Well, good afternoon everybody. I'm Fiona Jenkins. I'm the convener of the Gender Institute here at AMU. And on behalf of the Gender Institute and the Vice Chancellor, I'd like to welcome you to this International Women's Day celebration. And I want first to acknowledge that we meet on the traditional lands of the Ngunawal people and pay respect to elders past and present. And on this occasion I'd especially like us to offer respect to the many strong women of this community. Elders who have led, inspired and educated in so many ways, maintaining culture and law across countless generations. I'd also like to acknowledge any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are joining us here today. This feels like a particularly momentous International Women's Day celebration. And for several reasons. I think first today brings back for me many memories of this event last year. When we gathered for this event in the wake of hailstorms and fire and thought, yes, COVID was a threat but probably the worst of 2020 was behind us. And how terribly wrong we were. We've of course been very lucky as compared to many places around the world. We've minimised in very effective ways the direct impact of the virus. But of course the indirect effects are many and plenty of them have affected people in our own community here at ANU and perhaps some of you here today. So there'll be plenty for us to reflect on during this International Women's Day celebration about the gendered impacts of COVID and what they tell us about ongoing discrimination and persisting inequalities for women. Second though, and as events at the moment seem to come in great waves, we can't ignore what many are speaking of as Australia's Me Too time of reckoning, especially here in Canberra. And I'm wearing my feminist purple jiu jitsu outfit for a reason because I think women are angry they're speaking up, some battle lines are being drawn. This is a very powerful, very important moment of International Women's Day to fall. Given what's afoot on Parliament Hill, many women I've met over the last few days are sharing many stories, stories of past abuses to themselves and to others. Often speaking of friends of promising young women who something happened to and they disappeared and people are wondering what happened to them and where they are now and how they dealt with those terrible events of so many years ago, often so many years ago. Now of course these issues have of course also affected boys, men and non-binary genders, but they've fallen in a particular way on women and that is an ongoing and urgent question that we need to think about here on International Women's Day. We also all need to look out for each other as we continue to try to work such stories, such terrible stories into commitments here at ANU. We have made progress but we still have very significant work to do to create a safer university and a fairer workplace for everybody. On Wednesday this week I was incredibly lucky to be at the press club to hear the Australian of the Year Grace Thames speak and she was just extraordinary. I have never felt that room with so much electricity, so much power in her words. Her clarity I think comes from the work that she has done to overcome the shame that sexual survivors feel.  And inevitably of course her words spoke to many issues of current concern. When she was asked how to help in situations where abuse has occurred or may occur her advice was very simple and I'm going to repeat it because I think it's something we may all need right now. Try to create space where people who are at risk or undergoing abuse feel safe to talk to you. Say I hear you and I will try to help you however I can and respect that the lived experience belongs to someone. It's not just a story. The story is hers and it's hers to tell and that needs to be respected. I think it's also an important moment for us to remember that there's considerable professional support available. And if things are coming up for you that seem difficult to deal with or if people are disclosing issues to you that need advice and help, there are many support services here at ANU. And in fact we have Michelle Lindmore who's a psychologist from ANU counselling here with us today. If anything comes up for you today you're very welcome to go and see Michelle and ANU wellbeing and support line is available 24-7 if and when you need it. Of course the other really important message of this International Women's Day is that strength and the optimism of young activists like Grace Tame are inspiring everyone to try and do better. International Women's Day is about celebrating women without shying away from the many difficult challenges that continue to confront us all. So we need courage, we need hope, we need action and with these words I will turn to our panel today in the hope that your wisdom is going to lead and inspire us in thinking further.  The questions that the panel will address are have we made real progress towards equality in this time? Or have we merely knocked the harshest edges of the patriarchy? Were feminists right to engage with the mainstream policy and law to achieve transformational change?  So our moderator Sally Moyle is an honorary associate professor at the ANU and closely associated with the work of the Gender Institute. Sally was until 2019 the chief executive officer at Care Australia and between 2013 and 2016 the principal gender specialist and assistant secretary with DFAT. Speakers represent three generations of feminist legal thought. Our emerita Professor Margaret Thornton from the ANU College of Law is a socio legal scholar and feminist who's published extensively in the area of discrimination and the law. Margaret also has a particular interest in gender in the legal profession and the impact of the corporatisation of universities on the legal academy.  She previously worked in the Human Rights Law and Policy Centre at the Australian Human Rights Commission and in a number of senior roles she produced national guidelines on sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. Radhika Chaudhuri is a university medalist and PhD candidate here at ANU in the College of Law and her research relates to economic forms of domestic violence. Radhika sits on the ACT Ministerial Advisory Council for Women where she advises on legal responses to domestic violence and she's also worked as an associate to the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia. So please join me in welcoming our panel. Hi everybody, can you? Yes, I think that's on there. It's lovely to have you all here. Thank you very much for coming and welcome to Karen as well. I like Fiona would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we're meeting and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and to particularly thank our fabulous panel. I've been so excited about moderating this conversation because we have such great thinkers here across three generations of legal thought. I have known of course Margaret for many years as the author of the Liberal Promise which in our previous conversation we all noted is still as relevant today as it was when it was written 30 years ago. Karen I've known for over 20 years when we worked together at the Human Rights Commission and were both responsible for overseeing the Sex Discrimination Act and Radhika of course is an emerging thinker who I've been really excited to meet and to have the really thoughtful and new thinking about the way we take this generation, the gender equality agenda forward. So it's really exciting to be here and for me in particular I've spent 30 years working inside government, working inside the system to try and change it and the gamble that I explicitly took with myself was to say we can change this system. It is a cultural system, it's not natural to humanity, it's a cultural system of patriarchy that we can change and by working within it we can change it. And now I've just finished my full-time career and I'm reflecting on that and so it's wonderful to have the opportunity to kind of get into that and unpack that a little bit with the panel today and with all of you as well. So the plan for us is that we'll have a conversation here on the stage and with Karen. I would like to have it as a flowing conversation but I'm told because of COVID restrictions we need to have people who have questions come down to the microphone at the front of the stage. So it makes it difficult for it to be particularly organic but I will certainly make sure that there's time for us to have questions at the end. But for the moment I thought that I would kick off the panel by saying we talk a lot about the aim for the gender equality agenda. We're looking for gender equality but we don't really necessarily spend as much time defining the system that we're seeking to change. We don't talk about the patriarchy much. It's reflected with Karen the other day that we used to sort of titta behind our hands at the notion of discussing the patriarchy but we do need to name and identify the ingredients of the system that we're seeking to change. And so I wonder if the patriarchy is a term that is useful now or has ever been and I'm wondering if I could ask Karen first of all to start us off with that conversation. Thanks Sally and it's an absolute pleasure to join all of you here today. I still don't use the term patriarchy to describe my own work or the work that I do having said that I agree that we do live in one. So why do I not use it when I think we live in a patriarchy. I think it is because I now see law in particular the system that I'm mostly am engaged with to try and bring about gender equality as more of an ecosystem of which patriarchy is one of the elements. I think for me trying to come up with an image or a metaphor that's big enough that keeps you working keeps you inspired to change how things are while capturing all of the elements is what's tricky about the language that we use. For me the idea of law as an ecosystem captures the idea that we don't just have one system of power. So even if what we're trying to do is get it gender inequality the other sorts of social political cultural inequalities we have of race and disability etc play into those. And so we've got some really complex elements in there and I use that sort of metaphor for myself where I think of patriarchy as part of a big picture with many complex elements. Thank you and when I think that what we're talking about is a system where of dominance really where power is expressed as being over other people and that's that applies to sex and it applies to all of the other characteristics that traditionally haven't had the same voice. Margaret and Raddika do you have some thoughts on that? Is that okay? So yes I think there is a problem about using that word patriarchy. It does seem to be. I'm giving it a tap on the tap. Sorry. Yes so that the term patriarchy does tend to be somewhat one dimensional and I've used it in my work if I'm talking about antiquity. Ancient Greece you know literally the law of the father whereas I think things are more complicated multi dimensional today so that it's not such a useful term. But I agree with Sally that we don't really have the precise term one term that can actually apply. We talk about inequality I suppose in a rather vague sense as encompassing all the things that we feel that are wrong and need to need to be addressed. But there's no one term so patriarchy I mean is probably quite useful and maybe the suggestion that would be brought back in would be would be helpful. I think probably many men would actually object to that because it does suggest that it's all encompassing when it's actually not. Yeah I agree with the observations that Karen and Margaret have made. I think one of the very important reflections that sheds light on the system and society that we live in is that it's probably too simplistic to just talk about patriarchy as being the only power structure it's a very important one and it invokes I guess the aspects of power that emphasise gender as the core of that power. But I think that it is more accurate to speak about an ecosystem of dominance. So I think it is a useful term when we are specifically trying to invoke the gendered aspects of those power structures. But it needs to be deployed with care and with understanding that it's located within a variety of different power structures and intersectionality is a very real part of describing the reality that we're trying to change. So I do use the word patriarchy when I am trying to isolate one specific type of power structure that we see operating in society. But I do otherwise more generally adopt it with more caution because of these points that Margaret and Karen have made so well. One of the things for me is that just describing inequality as the system that we're seeking to change is it sometimes lets people off the hook because it enables us to think about inequality from a liberal feminist point of view that's just a technical fix. We'll pass a few laws and everything will be fine and our experience over 30 or 40 years here and this table demonstrates that it's not the case. It's not a technical fix and so we do need to have a deeper understanding of the way that these power structures are embedded in our society to give us an understanding of the level of challenge that we're facing I think. And so I do think we've got to be careful about defining that and it's great to be speaking here at a university where there's lots of emerging thinkers and if we can find a way and find the language to describe the structures that within which we live I think it would be a real helpful contribution to make for our thinking about the future and where we need to go. So it does need to comprehend those intersections and the interlocking nature of it and how deeply embedded it is in our culture. So rewyn Conor coined the term hegemonic masculinity which I found that that's quite helpful because it's not suggesting that it's all masculinity it's a particular type of masculinity and I think that that's quite useful also to think about in terms of the way authority operates and power of course. Yes. So I mean I think the way we've framed up this conversation so far suggests that we're talking about that we agree that we're talking about a system of power and that where inequality is quite deeply embedded and I think that's the assumption that I make and you know my bruised and bruised body from years of doing battle on gender equality within government suggests to me that it is a deeply embedded system. And I'm wondering if I can ask the panellists how how deeply do you feel that inequality is embedded in our system after you know each of us spending many years working on this topic how deeply are we and how far do we think we're coming.  I think it is very deeply embedded but it is also the reason why I think thinking of law or politics or the tools that we try to use to get at inequality as being embedded in a bigger system is useful because as we apply those tools the system is also changing. So it's not that we just have you know a static tool and a static problem and we can apply one to the other. We're part of a whole dynamic system so I mean to give an example from my own area or one of my areas of work which is sexual harassment.  I mean the statistics on sexual harassment show that the problem is completely ubiquitous seems to be entrenched. All of the things we've done to put the all you know the laws the policies we've put in place don't seem therefore to have worked and yet we know there have been huge shifts in how we think about sexual harassment in naming it. In having people speak up so I'm not prepared to say that we haven't succeeded on that but what has happened is as we have addressed it other things have changed. Our economic system has changed to be arguably harsher we've got social media which is a whole new framework so I think that it's a very difficult thing to say we have just got this problem of inequality that we can measure in this way and we'll be able to chip away at it and it will get smaller and smaller. It's not how it works and I think it's a reason to both be a bit overwhelmed at times by the challenge but also why it's possible to stay optimistic because we are constantly making things better I think even if that's not always showing in our systems of measurement. I think inequality is deeply embedded within our social psyche so it's something that just can't be changed by law and the other thing about the nature of law is that it tends to operate largely only in the public domain not the private domain. John Stuart Mill said law is of use only in that public sense and so that we have this enormous difficulty so anything to do with sex or sexuality is deemed to be somehow private and so that it's always much more difficult to actually deal with in terms of public law and so that's an ongoing problem so that while we have made advances in the public domain since the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in terms of then the participation of women in the workplace and the distribution of women in positions of power within the legal profession, within parliament and so on we still have that problem about what's occurring in private life, what's occurring in the family, who's doing the childcare, who's doing the housework. I mean there seem to be private issues that are somehow beyond the domain of law so that continues to be I think a major problem. Except of course when it comes to regulating women's fertility, I mean that seems to be the one exception for that liberal approach that women's fertility and rights to abortion have always been so highly contested and so highly regulated and increasingly so but sorry Radhika. Sorry I was just going to say I really wanted to pick up on what Margaret has just said about the way that law works has I guess in classical notions of what law is it's public regulation of society and the exercise of public power and when we think about what law does we are often and particularly in sex discrimination we're thinking about the way that public law is used to regulate that conduct so where the state is able to impose regulations on citizens and what they do. My research actually does look at private law or the ways in which the law will regulate disputes between people rather than the way that the state chooses to regulate its citizens. And that's I think a really interesting site for feminist legal thought and law reform work because when we think about feminist law reform very rightly and very justifiably so the emphasis of a lot of that work is in public law and getting things like the Sex Discrimination Act and working on criminalising forms of domestic violence and that sort of thing and there is really valuable work to be done there. And it is an obvious candidate for law reform because it's states driven and I think one of the interesting things that is sometimes left out of this conversation about sex discrimination is what that looks like in private law where in civil cases not criminal cases how do we think about those principles about how to govern disputes between people in that private sphere. And those areas are less amenable to law reform because they can't be fixed with large air quotes in the same way as public law areas are ripe for that kind of reform. So yeah I guess I just wanted to introduce that also into this conversation that when we think about law we can be thinking about public law but we should also be thinking about private law. And then of course the point that Margaret was making there are a whole lot of activities that just are not subject to legal regulation at all that are part of the way that social norms form gender relation norms. And you know I think looking back over 40 years of legislation around people's public engagement that the Sex Discrimination Act represents it regulates public life right and it has set norms that have bounced on to the way people live their private life. So it has seen concurrent with the legislation we've seen a massive engagement of women with the workforce and it's I think the Sex Discrimination Act has a lot of credit to take for supporting women and opening those doors for women. And setting the norm that it is an expectation and a right of women to participate equally in the world of work in the public world and I think that's super important. So I think but it is that iceberg isn't it you know the private life is that iceberg the 90% of that's under the water line that is still influencing the way women and men engage in the public world with leadership and with the world of work and that is preventing us from seeing further progress. So we know that women are still doing the vast majority of unpaid work in the home and that this really does interfere with women's ability to participate in the economy. And we're looking forward to seeing the fourth time use survey that should be out in the field I think nowish and we're looking at the results of that next year. So it will really show us whether over the last 10 years since we've had a time use survey we've seen any real change in the way that women and men share the unpaid burden of work. And I think that's super important. I really like the way that you frame up the notion of the public law in terms of the state's role in regulating behaviour and the role of individuals in the way they work together and using equity. I think is a really interesting idea Radhika. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? So the research that I'm doing is into domestic violence particularly financial forms of domestic violence and this often manifests in coerced transactions. Those sorts of transactions, the concept of emotionally transmitted debt will often leave usually a woman with financial liabilities that are enforceable against her unless a court thinks it is appropriate to intervene. The principles that govern that intervention is what I'm studying at the moment but what I guess the bigger point to make is that women's ability to access that kind of remedy is very much determined by the attitudes that courts bring to those kinds of cases and the way that they choose to exercise their discretion which I think brings us to the similar kinds of barriers that we observe in public law where we do have a framework for addressing some of these issues. We have legislation and in the case of equity we have doctrines that are equipped to respond to these significant issues that women face but there are non-legal structures that are interacting with law whether it's public law or private law that really undermine the work that is theoretically possible through law. Super interesting and just to take up the point that Karen made originally that we've seen 40 years of legislation outlawing sexual harassment for example and discrimination but we've now up to our fourth national survey of the prevalence of sexual harassment in Australian workplaces and the first one of which Karen and I started and we are seeing that there's very little change. Now of course that might mean that there's people more educated about what sexual harassment means and more willing to report it but that survey always did give people prompts, didn't it? It always helped people to understand what we were talking about and ask them if they'd ever experienced that kind of behaviour so it didn't ask them to know the legal definition of sexual harassment for example. We haven't seen much change and also we see now increasingly countries around the world doing prevalence surveys of the incidents of domestic violence and gendered violence and some countries have been focusing on this for decades and others are brand new to it and we're seeing similar levels of violence against women across most societies. I mean there are differences that may reflect some cultural values so the incidence is quite reported as being quite low in Japan but quite very high in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and I think but generally speaking about one in three women is going to experience gender based violence during the course of her life and I think that's it's amazing how sticky this is and I just wanted to kind of this is one of my frustrations that we don't see substantive progress and I'm wondering if Karen do you have any further reflections on that? Yes I'm dying to reflect on that Sally. I think in some ways and I think you would probably agree it's also not surprising at all because if we look at the remedies we've set up and if we look at the sex discrimination act as an example we've got this ubiquitous problem of sex discrimination but also let's say specifically of sexual harassment and then we set up individual remedies to respond so in the face of like a really overwhelmingly large problem we rely on specific individuals to raise individual incidents of that particular behaviour and then it falls to that individual to effectively take on a whole system. We've seen that again over the last couple of weeks through the events in Canberra that even where there appear to be very systemic problems it often comes down to one individual and there are all kinds of hurdles for that individual to speak up in the midst of this much bigger system so I think as long as our remedies aren't systemic or broad enough and we rely on individuals sometimes you know risking more than any one individual should have to risk we are going to see the continuation of a systemic problem and this goes to Margaret's you know brilliant book as you said Sally called the liberal promise you know the reason it called the liberal promise Margaret if you're speaking for you here but it's because our system of law seems to offer it promises equality you know through these laws that look like they bestow equality on us because sexual harassment is unlawful it then looks as if we have some kind of protection against it so I think we really and we don't in fact have a systemic approach to dealing with it so I think that as long as we rely on individuals to address such big problems we're going to not only see the continuation of the problem but that the tools that we're trying to use may can be accused of being merely symbolic and in fact entrench the problem because they only address it in the smallest possible way Margaret thank you Karen for pointing those weaknesses that I identified in the liberal promise I agree absolutely and it actually then I think highlights another weakness within our legal system it's not only that it operates primarily in the public sphere but it's the individualized nature of law in terms of well criminal law and civil law as well so the focus is on the individual and so we're actually highly resistant to recognizing systemic problems and taking action in that way so in the well soon after the sex discrimination act came into operation we had well Susan Ryan was responsible for affirmative action legislation and so this was the idea of actually overcoming this notion of the individual complainant having to bear the burden of taking on a huge corporation or whatever it might be and actually reversing the onus in a sense in actually having the employer the corporation then take some sort of proactive sort of measure to try and sort of foreclose the possibility of individual complaints well there was huge opposition to that for years and years and so we're now on the third iteration of the of the legislation and each time it became weaker and weaker it wasn't very strong to start with but weaker so we're totally opposed to actually recognizing within our legal system that problems may be systemic so there is still you know we come back always as Karen said you know whether it's sexual harassment or whatever to the focus being entirely on one individual and you know in an employment situation that person may have lost their job or they may not have a union behind them or whatever and so they just give up which is another reason why the numbers we have are actually quite small Can I just add another layer of negativity to that so I think I completely agree that with the observations about problems in having such an individualistic focus not having a system that's well equipped to respond to or even acknowledge systemic barriers and the way that access to justice works to encourage people to give up before they get to court the level of negativity that I would like to additionally offer is that when someone does get to court and so sex discrimination act is not my core area of research but my core area of research in private law is even when you have a plaintiff who is prepared to get to court you then have to work through a lot of the preconceived ideas about what violence looks like about what domestic violence is about how gender roles work and there is an uphill battle once you have your day in court as well and so there are multiple levels at which the system is not really one that encourages the successful prosecution of these kinds of claims whether they're under the sex discrimination act or in equitable disputes about contracts and we see that in lots of different jurisdictions I think it really does raise the whole masculine notion of individuals coming together in litigation standing as equals or in criminal law the alternative notion of witnesses being merely witnesses that they are at all of the criminal justice process without having real standing in their own right and I think some of these issues have shown to us particularly recently that perhaps we need to have another really good look at the whole way that we approach our criminal justice and our public law as well in terms of framing up litigation to make change happen because I think you know you could very well argue right at this time in Australia's history that the criminal justice system is not fit for purpose for gender based violence for sexual violence and it needs to have another look at it but thinking about the sex discrimination act and how difficult it was to pass in 1984 by at the time up until I think the Mabo legislation came before parliament it was the longest debated piece of legislation in Australia's history you know and we saw during the debates that you know the sex discrimination act was going to outlaw Santa Claus it was the end of Christianity that families were going to be you know the end of families as we know it you know the sky literally was going to fall in from discussions around the sex discrimination act and of course as you say Margaret it was a small piece it was a small step forward and I think we have coasted on the back of that and it has made significant changes but sometimes I think in terms of the process of making change happen the first steps are easiest and sometimes the system that you're trying to change hasn't been given adequate notice of the depth of the change that you're seeking and so they don't notice and they let it get through there was always the mythical story of Dame Carol Kiddo who was for a very long time the only woman in the Papua Newginian parliament who passed rape in marriage legislation by sticking it in the back of another piece of legislation and assuming that it was going to slip by without most people noticing it and sure enough that's how it happened and so I think you know sometimes it's easiest to get the first steps onto the board but beyond that it gets harder and harder and I think we are facing another challenge now and we need to take that next step forward as a society and it's you know the battle lines are all arrayed and everybody's prepared to stand against it what do you think though Karen? Yeah I think that there are times where we do law reform and I think we've had really good sort of feminist driven law reform in Australia and there are times where we do the social change and because each is embedded in the other and influences the other I think you can make laws much more effective by changing the social assumptions and you know culture that they are embedded in. Catherine McKinnon who you know is a very well known US feminist who worked on the initial sexual harassment laws when they were first named in America said about the Me Too movement that whatever laws you have about sexual harassment and sexual violence aren't going to work if women aren't believed. There is nothing you really can do with a law if you don't fundamentally believe in the levels of violence that women experience. So now I feel like now is an opportunity for a bit of social change. I've seen some amazing changes just in the period of time I've worked in gender equality which is most of my adult life in things such as women's loss of shame around sexual violence. I mean there used to be such shame put on women who'd experienced violence that it was a risk to speak up just because of the way you were shamed and women internalised a lot of that and I think it's amazing now to see a lot of young women just prepared to speak up and know that it's not a shameful thing. Those sort of social changes have a huge impact. I think that there are times where we just have a sort of break or rupture in the system of patriarchy if you call it that where we have an opportunity to just make everyone look at things a bit anew and think about how they want things to be. And I feel like we might be in another one of those right now. So I feel sort of both exhausted and optimistic. I absolutely hear what you're saying and I do think that sometimes you just need to sort of step back, reframe the conversation, use different language and sneak up on it again you know because I do treat it like this, the change that we're seeking to make as a kind of a creature that we're trying to overcome. And so I do see it in those ways. Raddika, what do you think? Oh yeah, I completely agree with Karen and what I like about her observation there is that understanding that there's the legal work to be done as it were, that the legal barriers are things like getting law reform on the books and that's really important and it continues to be a really, really important site of work for feminists who work with women. I sort of fundamentally believe that that is a fruitful avenue for feminist movement. But then there are these non-legal barriers that need to be addressed before the law can really do what it or hope to do what it promises to do. And I think that the non-legal barriers, certainly the work that I'm doing at the moment is exposing those non-legal barriers, the sticking points in women not being believed and the sticking points in terms of judges continuing to think about domestic violence as physical violence only and all of these sorts of things. And I think that that is a more complicated body of work ahead of us. The early steps are sometimes the most straightforward and then you start getting into the more complex and nuanced pieces of issues that make it more difficult to kind of frame up so easily. Present themselves. I think Margaret. Well, social change never moves in a simple, progressivist manner. So there's always going to be opposition and that was apparent with the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act. Although most people supported it and that was partly because of Bob Hawke, who was the Prime Minister, was strongly supportive. That was an enormous help. And sometimes those who opposed it were seen as a little bit sort of mad and there was a group known as the women who want to be women as opposed to women who want to be rabbits or whatever, who orchestrated this enormous letter writing campaign and there were 80,000 submissions put in against passage of the Sex Discrimination Act, which seems absolutely bizarre today. And so that it was seen to be the opposition then was seen to be a sort of belong to these sort of well ultra conservative sort of sort of cranks, I suppose. But I think it's interesting over time that we, I don't think that many people appreciate just the impact of the Sex Discrimination Act and it was really some years before there was a backlash against women. So that became stronger and many of the gains were actually undone during the Howard years. And I think since that time we've seen a much greater division between conservatives and those who are supportive of the legislation. And I think I've suggested that I think it would be difficult for the same piece of legislation to be passed today for that reason. And certainly in the international sphere the Beijing platform for action that was passed by universal decree in 1995 is constantly being whittled away now in the commission on the status of women every year. We're seeing that being moving away from. So that brings us really neatly to the last question that I wanted to post to the panel and that is, is this something that we can do? Can we change these systems of dominance? Can we change the patriarchy or are we just kidding ourselves? I sometimes worry that if we'd left the patriarchy with its red in tooth and claw we would have seen it being forced to change more radically. But by chipping away at its edges, by making it less harsh that in fact what we've done is made it more fit for purpose. And this is where I'm up to in my life stage really just going, was it worth it? Can we do this? Is it a challenge that we can meet? And I'm hearing from the panel that there are ideas about how we take this forward but do we think stopping and reflecting on this, do we think that it can be done? The backlash that we're seeing now, is it just backlash or is this a reassertion of the rights of the patriarchy? Well, I think it's part of the struggle and I think one has to accept that it's ongoing. People sometimes say to me, how can you keep going with this sort of fought a particular battle in the past and then one has to, you know, it's all papered over and then you have to start de novo. So it is frustrating but I think that's the nature of social change. I think it's never going to be to be simple, but on the other hand, it doesn't mean that we give up because of that. We keep going and, you know, it's two steps forward, one back or maybe it's the opposite. I'm not sure. Are you asking me, Sal?  Okay. It really depends which day you ask me on. So there's no doubt that it's a hard slog some days. And then there are other days where it feels like we are not only changing things but we already have and you see so many good stories as well. At the moment, I think there is a real sense that there is some collective anger out there. None of us come to law or politics or even our own social circle as blank slates. We all have our own experiences of inequality and those operate the way they do in society, sometimes to silence us and make us feel like we can't speak up and sometimes to empower us and drive us to change. So I think that however hard this battle is, one of the good things that comes out of being feminist and working in this area for a long time is that kind of collective feeling that you get. The company that you have along the way and despite our reputation, the humour that we share maybe behind closed doors. But you know that sort of collective spirit is something that I think does drive us to keep going and I feel a lot of that at the moment. So I think that if you're asking me today, yes, I do think we can change things and we're going to very soon. Watch this space. Look, I'm a little bit like Karen. I think that this question of whether it's possible to use law to address the patriarchy is really a fundamental one of feminism. And I'm not someone who studies feminist legal theory. I use feminist legal theory in my research. So I guess it's one of those questions that depending on what day it is, I fall on one side of that debate or the other. But I think that I really agree with what Margaret and Karen have said that it is a non-linear struggle. And I think that there are ways in which we can think about progress that has been made that should give us hope that despite the challenges that we face in the present moment, those challenges are part of work and they're part of what needs to be overcome. And so in the research that I do and I know a lot of my colleagues who work in this area also see both the challenge and the opportunity that law presents. And this feels like a moment where some of those conversations can take place and maybe take us somewhere new. I told you we'd finish on a positive note and with that I think it might be time for us to turn to questions from the audience. We've got about half an hour so if we have anybody with burning desires to have their say, please come down to the front here. Hi, so thank you so much for that discussion. I have a question that someone wanted me to ask as an anonymous question for obvious reasons. Often survivors are asked to sign confidentiality agreements when they finally leave a workplace. How do we hear these voices as these are people who may have not had the strength to personally take on the organisation or system? Karen, I think you have something to say about that and I can make some comments as well if you like. I think there is, was there something added there? There is an increased understanding now of the impact of silencing of people at all levels of the system. And nondisclosure agreements I think have been in the last few years. There's been new attention on them. So how do we hear the voices that have already been silenced is a really tricky one because I think there has been just this long history of forcing people into confidentiality that they have not requested themselves. And often in their name, in the name of protecting women victims of violence in many forms. But what you are starting to see now come through are some workplaces that are committing to not having nondisclosure agreements imposed. The recent respect at work inquiry by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner tried to get at that by asking organisations to set aside nondisclosure agreements for the period of time of the inquiry that had mixed success with that. But I think at the very least there is a new attention being focused on nondisclosure agreements as part of a layering of silence when people speak up that happened in the workplace. It happens when you go to confidential conciliation. It happens again when you settle out of court. We've got just layer upon layer of silence. So I do think people are starting to understand that. But we know when they're solving it yet. So I don't, there is a solution yet. We're edging there though. And like you say, the Champions of Change Coalition has recently put some guidance out to senior leaders of organisations in Australia to say, Be very aware of this. It's not as definitive as we might like, but it's a really big step forward I think towards recognising that silencing process for women and making sure that we can start unpeeling that next onion. So I think that's a really important question. Thank you. Hi. I wanted to address what I feel is a little bit the elephant in the room, which is the accusation of sexual assault from I believe 1988 against Christian Porter. I was curious to know what the panel's thoughts were on both the legal and social response to allegations of historical sexual assault. Thank you. Well, it's very difficult as we know this particular case because the victim is no longer alive and so can't give evidence. And we know that the New South Wales police has decided not to persevere in terms of the criminal dimension. But that doesn't preclude the fact that there can still be some sort of inquiry. And I think that perhaps the way the Prime Minister was addressing it most recently and some other pundits suggested that they were bound by the criminal norms that had to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt, which is not the case. So it's still possible to have some sort of inquiry which is more open and terms can be decided about that because it is very peculiar to have the chief legal officer of the land having this cloud over his head forever. To be the attorney general actually who's responsible for enquiries and so on. So there's a sort of extraordinary anomaly that's emerged in this case. But I think in the interest, in the public interest because there's so much media interest in the matter that there should be some sort of inquiry. But if the Prime Minister is not in favour of that, I think it's very difficult. Karen, I can see you. You're waiting to say something. Yes, I agree with Margaret. I think one of the problems in public debate is we have been a bit co-opted by the criminal law. It's so much a part of popular culture that people think of criminal law as the law. But if something doesn't meet a criminal standard or can't be brought forward as a criminal proceeding, and we know, as you said Sally earlier, that the criminal law is a terrible tool for getting at sexual violence, partly because it is so defendant focused because someone may lose them. There's this kind of way of talking about it. So I think that it's really, really important for people to understand that there's a whole sphere of law outside of the criminal law. You can bring a civil action for sexual assault. There are other laws here but alongside that what we tend to do in Australia is if there is a sexual assault or sexual violence case that doesn't meet the criminal standard, we then stop talking about it. We act as if that means it didn't happen. And I think it's really important that we continue to talk about it even when the criminal avenue can't be followed. And in this case I have been in the media all of this week saying that we absolutely need to keep talking about it and we do need to still inquire into it. I absolutely agree and it is infuriating to see the sad disappointment of those who wish that we could have a legal inquiry through the criminal law into this, but of course the complainant has killed herself. So it's terribly sad but there's nothing more we can do, wash my hands of it. It is infuriating to see that. And as Margaret said, the notion that our chief law officer in the land has a shadow hanging over his head is something that absolutely needs to be inquired into I think. It needs to be an inquiry at the civil standard of proof on the balance of probabilities that says not did he commit that sexual violence but is he a proper person to lead the law in Australia. Does he do his attitudes and his commitment to gender equality stand in the way of his doing that job effectively? I think it's a really important time in our lives in Australia and I think we've got another question. I just wanted to add because the person who asked the question also asked about social aspects and I have been, I've really noticed this anger when the Prime Minister for example said that he believed the attorney general without saying he'd read the full dose of information. I mean I think there is also a sort of anger that comes from the social level of the response, you know, where we're trying to believe women more and so this kind of immediate belief of the other perspective, things like that I think are creating social anger outside of the legal framework. I agree. Thank you. Thanks. I'm Helen Mottress, President of the ACT Human Rights Commission. I was just wondering what you thought of the civil process for Dyson Hayden's case inquiry there by the High Court. I mean it's a lot length of time since he was in the role but at least it happened and the impact the media had of women coming forward and how powerful it was to hear those voices. What do you think Margaret, do you have some thoughts on Dyson Hayden's inquiry? Dyson Hayden's case is actually a very good precedent for the present one, the fact that there was an inquiry but it wasn't bound by the criminal law, it wasn't a criminal proceeding at all. The Chief Justice of the High Court, Susan Keiful, then sort of arranged for this inquiry to be undertaken and I think that was very valuable because it allowed the victimists to speak up and to be heard in a way that was satisfying to them. I mean, as we said, this is somewhat more complicated for a number of reasons but still it's a useful precedent that should be kept in mind and it wasn't a criminal action. Karen, do you have any thoughts on the Dyson Hayden case? I also agree, there are reasons why it's not comparable that the Attorney General did draw attention in his statement to the press that it was a matter that was within the workplace but it still did involve a justice of the High Court who was no longer at the High Court, so a former justice, and it did look at it from a sort of institutional perspective and the decision that was made there was to change policies, to apologise to the women. I think it had a hugely important symbolic impact that can't be underestimated and I agree we have no exact precedent for what's happened in the Christian Porter situation but it's the closest we have and I think it was very well done by the High Court. So when our Attorney General says that an inquiry would be undermining the rule of law and that sort of my purply that he's used about we would no longer need an Attorney General, I think that with respect that is legally completely incorrect that it would be within both our legal and institutional framework it would be completely appropriate. And it sort of also raises the question about the culture of gender equality within the public service and within the parliament. I think those are two questions as well that we absolutely need to start engaging with again. We have lost the focus on gender equality within government and I think that the whole culture of the organisation is something that could usefully be part of an inquiry as well.  So yes sorry the next question please. Hi so I think in part what I want to ask has been answered partly but I've just returned to Australia fairly recently having been based in Europe and in North America and I sort of feel like particularly in the last couple of weeks it feels like Australia is a decade or two behind. You know when I've done work in Canada for the government we always have to demonstrate that we're doing a gender based analysis and in fact GBA plus in order to get funds to do research for the government. It's a requirement to integrate those kind of perspectives even if what you're looking at has nothing obviously to do with gender. When I was based in Europe if the equivalent of the Attorney General in the Netherlands had been accused of rape there is no question in my mind they would be stepping down immediately. And so the fact that these questions are kind of you know we're debating whether or not there's something to be done about it I feel like for a bit a bit in the past. Last year I think it was last year the us to report came out which highlighted what a problem this is particularly in the legal profession and given that the legal profession represents people trying to do something about it in the legal system. There's a particular you know it's incumbent on the legal profession and on someone in the AG's role to be to be representative of what is OK and what's not. So my question is if this is Australia's Me Too movement if that's only happening just now what can we do to use this movement and maybe that's what could we learn from other countries which are a decade or so ahead. But what can we do be doing to to use this moment to move us forward. Thoughts. Radica do you have any any contribution. I think this is an area where my thoughts are actually still developing a little bit about how do we harness this. And I think that looking at what governments are doing overseas is not something that the current government might say with a little bit of caution is likely to take up itself in any proactive way. But it may provide a useful template or a useful roadmap for the kinds of things that that that advocates can be can be pressing for in the Australian context. And so yeah I think that this moment in Australia has really highlighted the fact that perhaps attitudes particularly for people in positions of power behind where they should be. And that yeah overseas may provide a useful a useful roadmap for activists. Although I'm not sure that that's necessarily the case everywhere. If we think of Donald Trump and the US for example he presented a completely different image which might have encouraged some of our leaders to emulate him. He showed constantly disrespect for women. So so I think we have to take that into account as well. It's not just you know what Canada and Europe and so on have done. And and so I think I think that what we've what we're seeing is really I suppose a decline generally in standards if one can use that old fashioned term. And we know that with a with a number of incidents on on the part of our parliamentarians which has been less than accept acceptable. They haven't resigned as they might have in the past. But the idea that they just sort of you know bunker in and and hold on to their positions as we're seeing already with the Attorney General is most unfortunate. Karen have you got any quick thoughts on that one. Yeah I'll just quickly add that I mean I think the power of the Me Too movement was in its collective nature. People don't easily give up power but we do have a chance now there is going to be an independent review. I think that's supposed to be announced around about now that people can make submissions to and there will be recommendations out of that. That's on the sort of legal side again but of course on the social side. I mean Me Too ran on people's stories, collective stories. So we have to speak up as Grace Thames said. And we have if we do it collectively we're safer. And if recent polls are anything to go by women of Australia are quite angry about this. So it's in its beginning to show. Next question. So my name is Roseanne Kennedy.  And you your response Karen leads to my question. And this is about the Sydney school girls and the teach us consent campaign that they're running. And so there are a couple of thousand testimonies of pretty severe in some cases cases of sexual assault and coerced sex and really showing lack of clarity around understanding consent or how to actually act on consent. Especially because a lot of these have happened in situations where at parties and you know sometimes with drinking etc. So I wanted to really ask I guess I have two questions here. You've talked a little bit about the limits of law you know where you know sometimes the legal system isn't the best system for dealing with these issues. Is this a situation where what can law learn from this kind of collective uprising effectively or how can law. Is there a place for law to intervene and I'm thinking are we going to see cases coming out of this in the future. You know once people think am I going to take this forward. Well one of the things I think is really interesting about that interaction between where social attitudes are and how cases litigated in court. Is that you know judges have very varying degrees of I guess for want of a better word wokeness in terms of how keyed in they are to these nuanced understandings of things like consent. And so I think that at least part of the answer to that question is really a challenge to lawyers about how they frame their submissions before judges. You know rather than just relying on judges to biosmosis pick up on where the discourse is at and what they should be thinking about in terms of our cutting edge ways of thinking about violence and gender roles and consent. I think there is a role for lawyers to play in terms of how they bring these cases to judges before before them and say well this this was an assault because this is what consent means and that is not what happened in this case. And really challenging judges to have to engage directly with those questions rather than relying on their sort of background knowledge and taking that background knowledge into thinking about what consent might be for example. You know one of the issues I think for the law and the way our common law system works is that the lawyers it's difficult for lawyers to challenge judges because they are representing their clients and they don't want to put their clients into a position that would their advocacy is less than useful. So I think that's one of the issues that we've got to face but Karen or Margaret what do you think. Well I agree that the individual lawyer can run a case that's in the best interest of his or her client and so that's where they can actually challenge orthodoxy. So I think it is quite important although I know it's sometimes said well the lawyer can't sort of be practicing law reform on his or her client. But if that's what the client wants and there is going to be I think probably quite a few cases will come out of this because we know the evidence shows that as soon as there is media attention that a lot more complaints follow. So I think we can expect some change in the law and not all judges but the most sensitive judges are going to be responsive to that. Yes I would just add to that that I think consent law reform is a kind of case study in feminist success in law reform without it translating into change. I don't think the criminal law is going to help us very much here at all and I think that for school aged girls we've really let them down and that there does have to be a huge social response to this. I know there are things that are starting to be underway as a response but I think those. I think young people now actually do have much more nuanced ideas about sexual roles and gender roles but it is not translating into being safe sexually and that is a huge gap that we have to address and I don't think through law. And I think Marion. Thank you Sally. Can you hear me? Okay. I'd like to think that you know not everything we've been doing over the last 40 years has been a complete waste of time and I don't think it has been because the expectations of women have risen out of sight so that's a good thing. I think our current me too moment is likely to lead to improve conditions of employment for political staffers so that's a good thing. However over the last 40 years what's been happening is that public policy has been becoming more and more reliant on market solutions to every conceivable issue. So markets don't generate equality and we've all been agreeing I think today that it's inequality which underlies the kind of issues we've been discussing sexual assault, sexual harassment, other kinds of harassment and so on. So we've got public policy which is generating increased inequalities. We've got a loss of confidence in the capacity of public provision, public regulation, confidence in the ability of the state to promote social justice. So where do we go from here panel? Thank you Mary. If you hadn't have come down I would have called you down. I think you're one of the key leaders in thinking about how we work from the inside. So thank you for that and I think bringing the links to neoliberalism and the limits of neoliberalism is also a really interesting point to have raised. Particularly at the context that we're facing now as the globe responds to COVID and we're seeing some of the more Keynesian approaches to responding emerge. So I think maybe we are seeing the end of that neoliberal privatisation approach. What do we think? I'm not sure about that. However one of my main criticisms of discrimination law is that class is not a proscribed ground. So you know we've got sex race etc and you know I think in Victoria we have 18 different attributes but no one, no jurisdiction in Australia addresses class and nowhere else actually in any Anglo speaking jurisdiction proscribes class discrimination. So I think this is an enormous problem that accompanies these issues and helps to explain Marion's concern there. So that we believe in inequality of wealth in other words. So it's very hard when we have that major manifestation of inequality to bring that into other areas. When we deny that it exists or we're simply happy to accept that some people receive millions of dollars and others receive a tiny amount from government in terms of new start or whatever. I think it actually brings us really nicely back to where we started this conversation about law being part of I guess an ecosystem of power structures of which I think the private market and the extent to which that is a driver of inequality plays a really important role. When we talk about inequality and the ability to participate in public life and the terms on which we do that class and the impact of the distribution of wealth under capitalist systems is a really important part of that conversation. And so when we talk about the patriarchy, really we're talking about the patriarchy plus all this other stuff and all of these other types of types of power. So that wasn't really a solution at all. That was just me restating the problem. And Karen, some last thoughts from you on Marion's question but generally as well. I'm going to go on a limb and say I actually think Australians at heart are mild-mannered socialists. I think that when it comes down to it we actually want the government to step in. We saw it coming out of the aged care report. 50% of Australians right off the bat said they'd pay more tax if it went to improving aged care. No one wants to give up Medicare. I do think that while we've been subjected to this overwhelmingly kind of pointy end of capitalism to the theories of neoliberalism, we've been hugely influenced by America and even in that context I think we still have, we kind of have kept our hold on a little bit of socialism. So I don't think that has gone away and I do think that in the current political environment where capitalism is under strain we might see some interesting public policy changes there too. Yes and I think for me I think that we are seeing the growing in vertical inequality that's taking us back to the 19th century. The levels of inequality we're seeing between the richest and poorest is worse than it's been for well over a century now. And I do think that we're getting to the stage where it's getting so ridiculous that we will see a bit of a tipping point that we need to come to. But I've always said that in the face of the business case for gender equality in the world of paid work, I've always said that one of the few things that Trump's capitalism is patriarchy, that private organisations would rather continue sex discrimination than address it even though we know it's costing them money. So I do think both capitalism and the patriarchy are both very sticky forms of systems of dominance that we're working within. But I mean we need to wrap up now and I think I just wanted to finally say thank you to our panel and to those who raised such interesting and intelligent questions. Thank you very much. And to say I've really, we've been through a process I think through this panel of taking ourselves into the depths of this bear and then bringing ourselves back out again to points of hope and optimism. And I think that we do need to see that the opportunities that we're facing now are greater because we're facing a crisis. Both an inequality crisis from neoliberalism's point of view and a crisis in relation to sexual violence in particular and the way that the law can respond to gender equality. But also in the way that the government responds to the broader issues that women face. And so the failure of the last budget to integrate any kind of conceptions of gender equality was such a failing that I think that the government's on notice that this budget and then the pre-election budget they need to do better. So I do think that it's time now for us to remain vigilant and to really carry on with this and press forward with the agenda of gender equality. And good luck to all of the, those of you here who are, and particularly to Radica who are going to be carrying the burden of it forward for the next 40 years. So good luck. Thank you. And thank you everybody. Thank you Sally and the entire panel for what was a great discussion. We have focused a lot about the challenges which have become in sharp focus over the last several months, but of course sharp focus but always there. I think when I reflect back to when I arrived in Australia in 1994, I was surprised and I think one of our questions was that we were a decade behind. It was my reflection in 1995 that Australia felt like about 1958 in the United States. But progress has been made by I think the first female physics professor was promoted to professor in 2000. Now we have many. So progress is made but as we see sexual violence and harassment continue as women become empowered. And so we have these systemic problems that I think we all hope would have subsided but they haven't. So we have made I think progress and empowering women but then some of these really systematic issues that we've talked about today remain. For us and for me I guess thinking about an institution like ANU that has its own set of rules and norms. And you know we have what is effectively a legal system here which is our academic conduct and all those things. And I do think having that systemic approach is a really important way for us to achieve what we want and guidance from experts here at ANU, gender institute of how to better embed that as a system as opposed to it being individuals taking up problems. I think it's something I'm reflecting on today and I think it's a place for us to make progress at ANU. What I don't want is this to become just a tick a box exercise where we say well we've done what we're supposed to, what's move on because that actually doesn't do things. It is a way of essentially symbolically acknowledging that there's a problem without actually making progress. And I think at this point we're certainly at a point where we need to make progress and make it rapidly. I certainly also see the progress is very lumpy and we're at a place of retrograde right now. The United States being an example of extreme retrograde compared to a lot of progress made a long time ago. So hopefully we will get going on the front foot again. So, you know, when I look at the staff and the students we have here, we try to celebrate as an institution the diversity of gender, but of all cultural background of socioeconomic background when we're talking about class. These are all things that we celebrate. We celebrate that diversity yet I'm entrenched is things that push against that and we have to be aware of that. So, the university continues to try to look at a system to try to equilibrate things, how we bring women on to our campus and then support them so that they thrive once they're here. And again, we're making progress but I wouldn't say we've nailed it yet. For example, we had sponsored 49 new academics over the past several years to start research careers here and half that money, more than half that money was spent on women and that was intentional to try to make sure we level the playing field because inequality is entrenched from birth in many, many cases. And this notion that things are done purely on merit when actually there's this inequality making merit appear as something that it other is is a real big problem and academia has it in spades. And it's so it's something we need to be very cognizant of. We're trying to also make things I would say giving a chance to even things up on the other side of the male side of the lecture, allowing men to take paternity leave and share that time and that opportunity. And there are challenges. Men and women have different roles in paternity but trying to make it as equal as possible as one way that we can potentially make things better. So we have I think a very innovative scheme that we announced last year trying to make sure that when people do take cares or paternity leave again preferentially women that were able to close the gap on superannuation so people are not disadvantaged then later on in life. These are all things that we have agreed to do over the past several years and they are progress but they are not complete solutions. So in the end from my perspective there is a lot of work to be done. I am fortunate to have again some of the best thinkers in the nation on this. And being able to practice what we preach and we think is a way that I think this university can make great strides in gender equality but of course many of the things that we are doing. And it is the work of leading women and men including those of our distinguished panel who are essentially the champions for the change and provide the ideas and the impetus for us to make a difference as we move forward. I do note that a lot of these contributions in as we described as a patriarchy are not actually recognized as equal contributions and that is another thing we need to think about. How we ensure that diversity of work and excellence is recognized by what is a very long standing tradition and that is something that I know Fiona will see in philosophy but you will see in many many disciplines. So I think that today is a time where we can reflect on some of the progress but also the challenges and for me it is a chance to reflect on how we can make ANU a better place. ANU does create many of the people who go out and make changes and one of our greatest pioneers for equality was the late honorable Susan Ryan referred to many times here today. Last September we were deeply saddened by the loss of Susan. She was an ANU alumna and a great friend of ANU and of course a remarkable Australian who when you look at it as the single woman in the hawt cabinet pushed through all of these things back in 1984 which I think you correctly say probably wouldn't even be able to happen in 2020. Susan was the first female senator in the ACT in 1975, the first female to hold a cabinet role in the hawt government, minister for education and youth affairs and minister for assisting the prime minister of the status of women. And she pioneered extensive anti-discrimination and equal opportunity legislation including what we discussed today at length the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984 and the Affirmative Action Act of 1986 which go hand in hand as we described today. She was our first age discrimination commissioner from 2011 to 2016. So in that same year in 2016 Susan delivered the order of Australia lecture here on campus and advocate the urgent need to change attitudes and practices to help illuminate age discrimination in the work to force and to better prepare Australia for the years to come as life expectancy continues to arise. And in 2017 we recognized Susan's legacy with an honorary doctorate and I was very proud to be part of that and she became our alumna of the year 12 months later for her contribution in all of these areas. As a very active member in our alumni community she helped launch our inaugural ANU Women's Alumni Network co-delivered the inaugural foundation day address with her long-term colleague and friend former ANU Chancellor Peter Bohm who famously crossed the floor to support her. So today to honor Susan's incredible legacy and to recognize her leading role in defining our national discourse I'm very pleased to announce that our flagship event for International Women's Day will be recognized as the annual Susan Ryan oration. The oration will commence next year on International Women's Day. It will be a high profile point of national focus continuing Susan's legacy and driving the important conversations which she helped to ignite. And we are joined today by Susan's partner Rory Sutton and it is truly a pleasure Rory to have you join us today. I am sorry I am emotional for everything you've gone through but I do thank you for all the support you and Susan have provided to ANU and it is certainly my privilege to honor you and her and her legacy. She was such an incredible advocate and she will always be remembered for those contributions that have changed our world and Australia for the better and I do think this is a lasting legacy which will allow that to endure. Please join me in thanking our panel again and let's continue to reflect and celebrate on the achievements of women all over the world as we make a difference together to bring equality to the four. So please thank you. I'd like to invite our panelists and our audience here to join us outside in the foyer for afternoon tea and have a chance to discuss further what we have. I encourage you to have a chance to talk to Rory and to our panelists and for my part thank you all for coming on this very important occasion. I am sorry for my emotion but I just can't help it sometimes. Thank you.


There's a revolution going on. Something's changing. Everything is changing. Suddenly it becomes clear that the system we've inherited doesn't work. Not only doesn't it work, it's creating a world that we can't tolerate. A world in which the rich get richer and the poor become more numerous. A world in which our tax dollars support repressive military regimes all over the world. We can't take any more of it. For a long time we thought individually that these ideas were just ours. Now we realize that everybody's thinking the same way. That we're part of a huge movement. Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Palestinian Liberation, all the environmental movements, they're all linked. They're all saying the same thing. The system we've got doesn't work anymore. The political system we've got doesn't work. The economic system doesn't work. It all needs rethinking. There's one organization that is doing a lot of rethinking and that's DM. DM25 is really a new approach to politics. DM25 comes out of Europe and is pan-European. It isn't nationally based. It doesn't owe its allegiance to a particular subgroup of people within one country. DM is really a beginning of a new way of doing things. Please support DM now. Thank you.


The Anxiety Spiral, or more accurately, the Storm of Anxiety. I was asked, how am I supposed to accept and allow anxiety to get better and not spiral? So today on episode 263 of The Anxious Truth, we're gonna dissect the anxiety spiral, we're gonna turn it into an anxiety storm, and hopefully we'll give you a different way to approach that that makes things just a little easier and gets you on the path to recovery. Hello everybody, welcome back to The Anxious Truth. This is podcast episode 263. I am Drew Linsalata, creator and host of The Anxious Truth. If this is your first time stumbling on to the YouTube channel or the podcast, welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you find this all helpful in some way. Of course, if you're a returning viewer on YouTube or returning listener to the podcast, welcome back. I'm glad you're here, as always. Today, I'm gonna answer a question from the community surrounding this podcast and this channel. I was asked about two weeks ago, how am I supposed to accept and allow anxiety without spiraling? That's a good question. I understand why it's asked. We use the word spiral all the time in this community. So today we're gonna sort of dismantle that and look at it in a different way. But before we get to that, just a very quick reminder that The Anxious Truth is more than just this YouTube video or this podcast episode. On my website at theanxistruth.com, you will find all of the resources that I have made available on anxiety, anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery, including a ton of other podcast episodes, a ton of free social media content, other videos, books that I've written, courses and workshops. It's all there on my website at theanxistruth.com as are ways to support this work in a more formal way if you're finding it useful and you're using it in your recovery. So take a moment. If you're not familiar with my website, head on over there, theanxistruth.com. Check out everything that I'm putting out because it's out there for a reason. I think it's helpful. Much of it is free. Most of it is free, to be honest with you. So take advantage. Let's get into the whole idea of the anxiety spiral. The question that prompted this podcast episode in this video was how can I accept or feel anxiety without spiraling? So let's preface that with a very quick recap because if you're new to this, you might not understand why we're talking about accepting and allowing anxiety. In the recovery process, as we conceptualize it here on this podcast, on this channel, in this community, we don't fight anxiety. We learn to accept it, allow it, float through it, surrender to it, willfully tolerate it. There's a million different words that we use for this and everybody resonates or everybody finds resonance in a different way to conceptualize it. I like the word surrender. We learn to surrender to anxiety, yes, even panic and the most intense anxiety in order to learn that we don't have to be afraid of it anymore and that is the basic principle of recovery from an anxiety disorder. If you're not familiar with all this, you might want to go back and start with episode one of this podcast or read one of my books or get a little bit more involved in the topic so you understand what we're talking about but the basic principle today is that we have to learn not to fight anxiety, drop the resistance, surrender to it, willfully tolerate it, float through it, accept it, whatever word you want to use. We're all, we're basing everything on this and we're also basing everything on the critical principle in recovery from an anxiety disorder the way I conceptualize it in this theoretical orientation that tells us that what we are doing here is very difficult and often very scary but never actually dangerous. So you have to keep those two things in mind. We're not fighting, we're not fighting a war against anxiety, we're learning to allow it and navigate through it so they can learn not to be afraid of it and even though we are afraid and challenged when we do that, we are not doing dangerous things. So as we go into this episode a little bit more, please keep those two things in mind. So the person who prompted this asked me, how can I accept anxiety? How can I feel it in order to get better without spiraling? So let's talk about the word spiral. It's a thing we use all the time, especially the sort of the online mental health community. People use the word spiraling all the time. I go into a spiral. I tried to get through this panic attack but I spiraled. It just spiraled out of control. And what I want to do today is sort of dismantle that. Now, if we talk about the way you feel when you are anxious and you are perceived, remember none of this is dangerous, just scary and difficult, your perceived sense of safety or security or certainty or well-being does spiral downward. So most people, when they talk about spiral, they're thinking about a downward spiral where you get dragged down. And it's true that your overall sense of well-being when you're in a highly anxious state, when you're triggered, you're panicking, you're having a storm of intrusive thoughts, your OCD is kicking up, your health anxieties and high gear, your perceived sense of overall well-being goes into a downward spiral. That's true. But let's put that on the back burner because when people talk about an anxiety spiral, that's not a downward spiral, that's an upward spiral. So think about a hurricane. When a hurricane or you might call it a typhoon depending on where in the world you are, when a hurricane is out over the open water and it encounters warm air and warm moist air, it gets a shot of energy and it spins faster and the pressure in the center drops and it gets stronger, it becomes a bigger storm, it lasts longer, it becomes more intense. We don't want that to happen. We want hurricanes to be starved of our typhoons. We want hurricanes or typhoons to be starved of energy so that they spin out into the ocean and they fall apart and they run their natural course and then it's over. But when they do encounter additional sources of energy as can happen, those storms get bigger and stronger and more intense and they last longer. That's the anxiety spiral. So the anxiety spiral might be a downward spiral of how you feel, but the situation that's causing that downward spiral and how you feel is an upward spiral. And that upward spiral, the anxiety spiral itself, the spiral of anxiety is in an upward direction and the energy that is added to that storm, because we're gonna start calling it an anxiety storm, not a spiral, we are adding energy to that storm in the form of resistance.  But it is the actual fighting to stay on the surface. I can't get dragged down, I can't get dragged down. I don't wanna feel unsafe, I have to fight this. That is adding energy to the anxiety storm. So you are fueling the upward spiral, you are fueling the hurricane of anxiety when you resist the downward trend in how you feel. So things get really paradoxical around here quite often and what we really want to do, instead of looking at the spiral as something that is completely and utterly out of your control, if you conceptualize the anxiety spiral as an anxiety storm and you think to yourself, do I want to add energy to this storm or do I want to starve it of energy so that it spins up and it does what it does and then it peters out and it ends naturally? Which one do I want here? So let's forget a spiral that you think you can't control. I tried to get through this panic attack and then I just spiraled and people talk about that as if it's something that happens that is completely beyond their control. But if you forget the part about how you feel, which I know is a very big ask here. And by the way, I'm not trying to invalidate how you feel. I understand you are legitimately scared in those moments. So let's not discount that, but if we forget conceptualizing this based on I need to control how I feel and we instead say, well, what can I do with this storm of anxiety? Because it's here, it's here, I can't do anything about it, it's already here. So what do I want to do with that storm? If anxiety is a hurricane or a typhoon swirling in the open water, do we want to add energy to it so that it gets bigger and it decimates a tropical island somewhere? That would be you. Or do we want to starve it of energy so that it runs its course and naturally peters out? Which one is better? So if you can reconceptualize the anxiety spiral as the storm of anxiety and give yourself a chance to decide whether you want to add energy to that storm or starve it of energy, now you can start to see where you do begin to have a choice. You have some influence, you have agency in that. I cannot stop this storm dead in its tracks, which is probably what you're trying to do. I don't want to feel badly. I don't want my sense of wellbeing to sag or spiral downward. So I must fight against this or I will spiral, meaning I will feel worse and I cannot allow myself to feel worse. But the paradox of all of this is that all of that fighting to try not to feel bad is what is adding energy to the anxiety storm and making you feel bad. So let that sink in for just a second. If you've been around here for a while, listen to this podcast or read my books or are familiar with this topic, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but I'm trying to give you a way to really look at that spiraling concept in a different way and say, oh, okay. Well, the spiral that I'm talking about is I don't want my sense of wellbeing to spiral downward. I cannot allow myself to feel scared. I cannot allow myself to feel that sense of doom that comes with anxiety or panic.  I cannot allow these scary thoughts about some horrible health problem that I think I might have that I have no evidence of having. All of those things, I cannot allow that. So therefore I want to fight that and not allow myself to feel badly, but I also want to learn how to accept anxiety and surrender to it and tolerate it and float through it so that I can get better. And those are two things that wind up like this and we cannot resolve those two demands. So consider that when you are asking how can I allow and accept and fully feel the anxiety with that spiraling, which you're probably asking is how can I get better but also never feel too afraid or never feel too unsafe or never feel too challenged. Then we can't really have both of those things. So we're going to have to rob or starve the anxiety storm of energy. We can't add more energy to it. And the only way that we can starve it of energy is to stop flailing and fighting and trying so hard to not spiral.    So if the panic or the thoughts or the fear itself is the disaster you can't allow, well, too late, they're already happening and you have gotten through them. So consider that if we're going to try to rob the anxiety storm of its fuel, its energy, we're gonna have to change the way we conceptualize this and say, I'm gonna have to stop fighting so much.  That's never been a thing.  So if we conceptualize the spiral in terms of, well, the spiral is really how I feel, that's the downward spiral, but the anxiety spiral is an upward spiral, that's a storm that I add energy to and then it gets bigger, what can I do here? Well, I can starve the storm by not trying so hard to not spiral downward in how I feel. I must allow myself to feel the fear, the uncertainty, the questions, the what if, the dread, the doom and navigate through that to learn that I can and I always have and I'm capable of doing that. So sadly, the answer to how do I allow anxiety without spiraling is you kinda don't. You allow anxiety and you will feel that full force, but if you can allow yourself to feel it without the fighting, stop trying so hard to not spiral, then you rob the upward spiral of anxiety, which is the thing that's making you feel worse. You rob it of its fuel, you rob it of energy. The storm happens, it reaches its peak, it peters out. There might be another storm later, but you'd have to ride through that one too and over time, things change and those storms get a little smaller. They are bigger intervals between them. They don't really matter so much when they pop up. You don't care as much anymore. So how can I accept and allow without fueling the spiral or without spiraling is you're gonna have to accept that your sense of wellbeing, your perceived sense of wellbeing, how you feel is probably going to go downward to a certain extent. Stop trying to prevent that. You cannot accept and allow and also refuse to have a change in how you feel. You are unfortunately going to feel bad while that's at its peak, but if you stop trying so hard to not feel bad and I know this starts to sound like double-speak and makes you crazy, I understand that, but if you stop trying so hard to control how you feel, you stop fueling the upward spiral of anxiety that is ultimately fueling the downward spiral and how you feel. That probably makes no sense and you're thinking I've wasted 14 minutes of my life on this guy at this point. But if you stop and think about it for a second and take the anxiety spiral and break it into, well, there's the spiral in how I feel and then there's the anxiety part, which is actually not a spiral but a storm and I want to rob the storm of its fuel, which is additional energy. How can I do that by allowing the downward spiral and how I feel and learning to navigate through that to come out the other side? In a nutshell, that's what we're talking about here. And again, it doesn't make common sense. It's the opposite of what anybody wants to do. I do not blame any human being on this planet for trying to control bad feelings, but we learn pretty quickly in this recovery thing that trying so hard to never feel badly because we declare that unhandleable is part of what keeps shoveling fuel into the heart of the anxiety storm and keeps it rolling and keeps it coming back and keeps it as a looming threat on your horizon all the time. So you can't really accept without spiraling, but you can accept and understand what the spiral really is, understand what your goal is in navigating through that spiral and disconnect the anxiety part from the how you feel part. This is a storm that's happening that makes me feel bad. And if I can allow myself to feel bad and not fight so hard against that, I will rob the storm of its fuel and it will pass sooner and it will not become this giant monster storm that I fear so much and I fight for hours and hours or days and days against. So that is a different way to conceptualize the spiral when it comes to anxiety and panic and that OCD storm, if you will, that storm of intrusive thoughts, that health anxiety flare up. If we talk about the spiral in that context, this is a way to reconceptualize that spiral and it may be a way to approach it that gives you a little bit more agency, a little bit more power, a little bit more influence and lets you recognize that I kind of do have a choice here. My choice, even though it's a hard choice, it's still a choice. My choice is, let me allow myself to feel these things because if I don't, then I'm fueling the very thing I'm asking to stop. Like if I don't allow myself to feel these things, I'm fueling that spiral that I'm asking Drew how to stop.  And over time, that changes the relationship with the storm, changes the relationship with anxiety, changes your relationship with fear. So I'm gonna stop here before I get even more confusing than I already am because believe me, even for me sometimes, trying to find ways to productively describe these counterintuitive paradoxical things is a challenge and I understand trying hard to not overwhelm you with this. I'm trying hard to not confuse you with this. I'm trying hard to not blame you for feeling the way you feel. I'm trying to acknowledge that if the fear is real, it's understandable that you'd want to fight against it. But in the end, we are left with a conclusion that I participate in creating that spiral. I participate in fueling the anxiety storm which then pushes my well-being spiral into the downward funnel that I want so desperately to never happen. But it's here, I can't change it. So since it's already here, the storm is already here, it's already spinning in the open water above me, what can I do with this storm? Do I wanna give it more fuel or do I wanna rob it of fuel and ride through it as best I can without fighting it as if I can make it go away? Because sadly, you can't make it go away on demand. The only way you can make it go away is slowly over time when you're basically cooling the waters. So if you are an ocean, every time you do this, you are basically lowering the temperature of you, the ocean, if you will. And that makes it harder and harder for those massive destructive hurricanes to even form to begin with. There you go, just came up with yet another analogy. Recognize your agency, recognize your choice, exercise that choice, exercise that power, put some of your own influence into that process, disconnect your, how you feel from the anxiety itself, how you feel, downward spiral, anxiety, storm, upward spiral, rob it of energy. I feel like I'm doing a Dana Carvey George Bush impression now for those of you who even remember who that is, first George Bush by the way. But yeah, give that a shot, see how it works out for you. I'm always interested in comments and questions on these things. So if in fact you are watching on YouTube, you are certainly free to leave a comment or ask a question and I will circle back and answer that. I circle back to my YouTube comments at least twice a week to make sure I try and get everybody and answer the questions that I can. And yeah, hopefully this has been really helpful. There's no music at the end here. I'm not sure that I'm gonna continue to do that. I'm just trying to make the episodes a little easier to edit and produce these days. So all I'm gonna do is leave you with the same requests that I always do, which is if you are watching on YouTube, like the video, subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell so that you know when I upload new episodes and new content, if you're listening to the podcast on Apple Podcast or Spotify or someplace where you can leave a rating and a review, leave a five star rating if you dig the podcast, maybe take a second and write a nice review, because it helps more people find the podcast and then we get to help more people, which is why we do this. So I'll be back with another podcast episode next week as I am on most weeks. I don't exactly know what I'm gonna be talking about, but I'll talk about something, anxiety and recovery related. Thank you for hanging out today. And remember that no matter what you do today, any small step that you take in the direction of recovery, facing your fear and learning that you are capable of doing that, no matter how small that step is, it counts. They all add up and they all get you to where you wanna be in the end. I'll see you next week.


President Vladimir Zelensky has stated that Ukraine is ready for a counter-offensive as of now. He said in an interview with Wall Street Journal, I believe that today we are ready to do it, he added. We would like to have certain things, but we can't wait for months. We strongly believe we will succeed. I don't know how long it will take, Zelensky said. Zelensky believes that western countries need to work hard to isolate Russia. Earlier Zelensky said that it is difficult for him to name the date when the counter-offensive will occur. But now he says that Ukraine is ready for counter-offensive.


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