Living While Feminist

Today on the podcast I’ll be speaking with Lauren Beukes. Lauren  is the award-winning author of six novels, a collection of short stories, a pop history about South African women, and New York Times best-selling comics. Her work has been translated into 26 languages. Her novel, The Shining Girls, about a time-travelling serial killer and the survivor who turns the hunt around is now a major AppleTV series with Elisabeth Moss who listeners may know from the Handmaid’s Tale and Mad Men. Lauren is a former feature journalist, who covered electricity cable thieves, HIV+ beauty pageants, metro cops and homeless sex workers. She’s worked in film and TV, as the director of Glitterboys & Ganglands, a documentary which won Best LGBTI Film at the Atlanta Black Film Festival, and as showrunner and head writer on South Africa’s first half hour animated TV show, Pax Afrika, which ran for 104 episodes on SABC. Her work has been hailed by the likes of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, George R.R. Martin. She has won several awards over the last ten years, including The Arthur C Clarke Award, The University of Johannesburg Prize, the Strand Critics Choice Award, The Kitschies Red Tentacle, The August Derleth Prize, RT Thriller of the Year, Exclusive Books Booksellers Choice Award and the prestigious Mbokodo Award for women in the creative arts from South Africa’s Department of Arts and Culture. When asked where she gets her ideas from, Lauren responds “Everywhere. Conversations, observations, watching the cultural shifts and fracture points and weirdnesses in the world. The inside of my head is less a memory palace and more of a hoarder house; full of strange and useless things that sometimes, if I’m lucky, come together in interesting and surprising ways.” One of these interesting and surprising novels is her latest – Afterland. The story of a mother and son on the run in a post-pandemic America. The pandemic, known as The Manfall means that twelve year old Miles is one of the last boys alive, and his mother, Cole, will protect him at all costs – especially from her own sister. This feminist, high-stakes thriller is a blend of many genres and the perfect post-pandemic read. Lauren lives in London with her teenage daughter, two trouble cats and a lot of plants. So today I’ll be talking with Lauren about post-pandemic motherhood, feminism, and literary success. Welcome Lauren.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Lenina Rassool.   Lenina is the producer and presenter of The Womxn Show, a weekly TV show produced by Cape Town TV that focuses on gender-based violence and gender justice. The show launched in 2019 and since then has aired over 100 episodes – an incredible achievement.   For listeners who want to go and check it out, you can watch it on Cape Town TV or DSTV 263 on Sundays at 6pm, Tuesdays at 11am, and Thursdays at 9pm. You can also watch it on YouTube.   But the Womxn Show was not Lenina’s first foray into covering these issues. She has 15+ years of experience as a journalist, with a focus on human rights and social justice. She has worked for the mainstream media including for Femina Magazine, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and Independent Newspapers before moving into the non-profit sector, producing content across print and web platforms at Activate! Change Drivers and OpenUp (then Code for South Africa).   In 2017, she started at Cape Town TV as news editor and anchor of Our City News, then Deputy Director of the station in 2018 where she went on to produce the Womxn Show.   So today I’m going to be talking with Lenina about her work as a journalist, about the importance of covering GBV as an issue, and about the ways she’s found to take care of herself while doing this work.

Nechama Brodie is no stranger to the Living While Feminist podcast. We spoke in 2021 for Season 4, so if you haven’t listened to that episode please do go back and find it now.   Nechama Brodie is an absolute polymath – multi-media journalist, author, senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Journalism and Media Studies, musician, singer, martial artist. She has turned her attention to so many important topics, and most recently to the topics of farm killings and domestic violence.   Today we’ll be focussing on her latest book, Domestic Terror, which examines the fact that – as the back of the book says – quote, “every day, more than three women in South Africa, on average, are murdered by their male intimate partners, the person who often sleeps next to them, who shares a bed, a house, a life, children”. This book looks at the stories of some of these women and unpacks decades of coercive control and centuries of state failure to protect women. It manages to examine this extremely important and difficult topic with insight and information, it busts myths in a fantastic way, and it is an extremely important read.   In an early chapter, Nechama writes:  “In my earlier works on femicide I have written how when a woman asks for help, we should listen to her. I want to add to this: when a man says he is going to hurt a woman, we should believe him.”   Later on in the book she asks:  “How do we tackle this? How do we teach women, their families, and their communities to change – because it is clear that while we are very good at marches and hashtags when it comes time to back and believe individual women who need our support before they are killed, we are not succeeding.”   So today I’ll be talking with Nechama about Domestic Terror, her work as a fact checker and myth buster, and her writing world.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Derilene Marco.   Derilene is a creative scholar who holds a Senior Lecturer position in Media Studies at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dee’s research pivots around social and cultural practices and experiences of the everyday, particularly in relation to mothering identities, person-making and caregiving as labour/ work. She has written on apartheid and post-apartheid South African cinema, black women’s lives and stories and is the co-editor of Sasinda Futhi Siselapha (still Here): Black Feminist Approaches to Cultural Studies in South Africa Twenty Six Years Since 1994 (2021) and Transforming Pedagogy, a workbook for parents (2023).    Dee is the founder of the multimodal research project, Mother.Lab, which houses a mobile complaints space for mothers and caregivers, called House of Complaints. I'm really excited to talk to Dee today about her work.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Athambile Masola.   Athambile is a writer, researcher and an award-winning poet based in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her debut collection of poetry is written in isiXhosa, Ilifa (Uhlanga Press, 2021). She is the co-author of the children’s history book series, Imbokodo: Women who shape us (Jacana, 2022), with Dr Xolisa Guzula. Her latest book is a collaboration with Makhosazana Xaba; a collection of Noni Jabavu’s columsn from 1977, A stranger at Home (Tafelberg, 2023).   Atha has been a blogger and online commentator for many years and I’m so delighted to be talking to her today.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Sam Beckbessinger. I had the pleasure of talking to Sam in December 2020 for Season 1 about How to Manage your Money like a Fucking Grown-up, and we talked all things money from a feminist perspective. So, if you haven’t yet listened to that episode, go back, and download it now.   Since I last spoke to Sam her writing career has gone from strength to strength and has taken many forms. Her interactive story about climate change, Survive the Century, was featured in New Scientist and Gizmodo. She also writes a very interesting newsletter which is always full of stimulating ideas. Sam is also an associate lecturer in the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University in the UK where she’s sharing her hard-earned knowledge and talent with other writers. If that doesn’t sound impressive enough, just this year she has released not one but two books which we’ll be talking about today – Girls of Little Hope, a novel written with Dale Halvorsen, about two missing girls who come back, changed. And Moving to the UK: A Concise Guide for South Africans, which is a practical guide for moving across the world without losing your mind. Taking a look at Sam’s Projects page on her website also makes me feel inspired. She’s working on another novel and two super-top-secret TV shows. So today I’ll be talking with Sam about all things writing and what she’s got up her sleeve next.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Rumbi Goredema Görgens. Rumbi is a Zimbabwean-born South African-based feminist author and activist. Her writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Vela Magazine, and on FeministsSA.com and MyFirstTimeSA.com. She has worked with various South African civil society organisations, and her current day job is at Embrace, a movement dedicated to making mothers and motherhood matter in South Africa, in benefit of women who mother and the children they raise. Rumbi is the proud and exhausted mother of Samuel (7 going on 18) and Miriro (3). So today I’ll be talking with Rumbi about making motherhood matter.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Megan Ross. Megan is a writer, creative consultant and journalist. She is the author of Milk Fever (published by uHlanga Press in 2018) which is a collection of poetry. In Milk Fever Megan writes about the uneasy truths of unexpected motherhood and all its emotional detritus. It explores the choices and misadventures of young womanhood, centering the personal as political in a feminist and bold poetic style. She is also the author of several short stories and essays that have gone on to achieve critical acclaim. She is a recipient of the Brittle Paper Award for Fiction (2017) and an Alumni Award for the Iceland Writers Retreat in Rekyavick. She was also the finalist in the Gerald Kraak, Miles Morland, Short Story Day Africa, and Short.Sharp Awards. Megan has worked in the book industry on both the copy and art aspects of book production for publishers across the African continent. She left her features writer role at Glamour magazine to pursue a career in freelance writing in journalism in Bangkok. After returning to South Africa her writing has featured in New Frame, Mail and Guardian, Glamour, Brittle Paper, GQ, Prufrock, Catapult, New Coin, New Contrast and the Kalahari Review. As a freelancer she ran her own visual and communications studio and created work for a wide range of clients including Lil-Lets South Africa. Megan is the contributing editor at Isele Magazine. Megan has a Bachelor of Journalism and Media Studies degree and now works in advertising full time at Retroviral. So today I’ll be talking to Megan about motherhood, poetry, and the importance of telling our stories.

Today on the podcast I’m speaking with Sarah Lotz. Sarah was born in the UK, lived in Paris, Israel and spent 20 years in Cape Town. She returned to the UK 5 years ago and is currently living on the Welsh borderlands. She’s an ex mural artist, now lucky enough to be a full time screenwriter and novelist. Sarah has published 20 novels that have been translated into over 25 languages. She’s done this on her own and as part of collaborative writing teams including with Louis Greenberg (under the name S.L Grey - hard core horror novels), Helen Moffett and Paige Nick (under the name Helena S Paige - 'choose-your-own adventure style' erotica novels ;)) and her daughter Savannah Lotz (under the name Lily Herne - zombie YA fiction). Sarah claims to have too many rescue dogs – if that’s even a thing – and is an animal rights and environmental activist. Sarah’s latest novel is called Impossible, and it’s a tale of romance that is fantastic and just a little bit different from the one you might expect. Sarah has a daughter – Savannah – who is 30, and a step daughter, known to the family as little Sarah – who is 32. So today I’ll be talking with Sarah about feminism, parenting, writing, and hopefully a bit about the environment. Welcome Sarah.

Today on the podcast I’m speaking with Sara-Jayne Makwala King. Sara-Jayne is an award winning radio presenter, best-selling author, journalist, and public speaker whose career spans two decades and four continents. She has an LLB honours degree from the University of Greenwich and a Masters in Journalism from Canterbury University. Her first book Killing Karoline, published in 2017, was shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for South African Writing. Her second book, Mad Bad Love, was published this year, talks about the period in her life when Sara-Jayne had just discovered she was going to become a mother. Six weeks after discovering she was pregnant, her partner Enver relapses on heroin and disappears. Sara-Jayne checks herself into The Clinic and realizes that she must save herself to save her future child, and that part of this journey must be tackling why she’s always looking for love in all the wrong places. Both of her books deal with issues around race, identity, adoption, addiction, recovery, and mental health. Mad Bad Love is currently number one across many bookstores in the country. Sara-Jayne’s daughter, is turning three this November. They live in Cape Town, where Sara-Jayne hosts her own weekend breakfast show on Cape Talk radio. So today I’ll be talking with Sara-Jayne about parenting herself and her child, as well as addiction, adoption, and of course, feminism.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Joy Watson. Joy is a feminist researcher and writer who specialises in analysing public policy and service delivery, as well as tracking funding flows from the perspective of building social equity. She has many years of experience in developing feminist responses to public policy and has worked on research Initiatives in South Africa as well as internationally. Joy is in the process of finalising her PHD on rape and public policy at the University of Stellenbosch. Joy is currently Chair of the Board of the Women on Farms project and sits on the coordinating committee of feminists for social change. Joy is also a writer. You can find her book reviews and reflections on life and its joys and sorrows on the pages of Daily Maverick Life. Together with Amanda Gouws she has co-edited the book, Nasty Women Talk Back: A Collection of feminist essays on the global women’s marches. And this year she’s published her first novel, The Other Me, with Karavan Press. The Other Me follows the life story of Lolly, who grows up in a context of trauma, violence and alcohol abuse – the effects of which linger long into her adulthood. Joy is both a mother and a stepmother. So today I’ll be talking with Joy about feminist parenting, public policy, and writing.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Wessel Van Den Berg. Wessel is the father of two young children aged 6 and 8, and he sees fatherhood as his main job. In his spare time, his curiosity about men and care has led him to work as a kindergarten teacher, counsellor, activist, and researcher. He works at Sonke Gender Justice and in this capacity has contributed to the establishment of the MenCare Global Fatherhood Campaign and the State of South Africa’s Fathers report series. He also led on Sonke’s advocacy for the prohibition of corporal punishment of children and the promotion of gender equal parenting leave in South Africa. Wessel completed his doctoral study in 2022 about engaging South African men in a feminist ethic of care. So today I’ll be talking to Wessel about feminist fatherhood and the state of South Africa’s Fathers.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah. Nana is the author of The Sex Lives of African Women, which Publishers Weekly described as “an astonishing report on the quest for sexual liberation” in their starred review. It was also listed by The Economist as a best book of the year. She is also co-founder of Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, a website, podcast and festival that publishes and creates content that tells stories of African women’s experiences around sex, sexualities, and pleasure. Nana is also a communications strategist who has over fifteen years experience of developing and delivering strategic communications programmes across media, public sector and non-governmental organisations. She has a deep understanding of digital technologies for feminist activism, and is widely recognised as a key African feminist working at the intersections of gender, sexualities and technologies. The impact of Nana Darkoa’s work has been documented by CNN in a film titled, Not Yet Satisfied. Nana Darkoa’s opinion editorials and articles have been published by The Guardian, open Democracy and Essence. She has contributed to anthologies such as Feminist Parenting: Perspectives from Africa and Beyond as well as The Routledge Handbook of Queer Africa Studies. Her short stories have been published in It Wasn’t Exactly Love and The Pot and Other Stories.  In 2016, she won a prestigious Hedgebrook fellowship. Nana Darkoa is a sought-after facilitator, speaker, and commentator. She has been a guest on several international media programs including being interviewed by Christiane Amanpour for CNN,  The Forum, and National Public Radio. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Communications and Cultural Studies from the University of North London (now London Metropolitan University), and a MSc in Gender and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also a trained performance coach, and leadership trainer. Nana lives in Accra, Ghana with her daughter Asantewaa, who is two years and four months old. Today I’ll be talking to Nana about feminist parenting, her writing on sex and pleasure, and the Sex Lives of African Women. Welcome Nana.

Take care of yourselves!

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Nyx McLean. Nyx McLean is a trans non-binary queer South African, they use the pronouns they/them. Nyx is an academic who specialises in LGBTIAQ+ identities and communities, and their use of digital technology to form publics and counter-publics to resist the status quo. Nyx McLean is a Research Associate affiliated with the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, and is also currently the engagement editor of Makhanda’s Grocott’s Mail. Their piece in Living While Feminist is called ‘The Agender Borderlands’ and in that piece they say: I view being non-binary (and specifically agender) as a gift I walk this strange space of existence, it is often lonely but it can also be bright and glorious over here. So today I’m going to be talking with Nyx about gender politics, finding home, and writing resistance.

Today on the podcast I have the absolute pleasure of talking again to Tiffany Kagure Mugo. Tiff was the very first guest on Living While Feminist, talking about her book Quirky Quick Guide to having great sex, cancel culture, and everything in between. Since then Tiff has given us a new collection, with her co compiler Kim Windvogel, called Touch: Sex Sexulaity and Sensuality. It came out this year from Kwela. As a piece in the collection by Zanta Nkumane says “The architecture of pleasure is expansive” and this collection certainly illustrates that well. Tiff is still the co-founder and curator of HOLAA!! – a pan Africanist hub that advocates for and tackles issues surrounding African sexuality. She does ted talks and writing and just general amazingness all the time. She can often be found with a glass of wine, and, in my experience, can always be found with a joke. Earlier this year she was part of the Queering Belonging mini-series hosted by the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, and you can watch her episode online. But the topics Tiff tackles (try that tongue twister after a glass of wine) are as serious as they are light – sex and sexuality remain taboo points of conversation for many of us. In a piece in March this year in the Mail and Guardian, Tiffany said: Writing about sex, for me, has been a journey of learning and unlearning, turning things around in my mind to try to figure out how to do it. As someone who is a nerd at heart, I thought being able to understand the mechanics of the thing would help me do the thing. I was also under the impression one could crash course learning about sex. However, the journey has been the equivalent of thinking you are digging in a sand pit and finding out you are actually in the middle of the Sahara desert. When I began, I thought that simply because I knew a little more than the average person about getting down and nasty I could enter this realm and document sex in all its glory. And for a while, as one of the few voices who had the gumption to write publicly about sex, the con worked. Eventually, I realised that this was a marathon and not a sprint. I was always one article/sex story/radio interview away from talking absolute nonsense if I did not keep digging and furthering my understanding. When it comes to sex, sexuality and desire there is always something to learn, someone to learn from and something that has been a core part of your thinking that you need to put down and lay to rest. So today I’ll be talking with Tiff about touch, sexual pleasure, and whatever else we feel like.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Ziyanda Stuurman. Ziyanda is a social policy, political science, and international relations graduate who currently works as a social science researcher based in Cape Town. She’s a recipient of both the Chevening and Fulbright scholarships and hold advanced degrees in Conflict, Security and Development Studies from Sussex University, and in International Development from Brandeis University. Her undergraduate degrees in international relations and political science are both from the University of Stellenbosch. Ziyanda has worked in various roles related to political and social science research over the past decade, and each of these professional experiences have informed her research and writing on policing and police militarisation in South Africa. Today I’m speaking to Ziyanda about her new book – Can We Be Safe: The Future of Policing in South Africa. In the book Ziyanda explores the distant and recent history of policing in South Africa as well as some of the contemporary realities. It touches on colonial history, police brutality, inequality, the problem with public perceptions about crime and the misuse of this for political rhetoric, gangsterism and social order, the criminal justice system, and the ordinary lives of those who are affected by our crisis of policing. The book suggests that things have not been working and will not work to make us feel safe and live safely, unless we imagine a new system entirely. In the book Ziyanda says: Inequality in South Africa is evident not only in who is policed and how, but also in the allocation of police resources. As it has always been in the past, the allocation of police resources does not always follow need … If we want to create a society that cares equally about the protection and safety of all communities, and a police system that responds with equal urgency and empathy for people regardless of their social status, then the horribly unequal state of affairs that we have right now in terms of resource allocation must be completely altered. So today I’ll be talking to Ziyanda about her vision for policing in South Africa, her studies abroad, and her feminism. Welcome Ziyanda.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Dr Nechama Brodie. Nechama has worked as a multi-media journalist, editor, producer and publisher for nearly twenty-five years. During this time she has dodged the secret police in Burma, explored tunnels underneath Johannesburg, gotten dusty at rock festivals, and reported on the myth of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa. Nechama’s journalistic work has appeared in leading South African newspapers like the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian, and City Press, and in the Hindustan Times (India) and the Guardian (UK). Nechama also previously headed up the training and research division TRI Facts for independent fact-checking agency Africa Check. Nechama has a PhD in journalism and is a part-time lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Journalism and Media Studies. Her research work focuses on interpersonal violence and media representations of violence. Nechama is also a musician and singer and (unrelated) a martial artist, holding a second dan in karate. In addition to her journalism Nechama is the author of several books - The Joburg Book (Pan Macmillan), a contemporary history of the city that was long-listed for the Alan Paton Award and has sold over 10 000 copies; and Inside Joburg (Pan Macmillan), a guide to the city’s most interesting spaces. Nechama’s best-selling history of the city of Cape Town, The Cape Town Book (Struik Travel and Heritage), was released in 2015. Nechama is also the co-author of memoirs I Ran For My Life (Pan Macmillan), with best-selling musician Kabelo Mabalane, and Rule of Law (Pan Macmillan), with MP and former state prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach. Nechama’s first novel – a supernatural thriller called Knucklebone (Pan Macmillan) – was published in 2018 and was long-listed for the Barry Ronge Prize for South African fiction and short-listed for the Nommo Award for African speculative fiction. In 2020, Nechama published two further books - The sequel to Knucklebone, Three Bodies (Macmillan) in March, and her non-fiction work Femicide in South Africa (Kwela) in July 2020. In the Introduction to Femicide she says “Femicide – like the murders of children, and perhaps the elderly – carries such distinct features that, if we were to try and understand or profile these killings only in the context of male homicides, we would miss the point entirely. The violence meted out against women has long been distinct from the violence meted out between men” and goes on to say later in the book “most violent injuries between men arise from ‘everyday life, most often involving strangers and including poorly defined arguments and quarrels over money, women and drunkenness’ whereas most women are attacked and harmed by someone they know. Where men often participate in or even initiate violence against each other, even when they are with strangers, women are subjected to violence, and mostly by the people close to them.” So, today I’ll be talking to Nechama about femicide, how to tell fact from fiction, and her writing life.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with Terry-Ann Adams. Terry-Ann is a writer and commentator from Johannesburg. They have an honours in history from the University of Pretoria where she focused on the disability rights movement in South Africa and Disability Representation in American Film. They has spoken and written on ableism and feminism. In 2020 Terry-Ann published their debut novel, Those Who Live in Cages, with Jacana Media. Those Who Live in Cages is a story of five women, connected to one another through blood and circumstance  – Bertha, Janice, Laverne, Kaylynn and Kela (Raquel) – all living in Eldorado Park. As the review in New Frame puts it, “they are women full of hope for their families and futures, bumping up against the obstacles of class limitation and a patriarchal, religious and judgement-driven environment.” It is a story where place comes alive as character. Eldorado Park is a location that shapes the lives of each of these characters, whether they are yearning to leave or destined to stay. In her interview with New Frame writer, Binwe Adebayo, Adams says: “I think that the world is a dystopia, that systemic oppression kills any form of hope for real change or progress. As individuals, we can move forward slightly … but the greater good is not realised and many are left behind … Only when systems that oppress us are dismantled will we see real change.” So today I’ll be talking with Terry-Ann about writing as one tool to address social issues, their work as a disability activist, and what comes next for them.

Today on the podcast I’m talking with South Africa’s self-appointed Minister of Menstruation, Candice Chirwa. Candice is a thought leader with an avid interest in gender and youth issues in South Africa. She specialises in menstrual education for young people and brings #eduliftment with her award-winning NGO, QRATE. Candice is the Editor of the Book – The Perils of Patriarchy, which sheds light on and unpacks women’s lived experiences of the patriarchy in South Africa. Her TEDx Talk called Bad Blood, focused on the stigmas surrounding periods. Today I’m speaking to Candice about her second co-authored book, Flow: The Book about menstruation, out this May from Kwela. Flow covers everything you need to know about menstruating from the physical to the psychological to the political. It’s a guide that every household and school should have on their shelves so we can all be more period positive. In Flow, Candice says: “Having a period positive world simply means that we have individuals who do not feel afraid to talk about something that is a part of them.”