Background Reading:

• “Women Speak Out for Pathway to Peace” — Ms. magazine
• “Canadian peace activist Vivian Silver confirmed killed in Hamas attacks” — Aljazeera

Transcript:

00:00:07 Michele Goodwin: 

Welcome to On the Issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. Magazine. As you know, we are a show that reports, rebels, and we tell it just like it is. On this show, we center your concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality. Join me as we tackle the most compelling issues of our times. On this show, history matters, we examine the past as we think about the future, and in this episode, we continue our series on the collateral damage of war.

We focus on women. As various wars and conflicts continue to mount around the world, from Ukraine to Gaza, to Sudan and beyond, we are thinking about where are the women at the negotiating table. Women peace experts agree, when women are left out of wartime negotiations, everybody suffers. As the number of women and girls living in conflict-affected countries continues to mount, reaching 614 million people in 2022, that is 614 million women and girls living in conflict-affected countries, this is a 50-percent increase from 2017.

And the question that must be asked is, what do governments and NGOs need to do to make sure that women’s needs do not fall through the cracks? Helping us to sort out these questions and more, really to set the record straight about women, and in particular in this episode, in Israel and Gaza, I’m joined by Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat. Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat is the co-director of Women Wage Peace, an Israeli-based organization with the goal of empowering women from diverse communities to build trust across divides, leading in turn to a unified demand for diplomatic negotiation with full representation of women to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

She joins me from Israel. Dr. Braudo-Bahat, Yael, as you’ve given me permission to call you, before we begin, I want to express my condolences about the passing of your friend and mentor, Vivian Silver, who was murdered on October 7. And Vivian was a Canadian-Israeli peace activist who spent years living on the border of the Gaza Strip, working towards peace. And she said of her motivations for working in peace movements, and I quote here, “I am driven by the intense desire for security and a life that provides for peace,” and I wonder how you’re dealing with this now.

00:03:27 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

So, naturally, we’re all devastated. We’re mourning her. As hard as it sounds, until last Monday, we were hopeful that she was kidnapped by the Hamas, and just saying these words, that we hoped that she was kidnapped, is really unbearable. But this gave us hope that she was still alive, that she was able to, you know, to comfort other hostages, she was able, maybe, to talk to her captors. 

But unfortunately, last Monday, we were informed that her ashes have been recognized by DNA testings, and in her house, in Kibbutz Be’eri, in the south part of Israel near the Gaza border, and she was confirmed dead. Personally…and I say personally, but I think that I share this experience with so many other peace activists and peace leaders in Israel, and maybe all over the world as well. Vivian was my mentor. I am relatively new in this field. I have been active in peace, in peace-building for the past seven years, and three and a half years, I’ve been serving as one of the two co-directors of Women Wage Peace.

I’m responsible for our international relations and the research development with teams of amazing volunteers in the movement, and Vivian was, she taught me almost everything that I know about peace. And every time I needed an advice, every time, whatever, you know, big strategic advice, or how to word and articulate a letter to a supporter, she was there for me, and I learned so much from her, and personally, I will miss her so much. I cannot even begin thinking about it.

And as I said, I’m only one, because there are so many proteges that she had, and we’ll have to support each other. On Thursday, we had a very big ceremony for her, a memorial ceremony, saying goodbye, and I felt like losing this very strong, like, cane, you know, something that I can lean on. And I thought that I can fall down now, but she wouldn’t want me to fall down. She would want me to raise up, and stand up on my own, and this is what I’ll have to do from now on, without her, but she will be with me all the time.

00:06:12 Michele Goodwin: 

It’s so painful, and I feel your grief, I sense it, and the world all over feels and senses the pain. And of course, when it’s the peacekeepers who are murdered, who are sacrificed, that’s an added layer of pain, and I want to go back to more of what she has said in the past, that she’s driven by an intense desire to see a life of mutual respect and freedom for all people, and for, as she said, both our peoples. And you know, she reflected that the thought of yet another war, this is in her words, “drives me mad,” is what she said.

And she said, like the last three, it will not resolve the conflict. It will only bring more dead and wounded. When rockets fall in our area, and the media announces that there no casualties, I want to shout, what are you talking about? There are thousands of emotionally wounded among us, children and adults alike. I mean, it gives me shivers, really, to think about the profundity of how she saw so much of this, and mentored you and so many others to think about peace, and of course, when in fact the emotion can be revenge.

00:07:54 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

Yes, and I know that this is a sentiment common to, shared by many people on both sides currently, and for us, we say that revenge is not an option. Vivian definitely would have said it as well. And we, the mothers, and mothers know, not in the biological sense, but the political sense, and I will talk maybe a little bit about our sister movement, the Palestine sister movement, Women of the Sun, we mothers know that the only way to achieve security for ourselves, for our children, for the next generations, is by peace, by political means, political agreement, negotiated agreements.

We just need the leaders to sit down and talk, and the forces of the world to support and facilitate it, because another round won’t bring us the resolution. Another round won’t bring us the security that we all desire. For us, this is not something, you know, naïve or off topic, it’s something, it’s just not fighting, just not sending our sons and daughters to fight each other and kill each other. We don’t want it.

00:09:08 Michele Goodwin: 

Well, that’s right, and you know, it strikes me that, something that you said in terms of both sides, and I realize that what you’re talking about, and we’ve seen this sort of conflations, that it’s all Israelis that feel a certain way, or all Jewish people, and all Palestinian people who feel a certain way, and that’s not really what you’re talking about. You’re actually talking about the people who are engaged in the war. You’re talking about governments and Hamas, Hamas itself that has perpetrated this horror on October 7 that resulted in the murder, the killing of Vivian.

And it, I think, is an important point to note, given that the attacks land on children. The attacks land on women, and these are not women who said, I sign up for this, I sign up, I say that you do this in my name. I mean, of course there have been activists in streets, and things like that, but I think that that’s an important point to make, that as you connect this to mothers, and mothers in the political sense and not just in the biological sense.

00:10:22 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

Absolutely. Women and children were harshly inflicted in damage in the current events, whether it’s Israeli, and also Israeli-Palestinian women being murdered, being raped, being abducted, children who are kept in captivity. Emily Hand, for example, I would say celebrated, she was nine years old last Friday, only two days ago, and she’s captive by the Hamas. And so, it’s unbearable, and of course, on the other side, women, children, and also men are being killed, civilians are being killed, and we just want it to stop.

We know it’s possible, because it happened. It happened in Israel, between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan. We had the wars with them, waged wars with them in the past, and they, for the past decades, there is no war with them. We know that it happened in Northern Ireland. We know that it happened in Colombia. It happened in Liberia, and in so many places all over the world, and we say that there’s no reason it won’t happen here as well. This is what we want. This is our pledge, and our demand.

We have the mothers calling, a joint vision and joint mission called Israel and Palestinian women together, calling the leaders to begin negotiations, calling the entire world and both societies, both peoples to support us. We just want to live in peace. We don’t have to love each other. We don’t have to hug each other. I mean, I will gladly hug my sisters, my Palestinian sisters, because I work with them and I love them, but we don’t want this. We just want not to fight. We just want not to have war.

00:12:24 Michele Goodwin: 

Well, on this note, and as we’re talking about mothers in the biological and political, and social, and cultural sense, if you could help to give us some sense about how this ongoing war is affecting women in Israel and in Gaza.

00:12:47 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

I can tell you about Israel, mostly. I don’t want to talk on behalf of my Palestinian partners. In Israel, again, during the massacre of October 7, we have very harsh evidence of women being raped, raped and murdered. I don’t want to repeat what I’ve heard, because it’s really horrific, it might trigger the listeners, but the information is out there on the internet. I do want to express my, I would say, protest, resentment, because many women’s organizations all over the world, including UN Women, denied or disregarded the horrible crimes, the gender crimes that were committed on October 7.

And the fact that there are many dozens of women, and children, and girls being held by Hamas currently, and we don’t know if they’re alive, we don’t know what is being done to them in the Hamas captivity. And we expect, we Israeli…and again, when I say Israeli, it’s both Jews and Arabs, because we have Arab women in the Hamas captivity currently, and our women who were murdered on the 7 of October, and we call women organizations all over the world, including UN Women, to acknowledge it, to support us, because I know, I assume that the reason that there’s silence now is that they need to choose, right, either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine.

Michele Goodwin:

If you are joining me now, I am your host Michele Goodwin and I’m speaking with Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat, a leader in the organization, Women Wage Peace. She joins me from Israel. In this interview, we have been speaking about why forging peace is critical. Before the break she began to touch on a very sensitive issue and that is sexual violence in times of war and conflict. In this instance, she is speaking about the polarization of raising this issue and how, ultimately it is so often ignored…

Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

If they condemn a Hamas, or if they acknowledge the crimes against Israeli women, it means that they take side, but it’s not true. It’s not true. It should be pro-women, it should be pro-peace. It’s not an either/or. We say it all the time about, you know, you don’t have to take sides. You don’t have to be either pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, you just need to be pro-peace, and pro-women. So, I take the stage to call all women organizations all over the world, UN Women as well, to condemn and investigate those crimes.

I can, again, and I hear, and we receive information, both from the media and from our Palestinian sister movement, about what’s going on in Gaza about women losing their children, about women dying with their families. We know several Women of the Sun activists from Gaza who were killed during the attacks, and of course, this is as devastating for us as the Israeli women that were killed. And so, again, I said it and I will say it as much as I can, we just want everything to stop. We don’t want any more victims on either side.

00:16:04 Michele Goodwin: 

And I’m glad that you raised this point, because it’s not mutually exclusive. It’s not mutually exclusive to acknowledge the harm that’s being experienced, the deaths of Palestinian children, and babies, and women, and men. It’s not mutually exclusive in recognizing what happened to Israeli women, and also Arab women, Palestinian women who were in Israel, who’ve also been harmed by Hamas, right? It’s an important nuance that’s so often missed in discourse of nationalism, how nationalism itself can inflict harms on women, in the name of the country, in the name of the nation, right?

When you think about it, it’s kind of like domestic violence. In the name of my house, I get to harm the women inside, I get to harm my daughter, I get to harm my wife, and stay away from my house, I control this house. And it’s a really important nuance, and we’re trying to have nuanced conversations, and they’re very, very difficult in these times, really difficult. And we’ve seen how people have been attacked by trying to have a nuanced conversation. 

And so, thank you for raising what has happened on October 7 to the women who were harmed, be they Israeli or be they Palestinian, because both are true in terms of what happened with Hamas. And I want to take this opportunity to remind our listeners of something that I shared when we launched this podcast series, and our first launch addressed healthcare. I mean, other areas in which there should be no tread, a bridge too far, don’t decimate what our healthcare systems that can then treat people, including after rape and sexual assault.

But as I shared then, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality, here’s what we know that happens in times of conflict and war, that violence experienced by women and girls during armed conflict includes, and there is a trigger warning that we’ve done for this entire series and this episode, but it includes murder, unlawful killings, torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, abductions, exactly as we saw on October 7, maiming and mutilation, forced recruitment of women combatants, rape, sexual slavery, sexual exploitation, involuntary disappearance, arbitrary detention.

And then, it goes on from there, their report, forced marriage, forced prostitution, forced abortion, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, all of these things that occur, that take place against women in places of combat, in combat zones, all across the world. And some of that, we saw on October 7. And so, it’s important to be able to hold multiple truths, to acknowledge that, while at the same time fighting against the devastation that we see taking shape, the horrors, the pains, the killing, et cetera, that we’re seeing on the news, right, every day.

00:19:58 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

Absolutely, absolutely. So, this is what we’re saying all the time, acknowledge the victims on both sides, because, you know, I think that the hurt and the grief does not know the sides. It doesn’t care. We are sad, we’re grieving, we are terrified, both for our, you know, the Israeli women and children, and also men who were murdered, and slaughtered, and everything that you said. Every day, I heard awful evidence and testimonies about it, and of course, also on the Palestinian side.

So, there is no side for pain. Everything is so painful. When you talked, I was reminded of a documentary that I watched several times, about the women of Liberia. It’s called Pray the Devil Back to Hell, and it tells the story of a little boy, and she’s a Nobel Prize laureate in 2011, and she was one of the leaders of the Liberian women’s movement, that pushed the leaders to begin negotiations, and succeeded in reaching an agreement, a political agreement that ended the civil war there, back in the beginning of the millennium.

And in the documentary, there are really horror stories about what was done to women, and what was done to men, and women from both sides of the conflict, they sat together and united, and called the leaders in the world and the African leaders to facilitate and support the peace talks. And they told, you know, I was sitting with someone, and I know that, you know, her brother raped my daughter, or something like that, something ridiculous, but acknowledging the horrors, and still knowing that we can and we need to talk, because we have no other options.

So, when, for example, us and Women of the Sun, and we’ve been in touch since the beginning of the war, since the first day of the war, when Israel was attacked. They contacted us, they asked us how we are doing. Like us, they were very worried about Vivian. For several weeks now, they are mourning her as well, with us, and of course, we are very worried about them, and their relatives, and they have relatives and friends and members in Gaza. So, we shared this pain. We don’t disregard it. 

We tell each other everything, but we do it from a, not from a blaming or shaming perspective, but rather than, you know, from sharing the pain, and acknowledging the pain of each other. And from this acknowledgment, we can strengthen the hope, because we’re together despite everything.

00:23:17 Michele Goodwin: 

Well, you know, this brings to mind a couple of questions for me. The first that I’m thinking about is, how do you respond to those that say that the only way to respond back and to make sure that there’s not another Hamas attack on Israel is to…the only way to do that is through what we’re seeing now, through the kinds of forceful attacks that have decimated so much of Gaza? How do you respond back to arguments like that? I’d imagine that it’s very difficult.

00:24:05 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

It is very, very difficult, and again, the feelings are very mixed, not for me, I think, but because I know the people. I know, I won’t say the names because I don’t want to risk them, but I know the women from Gaza, and I know definitely the women from the West Bank, so it’s much more personal for me. But even if it wasn’t personal for me, what we say, we say a few things. First of all, we need to separate between Hamas and the Palestinians.

We know that even if Hamas, you know…I don’t want to give strategic advice to the government or the army. Obviously, we cannot leave things as they were, and I don’t know, if you ask me if we can talk to Hamas, and then negotiate with them, I really don’t know the answer. It’s yes and no both, because we know that, again, in other conflicts, negotiations were between, even between terrorist groups, but some would say it’s not possible.

Michele Goodwin:

If you are just joining me for our special series on collateral damage during times of conflict, in this episode, I’m speaking with Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat from Women Wage Peace, an organization that operates in Israel along with its Palestinian counterpart, Women of the Sun, and their collective goal is toward demanding peace.

00:25:50 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

So, first of all, we insist on separating between Hamas and the Palestinians because, and this is my point, because we know that many, and I would even dare to say most of, Palestinians civilians don’t want war. They don’t want to be bombarded, don’t want to have to live and flee and escape, and flee their homes. They know, I think, that, most of them know that peace or a peaceful resolution, a political resolution is the only option to provide them the security and freedom that they need, they deserve.

And again, I don’t want to speak on their behalf, because I’m Israeli, but so, when I talk to the public, when we talk, as Women Wage Peace, when we talk to the public, we do express our support for Palestinian civilians, who don’t deserve to die and don’t deserve to, you know, to suffer, and we believe and we know that many of them, even most of them, want peace. About Hamas, again, I don’t want to say anything, and we don’t know yet, because we don’t know when the war is going to be over, and how, what’s going to happen the day after.

But what we do know is that we will demand the day after negotiations begin, because if we wait to another round of war, if we continue to, you know, manage the conflict, this is something that we do say to the Israeli government and the Israeli public, the conception of managing the conflict has collapsed. We cannot go on managing it, because, you know, there are rounds every month, and then their suitcases of money are being transferred, and then there is quiet for a few weeks, or a few months, and then another round.

And what happened on the 7 of October just proves that we cannot go on like this, because the next round, if the conflict is not resolved, if peace negotiations don’t begin, the next round is going to be much bloodier. The numbers are going to be much higher, and we don’t want it to happen. I can tell you that Women Wage Peace was established nine years ago, and the Israeli Peace Campaign is even older than that, and we keep hearing from the Israeli public, you know, there needs to happen something so horrible, so peace can begin, so peace can be achieved.

Like, and the example is what happened in 1973, the Yom Kippur War, the October ’73 war, that eventually led to negotiations with Egypt and the peace agreement with Egypt, and we keep saying, we don’t want to wait for this horrible thing to happen. Why not begin now? So, unfortunately, the horrible thing happened, but there may be another horrible, more horrible things. So, we don’t want to wait for this. We demand negotiations to begin as soon as possible. 

And of course, just to say, I know that for us, it goes without saying, but not for everyone, women need to take part, active part in peace and in negotiations, and for us, it begins now. With us, with the fieldwork that we’re doing, the grassroots work that we’re doing with Women of the Sun and each movement with its audiences and public, and decision-makers, and of course, during negotiations, because we know that when women are involved, and again, I know that you know it, and probably many of the listeners know it, but not everyone knows that when women are involved, and actively involved, in peace negotiations, the peace is achieved more quickly.

And more importantly, it’s more sustainable and resilient, and long-lasting. So, when Women Wage Peace was established nine years ago, after the previous Gaza war in 2014, we decided, or, I wasn’t there yet, but Vivian was, and a couple of thousands of courageous women who decided to initiate a women-led peace movement, which is a rather, it’s new. There weren’t women’s peace organizations in Israel, but in the far past, but now there is a women-led movement in Israel, and our goal is to achieve a negotiated agreement.

By the way, we don’t advocate for any specific solution. We say, you know, there are many solutions on the table, many plans that were developed, sit down, take those plans, and begin negotiations, and involve, make sure that women are involved for this to succeed.

00:30:55 Michele Goodwin: 

Well, on that note, because I wanted to ask you about that, just a week after the Hamas attack, Women Wage Peace issued a statement, and that statement was that this war proves more than ever that the concept of managing the conflict failed. The idea that dealing with the resolution of the conflict could be postponed indefinitely has been proved to be fundamentally wrong. And you mentioned that, in fact, when women are involved with negotiating peace, it’s something that is achieved more swiftly, and it is longer-sustaining.

So, why is it that there are virtually no women involved in making decisions, either through Hamas or through Israeli government?

00:31:58 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

Again, I can talk about the Israeli government. The current government is more, I think it’s the most conservative, most patriarchal, I would say, masculine government that we have had in many years. And you know that Israel went through five rounds of elections during the past three or four years, which is, again, unbearable, but…so, prior to…

00:32:30 Michele Goodwin: 

And unusual.

00:32:30 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

…this government, we did have…and unusual, right, it’s very unstable now, and again, we don’t know. And we’ve been protesting against what the government does for 40 weeks, before the war began, and we will continue to protest as long as the government continues to…again, we don’t have anything personal against the government, but we do protest against what they’re doing. And they kept, even before the war, they kept distancing women from, and excluding them from, political positions, decision-making positions, and we protested against it, and they said it.

And of course, and other actions they’ve taken, the judicial overhaul that we’re trying to promote, and we kept saying, because peace is our mission, we kept saying that the judicial overhaul and the actions taken by this government kills and buries the hope for peace. These are the signs that we, during the 40 weeks of protest, these are the signs that we stood with, because, and we know that when women are not involved and they don’t take part in the decision-making processes, when we don’t have…and again, in the previous government, we had many women chief of staff, in many government offices.

And now, I don’t think there is even one. Maybe there was one, and members of the parliament, the number has declined, and ministers in the government, the numbers have declined. So, we definitely urged the government to, I mean, we protest against the government, I wouldn’t say we urged them to do something, because it’s far-fetched currently, as we see it, but it’s frustrating, and we protest against it. And hopefully, again, either this government remains and improves, or it is replaced by elections after the…again, we don’t know anything.

We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we definitely as a part of our activism towards peace is also making sure that enough women are involved in decision-making processes, and the bodies and committees, and there are other organizations, legal organizations that promote exactly those issues, and they petition to the high court if necessary, and we don’t do it, because we are not a legal organization. We’re a grassroots movement, but we support them, we join them.

We echo their call, and we say women need to be…it’s like, what, like, the late Ruth Bader-Ginsburg said, women need to be wherever decisions are being made, and we take it very seriously.

00:35:56 Michele Goodwin: 

That’s so true. On our show, and the time has gone by much too quickly, much too quickly, we ask our guests about a silver lining, and I want to pose that to you, too. And I recognize that in asking about a silver lining while there’s so much pain that is being endured, and as well as you reflect on the passing of your mentor, Vivian Silver, I’m wondering what you see as a silver lining going forward.

00:36:41 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

So, first of all, I don’t know, I will say several silver linings that I do recognize, and just to say that I’m a feminist by ideology, and also optimistic by ideology, definitely before October 7, and even afterwards. And for me, optimism is a tool, because this what drives me, and makes me able to proceed, and continue my work and our work in Women Wage Peace. So, what gives me hope these days is our partnership with Women of the Sun. I’m hearing about many tensions between Israelis and Palestinians who were friends, who were colleagues, who worked together.

And we see us women succeeding in maintaining our connections and partnership. We have a very big project that was, we were granted a very nice grant to, a nice award to have a joint project of training women to become more involved, women from both sides to become more involved in peace. And it officially began on October 1, and then we had a very big event, which I didn’t talk about, but I can say a few words about it as well, in Jerusalem, in the Dead Sea. 

Together, 1500 women from both sides, from, Israelis and Palestinians, marching together and calling our mother’s call together with the amazing support of women from all over the world, including the U.S. in Israel. And we were so hopeful when it ended, but then two and a half days later, the war began, and we know that…and again, back to this project, we were supposed to rest for the weekend, and then begin on October 8 working on it. And although it was postponed, so, everyone was in shock, and we had to figure out how to continue and how to amend, you know, what needs to be amended in the project, but we succeeded.

We talked together, and we managed to do it, and we’re launching the project. We’re going to do it together. So, this gives me hope, and again, it’s not a partnership that disregards the pain and the horror on both sides. It’s a partnership that acknowledges the pain and horror on both sides, and from this, and knowing that our mission became so much more urgent, more important, so, this gives me hope. What gives me more hope is our activists who don’t give up. 

We go out, we stand every day in sun and rain, and with the families of the hostages, calling, because for us, this is the first, and maybe I should’ve mentioned it before, but this is the first thing that we demand, that the hostages, all of the hostages to be released. So, our activists are devastated, and we have doubts, we have our doubts, because it’s very difficult to be a peace activist during these days. But we continue together, and we think about the future.

And I also think about Vivian, and the legacy she left us, and the path that she paved for us, and we know that we’re continuing together on this path, and this gives me hope. And since you asked, I wanted to share with you, like, this vision I had. Last Thursday, during the memorial service for Vivian, I sat there, and saw all the flowers, and I suddenly remembered that, from time to time I give a lecture about the history of Israeli and American feminism, and I talk about the suffragists’ struggle. And I talk about, I show a photo of Susan B Anthony’s grave, and I tell my audience that Susan B Anthony was one of the founders and leaders of the suffragist struggle.

But she died ten years before the achievement was achieved, and for a hundred years now, more than a hundred years, when American women go to vote, they pay a tribute to Susan B Anthony. They go to her grave, they put flowers, they put this I Voted sticker on the grave. And I tell this story, because it’s important for me as a feminist to acknowledge, you know, what previous generations, women in the past, the way that they paved for us. And during the memorial service for Vivian, I suddenly remembered this story, and I knew that on the day that the peace agreement with Palestinians will be signed, I will go to Vivian’s grave with flowers, white ________ 00:39:46, and our mother’s call, and I will visit her, and let her know that what she struggled for for decades, we succeeded to achieve. So, this is for her. So, this gives me hope and power.

00:40:03 Michele Goodwin:

Well, Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat, thank you so much for joining me in this episode.

00:40:11 Dr. Yael Braudo-Bahat:

Thank you.

0:00:01.5 Michele Goodwin: 

To our listeners, we thank you for tuning in to our special series on the collateral damages of war and conflict. For more information about what we discussed today, head to msmagazine.com. 

Now, if you believe, as we do, that women’s voices matter, that equality for all persons cannot be delayed, and that rebuilding America, being unbought and unbossed, and reclaiming our time are important, then be sure to lift up and support independent feminist media. Look for our Ms. Studio’s podcast at msmagazine.com for new content and special episode updates, and if you want to reach us to recommend guests for our show or topics that you want to hear about, then write to us at ontheissues@msmagazine.com. We are ad free and reader supported. 

This has been your host Michele Goodwin reporting, rebelling, and telling it just like it is. On the Issues with Michele Goodwin is a Ms. Studio’s production. Our producers for this episode are Roxy Szal, Oliver Haug, Allison Whelan, and Morgan Carmen. The creative vision behind our work includes art and design by Brandi Phipps, editing by Will Alvarez and Natalie Holland, and music by Johannes Kaiser, Marscott Diego, and Nick Paparo.