A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard
Julia Gillard, the only woman to have served as Prime Minister of Australia sits down for insightful, moving and thought-provoking conversations with some of the most interesting people from around the world working to advance gender equality – whether that's by actively dismantling gender-based barriers, or by being inspirational trailblazers in their field. We'll bring you stories from the worlds of business, entertainment, media, sport and many more, shining a light on people doing amazing things that you might not have heard about, and learning more about those we already know and love. Julia presents a podcast in her role as Founder and Chair of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership (GIWL). GIWL is a world-leading research institute working to advance gender equality within workplaces, communities and societies. The podcast is produced by the GIWL team at the Australian National University, Canberra, with support from our sister institute at King's College London. Earnings from the podcast go back into the Institute, supporting the work we do to advance gender equality in Australia and the Asia Pacific, and beyond. To stay up to date with the Institute’s work go to giwl.anu.edu.au and sign up to our updates, or follow us on social media @GIWLANU. You can also find @APodcastofOnesOwn on Instagram. The team at A Podcast of One's Own acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Cheng Lei was riding high in a successful career as a news anchor in China when her life changed in an instant.
Lei is a Chinese born Australian citizen and mother of two, who spent more than three years detained in a Beijing prison after being wrongly accused of illegally supplying state secrets.
In this emotional and candid conversation, Julia and Lei delve into her early life in China and then Melbourne, her ex...
In this month’s book club episode Julia Gillard and Kathy Lette discuss Fundamentally, by Nussaibah Younis.
It’s the British author’s debut novel and it follows the story of Nadia Amin - an academic disowned by her mother and dumped by her long-term partner, who accepts a job with the United Nations in Iraq to rehabilitate ISIS women so their home countries will take them back.
While struggling to get the program off th...
In this episode of Julia's Book Club, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt delve into Theory & Practice by Australian author, Michelle de Kretser.
Short-listed for the Stella Prize, the seventh novel from the Miles Franklin winner tells the story of a first generation immigrant from Sri Lanka living in Melbourne in the 1980s.
The young academic is writing a thesis on Virginia Woolf, who this podcast is named in honour of,...
In this special episode, we take you inside Julia's first ever Australian live recording of A Podcast of One's Own.
Recorded in front of an audience at the Australian National University in Canberra, home to the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, Julia is joined on stage by one of Australia's most respected journalists, Leigh Sales.
The pair discuss Leigh's incredible career achievements, preparing for Prime Ministerial...
In our April Book Club episode, Julia and Kathy unpack Butter, the cult Japanese bestseller by Asako Yuzuki.
Inspired by the real-life case of the “Konkatsu Killer” and translated into English, the book follows journalist Rika Machida as she tries to get inside the mind of convicted serial murderer Manako Kajii.
Kajii, a gourmet cook, is serving time behind bars for the murders of lonely businessmen who she seduced with her d...
In this episode, Julia Gillard is joined by Dr. Beverley Ditsie – pioneering filmmaker, artist, and gender non-conforming activist – whose fearless activism has shaped the fight for queer rights in South Africa and beyond.
From co-founding South Africa’s first multiracial LGBTQ+ rights group at just 16 to leading the country’s first Pride March in 1990, Beverley has been at the forefront of the battle for equality for decades. I...
In our first Book Club episode of 2025, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt explore the newly-released Wild Dark Shore by Australian author, Charlotte McConaghy.
Out this month, the mystery novel is set on a tiny, remote island near Antarctica, where Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers.
The island is home to the world’s largest seed bank. But with sea levels rising, the family needs to move the precious cargo ...
Eluned Morgan is the first woman to lead Wales.
Before that, she made history as the youngest member of the European Parliament at just 27 years old.
Ahead of International Women’s Day, Julia travelled to Cardiff to sit down with the First Minister in her office.
In this season-opener, they discuss Ms Morgan’s political upbringing, her path to the leadership, building resilience, misogyny on social media, how her faith sha...
In the final episode of 2024 Julia sits down with her good friend Josephine Linden to discuss their favourite books of the year, and look ahead to the new releases they can’t wait to read in 2025.
Thank you to all our listeners for joining us again this season, the whole A Podcast of One’s Own team hopes you’ve enjoyed the interviews and book club episodes as much as we have!
Show notes:
Books discussed by Julia and Joseph...
In this special episode of A Podcast of One’s Own, we take you inside Julia’s live event with international best-selling author, Paula Hawkins, at the Hay Festival Winter Weekend.
After the huge global success of Paula’s first novel ‘The Girl on the Train’, the pair sat down to explore her latest thriller ‘The Blue Hour’.
Set on a Scottish tidal island connected to the mainland for just a few hours a day and home to only one ...
Dr June Oscar AO is a is a proud Bunuba woman from the remote town of Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.
Her remarkable decades-long career has taken her from a small office in a cattle station in a tiny Western Australian town, to serving a five-year term as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. June was the first woman to hold this role in its 20-year history and used her...
Angie Murimirwa personifies the transformative power of education.
Growing up in Zimbabwe, Angie was one of the first girls to receive support from the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) to go to secondary school.
Angie is now the organisation’s CEO.
In this episode Julia - who is Patron of CAMFED - and Angie discuss the huge barriers to education that many girls still face, and the impact finishing school has on not o...
It’s been arguably the most eventful US Presidential campaign in history and the stakes couldn’t be higher, not just for the United States, but for the world.
There’s been two assassination attempts on Republican nominee Donald Trump, who became the first US President to be convicted of a felony over hush money payments to an adult film star.
We've seen President and Democratic nominee Joe Biden sensationally withdraw from th...
In this episode of Julia’s Book Club, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt delve into the latest novel by best-selling author, Elif Shafak. There are Rivers in the Sky charts the story of three characters from across history brought together by two great rivers, with one epic poem flowing through the story. Spanning centuries and continents, the novel follows a single drop of water from the Tigris to the Thames, from antiquity to t...
Alexis Wright is one of the most highly-regarded Australian authors in recent times, winning both the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Stella Prize - twice.
Her work is challenging the traditional publishing world and asking some tough questions.
But her passions extend far beyond writing.
In this episode, Julia explores Alexis’ early beginnings as a young activist, her lifelong dedication to Indigenous land rights an...
In this episode of Julia's Book Club, Julia and Kathy Lette sit down to discuss Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors.
Blue Sisters is the second novel from Mellors, following her bestselling debut Cleopatra and Frankenstein. It tells the story of three very different sisters – strait-laced lawyer Avery, party girl Lucky and stoic world champion boxer Bonnie – who are torn apart by grief and scattered to different corners of the globe af...
Elif Shafak is a best selling author, a political scientist and an advocate for women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression.
In this episode Julia and Elif journey on a candid and deep conversation about Elif’s childhood in Turkey, what drew her to writing, and the lengths she’s had to go to keep telling the stories of those who are often silenced.
They also delve into Elif’s spectacular new novel There are Rivers...
In this month’s Book Club episode, Julia and Kathy Lette explore Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by internationally-renowned author, Salman Rushdie.
In his memoir, the Booker Prize winner recounts the horrifying moment he was stabbed, almost to death, while on stage in upstate New York, preparing to deliver a lecture on keeping writers safe from harm.
Julia and Kathy examine his incredible literary career, his li...
In this episode Julia sits down with Domtila Chesang, an incredibly courageous woman who has dedicated her life to ending female genital mutilation in her home country, Kenya.
In this powerful conversation Domtila explains how the devastatingly harmful practice impacts girls and women around the world, and how she’s working to educate and empower communities in order to stamp it out.
She details the pivotal moment in he...
In this month’s Book Club episode, Julia and Sarah Holland-Batt discuss The Wren, The Wren by Man Booker prize winner, Anne Enright.
Shortlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, the novel is told in three voices and explores an Irish family’s love, betrayal and intergenerational trauma.
Julia and Sarah delve into Enright’s poetry and unique writing style.
Show notes:
- The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright is publishe...
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