Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Are you being gaslit? Pt.1
What happens when love transforms into control? In this eye-opening episode, author Karen Bijkersma joins Annie McCubbin to expose the hidden mechanisms of domestic violence that leave victims trapped in cycles of abuse.
Karen's book - https://www.amazon.com.au/Book-Every-Woman-Needs-Read/dp/B0DQC7NPYY
🙋♀️ Meet with Annie - go.oncehub.com/AnnieMcCubbin
David's TedTalk - https://youtu.be/hr6IVlIcxDU?si=sgqt6rHEW6y4Hc-m
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What we think of in Western culture as a romantic relationship, including an abusive relationship, will start. It won't start with a punch in the face. It will start with love and romance.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur, jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello smart women, and welcome back to the why Smart Women podcast.
Speaker 2:Today I have a guest who has flown up from Melbourne. I'm, as usual, broadcasting from Sydney, new South Wales, australia. I'm, as usual, broadcasting from Sydney, new South Wales, australia. And now, karen, I'm desperately worried I'm going to get your name wrong, so I'm just going to say it three times Karen Bickersma, that's perfect. Karen Bickersma, karen Bickersma. Okay, karen Bickersma has flown up on a big jet from Melbourne to Sydney today to talk about something which is very important, devastating and the effects of which we feel all around the world, and that is domestic violence. Is that what we're calling it, domestic violence?
Speaker 2:Yes, I don't think it should be called domestic violence, because it sort of diminishes it in my mind. Do you know what I mean? It sounds a bit like it's just around knitting, it's not. It's got that sort of anodyne feel to it. The word domestic, do you not think Domestic sounds?
Speaker 1:rather outdated.
Speaker 2:Good point, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It is household, family. You know, partnered violence maybe partnered or family violence.
Speaker 2:The whole thing, I think, putting it in a family setting, because I know the police back in the day used to when this was very, very highly underreported. Was it not because the police were like, well, that's the family's business? Yes, right, and that has certainly changed, has it not?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's hard to make these definitions. You know, first of all, around gender, you know we're talking about male to female violence predominantly, and then you feel you need to, you know, define gender. What do we mean by? Domestic is another definition, and then there's the abuse violence definition, and I haven't resolved all of those.
Speaker 2:No, of course.
Speaker 1:They used to be interchangeably.
Speaker 2:And I know that they often say well, why are we talking about? You know, male to female violence Like obviously men cop it as well. Female violence like obviously men cop it as well. But at the centre of it, what we know is that even if the violence has been perpetrated on a male, it's much more likely to have been perpetrated by another male, correct?
Speaker 1:That's correct. Yes, and the small number of women who do inflict violence against men in that domestic or household setting. It's usually in self-defence, and a very small number. I'm not too keen on the whataboutism which often comes up, especially from men, I must say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Because it is such a small percentage of women inflicting domestic abuse and violence on men. Yes, it happens, but we have the statistics from the police and the ABS that tell us it's a small number of women.
Speaker 2:So just because we've got international listeners, what is the ABS?
Speaker 1:Sorry.
Speaker 2:Australian.
Speaker 1:Bureau of Statistics that collect this data, and the ABS recognises that 97% of sexual assaults in Australia are inflicted on women by men, so we're talking very small numbers. So I focus on women and also that's my experience as a woman.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think that's just really important to set the scene there, because we do hear a lot of this whataboutism and it really, really irritates me because, at the end of the day and we have the stats to prove it women are the main recipients of this violence. So Karen has written a book, and the book is called the Book Every Woman Needs to Read. That's such a smart title. How did you come up with that?
Speaker 1:Because it's just so true. We all need to know what domestic violence and abuse looks like. We need examples so that we can recognise it if it happens to us or somebody close to us because, sometimes it's actually quite tricky to recognize yeah when it's happening to you and I know in my own experience it takes. It can take a while to actually see it and see things for what they are and so do you mind, do you mind awfully talking about your own experience?
Speaker 1:I don't mind. I think it's really important that we do share our stories and experiences so other women who might be able to relate can recognise wow, you know, this is abuse. This is similar to what's happening to me, and do you think?
Speaker 2:that women do miss some of the flags that would let them know that they are in an abusive relationship.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, unless it's really bleeding obvious. It can be hard to pick, especially when you're manipulated and exhausted and in confusion and drained and suppressed and oppressed, when you're subject to abuse.
Speaker 2:This is the fundamental of the podcast. So what are some of the abuses that may occur, that women may not recognize that that is happening to them? And how does that tiredness, how does that feed into that? How does that happen?
Speaker 1:tiredness. Um, how does that feed into that? How does that happen? It's all about the power and control and manipulation, and men control women by manipulating them and confusing them, exhausting them, using psychological and emotional abuse as opposed or in addition to I shouldn't say opposed adjacent to, or rather than, physical and sexual violence, which is a lot more obvious. Yeah.
Speaker 2:David, my partner did a TED Talk on the psychological actions that people in power play to control. So I think this is where it gets really interesting, because it's, as you say, if someone's being, if someone's having violence perpetrated upon them, or if someone is, you know, being screamed at on a daily basis, for instance, it's almost like we can go yeah, okay, I get that, but what are these other abuses that may fly under the radar?
Speaker 1:So psychological and emotional abuse can really erode a woman's self-confidence and self-esteem and make her more vulnerable and unable to take initiative. And he's doing this to her so that he can then take over her cognitive thinking, her decision-making processes. Whether he's doing this deliberately or he just kind of instinctively knows the playbook. There are methods to more or less brainwashing and really taking over somebody's capacity to think, and so she loses her critical thinking skills.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And at the same time she's dealing with confusion and emotions and disbelief. Can you give?
Speaker 2:me an example, because it sounds as you're talking. It's redolent of being in a cult where you're confused, you sort of lose your center of gravity, you sort of don't know where you are, you're tired and you're worn down. Is that right?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's a really good analogy actually, and yes, he's the cult leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:And we're learning more and more about coercive control, which is a really important aspect. Or you know, behaviour, whole system of abuse that may or may not include physical and sexual violence.
Speaker 2:Which is illegal now? Is it not Coercion and control?
Speaker 1:In some states We've still got a way to go around Australia, but in some states and I don't know which, off the top of my head I know New South Wales- Right, okay, states, and I don't know which.
Speaker 2:Off the top of my head I know New South Wales, right, okay. So can you do you mind? Can you give me, um, a real life example, and maybe from your book, because I know?
Speaker 1:you how?
Speaker 2:many women did you interview for your book?
Speaker 1:there are 28 stories in the book, but I did interview more women than that. Some women got cold feet and pulled their stories because, even though they're all really carefully de-identified, they are just afraid of, you know, poking. Waking the sleeping dragon. Oh my God so terrible. It really is. Yes, so the control goes way beyond leaving the relationship and, in fact, you know, the first period after leaving the relationship is actually the most dangerous time yes, so they say so, they say yes and now there's recognition, just going back to coercive control, when a woman is murdered by a partner or ex-partner, which is now happening at the rate of more than once a week.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it's so disgraceful. There's a database as you can follow online. The Red Heart campaign tells us 16 women and five children have been killed already this year. Oh my God. Often, when those cases are examined by police, there's a story of coercive control leading up to that sudden extreme violence that murder. So coercive control is really a step-by-step process.
Speaker 2:Yes, insidious, isn't it? It's an insidious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it starts with love. It starts with love bombing.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1:Well, an abusive relationship, unless it's say a slavery or forced marriage, that's violent kind of situation what we think of in Western culture as a romantic relationship, including an abusive relationship. It won't start with a punch in the face. It will start with love and romance.
Speaker 2:And what happens if you got an example of in one of your stories of a relationship that did start out with love and then sort of went in this direction. That isn't an obvious example of physical violence or sexual violence. Have you got an example for me?
Speaker 1:there is. There's one story. I think her name is mia, and I'll just check while I'm talking please feel free to read it if you like.
Speaker 1:Um well, it's a whole long story, okay. So chapter 17, micah's story, psychopathic tendencies, is a classic playbook, step-by-step process case of coercive control where, yeah, it starts with a romantic relationship with a very charming man. She says he was very charming and attentive, he had a knack of saying all the right things, he told me how much he respected women, that he wasn't like other men, etc. Etc. In the early days of dating we had fun, things were carefree.
Speaker 1:And then, two paragraphs down, from the beginning of the relationship, you know, once they were living together, he controlled every aspect of my life. And it starts with him not allowing her to use the gas heating over winter what, why, and just out of control. Not allowing her to buy the children a warm winter jacket when they're outside in the cold on a holiday. But he goes and buys himself a very expensive jacket from a mountain shop and it's even in very small ways that he controls, although that's neither of those are a small thing, because proper clothing, you know is, is a human right, fundamental yeah, explain to me if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:So she's fallen in love with this man who's charismatic, and then he starts to exhibit these controlling behaviors. So what happens to her thinking that she doesn't just go? Well, I'm getting out of here because you're clearly revolting. What happens, can?
Speaker 1:you explain to me, Because it's really a step-by-step process. It's that frog in the pot analogy where what is that?
Speaker 2:Tell me.
Speaker 1:This was my situation too, in my long-term relationship. You put a frog in a pot of cold water and the frog's perfectly happy.
Speaker 1:And you put it on the stove, you apply a bit of heat and gradually the water gets hotter, but the frog keeps adjusting, acclimatising, Bit by bit, yes, and then eventually, of course, it comes to the boil and it's the end for poor Froggy. Yeah, yeah, it's that slow death, that slow burn, or that building starting with small things and then building up, building up, building up, and by the time a woman realises that well, she may not actually realise herself.
Speaker 1:In the example of Michael, which is not her real name, of course it took, I think, a GP or somebody she saw on a professional basis to tell her you do realise he's controlling you, controlling your every move, and that was news to her because it had been so slow and so orchestrated. There were things she was unhappy about and she could feel that she was cold and you know she tried to keep the children warm and that sort of thing she would.
Speaker 1:she developed strategies and this is what women do, so she would have the heating on but turn it off before he came home oh my god and she would shower early so he wouldn't complain about hot water. She would bathe the children early um so he wouldn't know she'd used water. All these strategies she built around his controlling behaviour.
Speaker 2:And didn't recognise them.
Speaker 1:And didn't recognise them. But also it kept her very busy, tired and tired exhausted. And at the same time he's socially isolating her. She's not allowed to use the phone Back to the cult right.
Speaker 2:Yes, back to the cult, it's so cultish.
Speaker 1:Yes and just wearing her down, eroding her confidence by saying really undermining things to her, sexually abusing her and really, really breaking her down. And she is so busy working so hard to implement all these strategies around all his rules and appear to keep all his rules.
Speaker 2:She's exhausted, her thinking process is, hence the no leaving right Hence, because I know there's a mantra that I hear all the time, which is why don't they just leave? Why don't women just leave?
Speaker 1:And there are so many reasons.
Speaker 2:And what are those reasons?
Speaker 1:So frustrating? Yes, or why didn't she leave sooner? Yeah, and she's under coercive control. She's psychologically and emotionally broken down. She's dealing with the fact that she has to come to terms with the emotional dissonance of but this is the person I love and this is the person who loves me, and I can't believe this person's doing this to me. It takes time to absorb it unless it's really obvious. It can take time to realize things like in my experience, my long-term exes jokes, for example. I didn't realize just quite how undermining and how many of these family jokes had crept in so like dynamic.
Speaker 2:You remember any of the jokes?
Speaker 1:oh, for sure yes, yeah yeah, um, and it's, you know it's. It's like death by a thousand paper cuts.
Speaker 2:So what were the jokes?
Speaker 1:One was whenever we were watching, say, a film noir or a Nordic noir TV program or movie and there'd be a corpse on the slab or there'd be a corpse washed up on the beach or wherever there's a corpse. If it was a female, as it so often is, he would say he'd sort of dig me in the ribs and say, oh, you could play that role. And I'd say that's not funny and he'd be kind of like well, can't you take a joke?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there, it is right, there it is.
Speaker 1:But that's one not funny. It's not funny. Two insulting yeah. And if he'd said that to me at the point where I had divorced him but we were still stuck in the house together, I would be calling the police because that's actually very threatening.
Speaker 2:It is really threatening and menacing. Yeah, it is. It's not a joke at all.
Speaker 2:And so that was probably the worst, but there were lots of these little jokes yeah, so family jokes um, that are very undermining in my in my first book um, why smart women make bad decisions? Um, I, I wrote it because I recognize that women's critical thinking is under indexed in terms of us making good decisions. Yeah, and I wrote in it and he was the character that I wrote who never had a name, and I deliberately never gave him a name, I just called him the hipster, and the reason I didn't was because I wanted it recognized that the behavior, that his behavior was ubiquitous and he was narcissistic and very, very spiritual. So he had, you know, he had the whole beautiful yoga practice and he endlessly meditated and he was vegan and he was sort of on the outside, if you met him, very good looking looking very charming, very nice at the beginning.
Speaker 2:On the first night they met, he said to her we will be together forever. We will grow old together. So it was like to to your point. It's super romantic yes idea. And then what happens is, as the relationship goes, he begins these insidious coercion and control. She can't meditate properly, she can't sit straight enough, he can't find the remote, and she knows that if he can't find the remote it's going to get dangerous, because what he does is he starts ripping off the lounge room and throwing things and yet it's always him that loses it and that's symbolic violence, that throwing of things.
Speaker 1:Oh, explain that to me. Symbolic violence, symbolic violence which is increasingly recognised as actual physical violence, is when they punch a wall next to your head. They get all up in your face and tower over you. They use physical intimidation yeah, yeah, yeah and the message is if they punch a wall or throw something or break something, you were lucky that time, but next time it's going to be you, or? Yeah, I punched the wall, but really it could be my face.
Speaker 2:I'm punching your face, yeah it's such a good point because, as I said, he was an amalgam of um relationships my friends had had and I had had a relationship in my 20s. It was prior to my very nice you know reasonable husband that I now have. Um, I had this relationship in my 20s with a yoga teacher and he was all into the whole, you know, spiritual thing, and, um, he did that very thing.
Speaker 2:He punched the wall next to my head. Now, I had never had. I come from a very, very stable, um loving background. This behavior was so alien to me that I immediately got out of the relationship, right?
Speaker 2:Actually, that's not true. It took a couple of months, but I began to sort of recede and I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere and he had all this spiritual crap. God, I hated it Anyway. And then there was my friend and this is the amalgam of this narcissistic character and my friend was married to this man and he used to get drunk and then flirt outrageously with her friends. And on my wedding day, when I was getting married, he was there and he put his hand up inside my wedding dress. Oh wow, which was, I don't know. I thought that was impressively revolting.
Speaker 1:That's shocking. Yeah, that's out there In so many ways, in so many ways. What a nerve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway. And then I. So I wrote that into the book. I wrote the fact that they go to a wedding and the hipster puts his hand up the bride's dress and then in the cab on the way home she says you're lucky, the groom didn't punch you. And he says that pudgy baby wouldn't have had a hope. The pudgy baby groom right. And also when they get home he's like you need to go and get help. You've imagined it, wow. So it's that whole sort of panoply right of these narcissistic gaslighting controlling things. But if you looked at the relationship from the outside, you'd go.
Speaker 1:He's so lovely, yes, and so spiritual too, so he must be a good guy. Yeah, and it was like that with my ex too, who was such a feminist, really, you know, such a lefty, um, but such a feminist and such a nice guy, that it was hard for me to believe, even as I was being undermined and as he was undermining our daughter.
Speaker 2:Oh, so you had children with him.
Speaker 1:Yes, a son and a daughter. The son was excluded from all the abuse and manipulation and undermining so it was very much gendered it was my daughter and I Wow yes, and he would make Poor daughter.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know.
Speaker 1:And so you know it's been very traumatic for her and she's had a lot to try and overcome, because he really worked on her self-esteem and he would make jokes at her expense to undermine her. For example, if we were driving past a factory, invariably he would say, oh, that's where you're going to end up working. Or if it was something like a prison or, you know, police station, oh, that's where you're going to end up in juvie. And so he thought these were jokes, but it really really undermined.
Speaker 2:It's not funny and it's not a joke. It's not a joke, it's not a joke at all. It's like that corpse comment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's awful, and so he was really trying to undermine the confidence and sense of security for both of us.
Speaker 2:well, we know that, um and I was interested in the the, the excellent list you've got here of why women stay or stay too long so we make an emotional decision. Um, so if I'm in an abusive relationship, um, I don't want to get out of it for a number of reasons. It could be financial, I may not have recognized it. Whatever it is, and I'm going to post-rationalize it in the prefrontal cortex, and we know this is the process Motivated reasoning. I'm going to reach a conclusion that I want to reach, and I'm particularly interested in the use of. Look, everything's perfect except for this one thing. Yes, I find that so interesting and so sad. Do you want to?
Speaker 1:talk me through that. Yes, I've seen that so often and I've experienced that myself where everything's great, but there's this one big thing. It could be an addiction or hang on.
Speaker 2:So one big thing is he's addicted. No, I'm addicted Him.
Speaker 1:Sorry, talking about one big thing with him that everything's great in a relationship and with him he's great, except there's this problem he has that he doesn't address and he may promise that he will address it but he never actually does. It could be that he has an addiction.
Speaker 2:Like alcohol or drugs or something. Yes, yes, exactly. And the result of that addiction is what.
Speaker 1:Well toxic for the family. The whole household suffers Right, but also it often fuels domestic violence. These stories are collected from 28 or more women. Drugs and alcohol feature very heavily in a lot of the stories.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And there's often a Jekyll and Hyde effect where he's a great guy until he drinks, then he turns violent, then he turns nasty, and if he won't address that alcoholismism, then that's who you're living with. But women keep hoping he will, or he keeps promising he will, or he makes some feeble attempts that keeps her hopes alive, that he will so.
Speaker 2:So what happens? He gets drunk. So he gets drunk. He becomes violent. Yes, maybe perpetrates violence on the family, gets up the next morning, goes. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1:I won't do it again. He's sober and sorry, he's sober and sorry.
Speaker 2:And of course, then the woman's critical thinking skills in which you would like her to be able to look at the evidence of the whole situation and the facts of the whole situation are diminished. The critical thinking skills and motivated reasoning kicks in, and then she goes. He means it. I'm going to give him another go.
Speaker 1:Yes, because he's very sincere and he may actually believe it himself when he apologises and cries and maybe even threatens self-harm because he feels so bad. Oh, that's the other thing. Yes.
Speaker 2:When we've done quite a bit of work for Hume Housing in Sydney and they provide emergency housing. Part of what they do. They do public housing, but part of it is emergency housing to victims of family violence. Often they're relocating a woman and her children in an emergency situation. To your point, the most dangerous time for any woman is the first 24 hours, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, as you're leaving, or just afterwards, that's right and when we were working for them, we were going through communication skills with them, because that's what we do as a business, and I got to travel around with one of the social workers from housing.
Speaker 2:And she was telling me that if a woman is relocated due to domestic violence, they often have to relocate her seven times before, because what happens is they relocate, she's everything's in a highly aroused state. Everybody, you know everyone's upset it's dangerous, it's awful. And then she gets back in contact with him, he says I'm sorry, she gives him the address, yeah, and so it goes.
Speaker 1:There's a cycle and it's called the cycle of abuse. Right and yes, we should talk about this for a minute.
Speaker 2:Describe that, it'd be great. I'm not great.
Speaker 1:It's awful Because yeah it's really important and domestic violence workers use this illustration. I've got the chart in my book. It's a cycle you can find it on the internet the cycle of abuse, and when women are shown this cycle, this graph, they'll often be a moment of you know, great clarity.
Speaker 2:You know the penny will drop they can see it.
Speaker 1:It's very hard to see it when you're in it, because it erodes your critical thinking capabilities. What it does is create a chemical addiction and dependence. Now, he may not be aware of this.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's a dopamine thing.
Speaker 1:It's a dopamine thing and the cycle is and as soon as I say it I'm sure it will sound very familiar. Yes, it was developed by an American psychologist in the 70s, lenore Walker, but it's still used today. It's still really helpful. It is a very familiar pattern. He might feel pressure from family or work or whatever he doesn't know how to deal with in a healthy way. Or, you know, he gets drunk or whatever happens. So tension builds at home. She starts sensing it, starts walking on eggshells and tries to, you know, keep the peace, tries to keep the tension from bubbling over and escalating. But of course it does unleash the tension often onto the partner, physically or otherwise. He lashes out and that gives him a sense of power and control where he might be feeling powerless, at work or not in control of his health or whatever Getting power and control over his partner makes him feel better.
Speaker 1:But then. So there's this big outburst. Whatever that looks like, the next stage is reconciliation. To manipulate her into forgiving him and love bombing her with kind words you know, maybe he buys her flowers, he's terribly sorry and this sort of love bombing behavior after the event. Because we do know dopamine?
Speaker 2:of course it does, because what I mean in terms of um, we have this thing called hedonic adaptation, and hedonic adaptation is where, when something's really good, you know like you really, really want something.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then, as soon as you've got it, we sort of adapt right.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you need to again. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You really want this relationship and you get the relationship. You're like meh, or you really want this award, or you know you've written that book and it was when did you? When did that come out?
Speaker 1:the book uh ebook in may and paperback in december right.
Speaker 2:So when you first held that book in your hand, right, was it like the most unbelievably exciting thing oh yes, and then I wanted to publish more because it's really fun and exciting.
Speaker 1:It's fun and exciting, but the thing thing is that you can't maintain that level of excitement.
Speaker 2:It's called hedonic adaptation. It happens with everything and, of course, with relationships. It especially happens because we become acclimatized. So I guess it's interesting in this situation that you're talking about where the love is destroyed temporarily but then you're reintroduced it would keep that level of that excitement up right.
Speaker 1:I can see why that would be addictive and it's a roller coaster and you're living for the periods of repair and reconciliation makes sense and you might have great makeup sex yeah you know, it can be a romantic time and it releases dopamine and oxytocin.
Speaker 2:Oxytocin, yeah, yeah, which bonds her. Further to him, closely to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then there's a period of calm and sort of in the aftermath, you know, after the tears, there's a period of calm.
Speaker 2:And he's so sorry, I love you so much. Yes, love, there's a period of calm. And he's so sorry, I love you so much.
Speaker 1:Yes, so he's still been nice and they're both trying to justify the abuse, trying to justify staying in the relationship on her end, and he will blame other factors like work, stress or whatever, minimizing what he's done Absolutely minimizing Skatecoating or even blaming her for provoking him. You know, look, what you made me do.
Speaker 2:Look, what you made me do is classic, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, If you hadn't done X, you know, if you hadn't pushed me or nagged me, I wouldn't have erupted. And so he promises her it won't happen again. She accepts his excuses and downplays in her own mind, or even starts to blame herself, starts to gaslight herself so that was part one of my discussion with karen biggersmar about the insidious nature of partner and family violence.
Speaker 2:Please make sure you tune in next week to hear part two, where we dig further into why domestic violence often flies under the radar. Every Thursday, my partner David and I, who have been together for over 30 years, will have a bonus episode where we'll discuss all things relationship. This Thursday, we'll discuss the Australian people's relationship with our government and why the Libs copped such a hammering. See you then, bye. Thanks for tuning in to why Smart Women with me.
Speaker 2:Annie McCubbin, I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think and in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women See you later.
Speaker 2:This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
