All About Women Festival – Satellite Streaming
All About Women is one of the Sydney Opera House’s flagship festivals, a day of talks and discussions exploring ever-evolving questions on gender, culture and equality.
Watch three sessions on the big screen at the library, using our Bluetooth headphones.
Program dates and details
Monday 23 March, 12.30pm
Zadie Smith
hosted by Michaela Kalowski
Literary powerhouse and north-west London legend, Zadie Smith unpacks our cultural chaos with both subtlety and precision. When the best ideas risk being flattened into feed-friendly takes, she dares us to resist the comfort of simple narratives.
Buckle up for an eye-opening conversation inspired by her latest essay collection, Dead and Alive, which spans politics on both sides of the Atlantic, cinema, galleries, Glastonbury and the question of who gets to make art. With her trademark mix of intellect and irreverence, Smith unpacks our culture. Expect razor-sharp insight and a reminder that in a fractious, doomscrolling world, curiosity is always our best line of defence.
Monday 30 March, 12.30pm
Raising Boys
Jess Hill, Zac Seidler, moderated by Jamila Rizvi
From Andrew Tate to algorithmic rabbit holes, this panel will unpack the real forces shaping boys today – and what parents can do beyond panic and blame.
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 – and the algorithm is happy to lead them down dark alt-right rabbit holes. It’s part of the reason the Australian government introduced age restrictions for social media accounts
So how do we cut through the bro-fluencer noise to raise resilient, emotionally literate boys?Investigative journalist Jess Hill (See What You Made Me Do) and clinical researcher and men’s mental health expert Zac Seidler unpack the cultural forces shaping boys today and how adults can guide them with compassion.
Tuesday 31 March, 12.30pm
Inside the Epstein Files
Emily Maitlis, Amy Wallace, moderated by Louise Milligan
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. Calls for the Epstein Files to be released have dominated headlines, fuelled presidential campaigns and instigated an Act of Congress mandating their release. Despite all that, to date only about one per cent of the millions of documents, photographs and other evidence collected in several federal US FBI and Department of Justice investigations have seen the light of day.
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 famously put Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on the record about his involvement with Epstein’s dark world. Join them for a critically important discussion that looks beyond spectacle to examine the institutions that turned a blind eye, the lawsuits now seeking redress and what justice looks like when perpetrators evade consequences but survivors live with lasting harm.
