 Good evening, everyone. Welcome and thank you so much for making the time to join us this evening for what's become an annual event at the Lowy Institute, our International Women's Day event. If I'm being totally honest with you, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about events marking International Women's Day. I think, you know, at their worst they can be these kind of tick the box exercises by institutions and corporations. They're often held at inconvenient times for people juggling multiple responsibilities. But at their best, I think they can be real spaces for really critical conversations, a chance to learn new things, an opportunity for genuine reflection on some of issues around gender equity, and a dedicated space where we can talk about these issues and ask new questions. And so tonight I'm hoping that this event can land at the best column. And I'm sure it will be because I'm especially pleased to be conducting this event alongside my Lowy Institute colleagues. Jensu Research Fellow at the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program and Project Director of Multiculturalism Identity and Influence Project. Jessica Collins, the Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program and Dr. Meg Keane, Director of the Pacific Islands Program. And one of the many, many privileges of working at the place like the Lowy Institute is that you get to interact with some exceptionally smart people, you learn something new every day, always come out of a conversation with a fellow colleague, you know, thinking about an issue from a different angle or learning some sort of new fact around an area of foreign policy or national security that I don't tend to focus on. And so tonight I know will be no exception to that rule and you all get to have the benefits that we have at the Institute in engaging with our colleagues on a daily basis. So please join me in welcoming my colleagues tonight and thank them for being here. So we're going to have kind of an in conversation discussion as Chair, I'll moderate a conversation and then there'll be room toward the end of the event today for audience questions. But I want to first start by asking a scene setting question to the panel. And that's maybe an obvious one, but I think there's room for debate around it. And it's one that puts the question to you. Do you think that the promotion of gender equity has a place in Australian foreign policy and development policy and national security policy? Is it in Australia's national interest to promote women's rights and gender equity globally? Or should policymaking in these areas be gender neutral? And so Meg, I thought I might start with you for your reflections on that. Yeah, and I think on a women's day you've got an obvious answer coming at you and for someone who's worked in intelligence and foreign affairs. But I think the answer is of course it has to. I think it's sort of a furphy. It can be true that any policy is gender neutral. I just don't see how that is possible. If you look at what foreign policy is all about from our very own documents, security, stability, prosperity, you have none of that without women. Prosperity we know. If women are not engaged, if there's gender inequity about wages, you lose productivity. In my own region with the World Bank, they did a report that reckoned that per capita GDP was back by about 22% less than it could be, because women don't get equal pay, because they're in the informal sector, because they can't get employment. So a foreign policy that doesn't deal with those kind of issues is problematic. A foreign policy that doesn't deal with gender issues that affect climate security, environmental security, human security, health security, it's going to fail. And the pandemic teaches us that, right? Critical role of women with vaccines. The complexity of issues like transnational crime and cyber security, they are multi-sectoral, multi-scaler, cross society, women are part of that ecosystem, has to be there. And I guess I would also say that our foreign minister and our prime minister goes overseas and says we're listening, we're responding, we're aligning to your policy. Well, at least in the Pacific Island countries, let me tell you, every national security strategy has a gender component. Every medium-term development strategy has a gender component. Regional policies have gender equity components, and everybody in this audience would know that national and international agreements were party to. So if we are listening, responding, and aligning, we have to have gender in our foreign policy. Jess, what about you? What are your thoughts? Yeah, I absolutely agree with Megan. I think that's a really good jumping off point because Australia has flagged that it is releasing its new international development strategy, and at its core will be gender equality. And I think that's really important, but you know, has Australia put its money where its mouth is? So for the past few months, I have been looking, I've been lifting the lid on gender financing to the Pacific, and really looking at how much money has been going into gender equality investment and initiatives across the region. And it's been pretty consistent for the past 13 years since 2009 that about 5% of the aid money that's spent in the Pacific is directed at gender equality. Sometimes a little bit under, sometimes a little bit over, but generally about 4.5% to 5%. Now, about a third of the aid have projects that just have a little bit or a significant bit of gender equality in them. Now, a third, it's okay, but you've got countries like Canada that are putting about 90% of its aid towards gender equality projects, both significant and principal, and I think that's huge. So I think Australia has room to move. We'll just have to wait and see how this new international development strategy plays out, whether those numbers shift upward. Jen? Yeah, I absolutely echo the sentiments of both Meg and Jess here. And only to add that, you know, as Australia's national security is increasingly challenged like non-traditional security threats, which Meg has mentioned from climate change, cyber attacks, pandemics, the growing competition between the US and China and the Indo-Pacific, just to name a few, but I think Australia's, you know, public institutions including organisations within the Australian intelligence community that are tasked to deal with these issues don't necessarily have the diverse workforce to tackle these complex, increasingly complex issues and situations. And so that leaves Australia with, in a bit of a bind, you know, what are the choices available? If we have increasing diversity, not just gender, but also culturally and linguistically diverse workforce, then I think it allows us for the potential to think about more choices, allows us to think more of more hypotheticals and possible solutions. So Jen, I might stay with you and ask, you know, so there's been kind of consensus on the panel that gender neutrality is not really a thing when it comes to foreign policy and national security. It's embedded in so much of what we aim to do in order to promote the national interest, but at the same time there have been examples, or I'm asking you to think of examples from kind of your area of focus where issues around women's rights and the promotion of gender equity have clashed with other national interests or national security and foreign policy priorities. Do you have any reflections kind of from where you sit and what part of the world you look at? Yeah, so I'm going to focus on China because that's my area and focus on sort of domestic China policies. Now, China has lots of great laws and regulations in place to protect the rights of women. In 2016, it introduced the anti-domestic violence law, but there is an obvious divide between sort of the laws that are promulgated and its implementation. And here we also need to factor in ideology as well. So under Mao Zedong, you know, in China, women held up half the sky. But since Xi Jinping came into power, we've seen sort of this increasing trend towards greater conservatism and greater articulation of women's role within the privacy, i.e. in the family. So I think there's a great divide between what's promulgated, what's implemented, how it's being implemented, and also now the play of party ideology as espoused by Xi Jinping within China as well. And then you've got sort of all sorts of factors coming into the force shaping China's economic future. We've heard about China's decreasing population, aging population, and in sort of in provinces like Sichuan there, they've now allowed babies born out of wedlock to be able to register. Now that goes against party ideology, against Xi Jinping's conservatism. So we've really seen this local central divide in terms of how to deal with some of the upcoming challenges that China might face. But in amongst all of this, I think China ranks fairly poorly in terms of gender equity. Gender equity is now 107 out of 156 according to the World Economic Forum, and gender equity in terms of the pay is an absolutely critical issue for China to address, particularly when labour force participation is really key to one of the solutions for China to come out of the economic challenges that it's facing. So Meg, I might close this question to you, but maybe bring it back to kind of Australian national security and foreign policy prosecution. You know, maybe specifically in the area that you focus on in the Pacific, have you seen clashes where the promotion, notwithstanding your important point about how gender is very embedded in these issues, where there's been clashes in terms of national interest priorities or foreign policy priorities of the Australian government? I think we can talk about clashes, but I'd also like to get into the positives, because I think that was probably your question too on where do things align. The clash is the most obvious one in the Pacific has to do with political representation. I mean, the Pacific Islands is at the bottom of the class with that. We just had Papua New Guinea, there's two women in Parliament of 111, and that was an increase in political representation. So they're really struggling, and frankly it's because of privileged protection and the financial benefits that flow from being a leader and there isn't a welcoming environment. So we've had lots of Australia policies for improving women's political representation, but you have to have a culture change and you have to have still a lot of push from outside as well as from inside. Having said that, I think it is Women's Day, and so I think it's time to celebrate what we do well as well. And the one issue that affects security globally in Australia, but also in the Pacific around the world is climate change. And the one place where we're seeing gender engagement and policy alignment very strongly is in humanitarian assistance and risk reduction. If you look at what's happening now in terms of preparedness, particularly in the Pacific, but we see this all around Australian communities, women's group and women are involved in ensuring that communities and place is prepared or are prepared for impacts. Women are being involved, and I know this in the Pacific, they're using digital technologies to assess the impacts because what you don't assess and what you don't evaluate, you don't see and you don't respond to, and that has happened in the past. So the response to disasters has been one of where males dominate in economies. Now we're getting a much better response to shelter, food security and those type of issues. So there is changes of foot. And even the way our development agencies are engaging after crisis with crack cash transfers that often goes to the women's group and women because they can help get the food security, the gardens, the shelter back up and running. And that's not to say males don't have a role. Of course they do. But there are times when women's engagement makes a significant difference. It's important to resilience. We want resilience. And therefore we've changed models to support women's engagement. So I think there's your positive story in amongst, I think a list we could go through of where there's been clashes. So keeping on that theme of keeping it positive, Jess, I'll ask you, you have this podcast series that you initiated taking a look at women in leadership in the Pacific. Can you talk about whether either in the Pacific or women in the world stage that you feel are currently making an impact that we should be paying attention to? What are they doing? Why? How are they positively influencing their region, their communities, but also setting an example globally? Yeah, sure. So I did do a podcast series last year and it was Women in Politics. And I was interviewing women from Papua New Guinea that were researchers, candidates for the election, and a former politician as well. And also somebody that was involved in an NGO that was helping to support women to go into politics and become candidates. And as Meg was saying, it is incredibly difficult for women to get into politics here. It can take years and years and a number of elections before you can finally get over the line. But as we saw last year at the election, we now have two women. So I think that leads nicely into the first two women that I will be watching closely over the coming years will be Governor of Funipita and Kessie Silang. And they have a tough road ahead of them because they do have to be able to deliver for their community, which is tough, they're first-time politicians. So they're going to have to be able to build up their support and use their base there. So, you know, whether they're able to get any gender equality initiatives over the line is something that, you know, may have to wait for the next term while they get more support there. We also have a new Gender Equality Ambassador that has been appointed by the Foreign Minister, Stephanie Coppers Campbell, and she's only just started out. But it will be interesting to see what she does in the region and what her vision is and how she can really translate all this talk about gender equality into action. Of course, we have a female Foreign Minister that is about to release development strategies. You know, what is she going to be doing for women? How is that core strategy going to focus on gender equality and really make an impact? And by the way, she has a majority of women on her team, which I think is just absolutely terrific. And this is where, you know, the leadership really has to shine through, that you don't just have women at the top. You have women around you as well, and you bring up everybody with you. We also have, back on the ambassadors, we have the US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, and she is a fierce gender advocate as well. And so she's also focused on the Pacific, so we'll just have to wait and see what she's going to be implementing as well. And in terms of the Pacific leaders, Fiammei Neomimata-Afa, the Samoan Prime Minister, she's a strong leader in the Pacific Islands Forum. She's in a very male-dominated environment, not just in her own country, but also in the Pacific Islands Forum as well. She gave a speech at the Pacific Islands Forum Women Leaders Meeting earlier this year, and last year, it all rolls into one. And, you know, she was saying that, you know, we need less talk, we need more action, we need to turn the rhetoric into, you know, positive change. And I really think that was a call to arms to all of the traditional donors as well to be able to step forward and drive that change. And she was the one who brought in quotas in Samoa for women. There will always be five women in the Samoan Parliament, and that is no mean feat. It exists nowhere else in the Pacific. She did that when she was Deputy Prime Minister and was a driving force to that, but as Jess is saying, she's a real spokesman to say, we have the model. Anybody who wants to take it on can. I think Benawatu has done so at the municipal level, you know, safe, keep it down low. But she is making a big difference and is chiefly. There's not many women in Samoa that have a Matai title and she does, and she's using it to advantage. So I guess that's for all of us too. When you get the privilege of having a voice, you use the voice. Well, maybe can you explain what having a Matai title is maybe for people who don't know? It's just a chiefly title and it's given to you from your village. So you have to have shown leadership, so it is not just inherited. You don't just get it because of who your father or your mother was, you earn it. And then when you have this title, it allows you to run for parliament. So everybody in the Samoan Parliament has a Matai title. She comes from a very chiefly family, but she also earned it and had to. But now that she has it and has been the Deputy Prime Minister, now the Prime Minister, you'll see her voice is very strong. And for those who watch the Pacific, you'll see in the Pacific Island Forum and in regional forums, she is an extremely strong spokesperson. Yes, yeah, you want to jump in. Just to add on to the Matai title, the biggest disadvantage for women in Samoa is that there are I think only about 8% of the villages allow women to take on that title. And so it really significantly disadvantages from the very start that women right across the country can't run for parliament there. There are seven women in the parliament there, so that's a result of the quota. But yeah, there is quite a disadvantage. So I told you, I learned something every time. I speak to my colleagues. I didn't know that dynamic. It's really interesting. Thanks for explaining it. Jen, what about you? Who are you watching on the world stage that you're paying attention to? Well, not because they're great leaders, but because they're fighting, you know, sort of what seems like a losing battle. I think on the whole, the women in China, whatever gains they've made over the last 40 years have been really rolled back. And I think a lot of the activists that have been really prominent in sort of advocating for women's rights, we might think the Me Too movement was just in the West, but it also did take roots in China. Huashui Qing, who was one of the first Me Too movement activists in China, is now jailed. So I'm looking at, you know, these women activists in China who sought to make room space for that kind of dialogue to happen of being really shut down. That's not just single individual activists, but also, you know, what we might think is fairly benign, sort of NGO civil society work, those that look and serve women who have been affected by domestic violence, those organizations are facing increasingly tightening civil society space in China. And that goes across the board, not just for gender activists, but across a number of issues as well. So, you know, I'm looking intently at as to what will happen to these women activists. And it's really a global issue, isn't it? I mean, I think back to parts of the world that I pay attention to. You know, we're seeing similar situations in Iran where women are at the forefront of protests and really bearing the brunt of all that. The situation in Afghanistan where education and opportunities have been decimated for women and girls. We had, I think it was last year, maybe a year-and-a-half now when the Taliban takeover happened. We had a very prominent women's advocate from Afghanistan, Fawzi Akufi, and I did a podcast with her. And you could tell her sustained commitment, but also her heartbreak at so many of the gains that have been pulled back, gains that, and rights and advantages that we often take for granted, but in many parts of the world, people are still, you know, clawing to hold on to and facing really big prices to pay for having those. And that kind of brings me to my next point that I want to explore, which is around that backlash against women's rights that we've kind of touched upon globally. And ask the panel what they think may be driving some of it. You know, and some of the work that I've been doing, say, on extremism and political violence, that's certainly been a massive issue, the rise in violent misogyny, whether it's, you know, the rise in kind of women being targeted as a class of people, say, through violent incel movements. Various ideological extremist stripes across the board have misogyny at their core. We've seen it, you know, with the disturbing example of the influence of someone like Andrew Tate has on young men nowadays. So that's kind of how I've been perceiving some of that stuff, more in the Western context and taking a look at it from extremism and political violence. But, Jen, how have you been viewing it from your vantage point? I think, you know, COVID, the pandemic and the lockdown across the world has been, you know, a terrible situation for many women, not just women in Australia, but women in China around the world. And we've seen rates of domestic violence increase across different communities and societies. Over the last several years, as I've mentioned earlier, you know, women, the space full of Chinese women to engage in these conversations have grown really small. Chinese society over the last couple of years have witnessed public attacks on women just last year in June in the province of Khenan, a group of eight or so women were out dining and one of the women rejected an advance of a male diner. And subsequently, he and other members of his group attacked the women for the women refusing their advances. And that really sparked public outrage. You know, women, there's a lot of online activity, a lot of online commentary is that how can this happen in 2022 when the rights of women are supposed to be enshrined in the Chinese Constitution. But I think a lot of that can be answered in terms of, you know, the gains that women have made over the last 40 years have been whittled away, not just by the conservative ideology as promulgated by Xi Jinping, but also in terms of women's participation in the labor force. That's decreased to 60% in 2019 from 73% in 1990. So I think that, you know, whatever gains women, Chinese women have made, whether in the economic sphere or in the public sphere, they've all been slowly whittled away. And I think one of the things that the party prides itself on is, you know, we are equal opportunities. We provide equal opportunities for men and women, but that is not the case, especially if you're working in this area of along the lines of domestic violence. Feminism is, you know, seen as a very dirty word in China. So I think, you know, one of the driving forces is ideology. Now we've got sort of poor economic headwinds for China. We're going to see that play out. It'll be interesting how that will play out for the women of China in terms of their labor force participation in the near future. Meg, do you have any reflections on kind of this backlash that we're seeing against feminism? I think we have to be careful with our terminology when I work with women in markets, et cetera, in the Pacific, because a backlash assumes that you've made gains and something's being taken away from you, as opposed to resistance for you to even rise up at all. If you look in the Pacific, we have huge gender equity gaps. We have gaps in payment. We have domestic, well, gender-based violence, which 60% of women have been subjected to. There's so many you could go on and on. There's so many of these variables where the Pacific hasn't even got to a point where you can have a backlash. You have a protective environment of male privilege. And so I have a friend that says, of course, the empire always strikes back. So you make a bit of a headway. And for social change, it doesn't matter whether it's about race, gender, whatever it is. As soon as you start to get traction, you know there's going to be a reaction to that from those protecting their privilege. And so in the Pacific, I think, more we have than backlash, we have a resistance for change, a holding back. And then we also get backsliding. It's more what I think it is about when we look at what's going on with COVID and disadvantage and people are becoming more marginalized. So there isn't even stopping the decline as it were or a poor situation getting worse. So sometimes, I think one has to be particularly sensitive in developing countries where you're working when you talk about a backlash because I know my colleagues, women colleagues in the Pacific just look at me like, we haven't even got to the point where that we could term this a backlash. We're being blocked. So I think sometimes you need to think about your place, your situation, and that goes to how you move forward. Sure, it's context specific wherever it is. But on the other side of things, we talked about women who are doing great things on the global stage that we're all paying attention to. But Jess, I thought I might ask you, kind of moving beyond individuals, do you see areas around the world or in the Pacific where there's really positive developments and policies that are going on that you think maybe we can emulate here or that globally should be a source of reflection and emulation? Yeah, well, I did mention at the start that Australia is in the bottom third of all OEC donors for its gender equality financing. We can learn from what Canada is doing. We can learn from what Iceland is doing, you know, pushing up those numbers. But in terms of, you know, looking inward and what Australia is actually doing within its own country, I think it rates very poorly against its close, well, it's one of its closest neighbours, New Zealand. Now, New Zealand is ranked fourth on the global gender, the global gender gap index. Australia is ranked at 43. So there's a big difference there. And, you know, having three female Prime Ministers I think makes a difference. The gender pay gap makes a difference, but having more women in business at high levels of management and leadership also makes a difference. So there's a lot that we can be learning from New Zealand, not just in gender equality but in other areas as well. A country that I would be not so much emulating, but perhaps watching closely is the United States. Now, the United States is about to implement a 10-year strategy in Papua New Guinea. It's the Global Fragility Act, and it's going to be addressing drivers of conflict, and they are going to be hopefully putting gender equality at the centre of that as well for their initiatives. Now, they're coming with a small budget. They, you know, the advice is to link in with the locally led initiatives, whether they do that or not is something to be saying. So I'll definitely be watching them to see how they go forward with that strategy. So you'd mentioned, Jess, that it helped kind of New Zealand, or you thought it helped New Zealand, that it had, you know, female leaders, female leaders. In Australia, you know, we've had a female Prime Minister. We've had two women foreign ministers across both parties, both Labour and Liberal. Julie Bishop, Liberal Party, Penny Wong for Labour. I'm wondering what, you know, the panel thinks about what having more women in leadership positions at the highest levels of national security and foreign policy makes in terms of an actual difference when it comes to promoting gender equity or benefiting women. So, Jen, I might ask you first. Yeah, I think so if we sort of look at the gender ratio in key Australian government areas, whether that be sort of national security or foreign policy or intelligence related fields, women are underrepresented in that workforce. I think one of the glimmer of hope that we've seen sort of is that while women now have equal or near equal representation in leadership positions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the department over the last several years has suffered, you know, a number of cuts towards operational budget. And that while there might be, you know, leadership opportunities for women, those leadership opportunities are shrinking. So less opportunities means less women at higher positions of leadership. And so I think that presents a problem. So it's not just women not having equal access, but the opportunities to access those positions is dependent on resources. Now, in 2019, one of our former research directors, Alex Oliver, published a low institute paper and found that women were underrepresented across the Australian intelligence community, including at senior executive levels where it was well below the APS average of 45%. And so I think if we're sort of to be sort of role models in the region, then we need to indicate this in our own workforce that whether it's foreign policy or national security or intelligence. So I think, you know, there's still some ways for Australia to go. Meg, what are your thoughts? One of my thoughts is I'd love to know now the intelligence community at the moment has a lot of women that have risen to the top. So, you know, it might be time for Lori to take another look at that. I think it's important, but I don't think you can put too much stock in it, right? If the institutions and the cultures don't change, having a couple women at the top will not transform the system, frankly. It might help, but it's not going to be necessarily transformative. So I think one has to be honest about that. It's nice to have the role models because it gives you ambition. It's nice to have the women there because they put things on the agenda that I dare say men wouldn't, and my best example of that would be Dame Meg Taylor when she was the head of the Pacific Island Forum. And one of the five key areas for action was action on women's health and survival of cancer. Well, just a guess, but I don't think that would have happened under a male head of the Pacific Island Forum. So there is an opportunity sometimes when women come up to the top to see these other issues arise. I guess my big butt in all of this is great for Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, but change happens at lower scales. And when I look at my own work, the women that have been amazingly inspirational have been the women who have been leaders in police forces against the odds and insisting on trading opportunities for those women that normally wouldn't get it, and even though they're police officers, they'd sit there doing clerical work. When you look at the women that have taken a stand to have safe transport so women can actually work and get in and out of the city to transform agricultural systems to make markets, food markets safe, which is where 80, 90% are women working in those markets, and not to be subject to male management to take back that control and have female management of those spaces. So we should never, I think, take as insignificant women's leadership in community and at state level, and with, I think, Jess's work in podcasts and the leaders, they usually start at the local level. They manage the market. They got up through the provincial government. So it is sort of the incubator for the future. So important to get more and more women up in leadership positions, absolutely. But that in itself may not change the game. And it shouldn't be the only marker of success for females and women in terms of where we're going. Jess, what do you make of this issue? Yeah, I mean, I agree with Meg. I think that, you know, we may have leaders at the top, but they're still in the Pacific operating in very male environments. And so an example is Fiamme, Marta Alpha, trying to get funding for domestic violence into the budget. And the opposition was picking up a real fuss about that. You know, and she accused them of politicizing the issue, but, you know, pointers that, you know, having a leader, a female leader doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to move forward on gender equality initiatives. It's still a very tough environment. So I think before we open it up to audience questions, I might ask the panelists to kind of reflect on your personal experience. You know, you're all very accomplished, obviously, in your own right. You know, you've made formidable careers in foreign policy and national security, but can you reflect on kind of your professional experiences, whether you felt there either have been barriers to entry in some of the, in your journey, you know, in your career journey or barriers around retention or even advancement? And, you know, Jen, I might start with you and also ask you a related question if you had any thoughts about, you know, have there been other extra challenges or considerations, say for someone of a non-anglo-calctic background in the Australian context, for example? Yeah. So I come to this position having been an academic for many years. And so my viewpoint is, you know, one that sort of spans across sort of different, two different sectors. But I would say, you know, working on the project, sort of surveying Chinese Australians and their sentiments towards life in Australia and geopolitics, their sense of belonging, how they see bilateral relations between Australia and China, that has been a real insight into how the community reflects geopolitics or perceives geopolitics. And I think one of the challenges for me and working in this space is how to present this voice, the diversity of voices around bilateral relations and geopolitics in a way to very esteemed colleagues as not just community voices, but as voices that actually matter, that may have some resonance or might actually have some possible different ways of thinking about bilateral relations or, you know, geopolitics. And, you know, I think when we're thinking about Australia as an inclusive multicultural society, how to include a diversity of voices that may shape or have input into the future of Australia's bilateral relations with China or Indo-Pacific. I think one of the biggest challenges is how to communicate those views without being pigeon-toed as the woman with the community voices in foreign policy. Jess, what about you? I've had a pretty positive experience. I was a young person going through academia as well before I came here. And I think the biggest thing for me was, you know, academia, it's quite flexible. You know, it's good for women starting families, all that sort of stuff. But there are a lot of men as well that were really supportive of me. And I think that's absolutely key that, you know, when we're talking about gender equality, we have to make sure that men are on board too. It's great to see some gentlemen in the crowd tonight listening to what we have to say. But I think, you know, key to my career and, you know, the support that I've had has been from my colleagues, my managers, bosses, supervisors. And I look here in Lowy Institute as well, and they've done such a terrific job of making sure that there are a lot of women working here. You know, it's something that I would expect as a young person. But, you know, I think we should count ourselves, you know, lucky I think we're making some great strides here. I definitely echo your point about the importance of kind of male mentorship and allyship in this. I mean, I always say as well, when I've been asked this question, you know, I got my start in this field, which had a reputation of being very male dominated around national security and counterterrorism by being mentored by someone named Admiral Steve Abbott. And he and I's experience could not be further from each other. I mean, his came from this long, you know, history of his family in the Navy. His family literally came on the Mayflower. You could not get more white and waspy, you know, my family migrated from the Middle East in the 80s. But his mentorship and support, and similarly, if so many people, not just women, but across the, you know, the diversity of the field that we work in is really important. So, yeah, I'd share that experience with you, Meg. Well, you've got a panel of a bunch of ex-academics, I think, and probably very privileged women who chose a career path and were able, unlike in many places of the world, able to have it. I'll probably show my age, but when I was, my first job was at Monash University in the Geography and Environmental Science program, and I was the first woman to get that, you know. This is in, I'm thinking of my son was born. So in 1990, basically, first woman. And I had very supportive colleagues. But I must say sometimes sexism or gender issues is not knowingly done. And I know that every staff meeting was about he, and let me tell you, there were female students in this place, but male, the pronoun just was for everybody. And I used to get a red pen and correct it. Probably didn't make me popular, but sometimes I think you've got to decide you have this position, you can call it out, and you can live to see another day. So someone's got to be part of it. Lydia and I was talking, I can remember when I first got there, the boys on a Friday would go for drinks at the bar, and it was just assumed that a female wouldn't want to come to the bar. So I'd be sitting there and the whole staff, basically, would just be off, and I'm like, well, what happened there? And then I learned that it was pub night on Friday for drinks at about four o'clock. And as soon as you said you wanted to come along, that was just fine. I think women supporting other women is really important. When I joined the Office of National Assessments, there was probably about five of us who were doing intelligence analysis at that time. And we just decided we wanted a space, not because we didn't have amazing male colleagues, and we absolutely did, and we had an opportunity to rise up. But sometimes you just want a female space, and I think that's okay. I'd like to apologize that. So we had women who whine that we would break for every two or three months. And I got to tell you, the women who whine are still, it's still going on in the now Office of National Intelligence. So obviously really popular because I think it's about 50%, and I'd like to go and have a look, because it might be more than 50% women now. But I think, yes, we've been privileged, but there's also an opportunity from a position of privilege to call things out, to create spaces, and that's just okay. That's what we do, and that's part of being part of a change process. So, yeah, so you've got your academics, you've got your privileged ladies up at the front. But I think we've all had our own challenges and opportunities to make a difference, and we make the most of it. Well, yeah, it's certainly one perspective and the diversity of perspectives of women around the world. So, over to the you audience. Do you have any questions for our panelists? We have time to take a few. Middle there. Hi, my name is Sonja Kolbacher. I guess the question I have is, I'm a master's student at UNSW, and I have been reading a lot about gender and foreign policy and how I suppose it's embedded or becoming more embedded in what are considered like soft areas of foreign policy like aid, development, humanitarian responses, but not what are considered more masculine like intelligence, security, military, et cetera. I guess I wanted to get your perspective on, in those spaces, is there a growing appetite to embedding gender? And also, I'm going to be really cheeky and throw in a half second one if I can. A lot of the rhetoric and conversation around feminism is about it representing a very kind of Anglo-Celtic view and not taking in racially marginalized, diverse women's voices. In your work to kind of embed gender or to see the embedding of gender and foreign policy, where is that part of the conversation occurring if at all to open up the space and include diverse voices? Thanks. Thanks. I mean, two really good questions. I mean, as someone, personally for me, someone who kind of works in spaces around intelligence, national security, counter-terrorism, that kind of thing, certainly I've noticed a more focus on gender in terms of how it impacts violent extremism formation, how it could serve as a motivating factor, how it features in particular ideologies, the role of emotion in kind of these hard expressions of violence as well. And so as there's, in the areas that I work in, that's definitely come to the fore much, much more prominently over the years. And I think a lot of that has to do with that grade of recognition that Meg alluded to earlier around how gender is not devoid of these things and also the great work a lot of women colleagues in this space, whether it be academics or policy makers or practitioners. What about the rest of the panel? How would you reflect on that question? Meg, do you want to? I think in my time, and I was 10 years in the office of national assessments in that area, you crisscrossed defense, defense intelligence organizations, et cetera. And I would certainly say, one, there's a lot more women in numbers and that forces change. There certainly are the policies and they're not just about gender, they're about diversity as well. So it's there, but as you know, first you put words on paper, you know, you don't walk the talk kind of thing and then it slowly gets pushed and it's transformed. Even within the intelligence community there is talk about diversity because we understand we have huge gaps if you do it always from a Western perspective and you're trying to explain a society change processes, you miss things all the time just like if you don't take a gendered perspective. So I guess my experience would be that both are changing and what tends to happen is the policy comes first and it's great disappointment for people watching because the policy sits there and does nothing for a while and then it slowly, slowly starts to pick up ahead of steam. There's a lot of work on analysis and different lenses and there's all sorts of different words that get put on it but this understanding that we've had blind spots in the past and we have to have ways to deal with those blind spots and I think some of Jen's work at looking at opinions with even within our community of the Chinese but other ethnic groups helps us to understand that sometimes you think you know the answer and you don't till you ask and we always get surprised doesn't matter whether you're working in squatter settlements or you're working in prime minister's offices you assume something, you ask the question and you find out there's a very different answer that you haven't thought of and I think analytical techniques are trying to capture that and hauling that a bit but we're not there yet but I think we're a heck of a lot further than we were 20 years ago, for example. Yeah, certainly, I mean taking a look at different parts of the world where women might have placed more value on traditional gender roles, for example that type of perspective can sometimes clash by what we think coming out from a western context should be the promotion of gender equity, for example so certainly you see those dynamics Jess, Jen, do you have anything to add? To the second question, yes so the Australian government has been funding for the past 10 years Pacific women shaping Pacific development they didn't make many gains in that unfortunately but they've now just shifted it to Pacific women lead and it should be running for the next 10 years and I think the important thing about that is that Pacific women will be driving the change and the gender equality investments right across the Pacific and same thing will be happening in the pub and you can either get a new program that will be starting up soon called P&G women lead I think then we're really respecting that our views of gender equality and equality, what should be done not done, may not match with theirs and that's when it feeds into this we should be supporting locally led initiatives just as I was saying before with United States going into Papua New Guinea and really integrating there with all the organizations and all the good work that's already been done there because at the end of the day there's been really complex social political and cultural systems that are really hard for an administration like United States to be able to come in and work in there and what you find is that the gender equality programs that they've used around the world and they have used a lot probably not going to work in Papua New Guinea so they can't just copy and paste so that's why it's really important to be able to integrate the programs locally led initiatives Michael Args Thank you first of all thank Michael Fully Love from the Lower Institute thank you to my colleagues for a really fabulous panel chaired so well as always by Lydia like Lydia I always learn a lot when I talk to or listen to my colleagues so thank you I want to ask about women leaders and I remember being in Port Moresby with Jess and Megan Governor Rafina Peter and having so much admiration for her pluck and drive to get to that position but I want to ask you about leaders in the Nordic and Scandinavian countries actually because one of the most impressive people I think we hosted at the institute last year was Sonna Marin who was belittled by conservatives and by the media for dancing but as we saw on this stage she was a particular tough smart and really made a powerful argument why the world has to stand up against Russia's brutal, unprovoked unjustified invasion of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of and of course Finland is moving towards NATO membership and the Prime Minister of Sweden at least when that process was started was also a female and the Prime Minister of Estonia who's also been incredibly strong in her arguments against Putin's invasion has also just received a big mandate in parliamentary elections this week so can I just ask you to reflect on their their leadership because sometimes people make the assumption that female leaders are more focused on non-traditional security issues or whatever but here I mean apart from Zelensky himself who's leading the defense of his own country I can't think and perhaps Biden I can't think of any other leaders who've been so articulate and strong in pinning Vladimir Putin for what he's doing so can I ask anyone who'd like to talk about that to reflect on those leaders thank you Well I think Michael's question kind of brings two points to mind for me and I don't know about the rest of the panel women and particularly leadership positions are often held to different standards than male leaders as we saw with the Finnish Prime Minister but also to especially in the European context and their juxtaposition with Putin who has positioned himself as a strong man leader who has really leaned very heavily into patriarchy as something to be promoted globally in contrast to gender equity so your question brings to mind those two points but thinking the rest of the panel if you had any reflections Jen maybe start with you Well I mean I guess my reflection was simply along the lines of when you see such a media threat what choices do you have either as a leader as a woman leader or as a male leader so I think that immediacy of threat really provokes certain action and reaction and so I the examples you've raised Michael really will be good examples and case studies to compare how women who are being put into existential threat situation respond whether it's an initial reaction or is this something that is part of the national characteristics of Finland Estonia Russia is always looming and so they're sort of innately prepared to lead You can come at it from a very different angle probably because I've lived in Denmark so I should announce that but I think it comes to different institutions and cultures in Scandinavia there is a very strong social justice theme that runs through right from high school all the way up collective action we didn't do coming from Canada which North America is more individualistic I can't think of once doing a group project I can't think of once in high school in Denmark where we were allowed to do an individual project they were all joint projects but there were Canadians had to learn so I think there's a cultural difference there's an institutional difference in at least Denmark and I think Sweden too childcare is free that creates immense opportunity for women university is free so it's about merit it's not about financial resources so I think the starting place for those women their culture, their institutions the opportunities they've had is different and they've got a more receptive environment now having said that even the Finnish Prime Minister got the backlash as you mentioned but you know what if you looked at the paper there was a backlash but most thought that was ridiculous and I think most in Scandinavia understand that there is an opportunity for a person to be who they are so I think they don't have as many constraints and restrictions coming through and more opportunities to lead and more support within their society to lead in a stronger route in social justice and thinking about collective action and social justice from a very very young age so I mean that would be sort of my insight I look at that situation so I think we have time for one or two more questions if there's any can we take the two questions at the same time and then leave it to the panel thank you I'm Natasha I work in the Australia and the Australian investment space my question primarily what really comes out of this discussion is that the challenges for women actually look very different in different parts of the world and women in power as Meg said doesn't really translate for women in power you know actually bringing women in power for all now I'm requesting the panel here to throw some light on the theme of this year's International Women's Day which is cracking the code what does cracking the code really means and I say this and please correct me if I'm wrong where I believe that women like us women we have always cracked this code when we get married when our lives get disrupted when we have kids so disruption and transformation actually go hand in hand with who we are what we are so what does it mean there are scenarios where deep structural sexism exist where there are social constructs which are difficult to fight and in day to day scenarios where we are working in spaces where it's difficult to even react or act or acknowledge what's going around you how you as individuals would want to crack the code what does it mean who should really crack the code we as women or the world around us okay big question with that in the back of your mind individuals versus institutions hi I'm Caitlin my question is more around Australia's foreign policy and how we should approach different areas of the world where gender is very much like a gender saying I'm thinking of the Middle East and how we should approach gender issues and especially from Australian foreign policy like Penny Wong has deliberately made statements against the treatment of women in Iran but we still have somewhat close ties with Saudi Arabia so how should the Australian foreign policy change and I'm asking you for perspectives on that thank you so that's kind of another reflection on that earlier one around the clashes of other priorities national security priorities and the promotion of gender equity Jess maybe I'll give each of the panelists a chance to comment on either or both of those questions and Jess I'll start with you yeah thanks for your question I think you know as I was talking before about that Pacific perspective on gender and you know the codes are different wherever you go and I think it's important for everybody to be getting on board it's not about the institution it's not about the individuals it's about the leaders it's about the collective it's about everybody and I think it's really important as I was saying before having men on board there's an interesting outcome there that when women become more educated they're actually experiencing more domestic violence and that signifies that men aren't going on that journey as well and so when you are empowering women you have to empower the men along or take them on the journey at the very least and make sure that and this is something that's in the international development strategy for Australia as well that you do no harm when you're across the region Jen yeah I think to your question cracking the code I think this is a collective issue and one that needs to be solved by all stakeholders whether individuals institutions, government and we all have a stake we're thinking about sort of national security and that is the security of us all here and we need a diversity of voices men, women culturally and linguistically diverse voices and neurodiversity as well so I think this is a challenge for our institutions in the years to come how do we reflect those in the institutions and in the workforce make up that are tasked to solve really complex situations as the world gets increasingly complex we need a range of potential policy interventions men yeah I think building on Jess's comment I mean the problem is the title isn't it cracking the code as there's one code and one way to crack it and your own comments build on that of the diversity a really strong theme in gender research is now on localization and that goes to the sort of things that have been talked about about partnerships I think women also get a lot of strength from their networks and we certainly in developing countries talk about it's just inspiring to go overseas sometimes and go to those international meetings and share experiences and hear ideas but in the end they filter it and bring it back in their own way and there's got to be opportunities to do that so it's probably cracking the codes just to give that sense because that has to be part of it the localization the partnerships the networks that support from within without the other question is also I think really interesting because it's like you shift your values depending on whether you like the place or not and it is about if your foreign policy has core values it has to have core values everywhere and economics can't start tainting it it does because mixed into the mix is always national interests and so we're balancing multiple things when they do foreign policy but I think you do have to have a strong compass on what is the value base that you're sticking to and I think society voters and all of us have to raise it when we think that value base is shifting for convenience in a way that's detrimental for women well if I do say so I think this event ended up being in one of the better international women's day columns and I think that that has to do a lot with my colleagues here joining me on the panel so please join me in thanking them and please also applause applause and please also try to join us for future Lowy Institute events and you can find that out either by joining the mailing list or seeing our website we have a lot of interesting and exciting events coming up. Thank you again and have a good evening.