The Gender at Work Podcast

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!

• 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

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.

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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.