What happens if we want to be invisible? In this episode, we speak to Prudence Black about her works as a Research Associate at the University of Adelaide and the Department of Gender and Cultural studies at the University of Sydney about the experiences of invisibility from a range of perspectives. We explore the conundrum of self-inflected invisibility and the changing nature of the family structure that impacts modern gender roles today. Dive into the conversation and join the movement to #stayvisible.
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Grace Packer
This is a Just Gold podcast.
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Carley Bishop
Captured on the lands of the peoples of the and call a nation. We pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging. In this episode of the Invisible Woman podcast, Kyriakos Gold speaks to Prudence Black, an academic at the University of Adelaide and the University of Sydney. Her research area in Gender and Cultural Studies gives valuable insight into what it really means to have a criminal record and what she believes to be the next frontier in the fight for gender equality.
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Carley Bishop
We explore the conundrum of self-inflicted invisibility and what invisibility looks like from a range of different perspectives.
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Grace Packer
I'm Prudence Black, I'm an Academic and the research associate at Adelaide University, but I'm also a research associate in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at Sydney University. So I work across to, you know, I'm a cultural studies person, which means I can work across a broad number of areas. So I have a history by looking at design and fashion, but I also look at women in work.
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Prudence Black
I'm also in a research project on boys.
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Kyriakos Gold
Can I ask your thought on gender and integrity? Our project looks at what happens to women over 50, but it's an arbitrary number. I think even if it comes up in research, I think that's going lower and lower every day. What are your thoughts on that?
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Prudence Black
Look, I think women are discriminated routinely on the basis of gender and age. And one of the things that I'm involved with is looking at female ex-offenders. And if you think it's discrimination, you know, based on age and gender, then it's like a time bomb when you add a criminal record to that that demographic. So that's that's a specific interest that I have.
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Kyriakos Gold
Can we talk a bit more about that? Because you would think that if you were in crime, you'd be tough. Is that is that a stereotype?
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Prudence Black
Yeah, that's interesting that you say that an offender might be a tough person, but my experience would be exactly the respect of women. And I must admit that I'm only dealing with women in the work that I'm doing. They are invariably quite vulnerable. They'll they lack confidence, they lack self-esteem. And this is one of the reasons, I think that they end up in the criminal justice system.
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Prudence Black
It's very these these kind of women not really qualities, are they? But there is certainly a there's they certainly exhibit with those kind of characteristics.
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Kyriakos Gold
Within that space. What is that will do well and what is that that we can do better?
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Prudence Black
One of the focuses that I'm looking at is ex-offenders and employment and it's pretty diabolical what is happening out there. So women on release. The thing with women is on release. They actually come out with very little support. Men often come out and they have the support of their families. Women come out and they often lose that. So they come out with very, very little to help them.
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Prudence Black
And there are very few services that actually help women on release from corrective service centers. So one of the things that we're looking at is employment. I mean, there's this a number of issues that have really affect women. And I would say homelessness and employment would be the two key things for women on release from prison and what we're trying to do with the sort of work I do is actually try and work with employers to make them aware of what it means to have a criminal record.
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Prudence Black
And here I think it's interesting because if you talk to a lot of employers, then that knowledge of what a criminal record is. The interesting thing with employers is that what a lot of employers and I can't generalize, but I will a little bit, is that their idea of someone with a criminal record is it might be someone with a parking fine on one hand, but it might be a murder on the other.
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Prudence Black
And they don't sort of necessary necessarily distinguish between those traits. So there's a kind of a clichéd notion at a criminal record and that might encompass all those things and nothing in between. And this is actually a little extreme. The women become both men as well, but women in particular is injuring. There's a lack of understanding by most employers about what it means to have a criminal record.
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Prudence Black
I mean, if they think about us, we would all have you know, we've all done something illegal. So it's a very what I'm trying to say, it's a very fine line. And if you think about women, most women who end up in prison might only serve a six month sentence, but that sentence hangs around for a very, very long time, and it has a huge detriment on terms of their welfare across a number of areas.
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Kyriakos Gold
And of course, context of the crime as well. You know, why why did you end up offending? You may have been defending yourself.
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Prudence Black
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, we know what we know about domestic violence, but I think one of the things that comes out in the research that I've been doing is that the women, for whatever reasons, often have low self esteem, and that impacts on the way they manage their lives. And they often end up with people that are probably not the best sort of people that they should be hanging out with.
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Prudence Black
And that kind of impacts it's sort of like a the domino effect that you you feel unconfident. You you latch on to someone who can offer you said things often it's drugs and it's a sort of a slippery slope from that that parental I would say it's talking to anyone who has been in the criminal justice system. It is a very complex world that they are part of.
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Prudence Black
You know, we all have complex lives. But if you if you talk to these women in particular, it is a very complex world that they've been being a part of. And and in some ways, I'm not making excuses, but you can say why, why things have happened and why things might have gone badly.
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Kyriakos Gold
You touched on my next question. Who have been trying to work out at what point there is that switch that makes women invincible and empower them and young men trying to build a life to invisibility and an ability. And we've had some mobile friends. I've said it may just be a gradual thing. For some, it's just an incident that happens in life.
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Kyriakos Gold
But what we did yesterday in a consultation and I wanted to hear your thoughts on it, is that some of the women we spoke to, they said that we've always felt invisible. They said that we were invisible as children, and then that created a cycle and we're still invisible today. What any thoughts on that?
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Prudence Black
Oh, it's hard not to be personal in relation to that comment, but I mean, certainly that's not my experience. I think there's different sorts of visibility for women. Certainly there's an invisibility and acknowledging your skills and your knowledge in the workplace and you sort of that that's a sort of invisibility that happens as you're a young career person.
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Prudence Black
But I think what happens when you get older, there's an invisibility, which is more physical visibility, where as a young person you are seen through your physical being. But I think once you reach a certain age, it's you. You really you're not seen, which is kind of incredible to imagine really that you're suddenly not there. But it is like suddenly you walk into a shop and, you know, there might be two young women on either side of you and you might be the first one in there, but it's almost like you just disappear into a void.
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Prudence Black
So that's a really interesting thing. But some women would also say, thank God, you know, having, you know, being preyed upon, you know, as a young person and invisibility can be a wonderful thing, too. I do think that sometimes being able to be a little bit more invisible gives you a kind of confidence because you're not being assessed by what you look like.
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Prudence Black
You suddenly have to come through in a very different way. And I think it can be quite liberating. So it it is very contradictory and I think, you know, the experience of women is complex, just like they experience men. You know, it's it is very complex, but it's it's when certain strands dominate that you really have to think quite differently about what is happening.
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Prudence Black
So and I think that's what your project's probably doing.
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Kyriakos Gold
In multicultural Australia is like a new experience of women the same.
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Prudence Black
You know, I had an example the other day actually of a couple that I know. One of one is the Asian agent and she said that, you know, quite often they will go somewhere socially partner will be always the one who gets, you know, like, what do you want or what can I do? And it is like she's invisible.
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Prudence Black
And she said it's, you know, she she's actually more educated. She's more you know, she's certainly more privileged than this this other person in ways of, you know, her background. But yet she just says that she is made to feel invisible in relation to standing alongside her, her partner. And it's you know, it's it's very clear.
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Kyriakos Gold
When we were talking to Indigenous Australians, some of the themes that came up were about from domestic violence, that their trajectory of life is different. You become a grandma a little earlier, for example, and also there's a path to becoming an elder, which comes with a lot of respect. And I was wondering where that path is gradual and it get more and more and more and more respect or it just goes up and out and suddenly you become an elder if you had any thoughts on that.
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Prudence Black
I look, I can't speak on behalf of indigenous people, but certainly I spent time with Aboriginal communities up in the Kimberley and and there is a huge respect for the elders. You know, that's, that's a source of knowledge is a source of passing on cultures. But it's, it's not all so straightforward either. There's a huge responsibility often passed on the elders through the younger the younger people who aren't coming through those traditional communities and have very different values that it is that the indigenous elders.
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Prudence Black
In some communities it's very difficult trying to keep the culture alive when there's a lot of other influences coming in at the, you know, the younger people's level. But I still think the idea of an Aboriginal elder having passing on the knowledge and passing on the culture is very, very strong in Indigenous communities and it's, it's critical to being mining, you know, healthy and and functioning.
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Kyriakos Gold
To have similar examples in white communities that older women gain the respect that comes with age. I know, for example, in the great community that it comes on point that you become really respected. But there is a gap between youth and that point. There's a gap that you are invisible, but then you suddenly become the head of the family.
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Kyriakos Gold
What happens in that book? Communities in Australia.
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Prudence Black
As soon as I became a grandmother, my son, I realized it was like the penny dropping like oh net. And it was quite beautiful, you know, this idea that we came together because he suddenly realized all those years of me telling him. Alston, you know, you know, same sorts of behaviors. It suddenly came together, you know, that he he understood what it meant to be a parent.
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Prudence Black
And so certainly there was a news news form of respect this. But I think it's really that intergenerational conflict with the myself, you know, who is much, much older than us. And and certainly I had to, you know, respect him in a way that at times I didn't feel that I should say we is Australian has had very different family lives.
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Prudence Black
But I think certainly in relation to other cultures I wouldn't say that we have that that automatic respect that elderly people, although I wonder if things will change now that more young people are living at home. You know, we had a dinner party the other day and as the six people at the table, three of the couples had children.
00:12:26:13 - 00:12:46:04
Prudence Black
We still lived a time in their thirties. So this is a very, very different world. We're living it. You know, my generation, we left home when writing. We're out of there. We never came back. So we're seeing a very different shift in in families and family lives. And so you actually the relationships are changing quite dramatically because of that.
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Prudence Black
You know, the boyfriends and girlfriends are moving in. So you have to all be polite living together. But you don't want to people I know it's it's shifting. And this is the fabulous thing about our society. It's it's totally fluid. And and it's and it's changing. So to say that there are structures in place is certainly cultural traditions.
00:13:04:19 - 00:13:26:04
Prudence Black
But I think they're not as strong as what they they might have once been. It's not just visibility. It's about being loaded with assumptions. You know, people put assumptions on you when they see that you're a certain age. They you know, you get characterized for your age. It's like they you know, they say young people are. What would they know about that as young people know a lot about a lot of things.
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Prudence Black
And it's the same thing about all the world. What would they know about technology or what what would they know about this new world that's coming up. We're once again, old people have a lot to offer. You know, they have an enormous amount to offer just through a wealth of experience.
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Kyriakos Gold
So talk about elections. Do you think? Yeah, I know, right. Do you think that women consciously moved to a different way of thinking or was it just very organic or another?
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Prudence Black
Yeah, I think this is the interesting thing is why did they take this moment to make you know, why hasn't happened a long time ago. You know this is this is the thing for women always why hasn't happened early it doesn't matter what we talk about in relation to women why hasn't it happened earlier why hasn't it happened so yeah and the election was a case in point.
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Prudence Black
Why didn't we have these strong, fabulous women coming forward and and we actually know it was because we hadn't been broken up, you know, and that that was the issue. And it's really hard to get past, particularly in, you know, two party politics to push your way through. If we want to be honest. You know, the Liberal Party felt themselves because they didn't elect Julie Bishop.
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Prudence Black
They had a good female candidate and and they let it go, you know, so that but also we've got to stop being cynical. Like I know the Liberal Party had a think tank and the think tank was designed to look at what do women want? And they found out in this think tank what women want is they want climate change.
00:15:06:00 - 00:15:14:15
Prudence Black
They want a world that will be safe for their children. They want a lot of things, but do you think they picked up on any of that? No, they can't, but they didn't.
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Kyriakos Gold
They actually had a think.
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Prudence Black
Tank blueprint.
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Kyriakos Gold
That said that and they didn't act on it. Yeah, it makes no sense.
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Prudence Black
I think the lack of regard. So women in the Australian political system was kind of it was as I say it's a long time coming. I mean we saw it with Julia Gillard, we saw it with Julie Bishop, we saw the way they were, they were trading the way they were kind of pushed to one side so that said there was a slow burn.
00:15:40:22 - 00:16:07:06
Prudence Black
But also I think the young women, of course, Britney and Bryce Tyers, you know, I think that mobilized something that we hadn't seen before, because I think it symbolized those two women, symbolized a lot of as for a long time, women have kept quiet about things for fear of persecution, for fear of losing their jobs, for fear of upsetting the men that have, you know, abused them.
00:16:07:11 - 00:16:38:10
Prudence Black
And I think that actually opened up those two women, opened up a can of worms because they put themselves on the line. And I think a lot of the times women have not put themselves on the line in the way that those women did, and they were incredibly brave. And I think that sense of as being pride really made the rest of us think, well, if they can do that and we need to support them, then I think that's that's what's creating this is influx of women are coming up and saying, actually, we're going to take these guys on.
00:16:39:10 - 00:16:58:18
Kyriakos Gold
So a lot of the till independence that was so successful where women of privilege I lie like fathers in parliament takes on millionaire dads not wave it's still representative of women around Australia. Or is it.
00:16:59:00 - 00:17:02:07
Prudence Black
Something so that that sort of women in politics.
00:17:02:19 - 00:17:05:06
Kyriakos Gold
Well yeah. Because they're old white women of privilege.
00:17:05:13 - 00:17:32:18
Prudence Black
Yeah you look at the seats that they, they got and it's kind of pretty par for the course. Yeah. But if you look at the women across politics generally, you know, we have Jacqui Lambie, you know, we have Linda Burney, we have the new women who've been represented in Parramatta. We we do have diverse women across Parliament. So I think that's, that's and that will increase, that's, that's not going to go away.
00:17:32:18 - 00:17:53:10
Prudence Black
And I think the two women that have staked their ground, they're going to have to work really hard because those political parties are going to work very hard to get those seats back. But women have a great capacity to work. They're very community minded. They they're smart. You know, they they all know how to play the numbers as well as anyone else.
00:17:53:10 - 00:17:57:11
Prudence Black
So don't underestimate these women. They will be there to stay.
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Kyriakos Gold
What other parts in modern history, I would think women be so committed to equality. Is this is this the moment I have to be? Not the moment would like to see this works out.
00:18:09:17 - 00:18:33:21
Prudence Black
I think that the Civil Rights Act, when you suddenly couldn't discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race, that was a huge, huge moment, particularly for women, because they realized they couldn't be discriminated on the basis of their sex. And this was in workplaces. And, you know, in particular, my my interests in the industrial relations history of female flight attendants.
00:18:34:05 - 00:19:04:17
Prudence Black
They mobilized around that time because they suddenly realized they weren't getting promotion. They didn't have the same opportunities, they didn't have the same salaries as men. They and it was it was just plain clear that they were being discriminated against. So there was not a big deal about taking that airlines to court because the airlines built wrong. And I think once, you know, something is fundamentally wrong and illegal, you can have a lot of confidence in taking that forward.
00:19:04:17 - 00:19:20:17
Prudence Black
And even if you are a group of flight attendants in your twenties and you're taking on a major airline, it doesn't matter because you have a law behind you and it can just create all sorts of wonderful effects as it has in many workplaces.
00:19:21:12 - 00:19:23:10
Kyriakos Gold
What's the next frontier for women?
00:19:23:11 - 00:19:56:23
Prudence Black
Do you know? One of the things that really excited me about the recent election was the commitment to childcare, helping women out. You know, women want to work. You know, that's that's just a basic women want to work. And the thing that probably holds them back more than anything is affordable and decent childcare. And I think once we sort out childcare, that's that's what I would like to see more than anything decent, affordable childcare for anyone who wants it.
00:19:57:06 - 00:20:05:21
Prudence Black
And that will really change the workplace in particular for women. And that's that's really it's just going to happen.
00:20:06:19 - 00:20:18:24
Kyriakos Gold
That's what happens. Yeah, it's the caring that almost puts the brakes on your career. Is that what is that what I'm hearing from you?
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Prudence Black
Yeah, I think, you know, I always used to joke that, you know, I used to earn money to pay for childcare and takeaways on Friday nights. And it wasn't a joke, you know, that was where my money went, you know, and it was it was kind of odd thinking. All I'm doing is, you know, just chipping away. You know, it wasn't it wasn't going anywhere.
00:20:38:04 - 00:20:53:21
Prudence Black
And I still think it's incredibly difficult for women and families to manage families and families. It's so important that fundamental that they they are what it's all about. You know, families, they all the world.
00:20:53:21 - 00:21:13:11
Kyriakos Gold
We spoke to an MP to a federal MP at the beginning of this project and she said when she was in Canberra she's been running pieces of 70 something and she said I knew at all times it was really powerful. I think she said I knew at all times what, where my kids were, what they were eating and but that we were in.
00:21:14:06 - 00:21:20:18
Kyriakos Gold
But my male colleagues had no idea. So she was literally two full time jobs.
00:21:20:24 - 00:21:48:04
Prudence Black
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think men men have got better, but it's only through guilt, you know? I think so that someone's totally genuine. But I think. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's why in Parliament it's got better. You know, they've made the sitting hours a bit more family friendly, you know, because they have to, you have to support families if you want economy to thrive, if you want a workforce to do well, you need to support family and their very good economy.
00:21:48:12 - 00:21:50:04
Prudence Black
Families are very good economy.
00:21:50:12 - 00:21:54:23
Kyriakos Gold
Do you think menopause has to do anything with women's career progression?
00:21:56:01 - 00:22:21:09
Prudence Black
Well, I look, I can't really I mean, I have experienced menopause and I. I don't know what to say about that. You know, I experienced menopause. And there were moments which were professionally incredibly awkward when you you know, you get the sweat. They call, you know, I'd be standing talking to someone at a function or in a meeting and you would just pour with sweat.
00:22:21:09 - 00:22:49:12
Prudence Black
And it it it was very hard to say, well, actually, I'm menopausal, you know, what do you do? And it's try and sort of brushed it away. It is incredibly excruciating. And fortunately, you know, I didn't experience that for a long period of time, but it's but I, I do think, gosh, what what is it like for people in public life to be menopausal and experience those sorts of physical things that are happening to your body, which you have no, no control.
00:22:49:14 - 00:22:49:21
Kyriakos Gold
Over.
00:22:50:03 - 00:23:17:16
Prudence Black
At all. So and that does I guess. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't look coarse, you know, like excess of any source can be a little bit abject, you know, so bodily fluids, you know, you meant, you're meant to control them. And so here you have a condition where you have no control. I mean, you can probably have hormone therapy, but this this uncontrollable release fluids is is abject it.
00:23:17:17 - 00:23:37:01
Kyriakos Gold
Would be working from home is going to offer a safe space for for somebody who's working from home. You can control your environment. You can jump on a line by teams. You know, it may be an easier day. No being at the office.
00:23:37:11 - 00:23:55:05
Prudence Black
I think the shift to working from home is going to have its own challenges. I know in America some time ago there was just before COVID, there was a move to get people out of the offices and home because it was cheaper. And a lot of people put in an awful lot of wipes, which we saw as well.
00:23:55:05 - 00:24:13:09
Prudence Black
So this idea of people working from the home, it's a cheap policy in a white, you know, people save money because they don't have to use the office spaces and also that seem going back to the idea, oh, you can be more flexible in terms of, you know, childcare or parenting arrangements, but it just means that you can pick up the kids.
00:24:13:09 - 00:24:32:14
Prudence Black
But it probably means at 12:00 at night if you're doing the work you should have done then. So so the idea of us working from home is that kind of a fairly standard measure? I think you really have to think so. And also some people aren't safe at home. You know, where we're shooting at a home is like an office.
00:24:32:14 - 00:24:55:04
Prudence Black
Well, it's not a home is a very dynamic space with lots of things happening in a new kind of stream that it's a clean environment like an office. So I think this shift to working from home made it has its advantages, but it also means people get excited about this project. I was excited that I was going to be interviewed.
00:24:55:04 - 00:25:28:12
Prudence Black
I'll go, Oh, what a great project that someone is actually taking this seriously with the aim of actually kind of making people understand what it is for women to experience the feeling of being invisible. Because I think it's like a lot of things to do with women. People don't know. They don't they don't know that there's that unconscious bias where they just they don't understand that they may be ignoring women, you know, in the room because they just not aware that that's how women feel.
00:25:28:15 - 00:25:55:23
Prudence Black
I think the other thing about women over 50 is they have to keep in the community. It's really important. You know, you might think, well, they had their turn and it's time for them to sort of let others come through. But I think it's increasingly important of women in their fifties to stay working, to stay engaged with communities, because it it's important to their fundamental world thing.
00:25:57:15 - 00:26:14:10
Carley Bishop
The Invisible Woman Project, funded by our Social Enterprises Impact Program, promotes awareness and actions for women and gender-diverse people to age with dignity, security and safety. Find out more on Just Go Women dot net or on our socials at just called women.
00:26:26:21 - 00:26:33:12
Kyriakos Gold
This was a just gold podcast. Find out more about our social enterprise at JustGold.Net.