Mimi Kwa (00:03):
People say, “Life is a journey, not a destination,” but how do you know you are on the right path?
Jo Stanley (00:10):
Only we could see the signs when they appear.
Mimi Kwa (00:13):
Well, I’m Mimi Kwa.
Jo Stanley (00:14):
And I’m Jo Stanley.
Mimi Kwa (00:16):
On A to BE, we speak to fascinating people about how they navigated their way to be here now, having profound impact on the world.
Jo Stanley (00:26):
We hope our conversations will help you reflect on everything you’ve been through to get here, the triumphs, challenges, and bumps along the road.
Mimi Kwa (00:35):
And if you haven’t already, find your own map to what matters.
Kaz Cooke (00:41):
It’s the menopause. The number of people I talk to about what a pelvic floor looks like.
Mimi Kwa (00:46):
I do love your diagram, which you say never take to a gynecologist.
Kaz Cooke (00:49):
No, they’ll be pulled. I’m asking all these experts and they’re going, “Well, the striations of the lateral…” I’m going, “Does it look like a chop? Just look like the woven bit of a seat belt? What does it look like? Help me.”
Mimi Kwa (01:03):
Jo, our guest today has supported millions of women and girls through some of the most critical times of life. Her book, Up the Duff. I’m sure you remember that. That was my bible for all of my pregnancies.
Jo Stanley (01:15):
We are talking about the esteemed, award-winning, record-breaking author, Kaz Cooke, who’s written all sorts of things to help us to navigate life. I adore her. She just seems to be able to read our minds from generation to generation, answering every possible question that we might have about our bodies.
Mimi Kwa (01:38):
And what our bodies get up to. And now, her latest book is called The Menopause, and she’s uncovering all of the mysteries that surround the menopause. I learned so much from this book, and from our conversation, she is just amazing.
Jo Stanley (01:54):
Buckle up people because Kaz Cooke does not mince words. She’s in the studio. And what a great honor it is. Kaz, it’s just a delight to have you on A to BE. Because I feel you are a part of my A to BE, so here we are.
Mimi Kwa (02:10):
Oh my gosh, you’re a part of so many A to BEs. You are a part of my A to BE. We will get to that. But yeah.
Kaz Cooke (02:15):
Well, I’m thrilled to be here. As I was saying, as I came in, I’ve been doing all this publicity for the, It’s the Menopause book, and really ended up feeling so burnt out. And then, they said, “There’s one more.” And I went, “No.” And they said, ” It’s broad radio with Jo.” And I went, “Okay,” because I think what you’re doing is fab. And so, I said “Yes,” because sisterhood, and I’m really thrilled to be here with you.
Jo Stanley (02:41):
Oh, that warms my heart so much. And gee, you gave me a good hug when you walked in. You give good hugs, as does Mimi. Good hugs.
Kaz Cooke (02:48):
Well, we haven’t seen each other for a while. We were both on commercial radio, subject to management, the kind of man in rock distressed jeans who would enter a room scrotum first and tell you the way things should be. And they were always wrong. It was an incredible batting rate. It was zero for zero. But anyway.
Jo Stanley (03:16):
You know that man still wears those distressed jeans, so that’s pretty funny.
Kaz Cooke (03:22):
Oh, it wasn’t just one of them, Jo. I’m going to show you a list afterwards.
Jo Stanley (03:25):
What a time. But let’s get back to you.
Kaz Cooke (03:26):
Yes.
Jo Stanley (03:27):
There’s so many things we want to learn from you, but the most present thing at the moment is your new book, It’s the Menopause. Menopause is so hot right now, let’s say, so hot flush right now. But this book, as always with your books, so incredibly researched, and I feel is the best resource to go to. Forget the Instagram. There’s so much on Instagram about menopause at the moment.
Kaz Cooke (03:50):
It feels to me like we’ve lost a bit of the stigma of talking about menopause, but instead, we’ve swapped in a fire hose of fake wellness, and fake products, and people trying to make money out of us. And that ends up polarizing people. You get people at one end going, “I’m only going to take medical stuff.” And people at the other end saying, “I’m only going to take natural stuff.” Now, there are useful things from both of those philosophies. And what I’m trying to do is say, “Look, there’s a buffet.” And for all these different 35 plus symptoms, there are different possibilities. It’s a lot of self-help things that are really important and that are evidence-based. And not everyone can take medication for various reasons. Also, a lot of people are just getting things wrong. They’re being told stuff on Instagram and in ads. When they Google, often, the first 10 results are an ad for something or a private clinic that wants to sell you the products on their shelves.
Mimi Kwa (04:52):
Oh, and aren’t those algorithms on Instagram good? And don’t they just listen into your conversations?
Kaz Cooke (04:57):
And as soon as you turn a certain age, you start getting those ads that say, “Woman over 40, or 50, or 60, however old you are, with hideous wrinkles needs help.”
Jo Stanley (05:08):
And it always seems to happen when you’re at your lowest, and you think they’re right.
Kaz Cooke (05:14):
Like how do they know?
Jo Stanley (05:14):
Like do you need help?
Kaz Cooke (05:16):
Anyway. Yeah.
Mimi Kwa (05:17):
They must be able to read our energy levels as well at the time. I just want you to take us a little bit just for a moment into the stigma because you just touched on that. And what I find that makes me kind of chuckle, and also, cringe is that when I worked at Channel 9 at A Current Affair, and I was doing menopause stories with Jean Hailes Foundation and interviewing women who were going through menopause, I was not allowed to use the phrase, menopause, the word menopause, or the phrase of the menopause, on television.
Kaz Cooke (05:48):
So, did you have to say, “Women’s health of women of a certain age?”
Mimi Kwa (05:52):
A change in life.
(05:58):
Oh my God.
Jo Stanley (05:58):
Wow.
Mimi Kwa (05:58):
And it made that story very difficult to report.
Kaz Cooke (06:01):
And Mimi, I, in this year doing the publicity tour for this, a producer at a national current affairs show told-
Jo Stanley (06:09):
It’s probably the same one.
Kaz Cooke (06:11):
It’s not, but I won’t go any further, but told the publicist, “People don’t want to know about menopause. It’s yucky.” And he was a man aged 40. So, nothing on that show. I was on a morning show on a commercial free-to-air network, and at the end of the interview, the male interviewer said, “Obviously, this is a fantastic book, but you can’t give it as a gift.” And I went, “What? [inaudible 00:06:37].” And then, it was cut off. And she’s going, “Because of the stigma, right?” Exactly the same thing, that it’s unbelievable. It’s centuries old, this idea that periods are poisonous, and toxic, and yucky, that menopause is… And you would think that if doctors then, not now, but were saying, “Periods are mysterious, and dangerous, and corrosive, and can make a penis fall off,” I’m not making this up. And if you were having your period and you walk past a fruit tree, you would kill all of the fruit.
Jo Stanley (07:11):
With rage. Is it rage?
Kaz Cooke (07:13):
No. Simply because you’re a woman having a period. The rage would make it burst into flames. But then, so you would think that the menopause would be, “Oh, thank God you’ve stopped doing that dreadful work of the devil.” And yet no, once you went into menopause, you were accused of being a witch because of physical and mental symptoms of menopause.
Jo Stanley (07:40):
And is it because we cease our functionality in that we can’t have children once we hit menopause?
Kaz Cooke (07:45):
Look, I think it’s even more fundamental and creepy than that. I think it’s going, “Young women are attractive, older women are not,” according to that ridiculous set of-
Mimi Kwa (08:01):
Paradigm.
Kaz Cooke (08:02):
Yeah. And therefore, we are of no further use. We’re not interesting.
Jo Stanley (08:08):
Yeah. Because we simply can’t arouse.
Kaz Cooke (08:10):
Yeah. And you’ll be able to see it on… Have you seen it, Mimi? There’s this thing on YouTube, and can I swear on the podcast?
Jo Stanley (08:21):
Yes, please. Yes.
Mimi Kwa (08:21):
Jo says, “Yes, please.” I say with hesitancy, “Yes. Okay.”
Kaz Cooke (08:24):
It’s in context, darling. It’s in context. It’s an Amy Schumer. I think it’s the best thing she’s done.
Mimi Kwa (08:33):
Oh, I do love Amy Schumer.
Kaz Cooke (08:33):
And I don’t love everything she does, but I love this. And it’s Tina Fey, it’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and it’s Patricia Arquette. And they’re all having lunch under a tree, and they’re celebrating what they call their last fuckable day. And that is they’re not going to get hired by producers anymore because they’ve passed a certain age. And it’s a really great idea, and it’s really well-executed. And I think there’s something of that. There is this picture that’s been painted of older women as dotty, cross, useless. Even the theories about menopause where people go, “Oh, the only other animals that have menopause are whales.” And I think they’re saying they’re actually discovering now, there are other animals. It’s just that no one’s bothered. The research of every aspect of menopause is hopeless, but they’ve gone, “Well, it happens in whales, and the theory that we’ve got is biological reason is that the older whale, women, sorry, the older female whales, the whale women-“
Mimi Kwa (09:40):
The whale women. I want to join that club.
Jo Stanley (09:44):
I whale a lot. So, I feel like fit.
Kaz Cooke (09:47):
Yeah. No. There is a definite waling aspect, but the female whales who are older and no longer fertile help with the calves. So, the idea is that in humans, grandmothers live as long as they do so they can look… And women survive menopause and get older than that, even though they’ve outlived their use because they can help with other people’s babies. It makes me furious. Can women not just be themselves and do a bit of macrame and go on a road trip? They shouldn’t have to be-
Mimi Kwa (10:21):
The Grey Nomads.
Kaz Cooke (10:23):
… the babysitters for everybody else. Even that theory kind of shits me, I have to say.
Jo Stanley (10:29):
Yeah, it sucks. Also, I think sometimes, well, it supports my… I have a theory that they assume that older women are cranky and dotty because they see older women not giving a shit and living their life doing macrame and going on road trips, and they think they can’t possibly be happy.
Kaz Cooke (10:46):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jo Stanley (10:46):
Because we cease to actually care what other people think, their assumption is that we are mad.
Kaz Cooke (10:52):
And exactly, and lonely. And there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how important female friendships are, or friendships with your gay mates, or your straight mates, or whatever, but…
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:11:04]
Kaz Cooke (11:03):
… friendships with your gay mates or your straight mates or whatever, but your people and how they often outlive your relationships. Girlfriends will last longer in your life. And I think the last chapter of It’s the Menopause, because I surveyed almost 9,000 women and the book is full of their quotes-
Mimi Kwa (11:19):
Which I must say is actually profoundly liberating, I think, to be able to read quotes from other women-
Kaz Cooke (11:28):
Real people. Yeah.
Mimi Kwa (11:29):
And I just felt so seen because I would read these quotes and think, “Oh my gosh, that’s me. That’s how I feel.”
Kaz Cooke (11:35):
Yeah. So, the last chapter is the quotes about women feeling free, Jo. And they’re the women going, “I’ve changed my priorities. I don’t care that I’m invisible now to some people.” I mean, everybody’s different and some people don’t feel exactly the same way, but almost universally it was, “Thank God I’m through this. I don’t get periods anymore. I can choose what I want to do with my life, whether it’s being a grandma or being an adventuress.” I love that old-fashioned word. Yeah. So, I was so happy that there were so many optimistic quotes and lovely mottos that people had. And because I think we often just get this idea that menopause is just terrible. And some people breeze through it. Some people have a really hard time with a lot of symptoms. So, it was fantastic to be able to have that sense of freedom and sisterhood.
Jo Stanley (12:32):
Well, I do know that you do an incredible amount of research for your books, and I feel like you’ve told me in the past that it does freak you out a little bit, that you might get something wrong.
Kaz Cooke (12:41):
Oh, you remember that?
Jo Stanley (12:42):
Yeah, I remember you saying that to me.
Kaz Cooke (12:44):
Yeah. It’s true. And I, like a lot of women, I think I’m getting more anxious as I get older about things like public appearances and live events. And also, well, you know I started as a journalist, very young. A month out of school uniform, I started as a baby journalist at The Age. And it was always drummed into us the terror of making a mistake. And the year before I joined I think it was, one of the cadet journalists had cost the paper 150 grand, which in 1981 was huge, because she had gotten the name wrong of someone being charged in court. A person with a similar name looked like they’d committed a crime, so they sued.
Mimi Kwa (13:28):
And they sued for defamation.
Kaz Cooke (13:31):
And everything you wrote would go through the subs desk, which was a desk looking like a really grim dinner party with no food of a whole lot of older men.
Mimi Kwa (13:40):
That is a brilliant way to describe it.
Kaz Cooke (13:42):
And if you made a mistake, one of them would stomp over to your desk and lean over you. And when you’re 18 and it’s your first real job, and there’s a… I thought they’re about 100 years old, they were probably in their 40s, most of them. And they’d lean over the desk and go… I remember one saying to me, “You said that a jumbo jet weighs as much as a blue whale. Where’s your evidence for that?” And I just went, “I read it in a thing.”
(14:10):
Anyway, a very big lesson. So, terrified. And in fact, in one of my books Up the Duff, I talk about the iron levels in a dried apricot. So, I’m saying, “There are a lot of things you can eat that will help really boost your iron levels because everyone thinks it’s just red meat. So, here’s a few things that have a…” Anyway, I got this furious letter. “This is completely wrong. A dried apricot only has 0.3 milligrams of foof. And how dare you?” And I couldn’t sleep for three days, and they said, “You can’t check it out because of protocol. We will get someone in the office and we will get someone in the office to check that.” Took them three days, and I was bang on. It was exactly right.
Mimi Kwa (14:51):
I did check my apricot intake and I felt much better. Thanks to you. It’s true.
Kaz Cooke (14:56):
There you go. It could be an apricot placebo, we don’t know. But yes. And because medical information changes, so I’ve got medical information in Up the Duff. I’ve got medical information in Babies And Toddlers, the sequel to that pregnancy book. I’m very careful in the way I talk to girls in both Girl Stuff books, 8-12 and 13+, because you can’t, for example, just talk about eating disorders to young girls, or they will see it as a recipe. You have to be very careful about the way you talk about certain things and sex, so that you don’t frighten them. And you don’t have to do this, but someone’s probably already shown them on a phone by the time they’re 14.
(15:37):
So, it’s all quite tricky and a hell of a lot of work goes into it. And I do remember discussing with an editor once, and she was about 65, and I was sitting in her office and we were having quite a heated discussion about how to talk about A-N-A-L sex, and what do we say to girls who are being pressured into doing this as a form of contraception, or just because a guy wants to do it because he’s seen it on his phone. How do you talk to girls about that and say, “Well, this is what it is and you don’t have to do it, and it will probably hurt.”
(16:15):
And there are parents who were like, “Don’t tell my daughter about that.” But it’s kind of like they already know. They’ve probably already been asked about it. And I remember talking to a whole group of parents and saying, “Statistics are pretty much the same in most Western countries. Half of 15-year-olds have had some sort of sex.” When you say that to parents of teenage girls, the room goes… because everyone thinks their 15-year-old has had no experience. And statistically, that can’t be true. So, it’s also about getting information to people before they need it, but not so early that it freaks them out.
Jo Stanley (16:55):
But I mean, the weight of that makes me feel a bit nauseous, thinking about that. I’m not that person who could have that responsibility on my shoulders. Can you feel that, Mimi? That’s just-
Mimi Kwa (17:05):
Well, I can, but having read the end notes in your book, The Menopause, I can see how many experts, in inverted commas, but actually fully qualified, I must say, with lots of letters after their name that you couldn’t even fit into the book, and you acknowledge that too. But you have cross-referenced with so many people. You’ve checked everything.
Kaz Cooke (17:26):
That’s a good point. And I think that is one reason why I can be more confident about those things and knowing that I will update a book. But you’re right, Jo, because some of those chapters about sex, about mental health, when I first was writing in 2006, 2007, which was when the first Girl Stuff… I had to make those chapters up. I had to make up the chapter in Babies and Toddlers about talking to your toddlers about emotion because I couldn’t find… And now, there’s heaps of stuff around, and I try and include contacts in the book of if people want further information. But that is the scary bit when you’re sort of going on instinct. But then, I will also, as well as consulting experts, also get them to read a chapter. And I try and share that around, so between people in different states. I did once say to a gynecologist, “I don’t want someone who’s just an academic. I want someone who’s at the coal face, or should we call it the vulva face?”
Jo Stanley (18:29):
I think that’s important, if you’re talking vulvas. You want to have seen one.
Kaz Cooke (18:33):
You want someone who is in public health, who keeps abreast of the latest things. And for example, with Up the Duff, I’m making sure this time I’m going to someone to read it for the next update who’s head of obstetrics and midwifery at a public hospital and not just a tiny private hospital where it’s a very different vibe and a very different way of doing things. I mean, I think there are great doctors working in both places. But yeah, I like to share it around. And gosh, they’ve been so generous over so many years. I mean, at least once I’d established I think some kind of reputation, which I think happened with Up the Duff and with Real Gorgeous, which was even before that about body image and so-called beauty.
(19:19):
And I mean, I’ve only ever been asked once for money from a consultant, and it was someone already being paid an enormous salary in a government organization, health organization. And everyone else, the professors, the people who are world-renowned, the people who are working spokespeople for their professions’ membership group, the busiest people, the most knowledgeable people who you would imagine would say, “Oh, bugger off.” But they get it, right? They get that they want this information to go out to public.
Mimi Kwa (19:55):
To be of service.
Kaz Cooke (19:56):
I mean, I’m just astonished. One of the things in, It’s the Menopause, I’m astonished that there are gynecologists and people who are selling women this thing called vaginal laser procedures, or sometimes called things like the MonaLisa Touch. They use a laser on the inside of the vagina. They cause low-level burns if things go well and really dangerous, awful things if it doesn’t go well, including the walls of the vagina fusing together because of the burn wounds.
Jo Stanley (20:27):
Oh, my God.
Kaz Cooke (20:27):
Horrendous. And even if it works, the only independent studies done on it show it does nothing. You just heal.
Jo Stanley (20:36):
What’s it supposed to do?
Kaz Cooke (20:38):
Allegedly help with urinary… Not doing unexpected wees so often. Absolutely disproved that that happens in the independent studies, that it makes for moisture vagina, so it’s better for the man to have sex with you.
Mimi Kwa (20:53):
And I read as well, tighter, but that is really actually the healing that’s happening and the swells-
Kaz Cooke (20:58):
It is the swelling.
Mimi Kwa (20:59):
… because it’s been burned.
Kaz Cooke (21:00):
Unbelievable. And I spoke to a gynecologist who’d been offered this machine to be leased at 150 grand a year, and that’s why it costs hundreds of dollars to have a so-called treatment. And then they say, “You’ll need another one in six months and another one… And once you’ve healed up, we’re going to do this to you again.” And talk about rage. Sometimes there are, not just hormonal reasons, but real reasons for women to feel rage.
Jo Stanley (21:29):
Wow. I mean, that makes me very unwell thinking about it.
Kaz Cooke (21:37):
It’s hard to absorb, isn’t it?
Jo Stanley (21:37):
And breaks my heart. Breaks my heart.
Kaz Cooke (21:37):
So, I just want to let women know, don’t do that. And only 2% of the women in about 9,000 women who answered the survey, only 2% had done it and not one of them said they thought it had done anything beneficial for them.
Jo Stanley (22:00):
It’s been an interesting journey for you, Kaz, to go from how I first, very first, remember loving your work, which was Hermoine.
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:22:04]
Kaz Cooke (22:09):
Hermoine the Modern Girl beat.
Jo Stanley (22:10):
Hermoine the Modern Girl.
Kaz Cooke (22:11):
Yeah.
Jo Stanley (22:12):
So your beautiful cartoons. And she was just so glorious and wacky and…
Kaz Cooke (22:19):
That’s so nice, Jo.
Jo Stanley (22:19):
And now you’re doing these really important books and really getting very important information to women. But how does that happen? How do you go from being a cartoonist to this?
Kaz Cooke (22:30):
Very good question. And I couldn’t do it unless I had been a journalist. And I think what journalism, especially old school journalism, because I’m 9,000 years old, when I started journalism in the ’80s, there was that fear of making a mistake. But also they made you do things that I was terrible at, like finance journalism. I was sacked off sport after my first day because my report of the Swans match in Sydney was apparently incomprehensible. They said they couldn’t even tell what sport it was, so anyway, mission accomplished there.
(23:07):
So you had a bit of a crack at a lot of different stuff that you didn’t know anything about. And what I don’t know about you, Mimi, but what it taught me was I was this incredibly daggy just 18-year-old with plats on the top of my head. I looked like Heidi had escaped.
Jo Stanley (23:22):
I instantly thought of Heidi. Yeah.
Kaz Cooke (23:24):
And wearing my mom’s dresses. And terrified. From this suburban background, which was not sophisticated. I didn’t know how the world works. I remember going out for my first restaurant thing with other people and not really understanding how it was going to work. I’d never been out in a group of people where everyone paid different. I think the most our family ever did was go to the Swagman and I think Kentucky Fried Chicken a couple of times.
Jo Stanley (23:50):
Swagman was fancy.
Mimi Kwa (23:51):
Well, can we just go back a step, then, or maybe a few steps? What is it that propelled you towards journalism in the first place? If you ended up going into a cadetship literally straight out of high school, what were you like as a child? What was your family situation? Why were you interested in that?
Kaz Cooke (24:07):
There was no one in my family interested in what I was interested… you know when you read interviews with people and they go, “Our house was full of books and music!” I just think, Christ, our house was full of mince.
Jo Stanley (24:22):
The meat or the lolly?
Kaz Cooke (24:22):
Definitely the meat.
Mimi (24:23):
Why was it full of mince?
Kaz Cooke (24:29):
That’s just what we ate.
Jo Stanley (24:31):
I get it. No. In the ’80s we ate a lot of mince, too.
Kaz Cooke (24:33):
Yeah.
Jo Stanley (24:33):
And we used those electric fry pan to cook them up.
Kaz Cooke (24:37):
Exactly, Jo. My mother’s still got it. I’m sure it’s going to do her in in the end somehow. But anyway, I was so unsophisticated but I loved reading. I had found newspapers. I was the only teenager I knew who would go every Sunday and buy The National Times, which had Patrick Cook as a cartoonist, Michael Fitzjames as a cartoonist. Just these people who became my idol. And then there was just this… it’s always chance, isn’t it? There’s always luck. Then you make what you can of it, but it’s always luck.
(25:08):
And I was babysitting for a couple who ran a bookshop across the road from the Sandringham railway station, which was my local railway station. And he specialized in comedy books. So when I was working there and people were coming in and buying their Mills & Boon or whatever, I could spend the downtime looking at books of English cartoonists and satirical books. And I remember really thinking, oh my god, I could do this. I don’t know how, but maybe I could do this.
Mimi (25:50):
Were you sketching and drawing at that point?
Kaz Cooke (25:50):
Yep. Yeah.
Mimi (25:50):
You were trying to emulate what they were doing, trying to find your own style?
Kaz Cooke (25:50):
Yeah, all of that. But my own style was completely ripped off by my… I completely ripped off Ronald Searle, who was, at the time, an incredible cartoonist. Most of his characters had pointy noses, and that’s why Hermoine has a pointy nose. It comes from there. But then of course I became a mom. I didn’t have as much time. And I remember people asking me, would you rather be a cartoonist or be a journalist? And I was like, “I’m going to do both. I’ll have plenty of time, I imagine. I’ll make an appointment with the baby to breastfeed her at, say, 7:30, and then maybe…” had no idea. So then the writing became much more of a thing.
(26:35):
But as I was saying before, you can’t be shy when you’re a journalist. You had to ring people. We didn’t do it just off press releases then. You had to ring people and go, “Excuse me, mayor, I’m from The Age.” So you had that. That was the paper I worked for, so that was my in. I would say, “I’m from The Age, and please answer these questions.”
Mimi Kwa (26:56):
Of course. All of a sudden you’ve got that credibility of being with The Age. But how did you get to The Age? What was that process like?
Kaz Cooke (27:03):
Well, I just applied. And I can’t remember how I knew, but I think I knew because Corrie Perkin, who is a well-known bookseller now and runs the Sorrento Writers Festival. She had gone to The Age from my school. And I didn’t know her in my school. She was older than me. But somehow, and I don’t remember these bits, but somehow I rang her and said, “Can I talk to you?” And I went to talk to her in The Age canteen and she gave me some hints. So you had to go through three interviews and it starts with, I think, 1800 people who apply. And then they… and I think that, having read all those satirical books, I think I had developed quite a cheeky tone. And so I got through the first one. And then I don’t think they have any idea really what they’re doing, but most of them were from private schools or a different background, although it was much easier to get in without a uni.
(28:02):
So they took four people from uni and four people straight from school the year that I got in. Then the second one, I had a fight with one of the two interviewers who said, “Do you think it…” and how the hell was I supposed to know? He goes, “Do you think a newspaper should tell people how to vote?” And I said, “Sure, if it wants to.” I didn’t know. And he-
Mimi (28:25):
It just so happens that they do from time to time.
Kaz Cooke (28:27):
Yeah. Well they were all doing it then. And he said, “Well, I think that’s wrong.” And I went, “Fair enough.” Anyway, for some-
Mimi (28:36):
“Fair enough. When do I start? Okay.”
Kaz Cooke (28:38):
Exactly. For some bizarre reason. Also, I didn’t think I was going to get it, so I think I was a little bit more loosey goosey than I… But that was the third interview that, that really clinched it. I walked into the big mahogany, huge desk. To me, I remember a desk the size of an aircraft carrier right at the end of this really big room. And the acting editor was there. It’s 11:00 in the morning. He has about three fingers of whiskey in a big fat tumbler. He’s smoking a Winnie Blue and there’s 17 butts, approximately, in the ashtrays. It’s 11:00 in the morning.
Mimi Kwa (29:15):
And you can probably barely see him through the smoke.
Kaz Cooke (29:15):
The fog. And I walked in. And I’d been reading, at the secondhand bookshop, these crime novels about Melody Blaze, who wore thigh boots. And it was set in the ’60s. And she used to stride around and give people cheek. And she was… anyway, I walked in, I looked at him. I thought, what the hell am I doing here? This is bizarre. And I said, “Is that cold tea or are you just trying to impress me?” And I don’t know where that came from, it just came up in me. I apparently thought I was Mae West. And he laughed. And I found out later, he laughs about once a year.
Jo Stanley (29:58):
Wow.
Kaz Cooke (29:59):
And so I think that cheek. I think it was cheek. I didn’t know enough to be as intimidated as I should’ve been.
Mimi Kwa (30:08):
Yeah, it’s that naive confidence.
Kaz Cooke (30:09):
Totally naive, but also nothing to lose. And then in the first few months there was this really posh restaurant critic who worked for the paper. And he was known as a bit of a creep. He was one of the restaurant critics. And he came over to my desk and said, “Oh, I was hoping that you might be involved in reviewing something. And would you like to come to lunch with me at Gloglos?” Which was a really posh restaurant at the time in Melbourne, like one of the top three, which I didn’t know about. And I said, “Awe, thanks but I bought a Ryvita.”
(30:45):
He looked Completely puzzled and went, “Right. All right.” And sort of rotated like a robot a bit and then went away. And I went up to the library where my beautiful gay friends were working. They’d become friends. They worked in the library. And I went, “Oh, this just happened. And I said, “I’d bought a Ryvita,” and he looked really confused.” Anyway, after they’d picked themselves up off the floor they told me some stories about how other women had been treated by this person. So I was very happy about-
Mimi Kwa (31:21):
That you had your Ryvita.
Kaz Cooke (31:23):
That I had my Ryvita.
Jo Stanley (31:24):
I think there’s a lot to be said for when you don’t know the rules of the game, which it seems you did not, that sometimes you can really push yourself into situations that are great for you.
Kaz Cooke (31:33):
Yeah. I think also, because I was such a doofus, I realized later how many relationships there were with senior staff with some of the much more sophisticated go-getter women. And realizing that that was so common in that older… it was almost like it was a free for all, I think, when the young people came in. And I was 18 and my first boyfriend from there was 27. And I shouldn’t have been with him.
(32:07):
And a few other people were with… but yeah, I didn’t really understand the nuances of power structures and all of that stuff.
Jo Stanley (32:18):
No, but who did? Who did at 18?
Kaz Cooke (32:20):
Yeah, no. Well, I think the young kids now are better. I think they get that age difference is not necessarily good. I think young women… like my daughter’s 25, and I think her generation is so much better about sexual politics, gender identity, sexuality. In some ways some of them have been protected a lot and cotton-wooled a little bit, but I think they’re actually much better at a few things.
Jo Stanley (32:47):
But I think back then… So I’m a little bit younger than you, but not much. Oh, actually we’re probably the same age.
Kaz Cooke (32:53):
I’m 78.
Jo Stanley (32:56):
When I was 18, which was in 1990, I think we were still defined by other peoples’ opinion of us.
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:33:04]
Jo Stanley (33:03):
… I think we were still defined by other people’s opinion of us. Whereas now, I’m hoping that eighteen-year-olds now, partly because of the work people like you have done, are understanding that your value is intrinsic and it’s not related to validation from older men and jobs and [inaudible 00:33:20] and all of that.
Kaz Cooke (33:20):
I can remember thinking, “Oh, if he’s interested in me, I suppose I’d better front up and go out with him.” Although I did go out with one senior journalist when I was working in Sydney, and he asked me out for dinner, and again, this is my lack of sophistication. Also hadn’t asked around about him, idiot, and was sitting with him in the restaurant. And I remember, when the main courses had just arrived, and he said to me, “Oh, by the way, I’m in an open relationship with my wife.” And I’d never heard the phrase. And I went, “Sorry, what is that?” A, wife. B, what? He said, “An open relationship?” And he said, “Oh, we just give each other permission to …” and I was so flustered, pissed off, felt like my time had been wasted, didn’t know what to do. So I just said, “Thank you very much for letting me know,” put my fork down, picked up my bag and walked out of the restaurant.
Jo Stanley (34:14):
Good on you.
Mimi Kwa (34:15):
Good on you. So when did that indignance turn into a recognition that inherently, I think we are all feminists to a point, but that you actually wanted to express that through your work?
Kaz Cooke (34:31):
That’s a great question, and no one has ever asked it. And I love that you’ve used the word indignance, because if you’ve just got indignance, you just get frustrated. And you just feel put upon and that can really, and you can end up just feeling bitter. But I think where it came from for me is knowing that I walked into lots of worlds and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what it was going to be like to be pregnant. I didn’t know what it would be like to have a baby and then a toddler. I certainly didn’t have the information I needed as a teenager about confidence, about my first period. And I had some information, and it’s not like my mother didn’t tell me anything.
(35:11):
But where I think I’ve always come from is, and it’s why I get really annoyed if people call me a guru or an expert. Because what journalists do, and you know this, is that we are the, especially me, lowest common denominator. We have to go and find out what the truth is from the experts and then tell people in a way that they understand, which basically is in a way that I understand. It’s the menopause. The number of people I talk to about what a pelvic floor looks like, you’ve got these-
Mimi Kwa (35:42):
I do love your diagram, which you say never take to a gynecologist.
Kaz Cooke (35:45):
They’ll be appalled. But it was the only way that I could kind of visualize it. And I’m asking all these experts, and they’re going, “Well, the striations of the lateral…” I’m going, “Does it look like a chop? What does it look like? Give me a…”
Jo Stanley (36:01):
Is it a trampoline sort of type situation?
Kaz Cooke (36:03):
Yeah, does it look like the woven bit of a seatbelt? Help me. So that’s what I think it is. It’s not just the indignance, it’s the what’s being withheld from us or what information do all girls and all women need to know, both emotionally and physically, that will help them and give them a head start. So you can take one of these books to the doctor or make some notes before you go and say, “These are the things I’m feeling. I think it might be this.” And if you get a doctor who says, “Oh, you’ve just got to put up with it,” or “Come back in three months if that’s still happening.” No, sorry, it’s something that’s hurting, getting in the way of your life and you need help. I do think partly what it is about, and maybe you’re right, this is the indignance part, when I look back, it’s all about saying to girls and women, “Be bolshier.”
Jo Stanley (37:03):
I find the books like Girl Stuff and the ones that are actually for our younger women, young women and girls, that what it’s done is allowed me to open conversations with my daughter that I would’ve had, definitely would’ve had. But because the book was there, it allowed her to respond in a way where she wasn’t really awkward and like, “Oh my God, I’m having this conversation with my mom.” She’s just like, “Yeah, okay.”
Kaz Cooke (37:24):
What I love about the Girl Stuff books is that girls have them often in their own room under their pillow or slightly hidden so that they can read things themselves. And my experience with it is that they don’t read. In 13 Plus, that’s when the subjects of sex and drugs and alcohol are introduced, but they don’t read it until they want to, which is often before they’re about to start going to parties and stuff like that.
Jo Stanley (37:52):
This is what I once had a fight with Ita Buttrose to name-drop.
Kaz Cooke (37:56):
Can I just say thank you? I wish I’d been there to hold the pistol on a cushion or in the drawer.
Jo Stanley (38:02):
It was in the strangest moment in an ad break during… You’ve done Studio 10. So it’s in this ad break and we were talking about telling our kids about sex and she said, “Oh, you don’t tell young girls about sex.” And I was like, “Well, what would I say when my daughter asks me how babies are made?” And she said, “Well, you lie.” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And she said, “You don’t need to give them the information.” And I said, well, listen…”
Mimi Kwa (38:31):
You’re talking about age appropriate kinds of -.
Kaz Cooke (38:32):
That’s when people get assaulted and don’t say.
Jo Stanley (38:36):
Yeah, but I said to her, she only takes what she’s able to absorb at this age and then in another years, she asks again, and then she-
Kaz Cooke (38:45):
That’s not about her having sex. That’s just about how babies happen too. So you do do the age appropriate thing. Well, I’ll tell you a thing that completely refutes that, and that is… So I don’t have a sex chapter in Girl Stuff 8-12, but I still have a line about if it feels yucky and someone’s doing something that feels sexual, you’ve got to tell a trusted adult about that. And that’s much more expanded in Girl Stuff 13 Plus. And I got a letter from a mother saying, “How dare you tell girls in 13 Plus that sexual assault can occur? Because I was going to tell my daughter when she returned 16, and you have robbed me of the chance as a mother.” And I wrote her a long letter and explained that that might be great for her daughter, but other girls were being assaulted way before the age of 16 and needed to know it was wrong no matter what a coach or a religious person or someone in the family had told them and they needed to know what to do about it.
(39:45):
And then she was not placated. But then I got this incredible anonymous letter from someone about a court case that had happened and it was two daughters who had been abused by their grandfather. And when the judge asked the older girl, “Why did you go and tell your mum?” She said, “I read in Girls…” I know. I bawled my eyes out. “When I read Girl Stuff, that’s when I knew it was wrong and I didn’t want it to happen to my sister. And so I told my mum.” And if I’ve done nothing else in my entire career-
Mimi Kwa (40:23):
And this is the thing, I’ve got those two books for my two daughters-
Kaz Cooke (40:27):
And they were in primary school.
Mimi Kwa (40:28):
… And I haven’t read them. So thank God that you’ve written what you’ve written in them because so many parents will have bought them for their daughters but not read them and not actually know the profound information that’s in there.
Kaz Cooke (40:38):
And some people read it with their daughters, which I think is fine and great. I mean, people know their kids better than anyone else, and some kids are better having it under their pillow. Some people want to read it with… Especially the 8 to 12 year olds might want to read it with their mum. But yeah, and look, sometimes I do feel that real fear, Jo, about stuff, but then when things like that happen and people come up to me and say, people come up to me and go, “Oh, Alphonse is two now, and look at that whole thing, it has cleared up and it was a great birth.” And I’m thinking, “Darling, I do not know who you are.”
Jo Stanley (41:18):
Well. We are so glad Kaz knows who we are because we literally cannot get enough of her. So that’s why we’re bringing you part two of this conversation where we deep dive into menopause and how you can get the help you might need. We’ll release that episode at our usual time of 7 AM on Tuesday. So stay tuned for more of the inimitable Kaz Cook.
Mimi Kwa (41:43):
Please see our show notes for our acknowledgement of country and all the people who help us put this podcast together, as well as interesting links to our guests work and other references we’ve mentioned.
Jo Stanley (41:54):
We’re Jo.
Mimi Kwa (41:55):
And Mimi from A to BE. Rate, follow, and get in touch on our website.
Jo Stanley (42:00):
And let us know who’s A to BE you’d like to find out about.
Mimi Kwa (42:03):
We can’t wait for you to hear our next conversation.
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [00:42:09]