Rural women are struggling too | Ep. 26

Welcome to Talking Dairy, where we dive into the most important topics on the minds of New Zealand dairy farmers. Stress, depression, anxiety, fatigue and other well being issues are a growing concern in the rural sector. Often the conversations we have about it are focused on men. But what about rural women? They make up half of our sector, so why aren't we talking much about their wellbeing too? Is it because we think they're generally doing pretty well in this area? Well, according to our guest today, dairy farmer and leadership coach Loshni Manakam, that's not the case. Many rural women are indeed struggling, she says. So what kinds of challenges are women facing? Why don't we hear much about it and how does it affect us all? That is, why should we all, including men, care about it? Let's find out. And just a quick note. If while listening to this podcast, you think that you or someone you know might need support, please go to the Darianz website and look at the wellbeing section, that's darianz.co nz wellbeing, for a list of contact details. There's a heap of great support available and we'll also put contact details in the show notes of this podcast. Lashini, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have you with us today. And how are you doing?

Yeah, I'm doing great, Ben, thank you very much. Look, I'm so passionate about this topic, so it's an absolute pleasure to be here talking about it.

Before we get you to introduce yourself, I actually just want to go straight into this podcast by asking a big question. Why should we all, including men, care about how well rural women are doing? I ask that because, and I might be wrong about this, but I have a suspicion that some people might tune out of this podcast. Men might tune out of this podcast before we even get going. So can you address that question?

Yeah, I think that's a great question to start off with, Ben. And I think probably a key reason why I think rural women, rural men should be interested in this podcast and should be listening is that I think rural women are so integral to the well being of rural men. And we don't always realize that because, you know, there's a lot of challenges, right? If you're a farming person, whether you're male or female, where we're dealing with droughts and floods and we have financial stress and we worry about, you know, our labor issues and environmental compliance and there's a lot of farming men that are struggling with that. And the problem I think the challenge is, as much as we'd love for them to reach out, and there's a lot of work being done to normalize it and more men are reaching out. But at 2 o' clock in the morning, when a man's tossing and turning in bed and worrying about the fact that it's still raining or that it's not raining, the person that he can turn to is the woman lying alongside him and he can finally share that he is struggling or that it is hard or just shares of that burden. The challenge is if that if she's not in a good place, he can't actually help him, you know, with that burden that he's carrying. And also the other challenge is that if it's really bad for a farming man, then quite often the woman gets chucked into that. Not only is she worried about how can I look after him, how can I get him to get help, what can I do to support him to get out of this space that he's in? She's worrying about all of that, but she's also quite often chucked into, like, does she go has to go on the milking roster or do some of the work that he normally does. And you've had, you know, really good guest Todd Miller, and he talked about that as well. I really love that he articulated that we need to think about how do we support the women that are supporting men going through tough times, because he was really open about the fact that his wife played a good part, a big part in his journey and recovery. You know, we've got people like Doug Avery that also talk about their dark years and what a debt of gratitude he owes to his wife, who for five years, in his words, gave up her life to support him. We've got Wayne Langford as well that's also very open about his wife Tyler, supporting him on his journey. So I think for rural men, we really need to realize and be aware that rural women are absolutely key to supporting us. But the other big reason I think that all of us in the sector should be focusing and be concerned about how our rural women are doing is that especially in the dairy sector, rural women are a key part of the partnership of running the farming business. Doesn't matter whether you're a share milker, farm owner, farm manager. We're quite fortunate that we have rural couples together running a farming business. And so many rural women listening to this right now will be in charge of or involved in the finances. So the pay the gst, the bills, getting cash flows ready Getting the budget ready, sorting out the accountant, you know, all that kind of stuff. So you know, it's a huge chunk of your business or finances. But there's also your farming teams. Quite often rural women are the ones that are remembering that it's the 18 year old's birthday. So maybe we do a little, make a little fuss or that, you know, one of the farm team, their wives just had a baby so they do something there. So the well being and the culture on farm quite often is invisibly being held by a rural woman, whether she's actually involved on farms fully or partly or you know, just behind the scenes. There's all the environmental regulations and compliance that a lot of rural women are taking on part of that load because you know, as farmers there's so much going on that you can't deal with it all on your own anymore. So a lot of regulation compliance, a lot of that side of farming is being looked after by women. So if we don't have our women in a good space, I mean, what's the impact on our farming businesses? Right? And then, you know, I mean those are two key big reasons. But then thirdly, just sort of quickly, when you think about traditionally in farming, our rural women tend to be the primary caregivers because of the way our roles are. And when you think about the role of raising our kids, the next generation, even though we don't normally afford it, a lot of importance. I mean really, what is going to be more important? What's our legacies as farming men and women? When we eventually leave here, our legacy is going to be our kids. And generally rural women tend to be the ones that are the primary caregivers that are responsible for that. They're also integral to thriving rural communities. They're the ones that are volunteering stuff. So listen, Ben, I could go on forever about why it's not just about a rural woman and whether she's struggling, it's not just a challenge or an issue for her. Rural women are integral to the entire sector, to our farming families, to our farming businesses, to our farming communities. So really I think we're very short sighted if we don't focus on this and make sure that, that our rural women are in a good enough space that they can continue to support and serve the people in the communities they do.

Right answer. Awesome Loshni.

Thank you.

Hey, so you're pretty well known in the dairy sector, but some people listening to this and we do have listeners overseas as well. So some people might not have come across You. So tell us a bit about yourself. How did you end up firstly in New Zealand. Some listeners might tell, there's a bit of an accent there. How did you end up in New Zealand and in dairy farming and as a coach?

Okay, so I'm going to try and do this really quickly because to me talking about myself is boring. I want to talk about rural women. So I'll give you the, I'll try to give you the speed it up version. So I'm, you know, born and bred in South Africa. I'm a third generation South African Indian. And like a lot of Kiwis and Aussies and South Africans, when I finished school and finished uni, I did a law degree. I decided I was going to travel and see a little bit of the world. So I went backpacking and I met a lovely Kiwi farming boy called Donald. Kidding. All the way from the north island of New Zealand. And he convinced me that New Zealand was the land of milk and honey. And you know, when you're young and you're dumb and you're in love, you're, you know, you do some crazy things. So I immigrated because I met a boy, that's a simple story. Came over here to New Zealand about 1998 and we fast forward whatever 23 years now. Yeah, we're farming because Donald's a fifth generation dairy farmer and I made that mistake of marrying the younger brother, I didn't marry the oldest, so the oldest is the one that's bought the family farm and we've traveled a bit and made our own way and now we're in Southland. And the reason I've ended up in coaching and especially focusing on coaching and facilitating to rural women is probably a bit of that personal reason, which was like a lot of farming women, you know, after my kids were, I think they were 10 and 7 and 3, I started going, oh, what am I going to do now? You know, that primary role as mom in support of our farming business wasn't taking up as much of my time. So I really had to do a lot of soul searching. And it took me a long time to find my confidence again, to realize that I could do stuff. And this is a story that's common for a lot of rural women that, you know, we've come into the whole farming sector with skills from elsewhere, confidence, and we've taken on the primary role of mom, supporter of farming businesses, et cetera. And somewhere along the line we start losing our confidence. So that's when I stumbled across coaching. Did a lot of Work, thinking about it, and ended up over the last 10 years, spending time coaching and facilitating two rural women. And I love it.

And it's that experience that you've had, that sort of. That's kind of why we've got you on the podcast, really. Cause of what you've seen and what you know about this issue in the sector. So I think it's useful for you to explain that background as a coach because it helps people understand why you have expertise on this topic.

Really, it's personal experience. And it's the starting off of thinking that it's just me, that I'm the only one like this. Why am I not satisfied when all the other women look satisfied and really doing a lot of things, that negative self talk, et cetera. And then slowly over the years going, oh, my giddy aunt, it's not just me, there's a couple other women. And then realizing it's not just a couple other women. This is systemic. And that's what gives me the confidence now to speak so surely of the fact that rural women are struggling. Because in the beginning, I thought it was just me, and I thought there was something wrong with me for struggling when I had so much. Like a lot of the women listening right now, we have a lot of gratitude for being rural women and for having all the joys that rural life can bring you, and having healthy kids and partner and a good career and living in a stunning part of the world. There's so much to be grateful for. And that's why it's really hard if you do find yourself struggling a bit because you feel like there's something wrong with you because you should be grateful. So it's hard to speak up.

Yeah, so that was the question I was going to ask, really was. Most of the emphasis on rural mental wellbeing seems to be on men. And most of our great ambassadors in this space are men. And so I reckon a lot of us think that women in the rural sector are doing pretty well. So you're saying that's not the case?

Yes, definitely. I'm saying that's not the case. And like I said 10 years ago, I would have struggled to say that as well. I did not think that rural women were struggling. I thought it was just me, but it has been the experience. So probably. There's probably three key reasons why I am so certain when I say that rural women are struggling. One is data, and people like data. Two is my personal experience, which I've already shared with you, but three is probably my professional experience in the last 10 years as a coach and facilitator working with rural women. So if we start with the data, you know, Farmstrong in 2018 did a study, a survey, and it was nearly 800 women involved. Survey was around women on their well being, rural women on their own well being. And that survey showed very clearly that rural women were struggling. Of the six big factors that were affecting their wellbeing were things like their workload, not having enough time off. Farm women knew that the way they were living was unsustainable and the cracks were appearing. They were quite open about that. So the data shows that. The other interesting thing about that farm strong survey was women also knew what they needed to do in order to get well. So they know the five ways of well being. We've thankfully, we've had so much work done in this area that most of us understand we need to sleep and we need to rest and we need to eat well and move, et cetera, et cetera. But I think what's interesting is the gap between knowing that you're not doing very well and you need to make changes, knowing what the changes are. But it's the middle, it's what are the hurdles and the obstacles. Why is that we still struggle and this applies to rural men and rural women, because we know it's not good, we know what to do, but we're not doing it. The data is there that rural women are struggling. The second thing I said that, you know, my personal experience of realizing that I'm not the only one, a lot of my peer group as well, you know, we're masking, we kind of act like everything's going really well because that's the culture. You know, when we bump into someone in supermarket and you go, hey, how are you doing? And she'll say, I'm doing really good. How are you doing? And you say, really good. And then you ask, how's the farm? Yeah, good. And you know, we do that good, good, good thing in New Zealand and maybe elsewhere in the world as well. You know, we mask and so we don't realize that other women are struggling. But also in the last 10 years of my professional experience is the realization that so many of us are struggling in silos, but we think we're the only one. So we don't talk about it. And you know, I've talked to a lot of organizations in the rural sector in New Zealand and they see the same thing amongst their members, that women are exhausted, they're doing too much, they're not necessarily looking after themselves, et cetera. So, yeah, the short answer to your question was yes, I believe that rural women are struggling. And I also understand that we aren't all aware of that, you know, because even rural women themselves, I think we've normalized it, and we don't necessarily realize that we are struggling. So how can you get more support and more rural advocates for women when we ourselves are not seeing it?

Do you think there are other reasons why we don't hear more about this? You've touched on that, that maybe it's a case of it being normalized so you don't make a big deal out of it. Are there any other reasons why we don't hear more about this? And why are most of the role models in this space men?

Good questions. Yeah. You know, because when you do think about it, right, if you ask a group of farming people to name some mental health advocates, they'll probably come up with, you know, four or five men straight away. You know, we've got some great men like Mike King and John Kerwin and Doug Avery and Matt Chisholm and Wayne Langford, and we could probably name quite a few. But I think people will be challenged to name a rural woman mental advocate. We definitely have women doing work. We have women doing amazing work, but we don't know about them. They're not platformed as well as much as the men are. Which is the reason why I'm very grateful for this podcast that you guys are prioritizing women. So thank you for that. The question about why don't we hear more about rural women struggling, I think there's two key reasons. I think one is that there's a consensus or a presumption that there's no reason for rural women to be struggling. Because I think we have a presumption. And again, your listeners can correct me. Right. But I do. What I've come across is that we have a presumption that rural women have it easy. We don't have it as hard as our rural men that are out there struggling, that are doing a lot of the physical labor, that are doing so much of it in adverse weather, et cetera. So we think, well, why would a rural woman struggle? She's kind of, you know, indoors. She's got it easy. Yeah. She looks after the kids. Yeah. She cleans the house, but that's about it. Right? So I think there's this presumption that why on earth would rural women be struggling? And the presumption doesn't come from bad Intentions. It's not like people don't want to prioritize women. They just don't have an awareness of all the things that rural women are carrying and all the emotional labor they're doing. As well as the changing role of a farming woman is. She's doing a lot in the farming business, but we haven't adjusted our mindset. We're still very much, you know, in generations and generations ago, where there were more traditional roles, you know, in our grandfathers and our great grandfathers that did so much to break in the land and to work hard out there. And maybe there wasn't as much of a role for women then, or maybe even the women that were doing the same work were still invisible. They weren't recognized. So we have that presumption. It's still the same, but times have changed, and we need to adjust our mindset that real women are doing a lot. So one is that presumption that's external from us. The second challenge, though, is that we've internalized it. So women ourselves. There'll be a lot of women listening right now that don't believe that they're doing a lot, that have internalized the presumption that I am just the housewife, I'm just the mom. I just help. He does most of the work. So we don't speak up about the struggles because we don't think that we're contributing enough. We don't think we're adding value. We don't think we're working that hard. And I do apologize to women if I'm painting you a negative picture, but I think a lot of us aren't even aware of this, that we have internalized it, normalized it. We're nervous about asking for help because we don't think we're doing as much as the mean. So we're kind of failing if we ask for help. I think that's another key reason.

A couple of things come to mind. Firstly, I just wanted to ask, what are the kinds of things that rural women are struggling with? Are they the same things as men? It's quite a general sort of a question, but from listening to some of the things you've said before and reading some of your comments, it seems like some of the things that women are dealing with are possibly a little bit different to men in the rural sector.

Yeah, that's an interesting question, Ben. I do think it's different. I think that's one of the reasons why we don't realize that rural women are struggling, that we have Very specific challenges that maybe our rural men aren't facing. And we have definitely got some in common. So there's overlap. The three things that I focus on with my work with thriving farming women is I really focus on the fact that women are not looking after themselves. So we have very, very low levels of self care. The other one is that we don't have the confidence to go out and do the things we want to do. And the third thing would be around connection, that women are not prioritizing good quality connection. But all those three things, the lack of self care, the lack of connection, the lack of confidence, they do come from what we've been talking about already, that culture of well, I'm not that important, or there's so many more important things. Like women prioritize their kids above themselves, they prioritize their farming partner over themselves, they prioritize the farming business, they prioritize their community roles, their other work off farm work roles above themselves. Because one of the things, and like I said, I get to work with some amazing women and women leaders, but their Achilles heel is the lack of self care. So it's not that they don't have skill, ability, those kind of things. But I've heard women often say to me, why is it that when things get busy, the first thing I chuck out the window is myself, my own self care. I know that exercise is important, I know how good I feel when I get out in nature. Why is it that's the first thing I drop? And the point I try to make to them as subtly as I can because it's quite a punch to the guts. What I'm about to say, right, is that we look after the things we value. So unfortunately, if we're not looking after ourselves, our actions speak louder than the words. It paints the picture that we don't value ourselves. And if there are women listening that are but challenged by that, I would, you know, would ask you to reflect on what is it that you do for yourself on a regular basis for your self care. And I found with my work that most women do almost nothing. Women will try to say, oh, I go to the hairdressers every six weeks and yes, I understand that is self care. But if that's about the only answer you can come up with, I think that should be a reality check to look into and look at why you're not looking after yourself or why you're not doing things on a regular basis to look after yourself. And the other example is when I do on a Sunday, I Do a self care Sunday post. So I ask women to think on a Sunday, hey, here's a great opportunity, take two minutes, think about what are you going to do this week for your self care. It could be a tiny thing, it can be a huge thing, it doesn't matter to me. But again women will thank me and woman will put down an answer of what they're going to do but they need someone outside of them to come and ask them to please look after yourself because we don't have this inbuilt ability to prioritize our own well being. And it's not just us. You know, a lot of women will be saying yeah but I don't have the support, I don't have the time, I feel too guilty, I understand all the barriers to it but it's the challenge that we have is around that self care and then there's challenges around confidence because how do you know you take someone like me and I've been traveling the world, I've got my law degree and then I marry a farmer and I choose to be the stay at home mom. And I'm very grateful for that opportunity and to support him in our business. I love that Donald was the one getting up at 4 o' clock in the morning and milking the cows. I'm not complaining about that. I don't want to swap roles but it does something to your self esteem and your self confidence when for a decade or for years you're seen as the kid's mom or your identity is your partner's wife and that's all that you are and everything you do in that identity is invisible and it's not overtly valued by society, by our sector, by most people. So the challenge around confidence is really big as well. And then like I said, yeah, that challenge around connection, those would be the three things that I think off the top of my head. Some of the challenges that role women face.

I'm interested in what you're talking about there about and I know we're going a little bit off on a tangent here but talking about identity, that's a funny one, eh? Because I think I've heard you say that for a lot of men farming it's fine, you've got your identity, you can quite easily point to what you do and where you get your identity from. I'm a dairy farmer and there's sort of some concrete things they can point to where you're saying for women that can be challenging. Yeah, yeah.

And look, we are speaking traditionally right there's a lot of women out there that are the farmers. So I do apologize for speaking. Generalization. It's just harder. And the reality is we are still very much in a traditional sort of culture and society. So many of our women have to deal with the sort of, you know, I'm the stay at home mom or I have part time on farm. So, yeah, like you said, especially in the ag sector, in the dairy farming sector, men are afforded some mana, some status, some acknowledgement for what they do as dairy farmers. You know, we have spaces where we can acknowledge our men, but where are the spaces to acknowledge a woman who is a farming partner, but her role in the farming business is invisible or seen as being just a small role, like raising the calves, like doing all the stuff she does to support a farming business, doing the finances, the paperwork, all that kind of stuff. There isn't an identity around that. Except for you support your farming business, but that's all you're seen to do. You're a supporter of your partner, you're a supporter of your farming business, you're a supporter of your kids, you're a supporter of your community, but you don't have an identity for yourself as yourself. All your identities attached to other people or to your place of work.

There's a word that you use, it comes up a little bit. I've noticed that word, invisible. Is that something in your coaching over the years you've heard other women use? Is that a term that they refer to?

Unfortunately not. I wish we were at that level of awareness that women themselves could recognize that the work they do is invisible. But it, for me, it's a word that I use because it really sums things up. I think rural women are invisible and I think rural women are struggling. Those are two key points that I do. So. Yeah, no wonder you've added a few times.

Ben lashni, something else I've heard you talk about is the ripple effect that when a woman in the rural sector is not doing well, that it has a ripple effect around her. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, I think I've sort of alluded to it so far. But, you know, I love that saying that when you empower women, you empower generations to come. Because again, even though it's an invisible role, that is the power, you know, of a nurturer, you know, of the primary caregiver, she impacts everything. But yeah, I always think that if a woman's not doing well. Right. You know, you know yourself, if you get up in the morning and you're A bit flat or a bit grumpy or. But you know, it has an impact on the people you live with and the people you love. So if mom gets up angry or grumpy or low or flat, it impacts on those kids straight away. It impacts on that farming partner straight away. It can impact on your farming team when you get out there, if you're not bringing yourself to each of the spaces you occupy, it absolutely has a negative ripple impact. And same thing with her roles in the community as a volunteer or her roles as off farm work, paid work or volunteer work. The other way to flip it around, I say to women, when you are thriving, everybody benefits. And that's really important message. And it's a message I keep reiterating with women because the woman that I tend to attract and work with, and I want to say it's a generalization for most of the women in the rural sector, right. Is an incredibly giving, generous, nurturing. They want to. Women are not complaining that, oh, no, I have to look after my kids. Oh, no, I have to support. It's not something we're complaining about, you know, it's something we want to do.

So, Loshni, you've been working with rural women for a long time, and I don't want to. I was wondering if I can ask for some stories about transformation that you've seen. And obviously we don't want to give away people's identities and things like that, and there's confidentiality. But can you give a couple of examples of women that you've seen who have gone from struggling with their wellbeing to thriving and how that happened and how it made a difference not just to them, but to those around them.

Yeah. I'd love to share stories, Ben, but like you said, we know we have to be mindful because obviously with the coaching relationship, it's 100% confidential. So I'll probably speak to you more in sort of general terms. Like at the beginning of my career, I was working a lot in leadership development of women and leadership coaching and professional development. And what I found with women there, you know, there were women on governance programs and other programs, et cetera, so very much at the sort of leadership level of their journey. But what I found that quite often we kept going back to a personal development challenge that they had. And very often it was either lack of confidence in their own abilities or the guilt they felt if they were going to spend time on their career and the impact it was going to have on their farming families, their kids, on their Farming businesses. And I know a lot of professional women now today still deal with this guilt. But from the woman that I've worked with, I think it's been so exciting to see them lose a bit of that guilt, to see her understand that actually she's a better mom and a better wife and a better farming partner when she's happy and when she's thriving. So that's been a really enjoyable part and a sort of common thread to a lot of the professional women that I've worked with. But also, there's so many examples, so many tiny examples of women that have come to workshops and things where I've really tried to get through to them that you matter, that when you thrive, it has a positive ripple impact on everyone around you because it's given her that little bit of that permission to go away and do something small. So I'll get messages after doing a workshop, and it'll be what appears to be the most tiniest things. But it makes me so happy because it's a baby step on that journey. And women will message me with, you know, after listening to your workshop, I went home, and the next day I got up and I took my cup of tea and I sat on the deck and I watched the sunrise. And I haven't done that for years. And I used to do that. And her taking that five or ten minutes for herself, like, it really warms the cockles of my heart. And it can sound so tiny. But it's because she realized that she can do that, because so many of us will relate to the fact that you make a hot drink and you reach for it and it's cold and you're like, oh, that's right, I married 45 minutes ago. And then the phone rang, or I had to do that email. I had to nip into town, or I had to pick the kids up or whatever it is. So something as small as that, or the other one that I love is when women start getting back into their exercise again, you know, where they will message afterwards and say, I contacted my friend and it turns out she was keen on playing squash, too. And so now we're playing squash and they're so excited and happy. So it's the journey from sort of struggling to thriving, unfortunately, is a very long journey. And I am really privileged to be sharing that parts of that journey with women. I literally cannot tell you of women that I know that have transformed from struggling to thriving. And it's a bit of a low note for me, you know, but it is the reality that I don't know many rural women that are thriving because we're not there yet. There's so many women still dealing with challenges along the way. But I love, I love the steps that they're taking as they go on their journey because it is, it's lifelong. Look, I'm still on that journey. I am absolutely still on that journey. And I think we all will be. I think it's a bit naive to assume or to think that we could do a course or we could do a program or we could come to Loshni's workshop and then, voila, we're gonna transformed. But I am learning that it's such a privilege and it's still critically important that we help women take baby steps as well as big steps if they're ready.

A lot of what I'm hearing is it sounds like it's about giving yourself permission to actually put yourself first, even sometimes and do some of the things that make you come alive.

Do you know what, Ben? I would love it if women would put themselves first. Right? Give them. But I think for me, and again, I hope this doesn't sound too negative, but it's realistic for me. If I can get women to put themselves in the top three or the top five, I'm laughing all the way to the bank. I'm winning. I am thrilled because it is such a challenge to get a woman to prioritize herself as first because it's just not in their nature. You know, she can't not put her kids first, she can't not put a partner first. It's so much conditioning around being a good farming wife or being a good mom or also it's your natural instinct, you know, it's not that people are forcing us. You know, a lot of us, we have kids and we know that we want, we're willing and happy to sacrifice a lot because we love our children, we want the best for them.

You know, what it makes me think of is, you know, when you're on the plane and they do their pre flight kind of warning thing and they say in an emergency that air mask's going to drop down. And of course, intuitively, as a parent, the first thing you want to do is stick that on your kids. Whereas the advice is always put it on yourself first because you can't help your kids if you're not breathing oxygen. It kind of makes me think of that.

Yeah, I love that, Ben. I absolutely love that. Because I use that example with women. I say to them, look, this is What a kind, caring, giving person you are, that when your life's in danger and your child's life's in danger and you need this oxygen every single time you get on the plane, they have to remind us. So we override our natural instinct because our natural instinct is to reach out and help your child. But I absolutely use that same example, that same analogy. And I say to them that you're no use to anyone if you're lying there passed out, you know, because you didn't have any oxygen. So it's absolutely something I keep. I use the hashtag sorry, not sorry when I work with women, because I say, so, look, I'm going to sort of punch you in the guts here, but I'm doing it out of love. And thankfully no one has sued me yet and people are still thanking me for it. But, you know, I ask tough questions. I ask them things like, have your kids met the woman that their dad fell in love with? And normally there's a bit of a ouch and a gasp in the room because it really helps women remember who they were and who they've become and how your children have probably very rarely if ever experienced the young woman you were that their dad fell in love with. And like I always say, I'm not advocating that we all go back to being. I don't want to be young and silly and, you know, do some of the dumb things I did in my 20s. I like who I am, but I think there's a big space in our lives for who we were. There still is. You know, I'm not. Not adventurous loshni or not mischievous or not curious. But our lives become so much narrower. And it's really literally about your family and your farming business. And there's this unspoken formula that I think rural women follow, which is that family plus farming equals happily ever after. That we are meant to be incredibly happy once we got our family going well, once we've got our farming businesses ticking along, we're supposed to be happy. And that's where the guilt and the critical self talk and the feeling of failure comes in. When you realize that actually you want a bit more where you have those moments and you go, wait, is this it? Is this all that I get to be and do and have for the rest of my life? And when a woman thinks that straight away, quite often what's followed is the guilt. It's like, oh, no, I'm a terrible person because I love my kids, I love my partner, I love our farming business. Why am I Complaining. So it's a real mix in your head. You go round and round in circles and a lot of us are doing that on our own and we need to talk about it more.

So that's probably a good place to finish up. Actually. Loshni is what changes do you think need to happen in farming, possibly at a sector wide level or to the very culture of dairy farming for women's wellbeing to improve? What do you see as some things that could make a difference?

Oh, so many things, Ben, so many things. So I think one of the things I would love to see from industry leaders and organizations is to acknowledge and prioritize rural women. I don't think it's just a job for the women's organisations who I think do a fabulous job. I think it needs to be the entire industry acknowledging that rural women play a critical role in the continued success of our industry. Because like we said it over and over again, I think currently rural women's contributions are invisible. Traditionally it has been invisible. But I think industry can play a big role in helping us not just center our rural men, but also bring our rural women into the picture. Because rural women make up 50% of our sector. But we aren't always portrayed or platformed. So I think if we could get leadership that make it easier for rural women to be seen and heard and acknowledged and valued, so many ways that we can do that, right? There's really small practical ways. We think about things like discussion groups. If your parents, one of you is going to go to the discussion group because the other one's going to stay at home and look after the kids. And quite often that's our rural men. So without intending to, our rural women are excluded. We can't take part. So it's a question of just thinking about it. How do we address this? Like literally looking at everything we do as an organization or as an industry and going, well, how can we change it so that we include more women? Maybe we could explicitly invite women's participation in panels and surveys and these kind of things. You know, it's so good that you're platforming me, but yeah, how else can we platform other women's well being advocates as much as we platform men's wellbeing advocates? We could do articles in all our publications on rural women's contribution value. So I think a big role, I think for industry is to take a look at ourselves and ask ourselves, are we actually making it easy for 50% of our sector to be seen, heard, acknowledged and valued? And if we aren't doing a good job of it. What can we do about it? But culturally, I think, yeah, that traditional role that we have, where we've centered on men, I think that needs to change because times have changed. We aren't still, you know, 100 years ago where it was the rural men that were doing almost all of the work. A lot of rural women do a lot of work in our farming businesses. As a culture, we need to shift that. But I know it's easier said than done. And I think the biggest thing for me, though, is that it's not just at an industry level. I think while we as rural women are waiting for industry to start recognizing us and prioritizing us and valuing us, there's so much power for each of us as individuals and as well as collectively because, again, we make up 50% of the sector. So what can you do as an individual to help yourself be seen, be heard, be acknowledged or valued? Or what can you do to help another rural woman be seen, heard, acknowledged and valued? And again, we can do really, really simple things. If you're the kind of woman that's comfortable going to discussion groups, keep attending them. We will see more women there. Or speak up. If you're comfortable speaking up, speak up. But if you're not that kind of woman, and we don't all have to be going to meetings and talking up, some of us won't. But even acknowledging yourself in your role as a mum, as a wife, as a farming partner on farm, in your community, we do not have the habit or the ability or that muscle. We haven't developed that muscle to acknowledge ourselves. I remember one of the women that I've been working with recently, and she said, how, you know, it's taken a long time, but she's finally hired a cleaner to come in for two hours a week just to do some deep cleaning. Because she's finally recognized she can't do everything. She's too busy. And it's a lot of guilt involved as a woman to hire a cleaner because we feel like we're failing, we should be able to clean our own homes. So she's finally done that. And she said, oh, my, Gideon. When she comes back after the clean has been, or when the cleaner's leaving, and she thanks her because the house is so, you know, smells good and this. She's so grateful that someone's done a deep clean of the bathroom and the oven and stuff. And I said, then why don't you thank yourself for all the other hours that you're doing, you're paying someone as well as the fact that you are so grateful to her. So why can't we as women practice that gratitude and acknowledgement to ourselves, what we're doing? We don't need to wait for our husbands and our kids to thank us. And most of us are not doing it for their thanks. Right. And let's be honest, they're going to forget. They're not going to remember to thank us. And we don't need to wait for industry thank us. There's so much power in starting to shift your own mindset. And you can do simple things. You can sit down at the end of the day and write down three things I'd like to acknowledge myself for. You know, no one else needs to know this stuff. You can also. I think a really important thing that I think a rural woman could do is to give yourself permission to start practicing some self care. And you don't have to wait for others to do that because a lot of women that I work with will say that it's really hard to take some time out to go and do the yoga class they want to do or to go and study that thing they want to do or to go and meet up with their friends. Because, you know, self care is not just about having massages and things. There's a lot involved in, you know, what it takes for all of us to thrive. Right. I think if you can start giving yourself permission, if we stop waiting for others to give us permission, then we can start making changes from the bottom up. I do think we need industry to support us and to acknowledge us and to platform us. But we have so much power when we realize that we can make these changes ourselves.

That's a fantastic place to end on, I think. Loshni, I feel like we could talk for hours on this topic, but I think that's a nice place to wrap it up. And I was just thinking you were talking earlier about your Facebook page. Could you just tell us for anyone listening to this, if they want to follow that Facebook page and get those reminders and tips from you, where can they go?

Yes, I would love if there are women that this resonates with if they want to go to thriving farming women group. It's a private Facebook group, so you need to just ask for permission to be admitted. But I will absolutely grant you permission. So yeah, I would, yeah, love to see you in there if this podcast resonates with you or also if I can, Ben, just, you know, if there are industry groups that do want to work together or if there are people that are passionate about the well being of rural women and how we start empowering and giving women permission, I would absolutely love to have a conversation around that because we do need the support. It's a hard job getting people to prioritize this topic because it was hard enough getting people to prioritize rural men's well being and a lot of good works had to go into that for the last 10, 15, 20 years for us to get to the point we're at. We need the same with women. So anyone who wants ideas or to collaborate, I'd love to hear from you.

Fantastic. Loshni. Such an honor to have you on the podcast. Thanks for all of your passion and your energy and your expertise. Really grateful for your time.

Oh thank you so much Ben. It's a real privilege to be here and I really appreciate that. You know, there's the interest in this topic. So thank you.

Thanks for tuning into TalkingDairy today. If you think you could do us some help right now with your own mental health, we'd really encourage you to reach out and make use of the great support services available out there. A good place to start is with your gp. Just phone them up and make an appointment. But if you need to speak with someone sooner, here are some places to go. There's Rural Support Trust 0800-787-254 the Depression Helpline, 0800-11757. You can also free call or text the number number 1737 at any time of the day to talk to or text with a trained counsellor or a peer support worker. And for some advice specifically for farmers on how to stay in your best shape mentally and physically, check out Farmstrong Co nz. Finally, if you're keen to listen to more of our podcasts, go to DairyNZ Co NZ podcast or find us on your favourite podcast platforms. Catch you next time.