What would a gender equal world look like? How will we know when we’ve achieved it?

We’ll know that we’ve achieved gender equality in the world when ALL women and girls can walk down public streets at night or during the day free of the fear of violence. We’ll know that we’ve achieved gender equality in the world when words replace weapons as a way of settling disagreements and conflict. We’ll know we’ve achieved gender equality when all men of all ages, races, religions, ethnicities, abilities and other differences can express their aspirations and frustrations in ways that do not rely on dominance, submission and threats.

What do you see as the three biggest barriers to achieving equality?

I subscribe to Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy’s views: It’s patriarchy. It is dangerous to women, children, men and all living things. Patriarchy is the head of the octopus, encompassing misogyny and sexism. Its tentacles represent intersecting forms of oppression from Islamophobia to racism, homophobia, ableism, rapacious capitalism and others. It differs from region to region. But as long as we keep focusing on the tentacles and fail to cut patriarchy off at its head, the tentacles will re-grow and re-traumatize individuals, communities, countries and the planet.

Given the current status of the world, what gives you hope and inspiration that we can achieve equality?

 What gives me hope are movements like El Violador Eres Tu, which point directly to the root cause of gender inequality. Black Lives Matter and gender justice warriors in the LGBTQI movements give me hope in the way they organize through inspiration and liberation instead of dominance and monocultures. The resilience of communities in the face of pandemics like COVID, HIV-AIDS and climate crises exponentially expands my faith that there are collective solutions that we can co-create to eviscerate the tyranny of patriarchy.

Patriarchy may end with a whisper, not a bang. It may be on its last legs, which is why the backlash is so intense and desperate. Gender equality, equity and justice will emerge from its ashes. And then we will “dance like there’s no one watching, sing like there’s no one listening, and live like it’s heaven on earth.”