Discourse: The Grabbing Back podcast

Nancy has spent her career working towards social justice and the realisation of universal human rights in fields ranging from mental health and poverty eradication to refugee protection. Until July she was the CEO of the charity Stonewall and as such worked as part of the movement in the UK and around the world. She is now helping small start up organisations in the same fields.We talked about where the backlash comes from, what the solution is (if any), the historical evidence of backlash against various activist movements and so many more incredibly interesting and timely things.Finally, thank you for coming with us on the journey of listening to our podcast this season. We delved into Money, Nature, the Body and the Home from a feminist lens and we’re so proud of what we produced. If you haven’t, go to our website to read our articles and definitions as well as going back to episodes you may have missed, and if you know anyone that might be interested or benefit from Grabbing Back - send them our way! See you in the next season!

Resources mentioned

For today's episode, we sat down with Dr. Mary-Ann Stephenson, Director of the Women’s Budget Group, to discuss women and money.

The UK Women’s Budget Group is the UK’s leading feminist economics think tank that provides evidence and proposes policy alternatives for a gender-equal economy. They are the link between academia, the women’s voluntary sector and progressive economics think tanks.

In this episode we talk about the financial repercussions of unpaid are, the impact of austerity on gender equality, the flaws of classic economics theory and the importance of reforming our childcare system.

We also discuss financial abuse, if you'd like to skip this part, it's from minute 30:00 to minute 38:30. 1 in 5 women in the UK experience financial abuse, if you or someone you know needs help, consult the resources on Surviving Economic Abuse.

Discussed in this episode:

Recommended books:

You can find us on our website, instagram and twitter to keep up with new episodes, articles and definitions.

On today's episode we are joined by Laura Danger, a licensed educator, certified coach and creator from Chicago who has been teaching and facilitating for over 12 years. Laura, also known by her social media handle as thatdarnchat, uses her incredibly successful social presence to empower overwhelmed caregivers to value their own time and the priceless care labour they provide.

She popularised the term Weaponised Incompetence (referring to people, mainly men, who deliberately do a task poorly in order to not be asked to do it again) and regularly speaks of domestic labour, sexism and systems of oppression. In this episode, we delve into all of this and the nuances of hyper-individualism, class, intersectionality and feminism within domestic labour and the obsession with the nuclear family.

Texts discussed:
-⁠Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman⁠
-⁠Fair Play by Eve Rodsky⁠
-⁠How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong⁠
Texts mentioned:
-⁠Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall⁠
-⁠The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger

On today's episode we're joined by Andrea Sempértegui, Assistant Professor of Politics at Whitman College and a member of the anti-extractive collective Comundisis based in Quito, Ecuador. She focuses on indigenous politics, environmental and feminist movements, struggles over territory and natural resource extraction and decolonial thought in Latin America. Her essays have appeared in the likes of New York Review of Books and Verso. We delve into the importance of women in the climate struggle, the initial logic behind extractivism and what is being done to fight it and why the women leading this fight don't call themselves feminists.

Andrea is currently working on her book, Earthed Politics: The Mujeres Amazónicas’ Fight against Extractivism in Ecuador.

Texts mentioned:

Welcome to Series 2 of Discourse: The Grabbing Back Podcast! We are so excited to be starting this season with such a fantastic episode with guests Julia Serano and Talia Mae Bettcher.

We discuss, amongst many ideas, the perceptions and readings of our bodies, the cultural specificity of boundaries and how they tend to affect women more than men and how femininity is considered quote-unquote artificial in a similar way to transness, and how dangerous that can be.

Trigger warnings: transphobia and sexual assault.

Talia is an expert on feminist philosophy, transgender studies and philosphy of personhood. She’s a professor at California State University and her upcoming book is Intimacy and Illusion: An Essay in Trans Philosophy. Julia is a writer, performer, activist, musician and biologist, she is best known for her book Whipping Girl and her upcoming book is titled Sexed Up: How Society Sexualises us and how we can Fight Back.

Texts mentioned and discussed:

GET TICKETS FOR OUR UPCOMING POETRY LIVE EVENT HERE.

Renowned feminist, activist, historian and theorist who has been key int bringing female voice into visible history. A life long activist, she has campaigned on issues from unionising women, abortion, nurseries and the Vietnam War and has always been an advocate for grass roots activism.

She helped to make the phrase “the personal is political” popular. She is best known her contributions the Women’s Liberation Movement, which drove feminism in the 1970s and brought us feminism as we know it today.

Her book, Daring to Hope,  which we discuss in this episode, is a memoir of her life during that decade. From organising the first Women's Liberation Movement conerence to heartbreak. 

We talk about some of her biggest feminist influences, her start in feminist movements, her best advice to young feminists and how we can come together in our struggles. 

Book recommendations

This month we are delving into and explaining Intersectional Theory through the lens of Kimberlé Crenshaw, the American civil rights advocate and leading scholar who introduced it. Last month we considered how the concept of ‘intersectionality’ has deep roots. This month we’re narrowing down and getting really specific about the term ‘intersectionality’ as defined by the woman who coined it. The term is widely used now, but had quite a specific meaning when Crenshaw introduced it as a framework within legal theory.

Our guest this month is Katie, who is actually an integral part of our team at Grabbing Back. She is our article editor, studied Archeology and Philosophy at university and will be starting her Masters in Philosophy in September. She wrote our article this month so be sure to check it out on our website. 

Reading list:

Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics (1989) by Kimberlé Crenshaw

This month we are focusing on the Roots of Intersectionality and instead of one big conversation, we wanted to really reflect the diversity of voices and opinions that emerged with early African American feminists.

We have picked six extracts of text by some writers of the time, and invited on six guests to share their reflections on them. There’s so much richness of thought here and so we’ve divided this month’s episode into three mini episodes, so you can reflect on different pieces in your own time.

This (part 3) looks at an extract from Angelina Weld Grimke’s lesbian love poetry, and our second extract from Audre Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider’.

A quick note to apologise for the audio quality in this part, we had some recording issues but we hope you can still enjoy the reflections from Amu and Chi Chi. 

Contact us:

We’d love to get your feedback so do email us at [email protected] or drop us a DM on socials.

Twitter and Instagram: @grabbing_back

This month we are focusing on the Roots of Intersectionality and instead of one big conversation, we wanted to really reflect the diversity of voices and opinions that emerged with early African American feminists.

We have picked six extracts of text by some writers of the time, and invited on six guests to share their reflections on them. There’s so much richness of thought here and so we’ve divided this month’s episode into three mini episodes, so you can reflect on different pieces in your own time.

This (part 2) looks at extracts from bell hooks’ ‘Ain’t i a woman? Black Women and Feminism’ and from Audre Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider’.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/07/sandra-bland-video-footage-arrest-death-police-custody-latest-news

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Kathryn_Johnston

https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html

Trigger warnings: violence against women and racial violence.

Contact us:

We’d love to get your feedback so do email us at [email protected] or drop us a DM on socials. 

Twitter and Instagram: @grabbing_back

This month we are focusing on the Roots of Intersectionality and instead of one big conversation, we wanted to really reflect the diversity of voices and opinions that emerged with early African American feminists. 

We have picked six extracts of text by some writers of the time, and invited on six guests to share their reflections on them. There’s so much richness of thought here and so we’ve divided this month’s episode into three mini episodes, so you can reflect on different pieces in your own time. 

This (part 1) reflects on extracts from the Combahee River Collective Statement and Angela Davis’ book ‘Women, race and class’.

Trigger warnings for this episode: Includes discussion of experiences of sexual harassment and the physical and sexual violence and abuse suffered by enslaved people.