Mardi Caught — A Keynote Speech
Delivered at the One of One IWD Breakfast in Sydney/Eora, 2022
Firstly, I just want to say how wonderful it is to see you all in the room today. Not only because it is the first time we’ve gathered like this in a long time, but also to see the pure talent here — so thank you for getting through the traffic, through the school runs and most importantly getting dressed and maybe even putting some makeup before 8am.
When I asked if there was a theme for today the word Resilience was mentioned. Initially I thought yeah I’m good with this. I’m a 50-year-old woman who has worked in the industry for nearly 30 years, I must be pretty bloody resilient right?
Often when I talk to people outside of the business and share stories of lesser pay, being passed over for roles, being talked over in meetings, or conversely not even being invited to meetings — they ask why do I still do this? Well, it’s because I’m resilient right? I love what I do and I’ve built up resilience to those that try to stop me from doing it. Everyone of us in the room today have had the resilience to stay after the shit storm of the last two years. And most importantly, I would say — we all wanted to stay.
The definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Toughness.
And any woman, disabled person, person of colour, member of the trans and queer community, would attest you need that trait from the moment you attempt to push open the door into this world. And as I moved through my career, I wore my resilience as a badge of honour.
No matter what …. My love for the job, my love for music and my admiration for our community are the things that continue to drive me. That need to make change and keep moving forward. That need to keep showing up and pushing forward.
But also that need, to be needed.
I was chatting to an artist about this topic earlier this week and asked him how he personally defined resilience, and if he ever questioned the need for it. And his response was pragmatic. “If you are still standing in this industry you are resilient. It’s as simple as that. We’ve had to be to survive. And you really haven’t had a choice, it’s been by default.”
The notion that we didn’t have a choice, and resilience was a default mechanism really started to spook me the more I thought about it. Does resilience automatically prohibit choice? How much of resilience is actually a defence mechanism rather than a simple act showing strength?
And now for all the mums in the room … and when I say Mums, I am not doing that to ignore all the carers here today — but because we can finally stand in a room full of women in the music industry and address the Mums! Hello! This is the bit where I talk about Encanto. And don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about Bruno. I debated about that line but yeah … thanks for the support.
This is a movie about a flawed, broken, messed up, loving family with Rosa from the 99 as the lead. All of the family have superpowers with the older sister, Luisa, enjoying the power of strength. She can move houses, carry donkeys, and build a village. She is without question the strongest and most resilient member of the family. Outwardly.
Inwardly it’s a whole different story as Luisa details in a song called Surface Pressure.
Pressure like a grip and it won’t let go
Pressure like a tick, tick, tick ’til it’s ready to blow
Give it to your sister, your sister’s stronger
See if she can hang on a little longer
Who am I if I can’t carry it all?
If I falter
I got to watch this song for the first time with my 11-year-old daughter. And full credit to Lin Manuel-Miranda for actually introducing the idea of mental health in a kids song. Chloe and I had an amazing conversation about its meaning. It allowed me to raise the notion of anxiety and the fear of failure, the idea that you might not consider yourself to ever be strong enough. And this could mean you might not have the capacity to recover quickly. Sometimes the people that are viewed as the strongest are impacted harder as people just assume they are always going to be strong. It’s a tougher battle because their outward resilience means people often don’t see the inner struggle. That wonderful shared experience with my daughter allowed me to acknowledge that whilst resilience can be a virtue, in some instances it can also be a curse.
I don’t know how many of you remember the old coldral ads — where the theme of the whole ad was Soldier on with Coldral. During the pandemic the marketing person in me couldn’t help but think, oh yeah that whole soldier-on thing — well that’s done. For the first time ever, there was a conversation about people being allowed to be sick. People were worried not only about themselves but for others. Rather than soldier on, it became please go home and barricade yourself in. Suddenly we didn’t have to pretend you were fine, that you were tough — you were actually allowed to take a beat and say “hey I’m sick.” You didn’t have to worry about the fact that if you took three days off in a row because you were sick your boss would think that you were bludging. Finally we were all allowed to be human.
And as we entered survival mode with the pandemic and people having no idea what was around the corner, anxiety started to rise. And in parallel with that, so did social engagement. There was this thing called Tik Tok that people suddenly started talking about. As we were cut off from social interaction IRL, we moved it all onto the internet. Subsequently …. discussions that we may have had with our friends about what was going on in our heads, were thrown up on social posts to share with them there.
In January this year, the LA Times printed an article that claimed videos with the hashtag Mental Health had accumlated 20 billion views on Tik Tok. Anxiety 11 billion views. As we couldn’t hug our friends we chose to tell the internet we weren’t coping.
People from all walks of life started saying they weren’t okay and openly discussed their individual struggles. Most importantly though, rather than judgement there was an overwhelming realisation that we didn’t have to be resilient all the time — we could just be. We were confused, scared and just trying to find the best way through a situation none of us had ever expected in a lifetime. In world war two the adage was Keep Calm and Carry on, in 2020 it was keep calm but also what the fuck.
The fact that people were willing to show weakness publicly was the start of me questioning the meaning of resilience. Yes it’s great to be tough and bounce back, but more importantly it became apparent that it needed to be coupled with adaptability, fluidity, flexibility. Possibly the best thing to come out of this whole mess is that people are much more accepting that you can’t stick to your plan these days. You have to have a plan and be ready for it to be blown up and then reinvent it. Adaptability to me, has now become the path resilience — the ability to be tough. Not a bounce back harder response, but an okaayyy why don’t I re-approach, and just find the best way to make it work.
I think the finest example of this notion is shown by the most flexible sector of our industry during the pandemic. Live Music. Or what was live music. Or what will be live music when we reschedule it in five weeks time. Again. I urge all of us here today to put our arms around our friends in touring whether it be artists, agents, managers, merch sellers, venues, roadcrew, travel agents, I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone. Yes, they are tough, yes they are trying to bounce back and recover — but everytime they do they get knocked down again. It might be a broken floor at the Enmore, weather delayed festivals or the covid carousel as touring members get sick and shows rescheduled. The amount of times I’m hearing “can we not just catch a break” at the moment is heartbreaking. These are our Luisa’s — the ones that are currently asking themselves “who I am if I can’t carry it all”. It’s now up to those of us who are back on track to carry them.
When I started my career all those decades ago, I’m not gonna lie … I knew everything. I was the youngest person in the room. And as I knew everything I decided that if I spoke really loudly with my reactive, and obviously genius thoughts — people would listen. I knew that I was more connected to the music and that of course I was smarter than all the middle aged people in the room.
Oh my gosh, if I was the manager of the 20 something me — I would have definitely had a lot of words to say. I kinda knew I wasn’t the smartest person in the room, but hey, I was in the room and at that point I had to prove myself, no matter what. Often being the only woman sitting at the table meant this need was heightened. So I did my thing in meetings, landed a couple of ideas and then moved on. If people talked over me or shut me down, I accepted it. I was just excited about being there and I felt privileged. That moment when someone said “good idea” appealed so much to my youthful ego, I overlooked all the other shit that went before it. My coping mechanism was to accept all of the bad things they did, so when I landed that one win — wow. I bounced back, boosting my inner feminist ideals of … I’m an outspoken woman, I’m resilient, I’m going to deal with any situation so I can make change from the inside. I am in the room and I’m gonna re-arrange the shit out of that room. And possibly tidy it up a little.
But that version of resilience for me — that put up and shut up mentality — meant I didn’t address some of the issues as I was rarely calling people out on their actions. Sure at that point in my career, I didn’t have the power too so it was one of the situations where I had no choice. My resilience was also a survival mechanism. By default, I had to do whatever was needed to stay in that room. As much as I wish I’d done some things differently earlier in my career, I know some of the things that the-know-it-all me did, were kinda okay. Because here I am. Standing here today in this room full of amazing humans, my peers, my heroes, my friends and my incredible team.
I also have an understanding of my own resilience which is that I don’t have to lean into toughness, instead I can lean into my weaknesses because when I explore that … I am actually stronger.
And better still I know now that Luisa’s question was right — who am I if I can’t carry it all? I am just me and that is absolutely fine.
