Losing our feminist mothers

0:00And I think that's really important to know. We can't just sit around and hope for the best anymore. It is time to take up the candle, hold the candle, light the candle, whatever you do with candles. Hello and welcome to today's episode of the moment. Good to be here. Goodness me, it's been a busy time and I'm still trying to understand it all really because I've been in the midst of launching my book, which actually this is where it gets more complicated, comes out in paperback form tomorrow. So there's been a couple of weeks lag. If you've been listening to the podcast you'll know why. There was a hack at the distribution arm of Hachette and so the concrete copy I keep calling it, but it's the paperback copy. Hasn't been available in shops. So hopefully it'll be in shops this week and all you pre-orders and things like that will come your way, but I just wanted to thank everyone who's come along so far

1:02to the launches. They've been incredible. Like I genuinely don't know how to express my gratitude to everyone who's shown up. It's been amazing and to everyone who's read the book so far, whether it be the digital version or listen to the audio version that I recorded, it's so lovely to hear that you're loving it out there and that it's touching a nerve. I think it's hit a real raw nerve, especially for those of us who are Gen X women who've grown up, I think, in a time where, you know, the whole point of the culture in Generation X was that we were outside of the mainstream. We critiqued mainstream culture. That's where Grunge emerged. That's where dance music emerged because of creating a culture that was opposite to what it, what it's seen to become very capitalist, very commercial culture of the 80s, very money-driven. I think over the years somewhere along the way, I lost that belief that I could critique culture and that I could be

2:07opposite in terms of my views. It's nice and life-affirming to realise that that's still in all of us, a lot of us that grew up in that time and there may be its time to look hard at the world that we're living in and state our views with a lot more confidence than perhaps we have been because there's been a great forgetting of where we come from and I saw the film, the documentary film, Silenced, which kind of focuses on a very different of mine, Jennifer Robinson, who's a human rights lawyer. She was Julian Assange's lawyer, Amber Hurd's lawyer in the UK trial, which was one and this documentary is about how legal systems around the world work against victims and it's an essential watch. Please go and see it, send everyone you can to it. But again, another reminder to me that the work hasn't been done in so many ways in terms of women's rights and the rights of those

3:07in marginalized communities and groups. There's so much that still needs to be done and we need to get our fight back. So I'm feeling a lot more confident about the book being out in the world and less worried about I guess the reaction to it because I, well, it's been helpful that the reaction has been really positive and thank you for that because it's nice to see how it's landing out in the world but also it's been good to be reminded that it's time to mobilise, it's time to get together, it's time to try and fight for changes that we were promised a long time ago and seem to have been wound back recently. And by promise, I don't mean it was like we deserve it either, you've got to fight for it but all we're asking for here is equality. That's it, it's nothing more. No one's kicking anyone else out or acting as if anyone's better, it's just a request for equality. So yeah, if you want to get a copy of this and get a bit angry with me, do it middle-rode. If you're listening, I just held up my book then.

4:14And frankly, I'm sick of looking at me because I'm on the cover. And I see it everywhere now and it's weird. And just between you and me, this is the time now that the book's out in shops that I won't go into a bookshop. I can't, it's so weird. Like this is the weird thing about feeling like you're being perceived and I think women understand this feeling because we grow up under the male gaze and a lot of how we're brought up is about how we're perceived or seen to be and performing and whatnot. But when I go into bookshops and my book is in there, I get really embarrassed. I don't know why. I think maybe someone might see me and think I'm just going into look at my book because it's in the bookstore and I'm up myself or something. I don't know, it's fucking weird. Whatever it is, life is weird. But yes, aside from the airport, I won't be going into a bookshop unless I have to. Anyway, I got off track. But if you're into the book or you've got some free time

5:15and you're in Sydney, I have one more gig that has tickets available this week and that's at Bondi. And that's going to be hosted by Yumi Stines and there are still some tickets available if you're listening today, Monday the 7th or there are a couple more gigs that have tickets available one in barrel on the 23rd of September. And that is with Mama Mia's Holy Wainwright, which will be amazing. I can't believe she said yes. Come along, that's going to be a great night. And also another one at the Peterson Balls on the 24th of September. So a little bit further down in the month with Michaela Kalaowski and I cannot wait for that. I love a Balls Club and I'm starting to enjoy talking about my book. It's taken a bit because there's a lot that I've revealed in there and it's very, very personal but it's something I feel like I should be doing. For many, many reasons and I'll get to it in a tick. But before we get there, the Emmys happened on the weekend but not the Emmys that have all the actors looking glamorous in their frocs and gowns and suits and outfits

6:17and all that side of it. It was actually the creative arts Emmys, which are the ones that go to directors and production and makeup and set design and costume design or the really important elements that go towards making a wonderful visual product. And you can go and look at the full list. There's a lot of these ones so I won't cover them all and you probably don't need my insight into directing, which is something I've never done. But there are a few there that I think you'll find we covered here on the moment and you might be interested. Bad bunny. That super bowl half-time performance that blew everyone's mind around the globe has one seven Emmys and that is the most Emmys ever one for a half-time performance, which is amazing congratulations to them not that they give shit what I say. Also Sabrina Carpenter won her first Emmy, which is probably getting her along the way to become an Egot. What is it an Emmy? A Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. I suspect she'll

7:22be on the stage soon so she'll get it. But she won for outstanding variety special pre-recorded. This is how detailed these segments get and she won both as a performer and executive producer on the Muppet Show, which was that magnificent. Just a one-off Muppet Show variety show that came out at the start of the year and it was just glorious. Okay, this all a little bit of hope. And interestingly knocked out Taylor Swift's The Errors to the film. So that's quite a huge win, I would suspect. Other big winners were the traders, the Australian version is on at the moment and also the late show with Stephen Colbert at one five Emmys for its final season, which is to be expected as well. In terms of unstructured reality series though, this one is interesting because the category had the likes of Summer House, which is something we don't have here, but lots of people are watching and talking about it as if it's one of the game changes in terms of unstructured

8:27reality. And also RuPaul's Drag Race was in there, the documentary Dallas Cowboys, which is still hugely popular was in there. The winner though was the beautiful love on the spectrum. So there you go. And as I end this little recap on that aspect of the Emmys, it leads me back to my first point, which is the importance of telling our stories and the value in telling our stories because Marissa Haggertae won two Emmys for her absolutely brilliant documentary. And if you haven't seen it yet, please I urge you to go and do it. My mum Jane, which was a retelling of her mother's own story, her mother was Jane Mansfield, who was killed in a car accident that Marissa was in at age three, so she never got to know her mother. She retold the story of her mother through talking to others and looking at our carve of footage and really got to know her mother through the documentary

9:30making process. Anyway, Marissa Haggertae won two awards for this. One of those was outstanding documentary and then the other was outstanding director because this was the first time she was a director on a project and it really was something special because not only did it retail Jane Mansfield's story, who was mostly known as one thing and in the entertainment industry as such. If you're known for one thing, it's very hard to be seen as the layered person that you might be underneath. You know, that can happen with everybody who works in the media, but she was known as the blonde bombshell and you know, super sassy, super sexy and really that was about it and historically she hasn't been remembered as much else and this documentary subverted that. It showed her as an incredibly intelligent woman and incredibly savvy woman, someone who cared for her family immensely, someone who was musical and someone who had a lot of struggles in a time where

10:37she had to survive and try and thrive, but women were not lifted up in the same way that perhaps they are now and it's a documentary about family secrets too. Some really heavy stuff comes out in the docker and I think it's important to tell those stories because the trauma remains, the intergenerational trauma remains. So it's important to look back and see the reality, but accept what happened because of the limitations that the people who were dealing with things at the time had, whether it be by societal expectations or lack of education or you know, there's so many things that lead to difficult things happening that resonate in families for generations afterwards. So yeah, it's a beautiful documentary on all of those levels and really important, but the reason why I also am talking about this quite strongly today, given you know,

11:42I could have just brushed over it, but in her speech, Marissa said this about storytelling. My hero and friend Gloria Steinem recently said, please tell your own story. The most important thing that we can do for each other is to know each other through stories. I got to know my mother through telling this story and it is a gift that is indescribable. It truly is and we do need to do more of it, especially women. And Marissa will be hosting the broadcast Emmys, the big ceremony with all the bells and whistles and glam. She'll be hosting it next week. So took us to her, I guess, as if she were here from me. But that comment is so timely given the death just last week of one of the most prominent American feminists, Gloria Steinem. Gloria was a journalist and became the figurehead of Second Wave feminism in America and to a certain extent here in Australia, it trickled through.

12:48She died at age 92 last Wednesday and it was announced via her Instagram account and she was a leading activist for Second Wave feminism in the late 1960s through the 1970s, but she's remained a pivotal figure since then. But in her time, so much of that feminism was focused on things like reproductive rights, which interestingly have become a topic again and are being wound back in America. Let's hope it doesn't happen here. Second Wave feminism also focused on sexuality and it critiqued patriarchal societal structures and the big institutions and goodness me feels like history is repeating itself right now. But that was a lot of the focus at that time. And yes, of course, Steinem has been criticized and critiqued for not being as intersectional as perhaps she could have been. I certainly think she addressed that in later years, but she will be remembered for her

13:54journalism and also for co-founding, I guess, America's first feminist magazine, which was called which was co-founded in 1971 by Steinem. And it was quite a radical publication at the time. Steinem died before she was just about to release her memoir of that era called My Unexpected Life. And it was about her early activism due out September 22. So there you go. At least we have that document and we'll be able to read about it. But she's written loads and loads of books. I think I've even got one here. Yes, I do. Yeah, this one's a good one. It's glorious, Steinem, the truth will set you free. But first it will piece you off. This is a bit more recent. But of course, she wrote a whole lot of other very formative texts that you can look up and read if you're not familiar with them. But this one was thoughts on life, love and rebellion. And I thought I was going to move on from a lot of death news, really sad death news because we've lost some big

14:56ones in the last couple of weeks. And that's really, really quite sad to have lost such leaders who stood for things like equality and empathy. And I'm talking about Dolly Parton as well in that. But last night news came through that another of the second wave feminists who became editor in Chief of Miz magazine in the US after Gloria invited her. I think Gloria had decided to wind up doing all the practical stuff and invited Robin Morgan to take over. Now Robin was another second wave feminist and she was involved in one of the first protests that went up against the Miss America pageant in the late 60s because at the time women were calling it out for being all about the male guys, that kind of thing. And this was the particular protest where people began to believe that the women who attended and protested burnt their bras. Now apparently that never happened

15:58according to Robin. What they did do was throw girdles, girdles, go that wearing girdles, poor things, hair curlers and mops and they threw them into a bin but country to popular belief. Apparently no bros burned at this protest. She has also written a lot as well. You can look her up but she coined the term her story as opposed to history. Obviously talking about who got to tell the stories and what was their perspective. And mostly it was not women. And with these pretty significant deaths of all of these people who seem to lead with not just empathy but with deep belief in equality and care for the wider community with the death of of these leaders like Gloria Steinem, like Dolly Parton, women who showed us the way I guess in many ways, who fought the fight for what we are and to change that. But they also let us towards what we could become. And with them no

17:03longer in the world, it's really quite sad. And someone online said, and sadly I can't recall who, but with the death of these types of leaders, we are losing the mothers. We are losing our mothers, our figurative mothers. But then they went on to say that means that this is our time to step up and and take on those roles in a broader sense. It's our time to lead the way. It's our time to to use our voices in ways that previous women did. And I think that's really important to know. We can't just sit around and hope for the best anymore. It is time to take up the candle, hold the candle, light the candle, whatever you do with candles. But we've got to keep doing the work. And look, if you want to listen to something beautiful, Julia Louis Dreyfus does the podcast wiser than me where she talks to older women who she says are wiser than her. And it's a fabulous

18:08podcast. And of course she talked to Gloria Steinem along the way. And the conversation that she had with Steinem is really rather lovely. It was recorded a couple of years ago, 2024 I think. And they put it at the top of the feed, obviously, given the news of Steinem's death. But it's just wonderful. And in that podcast, Julia said something that really resonated with me. And that is women get more radical with age. I think that's correct. And it's because we know I'm a care about those societal constraints or we've moved through that generation. And I'd like to add that that's probably the reason why women have disappeared after a certain age or they're made to disappear. And that's in my book too. Because we don't care as much. And we're not held back. And frankly, we're probably a bit terrifying. But she said she was getting more radical with age, which is really interesting, isn't it? Given she actually came from very privileged background. And

19:09obviously was very, very successful having been on Seinfeld and has enough money in the world to sit on which most billionaires do as we've discovered. But she's decided to use her voice. And she's decided that she's becoming more radical and she has more to fight for. And that I think is where I'm at right now. See, I told you I'd come full circle. But it is really worth listening to that conversation. And it's interesting that the problem with the world is that the wealth is being hauded by a very tiny percentage of people. And we're being told that the problems are with us, which creates a lot of anxiety and division. And that is exactly an entirely the point. Anxious people are controllable people. Angry people are divided, not united. And we're very much easier to control if we are either of those things. So yeah, maybe we need to get our grunge

20:13flannelette shirts back on, which makes me laugh and actually start to critique all of it again and use our voices this time. Gladly. Okay, a couple of brief things before I go that you might want to know about. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about the John Galliano exhibition that would become the theme of 2027s Met Gullin. Now John Galliano was essentially cancelled after he was filmed in a drunk anti-Semitic rant. And he basically has disappeared from the timeline since then. And there has been a redemption arc. He's like he's gone to rehab, he's a apologise profusely. He's met with Jewish leaders and Jewish groups over the years. And there was a documentary made about his progress. He is an incredibly talented fashion designer. And at some point I suspect there will be a retrospective of his work at the Met Gullin, but the time probably wasn't now, given

21:20what's going on in the world globally, with all the things, all the things. So Galliano has actually rescinded that offer and has said no to the invite. He's taken himself out of that equation. He bowed out of what is, I suspect, the fashion industry's biggest event. But it's interesting that the person who has not come out on top in all of this is Anna Winter, who fashion insiders have said is basically indestructible at this point. She's got an overseeing job at Condonast. She's no longer in control of American Vogue as she once was, but she's in control of the vision of the publisher's output. So everyone thought she was indestructible and seems like this might be actually the thing that could lead to her downfall, given she did not go to the board of the Met to get approval for this as the exhibition theme. And many, many benefactors have now been threatening to remove artworks

22:26or remove their donation capabilities. And as we know, these institutions rely on benefactors and philanthropists to prop up the majority of their purchases and fund the upkeep of their buildings, all of it, all of it. It could also be a bit of a witch hunt, given people have been looking to somehow dismantle wind tours power for many, many years, decades even. So it's hard to tell what will happen next with this. It will be interesting to see how it all lands. Do you remember that term? Is it Swedish or Danish? I never knew how to say it, a 2-o-g-g-we order, whatever you spell to it. You know the one, the one all about like creating a comfort, having comfort around you, a type of lifestyle that gives you comfort. Well, there's a new one, apparently, a new term. And it's called pfft, pfft. And this is something that you can apply to your own life. We don't have a word for it in English, but you can apply it to your own life

23:29in times that feel confusing and confounding. It's spelled p-i-t, but pronounced pfft, pfft, pfft, it's kind of like when we do pfft, pfft, with the one with the p's and the f's and the t's, pfft, say I'm good, aren't I? Sorry about that. I'm not explaining it very well, but anyway, it's usually said as a kind of an interjection or a response to something that's annoying, a daily hassle, maybe something that's a mistake or a small frustration or a big frustration. I don't know, so maybe it is a bit like pfft, pfft, pfft. Anyway, Danish professor of psychology, Marie Helwig Larsen said, it doesn't have an exact English translation, it's more a cultural concept about cultivating healthy thoughts to deal with stress. It most closely translates to the English things, don't worry about it, stuff happens all well, which feels to me more like

24:36there are things you can control and there are things you can't control and this is one for those that you can't control. And apparently the Danes have something called a pfft button, which is a button you press when things annoy you and you can have it on your desk and it's quite helpful. So maybe set that one up whenever you feel like something annoying is happening or you're frustrated, get your pfft button and bang it multiple times a day, I say. And if you're in Sydney this week tomorrow night, Tuesday, Tuesday the 8th come along to my middle-aged book launch with you me. It'll be amazing, I'd love to see you there. I'm losing my voice, that's a good start when you've got things to talk about. Lots of love, thank you for all your messages. If I haven't got back to you specifically, I am reading them all and they are amazing and I love you very much for your care and support. It's been a time. I've managed my anxiety over the book launch being extended.

25:37I got through and that was mostly because of your support. So thank you and my beautiful friends who support me in other ways. Love you, gotta go, bye. This is an MIK made production recorded on Warrundry land. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land.