Ideas at the House

What sort of Australia will the young inherit? With short political cycles and ever shorter media cycles, it’s taken a high profile campaign for the Intergenerational Report to get us thinking seriously about the future. But are the responsibilities of the young and old clear? Does intergenerational equity even matter?Holly Ransom, Everald Compton and Andrew Charlton offer insights into what the old and young can bring that will make us less short-sighted about our future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When we live in an affluent and peaceful country like Australia, what do we do when we’re confronted by poverty and need, close to us? What are our responsibilities and how committed are we to help?Watch Peter Singer address his concept of effective altruism and shake up some of our assumptions about giving. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freedom of speech. Equality of speech. Opportunity for speech. Freedom to offend. Just some of the dimensions muddying the middle ground on this historically important topic.Chris Berg and Julian Burnside discuss how much freedom of speech we have, whether it’s enough, or too much, and who decides? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Media, politicians, thinkers… no one can decide which Australia we live in. Are we on the verge of becoming the poor white trash of Asia or poised to be an “innovation economy”?Nick Bryant, Rebecca Huntley and Marcia Langton discuss our successes and failures, what we’ve learned, and what to do about the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Having wives allowed millions of men to do their best work, with their minds and schedules uncluttered by meal planning and school pickups. But even though women are now freer than ever to pursue their own ambitions, relatively few men are volunteering to take over the bulk of the domestic labour. Crabb’s new book, The Wife Drought, peers into the gap that was left when “housewife” stopped being a job description, and explores how our ideas about work/life balance and parenting must still evolve beyond the choice to either bring home the bacon, or stay at home to cook it.Annabel Crabb is one of Australia's most popular political commentators and the host of Australia's first dedicated political cooking show, ABC TV's Kitchen Cabinet. She writes for ABC Online's The Drum and has worked extensively in TV and radio. She is a columnist for the Sunday Age, Sun-Herald and Canberra's Sunday Times and won a Walkley Award for her 2009 Quarterly Essay on Malcolm Turnbull. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘They shriek, they rage, they cheer, they despair, they exult, they scream, they laugh, they cry!’ News Limited blogger Tim Blair was not talking about State of Origin spectators, but his poll to find ‘this nation’s most unhinged hysteric’ from among his list of ten ‘frightbats’, a group of opinionated female journalists and commentators. The frightbats themselves mostly laughed off the insults, and competed in good humour to get the most votes.But what does it mean if women can still be dismissed as crazy, emotional, or “hysterical” when they express strong opinions or simply raise their voices? Three women of ideas discuss being trolled, insulted and not taken seriously, and the long history of demonising women with opinions.Elizabeth Farrelly is a weekly opinion columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, an Associate Professor in the Australian Graduate School of Urbanism at UNSW and author of several books, including Glenn Murcutt: Three Houses (1993), Blubberland (2007) and Caro Was Here, her first fiction, for children (2014). She won many awards for writing and for design, and has a background in science, philosophy, literature, city planning and architecture.Clementine Ford is a freelance writer, broadcaster and public speaker based in Melbourne. She is a Writer and Contributor for Daily Life and writes on feminism, pop culture and social issues.Jane Caro is a renowned journalist, broadcaster and author. She has appeared on ABC television's Q&A, as a regular panelist on The Gruen Transfer, and at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Jane has worked in the advertising industry and lectured in advertising at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at the University of Western Sydney. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Esther Freud’s own childhood was an unusual one - as the daughter of painter Lucian Freud and the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, this may not be surprising. Her first novel, Hideous Kinky, draws on her childhood memories of living in Morocco with her sister and their bohemian mother; her newest book, Mr Mac and Me, is the story of a young boy finding an unlikely friend in Scottish architect and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh. With meticulous skill and a sharp eye for the big moments we only recognise in hindsight, Freud gets her young narrators, as they puzzle out the messiness of family, relationships, and growing up. Our childhood is our past, and Freud shows how delving into it can bring a searching light to the question of how we end up the people we are.Esther Freud was born in London and trained as an actress at the Drama Centre. Her first novel, Hideous Kinky about two children accompanying their mother in 1960s Morocco, was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and later made into a film starring Kate Winslet. She is the author of seven other novels and her most recent book is Mr Mac and Me. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scrutiny of Australia's Muslim community has only increased in recent years. Australian women who wear Islamic head coverings have been subject toharassment, but we’ve seen the spontaneous solidarity of #illridewithyou in the wake of the Lindt Café siege. For Muslim women, episodes of community concern about their rights sit alongside racist stereotyping. Listen to Muslim women discuss their own priorities: how to fight sexism within Islamic communities; what happens when Islamophobia meets everyday sexism; and how society reacts to Muslim women taking their place in public life.Randa Abdel-Fattah is a Muslim of Palestinian and Egyptian heritage. She is a writer, passionate human rights advocate, and a spokesperson on issues relating to Palestine, Islam or Australian Muslims. Her articles have been published in The Australian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Le Monde (France).Susan Carland is a PhD candidate at Monash University, where she is researching the way Muslim women fight sexism within the Muslim community. In 2012 she was named on the 20 Most Influential Australian Female Voices list by The Age. She has also been named on the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World list, and as a “Muslim Leader of Tomorrow” by the UN Alliance of Civilizations. She is well known for her role on the SBS comedy panel and sketch show Salam Cafe, where she is a founding member and presenter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The arrival of women in the workplace has changed the way society functions – whether we’re talking about jobs and career, bringing up kids, or relationships. Research tells us that while women’s responsibilities have shifted to include paid work, their male partners still don’t share equally in the work at home. In fact, men are often stuck at the office, expected to be the ‘ideal worker’ and to have fewer family demands on their time. Can men break this cycle? Do they want to? And will their workplaces let them?Annabel Crabb is one of Australia's most popular political commentators and the host of Australia's first dedicated political cooking show, ABC TV's Kitchen Cabinet. She writes for ABC Online's The Drum and has worked extensively in TV and radio. She is a columnist for the Sunday Age, Sun-Herald and Canberra's Sunday Times and won a Walkley Award for her 2009 Quarterly Essay on Malcolm Turnbull.Richard Glover is a presenter for ABC Radio, journalist and author of of twelve books, including George Clooney's Haircut - and Other Cries for Help - a collection of his comic pieces as featured on ABC radio's Thank God It's Friday. His weekly humour column has been published in the Sydney Morning Herald for over twenty years.Graeme Russell is a consultant on work/life, fatherhood, gender equality, flexibility and organisational change. He was previously an Associate Professor in Psychology at Macquarie University and is recognised as a leading international researcher on fathers and families. His books include First-time Father: The Essential Guide for the New Dad.Brigid Schulte is a staff writer for The Washington Post and the author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, a New York Times bestselling book on time pressure and modern families. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beyoncé is one. So is Daniel Radcliffe. The only woman in federal cabinet says she isn’t. At some point in the last few years, we began talking about public figures “coming out” as feminists. Others affirm their belief in “gender equality”, but don’t find value in the F-word itself. With so many conflicting ideas about what a feminist looks like – or, more crucially, what a feminist does – anyone curious about the modern women’s movement can have a hard time separating the signal from the noise. Is “feminism” a political agenda, a social identity, a set of behaviours, a lifestyle choice, a Twitter mob or a branding exercise? This vital, varied panel will flatten common stereotypes, and delve into what feminism really means – and can achieve – in 2015 and beyond.Clementine Ford is a freelance writer, broadcaster and public speaker based in Melbourne. She is a Writer and Contributor for Daily Life and writes on feminism, pop culture and social issues.Roxane Gay is the co-editor of PANK. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Time, The Los Angeles Times, and many others. She is also the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, and Hunger, forthcoming in 2016.Germaine Greer is a writer and academic and is best known for her work as a key figure in modern feminism. Her ideas about gender and sexuality have provoked controversy since the release of her 1970 book The Female Eunuch. Her other works include Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility, The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause, The Whole Woman, and Shakespeare's Wife.Celeste Liddle is a proud Arrernte woman, feminist, trade unionist and vegetarian. In 2012, Celeste started her blog Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist and since then has developed a career as a freelance opinion writer with her work being published in The Guardian, Daily Life and Tracker, amongst others. Celeste has also frequently provided guest commentary on such channels as ABC radio, NITV and the National Indigenous Radio Service.Tara Moss is a novelist, journalist, blogger and TV presenter. Since 1999 she has written 9 bestselling novels, published in 18 countries and 12 languages. Her first non-fiction book, The Fictional Woman was published in May 2014. She is a long-term advocate for the rights of women and children and is UNICEF’s National Ambassador for Child Survival.Anita Sarkeesian is a media critic, blogger and the creator of Feminist Frequency, a video web series that explores the representations of women in pop culture narratives. In particular, her work highlights issues surrounding the targeted harassment of women in online and gaming spaces. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.