Gender and Health

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

Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) was an activist and writer. A daughter of Chinese immigrants, she moved to Detroit and worked in grassroots projects together with her partner, James Boggs. They founded Detroit Summer, an intergenerational multicultural youth movement, and wrote in the Michigan Citizen newspaper. She published her autobiography, Living for Change, and among others, received the distinguished Alumna Award from Barnard College, the Chinese American Pioneers Award from the Organization of Chinese Americans, and a lifetime achievement award from the Anti-Defamation League. A plaque in her honor is at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY. The GFP staff were saddened by Grace's death in 2015. Read the NYT obituary to learn more about her remarkable life, spanning a full century, as a human rights activist.
Keywords: gender and health, community activism, education, intersectionality, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

JD Davids, born in 1967, is a US-based health justice and communications strategist working with national networks of disabled and chronically ill people. He co-founded Strategies for High Impact and its Network for Long COVID Justice in 2021. Davids has been an external expert advisor to the NIH, CDC, and local health departments, and has served as a strategist and organizer with many pivotal groups, including ACT UP Philadelphia, AVAC, the Coalition for a National HIV/AIDS Strategy, Health GAP, the Health Not Prisons Collective, the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance, Positive Women’s Network – USA and the U.S. Caucus of People Living with HIV. As a queer and trans person living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), Long COVID and other complex chronic conditions, he writes and hosts conversations for The Cranky Queer Guide to Chronic Illness (@TheCrankyQueer), sits on the board of #MEAction and is a contributing member of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, which released the first comprehensive study on Long COVID. 

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, community activism, disability rights, gender and health, international rights

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

Jarjum Ete, born in 1963, belongs to the Galo tribe and is the Chairperson of the Arunachal Pradesh State Commission on Women which discusses women's participation in panchayats, customary laws, need for a state women's commission and anti-liquor laws. She has very strong views on legalisation of prostitution.
Keywords: gender and health, community activism, gender-based violence, sex work, intersectionality, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, 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

Matilde Lindo (1954-2013) was a feminist leader, teacher, sociologist and activist who focused on issues of violence and discrimination against women and racial discrimination within Nicaragua. She was a proud representative of the black population from the Rosita Mines region. She helped to start a radio program that aimed to raise awareness about violence against women as a violation of women's rights and lead the Network of Women Against Violence during the later years of her life. The GFP staff note with sadness the death of Matilde in 2013. A public obituary celebrating her life and detailing her dedication to women's rights can be found here (Spanish).
Keywords: feminist conferences, gender and health, education, intersectionality
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Dr. Mairo Usman Mandara was born on June 5, 1965, in Bukuru, just outside of Jos, the capital of Plateau State, Nigeria. She first attended primary school in Bukuru and continued her post-secondary education at the University of Jos. There she studied medicine, specifically women’s health issues, an interest that expanded to include the socio-economic issues associated with women’s health such as VVF (vesico-vaginal fistula), e.g., early marriage and stunting due to malnutrition. Her work as an obstetric-gynaecologist led to a broader feminist concern with girl-child education, the founding of the Federation of Muslim Women of Nigeria (FOMWAN), and with the NGO, Girl-Child Concerns. Between 2005 and 2010, Dr. Mandara was a Senior Country Adviser in Nigeria to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and more recently worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the Country Representative to Nigeria. Her current activist and scholarly work reflect her belief in the importance of working with traditional political and religious leaders in encouraging parents to enable their daughters to complete their secondary school education.

Keywords: gender and health, reform of domestic/family roles, academia and women's studies, feminist conferences

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

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

Sandra Ramos was born in 1959 and is a leader in the Women's Rights Movement whose activism focuses on women workers in the maquila. She is a co-founder and director of Nicaragua's María Elena Cuadra Women's Movement, which provides scholarships for nontraditional jobs, has a small credit program for unemployed women, teaches women about their labor rights, and provides training for negotiation techniques.
Keywords: gender and health, gender-based violence, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English, Spanish), Video (English, Spanish), Bibliography, English YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Loretta Ross, born in 1953, is an activist and was one of the first African American women to direct a rape crisis center. She has served as director of the Women of Color Programs for the National Organization for Women, as national co-director of the March for Women's Lives in DC, and as National Program Research Director for the Center for Democratic Renewal. She founded the National Center for Human Rights Education and co-authored "Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice". She is a founding member and most currently a national coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. The New York Times published an article about Loretta Ross on November 19th, 2020, which can be found here. Congratulations to United States GFP interviewee Loretta Ross on being named a 2022 MacArthur Fellow!
Keywords: gender and health, feminist conferences, gender-based violence, intersectionality, reproductive rights
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Suffering with the debilitating effects and symptoms of Covid-19 for nearly a year, Chimére L. Smith, born in 1982, has had to learn the hard knocks of advocacy in healthcare. While seeking treatment and care, she experienced racism, sexism, and dismissal by several medical professionals. Chimére boldly took matters into her own hands by challenging Baltimore hospitals for better, comprehensive treatment for herself and other Black Long Covid patients in urban communities. She is an author, speaker, highly-requested panelist, and thought leader who unapologetically shares her Long Covid journey — including balancing the effects of her disability emotionally, physically, and financially. Chimére Smith has been featured on CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, and in The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She has written for Huffington Post, Medium, The Long Covid Survival Guide, and She Knows.

Keywords: activism during the COVID-19 pandemic, disability rights, gender and health, media

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

Wang Xingjuan, born in 1931, was an editor at the Beijing Publishing House and started the first women's domestic violence hot line in China. This became the Maple Women's Counseling Center, one of the earliest women's NGOs in China. At the last contact, she was serving as the director.
Keywords: feminist conferences, gender and health, gender-based violence, politics and the law
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin), Video (English, Mandarin), Bibliography, YouTube Video (Mandarin, English Dubbed), Name Pronunciation Audio