"I would certainly point to Joan Kirner as a friend and mentor. She was always someone that I very much looked up to for support and advice...Joan was pivotal to setting up EMILY's List."
Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister and Member for Lalor
Joan Kirner, is a founder, inaugural Co-Convenor and current Ambassador for EMILY's List Australia. She is former Premier of Victoria.
Without Joan's oversight, stewardship, clear thinking, political judgment, generosity and just plain hard work, EMILY's List would not be the successful organisation it is today. Until the organisation could afford a senior role, Joan was the unpaid CEO of EMILY's List for its first nine years. This volunteer contribution was on top of her many other commitments.
Joan assisted EMILY's List Australia to replicate successful elements of EMILY's List in the USA through her international networks and linkages. Her considerable gifts as a networker and political activist saw the organization grow and develop in esteem across Australia, giving it incredible influence in a short period of time.
Joan has assisted EMILY's List in its plans in this arena by helping it establish programs to support young women to obtain the skills, networks, experiences and confidence to be future leaders - including running for parliament. Her direct experience as Premier and a leader in the ALP demonstrate why there is a need to support progressive women in politics.
This was, at first, really distressing and infuriating for myself and my family. Initially I took it all personally, and this was a big mistake. At one stage I even made a speech admitting that I really didn't like the cartoons. This just encouraged the cartoonist and the editor of the paper, and they got worse. I felt that I was becoming their caricature. So one day I tackled the cartoonist and said "Why do you do it? I don't even own a polka-dot dress, and I'm certainly not harassed all of the time."
He said, 'Well Mrs. Kirner, I know how to draw Henry Bolte and I know how to draw Bob Hawke, or John Cain or Paul Keating, but I've never had to draw a woman in power before and I don't know how to draw you.'
I suddenly understood: he was getting a handle on me. After this, I looked at my supporters and laughed and said, "I've always known that the personal is political." There I was, taking his cartoons personally; reacting to what was, in fact, just another political attack. The editor and his cartoonist were showing their own prejudices – their view of how a housewife would cope – to get at me politically, and I had let them do it. They didn't like my style of politics and they got at me not by attacking the style, but by attacking me personally.
So I stopped taking it personally, I showed myself in the media in positions of control, visiting factories and making speeches, and I developed and showed my sense of humor with events like a fundraising 'Spot on Joan' concert. And I got my power back."
- Joan Kirner, former Premier of Victoria and EMILY's List Ambassador, The Women's Power Handbook
