Kirstin Ferguson: ABC’s woman of the moment

Acting ABC chairwoman Kirstin Ferguson wants to unlock the power of women, according to Women Kind, co-written with Catherine Fox. Ferguson tweets, September 22:

With the wonderful @corporatefox — living treasure, advocate for women, brilliant journo & lucky for me, the co-author of #WomenKind. It has been such a joy working on this project with Catherine and a real testament to the power of women supporting women.

This month’s edition of this newspaper’sThe Dealhas an extract from the book:

The tiny cohort who do make it to the top are sometimes depicted as desperately striving to “have it all”, an expression that infuriates many women and can lead them to harbour a deeply held sense of guilt when it all seems so impossible. “Having it all” is really shorthand for women who combine a paid occupation with a family; the same description doesn’t seem to apply to men. In fact, the many women featured in #CelebratingWomen did “have it all” — but in a very different sense. Most had combined a satisfying job — although not always in their original field of choice — with a range of interests, community and caring roles, supported by a network of other women.

Interviewed for the website of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Ferguson was asked in 2016 how she applied her specialisation in the boardroom:

I think (David) Gonski summarises the desired position perfectly in that the best boards will have a number of business generalists around the room, of which there will be a diverse range of specialisations that can be drawn upon as needed.

What is Ferguson’s taste in ABC programs? Twitter, August last year:

I love #UtopiaABC so much. But I am not convinced it isn’t a fly-on-the wall reality show that has conned us into thinking it is “comedy”.

The Nine Network’s Honey Mums:

It was 2017, and Dr Ferguson — a company director, former CEO, military officer and mum — was on holidays and annoyed at the world. “I was watching what was going on — Hil­lary Clinton had lost the election, women were knitting pink pussy hats, I was aware of things like the gender pay gap, but I’d never really considered myself an activist at all. I saw some abusive tweets aimed at a woman in the media and I knew that if I was standing next to that person when they said it, I would say something, I would do something, I would call the police.

From the preface of Women Kind:

The first time we met we were both speakers at a women and leadership seminar in Brisbane, and we got talking, as you do. Afterwards, Catherine needed to get to the airport and Kirstin, it turned out, had a car. On the way to the airport we didn’t stop talking, and haven’t stopped talking since. And it’s all the highest quality conversation, too: work, family, politics … with the odd bit of gossip and shopping or travel tip thrown in.

Guardian Australia’s Van Badham on Facebook:

Isn’t this nice? Dr Kirstin Ferguson has been channelling the energy of the internet to celebrate women — an antidote, you can imagine, to some of the more grim aspects of life for women online. And she has chosen to profile me! Aw, thanks, Kirstin! On a personal level, the best bit about being featured is you can tell me how cute our puppy is.

The preface continues:

Trading notes on how truly fed up we were with the lack of progress for women, which was in danger of stalling, or even going backwards, one of the final straws was witnessing the widespread and pernicious silencing of women’s voices on the social media platforms they loved and were using in droves.