A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard

Turia Pitt is the epitome of determination and grit. She’s been defying expectations ever since she was caught in a grassfire at 24, suffering burns to 65% of her body. Surviving against overwhelming odds, she’s rebuilt her life and is now a business owner, writer, motivational speaker and Mum. Julia and Turia discuss the day that changed her life forever, how she forged a new path for herself and the gender inequality that persists in Australia.

Angela Rayner is the Deputy Leader of the British Labour Party. She has a remarkable life story, which she shared with Julia at a live event hosted by The Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London. In this episode, you'll hear that conversation, recorded live from the event. Angela not only spoke to Julia about her own life, but they also discussed the gendered barriers on the political frontline and what a general election in the United Kingdom would mean for women.

When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021 after two decades of democratic rule, the world watched in horror. Despite initial promises that women would be able to exercise their rights within Sharia Law, the Taliban has systematically excluded women and girls from public life.In the months that have followed, the situation has only grown more desperate for Afghanistan’s women, who now live under one of the most restrictive regimes in the world. They are unable to access secondary education, travel without a male relative, and even more recently have been banned from attending universities and working for aid organisations, further erasing professional and public opportunities.To keep the spotlight on this worsening crisis – which is only being compounded by economic sanctions and the near-total isolation of Afghanistan in a global context – The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership hosted a conversation about women’s rights under the Taliban. In this episode, you’ll hear that discussion, recorded live from the event at King’s College London.For this conversation, Julia sat down with Zahra Joya, journalist and founder of Rukhshana Media, an organisation that tells the stories of Afghan women globally; Christina Lamb, the Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Times; Paula Kweskin, a filmmaker and attorney specialising in international humanitarian and human rights law; and Sveto Muhammad Ishoq, a women's rights activist, TEDx speaker and social entrepreneur.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is an author of three New York Times best-selling books: The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, about a young entrepreneur who supported her community under the Taliban, Ashley's War, which follows a special ops unit of women in the US army, and The Daughters of Kobani, the extraordinary story of the women in the Kurdish militia that took on ISIS and won. She serves as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and, as a journalist, has written on women's entrepreneurship, forced marriage and women in the military for outlets including The New York Times, The Financial Times, The World Bank, The Atlantic and CNN.

In this special episode of A Podcast of One’s Own, we take you inside Julia’s sold out Sydney Writers’ Festival event at the Sydney Town Hall with Indira Naidoo.More than a decade on from what is now known as the Misogyny Speech, Julia and Indira discuss the speech’s origins, where we are today and the future for women leaders. The event was recorded live by the ABC’s Compass program, which is hosted by Indira.Show notes You can watch Compass with Indira Naidoo at Compass : ABC iviewJulia Gillard’s book Not Now, Not Ever: Ten years on from the misogyny speech is available to purchase at Not Now, Not Ever by Julia Gillard - Penguin Books AustraliaMore information about the Sydney Writers’ Festival can be found at Sydney Writers' Festival (swf.org.au)

In this episode Julia speaks with Roanna McClelland - an author, an academic researcher, a political adviser, a former colleague and a friend. Roanna has just published her first book, The Comforting Weight of Water, which is set in a near future where it never stops raining and a young adolescent runs wild. The story explores coming of age when society – and all its cues – have been washed away.Water, the environment and exploring the relationship between humans and the natural world are not just themes of Roanna’s book, they are themes of her life and she pursues them as an active feminist and deep thinker on gender inequality.Show notesRoanna McClelland’s book The Comforting Weight of Water is available at all good bookstores and here: Wakefield Press :: Literature - Fiction :: The Comforting Weight of Water

Founded in 2012, the Stella Prize is a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing, and championing diversity and cultural change.To celebrate the 2023 award, Julia sat down with this year’s winner, poet Sarah Holland-Batt.Sarah’s work, The Jaguar, is a deeply personal collection of poems canvassing different dimensions of love, loss and beauty. It delves particularly into her beloved father’s long journey with Parkinson’s, and the profound effect it had on Sarah and her family.Julia and Sarah speak candidly about grief, love and solving poetry's PR problem.Show notesLearn more about the Stella Prize at https://stella.org.au/prize/The 2023 winning book The Jaguar is available at https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702265501/the-jaguar--sarah-holland-batt--2022--9780702265501

In this episode, Julia is joined by Dr Elise Stephenson to take a deep dive into gender equality in space. They unpack some of the major barriers facing women and marginalised groups in the industry – everything from equipment failures to inadequate research – and explore the unprecedented opportunities the rapidly developing space sector presents for improving the lives of generations to come by building a sustainable and gender-equal future.Elise is the Deputy Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at the Australian National University and her research seeks to tackle gender inequality at the frontiers – in areas such as climate justice, international affairs, and even outer space. Elise has been recognised with multiple awards for her research, including as a Google Top 50 Outstanding LGBTQI+ Leader and a 2022 Fulbright Scholar.Watch a the signature event from our Diversity on the Frontier conference: https://youtu.be/BXesd4xES0sGet involved in our diversity in space research: ow.ly/r16x50NMvho

In 2020, Dame Sharon White became the first-ever woman to become chair of John Lewis & Partners, the largest employee-owned business in the UK. In 2022 she was named the UK’s most influential black person in the Powerlist awards. She was the first woman to lead the UK’s media regulator, Ofcom, and she came to that position after a distinguished career in Treasury, the Department for International Development and the World Bank.  In the week of International Women’s Day, Julia sat down with Sharon to discuss her career journey and her views on how to work towards greater gender equality in the workplace and beyond. They were joined by Kelly Beaver, the first female Chief Executive of Ipsos in the UK and Ireland, who shared findings from a new survey from the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and Ipsos looking at global attitudes to gender equality.