Ideas at the House

New Motherhood is a time of overwhelming joy and love — but alongside those experiences, many new mothers also face exhaustion, emotional extremes, anxiety and profound changes in their mental health. The much rarer cousin of postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis affects one to two in every 1,000 mothers. The early signs can look deceptively ordinary and be difficult to identify, but delayed...

Don’t Ask the Trees for Their Names , a recently published collection of stories, brings together nine Arab-Australian women who have had to start over in a new country, carrying the weight of home and the promise of possibility. In this talk Contributors Loubna Haikal, Oula Ghannoum, Mariam Maatooq and Sivine Tabbouch  join moderator Antoinette Lattouf to share their intimate, sometimes raw,...

Jane Birkin was synonymous with chic. An unlikely icon of French cinema, her effortless style and artistic legacy have been immortalised through her music and film career. And, of course, this British babe was the inspiration behind one of the world’s most coveted handbags — the Hermès Birkin. But who was the real woman behind the muse? Join writer, critic and film curator, Kate Jinx and New...

Real talk on money, power, financial safety and securing your future Saddle up for a no-nonsense conversation about women, money and the systems shaping our financial futures. Learn practical skills, gain confidence and rewrite your path to independence. This frank, practical conversation brings together leading voices shaping the future of women’s financial literacy and security: Tasnia Alam Hann...

Laila Lalami’s eerily prophetic new book imagines a world where AI can punish us for “potential crimes”. Known for her razor-sharp explorations of the immigrant experience, Lalami once again proves the power of fiction to illuminate and anticipate the world around us. From her celebrated essay collection Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America to her acclaimed novels, she has long interrogat...

You might be familiar with the concept of the “second shift” — the domestic burden that awaits a woman when she returns home from work. Then there’s the third shift (emotional labour) and the fourth shift (nighttime caregiving). Now we ask: is sex just the so-called “fifth shift”? Join Yumi Stynes, Chanté Joseph and Aleks Trkulja for an engaging chat about whether keeping the spark alive in long-t...

Bringing up boys isn’t getting any less complicated. One minute they’re sweet, funny little humans. The next, they’re parroting some podcast bro who insists “patriarchy isn’t real” and “grindset” is a personality. Shows like Adolescence and books like The Anxious Generation tapped a nerve. As toxic masculinity is loudly (and often rightly) called out, a generation of boys is confused and ashamed —...

Miranda July’s “great perimenopause novel”, All Fours tells the story of a woman who abandons routine suburban life for a reckless road trip and an extramarital affair. All Fours has hit a real-world nerve and since its release in 2024 has been blamed for the break down of both book clubs and marriages. It has become a catalyst for women re-examining their desires, their compromises and their...

For solo parents, queer couples and people experiencing fertility issues the path to parenthood often comes with extra steps. Today, finding donor sperm is harder than ever — It’s the drought Australia is not talking about! As Australian fertility clinics scramble to meet demand, the search for sperm becomes an unexpectedly intimate chapter in the story of forming a family. Some navigate year...

Women’s pain isn’t “mysterious”. Medicine is failing us. For centuries, women’s symptoms have been misunderstood, minimised or dismissed, from wandering wombs and so-called “hysteria” to modern-day misdiagnosis, mistreatment and delayed care. Medical science made extraordinary advances in the 20th and 21st centuries, but gender bias remains stubbornly embedded in healthcare, from a body of scienti...

What if ageing wasn’t something to avoid, but something to embrace? Right now, a revolution is gathering force. Middle-aged and older women are refusing to fade out, shrink back or apologise for taking up space. Jacinta Parsons’ new book,  A Wisdom of Age , was sparked by conversations with women across the country who are rewriting the rules and living with unapologetic confidence. Jacinta i...

When Emily Maitlis grilled then-Prince Andrew in that now-infamous BBC interview, she ignited “the worst PR crisis for the royal family since the death of Diana”. Ending the Duke’s royal career, the encounter also inspired several television adaptations including Amazon Prime’s A Very Royal Scandal (with Ruth Wilson as Maitlis). Since then, she’s only turned up the heat – chall...

When justice is redacted, women pay the price. The Epstein Files are not just about one man’s crimes, but about the systems that protected him and failed women — and girls — for decades.  American journalist and writer Amy Wallace collaborated with Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre on her memoir Nobody’s Girl, published months after her death, while British journalist Emily Maitlis fa...

The overturning of Roe v. Wade by the US Supreme Court sent shock waves around the world. And while abortion rights seemed to be settled in Australia, there have been attempts - on both sides of politics - to undermine them here. Abortion restrictions were proposed in at least two Australian states, while debate continues about whether publicly funded hospitals can refuse to perform the procedure....

An inspirational force for positive action, Nyamal woman and renowned psychologist Dr Tracy Westerman is making waves in the treatment of Indigenous women’s trauma. As the first Aboriginal person in Australia to complete a PhD in Clinical Psychology, Dr Westerman has opened the floodgates, inspiring others to follow her into a professional field truly in need of community-based Indigenous psycholo...

Rachel Kushner’s latest novel Creation Lake , a French noir eco-espionage thriller, was an instant New York Times bestseller, shortlisted for the Booker, and hailed as a blend of John le Carré’s intrigue with the wit of Kill Bill and the style of Killing Eve . It’s the latest in a career that has dazzled her fans - whether she is taking on the art and radicalism in 1970s New York (The Flamethrower...

From the Matilda’s Effect to the AFL commitment to close the gender pay gap, cross-code support for female athletes is at an all-time high. With record attendance, huge broadcast viewership and glass ceilings shattering, elite players are finally being taken seriously. None of this happened overnight. How far off is something that looks like parity? Join Kirby Bentley, Bec Goddard, Ann Odong, Lydi...

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine Brooks and her husband Tony Horwitz settled down for a quiet life. This came to an abrupt end on Memorial Day 2019 with the sudden death of Brooks' beloved husband. Without space to grieve, her loss became a yawning gulf.  Her profoundly moving memoir, Memorial Days , is a portrait of a larger-tha...

Despite decades of legislative reform and workplace protections in other industries, some claim there is a persistent shadowy underbelly in Australian music, with female artists alleging bullying, harassment as well as sexist and racist abuse. Speaking from lived experience, Australian artists BARKAA and Jaguar Jonze argue for their rights at work and challenge the lack of accountability from thos...

Embracing her misfit nature early on, Gina Chick found grounding in the rhythms of the natural world. With an innate ability to bring barefoot wisdom into her daily life, Gina has dedicated her time to help others be guided by their internal authority. Her extraordinary journey includes surviving cancer, losing her only child to the same illness, and spending 67 days alone in the Tasmanian wildern...

Acclaimed science journalist and author Lucy Jones (UK), explores the emerging concept of matrescence and how motherhood causes more physiological and psychological changes than we have been led to believe.  Part memoir and part journalism, her latest book – named ‘Book of the Year’ by The New Yorker, the New Statesman and the Daily Mail – is an urgent examination of motherhood and mental hea...

Journalist and survivor Lucia Osborne-Crowley goes beyond the headlines in this gripping podcast, sharing the untold stories of the women victimised by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Drawing from her acclaimed book The Lasting Harm , she reveals the emotional toll of the trial, the strength of survivor testimony, and the systemic failures that continue to persist, even after countless conv...

What happens when a natural phase of life becomes a trending topic—and a business opportunity? In this sharp, funny, and deeply insightful conversation, our panel dives into the realities of perimenopause and menopause. From mood swings to hot flushes, hormone therapy to healthcare ‘goopification’, they unpack the confusion, stigma, and skyrocketing market around women’s health. With personal stor...

The Ladies, We Need to Talk podcast goes deep on the personal stuff that's hard to talk about, even with your closest mates. With sensitivity, hilarity, personal stories and serious smarts, it tries to work out what normal is by talking to real women about their real experiences.   Relive Yumi Stynes bringing her hit ABC podcast to the Opera House, with a panel of frank and funny women a...

Human rights lawyer Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts brings her fight for justice for First Nations people and children to this powerful episode. Drawing from her own childhood trauma, forcibly removed at the tender age of ten and only began to heal when she fled the out-of-home care system to reconnect with kin and return to country. Her unflinching exposé uncovers the ongoing violence institutions are i...