Many feminists around the world believe that there is a war on against women and some are calling it “gender apartheid”. The global campaign to end gender apartheid focuses particularly on Iran and Afghanistan. In this episode we explore this term “gender apartheid” – where it came from and what some of the Femilemmas around it are.  We look at its usefulness in addressing what is happening to women and girls in Iran and Afghanistan today. We speak to Dr. Sima Samar, the former Minister of Women’s Affairs in Afghanistan and former chair of the Afghanistan Human Rights commission. We also hear from Roxanna Shapour, an Iranian and senior analyst from the Afghanistan Analysts Network, who has extensive experience in Afghanistan and in communications and media with the BBC and the UN, and we listen to Afghani women’s voices through the research of DROPS, the Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies based in Afghanistan and its leader, Mariam Safi. Join us and tell us what you think!

In this episode, three graduate students from the American University of Beirut, Maria Hamarneh, Elvira Abi Zeid and Leil Younes, question male allyship for women’s rights and feminist values in a social media context heavily influenced by toxic misogynists targeting young men and boys. They reflect on the ways that, as in many parts of the world, women’s rights are under attack and work on gender equality is being undermined or rolled back, including by ultra-right wing, fundamentalist groups. Nisreen Alami, a Palestinian feminist activist who lives in Jordan and who is also a Gender at Work Associate, joined the conversation. Nisreen opens another dimension of the Femilemma by questioning the value of transnational feminist allyship when critical contextual and historical realities are left out. As she says, “misogyny has become very good at using transnational tools and feminism has not been very successful at being a truly transnational movement.” These are important Femilemmas with no easy answers. Come on in and listen and let’s hear your views!

Femilemmas about gender identities, about who is a feminist, about inconsistencies when government leaders claim feminist mantles and so on, have been percolating for years. We held a Femilemmas PopUp at the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York in March to hear what Femilemmas were on the minds of participants there.  In this episode we share a few - Anne Marie Goetz (New York University, New York City) explores the Femilemmas inherent in feminist foreign policies; Andrea Cornwall (Kings College, London) lays out the complex and evolving Femilemmas around ‘gender’;  Deepa Mattoo (Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, Toronto) spoke about how they resolved a Femilemma by adopting a gender inclusive policy for all services, and Fidele Rutayisire (Rwanda Men’s Resource Organization) addressed the Femilemmas of men as feminists. Are these your Femilemmas? How would you respond? What femilemmas are you grappling with? Join the conversation!  We want to hear from you!

In this teaser, Aruna and Joanne bring up the theme of their upcoming season: Feminist dilemmas, or, as they refer to it, Femilemmas. 

G@W has a new Executive Director  - Madeleine Kennedy MacFoy. Welcome Madeleine!  In this episode, we introduce Madeleine and invite the past EDs of Gender at Work to think about what the opportunity and challenge mix has been over the decades at G@W and what learnings and dilemmas they have to share with Madeleine as she steps in.  We build on a theme that we’ve explored over the past episodes of the podcast: feminist leadership transitions. Like many of those we interviewed, we tried as much as possible to interject feminist principles into the leadership transition and were somewhat successful while also learning in the process. The EDs speak of early choices about co-leadership, the virtual structure of G@W, and dilemmas and questions connected to the emergent nature of the work and how that shaped power dynamics, ownership, accountability and culture. Join us in our praxis of reflection-action-reflection and share with us your feminist dilemmas. This is inspired by a Gordon Lightfoot song and Joni’s “for the Roses”

How do feminist organizations get beyond ‘calling out’ to repair and care? What can we learn from feminist leaders who are experimenting with strategies to build trust, reverse practices that undermine feminist collective action, and prioritize care, connection and thriving?  In this episode, we talk to Michal Friedman, a longtime associate of G@W, a feminist activist and a personal and social change facilitator based in South Africa and Janet Wong, a close partner of G@W and former UN Women Country Representative in Timor Leste and Cambodia. Several years ago, Michal and Janet collaborated on a process of supporting Cambodian feminist activists. Janet lays out what it takes to create safe spaces for activists who live in contexts where trust is understandably elusive and Michal shares the methods used to help activists become more at ease in their bodies, recognize each other as persons, acknowledge trauma and its impact on self and the collective, and use storytelling that enabled communicating from the heart. Much of this work is emergent; it can’t be scripted.  We also reflect on what this means for how we work to change the cultures of our organizations. How do we, as individuals, build our capacity to confront with respect and nurture cultures of care? How do we let go of rage? How do we remain open and curious in order to fuel stronger collaborations and solidarity? How can we nurture allyship and trust to challenge patriarchal ways of working and find new pathways to fortify organizing and organizations driven by our feminist principles?  Join us and take a listen! 

What is driving the growing numbers of implosions that many social justice groups around the world – including feminist organizations and networks -- are experiencing? Coming on the heels of the #Me Too movement, the flashmobs inspired by the “El Violador Eres Tu!” movement, and the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd, we started to witness staff in feminist organizations publicly calling out abuse of power, racism, gender discrimination and other forms of exclusionary practices in the very organizations that we joined to reverse these. As de-stabilizing and paralyzing as these implosions might be, this is a reckoning that is long past due. How can we leverage this momentum to build more sustainable and impactful organizations and movements that fully reflect feminist principles? Join us to listen to the inter-generational insights and experiences of Lina Abou Habib, Lebanese feminist and Board member of the newly created Doria Feminist Fund in the Middle East; Dildar Kaya, from Kurdistan, who specializes in access to mental health services and the recovery of survivors of conflict and is a member of the Board of the Nobel Women’s Initiative; and Shawna Wakefield, a Gender at Work Associate who has worked for 25 years on feminist leadership and transformative approaches to ending violence against women, strengthening movement building for women’s rights and building cultures of care and who is a co-founder of Root, Rise and Pollinate. 

What is driving the growing numbers of implosions that many social justice groups around the world – including feminist organizations and networks -- are experiencing? Coming on the heels of the #Me Too movement, the flashmobs inspired by the “El Violador Eres Tu!” movement, and the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd, we started to witness staff in feminist organizations publicly calling out abuse of power, racism, gender discrimination and other forms of exclusionary practices in the very organizations that we joined to reverse these. As de-stabilizing and paralyzing as these implosions might be, this is a reckoning that is long past due. How can we leverage this momentum to build more sustainable and impactful organizations and movements that fully reflect feminist principles? Join us to listen to the inter-generational insights and experiences of Lina Abou Habib, Lebanese feminist and Board member of the newly created Doria Feminist Fund in the Middle East; Dildar Kaya, from Kurdistan, who specializes in access to mental health services and the recovery of survivors of conflict and is a member of the Board of the Nobel Women’s Initiative; and Shawna Wakefield, a Gender at Work Associate who has worked for 25 years on feminist leadership and transformative approaches to ending violence against women, strengthening movement building for women’s rights and building cultures of care and who is a co-founder of Root, Rise and Pollinate. 

We just completed the seminal month for women’s rights globally – worldwide celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8th, innumerable events worldwide for Women’s History month in the United States, and the 66th UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) recently concluded. Women’s rights and feminist organizations and movements are the drivers of change for gender equality yet, the question of how feminist organizations grow and thrive, the tensions they experience between principles and how those get practiced, and around how power is exercised are really topics at events like the CSW.  In our last episode, we interviewed three founder leaders of feminist organizations and for this episode, we talked with a group of fierce feminist leaders who invested their hearts and souls in four very different organizational contexts over the past 30 years. Ruby Johnson and Devi Leiper were co-EDs of FRIDA, the young feminist fund and stepped down when they turned 35, about 2 years ago. Ruth Ojiambo Ochieng was ED of ISIS WICCE, based in Uganda, for more than 20 years and stepped down in her 60s, about 5 years ago. Sara Gould was with the Ms. Foundation for Women in the U.S. for 25 years, including six years as its President and stepped down ten years ago at 60. And Katherine Acey led the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, based in New York, for more than 20 years and stepped down 11 years ago. The Ms. Foundation works exclusively in the U.S. while all the other organizations work transnationally. Three of the organizations are women’s funds. Each of the leaders in this conversation had unique experiences and thoughts about their transitions. And each brings huge amounts of wisdom and experience to the question of how leadership transitions can center feminist principles more intentionally. Come and listen to their stories!

In our last episode we talked about the challenges of dismantling patriarchy and promised that our next episode would start to unpack different strategies to topple patriarchy. We have chosen to focus first on how leadership transitions happen and what happens to the leaders who choose to leave. There is a generational shift in leadership of feminist organizations around the world and we can see that these shifts happen differently in different contexts. They  represent a way in which we both wrestle with and challenge patriarchy. Older leaders, many founders of organizations, are stepping down in new ways. In this episode, we talk to three leaders who voluntarily stepped away to make way for new leadership and new voices in the organizations that they founded and dedicated themselves to for nearly two decades. We’ll be  hearing from Mallika Dutt who created Breakthrough in 2000 and stepped down in 2017; from Lisa VeneKlasen who founded Just Associates or JASS in 2002 and stepped down at the beginning of 2020; and from Aruna Rao, who co-founded Gender at Work in 2003 and was its Executive Director for 14 years, stepping down in 2017. Some of the questions we explore are: Why did they step down? How did it feel once they stepped away? What did they gain? What did they miss? How can we prepare better for leadership transitions in feminist organizations in a way that continues to build community around a shared purpose for our work? Do join us in this conversation and let us know what you think. Please email us at genderatworkpodcast@gmail.com

In a passionate and wide-ranging conversation, Kumi Naidoo and Aruna Rao explore hope, fear, Black Lives Matter, feminist principles, intersectionality and structural change. They ask whether the institutions that were set up to protect us, like the police, and to enable social change, such as social services, the UN, and international development organizations, have failed us and whether we should keep trying to change them from the inside or tear them down and start again. This episode is a re-broadcast of Kumi’s new podcast - Power, People & Planet – produced by the Green Economy Coalition – which brings together activists, artists and community leaders who are dismantling our broken systems and building something new in its place. Kumi Naidoo, a veteran social and environmental justice activist from South Africa, has held senior positions in international civil society organizations. He was the former SG of Amnesty International, Greenpeace and Civicus and is a founding board member of Gender at Work. We invite you to listen in and join the conversation. Please email us at genderatworkpodcast@gmail.com

Look around you and you’ll find many conversations about reimagining and transforming how we live and work – from how we enable the plant to thrive, to new ways of envisioning economics. And in all kinds of organizations, we are seeing real challenges to what was previously unchecked -  abusive power dynamics, toxic work environments, sexual harassment, racism, and discrimination against all kinds of people who don’t fit what was considered ‘the norm’. In this episode – the first in a series of three - Srilatha Batliwala, David Kelleher, Lisa Veneklasen, Joanne Sandler and Aruna Rao reflect on the their close encounters with patriarchy in organizations and the dynamics they tried to ignite to challenge them which they outlined in their article on Medium. They touch on what they learned, discuss what dilemmas they faced in their imperfect offerings, and strategies and what questions they have in this moment of change and upheaval. Come listen to their stories as they draw on their collective experiences  to talk about what was aligned with their principles and what contradicted them in their leadership practice. Most of all, we hope this encourages you to tell us your stories. Please write to us at genderatworkpodcast@gmail.com

On the eve of the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) in Paris, Aruna Rao and Joanne Sandler – veterans of the 1995 Beijing conference – have an intergenerational talk with three young activists: Priya Kvam and Amani Jui from Breakthrough US and Natalia Escruceria Price, an independent consultant formerly with JASS. Our exchange with these young activists highlights our differing vantage points on a number of ideas, from patriarchy to transnational organizing to how we understand current and future challenges to gender equality. Join us for a thoughtful conversation and email us to let us know what you think!

Gender mainstreaming and the two-track approach to achieve gender equality were two strategies for strengthening organizations' action on gender equality that grew out of the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women.  Twenty-six years later, the world looks very different with multiple crises of  inequality, violence against women and LGBTIQ people, climate extinction and less faith in democracy and the old social contract. Have our strategies delivered on their promise? Are they still fit for purpose? Should we continue trying to chip away at patriarchy or is it time to chop off patriarchy’s head?  Join us in conversation with Nisreen Alami, Rex Fyles, Anne Marie Goetz, Sudarsana Kundu and Kalyani Menon Sen. And let us know what you think! 

Can the UN Deliver a feminist future? This question is posed by Anne Marie Goetz (Professor, NYU) and Joanne Sandler (Senior Associate G@W and former Deputy ED, UN Women) in the June edition of Gender and Development. Join us for a lively discussion on this question in the latest episode of the Gender at Work podcast. Anne Marie and Joanne are joined by long-time feminist activists Geetanjali Misra, Executive Director of CREA and Lina Abou Habib from the American University in Beirut, and young feminists Majandra Rodriguez Acha, Co-Director of Frida and Shereen Essof, Executive Director of JASS.

How do you break up violent ways of behaving and the exercise of power over? How do change what is considered normal? How do you create a new culture that values others no matter how different they are? A community in Gauteng, South Africa, supported by Gender at Work and the Labor Research Service, launched an initiative called Letsema 5 years ago to end gender based violence in their community. In this episode, they tell us about the dialogues they had across very different people and groups ranging from gang leaders to traditional leaders to gay and lesbian members of their community. They recount the healing processes they learned about and used to build their confidence to say, “we have the solutions within our own means.” Join us and listen to their stories told with open hearts.  

We are living in a time, which adrienne marie brown describes as apocalyptic - a time that demands that we draw our imagination to think beyond what is politically possible, which she says is “simply not enough”.  What does feminist leadership look like in such times? In this episode, we talk to two globally recognized, inspiring feminist warriors from South Africa, Pregs Govender, a former ANC member of parliament and Deputy Human Rights Commissioner,  and Phumi Mtetwa, an award winning anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist, on what it takes to be active within this co-existence of apocalypse and utopia.  Drawing on her book, Love and Courage: A story of Insubordination, Pregs talks of what it means to build a revolution of love grounded in human dignity and rights. Phumi talks of how insubordination was central to her emergence as a young South African lesbian leader. Both discuss how they have fought structures and systems of discrimination and exclusion to build toward a feminist vision of a just and equitable world, to interweave relationships of resilience and ways they practice insubordinate leadership now.

This episode walks us through Catherine Claxton’s story, which has been assembled by G@W Senior Associate Joanne Sandler and Julie Thompson, both long time UN staffers. Catherine's lawyers -- Mary Dorman and Ellen Yaroshefsky -- recount the events that led Catherine,  a junior UN staffer, to charge an Undersecretary General with sexual abuse. What unfolded in response mirrors the Me Too stories of today. Patriarchy closed ranks around the perpetrator and demanded allegiance to authority from those in the system; attempts were made to discredit the complainant – in this case, Catherine - and bury her in bureaucratic legalese as she sought to use the existing mechanisms and processes of adjudication to seek justice; and when all the evidence was in and a third party judgement came in favoring her, the UN buried the report. Finally the perpetrator was fired and was given a glorious send off. Sound familiar? Is this what justice looks like in cases of sexual harassment and abuse? How do we impeach patriarchy and hold it accountable? Listen in and tell us what you think.

At a time when conservative, fundamentalist and fascist forces appear to achieving political dominance, the need for progressive movements to build strong alliances and collective resistance appears paramount – yet, few such alliances are visible and sustaining cross-movement solidarity is very hard work.  This episode explores why this is the case, what are the fault lines, and some success stories of cross-movement alliances and the lessons we can learn from them. Participants include: Aruna Rao (moderator); Roselyn Odoyo (Roxy), Queer Rights Activist, Kenya; Daysi Flores, Just Associates (JASS) Mesoamerica, Honduras; Alex Bradley, JASS, USA; Rupsa Mallik, CREA, India. Gender at Work and CREA co-developed a podcast series on feminists rethinking politics and resistance, reimagining change and transformation and rebooting struggles and movements. We asked participants at CREA’s Re-conference in Nepal - artists, performers, writers, activists, policy makers, film makers and many others from the disability rights, sex worker rights, environmental rights, sexual and reproductive rights and queer movements from around the world - to reflect on a series of provocative questions: How are you responding to criminalization? How are you standing up to threats to critical thinking, freedom of expression, right to organize and protest, and suppression of rights? How are artists, activists and movements on the margins addressing issues of exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways? In the face of progressive terminology, how can we rethink language and terminology so as to shape new strategies, narratives and advocacy? Why and how do we need to reimagine ideas around consent, pleasure and danger? How can we reboot cross- movement alliance building for greater collective voice and impact? All episodes were recorded at the CREA Re-conference in Nepal in April 2019.

This episode examines why we need to reimagine prevailing ideas around consent, pleasure and danger as embedded in our laws, social norms, and feminist movement politics.  The discussion explores why pleasure needs to be moved from the margins of feminist agendas  to be viewed as integral to dismantling patriarchy; why the connections between pleasure and danger must be rethought; and why consent must be disconnected from a protectionist approach that denies the agency and right to choice of individuals.  Participants in this episode are: Aruna Rao (moderator); Dipika Srivastava, TARSHI, India;  Solome Nakaweesi, Independent Consultant, Uganda; Subha Wijesiriwardena, Women & Media Collective, Sri Lanka; and Kawira Mwirichia, Artist & Curator, Kenya. Gender at Work and CREA co-developed a podcast series on feminists rethinking politics and resistance, reimagining change and transformation and rebooting struggles and movements. We asked participants at CREA’s Re-conference in Nepal - artists, performers, writers, activists, policy makers, film makers and many others from the disability rights, sex worker rights, environmental rights, sexual and reproductive rights and queer movements from around the world - to reflect on a series of provocative questions: How are you responding to criminalization? How are you standing up to threats to critical thinking, freedom of expression, right to organize and protest, and suppression of rights? How are artists, activists and movements on the margins addressing issues of exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways? In the face of progressive terminology, how can we rethink language and terminology so as to shape new strategies, narratives and advocacy? Why and how do we need to reimagine ideas around consent, pleasure and danger? How can we reboot cross- movement alliance building for greater collective voice and impact? All episodes were recorded at the CREA Re-conference in Nepal in April 2019.