more information about end of life doulas and to seek support visit ⤵️

End Of Life Doula UK

More than a third of women in Britain drink beer, yet we make up just 7% of the people brewing it.

That’s one of the biggest takeaways from this year’s Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) Independent Beer Report. Rachel Auty, founder of Women On Tap, says the stat reveals a bigger problem than just representation.

Women actually make up 31% of the indie beer workforce, but they’re overwhelmingly concentrated in support roles such as marketing, administration and accounting. In fact, 72% of admin and accounting staff are women, while the industry’s core creative role - brewing itself - remains almost exclusively male.

“We’re running the spreadsheets, not the mash tuns,” Rachel says. (A mash tun is a brewhouse vessel used in brewing and distilling that mixes ground malt with temperature-controlled water.)

She believes it’s a culture problem.

“It’s a space built for men still,” she says. “How can we change this to make it more appealing to more people?”

The figures show demand is there. Around 36% of women now say they drink beer, up three percentage points on last year. But Rachel believes the industry producing that beer still doesn’t reflect the people buying it.

“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again,” she wrote following the report’s release. “Without the representation of women and the inclusion of women’s perspectives in the workplace, it’s incredibly difficult to engage women as consumers.”

She remembers going to the pub with her dad years ago, back when, as she jokes, “beers were brown”, and constantly being questioned for ordering a pint of ale.

“Everybody used to be like, ‘A woman? Why are you drinking pints?’”

Surrounded almost entirely by older men, she couldn’t help wondering where the women were.

“Do women brew beer? Do women run breweries? What the hell is going on in this space?”

Those questions eventually led her to launch Women On Tap in 2017, beginning with a small festival in Harrogate showcasing beers brewed by women.

“I’m passionate about being a voice for women, tackling those male dominated spaces that bring with them all sorts of problematic beliefs, behaviours and perceptions”

“Lots of women said they still didn’t feel welcome in pubs.”

Women On Tap works across three key areas: representation, connection and improving workplaces, helping women build networks while pushing the industry towards meaningful change.

“We always joke that our goal is not to need to exist.”

Rachel says the low number of women brewers isn’t down to a lack of interest, but the environments many women find themselves in. Women On Tap has recently heard from women attending festivals and industry events who have been spoken to “inappropriately”.

“Some blokes clearly think that it’s still okay to behave in that space as if it’s owned by men.”

That’s why the organisation has become a visible presence at festivals and trade events, including as a purpose partner for this year’s London Craft Beer Festival on the 17 and 18 July.

Use our code ‘femalelead’ for £15 off tickets!

Buy tickets using our code!

“We’re saying, ‘No, it’s not your space, we’re very much here,’” Rachel explains. “You can’t do that anymore. You can’t get away with it.”

She hopes that visibility reassures women that “we’ve got their backs”. Even now, she admits, industry events can still feel intimidating. “It’s just a way of saying, ‘We see you, and we’ve got your back.’”

While there are signs of progress elsewhere, Rachel says the brewing numbers are still moving in the wrong direction.

“I think a lot of women have been feeling quite disillusioned and unsupported and have left,” she says. “I know women myself that have left the industry completely for these reasons.”

Instead of asking why women aren’t entering brewing, Rachel believes employers should be asking why they’re struggling to stay.

“We need to create this culture where women are actively supported in these roles.”

Women do make up 50.3% taproom staff, making them the majority in this space, which Rachel says is “brilliant.” But her concern is that “bar work is more accessible to women who want to work in beer and see limited options to do so”

“Heineken are currently working on some women’s brewing experience days that we’re working with them on. So that’ll be really interesting because obviously when it’s a name that people recognise, it ends up being quite impactful.

“On a smaller scale, I’ve seen breweries that have paid for their women staff to do some specific training as a bit of a targeted initiative”

“Progress is happening in very little pockets but not across the board.”

Another barrier she recognises is that for decades, beer has largely been marketed by men, for men.

Rachel mentions everything from sexist pump clip names to working men’s clubs and advertising that has historically suggested women weren’t the intended audience.

Many women decided beer just “wasn’t for them”.

Women are expected to control around 75% of discretionary spending by 2028, making them one of the most influential consumer groups. Rachel believes breweries that fail to engage women are missing a huge commercial opportunity.

“If you’re a beer brand or brewer you want women to buy beer and you want them to be choosing your beer.”

Plus, “if there are more women going into the industry and being that representation piece, then there are going to be more women drinking it,” she says.

“That means more customers.”

She mentions Guinness’ recent popularity among younger women, fuelled by influencer marketing, as proof that perceptions around who drinks beer are beginning to shift.

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There are definitely reasons for optimism.

For the first time, SIBA collected data on brewery ownership in partnership with Women On Tap, revealing that 21% of brewery owners are women.

Rachel explains that figure is encouraging, but says it still raises questions about how much decision-making power women really hold.

Women On Tap also continues to grow.

After taking over International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day last year, the organisation helped increase participating brew days from 61 to 88 in a year. The campaign also raised £33,000 for women’s causes this year, up from £27,000 the previous year, while a new bursary scheme is helping women overcome financial barriers to entering the industry.

Ultimately, Rachel wants women who are curious about a career in brewing to know they don’t have to navigate it alone.

“It’s such an incredible community of amazing women that have got your back. There are opportunities all over to take advantage of, and there is support to help get your foot in the door and then help you progress.

“We hope that support will increasingly come from workplaces, but for now it comes from people like us. There’s a great community of really passionate people, and it’s a very rewarding career when you can get yourself in there.”

You can discover some of the UK’s best independent breweries at the London Craft Beer Festival, taking place in Southwark on 17 and 18 July, where Women On Tap is a purpose partner. The Female Lead readers can get £15 off tickets using the code ‘femalelead’ when booking.

Buy tickets using our code!

Sleep has become something many of us feel we need to optimise, track and perfect - but in trying to control it, we may actually be making it harder. Sleep Physiologist and Behavioural Sleep Medicine…

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Sleep has become something many of us feel we need to optimise, track and perfect - but in trying to control it, we may actually be making it harder. Sleep Physiologist and Behavioural Sleep Medicine Specialist Stephanie Romiszewski unpacks why women’s sleep is often misunderstood, separating common myths from the science behind how we really sleep.

From the impact of caregiving and hormones to the pressure of chasing the “perfect” night’s sleep, she explains why sleep naturally changes throughout life and why a more flexible, evidence-based approach can help us sleep better.

Read the full article below.

In this issue of Take The Lead we’re talking about the moments, stories and changes shaping conversations around women.

Millie Bobby Brown opened up about motherhood, sharing that she has become more emotional since having her daughter — and why she’s proud of that vulnerability rather than apologising for it.

We’re also looking at two major developments in women’s health and safety: new NHS tests that could help speed up endometriosis diagnosis, and plans to increase sentences for people who murder a current or former partner.

Plus, we asked the cast of Prime Video’s ELLE which stereotypes about women they can’t stand — and their answers are ones we think many people will relate to.

Across our channels, we’ll continue sharing the latest stories, research and conversations affecting women.

Enjoy, share with your friends, and let us know what you think!

The Female Lead Team

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We’re talking about…

🩺 Two new NHS tests could speed up endometriosis diagnosis - For many people with endometriosis, getting a diagnosis takes an average of around nine years. But two new non-invasive tests are set to be introduced on the NHS, helping doctors identify the condition much sooner.

One test uses a saliva sample to detect biomarkers linked to endometriosis, while the other measures electrical signals in the gut using sensors placed on the abdomen, with results available in around 45 minutes. NICE says the tests could reduce diagnosis times from years to just weeks, helping people access treatment sooner.

⚖️ Tougher sentences planned for domestic killers - The UK Government has announced plans to increase the starting prison sentence for people who murder a current or former partner, closing a sentencing gap campaigners have challenged for years.

Under the current system, domestic murders involving a weapon already in the home can receive a lower starting sentence than those where a weapon is brought to the scene. The Ministry of Justice says the change will ensure domestic killings are treated more consistently. More than one in five homicides in England and Wales are domestic, with women making up the vast majority of victims.

Inspire me…

Twenty years ago, as a young woman entering a field where many established voices had built their careers around traditional sleep advice, challenging some of those assumptions was not always popular. I started to question the growing tendency to treat sleep as something that can be engineered through increasingly complicated rules, routines and rituals.

My work has focused on helping people step away from the fear, pressure and misinformation that surrounds sleep and understand the biological systems that drive it. That means looking beyond sleep hygiene checklists, beyond the pursuit of the perfect bedtime routine and beyond the assumption that women’s sleep difficulties can always be explained by hormones.

Read the full article here

Final thought…

We asked the cast of Prime Video’s new series ELLE which stereotypes about women they wish would disappear for good - and their answers didn’t disappoint. We couldn’t agree more.

ELLE is streaming now.

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Twenty years ago, as a young woman entering a field where many established voices had built their careers around traditional sleep advice, challenging some of those assumptions was not always popular. I started to question the growing tendency to treat sleep as something that can be engineered through increasingly complicated rules, routines and rituals.

Through my work as a Sleep Physiologist and Behavioural Sleep Medicine Specialist in the NHS, private practice, research and education, I’ve helped thousands of people navigate sleep difficulties ranging from occasional disruption to long-standing insomnia. My background is in Psychology and Behavioural Sleep Medicine and I spent time at Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine early in my career, which sparked my passion for the field. I am the founder of Sleepyhead Clinic and author of Think Less, Sleep More.

My work has focused on helping people step away from the fear, pressure and misinformation that surrounds sleep and understand the biological systems that drive it. That means looking beyond sleep hygiene checklists, beyond the pursuit of the perfect bedtime routine and beyond the assumption that women’s sleep difficulties can always be explained by hormones.

Sleep problems exist and women’s sleep can look different at different stages of life. But sleep is innate. It will always be there, even when it does not match our expectations of what a “good sleeper” should look like.

The only difference between me and many of the people I work with is not that I sleep perfectly. I don’t. My sleep has changed during stressful periods, night shifts, pregnancy and parenting a sleepless baby, just as it does for everyone else. The difference is that I do not worry about it. Over-analysing sleep the way we have started to do is making sleep worse, not better.

Sleep plays an important role in physical health, emotional wellbeing, learning, memory, recovery and immune function. Most adults need somewhere between seven and nine hours of sleep, but I genuinely find it unhelpful to become too focused on the numbers.

Some people naturally need more, some less, and sleep needs change throughout life. The bigger question is whether you are allowing yourself the opportunity for sleep when you need it and whether your sleep, on average, is supporting your life reasonably well.

The Sleep Gender Gap

Women often experience sleep differently to men, but too often conversations about women’s sleep focus entirely on hormones while overlooking the reality of modern life. Women are still more likely to carry a larger share of childcare, household management, emotional labour and caring responsibilities. Increasingly, I also see women becoming the primary financial breadwinner without a corresponding shift in family responsibilities at home. This matters for sleep. When you are the person responsible for remembering school trips, organising childcare, booking appointments, managing family logistics and responding to everybody else’s needs, it becomes much harder to prioritise your own sleep. Sleep can start to feel like a luxury rather than a biological necessity. This is where sleep can fall down – when we actively can’t have the same opportunity as the non default carer. Not because our biology wont allow us.

Hormone sleep havoc

Hormones of course, do play a role. Many women notice changes in sleep around their menstrual cycle due to pain, temperature changes, mood shifts or physical discomfort. Pregnancy commonly brings disrupted sleep through discomfort, reflux, frequent urination, vivid dreams and anxiety about becoming a parent. Perimenopause and menopause can bring night sweats, hot flushes, mood changes and fragmented sleep. But this is normal and in all these cases our bodies are doing something remarkable! Our sleep is adaptable – this doesn’t mean it’s not difficult, or that it can’t be improved, but over focusing on sleep and expecting so much rigidity from it is actually making sleep worse for a lot of women right now.

Sleep changes throughout life. It changes with age, illness, stress, neurodiversity, caring responsibilities and major life transitions. Sleep at 50 should not look exactly like sleep at 25 and that is not necessarily a problem to solve. Women are remarkably adaptable. We do not need to pathologise every change or view every difficult period of sleep as evidence that something is broken that we must fix – we need to give ourselves a break, and add in some flexibility.

Sleep myths

One of the most common myths I hear is that mothers are biologically designed to wake for babies while fathers sleep through. There is some evidence that primary caregivers become more responsive to infant cues, but this is not exclusive to women. Fathers, adoptive parents and same-sex partners who take on primary caregiving roles show many of the same adaptations. Framing night-time caregiving as purely female biology risks overlooking the huge influence of learning, experience, expectation and family roles.

Another myth is that women need dramatically more sleep than men. The evidence simply does not support this idea. There may be small average differences between groups, but nowhere near enough to justify the idea that women are biologically programmed to need substantially more sleep than men. Sleep needs vary far more between individuals than between sexes.

Women going through perimenopause and menopause are often given endless lists of sleep tips: lavender sprays, herbal teas, warm baths, avoiding screens and having perfectly curated evening routines. While these things may help someone feel relaxed, the evidence that they reliably resolve significant sleep difficulties is surprisingly limited. This can leave women feeling as though they have failed when they are already doing everything “right”. But we are not taught that the foundations of sleep are often much more powerful than the finishing touches. And whilst sleep may need to change, we can still have a strong sleep baseline that works for us by focusing on this instead.

Many women describe feeling physically exhausted but mentally alert at bedtime. The body is ready for sleep but the mind is still replaying conversations, planning tomorrow or worrying about not sleeping. Bedtime is often the first quiet moment of the day. Others find themselves lying awake calculating hours, checking the clock or analysing every awakening during the night. Increasingly, one of the biggest sleep problems I see is not sleep itself but anxiety about sleep.

The science behind sleep

Sleep is driven primarily by two biological processes: sleep drive, which builds throughout the day the longer we are awake, and our circadian rhythm, our internal body clock. This is why I encourage women to focus less on creating the perfect evening and more on strengthening their mornings. Consistent wake times (but flexible bed times – go to bed when sleepy only), morning light exposure, regular movement and regular meals often have a far greater impact on sleep than adding another product, supplement or bedtime ritual. And there is real evidence-based treatment out there to help re-train you to sleep if it’s not something you can solve by yourself at home.

For women experiencing menopause-related sleep difficulties, addressing symptoms such as hot flushes, pain or mood changes can absolutely help. Hormonal treatments can be transformative for some women. But we also should not overlook the basics that support sleep regardless of age or hormones – focus on creating a good sleep baseline with the morning routine and listening to your body.

Healthy sleepers are usually flexible sleepers. They can have a poor night, carry on with their day and trust that sleep will recover naturally without changing their behaviour dramatically or fretting about it. The goal is not eliminating every wake-up, every difficult night or every period of change. Women’s sleep changes throughout life, but that does not mean women are destined to struggle with it. Understanding the biology that drives sleep and the real factors that we can influence, while recognising the social and practical realities that shape it is often far more helpful than chasing perfect routines or blaming our own biology for every poor night. Women already carry enough pressure, and I would really like for sleep to stop being one of them!

Whatever stage of life you may be at, there is evidence-based support available for sleep struggles. If you’d like to learn more, Stephanie’s book ‘Think Less, Sleep More’, BBC Maestro course ‘Sleep Better’ and personalised 1:1 support through Sleepyhead Clinic are all designed to help you better understand your sleep and overcome sleep difficulties.

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By June Angelides MBE - Founder of The Portfolio Method

Most people nearly faint when I tell them I have five job titles but one thriving career: investor, founder, board advisor, writer and public speaker.

What they do not always realise is that none of this works by accident. I have spent years developing my personal infrastructure. Now I am sharing it with the world.

I have built a portfolio career over the last 11 years, and at first it happened almost by accident. Like many ambitious women, I found myself being tapped for opportunities because I was good at my day job. Prestigious organisations. Interesting roles. Exciting projects.

But what I learned, often the hard way, is that the real risk is not simply saying yes too often. It is saying yes without doing a life audit of what that new commitment will mean for everything else you already carry.

One of the most visceral examples of this in my own life was when I sat on the board of a business I deeply admired. The time commitment I had been told to expect did not match what ended up being required. There were additional meetings, more asks, and more of me being needed than I had planned for. I was also in my season of yes.

There was one day in particular when I nearly passed out from pure exhaustion. That was the moment I knew I could not do it all. It was the moment I finally learned what my personal limit was.

That experience changed the way I think about ambition. I do not believe women need to aim lower. I believe we need better tools, better boundaries and better self-knowledge. That is the foundation of the Portfolio Method. We help women design careers that work around their energy levels, their natural way of working and their personal limit when it comes to taking on additional roles.

Start with your energy, not your ego

One of the biggest skills I have learned over the past 11 years is the power of no. But the power of no only works when you are clear on what deserves your yes.

For me, that clarity sharpened after I had my second child. I recognised that I felt most aligned when I was doing work that increased gender equality, improved access to finance and created better outcomes for women. That is what drives me. Once I became honest about that, decision-making became easier. If something fits, I lean in. If it does not, I can let it go.

This is why I always encourage women to do a life audit before they take on anything new. Not just, does this sound exciting? But what will this mean for my time, my family, my energy, my existing commitments and the goals I am actually trying to reach?

Ambitious women are often very used to being told they can do it all. I think the more important question is whether they should, and at what cost.

Build structure that protects your future self

I used to think the dream was flexibility. I thought going with the flow was freedom. In reality, a completely open diary is often an invitation for other people to fill your life for you.

I have a phrase for this. If your diary is too flexible, it is like leaving your front door open and allowing other people to come in and place their furniture wherever they want. You lose space to think. You lose space to strategise. You lose space to recover.

Structure has saved me.

One of the most practical things I do is block time to learn. I block a whole day for learning because staying sharp is part of the job. That could mean podcasts, books, journals, lectures or simply talking to people who have deep experience. The point is that I do not leave my development to chance.

The race is on. AI is getting smarter. We have a responsibility to keep growing too.

Protect your money by pricing the real cost

The second thing I protect is money.

Too many women hesitate to ask for the amount they are deserving of. Too many assume the offer in front of them is fixed. But if you have not done the life audit, you also have not priced the real cost of saying yes.

That is one of the key ideas we teach through the Portfolio Method. Before you take on an additional role, look at the full picture. What is the real scope? How many hours will this actually take? What will need to move in your week to make room for it? And are you being compensated properly for that reality?

Time is not abstract. Energy is not abstract. They are part of the cost.

In our work, 85 per cent of women who have taken our audit have told us they are underpricing. That tells me this is not simply a personal issue. It is a cultural one. There is still far too little transparency around what women should charge and what they should be paid.

That is why I believe we need to talk more openly about money. Ask your peers the uncomfortable question. What are they charging? What are they hearing? The more we say these things out loud, the less taboo they become.

Visibility matters more than women are often told

The third thing I protect is visibility.

I think many women are still taught to believe that if they do great work, people will notice. Sometimes they do. Often they do not.

You need to know what people pick up the phone to call you for. More than that, the people around you need to know it too. You should be at the tip of people’s tongues when it comes to your subject matter expertise.

That means being willing to talk about what you do, the outcomes you have achieved and the success you have created. Visibility is not vanity. It is clarity. It is how the right opportunities start finding you.

Key takeaway

The biggest mistake I see is burnout. Overcommitting. Not believing you are worthy of protecting your time. Not believing you are worthy of investing in yourself.

I do not think women need to shrink their ambition. I think we need to build better personal infrastructure around it.

For me, that means protecting my energy, my money and my visibility. For other women, the exact mix may look different. But the principle is the same: design a career that works with your life, your natural way of working and your actual capacity.

If this resonates, I would love to invite the Female Lead community to take our free audit and get clarity.

The MyPholyo Mapper is a free audit built around six quick questions to help you map where you are now and unlock where you could go next. It can reveal if the work you love most could be earning you more, if your value and visibility are out of sync, if a big opportunity may be hiding in plain sight, and if the vision you are building has the calendar time it deserves.

We are also building the first AI platform and career companion for portfolio professionals, and you can join the waitlist through the Portfolio Method website.

Born in London and raised in Lagos, June grew up watching women carry many roles at once. The idea that a career should narrow you down to one title never made sense to her.

She started at Silicon Valley Bank. On her second maternity leave, she founded Mums in Technology, the UK’s first child-friendly coding school, teaching hundreds of women to code with their babies in the room.

Today June is a mother of three with five job titles: investor, founder, board advisor, writer and public speaker. She is Venture Partner at Samos Investments and founder of Levare Ventures, backing deep tech, life sciences and healthtech across Europe and Africa. She sits on the boards of Ruka Hair, Jude and Code First Girls, and advises the UK government on high-growth women-led businesses. With her sister, she co-founded Mama’s Breakfast Club CIC, feeding children daily in the city where she grew up.

The Portfolio Method, used in over 20 countries, helps people building more than one income stream design careers that work around their energy, their time and their life.

LinkedIn Top Voice. FT Most Influential Tech Leaders. Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in Tech. IET Honorary Fellow. MBE for services to women in technology.

Non-linear is the new normal.

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If you’re in the UK and you’re reading this, congratulations for making it through a very sweaty June. The sun has been doing its absolute most, and public transport has been questionable at best.

Through a heatwave, it’s never a bad idea to pause for some good news — and June delivered plenty of it. Across science, sport, politics, health and culture, women have been driving progress, and we’ve pulled together some of our favourites for you here.

Consider this your monthly good news reminder.

No women aged 20–24 in England have died from cervical cancer for the first time, thanks to HPV vaccine

A landmark study funded by Cancer Research UK shows the HPV vaccine is making cervical cancer increasingly preventable, with researchers highlighting a major milestone: between 2020 and 2024, no women aged 20–24 in England died from the disease.

England introduced routine HPV vaccination for 12–13-year-olds in 2008, and since then an estimated 200 lives have already been saved. Researchers say this outcome would not have been possible without widespread vaccination, with early data showing near-elimination of cervical cancer deaths in those vaccinated at a young age.

The findings underline the life-saving impact of early prevention, with experts pointing to the vaccine as a breakthrough in protecting future generations from a disease that is now largely preventable.

All-female refereeing team makes history at FIFA Men’s World Cup for second time

For the second consecutive men’s FIFA World Cup, women have made refereeing history after an all-female officiating team took charge of Czechia’s 1–1 draw with South Africa on 18 June. The match was overseen by referee Tori Penso, alongside assistants Brooke Mayo and Kathryn Nesbitt, marking only the second time in the tournament’s history that an all-women crew has officiated a game.

It follows the first introduction of women referees at the men’s World Cup in Qatar 2022, when Stéphanie Frappart, Neuza Back and Karen Díaz took charge of Germany vs Costa Rica.

Reflecting on the experience, Mayo said, “Most of the time, I don’t think about it. We are just a team of officials.”

“But then you have an instructor come up and ask for a picture because his daughter is inspired by us, thousands of miles away.”

“Or an older female FIFA volunteer, pulling you aside and saying how proud she is to see women at this level and how it never seemed possible when she was younger,” she added. “So even though I view us as just a normal trip that has earned their place at this FIFA World Cup, I know we represent something bigger than ourselves.”

Across the United States, Canada and Mexico, women are forming a growing pool of match officials at the highest level, including Katia García, Sandra Ramírez and video official Tatiana Guzmán.

South Africa’s freelance gender pay gap is among the lowest globally

South African women in the freelance market earn just 3.9% less per hour than men, according to Remitly for Freelancers. This narrow gap positions South Africa as second worldwide for gender-balanced freelance pay and highlights the country as one of the strongest performers globally for pay equality in the gig economy.

In some fields, including consulting and marketing, women are even earning as much as or more than their male counterparts. This progress is being driven by strong education outcomes, improved internet access, and a growing supportive freelance community.

Olivia Rodrigo announces all-female music festival with 100% of proceeds supporting women and girls

Olivia Rodrigo has announced Daisy Chain Fields, a new music festival featuring an all-women line-up of artists she calls her “heroes and friends”, including Stevie Nicks, Chappell Roan, Doechii, Mitski and Bikini Kill.

Inspired by Lilith Fair (a festival which musician Sarah McLachlan co-founded after music industry executives claimed that female artists couldn't sell as many tickets as their male counterparts) Daisy Chain Fields will donate 100% of its net proceeds to charities supporting women and girls, with every artist performing free of charge.

Olivia said she named the festival Daisy Chain Fields to reflect the idea of women “being strong and beautiful together.”

“I just feel like we need something really positive to do and see,” she said. “Young girls need awesome role models who are supporting other women and engaging in something that’s really joyful, musical and community-oriented.”

“I firmly believe that joy, community and music can be the drivers of meaningful change,” Olivia added, saying she’s dreamed of creating the festival for years.

Colombia becomes first in Latin America to ban FGM

Colombia has made history by becoming the first country in Latin America to pass dedicated legislation aimed at preventing and eradicating female genital mutilation (FGM).

The law, approved by Congress, targets a harmful practice that affects millions of girls and women globally and has also been reported within Colombia, including among members of the Emberá Indigenous community. FGM involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia and is recognised by the WHO as a form of gender-based violence.

The legislation was strongly driven by Emberá women, who led years of advocacy calling for state action. “This is not a cultural practice, absolutely not. It is a harmful practice that was imposed on our communities,” said Juliana Domico of the National Confederation of the Peoples of the Great Emberá Nation.

The new law introduces a national prevention policy, mandatory healthcare protocols, improved data collection, and community-led education programmes focused on an intercultural and rights-based approach.

Officials say the move marks a major step forward in protecting girls and women and tackling a practice affecting more than 200 million people worldwide.

Japan’s youngest female mayor takes maternity leave in rare political first

Shoko Kawata, 35, mayor of Yawata in Kyoto Prefecture, will take 16 weeks of leave (eight before and eight after childbirth), highlighting a gap in Japan’s political system, which has no formal maternity leave framework for elected officials. She is believed to be the first sitting mayor in Japan to have done so.

Shoko said women should not be forced into choosing between career and motherhood. “If they want to have a baby, they have to give up their career, or if they want to pursue a career, they have to give up having a baby,” arguing against an “either-or choice.” She added: “We are now working to improve this situation little by little, and I believe we are moving toward the design of systems aimed at achieving proper gender equality.”

Her decision comes amid slow but visible shifts in gender representation in local politics. Researcher Stefanie Schwarte of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität points out that while Japan has been slow on gender equality, more women are entering and staying in political leadership roles. The number of female mayors has risen from around 50 to nearly 80 out of more than 1,700 municipalities in the past five years, with many now serving multiple terms.

The move also sits against the backdrop of Japan’s declining birth rate, with just 671,236 births recorded in 2025, the 10th consecutive yearly drop.

Shoko said she hopes her decision can help normalise parenting alongside public leadership and act as a “catalyst for changing the system”.

This is your reminder that women are driving SO much of the progress happening around us. Share this with friends, family, or anyone who could use a good news reminder.

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And if you’ve got stories of your own - from your community, your industry, or anywhere in the world - send them our way. We might include them in next month’s round-up. The news headlines tend to amplify the worst, but we’re just as committed to documenting the better.

If you’re in the UK and you’re reading this, congratulations for making it through a very sweaty June. The sun has been doing its absolute most, and public transport has been questionable at best.

Thr…

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By Nahid de Belgeonne

A client said something to me recently that I haven’t stopped thinking about.

“I realised I had survived my success more than I had enjoyed my life.”

From the outside, her life looked exactly as she’d hoped it would.

A successful career, a family she loved and a home she had worked hard to build.

She was capable, competent and dependable. The person everyone turned to when something needed organising, solving or remembering.

Yet underneath it all, she was exhausted.

Not because she wasn’t resilient. Not because she couldn’t cope. Quite the opposite.

She had become exceptionally good at coping.

And that’s often where the problem begins.

Because many high-functioning women don’t recognise their own exhaustion until their body forces them to.

For years they continue functioning.

Meeting deadlines. Managing households. Supporting partners. Remembering birthdays.

Scheduling appointments. Holding emotional space for colleagues, children, friends and family members.

The list is endless.

What often goes unnoticed is the invisible labour underneath it all.

The thinking, anticipating, remembering, monitoring…the emotional management of it all.

Sociologists have long referred to this as emotional labour, but I think that phrase only captures part of the picture.

What many women carry is not simply emotional labour.

It’s a constant state of responsibility.

An ongoing awareness of what needs doing, who needs support and what might go wrong if they stop paying attention.

And over time, the body adapts.

This is something I see repeatedly in my work.

Women often arrive believing they have a stress problem or an anxiety problem.

What they actually have is a body that has become organised around responsibility.

Years of being the organiser. The reliable one. The person with the answers.

Years of anticipating needs before they’re spoken.

Years of staying one step ahead.

Your body learns from repetition.

It learns that vigilance is useful.

It learns that staying prepared is necessary.

It learns that slowing down might mean something gets missed.

Eventually these adaptations become so familiar they feel like personality.

“I’m just a worrier.”

“I’ve always been like this.”

“I like to stay busy.”

But often the body has simply adapted to the life it’s been living.

This is one reason burnout can be so difficult to recognise in capable women.

We tend to imagine burnout as collapse.

Someone unable to continue.

Someone visibly overwhelmed.

In reality, burnout often hides inside competence.

The woman who answers every email.

The woman who never forgets anything.

The woman who keeps everyone else’s lives running smoothly.

The woman who appears calm while carrying a relentless internal mental load.

From the outside she looks successful.

Inside, her body may be paying a very different price.

The shoulders that never quite relax.

The jaw that’s permanently tight.

The interrupted sleep.

The inability to switch off.

The exhaustion that rest doesn’t fully touch.

What fascinates me is how often these women continue pushing forward because they assume their ability to function means they’re fine.

But functioning is not the same thing as wellbeing.

Nor is it the same thing as living fully.

Related articles

Many women have become so skilled at carrying responsibility that they no longer notice its weight.

Until the body notices for them.

The irony is that many of the qualities society rewards in women are the very qualities that can become costly when left unchecked.

Adaptability.

Reliability.

Responsiveness.

Competence.

Care.

These are strengths.

But strengths carried continuously without recovery eventually become burdens.

I don’t believe the answer is for women to become less ambitious, less caring or less capable.

The answer lies in recognising that capability should not require chronic self-abandonment.

That being dependable should not mean being perpetually available.

That success should not come at the expense of inhabiting your own life.

Because perhaps the greatest cost of holding everything together isn’t exhaustion.

It’s what exhaustion quietly steals.

Presence.

Pleasure.

Creativity.

Joy.

The ability to fully arrive in the life you’ve worked so hard to create.

And that, to me, is the conversation more women need to be having.

Not how to become more resilient.

But how to stop carrying so much alone.

Three Ways To Start Reclaiming Your Capacity

1. Notice what you’ve normalised

One of the most powerful questions I ask clients is:

“What have you started calling normal?”

A clenched jaw.

Interrupted sleep.

Never sitting down without reaching for your phone.

Feeling responsible for everyone else’s experience.

Many of the patterns that drain us are hiding in plain sight because they’ve become familiar.

Awareness is where change begins.

2. Build recovery into your day, not just your holidays

Many women live as though recovery is something they’ll earn later.

After the project.

After the deadline.

After the children are older.

After the next busy season.

But the body doesn’t work like that.

Recovery isn’t a reward.

It’s a biological requirement.

Five minutes of conscious breathing.

A short walk without your phone.

A pause between meetings.

Small moments of recovery repeated consistently are far more powerful than waiting for the perfect weekend away.

3. Stop treating every thought as a task

Many capable women live in a state of continuous mental preparation.

The moment a thought appears, they act on it.

Respond.

Plan.

Organise.

Research.

Fix.

Try experimenting with a simple question:

“Does this need my attention right now?”

Not everything requires an immediate response.

Sometimes the most supportive thing we can do for ourselves is allow a thought to exist without turning it into an obligation.

About Nahid de Belgeonne

Nahid de Belgeonne is a somatic movement educator, nervous system specialist and author of Soothe: The Book Your Nervous System Has Been Longing For. She helps women understand the patterns their bodies have learned so they can create more rhythm, recovery and presence in everyday life.

Follow on Substack: Soothe with Nahid de Belgeonne | Substack

Free masterclass: Why Your Body Can’t Switch off Even When Nothing Is Wrong

Learn more: www.thehumanmethod.co.uk

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Since 2018, 22 June has been celebrated as Windrush Day in the UK — a chance to honour the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 and recognise the generations of Caribbean people who came to Britain to help rebuild the country after the Second World War. Their contributions have shaped modern Britain, from the NHS and public transport to schools, businesses and communities across the nation.

To mark this year’s Windrush Day, we had the privilege of spending time with six remarkable women at The Positive Network in Balham, South London. Carmen, Beryl, Veronica, Betsy, Zena and Alicia all travelled to Britain from Jamaica or Guyana during the Windrush era, many of them as teenagers or in their early twenties, leaving behind family, familiarity and the lives they had known.

Despite the challenges they faced along the way, every single woman told us the same thing: she never regretted making the journey.

Read the full article below.

Welcome back to Take The Lead, the fortnightly newsletter from The Female Lead.

Here’s a roundup of the articles you loved this month.

This month, we spoke to Emma Barnett about her new documentary on endometriosis and the hidden toll of a condition that affects millions of women yet remains misunderstood, underfunded and too often ignored.

We also looked back at the history of women’s football, from pioneering teams and a decades-long ban to the rise of the Lionesses, celebrating the women who transformed the game and changed its future.

And while progress has often been painfully slow, 2026 has offered signs that women's health is finally being taken more seriously. We explored some of the year's biggest advances so far, from breakthroughs in endometriosis and menopause research to new approaches to chronic pain, heart health and personalised care.

Enjoy this issue, share it if you like it, and reply directly to let us know what you think.

You can also catch up on our most recent full newsletter here.

The Female Lead Team

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What to watch in London…

‘I felt a mixture of horror, anger, apathy, helplessness, and rage’

Playwright Georgie Dettmer on the inspiration behind her debut play Are You Watching?

In the weeks and perhaps years before the first draft of my play ARE YOU WATCHING? arrived, I had been consuming the horrors of various lives and geopolitical events from my phone. I wrote the first draft of the play in one go. I hadn’t planned to write it but woke up with a conversation between two young girls in my head, opened my laptop and began.

When the Gisèle Pelicot case reached me in the headlines of newspapers, I read everything I could. I watched videos of dead bodies, dead babies, dead landscapes across Palestine as the genocide raged on (and continues to rage on). I felt a mixture of horror, anger, apathy, helplessness, and rage. I felt so disconnected from the people I saw on my screen. At times, I was compelled to watch their tragedies unfold like some kind of witness. If I did not watch then surely I was complicit in the crimes enacted against them.

Other times, I scrolled past the barrage of images of death and sickness and pain. I scrolled on to nicer things. Things like where I should spend my time in North London, or how to communicate healthily with my boyfriend. In these moments, perhaps I felt like a bystander, ignoring the realities of the world in order to “protect my peace” or simply because, if I spent all day witnessing, I wouldn’t have time for anything else.

I know that my ability to look at and then look away from something is a sign of monumental privilege; to witness rather than to experience. I think all of this is compounded by our screens. By the glass cases with which we keep the rest of the world at bay.

For a while, I think I felt apathetic. I felt hopeless. With the introduction of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, I felt like our government had nigh on quashed our ability to freely, wholly resist their actions and complicity. I was scared. I felt cut off, a witness via a screen who could do nothing, and, at times, feel nothing.

I always say it feels like such a relief when I’m on my phone or laptop, scrolling, reading, and suddenly I feel so moved that I cry or shiver or feel anger rising within me. It feels like those moments are rare. I can watch the personal apocalypse of people across the globe: a dead child in a father’s arms and, afterwards, I have to get up and go to work. How is that possible? That should not be possible. But if I did not see it, if we did not see it, how would we know that the horrors persist?

My screen allows me to see the truth of the world, in all its grime and blood. It allows me to witness the pain of someone on the other side of the world and, hopefully, it allows me to speak, to act, to protest, to donate money, to boycott. None of this is simple. My screen distorts. It lies. It shows me unreal images. It shows me deepfaked images of women who cannot escape misogyny in online or real realms. My screen is an opiate. My screen allows me to think that I am doing something when, really, I am doing the bare minimum. My screen protects me. My screen exposes me. My screen dislocates me from my community. From other communities. There is no screen which can replace the body.

This is why ARE YOU WATCHING? has to be theatre. The only thing I said to Jess, our director, is that there should not be screens onstage. The screen in theatre is, I suppose, the fourth wall which (spoiler) is not as steady as it seems in ARE YOU WATCHING?. There is immense power in communing. In sitting with one another, breathing the same air and feeling our neighbours shiver and bristle and laugh.

ARE YOU WATCHING? takes what we see on our screens and places them in front of us - no glass protection. When the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act came into force in 2022, I had an immediate sense that theatre, both form and buildings, would have to become a place where anyone can come to feel, express, and hopefully be enlivened to make physical, tangible change. More than posting and reposting, but genuinely looking out to the world around them and reaching to.

This isn’t a diatribe against the Internet, by the way. I’m not an anti-internet luddite who wants us all to run off barefoot into the forest. Although that is how I spent my bank holiday. The internet calls to us to see, to watch, to witness and so we must. And then we must do more.

I think government crackdowns in the form of the aforementioned Act and the internet are obstacles to the most crucial, gorgeous, holy and hopeful of acts which is communion. Communing with others is how we enact change and it’s how we keep hope alive. Yeah sure, it sounds hippy dippy, and I promise you - the play is not hippy dippy - but nothing can replace all of us sharing a space together. In the streets, auditoriums, living rooms, meeting houses, community centres, parks, wherever. I used to watch and now, I try to watch and do.

Theatre is doing it in its purest form. We love to watch people do. And I think we are happier and healthier in ourselves for it. I have felt no more alive, hopeful, angry (not a bad thing), and moved than when I have been with people.

I sat and watched as Gisèle Pelicot spoke at the Southbank Centre for the launch of her new book, ‘A Hymn to Life’. As she walked on to the stage, the room - mostly women - rose from their seats and applauded her. We cried and we laughed and we smiled and we felt pain in our chest.

At an anti-fascist march, we cried and we shouted and we greeted one another because, in the act of congregating, we escaped the limitations of our screens and reached towards the world. Listen, I’m not convincing you to buy a ticket to the show, although I’m sure there will be a link at the end of this. I’m hoping to share with you how apathetic I felt, how still and stupid, privileged and hopeless I felt. And that if you feel like that as well, you can stop watching and you can start doing something else. Our world is bigger than the screen at the end of our fingertips.

Georgie Dettmer’s Are You Watching?, now in performances at the Royal Court to 4 July

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Since 2018, 22 June has been celebrated as Windrush Day in the UK — a chance to honour the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 and recognise the generations of Caribbean people who came to Britain…

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Since 2018, every year on 22 June, the UK celebrates Windrush Day, honouring the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in 1948 and celebrating the generations of Caribbean people who came to Britain to help rebuild the country after the Second World War. Their contributions helped shape modern Britain, from the NHS and public transport to schools, factories and communities across the country.

To mark this year’s Windrush Day, we had the privilege of sitting down with six extraordinary women at The Positive Network in Balham, South London. Carmen, Beryl, Veronica, Betsy, Zena and Alicia all came to Britain from Jamaica or Guyana during the Windrush era, many of them as teenagers or women in their early twenties.

Their stories are different but all of courage, sacrifice, hard work and a determination to build a better life. Every woman we spoke to was proud of the life she had built here. Not one regretted making the journey.

Carmen Hinkson

When Carmen Hinkson left Clarendon, Jamaica, in 1956, she was just 18 years old and had never travelled by sea before. “I came by boat, it took 17 days. I’d never been on one in my life,” she laughs. Carmen arrived in Southampton in June and travelled straight to London Euston. “It was raining,” she remembers. “I’ll never forget the first thing I ate was liver and bacon.”

Carmen had come to Britain to join her boyfriend, who would later become her husband. He had already made the journey after his sister came to Britain during the war and trained as a nurse. “I was hoping he would come and send for me too,” Carmen says. “And that’s exactly what happened.”

Like many young people arriving from the Caribbean, Carmen had grown up hearing Britain described as the “mother country”.

“I expected Britain to be very nice. And the people to be friendly. I expected it to be a bed of roses,” she says. “But it wasn’t.”

Just two weeks after moving into a rented room, the landlord gave them notice to leave. Carmen remembers him walking into the house one Sunday morning as she was making tea and turning off the kettle. “He said, ‘You’re not allowed to make any tea. You don’t live here anymore.’ Just like that.”

When her husband went to the police for help, they told him there was nothing they could do. Carmen was devastated. “I was walking through Balham crying, thinking, ‘My mother was right. I shouldn’t have come here’.” When she returned, her suitcase had been left outside on the street.

Out of desperation, Carmen approached two men she saw walking nearby and asked if they knew of anywhere she could stay. One simply replied: "Follow me." Nervous but with nowhere else to go, she followed him to a small back room with an outside kitchen and toilet. "I was so desperate," she says. "I'd have taken anything." That same day, Carmen and her husband moved in.

They ended up staying for over a year. "Him and his family were so nice to me." Soon, Carmen was helping to look after the family's children while the adults were out. "They'd say, 'Miss, could you look after the children until we come back?' I'd say, 'Certainly!'"

There were difficult moments throughout those early years. Carmen remembers signs in windows that read: ‘No Blacks. No Irish. No Dogs.’ She remembers how Britain had called on people from the Caribbean to help rebuild after the war, but “they had no preparation for us coming. There was nowhere for Black people to live. Some used to sleep down in Balham tube station.”

Carmen refused to be defeated. Once she started work and built a circle of friends, Britain slowly began to feel like home. Weekends were filled with parties and laughter, neighbours gathered in one another’s homes.

Her first job came through a cousin, who told her about a Jewish woman who owned a factory making clothes for Marks & Spencer. The only problem was that Carmen had never used a sewing machine in her life. “I said, ‘Yes man, I can do it’,” she laughs. “It was a lie.”

On her first day, the sewing machine caught fire. Panicked, she confessed to the woman sitting beside “to tell you the truth, I’ve never used a sewing machine before.”

“’Don’t worry, my love. I’ll help you,’ she said.” Only later did Carmen realise she had been speaking not to another employee, but to the factory owner herself. “I didn’t know it was her business!” she laughs. The owner not only kept her on, but helped relatives of Carmen find work too.

Seventy years later, Carmen has spent her entire life in Britain living in Balham. What kept her going through the difficult times? “My family. Everybody looking to me to keep going and help them all.”

And if she had the choice again?

“I’d do it all over again. I would right now.” She says, smiling.

“I have no regrets. Even though it was hard, it made me tougher and stronger.”

Beryl Palmer

Beryl arrived from Jamaica in 1961 aged 22, joining relatives who had already settled in Britain. “After they come here, they try to help you instead of sitting there doing nothing,” she says. Her parents paid her fare and a cousin helped her find somewhere to live. Within days, Beryl had found work. “As soon as I came here I got a job. And since then I was never been out of work. I’ve never been on the dole. I’ve always worked.” She tells us proudly.

Her first job was at a cotton mill in Stockport. It was there, just a year after arriving, that she met Noel, the pair married in 1963. More than sixty years later, they are still together, both attending community sessions at The Positive Network - they even recently received a congratulatory letter from the King. “We worked and we put our money together,” Beryl says proudly. By 1967, they had bought their first home — a semi-detached house they paid £2,500 for.

Over the years, Beryl also worked at a brewery, and had a job sewing (which she learnt to do on the job!) and later worked at Trinity Hospice, travelling back and forth between Britain and Jamaica while caring for her ageing parents. “I always thought it was the right choice,” she says of coming to Britain. “I was fully occupied. Working five days a week and getting paid.”

Beryl speaks fondly of the independence Britain gave her. “You used to be at your parents’ home. So coming here meant you became independent.”

Her advice to her younger self? “I would give myself more holiday,” she laughs. “I used to work so much.”

Otherwise, Beryl looks back on her life with satisfaction — proud of the home she built, the marriage she has cherished and the life she created from the opportunities she found here.

Veronica McLean

When Veronica McLean left Guyana for Britain in 1960, she was in her early twenties and ready for a new adventure. She travelled on a large Dutch ship with a group of friends — refusing to fly because she didn’t trust aeroplanes. Her husband had already arrived separately, studying mathematics at Cambridge University.

Like many young people in Guyana at the time, Veronica saw Britain as a place of opportunity. “A lot of people left the country to do nursing or some other kind of study,” she says. In Guyana, she had attended commercial school three times a week - something she is still proud of herself for. Before Veronica travelled to England, she decided nursing was the path for her. Armed with a reference from a doctor her mother worked for, Veronica arrived at a hospital, sat an entrance exam and passed. “Then I went to live on the wards,” she recalls.

Before arriving, Veronica hadn’t expected England to be very different from home. Friends who had travelled back and forth told her that life was much the same. The biggest surprise? “We thought all the houses were factories,” she laughs.

Veronica eventually “packed in” nursing, and found a new career at The Dorchester Hotel, where she worked for 16 years. “I had a good time working at The Dorchester, it was quite nice. The people were quite nice too.”

Later, she devoted her time to raising her family while her husband established his career as a solicitor.

Visits home were rare. "I never had much money to go back on holiday at that time," she says. "People who got kids couldn’t afford to travel." But she speaks about this without regret. Life, she says, was challenging wherever you were. "Everywhere was hard at the time. England as well. There were no beds of roses over here and no beds of roses there. Everywhere you went, same thing."

Veronica embraced the life she had built. "You got to get used to the place a little while and then move about and see what you can do."

Veronica says that she never regretted moving here.

Betsy Osbourne

Betsy Osbourne was just 19 when she left Jamaica and came to Britain with her aunt.

“I suppose I came because I had family here,” she says. “As a young person, you want to venture out and see different things.”

What did she know about England before she arrived? “Nothing at all,” she laughs. And her first impression? “It was cold in London. Very cold.” In fact, she remembers turning to her aunt and saying, “I want to go home.”

But Betsy stayed. Within three weeks she had found her first job making injection needles, and she began to build a life for herself. Settling in was both easy and hard, she says. “Because I knew people, then you make more friends. And at the weekend, you go out and things like that.”

Over the years, Britain became home. Looking back now, Betsy is proud of the life she built through hard work and determination. “I am proud that I was able to work myself up and do something for myself, you know, make my life better. And have my four children.”

Zena Josiah

At 92, Zena Josiah still has the warmth, humour and energy of someone half her age. She talks to everyone on her street, knows all her neighbours and regularly hosts parties to welcome new people to the road. “I love life,” she tells us. “I love meeting people.”

But when Zena arrived in Britain from Guyana in April 1956, aged 22, life looked very different. She had travelled to join her fiancé, who had come to England three years earlier after the war to work in printing. Zena flew first to Trinidad, then boarded the SS Antilles for the journey to Britain. “Oh, I was sick all the way,” she laughs. “There were nine girls coming to join their fiancés and I was the only one that was sick.”

She arrived during what was apparently the hottest April England had seen. But much of Britain still came as a surprise. The houses especially. “At home you have garden space around you,” she says. “When I saw these houses joined together, I’d never seen that before.” She was also astonished by the crowds in London. Growing up in Guyana, she remembered seeing photographs of football matches and wondering, “Where are all these people coming from?”

Zena and her fiancé began married life in a single rented room, paying £2.50 a week. Then came a frightening setback when her husband became seriously ill and was hospitalised for a long period. “I thought he was going to die,” she says quietly. “I was very upset because I was here alone.” Thankfully, he recovered and together they carried on.

Zena threw herself into work, working in Junior Miss on Oxford Street. “Because I was so tiny, they used to use me like a model before the clothes went into the store,” she says with a smile. She worked long hours and took every bit of overtime she could while she and her husband saved for a home.

Eventually, they had enough money for a deposit on a house. But just before the sale completed, they were told expensive work needed to be carried out on the property — money they didn’t have. The next day, Zena went to work upset. Her employer, Mr Goldman, noticed immediately.

“He said, ‘Zena, you mean to tell me you have a problem and you didn’t come and ask me?’” she recalls. He sent his son to the bank to withdraw the money she needed. “When I went home with that, my husband was so shocked. We got the house.”

Zena still becomes emotional telling the story. “I’ll never forget that man,” she says. It was in that house that she and her husband raised their children and built the life they had dreamed of.

“I never thought I had made a mistake coming here,” Zena says firmly. Together, she and her husband worked hard, raised a family and achieved their goals. “I’m proud to know that my husband and I made it in life. Through it all, we made it.”

After working in fashion, Zena went on to spend 20 years working nights in a hospital before moving into care work, which she says she “really did love”. Now retired, she remains deeply involved in her community. Her beloved husband died five years ago, just short of his 90th birthday, but her optimism has never faded.

Her advice to younger generations is the same philosophy she has lived by all her life, “whatever you want to do, do it with confidence. Don’t be negative. Be positive in everything that you do. Don’t say you can’t do something. Do it and see how it works out for you.”

Alicia Henry

Alicia Henry was 25 when she left Guyana and came to Britain to train as a nurse. It was the early 1960s and life at home had become difficult. She was married with four children but saw nursing as her chance to build a future for herself and her family.

“I left the children with my parents and I came over,” she tells us matter-of-factly. She passed her entrance exam, moved into nurses’ accommodation and threw herself into her training. Within a few years, Alicia had secured a mortgage through the council and bought her own home in Battersea. She then brought her four children to Britain, alongside the baby she had in England. “So there were five of them I had over here,” she says proudly.

Supporting them all meant extraordinary sacrifice. Alicia worked night shifts for 25 years so she could be home with her children during the day. “I couldn’t do days because I’d have to pay somebody to look after the youngest,” she explains. “So permanent nights for 25 years.” Even now, she laughs, the routine has stayed with her, “That’s why now I can’t sleep at night.”

Life was not always easy. Her husband “went off with another woman” and she found herself raising five children and paying the mortgage alone. When the council questioned whether she could keep up the repayments, Alicia stood her ground. “I said, ‘What are you going to do for me? Are you going to take back the place?’” She set up a standing order, never missed a payment and “never heard from them again.”

Nursing remained her passion throughout it all. She went on to specialise in burns and plastic surgery at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, a career she still considers her greatest achievement. “What I’m most proud of is my work,” she says simply.

As her children grew up and married, Alicia downsized to a smaller home in Croydon and found time to travel, visiting Guyana, Canada, America, Ireland and Australia, where her youngest daughter was living.

Then, just before her 90th birthday, Alicia discovered a lump on her arm. It was cancer. Faced with the possibility that it could spread, she made the decision to have her arm amputated at the age of 89.

Alicia - and indeed all the women we met at The Positive Network - have stories that are full of hardship, sacrifice and obstacles that would have defeated many people. Yet they tell them with humour and immense pride in what they achieved. Their resilience, work ethic and determination to build better lives for themselves and their families are the very essence of the Windrush generation and the extraordinary contribution they made to Britain.

The group is now raising funds to secure a permanent home of its own, so it can continue supporting members and expand its vital work — any donation would help make that possible.

Donate here

Women have been playing football for centuries. One of the earliest references appears in a 1580 poem by Sir Philip Sidney, describing girls playing football with their skirts tucked up. Even Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have owned what may be the oldest surviving football.

Although football was a popular pastime, it wasn’t until 1863 that the Football Association created a standard set of rules. The new laws helped make the game more organised and opened the door for greater female participation.

The first recorded women’s match took place in Edinburgh in 1881, when teams representing Scotland and England faced each other. Interest quickly grew, with crowds of more than 1,000 attending matches in Sheffield and thousands more turning up to watch the pioneering British Ladies Football Club in the 1890s. One of the era’s leading figures was Nettie Honeyball, founder of the club and a passionate advocate for women’s sport.

Women’s football truly flourished during the First World War. As women entered factory work in huge numbers, workplace teams sprang up across Britain. Factory football became a major attraction, and in 1917 the Munitionettes’ Cup was launched. The most famous team of the period was Dick, Kerr Ladies, who played hundreds of matches, raised money for charity, and featured legendary striker Lily Parr, one of the greatest goal scorers the game has ever seen.

By 1921, around 150 women’s clubs existed and some matches attracted crowds of 45,000 spectators. Yet just as the sport was booming, the Football Association dealt it a devastating blow. On 5 December 1921, the FA banned women’s football from affiliated grounds, declaring the game unsuitable for women. The ban forced teams into parks and smaller venues for almost 50 years.

Despite the restrictions, the game survived. The English Ladies’ Football Association was formed days after the ban, while clubs such as Manchester Corinthians kept women’s football alive through the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, even touring internationally and winning trophies abroad.

The tide finally began to turn in the late 1960s. The Women’s Football Association (WFA) was established on 1 November 1969 with representatives of 44 clubs attended the first meeting in London. After years of pressure the FA finally lifted its ban in June 1971. Women's football could now be played on FA-affiliated grounds and registered referees could officiate at women's matches.

That same year saw the first Women’s FA Cup, while England’s official women’s team played its first recognised international match in 1972.

The following decades brought steady progress. England reached the final of the first UEFA women’s championship in 1984, and the 1990s saw the launch of a national league structure, the first strategic development plans, and increasing support from the FA. Women’s football was also growing worldwide, helped by the introduction of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991.

Since the turn of the century, women’s football really transformed. By 2002 in England, it had become the top participation team sport for women and girls. The FA achieved this target three years earlier than expected. In the same year, Lily Parr of Dick, Kerr Ladies was posthumously inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame, the first woman to do so.

England hosted the UEFA Women’s EURO in 2005, the Women’s Super League launched in 2011, and record crowds began filling stadiums. The Lionesses became regular contenders on the international stage, reaching the World Cup semi-finals in 2015 and 2019.

A defining moment arrived in 2022 when England won the UEFA Women’s EURO at Wembley in front of a record crowd, inspiring a new generation of players and fans. The Lionesses followed that success with a first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup final appearance in 2023 and another European title in 2025.

Another historic milestone in 2022 saw the original 1972 Lionesses finally awarded their official bespoke England caps, 50 years after their inaugural international match. The team's achievement - a 3-2 victory over Scotland on November 18, 1972 - was celebrated with a special legacy cap presentation at Wembley Stadium.

England’s back-to-back victories had an immediate impact, with searches for women’s football opportunities rising 196% the day after the EURO 2025 final. Five months later, participation was up 5%, while the number of female coaches and referees had increased by 12% and 29% respectively.

It also accelerated progress towards equal access to football for girls. The target for 90% of schools to offer equal access through Key Stage 2 and 3 PE lessons, originally set for 2028, was achieved three years early, giving 2.6 million girls access to football in PE, up 31% since 2020/21.

We're really only just getting to see what the sport can become when women are given the support, investment and visibility they deserve.

Reflecting on the success of 2025, Sue Day, Director of Women’s Football & Para Football at The FA, said: “2025 will be remembered as a historic year for women’s sport… That victory has ignited something powerful, strengthening a special connection with fans and driving more women and girls than ever before to play, coach, referee and get involved in football.”

“With record levels of participation in schools and clubs, there is so much to be proud of this year – but no room for complacency. We must use this momentum to drive the game forward. It’s up to all of us to keep building on the legacy of the Lionesses, ensuring the game continues to thrive for generations to come.”

In 2026, a commemorative plaque was unveiled in Nuneaton to mark the site of England Women’s first official home fixture against Scotland in 1973, as part of celebrations for the Lionesses’ 500th match and to honour the pioneers who helped establish women’s football in England.

After missing automatic qualification for the 2027 World Cup, the Lionesses must now progress through two play-off rounds. England will first face Greece over two legs between 7–13 October, and if they advance, will play either Slovakia or Ukraine between 26 November and 5 December for a place in Brazil.

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For years, intimacy co-ordinator Ita O’Brien has helped reshape how intimacy is choreographed on screen, developing industry-leading guidelines across film and television that create safer, clearer and more respectful working environments for actors. Having worked on TV shows such as Normal People, Sex Education and I May Destroy You, her book Intimacy: A Field Guide to Finding Connection and Feeling Your Deep Desires takes those same principles and applies them beyond the screen, offering ways to reconnect with yourself and others in everyday life.

Speaking about what helps people find more connection, pleasure and intimacy, Ita’s advice is simple and accessible. At its core, it comes back to one thing: paying attention. Whether you’re looking to deepen a long-term relationship or rekindle a sense of closeness, these are ideas anyone can bring into their own life.

Put your phone away

The first thing Ita recommends is removing one of the biggest barriers to connection: “We live on our screens.”

While technology can bring people together, Ita believes it’s important to recognise what it can take away too. Constant notifications, endless scrolling and divided attention make it harder to be fully present with the people around us.

“If you want to really be with your partner, then [it’s about] being present in yourself.”

The advice is straightforward. If you’re spending time with someone you care about, put the phone down.

Be present

Being physically beside someone isn’t the same as being mentally present.

For Ita, intimacy starts with paying attention to what’s happening in the moment rather than rushing ahead to what might happen next.

One exercise she recommends is taking “20 connective breaths” - a simple pause to reconnect with yourself before connecting with somebody else.

“It’s both honouring yourself to be present and then it means you’re really honouring your partner.”

The goal isn’t to perform intimacy, it’s to experience it.

Listen to yourself

One of the strongest themes running through Ita’s work is that many people stop listening to their own bodies.

Instead of focusing on expectations or assumptions, she encourages people to get curious. “What do I want? What do I desire? What’s worked for me?”

It sounds obvious, but many people spend years learning how to please other people without properly understanding themselves first.

The better you understand your own body, boundaries and preferences, the easier it becomes to communicate them.

Stop assuming your partner can read your mind

According to Ita, one of the biggest myths about intimacy is that people should instinctively know what their partner wants.

She describes a feeling that, “we should just know. We should just assume. It should just happen. It should just be spontaneous.”

In reality, Ita says, knowing what you want - and expressing it - is a skill.

Whether it’s a desire, a boundary or simply something you’ve enjoyed before, understanding it yourself is the first step towards sharing it with someone else.

“My partner and I find it easier if we go for a walk. So going for a walk in the woods is a really lovely way to just talk about what you want.”

For many people, intimate conversations feel less intimidating when they happen naturally.

Dance more

One of Ita’s more unexpected pieces of advice has nothing to do with relationships.

“Put some music on and just move and feel and find that play.”

For her, intimacy isn’t only about sex. It’s also about feeling alive in your own body.

Movement can help people reconnect with confidence, sensation and playfulness - qualities that are often squeezed out by busy schedules and everyday pressures.

Keep getting to know your body

Many people think self-discovery is something that happens and is final. Ita sees it as a lifelong process.

“Continuing to know your body is great. Continuing that self-play, that self-discovery.”

She believes intimacy works best when we stay curious about ourselves rather than assuming we’ll always want the same things. Our bodies change throughout our lives, and our relationship with pleasure can change too.

“Especially as we get older, we might need to bring in lubrication. We might need to bring in perhaps some toys.”

For Ita, adapting isn’t something to be embarrassed about. It’s simply part of getting to know yourself.

Rather than seeing intimacy as a fixed destination, she encourages people to treat it as an ongoing exploration.

“Keep that play going and invite your partner to bring in that play.”

Related articles

Make time for intimacy

Relationships often begin with excitement and spontaneity. Maintaining connection over time requires intention.

“Make time and space for you and your partner.”

Ita believes intimacy needs nurturing, particularly when work, family responsibilities and everyday life compete for attention.

But she also warns against treating intimacy like a task with a specific outcome.

“Don’t end-game it.”

Spending time together shouldn’t come with pressure or expectations. The point is simply to create space for connection and see where it leads.

Ita is honest about how difficult it can be to begin that conversation with a partner.

“That shift from having it as something that’s unspoken to open communication and transparency can be really challenging.”

But she believes the answer isn’t to wait until it feels easy. It’s to start where you are and take responsibility for that first step. “I would take ownership and take responsibility for yourself,” she explains. If speaking directly to a partner feels impossible right now, she suggests support can come in other forms, such as couples therapy or working with an intimacy coach.

More than anything, she encourages beginning with yourself. “If you want things to shift and change and you want to have that conversation, just feel into yourself,” she says. That might simply mean identifying one small thing you want or enjoy, rather than trying to overhaul everything at once.

“Start with something really simple and really easy. Explore how to share what you like and then how to ask for that.”

“It could be something as simple as, ‘I really like it when you hold my hand when we go walking’.”

Ultimately, Ita’s advice is less about getting it “right” in one conversation and more about gently learning how to notice what you want, saying it out loud, and having the confidence to bring your partner in on the conversation too.

Ita O’Brien’s Intimacy: A Field Guide to Finding Connection and Feeling Your Deep Desires is available to buy.

My chat with Florrie feels less like an interview and more like catching up with a friend who’s moved abroad, like we haven’t spoken in a while, but the conversation slips effortlessly into place - warm and easy.

Over the past two decades, Florrie has built a career that’s spanned both sides of the music industry. First making her name as the drummer behind some of British pop’s biggest acts - including Kylie Minogue, Girls Aloud and Pet Shop Boys through the legendary Xenomania production house - before stepping into the spotlight herself as a singer-songwriter.

She’s has just announced her latest album, Magic For A While, due for release in October, with new single The Times already out in the world.

As we settle into our video chat, she’s every bit as down-to-earth as she is accomplished.

I begin by suggesting it must be a good feeling to finally be at the point of sharing the album with the world.

“Yeah. This album journey was quite a solitary experience for me. I really enjoyed that actually, I really loved just keeping it close to my chest, really believing in what I’d made without letting anything external influence me.”

Do you think you may be at a point in your life where you're much more comfortable doing that?

“I don’t know what happened to me last year,” she laughs. “But I turned 36 and something literally switched in my head.”

For someone who describes herself as a “lifelong people pleaser”, the shift has been significant.

“I do think it’s an age thing. It’s a great feeling. The older I get, the less I care - in a good way - about what other people think of me. Because I am someone that throughout my life has really cared.”

Florrie wrote the album during a period of uncertainty while living in Los Angeles.

“I was in this transition period of not knowing whether to stay or whether to come back,” she says. “It got me thinking about all these other times in my life where you’ve chosen to go down one path and it’s led you somewhere. But what if you had taken another one?”

This, she explains, is the “overarching theme of the record”.

So where are you finding magic in her own life right now?

“First of all, I love nature,” she says. “The older I get, the more I appreciate being quiet.”

“Seeing my best friend become a mum. That’s really magical. And she’s nailing it. I mean, she doesn’t feel like she is, but she is nailing it. I think I see a lot of magical things around me in a really nice way.”

It’s an answer that says a lot about where Florrie is right now. Less concerned with chasing validation and more interested in appreciating the people and moments around her.

Throughout her life and career, Florrie has been inspired by different women.

“I started this job at Xenomania as the drummer. It was this big house in the countryside, there were like 30 people there, musicians, writers, all different ages. But the lady who ran it was called Miranda Cooper.”

“Before then [the people working around me] were all guys and bands really… I guess there wasn’t anyone in my sort of everyday life who I looked up to.”

“But Miranda was one of the most prolific female songwriters in the UK. She was lovely and she really empowered everyone else around her,” Florrie says. “Miranda was a real leader.”

“I was actually quite nervous of her,” Florrie admits of first meeting Miranda. Looking back now, she sees it differently, remembering Miranda as a “really big” role model in her early years of being a musician.

Closer to home, however, her biggest inspiration has always been her mum, a single parent who ran her own business. “I’m so close to my mum. I speak to her once, if not twice a day, every single day,” Florrie says. “In my head she just balanced everything. She just made it all work. I don’t think she really feels like that, but she was a big inspiration growing up. She’s just my absolute champion.”

Another woman who changed the course of her life was Cassandra Gracey, who spotted something special in a young drummer she’d met briefly in a lawyer’s waiting room.

Months later, Cassandra called with an opportunity.

“She called me maybe six months later and said, ‘This is going to be really random, but I got your number because I remember you from this lawyer’s office. I thought you had a really sort of special energy. And I’ve got a friend who’s looking for a drummer to be part of this team.’ She was amazing. She really championed me as well.”

That connection became Florrie’s introduction to Xenomania.

Although music remains heavily male-dominated behind the scenes, Florrie considers herself fortunate that her earliest experiences in the industry were unusually inclusive.

“Being part of Xenomania, I was very protected from the wider sexism in the music industry,” she says. “It was an incredible environment to have the first ten years of my musical life in.”

In fact, Florrie says she didn’t encounter much sexism at all during the first decade of her career. “It’s only the last six or seven years where I’ve seen it.”

When it did happen, it came as a surprise.

“I was actually shocked when I first experienced very blatant sexism, where someone refused to talk to me and directed everything at a male colleague, even though it was something that I dealt with.”

The confidence she’s developed in recent years has also changed the way she sees herself.

“When I first started out, I definitely felt like I had to look and be a certain way,” Florrie says. “I felt like I had to be thin and pretty and make sure I was always wearing makeup every day.”

Now?

“I literally couldn’t care less.”

So what has changed?

“I trust myself more. I’ve got more confidence in my own decisions. When I make a decision now, I don’t need external validation. I was a real worrier back in my twenties. Whereas now I’m just feeling a lot more sure of myself and just a lot calmer in everyday life.”

I ask her if “stop worrying” would be the advice she’d give to her younger self?

“The thing is, you just can’t say ‘stop worrying’. Does it ever work? Does it? No.”

“I’d probably just say: trust your gut a bit more.”

“There were a lot of times where I had quite a definite feeling about something, and some label exec would be like, ‘No, that’s a stupid idea’. And I would think he must know better.”

Now, Florrie knows that’s not the case.

“Creatively, you know yourself better than anyone else ultimately.”

As our conversation comes to an end, I ask how she hopes people will listen to Magic For A While.

“I would actually love for people to just sit with it. Just them and the record.”

The album is introspective, she says, and deserves a quiet moment to absorb it.

“And then tell everyone about it.”

Florrie’s single The Times is out now

The full album Magic for a while is out in October 2026

It can feel like women’s health is always on the back burner - and whilst it’s true there is still plenty of work to be done, developments are happening more often than you might think, and some of the biggest shifts can easily slip under the radar. We’ve pulled together some of the major women’s health stories and breakthroughs from this year so far.

From menopause being reframed as a whole-body transition, to new hope in endometriosis diagnosis, growing investment in women’s heart health, and even research taking women’s health into space, the way women’s health has previously been understood is starting to shift.

In this issue of Take The Lead, we’re sharing some important stories making headlines for women.

FIFA has launched a major new project focused on female athletes’ health, covering topics including menstrual health, pregnancy and menopause. The initiative aims to tackle the long-standing lack of research into women’s bodies in sport.

We also spoke directly with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer about newly announced plans that could make the UK the first country where children cannot take, share or view nude images on their devices. The announcement follows growing concerns that progress on the issue has been too slow.

Plus, journalist Emma Barnett spoke to The Female Lead ahead of the release of her BBC documentary Emma Barnett: Fighting Endometriosis. Watch a powerful clip of her describing endometriosis as a disease that “steals” from women, and read our full interview.

Across our social channels, we’re continuing to share the latest news, research and conversations affecting women. This week, a comment from Irish singer CMAT about body shaming particularly caught our attention.

Enjoy, share with your friends, and let us know what you think!

The Female Lead Team

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We’re talking about…

⚽ FIFA launches a major project focused on female athletes’ health - FIFA has launched the Female Health and Performance Project to tackle (😉) the long-standing lack of research on women in sport.

The initiative includes 30 free online modules covering topics such as menstrual health, pregnancy, menopause, nutrition, recovery and injury prevention. It comes after research found that just 6% of sports science studies focused exclusively on women, meaning many training methods have been based on evidence gathered from men.

FIFA hopes the project will improve performance, reduce injury risk and help normalise conversations around women’s health in sport.

📱 A major move to stop children sharing nude images - The government has announced plans to make the UK the first country where children cannot take, share or view nude images on their devices.

This is not a new law yet. Tech companies including Apple and Google have been given three months to introduce or activate technology that can detect and block nude images for children. If they fail to act, the government says it will bring forward legislation, including fines for companies and potentially criminal liability for tech bosses.

The Female Lead raised concerns directly with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer after former Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips said progress on the issue had been too slow. A major announcement - but one many feel is long overdue.

Read the full article and interview

Inspire me…

For decades, women have been told that their symptoms were normal: pain was “just part of being a woman”, exhaustion was stress, and brain fog was expected in ageing.

In 2026, that narrative is beginning to change, and it can’t come soon enough.

Across healthcare, research, policy and public conversation, one theme has emerged again and again: women’s health is finally being recognised as more than reproductive health.

Read the full article here

Final thought…

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In the last 8 years, we have given access to books and teaching materials to 2.5 million students in 25,000 schools around the world. We carry out research that reframes our understanding of women’s experience, such as our Fulfilment Findersurvey which reveals what matters most to women at different life stages. It has now been completed by 150,000 women globally.

We can’t run the charity without your support.

For just £3.50 a month or £25 a year, you can make a huge difference.

Your donations allow us to continue to provide teaching resources and education to girls and women around the world, conduct groundbreaking research, and share science and stories online.

By pledging to make a donation, you get a host of other benefits like:

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It can feel like women’s health is always on the back burner - and whilst it’s true there is still plenty of work to be done, developments are happening more often than you might think, and some of t…

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For decades, women have been told that their symptoms were normal: pain was “just part of being a woman”, exhaustion was stress, and brain fog was expected in ageing.

In 2026, that narrative is beginning to change, and it can’t come soon enough.

Across healthcare, research, policy and public conversation, one theme has emerged again and again: women’s health is finally being recognised as more than reproductive health.

From endometriosis and menopause to heart disease, chronic pain and neurodiversity, researchers are questioning decades of assumptions that were built largely around male bodies and male experiences. The result is one of the most significant shifts in women’s healthcare in a generation. Here are six of the top stories from this year so far…

Menopause is finally being treated as a serious health transition

In 2026, researchers are increasingly treating menopause as a major biological transition with implications across the entire body.

New research suggests cardiovascular health may begin to decline during perimenopause, before menopause itself occurs. Changes in cholesterol levels and blood sugar regulation appear earlier than previously understood, raising important questions about whether women should be screened sooner for heart disease risk.

At the same time, menopause is becoming a neurological conversation. Research from University of Cambridge has linked menopause to changes in brain structure, sleep disruption, anxiety and cognitive symptoms. The significance is not that menopause damages the brain, but that symptoms often dismissed as “just stress” may have a genuine biological basis.

For millions of women who have struggled with concentration, memory lapses and so-called “brain fog”, that shift in understanding is significant.

Validation matters. So does research.

New Endometriosis research to help millions

Despite affecting millions of women worldwide, diagnosis in the UK still takes an average of more than nine years. Yet 2026 has delivered some of the most hopeful developments in endometriosis research for decades.

Researchers are increasingly treating endometriosis as a complex inflammatory disease that can affect the whole body, rather than simply a menstrual disorder. This broader understanding may ultimately transform treatment approaches and improve outcomes for the one in ten women and girls of reproductive age worldwide - an estimated 190 million people - who live with endo.

Even more promising are advances in diagnostics.

One of the most exciting developments is coming from Oxford University, where researchers are trialling a non-invasive imaging technique designed to identify endometriosis tissue without surgery. Early pilot results suggest the scan could detect disease with far greater accuracy than existing procedures. If larger studies confirm the findings, it could dramatically reduce the need for diagnostic laparoscopy and shorten the years-long journey many women face before receiving answers.

Earlier diagnosis would not only reduce suffering but could also improve fertility outcomes, treatment options and long-term quality of life.

Funding focus on women’s heart health

Heart disease remains one of the leading causes of death among women globally. Yet for decades, cardiovascular medicine has largely been shaped by research conducted in men.

The consequences have been significant. Women often experience different symptoms during heart attacks, including fatigue, nausea, breathlessness, jaw pain and upper-back discomfort rather than the “classic” chest pain that many people associate with cardiac events. Those differences have contributed to missed diagnoses and delayed treatment.

This year, researchers have increasingly focused on menopause, hormones and sex-specific cardiovascular risk factors. In one of the largest investments in women’s cardiovascular research to date, the VISIBLE initiative from Wellcome Leap - jointly funded by Pivotal - announced $55 million in funding dedicated to improving understanding of women’s heart health. The programme aims to accelerate research into how heart disease develops differently in women and to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment strategies that have historically been based on male-centred data.

The investment reflects a growing recognition that closing the women’s health gap is not only a medical challenge but an economic and societal one.

Neurodiversity is forcing a rethink of women’s health

Another area undergoing rapid change is the understanding of ADHD and autism in women.

Historically, diagnostic criteria were based largely on male presentations. As a result, countless women have reached adulthood before receiving diagnoses, often after years of struggling with anxiety, depression, burnout or other challenges that masked the underlying condition. New research this year states: “Gender bias and frequent misdiagnosis were recurrent issues, contributing to significant psychological distress. The findings emphasise the urgent need for gender-sensitive diagnostic frameworks, enhanced professional training, and a person-centred approach to care.”

Researchers are increasingly exploring how ADHD and autism present differently in women, including the role of masking behaviours and hormonal fluctuations.

Recently studies have shown “Autistic people and ADHDers may be particularly vulnerable to difficulties during menopause”. Doctors have found women seek assessment during perimenopause, when hormonal changes can disrupt coping strategies that previously helped them navigate daily life.

The result is a growing recognition that female neurodiversity deserves female-specific research.

Women’s Health Research Heads to Space

One of the most unexpected women’s health stories of the year is not happening in a hospital or research laboratory, but in orbit.

In 2027, the world’s first space mission dedicated to menstrual health research is scheduled to launch, marking a significant milestone in understanding how female biology responds to extreme environments.

Despite more than six decades of human spaceflight, little research has been conducted on menstruation and reproductive health in space. Scientists hope the mission will provide valuable insights into hormonal regulation, reproductive function and long-term health impacts in conditions of microgravity. The research has the potential to deepen our understanding of menstrual health, hormonal changes and women’s physiology more broadly.

For generations, women were excluded from medical research because their bodies were considered too complex to study. Now, researchers are preparing to investigate women’s health beyond the boundaries of Earth itself.

Melinda French Gates donates $215 million to women’s health

Philanthropist Melinda French Gates has announced an additional $215 million donation towards women’s health, with a new focus on menopause. Currently, less than 1% of aging research focuses on menopause. The additional funding brings her total investment into women’s health issues to more than $600 million in two years.

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“Women deserve to live in a world that prioritizes their health—full stop. I’m continuing my focus on reproductive and maternal health—protecting contraceptive access, strengthening community-based maternal care, and integrating mental health support into routine care. I’m also turning more attention to midlife—supporting new research on conditions impacting women’s lives and improving care for menopause and perimenopause. It’s time to make women’s health a priority—because when women are healthier, everyone benefits. That’s the future we should be building,” she wrote recently.

Melinda founded Pivotal, a group of organisations working to accelerate the pace of social progress for women and young people in USA. and around the world, in 2015 and continues to invest in research to improve the everyday lives of women.

This is what true altruism looks like.

What happens next?

Women’s health is receiving more attention than ever before. Researchers are asking better questions. Governments are acknowledging longstanding failures. New diagnostic tools and treatments are emerging.

Yet many women still face long waiting lists, delayed diagnoses and inconsistent access to care.

The healthcare system is moving forward for women. The question is whether it can move fast enough.

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Just four months later, we were invited to speak to Sir Keir Starmer again about the government’s goal for Britain to become first country in the world to make it impossible for children to take, share or view nude images.

The statistics for for online abuse and pornography viewed by children are shocking:

• 91% of online child sexual abuse reports recorded in 2024 contained self-generated content from children themselves and the average child now views pornography by age 13.

• 39% of teenagers aged 13–17 experience emotional or physical abuse from a partner.

• 52% of all child sexual abuse and exploitation cases involve children aged 10–17 offending against other children.

Progress to tackle online child sexual exploitation has been slow - something Jess Phillips acknowledged when she resigned as Safeguarding Minister in May 2026 to protest the Prime Minister’s leadership.

Now the Prime Minister has announced Big Tech firms like Apple and Google must introduce safety measures on children’s smartphones and tablets to detect and block nude images for children - with the government prepared to legislate if they do not act.

If companies do not act within three months, the Prime Minister has said legislation will be brought in to force them to activate the technology. This will include fines for companies with criminal liability for tech bosses who fail to comply also a possibility.

Speaking exclusively to us at London Tech Week - albeit it for just five minutes to tackle such a crucial safeguarding issue - Sir Keir Starmer spoke about the responsibility of Big Tech to protect children and changing the law to enforce it if they don’t act swiftly - and we told him The Female Lead community is frustrated at the lack of action, demanding more be done to protect women and girls in Britain.

On Jess Phillips stating the Sir Keir Starmer had dragged his heels on legislation to force tech companies to ban nude photos on children's phones - and The Female Lead frustrated at the slow progress

“Let me record my respect for Jess Phillips and what she has done and continues to do. This is an area we announced back in December when launched our Violence Against Women and Girls strategy, that we would take action in relation to the ability to children to send and receive nude images. I’m pleased to say that since we’ve made that announcement some companies have taken necessary measures. Today is about taking it up, putting the bar higher, saying to all tech companies, ‘You’ve all got to do this now. And if you don’t do it, we’ll change the law to ensure that you do’. These tech companies are brilliant innovators, this is not beyond their ability so it’s a question of will, their will to do it and our will do something about it if they don’t.”

On Australia and Germany having strong take-down regulator models in place with Big Tech

“As tech and Ai have developed, very many people, particularly parents, are getting worried. Each country is looking at what can we do to protect children better? So we are looking at what other countries have done and talking to other countries about it. This device level control to stop children sending or receiving nude images will make us a world leader.”

On banning social media platforms in the UK if they don’t comply

“I do expect all tech companies to comply. There is no question this can only apply to some and not others, it has got to be everyone across the board. I genuinely believe they have the ability to do it. This is to say, ‘You must have something to stop these images being sent or received by children. It’s pretty common sense.’ There are no excuses for anyone. It does need to be backed up by us saying, ‘If you don’t do it we’ll change the law.’”

On The Female Lead wanting a deadline and more action to protect women and girls

“You’re right to keep pushing it. It’s a personal priority. Working with you and others, there’s always this question of pushing us further. Quite right too. That’s what accountability is about. People having the right to say to their government, ‘I’m glad you’ve done that, but go further, go quicker’.”

After just five minutes talking to the Prime Minister at London Tech Week, we left him with one ask: Do better, do more.

Watch the full interview here:

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Last year, I was lucky enough to see Malala Yousafzai speak at the Southbank Centre in London about her newly released book, Finding My Way. I couldn’t quite believe that this Nobel Peace Prize winner, world-famous activist, and poster girl for women’s rights and education was just like me.

This week, I was lucky enough to watch her speak again. And actually, I think that’s exactly what she’s trying to tell us.

The first question host Pandora Sykes asked was why she felt ready to write about her life in such a vulnerable and honest way.

“When you have a public image and people can look you up on Wikipedia, there is a fixed story of you. You are changing, but that story isn’t changing. Time passes by, you grow, things happen that teach you a lot in life.”

Whilst Malala did something rare and extraordinary, the world often forgot that she was still a teenage girl.

She shares a similar misconception in her book. After becoming known worldwide for being attacked by the Taliban, the media painted her as a kind of “mythical heroine”. As she writes, people began to describe someone she didn’t recognise: “a serious and shy girl, a wallflower forced to speak out when the Taliban took away her books.”

But Malala’s reality was different.

“Growing up in Mingora, I was a troublemaker. At school, I ferried bits of gossip back and forth between groups of girls and cracked jokes that made my friends laugh and scold me in the same breath.”

It was this perception that led Malala to approach university the way she did.

“At Oxford my only goal was to make friends - I signed up for everything... rowing society, Christian society, Hindu society, cricket, baking. I chose the social life because I thought this was the only chance to meet people my age.”

“I may have heard a rumour that the Christians brought baked goods to your dorm room, and the Hindus threw the best parties,” she writes in her book.

It sounds humanly impossible to be doing this much whilst also studying PPE - widely regarded as one of Oxford’s most demanding degrees - and even Malala admits she probably went overboard at the start.

“When you are sitting with presidents and prime ministers, you are expected to be a very serious person. I wanted to be a normal student at college. I wanted to separate myself from the work that I did.”

Her excitement to embrace every aspect of university life is a reminder that, despite her status as a Nobel laureate, she was also a young woman figuring out who she was.

It was especially moving to hear her say: “When I think about the Malala who entered college and the Malala who graduated, they are two completely different people and that is the biggest success of my education.”

Malala married her husband, Asser Malik, in November 2021, but before that she had publicly questioned marriage altogether. The reasons behind those views really stuck with me.

“Growing up in Pakistan, I knew that protecting yourself from marriage was so important for girls because that is the only way you can have a future. Girls were married whilst they were still children. I saw it happen to friends at school. So I thought, to protect myself, I have to stay away.”

“Even as I got older, that didn’t change. I realised that often women still have to make more compromises than men.”

“I thought about all the women throughout history who took that burden on their shoulders and still do.”

Ultimately, Malala got to a point where marriage felt right.

“We were on the same page. We had respect for each other... I realised he was the right person.”

But even with that reassurance, she describes feeling as though she was “making a decision for all women.”

It’s a striking example of the pressure placed on women who become symbols. Even deeply personal choices can feel political.

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Malala has been fighting for girls’ education since the world first heard her name in 2012, so it may be less surprising to hear that her passion for the issue remains as strong as ever.

“There are so many girls who lost their opportunity to complete their education because of marriage and other reasons. It’s so hard for girls to break out and beat the cultural expectations and stereotypes. Education means they can learn about their rights, to stand up for what is right and wrong in their lives.”

Of course, she’s right. The scale of the issue remains enormous. According to the UNESCO, around 122 million girls worldwide are out of school, while millions more are at risk of dropping out because of poverty, conflict, discrimination and child marriage.

“Everyone should have access to education. It shouldn’t be a privilege, it should be a right. No one should be left behind because of their gender. I want every girl to be able to go to school and complete their education.”

“Education is so much more than learning. It is empowerment. It is emancipation.”

Watching Malala speak, I was struck by how she is both extraordinary and ordinary. She has addressed world leaders, survived an assassination attempt and become one of the most recognisable activists on the planet. Yet she also worried about making friends at university, questioned whether marriage would limit her future, and spent years figuring out who she wanted to be.

Perhaps that’s what makes her such a compelling role model. Not because she’s superhuman, but because she isn’t. Behind the activist is a woman still learning, changing and finding her way - just like the rest of us.