Womanhood & International Relations

What are some ways to address Menstrual Health, Hygiene and Education that could enable societies and governments to reduce shame and stigma? How can sensitization training for schools and healthcare professionals, the engagement with local leaders and the rehabilitation and adaptation of WASH facilities could help create inclusive menstrual health management?  Why is MHHE often overlooked within the context of development? What are the cultural, religious and policy budget shifts happening due to WASH programs in countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burkina Faso and Pakistan?

To commemorate World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2023, we feature an interview with Nicole Dagher, Program Manager at Water Aid Canada.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn @womanhood_ir 

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

What are the menstrual realities of young girls, women and menstruating people living in Mumbai Slums? How are religions, economics, customs and traditions directly or indirectly influencing or perpetuating menstrual shame and stigma in this city? How can science, education, economic empowerment opportunities and health clinics help offer pathways of menstrual dignity to vulnerable populations?

On World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2023, we feature an interview with Dr. Shraddha Kale Kapile, Senior Program Manager at Myna Mahila Foundation.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn @womanhood_ir 

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

What is the colonial history of menstrual health, hygiene and education in Latin America? How important is the language used in family settings, schools, business ads, health clinics and government policies to reproduce or reduce the menstrual shame and stigma that is passed on through generations? Why words such as "hygiene", "poverty" and "purification" are used by international development agendas to address menstruation as a "sanitation crises" in the Global South? What needs to change in the local and international approach to decolonize menstrual health, hygiene and education in this region?

On World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2023, we feature a Spanish-language interview with Psychologist Carolina Ramirez, founder of Princesas Menstruantes, Escuela de Educación Emancipadas and Coordinator of Encuentro Latinoamericano de Educación, Salud y Activismos Menstruales.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn @womanhood_ir 

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

Amidst talks on the Menstrual Equity Fund in Canada, how challenging is to launch a sustainable menstrual hygiene small-business? What are the biggest opportunities and struggles female entrepreneurs face when entering the market, often flooded by synthetic and cheap products from big corporations? What are the main criticisms and successes of choosing sustainable sourcing, manufacturing and distribution? How are plastic-free and rayon-free hygiene products good for people's health and the environment?

On World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2023, we feature an interview with Kat Plouffe, founder of Only.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn @womanhood_ir 

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

How are we currently valuing women's presence, voices and expertise in traditional media and social media as fellow colleagues, readers, listeners or audience members? Has the patriarchal mindset and the predomination of male experts in the International Relations field affected the way we look and value women experts whether we agree with their IR analysis or not?

Are we aware of the set of beauty standards, cultural norms and behavior expectations we personally or collectively measure to define what a "good scholar" or a "good professional" should be, look or sound like?

What kind of struggles, insecurities, risks and/or structural barriers do women experts face in order to be recognized as "experts" or "legitimized" by their peers within this field? Why the criticism against women's experts in IR is mostly destructive criticism and not constructive? Is it possible to revalue or re-educate our gaze and value system in a nonviolent way?

This episode is a new exercise that builds on previous podcast explorations we have shared of how Feminist Theory in IR is connected to the embodied experience of people from different genders studying or working in various areas of Political Science.

Listen to related episodes:

Other related interviews:

Register for upcoming free events:

Are great powers (and personal powers') dynamics primal or developed?

A review and analysis of Borgen:Power & Glory Netflix Series.

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links:

Is national identity all some of us have? Is nationalism a good omen for humans to hold on to in order to...matter? If so, how? How to lighten the load we carry?

What are the feminist values, economic and social pressures states are responding to? And...why?

A review of the new Feminist Foreign Policy Index 2023.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn @womanhood_ir 

Listen to related episodes: 

Recommended links of this episode: 

Millions of women and girls around the world lack access to clean water. In some rural areas and cultures, they are the ones walking up to 4 miles to collect water (not necessarily safe to drink) several times a day negatively affecting their opportunities for education, work and living a healthy and dignified life.

Why is clean water so important for women and how could it help them gain their time (and lives!) back?

How are WASH projects making a positive difference in the lives of individual people and their communities? What challenges and successes can be found in WASH projects operating in ongoing conflict zones or water-stressed areas in Africa and Asia? Is the water crisis solvable in our lifetime?

On World Water Day 2023, what are the biggest misconceptions around women and water and how are they overcoming them?

An interview with Michelle Jackson Riewer, Director of Programs and Operations at Charity:Water.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn @womanhood_ir 

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

What are reparations and how are they different from other transitional justice mechanisms? How are reparations from war different from those of dictatorships, legacies of slavery and colonization? Do reparations help people "heal", individually and collectively, wounds from the past? If so, how? 

What is our role in agreeing upon or legitimizing a "hierarchy of victims"?  How do we perceive justice for victims? Can justice ever arrive "too late"? Do victims really feel a sense of “closure” when reparations talks and programs take place? Can victims "self-repair"? What can we learn from the case studies of Guatemala, Peru, Northern Ireland, Uganda, Nepal, South Africa and Kosovo? 

An interview with Dr. Luke Moffett, reader of the School of Law at Queen's University Belfast and author of the new book "Reparations and War: Finding the Balance in Repairing the Past". 

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn @womanhood_ir and be part of our Patreon community https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

Are we projecting our inner wounds into the world? How much of the suffering and violent conflicts we are seeing on the international news come from masculine or feminine energetic imbalances stemming from Self to Governments? What role do we play, what type of agency do we exercise, in order to contribute to current power inequalities and struggles within our families, relations, communities and nations? What kind of responsibility do we choose to take and which other do we choose to externalize and blame into an “Other”, a “System”, a “Culture”?

How can we start broadening our awareness of how our personal story may impact or help evolve the macro one?

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn @womanhood_ir and be part of our Patreon community https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

Are we confined by the coloniality of knowledge within the International Relations field? What type of IR analysis is accepted, reproduced or legitimized? And, by who? How and why are feminists from the Global South subverting IR theories and FFP's through praxis? Why decolonial and anticolonial standpoints on world affairs are growing? Which safe spaces and forms of expressions do people have to reflect upon them? 

An interview with Kirthi Jayakumar, peace educator, lawyer and founder of the Gender Security Project.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn @womanhood_ir and be part of our Patreon community https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

How a State views itself and its relations with Others? With the 'Total Peace' Law approved recently, the Gustavo Petro Administration is seeking to end the decades-long armed conflict with multiple groups and actors in Colombia during the 2022-2026 period. The announcement of a FFP model comes with a willingness to redesign the National Action Plan for 1325 Resolution to fit the 'Total Peace' efforts. As we see this agenda unfold, how controversies surrounding the words "feminism", "race" and  "peace" in the Latin America region may or can transform domestic and foreign affairs? Can intersectional lenses be applied in representation, design and implementation? Lastly, are ffp models becoming excellent examples of political communication to showcase "progress" and receive "external validation" from the 'North' instead of... "real" and "effective" policies and actions? 

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn @womanhood_ir and be part of our Patreon community https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

Can the pursuit of two proposals... work out? Gabriel Boric's Administration is leading announcements of a "feminist" foreign policy and a "turquoise" foreign policy, both at the same time, is it a sign of how states can multilaterally answer the most pressing world problems or... is it falling down the old "divide and conquer" route? Why "ecofeminism" was not a term considered to align the two?

How are we framing the history of November 25th? Why the assassination of the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic showed the international community the brutality of violence against women in politics? Are we remembering women as political actors or only as victims of violence?

How are we building the collective memory of women in our countries?

An interview with Dr. Ada Alvarez Conde, Caribbean Historian, Author and Dating Violence Expert.

How Jair Bolsonaro’s Administration transformed Brazil? Why the term “necropolitics” is used to describe not only his government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the deforestation of the Amazon region but also the dismantling of social welfare programs that previously sought to address economic, gender and racial inequalities? In which ways, the militaristic view of governance caused a “crisis of democracy”?

After the 2022 presidential elections, why half of Brasil’s voters (50.9%) chose former president Lula da Silva to lead the country in 2023?

An interview in Portuguese with Vania Sierra, Social Policy Professor at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.

How the massive protests in Iran are showing the multiple grievances of women, girls and people? As Iran ranks 143 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index, is the situation of women’s rights in this country a case of gender-apartheid? Can a state with a possible gender-apartheid in place offer respect and protection of women’s lives, rights and freedoms? If so, how? If not, why?

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn @womanhood_ir and be part of our Patreon community https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

In which ways militarization and militarized masculinities affect our cultures, states and social structures? How the patriarchal pact shapes perceptions of "manhood" from an early age? Why is it hard for societies and/or states to “properly” address or deconstruct militarized masculinities - and the continuum of violence - IF and WHEN seeking to advance feminist peace?

With the release of WILPF's latest documentary, Power on Patrol, what can we learn from the history of Colombia, Afghanistan, DRC, Cameroon, Nicaragua and South Africa?

A roundtable discussion with Dean Peacock, Director Countering Militarized Masculinities at WILPF; Guy Feugap, Director of Programmes at WILPF Cameroon; Oswaldo Montoya, Networks Associate at MenEngage; and Diana Salcedo, Director of WILPF/LIMPAL Colombia. Translation possible by WILPF collaborator Ada Volkmer.

Do states have...emotions? If so, how do they express them? How can the intergroup emotions theory explain whether political decision-making is based on fear, passion, revenge, happiness, grief or hate?

How many domestic and foreign policies are influenced by the suppression or incitement of a specific set of emotions, beliefs, behaviors and actions?

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn @womanhood_ir and be part of our Patreon community https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

Are we reaching the next era of Feminist Foreign Policies? In response to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, is Sweden’s pioneer formula the “safe” way to go for states in Europe? If so, if not, why?

A commentary on the latest announcement of Germany first ffp model.

From the historic floods in Pakistan to the typhoons and hurricanes in Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean to ongoing humanitarian crises, what are some ways to help? If you can and are able to donate time, energy, resources and money to disaster relief programs and civic organizations providing support to communities, please do. It matters.

Here are lists of organizations providing support to recent and ongoing emergencies:

Can games be truly “apolitical” or should we, as humans, often find a way to project politics into them? How are people using games or sports to find and showcase “power” while, at the same time, depending on external validation to ensure sense of Self? How are governments using games or sports to show superiority or demoralize people from other states and play into a specific imaginary of power? Is chess an inherently racist and sexist game or... made to be one?

A commentary of Netflix's miniseries The Queen's Gambit. 

Join our Patreon community here https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

Upcoming Events: Join the next livestreams on Women Leaders, September 19th we will discuss the legacy of Michelle Bachelet and on September 26th leadership lessons from Sanna Marin, subscribe to my Youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Mka2pcgd197inmwvGdeXg

Recommended links to this episode:

How are feminists and feminist movements "framing" their activism? How is globalization and capitalism directly or indirectly affecting the way some ideas, projects and foreign policy models are being legitimized and promoted while others aren't? What role does the flow of theories, laws and strategies from local/international, North/South, Western/Non-Western play in addressing, increasing or maintaining social, racial and economic inequalities? 

A first look into Transnational Feminism.

💜 Join us in this exploration and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Patreon https://patreon.com/womanhoodir

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended readings of this episode:

The UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights released yesterday its 2022 assessment on the human rights violations committed against the Uyghurs in XUAR. What does the report says about China's domestic policies, power dynamics and treatment of religious and ethnic minorities?

Why are circles so powerful? How can circles support personal and collective journeys? If you are embarking on a feminist and/or patriarchal mindset deconstruction process, how-to start creating safe environments to discuss and shift... power? How-to start weaving cyclical individual and systemic change? 

In this episode I share with you some lessons from my personal and professional experience as well as tips and recommendations to organize events and build a path forward.

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links to this episode:

Where is power exercised in a state “neutrality”? How is militarization appealing to our(s) countries’ concept of “power” and possible “hero”mentality? Can “humans” be the reason “states” approve or veto each other’s bids, ambitions or… imperialistic dreams? If so, what are the conditions for this rationale?

What is food insecurity? How it evolves into a food crisis? What are the main causes of food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition? What are the gendered dimensions of the "hunger trap"? Why is hunger used as a weapon of war? 

What are the main highlights of the Global Report on Food Crises 2022? Why there are reports that COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine/Russia conflict is affecting the global food security? How can we start today ensuring food security at local and international levels?

What influences the announcement and design of a feminist foreign policy? How “efficient” and “important” is the use of the word “feminism” in this field? How it affects ffp implementation and domestic and international environments? What are some key critiques, debates and decolonial views on current ffps coming from the Global South?

In Australia, there is an Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition being convened amidst domestic and international security concerns from COVID-19, GBV and First Nations to the recent AUKUS pact. How could Australia’s foreign policy benefit from feminist perspectives? Why enabling an environment of civil society conversation of ffp support the “soft landing” of a possible ffp announcement in the future?

An interview with Alice Ridge, Senior Research, Policy and Advocacy Advisor, and Liz Gil-Atkinson, Research Advisor at the International Women’s Development Agency.

Is the international community response to recent violent conflicts delegitimizing women's agency and reproducing unequal gender relations in times of war and peace? If so or if not, why? In the first few weeks of the Ukraine/Russia conflict, why is the WPS agenda not being taken seriously? What can we learn about the status and efficiency of the UN resolutions and international law protocols in the international conflicts of today? How does NATO and other international institutions view WPS?

How can our feminist values and human rights principles weather the storms of domestic and international crises? As we see many "red lines  crossed" in different parts of the world, have we reached the time to question the value of humanity as a whole?

An interview with Clare Hutchinson, WPS Adviser, former NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security and current vice president of consultancy agency TOLMEC. 

How has Francia Marquez’s presidential campaign highlighted race and feminist issues in this country? How racism and anti-racism stances affects social, media and political landscapes? What is state racism?

An interview with Annette Pérez, founder of Afronteradas.

How men perceive power between themselves; within and among states? What are the consequences of the use of patriarchal violence on human populations and state and imperial constructions? How have citizens normalized that violence is the way we can exercise and maintain individual/state power? How different types of masculinities and governance models "see" power? 

A gender lens review on the doc series How To Become a Tyrant (2021).

Are we “trapped” by the mind/tangible structures we have been taught, built, or achieved power with? If so, how? A 3-level IR analysis notes and feminist approaches on the first weeks of the 2022 Ukraine/Russia conflict.

Disclaimer: Sensible subjects on feminisms, masculinities, national identity, eurocentrism, psychology and unequal power & gender relations will be addressed.

How the 2020 pandemic revealed how patriarchy shaped the global health's Taskforce response and the work hierarchy dynamics in this sector? 

A first exploration on gender gap, leadership, PPE and inequality conditions. 

What if justice is not ever considered "a goal" between and within states? How is public/private patriarchal divisions being consciously or unconsciously reproduced by international legal scholars, lawmakers and institutions? 

What are some of the most common misconceptions and stereotypes international media reproduces on Palestinian women? What are some of the many different identities and realities Palestinian women face due to double oppression, conflict and geographical landscape? What is the status of 1325 National Action Plan's implementation and women's political participation? How to practice feminist solidarity with Palestinian women?

A special conversation with Nivine Sandouka, leading expert on gender, development and peacebuilding in East Jerusalem and Palestine territories.

This episode was recorded at a live event today, February 26th, as the first of three-part talk series we have co-organized with collaborator and IR scholar Itzel Pamela Perez Gomez.

The Women, Peace and Security in North Africa and the Middle East Talk Series is a three-part live virtual event featuring the life stories of inspiring female researchers, advocates and specialists of women’s rights and WPS implementation in these parts of the world.

What is like to build a culture of peace in El Salvador? How can working with the youth help heal individual and collective wounds in one of the most dangerous countries in the world? Perspectives from politics, violence, religion, gender and environment. 

An interview with Espacio Joven's co-founders Fernando Pérez and Fabiola Torres; and Isela Ulloa, environmental coordinator of this NGO. 

Several international news reports are denouncing crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs in East Turkestan. Calls to address and put an end to genocide and the reportedly different measures taken by the Chinese authorities (forced re-education, forced labour, forced sterilization, forced marriages, sexual violence, torture) are not prompting an urgent international community response. 

Why is this happening? What is the current situation in this territory? What are the human and women's rights violations and why we should it's important to pay attention?

An interview with Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs. 

You can watch this interview on video on my Youtube channel here.

Listen to the episode, follow us on Instagram and Twitter @womanhood_ir and support us on Patreon www.patreon.com/womanhoodir

Listen to related episodes:

Recommended links of this episode:

Where are the men? How are patriarchal mindset and system affecting masculinities and driving climate change? How are masculinities and conceptions of power, at individual and social levels, shaping people's roles in Women, Peace and Security?

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram and Twitter @womanhood_ir and support us on Patreon www.patreon.com/womanhoodir

How can we overcome a "gender-blind" approach to climate change or a "climate-blind" approach to Women, Peace and Security agenda? How ecofeminist lines of thoughts can explain some feminist critiques to the NAPs links to the impacts of climate change?

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram and Twitter @womanhood_ir and support us on Patreon www.patreon.com/womanhoodir

What is the status of humanitarian crisis and humanitarian aid for women and girls in Afghanistan? Why international law protection and R2P mechanisms are not being enforced or mainly considered? Are sanctions the way to deal with the Taliban? 

How can we start connecting to the three words: Women, Peace, Security? What is the mindset separating IR field subjects of study from our daily experiences, countries and public/foreign policies? 

A revision of the WPS Agenda and tips on how can we begin landing its topics to our personal/national/international realities.

Join us in this exploration, follow us on Instagram and Twitter @womanhood_ir and support us on Patreon www.patreon.com/womanhoodir

Join our next live event: