Significant progress on gender equality has been made in past decades, but in recent years gender and sexual rights have become increasingly under threat from a global wave of backlash.
In this special podcast to celebrate International Women’s Day, IDS Fellow Deepta Chopra is in conversation with gender experts Myriam Sfeir, Director of the Arab Institute for Women at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and Aisha Lai, Liberian Country Director of the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation.
Listen to the podcast
In the podcast, they discuss the rollback of gender justice, the backlash they have faced in their own work, and the strategies that we can use to counter these challenges.
This podcast is a must-listen for researchers, policymakers and students with an interest in gender rights and for those that advocate for building solidarities for gender justice as a primary tactic to counter the rising backlash.
About the interviewer
Professor Deepta Chopra is a feminist social scientist whose research interests focus on unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW), empowerment of women and girls; and the role of women’s movements in effecting policy change and countering backlash. Deepta is currently leading IDS’ work on understanding and supporting women’s struggles with an emphasis on strategies against backlash. She is the lead for the Sustaining Power: Women’s Struggles against backlash in South Asia (SuPWR) programme, and also research projects within the Countering Backlash programme.
About the interviewees
Myriam Sfeir, Director of the Arab Institute for Women (AiW) at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. Previously she served as senior managing editor of Al-Raida, the double-blind peer-reviewed journal published by AiW. She has over twenty five years of experience working in the area of women’s rights and gender equality and ample experience doing research, expert analysis, trainings, and teaching. She is an authority on the women’s movement in Lebanon and has worked extensively on several ground-breaking projects related to oral history, movement building, marginalized groups and has organized several international and regional conferences, film festivals, and panels that address gender rights and justice.
Aisha Lai, Liberian Country Director of the The Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation. Aisha brings 13 years of extensive experience as an international development specialist, having lived and worked in diverse communities across Sub-Saharan Africa. She has a strong background in public health, and her work emphasizes: sexual and reproductive health rights; gender-based violence: economic empowerment; and movement building for advocacy in the gender space.
Her expertise lies in strategic management, with a particular focus on gender equality programming.
Six ways to build solidarities for gender justice
In a recent IDS Report ‘Building Solidarities: Gender Justice in a Time of Backlash’ we examine the ways gender equality is under attack globally and put forward six guiding principles for building solidarities for gender justice as a primary tactic to counter the rising backlash.
- Amplifying diverse voices
- Embracing intersectional ways of working
- Decolonising knowledge about gender and development
- Digital spaces as sites of resistance and solidarity
- Funding progressive action
- Centring mutual care in solidarity building
Read the report: Building Solidarities: Gender Justice in a Time of Backlash
About the Between the Lines podcast
This podcast series explores ground-breaking ideas in development for positive social and environmental change. Each month we feature an interview with an expert in international development who will talk about their latest research and ideas.
Episodes content could feature authors of new books, IDS research or interviews with special guest stars.
The discussions give an insight on the themes covered, exploring the challenges and discoveries, and why the issues matter for progressive and sustainable development globally.
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