Feminist Futures

In this week's episode I spoke to co-founder and U.K Executive Director of Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP), Marissa Conway, to dissect what a feminist foreign policy is and why we need it. CFFP is a research and advocacy organisation that has become a critical voice in the space, working with governments and NGOs to transform feminist foreign policy into practice.    A feminist foreign policy may seem like a big and complicated topic to get into but at the heart of it is a framework for understanding who has power, who doesn't and how we can change that in big policy decisions that affect everyone. Often that means unpicking or unlearning what has come before to move forward in a more equitable way.    Everything from how we police our borders and trade agreements right down to what individual's buy or which healthcare they can have access to is influenced by global politics and we therefore need a feminist lens in it to ensure marginalised communities are supported and heard.    Visions for the future

We're back after a very small series break with a great episode on the need to change who is making the news, in order to accurately reflect the experiences and feelings of the public it serves.  The National Council of Training for Journalists released a report last week that shows: 92% of journalists come from white ethnic groups, a higher proportion than across all UK workers. The media shapes important conversations in our lives, and if it doesn't reflect the people it serves, it reinforces negative stereotypes and creates blind spots that have huge ramifications.  For the discussion, I am joined by Hannah Ajala of We Are Black Journos who talks us through her personal experiences working in the news industry and the small steps that the sector can take to ensure Black and other minority journalists are valued and prioritised.    Visions for the future

For this week's podcast, we're talking access to healthcare for trans people and how can create a system that works in their favour, not against them.    I'm joined by Alexa Moore from TransgenderNI, an amazing organisation dedicated to improving the lives of trans people in Northern Ireland.    As Alexa puts it in the episode, while the so-called ‘arguments' of the ‘culture war' continue, it distracts us from the real issues facing the trans community and one of those is access to healthcare. According to Stonewall, nearly a fifth (24%) of trans people surveyed fear discrimination from a healthcare provider, meaning many put off asking healthcare at all. We need to be creating a healthcare system that prioritises the needs of trans individuals, not vilifying them and Alexa and her colleagues have a plan on how to do just that.    Visions for the future ⇣ Decentralising care to allow trans people to access care through their GPs, for example. ⛔️ No gatekeeping of services based on whether you've accessed another, for example, like mental health

Today's episode looks at Scottish independence and asks if going independent will make Scotland the socialist, feminist utopia we all want it to be. Spoiler: it won't by default but it will us the tools to do so and that's what's so exciting. My guest this week is Kirstein Rummery from Women for Independence (@womenforindependence). Kirstein is an incredible researcher who focuses on social policy at the University of Stirling and it was such a privilege to talk to her about Scotland's future.    Visions for a feminist independent Scotland

This week's podcast is on the future of abortion care and how it should look in 2021. For it, I'm joined by Katherine O'Brien, Associate Director of Communications and Campaigns at BPAS. Katherine has a wealth of knowledge and expertise having worked at BPAS for 10 years and has led on a variety of campaigns to improve abortion access and reproductive healthcare across the UK.    One of the things that stayed with me from the conversation was the fact that it is medically possible for women and gender-diverse people to only take one pill a month for contraception but due to archaic abortion laws in the UK, we are being denied this option. It is a microcosm of how abortion care is set up in the UK - we could be doing it better but some arbitrary barrier is getting in the way.    Visions for the future of abortion care

For this week's podcast, we're looking at environmental and climate justice and asking - who has power in these spaces? I'm joined by Alexis McGivern, who is currently looking at community resistance to incinerators in the UK as part of her MPhil at Oxford University. Prior to this, Alexis spent three and a half years at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) working on issues of plastic pollution. And prior to that, we shared classes together in our undergrad (many moons ago)   Visions for a climate just future

Episode 2 looks at Universal Basic Income (UBI) and asks if UBI could help to lessen gender inequality, by allowing us to have the freedom to say ‘no' to exploitative relationships. For it, I'm joined by Michael Pugh, Director and Co-Founder of the Basic Income Conversation, which promotes basic income in the UK and supports people and organisations to engage with UBI.   Visions for a UBI future

This week's podcast is all about the future of fashion and how we move towards a more sustainable and ethical model. For it, I've been joined by Erin from the Fair Fashion Project, which is an incredible resource to educate people on the detrimental impacts of the fashion industry and it showcases the exciting and creative alternatives available in the slow fashion world. Vision for the future

Welcome to Feminist Futures. A space not only to imagine what a better world would look like but how we get there and how we can make change happen.