Ideas at the House

Every week in Australia at least one woman is killed by a current or former male partner. The rate of violent crime in Australia is declining, with the exception of sexual assault. There are also rising rates of women in incarceration. What are the solutions? Are patterns of violence changing? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Indigenous women are now on the frontlines when it comes to defending their land and livelihood. Crystal Lamemen is part of a community of 900 Woodland Cree people who for thousands of years have resided in the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, a territory in Alberta, Canada. Indigenous women are now on the front lines when it comes to defending their land and livelihood in the face of mining, other extractive industries and environmental changes.Crystal is joined by Amelia Telford, a Bundjalung woman from Tweed Heads, who is campaigning for climate justice, particularly for Indigenous people.With age-old treaties and new age methods like social media, how can traditional communities protect their land? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Anne-Marie Slaughter published an article in The Atlantic, titled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All", it became one of the most-read pieces in the magazine's history. It was inspired by her decision to leave her dream job at the State Department in Washington because her family needed her closer to home. Now she has taken this discussion forward as she looks at what needs to be done to make sure that we can make real progress towards fairness and equality. And it turns out that her answers are not all about what needs to happen at work, because valuing the work of caring for others is just as important. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If the majority of people believe that it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of gender, why isn’t change happening faster? New research into how our brains work sheds light on this question– and you might not like the answer. According to new evidence, we (yes, you!) could be a little bit sexist and not even realise it. It’s called ‘unconscious bias’ and occurs when a trigger or situation causes us to make a decision so rapidly that we are not consciously aware of it. The result? We’re more susceptible to biased thinking like stereotyping or bias in favour of those who are similar to us.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Detective shows, drama series, and movie plots with murderous storylines: our fascination with crime stories knows no bounds, with women on the front lines as both stars and writers. We sit at home being terrified by the latest fictional serial killer, learning to distrust our neighbours, but is our view of the world outside being distorted? Whilst our cultural landscape is getting more criminally dangerous, in the real world the rates of most crimes in Australia, with the exception of sexual assault, are actually in decline. Whilst audiences are entranced by murder mysteries, are we becoming increasingly paranoid? Is crime culture creating a social disorder, where our perception of danger is not in sync with the reality? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We live in a world addicted to scandal and drama, but why do women often come off worse than their male counterparts? In a political sex scandal, an older adulterous male survives whilst a young woman’s career is often left in tatters. When a sports star is accused of rape the accuser often fares worse than the alleged perpetrators as her life and morals are put under a microscope.Is this misogyny in action? Or do women rush to judge each other while men stand in solidarity? Is this the same pattern that begins in the schoolyard where the ‘pack’ chooses who is popular and who has to eat alone? How can we fight the human urge to judge each other? And are their unexpected lessons to be learnt from the Boys' Club? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like many jobs where leadership is combined with long hours and late nights, not many women list ‘Theatre Director’ as their occupation. Or ‘Artistic Director’ or ‘Director’ for that matter, to the point where this has been a vexed topic of conversation in the arts for some time. Is it just the same set of difficulties for ambitious women as we find in business or industry, where once women have responsibilities other than their work, the going gets tough? Or are there some factors that are particular to the arts more broadly that make existing leaders even more likely to appoint people just like themselves?The Boys' Club is part of Culture Club, Sydney Opera House’s art talks series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘She disappeared, she never came back, men came for her; today she would be celebrating her sixteenth birthday’. These were some of the heartbreaking statements that Jennifer Clement heard when researching her novel,Prayers for the Stolen, about the plight of missing girls in Mexico. The war between the Mexican government and the drug cartels has killed more than a hundred thousand people. This does not include the missing women – those stolen from their streets or their houses because they are young, poor and pretty, or those hiding from the violence.Join the author as she shares the stories she heard over ten years of immersing herself in the lives of Mexican women, including rural mothers who dig holes in their cornfields to hide their daughters from traffickers. Have the drug wars become a war against women? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How many people have you had sex with? No, don’t tell us! But was your first instinct to tell the truth, to exaggerate or underestimate your ‘magic’ number? We live in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom but underneath we are still governed by conventions and expectations surrounding our sex lives.Journalist and accidental sexpert, Rachel Hillsgoes beneath the covers to discuss how sex myths are causing women just as much unhappiness as ever. Is fetishing sexual activity creating as much of a gap between fantasy and reality as there was in more prudish times? And how is it shaping women’s identities? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many questions women ask ourselves about how to achieve equality can only be answered if we understand men and masculinity. The Women’s Liberation Movement triggered a worldwide debate about men, and a generation of research about what proved to be masculinities - in the plural. Over the last thirty years, knowledge has accumulated about men’s diversity and collective power, and the making and re-making of masculinities. This helps us understand men’s predominance in the corporate and political world, and problems of private life from how to share housework to how to stop domestic violence. How can we understand the dilemmas of men and boys today - and their potential for a more peaceful and gender-equal world? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.