Julia Gillard: ‘It’s important to show that women can hold their own’

Julia Gillard thought her work would be done by now. It’s been eight years since the former Australian Prime Minister gave her poised and powerful speech that exposed the misogyny at the centre of the political system. 

“I did naively think when I was younger that gender equality was on the way to being fixed and wouldn’t be a feature of much of my life,” says Gillard, aged 58, on the phone from her house in Adelaide where she is looking after her niece’s dogs Pepper and Lebowski. “I wish I could tell my younger self that wasn’t right.”

It’s rare for Gillard to be at home — since she stood down as PM in 2013 she has travelled the world speaking about gender equality. This weekend she’s on a panel at the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre. She’s in London regularly, as Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London. 

She has also worked with Meghan Markle, who she thinks is an example of how “gender stereotyping affects every woman no matter what life she leads”. “It affects all women in the royal family but it’s only Meghan who has experienced that interrelationship between gender and race discrimination.” Gillard knitted a baby kangaroo for Markle’s nephew, Prince George, when he came to Australia and still knits. “Its rhythmic nature is calming”.

Gillard speaks with the same focused anger that drove her 2012 speech, which has been viewed half a million times on YouTube. “I didn’t know I was going to give the speech until I gave it,” she recalls. It was a response to leader of the opposition Tony Abbott talking about whether the speaker should stay in office after sending sexist text messages — but it became a rallying cry, spanning everything from comments about Gillard’s appearance to extreme bullying: she was called “barren” for not having children, and an opposition fundraising dinner included the “Julia Gillard quail, small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box”. “I wrote the notes that became the speech while Tony Abbott was talking. I felt a sense of cool anger from many days in my prime ministership where I’d tolerated sexist remarks without reply. Afterwards I had to go back to my office and work. By the time I got there it was clear the speech was having an impact beyond Parliament. People were starting to ring in.” 

Gillard was elected in 2010. She thought the sexism was “a reaction to me being the first woman prime minister in Australia”.  I thought things would normalise but instead it grew the longer I was PM. It made me wish I had pointed out the sexist incidents earlier when they were a bit more benign.” 

She knew political culture in Australia was “robust” but “felt it was important to show that a woman could stand in an environment like that in politics and hold her own.” Her partner, Tim Mathieson, was the one who worried. “Your family feel the slings and arrows more than you do, so they are protective and supportive as a result,” she said. 

As PM, Gillard fought for greener policy, which made her unpopular. Although, after the fires in Australia this summer, more people are realising her actions were necessary.

“We did introduce a scheme to reduce emissions but it was repealed by the government elected afterwards. The peril to our planet is increasing and the tragic summer we’ve had in Australia has increased hunger for change.” How does the political culture in the UK compare? “I’m delighted to see more women MPs in Westminster, especially after so many resigned before the election because the situation was so toxic. Nicky Morgan and Heidi Allen going was a loss.” Are there particularly female leadership qualities? “I’m writing a book about that with my friend [Nigerian economist] Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. I don’t believe babies are born with inherent leadership styles. Women are socialised differently.” She remembers not being allowed to do woodwork at school and the girls being the ones who had to do the washing up. 

“As we strive for more equality it impacts men too,” says Gillard. Men still tell her they’ve asked the women in their lives to watch her speech. “There’s an increasing recognition that a gender equal world will be better for women and men.”

For more about the Women of the World Festival, visit thewowfoundation.com and for tickets to Gillard’s panel, visit ​southbankcentre.co.uk/british-vogues-forces-change-2020