DeepSummary
Aruna Rao and Kumi Naidoo discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the exploitative nature of existing societal structures and hierarchies. They argue that the crisis has highlighted the need to fundamentally rethink and dismantle patriarchal systems based on oppression and subordination in order to build a more equitable society centered on care for people and the planet.
The conversation explores the limitations of existing institutions like the UN, international NGOs, and social movements in enacting real systemic change due to their roots in colonial legacies and capitalist, patriarchal values. Rao and Naidoo express skepticism about making incremental changes within these "broken" systems and organizations filled with "broken people".
They find inspiration in the energy and imagination of younger generations, indigenous wisdom, and feminist visions for reorganizing society around principles of human rights, care, accountability and connectivity across issues like gender, race and the environment. Ultimately, they call for honest self-reflection and a willingness to radically rethink fundamental principles as the basis for building new equitable systems.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the exploitative hierarchies and oppressive power dynamics underlying existing societal structures.
- Mainstream institutions like the UN, international NGOs, and social movements are constrained by colonial legacies and capitalist, patriarchal values that make them unable to enact real systemic change.
- Younger generations unencumbered by institutional baggage offer inspiration through their ability to radically reimagine different societal principles and organizing structures.
- A return to fundamental human rights and feminist principles of care, accountability, and intersectionality across gender, race, and the environment is needed as the basis for rebuilding an equitable society.
- Systemic transformation requires honest self-reflection on how to construct new organizations and ways of relating built around values of care, connectivity and thriving for people and planet.
- Skepticism exists about reforming existing "broken" institutions and organizations, suggesting new structures and alternatives may need to be built from the ground up.
- Protecting natural ecosystems and valuing social reproduction and care work should be core focuses of any revisioned, feminist societal model.
- While solutions are unclear, the failings of the status quo demand a courageous willingness to radically rethink and reorganize systems according to different fundamental principles.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “We need to collectively rethink these principles and figure out how we organize in a different way. And it applies to us in the south as much as it applies to, you know, those in the north, you know.“ by Aruna Rao
- “It's no longer possible to infuse our new visions of economy and society into the cracks. It's no longer possible to do that, to infuse into the cracks of broken institutions filled with broken people.“ by Aruna Rao
- “I am very much being inspired. The main inspiration is coming from engagement with young people, mainly because their lenses are not as contaminated as ours, they have a capability to imagine different things because they've not lived in broken institutions for a long period of time and all of that.“ by Kumi Naidoo
- “I think my major concern right now is the protection of natural ecosystems and the valuing of social reproduction around the world. I think those are the two that, you know, that I would really focus on.“ by Aruna Rao
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Episode Information
The Gender at Work Podcast
Gender At Work
10/1/21
In a passionate and wide-ranging conversation, Kumi Naidoo and Aruna Rao explore hope, fear, Black Lives Matter, feminist principles, intersectionality and structural change. They ask whether the institutions that were set up to protect us, like the police, and to enable social change, such as social services, the UN, and international development organizations, have failed us and whether we should keep trying to change them from the inside or tear them down and start again. This episode is a re-broadcast of Kumi’s new podcast - Power, People & Planet – produced by the Green Economy Coalition – which brings together activists, artists and community leaders who are dismantling our broken systems and building something new in its place.
Kumi Naidoo, a veteran social and environmental justice activist from South Africa, has held senior positions in international civil society organizations. He was the former SG of Amnesty International, Greenpeace and Civicus and is a founding board member of Gender at Work. We invite you to listen in and join the conversation.
Please email us at genderatworkpodcast@gmail.com