Today show co-host Lisa Wilkinson on being a mum, sexy symbol and feminist
SHE is one of Australia’s most loved media personalities but there is a lot more to the breakfast queen than what you see on morning TV as Sunday Style found out.
SHE might be one of Australia’s most celebrated media personalities, a woman who has forged a hugely successful career in both the cutthroat professions of magazine publishing and television, but if all else fails Lisa Wilkinson would make an excellent secretary.
“I love looking after people, and I love organising things and making things run smoothly,” she tells Sunday Style magazine which is out today.
These skills no doubt come in handy in her busy life. When Wilkinson is not anchoring three-and-a-half hours of live television each morning, or popping up as a panellist on ABC1’s Q&A or delivering the Andrew Olle Media Lecture, she is performing her most important role as a mum.
Wilkinson’s family it no doubt what keeps her grounded and allows her to shrug off the gossip and rumours that haunt morning television presenters.
“I’ve got three kids, we’ve got homework assignments to do, I’ve got the shopping at Woolies to do, I’ve got loads of washing to put on, I’ve got red bandanna dye to get out of that last load of whites. I’ve got family I want to see and what a boring human being I would be if that sort of stuff filled up my life. You just can’t concentrate on it, it’s unhealthy,” says Wilkinson.
The wearer of the aforementioned red bandanna is, of course, journalist and author Peter Fitzsimons, Wilkinson’s husband of more than 20 years. “We just both want the same things,” she says of the secret to their marital longevity. “A lot of people look at us and think we’re really different – and in many ways, we are – but you know, one person in the relationship gets to drive and the other is good at reading maps.
“He’s sh*t at reading maps, by the way. So we do both struggle for the steering wheel sometimes. OK, more often than from time to time, but we also laugh at each other, and ourselves, on a daily basis. We have plenty of disagreements, but we’ve kind of worked out that we’re meant to be together. And when you work that out, you can actually get to a point in an argument where you think, ‘Oh stuff it, I can’t be bothered anymore!
You won that one, it’s my turn tomorrow.’” Having taken great pride in watching his wife’s career take off in unexpected directions over the course of their two decades together, Fitzsimons says his only wish is that she could have 48 hours in a day and 14 days in a week. “She has a capacity to go without sleep – and never grumble about it – that would put a nightwatchman to shame,” he says.
As parents to three children, Jake, Louis and Billi, Wilkinson says it’s the couple’s shared devotion to family that binds their hectic household together.
And it is that, adds Fitzsimons, which explains her never quite ruling out the prospect of working as a receptionist should she ever be in need of a Plan B. “The absolute bottom line is that even in the most extraordinary situation, she remains in her heart and head ‘Lisa from Campbelltown’ – married with three happy kids, and with friends of 30 and 40 years standing that have not changed – no matter where her professional career is at,” he says.
“If all the rest of it fell away, and when all the rest of it falls away, that’s who she will remain, and what she and I will be most proud of.”
Wilkinson also makes an effort to be friendly towards her female peers, recently sending a message via social media to Sunrise’s Sam Armytage, complimenting her on her glamorous appearance in a photo shoot.
The tiresome yet enduring assumption that women view each other primarily as rivals is something Wilkinson refuses to buy into. “This idea that it’s a competition,” she scoffs. “That there’s only one man, one job, one great experience to be had.
Maybe it comes from fairytales where there was only one Prince Charming and the ugly stepsisters are in competition – I don’t know. I just know that you live a much richer life embracing other women and encouraging each other than the alternative.”
Her willingness to speak out about the double standards experienced by women in the media lay at the core of her well received Olle lecture. As the first female journalist to deliver the speech since Jana Wendt 16 years earlier, she was stunned by the overwhelmingly positive reaction she received. “I was delighted because it meant that I was far from alone by wanting change for women and, most particularly, wanting a change for young women,” she says.
“I’ve been absolutely thrilled with the reaction from fathers of daughters who have stopped me on the street. A lovely man stopped me yesterday to say that his daughter is four, but he has printed out a copy and he said, ‘When she’s old enough, I want her to understand the messages behind this.’”
Those messages included a candid critique of the frequently brutal feedback women in the spotlight receive regarding their physical appearance, even as their other qualities remain steadfastly ignored.
“At a time when we really should be achieving a lot, culture’s obsession with what a woman looks like, how old she is, and therefore what her sexual currency and what her fertility currency is, has a detrimental effect on women.”
In her fifties, Wilkinson’s own sexual currency shows no sign of weakening, with many male admirers considering her a sex symbol. It’s a tag she modestly attempts to laugh off, but – on a more serious note – refuses to be defined by.
“Look, obviously the hair and make-up fairies descend to make sure that I’m half-OK to sit in front of a camera – and god forbid that ever stops,” she grins. “It is what it is and it’s a weird thing to spend any time focusing on, because there are plenty of people who don’t find me attractive. So if you want to obsess over one side, you’ve got to obsess about the other side, and it just doesn’t do you any good.”
Read the full interview with Lisa Wilkinson in today’s Sunday Style magazine or download the Sunday Style app.
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