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Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma mea podcast.

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Speaker 2: Angus Taylor leader Andrew mount Battan windsor grub.

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Speaker 3: That's Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi in a game of word

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Speaker 3: association during a live event in Melbourne this week when

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Speaker 3: it came to likening former Australian of the Year Grace

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Speaker 3: Tame to one singular word.

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Speaker 4: This is what he said, Grace Tame difficult.

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Speaker 3: It's obviously gone viral. The PM is clarified he was

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Speaker 3: referring to Tame's difficult life, but his comments tapped into

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Speaker 3: a much older pattern. We have to ask what does

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Speaker 3: that framing mean and convey? Does it dilute injustice? And

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Speaker 3: more broadly, why are women who speak or act out

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Speaker 3: of turn so easily slotted into that word? Today we're

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Speaker 3: looking at other women once labeled difficult, now regarded as some.

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Speaker 4: Of the greats.

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Speaker 3: It's the Quikie for Friday, February twenty seven. I'm Taylorstrano

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Speaker 3: and tears. Clare Murphy with your latest news headlines.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Taylor. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has

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Speaker 1: told a congressional committee that she does not recall ever

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Speaker 1: meeting the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and had no

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Speaker 1: information to share about his criminal activities. She and husband,

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Speaker 1: former President Bill Clinton, initially refused to testify before the committee,

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Speaker 1: but relented when lawmakers moved to hold them in contempt.

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Speaker 1: Clinton told the committee, I do not recall ever encountering

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Speaker 1: mister Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited

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Speaker 1: his island homes or officers. I have nothing to add

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Speaker 1: to that. Like every decent person, Clinton added, I have

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Speaker 1: been horrified by what we've learned about their crimes. The

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen Democratic presidential nominee also accused the Republican led

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Speaker 1: panel of trying to shift focus away from Trump's ties

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Speaker 1: to Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in twenty

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Speaker 1: nineteen while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. She

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Speaker 1: said Trump's administration had guarted a State Department office focused

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Speaker 1: on international sex trafficking. Bill Clinton, who was friends with

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Speaker 1: Epstein in the late nineties and early two thousands before

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Speaker 1: the disgraced financier was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution,

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Speaker 1: is scheduled to testify later today. Meanwhile, the president and

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Speaker 1: CEO of the World Economic Forum is stepping down a

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Speaker 1: few weeks after the Forum launched an independent investigation into

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Speaker 1: his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Borg Brenda, who became president

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Speaker 1: of the WEF in twenty seventeen, announced his decision on

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Speaker 1: Thursday in a statement following disclosures from the US Justice

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Speaker 1: Department that showed that Norwegian had three business dinners with

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Speaker 1: Epstein and had also communicated with the disgraced financier via

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Speaker 1: email and text. Iranian State television has reported that indirect

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Speaker 1: talks with the United States have been paused. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: clear what the reason for the break was. The two

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Speaker 1: sides had been holding indirect talks in Geneva on Thursday,

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Speaker 1: mediated by Oman. The negotiations viewed as a last chance

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Speaker 1: for diplomacy, while America gathered a fleet of aircraft and

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Speaker 1: warships in the region to pressure Tehran into a deal.

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Speaker 1: US President Donald Trump wants a deal to constrain Iran's

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Speaker 1: nuclear program, seeing an opportunity to push for the deal

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Speaker 1: while the country is struggling with growing descent following nationwide

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Speaker 1: protests in January. Iran has maintained it wants to continue

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Speaker 1: to enrich uranium even as its programme sits in ruins

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Speaker 1: following a US attack in June on three of the

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Speaker 1: Islamic Republic's nuclear sites. If an American attack happens, Iran

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Speaker 1: has said that all US military bases in the region

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Speaker 1: would be considered legitimate targets, putting at risk tens of

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Speaker 1: thousands of American service members.

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Speaker 4: The Duke and.

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Speaker 1: Duchess of Sussex have hugged and comforted young cancer patients

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Speaker 1: and their families on a visit to the leading cancer

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Speaker 1: hospital in Jordan. The visit to the King Hussein Cancer

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Speaker 1: Center was the final event in a busy two day

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Speaker 1: trip to the Kingdom for the Sussexes, who traveled to

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Speaker 1: learn more about the humanitarian effort to support the health

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Speaker 1: and well being of Syrians and Palestinians who've sought sanctuary

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Speaker 1: in Jordan. Megan supported a mother from Gazo who explained

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Speaker 1: that her son had relapsed from leukemia during the war

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Speaker 1: with Israe Harry complimented a thirteen year old girl from

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Speaker 1: Syria on her English that she explained was learned through

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Speaker 1: a relative and while watching movies. In episodes of Pepper Pig.

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Speaker 1: She also played the piano for the Sussexes, who both

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Speaker 1: hugged her before they left. The couple had earlier visited

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Speaker 1: an addiction center, where Harry urged those in recovery to

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Speaker 1: return to their communities and help others. He also wanted

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Speaker 1: them to know that there's no shame in addiction and

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Speaker 1: called them brave for coming to the hospital in the

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Speaker 1: first place. Harry left a note on the wall amongst

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Speaker 1: many others that read, it's okay not to be okay,

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Speaker 1: trust each other. Congratulations on your recovery. Now share your

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Speaker 1: courage and experience. Instagram has revealed a new alert system

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Speaker 1: that will let parents know if their teens are searching

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Speaker 1: for suicide or self harm related content. The notifications for

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Speaker 1: Australian parents using Instagram's supervision tools will begin in coming weeks.

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Speaker 1: The message will be received via and in app notification,

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Speaker 1: as well as email, SMS or wsapp, explaining the searchers

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Speaker 1: have occurred while providing expert backed guidance on how to

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Speaker 1: have a conversation about it with their children. Other mental

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Speaker 1: health searchers such as anxiety or depression will not on

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Speaker 1: their own trigger and alert. With the notifications set to

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Speaker 1: a high risk threshold. The notification will apply to parents

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Speaker 1: of teens aged sixteen and seventeen as children aged fifteen

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Speaker 1: and under a subject to Australia's blanket social media ban.

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Speaker 1: Tech giant Meta, who owns Instagram and other platforms including Facebook,

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Speaker 1: is also building a similar parental notification for teens conversations

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Speaker 1: with AI, which is set to launch later this year.

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Speaker 1: Australian Summer Paralympic star Lauren Parker has switched to Nordic Sports,

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Speaker 1: joining the Aussie team for the Milano Courteina Paralympic Winter Games. Parker,

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Speaker 1: a gold medallist in paracycling and paratriathlon, is in a

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Speaker 1: team of four athletes and one sided guide who were

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Speaker 1: named in Austria on Thursday night for the biathlon and

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Speaker 1: cross country events. After winning silver in paratriathlon at the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one Tokyo Games. Parker starred with gold in

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Speaker 1: paratrie and paracycling two years ago at the Paris Paralympics.

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Speaker 1: She is also the joint reigning Paralympin of the Year.

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Speaker 1: Former Aterro Prime Minister just Into Ardurne will soon be

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Speaker 1: calling Australia home. The rumor began to circulate when real

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Speaker 1: estate dot Com wrote a story saying Arderne and husband

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Speaker 1: Clark Gayford were spotted on the hunt for homes in

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Speaker 1: Sydney's Northern Beaches. A spokesperson says Ardurne and her family

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Speaker 1: have been traveling for a few years now and at

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Speaker 1: the moment they're basing themselves out of Australia due to

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Speaker 1: work commitments the home base making it also easier to

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Speaker 1: return home to New Zealand. They had previously been living

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Speaker 1: in the US, where ardurn was working at Harvard University.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Clen Next, difficult women throughout the ages, ambitious, high maintenance,

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Speaker 3: hard work, complicated, difficult. If you're a lady listening, there's

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Speaker 3: a chance at some stage in your life, you've probably

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Speaker 3: been labeled one of those words. Whether it's by a colleague, partner,

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Speaker 3: maybe some random on the internet. But what about by

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Speaker 3: the Prime Minister of Australia. This week, Elbow labeled former

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Speaker 3: Australian of the Year Grace Tame as difficult. His comment

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Speaker 3: was picked up and did the rounds online to a

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Speaker 3: lot of rage. Now he's clarified his comments, saying the

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Speaker 3: sexual abuse survivor's life could be framed as difficult, not

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Speaker 3: her as an individual.

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Speaker 2: She has had a difficult life, and that was what

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Speaker 2: I was referring to. And what Grace Tame has done

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Speaker 2: is to turn that difficult experience that she had into

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Speaker 2: being a strong advocate for others, which is why she

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Speaker 2: received quite rightly the Australian of the Year award. If

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Speaker 2: there was any misinterpretation, then I certainly apologized.

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Speaker 5: Now there are other.

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Speaker 2: Issues, such as the language that Grace Tame used that

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Speaker 2: I disagree with at the demonstration that was held in Sydney.

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Speaker 2: So that's why it's impossible to describe people in one word.

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Speaker 3: Tam Re shared a series of social posts of support.

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Speaker 3: The act hasn't been without criticism. Earlier this month, she

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Speaker 3: led a Sydney crowd in a divisive chant during a

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Speaker 3: pro Palestine rally held as Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Australia.

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Speaker 3: Off the back of that, there were calls to strip

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Speaker 3: her of her Australian of the Year title, something that's

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Speaker 3: actually never happened before. So yes, she's controversial. She's also

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Speaker 3: a survivor of child sexual assault who helped change Tasmania's

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Speaker 3: gag laws. Stood on the Lodge lawn refusing to smile

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Speaker 3: for Scott Morrison and has regularly made powerful men visibly uncomfortable.

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Speaker 3: Whether you agree with her recent activism or not, Grace

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Speaker 3: Tame falls into a long line of women throughout history

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Speaker 3: who've made people well uncomfortable. But is that so wrong?

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Speaker 3: Difficult can start to sound less like a neutral description

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Speaker 3: and more like a coded word aka, she doesn't stay

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Speaker 3: in her lane. It's a label that tends to land

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Speaker 3: on women who allowed unapologetic or simply refuse to be

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Speaker 3: pleasant when there's a post to be grateful. Think of

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Speaker 3: Greta Tunberg, who started as a young and skipping school

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Speaker 3: with a cardboard sign and has been called everything from

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Speaker 3: arrogant to hysterical, even demented by critics for shaming world

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Speaker 3: leaders of a climate in action.

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Speaker 4: How dare you?

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Speaker 3: You have stolen my dreams in my childhood with your

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Speaker 3: empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones.

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Speaker 3: Or Malala, who Safsai shot in the head as a

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Speaker 3: schoolgirl for demanding the right to education, who still gets

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Speaker 3: dismissed as naive or too political when she criticizes governments.

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Speaker 2: They thought that the bullet would silence us, but they failed.

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Speaker 3: The common threat isn't necessarily bad behavior it's presenting what

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Speaker 3: can sometimes be an inconvenient truth or reality, forcing people

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Speaker 3: to pay attention to a topic or cause otherwise tossed

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Speaker 3: into the too hard basket. There are the women who

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Speaker 3: rewirede entire fields while being called impossible to work with.

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Speaker 3: Marie Curie is the first woman to win a Nobel

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Speaker 3: Prize and the only person to win in both physics

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Speaker 3: and chemistry. She dealt not just with radiation exposure, but

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Speaker 3: with French newspapers smearing her as a home wrecker and

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Speaker 3: foreign interloper when she had an affair after her husband's death.

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Speaker 3: Then there's Virginia Wolfe, who basically changed the shape of

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Speaker 3: the modern novel. She was labeled melancholic, to intense, and

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Speaker 3: unwomanly by some contemporaries who were happy enough to study

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Speaker 3: her work while writing her off as mad. Rosa Parks

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Speaker 3: is often remembered as a tired seamstress who just wanted

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Speaker 3: to sit down, but in reality, she was a trained

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Speaker 3: organizer who'd been investigating sexual assault cases and finding segregation

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Speaker 3: for years before refusing to give up her seat. Her

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Speaker 3: quiet no on that bus in nineteen fifty five was

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Speaker 3: called disruptive, disrespectful, and illegal. But it helped spark the

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Speaker 3: civil rights movement. Jane Fondas spent decades being cast as

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Speaker 3: a traitor and Hannoy Jane for her Vietnam War protests

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Speaker 3: and later arrest at climate rallies, even while picking up

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Speaker 3: oscars and shaping Hollywood.

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Speaker 5: I dreamed the New Yorker cartoon the other day, which

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Speaker 5: was a wife in one of the suburban people saying

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Speaker 5: to her husband, I won't understand this new war in

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Speaker 5: Vietnam and Telena which day gene fund design, and that

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Speaker 5: sounds like it could be a New Yorker cartoon that

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Speaker 5: isn't bad as it.

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Speaker 3: Back home, We've got our own lineage of women who

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Speaker 3: were difficult like a backhanded compliment. Jermaine gree is writing

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Speaker 3: on sex power in the family Bleepart's seventies ideas of

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Speaker 3: good womanhood, and she's been praised and criticized in equal

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Speaker 3: measure ever since. More recently, Abby Chatfield has been a

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Speaker 3: lightning rod in the online space, making topics like politics

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Speaker 3: and feminism accessible and approachable to a wider, younger audience.

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Speaker 6: Peter Dutton is exploiting your lack of financial literacy and

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Speaker 6: your desperation to own a home in this next election

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Speaker 6: with a new policy that he's put forward and please

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Speaker 6: don't get.

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Speaker 3: Tricked by She too cops waves of critics online, the

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Speaker 3: likes of hate and violent threats, even our first female

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Speaker 3: Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who is now celebrated for her

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Speaker 3: iconic misogyny speech.

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Speaker 2: I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by

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Speaker 2: this man.

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Speaker 3: I will not be the couple not.

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Speaker 2: Be lectured about salm and misogyny by this man.

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Speaker 3: Not now, not ever, was previously labeled as shrill and

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Speaker 3: aggressive by their opposition leader Tony Abbott. The pattern here

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Speaker 3: isn't that all difficult women are right about everything. Grace

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Speaker 3: TAM's protest chant is a real hurt point for many Australians,

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Speaker 3: and criticism of that language isn't automatically misogyny, but words

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Speaker 3: like difficult or abrasive do a lot of heavy lifting.

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Speaker 4: Generally, when those terms are used, the user is feeling

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Speaker 4: like it's a safer word than to actually criticize women

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Speaker 4: using the kind of negative often connected to animals, type

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Speaker 4: descriptions profane that are used to criticize women. The undercurrent

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Speaker 4: of it, though, is that the woman has done something

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Speaker 4: that is deemed to challenge the status quo. She's asked

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Speaker 4: too many questions, she's disrupted the norms, and she's refusing

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Speaker 4: to just go along to get along.

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Speaker 3: That's Associate professor from the University of Melbourne, Lauren Rosemorn.

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Speaker 3: She's an expert in the area of gender, feminism and politics. Okay,

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Speaker 3: the Prime Minister has clarified his calling Grace tame difficult.

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Speaker 3: He was actually referring to her life as being difficult.

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Speaker 3: She's lived through and survived sexual abuse as a child.

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Speaker 3: Is that a more appropriate use of the word in

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Speaker 3: that context that he's now explained to us.

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Speaker 5: Hmm.

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Speaker 4: I don't think it was a good answer that he gave,

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Speaker 4: or a good explanation that he gave, even if his

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Speaker 4: intentions really were that he was giving a commentary on

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Speaker 4: her life. The idea that you could sum up a

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Speaker 4: woman anyway in one word is problematic. I think though,

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Speaker 4: you need to be really really careful when talking about women,

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Speaker 4: particularly if you're the leader of the country and happen

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Speaker 4: to be male, that you're using words that have such

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Speaker 4: a history and are so very loaded.

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Speaker 3: Can you talk us through some of the historical context then,

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Speaker 3: of how language has been used to describe women, particularly

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Speaker 3: those in positions maybe of power or public visibility. Is

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Speaker 3: this an isolated incident, and, like you know, even if

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Speaker 3: it was just a stuff up on the PM's behalf,

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Speaker 3: there has to be a bit of historical context here.

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Speaker 4: We often hear this, or at least we did hear

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Speaker 4: this historically with women in film sets, women on television productions,

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Speaker 4: where they got a reputation of being difficult or being

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Speaker 4: a trouble maker, and that idea of it being somehow

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Speaker 4: a character flaw, that women are somehow inherently difficult to

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Speaker 4: work with, as opposed to what often the undercurrent or

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Speaker 4: the driver for their behavior is, which is that something

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Speaker 4: is actually inappropriate, that's happening, and the woman has dared

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Speaker 4: call it out, and that disrupts the status quo, and

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Speaker 4: that really is perceived that it's going to be a

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Speaker 4: problem on the set, in the job, in the workplace.

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Speaker 3: Lauren, we've listed off in this episode a raft of

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Speaker 3: women throughout history, likes of Jane Fonda, Rosa Park's great

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Speaker 3: A Tunberg, even Julia Gillard. They've all at some stage

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Speaker 3: been labeled difficult or hard to work with. What do

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Speaker 3: you think of some of the shared traits of these

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Speaker 3: difficult women that keep coming up.

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Speaker 4: I think the big one for me is that they

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Speaker 4: seem to be not grateful enough. That this is often

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Speaker 4: that they're not showing deference to the men around them,

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Speaker 4: that they're not somehow exhibiting enough respect, that they're not

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Speaker 4: bowing down to whoever is perceived to have put them

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Speaker 4: in that position that they're in, That they should feel

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Speaker 4: so lucky to be here, to have a seat at

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Speaker 4: the table. Why aren't you smiling more? And I think

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Speaker 4: that there's just this undercurrent here of women who are

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Speaker 4: seen to speak out against any kind of misconduct that's happening.

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Speaker 4: If you're disrupting norms, if you're not adhering to the

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Speaker 4: expected loyalties, and those loyalties are often very much connected

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Speaker 4: to old boys clubs, if you dare to speak out

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Speaker 4: against them, you're going to get this difficult label.

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Speaker 3: So then how do we rephrase that?

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Speaker 4: What should we really be.

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Speaker 3: Saying we refer to women who are, for lack of

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Speaker 3: a better word, I guess difficult.

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Speaker 4: I'm not sure we need to be talking about that

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Speaker 4: in the sense of, again, if we're looking for a

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Speaker 4: word that means basically the same as difficult, we're still

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Speaker 4: trying to frame their behavior is problematic. Now, obviously problematic

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Speaker 4: is subjective. What's problematic to one person is a fantastic

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Speaker 4: activist to another. I think we just need to be

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Speaker 4: careful about what we're actually trying to say. If the

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Speaker 4: Prime Minister is trying to say that he thinks a

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Speaker 4: woman is being a loud mouth or being disruptive, be

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Speaker 4: honest at least say what it is that you think.

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Speaker 4: Because difficult as a euphemism has a lot of historic connotations,

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Speaker 4: it lacks clarity in terms of the point that you're

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Speaker 4: trying to make again, and it also just has a

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Speaker 4: really long history of offending a whole lot of women.

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Speaker 3: So, knowing now what the Prime Minister was trying to

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Speaker 3: refer to, what do you think a better word would

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Speaker 3: have been for him to use?

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Speaker 4: I think there are two options that I think would

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Speaker 4: have been the preferred answer. Passionate, because passionate can mean

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Speaker 4: lots of things, and it doesn't mean necessarily in an

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Speaker 4: endorsement of passion. And the second, I'd say, you can't

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Speaker 4: sum up a woman with one word.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Lauren. As much as we love having an expert

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Speaker 3: weigh in on these topics. We also did reach out

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Speaker 3: to both Anthony Albanezi and Great's Tame that as you

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Speaker 3: can imagine, their dms have been flooded in the last

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Speaker 3: forty eight hours. So maybe the question isn't whether a

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Speaker 3: woman is difficult, it's what or who she's making life

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Speaker 3: difficult for. Is she punching down or is she making

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Speaker 3: it harder to look away from something uncomfortable? Because of

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Speaker 3: his Turk tells us anything, it's that a lot of

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Speaker 3: the women we now celebrate as heroes, icons and nobel

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Speaker 3: laureates were once the ones everyone wished would just quietly

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Speaker 3: go away. Thanks for taking some time to feed your

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Speaker 3: mind with us today. The Quikie is produced by a

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Speaker 3: whole bunch of difficult women. I'm Taylor Strano, of course,

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Speaker 3: a Larier Brophy and Clem Murphy, with audio production by

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Speaker 3: lou Hill.

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Speaker 1: Mumma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on