Catch up on On the Rag. Based on the podcast of the same name, Alex Casey, Michele A’Court and Leonie Hayden set out to jelly wrestle with every issue under the sun.

The hilarious, stressful, hidden world of menstruation

Hold onto your tampon strings, the first episode of the On the Rag webseries is here! Join Alex Casey, Leonie Hayden and Michèle A’Court from the On the Rag podcast as they dive into the hilarious, messy, stressful, hidden world of periods. What is a period exactly? What’s the blue stuff in the ads? Who has the best period horror story of all time? And why all the shame?

Gender identity, Brazilian waxing and Amazon river dolphins

Alex Casey, Leonie Hayden and Michéle A’Court sharpen their secateurs and trim a path into the prickly world of body hair. Why do we have hair in certain places and not others? Who is hair removal really for? And how painful is a first time Brazilian? We are also joined in the studio by Nikolai Talamahina aka Brown Boy Magik to chat about how body hair can play a crucial part in gender identity.

When did the internet turn into a flaming cesspit?

In episode three of our On the Rag web series, we explore the ways that the promised utopia of the internet turned into a flaming hellfire for women, people of colour and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Alex Casey visits a high school to see how teen girls are coping with the pressures of Instagram, Leonie Hayden talks to Golriz Ghahraman and Meg de Ronde about the trauma of online abuse, and Michéle A’Court meets her online pal Caitlin Spice, who was able to forge her identity online before taking it IRL.

Hilary Barry, plastic surgery and getting better with age

This episode of On the Rag is all about ageing. Time ravages us all, of course, but there’s no denying that women bear the bigger burden of keeping that fact a buried, Botoxed secret. With a whole industry built around smoothing laugh lines, stomping out crow’s feet and doing whatever we can to slow the sag, it can be hard to resist the pressure when every woman we see in the media is flawless, ageless and entirely gravity-free.

Hilary Barry doesn’t seem to give a fuck about any of that. The Seven Sharp co-host and ex 6pm newsreader has dealt with decades of people talking about the way she looks, what she wears and how she talks. In an industry where men are allowed to wither and grey behind the news desk while the women tend to get swapped out for someone younger, she’s also been the older woman in the hosting relationship twice over.

Why New Zealand’s current abortion law is a turd

In the fifth episode of our mana wāhine series On the Rag, Alex, Michèle and Leonie look at the possible changes to abortion legislation in New Zealand and the current law which has classified the procedure as a crime since 1977 (the same year Chris Martin from Coldplay was born, if you were wondering).

Alex busts some myths with the help of Abortion Rights Aotearoa president, Terry Bellamak, and an itchy orange beard; Leonie heads to her local Family Planning to find out how to get an abortion and legendary reproductive rights campaigner Dame Dr. Margaret Sparrow joins the team in the studio.

Sex toys, one night stands and pre-colonial horniness

Light some candles and slip into something more comfortable for the sixth episode of the On the Rag webseries. Today, we’ll be stripping bare all of our hang-ups about sex in an attempt to become more sex positive. Leonie talks to Takatāpuhi activist Elizabeth Kerekere about pre-colonial attitudes to sex, Alex attends a solo sex toy party and Bang! host Melody Thomas joins us in the studio to tell us what she’s learned from yarning to New Zealanders about their sex lives.

Self-defence, workplace harassment and men who yell from cars

Fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your tits, the seventh episode of On the Rag is all about safety. What did we learn about safety when we were growing up as young women? What key pointers should everyone know about workplace harassment? And who the hell are the men who shout at women from cars? We also enjoy a safety demonstration from Vivian Chandra from the women’s self defence network, who teaches us to turn fear into anger and ballet moves into lethal blows.

Climate Change

In episode eight of The Spinoff’s feminist web series On the Rag, Michele, Alex and Leonie go looking for hope amid the climate crisis.

Michele does the unthinkable on behalf of all boomers, Alex discovers the joys of saving the world while shopping, and a group of agenda-setting indigenous climate activists beam in from the COP25 climate conference in Spain.

On the Rag is made with the support of NZ On Air