Julia Gillard on shifting the focus from the way women look - Women's Agenda

Julia Gillard on shifting the focus from the way women look

Ahead of her highly anticipated public conversations with Anne Summers, scheduled for early next week, Julia Gillard have given two video interviews for the first time since she departed the office of prime minister in June.

The first video interview is with Gabrielle Coyne, the chief executive of Penguin Random House, the publisher that acquired the global rights to publish Gillard’s memoirs. In the interview Gillard confirms that her memoirs will be published in October next year. She is writing them steadily while the content and emotions are still fresh and she says it will be a direct and honest account of her experience.

The second interview released today comes in the form of a six-minute video where Gillard speaks to two students from the Laureate International Universities in New York. She is there attending the prestigious Clinton Global Initiative, an annual meeting convened by the former US president Bill Clinton, his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea. The purpose of the event is for global leaders to help devise ‘innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges’.

The international students asked Gillard about being Australia’s first female prime minister. She says she hopes it will encourage more young women to consider a vocation in politics but she was circumspect about it not being easy.

“It’s an experience that is mixed I’d have to say. There is endless focus on clothes, hair and shoes…things that men don’t have to put up with,” Gillard explained.

When asked how that focus can be changed she was quick to offer the answer.

“The only way of shifting it is for it to become more normal for there to be women at the highest levels in public life. Once it’s more normal then all that chatter will slowly become boring,” Gillard said. “There’s still a way to go before it’s routine for women to have those positions though.”

Monday night will mark Gillard’s first major public appearance in Australia since losing the Labor leadership, and prime ministership, in June. She will sit down with author Anne Summers at the Opera House in Sydney (and then Melbourne Town Hall on Tuesday night) for a ‘candid and wide-ranging’ conversation about her time in office. Last year Summers published The Misogyny Factor, a book that was partly prompted by Gillard’s treatment in office, that examines why inequality between men and women in Australia remains. It seems inevitable that Gillard’s misogyny speech in parliament last year will come up and it will be fascinating to hear Gillard speak – unrestrained by politics – on the topic. 

Tickets for both events sold out quickly but the conversation will be broadcast on ABC24 and streamed online by the ABC here

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