Speaking & Events

Drawing on years of research and investigative reporting, Jess unpacks coercive control: what it is, how it impacts victim survivors, and how it traps them in cycles of fear and compliance. In this talk, she also explores who is most likely to use coercive control, and why; how perpetrators' actions follow a textbook of techniques to change the way their targets think and behave, and to establish dominance; why it so often goes unnoticed, and what must change in our legal and social systems to address it. As new laws are introduced in various states, the need for a rigorous understanding is pressing.

We all know what it feels like to lose control: through crisis, heartbreak, or unexpected change. Jess Hill has spent years uncovering the hidden dynamics of abuse and survival, witnessing extraordinary courage in people who’ve endured the unthinkable. But her understanding of power and vulnerability is also deeply personal. After a sudden brain cancer diagnosis upended her life, Jess faced fear, failure, and the challenge of starting over. In this keynote, she weaves together the stories of survivors she has reported on with her own journey, revealing how strength can emerge from powerlessness, and how hope can be reclaimed even in the darkest circumstances.

At the heart of so much gender-based violence lies an unspoken force: shame. In a culture that raises boys to equate vulnerability with weakness, shame becomes unbearable—and often gets converted into anger, control, or violence. Drawing on her award-winning book and series See What You Made Me Do, Jess Hill explores how patriarchal ideals of masculinity trap men in cycles of dominance and disconnection that harm them and the women and children around them. In this talk, she invites audiences to look with clear eyes at how shame fuels coercion and abuse—and to imagine the communities we could have if we raised boys and men to tolerate vulnerability, using power to build connection instead of rigid hierarchy.

Australia has pledged to end gendered violence within a generation. But how to achieve this bold promise? In this lecture, Jess Hill traces the violent legacies imported with colonisation, the failures and ambitions of successive national plans to reduce violence, and the urgent lessons we must learn from both history and new evidence. From child maltreatment and intergenerational trauma to harmful industries, shifting gender norms, and the rise of adolescent sexual violence, Hill confronts uncomfortable truths about what’s working, what isn’t, and why the path to ending violence demands far more than improving gender equality and changing community attitudes.

Jess explores how coercive control traps families in cycles of fear, reshapes children’s worlds, and conceals abuse. In this address, she reveals how coercive control targets not just partners but children too, creating hypervigilance, fear, and trauma that can last a lifetime. Drawing on case studies, lived experience, and research, Hill shows how understanding these patterns can radically shift professional responses – turning outcomes that might lead to family separation into pathways toward safety, healing, and resilience. Because recovery isn’t just survival; it’s prevention.