If you're looking for feminist podcast recommendations, we’ve got you covered. AWID staff have curated a list of their favorite podcast episodes that showcase Feminist Power in Action.
Recommendations from Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
How to Raise a Woman - AfroQueer (in English)
This episode tells the story of Tshepho Ricki Kgositau, a Botswana trans woman and her experience of gender-transitioning, the support she received from her family and community, and how she influenced the Botswana High Court to change her gender marker.
How to do an Abortion - The Cut on Tuesdays (in English)
This episode explores how a group of American women in the 1960s developed their own safe abortion kits.
Black Queer Disabled Kink - Inner Hoe Uprising (in English)
This episode includes a segment by a chronically-ill and disabled femme who speaks about access intimacy, kink and making the bedroom accessible.
Recommendations from Kamee Abrahamian
All My Relations & Indigenous Feminism - All My Relations Podcast (in English)
I love this episode because it is conversational and easy to follow. Two young indigenous women center their voices and journeys from their own positionalities and worldviews on feminism, and by doing this, it feels to me like they are challenging audiences to think outside the limits of western/euro-centric understandings and perceptions of feminism. They are living their own version of feminist realities in the here and now.
The Foremothers of Armenian Feminists - EVN Report (in English)
Another personal one, especially because it speaks to my Armenian lineage. My cultural-community context is where my own understandings and practices of feminism and feminist realities have grown out of (sometimes painfully). What I appreciate about this conversation is how it turns to a long and often forgotten history of Armenian feminism as a way to frame and inform both present-day and future feminist understandings of ourselves and our experiences, and of feminist practices in our every-day lives in general.
Two interviews with the editors of Revolutionary Mothering (in English)
My versions of feminist realities always center relationships, systems of mutual aid, and ecosystems of care. That’s why I am eternally grateful to the authors who contributed their works to the book “Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines”. Reading this anthology marked such an important moment in my feminist journey, especially as a queer-diasporic-SWANA mother/caregiver. I will never forget this line by Alexis Pauline Gumbs: “The practice of mothering that inspired us to create this book is older than feminism; it is older and more futuristic than the category ‘woman.’”
Recommendations from Cécile Pillon Hue
Luttes féministes et LGBT en Tunisie - Un podcast à soi (in French)
I love every episode of this podcast series! Charlotte Bienaimé is very accessible and humble. I found this episode in particular very interesting because (for once!) it was not Franco-centric. It talks about the feminist aspect of the "Arab Spring" revolts in Tunisia which is somewhat taboo in Maghreb culture.
Quand le handicap invisibilise la personne - Miroir Miroir (in French)
This is an interview with Elisa Rojas, a feminist, laywer and founder of the CLHEE (Collectif Lutte et Handicaps pour l’Egalité et l’Emancipation) who brings her perspective on how handicap is also a feminist issue. For me it was quite eye-opening and very relevant to our work at AWID, although often overlooked in some feminist movements.
Entretien avec Virginie Despentes - Les couilles sur la table (In French)
A series of interviews with French feminist Virginie Despentes author of King Kong Theorie... what else is there to say?
Maïa Mazaurette, Sortir la tête du trou - Les couilles sur la table (in French)
This is an interview with Maïa Mazaurette, a journalist specialized in sexuality. Listening to her had a "liberating" effect on me. She goes back in time to explain where the control on women's bodies originates and why it's important to take back control over our bodies and our sexualities, and provides guidance on how to do that.
Recommendations from Kimalee Phillip
How to Survive the End of the World - Adrienne Maree Brown and Automn Brown (in English)
Produced by two sisters, I enjoy this podcast as it uses humour, witty banter, deep reflective questions to ponder on the state of the world, and discuss new possibilities.
Irresistible Podcast (in English)
Formerly known as Healing Justice, Irresistible is a helpful hub encouraging us to think deeply about the many forms and principles of healing justice and disability justice with guests such as Mia Mingus, Alice Wong, and Sins Invalid.
Recommendations from Felogene Anumo
Smashing the Online Patriarchy Podcast - Berhan Taye & Neema Iyer (In Enligsh)
"Covid-19 pandemic has pushed a great population to explore remote working and virtual connections in the digital world. Despite the numerous benefits of ICTs as a powerful political tool to mobilize and connect, we know that technology is not gender neutral. Power dynamics shape, and are shaped by the tools we use to organize virtually. Hosted by Berhan Taye & Neema Iyer, the Smashing the Online Patriarchy episode is in conversation Sandra Kwikiriza and Koliwe Majama who share their visions of a feminist internet for African women and gender diverse folks and sex workers, tips on digital safety and how feminists can occupy the digital space.
Breaking the bank of patriarchy - Tea with Mama Cash (in English)
I enjoy most of the episodes of Tea with Mama Cash. I find the hosts, Zohra Moosa and Happy Mwende Kinyili, and their chosen topics provocative, compelling and deeply political. This particular episode gives a voice to concerns that many of us have silently harbored or openly acknowledged when it comes to resourcing feminist movements: can money be a tool for emancipatory change or will it always be the master’s tool?
When Feminists Rule The World - hosted by comedian Martha Chaves (In English)
Talk about feminist power in action, this podcast hosted by Martha is an interplay of witty banter, feminist politic and eloquent rage. Together with guest speakers, the episodes cover a range of struggles, including settler colonialism, bodily autonomy, migration, climate justice, peace and security and political representation. By weaving in analyses on how different oppressive systems interact to reproduce injustices, guests share bold propositions on When Feminists Rule the World. And indeed in many ways, we already are! Also, I was recently invited to speak on an episode titled “When Feminists Rule the World…..There Will Be No Billionaires,” which focuses on the topic of economic justice, wealth disparity, and the inextricable links between patriarchy, white supremacy and capitalism. It’ll be out soon, so stay tuned!
Recommendations from Laila Malik
No Police? No Problem - Sandy & Nora Talk Politics (in English)
Sandy Hudson is one of the original founders of Black Lives Matter-Toronto, and Nora Loreto is a Canadian journalist and author of Take Back the Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age. Sandy and Nora Talk Politics is their podcast (and just hit #2 on Canada's new podcast list). In this episode they dig deeper into envisioning what police abolition could look like, which is an earth-shattering Feminist Reality, and talk about concrete alternatives that are taking shape in this moment when the idea is finally becoming mainstreamed. (***swearwords alert)
Recommendations from Fenya Fischler
The cost of cereal - Crackdown (In English)
Crackdown is a podcast produced by people who use drugs. They decided to create their own media in the face of the war on drugs and the devastating impact it has on their lives, and the ways they are resisting and supporting each other each day. In this episode the host visits SisterSpace, a trans-inclusive safe injection site for women who use drugs in Vancouver. SisterSpace is an important community support space for all who visit while providing life-saving harm reduction services. To me these kinds of spaces are examples of feminist realities: people coming together despite the war on drugs, violence and the stigma they face, to care for each other and save lives.
Abolishing Prisons with Mariame Kaba - Why is this happening? (in English)
Prison abolition and finding alternative ways of achieving justice is an essential feminist reality to me. In this episode, the host sits down with Mariame Kaba, a long time abolitionist organiser, to discuss what a world beyond police, criminal justice and prisons looks like, and restorative justice models survivors are already developing and working with.
Recommendations from Margarita Salas
Yo nena - Radio Ambulante (In Spanish)
Luana knew it since she was very young: she was different.
Luana was barely learning to talk when she decided to change her name. The consequences of such a personal decision would transform not only her identity and her family, but also the cultural discussion of an entire country.
Borrar la Frontera - Las Raras (in Spanish)
The mexican artista Ana Teresa Fernández visited La Amistad Park during many years, a unique place located at the western border of México and the US, where families separated by the border have been authorized to gather. But when she saw the possibility of coming together limited, she decided to take matters into her own hands. And she erased the border.
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All recommendations above in one playlist!