Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Marriage, Divorce, Relationships & Feminism with Dr Emma Fulu

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Marriage, Divorce, Relationships & Feminism with Dr Emma Fulu · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, the podcast, finding the space for all of you in life and love.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Sally Ann Hartnell, and this podcast is for anyone wanting to reclaim and liberate themselves in their relationships and their life.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are on your relationship journey, these conversations meet you right there.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Install for deeply supportive feelings with me and interviews with other gorgeous humans, moving you from where you are to where you most want to be.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: A lot and love completely aligned with your deepest desire to have it all on your own terms.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you're seeking a relationship and a lot that lights up all of you, you're in the right place.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'd also like to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded on the traditional lands of the world tree people and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Reflect, Reclaim, and Labour Rights.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And on today's episode, I'm chatting with Dr.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Emma Lou.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Emma is a researcher, feminist activist, and one of the world's leading experts on violence against women quality across the media, including on L to Zero, the BB study, 70 report 1329.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's the Founder and Executive Director of the Equality Institute of Global Feminist Agency working towards the gender equality and global violence against women and girls.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: She's also a mother and all-round awesome woman.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thrilled to share this conversation with her.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed recording it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome Emma.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is so wonderful to finally connect with you here on the podcast.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to kick start this conversation with you today.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm super excited too.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with a question that generally I ask most of my guests, and that is just can you tell a little bit us a little bit about yourself, you know, your story, what you do, but also more interestingly, why you do what you do.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um well maybe I'll start with the what and go backwards.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I am the founder and executive director of an organization called the Equality Institute, and we work on promoting gender equality and ending violence against women and girls around the world.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been working in that space pretty much my whole life.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess that's where it goes goes backwards.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um I grew up, I'm um, you know, kind of have a background where I'm you know mixed race, um sort of bicultural, grew up in Australia, but my family on my dad's side's from the Maldives, and um I guess reckoned a lot growing up with with both racism and sexism, and lived in a small little town, and um I think from when I was really young knew that I wanted to do something in the social justice space.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just felt like I had a calling from that in when I was a really little child.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, I was always um passionate about trying to do something positive for the world, and so I guess eventually my experiences led me to um work in the gender equality space when I was quite young.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and when I finished studying, I moved to the Maldives to work with my um with community there and was working for the government, and they asked me if I wanted to do some research on violence against women because they knew that it was a problem, but they didn't really know the details.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like so young, I was like in my early 20s and clueless, and I just like literally Googled violence against women research, like how to do it, and uh found out that the World Health Organization was doing this big global study at the time.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I contacted them and said, Would they help us?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: And long story short, ended up um working with the WHO and leading the first national study on violence against women in in the country, and then that turned into my PhD, and then that turned into me working for the United Nations and and and all of that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I had an incredible career.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: She says flippantly, and all of that.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I had an incredible career and I'd found my purpose, it felt like.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it wasn't a sort of smooth, straight line.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: So when I was um I was living in Thailand, working for the UN, I had three children, including a set of twins in very sort of quick succession, and then moved to South Africa to lead another big global program in that space.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And my twins were like 12 weeks old when I moved to South Africa, still breastfeeding, leading a big global program, toddler in tow as well, just like not surprisingly, um, I burnt out pretty seriously within a year, um, which meant I had to resign from my job, move back to Australia and move back in with my mum and just like start from scratch.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I had no job, you know, no money, three kids, um, went on sentling and just reassessed my life.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then that um I guess with some time realized okay, I was still passionate about this issue, still wanted to do this work, but I needed to do it in a way that um was more nurturing and I could balance my my family and and work life.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I started the institute in many ways.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Starting, I wanted, I kind of feel like I built an organization I wanted to work at.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that was eight years ago now, and we've got 25, almost 25 staff officers in three cities and work all over the world.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite the story, Emma, and and I know that you say and all that, and and as as I interjected, you know, just flippantly worked for the WHO and UN, but it is quite the story.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that you've come back to the core of that child, Emma, what she wanted to do in the world and built built a an organisation that actually supports you to do it and still have a life, be your mother, all the things.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, exactly.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of a gift in a way, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: You feel like you hit rock bottom and what what feels like total disaster ends up being your greatest teacher and leads you on a path that you know sometimes I think if I hadn't burnt out, I would never have started the organization.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a it was a gift, um, and I really sort of see it like that now.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's that's a great reflection.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder um if you're open to sharing a little bit of your relationship, your marriage story here, as little or as much as you're comfortable sharing, and that could be nothing at all.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're open to sharing a little bit of how that's impacted life.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that'd be great.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm now divorced, um, and that sort of also happened in the midst of of all of that messiness.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um we moved, but my my ex-husband and I were, you know, worked together for 15 years or so, married for about nine, I think.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, had had a had a really great relationship, three beautiful children, uh, moved back to Australia.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and with the you know, burnout and twist.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think just in a way, our lives life was so incredibly stressful.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: I put so much pressure on the relationship.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I think we drifted apart in lots of different ways, and it was probably catalyzed by um by all the incredible stress um that we were under.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, so the marriage didn't didn't last, but I still have think of it as a wonderful marriage, and we have a great, you know, co-parenting relationship.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's been, I guess, close to five years or so since we've been separated, and we you know do a week on, week off with the kids, which is amazing.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um actually is I I find really works for me.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um means I you know I work hard when I don't have the kids and I I travel for work and um things like that, but and then when I do have them, it's obviously intense um caring time.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's um I always sort of say, like, as far as divorces go, it's it's as good as you can hope for.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've got one of those two.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's as good as it gets.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And recently both of my kids at different times who are 21 and 18 have reflected that, you know, it's if you had to get divorced, at least you could do it this way.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that was a nice reflection.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to move on next to your TED, your TEDx talk, and I know that I've shared this with you probably, but I did tear up listening to your TEDx talk and yes, before you did.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wonder if you could share the topic.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I guess why why you chose that topic and why you believe that feminism will save us all.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's yeah, the topic is why feminism will save us all.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it took, you know, it's interesting the process of giving a TED talk and writing a TED talk because um it's quite structured, and they want you to come up with one single message.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and for me, you know, that is both kind of evidence-based and sharing a new idea, but that's also human-centered, and so combining, you know, your life experience with um into a key message, it took a it took a little bit of thinking to to get there, and I wanted to be really honest, and I wanted to share, I was sharing a part of my story that I'd never shared publicly, so it was pretty bloody scary.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I was saying things that my dad was in the audience and I was saying things that he'd never heard, like about my childhood and you know, drug taking and just things you can watch the tent, can you it's it's kind of goes a little bit.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Pushing a few boundaries as a young person.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it was it was quite scary, but um I guess I wanted to try and connect my experience, my life experience, and which really we all go through, like how are we exposed to ideas of gender and what it means to be a woman or a man and how we're put in boxes and constrained.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we all go through that, we live that, and actually then the evidence there's a global body of evidence now to really clearly demonstrate how harmful that is.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that actually the way that society puts children from virtually from birth in rigid boxes around what it means to be a man and a woman causes very, very serious physical and mental health problems.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So everything from increasing rates of violence against women, suicidality, mental health problems, early pregnancy, you know, sexually transmitted infections, all of that we can we can link back to the way that we the way that we kind of um yeah impose these ideas of of what it means to um to be a man or woman on people.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wanted to, I guess, tell that story.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then I guess for feminism, you know, while I know that not everyone calls themselves a feminist, and that's completely fine.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: For me, it's been a really useful framework for unpacking some of those harmful norms and societal expectations, and it's been a framework, it's a framework really for creating positive social change, and so for me it it helped liberate me um from I think quite experiences of quite oppressive um ideas that I'd grown up with.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so I guess it was trying to merge all of that together in 12 minutes.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I and listeners, I do urge to to watch it, listen to um Emma's TED talk.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think you did a pretty good job in 12 minutes.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um quite amazing.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Next question I wanted to move on to is so leading on from that, how do you, how do you believe or how do you know, what do you know about the way feminism impacts how women experience, yes, marriage, but particularly, more particularly separation and divorce.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you, yeah, what's your belief and what's your knowledge around that?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's an interesting one and it's it changes, obviously, it's very different in different cultural contexts, but we do know, for example, um, interestingly, that there are lower rates of violence against women incidents in places where women have easy access to divorce.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, violence against women happens all over the world, but where women can leave relationships more easily and can um separate and have and get divorced, then there's less likely that that violence continues, for example.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um similarly with other rights around, for example, inheritance and um custody are really actually important in how that plays out for women's experiences.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, there's so many sort of the gendered nature of the marriage institution, you know, is a is really impactful.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um and how rigidly a society adheres to that institution is really important um in that it can be very oppressive for women or not, you know.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think sort of feminism, I guess, as a as a framework helps us unpack a bit of like what is the history of of marriage and relationships and how is it gendered, and it's incredibly gendered, right?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like everything from it was emerging of assets and it's around ownership of women, and it's around you know, setting up very rigid gender roles that you know, man is the breadwinner and woman is the carer, and all of that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and I think then as society is evolving and we're pushing up against and rejecting those, um, and rightly so, rejecting those kind of binary ideas of relationships.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I think that that is challenging people's relationships.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and interestingly, in Australia, it's actually still quite a gendered.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're still quite gendered in our relationships.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: So women still do the vast majority of care work, um, men um less likely to take parental leave than say in other, for example, European countries.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that the kind of rigid roles as men as a breadwinner and women as the um as the carer of primary care is still quite um quite strong in Australia.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um so yes, I think all of those things play play into it, and I hope that we are starting to broaden out our understanding and our of what a relationship can look like and what um married or otherwise um to give us more freedom on both sides.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, and that was going to be my next question.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like how how will feminism impact men and and their experience in it, and I guess we're talking heteronormative relationships here, okay?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking that that gendered binary.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that binary.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um how will feminism, do you believe, and increasing feminism, experience the way men interact or be in relationship with others, with each other, with women, and of course, you know, for the listeners of this podcast, particularly how then men navigate relationship breakdown and divorce.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really long-winded question.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's really, I think it's a really important question because um so feminism is ultimate.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: We live in a society that is patriarchal, and that means basically that we've assigned roles to different groups of people and we've given power, or we don't think that there's certain groups of people hold more power than others.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but this system is oppressive to everyone.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's oppressive, obviously very oppressive to women, but it's actually still very oppressive to men.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, we know as I said, men have higher higher rates of suicide, particularly in their sort of early years, in part because the idea of what it means to be a man is that you shouldn't cry and you shouldn't seek help and you um you shouldn't show emotions, and we know that plays out um really negatively.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: We also know for men that often maybe want to be a carer, they want to be involved in their children's lives, but their workplace doesn't have you know the policies and support to be able to do that, so um, or how they are in relationship with other men that have been taught that they have to be it has to be kind of um macho and aggressive and all of those sorts of things.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it's detrimental, absolutely detrimental to men too, um, and the evidence is very clear on that.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the idea is that if we can dismantle some of that and feminism is using it as a tool to do that, um, then men will benefit in lots of different ways.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they would, you know, for example, have the freedom to choose if they want to be a primary carer of their children, for example, or more engaged in their children's lives, or they would you know have um more emotionally sort of open relationships, for example, or they might learn skills earlier around communication, and um, we would teach all children more about kind of their emotional selves and and self-expression, and they would have greater freedom to to live a life that sort of really reflects who they are as a human being.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's um it's really about the idea that we unpack these boxes that we've put ourselves in and give ourselves the full freedom to be who we are.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: And for men in relationships, I think that would ideally create much more um meaningful and rich relationships.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you're going through separation or divorce, which is incredibly challenging, but at least hopefully you have the tools then to be able to navigate that with you know compassion and respect and um and sort of the emotional maturity.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think we all could learn um to do to do that better.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess that's why I do what I do too, like divorce without divorce without blowing it all up.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever gender it takes.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: It requires a lot of effort and and thoughtfulness and you know, emotional maturity and all of those things.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um communication, um, self-reflection, yeah.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love hearing you say, like, let's take ourselves out of these boxes.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I don't think those boxes serve anyone, they don't serve us.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, regardless of how you identify as a human, they just don't serve us and they're not serving our children if we're parents.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, let's get out of here, skip those boxes away.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to go back to a little bit of what we were discussing earlier, and that is about women and work.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really interested to hear your perspective on whether we as working women, particularly as working mothers, whether we can really have it all in inverted commas.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's um it's a it's a challenging one because I think um I think the yeah, it's a hard one to answer.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: What I'll say is I think what the reality is right now, I don't think that we can so-called inverted commons have it all because the system is not set up for us in that way.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it is very challenging to be, for example, single mother, a working mother, um, and society is not structured from social support services to free and you know, early childhood education to um, you know, policy workplace policies around parental leavers, the all the systems and structures were set up for the idea of a working man and the idea that they would have a wife at home, you know, dealing with all of that stuff.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Doing all the things, yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that system is is broken.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's broken in the sense that it's outdated, it's um it's not serving the way that society has evolved.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: So currently, in that system, I would say it's virtually impossible.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: To so-called have it all.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: What we need to do is change the system so that we can, we should be able to work and have children and still be able to rest and take holidays and um not burn out.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And not burn out exactly.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: So um, but to sort of put the onus on women that you know, or just like work harder or do do more self-care, like it's your problem that you're not managing, is I think that's a fallacy because I think it's the system that's that's causing the problem.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then you layer on sort of sort of social expectations around perfection and perfect being a perfect mother and looking perfect, and all of those things, which are also incredibly problematic in the in the way um that they sort of play out for women, then I think um we're living within a within a system that doesn't serve us.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: What in so in that system, and we could probably talk about this question for our hours and hours, what specific structural change or societal change would you like to see?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or what do you think would make the biggest difference to allow women to safely fully engage as a working woman, a working mother particularly?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, I think we definitely need free quality early childhood education.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we need equal pay.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um we need a better superannuation system.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: So currently women end up with significantly less super because um most workplaces don't pay super when women are on um leave, for example.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um we need we need more sort of um equality in workplaces so that um decisions, policies, procedures are taking into account uh all of the different experiences that people have, whether that's um you know women, people with disability, non-binary folks, that that part around kind of diversity and inclusion in workplaces means that we need to create workplaces where people can show up as their full selves and have what they need to be able to live the rest of their lives.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like work is part of our lives, but it's not everything.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's like quite significant change.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: I want to see I want to see more women in leadership, but I also want to see um sort of greater support in in our sort of social sector as well.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: We need better um social housing, um, we need to change norms around masculinity so that more men take up caring responsibilities.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: You can't put more women in the workplace and leadership and not have more men take up caring responsibilities because it's just adding a burden.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think yeah, it there's not a sort of quick, easy fix, but I think there's some big policy things that that could be done reasonably.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think child childcare is a big one.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and it's doable.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the other thing.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's not something, it's just if we prioritize that, it absolutely is doable.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it serves all of us.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like we've shown we've shown the the kind of massive economic loss currently because the system is skewed and means that women um can't work when they want to work or um in the areas they want to work in.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's it's got a massive economic impact as well.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's in all of our benefits to actually try and fix that system.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um the statistics, the dollar figures around what it what it generates if early childhood education care is free or heavily subs subsided, I can't say that subsidized is quite is quite incredible.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and if there was, I think it was um, I can't remember where the report came out, but it was something globally like if there was gender equality and work, it would add like a trillion dollars to the to the economy, it's something insane, like yeah.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, insane, insane.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as I said, we could talk about that stuff for hours, but I do want to keep us moving.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to ask you if you could go back in time and speak to a younger Dr.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Emma, at what point, where would you go and what would you tell her?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'd probably go back to yeah, when I was probably in the middle of my breakdown.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'd probably go back and s and say that it's you know, that it's gonna be more than fine.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually this is you need to go through this to get to the other side too.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and what's on the other side is more amazing than you can imagine, kind of um yeah.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: But then in theory I say I say that, but I probably had to go through and just deal with the the pain of that.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can't I somehow I I don't think you can skip sometimes.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we can skip the suffering we need to experience to to learn the thing we're supposed to learn.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've got to work walk through the fire to come out.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you, pumping this podcast out, doing the work I do without going through my own fire of separation, divorce.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, if I asked myself that question, I don't know what I would answer.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's probably a bit of a rough question to ask you.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um what about your kids?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got three kids.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to ask you personal questions about them, but I just wanted to ask you that aside from you know, them watching you, their lived experience of watching you navigate life and love and work.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: What what sort of lessons or legacy would you like to leave your kids about marriage, love, relationships?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um gosh, that's a good question.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it's interesting.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I think part of the reason I've done divorce well, I think, is because I grew up with parents who did it very badly.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: So my parents got divorced when I was about three or four, quite similar to s the age of my twins when we were going through it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And but then they like never spoke to each other again, basically, and it was a very disjointed life.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I was sort of I was adamant that I was not gonna kind of repeat that pattern.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I worked really, really, really hard um at an amicable divorce.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I think, you know, I think part of the um I guess what I learned through that process and what I I want to think about a lot with my kids is that kids don't learn from what you tell them.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: You can tell them a million times that you know they're amazing and they can do anything they want in the world, and um but it they learn from modelling, and there's some really interesting data on this, and I think it's a fascinating when I think about gender, I think.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: What are we modeling like um so this idea that, for example, children also model by gender quite a lot, so girls will model um from their mothers.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Not you know, it's not exactly like that all the time, but it's it's a common pattern.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so we say this like women can do anything, um, and you know, you can you can have it all and be it all, and then what we demonstrate to our children is that actually, you know, women are often putting themselves last, women are often um not pursuing their dreams, they're sacrificed everything for their children.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're they exist to be in service to everyone else around them.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: They they don't have they it's very easy to lose our own identity and our own desires and our own dreams in you know motherhood and relationships.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I really, really have thought a lot about the best thing I can do for my children is to be happy, to pursue my own dreams, and to live a life that is authentic.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: I because if I I can tell them that, but if I don't do it, they're never actually gonna learn it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's what I've tried to do, and I hope they will learn.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm clapping, I'm clapping, I'm clapping because I can't, I couldn't agree with you, I couldn't agree with you more.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for being so open and sharing that because it's it's so true.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: We can tell them a thousand times, a million times, but they do learn by what we what we model and by you living that life, yeah, you give them permission to live that life for themselves.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I think they probably don't appreciate it now.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, get off the phone, Mom, why are you still working?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: But one day I hope they will.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's something that I talk about in my work with clients too, particularly those clients who are sitting in indecision.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Should I stay?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Should I go?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can't leave because of the kids.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you need to leave because of the kids, you know, you need to show them what life and love looks like on your on your terms.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Not sitting in the box of a relationship that doesn't serve.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't serve, yeah.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's sorry, I can see my I'm trying to turn off my um my annoying notifications.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll just ride with those.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've only got one final question for you anyway.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's final, yeah, final question why don't I ask all my podcast guests so we can add to the reflect coaching playlist.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd love you to share with us a song or a piece of music that you would share to anyone feeling challenged in their relationship, navigating separation, divorce.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was thinking about I I would for me, I'd kind of like just a song that would would make me want to dance and like just be happy.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think of and I guess it's sort of a childhood um favorite, is I remember I had a when I I had a Pink Walkman and the first tape, like cassette tape I got was Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and um I used to like play that and jump up and down on the bed.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I for me that just brings me uh a lot of joy and joyful memory.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so fantastic.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for doing that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Just like dance, I love like dance around the, you know, dance around the kitchen when you're on your own and just be silly, or even when you're not on your own be silly.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100% love it.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, how can listeners connect with you, Emma, and support or engage with the Equality Institute?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Where can we find you?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so look um look me up on Instagram, Dr.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Emma Fulu, um, look the Equality Institute up, equalityinstitute.org website, um, and also on socials.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um and yeah, love to we always love to connect with people.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a great kind of um community on Instagram and um always love to hear from people there, and yeah, the same places really.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'll drop all those links in the show notes, and I just wanted to drop in the fact that you're launching a podcast too, aren't you?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we're we're doing some work with um with organizations at the moment around um how do they create more inclusive equitable cultures, and we've developed a lot of um online education around that, and um we're so the first podcast we're doing is is for workplaces.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the next one I know that's in train will be for sort of individual listeners, um, but this one's it's actually called Dear EQI.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: So EQI is the sort of short form of our organization.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a bit of like an agony out dear EQI, like tell me all your diversity and inclusion workplace woes, and we will try and help you solve them.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: So good, so good.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, I'll drop links to all of that stuff in the show notes.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Emma Fullewith, thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of your wisdom and a little bit of your story with us today.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, my pleasure.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: It has been a pleasure.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dell Ann Hartnall, Relationship Coach, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can follow me on Instagram at ReflectCoaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love this episode, please please share with them.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'd also be so grateful if you follow the podcast on review this episode so we can get it in the games of a whole lot more humans just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you'll join me next time for another episode of Reflect, Recline and Liberate.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Until then.