It s 9 October, 2012. She s been PM for two years and four months and she s worn down. She s been hounded, slurred, dissected, libelled. She s been violated over and over again by words. Julia Gillard s prime ministership was marred by the Australian media monopoly s inability to step over one thing: that she was a woman. A woman who, as a young aspiring lawyer, was told, When you are on your way up, don t forget the flowers that grow on the roadside . There, in the spotlight of Australia s politics and patriarchy, she encounters thorns of the sharpest, cruellest kind.

Joanna Murray-Smith s Julia peels back the public mask to attend to the private woman; one who harbours compassion, doubt, rage and ambition. A woman compelled not simply by her own voice, but by the voices of a million others speaking to, and with, her.

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