By Jason Steger
Monica Lewinsky and Zadie Smith are two of the high-profile speakers set to appear at a new feminist ideas festival to be held at Melbourne Town Hall in November.
They will be joined by a raft of international and local guests, including Tressie McMillan Cottom, Ariel Levy and Helen Garner, as part of the Wheeler Centre's first Broadside festival. Lewinsky will also speak at Unthinkable, an event held by the University of NSW's Centre for Ideas, while Smith will appear at the Sydney Opera House.
Monica Lewinsky is the self-described "patient zero" of cyber bullying.Credit: Damon Winter
Broadside director Tamara Zimet said the important element of feminism that the festival is aiming to capture is the idea of the diversity of experience.
"That's across generations, perspectives and cultural and personal backgrounds. There's no one way to be a woman in the world and there's no one way to be a feminist and we'll start exploring that together."
Lewinsky, who first became widely known for her relationship with former US president Bill Clinton while she was an intern at the White House, is now a well-respected anti-bullying activist and writer. Zimet said in today's culture there was no one better qualified than Lewinsky to talk about the ubiquity of online bullying, humiliation and harassment.
Zadie Smith's visit is her first to Australia for about 20 years.Credit:
"She is the self-described 'patient zero' of cyber bullying. As she says, people have been co-opting her story, her part in her own story, for a very long time and it's taken her almost 20 years for her to reclaim that narrative. People are starting to see and understand and acknowledge her resilience, compassion and her intellect," Zimet said.
Other international guests include Jia Tolentino, Mona Eltahawy, Fatima Bhutto and Curtis Sittenfeld. Local guests include Clare Wright, Patricia Cornelius, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Courtney Barnett, Nayuka Gorrie, Maria Tumarkin and Aretha Brown.
Zimet, former programming manager at Sydney Writers' Festival, said she had been thinking about the idea of a feminist ideas festival for a long time.
"It is an unashamedly feminist agenda and ultimately it's about smart and funny and passionate people sharing their expertise and stories. In doing that we wanted to create a program that is celebratory, that is also a place for tricky and nuanced conversations that sometimes don't get the public airing that they need to."
She said that people such as Lewinsky and novelist, essayist and short-story writer Smith had been on programming organisers' wishlists for years.
"Zadie Smith hasn't been here in almost 20 years. We're incredibly lucky, and lucky that it coincides with the publication of [her new short-story collection] Grand Union. There is nobody like her and I'm incredibly proud that she's part of our first line-up."
Zimet said it was crucial there would be a strong presence of local guests at the festival. "For us it's really important that we don't just see internationals as a drawcard. So we have people like Aileen Moreton-Robinson, who wrote Talkin' Up to the White Woman, which was Australia's first text about feminism from an Indigenous woman's standpoint. We have Helen Garner soon after the publication her diaries, Bhenji Ra, Mehreen Faruqi, the first Muslim female senator, Nayuka Gorrie and Patricia Cornelius."
Broadside is being funded by the Wheeler Centre, but has also received additional funding from a consortium of local contributors. Zimet said the plan was to have another festival next year.
Broadside runs November 9-10. Tickets are available at broadside.wheelercentre.com
UNSW Unthinkable run November 7-9. Tickets are available at events.unsw.edu.au/unthinkable
Zadie Smith appears at the Sydney Opera House on November 10. Tickets are available at sydneyoperahouse.com/events