Monday, November 30, 2020: Imagining a Post-“45” US and the World with Vylma V, Jovelyn Richards, and Margo Okazawa-Rey

Welcome everyone to Women’s Magazine!  I’m Margo Okazawa-Rey, your host. Today is the 5th Monday so three of us hosts of WM Jovelyn Richards, Vylma Ortiz, and I decided to team up.  

We’re here to discuss our observations about the incoming administration and most important, share our vision of a feminist future under Harris and Biden. We will be answering three questions during the show. At the end, we will invite you to share your thoughts via email to Women’s Magazine. In the meantime, think along with us your answers to the questions.

• What are our reactions to the  presidential transition and, based on what you see, what can we expect from the incoming administration?
• What do we want the Biden-Harris administration to create that will ensure women will  thrive? 
• What signs will show us we are on the right road to our vision? What should be our underlying values?

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min 

Monday, November 16, 2020: Feminists across the globe talk about the US election.

Welcome everyone to Women’s Magazine!  I’m Margo Okazawa-Rey, filling in for Jovelyn Richards, who usually hosts the “Space Between Us” Program.  I’m on the air from Berkeley California, on occupied Ohlone territory. Thanking all the Ohlone ancestors and mine  for another day.

We in the US have no question that the processes and the results of the 2020 presidential election reflect the history, the current political climate, and the future of this country. More than 150 million voters turned out—breaking records. Though not surprising, one very noteworthy development always to keep in mind is that the organizers and voters of colour—African American, Asian American, Latinx, and Native American-all played critical roles in this year’s election. They saved America. Special kudos and appreciations to the Black, and queer women-led Movement for Black lives, and all allies, that constitute the biggest movement in US History. In other words, the seriousness of this election has not been understated.

As we think and learn about the implications for the US, let’s also consider the global implications. As the saying goes, “when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches pneumonia.”

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min 

I am delighted to have this extra show today, just after the elections, to give us a more global perspective.  I interviewed feminists from various parts of the world and asked them two questions:

·      What is your reactions to the outcome of the US presidential elections?

·      What difference will the Biden-Harris administration make on the lives of the women in your country?

Most KPFA listeners will probably not be surprised to hear what my guests have to say. Still, it’s important that we hear their voices as they tell us. You will get to listen to feminists in Europe and various parts of Asia.

As with my regular shows, my intention is for us in the Bay Area and the US to connect the dots—between geographies of “there” and “here” and between their lives and ours, so we feminists across the globe  can stand together in ethical solidarity to imagine and be part of creating a genuinely secure and sustainable world.

We featured the following people:

Ruth-Gaby Vermot, former Swiss Parliamentarisn of the Socialist Party, Bern, Switzerland. 15 years ago, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold together with an international team nominated 1000 women for the Nobel Peace Prize. In an unprecedented initiative, they searched the world for women working for peace and justice. She is the initiator and co-president of PeaceWomen Across the Globe.

Randa Siniora is a Palestinian human rights and women’s rights defender with over 30 years of professional experience in the field of international human rights and humanitarian law. Since 2015, she has been the General Director of the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC). WCLAC provides Legal Aid and Counseling for women's victims of Gender Based Violence and works towards gender equality and non-discrimination against women in all aspects of Palestinian life.  Prior to joining WCLAC, Ms. Siniora was the Senior Executive Director of the Palestinian National Human Rights Institution the “Independent Commission for Human Rights” and the General Director of Al-Haq/Law in the Service of Man one of the most prominent NGOs in Palestine with a consultative status with UN ECOSOC. She was also a Human Rights Specialist with the Secretariat for the support of human rights and good governance organizations in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

Kunthea Chan  Just Associates Southeast Asia (SEA) Regional Program Coordinator, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She is a feminist activist and co-author of Diving Deep, Going Far: Stories of the Women Leaders Forming Cambodia's Future

Kozue Akibayashi is a feminist researcher/activist and has worked on issues of gender and peace. She is a professor at Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, and a member of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Corazon Valdez Fabros, Philippines feminist activist,  is currently Vice President of International Peace Bureau and a core member of thematic circle on Peace and Security both at the civil society process at Asia-Europe Peoples Forum and the ASEAN Civil Society Conference- ASEAN Peoples Forum. She is Lead convenor of the STOP the War Coalition Philippines and Nuclear Free Pilipinas. Currently the focal person for the Philippines at the No Nukes Asia Forum (A network that focuses on campaigns against nuclear power plants in Asia and the promotion of alternative renewable energy sources as an option to dirty and destructive energy)

Kamla Bhasin, who lives in New Delhi, is an Indian feminist activist, poet, and author. Kamla's work  focuses on gender, education, human development and the media. She is a founding member and adviser of Sangat - A Feminist Network. She is also the co-chair of PeaceWomen across the Globe in Bern Switzerland and South Asia coordinator of One Billion Rising. She practices advocacy that combines feminist theory and community action, often using posters, plays, and other non-literary methods to mobilize communities with limited literacy skills.

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min 

Monday, July 27, 2020: Suffering from Three Viruses: Occupation, Corona, and Traditional Patriarchal Culture with Margo Okazawa-Rey

Today I continue what has turned out to be a series on colonization, militarism, and their impacts on women. Today also marks the 67th anniversary of the armistice that ended the war on the Korean Peninsula so let’s keep that in our hearts.

On past shows, my guests discussed Memorial Day, and US colonization and occupation of Okinawa and the Pacific. In our show titled Suffering from Three Viruses: Occupation, Corona, and Patriarchal Culture, we broaden the earlier discussions by shifting to Afghanistan and Palestine. In interviews recorded on July 22, my guests Sima Samar and Faiha Abdulhadi shared what’s happening in Afghanistan and Palestine respectively. Next month, we’ll hear about Sudan.

As you are listening, please ask yourselves these questions: How has it been possible to forget about Afghanistan and Afghan women? What do you know about Palestine and Palestinian women? And again, I am urging you to make the connections between “here” and “there”, the relationships between domestic policy and foreign policy, and ultimately to imagine what real security--all the way from in your lives and communities, to the entire country, and the world-- would look and feel like. Especially for women.

The latest in Afghanistan and Palestine, reported by wonderful feminist activists, women and human-rights defenders, visionaries, and my dear friends, Sima Samar and Faiha Abdulhadi. Given what you heard, as US-based feminists, what is the “common context of struggle,” as Chandra Mohanty asks, with Afghani and Palestinian women? How are our destinies bound up with theirs?

Dr. Faiha Abdulhadi has extensive experience as a writer, poet, oral-historian, researcher and research-consultant, community activist, and lecturer, and has been working on gender and other issues of human interest. She is the founder and director of Al Rowat for Studies and Research, which seeks to rewrite social history by documenting stories of marginalized groups and of witnesses to key historic events. She is a member of the Palestinian National Council, the Palestinian Central Council, the deputy Commissioner General for the Independent Commission for Human Rights in Palestine.

Dr. Sima Samar is a medical doctor for poor people by profession, and a women’s and human rights activist. She was the first Minister for Women’s Affair after the fall of the Taliban. Since 2004, she is the Chairperson of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the first established in the country, which holds human rights violators accountable, a commitment that has put her own life at great risk. She has established and nurtured the Shuhada Organization that, in 2012, operated more than one hundred schools and 15 clinics and hospitals dedicated to providing education and healthcare, particularly focusing on women and girls. She was the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award in 2012.

Resources:

Free Women Writers https://www.freewomenwriters.org/2016/09/14/afghan-women-history-post-taliban/

Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling www.wclac.org

Click here to listen to the show. 59:59 min

Monday, March 30, 2020: Escalating Interpersonal and State Violence in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic

This Monday March 30th at 1pm on KPFA Radio's Women's Magazine, Margo Okazawa-Rey  talks to four young feminist leaders in the anti-violence and anti-sexual assault movement who are present or former Brown University students,  to look at the less visible and less talked about aspects of the Coronavirus.  They look at what is happening interpersonally and in the home, and how the Shelter in Place Policy affects women and other folks in precarious and already-vulnerable positions, especially people with disabilities and incarcerated persons.   And they look at what happens when you consider race and class as critical aspects of their experiences.  They discuss the emerging data and observations regarding the increasing violence in various forms that are resulting from or exacerbated by the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Camila Pelsinger, senior at Brown University, is a leader sexual violence prevention on campus, including as a coordinator for the Brown University Sexual Assault Peer Education program.  As Vice President of Brown’s student government, she developed a transformative justice program to support community-based approaches to addressing harm that prioritizes the needs of victims and survivors.

Rose Houglet, sophomore at Brown, covers gender issues and campus activism for campus publications and volunteers as a Sexual Assault Peer Educator. She also conducts gender-based violence research that examines community intervention methods at Rhode Island middle and high schools.

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu (pronounced: tim-koo-loo), a graduate of Brown, is the Founder and Executive Director of Project LETS, a national grassroots organization led by and for folks with lived experience of mental illness/madness, Disability, trauma, and neurodivergence. Their work and community-organizing specialize in building radical peer support collectives and community mental health care structures outside of state-sanctioned systems of “care,” grounded in principles of anti-racism and Disability, Transformative, and Healing Justice.

Xochi Cartland is a junior at Brown University. With a background in Disability Justice, she  is a staff member at Project LETS and is Student Coordinator, alongside Camila, of the Transformative Justice Program. Her primary interest resides in building grassroot infrastructures for responding to harm and violence that operate outside of institutions.

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min

https://www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/10-principles-of-disability-justice