Strong Female Lead

We like to tell ourselves that anyone with the goods will make it to the top in this country – regardless of creed, class or gender. But the statistics and the experiences of women in positions of leadership do not bear this out.

There is a deep, continuing resistance to women having power within Australia’s political system, which is built on traditions of larrikinism and machismo. Australia has slumped from 15th on the World stage for gender diversity in its Parliament, to 50th.

We use the example of Julia Gillard to tell the story of women leaders more generally in our society. By walking through the years of her leadership, we increase our understanding of what the obstacles looked like which she negotiated like incendiary devices revealing the explosives of misogyny and how it continues to shape Australian society.

This unashamedly feminist work is being created on behalf of all the young women who SHOULD be going into politics.

We want this film to reveal the shape and sound of sexism in Australian politics.

We want to do this so that Australians more widely can recognise the problem women face in rising to the top within a system which punishes their gender.

Only then, can we begin to support Australian women into positions of political ascendancy, and begin to change a style of political leadership which takes us out of the past and into the future.

We want audiences to feel empowered by the gutsy women they have seen on the screen – following in their footsteps to call out unacceptable behaviours, to support each other in relegating sexism to the scrapheap of Australian history and to hold their own local parliamentary members to account on issues of gender equity within their communities.

We will encourage audiences – men and women – to agitate for the 50/50 goal in Australia, demanding decency in our parliaments and in our media. This may then compel them to join social media campaigns and speak out when politicians or commentators denigrate the women who are elected to positions of leadership and/or are denied positions of leadership because their sexual preferences are attacked or their appearance is mocked. We want this film to put our current politicians and commentators on notice: it is now time to make gender parity real in our political system and the men who can’t handle that idea need to exit through the back door.

We are creating a ‘Strong Female League’: a community of strong females who support the social impact of the film. It is with their support that we can plan and drive a powerful campaign to raise awareness, make an impact and ultimately, drive change.

Anne Summers has granted us access to her personal collection of documents held in the Australian National Library which informed her seminal speech on our subject, ‘Her Rights at Work: The Political Persecution of Australia’s First Female Prime Minister’ 2012.

Northern Pictures’ three part documentary series about domestic violence for SBS ‘See What You Made Me Do’ (with author Jess Hill, winner of the 2020 Stella Prize) has just aired on SBS. This difficult and sensitive series has allowed us to forge relationships of trust and understanding with a wide range of women focused organisations. These relationships will be vital to the impact work we must also apply to ‘Strong Female Lead’.

We intend for this film to make an audience rise from their seats with a clearer sense of Australia’s political history when it comes to gender issues and a fire in their bellies to ensure future generations, and their own, are not subjected to the same discriminations or media bias.

We want audiences to enact their rights as voters in this country, swayed to support political parties who are making true and important gains in attaining gender parity within their ranks and demonstrably enacting social policies which ensure women in all workplaces across Australia are not subjected to discrimination and bias because of their sex.

We will encourage audiences – men and women, young and not so young – to agitate for the 50/50 goal in Australia, demanding decency in our parliaments and in our media.