Anna Cody on women's stories and the shape of our workplaces

Every woman has a story about ‘that guy’ at work, the who says inappropriate things – or worse. And many women, myself included, have a story about making a complaint and then their contract suddenly comes to an end.

In December 2022, Australia’s Respect @ Work legislation came into effect, introducing a new positive duty for companies to proactively prevent sexual harassment, not just respond after the fact, and definitely not by firing the woman who made the complaint.

Dr Anna Cody is Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner with the Australian Human Rights Commission, working at the frontline of how these laws work, where there are gaps, and what we can do about it.

She has just released a new report titled Speaking from Experience – The HRC listened to women who have experienced sexual harassment or sex based discrimination, and created 11 recommendations.

In the words of one of the woman interviewed, “talking is lovely, but action is what gets it done”

So if you want to know what action your organisation can and should be taking, and you want to know what you as an individual can do if you come across ‘that guy’, alongside lessons in leadership from Dr Cody, this episode’s for you!

Before becoming the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Cody had a distinguished career as an academic, as a lawyer specialising in discrimination and as a passionate advocate for human rights.

She was previously Dean of the School of Law at Western Sydney University, has worked in human rights in Mexico, international development in East Timor and Indonesia, at the Centre for Economic and Social Rights in New York, in community legal education in El Salvador, and worked with Indigenous women in Alice Springs establishing a domestic violence service.