Media

Ai Xiaoming, born in 1953, is a feminist literary scholar and the co-producer and director of the Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues, one of the activities of the Stop Domestic Violence network. She is Deputy Director of the Women's Studies Center and director of the Sex/Gender Education Forum in Zhongshan University, Guangzhou.

A chapter in Gender Dynamics, Feminist Activism and Social Transformation in China published by Ke Qianting in 2019 discussing the Vagina Monologues in China can be found here.
Keywords: feminist conferences, media, academia and women's studies, education, gender-based violence, politics and the law, reform of domestic/family roles
Media: Transcript (English, Mandarin), Video (English, Mandarin), Bibliography, YouTube Video (Mandarin, English Dubbed), Name Pronunciation Audio

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

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

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) 

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)

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