Breaking Down Patriarchy

Amy is joined by translator Jaime Chang to discuss the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo and explore the stories of contemporary Korean women.Jamie Chang is an award-winning translator and teaches at the Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea.

Amy is joined by Dr. Setsu Shigematsu to discuss xer book Scream from the Shadows and the history of women's liberation in Japan.Setsu Shigematsu is a mother of two children and an Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside. Xer intellectual and scholarly concerns include the relationship of US and Japanese imperialism, gendered state violence, transnational liberation movements, comparative feminist theory and cultural studies. Xe is the author of Scream from the Shadows: the Women’s Liberation Movement in Japan, and the director of Re-Visions of Abolition (2011/2021), a documentary film about the prison industrial complex and the prison abolition movement. Xe is also co-editor of Militarized Currents: Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific.

Amy is joined by author Wang Ping to discuss her book Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China and explore the nuances of beauty practices in China and beyond.Wang Ping is a poet, writer, photographer, performance and multimedia artist. Her publications have been translated into multiple languages and include poetry, short stories, novels, cultural studies, and children's stories. Her multimedia exhibitions address global themes of industrialization, the environment, interdependency, and the people. She is the recipient of numerous awards, a professor of English, and founder of the Kinship of Rivers project.

Amy is joined by Annabelle Qian to conclude their discussion of patriarchy's history in Imperial China from the Qin Dynasty (221 BCE) to the Qing Dynasty (1912 CE).Annabelle Qian is an 18 year old scholar who just graduated from Waterford High School, and will be studying international affairs and economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this fall. Annabelle is biracial and trilingual. She lived in Guangzhou, China for 10 years where she cultivated her study of the intersection between global politics and personal identity. Annabelle is an award winning historical writer; she has presented papers in Washington D.C. for international competitions, as well as at the Utah State Capitol.

Amy is joined by Annabelle Qian to discuss the Women in Ancient China and Women in Early Imperial China by author Bret Hinsch, and explore patriarchy's history in China from the Neolithic Age to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (221 BCE).Annabelle Qian was born to a Chinese father and an American mother. One of three children, she has lived extensively in both China and the United States. Currently, Annabelle is attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she studies International Relations and Public Policy with an emphasis on East Asia.

Amy is joined by film-maker Jenn Lee Smith to discuss Patriarchy in East Asia: A Comparative Sociology of Gender by Sechiyama Kaku and (En)gendering Taiwan: The Rise of Taiwanese Feminism, and to explore patriarchy specifically within Confucianism and Taiwan.Jenn Lee Smith was born on the friendly, vibrant island of Taiwan. She is a filmmaker who focuses on women-led stories of underrepresented people. In a previous life, she worked on a PhD in feminist geography. She began her producing career focused on stories at the intersection of religion and sexual/gender orientation, and has since collaborated on BIPOC and environmental films. She welcomes your recommendations for live comedy and films of all genres @bewilderfilm

Amy is joined by Marissa Lila and Rachel Lam to discuss Buddhism After Patriarchy by Rita Gross and begin our exploration of patriarchy in East Asia. Rachel Lam is a professor of psychology and integrative medicine caregiver in Salt Lake City, Utah. She identifies as a biracial-female educator, healer, and advocate for social justice and mental health.Marissa Lila (she/they) is a Thai-American documentarian who grew up in Hong Kong and Thailand and is now based in Salt Lake City. As a multicultural filmmaker, she directs and produces projects with characters who cross boundaries set by dominant cultures or identities. Marissa’s projects have been selected to play at international film festivals (DOC NYC, Camden, IFF, Big Sky Documentary FF, and MountainFilm). Two projects she produced, Transmormon and Oxygen to Fly, went viral with over 160 million total views. These projects were featured in The Huffington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic, People Magazine, and Dazed. Marissa is co-founder of OHO Media, a creative content agency for which Marissa creates documentaries and documentary-based branded content. Marissa directed, produced, and wrote for the docu-reality television series The Generations Project, for which one of the episodes she produced won a Regional Emmy. Marissa also spent six years creating educational content to increase equitable outcomes for students inclusive of race, ethnicity, language, cultural, sexual orientation, or ability.

Amy is joined by Rev. Cynthia Brix, Dr. William Keepin, and Harin Jeong to discuss their groundbreaking work with Gender Equity and Reconciliation International.Rev. Cynthia Brix, is co-founder of Gender Equity and Reconciliation International, which has organized 280 intensive trainings in twelve countries for healing and reconciliation between women and men, and people of all genders. She is an ordained interfaith minister and Co-Director of Satyana Institute. She was formerly a campus minister at the University of Colorado for United Ministries of Higher Education. Cynthia co-chaired the Race Relations Committee for the City of Muncie, Indiana, and served in numerous leadership positions for Planned Parenthood in Dallas and in Indiana. A long-time student of Eknath Easwaran’s Passage Meditation, Cynthia leads retreats on interfaith spirituality. She co-organized five international conferences on interspirituality, one of which brought women spiritual masters together from Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu traditions, and she produced a DVD video from this conference entitled Cultivating Women’s Spiritual Mastery.  Cynthia holds an M.Div. from Iliff School of Theology (2006), a double M.A. in wellness management and applied gerontology, and an honorary doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is contributing author of Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation between Women and Men (Hohm Press, 2007), and co-author of Women Healing Women: A Model of Hope for Oppressed Women Everywhere (Hohm Press, 2009). William Keepin, PhD, is co-founder of the Gender Equity and Reconciliation International project. A mathematical physicist widely published in the fields of sustainable energy, global warming, archetypal cosmology, comparative mysticism, and the intersection of science and spirituality, Will has presented testimony to European and Australian parliaments, and the US House of Representatives.  He became a whistleblower in nuclear science policy, recounted in The Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson, Harmony Books, 2000). Will co-founded the Satyana Institute, and together with Rev. Cynthia Brix organized five international conferences to facilitate dialogue, interspiritual practice, and collaboration across the major religions and science. Will trained extensively in spiritual traditions East and West, and holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, M.S. in mathematical physics, M.A. in East-West psychology, and honorary doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is a Fellow of the Findhorn Foundation, and has facilitated Grof holotropic breathwork since 1989. Will is author of Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation Between Women and Men (Hohm Press, 2007), and Belonging to God: Spirituality, Science, and a Universal Path of Divine Love (SkyLight Paths, Turner Publishing, 2016).  He is co-author of Women Healing Women (Hohm Press, 2009); and Song of the Earth: The Emerging Synthesis of Spiritual and Scientific Worldviews (Permanent Publications, London, UK, 2012). Harin Jeong, MA is a GERI facilitator and lead coordinator for GERI in South Korea based in Seoul. And I'll just make a note that the full title of this organization is Gender Equity and Reconciliation Institute, but we'll abbreviate that sometimes by just saying GERI. So listeners, when you hear the word GERI, you'll know tha

Amy is joined by advocate Mariya Taher to learn more about Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting and discuss firsthand accounts from those affected.Mariya Taher has worked in gender-based violence for over a decade in the areas of teaching, research, policy, program development, and direct service.In 2015, she cofounded Sahiyo, an award-winning, transnational organization with the mission to empower Asian and other communities to end FGC. The Manhattan Young Democrats honored her as a 2017 Engendering Progress honoree and in 2018, Mariya received the Human Rights Storytellers Award from the Muslim American Leadership Alliance. In 2020, she was recognized as one of the six inaugural grant recipients for the Crave Foundation for Women. Since 2015, she has collaborated with the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association to pass legislation to protect girls from FGC. After starting a Change.org petition and gathering over 400,000 signatures, Massachusetts became the 39th state in the U.S. to do so.Mariya is also an extensive writer in fiction and nonfiction and has contributed articles and stories to NPR’s Code Switch, HuffPost, The Fair Observer, Brown Girl Magazine, Solstice Literary Magazine, The Express Tribune, The San Francisco Examiner, and more.She graduated with her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, where she received the Graduate School of Arts & Social Sciences Dean’s Merit Scholarship and the Lesley University Graduate Student Leadership Award. She also holds a Master in Social Work from San Francisco State University and a B.A. from UC Santa Barbara in Religious Studies.Learn more at sahiyo.org

Amy is joined by Dr. Srimati Basu to discuss her book The Trouble With Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India and explore the complicated gender politics behind divorce.Srimati Basu is a Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Anthropology, and a member of the Committee on Social Theory. She serves as the President of the Association for Feminist Anthropology, 2021-2023. Srimati has an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Ohio State University in Cultural Studies/ Anthropology/ Women's Studies, and her teaching, research and community work interests include Global Feminisms, Law, Gender-Based Violence, Social Movements, Feminist Methodologies, and Masculinities. At present, she is writing a monograph on anti-feminist men's rights groups, following a 2013-14 Fulbright Fellowship to conduct fieldwork with MRAs across Indian cities. She has recently begun a  research project on Indian women private detectives with fellowships from National Endowment for Humanities/ American Institute of Indian Studies and from Sisters in Crime.