PolIshed women It shouldn’t hurt to be a child, but unfortunately for some, it does. Devastating facts show that one child dies every 5 minutes as a result of violence. Due to the current climate, many families are forced to stay home and sadly, as a direct result of this, the number of family violence cases has doubled. Heartbreaking for all to comprehend, but the reason that Polished Man exists. Getting behind this initiative is a bunch of wonderful Australian men and women showing their support to help end violence against children. Two of these lovely people are none other than Melbourne’s queen of confidence, presenter and mum of four, Emmylou MacCarthy and the self-confessed fun mum and prankster wife, most recently spotted on Big Brother, Zoe George.
Emmylou, firstly tell us a bit about yourself and your gorgeous family. I live in Melbourne with my three kids, my partner Aaron and our two beautiful cavoodles! I’m in my fourth year of being an Executive Producer of my TV series, Emmylou Loves and I’ve also just celebrated a second year of being the director of my company Elephant Dinner. Aaron (or affectionately known as Alove to my community) is a full-time dad while I work fulltime, which isn’t always seen as conventional but it works for us. The most important thing is that our kids are happy and the house is harmonious, so we consider ourselves very fortunate to have found a routine that suits everyone. What inspired you to get involved in the Polished Man campaign this year? For me, it’s important to get as many people talking about the issue of violence against children as possible. Whether it’s high profile people in my network or smaller, close-knit communities around me. It’s vital to 8
start the conversation and I want to facilitate that as much as possible. The more we talk about it, the more we are standing up and saying that violence against children is unacceptable. The Polished Man campaign shines a spotlight onto the cause and I am so inspired by the work being done to raise money that I was delighted to return to the team this year. Painting a fingernail blue is certainly far from some of the crazy fashion stunts you’ve pulled to promote confidence. What’s the wildest thing you’ve done? If I had to guess, I’d say you’re probably talking about the time I stood in the middle of Bourke Street in pink lingerie, right?! To some people I guess that was seen as pretty wild, but for me it was more about art. I view these types of photo shoots through a lens of fashion and beauty, and see myself as someone who is creating something inspiring. Not everyone will love it! But that’s the whole point. I’m trying to get a conversation going. I guess you could also say my skydiving days were pretty wild, considering that I regularly jumped out of a planes, sometimes in the nude!
