Julia Gillard, former Australian PM and chair at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership: The backsliding of gender equality

“One of the things that was going to combat gender inequality in our world was that sense of progress and then to see in the research that actually the younger generation is more conservative on these questions than people my age, that deeply troubled me.”

Lucy Hockings speaks to Julia Gillard former Australian PM and chair at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s College London about new research on equality.

Having worked her way to the top in the male dominated world of Australian politics, Julia knows about sexism and misogyny. She famously called it out in a speech against opposition leader Tony Abbott in 2012 and has always been a proponent of equality for women. But 14 years on and research from the organisation she now leads finds that more and more young men want a traditional wife that obeys her husband and that’s not too independent*. So what has gone wrong?

Lucy and Julia unpick the research and analyse the factors behind this backsliding, and they also discuss Julia’s time as Australia’s first ever female head of government. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Lucy Hockings Producer: Clare Williamson Editor: Justine Lang

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*31% of Gen Z men (born between 1997 and 2012) agree that a wife should always obey her husband and one third (33%) say a husband should have the final word on important decisions, according to a new global study of 23,000 people in 29-countries conducted by Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s Business School, King’s College London.

(Image: Julia Gillard Credit: Vicki Couchman for King’s College London)