← A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard
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- [00:00]
Jackson Financial Representative
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- [00:29]
Cathy Kelly
It's a very timely book in that way. It's very. I think a lot of men should read this book to understand how coercive control works because men often say to me, oh, if she's living in a violent relationship, why doesn't she get out? As though it's so simple. So you haven't been brainwashed. And I thought it was very good in the book. Julia the way we came to understand how he arose her confidence.
- [00:54]
Julia Gillard
Welcome back to A Podcast of One's Own and our very own book book club. We're so delighted to have you reading along with us again this season. And a big hello to Kathy, who's been on book tour with her new release, the Sisterhood Rules. Cathy, what's been happening? How was book tour?
- [01:14]
Cathy Kelly
Well, look, there must be less risky professions than being a novel writer. Maybe like, I don't know, shark wrangling or crocodile taming or something. But the upside is going to literary festivals and being on tour because then you get to meet the most wonderful women. You know, my, I'm so lucky. My readers are warm, witty, wise, wonderful. Mostly women over about 50. You know, my favorite breed. When we reach that, you get a kind of, oh, feck it, I'm 50. Gene kicks in where you no longer care what people think about you. So, you know, we get up on stage and everyone dances and we sort of turns into a huge girls night out. And that is joyous. So I've just done that all over Australia. You know, Perth and Adelaide and Melbourne and Noosa and Byron and Sydney, whatever. Now I'm coming, doing it here in England, so I'm doing all the festivals here. So yeah, and people are responding to the book because I think there's a huge appetite for, to, to, for women to have this sensational second act, which is what I'm encouraging them to do, to go forth and be fabulous and put themselves first for the first time in their lives. So it's, it's nice to be able to encourage women to, to do that.
- [02:23]
Julia Gillard
Well, Sisterhood Rules. Everybody's gotta get a copy and have a good read. It'll be fantastic. I haven't read it yet, but I'm definitely going to. And I will have read it before I see you next. Don't worry about that.
- [02:36]
Cathy Kelly
Oh, that's so good.
- [02:38]
Julia Gillard
Now, of course, you're a lifetime author writing your first smash hit novel, Puberty Blues, at the age of 17. And you've been writing ever since and selling millions of books. But you just mentioned women having a second act. And in fact today, today we're going to be talking about a second act author, someone who pivoted to writing later in life. We're kicking off this season with the names, which is the first novel, the debut novel from British author Florence Knapp. This is a hit novel that has already sold over half a million copies and if it hasn't already been optioned for a movie or a streaming service, I would be surprised. It's inevitable we'll end up seeing it on our screens as well. Florence was 48 years old at the time it was published last year. Her career before that had been spent in edtech designing apps for schools focused on children's literacy. And she's also an expert in textile history. So it's quite the pivot to writing, isn't it?
- [03:44]
Cathy Kelly
It's quite the pivot, yes. So, yeah, she's. That, that's not unusual for women. You know, a lot of female writers don't start writing until they're their kids are grown up when they can cut the psychological umbilical cord that's kept them tethered to the kitchen by their heart and their apron strings. So, yeah, if any woman who's listening to this program who's always wanted to write a novel, pick up the pen, just sit down and start because you've got a lot to say. You know, our hinterland is huge by this age. You know, we've had the affairs, the promotions, the marriages, the divorces, the race, the kids looked after the parents. We've got a lot to say and I think women come into their own at this time and, you know, so put it down on paper and yeah,
- [04:26]
Julia Gillard
actually, Florence isn't the only one. You're right. Second act writers are having a bit of a moment now. You are actually a second act aficionado because each year I watch the Second Act Power List come out. And you were on the one last year, weren't you? The Second Act Power List. And there are quite a few authors on this year's Second Act Power List. Florence is one, but Virginia Evans with the Correspondent is another. And her age at publication of her first book, 73. Marcia Hutchinson is also on the second act power list. She wrote the Mercy Step and her age at publication was 62, and then she snuck onto the list as second act. But Addie E. Kitchens with Dominion, she was 39 years old at age of publication, so maybe more of a middle act than a second act. But it's absolutely fantastic to see women coming onto the lists. And Virginia Evans with the correspondent, 73 years old. It's about a woman in her 80s and Jane Fonders optioned it for a movie.
- [05:43]
Cathy Kelly
Oh, isn't that, Isn't that fabulous? I just love hearing that because at this age you do feel as though society's trying to put you out to career pasture and you're being given the cloak of invisibility. And I always think, well, if they're going to give me the cloak of invisibility, should I use it for good or for evil? I think evil, but in my books I'm also sort of saying to women, don't give up on yourself, don't give up on life. I don't think women give up sex when they get old. I think they get old if they give up sex. So the mother in my new novel, her motto is never put off till tomorrow anybody you could be doing today. She's having a wonderful sexual appeal epiphany with the toy boy and, and I want to encourage more women to do that. Dimmer switch. Greatest beauty aid known to womankind. Keep the lights low, but go forth and, well, just, just get horizontal as often as possible.
- [06:37]
Julia Gillard
That is a wonderfully Kathy lit line. I love it, I love it. But to Florence and her book, the Names. Now, this is a bit of a complicated book. It's an, I think, a pretty easy read in many ways. I mean, it will keep you turning the pages, but it' a complicated structure. We're going to do everything we can to not drop spoiler alerts, but it's going to be a little bit hard, but we'll do our best. The story begins in 1987 when a woman named Cora arrives at the registry office to make what at first glance seems like a very simple choice. She has to register the name of her newborn son. But for Cora, this is all really deeply complicated. Her husband expects her to follow family tradition and name him Gordon. So, you know, it's been Gordon Jr. And Gordon Jr. And Gordon Jr. For forever. She likes the name Julian. And her daughter, who goes with her to the registry office, who's just a young toddler, thinks that the new baby should be called Bear. Very cute. Wants to see her brother named Bear. And the story then unfolds in three alternate narratives spanning 35 years, each based on the name Cora chooses. Now, the book here is really conjuring with the well known trope what's in a name? And of course, we know that originally from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the famous passage, what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So Shakespeare's trying to tell us names don't matter at all. But Florence spins that on its head and basically says, your whole future can be determined by your name. Because. Because the break point between these three potential lifetimes is the name. And then her violent husband's reaction to her coming home and saying, I've named the baby Gordon, which is what he wanted. I named the baby Julian, which he did not want, and. Or I've named the baby Bear, which obviously would be a very major shock to him. And so the violent rage that follows from her not naming the baby Gordon creates alternate realities. Now, how did you think and feel about that structure? We then follow three timelines. There are chapters about Bear, chapters about Julian, chapters about Gordon, and they are following different life paths.
- [09:21]
Cathy Kelly
Yeah, I thought the structure was so original and clever. It's like a kaleidoscope. So the story is coalescing in the end, but you go, you know, you've got to sort of focus in on these different stories. It can be a tiny bit confusing because of the seven year breaks and there's a lot left out. You, you have to make leaps of imagination all the time to fill in the blanks. But I've never read a book with that structure, and that's very, very rare these days. You read a book that you haven't kind of read something similar before. So I thought that was absolutely genius.
- [09:54]
Julia Gillard
Yeah, and there's, there's plot in each of the three timelines because it takes us across 35 years. So whether it's the Gordon baby named Gordon, the baby named Julian, or the baby named Bear, we get to see them grow up and embark on their adult lives and have their own issues in their adult lives, some of which stem back to the family, but some of them are just the random events that happen in, in people's lives. So there's plenty of, you know, sort of plot line and ups and downs as we follow their stories. Did you, did you feel that in each story, did you have a favourite one in terms of the ups and downs and the plot lines?
- [10:40]
Cathy Kelly
Well, I, I Bear was my favorite character because he was the more kind of creative, anarchic, anarchic son. So I loved his storyline, even though there's got some darkness in it. Cause I adored his character. I loved the Gordon storyline because I was you. You. You get to see the repercussions of. Of his violent father on his own psyche and how he overcame it. I love that. The Julian's character I found very sad. He's very, very, very sad. That was the one that made me cry the most. But the book, what's interesting about the psychology of the book, it's sliding door moments. And all of us have those moments where we think, imagine if I'd taken that job. Imagine if I'd married that guy. Imagine if I'd done. You know, we've got that, you know, we're full of those. Not regrets, but just kind of tangential times in life where we could have gone in a different direction. So that really resonated with me. And even the name thing, I mean, I mean, just to be light for a second, you know, you were talking about the. How the name influences your. Your destiny. I was going to be called Virginia. And I. And I often think, I often think what would I be like if I was Virginia? And I'm sure I would have been playing the saxophone and running some fabulous club, some jazz club I'd be sitting on. Bas would be the doyen of some club or something. You know, I could see myself as this other character. I really can.
- [12:04]
Julia Gillard
And would we be calling you Ginny?
- [12:06]
Cathy Kelly
Ginny? I think I'd be the type to be drinking a lot of gin, that's for sure. But, and, but even with my own name let. When, when my daughter was born, as a joke, I was saying, I'm going to call her Star Chalk Hom. You know, and even as a feminist, I could have called a Lil. Lil Etzer a British tampon, you know, and I was playing around with it. But then I. And I think sometimes imagine if I had called her Starlet. I mean, my daughter's very political and, and brilliant and she's a political strategist. But if I'd called a starlet, well, she'd probably be fronting a rock band somewhere. You know, I, I think your names do. Or Chocolate. She'd be a fabulous, you know, chocolateaire. So your names, I mean, they do. They can have some kind of influence on your destiny. I mean, Julia is one of my favorite names. I call my son Julius because I love the name Julia. But were you ever going to be called anything else. Was there? I don't.
- [13:02]
Julia Gillard
I don't think so. No, there were not big debates about my name. So a degree of certainty, and I can't really. I can't really imagine being called anything else. Yeah, I know what you mean. How people. I mean, I think you can get a little too determinist about it, but I do think if you've got a flamboyant name and this is woven in with the Bear character, a flamboyant name like Bear, and across his life, obviously, everybody would have said to him, oh, Bear, that must be a nickname. What's your real name? You know, it would have sparked a conversation. A name like Bear, you know, you see that it does feed into this warm and gregarious outgoing kind of character. So she does definitely toy with all of that. You know, the reactions to the names more broadly than the first telling reaction by her violent husband, Gordon. But, no, I don't know what name I would pick for myself if it wasn't Julia. I'd have to think about that.
- [14:08]
Cathy Kelly
What about sliding door moments? I mean, you must have had sliding door moments in your life where you thought, I could have gone in a different direction. Yeah.
- [14:17]
Julia Gillard
The book did raise the movie Sliding Doors for me. So just a brief recap for anybody who can't remember the movie Sliding Doors. It was a smash hit with John Hannah and Gwyneth Paltrow, and it was in two timelines. And difference in the timeline was Gwyneth Paltrow was running for a train. Timeline number one, she makes it onto the train, gets home and finds out that her boyfriend, husband is having an affair, ends the relationship. And that's one story in the second sort of timeline. She misses the train. She doesn't discover the affair. She stays with the partner for longer. And there's a very elongated path to finding herself beyond the confines of this relationship. And so I was so remembering that I actually did a bit of research, obviously, called Googling. I don't want people to think that I was running around a library. I actually wasn't. But the love libraries. Yeah. Yeah. What's the thing? One of a favorite podcast of mine, they always say I was in the Bodleian when they mean that they've been Googling something up. You know, I was in the Bodleian, in the Bodleian library, looking for facts. But when I did a bit of Googling, I worked out that the screenwriter of Sliding Doors is a guy called Peter Howard. And he was inspired to write it when he almost Got hit by a car running across a street in London to catch a train. And he said that brush with death made him wonder, what if the car had actually hit me? How would my life and the lives of my friends have spiraled out from that one second? Fascinating concept.
- [16:11]
Cathy Kelly
We said that at the same time. Yeah.
- [16:13]
Julia Gillard
And for me, the, the, I mean, few sliding doors moments really. I've always thought, what if my parents hadn't chosen to migrate and we'd actually stayed in Wales? And then when we did decide to migrate, my parents were destined for Melbourne, but we were on the ship coming over and there were ordinary paying passengers on the ship as well as we 10 pound POMs assisted migrants. And my mother and father met a Welsh couple who lived in Australia, had gone back to see relatives and now are coming back on the same ship to Australia and they lived in Adelaide. And so my parents thought, oh well, we only know two people in Australia and they live in Adelaide. So they changed the destination to Adelaide. So huge sliding door at the moment. Yeah.
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Cathy Kelly
Wow. Well, of course in Adelaide is the only place in this major city in Australia that wasn't settled by convicts. So you are a cut above, darling.
- [17:09]
Julia Gillard
Yeah, yeah, I'd like to think so.
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Cathy Kelly
Yes. The rest of us, I'm the creme de la creme, you know, full convict stock. But Adelaide, Adelaide, very posh.
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Julia Gillard
And what about you? Sliding doors moments?
- [17:23]
Cathy Kelly
Oh, so many, so many. When I lived in America writing sitcom in Hollywood, I could have stayed there and gone on to have a career as a movie writer. You know, also other people I could have married or people I could have stayed married to. So, yes, so many sliding. So my, my, I've got so many sliding doors, it's almost like they're vaseline coated non casters. But it's a fascinating idea. But I think I, I do think I would have always had an urge to write. I think that's totally in my DNA. I was writing since I was, was, you know, six or seven or eight. So somehow or other, my, my, my love of words and literature would have come out.
- [18:12]
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- [18:57]
Julia Gillard
I do think we have to say to the listeners that we inevitably talking about this book have to be talking about domestic violence in the direct physical sense and also coercive control, because that is the story of Gordon and Cora's marriage. And a friend of mine who has had experience with domestic violence herself said to me she was glad she read the book, but she also found it very confronting and that it surfaced very difficult memories for her. So depending on your own life story, you may find it a particularly hard read. I thought the character of Gordon, he. I mean, he at some points came across to me as more believable than others. There were moments where I thought his nature of evil almost crossed the line of starting to become a bit pantomime. But I. That was my reaction. It hasn't been the reaction of many other women I've talked to and. And it certainly does take you very deep into what that kind of abuse means, not only for the woman, but also for the other people in the home. And I thought there was some amazing lines in it. There is this paragraph about the daughter, Maya, the one who wanted the baby called Bear. And the paragraph reads. And Cora realises her daughter has learned what to do, how to soothe, to placate, that just through watching the first time she stepped into this role, she's already accomplished. If it doesn't stop, Cora thinks this pattern will repeat unendingly the destiny of each generation set on the same course. A hugely powerful paragraph about a young girl who's watched her mother try and soothe her father and avoid an incident of domestic violence. And she's already at a tender age, learnt the skills. That was very powerful for me.
- [21:18]
Cathy Kelly
I totally agree. Chilling. I mean, this is a book about generational trauma. And getting back to. You were talking about the husband that you found who's occasionally a bit pantomime character. We don't really get much of his. Any much of his story about why he became this monstrous human, although it's hinted at a little bit, and that his father, who was a surgeon, puts him down all the time because he's only a gp, because I think he had epilepsy or some reason he couldn't become a surgeon. And so you get this feeling that his father has bullied him and has undermined him. And of course you imagine that he probably was. Was the. His father was also probably ill treated his mother. It's not drawn out enough. And I would have liked a little bit more of that because we've got to understand that these. These are monsters hiding in pl. You know, we. They mustn't just be kind of mythical figures. We have to understand that these are men we meet every day. So you. I almost. I wanted him to be a little bit more rounded out and a little bit more of his backstory, but it's not really his story. It's Cora's story, and it's her survival story. It is the most harrowing, harrowing story because it's very brutally honest about domestic violence. And sometimes I had to put the book down and walk away. But then again, we do that too much in society. You know, we see. We glimpse bits of domestic violence. We think, is that happening? And we don't do enough to intervene. And there's a. I remember that scene when the policeman comes to the door. And in one of the scenarios, Cora's mother, who's in Ireland, gets news from the daughter that Cora is being intimidated and really tortured by. By her husband and sends the police officer around. So the police officer comes to the door and. And Cora, who's obviously being gaslit, and she's so intimidated by the husband. When the police officer says, look, he's so embarrassed because this is the low. That Gordon is the doctor and he's looked up to in the town, and everybody reveres him. And he's saying embarrassingly, look, I got this call from your mother, and. And I just thought I better come around. But is everything all right now? Cora, immediately, she's so, you know, she's. The coercive control is riddled through her psyche. She then says, no, everything's fine. He just immediately believes that and says, oh, few of you. I didn't want to arrest my favorite doctor half view and walks away when he could have saved her then. So, you know, and I think we tend to, you know, we see that that goes on around us all the time, that we look away. So I made myself keep reading. Even at times, I found it. I'm sure you did, too, Julia. Just so hard to keep turning the page. But we can't ignore that this is going on, and we need to do more to address it. So, you know, one in three women will be raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime. The statistics are off the scale. So rape cases and assault cases, you know, the statistics are skyrocket high, and yet convictions are limbo low. So there's the gulf between what's happening to women and how people are actually being caught and prosecuted and held to account is vast. I mean, look at the Epstein case, that trial. Only one person. Person is in prison and it's a woman. Not that she doesn't deserve to be there, but why has no man been called to account? So the book will make you angry. It is misery lit. You know, you have to put it in that genre. And it's also about how the children cope with this unbelievable trauma. And you were talking about the daughter, how she learned to placate. The other section I found incredibly harrowing was how when the boy who's called Gordon, who's, you know, supposed to step into his father's shoes and become a doctor and go the same route, he realizes quite quickly that his father, who's quite cold and withdrawn, the only way he can get into his. Get his attention and get into his good books is if he says something negative about the mother. So as a. At a young age, you know, the father's very offhand with him, and he'll say, what. What has your mother done today? What has your mother done? If he says, oh, mum's been really nice, the father's not interested. But if he says something like, mum ate three chocolate biscuits. She wasn't supposed to, he gets all this attention and all this love. And there's my father's like, oh, really? Tell me. And did she talk to anyone? Did she open the door? Did she answer the phone? And he, trying to win his father's favor, starts, you know, ratting out his mother and making stories up, and then the mother will be punished. So this poor young boy doesn't understand that he's being coerced and manipulate. And I found that story, the Gordon story, how the boy. That boy developed, I found that, you know, terribly traumatic. But he also. There is some hope in the book. There is story, but he does. He does learn to break the cycle. He becomes an addict, he becomes an alcoholic, and he does get intervention after he actually attacks a girl. I mean, he's following in his father's hideous footsteps at first, but he does change. And so there is a glimmer of hope that you can break these cycles in one of the storylines. But. But in other storylines, you know, it's just relentlessly grim. There's not such good outcomes. And I'm like, how many boxes of Kleenex can I go through? And the Kleenex boxes should come with the book, because we'll be crying a lot, but there are a few glimmers of hope. So I wanted to say that. That.
- [26:48]
Julia Gillard
And Plenty of beautiful prose. Plenty of beautiful prose. I love this line, too. And this is Cora thinking about her husband, Gordon. Sometimes he's benign, sometimes stern, almost maleficent. A word so close to magnificent, she thinks. Sent, of course, by maleness.
- [27:12]
Cathy Kelly
Yes, yes.
- [27:12]
Julia Gillard
Well.
- [27:13]
Cathy Kelly
And isn't that. Isn't that a topical conversation right now? When we're talking about the manosphere? I mean, the manosphere, we have some of that feel like we're back on the road to Gilead because women's rights are slipping back all around the world. But the manosphere. I read a chilling report when I was in Australia between Melbourne University and Brisbane University, did a joint study that discovered that 20% of Australian men think feminism should be violently resisted. Oh, wow, 20%. So this is, you know, young men who have. Who are listening to Andrew Tate and the incel. Influences and those kind of people, and we have to somehow. We have to get in there and. And re. You know, redirect their thinking. We can't just ignore it, like ignoring domestic violence. We cannot ignore that young men are being influenced in this terrible way, and we have to somehow explain to them that feminism is good for them as well. You know, how nice to be liberated from the. The role of breadwinner and liberated from not being able to show your feelings and that sort of stuff. So, you know, there's a lot of evil influences in society right now that we have to. We have to be vigilant. You know, it's like I'm saying to women, the Sisterhood is powerful. You know, my book's called the Sisterhood Rules, but it's also the Sisterhood Rules. You think of the MeToo movement that started with one tweet, and it brought down Harvey Weinstein. When we stick together, we can make great change. But I think we are at a bit of a crossroads right now where we need to start calling out this bad behavior. And then our allies, our good male friends should be at the barricades with us, you know, saying the same things. We need them, that we need them to call out other men on this behavior. So it's a very timely book in that way. It's very. I think a lot of men should read this book to understand how coercive control works, because men often say to me, oh, if she's living in a violent relationship, why doesn't she get out? As though it's so simple. So you haven't been brainwashed. And I thought it was very good in the book, Julia, the way she. We came to understand how he Erodes her confidence. You know, he starts with little things like just criticizing her appearance and telling her she's putting on some weight, not to eat this, not to eat that. And then, then kind of isolating her from friends and from family and then eroding, eroding, eroding all the time, until in the end she's just, you know, she's like almost like a non person. It's like a case of mistaken non entity. And that's very, very well described in the book, I thought. Did you not find that also?
- [29:49]
Julia Gillard
I thought that was very well described and you could go on that pathway with her. You could feel it, you know, you could really feel it. I thought that was. Was very well described and I absolutely agree with you. At a time when there is so much pressure on young people, but so many malign influences about what masculinity is, it is so important that we're talking about gender equality as an inclusive project. Better for men, better for women. And of course, through the polling research we do at the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, we have been shining a light on this issue around young men for the last sort of six or seven years. So our research, which we put out this year for International Women's Day with our partner ipsos, the polling company, is really worth a look. There is a lot to do.
- [30:43]
Cathy Kelly
What I do. The message I do want to, I do think was very, very important in this book, book, in every storyline, is that Cora is completely innocent. There is never an excuse for a man to. To. To beat up, hurt, injure, maim a woman. And, you know, so often you still hear that. What. You know, when women are. When there's a sexual assault case, what was she wearing, what did she what? All that kind of provocative provocation, whatever. And I think there's a line in the book, isn't there, where she says something about Gordon will abuse Cora regardless of her actions. She did not drive him to it. It is not her fault someone says that. And I think that's the very important message you want to take from this book, that women are victims. They have not deserved ever, ever, this kind of terrible treatment. So that's why I think it's such an important book for men to read, to understand the psychology, we should put
- [31:46]
Julia Gillard
it in the show notes. But there is a wonderful nonfiction book talking about domestic violence and analysing it, an Australian book, and it's got the title look what yout Made Me do, which I think is a fantastic title because. Fantastic title. It completely captures that age old, you know, alibi that the enraging woman made the otherwise passive nice man lash out and react because she was so infuriating. I mean, the lie that is behind you know so much that is said about domestic violence. Look what you made me do. So I would really recommend that as a book.
- [32:30]
Cathy Kelly
That sounds like a good companion piece and for any book club thinking of reading the names. I think that would be really, really good to read both those books to sort of understand the, the factual side of domestic violence and the factual reality as well as this very brilliant fictional rendering of domestic violence and gaslighting. Yeah, because it's just such a vital, important topic and we just can't turn away.
- [33:08]
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Cathy Kelly
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- [34:23]
Julia Gillard
I am worry that we are perhaps making the book sound completely dark. It does have dark bits. Absolutely. There's a lot of dark. But there are other aspects to it than the Cora Gordon relationship. In one of the timelines, Cora does have a best friend, Mary, and they are comparing parenting styles. And I thought that there were some just crack up lines in all of that. The line was, Mary has always treated parenting like she's cooking a big warming pan of something. A pinch of that, a pinch of this. She will, she's sure it will turn out fine in the end. Cora's own approach has always felt more like baking a cake, carefully measuring out ingredients and trying not to ruin everything. I thought that was a brilliant line.
- [35:19]
Cathy Kelly
Yeah. I think for any parent listening, I think for any mom listening, if you can get your kids to 16 and they're not, not, they're not, you know, voting for Trump or Doing serious drugs or collecting Nazi memorabilia, you'll. You give yourself a mothering medal, you know. Yeah, because there's no owner's manual. You get these kids. There's no, there's no owner's manual. Just have to make it up as you go along. But of course, the most important ingredient in, in any of that recipe you were just describing is love. And just as long as there's a lot of love and there is love in this book. Book which had to be there as an antidote to the, to the misery. And there is strong female friendship and, and also the mother daughter relationship is, is beautifully poignant at times as well. So, yeah, there's redeeming moments.
- [36:09]
Julia Gillard
So who would we say should read this book? We're obviously saying men. Who would you recommend it to? Are there friends that you wouldn't recommend it to because you think they'd find it too hard going?
- [36:23]
Cathy Kelly
I think it. I would, I would like everybody to read it because I think there must be people in our own lives, women who are going through domestic violence silently and we may have not picked up the signs. I mean, I've definitely had friends who turned up with a black eye, oh, I had an ice skating incident or blah, blah, blah. Now I immediately think, is that domestic violence? Because, because I'm a passionate feminist and I'm also such, so, such a sister. And then sometimes I do misinterpret things that have happened that haven't, but I always like to immediately make sure that they're all right. But I had another when my son was at school. One of the mums at school was always bruised. I didn't know her, but every time I saw her, she had bruises, whatever. And I started to try and befriend her, to try and sort of get her to confide in me if there was any way I could help her. And she finally did confide in me after a long time of having me being kind to her, she could find the strength to say the words that he'd thrown her down the stairs that day. And look, I wish I'd taken more training on this because I just went immediately. I saw him in the supermarket the next day and I got him against, up against the wall and said, I know what you're doing. Don't you think that we don't know what's going on in your home? And I'm going to tell everybody. And I started telling people. This father now, he. That was probably the wrong thing to do. He may have beaten her up more. I don't know. But she did eventually come here one night, and I took her in and she stayed here, and we contacted domestic violence services, whatever. But, you know, this is something. This is a terrible plight that's hiding in plain sight. And I think we all have to be vigilant. And I do want men to call out other men if they hear someone saying something sexist or they. They get in if they hear him putting down his wife or whatever. Don't let it lie. You know, we can't be passive on this issue. So, I mean, as you can see, I'm very, very passionate about it.
- [38:33]
Julia Gillard
Yeah, absolutely. No, I am. I, last year, clumsily tripped and managed to land.
- [38:40]
Cathy Kelly
I remember, yeah, land.
- [38:42]
Julia Gillard
Land a bit on my face. And I had bruises. And I was going and getting an honorary doctorate from a university, which was lovely, lovely of them. But I thought, oh, you know, it had been a few days and they'd started to fade a little bit. But I thought, I'll have to see what I can do with makeup to cover up the remaining bruises. So I don't look too shabby when I'm getting my. You know, I've got my hat and gown and tassel and all the rest of it, the whole honorary doctorate kit and caboodle. And so, once again, I was not in the Bodleian Library. I was Googling for solutions. But what was amazingly confronting, if you get on YouTube and just, you know, Google covering bruises or something like that, you will get presented by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of videos of women with black eyes showing you how to get your makeup palette. And if the bruise is purple, you've got to use the opposite color on the color wheel. Put that on top first to neutralize it out to a muddy brown. And then you put something else and something else and then your foundation and all the rest of it. But you've got to ask yourself the question, why are there all of these, like, yes, people clumsily trip. I did it. But I don't think people clumsily tripping is enough to give birth to a YouTube sub genre of that size. I mean, it's incredible, really. I was so taken aback by it.
- [40:20]
Cathy Kelly
That's chilling. Well, it reminds me, you know the famous line, I don't know who first said it, but, you know, men are worried that women are laughing at them, but women are worried that men are going to kill them. That's the bottom line on this story. So, yeah. So, yeah, I just think, call it out. Read the book. Read this other wonderful book. Look, what yout Made Me do, which I'm going to read immediately because it might teach me better ways to handle the domestic violence. You know, if I do, next time I think someone's being abused, I might have a little bit more nuance and subtlety rather than fronting up to the guy. Guy in public. You know, I'm sure that was probably the wrong thing to do, but I was just so angry. So I'm going to read that book immediately. So I'm better armed when these situations come up because we have to call it out. No more covering it up with makeup, you know, stop covering up, talk out about it, you know, And. And for our daughter's sakes, too, because, you know, that was the. One of the saddest bits in the book is to see, as you mentioned earlier, how the daughter started mimicking the beard. She'd learned the. The tools for placating her father by, you know, being. By sort of indulging him and calming him. And, you know, these are not tools you want your daughter to have in her. In her. In her, you know, toolbox. So, yeah, for daughters alone. And I think in that section of the book, Cora then decides, she sees this and she thinks, I can't do this anymore. I can't let this happen to my daughter. And that give did give her the, the. The motivate, the finally the kind of kick she needed to get out of there, but keeps getting kept. And some of the scenarios, she keeps getting drawn back.
- [42:02]
Jackson Financial Representative
Yeah.
- [42:03]
Cathy Kelly
You know, I mean, it's eviscerating, isn't it?
- [42:06]
Julia Gillard
Yeah, I think it. I. I would recommend it to people for a read. I would explain a little bit about it. So people, you know, forewarned, forearmed. I wouldn't be recommending that, you know, on your beach holiday or you, you know, day off from a stressful job that it's the one you necessarily pick. But I think, you know, you're right. The issue of domestic violence is so important, and this is a very, very vivid portrayal which will live with you for a long time. So people should read it and they should be gifting it to men in their lives, you know.
- [42:46]
Cathy Kelly
Yes.
- [42:46]
Julia Gillard
A male, male friend, partner, brother, male work colleague who's having a birthday or something. Great gift. Great gift.
- [42:57]
Cathy Kelly
Yeah. And. And the other thing, the joyous part of the book, too, Julie, I don't know if you found this, but when Cora, in one of the scenarios, when Cora does find herself again at the end and she's liberated her appreciation of everyday things, the things that you and I take for granted was palpable. And it was. It was. And it was so. It was so sort of. It was charming, but it was also a reminder to us about what freedoms we do have and never to take those freedoms lightly. And she says, I mean, I'm always going on about the second act and going out there and dancing on a tabletop and swinging off a chandelier with a Tory boy between your teeth. But she has a line where she says, I wrote this one down, too. She's 68 now, and although she knows the idea of being put out to pastor is a phrase others associate with obsolescence and redundancy, for her it conjures lush green fields filled with buttercups where she's free to roam.
- [43:54]
Julia Gillard
Oh, I think that's a lovely way to end the discussion of this novel, Buttercups free to roam. Now, where will you be roaming to in the weeks ahead?
- [44:06]
Cathy Kelly
Oh, I'm roaming all over uk. I'm going to the Hay Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, Winchester. I'm zooming around, meeting readers and bringing hopefully, some love and laughter and fun and frivolity in these dark times. Because if we ever needed a laugh more, if laughter's the best medicine, hook me up intravenously. So that's what I'll be doing. What will you be doing?
- [44:29]
Julia Gillard
I'm roaming around Australia a bit. I have the Women Deliver Conference to attend. Attend in Melbourne, which is a huge global conference that happens every three years and Australia is hosting it, so that's fantastic. And then I will be roaming further afield and coming back to London. So we will be catching up in between your book tour commitments, which will be fantastic.
- [44:53]
Cathy Kelly
And I want you to call me Virginia. And we'll go to a jazz club and we'll drink a lot of gin and I'll sit on a bar still and quip. Okay, let's try that.
- [45:03]
Julia Gillard
It's a date.
- [45:06]
Cathy Kelly
Can't wait for you to come back over. Lovely to see you, Julia. Yeah, ask. Yes, have more. Think about there. Any other names you could have been called? What's your middle name?
- [45:16]
Julia Gillard
Eileen. My grandmother's name. My mother's mother's name.
- [45:21]
Cathy Kelly
Well, when we go to the bar and I'm Virginia, you can be Eileen. We'll see what life throws it as with different identities. Right.
- [45:28]
Julia Gillard
We're definitely doing that. Thank you, Cathy. And thank you for this fabulous discussion of the names by Florence Knapp.
- [45:42]
Podcast Narrator/Producer
A Podcast of One's Own is created by the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at the Australian National University, Canberra, with support from our sister institute at King's College London. Earnings from the podcast go back into funding for the Institute, which was founded by our host, Julia Gillard, and brings together rigorous research, practice and advocacy as a powerful force to advance gender equality and promote fair and equal access to leadership. Research and production for this podcast is by Becca Shepherd, Alice Higgins and Alina Ecot, with editing by Liz Keen from Headline Productions. If you have feedback or ideas, please email us@giwlnu.eduau. to stay up to date with the Institute's work, go to giwl.anu.edu au and sign up to our updates or follow us on Social mediaulanu. You can also find A Podcast of One's Own on Instagram. The team at A Podcast of One's Own Ignite acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Thanks for listening and we hope you'll join us next time.
- [47:15]
Jackson Financial Representative
Par le tu francais?
- [47:16]
Julia Gillard
Hablas espanol?
- [47:17]
Jackson Financial Representative
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