 Tonight, we are joined by two leading women of Australian history. The first female Prime Minister and the first female Governor-General, who both served in office together, the Honourable Julia Gillard, AC, and the Honourable Dan Quentin Bryce, ADCVO. Welcome Julia and Quentin. It's great pleasure to have you here with us tonight at the National University, even if virtually. The Honourable Julia Gillard, AC, was sworn in as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia, June 2010, and served in office until June 2013. During her time as Prime Minister, we saw nation-changing reforms to Australian education at every level, from early childhood to higher education, an emissions trading scheme to combat climate change, and the establishment of the nation's first-ever national disability scheme, which has helped improve the lives of thousands of Australians living with disabilities every single day. Julia's term in office as Prime Minister was met in some circles, but by behavior that attempted to demean her leadership through what can only be described as misogynistic behavior. Despite this, she continued to be a fierce advocate for female empowerment and consistently demonstrated her true grit and determination in her leadership of the country throughout her entire time in office. She addressed the gender pay gap for social and community workers and addressed Parliament in 2012 with a speech on misogyny that received worldwide attention, and that attention continues today. It's even trending as a TikTok video of 2020, and I think that's the highest praise you can get in 2020 right now, Julia. Julia's legacy extends far beyond her time in Parliament. She continues to advocate for women's right, education, and mental health. It is an honor to have Julia as part of our ANU community through the establishment of a sister institute to the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, which Julia founded at King's College in London. This institute brings together research, practice, and advocacy to help to continue break down barriers for women by addressing women's underrepresentation in leadership. We are excited to be able to partner with the institute and Julia on this important work. Julia is also the chair for the Australian Not-for-profit organization Beyond Blue, chair of the Global Partnership for Education, a patron of the campaign for female education, and was recently announced as the next chair of the UK's Welcome Trust. Now, I've just received my signed copy of Julia's new co-authored book, Women in Leadership, and I'm really looking forward to reading it. It will no doubt be a brilliant read written by two extraordinary individuals. And of course, that's what we're going to be talking about tonight. I'd also like to introduce our host for this evening, the Honorable Dame Quentin Bryce. Quentin was sworn in as Australia's 25th Governor-General in September 2008. She was the first ever female to serve as Governor-General of our nation. In addition to her life in politics, Quentin has enjoyed a distinguished career in academia, law, community, and has been an advocate for human rights inequality. Quentin was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia in 1988, a companion of the Order of Australia in 2003, and in recognition of her contributions to advancing human rights equality and the rights of women and children. Following her term served as Governor-General, Quentin was appointed Dame of the Order of Australia in March 2014. So thank you very much, Julian Quentin, for being here tonight. I'd also like to thank Colin Steele, convener and founder of the A&U Meet the Author series. Colin's continued work for 30 years has brought a high caliber of authors to this university over many, many years. And tonight is, of course, no exception and indeed a pinnacle in the long-running series. So without further ado, it is my pleasure to hand over to you, Quentin, and let you to it. Thank you. Good evening, my friends. Thank you, Brian, for your kind introduction. I pay my respect to the traditional keepers of this land on the curve of the Brisbane River, the Torebore and Niagara people. And I acknowledge the inspiring, wise, Indigenous women who've taught me across my life what it means to be an elder. And Colin Steele, our gratitude to you, as Brian has mentioned, your marvellous work across decades for the Meet the Author series. It's a delight for me, an absolute thrill, to be talking to our former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, about her latest book, Women and Leadership, Real Lives, Real Lessons. Julia, who could ever have imagined that we'd be meeting like this as COVID-19 sweeps through humanity? Tough times for our planet and for every single person on it. A time calling out for leadership, leadership to listen to. It has been suggested, I've noted, that women-led nations are doing better in the pandemic. Congratulations to you and to your co-author, Ngozi, on this utterly engaging, energetic exploration, searching for answers to a profound question. Why are there so few national women leaders? In 2020, the number is 13. Julia, I recall our first meeting with Ngozi, then Nigeria's Finance Minister in Perth in 2011 at Choghurt, which you chaired. You'd kindly agreed to my convening a meeting in the margins on empowering women to lead. I recall you on the stage with the three other women Commonwealth heads of government at the end of a long, long day. With that thought in my mind, how does she do it? I have the opportunity often to observe the characteristics of your leadership from a unique perspective. And now today, Ngozi chairs Gaby, the Vaccine Alliance, and you, the Global Partnership for Education, both organisations working for the poorest children in the world. Both of you with a long list of important influential roles, international meetings galore, and often you are at the same ones, becoming friends. Indeed, friendship shines through this book and that's what particularly appeals to me, it sets the tone, it brings the vacity and authenticity, personal, warm storytelling, some outrageous humour. But all underpinned, I stress, with the power of the data, academic rigour, sophisticated critical analysis. This is a big, ambitious book. And I want to ask you, how did you actually do it, the two of you together? Well, thank you so much, Quentin, for that lovely introduction and there is a tremendous symmetry about the two of us being on here now. Not only did you swear me in as Prime Minister, not only were you there when I first met Ngozi because it was at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting that I first met her, my co-author, but you launched my first book, My Story. So, it's tremendous to be back together again, talking about another book. This was a different experience for me. When I wrote My Story, obviously, it was, you know, me focusing on my time in politics and writing from my own memories of that time. This because we worked up the idea together in the margins of international meetings, we would be muttering to each other about what was happening with women leaders around the world and then Hillary lost and we were then really motivated to try and make a difference. So we said, yes, we're going to write a book. And then we settled on the foundation stones that you see in this book. We wanted it to bring the psychological and gender research and we wanted it to bring women leaders' stories and to put the two together and particularly to say, does the research hold true in the real world? And we then worked from there to a comprehensive concept note and we adopted this structure of hypotheses that we wanted to draw from the research and then get our women leaders to respond to. So the structure of the book that you see has been with us for a long time. Then we had to counter around the world and do the interviews and that took the longest time because the women leaders we were meeting were incredibly busy. We were busy, so to find the times when the stars all aligned was quite difficult. When it came to the writing process, we agreed because you can only really have one master copy that I would hold the pen and hold the master copy and I would go back and forth with Ngozi and she would write sections and then I would incorporate them. Then we would both go through bits and edit using the track changes function that everybody's probably frustratingly all too familiar with. And we just worked like that. So a lot of time speaking to each other, some time working directly together but a lot of it done virtually and online. So if anything we were getting ready for the COVID era by spending so much time collaborating in that manner and then it all came together in the months of lockdown where she's been in Washington, I've been in Adelaide and we did the final polishing and the book is there for everybody now. I must say I'm impressed by the way you introduce the eight women leaders. Some of them are better known than others to us here in Australia but certainly Canada is their hallmark in describing their pathways to power and explaining the world through their eyes and one can only be deeply struck by the courage, the risks, the violence, the sacrifices, the horrific abuse coming through many of the stories, things we couldn't imagine, the imprisonment terms in jail, poverty. But in the midst of these vicissitudes, service, selflessness, determination in space and ideas, passion for progressive change. So how did you in Ngozi choose the leaders? Well, actually the first choice we needed to make was were we going to focus on political leaders or were we going to approach women leaders more broadly and we debated that back and forth and decided to focus on political leaders, one because there's only so much you can do in a book and we knew that around about eight leaders was probably the maximum number we could tell the tales and work it through with the research in the way that we wanted to. So we talked about it and decided we would focus on political leaders not because we wanted the book only to be about political leadership but we thought the spotlight on women is at its brightest, its hottest, its harshest when it comes to the public stage that is politics and when the people you ultimately have to interact with is the mass of the community with voters. So we made that decision. And then we knew we wanted this to be a truly global book and so that meant we were looking for leaders around the world and Ngozi of course, coming from Nigeria was a very keen that Africa be strongly represented. And so that then, you know, find us down again and we said, well, let's look at a number of serving women leaders. Let's look at some who have ended their political careers and then we added to, you know, we've got presidents and prime ministers but in our look at political leadership we couldn't walk past Hillary Clinton given her campaign experience I think is the thing that so many women around the world have been disheartened by and motivated by all at the same time. I mean, millions of women rallied around the world after she lost the 2016 election. And we wanted to also have someone who could speak from being at international meetings and focusing on the economy. And so we approached Christine Lagarde from the IMF and that's what gives you the class of women in the book. You know, from Norway to the UK to New Zealand to Liberia, Malawi, Chile, Hillary, Christine, it is there for people to see. And I do hope that one of the delights of this book for people in Australia is it enables them to hear the stories of women that we're less familiar with because their countries just aren't routinely in our news cycle. So we don't get to learn about them the way we might know, for example, about Jacinda Ardern or Theresa May. And of course, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's come into focus recently, too, the inquiry she's doing. Yes, she has. So she and Helen Clark are undertaking the inquiry for the WHO into the virus and two fantastic and formidable women to do it. What about striking qualities that you observed them to have in common? Well, we, looking across all of these women, obviously they've achieved, they've been genuine leaders and we knew that that experience would bring insights. Beyond that, we also wanted to have a variety of perspectives. So these are not women from one side of the party political divide. There are conservative women, progressive women, countries where the political spectrum and the issues that are to the forefront don't necessarily fit with our conceptions in Australia about the right and the left. It's issues beyond that. For example, Liberia emerging from civil war. So we looked for that diversity, but we also looked for women who have been prepared to talk about gender. And that does vary across the group. Some of these women have been very forward leaning on talking about their experiences as women leaders. I'm thinking here, for example, of Michelle Bachelet, who in between her two periods of being president of Chile served as the first ever leader of UN women. But we also wanted to include women who didn't necessarily foreground it all that way, but who had made a contribution to the debate. So Theresa May had set up before she was Prime Minister a conservative party organisation called Women to Win. So each of them we thought would have spent a lot of time considering gender issues and therefore the insights would be personal experience, but also a deeper analysis. I thought at a more personal level, there was across the group a sense of a secure childhoods encouragement at an early age in their environments, too. I kept asking myself about those questions, what were the qualities that motivate them and drove them because they were certainly all very brave, courageous pioneers? They certainly were. And the first sort of hypothesis we drill into is whether there is something in family background that helps build a female leader. And even though life was so very different for each of them, all of them said that they grew up in families where they were taught to aim high, none of them was hot house, none of them was told the family will think you're a failure unless you end up being a president or a prime minister. It wasn't that experience, but it was an experience where no one told them no. No one said to them, either their mother nor their father said to them, oh, those jobs there for the boys, those leadership positions, that's what boys do. Well, that won't be your life. They were never told that. So there was something enabling about the environment. But whilst it was enabling in that psychological sense, many of them came from the deepest of poverty. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's father in Liberia was an indigenous leader, but he died when she was quite young. Her family was thrown into poverty. Joyce Bander comes from a poorer country and a poorer background. Michelle Bachelet's father was a general and was one of the elite of her country. But then, of course, there was the military dictatorship and the overthrow. He was imprisoned and tortured to death. So these women, many of them overcame unbelievable obstacles to end up where they are and with the leadership experiences that they've got to share. Yes, I remember with great affection, Michelle Bachelet staying with us during her visit to Australia at Yarra Lumla. And I hosted an official lunch for her and I managed to find Mavis Robertson, whom you might remember. Michelle stayed with that family when Michelle and her family came to Australia during the Pinnishay time. So there was a lovely reunion. But I was struck, by the way, as all of these women show through their actions more than their words, how committed and dedicated and hardworking they were to what they were doing. That, you know, getting to know some of them and especially having them in what was then our home, observing how hard they worked. You know, that they weren't sitting around, you know, after dinner in the evening. It was upstairs. They seldom had many people there to support them. But, you know, into the work, I was very taken by that, really. It's a theme across what the women say, that one of the strategies that they had to employ in order to be seen as good as the men, you know, these women faced off doubters, people who thought that they couldn't do it. And because they knew that there was that doubt, it seemed to have bred in each of them an incredible work ethic and always wanting to be on top of the brief, always being the one who can, you know, present and command the information because they know that there are some people who are looking for that slightest crack of doubt. You know, oh, I knew she wasn't up to it. She's made a mistake. She's got that wrong. And it's an incredible differential pressure, really, that, you know, you don't get much forgiveness if there are mistakes. And we do structure a whole chapter around that as a hypothesis, whether women pay a greater price for errors because women are still unusual in leadership. And so if they fail, that is seen as a comment not just on them as an individual, but on all women. And so they have that additional frame around them as people look at what they're doing and judge its worth. I love the testing of the hypothesis. Eight of them, it seems to be a bit of a theme of age in the structure of this book. I don't know what that means. But, you know, there's this generosity of spirit, really, that flows through the conversations, not to say that they're not robust and wise, very much the personal as well as the political, of course. Loads of practical, good advice all learned the hard way. But I must say the titles really resonated, those hypotheses that you tested, of course, with the evidence, and as you've commented many times, it's rather difficult to do in many cases because there's only very small studies that you can do because of the paucity of numbers. But, you know, the you go girl. And I think that that's a theme that you are very into now and that your message that comes through all of the leaders, really, about encouraging and supporting young women's hopes and aspirations for political office, but making sure that they're making informed choices, that they're prepared and not just to go on, you can do it, you know, in a push between the shoulder blades, but much more than that, the wisdom of lived experience. That's right. I mean, we want people, I mean, we want people from different walks of life and different pathways as to what they want to do in the future to read the book. But we certainly want women who are aspiring to leadership, whether that's political leadership, corporate leadership, university leadership, you know, civil society leadership. We want them to, you know, have the book as a resource and it would have been insulting people's intelligence if we just said, you know, you go for it, you want to be a leader, you know, all to the good, off you go. Because women know, everyone knows that there's still a gendered bit. There's still going to be days when the treatment of that woman will be lesser and different simply because she's a woman. And so we want the book to stand for the proposition, you go for it, but go for it forewarned and forearmed, knowing that there will be times when you face this different treatment. And perhaps, you know, we want you to take the space to think in advance what your strategies will be when that moment comes, rather than being blindsided, which many women, you know, who step into leadership then feel quite taken aback, mugged, when that gendered moment does happen. We want it to be a rallying cry, though, for more than women who are aspiring. We want it to be a book that gives strategies to everyone to make a difference in the world and make a difference for women in leadership. And so, you know, whether it's just the simple task of making sure that everyone in a group gets to speak and it's not the men who take all of the airtime, the women get some of the airtime, through to people who have power using that power to make a difference for women. We're urging everyone to do that and we're putting some suggestions. We have put some suggestions in the book as to how that can be done. On, you know, what difference it ultimately makes for girls, we do talk about a study in India in the book that shows very clearly that villages that ended up led by women, the next generation of girls, not only was inspired by the role-modelling effect, but it had a practical impact in the here and now. Girls in those villages studied harder and did better at school because they knew that there was this potential pathway forward for them. So there is a virtuous circle here, if we can mobilise to get more women leaders, then we will make it easier for the next generation and the generation after that. And I know that's something you've thought about across your life and made a huge difference to through your own work and something that I've been very focused on since leaving politics. I do want it to be easier for the next woman. I must say something I enjoy more and more as I get older and I see it as a responsibility for us who are elders now to give that nourishment and encouragement. You talk quite a lot about the sponsoring and mentoring, but, you know, there's the very practical issue that's raised about how much time that takes for leaders themselves and how often, when you're in a top leadership role, particularly in politics, you're asked to fulfil those roles, but how incredibly time consuming they are. But also, I think there's some really interesting discussion about the power and the effects of different approaches and a conclusion that comes back to really the strength of networking itself. But I loved some of the hypotheses. I must say, you know, it's all about the hair and women's appearances and those jokes we've all been having with each other forever. I remember when I was sworn in as Governor of Queensland, the picture on the front page of the newspaper was most dismembered ankle and foot, really, to show my green shoes I was wearing. You know, so many things we can laugh about. But, you know, it's fascinating to see the way Hillary analyses all that and talks about the time that it took her during her campaign to have her appearance, you know, up to scratch with the hair and the makeup and the blah, blah. Yes, we take that hypothesis about appearance. We really took the chapter title, it's all about the hair, from a statement that Hillary made because she joked that the book she wrote about her time as Secretary of State, where she had visited more than 100 countries representing the US. You couldn't have a more intense or important job, really, than the one she was doing in the Obama administration other than being a president yourself. And she said she thought she should call that 112 countries and it's still all about the hair, the scrunchy chronicles, because so much of the coverage of her trips around the world was about how she took to pulling her hair back in a ponytail with a, you know, scrunchy fabric covered elastic band because, you know, that was the only way she could manage it with the intensity of the work. So, yes, these appearance questions are different for women. We talk about who's minding the kids because family structures are much more inquired into for women leaders. And we talk, you know, perhaps a bit controversially, we have a chapter entitled She's a Bit of a Bitch and another one called Shrill or Soft the Style Conundrum, where we're trying to get to the way in which women have to weave strength and empathy because if they appear too strong, too power-seeking, too ambitious, the research absolutely shows that that gets a negative reaction and people conclude that the woman is unlikable. And some of that sex stereotyping and sexism is very, very deep-seated. And we've been talking about it, having campaigns about it for decades and decades now, but it's still there and it can be a very powerful turn-off. For a lot of aspiring young women leaders, I think. I think that's right. And I think Brian made a reference to, you know, the TikTok use of the misogyny video, but that, you know, started with a woman who's lip-syncing to the misogyny speech. But the soundtrack she's got in the background is a song that says, literally, I'm a bitch, I'm a boss, because, and says it in an empowering way, you know, women owning that, I'm a bitch, I'm a boss. But it's just that people would write those lyrics, shows that young women are onto this, that they know that there's that stereotype waiting for them and they're almost gonna debunk it and diffuse it through owning it and through humour before it tries to come and get them. Oh, I think it's fantastic. And I must say, I like Christine Lagarde when she talks about being a weeper, she says, when I think that's on the swill or soft conundrum. And she says, I'm a weeper, I never put mascara on my bottom lashes so I can cry and don't look as though I've got a hangover. I think she's got, there's some great quotes from Christine Lagarde and especially the fighting word, she says, when people reject me or dismissive of me because I'm a woman, I say, sort off, I'm not working with you if you don't like me because I'm a woman, or you won't work in partnership with me because I'm a woman, I'm off, I'll find better. And I think that, you know, in this humour that comes through, it does break up a lot of the tension that is underlying many of this deeply personal story. Some of them are very intense. Some of them are very intense. You know, both Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was the first woman to lead a nation in Africa, leading Liberia, and Joyce Bander, who was the second leading Malawi, both of them had violent first marriages that they needed to escape and will endure, live through and then escape in order to get on with their lives. And they took that personal experience with violence into their leadership and deliberately worked as leaders to try and make it easier for women to get out of unsafe situations. So, you know, when you hear about stories like that and their preparedness to be so frank and so honest about those circumstances, and it's sort of awe-inspiring, but the fact that both of them still present to the world with so much good humour and so much generosity about sharing what they've learned and about inspiring the next generation, that really struck me as we wrote with them. I think they have inspired the next generation and the next. I was very impressed during my visits to African countries by wonderful, emerging young women leaders. And when I came back to Australia, I explored engaging in that in our country here too. And as you said before, how generous these women are sharing the stories the way they do, with searing honesty and this vital tander. A lot of women leaders don't do that and historically haven't done it, particularly women first, an exception being Madeleine Albright, who's famous for her line, you know, where there's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women. And that's one of the issues that you were exploring the hypothesis list. What have been your experiences with that? I had fantastic support from female colleagues within the Labor Party. I mean, undoubtedly, a very strong support. When I was Prime Minister, you know, personally, they would see the gender treatment. They would, you know, want to be supportive, you know, Tanya, Nicola, Jenny, Penny, so many of the women closest to me made a huge difference. I think in politics, it gets harder across the party lines. You know, there's so much partisanship that it can be difficult for women to reach out to other women across the political lines. And I also think that there's pressure put on journalists and others who commentate about politics. And indeed, Theresa May offers this observation about her time as Prime Minister, that she thought some women journalists gave her a harder time. But she thinks that happened because, you know, back at the office, people were saying to them, you know, oh, you're going to go and interview the Prime Minister, I bet you go easy on her. You know, so they're expecting or even kind of chiding or niggling that there'll be this sisterhood that means that, you know, the interview is a puff piece. And so that results in the women journalists going even stronger than she would if she was interviewing a man. So there are kind of curious dimensions to this that are worth talking about and thinking through. I mean, the point we make in the book very strongly is there's a scarcity politics that's kind of been shaping of women's behaviour. You know, we, for a long time, there were no seats at the table for women. And then a few seats became available, a couple of seats on a corporate board, a couple of the seats around a cabinet table. And the reaction of women, if you're not careful, it's pretty easy to say, well, there's only two seats that are going to go to women. So my competitors are the other women looking for those seats. You know, that the politics of scarcity then implants a set of behaviours in us where we compete with each other rather than cooperate with each other. Whereas really what we should be doing is working together to say these aren't the rules of the game. You know, if there's 10 seats around that table, then half of them should be going to women and we're in competition with everyone who seeks those seats, women and men, not just the other women. And so we ask in that chapter where we talk about the politics of scarcity and whether any of us are going to that special place in hell that Madeleine Albright speaks about, about trying to work together to get around this artificial budding of heads that can go on between women. I thought the way that issue was discussed was very revealing. And I noticed that there and quite often through addressing some of these hypotheses that the word fear is used. You know, when you're addressing a dilemma, that that's what you can call on for some guidance for yourself when you're asking about some of those issues. It struck me how strongly fairness was there on the agenda, particularly in the advice, the standout advices that are there at the end of the book, that I think are very powerful and practical and terrific for all readers. Now, we're coming up to some Q&A time, I think, but I wanted to ask you one thing before we go to that. You say in the first chapter, Julia, that despite your long experience that you're still working out many things, many issues that are surrounding women in leadership in 2020. And another thing you say at the outset of this book is that you feel you're better equipped now to be an advocate for women's leadership than when you were the Prime Minister. Could you expand on those thoughts? Yes, I keep learning things. I mean, one of the delights of being involved with the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, and I'm so looking forward to it being at the Australian National University too, is that the research, the evidence keeps developing, we learn more, but a lot of that is, you know, powered by young minds, by young women who see issues differently. And the fact that I get exposed to their new and innovative thinking means I go back to some of the assumptions that I've carried with me all of my life and start holding them up to the light and thinking, was I right about that? So, you know, there's always challenges in it. You know, one decision I made very early on in life was, there was, you know, the pathway I took was a pathway of being involved in institutions and trying to bring a feminist agenda to that involvement. Other women took a pathway of being involved in women's organisations. And, you know, I think I, for me, made the right choice, but I am increasingly questioning where the dynamic is between the two. I would have said unambiguously for a lot of my life that, you know, being in the room where it happens to quote a bit of Hamilton is where women need to be. And I still believe that, but I'm far more thinking and open now about the power of women's advocacy as women's advocacy from the outside and the extra space that that can make for more and better decisions to be made in the room where it happens. So, that dynamic between the two feminist strategies that people have talked about over years. So, I'm learning more. I think I'm a better advocate now because I've had the time to just immerse myself in the analysis of women and leadership rather than live it. And so, I can bring the lived experience to all of my attention, running the country. It's a big, big job. You don't have the time to go home and read the latest instalment of evidence and research, the latest feminist track. You just don't. I have more time to do that now, but I can bring to that reading a seasoned eye because I've lived through it. So, to marry now that experience and that analysis, I feel I can do that in my own head. And what I wanted to do in the book Working With Ngozi is bring the power of doing that through a number of women's voices, not just my own. I conclude this part of the evening by pointing out at the outset, I think one of your very first sentences is, I've always been a feminist. And Ngozi describes herself as a womanist. Yes. My, and it's a very charming, warm piece of writing. The book is filled with that. I love the flowing conversations. The candour, that's the richness of the book. It is about women and leadership through the eyes and the experiences of eight extraordinary international women. So, thank you for it. And congratulations on your leadership and Ngozi's in this book. Oh, thank you, Quentin. What are we doing for our daughters and our granddaughters? And now I've got some questions here. And the first one is on behalf of Alex. As a 23-year-old male, what can I be doing to ensure equal rights for women? Well, I think Alex can be doing a lot and men can be doing a lot. We in the book talk about a piece of research about meetings. And so they've analysed the dynamics in meetings of five people. And it isn't until you get to the stage that four of those five people are women that women will get a fair share of the conversation time. If you've got two or more men in the group, then women won't get a fair share of the discussion. And that's a very powerful piece of research. And it means all of us, you know, Alex, all of us in meetings can make sure that women's voices are coming to the table and women's voices are heard. So very practical piece of advice. Second, the research shows that if a man points out sexism, that people are more likely to agree that the incident was sexist. So if a woman calls out sexism, I guess, people in their heads think to themselves, well, you know, that she's kind of inherently conflicted because she might be benefiting from pointing out that sexism, so she's got mixed motivations. But if a man does it, it's just accepted in its own terms. And then, amazingly, the research shows that if a man points to sexism and is prepared to call out inequality, that people believe him to have better leadership capacity and men are more likely to advance in their careers as a result of having done so because he's seen to be the sort of person who will look after others. So with all of that, like, it's all upside here. It's tremendously all upside for men to be advocates of women's rights. So get right in there and be prepared to use your voice and your power for change. Now, from Sonia, what advice would you give to young women who are just starting their professional careers after leaving university who are confronted by issues similar to your time in parliament? In the book, we give a number of lessons, so I can't go through them all, but I would say the standout ones in those circumstances would be to think about whether you, as the individual, feel you've got the power and the voice and the resilience to be the person who raises the problems with that treatment. And if it's your first job out of university, you may not, you may not, and that would be understandable. If you don't want to raise it yourself, then think about the strategies that might bring women together to raise it collectively or might get male allies on board who would raise it for you. This shouldn't be something that you think it's landing on my shoulders and unless I do something about it, then nothing can be done. The networking, the bringing of people together, I think can make a powerful difference. So we talk in the book about how to engage others in these conversations in a way that might be a bit less confronting and ways of trying to unpack issues so that you do get change. There's never gonna be one right way. I mean, one thing people have said to me in the wake of the misogyny speech is, you know, you called it out, we should all be calling it out. Well, you know, I was Prime Minister of the country in question time in a combative adversarial environment and I used my skills and my voice with the misogyny speech. Not everybody is in a comparable position. There's not just one way of calling sexism out and working with and through others is certainly a productive strategy, too. I think with the TikTok now, there's a lot of girls practising properly. I think they are. Now, from the next question, COVID-19 has exposed the failings of many global leaders, particularly men. Are men in leadership positions able to get away with mistakes that would be career ending for women? I think women do pay a greater price for errors and one of the reasons I think that is we in the book looked at the experience of a woman we didn't interview, but Dilma Rousseff, the former president of Brazil who was impeached and we explored the question whether a male politician who had made some of the same decisions and errors as Dilma, because she certainly made some, whether they, too, would have been impeached. And reasonable people can differ on this and we explored that in the book. But in her experience, the abuse of her became gendered. She had fewer roots in her political party and political movement. She was not on the boys' network, which could have provided a man with more political protection. And there was also this sense that kind of showing you that a woman couldn't do it. She was the first woman to lead Brazil, kind of showing you that a woman wasn't up to the task. Whereas when men make errors, I think they're more likely just to be judged in their own terms. So people aren't gonna say if a man makes an error that that is a reflection generally on the whole class and capability of men to lead. They will say he's made an error, not men are ill adapted for leadership. So that is an extra burden on women's shoulders. In this COVID era, we are having a lively discussion about male and female leadership styles. I'm always a bit careful about those discussions because I think we're almost baking the stereotype in. We're saying female leadership must be empathetic. Male leadership can be command and control. In a truly equal world, we could have a command and control style female leader and an incredibly empathetic male leader. These things ought to be possible. We shouldn't bake the stereotype in. But I do think you can conclude that this is a bad era for that strong man, blustering, swaggering, macho kind of approach. I'll do what I want. I'll say what I want. I'll think what I want. I won't listen to the experts. And going back to Brazil, the current president there, President Bolsonaro, I think is probably the most clear global example of that at the moment and actually has the virus himself. Now, from Judy Schneider, Julia, do you think that the media environment in Australia has changed since you were PM? Has it become more or less supported of women politicians? I think there is a clearer discussion about gender and politics now and there's a greater price to be paid by journalists who, you know, do write something sexist. I mean, when I was PM back in, you know, 10 years ago, as it is now, 10 years ago, when you swore me in as Prime Minister, we had the anniversary a few short weeks ago, you know, social media was a thing, but it certainly wasn't at the stage that it is now. The media environment was diversifying because of new media styles, but it wasn't as diversified as it is now. And there wasn't the online activism that would take to task gendered reporting. There is much more of that now. So I think all of that means that this is a better environment and that's all to the good, but it's certainly nowhere near good enough because even with that increased diversity, we still have a very concentrated media market. Our media overwhelmingly is in, you know, one company, one set of hands in the Murdoch media and we still have gendered reporting about women that endures. It's not like the online activism has got it all out of the system. So I would say on this, travelling in the right direction, but still a very big road in front of us. Now, Amanda from Canberra. Julia, what was your most surprising takeaway from interviewing such a broad spectrum of female leaders? I think the most surprising takeaway, and Gosey and I talked about this and talked about it and talked about it, we, in interviewing such a global and diverse group, we wanted to know how much is common for women everywhere and how much is context specific and culture specific. And we went back and forth about that and doing the interviews, it became increasingly clear that while there are things that are clearly culture and context specific, actually the nature of sexism is pretty universal and that many of the issues our women leaders faced were the same, whether you were, you know, dealing with Liberia emerging from civil war or whether you were the second female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. You're reminding me of the power of the bonds I saw amongst women around the world when I was traveling representing our country overseas. I used to have a meeting, women's meeting, the first item on my agenda wherever I traveled because I knew that that was how I would find out the things I really wanted to know before I got going. And the power of those bonds, wherever we were, whatever the backgrounds were through all sorts of differences, what might be seen by some as barriers, the universal themes that were so powerful, the bonds that women share through our care for our children and our grandchildren for the future. And it reminds me as you speak the way you are in answer to that question of that universality too. Yes, it's not like you couldn't start the conversation because so much would, you know, you growing up in Queensland and you're meeting women from all around the world who have grown up in different circumstances, but there are some things that have happened to you that have happened to them that can be that touching point and then you can take the discussion from there. And you can communicate across all what might be seen as barriers very easily once you get going and how much women welcome that interchange, so they're coming together. That shines through this book too, I think, in the conversations from the eight women. Now, last question, how have the leaders discussed, maintain their authenticity under such pressure from Jackie Crispin Brown? Yeah, I mean, we use that word authenticity and we got different reactions to it by women leaders. I mean, Hillary Clinton, for example, thought that, you know, the use of the word authentic is often a word used to debunk and deride women leaders that it becomes easy to say about female politician, oh, she's not very authentic and it's just another way of saying she's not right for the job. Whereas others thought that, you know, speaking in their, not only speaking in their own voice but being seen to speak in their own voice was actually absolutely pivotal to their leadership and Jacinda Ardern, for example, was very clear and she talks about this in the book that she made a decision early on that she's the kind of person who wanted empathy and kindness to be at the center of her leadership and if that meant that she didn't actually go very far in politics, that was her true voice and if that true voice didn't take her very far then that was a price she was prepared to pay. So I think that means that there's more than one way of looking at this issue of authenticity. I think all of the women that we spoke to would say that they tried to lead in a way that was authentic to themselves but each of them felt the pressure of gender stereotyping and they did have that second voice in their heads about how is this going to be received and Jacinda says that too. They didn't try and let that voice overwhelm them but the fact that they have to have that second voice in their heads is an indication that we still have to get rid of this stereotyping or we're forcing women to walk a very narrow pathway as to how they can present their leadership rather than discarding the second voice in their head just being themselves and not having to worry about how the gender prism is going to view the way that they act. Jacinda actually talks about, it should be possible for a woman who is ambitious, strident, strong to be a leader and for no one to react to that on the basis of, oh, she's not very nice, she's not very likeable, she doesn't seem very caring because why shouldn't that be a leadership style that a woman can take in the same way that empathy can be a leadership style a woman can take. We need women to be able to be right across the leadership spectrum, not confined to one bit of it. She also talks about the benefit she has of being the third woman Prime Minister as opposed to the first. And I think there's only two countries that have had a third woman Prime Minister, New Zealand and Iceland. That's right. Oh, no, Jacinda is incredibly clear that being the third has not rendered the gender reception of her leadership to zero, but it's lessened it. And she says in terms of her own decision-making about going into politics, she never had a question in her head, can a woman do this? That wasn't the question. She knew women could do it. She worked with Helen Clark. She'd seen Helen do it for a decade. She knew women could do it. She had a question in her head about whether she could do it and she wanted to do it. But the influence of Helen and Jenny Shipley meant it was already priced in by her and the New Zealand community that a woman could lead. I think that comes to the conclusion of our conversation. And I want to say to you how much I've enjoyed it. And best of luck to you, travelling and talking about the book. Thank you, Quentin. It's not going to be too much travelling in this COVID era. Many of these online conversations. But I'm so glad that we got the opportunity after the wonderful way you launched my first book, that we had the opportunity to have this discussion about women and leadership. Thank you. Thank you, Julia. Well, thank you both. And can I just say how good was that? Because one of the weird things about COVID-19 and us being able to do these virtual events is rather than being in a big stadium or large lecture theatre, we literally have you in our rooms, our houses having a conversation. And it's remarkably intimate. And it's just been a fantastic conversation this evening. I really appreciate how we have been able to, I learn, I think of some of the common threads across the very diverse backgrounds that are of female leadership that are in this book. And I really appreciate the work ethic observation that you made, Julia, because my experience is that female leaders work so hard all the time and really do try to make sure they don't make mistakes ever in a way that their male counterparts never have to do. I'm somewhat saddened that four-warmed and four-armed is still the motto in 2020. Having leaders like the two of you, I think it really important because it normalizes female leadership. So each generation finds it easier. But I think, unfortunately, our young women still do need to be four-warmed and four-armed. I hope future generations find that less so. And men, as Julia said, it's all upside to be a feminist. So do my male colleagues. Julia, your book clearly weaves together personal narratives, humor, and data around a diverse set of amazing leaders. And I think this work will help us all understand the nature of the things that women in leadership positions face. And just as first know the nature of things is the ANU's motto, I just know from my experience, from understanding, like you are providing, all good things flow. So finally, I want to thank you, Quentin, for leading our conversation tonight. And thank you, Julia, for being prepared to shine a light on female leadership, the good and the bad, so that we can all have better leaders in the future. So we can't give you a round of applause, or a virtual round of applause. Let's thank Julia Gillard, Quentin Bryce, if only in our hearts. Thank you very much. Thank you.