TRANSCRIPT
Hannah Reinl
Hello and welcome to our first IGC podcast episode of 2023.
I'm Hannah from the International Gender Champions Secretariat in Geneva. In this episode, we will be taking a closer look at the intersection of gender inequality with other dimensions of social inequity. I am delighted to be joined here today by Ambassador Matthew Wilson and Risée Chaderton-Charles. Matthew Wilson has recently become an International Gender Champion, following his appointment as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva. Prior to that, Matthew was the Chief of Special Projects at the International Trade Center, the joint development agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. He has also served as Chief of Staff and Chef of Cabinet for the former ITC executive director Arancha Gonzalez, as senior adviser to the WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, and as a trade and human rights negotiator for the government of Barbados. Throughout his work, Matthew has become known in and beyond Geneva as a dedicated advocate for gender equality, diversity and inclusion. Hello, Matthew.
Matthew Wilson
Hello, Hannah, thank you so much for having me here.
Hannah Reinl
We're excited to have you. And Matthew, one of your personal commitments is to provide a platform for equality experts and activists from Barbados and the Caribbean to share their perspectives and experiences with international Geneva. So I'm really excited to see that you're putting this commitment into action right away. And that you have brought with you Risée Chaderton-Charles
Matthew Wilson
Indeed, I mean, this is one of the first commitments I made to becoming an international gender champion because I think it's so important that we use these global platforms to give a voice to those in developing countries who are living these experiences every day. And I could not think of a better person than my dear friend Risée Chaderton-Charles.
Hannah Reinl
This is great. So just to introduce Risée also to the audience, Risée is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in her field. She has worked in Barbados, Trinidad and New York, and she is a vocal activist with a focus on gender issues, advocating for an end to the endemic street harassment that faces women in Barbados, as well as an end to homophobia and transphobia. Her fine art and journalistic work reflect her focus on Caribbean women and their understanding of their own worth and agency. What can we say we're so excited that you're joining us today.
Risée Chaderton-Charles
Thank you for having me, Hannah. Thank you so much for including me in this wonderful podcast.
Hannah Reinl
The title of today's episode is “the urgency of intersectionality”. So we base this off the name of a famous TED talk that was given by Kimberly Crenshaw, who's a civil rights advocate, and one of the leading scholars of critical race theory in the US. She coined the term intersectionality to relate to the complex and interdependent ways in which people's social identities can overlap to create compounding experiences of discrimination. So basically, the idea is that where people stand across different social markers, such as gender, race, or class shapes the way that they experience oppression. So Matthew and Risée, I feel like that is an explanation…but it's still also quite an abstract term and concept. What does intersectionality mean to both of you personally?
Matthew Wilson
Thanks, Hannah. So for me, intersectionality is that we are all multiple human beings and to look at only one part of ourselves is to never truly feed all of our needs, desires or expectations and concerns. It’s about being expansive in understanding the reasons why we behave the way we do, and why we're treated the way we are, even if the solutions may have to be focused, layered or take a step-by-step approach. So that's my understanding of intersectionality.
Hannah Reinl
I love that that's very Audrey Lorde. There are no single-issue struggles because we don't live single-issue lives. Risée what about you?
Risée Chaderton-Charles
I would say intersectionality for me means understanding human beings as two-dimensional people, as not just one thing. Nobody starts a woman, a man, a tall person, a short person…it doesn't even matter because people are so many different things and the solutions that are going to be necessary for the problems that we have are going to have to take into consideration the fact that we are multi-dimensional. So for example, I am a woman, I'm a black woman, I'm a Caribbean woman, I'm a woman of a certain amount of privilege in the space that I occupied. And all of those things come into play when we're talking about how the world sees me and how I interact with the world. And when we're thinking of solutions to problems, we can't really think about how that solution will work for women in a broad term. How does that solution work for women who are black? How does that solution work for women who are black and from the Caribbean? How does that solution work for women who are black and from the Caribbean, and not middle class? So all of those things have to be considered when we think about how intersectionality is going to work and function in a space.
Hannah Reinl
And that's really interesting. And I think it also brings us full circle to what I believe Kimberly Crenshaw herself has said about intersectionality, which is that it really can be used as a prism through which to look at the world and to make sense of the world around us. So I know that both of you have done some really important work at the intersection specifically of gender and racial equity. You just mentioned some of that already. Can you tell us a bit more about what it is that you have done and what you were trying to achieve?
Risée Chaderton-Charles
Well, growing up in Barbados, I knew and I understood that my position as a woman, was often defined for me, by the men around me, I was not existing as a talented person, as a writer, a photographer, an artist, or any of those things. When I walked the streets of Barbados, I listen to your body. And when I spoke to other women about that experience, they also had similar experiences, where they were reduced to body parts. And I thought, well, we can’t exist like this, we absolutely have to do something about this. So along with a few other like-minded women, I started seeking out vocally about this particular issue. And that became a part of what has already been happening with some other young women in Barbados, where they were also speaking up against the idea that you could not walk the streets, in certain parts of Barbados, unless you had headphones. For example, I knew some of my students who would tell me “oh, man, I was late for class today, because I'm halfway down the street, I didn't have my headphones so I turned back to get my headphones” because they felt that they could not walk certain streets without having a barrier between them on the street harassment that was happening on the road tonight. That is not something that can allow you not to exist, because that helps…that keeps women in a perpetual state of anxiety. And when you're in a perpetual state of anxiety, it is not a seat in which you can actually function to your full potential. So I tried to make a loud noise about that. And I use the platform that I have, which is quite a loud voice on social media. And that actually did help propel certain people to act, and that acting has actually changed a lot of the environment, and a lot of the conversation that will be held around how women were supposed to live this and I remember being allowed to exist. And even now I can see that those changes are filtering down to society. And I feel quite proud of that.
Hannah Reinl
And you should feel proud of it. That's pretty amazing as an achievement, and I'm really curious to hear more about it. I would just love to first hear also from Matthew, I know, Matthew, that you've been a member, for example of the working group of the UN to fight racism. So I would love to hear more about what you were trying to do there and what your goals were.
Matthew Wilson
But before I go there, Hannah, I wanted to talk about something that we had done together at the International Trade Center: we formed an inclusion and diversity group, to give voice to women, to give voice to regional and geographical diversity, to give voice to people with disabilities to give voice to LGBTQI+ persons. And we put all of these people together to discuss solutions to all of the issues that they were facing, and to shine a light on the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. And for me, that was so important to start a conversation. And there we were living intersectionality, at ITC you, myself and many of the other people who were so invested and so passionate about pushing these issues, Hannah. And one of the critical things that we led on coming out of that diversity and inclusion group was one of the first sessions that we ever had at the International Trade Center. And I think to be honest with you, based on my experience, the first in many international organizations was a dedicated discussion on race and racism in the workplace. And what this did is that this gave people permission to express their views, permission to express their stories, permission to express their vision for how they saw the workplace improving and becoming more inclusive. And during that discussion, it was a true platform for intersectionality. We had men, women, and people of all genders come forward to say this is how we have experienced race and racism and discrimination in the workplace. As a black man, as a black woman, as an Arab woman, as an Asian man, I mean, we had everything there. And it really was quite enlightening to see the shared experience that many of us had. And the fact that to be given a platform to be able to put these views out there was actually quite cathartic. For many people, myself included. And then the working group on addressing racism in the United Nations. I think that this was something that I really have to applaud the UN Secretary-General and the UN Director-General in Geneva for recognizing the need to have an interdisciplinary platform to discuss this issue which, I have to be honest with you, some people when we first raised it said, well, said “we don't have racism in the UN”. But through surveys, through focus groups, through discussions where, again, we gave permission to people to express how they felt, we realized that this was a serious problem that needed serious solutions. So to be part of that kind of interagency discussion to put these issues high on the agenda, and to be solutions focused was a real pleasure. And then the third, a very short, very, very, very small issue that I want to highlight was, from a personal perspective, writing on issues to do with race and racism. So I did a beautiful trip last year in Switzerland, where I visited and followed in the footsteps of James Baldwin, who I think is a bit of an inspiration for myself, for Rosie and many others. I've been able to put that out there as a discourse on intersectionality. I think it was really important and was really well received. So this idea of putting your views out there in an unapologetic way, I think is really important as well.
Hannah Reinl
I think it's really interesting that you both hear from such different contexts, right… Risée, you're talking about the reality of the street, quite literally, in Barbados… and Matthew you’re talking about the reality and meeting rooms and UN buildings in Geneva. But what both of you share as an experience was really the idea of the need to get the conversation started, you know, as imperfect as it might be. But just getting the conversation started is ultimately what matters and trying to give a platform and a voice to people who are directly affected. Might be sexism might be racism might be the intersection of both. So as on your work on activism to prevent sexual harassment and violence against women … I'm curious to hear a little bit more about why from your experience, it's important to approach this topic from a perspective that is not only focused on gender, but that really also takes other dimensions of social inequity into account.
Risée Chaderton-Charles
I'd say that when women, I say women in particular because very often women are the ones who are the most vulnerable, although not all who are women tend to be the most vulnerable. You can have a solution that will work for a woman to feel safe in her environment. And you can say, this x is happening, then you need to do y. But when someone feels unsafe in their environment, that same solution that you proposed for the woman to feel safe in her environment is not going to work for someone who feels unsafe. You cannot say: “well, if someone hits you, you just need to go to this place here”. If someone is in a situation where someone hits them, and they leave the house, they're leaving their children in a difficult situation. Those things matter. If you have someone for whom the environment out there is an uncomfortable environment, someone who is in the LGBTQ community, who is seeking safety from a difficult domestic situation, but when they are assuming that they're facing discrimination, on the outside, those things matter. So you must consider all of those things as you consider how you make these approaches. But I also wanted to talk about something that Matthew actually has brought up: opening up the conversation on racism. And that's also something that I have worked very hard to motivate us, to make sure that happens. Because when I was growing up, I didn't really understand the nuances of how the social structures work. But as I became much older, and finally a lot of things were put into place, I realized that a big part of what was happening is that nobody wanted to talk about it. Nobody wanted to have the conversation. And anytime you brought up the conversation you were gaslighted into believing that no that's not really what was happening. So I'm really happy to hear that Matthew was in a position to say, “no, no, we need to have this conversation”. And for many years from the time it started becoming more active on social issues. One of the things to push for making sure that people were having the conversations and making sure that people understood that their voices matter, and that their experiences matter. It wasn't just all in their head, even if people were telling them that this was not really what they meant by what was happening.
Hannah Reinl
No, no, this was great. And I think a really powerful reminder, especially for leaders and organizations as well to really tap into their sphere of influence, to use the positional power that they have to open spaces and to create psychological safety for these very important conversations that need to happen. So with that, we're already coming slowly to the end of this podcast episode. And Matthew, just before ending, I would like to ask you from Champion to Champion, what are lessons learned or tips that you can share as a leader towards applying intersectionality and practice?
Matthew Wilson
Listen, that's the most important thing, to listen, to create safe spaces. Don't prejudge. To embrace different views. To always question, always learn and always educate yourself. Be willing to recognize your own privilege, and give up a bit of space for others who may not have that privilege, and to create dedicated opportunities and highlight champions of all races, ages, genders, who are speaking and living an intersectional reality. And finally, keep friends like Hannah and Risée that will keep me accountable and in check. There you go.
Hannah Reinl
Matthew, thank you so very much for speaking with us today. And really for sharing your insights as to how leaders can move the idea of intersectionality from theory to practice, but also for these powerful reminders as to how we all have the power to start these uncomfortable conversations. Thank you so much. Thank you