Gender Doesn't Matter (2016) | Jesse Bering, Raewyn Connell Cordelia Fine & Elizabeth Anne Riley

Gender Doesn't Matter (2016) | Jesse Bering, Raewyn Connell Cordelia Fine & Elizabeth Anne Riley

Author: Festival of Dangerous Ideas July 9, 2021 Duration: 58:16

With more people coming out as gender fluid, transitioning or on a spectrum of gender identity, it's clear the biological constraints of gender today have loosened. But how do we deal with enduring gender-based social inequality and injustice? Will we ever get to a point in society where gender doesn't matter

Jesse Bering is an award-winning science writer, psychologist, and academic. 

Raewyn Connell is one of Australia's leading social scientists. She is best known internationally as a sociologist of gender and a pioneer of research on masculinities and best known in Australia for work on class inequality and social justice in education. 

Cordelia Fine is an Associate Professor at Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne. Her popular science book, Delusions of Gender: The Real Science of Sex Differences was described "required reading for every neurobiology student, if not every human being." 

Elizabeth Anne Riley, PhD is a Sydney-based counsellor, academic & clinical supervisor specialising in gender diversity. 


For more than a decade, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas has curated a space where provocative thinking isn't just welcomed, it's the entire point. This podcast is a direct line to that stage, offering an archive of talks that deliberately unsettle comfortable opinions and interrogate the stubborn problems we often agree to ignore. Each episode captures a live conversation from Australia's original disruptive ideas festival, presenting arguments that can be exhilarating, uncomfortable, and vitally important. You’ll hear from a compelling roster of festival alumni-including leading experts, intellectual troublemakers, and visionary authors-who share perspectives that conventional discourse frequently sidelines. The discussions here aren't theoretical exercises; they grapple with the pressing and difficult issues shaping our society and culture right now. Tuning in means granting yourself access to a decade-long tradition of intellectual courage, where the core assumption is that some truths are only reached by first entertaining a dangerous idea. It’s a chance to listen as boundaries are pushed, not for shock value, but for clarity. The result is a consistently challenging and refreshing audio experience that complicates simple narratives and expands what feels possible to talk about.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Festival of Dangerous Ideas
Podcast Episodes
Ruth Ben-Ghiat (2022) | Return of the Strongman [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:28
From Russia and China to America, Turkey and beyond, illiberal leaders have used corruption, machismo, disinformation, propaganda and violence to stay in power and expand their influence for decades. With authoritarianis…
Adam Tooze (2022) | F=Fail [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:58
The 21st century was supposed to be better than this. As we confront the impacts of climate change, wars old and new, the pandemic and its aftermath, and a dangerously fragile global financial system, it's time to ask 'W…
Jacqui Lambie (2022) | On Blowing Things Up [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:29
Known as one of the most fierce and outspoken politicians in the country, Jacqui Lambie does not hold back. Not with her opinion, her work ethic, or her convictions. And she's done the unthinkable, for a politician, she'…
Masha Gessen & Tom Switzer (2014) | Putin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:35
It's been over 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and 22 years since Vladimir Putin came to power. Now in the throes of a Ukraine invasion, the Russian regime combats any c…
Jesse Bering (2012) | We Are All Sexual Perverts [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:21
We may not want to admit it, but there is a spectrum of perversion along which we all sit. Whether it's voyeurism, exhibitionism, or your run-of-the-mill foot fetish, we all possess a suite of sexual tastes as unique as…
FODI: The In-Between | 08.5 | Endtropy | B-Side [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:01
A playerless piano performs a repeating piece of music in which every note of a scale is played on every beat of the bar. The melody is absorbed into chaos, as the words of Noami Klein and Waleed Aly speak of our interco…
FODI: The In-Between | 07.5 | Revivification | B-Side [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 5:47
CellF is a cybernetic musician and the world's first neural synthesiser, created by Perth-based artist and researcher, Guy Ben-Ary. Its 'brain' is made of biological neural networks bio-engineered from the artist's own c…