Rebecca Huntley

Rebecca Huntley (born 1972) is one of Australia’s foremost social researchers and experts on social trends. She is an author and researcher with degrees in law, a first class degree in film studies and a PhD in Gender Studies. She is currently senior editor and director of insights with the Mamamia Women's Network. She has been a regular columnist for Business Weekly Review, a feature writer for Vogue and a radio presenter for ABC's RN. She regularly features on radio and TV.

Early Life and Education

Huntley was born to her mother, schoolteacher Marisa Crawford, and her father, lawyer James Crawford, in Oxford, England. Until her early teenaged years, she moved frequently between Adelaide, Sydney, Cambridge and Oxford.

Huntley attended secondary education at Sydney Girls High School, before studying law at the University of New South Wales, spending one year of her degree at the University of British Columbia. She also attained an honours degree in film studies, writing her thesis on the political debate around the unbanning of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s controversial film Salo.

From 1997 to 2002, Huntley studied at the University of Sydney to obtain a PhD in Gender Studies, exploring the campaign for the women’s vote and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) campaign in the 1983 and 1993 federal elections.

Career

Huntley worked briefly in legal publishing before she attended the University of Sydney to obtain her PhD. During this period, she worked with several federal politicians in the ALP, acting as an active member of the National Committee of EMILY’s List Australia and the ALP’s federal policy committee. Simultaneously, she worked as an academic, teaching public law, film studies, politics and communication part-time. Huntley left the ALP in 2006, wishing to be politically neutral in her research.

While working in politics and publishing, Huntley authored her first book, The World According to Y: Inside the New Adult Generation. Not long after, she was appointed as the director of The Mind & Mood Report.

In 2006 she gave the 2006 National Republican Lecture in Canberra, her talk entitled "Trust Matters: Politics, Trust and the Republican Cause". Dr Huntley is a committed republican and worked for the YES campaign during the 1999 Australian republic referendum.

She has written for numerous publications including The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, marie claire, Griffith Review, The Hoopla and Mamamia. She has been a regular columnist for Business Review Weekly and was a feature writer for Australian Vogue from 2004 to 2012.

In 2013, Huntley appeared at TEDxSydney, talking about truth in social research. ^[1]

Huntley has been on the board of directors of Campaign Action and the Dusseldorp Forum. She was a member of the UNSW Arts and Social Sciences Advisory Committee.

She has been a regular guest at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and numerous writers festivals across Australia. She has also appeared as a guest on many television shows including Q&A, Gruen Planet, Media Circus, The Drum, Meet the Press, The Observer Effect, Paul Murray Live, ABC’s News 24 and One Plus One. In early 2014, Huntley joined the ABC under Radio National Drive, a current affairs radio show.

Until 2015, Huntley was a director at Ipsos, leading The Mind & Mood Report and Ipsos Food-Health Report. She is currently senior editor and director of insights with the Mamamia Women's Network and cohosts a weekly podcast called Just Between Us. She is also an author.

Personal Life

Huntley currently lives and works in Sydney with her husband Daniel Yarrow, her daughter Sofia, and the most recent additions to their family, twin daughters Stella and Sadie.

Works

• Rebecca Huntley, Does Cooking Matter? (Penguin, 2014)
• Rebecca Huntley, Nonna’s Gnocchi (Little People Publishing, 2014) ^[2]
• Rebecca Huntley, The Italian Girl (UQ Press, 2012) ^[3]
• Rebecca Huntley, Eating Between the Lines: Food and Equality in Australia (Black Inc, 2008)^[4]
• Rebecca Huntley, The World According to Y: Inside the New Adult Generation (Allen & Unwin, 2006)^[5]
• Kate Deverall, Rebecca Huntley, Penny Sharpe & Jo Tilly (eds), Party Girls: Labor Women Now (Pluto Press, 2000)
• Rebecca Huntley, A Most Generous Act in Suzanne Boccalatte & Meredith Jones (eds), Trunk Vol Two: Blood (Boccalatte Make Books, 2013)
• Rebecca Huntley, Serious Hair in Suzanne Boccalatte & Meredith Jones (eds), Trunk Vol One: Hair (Boccalatte Make Books, 2010)
• Janet Ramsey & Rebecca Huntley, "Never Made to Follow, Never Born to Lead”: Women in the NSW ALP in Deborah Brennan & Louise A Chappell (eds), “No Fit Place For Women”? Women in New South Wales Politics, 1856–2006 (UNSW Press, 2006)
• Rebecca Huntley, ‘Bending Over Backwards’ in Griffith REVIEW 45: The Way We Work (2014)
• Rebecca Huntley, ‘A Taste of Home’ in Griffith REVIEW 27: Food Chain (2010)
• Verity Firth & Rebecca Huntley, Who’s Afraid of a Public School? Public Perceptions of Education in Australia
• Rebecca Huntley, Censuring Salo: The Unbanning of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo (1995) ^[6]

References