If You Were In Charge

A special episode to mark the deaths of two feminist icons three weeks apart: Dolly Parton on 25 August, aged 80, and Gloria Steinem on 2 September, aged 92. One the soundtrack of a generation, the other the face of a movement. Both, in their way, women who gave the money back. Kavita knew Gloria, most recently over dinner at her townhouse on the Lower East Side just before Christmas. Sanam and Kavita take this opportunity in remembering these two icons to asses where feminism is at the it's role to play in this time of great global change. In all the tributes Kavita sees something uncomfortable about how we grieve now: that the wall of photographs of ourselves with the famous dead has become as much about us as about them, and she is trying consciously not to do it. She also notices who was largely missing from the tributes, and what that absence says about whose feminism got told as the story. Kavita teaching a course this autumn called Feminism Remains Foreign, and the title works in two directions. Foreign to the West, which still cannot see feminism outside its own frame: abortion is still illegal in Germany, women could not hold their own bank accounts in parts of Switzerland within living memory. And foreign in the other sense, the way women's organising everywhere else gets dismissed as a Western import the moment it asks for anything. Sanam grew up with the other version. In 1970s Iran, public sector workers had equal pay and abortion was legal, and the word feminism was barely needed. When she looks at the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the headline says Eleanor Roosevelt. Read below the headline and it was Latin American, Indian, Pakistani and Arab women who insisted the word "women" appear at all. The heart of the conversation is culture. Both hosts argue against ceding it. Sanam on the lawyers who told her culture was the enemy and only law could deliver rights, and why that is exactly the logic that lost Roe. Kavita on Sakena Yacoobi, who asked an imam's wife and daughter to come and teach what the Quran says about women's dignity, and on Leymah Gbowee beginning to untie her turban in Ghana. Sanam on the church elders in Sierra Leone who bared themselves to the RUF, and on the women's societies in Cameroon that the British never thought to dismantle because they only ever looked at the men's. They disagree with Gloria too, openly, on sex work. And they end on bodies: on Gloria who never stopped feeling like the too-tall girl from the Midwest, and Dolly who was entirely, joyfully at home in hers. Standing on the shoulders of giants, Sanam says, and often they are invisible giants. As June Jordan put it, we are the ones we have been waiting for. Chapters 00:00 Back after the summer 00:07 Two feminist icons gone: Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem 01:06 Dinner at Gloria's townhouse on the Lower East Side 01:55 The Imagination Library and what giving back used to mean 02:25 The Ms. Foundation and the invention of feminist philanthropy 03:43 Iran in the 1970s: equal pay, legal abortion, and no need for the word 05:21 Performative grief and everybody's photograph with Gloria 06:20 Feminism Remains Foreign: the course Kavita teaches this autumn 07:34 Abortion still illegal in Germany, bank accounts in Switzerland 07:51 Who actually wrote women into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 09:30 The Combahee River Collective and a decolonial feminism 10:50 "We empowered them": Hillary Clinton, Afghan women and being matronised 12:07 What if Chinese, Iranian and Indian women funded American feminism 13:27 When women's peace work is dismissed as a Western import 14:56 Do not cede culture: the mistake behind losing Roe 15:17 Radical women embracing tradition: Sakena Yacoobi and the imam's daughter 17:15 Leymah Gbowee, Sierra Leone, and the power of the curse 18:35 The women's societies in Cameroon the British never thought to destroy 19:09 Who was missing from the tributes to Gloria 21:02 Many candles, not one torch 22:28 Where Kavita disagreed with Gloria: sex work as work 25:47 Losing Gloria in the age of Roe's reversal and the trad wife 27:32 The fight to be recognised as human at all 30:12 A native feminist vision of sovereignty rooted in care 32:57 Would Dolly and Gloria have got on? 33:32 Bodies, shame, and Dolly's great gift 35:39 Standing on the shoulders of invisible giants 36:09 Summer reading, and what is coming in Season 4 Mentioned in this episode Sanam founded the International Civil Society Action Network, which is twenty years old this year. Kavita is Senior Strategic Advisor to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and led the Global Fund for Women for fourteen years. Gloria Steinem was a founding mother of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the first women's fund, which inspired others including the Dutch fund Mama Cash. Kavita's reading for her course includes the Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977. The story of the imam's wife and daughter comes from Kavita's TED talk, Radical Women, Embracing Tradition Sanam's summer reading was The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine. Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show. Get in touch and stay connected: Email ICAN: [email protected] Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/ More from us: adapodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sanam and Kavita close Season 3 the way they opened it, in conversation with each other, just the two of them, freewheeling before the summer break. They begin with the best news of the season. Kavita is a grandmother. Parker arrived during the World Cup final, and the joy of it opens onto something harder: that every woman who brings a new life into the world puts her own life at risk. From there the conversation turns to India, where a generation of medical students has mobilised after being called cockroaches by a figure at the top of the establishment. A Dalit student studying abroad posted a meme in reply, "if we are the cockroaches, may we be millions of cockroaches together", and it went viral. The education minister has been forced to resign, something Kavita points out has not happened once in ten years of Narendra Modi's government, not even during the farmers' protests. Sanam and Kavita trace the same current through the students who protested over Gaza, through Iran's Women Life Freedom movement, and through American public opinion, where two contradictory bills now move through Congress at the same time. They talk about Iran with real grief: a people who were nonviolently trying to change their own country, then bombed by the powers claiming to help them. The hardest section is on how war is now fought. Sanam explains that a thousand targets a day for thirty days is only possible when the assessment is automated, and returns to a 2021 strike in Afghanistan where the algorithm identified white cars but was never programmed to identify children. When engineers offered to fix it, the Pentagon said there was no need. They end on power and who holds it. Sanam on Resolution 1325, on the League of Nations women who first asked for a seat, and on how the table keeps moving to another room. Kavita on Julia Ward Howe, whose original Mother's Day proclamation was a call to disarm. They sign off on gratitude: for a season of guests, for a friendship that began at the Robert Bosch Academy, and for the reminder that in a world constantly besieged by news of what is going wrong, most people are decent and most people are trying. As June Jordan put it, we are the ones we have been waiting for. Back in September with a new line up! Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:35 Welcome — the last episode of the season 01:06 Kavita becomes a grandmother 03:33 The risk every woman takes to bring life into the world 05:08 The world we want to hand on 07:28 India's Gen Z rise up: "may we be millions of cockroaches" 10:01 A wake-up call — Gen Z, Gaza and George Floyd 12:35 AIPAC, the midterms and two contradictory bills 14:41 Iran: the war behind this season 18:20 A thousand targets a day — AI goes to war 20:15 Asymmetry, resistance and the rules-based order 22:00 "Dumb defense" and a lose-lose war 22:56 The MOU, the pause and a dangerous August 26:10 If women were around the table — Julia Ward Howe and Resolution 1325 28:36 Signing off — a season of hope 32:18 Credits Mentioned in this episode International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), founded by Sanam — and sign up to ICAN's newsletter International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), where Kavita is Senior Strategic Advisor Global Fund for Women UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security The Robert Bosch Academy and the Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship, where Sanam and Kavita first met If You Were In Charge is a radical leadership podcast about people, power & possibilities, hosted by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas. From ICAN and ADA Productions.ifyouwereincharge.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the most radical idea in the world is simply that everyone belongs? Sanam sits down with john a. powell (he spells his name in lower case): Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, holder of the Robert D. Haas Chancellor's Chair in Equity and Inclusion, Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, and author of The Power of Bridging. john grew up in Detroit, one of nine children of a Christian minister. At eleven he left the church and his father stopped speaking to him for five years. That early experience of being othered inside a loving family became a life's work: understanding why every new "we" seems to need a "them", and how we build belonging without othering. He talks to Sanam about the fear driving voters to the far right, and why fact-checking that fear into silence is itself a form of othering. About the Minnesotans who reframed "immigrants" as "neighbours" and stared down the military. About front porches, subways and public spaces as the quiet infrastructure of belonging, and the 90 seconds of being truly seen that measurably improves a patient's health. And when Sanam asks what he would do if he were in charge, he gives the best answer yet: he would give the power away. "We is always smarter than I." "I'm not an optimist, I'm not a pessimist, I'm what I call a possibilist." At the top of the show, Sanam and Kavita on a grandchild due any day, the World Cup as a masterclass in belonging, Wimbledon as a model for diplomacy, and why the UN might only hand a woman the top job now that the power has moved elsewhere. Chapters: 00:00 "Can we have a world where we all win?" 00:28 Sanam and Kavita: a grandchild on the way, the World Cup and the UN 18:58 Interview: what othering actually means 19:45 john's story: othered by his own father at eleven 22:16 The Invisible Man and Sawubona: noticed but never seen 26:15 What belonging looks like: co-creation, not inclusion 33:37 Europe and the US compared 35:00 The alienated white male: the fear is real, the diagnosis is wrong 38:25 A radical idea that shouldn't be radical 39:47 Minnesota: when immigrants became neighbours 44:11 If you were in charge? "I'd give up being in charge" 45:53 From porches to patios: designing for belonging 48:21 "If I was Elon Musk I'd be MacKenzie Scott" 52:50 Not an optimist, not a pessimist: a possibilist Find out more about john's work: Othering & Belonging Institute: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/ john's website: https://www.johnapowell.org/ The Power of Bridging: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/power-bridging If You Were In Charge is a radical leadership podcast about people, power & possibilities, hosted by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas. From ICAN and ADA Productions. Website: https://ifyouwereincharge.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robinah Rubimbwa: Decolonising Aid, and the World Cup as a Window on America

London will host Climate Action Week from 20 to 28 June 2026, under the theme "Climate Cooperation in a Fractured World". As the world is beset by anxiety and upheaval fuelled by wars and the societal changes brought on by artificial intelligence, conversations around the climate crisis have receded into the background. But it continues to pose an existential threat to humanity. In this episode, we find hope on the front lines. On this episode of the leadership podcast If You Were In Charge, we ask what would change if the people on the front lines of the climate crisis were actually in charge. Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas are joined by Laura Garcia, President and CEO of the Global Greengrants Fund, which has moved more than 135 million dollars to over 17,000 grassroots groups across 168 countries since 1993. A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities. Laura argues that environmental destruction always happens in "somebody else's backyard", and that when communities control their own resources and decisions, the logic of extraction starts to break down. She tells the story of how small, flexible grants of 5,000 to 10,000 dollars to communities in South Africa's coal belt helped seed a 20-year movement, anchored by the environmental justice group groundWork, that pressured the government to commit to phasing out coal. She asks who development is really for, explains why less than 1% of philanthropic funding reaches grassroots communities in the Global South, and makes the case for participatory, trust-based giving. She also connects climate, peace and militarisation. War, she says, is total destruction of the environment, and in much of Latin America militarisation directly protects the extractive industries that environmental defenders risk their lives to resist. It is a hopeful, clear-eyed conversation about who gets to decide, and why nature, given half a chance, does the homework. Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show. Get in touch and stay connected: Email ICAN: [email protected] Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/ More about our guest, Laura Garcia: https://www.greengrants.org/2020/03/11/laura/ More about the Global Greengrants Fund: https://www.greengrants.org More from us: adapodcasts.com If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production. 00:00 Development in the name of who? 00:18 Welcome and why climate, now 03:40 Climate headlines for 2025 and 2026 05:46 Meet Laura Garcia and the Global Greengrants Fund 07:10 If the people were in charge: somebody else's backyard 09:51 South Africa's coal belt: a 20-year story 13:00 Development in the name of who? 15:46 groundWork, and what has to change in philanthropy 19:52 Investing in trust, and the courage to do more than write a cheque 22:05 Trust in action: COVID community kitchens 25:51 The radical idea: flip the 1% 29:24 War is total destruction, and a nuanced take on USAID 36:37 Fortress conservation and false solutions 38:54 What gives you hope: nature does the homework Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices