Moving the Middle: The Gender Compass Podcast
Why do conversations about gender equality so often stall — at work, at home, or even at the school gate? And more importantly, how do we move them forward?
Backed by the groundbreaking Gender Compass research, Moving the Middle is where data meets real stories. Each episode explores how leaders, communicators and changemakers are using fresh insights to engage the ‘moveable middle’ — those Australians whose views aren’t set in stone, but who hold the power to shift the national conversation on gender equality.
Hosted by Hayley Cull, Deputy CEO of Engagement at Plan International Australia, and Dr Rebecca Huntley, Director of Research at 89 Degrees East, the series unpacks what works, what doesn’t, and what you can try in your own context. Think of it as your practical guide to making gender equality conversations easier, more effective, and more impactful.
So whether you’re leading change, crafting campaigns, or simply navigating those tricky dinner table debates, join us. Together, let’s move the middle — and move forward.
Moving the Middle: The Gender Compass Podcast
Funding The Shift: How Philanthropy Moves The Middle
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With guests Sarah Buckley (Trawalla Foundation) and Kim Louw (Minderoo Foundation)
There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman. Yeah. There has to be some form. Listen to the general population. I'm in the middle of speaking. I don't care if you're in the middle of speaking. You're in the middle of a debate. It's over. Glass ceiling, dude. It's a ceiling made of fing bricks. You will never break it.
SPEAKER_03I'm the leader of the opposition. I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not defend the government.
SPEAKER_07What if we stopped arguing with the loudest voices and focused on the ones that might actually change? This podcast helps us use the gender compass presented by Plan International Australia. Moving the middle is about cutting through the noise and having conversations that actually land. Less shouting, more listening, real movement. Let's move the middle.
SPEAKER_05Welcome to Moving the Middle, the Gender Compass podcast.
SPEAKER_04I'm Hayley Cole, Deputy CEO at Plan International Australia. And I'm Dr. Rebecca Huntley, Director of Research at 89 Degrees East.
SPEAKER_05Gender Compass didn't emerge from one organisation or one perspective. It's a product of genuine collaboration. Funders, researchers, and advocates all coming together to build something the whole sector can use.
SPEAKER_01We're joined today by two people who've played just a really pivotal role in bringing Gender Compass to life, who've been with us pretty much from the beginning to help us reach far beyond research circles.
SPEAKER_05First, Kim Lowe, Head of Embedding Equality at the Minderoo Foundation. Mindaroo work across a wide range of issues from ending modern slavery to building community resilience, and Kim leads the foundation's work to embed gender equality across its programs, partnerships, and storytelling. And she does a fabulous job of it, I must say.
SPEAKER_01And Sarah Buckley, CEO of Chihuahua Foundation, where she works to catalyse leadership and investment that drives social and economic participation for women. Sarah is also the national convener of the Pathways to Politics for Women programme. I think it's 10 years we're about to come up with that, and leads the Women's Leadership Institute of Australia, which I am very proudly a fellow, and has both dedicated as dedicated to increasing the number and visibility of women in public life.
SPEAKER_06Kim, Sarah, welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Really delighted to be here. And you are both two fabulous women as well. So thanks for having us. Feeling the love.
SPEAKER_05To start, could each of you tell us a little bit about your organisation and how your work contributes to advancing gender equality? Shall we start with you, Kim?
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I'm sorry I'm not there in the room. I am joining from Wajabnunga Buja over here in Perth, and sorry I can't be there. So Mindere Foundation is an Australian philanthropy. We have three focus areas, and one of which is gender equality. In my role, I have the great privilege of leading teams working on disrupting harmful gender norms and preventing gender-based violence. I think one of the great things about the Mindery Foundation and how we've sort of been thinking about gender equality is that we've really taken a broad approach to thinking about it. So where one of our aims is to ensure that all people, regardless of their gender, realize their inherent freedom and equality.
SPEAKER_06Well, I have the absolute pleasure of working alongside Carol Schwartz AO, who, as many know, is a real trailblazer and has for decades and decades been very focused on particularly how do we grow a critical mass of female leaders in Australia. Essentially, our whole thesis of our work is growing that critical mass so that then men and women can equally share power, influence, and decision making because we think, of course, that would create better outcomes for our communities and Australia overall as a nation. And so the portfolio is quite varied. I work through the Trewella Foundation, through the Women's Leadership Institute Australia, and we also have a female-led venture portfolio where we invest in female founders and fund managers. But essentially, across those different areas, we've got four priorities that we think if we can really create some change and momentum, we'll see better outcomes more broadly for gender equality. And so those areas are politics, as Rebecca mentioned, Pathways to Politics program for women, policy and advocacy, which absolutely gender compass sits within that space. Media, how do we amplify the voice of women in the media? And then the last one's allocation of capital. How do we get more money into the hands of women as well? So it's an amazing opportunity because Carol is so entrepreneurial, it's very action-oriented. And I think Gender Compass is such a great example of this, where it's the funding is important, but it's just one part of how we like to contribute and be part of the change as well.
SPEAKER_05So thinking about Gender Compass, I mean, there's no way we would be here today talking about Gender Compass without the two of you and the organizations that you work with. The Mindery Foundation and the Triwala Foundation have been there from the beginning championing this work. I want to talk a little bit about why, why you chose to collaborate on this and why you chose to partner on this? So when we started, um, you know, Plan had this crazy idea of, you know, of doing this work with Rebecca. But we knew we couldn't get it off the ground without not only funders but partners and collaborators and people who would believe in this and help us make it happen. Why did you sort of, you know, see the smoke? Why did you see the call? What made you feel like you wanted to be involved in this and not just involved but at run with this for the last few years?
SPEAKER_06I mean, it's such an important question, and I think stepping back a little bit, I think really it started when I came across some quite important international research that Ipsos and the Global Institute for Women's Leadership did in 2022, and I was quite horrified about the picture it painted of Australian culture in comparison to other countries around the world, and it was things like whether gender inequality exists, viewing feminism as doing more harm than good, and there were all sorts of views on violence against women that were really disturbing. And you know, it was it was quite a wake-up call for me because our work can be focused on getting, you know, this critical mass of female leaders into these positions of power, but there are these really deep-seated, challenging attitudes to address around this, and that's what we need to address if we're going to create real and sustained change. And look, it's not a new problem, but I think the fact that Australia was lagging so strongly behind some of these other countries required attention and focus. And so when I saw that research, I was really starting to broaden the net and kind of explore what was going on. You know, where's the best thinking? Who can we learn from? You know, what do we need to better understand it? And so Carol and I were sending that research to federal and state politicians, to key academics, to business people to kind of raise that concern. And it was interesting. Everyone was acknowledging that it's an issue, but I think there was an overwhelming sense that it's complex, people felt unsure how best to address it. And so Professor Michelle Ryan sent me the gender compass proposal, and I sort of had one of those moments of saying, Oh, I think this might be an important part of the puzzle. I think this is really interesting. Let's see where that might go over time. And um, you know, I was really surprised that it was a struggle to get the funding, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01You know, you you were really pounding the pavement to try and everybody thought that they wanted it and they felt there was a particular moment where this would be very useful. But yeah, everybody thinks this is great. We don't have anything like this, this would be very handy, but um yeah, getting some of that kind of early funding, we were lucky that Lord Mayor stepped in with a very early grant and money attracts money, I've noticed, through in philanthropy. If there are some funders on board, more come on board.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and so I just thought we've got to get this this funded. This is urgent, important work, and really in the scheme of funding, it was it was being done in such a lean way. It felt felt important to kind of bring some peers into the piece. And and you know, Minderu have been a great collaborator with us on this, so this is when I reached out and maybe over to you, Kim.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I feel like we picked up the phone to Sarah originally. Um, gender equality was was really new at the foundation. We had only just uh I think I think at the time we hadn't even really formalized as a specific area of work, and then I think back sort of three years, and now it's one of the three focus areas of the foundation. It was a really sort of pivotal time for us in terms of kind of formalizing gender equality as one of the areas of focus. But absolutely, Sarah, I think from the the memory was the one that kind of initially sort of put the idea to us to think about how we might be involved. Um, I think some of the conversations we had internally at the time were really uh you know, we're seeing a lot of polarization worldwide, and I think it is really easy for us to get stuck in talking to the people that we feel most comfortable with. You know, it's kind of when there's sort of uncertainty in the world or when there are these challenges with kind of you know that sense of threat that rights are being eroded, it is easy for us to kind of retreat to the people that we know we can speak to in a way that we feel comfortable doing. But I guess at the foundation, one of the challenges and kind of opportunities for us is really trying to think about how do we create long sustained social change, and in order for us to do that, we have to communicate to everyone, and we have to do it in a way that makes sense for the people that we're trying to communicate to. So I think that was really the kind of no-brainer for us to support something like this, and we feel really proud to be a part of the team supporting it. And I think that's the other part too. I think as a foundation, we're really keen to work with others to support ideas like this because when we work in a kind of funding collaboration, you see the impact of the work go much broader, really right from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was just gonna add about that one. You know, when people, when I talk about the gender compass and I I we show the slide of all the different organisations that have funded both Wave One and Two, sometimes people go, Oh, that's a lot of clients, essentially, on a complex project. And I said, but it's worth the effort because the more collaboration you get, the bigger the impact, because they, of course, communicate the work to the people that they're doing that work with, and really what you want is the instrument to be used across the sector, sector wide, and go beyond the sector, and the only rule up the best way to do it is to work with the team.
SPEAKER_05So let's start talking about that impact that it has then. Kim, has the gender compass started to change the way that you talk about equality, both kind of as a foundation or even you personally?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely. I think for me personally, it's probably bringing some evidence around how I had wanted to talk about gender equality, and I think that's been really pivotal for me personally. In terms of a foundation, we now use it as a kind of guiding document for how we put out our communications around gender equality, and we also use it uh as well to sort of help and support our partners in thinking about how they might want to broadly um reach across, you know, to a broader group of people that they might be trying to engage with. Um we've got some interesting, uh some other sort of interesting aspects of it. One of the areas of Midjury is that we have an organization, Midjury Peaches, as part of um the broader mid-review of the portfolio. So Midrew Peaches supports high impact screen projects that amplify the work and the strategy of Midjury Foundations and focus areas. And we've had the great privilege of having the gender compass team come and brief some of the filmmakers as part of the sort of Middle Earth's portfolio to kind of think about ways in which they could use gender compass in their films but also in their impact campaigns around the films. And I think what's been fantastic, you know, fantastic about that sort of approach with mindary peaches has been that these are people who sort of naturally think about audiences, tone, you know, these are very sort of um detailed ways of thinking about messaging films. Um and so they really just picked up the Mindery, the gender compass work, I should say, to kind of really use that in how they think about these films in really nuanced ways. So it was a natural fit for them to think about it. Um but we're also seeing that play out in terms of uh, you know, their films but also in their impact campaigns immediately.
SPEAKER_05Amazing. I love that, Kim. And elsewhere on this podcast, we're talking to people who are having those conversations in their workplace, in HR strategies, hearing about that happening in storytelling and you know, those kind of creative circles as well. It's quite incredible how the research translates across different contexts. Sarah, what about you? You're talking to people about gender equality all day, every day. How is this research shaping those conversations for you?
SPEAKER_06Well, I am regularly saying that this is some of the most important gender equality work that we're involved with. And, you know, it's it's powerful work, firstly, because language and narratives matter, secondly, because it's such a pragmatic approach. I mean, we're literally equipping people and organizations with these tools for change. But finally, it's got applicability across all the sectors. And I think as a philanthropist, that's incredibly exciting to be part of. You know, enabling that is exactly what you're always trying to achieve in terms of funding. And look, we know there's lots of really interesting trialling happening right now, whether that's corporate Australia, not-for-profit campaigning, state and federal governments, and then within philanthropy itself. And I think what's so interesting about it is really requiring us to be quite creative and adapt our storytelling to meet people where they're at. So that can be quite a mindset shift, you know. I think, as you said, I'm working in gender equality all the time, and that trailblazer language is very comfortable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it just flows off the tongue, doesn't it? Really?
SPEAKER_06Absolutely does, and it might be self-evident to us, but that's actually not what's going to hit the mark for even talking, I thought you know, reflecting on talking to you know, fellow parents at school pickup about the work that I'm doing, or thinking about when you're traveling and you meet people, how do you describe what you're doing? So it's really interesting to try and start to just shift that a bit and think about um how you might want to start to adapt it. So I guess a big focus for me has been really sharing these resources far and wide, both within Australia but also with gender equality philanthropists and advocates in other parts of the world. And there's such huge interest in this approach. It is.
SPEAKER_01I've done many a like 10 pm at night presentation and 6am at night presentation because Sarah's gone overseas and said these people would love to hear about it because I mean I think we should be starting to say this is world leading because I, as far as I know, I don't think there's anything like this happening in other parts of the world.
SPEAKER_06I mean, contact us if there is.
SPEAKER_01Well I mean to that point, Sarah, we did in the first phase of the work, it was very important to go out and say were there any models about this? So we so the early literature review scam, we looked at what was happening globally as well as in Australia, so we felt that we were creating something where there wasn't a lot of examples of that globally or in Australia either.
SPEAKER_06And so what you know, we've really focused on how do we flow it through the work we're already doing. I mean, a great example, Rebecca's going to be doing a policy briefing for our Pathways to Politics alums. So that's a community of over 750 women now. And I think what's exciting about those sorts of opportunities are these are women that are serious about running for office, some of them already in political office at the local, state, and federal levels, and thinking about how this messaging might be helpful through their campaigns, and then of course through policy uh development as well. So that's going to be really interesting to see where that might lead over time. But the big opportunity that I wanted to talk about, the big one that I wanted to talk about is the inclusive AI Pledge. Tell us about that. So this is very much being driven by the Champions of Change Coalition, and we're so pleased to partner with them on this pledge. They've really embraced gender compass at Champions of Change, and credit to Liz Broderick, Anna Kirfreyer, Julie Bisneller, and Lisa Pusey and many others. We've collaborated with them over the years on a whole lot of different initiatives, including pioneering what was called the Panel Pledge, which was a concept that Carol took to the Champions of Change to ensure women's voices were heard and valued in public forums. And so that was launched in 2012, and it really was quite a simple leadership action that was very popular with individuals and organizations. It's still being used today to try and improve that representation on all sorts of different panels and events. So now we're going to be partnering on this inclusive AI pledge, which we'll launch publicly in the next few months. And it's acknowledging this rapid phaser in of take-up around AI right now and feeling like there's a bit of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leverage AI to really thoughtfully embed equality and inclusion in the use of AI. And you know, this wouldn't have even been possible even six to twelve months ago. It's quite incredible to think how quickly this is all changing. And what it's grounded in is an AI prompt that's been designed and trialled by the Champions of Change Coalition members, and they've found it incredibly useful. And it draws on two critical sources. Of course, one of those is the gender compass and the messaging guide and everything that sits behind it. And then Champions of Change Coalition also have a fabulous resource called the Seven Switches for Inclusive Gender Equality by Design. And really, essentially the idea is how do we help individuals and organizations personalise Chat GPT or whatever AI tool you're using so that you get more gender-inclusive output. So it might be thinking about strategic thinking, message development, or more in-depth areas such as product and service design or policy advice. And look, it's not complicated. You literally copy and paste the prompts before you commence the work that you're doing, or you might set up a persona or bot if you're starting to get a bit more advanced. I'm still learning all of these things. There's so much around AI to learn. And I think what's great about it is we're developing up these some guidance to help you think about that use of it. So Champions of Change have some fantastic case studies. So there's like a supply chain tender, there's a football stadium design, credit scoring system for a bank. And what it does for each of these examples, it shows you how different the AI outputs are depending on how you use the prompt. So it shows you what the response would be if you're not including a prompt, if you have a really generic gender equality prompt, and then when you use this inclusive AI prompt. And I have to say, it's so stark, it's really noticeable the differences. So it feels like such a, you know, we're at this moment in time where this is such a practical use. Now, who knows in another six to twelve months? I suspect this is all going to become far more sophisticated. But right now I think these are exactly the types of tools people are looking for to really meaningfully engage with the findings from Gender Compass.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it's interesting you say that because before that tool was developed, I would often, because I've presented a lot of work to the Champions of Change Coalition, I know you have as well, Haley, is some of the leaders would say, you know, I'm particularly the trailblazers, they'd say I'll be asked to give a talk or ask give a speech to all of our employees or at a kind of professional event, uh, where I'd be using the language of trailblazing language all the way through, you know, it was very natural to me, and you know, using uh Chat GPT to say, can you rewrite this for not just trailblazing segments but but moderates? Like, how might you adapt this language in a way to kind of reach towards some other audiences that I think would be there? And so people were kind of you know DIYing it a bit in their own way and then coming up with something that you know the substance of still was the same, but the language and potentially the cut through was something else.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's very exciting, and I, you know, I it feels like tip of the iceberg. I can just see this is going to become, you know, really interesting to see where it leads.
SPEAKER_05But I think it's it's powerful because um, when you think about, you know, we where we've been over the past year or two as a community, learning what AI can do for us and seeing the gender bias that is baked into it, you know, innately. And like you say, it's a AI, ChatGPT, it's kind of getting better at putting forward that, you know, trailblazer kind of language because it's been prompted to do that, but it hasn't been prompted around how to have these kind of meeting the middle, moving the middle sort of conversations. So it's exciting space, and like you say, hopefully it'll be very, very different in another year's time when we're um putting things into Chat GPT and we're finding that they're you know inherently kind of built to engage people.
SPEAKER_06Well, and imagine this happening at scale. We're we're actually then helping to train the AI models. I mean, that's where it becomes really interesting.
SPEAKER_02No, I just think it speaks to the real the the use and the need for something like Gender Compass, where it can be picked up by filmmakers, you know, with such um enthusiasm and then also thinking about how it can be used to train AI. I mean, the the reach of Gender Compass has been really amazing.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's talk a little bit about further reach. Let's talk about what might happen or what you'd like to see happen in your spheres of influence in terms of applying the compass in the future. We've already had a bit of a conversation about where it might take AI. Um, what do you think are some of the next opportunities to share the evidence and for different kinds of storytelling? And and secondly, what do you hope the compass will help Australia achieve in the area of gender equality?
SPEAKER_06Well, I look, I think we're in the really important phase right now where we're testing and learning, and that's this is where it becomes the opportunity of what this might become over time becomes really interesting and exciting. And I think we've got to give that the space and the time to allow that to happen, and then of course make sure all of that's coming back so we can keep strengthening and iterating the work. You know, I think of um Rebecca what you've done with the climate compass and the longevity of that. Um, you know, that that went through several phases before it really was bedded down as kind of a uh, you know, a tool that everyone picks up and uses in powerful ways. So I I would I would love to see that that's where we'll end up, where this just becomes the norm.
SPEAKER_01It's a good point. There's a lot of um, you know, from a researcher's perspective, even the greatest possible research you can do feels a bit of a hollow project if people aren't grabbing it and using it, and you can often not really get a sense of what could happen. Like people do quite surprising things with the work, um, and that's actually that's really thought that's really you know fantastic. You don't want to kind of you you're often it's surprise and delight in terms of how people are using it. But then of course it takes a little bit longer to understand what the impact is, and so out of that sometimes you come up, well, this it works really well this way. What might we do next? So you need to give it a bit of space to develop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I think that's I think that's right. In terms of I think there is a little bit of time now to sort of one, make sure that you know it is something that is embedded into how we start to talk about this. I think there's been good take up amongst the Trailblazer segment of really thinking about how do we um you know, I think we've we've been a bit guilty of sitting inside a room and all talking to each other. And I think what we didn't realize probably is that some of the language that we increasingly were sort of using with each other maybe felt like a locked door to everybody else. And so I think GenderComp has gives us the tools to be able to open that door. And then there's a question as to whether or not people want to join us in the party, and I think that is kind of the opportunity now where it's sort of one making sure that people aren't kind of experience a locked door just purely by how we're framing things, and then the next step around how do we make sure that the what the content of what we're talking about is also really powerful and people want to join us in the party. And I think Gender Compass can help us with that, and I think there are other things that we're sort of you know thinking about how we can might, you know, how we might be able to do that to make sure that it is a really inclusive party in there.
SPEAKER_05I think that's such a great note to end on, Kim, and a beautiful reminder about kind of keeping that door open for as many people to join the party as we can. And that's what I love about the work that both of you, you know, Kim and Sarah and your foundations have been doing with this work. It's so much more than funding. It's you know, it's funding plus, it's building community, it's getting this out there, bringing storytellers and filmmakers on board, bringing um the whole AI industry on board, Sarah, perhaps, or at the very least, bringing kind of corporate Australia on board in a really powerful way. So um thank you for that, you know, continued partnership and support. We we you know It's so valued.
SPEAKER_04It's so valued. That's it for today's episode. Thank you, listener, for listening and your support. Make sure you follow, share, and subscribe so that you don't miss future episodes.
SPEAKER_07Presented by Plan International Australia, moving the middle is about cutting through the noise and having conversations that actually land. Less shouting, more listening, real movement. Let's move the middle.