DeepSummary
The podcast episode delves into the complex connections between consent, pleasure, and danger, exploring why these concepts need to be reimagined in the context of feminist and social justice movements. The participants discuss how pleasure has often been marginalized in feminist agendas, and why centering it is crucial to dismantle patriarchy.
They examine how pleasure and danger are intrinsically linked, and how consent is often understood through a protectionist lens that denies agency and choice to individuals, particularly those from marginalized communities. The conversation highlights the nuances and intersectionalities involved in these issues, acknowledging the need for more nuanced analysis and frameworks.
The participants emphasize the importance of continuing these conversations, allowing for discomfort, and investing in developing new analyses that consider the diverse lived experiences and perspectives of different groups. They call for rethinking language, challenging normative frames, and finding ways to resonate with communities while pushing for transformative change.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Pleasure needs to be centered in feminist and social justice movements as a means to challenge and dismantle patriarchal norms.
- Consent, pleasure, and danger are intrinsically connected, and these connections need to be reimagined through nuanced, intersectional analyses.
- A binary or protectionist understanding of consent can deny agency and choice to marginalized individuals, and there is a need to acknowledge the complexities and nuances involved.
- Language and cultural lenses play a crucial role in how consent, bodily autonomy, and pleasure are understood, and Western notions of individualism may not resonate with all communities.
- Feminists and social justice movements need to invest in developing new analyses and frameworks that consider diverse lived experiences and perspectives on these issues.
- Continuing these conversations, allowing for discomfort, and finding ways to resonate with communities while pushing for transformative change are essential.
- The connection between pleasure and danger is often rooted in the fear of losing power and agency.
- Challenging normative frames, hierarchies, and power dynamics is crucial in reimagining ideas around consent, pleasure, and danger.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Pleasure is one of the things that allows us to demystify patriarchy, because generally, patriarchy doesn't look at women's pleasure as being important.“ by Salome Nakawesi Kimbugwe
- “When we talk about concerns that are to do with our sexualities and our bodies and integrity, I think we do have to understand it through our lens that we do also see our bodies as belonging to our families, to our children, to our partners and to our communities.“ by Subha Wijesiriwardena
- “If we do not see the nuances of consent, two, three things that I want to highlight. One is that we are kind of putting the onus on the woman, that the bad outcomes of the consent are your responsibility because it was black.“ by Deepika
- “My feel is that we need to invest in analysis, just like how we were organizing. And then we started coming up with the whole language around movement, building around wellness, around, you know, all that kind of that has already now been, you know, mainstream organizations have run off with it, and yet people have invested, actually not people, feminists have invested in creating analysis, because we create and people run off with it.“ by Salome Nakawesi Kimbugwe
- “I believe that the connection between pleasure and danger is fear. And it's a fear of fear that someone is taking away from your power.“ by Kawera Mwirichia
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Episode Information
The Gender at Work Podcast
Gender At Work
7/15/19
This episode examines why we need to reimagine prevailing ideas around consent, pleasure and danger as embedded in our laws, social norms, and feminist movement politics. The discussion explores why pleasure needs to be moved from the margins of feminist agendas to be viewed as integral to dismantling patriarchy; why the connections between pleasure and danger must be rethought; and why consent must be disconnected from a protectionist approach that denies the agency and right to choice of individuals.
Participants in this episode are: Aruna Rao (moderator); Dipika Srivastava, TARSHI, India; Solome Nakaweesi, Independent Consultant, Uganda; Subha Wijesiriwardena, Women & Media Collective, Sri Lanka; and Kawira Mwirichia, Artist & Curator, Kenya.
Gender at Work and CREA co-developed a podcast series on feminists rethinking politics and resistance, reimagining change and transformation and rebooting struggles and movements. We asked participants at CREA’s Re-conference in Nepal - artists, performers, writers, activists, policy makers, film makers and many others from the disability rights, sex worker rights, environmental rights, sexual and reproductive rights and queer movements from around the world - to reflect on a series of provocative questions: How are you responding to criminalization? How are you standing up to threats to critical thinking, freedom of expression, right to organize and protest, and suppression of rights? How are artists, activists and movements on the margins addressing issues of exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways? In the face of progressive terminology, how can we rethink language and terminology so as to shape new strategies, narratives and advocacy? Why and how do we need to reimagine ideas around consent, pleasure and danger? How can we reboot cross- movement alliance building for greater collective voice and impact?
All episodes were recorded at the CREA Re-conference in Nepal in April 2019.