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. 

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.

Language is often the medium through which exclusion, stigma and invisibilisation of certain groups, experiences and identities is normalised and justified.  This podcast discusses whether and why language and terminology matter, how new words and frames can be created in diverse cultural contexts to claim power, presence and voice, and analyses the hijacking of progressive feminist language by conservative political movements. Participants in this episode include: Aruna Rao (moderator); Jayanthi Kuru, Independent Consultant, Sri Lanka; Shalini Singh and Srilatha Batliwala of CREA, India; Rudo Chigudu Warrier, Artist-Activist, Zimbabwe; and Cynthia Rothschild, Independent Consultant, USA. 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.

Social power and injustice are often expressed and experienced through inclusion and exclusion.  This episode explores what constitutes inclusion or exclusion, who are the most excluded groups and identities, and how diverse constituencies are connecting to challenge their marginalisation.  The role of creative people in raising awareness about exclusionary politics is also explored. Participants in this episode are Aruna Rao (moderator), Janet Price, Independent  Activist, UK/New Zealand; Thea Khoury, AFEMENA, Lebanon; Gabrielle le Roux, Artist-Activist, South Africa; Nthabisend [Babalwa] Mokoena, Intersex Activist, South Africa; and Dada Ben Azouz, Artist, Tunisia. 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.

Various narratives, social norms and political agenda underlie the criminalisation of people based on their gender identities, sexual expression, reproductive choices or occupation (such as sex work).  This podcast explores the impacts of this approach not only on these groups, but on societies as a whole, and the nature of resistance to criminalisation. Participants for this episode are: Aruna Rao, Lady Grew, Sara Hossain, Estefania Vela Barba and Mindy Roseman. 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.

It’s almost 25 years since the landmark women’s conference held in Beijing in 1995. What did women achieve at Beijing and what are some of the key new and unfinished feminist agendas? In this podcast Joanne Sandler, the former Deputy Director of Unifem and current senior associate G@W starts us off by tracing some of the intentions, magic and results from Beijing. Then we discuss the new and unfinished agendas in the area of LGBTQ rights, economic inequality and disarmament and human security with  Menaka Guruswamy, from Columbia University who spearheaded the historic LGBT rights victory in the Indian Supreme court,  Vasuki Nesiah from New York University who specializes in issues of public international law, human rights and economic justice; and Ray Acheson, who heads the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

There is no greater time than now, when we are experiencing a tremendous pushback against women’s rights and women’s rights defenders, to search for new and powerful ways to express ourselves and advocate for change. In this episode, we meet three powerhouse artists and activists: former Ford model and philanthropist, Monica Watkins, Australian singer-songwriter Jess McAvoy, and no-bounds visual artist/activist Sarita Kvam. Their narratives speak strongly to the human condition, what drives individuals to speak truth to power, and what roles art can play in today's movements, women's empowerment in particular. Join with us in this special episode to learn from these mighty change makers tied together through art and love - and the freedom that ensues when you bring them together.  

In 2015, Gender at Work founders and podcast hosts Aruna Rao and David Kelleher, along with Gender at Work Senior Associate, Joanne Sandler and Knowledge Strategist, Carol Miller, collaborated to write a book that has proven to be a must-read for feminists. Gender at Work: Theory and Practice for 21st Century Organizations is a culmination of four activists' dedication, experience and thought leadership developing and employing a holistic approach to improve gender equality globally. In this ninth episode, we speak with the authors behind this compelling book and take a deep dive into the Gender at Work Analytical Framework which forms its foundation. By offering our listeners a clear exposition of what we really mean by our analytical framework and "change matrix", the authors shed light on a force for change in both thinking and practice - and hence, hopefully in the lives of women and other oppressed genders around the world. You can purchase your copy of the book here!

This week, David and Aruna speak with three powerful change makers collaborating to form the UN Girls' Education (UNGEI) initiative to end school-related gender-based violence in Sub-Saharan Africa. Leading the initiative is a trifecta of development practitioners, action-oriented researchers and behavior change experts – Nora Fyles (Head of Secretariat for the UN Girls’ Education Initiative), Madeleine Kennedy Macfoy (Coordinator in the Human and Trade Union Rights and Equality Unity, Education International) and Rex Fyles (Gender at Work Associate).   We learned some alarming statistic from Nora, the Secretariat for UNGEI: In the Democratic Republic of Congo a UNICEF study tells us that 46 percent of schoolgirls confirmed to being victims of sexual harassment, abuse or violence from their teachers or other school personnel In Liberia sex for grades is common with almost 18 percent of school girls, and just over 13 percent of school boys reporting having been asked for sex to get a better grade Three years ago, UNGEI approached Gender at Work to design a collaborative process that could help teachers and union activists deal with this problem in a very personal and context-specific way. In this episode, we engage with the project partners and discuss how this program has lead to dramatic transformation, and healing, within communities.  

From Oxfam to the United Nations, allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct have rocked the humanitarian sector. In episode 07 we speak with Hendrica Okondo, who has 20 years of experience in humanitarian contexts within UN organizations; Robin Yaker, who has worked for the International Rescue Committee and Raising Voices; and Sarah Douglas, who is the deputy chief of peace and security at UN Women. All three reflect on the heartbreaking abuse that takes place in humanitarian settings, the organisational cultures that keep it in place, and their courageous stories of standing up for the safety, security and dignity other women. As we dig deeper, we discuss that there is not enough awareness of the problem, that awareness and formal policies are not enough and the importance of feminist leadership. The women share strategies for creating the deeper culture shifts necessary to dismantle not only the gender hierarchies, but the influences of colonialism, elitism and racism still present in these contexts. 

How do you define toxic masculinity and misogyny, and how do they contribute the violence in our socities? That's the question we aim to answer in this episode. We spoke with Marisa Tramontano, who teaches theories of gender and masculinity, and Pablo Castillo-Diaz who is a Policy Specialist at UN Women, and studies the link between violent extremism and misogyny internationally. Marisa explains how toxic masculinity and our current political environment has perpetuated gun violence in America, while Pablo gives us a more nuanced definition of misogyny, and talks about how and why it is perpetuated in areas like Sudan. To learn more about our show and see additional photos and content, visit: http://genderatworkpodcast.org/ or follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genderatworkpodcast/  

In this episode, we examine the impact the #metoo movement is making on college campuses and policies. We spoke with students, faculty, and associates from UC Santa Cruz, the University of Sussex, Makerere University, and The YP Foundation in India to explore the meaning of the hashtag, and it's repercussions in a global context. Join us for this powerful episode packed with personal insight and reflection to gain an insider's point of view on what policy changes the movement sparked, and the areas where colleges and institutions are still failing young people.

In this episode, we travel to the Vaal---a semi-rural area in South Africa, whose violent past still haunts it. We take a look at Letsema, an innovative community wide effort to combat gender based violence, and negative social norms around women and the LGBT community. We talked to Nina Benjamin and Nispho Twala from the Labor Research Service in South Africa, and found out why the Vaal can be such a violent place, and why the Letsema program was so successful. We also spoke with Michele Friedman, a Senior Associate of Gender at Work, to reflect on the systemic impact that Letsema had. “I used to solve all my problems with violence especially when it came to these initiation schools. Letsema taught me how to better work with the community and work with many places and find better ways to solve issues in all these communities.”

In our third episode, hosted by Aruna Rao and David Kelleher, we would like to share a discussion on Fredric Laloux’s popular book, Reinventing Organisations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness, published in 2014. In his book, Laloux discusses the evolution of organisational structures and he labels each type by a different color. The focus of the book is on the colour TEAL, which represents organizations with an evolutionary purpose and a non-hierarchical management style. We are joined by Michel Friedman, our Senior Associate based in South Africa, Tania Principe, our Director of Management and Operations and Kailee Jordan, a G@W Associate based in Somaliland.  Some of the questions we asked ourselves were: (i) what are the evolutionary stages of organizations according to Laloux and why are they important? (ii) what is meant by the “evolutionary purpose of organization”? (iii) what is needed for discovering an organization’s evolutionary purpose?  (iv) what stops this from happening?

“I was so busy thinking about strategy, I never thought about self-care…I was told to swallow my tears, and so many women are told this. I don’t have the space for self-care. It is impossible to be a black woman alone.” - Yasmin Thayna, Brazilian filmmaker and activist at the 2016 AWID Forum In this episode on Feminist Activism and Self Care hosted by Aruna Rao and David Kelleher, we’re joined by Gender at Work associates Shawna Wakefield, Michel Friedman and Nina Benjamin, our Board member, Srilatha Batliwala and colleagues Jane Real, Lucia Jayaseelan, and Natalie Jeffers. This highly engaging discussion is broadly based on a concept paper, ‘Self, Collective Care and Wellbeing’ drafted at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Forum held in August 2016. We explore the role of and need for self-care and wellbeing in feminist activism; the real risks associated with bringing chronic stress and unresolved trauma into our relationships and work; and how this connects to the process of individual transformation, organisational change and societal transformation. Some of the questions that were reflected upon include: What is self-care? How is it connected to feminist visions of transformation? Why is it important? How is it being worked on? What are some the examples of concrete practices? 

Feminists Rethinking Transformation, the Gender at Work Book Club’s new podcast series, is part of our ongoing effort to hold intimate conversations about rethinking and regenerating our strategies and practices to transform the world, build cultures of equality and end patriarchy. Our first podcast is an informal conversation over dinner with women’s rights and gender equality scholars and activists from all over the world on how they address manifestations of patriarchy in their daily lives and in their work. We ask questions such as: How has patriarchy affected your life and shaped your options? Can we end patriarchy by 2020 as Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Executive Director of UN Women has said? In the current economic and political moment when we see huge levels of inequality, the backlash against women’s rights and deep erosion of democratic institutions, where does feminist leadership take us? Are your strategies still relevant? What is your work telling you about the kinds of narratives that apply now?

Gender at Work has been active now for almost 20 years and we have made contributions to thinking and practice on challenging and changing discriminatory social norms and deep structures of inequality to advance gender equality. Currently, we are witnessing many changes in the contexts where we work including increasing inequalities, and myriad new challenges, that may render some of our approaches and tools obsolete. The rise of populism and calls for regressive change in many parts of the world are threatening to overturn years of progressive incremental change guided by collective wisdom and experience. Today, we want to talk about our own renewal and regeneration. We want to change both the mainstreamed narrative of love as well as systemic inequality. We want to reframe love away from its commercialized and self-indulgent guise toward self-strength and self-liberation that enables each one of us to connect with ourselves, our wisdom. We want also to connect with each other to fight for what we collectively believe in and support others as they speak out against injustice and oppression they face in their everyday life. We want to re-learn how relationships and bonds of love, trust, and respect can be repaired and re-created. We want to sustain those connections. Our fights against patriarchy, neoliberalism, and other inequities not only entail individual growth, they are also fights against oppressive and divisive systems that shape our lives. We want to be free from gender-biased structures and discriminatory societal norms. We want to build new collaborations across old lines of division, rethink our understandings and approaches so that they are relevant to the changing world around us and re-imagine new pathways for equality and justice. We are launching an online book club and we invite you to be a part of these conversations and add to our manifesto in your comments below. We are Feminists Rethinking Transformation. Join our bimonthly podcasts featuring diverse voices from both, within and outside the Gender at Work network. These conversations have been planned as a series of informal conversations to discuss new books/articles, ideas that ignite passion and allow us to find new ways of understanding our work, our institutions, our society and ambitiously, our ourselves.