BONUS: Koa Beck | Journalist & Author, White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to influencers and Who They Leave Behind

In case you missed it, this week, we’re re-airing one of our season’s most popular episodes again! Meet Koa Beck, acclaimed author of the best-selling book ‘White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to influencers and Who They Leave Behind,' published in January. Koa is the former editor-in-chief of Jezebel, previously the executive director of Vogue.com and senior features editor at Marie Claire.com. To add to her impressive resumé, in 2019, Koa was was awarded the Joan Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, and she published an academic paper entitled “Self-Optimization in the Face of Patriarchy: How Mainstream Women’s Media Facilitates White Feminism.” This became her jumping off point, and inspiration in writing White Feminism. In this eye-opening episode, Koa and Eva Hartling, discuss her book, and the way our society has commodified feminism and continues to systemically shut out women of colour.

This season of The Brand is Female is brought to you by TD Bank - Women Entrepreneurs. TD is proud to support women entrepreneurs and help them achieve success and growth through its program of educational workshops, financing and mentorship opportunities! Find out how you can benefit from their support!

Full Episode Transcript

Eva: I'm Eva Hartling welcome to the brand is female where every week I speak with women change-makers who are redefining the rules of female leadership. This season of our podcast is brought to you by TD bank group women entrepreneurs. TD helps women in business achieve success and growth through its program of educational workshops, financing, and mentorship.

Visit thebrandisfemale.com/podcast and follow the link to find out how TD can help. This week, my guest is Koa Beck, acclaimed author of the bestselling book, White Feminist from the suffragettes to influencers and what they leave behind, published in January. Koa's the former editor in chief of Jezebel

and she was previously the executive director of vogue.com and senior features editor at marieclaire.com. In 2019, she was awarded a Joan Shorenstein fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy school. And she published an academic paper, entitled self-optimization in the face of patriarchy. How mainstream women's media facilitates white feminism, which led her to write white feminists in her book.

She explores how our society has commodified feminism and continues to systematically shut out women of colour. Here is our conversation. Koa. It's a pleasure speaking with you today, especially as I have been reading the last half of your book over the last week in preparation for this interview. So I'm thrilled to be speaking with you.

Koa: I'm so grateful for this invitation, Eva. So thank you for

Eva: having me. Absolutely. My pleasure. And I always start by going back in time a little bit. So asking you growing up. As a young girl, what did you dream of doing as a career later in life? And did you already think you'd have a future in journalism and writing?

Or was, were you attracted by something completely different? I

Koa: always wanted to be a writer. That was my first, I think conscious thought is I want to write, I want to write things down. I want to write stories. I want to build stories. I didn't think of it, at that age as like narrative, but when I think about, what has intersected a lot of my career, it is narrative.

It is building narrative, especially for things that have happened or are currently happening and need a narrative structure for people to understand. I started writing things down as early as five years old. I used to write, I used to staple pages like printer paper together and make books.

So I would draw a picture on one side and then write out what was happening on the other, basically mimicking, like books for children anyway. And I've kept a diary actually since I was five years old, I was always writing down like observations or things that my parents would say, or, things in my family are like animals, things like that.

And I was aware of journalism because my grandfather was a journalist. He worked for. CBS news here in America for 34 years. And he was long retired by the time I came along, but I was aware that, he had this career basically like producing and reporting and he primarily worked in television.

, as I got a little older and started working professionally and in mainstream women's media, there were some distinct parallels in that, around the time I started working professionally. Social media was this new thing. And all these brands were like, what is this? We don't know how it works.

And I see a distinct parallel with my grandfather's career because when he was starting to work, television was the new flashy thing. And nobody really knew how that worked and how to build a narrative or even inform people, across television. That was a new venture. I always knew that I wanted to write, but at various places, I wasn't quite sure necessarily if I would be like and this is going way back to when I was really little like a journalist or like a, like a fiction writer, for instance, like I knew I liked writing about current events, but I didn't necessarily know what form that would take, especially being.

Very little. I always, my first and biggest like foremost ambition was I wanted to be a novelist. I wanted to grow up and be Toni Morrison. And when I think about my family, it was a very very big advocate of public libraries. And I have a really fun memory of getting my first library card when I was like eight.

And I think that makes a lot of sense in terms of writing things down and then, looking up and seeing Oh, if you write things down, then they go on books on a shelf that you can take down and then other people read them. So I was aware of that, but then when I got to be like a teenager, Then I definitely became more interested in journalism as something that perhaps I would go into or find my way into, in some capacity while maintaining, the fiction.

And then around the time I graduated college, I knew that I wanted to write, in a professional capacity and journalism seemed like in some ways, a viable way to do that.

Eva: And tell me, so you eventually got to Vogue and obviously had, a stint in fashion writing. And I'd love to hear about that experience.

The good, the bad, and what made you want to transition?

Koa: Sure. An interesting thing about my career is that even though I've worked in a lot of mainstream women's publications my background isn't in fashion my background isn't in beauty, my background isn't in necessarily like a lifestyle, reporting.

And I get into this a lot in my book. I was always drawn to cultural analysis of gender identity, politics, race, like queer topics. But around the time that I started, trying to write professionally quote-unquote feminism, however, you're interpreting that on the spectrum that was suddenly like very in thing to the point where, you know, a lot of mainstream women's publications that otherwise, would have a shoot, a term like feminism, or tried to bury it, or, not go anywhere near it.

All of a sudden they were putting feminism and headlines and talking about feminism again, however, you're interpreting that of very high profile, influential women. And so suddenly, like the things that I was interested in. And that I wanted to explore in my career was viable in these mainstream women's platforms, which even, like five years before, I wouldn't have thought that.

I would end up at someplace like Mary, Claire or Vogue, given what I'm interested in doing. Having said that though, when the first big mainstream women's publication I worked for was Mary Claire. And I was a senior features editor, which I loved very much because I love again, like long-form reporting, long-form storytelling.

I got a lot of opportunities to work with writers. I really admired and essentially hire them to do really long lead stories and do incredible deep dives into all kinds of topics. Whether we're talking about like addiction or, like skin bleaching or these like really incredible, like cultural topics, authors, books, that sort of thing.

And then Vogue came calling. They courted me for this role. And it was a very big, step up, I would say in terms of my career and that. it was an executive editor role and I would be in charge of managing 65 full-time staffers on the Vogue digital team. And this would be across, beauty, fashion, lifestyle, culture.

All kinds of things. And again, my career has really been in women's media. So it's even though those aren't really my lanes necessarily like what I report on. I know how a lot of that reporting works. I know how a lot of that content works. I know the like benchmarks for producing content like that, what people like to click on what they don't like to click on.

So it was a huge step up in terms of seniority. But. Limiting in terms of, what I wanted to explore on a platform like Vogue was, not supported in a platform like Vogue. And I think that's really telling, in terms of I've always been very pragmatic in my career, even in doing this book where I think about, the platforms that are accessible to me, the scope.

Of what I can explore with those resources and then the audience that I can talk to, right? That has way more weight to me than anything else. But even in, achieving some of these powerful roles and sitting there, it's not as easy as just getting the job and then sitting there and making the decision.

Like I was put in positions where I had to persuade, all kinds of people. Different topics. I wanted to explore different maneuvers for, doing things like awards, coverage, or fashion week or stuff like that. I had to try and persuade, legacy members of Vogue and it's not easy.

Eva: well, and in your book you make a mention of I think it was during your time at Marie-Claire where you would pitch, certain ideas for stories and they would always get back to you with just the word niche. And whenever you want to talk about, issues, women's issues specifically, and something that had to do with putting a spotlight on something like violence against women, or, something of the sort and it wasn't always welcomed.

Koa: Yeah, very much and I think that's where the skill set that ultimately led to this book. I see the origins of it. When I look back where it's I'm very used to, in a lot of ways, navigating white feminism, I feel like it's a fluency that I've taken for granted in my career because I've thought about it.

Just in terms of my career and like this very professional skillset, how do I convince people who have, a completely different understanding of gender equality and feminism? How do I convince them that, covering immigration topics is a feminist issue covering, poor women trying to afford diapers is a feminist issue.

Harassment and assault against lesbians by other women is a feminist issue. In doing a lot of the historical research for this book, I was really able to see that, what I was experiencing is not unique to me at all. And in fact, towards the latter end of my career, when I was at Jezebel, I was doing a lot more public speaking and there were these young people who kept raising their hands.

You know what these talks and asking me directly about white feminism. And I realized that, these little things, that I had experienced in meetings, where I'm told that what I'm pitching is not right for the brand and therefore not, a quote-unquote gender issue or not quote-unquote feminist issue.

There's a deep historical. The precedent of that. And so I really owed it, I think, to a lot of those people at the speaking engagements who were asking me about white feminism, but also to people who are coming after me to write down what I know about this. And I think that, like the anecdote, you just raised, like that one-to-one interaction where.

A more senior woman who is more powerful, tells you that your interpretation of feminism is me, says a lot about what the priority is of her feminism are.

Eva: Absolutely. And first, let's talk about what made you want to write a book. So you just brought up several points, but was it a revelation at one point?

Okay. These questions are being asked. It's a conversation people want to have. I have something to contribute. I'm just going to go and write a book and quit my job. Did it happen more over time? Because I think a lot of people have book ideas and they're not always good. A lot of people have good book ideas.

So often it's that jump can be scary of making the time in our space to give up everything and write.

Koa: Yes and no. The sequence you just described. Yes. That is how it happened in terms of, I was EIC of Jezebel in my assessment, like looking just at my own career, I had more or less gone, as.

Senior as I cared to go in women's media, there, there wasn't really anything I wanted to go beyond being an EIC. I didn't want to be like an editorial director. I didn't want to work on the corporate side. I didn't want to be like on an executive team. But. Aside from just, what people were asking me and what I knew.

I always wanted to write a book like that was what I wanted to do, as a very little girl. And I, again, I achieved these amazing opportunities to tell national stories about women and non-binary people. But my goal was always to exit. I didn't want to stay in that industry.

I wanted to leverage it. To either get a book deal or be in a position where I could write something that was, very impactful. Somebody would give me the resources to do it, which, worked out with this book, I was awarded Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy school to do the research of this book.

But it wasn't necessarily scary in the sense that I had always planned to do it in this sort of way. I had also saved up a good amount of money. I was awarded, yes, I was awarded a fellowship which came with money, which, was amazing in terms of quitting my job. And then looking ahead at like bills and rent and all those.

Pragmatic things that we all need to be aware of when we make decisions like this, assuming it even is one. But I did see, with a lot of these younger people who were asking me about white feminism, something I had started to see in popular discourse for the last couple of years of my career in media was, white feminism as a term.

Was definitely being used more. I started to hear it more in terms of, feminist panels and stuff that I would sit on. But I started to ID a very specific sort of omission in that people were talking about white feminism, hurling this criticism at, a really obtuse comment that like an actress would say, or, something like that, but nobody seemed to know exactly what it means.

And we're using this term. I think I know what it means. I'm assuming the person who's asking me the question knows what it means. And yet, roomfuls of people are looking at us, probably not knowing what it means. So I detected a real need to define it.

And then also source it and then put it across a historical timeline so that you could understand the ways in which white feminism is completely different from many other gendered movements and feminist movements that have completely different ideologies and practices. And in a lot of sense, that's what motivated me.

Like this might be helpful to really set a working definition for people, as opposed to just this like echo chamber. Where nobody will really raise their hand and ask but what is this? This season

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Yeah. And it's not necessarily a popular topic. For obvious reasons among women who call themselves feminists because yeah, it, it would take a lot of accountability to actually look at it and see how they, how they are taking part in white feminism. Let's talk about white feminism since I'm assuming that everybody who's listening to us has read your book.

If you had to sum up, a definition for white feminism, you know why there's an issue with it. What's the elevator pitch on white feminism

Koa: basically. So I think a good place to start is just defining it upfront, which I do, in the introduction to set the course for the reader. I define white feminism as very specific.

Our approach to achieving gender equality, that polls considerably from colonialism imperialism, some key pieces of white supremacy as well as labour exploitation in that. Women accruing individual wealth and autonomy is indicative of quote-unquote feminist progress as opposed to collective wins, in terms of rights.

I would say that a place where it is a very different practice than many other feminisms in my country. And I'm sure yours too, to a certain extent Is that it has often aimed to imbue women with these very individual skillsets to overcome systemic oppression. So a lot of anecdotes that I cite in my book to evidence, this is, a lot of White-collar career advice, that is framed as being feminist or having feminist goals.

And yet these are very, again, like personalized wins for individual women. Also, our countries differ a bit in this regard, but like in my country, we don't have federal paid parental leave. We're one of the last nations that don't have this. And so a lot of times in my country rhetoric around.

You know, feminism and white-collar work and defining feminism solely as career success or business success. Doesn't take into account. The many women in my country are recruited to make that success possible for those women because we don't have a care system, that's federalized at all.

So low-income women of colour. Are recruited into, clean take care of children, assuming there are any, take care of elders. And that facilitates a lot of these other women, who are middle-class or white or straight or CIS to then go out and be that like lean in feminist.

And so it is. Very much a feminism that is, only geared towards individual gains, but also invisibilizes with women of colour because we need it. When that type of ideology talks about feminism, they're not talking about, the women who come in and take care of their children.

They're not talking about the women who clean their floors and do their laundry and do their dishes. And so it's a very I think of white feminism is very aspirational. In that, if you say are like a domestic worker who wants to be seen in this movement, you can't just be a domestic worker who wants say a fair wage or like healthcare, you have to be a domestic worker who wants to start her own business, or start a newsletter or something like that.

And then that's how you're seen as being a feminist. So white feminism to my assessment, it doesn't really meet. A lot of marginalized genders where they are and ask them to aspire, to be seen.

Eva: And I want to bring up a conversation I just had with Soraya Chemaly the author. And we actually use this as a quote to talk about our interview this week.

And she addressed the issue with the term women empowerment. And I think that word, which is, is so loaded, also implies that women don't have the power, to begin with, and they need to be empowered by some third party or, some mechanism that will then give them the power.

And I think there's a lot, a lot of women who think, they. They think they have it, they want to have it pro-women agenda and pro-women convictions. And I think it can be confusing in some cases because they think they're doing the right thing. And it's the same for me. It's just the same logic, female empowerment, who can't be, who shouldn't be in favour of female empowerment.

What is why do you think it's so important to have these discussions and really look at what these terms and the actions behind them are wrong? Why is it so important that we start dismantling, what these definitions actually are and what these movements actually represent?

Koa: I think that an enduring facet of white feminism that continues to be successful across generations is that it indoctrinates, women and frankly like you just said, in some cases, women who want to be gender-conscious, who want an understanding of what feminism is and what it can do.

But in white feminism, a lot of this rhetoric becomes about becoming ingratiated with power structures, as opposed to questioning them or critiquing them, or in a lot of instances, like changing them. Like when I think about, my own lifetime and my own navigation of white feminism, very like post two thousand.

It's this enduring narrative of, get to the C-suite like get the senior role, get to the top of the corporate ladder, but where white feminism historically. And even contemporary has gone silent is with the other half of that. So assuming that's even a goal for you and that's what you want.

And that's how you interpret, feminism or economic security. When you get to be that president of the company, or you get to, be that CEO, then what are you just going to run this company in the same way with the same policies that a cis man would have, 10 years before with the same, little to no healthcare options, like the same exploitation of freelancers, the same, low wages, but then call it feminism because like you identify as a woman.

And so I think it's important. If we are talking about, getting more women to the proverbial top, whatever that is, Making sure that their politics, when they get there reflect this very holistic understanding of oppression and exploitation and understanding the ways in which, especially for white feminism, like labour has really played into that in that, work that has traditionally been deemed women's work is still very much underpaid is still very much taken advantage of And if we are, understanding feminism solely along these lines on women just getting into power, which I don't even, necessarily agree with.

Then I think it's important to consider the realities that they shaped for other women when they get there. And I think that unlearning white feminism and even clocking white feminism is a good way. All genders and women of all backgrounds to really look ahead at the same goals, because so far what white feminism has proposed is this very like white supremacist understanding of what feminism is.

And many women in my country internationally, are going to be exploited under white feminism.

Eva: And I also want to bring up. So we're having this conversation during the month of March just around international women's day. And we know that this is the time of year where every corporation, every organization is going to have some great statements about the support of women and their celebration of women.

And I think in the corporate workplace, it's often an issue because you'll see these great numbers that look very shiny on the outside about the number of women executives or women employees. And then if you scratch the surface the board is composed of, white men or the CEO is rarely a woman, a company.

And again, I'm talking about companies and not even looking at the rest of the world outside corporate, North America. What is wrong with that picture, but also what can we do like women who want to, help change the narrative here and be truly supportive and not take part, in white feminism?

How do we change

Koa: this picture? One of the dimensions that I go into a lot of detail in my book that I think is really pertinent for understanding your exact question is seeing the ways in which, quote-unquote feminism again, however, you're interpreting that has become a brand for a lot of companies.

So when they are, celebrating for instance, like women's history month, or they're celebrating, a powerful woman in their company or they're celebrating, women's rights, Or supporting equal payday or whatever feminism is an optical campaign. It's a way for them to make materials and look a certain way and project an image much in the way that they would for anything else.

Like it just becomes marketing. And the anecdotes, I use for this, even in my own career is a lot of publications that I have worked for have championed white-collar professional women, right? Like women making a lot of money in the corporate world being very successful in their careers.

And yet, despite myself and the teams, I've worked with. Putting out this content, editing it, finding these women, printing all of these guides on like how to negotiate your salary and how to like, make sure that you're not being discriminated against for certain roles. The women I work with have been terrified to ask for raises.

They've been terrified to ask for time off. They've been terrified to actually be considered for, a senior position because they're afraid of, the very delicate gender dynamics. That determined those discussions. And, that's another instance to me in which, feminism is a brand, it's not something that is in the internal politics of the company.

It's something they're trying to project. So my advice on that would be when you see a company, whether it's like the one you work for, or, one you support, one you patron. Engaging in all this feminist rhetoric, supporting women leaders in history, when they use a term like feminist, I would challenge you to challenge them on what that means.

Does that mean that they have gender parity on their board? Does that mean that they don't have a high turnover of women who have children, does that mean that. Women over 50 are still employed there. Does that mean that the women make as much as the men there like, I think there just needs to be heightened literacy of feminism because anybody can put it on a tote bag and give it to you at a conference?

So I think just raising or sell it to you for a hefty price. Exactly. Yeah. So I think that, spaces by which you can ask or see or demand that. That rhetoric and those politics are. Internal to the company. I think that raises the literacy

Eva: Yeah. Great advice. And I know you mentioned in your book as well, that you've, you are a light skin by puck woman, so it's and you're and, you're a beautiful woman, so it's not as scary for a publisher, a company immediate that's interacting with you because you don't look like those angry women that they might consider, the bad kind of feminist.

And you talk in the opening of your book as well about the suffragette movement and how women were well-dressed and spending a lot of money on the way they looked. And there was suffragette fashion that started happening. And I came across an interview by brute media on social media recently.

And it was made, I think it was a woman from Copenhagen, a Danish woman who had decided to stop shaving. And she's a woman who had more facial hair than, we would expect. And I mean she, and it was great listening to her reasons for doing it, but also, of course, the backlash and the comments primarily for men, but surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly from a lot of women as well.

Yeah. We felt very threatened, right? So there's so much around, so much pressure around the way we look and how we, how our actions and our political agenda will be interpreted based on, the way we look and the closer we look to a white CIS person the safer we appear to be to most people.

So again how do we get out of this narrative and how is it that in 2021, we haven't made more progress.

Koa: I think to answer the latter part of that question, again, white feminism, again, as a practice and an ideology has never been about challenging. So this idea that you're for women's rights, obviously, but you're homogenizing the look of what

a feminist or a suffragist is, this very young light-skinned, middle-class, thin able-bodied woman who wants to be a wife and a mother that doesn't challenge power. There's a lot of to the anecdote that you just shared. There's a lot of gender policing that happens, in feminism.

And I don't even mean that necessarily from a queer perspective, but just like how even like straight women. Perform gender in terms of hair removal or beauty standards. This idea that you still need to look, quote-unquote respectable or nice, or like still need to, court, the attraction of CIS men.

White feminism has very much played. To that. And for generations I think the way out is to not necessarily look again, to ingratiate with power, like to, in any way that you can find, get increasingly comfortable with challenging and also, critiquing within that gaze and why that is, what does it accomplish politically if.

Movement is very appeasing and in some ways desirable to the power structure. Whether we're talking about hypothetical men or even just power holders in institutions, they want a very conventionally feminine cis white woman who likes does her eyebrows and straitens her hair to be the face of quote-unquote feminism.

And I think a lot comes up when you're talking about like anecdotes, like that woman in Copenhagen, because when you start doing things like that, I feel like a significant thread gets pulled and that like a woman who is comfortable having facial hair, clearly she's not interested in an array of beauty products.

So clearly she's not looking to buy, any sort of like acceptability or respectability or in some cases like by her empowerment, right? Like she's just comfortable. In her gender, as she is. And if we're thinking about like capitalism, patriarchy, racism, heterosexism, that is extremely threatening, if you do not want to assimilate or ascend within these channels that's why I think you have, obviously men are going to say what they're going to say, but then, women uphold this as well because they are threatened by it.

So again, I think not a good overarching strategy is to not look to necessarily be appeasing, to these power structures, to not necessarily try to be, or try to like court them or be, what they necessarily recognize. And again, a counterexample to this is white feminism, which has for, a hundred years in my own country.

And arguably, the progress is very limited in my country. It's really for a specific type of woman and then women who aspire to be that woman.

Eva: Absolutely. And I want to talk about women's representation in the media a little bit and one of the books I've been reading recently is by the French feminist author Lauren Bastide, who actually has a few things in common with you.

So she used to be an editor for Elle in France and had been a fashion writer for many years. And yeah. Launched a feminist podcast that became quite famous and friends called La Poudre. I've

Koa: heard of that podcast. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I, as you were talking, I was like, Oh, I've heard of that from a friend of mine.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Eva: No, she's I feel like you would really if you haven't listened in, since you speak French, I think you'd really enjoy her podcast. And she rolled she wrote a book called présente. After doing an analysis of literally women's representation in media, how many hours are women appearing, commenting on TV as compared to men and women are completely underrepresented, but, even?

Even at lower rates than we expect, when you take account every minute. And I think that's something that we've been seeing throughout the past year and throughout the pandemic with a lot of the specialists and the experts, doctors that are leading different countries, COVID response often that role.

It Falls on a man. And it's interesting because there's actually, when we look at countries or regions that are fared better throughout the pandemic, a lot of them had women as leaders, just thinking of Jacinda, as a, as an example And again, how can we, and I know we're always coming back to that same issue, but what does it take for more women to be able to have that space in media?

And I asked because you've spent a lot of time in women's publications. And you've spoken about the challenges that you face in wanting to have a more advanced approach to covering feminist issues or a more challenging approach to covering feminist issues. So how can we make these changes happen?

And have you seen progress as well since you've left the women's publishing industry?

Koa: So a big part of the way that I think about this is not just getting women in, but then keeping there. And there's a lot of dynamics that happen, especially, assuming women become parents or, they have to take over a certain amount of like care work at some point, whether it's like.

Their parents or, anyone else, siblings, what have you women are relied on for care. And so there's a lot of data in my country on, yeah. Women Excel in this certain white-collar field, up until the age of 34. And then the minute they have a child. Then, they're getting iced out of meetings then, they're not as up for many opportunities then, they're getting harassed about, needing to pump or, all these different dynamics.

And so that part. Hasn't really been addressed, I think in a holistic way in my country, because we don't have a lot of again, I said this at the top of the show, we don't have federal paid parental leave. We don't have, subsidized or universal childcare. There's a lot of structural things that we don't have in the United States that in.

Inhibits directly what we're talking about. And that's where I think like white feminism comes in and in some ways preys on these women and what they're trying to accomplish. And again, they're being infused with these very individual narratives of how to overcome this oppression. When I think this is the role of our government.

I think the fact that we don't have what. A lot of other countries have when it comes to basic childcare is very revealing. In terms of progress. I, haven't been in a newsroom since 2018. That's when I left to do this book. And that doesn't really sound like a long time. Like we're at the top of 20, 21 now, but in digital media, that's a really long time.

That's true. Exactly. My career has always been on the digital side. And while I've worked at legacy publications that have print legs, that's primarily not been my lane. I've always worked in digital. So I can't really say like between 2018 and 2021 a lot can change. I will say something that I'm very much in support of in my own country.

What's really taking off is the unionizing of a number of our most prominent outlets. The new Yorker this year actually did a walkout to protest poor wages specifically. For a lot of the editorial staff, but, they did pull, this is online. You can read this, they did a poll of, all their editorial staff, not surprisingly.

They found out that, women were paid abysmally and that women of colour were paid even more abysmally. And so they did a work stoppage. So to me, that indicates a lot of progress in terms of just media companies. Like thinking that way in terms of, not getting a single black woman, to the top of a magazine and then calling it a day. They're thinking more about a floor salary for everyone. They're thinking more about the systematic ways in which all of them have been disadvantaged. And that I think is a really tremendous step forward.

Eva: In the same vein I want to ask you we've been in a pandemic for a year we're hitting the one-year milestone.

What is one way you think women's situation has progressed and what is one way that women's situation has fallen back?

Koa: Let's see. I think about those two things in tandem, just in terms of thinking about different women in my country. And there's been a lot of national reporting and the U S on women being burned out.

And they're really talking about often white-collar women who work outside the home and because of the pandemic, they are assuming they have children. They are effectively homeschooling, little kids. And then they're also, doing all the domestic work, cooking, all the food, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning the floors, cleaning the bathrooms.

And while a number of women and in my country it's been reported have been either, losing their jobs or have essentially walked away from their jobs to take over like all this, just basic infrastructure of their home. I think that is both good and bad in the sense that I think that in the narrative of my own country, again, White feminism has been very good at selling this individualized understanding that is really divorced from care work.

And in fact, I think the deeper you go into white feminist discourse care and all the labour that goes into a home, whether you have children or not, it just doesn't exist. It's just not part of the economy. And yet, so many feminisms and gender movements led by. Native people, Latinas, black feminists queer movements.

They think about labour in completely different ways than white feminism does. And so I think of that as both good and bad in the sense that, an, a number of women in my own country now don't have jobs and have had to leave them or have been laid off. But this idea that now women. In my country are confronting this very systemic, like slight to this whole other vein of work that they do.

I think I'm cautiously optimistic about that. Now you have a number of women who, you know, Probably in some instances have bought into a white feminist narrative. And yet they're standing there with their full email inbox and a dirty dishwasher and like screaming kids and, like a girl boss, feminism, isn't going to come in and save you, and in fact, like it was never designed to, it was designed to be this.

Eva: You're not going for lunch at the wing. No.

Koa: And again, that's not what it purported to be necessary. It was about all these individual accolades. It wasn't about systemic changes that could help with domestic labour that could help with, the labour of your home, the care of your children.

So I'm hoping that will reframe. Labour for a lot of women in my country and will change the way that they think about women's rights and also labour.

Eva: Yeah. Yeah, no that's such a good point. And then I want to ask you my favourite question to ask my, my guests on the show and feel free to also rephrase the question I've had that happen and that's always fun.

So what do you wish women would do more of.

Koa: I wish women in, I'll narrow this to my own country. Cause I don't think I quite have the fluency to say this internationally, but I wish women in my own country would think more collectively about the ways that they've been disadvantaged. Rather than going inward.

With their oppression or the ways in which they've been discriminated against or, violated something I learned very deeply in doing the research for this book is that the collective is incredibly powerful. And especially when I consider, movements like me too, for instance, we see this pattern again and again, where it's If somebody has violated you in these white-collar settings, chances are

it was not just you. This is a pattern. This is a thing they do. There have been other victims before you, there will be victims after you. And so to not think about oppression as the dragon that you have to go out and slay by yourself, with this like a huge cup of coffee and a sword to think more about, okay, this has happened to me, therefore it's probably happened to other people.

And to think about that, not across just assault, although I think that's. That's been very powerful historically as well, but across poor wages across, lack of paid parental leave across wage discrimination across pregnancy discrimination. I really wish women in my own country would think more collectively about the ways that patriarchy has in some ways, siloed them from each other.

Eva: It's so interesting you say that and it makes me think of, a lot of women in, I've worked in the corporate workplace for a long time and women who will experience Just discrimination or some type of, abusive behaviour by a colleague or a superior. And it's always dealt with in silence.

And obviously, there'll be an NDA that's signed and then the toxic, culture perpetuates itself and the problems are never addressed. And it's, I think it's our responsibility as women to step up and be able to truly address it for the collective and not for our own, just our own personal situation.

Koa: Which, they don't want us to do there's I get into this in my book, but I think that's where power has been so successful in denigrating women and not just women, it is a specific pattern to patriarchy in terms of taking us away from one another. So what happened to you is something incredibly shameful that you must carry alone.

Like you just said, you're put considering your circumstances and NDA may maybe put in front of you and the threats are always personal. It's always if are vocal about this, you will lose standing in the company. You won't have a job anymore. They threaten, your economic security and in some ways, they might threaten your family.

They might threaten your children, and it's like a very I think toxic like you just said as a really good word for it, but I think the fact that. You're violated and then met with threats like that. I think indicates a lot of what they're ultimately afraid of, which is you connecting with other women non-binary people who have had those similar experiences and then building a narrative across that, that encompasses everybody because we've seen now, that can, in some ways, challenge this power and it is what they're afraid

Eva: Absolutely. Yeah. So we shall do more of that in the months to come. Thank you so much. This was really enlightening and I invite everybody to pick up a copy of your book if they haven't read it already. And yeah. I'm excited to see what's next for you and hopefully, we connect again soon.

Koa: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And again, Montreal is one of my favourite cities just ever, so maybe I can see you in person one day in the distant future when I get back. And once

Eva: we're able to travel across the border again.

Koa: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Eva.

Eva: I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation.

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