Feminist Friday: Watch Our Founder Deliver A Powerful TEDx Talk About Reproductive Rights.

Welcome to another Feminist Friday column! That part of our week where we slide into the weekend by watching our fave videos of the moment. Our theme this week is women using their platforms for change and disrupting the status quo. TEDx Talks are one of our favorite places to hear new ideas that can make the world better. So this week we have three new talks we are excited to share with you.

The first is a talk from none other than our very own founder and editor-in-chief Asha Dahya, who has become a passionate spokesperson in the area of reproductive rights and health. She gave a TEDx Talk in Normal, Illinois in October of 2018 titled ‘Reframing Reproductive Rights: Going Beyond Pro Choice vs Pro Life’ aimed at trying to find common ground in easily one of the most divisive topics in the United States right now. If you too believe there is a better way of discussing this topic and better supporting women and children, away from the polarized political rhetoric, watch this:

The second video comes from the TEDxPlaceDesNationsWomen event held in December in Geneva, where 11 speakers gathered around the theme of female empowerment. According to a blog post on the UN Refugee Agency website, the speakers’ topics included nuclear disarmament, domestic workers’ rights, acquiring digital skills, female genital mutilation and statelessness, but they all shared a common theme: when women are empowered, they can do great things for their communities and society as a whole.

It was difficult to choose just one and we highly recommend watching all of them on Youtube. The video below comes from Dr. Jasmine Abdulcadir who spoke about a topic that many activists and feminists around the world are fighting to eradicate and spread education about – female genital mutilation. She opened the first outpatient clinic for women and girls who have undergone Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Geneva. Reconstruction is not always the solution to this traumatic experience. Dr. Jasmine Abdulcadir’s first objective is to debunk myths, taboos and misconceptions around female sexuality, which can empower women in making informed decisions.

Dr. Jasmine Abdulcadir is an obstetrician and gynecologist. She is responsible for the outpatient clinic for women and girls living with FGM/C of the Geneva University Hospitals, which provides health education, prevention, counseling, culturally sensitive surgical and psychosexual care.

The third and final TEDx Talk comes from Dr. Jessalyn Keller and is a timely message in our current political climate and in light of how everyday women and girls are being empowered to talk about issues that directly affect them. Online girls culture is emerging as an ever more powerful voice on complex issues ranging from political change to public health. Just how powerful a platform for activism and community is it? Dr. Jessalyn Keller challenges many of our stereotypes about how young women are using social media, and explores how they’re using these tools to positively change the world around them, whether the issue is battling rape culture or challenging policy-makers who aren’t keeping pace with health issues like sex-ed curricula.

She is author of Girls’ Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age (Routledge 2015), co-editor of Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture (Routledge 2018), and co-author of Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture (Oxford University Press 2019), as well as several articles and book chapters.