Ducks on the Pond
A podcast for rural women... by rural women. Hosted by Kirsten Diprose and Jackie Elliott, they seek expert advice and the stories of other rural women on issues such as succession planning, motherhood, starting a business...running for politics and much more!
Ducks on the Pond
Does HOW we talk about rural men, matter? Part 1 with Leila McDougall
With gender roles for men not being as defined as perhaps they once were, what does this mean for our rural men who grew up with certain ideas of 'what a man should look like?'
Does how we talk about our blokes matter too? Whether that's whinging about our husbands who seem to always miss kids bath time... or on a broader societal level about what men should or shouldn't be?
This is a tough issue for a women's-centred podcast to dive into. But if we're ever going to tackle two major killers in rural Australia; suicide and family violence, we need to have some tough conversations.
This is a 2 part deep dive into two complex problems. In this episode we speak to Leila McDougall, producer of the movie "Just a Farmer," about gender roles, the pressures of generational farming, and our own roles as wives, mothers and daughters. She's also a farmer and mother in Tatyoon, in the western districts of Victoria.
Suicide rates amongst farmers in Australia is 94% higher than non-farmers. On average one farmer dies by suicide every 10 days. And it's mostly men.
In Part 2 of this series, we dive into family violence and how we can better involve men in these difficult conversations to help prevent violence against women.
I think men should be men. We are different. Well, we do have genetic differences. I love that, my husband. If someone broke into my house, I love the fact that he would protect me and defend me.
Speaker 2:Kirsten Diprose here for Ducks on the Pond and it's just me for this one. And actually I've broken this up into a two-part series because there's just so much to talk about. This series is sponsored by me at Rural Podcasting Co. And, to be honest, I didn't even approach any sponsors for this topic about how we talk about our rural men, because I thought it would be too controversial talk about our rural men, because I thought it would be too controversial and it's not an easy topic for me either. Let me give you some context. So you just heard the voice of Leila McDougall, who wrote, produced and even starred in the movie Just a Farmer. You'll hear from her shortly. But I actually got the idea for this episode from Louise O'Neill, who's a rural councillor based in Denmark, wa, and she'll be in part two.
Speaker 2:But she raised the issue of how we talk about men and whether that's with friends or in a broader societal context. Being a man is not as defined in society as it used to be, and that's probably a good thing. I'm not one for being locked into gender roles, but when you're living in amongst the transition from the idea that a man has to be strong at all times and show no emotion to a more nuanced idea of manhood. That can be tough. As you know, this podcast is for women, but we live with these strange and wonderful creatures called men. But, all jokes aside, I think it's an important conversation if we're ever going to tackle two really big killers in rural Australia, and that's suicide and family violence. These are both wicked problems in that they're complex, with so many contributing factors, and they're also topics we tend to avoid and cover up. I'll return to family violence in part two.
Speaker 2:I speak to Louise about that, but here with Leela, we discuss gender roles, the pressures of generational farming and our own roles as wives and mothers and daughters. Suicide rates amongst farmers in Australia is 94% higher than non-farmers. That's crazy. On average, one farmer dies by suicide every 10 days, and it's mostly men. As I said, it's complex. Let's meet Leela McDougall. She's a farmer in Taddyoon in the Western districts of Victoria and you know film star and movie producer on the side. It's actually quite shocking how down to earth she is. She's been a teacher, a fashion designer and a graphic designer. One thing you'll notice is that she's incredibly values-driven, motivated by wanting to accurately depict farm life, the good and the bad, and, of course, remove stigma around mental health.
Speaker 1:I grew up in rural Australia, grew up in a little town called Wolker in the New England regions of New South Wales, and my parents, yeah, leased land and worked their way up to owning a property. My dad always said to us the reason he had kids was for free labour. My dad always said to us the reason he had kids was for free labor. We always had to work on the farm and we've always been working on the farm and doing different things and horse crazy. And, yeah, I ran away from the farm. I guess when, like most girls, when we turn 18, we're like I'm leaving and I'm never coming back. And then, yeah, got into fashion and then ended up back on the farm with my husband.
Speaker 1:Fashion what did you do in fashion? Yeah, I studied fashion design and I majored in costume, fashion history and pattern making because I won a scholarship through the Australian Wool Fashion Awards. When I was at school I had an amazing textiles teacher that knew I wasn't going to get into fashion design with my academic marks. So we worked really hard to get me into a lot of fashion awards around the country to see if I could get a scholarship, and I was lucky enough to get one.
Speaker 2:So what kind of places did you work in in the fashion industry and what was it like? There's like the Devil Wears Prada and what's it actually like.
Speaker 1:I worked more in like little boutique sort of operations and wedding stores and a lot of alterations, and then I actually went down the graphic design path. I, once I left uni, I got into a bit of graphic design things. I guess the thing like I just don't like about the industry is the fast fashion and the disposable side of it. It really quite it angers me in some way. That's why I love wool, because wool is the most sustainable fiber in the world. It's the only fiber that doesn't kill its host. It keeps regenerating, so it's 100% sustainable. But it's really hard to promote it because of all the other things that are happening with wool. But I think that's why I resented and wanted to get away from fashion, because it is just fast fashion. No one buys things to last anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like that corporate structure is made for that fast fashion and the what's hot, what's new and I'm just like a good woolen jumper for where I live down and where you live Like. That is gold in my wardrobe. I will wear that for a good decade or more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I think we're so geared towards trends and what's hot and what's not, and it shows that we're so controlled by what we're being shown in society and to be brave enough just to not follow trends and just to be your own trend is really hard, and it's because I taught textiles as well and I left them a textiles teacher too. But, yeah, trying to teach kids that you don't have to follow trends, you can be your own stylist and you can dress the what suits you. As long as you're comfortable in what you're wearing in it and it looks good, then why do you have to follow a trend? Because trends don't look good on everyone.
Speaker 2:So we've gone fashion graphic design. And how did you end up back on a farm?
Speaker 1:My husband. Yes, I met him and, yeah, the day we met, that was history. He was working in my little hometown of Wolka for 12 months on his year's placement at the university he went to for ag management and I was just home for the weekend visiting my family and friends and my friends were trying to set me up with someone local and I was like no, I know everyone here. Like blah blah. And a friend said to me oh, we don't know that guy standing over there at the bar and it was Sean. And so we've been together ever since we were babies when we met. We're only 21.
Speaker 2:Wow, you've been together all that time. That's great.
Speaker 1:And how was that? Moving to another area? So, yes, you grew up on a farm, but the Western District you're in Tattayoonayoon, it's a different area, a whole new community you have to become part of. Yeah, and in New South Wales we don't have that like. We have football culture, like the footy, local footy club and everyone goes and watches. It's rugby or league.
Speaker 1:When moving to Victoria, the netball football culture in the club was something I wasn't, I'd never done before. So, fitting into a new community that way, and not being a netballer as well, I tried my hardest to play, but I'm really bad at it. I grew up playing, yeah, soccer and hockey and touch football, and that we didn't really have netballs. So, yeah, fitting into a new community is always hard, especially little ones that don't always have new people coming in. Yeah, it was difficult, I think, to move to a new little community. That was probably the hardest part. But you just find your people and your tribe and yeah, and you get to a point where you just, yeah, I did get to a point where I was like, am I going to follow my dreams or be a people pleaser? And I think my dreams trumped it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now you are. I don't know what the word is because, like you created an entire movie, like you wrote it, you produced it and you happened to star in it. You're a movie producer Like how did that happen?
Speaker 1:How? Tell me. I don't even really know. If I had to go back and do it again, I'm a bit worried about where I would start because, yeah, I don't really know. It's just something that evolved as it goes and I learned as I went and if I didn't know something I'd have to go and research it and find out about what it was or how it worked, or find people that did know how it worked.
Speaker 1:I think that's really important in anything when you don't know something, it's good to surround yourself by people that do know, because, yeah, like you can't be expected to know everything. We're always learning and growing. But yeah, it's funny now because people say, well, what do you do? And I don't really know what to say anymore. I'm like, what do I do? Am I a Mewfie producer? Just because I did one doesn't mean that's what I am or will I keep doing it or I don't know. But yeah, it was just definitely something I threw myself into and I'm really lucky that I just have a husband that supported me and helped me and held my hand and let me cry on his shoulder when we had our tough patches, because we have made a lot of sacrifices to make the film, lifestyle and everything, every kind of sacrifice we've had to make.
Speaker 2:I mean, just a farmer is a superbly produced and made film. Like you think of a first film and again seem to keep going back to my uni days. But I remember being a small kind of part in a film and it was so like just put together it was someone's first or second ever film and it was not something that was about to be screened at an international festival. You've done this absolutely beautiful, professional, moving and compelling piece of cinema. Like how did you do that? And I love the pacing of the film too. You get to soak in the landscape and the story and you need that time to process the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and our editor, ashley Lucas, like she's an up and coming. She'll be the best editor in Australia one day. She's incredible and she really understands pace and timing and story and editing is her life like she's autistic as well and normally autistic people have something that they are just incredible at and editing is what she's incredible at. And Simon, our director, as well, like knowing the nuances of life and I think because he's been through his own hard times, he understands it. He had empathy for the characters rather than someone trying to over-dramatise everything, because I did have some other directors and other producers read over the script and do a pass on the script. That's where they do write their version of the story and I remember reading one pass that someone did and I was just crying at the end of it, going they've just massacred my story like they.
Speaker 1:They sound like they have no idea what it's like to be a country person. They've just made it this mellow dramatic story and it doesn't need to be that, because there's already enough drama in it without the actor saying that there's drama, if that makes sense. Yeah, you've seen it. So there's a lot of silence, there's very low dialogue, but there's still so much happening and I think that's just a lack of understanding of what it's like to live in country Australia, because we don't talk a lot. We do communicate through our body language. Someone said you just get the old flick of the head sometimes from someone and it can say a hundred words that look your mum gives you and you know that it's like, oh crap, I'm in trouble.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, simon and Ash are definitely very talented in that area and then I think just everyone came together because everyone was so passionate about the topic and that was one of the things that we made sure, like when everyone came onto the project, they had to be on board for the right reasons. There was no career climbing and if they were on board for those reasons, it became evident very quickly and you could tell their work didn't reflect the reason they were involved, because we all had to sacrifice a lot for the film and our DOP, like Gavin Head, is just an incredibly talented man with that camera. What's a DOP? Director of Photography, sorry, photographer, yeah, but he is so talented and he's done a lot of great work, but he was able to capture the landscape as his own character.
Speaker 2:And I recommend to everyone to watch the movie because it is really good and there is an unravelling that happens. I thought going into it that I would know what the plot would be, but all I'll say is that you don't. There is character development and an unravelling that keeps you very much compelled throughout the whole story I don't want to ruin it for anyone.
Speaker 2:So the reason why I want to talk to you today or I suppose what we're talking about on this particular episode of Ducks in the Pond is about how we talk about our rural men, and Louise O'Neill is the one who actually came to me and said, hey, can we do an episode about this? And it made me think because, to be honest, it made me thought I probably need to check myself, because I always say we love our men and we want our men to be okay. I'm a passionate feminist. I never want to talk in a way that talks badly about men, but I also want to be there to uphold women and the work of women. Yeah, that's where I'm at, but I want to take it back a step and maybe we can start with the movie. So suicide is obviously the most tragic and awful outcome that we get in rural Australia of poor mental health. Yeah, firstly is, what do we know about? Why we have an issue in rural Australia?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's going to be always the question like why? Why? Because, as human beings, we always want answers to things or we want to know why someone did something, and that's with suicide. It's really important to have peace with the fact that when someone does take their life, we're probably never really going to know why they did it, because we can't ask them and, as human beings, we want to place blame on something.
Speaker 1:And I think that could be one of the reasons why it's really hard for us to talk about, because if it's a car crash, we blame the car crash. If it's a heart attack, it's the poor health condition. If it was cancer, there's cancer to blame, but in suicide, it's the poor health condition. If it was cancer, there's cancer to blame, but in suicide, there's no one to blame but the person themselves. So it's really hard to then go why, why would they do that to themselves? Why would they leave their family behind? And it's a really complex issue, because we know more about space than we know about the human brain, which is incredible to think that, and we're always wanting to find answers.
Speaker 2:But the answer a sick brain is in. Yeah, it's a really sick brain that's not thinking right, and so they've made these decisions not with their actual brain and heart, but with a sick brain that can't see reality yeah, and I think yeah it's definitely when a part of them is unwell and it's their mental health.
Speaker 1:Like anything, it's same as our physical health, but we just can't see it. So I guess that's why it's another hard thing to place and to diagnose, because you can't see the broken leg or you can see those things, but you can't see the mental health renowned for not talking as much as women. Women seem to chat, chat and men don't. And we do talk about mental health a lot and I was just at a screening last night in Colac and I had some school students come and talk to me afterwards and they said we all talk about mental health at school but they never really go any further than that. Just look after our mental health or these are things you should be doing to make sure you have good mental health, but they never go any further than that. Like they don't go into actual detail.
Speaker 1:And it's also the teachers that are uncomfortable talking about it as well. The kids are so much more open now to their mental health. But how do we get men talking? But then even as women there, there's women that find it hard to talk as well. They don't like going into deep conversations. They don like accessing their emotions. But I think men are more renowned because over time they've had this pressure. They've been created as the provider, all these things that they feel like there has to be tough and not be emotional. But we need to start changing that dialogue around it. It is actually pretty brave and pretty tough of you to talk about your mental health around it.
Speaker 2:It is actually pretty brave and pretty tough of you to talk about your mental health. Yeah, exactly, I don't know if we're there yet, though In the movie obviously there's a character. He dies by suicide and you kind of understand. It's the stress of the farm and it's a common scenario, I think, in rural Australia. Do you think men talk about it enough, or does talking help? Men are fixers by nature, so if they can't fix it, they're probably not going to have a conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know if we're going to be able to fix our older generations Like they can't teach an old dog new tricks but I think it's about our future generations and our young boys. Now, like my son being, I want him to be open about his mental health and when he's in his twenties and thirties I want him to be able to seek help and not feel shame in doing that if he needs to. Genetics does have a bit to do with it as well. Like if you've got mental health conditions in your family, it's likely that you're going to. It's genetics, the same as having a dicky knee. That comes from my dad too and my mom. They both have dicky knees, and so there's genetics to it as well, and my dad has bipolar.
Speaker 1:That could be why I also have my ups and downs and rounds and have an amazing husband that supports me through those because he understands me, and I think that's important too, like as a wife or a partner to anyone is understanding each other and knowing that we sometimes have our ups and downs and knowing how to support that person through it, and with men, knowing we don't have to fix them. We've just got to support them sometimes and just be there and ask them what they need a thousand times and they'll keep saying nothing. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, and then eventually they'll go. I'm not actually having a good day, but teaching our young people and our young men, our young women as well, that address it before it gets worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's really good advice, and sometimes I'll say things like this to my husband. I don't know if it has any effect, but I'll say to him I married you, not the farm, because if the worst happened, like I married you, like I don't ever want his happiness or wellbeing to be compromised by the farm. I'd rather him than the farm every time. Does it help for us to be maybe explicit about that? Because I feel like men can sometimes take that on so much that they think the farm is something bigger than what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's that generational pressure too. Like they might be my husband's sixth generation on the farm here and they don't want to be the one to lose it. And then they've got their dads and their grandfathers above them saying this is how it's always been done and this is this, and as daughter-in-laws coming onto the farm, we come in with new ideas and that can rock the boat too and it can be hard for them to manage because they're in the middle sometimes and it's really hard because it's been a mentality for many generations that the farm always comes first, the farm comes first, and for them to be the generation that breaks that can upset people that have come before them. So they're dealing with a lot. There's a lot there.
Speaker 1:I think people don't realize that there's a lot that comes with the farm. There's a legacy, there's generational sacrifices, but we need to keep moving forward with the times. Even just generation before us, women weren't even allowed to put down their occupation as a farmer until the 90s. How ridiculous is that? Things have changed a lot and we're allowed to have a say in the farm and we're allowed to have an opinion, whereas even just one generation before we didn't. We were just the cook looked after the kids yeah, so they're dealing with all these new changes to the landscape as well, which would be challenging.
Speaker 2:And of course, there was that research that came out and there was all that big hoo-ha over the headline about the daughter-in-law being the what is it the most feared animal or the most dangerous animal on the farm?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like oh, I didn't read it, but I just thought that's a really bad headline.
Speaker 2:I actually quite liked the headline. As a former journo, I would have used the headline too, because it gets people talking, not because I believe what was said, and it was taken from a quote in the research. It wasn't saying that's fact, or?
Speaker 2:it wasn't quoting someone saying that, Like that would be an appalling thing for a leader to say. For example, it was just people in a research paper who obviously weren't identified, who were talking about their perceptions of daughter-in-laws, and someone said that and it made me laugh because I'd never thought of myself like that. I'd never. I've never been treated like that. I've been. Fortunately, I've been treated very well by my in-laws. But it's obviously an opinion that's out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and I do feel for some women that have. They, you know, still now some women don't have that access because they don't have their home, they don't have an income coming in and they've got to ask for every dollar that they spend. That's still happening. That's financial control. It's abuse. Yeah, financial abuse, yeah. So it's still happening and it's amazing that it can still happen and it's the best advice I ever got. I've never done it because, like, I suck with money. But, yeah, an old mentor said to me, as a woman, you always have your running away account just in case anything goes wrong. And I understand that when I because my husband and I, every the day we met like everything's been shared, equal. But when I hear other women telling their stories that they're like, no, I need to go and get this for the kids, but I can't, I don't want to ask for more money, and I'm like what do you mean? You have to ask for more money?
Speaker 2:I was like wow, that's so controlling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's like the whole thing with the movie as well.
Speaker 1:If something horrible was to happen to the number one worker, is your farm set up to or your business set up to be able to deal with that?
Speaker 1:And a lot of women have moved into the farming communities and they have moved so far away from their support networks like I'm the same, like my parents are about 16, 17 hours away to drive and you know I've got my mother and father-in-law but they're not your parents. You know what I mean. Like you can just be an arsehole to your parents and be like and drop kids off and just turn up unexpectedly and I know like my parents-in-law probably do the same, but it's you feel guilty. There's this like little guilt there that you're like I don't want to be a burden, I don't want to rely on them, I don't want them to think I'm using them. There's all those guilt things going through your head and you're like I chose to have kids, I'm the mom, I should be looking after them or I should be helping on the farm. And yeah, we do go into that sort of disaster control when we don't have our support networks around us.
Speaker 2:So back to our men for a moment. Oh yes, in a way that's positive and constructive and useful, just in terms of us all getting along as men and women and men knowing that we care for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when you're married to someone, we like to think that you're there for them and you hope that you love them and you'll support them through anything, and that's the part of it as well, like supporting them through the bad times in the farm and just them knowing that you're there. A really big thing for my husband is his footy. He loves football. I think that's his meditation time, his time away from the farm, and if he didn't have football I don't know how often he would leave the farm. So that's his off-farm time and it's really important that I give him that time and allow him to have that man-to-man time as well, and sometimes I can notice when he hasn't been and interacted with other people for a while. I'll have to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you should go and hang out with your mates for a bit, or supporting him in that way and supporting their friendships with other men, so that they can talk to one another, because they have their own lingo sometimes and the way they just open up about things or share things. The same as we as women like to get together and have a bit of a chat and a cup of tea and get things off our chest. I think men are the same.
Speaker 2:So encouraging that time, and I think you, need to encourage it a bit more with men, like we women will just get it organised, but men sometimes don't. So I'm always like when's your next guy's weekend? Or go fishing and hunting and stuff that I don't like to do, go do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's really important to encourage and support that time with their friends as well, because we've all got our best friends, our girlfriends, and that sometimes it's the best therapy, isn't it? Just sitting and having a good old chat with your best friends since childhood and then you just feel better again and it's the same with them. If they've got a friend since childhood that they trust and they love, can do the same and have the same benefits for them.
Speaker 2:One thing I notice about men is they don't naturally give each other compliments as much as I think women do. Like we'll just turn up and be like, oh, nice top. Or look what you've done with your hair. I don't know, men don't do that and maybe they don't need to, but would they feel better if we're just a bit more like you know, nicer?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The closer you are as a man, the more you hang shit on each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you got a new haircut they'd be like what happened to your face. Yeah, I don't know. And maybe because I've grown up around in a very male dominated sort of environment I've got all male cousins that used to hang out. With growing up and things, it's more affectionate for me and my brother to punch each other in the arm than it is to give each other a cuddle. My sister-in-law really can't deal with it. She's a very her love language is affection and she just is like weird that my brother and I just punch each other rather than give each other a hug or not very affectionate at all. So yeah, that's how I've grown up as well. I guess the the little affection means you love someone more and I think that's how men are. The more they hang shit on each other, the more they like each other.
Speaker 2:It's so weird and I'm the opposite from you. So my dad died as a kid and so it's just mom and my brother and yeah, it's always been a bit more female dominated and I have more aunties and they looked after us and grandmothers. Now I live in a household of men, I've got a husband and two boys and I'm like trying to figure out these dynamics. And yes, my younger one does do that kind of mock punching and wrestling in particular and I think that's actually him wanting physical contact. My oldest one he'll give me a hug, more like he's like that, but the younger one, I think his affection and physical touch is more in that blokey punchy way rather than yeah, yeah, oh, that's cute, yeah, and we're all different, aren't we?
Speaker 1:how we want to show affection or we show love. Yeah, I'm getting better since the film, though, like before the film, I used to be one of those people that like have a cactus on their shirt and be like, not a hugger, but with the film, I've become so much more affectionate and I hug everyone now, and I think I went on a very big emotional journey as the character in the film as well and needed a lot of support through some parts of the film and the filming of it. And, yeah, and then, just everyone in the film industry just hugs everyone. So, yeah, I got used to it. I had to get used to it very quickly.
Speaker 2:Bring that back to rural Australia, yeah.
Speaker 1:Hugging Good, bring that back to rural Australia, yeah.
Speaker 2:Hugging. Yeah. What about the way that we as a society talk about men or rural men? Do we even talk about rural men enough?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a funny landscape the whole. Yeah, how do we speak about people at the moment? There is some men in social media that do exert toxic masculinity, but they're like 0.2% of men. Most of our men, 99% of men, are amazing, beautiful people. It's the 1% that give them a bad name. So I don't know. It's a really tricky landscape.
Speaker 1:I think men should be men. We are different. Well, we do have genetic differences. I love that. My husband. If someone broke into my house, I love the fact that he would protect me and defend me. I'd probably try to, but I'd hope he was there backing me up, not running away. But, yeah, and I want my son to grow up as a gentleman.
Speaker 1:You worry sometimes. If you're raising a son to be a gentleman, is he going to be ridiculed by society when he's older? If he holds a door open for someone, is he going to be seen as being offensive? It's not that he's opening a door for a woman. He just is opening a door for someone because he respects them or offering to pay for a meal, not because they're a woman, it's just because that's a nice thing to do. So it's one of those funny things like how are we raising men in today's society, and what do we do? And you've got two sons, so what are we raising them to be? And I think, yeah, just to be good people and speak about people for who they are rather than their sex.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a tricky one because we did have such rigid gender roles and that made it difficult, I think, for both genders in many respects in the past for other reasons. But now there's this vacuum that I think is affecting men more, because getting rid of a lot of the old gender things for women has actually allowed us to do so much more like to access positions and in ways that we never had before, and it's been really great and really empowering. And for men, they've had to relinquish a bit of power and perhaps not have those roles clearly laid out for them. And then, yeah, you've got your Andrew Taits of the world who are on social media spouting horrendous stuff and apparently and I was talking to a mother of teenage boys and apparently 15-year-old, year nine kind of boys do watch some of that stuff, and I'm like well, I don't want them to be the role models I want yeah.
Speaker 2:So what does masculinity look like? There needs to be something there that perhaps there isn't, but it is a very positive thing. Yeah, that is. Masculinity is, yeah, being responsible. It's keeping true to your word. It's looking after those around you and looking after yourself.
Speaker 1:I don't know I've had conversations with some other people on the topic as well and it's just finding really good role models for young men. Who is a good role model? Who do we have our young men looking to and how do we get these really good role models in front of them? Like in our local communities, like who is the role model down at the local footy club and getting them involved and seeing how that person behaves and treats people and finding really good role models. And at the moment there's not a lot of great role models for men, even like, even just in, like sport or, yeah, influences, or even just parliament. Do we have good role models anymore?
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think yeah, yeah, it's tricky, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I think our male Olympians are doing great and they're speaking really well, but outside of sport we are such a sporting country and sporting-dominated country. But what about for those boys that aren't athletic or they're good at sport but they're never going to be an Olympian or it's sports their hobby? Who do they look to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you said Olympians at, the first person I thought was Dylan Alcott. I'm like he's a really good role model. Yeah, I think he's a legend. Yeah, Andrew Gaze, he's another one. He is a great guy as well as being a phenomenal. He was a phenomenal basketballer, but, yeah, but you have to sometimes think about it because, yeah, football doesn't always turn up the best role models for our boys. Yeah, Now back to your movie, Just a Farmer. So obviously the storyline is about suicide. It's actually more about the aftermath In the first part of the movie. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that, of course, someone, a male farmer, tragically takes his own life, which is the absolute worst outcome. This is obviously an important story to you. Do you think it's? Is it reaching people beyond country Australia?
Speaker 1:slowly. We're slowly getting out there and it's really disappointing. When we did go to a lot of the cinemas to get them to play it and I literally rang every cinema in this country to get them to play it and the metro cinemas came back and said, oh, people aren't going to want to watch a film about farmers, and it was really disappointing to hear that because again, it just shows the lack of support for our farmers. I do think city people would watch a film about farmers and they do care where their food comes from, but our industry isn't supporting that and I guess maybe our film doesn't fit the agenda that's being pushed at the moment or it's a bit of a taboo topic because at the moment we can watch all these films that are blood and guts and murder and massacre of people.
Speaker 1:We don't even flinch at these things and it's wow, this is really bad. Like we're happy to go and watch all this massacre stuff because we're so used to seeing such horrible things on TV, we're so desensitised. Yet a film that might make us vulnerable or feel empathy. We're a little bit scared of it and it's just a reflection of our culture and our society at the moment yeah, I think like when game of thrones came out, it just like upped the ante in terms of yeah, graphic, and it's interesting, though, about this idea that people don't want to watch something about farmers or farming landline has just celebrated, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It started in the 90s and when it started it was the same thing. It was like oh, who's going to watch? No, no one in the city is going to watch Landline. They say seven years is a long time for a program in TV, and it's been around for 30 odd. That goes to show that people do actually care and it is watched by people from outside the country, otherwise, otherwise it wouldn't exist. There's just not enough people in the country to support a mainstream show, and it's because it's well done, the stories are good, all of those sorts of things, and, yes, it's about farming, and that's what I'd say about your movie. Like it got all of the attributes of a good movie, so why does?
Speaker 1:it matter, it's about farmers yeah, and it's a universal message, the message of talking.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's done through the eyes of a farmer in a farmer's situation, and it was really important for us to keep the authenticity of the farming lifestyle in the film, because a lot of films that are about rural Australia do not depict us as who we are.
Speaker 1:It's very stereotyped, it's very romantic, it's not a true reflection and in some ways it's actually disrespectful sometimes the way that we're portrayed to the rest of the world as being country hicks and bogans and all this sort of thing, and we wear flannels, and so that was really important to us was to really show the true lifestyle and what it would really be like to give people a better understanding and the other reason for that as well. Like country people, we smell bullshit a mile away, and as soon as there was anything that was not true and real and represented properly in the film, the people we wanted to get to talk and to create this awareness of would have just disconnected from the film, because everyone that's not what we're like. So we really had to keep that so that we kept our audience connected.
Speaker 2:With that kind of broader conversation piece. I think for our farmers, an issue can be not being valued in that broader landscape, which I think they were in the past. I'm not going to blame the vegans or anything, but there's this sort of really strong kind of ideological push that's coming from a small quarter it's a very small quarter of the city and it's spreading misinformation about where our food comes from and how it's made. And that's not to say that we as farmers can improve some of the things. Definitely, we should always be striving to be better, but is it sending a really dangerous message to the people who grow our food? Yeah, particularly our men.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they say 75,. Well, in the study that was done by the National Farmers Federation that 75% of farmers don't feel that the work they do is valued by the average Australian, which is really. It'd be a heartbreaking sort of thing to think, oh, the work I do 24-7 isn't appreciated. And why am I doing it if people don't appreciate it? And it all comes down to the fact, like it's this simple If we don't have farmers, we don't have food. The fact, like it's this simple If we don't have farmers, we don't have food. Like it's that simple.
Speaker 1:And if they all start walking away and it's too hard and the lifestyle's very demanding, or different things like where is our food going to come from? City people have this romantic idea that they're going to grow their veggies and things in their backyard. Good luck. They've got to change their whole lifestyle to be able to do that. They won't be able to go away and have a holiday for six weeks or travel for a week or go and visit family, because a garden needs tending all the time and you're only going to be growing three items, if you're lucky.
Speaker 1:and then there's seasonality, it's a lifetime of learning, and I look at my son now growing up and my daughter and they're learning now how a farm works, how the seasons work, when to grow, when to do this. It's a lifetime of learning. Sometimes it's hard to just think, oh okay, I'll go to uni for four years and I know how to be a farmer. It doesn't work like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a scene in the movie where the character I don't know it's a familiar one for farmers has to kill an injured or sick cow, and I'm so glad you showed it because it's a really hard thing that farmers have to do Sometimes. I think there's this idea that farmers like, don't care or aren't affected by having to do that. Yeah, I thought it was really interesting that you put that in the film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it does take its toll and that's sort of where I got the idea from. We had this liverworm on our property a few years ago and the cows were getting really sick and my husband had to shoot I don't know 12 cows in one week and it took such a massive toll on his mental health. He kept asking himself what am I not doing right? What am I doing wrong? Am I a bad farmer? I've got all this pressure but I can't even keep my stock alive. It just broke him and I'm like honey, you're a great farmer, it's just a really unfortunate thing that's happened. A great farmer, it's just. It's just. It's a really unfortunate thing that's happened. We're trying to work out why it's happening and we're trying to make it better.
Speaker 1:But you can't blame yourself for this. But they do and they take it so personally and they do love their animals. You know they're so disappointed when their lambing average is down and they've lost too many lambs. Or, and I had an older farmer say to me once I was asking him like, what's your favourite time of year on the farm? And he said lambing time, because you see all these beautiful, young, fresh lambs running around and it's life and it's the generation. Of life just keeps generating and it was beautiful to hear that that this from this old, tough farmer. But yeah, it does take its toll and they do love their animals and they probably spend more time out on the farm with their animals than they do at home with their wife and kids.
Speaker 2:It's good that your husband was able to at least talk to you about that. I wonder if men can talk to each other, or at least to someone, particularly if they don't have a wife, because, yeah, we've all had a bad day at the office, but that's a really bad day. If that's been your day, you need someone to be able to talk to.
Speaker 1:If that's been your day. You need someone to be able to talk to. Yeah, yeah, and even I've had to be there when we put something down or a horse has broke its leg or something. It's oh, like I was. I bawl my eyes out and I'm like, oh, what's wrong with me? I cry more when one of the animals die rather than a human.
Speaker 2:Oh, I get you like I remember talking to a man in his early 60s about he was talking about when all these sheep got fly, blown and really badly and he had to kill them and he had tears in his eyes. I've never seen this man cry but he was close to it when recounting this story of 20 years ago because it was so traumatic. And another male friend I remember it was really awful. He was drenching sheep and then quite a few of them died. It basically got stuck in their throat and he thought it was something that he'd done and he was so traumatized by it he thought he hadn't done it properly. Turns out it was the product. It was something wrong with the product. It wasn't him. He lost sheep. He was compensated for that financially but he was in a bad way about it for quite a while because it was so traumatic. And these are the things that. Like I came from the city, I wouldn't have a clue about this and I don't think people in the city do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and, as you said, it's this tiny little group of people over here that are announcing misinformation. Because we're no different, we're people, we're normal people. We have conversations like everyone else about the world and politics and, yeah, most farmers are really intelligent and resourceful. And that was part of the movie like, how do we access an audience outside of the converted? So we're not preaching to the converted and what way to do that is through entertainment film, because growing up I loved movies and I still do. I'm obsessed with them. I just love storytelling and I'm such a dreamer. But, yeah, how do we get onto the front foot as farmers and start promoting ourselves in a positive way, rather than always being on the back foot and trying to defend what someone else has spruced in misinformation?
Speaker 2:Thank you to Leela McDougall for sharing your story. Make sure you watch Just a Farmer. Head to the website justafarmercom and you can download it from there. Or Google Just a Farmer and it will come up. Also, she's just started a new YouTube channel. Subscribe to that. They're looking for 1000 subscribers so they can get it up on YouTube and people can watch it. And just a reminder, if this episode has raised any issues for you, you can always contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. That's what they're there for. This episode is sponsored by me, kirsten Dippros at the Rural Podcasting Co. I'm not going to interview myself, don't worry, but I will give myself a shout out. I run a podcasting company. My aim is to empower rural people to tell their own story and I have a brand new comedy podcast out now with comedian Damien Callinan. It's called the Town Criers. In fact, I'll say goodbye now and leave you with a brief introduction to the Town Criers. It's out now. Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3:G'day. My name is Damien Callinan.
Speaker 2:And I'm Kirsten Diprose and in the very near future we are joining forces to bring you the Town Criers podcast, where we will be bringing you big stories from small-town Australia. We've been given the key to every city across the country.
Speaker 3:Sorry that fell through, but I have flogged the master key and I got one cut, so we're good. What it's fine, it's fine. Just tell them what the podcast is about.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we've all been guilty of judging towns at first sight.
Speaker 3:Maybe you got food poisoning from a falafel in Forbes.
Speaker 2:Got bitten by bedbugs in Burnie.
Speaker 3:Sprung for speeding in Seymour.
Speaker 2:Kicked out of a nightclub in Cairns Big night. Who said it only happened once?
Speaker 3:Or you had your heart broken by a Belgian backpacker in Bunbury.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've never really got over Feline.
Speaker 2:Well, the Town Criers are here to change your perceptions of those places that you prematurely judged.
Speaker 3:We're going on a road trip around this great country and hopefully stopping to stretch our legs in your town. Kirsten is a journalist and podcaster specialising in rural stories, so she'll be using her nous as a reporter to sniff out the good stories and interesting characters.
Speaker 2:And Damo will Sorry, I can't read that.
Speaker 3:Oh, come on, I said really nice stuff about you, ok fine.
Speaker 2:Damo is a brilliant comedian, probably my favourite actually. He will use his peerless comic observational skills to drill down and find the quirky minutiae of country life, like the comedy genius that he is, yeah, oh, too much. Too much. Each episode will be a standalone featuring an individual town. We'll mainly be focusing on the smaller towns.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like if you've got two oldies probably too big, two autobahns, way too big, two CWA groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, we get it, we get it.
Speaker 3:If it's got both a Rotary Park and a Lions Club Park too big in my view.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that. So if you'd like to follow us, you can Find us on Facebook at the Town Criers Podcast, on Instagram at towncrierspod, and if you'd like to get us to come to your town, head to our website, towncrierscomau. Your town head to our website, towncrierscomau, and send us a message.
Speaker 3:Or you can just leave a six-pack on the nature strip, you know, like you used to do for the garbo at Christmas.
Speaker 2:Should we finish with our slogan?
Speaker 3:Yeah, nice idea.
Speaker 2:The Town Criers small towns, big stories.
Speaker 3:No, I thought we were going to go with the Town Criers population Damo and Kirsten.
Speaker 2:And why is your name first?
Speaker 3:It's alphabetical, it's just, that's standard, all right. Well, what about this? The town criers pop the kettle on. We're coming for a visit, maybe a cake or scones. No, we can decide later. You've thrown me. We'll decide later.
