This week on Rage on the Rocks, Sarah and Lauren tackle nervous system regulation — yes, it's important, but has it become the latest wellness-speak for "fix yourself and stay pleasant"?

We acknowledge the science is real and regulation matters, but we're calling out how it's been co-opted into another way to tell women their feelings are too much, their anger is "dysregulation," and their perfectly reasonable responses to unreasonable circumstances need fixing.

We unpack the commercialization of regulation (magnesium, acupressure mats, ice baths — we've got them all), the gendered expectation for women to stay calm while men's anger is called "leadership," and why sometimes dysregulation is the most appropriate response to a genuinely fucked situation.

From the danger of pathologizing rage to the difference between actual self-care and performative regulation that keeps you just functional enough to keep producing — this one gets deep, gets real, and yes, we still love our Shakti mats.

Key takeaway: Regulate to act, not to disappear.

Warning: Contains strong language, feminist rage, and permission to feel your feelings.

This week on Rage on the Rocks, we're doing something a little different — no deep dive, no documentary dissection, just pure, unfiltered catharsis. Sarah and Lauren count down their top 10 things that shit them, from the petty to the political.

Expect plane etiquette violations, questionable cocktail service, corporate jargon that makes us want to flip tables, and some deeper dives into decision fatigue and the invisible mental load women carry every damn day.

Recorded at the Darwin Ski Club over Brookvale ginger beers on a beautiful dry season afternoon, this episode is part rant, part therapy, and entirely relatable. Come for the rage, stay for the solidarity.

Warning: Contains strong language, feminist commentary, and possibly too much truth about toilet paper psychology.

This week’s episode, “We Just Hire on Merit (And Other Fairytales)”, starts with the backlash to Lieutenant General Susan Coyle, the first woman ever appointed Chief of Army in Australia. With nearly 40 years’ service and multiple senior command roles, Coyle is objectively qualified – yet the moment her appointment was announced, social media filled with claims she only got the job “because she’s a woman” and that “DEI has gone too far.”

From there, we unpack what meritocracy actually means, and how “we just hire on merit” is often used to question women’s suitability for leadership while leaving decades of male‑only appointments completely unexamined. We touch on the broader DEI backlash in places like the USA – where diversity programs are being dismantled in universities and public institutions – and how this affects not just women, but also people of colour, disabled and neurodivergent people who were only just starting to see doors open.

Along the way we talk about Sussan Ley being wheeled out as a solution to a party’s “women problem” and then moved aside, the outrage when a school’s student leadership team happened to be all girls, and the persistent narrative that any gain for a marginalised group must mean standards have been lowered. We finish by asking who gets to define “merit” in the first place – and what we all gain when leadership actually reflects the communities it serves

Links: 

Article on Lieutenant General Susan Coyle - the first woman to head the Australian Army 

Article on the school that chose all girls as school captains

Content warning: This episode discusses sexual assault, rape, child sexual exploitation and systemic abuse. Please take care while listening.

In this episode of Rage on the Rocks, we’re looking straight at power – who has it, who’s protected, and who pays the price. We rage about how systems continue to shield men who abuse and exploit women: from the global “online rape academy” ecosystem teaching men how to drug and assault women, to the French Pelicot case where one woman had to drag 51 men through court to be believed, to the Epstein saga where only Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have been jailed while the powerful men alleged to have used that network remain untouched.

We also unpack the “not all men” phenomenon – how a technically true statement so often recentres men’s discomfort and derails conversations about women’s safety, instead of asking what collective responsibility from good men should actually look like. This one is about naming the patterns that make us rage, and refusing to look away.

If this episode brings things up for you and you are in Australia, you can contact 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or visit 1800respect.org.au for 24/7 confidential counselling and support.

Links:
CNN “online rape academy” investigation

Pelicot case coverage

Further details on Pelicot trial

Epstein background and timeline

In this episode Lauren and Sarah go down the rabbit hole of 'can we have it all'?

From Cosmo to feminism, #girlboss and masculine energy, who decided what having it all means, and what would it mean to have enough? 

Resources referred to in this ep if you want to go deeper:

Books:

• Having It All: Love, Success, Sex, Money, Even If You're Starting With Nothing - Helen Gurley Brown 
• The Wife Drought - Annabel Crabb
• Untamed - Glennon Doyle 

Articles: 

• #BreakTheBias: What the rejection of the "girlboss" means for feminism, University of Bath https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/business-and-society/2022/03/17/breakthebias-what-the-rejection-of-the-girlboss-means-for-feminism/
• Who Said "We Could Have It All?" - Ruth Rosen Rohttps://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/who-said-we-could-have-it-all/

Our witchy debrief on all the non‑conventional stuff women are drawn to – tarot, numerology, manifesting, crystals, natural remedies, moon rituals and more – and why we shouldn’t be shamed for it. We talk about how these practices help us find meaning, comfort, confidence and community in a world that’s heavy on evidence and light on actually listening to women, and we draw a clear line between nourishing rituals and predatory ‘wellness’ scams. If you’ve ever said “I know it’s a bit woo, but…” before talking about your intuition, this episode has your back

A lot of women spend decades feeling like their bodies are a full‑time job with no sick leave – from periods and pregnancy to perimenopause and beyond. In this episode of Rage on the Rocks, Sarah and Lauren rage about what it’s like to hold down careers, families and the general craziness of life while battling insomnia, hot flushes, brain fog and a medical system that still treats women as “hysterical” or “just stressed”. As always being women, there are glimmers – Medicare shifts, the village of other women, and the unexpected “I don’t give a fuck” superpower that arrives with midlife hormones.

Join us on this moody Friday night for a chat about Into the Manosphere, where we also manage to mangle some of their social media handles. 

Bottoms up ladies, we're going in.

From how we learn about respectful relationships (or not), red flags, MAFS, financial security, and recorders in pass the parcel...Sarah and Lauren feel the rage, and celebrate the glimmers of hope that get us all through. 

So pour yourself your beverage of choice, and join us friends. We're mad, actually. 

Special thanks to Mon and Bri at The Last Supper, a fabulous venue in Darwin city, and to their patrons for adding a bit of extra spice to the episode. 

Flag Guy has a name....Dustin Poynter. We thank you for your service.

Pour yourself a strong drink (tea totally counts) - we love the world enough to be mad about it. 

Settle in, and join Lauren and Sarah as we explore International Women's Day over a wine and some cheese from Woolies. 

We're mad, actually. So come for the rage, leave with hope, and be part of this with us. 

Lauren has a list.