THE youngest woman in Victoria’s State Parliament has laid bare her “colourful background” before politics, recently revealing in her inaugural speech how she was outed as a stripper and topless waitress.
Images of Georgie Purcell, a new Animal Justice Party MP for the Northern Victoria region, were posted on social media without her consent while she was at university.
In her speech, she said she was proud of her past and wanted to use her unique experiences to bring kindness, empathy and compassion to politics.
“I always felt that I belonged in the background. I was led to believe that women like me belonged in the engine room and not in public life,” Ms Purcell said.
The Mount Macedon resident worked as a stripper and topless waitress to make some extra money while studying at university.
“At one point in my life, it was a secret – and it was a secret that was stolen from me,” she said.
“This defining moment was in the summer of 2012, when I was in my second year at Deakin University and working as a topless waitress and stripper.
“I did everything I possibly could to protect my anonymity from my peers, but it didn’t work.
“My whole world stopped on the day that my phone pinged with a notification that I had been tagged on Facebook.
“I froze, staring at a photo of myself on the screen – and a thread of comments beneath.”
Being outed, Ms Purcell said, was the most “severe of betrayals”.
“Because of one person’s fleeting decision to take away my consent and my autonomy, I felt that my life was no longer worth living,” she said.
“They stole 10 years from me, with my past constantly hanging over my head like a dark cloud, living in fear every single day that it would resurface.
“But here I stand today, the youngest woman in this Parliament, owning my story, proud of my past and ready for my future.
“I now know that my experiences bring a unique perspective to this place and the ability to consider matters with kindness, empathy and compassion.
“What I once perceived as one of my biggest weaknesses I now know is one of my biggest strengths, and with a new generation of women coming into our parliaments, I hope they can look to me and see that their past will never define their future.
