Compass: Sept 22

Compass tonight presents the first in a two part series by Jane Caro: “Upside of Shame.”

Social commentator Jane Caro examines how people grapple with shame, learning to live with and often triumphing over its insidious effect. Shame flourishes in secrecy, silence and judgement, and women and men can experience it in different ways. In this two-part Compass series Jane finds out how people who’ve been shamed come to terms with or overcome it.

Episode One:
In our diet obsessed times, ‘fat’ is more than just a word. It can be a derogatory adjective and one that has been applied to singer performer Billie McCarthy far too many times. She tells us about attempts to fat shame her, and what it’s like being too visible because of your size but also invisible, because being fat means you’re not seen as a person.

Writer and academic Kerry Tucker talks about the shame of being sent to prison for embezzlement. Her guilty secret was eventually exposed when she was arrested and tried, but worse was to follow.

For Jacqui Lambie the lowest point in her life came when she was unemployed after being medically discharged from the army. As a single parent of two little boys she felt shame and failure as a mother because she struggled to put food on the table.

Saturday 22 Sept at 6pm on ABC.