Breaking Down Patriarchy

Amy is joined by Dr. Julia Zulver to discuss her book, High-Risk Feminism in Columbia, and learn about feminist organizations striving for justice in Colombia and El Salvador.

Dr. Julia Zulver is a feminist researcher studying women's mobilization in communities affected by conflict and violence in Latin America. She is passionate about gender justice, and uses academic research, advocacy, and commentary to draw attention to and support women's rights.

Amy is joined by Sarah Lopez to discuss Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies and discuss the complicated history of patriarchy and revolution in the Dominican Republic.

Sarah Lopez is a recent graduate from Boston University where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations (with a regional focus on Latin America) and two minors in Italian and Political Science. She is interested in substantive democracy, social movements, anti-racism, identity, migration, and Latin American politics, and aspires to obtain a Ph.D. and teach.

Amy is joined by Dr. Susie Porter to discuss her book From Angel to Office Worker and explore the nuances of class, gender, and labor in Mexico.

Dr. Susie Porter is a Presidential Societal Impact Scholar and Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. She serves as a country conditions expert for asylum cases, was a founder of the Westside Leadership Institute (Spanish language version), and works as an organizer with the Salt Lake City Latinx community. She served as Chair of the Gender Studies Division (2010-2020) and, since 2021, as Director of the Center for Latin American Studies.

Porter is the author of two award-winning books: Workingwomen in Mexico City (Arizona, 2003); and From Angel to Office Worker: Middle-Class Identity and Female Consciousness in Mexico, 1890-1950 (Nebraska, 2018)-both also published by El Colegio de Michoacán press. Porter is co-editor of Orden social e identidad de género, with María Teresa Fernández Aceves and Carmen Ramos Escandón (2006); and, Género en la encrucijada de la historia social y cultural, with Fernández Aceves (2015).

Amy is joined by Natalia Calero to explore the history and present day realities of reproductive rights in Latin America, as well as intersections between feminism, class privilege, and colonialism.

Natalia Calero is the General Director of Coming Up, an organization dedicated to gender equality, labor inclusion and professional development, whose mission is to help organizations have inclusive work spaces in which the talent and skills of all people are valued. Natalia has more than 20 years of work in national and international organizations in the field of human rights, gender equality and inclusion. Natalia served as a program management specialist at UN Women Mexico, where she was in charge of women's leadership and political participation and the elimination of violence against women and girls. Prior to that, she served as an advisor to the Human Rights Directorate of the Mexican Supreme Court, where she supervised training on equality and the elimination of stereotypes.

Amy is joined by Dr. Marie Sarita Gaytán to discuss the life of Amelio Robles, who served during the Mexican Revolution and became one of Mexico's earliest transgender icons.

Marie Sarita Gaytán is an associate professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Utah. Sarita writes and teaches in the areas of culture, globalization, Latinx studies, Latin American studies, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. She is the recipient of Paper Awards from the Latin American Studies Association in the Mexico section, the American Sociological Association in the Latinx sociology section, and the National Association of Chicana and Chicano studies. Her book, ¡Tequila!: Distilling the Spirit of Mexico, was published in 2014 by Stanford University Press.

Amy is joined by Levi Murray to discuss the tricky intersections between patriarchy and colonialism in Mexico, plus a deep dive into the female archetypes of La Malinche, La Llorona, and La Virgen de Guadalupe.

Levi Murray is a half-white, half Mexican-American anti-patriarchist. A dentist by trade, he is currently pursuing a Masters of Theology with a focus on Feminist Theology. Levi has the fortunate of being married to his best friend, Barbara, and together raising four beautiful children.

Amy is joined by Dr. Maile Arvin to discuss her book, Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawai'i and Oceania and the intersections between settler colonialism and patriarchy on the Hawai'ian islands.

Dr. Maile Arvin is an associate professor of History and Gender Studies at the University of Utah. She is a Native Hawaiian feminist scholar who works on issues of race, gender, science and colonialism in Hawai‘i and the broader Pacific. At the University of Utah, she is part of the leadership of the Pacific Islands Studies Initiative, which was awarded a Mellon Foundation grant to support ongoing efforts to develop Pacific Islands Studies curriculum, programming and student recruitment and support.

Arvin’s first book, Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania, was published with Duke University Press in 2019. In that book, she analyzes the nineteenth and early twentieth century history of social scientists declaring Polynesians “almost white.” The book argues that such scientific studies contributed to a settler colonial logic of possession through whiteness. In this logic, Indigenous Polynesians (the people) and Polynesia (the place) became the natural possessions of white settlers, since they reasoned that Europeans and Polynesians shared an ancient ancestry. The book also examines how Polynesians have long challenged this logic in ways that regenerate Indigenous ways of relating to each other. Her work has also been published in the journals Meridians, American Quarterly, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, The Scholar & Feminist, and Feminist Formations, as well as on the nonprofit independent news site Truthout.

From 2015-17, Arvin was an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside, in Ethnic Studies. She earned her PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego. Her dissertation won the American Studies Association’s Ralph Henry Gabriel prize. She is also a former University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Charles Eastman Fellow in Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, and Ford Foundation Pre-doctoral Fellow.

Amy and Dr. Gina Colvin discuss Māori history, culture, and why feminism may not be necessary in a Māori context.

Gina Colvin is a New Zealander of Māori, English, Irish, Welsh, German and French descent. Until the July of 2016, she was in the permanent position of Lecturer at the University of Canterbury. Dr. Colvin served UC for 12 years across Political Science and Communication, School of Māori and Cultural Development, and more recently the School of Educational Studies and Leadership.

Gina’s primary academic interest is in the history and future of ideas. Whether faith, belief, ideologies, symbols, representations or discourses, all communicate powerful ideas that at the same time express hope for, or hope in some kind of social action. Whether expressed in educational, religious, or political contexts my research interests are in understanding how and why particular ideas flower, change, get disrupted, are silenced, or become dogmas, and how these same ideas translate into social, political, and cultural realities.

Amy and Meleseini Lotoaniu conclude their discussion of gender constructs in Tonga, from European contact to the present day.

Meleseini Lotoaniu is a third-year student at University of California, Davis with an interest in literature and writing.

Amy is joined by Meleseini Lotoaniu for Part 1 of their discussion about the history of gender constructs in Tonga.

Meleseini Lotoaniu is a third-year student at University of California, Davis with an interest in literature and writing.