Interviews

Rabab Abdulhadi, born in 1955 in Palestine, is an activist and scholar contributing to the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and the well-being of Palestinian women. She was the Director of Political and International Relations at the Middle East Research Center in New York. She helped found the Union of Palestinian Women's Associations in North America during the first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising. At last contact, she was conducting research for the Gender and Sexuality Studies Center, in the Global South Project.
Keywords: reproductive rights, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Professor Binta Abdulkarim was born on February 10, 1956, in Anchau, a town east of Zaria, in Kaduna State, northern Nigeria. She is the Coordinator of Gender Studies, at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and is also Director of Girl Child Education there. She received her degree in Geography from Ahmadu Bello University and along with her leadership role in Gender Studies at ABU which began in 2003, she teaches courses in the Department of Geography and in the Faculty of Science Education. Her special interest in the education and well-being of women at ABU has led to her participation in ASUU (the Academic Staff Union of Universities) as financial secretary, in the National Association of University Women (Nigeria), and in the federal Anti-Corruption Unit, as the university representative who oversees sexual harassment cases at Ahmadu Bello University. She is also an active participant in the World Association of Victimology and has attended association meetings in Nairobi, Amsterdam, and Nigeria, where she contributed to discussions of the victims of weather extremes and the after-effects of war.

Keywords: academia and women's studies, community activism, environment

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Dr. Joyce Agofure was born on April 3, 1978, in Benin City, the capital of Edo State, in southern Nigeria. She first attended primary school in Benin City and continued her education, obtaining her first degree in English and Education. She then entered the Masters’ Degree Program at Ahmadu Bello University-Zaria where she received a Masters’ Degree and subsequently a PhD in English literature. She was particularly interested in eco-feminism and the consequences of climate change on the lives of women. As a senior lecturer and the Coordinator of Postgraduate Studies in the Department of English at Ahmadu Bello University, she teaches courses which include Introduction to Literature, African Literature and Literature Theory. She assigns readings in Nigerian women’s literature, some of which consider the challenges faced by women which she discusses in these courses. She was able to expand her knowledge of eco-feminism, particularly the ways that women are seen as natural beings and the environment is characterized as feminine, during her tenure as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Idaho. This experience has enabled her to become involved in developing a course on Eco-Feminism to be taught in the Department of English at ABU.

Keywords: environment, academia and women's studies, art/writing as activism

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Teresa Tindle Akintonwa, born in 1976, has been an Educator for over 25 years with extensive experience in Instruction and Corporate Training. Since becoming a Long Hauler after her initial covid infection in February 2020 she founded the Black Covid-19 Survivors Alliance  which was first an online Patient-support group. It has since evolved into  activism and advocacy aimed at helping African-Americans overcome the misinformation and social stigma of CoVid and Medical Research involvement. As President of Black CoVid Survivors Alliance she now collaborates with various organizations to increase Health Equity through Health Coaching, research participant recruitment, and DEI advisement to Research organizations.

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, community activism, gender and health, racial identity

Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Aleisha Amohia graduated from Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science (majoring in Computer Science and specializing in Artificial Intelligence) and a Bachelor of Commerce (majoring in Management and minoring in Information Systems). While at VUW, she was President of VUW Women in Tech for two years. She is now the Koha Technical Lead at Catalyst IT, an open source software company, where she started as an intern in 2014. Aleisha is a passionate young advocate for diversity and equity in all spaces, particularly in the technology industry. She is currently Co-President of the Wellington Branch of the National Council of Women in New Zealand (NZ) and has previously served on the Boards of the YWCA Greater Wellington, the Wellington Alliance Against Sexual Violence, and the Māori Design Group at InternetNZ. In 2022, Aleisha was a finalist for the NZ Impact Awards for contributing a young, Māori, Asian and female lens to NZ's gender equity movement, and other diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, indigenous issues, intersectionality

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Adrienne Asch (1948-2013) was an author and an internationally known bioethicist. At the time of her death, she was director of the Center for Ethics and the Edward and Robin professor of biotethics at Yeshiva University in Manhattan. She was also professor of epidemiology and population health at Yeshiva. Adrienne was a long-time member of the board of directors of the American Society for Bioethics in Humanities and served on the Clinton Task Force on Healthcare Reform and the Ethnical, Legal, and Social Implications Policy Planning Group of the National Human Genome Research Institute. The GFP staff note with sadness Adrienne's death in 2013. Read the NYT obituary to learn more about her pioneering work in disability rights.
Keywords: gender and health, disability rights, reproductive rights
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Ngāhuia te Awekotuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Waikato, Ngapuhi iwi) was a leader of the women’s liberation movement in New Zealand in the 1970s. As a student, she was a member of the Ngā Tamatoa Māori activist group at the University of Auckland. As a Māori lesbian, Ngāhuia was at the forefront of a call to focus on reaching Māori and Pacific women, as well as lesbian rights. 

In 1972, she was famously denied a visa to visit the United States on the basis of her sexuality. She was the first Māori woman to gain a doctorate from an Aotearoa/NZ university.  

At the outset, women’s liberation groups adopted an all-inclusive ‘sisterhood is powerful’ approach. But it wasn’t long before differing perspectives on a range of issues led to disagreements. Many Māori women saw women’s liberation as a Pākehā concept with little relevance for them. They argued that Māori women’s rights were intertwined with the revival of Māori culture and the assertion of land rights. By 1973, separate Māori and lesbian groups had started to form and as the decade progressed ideological differences divided the movement further.  

Te Awekotuku has worked across the heritage, culture and academic sectors as a curator, lecturer, governor, researcher, and activist. Her areas of research interest include gender issues, culture and heritage, ritual and performance. She has been curator of ethnology at the Waikato Museum; senior lecturer in art history at Auckland University, and professor of Māori Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. She was Professor of Research and Development at Waikato University, and has researched and written extensively about the traditional and contemporary practices of tā moko (tattoo) in New Zealand, as well as Māori practices and traditions around death. She has served on many government boards in the arts and heritage sector. Ngāhuia is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Waikato, the first Māori female Emeritus in Aotearoa. She remains a leading feminist writer, lesbian rights activist, and advocate for Māori issues. She has published short fiction, poetry, and significant nonfiction. She continues to work and curate in the gallery sector. She is also an active practitioner of traditional chant and ceremony. In 2022, she presented the 3 episode video documentary Waharoa: Art of the Pacific that focuses on Māori and Pasifika art in New Zealand.   

In recognition of her services to Māori culture, Ngāhuia was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2010. In 2016 she was made the inaugural Mareikura or Matriarch of the Pae Akoranga Wahine/Women's Studies Association of Aotearoa/New Zealand. In 2017 she was made a Fellow of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and she also received the Pou Aronui Supreme Award from the Royal Society of New Zealand for outstanding service to the arts and humanities. Currently, she is one of three inaugural Ruānuku, or Esteemed Scholarly Elders, of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the National Centre for Māori Research Excellence. 

Keywords: academia and women's studies, indigenous issues, LGBTQ+ rights

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Lourdes Barreto, born in Catolé do Rocha in Paraíba, has been living in Belém for more than 60 years. She was the founder, with Gabriela Leite, of the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes (RBP), whose milestone was the First National Meeting, "Fala, Mulher da Vida" (“Speak, Ladies of the Night”), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1987. She was one of the founders of the Movement for the Promotion of Women - MOPROM and in 1990 created the Group of Women Prostitutes of the State of Pará - GEMPAC. Due to her recognized knowledge of and participation in the struggle to promote women's rights, she was selected to serve as a representative in the National Council of Women's Rights (CNDM) of the Brazilian Federal Ministry of Justice from 2018-2021. She is a member of the Latin American Platform of Sex Workers (PLAPERTS) and the World Network of Sex Workers (NSWP). Now 79 years old, she has been involved in prostitution for more than 50 years and served as a leader of the RBP for 35 years. She is one of 100 people who initiated anti-AIDS programs in Brazil and contributed to the construction of the Unified Health System (SUS). "I am a whore," tattooed on her left arm, expresses her history of struggle. In September 2022 she launched Lourdes Barreto: Puta Autobiography (Editora Paka-Tatu) at the Bienal das Artes (Biennial of the Arts) in Belém do Pará.

Keywords: community activism, sex work

Media: Transcript (Portuguese, English), YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Giulia Blasi, born in Pordenone in 1972, is a writer and a feminist activist. She is the author of several novels and short stories, including Manuale per ragazze rivoluzionarie - Perché il femminismo ci rende felici (2018), Rivoluzione Z - Diventare adulti migliori con il femminismo (2020), and Brutta - Storia di un corpo come tanti, all published by Rizzoli. She is the creator of the #quellavoltache campaign, a hashtag used in Italy at the end of 2017 to open a conversation on sexual harassment and abuse. She lives in Rome. 

Keywords: media, community activism, intersectionality, LGBTQ+ rights, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video (English)

Barbara Brookes is a New Zealand historian and academic who specialises in women's history and medical history. She completed a bachelor's degree with honours at the University of Otago in 1976, then won a scholarship to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she completed both her master's (1978) and doctoral (1982) degrees. Her PhD thesis topic was Abortion in England during the inter-war period (1918-1939), published as Abortion in England, 1900-1967 (Croom Helm, 1988; Routledge, 2012). After graduating from Bryn Mawr she returned to Aotearoa/New Zealand to complete post-doctoral studies at University of Otago and was offered a position in the university's Department of History in 1983 where she remained until her retirement in June 2020.   

In 1986, Brookes and her colleague, Dorothy Page introduced the first honours-level women's history course in New Zealand. In 2004, she became head of the Department of History and guided the amalgamation of the department with the art history department to form the Department of History and Art History. She has authored or edited thirteen books. Her A History of New Zealand Women (2016; Bridget Williams Books https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/a-history-of-new-zealand-women/), won the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Award (Illustrated Non-Fiction category). Her most recent book, co-edited with James Dunk, is Knowledge Making: Historians, Archives and Bureaucracy (Routledge, 2020).  

In 2022, Brookes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. As professor emerita, she continues to pursue her research concerning gender relations in New Zealand, and the history of health and disease in New Zealand and Britain. 

Keywords: academia and women's studies, education, gender and health

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Bertha Inés Cabrales was born in 1943 and joined the Sandinista Front during college and in the late 1970s was sent to Sweden to organize Solidarity events in Europe. She was active in the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women and at last contact was head of the Collectivo de Mujeres Itza, an organization that provides sexual and reproductive health counseling as well as legal assistance for victims of gender-based violence.
Keywords: gender and health, media, gender-based violence, reproductive rights, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video (English, Spanish), Bibliography, YouTube Video (English, Spanish) Name Pronunciation Audio

Angela Tullio Cataldo was born in 1985 in Rome. She received a Master’s degree from Roma Tre University and works as a researcher, studying the Roma. 

Keywords: international rights, politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Susana Chavez Alvarado, born in 1959, has a master’s in Public Health from Cayetano Heredia University. She is an obstetrician graduated from the National University of San Marcos and a specialist in sexual and reproductive health public policy. Susana is a founder, member, President, and Executive director of Promsex, a non-profit organization with a focus on sexual and reproductive rights that reflects a dignity, justice, and equity approach. She is also an executive secretary of the Latin American Consortium against Unsafe Abortion (Consorcio Latinoamericano contra el Aborto Inseguro, CLACAI). She has significant experience in the development of programming and scholarship around sexual and reproductive health and gendered violence. Along with her level of expertise in the field of sexual and reproductive health, Chavez has a particular interest in helping adolescent and child mothers navigate pregnancy. Her work with these adolescent and child mothers includes advocating for abortion rights. Susana is a widely published scholar in the field of Women and Politics Research, Human Rights, and Health Policymaking, collaborating with other researchers in various studies. She has authored, co-authored, and edited several books, including Life Histories of Women Who Experienced An Abortion Because Of Sexual Violence (2015), Stories To Avoid Forgetting: Violence In Relation To Adolescents’ Maternal Mortality, a qualitative study in Peru 2012-2014 (2015), Border spaces: Encounters between social services and health needs of women in La Pampa (2017), and Perceptions About Sexual And Reproductive Rights In Adolescents (2007), among others. Susana has published several studies in academic journals. She has also been an instructor of Health Public Policy with the Institute for Citizenship and Democracy (Instituto Ciudadanía y Democracia).

Keywords: community activism, reproductive rights

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Elisa Coco was born in Catania, Sicily in the late 1970s. She graduated in communication science from the University of Bologna. She helped create and works for a marketing and communication agency  called “Comunicattive” focusing on  gender-related communication. They deal with themes like violence against women, and lesbian and queer activism.

Keywords: feminist conferences, LGBTQ+ rights, community activism

Media: Transcripts (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Valentina Coletta was born in Campania, a region of Naples in 1985. She identifies as trans and intersex. She graduated with a degree in psychology from a university in Rome. She works with the Transsexual Identity Movement (MIT) to fight for transgender rights, including with migrants. 

Keywords: gender and health, LGBTQ+ rights, reform of domestic/family roles, politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Elisa Dal Molin was born in Feltre, in the province of Belluno, in 1975. She obtained a four-year degree in oriental languages and literature (Chinese). She has worked for many years as the regional representative  for Famiglie Arcobaleno. Since the fall of 2018, she has worked as the Secretary of the Famiglie Arcobaleno (national directive).

Keywords: politics and the law, LGBTQ+ rights, community activism, reform of domestic/family roles

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Violeta Delgado was born in 1969, participating in the National Literacy Campaign when she was just 11 years old, kicking off a lifetime of political participation and activism. She became involved in a campaign to end domestic violence. She has done consulting, run for the National Assembly, and now works with CINCO - an organization that researches the media's role in society and politics. In 2005, Delgado was part of the group of 1000 Peacewomen that was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Keywords: feminist conferences, gender and health, education, gender-based violence, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video (English, Spanish), Bibliography, YouTube Video (English, Spanish) Name Pronunciation Audio

Ima Thokchom Ramani Devi was born in 1930. At last contact, she was serving as the General Secretary of All Manipur Women's Reformation and Development Samaj.The Samaj has taken up several issues like banning of alcohol, rape, individual cases of women, and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. She belongs to the Meitei community.
Keywords: gender-based violence, reform of domestic/family roles
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Kerri Du Pont is Senior Project Manager for the Ministry of Social Development. Coming from a background in brand and digital strategy and design, she emigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1996 to work as a Senior Lecturer at Massey’s School of Design. Kerri has worked in strategic communications and project management in the public service since 2018. She has worked in central government and service delivery agencies advising on strategic communications, policy, reporting and risk assessment for managers, senior leaders and ministers, and has contributed to the delivery of key initiatives for diversity and inclusion and social cohesion across the system. She helped design the strategic priorities for the public sector-wide Government Women’s Network and significantly grew its membership and visibility. She has also been a trans-Tasman representative on a disability working group and contributes to the New Zealand Government Web community for accessibility. 

Kerri is also a Board member for the National Council of Women of New Zealand where she leads the communications strategy for the organisation.

She was instrumental in the recent launch of both the results of the 2023 gender attitudes survey and the platform of women's resources, listed below:

https://www.pockety.org.nz/ (A hub for services for women, developed and launched by Kerri Du Pont.)

https://genderequal.nz/ga-survey/ (Website of Gender Equal NZ, led by the National Council of Women of New Zealand. The results of the 2023 gender attitudes survey are available on this site in both summary format and pdf.)

Keywords: academia and women's studies, international rights, politics and the law

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, born in Lagos in 1966, is a specialist in gender and development and a human rights advocate. She received her B.A. in English, and her M.A. in development studies with a special focus on women’s issues, from the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague, the Netherlands. She worked for a few years for the Constitutional Rights Project (CRP), and then in 1999 established Project Alert on Violence Against Women, a not-for-profit that addresses gender-informed abuses The Project provides counseling, advocacy, and temporary shelter for abused persons. The organization opened the first shelter for abused/assaulted women and girls in Nigeria in 2001.

Keywords: community activism, gender-based violence, reform of domestic/family roles, environment, feminist conferences

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Gao Xiaoxian, born in 1948, is Secretary General of the Shaanxi Research Association for Women and Family. Working as an official in the Shaanxi Provincial Women's Federation, Gao has been a pivotal figure in establishing this influential non-governmental women's organization, and has also been involved in rural development projects.
Keywords: feminist conferences, gender and health, academia and women's studies, education, rural women and land reform
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin), Video (English, Mandarin), Bibliography, YouTube Video (Mandarin, English Dubbed), Name Pronunciation Audio

Manu Giese, born 1960, trade union employee at HBV (Union of Retail, Bank &Insurance, later ver.di). She came into contact with the women's movement when she was a teenager and had been active in the women's occupied house at Potsdamer Straße 139 in Berlin-Schönebergsince 1981. She belonged to the responsible group of women who, with the help of state subsidies and a great deal of self-help and work, renovated the house from the ground up. In 1986 the BEGiNE -Meeting Place & Culture for Women was opened in those premises. She lived in the house until 1998 and was active in self-administration (e.g. as a board member of the house association). She is also active in the BEGiNE as the owner of the women's pub (1986 -1998 and again since 2004).

Keywords: media

Media: Transcript (English, German), Video, YouTube Videos (German, English), Name Pronunciation Audio

Anna Gruszczynska was born in 1978. She studied English and Spanish Philology at the University of Wroclaw and at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. In 2001, Gruszczynska started a chapter of The Campaign against Homophobia. She has organized marches and campaigns calling for gay and lesbian rights in Poland. Gruszczynska is firmly committed to fighting homophobia and regularly publishes articles about the topic in feminist magazines.
Keywords: LGBTQ rights, intersectionality
Media: Transcript (English, Polish), Video (English, Polish), Bibliography, English YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Barbara Hoyer, born 1955, MA in German Studies and Geography (Magistra thesis on lesbian literature in the 1970s). After her studies, she worked in the women's bookstore Labrys in Berlin (1982-1989). From 1990-1998 was she part of the organisational team of BEGiNE -Treffpunkt und Kultur für Frauen e.V., responsible for event organisation, fundraising, and accounting. Since 1975 she has been active in the women's and lesbian movement, first in various women's groups (including LAZ -Lesbian Action Centre Berlin -around 1980), then in the above-mentioned women's projects). Since 2004 she has been project manager of the BEGiNE.

Keywords: media, academia and women's studies, community activism, art/writing as activism, LGBTQ rights

Media: Transcript (English, German), Video, YouTube Video (German, English), Name Pronunciation Audio

Xueqin (Sophia) Huang was born in 1988 in Shaoguang, Gangdong province. She graduated from Jinan University. She used to work as a journalist for a national news agency and progressive newspaper. She is freelancing now, writing for Southern Metropolis Weekly, The Livings, The Initium Media and NGOCN. Her reporting focuses on democracy development, civil society and the rights of disadvantaged groups in China. She published a report on workplace sexual harassment of Chinese female journalists in 2017, which ignited and promoted #Metoo movement in China. She is dedicated to women's rights and advocacy for anti-sexual harassment law. In 2019 she was jailed for several months for her reporting on Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. Read more about Xueqin (Sophia) Huang and her activism in the face of political repression here.

Keywords: gender-based violence, media, politics and the law, community activism
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin) 

Indira Huilca Flores, born in 1988, is a sociologist and progressive feminist activist. She received her degree in Sociology from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, and studied for a Master's in Political Science and Government at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. In 2013 she was elected councilor of the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima, where she joined the Commissions for Urban Development, Environment, Women and Neighborhood Participation. In this capacity, she promoted the creation of the Women's Management as the body responsible for public policies on gender equality in Metropolitan Lima. She was elected to Congress in 2016 and her work had three priorities: gender, diversity and human rights; labor rights and unionization; and the right to the city and public spaces. As a Congresswoman, she was the President of the Committee on Women and Family and a member of the Committee on Labor and Social Security in which she worked for the rights of women, workers, and the LGTBI community. She was also outspoken in calling the first congressional plenary session on women held in May 2018. In 2017 she joined the new political party New Peru and was the elected official spokesperson for the period 2019-2020. In 2019, she resigned from the New Peru Movement after the dissolution of Congress led to the movement to support electoral alliances in the congressional elections of January 2020.

Keywords: politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, born in 1963, had dual degrees in social work and sociology. She is a professor of sociology at the Higher School of Economics at the National Research University in Moscow, Russia, where she is a leading research fellow and the editor of the Journal of Social Policy Studies. Her professional research interests include social policy, sociology of professions, gender and disability, family and children, and qualitative research methods.
Keywords: academia and women's studies, art/writing as activism, education
Media: Transcript (English, Russian), Video (Russian), YouTube Video (Russian, English), Name Pronunciation Audio

Ngozi Iwere, born in 1956, has pursued work in language teaching, journalism and communications, but describes herself as primarily an activist. Through her contributions to the United Nations Expert Strategy Meeting on HIV/AIDS and Gender preparatory to the UN General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, the Expert Strategy Meeting on HIV/AIDS as a security issue, and UNAIDS Consultative Meeting on Communication for Social Change, she played key roles at the national and global levels in shaping policies on HIV/AIDS. She developed a model program for HIV/AIDS Prevention that targets and involves the entire community, which earned her an Ashoka Fellowship.

Keywords: community activism, gender and health, reform of domestic/family roles, feminist conferences

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Dr. Ang Jury is the CEO of Women’s Refuge New Zealand. Ang grew up in Waitara, a small town in the Taranaki region of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s North Island. Although she was a straight-A student, she chose to leave school at age 15, start a family, and move to Tauranga. Her marriage ended in her 30s, and she decided to study to be a social worker. She attended Massey University, where she completed an undergraduate degree and then decided to continue on to doctoral research focused on the role of shame within abusive relationships. She gained her PhD in 2008.  

Encouraged to volunteer in her community as part of her studies, Dr. Jury joined the Palmerston North Women's Refuge. She has worked in the domestic violence area for over 20 years, mostly within the Women’s Refuge movement in Aotearoa, beginning as a volunteer, then advocate, then to management and Board member, and eventually Chief Executive. In addition, she has been instrumental in the development of cross-agency collaborations both regionally and nationally.  

Dr Jury has presented her research to forums within New Zealand and internationally. In addition to her work with Women’s Refuge, she has worked to develop and coordinate family violence collaborations within the Manawatu and Whanganui regions under the umbrella of the government’s Te Rito Family Violence Strategy.   

In the 2022 New Year’s Honours List, Dr Jury became an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) awarded by Queen Elizabeth II. 

Keywords: community activism, gender-based violence, intersectionality

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Teruko Karikome, founder and former Executive Director (2007~2019) of NPO Women’s Space Fukushima (https://www.npo-womensspacefukushima.com/, formerly, Association Supporting Women’s Independence), Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture. She has long and extensive experience promoting women’s rights and wellbeing including previously serving as the Director of the Koriyama City’s Maternal and Child Welfare Center. Following the Great East Japan Disaster in 2011, her NPO managed “Women’s Space” in the biggest evacuation shelter in Fukushima, and continues to operate programs such as telephone counseling, support groups, and workshops on gender-based violence, while advocating for policy attention to women in Fukushima. Although she stepped down from the Executive Director, she continues to be actively involved in the growing program activities of Women’s Space Fukushima.  

Keywords: environment, gender-based violence, reform of domestic/family roles, community activism

Media: Transcript (English, Japanese), YouTube Video (Japanese, English Subtitles)

Sue Kedgley was one of the early leaders of the women’s liberation movement in New Zealand. 

She set up the Auckland University women’s liberation group in 1971 and the National Organisation for Women in 1972. She helped organise a high-profile tour of internationally acclaimed feminist Germaine Greer to New Zealand in 1972 and co-authored the first book about women’s liberation in New Zealand, entitled Sexist Society. 

Kedgley attended the first international feminist conference at Boston in 1973 and then worked as a Communications Officer in the Women’s Secretariat at the United Nations, New York, helping to organise the first international women’s conference at Mexico City in 1975 and coordinate International Women’s Year 1975. She helped set up the UN women’s group and was active in it for the 8 years she worked at the United Nations. She was Assistant Secretary of the second United Nations Conference for Women, which was held in Copenhagen in 1980. 

Returning to New Zealand in 1982, she worked for a decade as a television reporter, director, and producer, then entered local politics as a Wellington City Councillor from 1992 until 1999 when she was elected a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Green Party, serving as an MP from 1999 until 2011. She was women’s spokesperson for the Green party and Deputy Chairperson (1999-2005) and subsequently Chairperson of the New Zealand Parliament Health Select Committee (2005-2008). Sue was a Wellington Regional Councillor for six years and has served on several boards, including the National Board of UN Women Aotearoa New Zealand. She continues to be active in women’s issues and is a Convenor at the National Organisation for Women New Zealand. 

Kedgley has written six books on feminist issues, including Sexist Society (1972; co-edited with Sharon Cederman), Mum’s the Word: The Untold Story of Motherhood in New Zealand (1996), and most recently, a memoir entitled Fifty Years a Feminist (2021). In 2016, she received a New Zealand Women of Influence Award in recognition of her work towards greater gender diversity in the workplace, and in 2020, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to women and governance. 

Keywords: community activism, politics and the law, reform of domestic/family roles

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Yelena Viktorovna Kochkina, born in 1956, began working in gender research in 1990. Her work focuses on a gender analysis of legal reform in Russia, structural adjustment programs and the implementation of equal opportunity policies in Russia, as well as gender in the Russian education system. She is a research fellow and professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Studies of the Population at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords: academia and women's studies, politics and the law, intersectionality, community activism, reform of domestic/family roles, feminist conferences
Media: Transcript (English, Russian), YouTube Video (English, Russian), Name Pronunciation Audio

Marian Kramer (interviewed with Maureen Taylor) at last contact was the co-chair of the National Welfare Rights Union. She has fought government programs, such as Workfare, defended poor women against unjust persecution for welfare fraud and led campaigns to elect the victims of poverty to political office. She has organized poor people's movements, housing takeovers by people without homes, and led efforts to unionize in the South. She has received many community service awards and mentors college students fighting poverty.  Taylor and Kramer spoke at a rally in Detroit, Michigan in June 2020, and a video of their speech recorded by the group Detroit Will Breathe can be found here.
Keywords: gender and health, media, community activism, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Lata Pratibha Madhukar, born in 1955, has worked as an anchorperson for the radio in Maharashtra, a research assistant in the Research Centre for Women's Studies, and later an activist at the Women's Centre. She joined Narmada Bachao Andolan for environmental rights and became the national convenor for the National Alliance of People's Movements.
Keywords: academia and women's studies, gender-based violence
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Diane Lima was born in 1986 in Mundo Novo, Bahia, Brazil and is an independent curator and creative director. She holds a Master of Arts in Communication and Semiotics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and her work focuses on experimenting with multidisciplinary artistic and curatorial practices, developing collective learning devices with a focus on knowledge creation and production processes. In 2014, she founded the NoBrasil (InBrazil) platform, created the “Leave the Girl's Hair in the World” campaign (campanha “Deixa o Cabelo da Menina no Mundo”), and the AfroTranscendence project, an immersion program in creative processes to promote contemporary Afro-Brazilian culture. The project produced the short film Tempo de Cura (Healing Time) that was screened in several Brazilian film festivals. Between 2016 and 2017, Lima curated the Vale do Silício African Film Festival, created A. Gentes, an immersion program on racial issues for the employees of Itaú Cultural, in addition tobeing the curator -at the same institution-of Diálogos Ausentes (Absent Dialogues), a project that for a year and a half discussed the presence of black people in different areas. The project culminated with a homonymous exhibition in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 2018 she was the curator of the Valongo International Image Festival, a member of the Art Critics Group of the CCSP –São Paulo Cultural Center, in addition to be a jury member on several selection and award commissions such as Bravo Award!, the award EDP in the Arts from the Tomie Ohtake institute and of Artsonica from Oi Futuro. Lima also collaborated for the Bravo! Magazine and in 2018 published a text in the Anthology Afro-Atlantic Histories of the MASP -São Paulo Art Museum.

Keywords: media, racial identity, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (Portuguese, English), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English Subtitles)

In April 1987, Sanshan Lin (Joy Lin) was born in a small village in Yongji County Jilin Province. After graduating with a bachelor degree in sociology in Northeast Normal University, she went to Shanghai and started her career in executive search industry. In November 2016, she founded 我们与平权 Wequality, a feminist organization dedicated to raising public awareness of gender inequality in China, building community, and empowering members to unite to make gender equality a reality. Through regular WeChat articles and online/offline activities, Wequality continues its advocacy. In 2018, Wequality initiated “Our Stories” project to release interview reports annually with people’s experiences and opinions on different gender issues in China. The one on sexual harassment was released in 2019 while another on gender discrimination in 2020.
Keywords: community activism, education, gender-based violence
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin)

Anna Lipowska-Teutsch was born in 1944 in Warsaw, Poland. She graduated with a Master of Arts in Psychology from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow in 1969. She worked for the Acute Poisoning Clinic in Cracow where she counseled victims of suicide, especially women who had been victimized by family members. In 1990, she co-founded the Society for Crisis Intervention designed to intervene in cases of domestic violence. Since 2002, she has also  worked for the rights of Roma (a.k.a. "gypsies") women in Poland.
Keywords: gender-based violence
Media: Transcript (English, Polish), Video (English, Polish), Bibliography, English YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Anita Lombardi was born in Vittorio Veneto in 1988. She graduated from college with a degree in Philosophy and works as a freelancer. She works as the Secretary of the Board  of the Lesbian Association in Bologna. 

Keywords: LGBTQ+ rights, intersectionality

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Marina Mikhailovna Malysheva, born in 1957, is an economist, and at last contact was working as a senior researcher at the Institute of Social Economic Studies of the Population at the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISESP RAS). She was involved in the creation of the Moscow Center of Gender Research in 1990, which was founded to conduct research on essential social issues, to perform gender analyses for social projects and legislative frameworks, and to address gender discrimination in all spheres of society. Malysheva’s professional interests included gender and economics, and gender and family sociology. The GFP staff note with sadness Marina's death in 2019.
Keywords: academia and women's studies
Media: Transcript (English, Russian), Video (Russian), YouTube Video (English, Russian) Name Pronunciation Audio

Mangai is the pseudonym of Padma (born in 1959) who is a theatre director and Professor of English Literature in Stella Mary's College. As a member of the All India Democratic Women's Association and Chennai Kalai Kuzhu, Mangai translates social issues into street theatre and stage plays, becoming the key person in a group called Voicing Silence.
Keywords: feminist conferences, environment, art/writing as activism
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Reiko Masai, founder and Executive Director of NPO Women’s Net Kobe, Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, the first group in Japan to call attention to disaster-related gender-based violence and published reports documenting women’s experiences, including Women talk about the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (English translation available at https://wn-kobe.or.jp/bosai/eng/index.html). For over thirty years, Ms. Masai has worked to promote women’s rights and gender equality in Japan. In 2007, she launched Disaster & Gender Information Network, the first initiative of its kind in Japan, and co-founded Women's Network for East Japan Disaster in 2011 (http://risetogetherjp.org/?cat=46), also the first of its kind, advocating for more inclusive disaster response. For her tenacious activism, she has received numerous awards, including Kato Shizue Award in 2003 and the Champion of Change Japan Award from the Fish Family Foundation in 2018.   

Keywords: gender-based violence, community activism, gender and health

Media: Transcript (English, Japanese), YouTube Video (Japanese, English Subtitles)

Diana Martínez was born in 1958, and became active in the Sandinista movement as a student, finishing high school in Guatemala and becoming a Marxist. After the Sandinista Revolution, she returned to Nicaragua and worked in the textile industry based on her belief in the importance of laborers, and in an effort to rid herself of her bourgeois past. She has been involved with feminist research in Nicaragua, and at last contact was a director at La Fem, a coffee cooperative for women in Estelí.
Keywords: gender and health, rural women and land reform, reproductive rights, academia and women's studies
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Vina Mazumdar (1927-2013) was a professor and past fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, serving on the Committee on the Status of Women in India and later directing the Programme of Women's Studies at the Indian Council of Social Science Research. She founded the Centre for Women's Development Studies and became its Chairperson. The GFP staff note with sadness the death of Vina in 2013. To learn more about her contribution to women's movement in India, read her public obituary written in The Hindu Paper.
Keywords: feminist conferences, academia and women's studies, rural women and land reform, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video, Video, Bibliography, Name Pronunciation Audio

Netia McCray is an educator whose global non-profit organization, Mbadika (bah-GEE-kah), has helped thousands bring their ideas to reality through leveraging STEM. For over 10 years, Netia has worked to demystify STEM in order to make it accessible to typically disadvantaged groups. As a March 2020 Longhauler, she has witnessed first hand the short and long term devastation that Long COVID has brought to not only her community but to communities worldwide. Netia believes knowledge is power and being able to obtain appropriate care and support starts with equitable access. Through her work with C-19 LAP, she utilizes her educational background to demystify Long COVID and recovery for communities like hers that shouldered the burden of the COVID pandemic.

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, education, intersectionality

Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Yamileth Mejía was born in 1967, joining the national Literacy Campaign as a girl and receiving her teacher training in Cuba in 1984. She is one of the nine feminists formally accused by the Government of Nicaragua for supporting the rights of an eleven year-old girl who had been raped to obtain an abortion. At last contact, she was working for the Project for Comprehensive Services to Victims of Gender-based Violence funded by the Spanish Cooperation Agency.
Keywords: community activism, education, gender-based violence, reproductive rights, reform of domestic/family roles
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video (English, Spanish), Bibliography, YouTube Video (English, Spanish), Name Pronunciation Audio

Lia Migale, writer and economist, was born in 1949 and lives in Rome, where she was a professor of Business Economics at the “La Sapienza” University in Rome until the 2014/2015 academic year. She was a consultant on issues of the economics of art and planning and business strategy for Italian and international organizations. She also worked as an economic editor in the national press for a long period and published various economic essays. Feminist since the 1970s, she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Casa internazionale delle Donne di Roma from 2014 to 2019. She has published several works on Italian feminism, including “Piccola storia del femminismo in Italia” (Empiria, Roma, 2016), and “Imprenditoria femminile e sviluppo economico”, (Nuova Italia Scientifica, Roma, 1996). She has also published novels, short stories, and other essays. With the novel L’innumerevole uno (Iacobelli Editore, Roma, 2018) she was the winner of the 2018 Capalbio Award. Her latest novel, “Incontri all’angolo di un mattino” was published in 2018 (La Lepre Edizioni Roma) and received one of the awards from L’IGUANA, Castello di Prata Sannita in  2019. 

Keywords: media, community activism, intersectionality, LGBTQ+ rights, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Diana Miloslavich Túpac was born in Huancayo, likely in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Diana is the Director of one of the most important women’s organizations in Perú, an expert on advancing women’s policy, and an accomplished author with more than 40 years of experience working to advance women’s political participation and human rights in Perú. She obtained a Masters in Literature at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and was a Ph.D. Candidate in Social Sciences, specializing in History with the thesis "History of the Political Participation of Women in Perú."  Diana has participated in the execution of numerous projects in the promotion of legal and political initiatives related to women’s rights. For example, as part of the Women's Forum in Perú, she presented the first proposals for gender quotas and domestic violence in 1991. She was an advisor to the Women's Commission of the Municipality of Lima and of the creation of the Pro Equity Office from 1999 to 2002. In 2003, she was part of the team with the Ministry of Women and Social Development. In 2011, she was part of the Transfer Commission of the new government, and later Head of the Cabinet of Advisers to the Minister for Women. Diana has also participated in various projects with organizations such as: Equality Now, DAWN, RENAMA, Social Watch, UN Women, UNIFEM, UNFPA, UNICEF, DIAKONIA, CUSO, NOVIB, Oxfam, UE, and USAID, among others. Most recently, she was a major player in the campaign to promote and pass the newly established Gender Parity Law (Law No. 31030, 2020. Diana is currently the Director of the Political Participation and Decentralization Program of the Peruvian Women's Center, Flora Tristán, a key feminist institution created in 1979 with a focus on women’s rights. She is also an accomplished author (select titles): The Autobiography of Maria Elena Moyano: The Life And Death Of A Peruvian (1992), with editions in Spain and translated in Italy, USA and Japan); Women's Literature, A look from feminism (2012); Flora Tristan: Peregrinations of an Outcast at the Fair (2019); Feminism and Suffrage 1933-1956 (2015); Political Harassment in Peru: A look at Electoral Processes (2016), Gender, Parity and Disaster Risk Management (2019), publishing both through Flora Tristán and an academic press in the U.S.

Keywords: community activism, politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Giordana Moreira, born in 1980, is a human rights activist and has been working in the arts as a cultural producer since the-mid 2000s. In 2011 she created Roque Pense!, a network of women cultural producers that promotes projects and festivals through music and graffiti arts to raise awareness about women’s rights and to celebrate women’s artistic work.
Keywords: gender-based violence, art/writing as activism, community activism
Media: Transcript (English, Portuguese), Video, YouTube Video (Portuguese, English) Name Pronunciation Audio

Michela Murgia was born in 1972 in Sardinia. She worked as a writer, blogger, playwright, literary critic, and television and newspaper columnist with the Gedi Group. She has won several awards for her fiction, in particular for Accabadora, for which she received the Campiello prize, and also for non-fiction, for Ave Mary and Istruzioni per diventare fascisti, with the publisher Einaudi in Turin. Already a supporter of Sardinian independence and politically active on the left, she was also committed to women’s rights. Michela Murgia passed away on August 10, 2023.

Keywords: art/writing as activism, politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)