Episode 13: Insubordinate Leadership

The Gender at Work Podcast

We are living in a time, which adrienne marie brown describes as apocalyptic - a time that demands that we draw our imagination to think beyond what is politically possible, which she says is “simply not enough”. What does feminist leadership look like in such times? In this episode, we talk to two globally recognized, inspiring feminist warriors from South Africa, Pregs Govender, a former ANC member of parliament and Deputy Human Rights Commissioner, and Phumi Mtetwa, an award winning anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist, on what it takes to be active within this co-existence of apocalypse and utopia. Drawing on her book, Love and Courage: A story of Insubordination, Pregs talks of what it means to build a revolution of love grounded in human dignity and rights. Phumi talks of how insubordination was central to her emergence as a young South African lesbian leader. Both discuss how they have fought structures and systems of discrimination and exclusion to build toward a feminist vision of a just and equitable world, to interweave relationships of resilience and ways they practice insubordinate leadership now.