Ideas at the House

Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Bet you’ve heard that before. The idea that men’s brains are wired for logical systems and map reading, while women’s brains excel at emotional intelligence and intuition is deeply culturally embedded. And, it’s complete garbage. Professor Gina Rippon is an international researcher in the field of cognitive neuroscience, and in her book, The Gendered Brain,...

Tea Uglow has built her career exploring the space between technology and art, looking for unexpected ways they can interact. She has written about doubt, and about being transgender and her book 'Loud and Proud' is a collection of the most influential and inspiring LGBTQI speeches of all time. Listen to Tea's 2020 All About Women discussion with Maddison Counaughton on Spotify or Apple Podcasts -...

Shanna is the founder of national alcohol awareness charity 'Sober in the Country' - a grassroots rural organisation designed to open up discussions in rural Australia around alcohol. When hospitalisation forced her to acknowledge that her drinking was out of control, she discovered that getting sober was no easy feat. Shanna talks with Edwina Throsby about the way she transformed her life, and in...

Clementine Ford has been writing columns and books about gender issues for more than a decade. Her books Fight Like a Girl and Boys Will Be Boys have become bestselling feminist bibles, and she has built a huge online community of women and girls who take inspiration and comfort from her honest and personal posts. In this conversation, she opens up about body image, sex, death and dating … all the...

“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants”. This frequently quoted dietary manifesto comes from my guest today in the studio, the writer and journalist Michael Pollan. Michael is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, but it was his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma , which interrogated the way we eat and our food production systems, that really brought him to global attention. More recently he has...

Dublin born and bred, Fintan has written a twice-weekly column for the Irish Times since 1988. He has also written an astonishing fifty eight books about politics, poetry, philosophy, theatre and Irish culture. Here he is speaking with Edwina Throsby, Head of Talks and Ideas while here was here for Antidote Festival in 2019. You can watch Fintan O'Toole in a panel discussion about the idea of nati...

Before 1996, Deborah Lipstadt was a well-regarded professor of modern Jewish History. That was before the infamous Holocaust denier, David Irving, decided to sue her for libel. Deborah and her publisher took him on, and in a blockbuster trial, that made headlines all around the world, they scored a landmark legal victory, and Deborah became an internationally recognised defender of the truth of th...

Doomscrolling can convince us the world is full of evil people - but bad news is only part of the story. Curator and councillor Jess Scully's new book,  Glimpses of Utopia , highlights stories from around the world where people respond to crises with hope and help. In Kenya and Bangladesh slums are being transformed to safe havens, and care workers are reclaiming control in India and Lebanon. Like...

Hosted by Maeve Marsden with Leonard Mickelo, Sarah Tiong, Omar Sakr, Liv Hewson and Cadance Bell This is a special one. Queerstories, as you probably know, is the legendary LGBTIQ+ storytelling night, conceived of and hosted by Maeve Marsden, and it was exceptionally fun to hold the biggest ever Queerstories event ever, right here at the Opera House. You’re about to hear an amazing collection of...

2020 was a chaotic and transformative year. Beginning with the catastrophic bushfires that incinerated any last doubts around the impacts of climate change, to international fury at structural and violent racism, and then on top of everything else, the devastation of a global pandemic that completely collapsed economies, relationships, and social norms.  But destruction and uncertainty present an...

It's rare that a debut novel makes the sort of impact of Kiley Reid's book Such a Fun Age , which has quickly become a favourite of book clubs world wide, has been the subject of much talk and debate, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. But it's also rare that a novel encapsulates the big themes of our times as perfectly as this one does.  In this session, Kiley is joined by journalist and te...

2020 will likely be viewed by future historians as a watershed in US history. The coronavirus crisis, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the deeply polarised Presidential election campaign have all laid bare inequalities and dysfunction in health, social security, and law enforcement systems. But with disruption and chaos comes space for renewal, reform, and change. How has a w...

This week we’re launching our new season of the podcast “ it’s a long story” , where you can go deep with iconic writer Zadie Smith, Cantopop superstar and human rights activist Denise Ho, Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lukashenko, and loads more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Uncover fascinating stories of the Opera House’s rich cultural heritage and design legacy in our new podcast series exploring the building as a work of art, the artwork within it, as well as the decade of renewal and how we are transforming our icon for the 21st century and future generations. Available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  sydneyoperahouse.com/digital/podcasts/house-stories Hosted on A...

Darcey Steinke was furious nobody warned her about the true experience of menopause. Hear this raw, honest and intelligent exploration of the prejudice and power in this significant time in women's lives. Hosted by Jane Caro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it mean to be beautiful - and how can we change our own definitions? Join writers Bri Lee & Carly Findlay OAM on a deep dive into how we think about appearance, beauty and the female body. Hosted by Flex Mami Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 1970s, a group of women decamped to Amazon Acres in northern NSW, with a policy of no men, no meat, no machines. Far away from the male gaze, safe from assault and harassers, they created a separate space for women. They were part of a global trend where women around the world were creating their own, idealistic societies.  Join panelists Amber Jackson, Kerryn Higgs & Sophie Robinson and ho...

Jess Hill and Sanam Maher, expert journalists on gendered abuse, come together in a cross cultural discussion about the universal emergency of violence against women. Hosted by Gina Rushton, as part of All About Women 2020. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tea Uglow is the Creative Director of Google Creative Lab. Her work focuses on pushing boundaries in global tech and creative industries. She is also a trans woman. So what does it mean to fight for representation in an industry dominated by white men? What are the false binaries we assume about the skills of men and women? And how can we transcend tokenism in the search for a truly diverse workpl...

Crowned the ‘Egg Master of Sydney’ and ‘creator of avocado toast’, Bill Granger is renowned as the restauranteur who brought laid-back Australian cafe culture to the world, and is beloved by family cooks and culinary sophisticates alike. Ahead of his new book release,  Australian Food , Bill Granger talks with food writer Adam Liaw to celebrate the global phenomenon of Australian cafe culture, the...

For more than 65,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers, grandmothers and aunties have been pillars of the community. Join this incredible lineup of women from across generations as they pay tribute to the strong women who raised them and the ongoing knowledge passed down the matrilineal line. Featuring Celeste Liddle, Bibi Barba, Amelia Kunoth-Monks & Kirli Saunders. Hosted by R...

From boozy benders to weeknight mummy wines to social media posts trumpeting newfound sobriety, our relationship with alcohol has never been more complicated. Journalist Jill Stark chronicled her year off booze, broadcaster Yumi Stynes has been public about her alcohol addiction and subsequent sobriety, and Shanna Whan founded Sober in the Country as a support system for other rural Australian rec...

Dear Australia commissioned 50 playwrights to write stories as postcards to the nation, their work interpreted by some of Australia’s leading actors. In this talk, three writers unpack some of the telling themes of these microplays, including their own, and comment on their context in a COVID world. Moderated by Nakkiah Lui, and featuring Aanisa Vylet and Donna Abela, this live conversation is the...

As the global Black Lives Matter protests continue, Australians have been challenged to confront the realities of ongoing racism and Aboriginal deaths in custody. Sydney Opera House has invited IndigenousX to curate this panel discussion exploring how state sanctioned violence is enabled and protected by racist ideology, and the role of protests in achieving reform.  Curated by IndigenousX with La...

Calls are increasing for settlers in Australia to acknowledge and confront the ongoing fallout from our country's history. There's an urgent need for a national truth-telling process about the violence and dispossession upon which colonial Australia founded. In this episode of Ideas of the House, we bring you an important session from ANTIDOTE called Australian Genocide, featuring Larissa Behrendt...