Aisha Becker-Burrowes on UNGA-Adjacent Feminist Events

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/10/01

Aisha Becker-Burrowes (She/Her) is a social entrepreneur and impact consultant working at the intersections of media, communications and social change, particularly emphasizing racial equity and gender justice. She founded Studio Watts, a social impact agency and creative collective of radical communicators, mission-driven storytellers and purpose-fueled creatives of colour. She is also the cofounder and co-executive director of FEMINIST, the largest women-owned social-first digital platform dedicated to women, girls, and gender-expansive people with a global audience of over 6M+.

As a purpose-fueled creative with previous experience at some of the largest media companies today, including Netflix, ViacomCBS and ESSENCE Magazine, Aisha’s work empowers audiences to create change and inspire action around pressing social issues. Through strategic partnerships, brand strategy, digital media and communications, Aisha helps bridge the gap between brands, creators, change-makers, academics, and nonprofits. 

Armed with a powerful blend of experience and knowledge, Aisha holds a master’s degree in Media, Culture, and Communications from New York University, where she studied the power of social media in fueling global movements and its impact on visual culture. This academic foundation is the bedrock of her work, enabling her to navigate the ever-evolving landscape through a formidable combination of hands-on experience and educational expertise.

Aisha also serves on the advisory board of RespectAbility, a disability-led nonprofit striving for systemic change across industries.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Aisha Becker-Burrowes from FEMINIST. Thank you to Martha Dimitratou for the connection. What has been the FEMINIST connection and involvement with Art, Care, and Action in New York City?

Becker-Burrowes: Yes, we have built deep relationships with all of the organizers. We have developed relationships with Plan C, Autumn Breon, the UN Foundation, and Amnesty International. We have been collaborating and ideating how to come together for UNDA and UNGA, specifically around advancing rights—particularly at these global intersections. We are working to create space during UNDA to discuss these issues but also organize around the intersections of art, care, and taking action.

Part of this came from Autumn Breon, an artist with whom we have collaborated extensively on several initiatives. She started the vision around the “Care-House,” centred around her incredible Care-Van—I am sure everyone has told you about it. Essentially, the thesis is: What would care to look like in the reproductive justice space, particularly for Black women and women of colour? She created a vending machine where women, or anyone, can access hair care products for free.

She posed the question, initially focused on Black women but later expanded: What would care look like for you? This could include everything from edge control products to free condoms to abortion pills. We took this idea and expanded on it. In addition to the panels and activations, we’ll also have things like Reiki and dance as forms of care. It’s about organizing around the intersection of holding space for art, care, and taking action, particularly during the UNGA.

Jacobsen: I’m approaching this as a Canadian foreigner to the United States. One thing, though—looking at some data a while ago, I forgot the exact numbers.

African American women are typically among the most affected, if not the most affected, by any restriction on abortion access, particularly access to safe abortion. How does this play out on both an individual and community level when these rights are restricted, and policies, fake abortion clinics, and other barriers stop access? What’s the driving force behind FEMINIST and other organizations getting involved in abortion activism?

Becker-Burrowes: Yes, I don’t know the exact statistics either, but I do know that today, in the United States, at least 1 in 3 women are living in states with an abortion ban, often with no exceptions. 

What the research shows is that this has a particularly stark impact on Black women and women of colour for a whole host of reasons. One is the Black maternal and child health crisis, the effect of medical racism that we’re seeing embedded both institutionally and systemically, and also the actual economic tolls. So, if you’re a woman of colour living in Louisiana, for example—a state with an abortion ban—do you have the time, resources, and funds, if you’re a working-class Black woman, to travel to a different state to receive either abortion care or the care you need? Yes, we’re seeing a profound impact on Black women and women of colour in the United States, especially in states with strict abortion bans.

This has been true throughout history. One of the conversations we plan to have at this event is a panel followed by a screening of Bone Black: Midwest Sports of the South, directed by Amadi and Akaya. The film is meant to explore and examine the history and role of Black midwives in the South. But beyond that, we’re seeing this influx of a reproductive justice movement. It’s essential to recognize that the term reproductive justice was coined by a group of Black women, particularly Loretta Ross, one of the cofounders of SisterSong. They created the movement for reproductive justice that we’re seeing a resurgence of today.

So, part of the conversation is also making space to name and credit the folks leading this movement, which we unfortunately have to fight against today. It’s a long way to answer it, but I won’t avoid the question. 

Jacobsen: Did any of these founders—of terms or movements, locally or otherwise—predict the style of backlash that American women have experienced acutely since the overturning of Roe v. Wade?

Becker-Burrowes: That’s a great question.

The short answer is yes. I’m unsure if I can point to anything specific other than looking at the history and some of our feminist faves—our real feminist icons. The short answer is yes when you look back at their archives, letter exchanges, or even some of the quotes we frequently reiterate.

One example is I was reading about Fannie Lou Hamer, who was organizing in the 1960s to turn out the vote in the Civil Rights Movement. Much of her work and organizing was around voting rights and restrictions. She’s famous for saying, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

But this comes from the fact that she was fighting for voting rights. Also, she—let me see if I’ve got this right—had a hysterectomy performed on her without her consent while undergoing surgery in the South. This happened frequently. There was a name and a term for it—I could probably find it for you—but it happened so often.

So, reflecting on that and the idea of being “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” this fight is still happening. It’s a fight in the U.S., a fight about voting. Still, it’s also linked to the struggle for reproductive justice and the particular impact it has—and continues to have—on Black women. That example from Fannie Lou Hamer is a poignant illustration.

Jacobsen: Are there distinctions in the experience of Black women in the United States in urban settings versus rural settings when it comes to abortion access?

Becker-Burrowes: Yes.

And what I do know is that I live in New York City, and I also live with a disability. I haven’t gone through the process of trying for children yet, but I’m terrified because I know a little too much about the statistics and what it means for Black women. While I live in a state that doesn’t have abortion restrictions, and I’m in New York City, there are still communities like the Bronx, or even where I live in Harlem, where the maternal mortality rate for Black women is ten times the national average.

Even though we theoretically have access to care since New York is not a restricted state, there’s still a huge fight to get primary reproductive care and access. There are apparent differences across racial lines. 

Jacobsen: What about generational differences in these experiences? What about cohort effects or generational differences in this experience? To make it more concrete, Roe v. Wade was in place for about half a century, providing national stability and safe access to a fundamental human right for women who wanted it. But before that, and now after it, we have periods without it, totalling more than a lifetime for many women.

You have younger generations who never had it as an assumption and older generations who didn’t have it but then did it for a time before losing it again. Do you incorporate the feedback from women across these generations, whether in workshops or lectures, to better understand their experiences in different states?

Becker-Burrowes: Yes. While our primary audience is predominantly online and skewing younger, we consider ourselves intersectional, intergenerational, and international. That intergenerational aspect is crucial because there’s so much we can learn from previous generations. Unfortunately, we’re fighting the same fight again—essentially fighting for Roe again, for primary access to reproductive care.

We’ve had many conversations with figures like Gloria Steinem and Heather Booth. Heather Booth, one of the founders of the Jane Collective, started helping women access safe abortions in the 1970s through an underground network. Learning from strategies like that has been vital for us.

Sometimes, these intergenerational lessons happen organically at our events. For instance, I was on a panel with Loretta Ross, and she was in the audience. She stopped us to add more context from her experiences and share with the audience. This happens frequently at our events because there’s a lot we need to learn from holding space for the generation before us and those even before that.

I understand if they’re not dealing with it. We’re undergoing a shift at the same time. 

Jacobsen: When looking at things state by state, how can we translate the excitement of an annual event or the participation of various organizations and networking around something like the UNGA into state-by-state action when federally it’s gone?

For instance, if abortion is illegal in one state, how can we leverage a neighbouring state with different laws to say, “Hey, you can come here and exercise your human rights legally”?

Becker-Burrowes: There are a couple of ways to answer this. I’m thinking about how these international events, like the UNGA, bring people worldwide into one space, right? It creates an opportunity to convene various voices and perspectives, not just to listen to programming and panels but to strategize together.

For context, the way we hold many of our events and panel discussions at FEMINIST is more “salon-style.” It’s not just a panel of experts talking to a crowd. We can bring many different people and perspectives into the conversation. We create much space for audience dialogue and feedback. That’s one way to gather diverse perspectives from people from other states or countries—to strategize, share tips, and learn what’s working in their areas. Then, we can apply that energy to our local and national work.

Additionally, organizations like Plan C provide resources and abortion pills for abortion care. 

Jacobsen: So, even if you’re in a state with restrictions, you can still access this kind of care, at least in the U.S. There are challenges around messaging. Martha and I talked about this a bit.

Some people in the U.S. focus on the First Amendment, free speech, and freedom of expression. They believe in, practice, and value it for themselves and others. There’s no issue with that.

But then, others claim to believe in free speech for themselves but not for others—not in what they say but how they act. They may have significant financial backing, influence, and political power, and they censor or silence others. What’s been your experience with this latter group in your activist work through Feminists or Feminists as an organization?

A second group of people talk about free speech and the First Amendment, saying they believe in it. I believe they believe they believe in it. But when it comes to what they do, they censor other people. They silence or shadow-ban their accounts, primarily if those people advocate for left-wing activist causes. So, in terms of what they do, it’s very different from what they say. This group is much different from the first one.

As far as I know and have experienced, this second group needs to be revised. Martha and I discussed this yesterday. What’s been your or FEMINIST’s experience with dealing with that second group?

Becker-Burrowes: Again, I can answer the second part if you wait. But in particular, with FEMINIST, with the handle that’s quite literally @feminist, and our domain having “feminist” in it, we receive a lot of targeted attacks, especially when fighting for causes like reproductive justice, climate change, and primary health care—which are often considered “more progressive” causes due to the feminist ethos. The question is, how do we deal with it?

Jacobsen: Also, considering what you’ve experienced, could you document the problems people bring to your door to advocate for these issues?

Becker-Burrowes: Yes, so many. So many different perspectives or people come into the feminist movement or space. I want to answer this question correctly.

We’ve experienced much censorship, particularly with Meta. We’ve jumped into the fight for reproductive justice, and anytime you mention something—even if you spell out “abortion” properly—it automatically gets flagged, censored, and not pushed through specific algorithms. This means it’s only seen by a small group of followers. In contrast, our reach would usually be much more significant on other topics we discuss.

That’s one of the major issues we’ve seen and struggled with. It has impacted people’s ability to receive care or know where to find care. Much of the care in the reproductive space happens through word-of-mouth. Suppose you’re someone trying to make a decision around abortion or find abortion care. In that case, the first person you turn to is often a friend or family member. So, this kind of censorship can impact people’s access to care or even just the information they need to make decisions.

Jacobsen: What are some of the highlights feminists bring to this event regarding workshops, presentations, etc? What are you most looking forward to?

Becker-Burrowes: I’m excited about the Survivor Love Letter workshop. I’m also particularly excited about our conversation and panel discussion on exposing the harmful impact that systemic racism has on birth workers, especially Black birth workers. We’ll be discussing the historical erasure of Black doulas and midwives, and we’re also going to showcase the film Bone Black: Midwest by Amadi and Akaya. The film is beautifully done and very artful. The filmmaker did an incredible job.

I’m also excited to bring Chanel, the founder and CEO of Ancient Song, and Attia, the founder and CEO of Womanly Magazine and Women of Color Women’s Health Magazine, into the conversation. I’ll be moderating the panel.

Jacobsen: How do you feel about moderating that panel and contributing to the overall event?

Becker-Burrowes: I’m excited! I love moderating and holding space for conversations. Curating discussions is a form of active care and action. I’ve built good relationships with all the panellists, so it will be a fun and engaging conversation.

Jacobsen: Which organizations have been your biggest allies or, to use less feminist terminology, your closest associates or collaborators?

Becker-Burrowes: There are so many to name! Plan C has been incredible, Women on Web, and… Censored. I don’t know who else at the moment!

I’m also trying to think about gender, not in terms of this specific context, but gender in general. Right? That’s been another incredible factor in our partnerships. Regarding reproductive justice, so many organizations are leading the movement right now in the United States. Regenerative Freedom for All has been one of our key partners.

We also work with many abortion funds. So, yes, those are just a few examples. But yes, there’s a lot of work we’re partnering on.

Jacobsen: On a personal note, what was your first moment of, let’s call it, awakening—not necessarily to injustices, but to areas where society could improve in achieving its advocated ideals? Whether on an individual level or just looking at the world around you while living in the United States?

I can give a personal example. I grew up in an alcoholic home and a divorced family. I’ve been in no-contact with my father for about nine years now, after a significant police event, which was the worst of them. I was always a very sensitive kid. I cried a lot during those tumultuous and turbulent times of my youth. At that point, I realized I wasn’t necessarily “gender normal” in terms of social expectations around emotions and expressing them. It wasn’t perfect circumstance, but it was just how I was.

Unfortunately, given the circumstances, it was a less-than-positive expression given the circumstances but a healthy response within it. What was it for you?

Becker-Burrowes: Oh, great. Thanks for sharing. I was raised biracial—my mother is white, and my father is Black. My father is Afro-Caribbean, and I grew up strongly connected to Rastafarianism. My father is also a Rasta, which is part of the Black liberation ideology and theology in many ways—other than just growing older and realizing it.

For me, it started young. My parents were musicians and taught me my history, specifically my Black history, through music. I remember hearing much music playing through our speakers at home. Early on, they felt the limits of what I was receiving in my formal education—especially the lack of my history.

I remember being in the car, and my parents would play Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. They would go over the lyrics with me to teach me about the history of slavery. The Redemption Song is essentially about the transatlantic slave trade. So, one particular moment did not set it off for me. It was more embedded in who I was—to observe the world, notice the injustices, and recognize the gaps in my education.

I was taught to challenge what I was taught in school, think critically, and always know that there’s another side to any narrative. That was just embedded in my upbringing. Navigating the world as a biracial, lighter-skinned person also contributed. I’d be with my father one day, observing how he had to navigate the world as a Black man, and then with mywhite mother the next day, noticing the stark differences. That duality shaped my awareness early on.

I didn’t just navigate the world as a woman and a white person, and then with my father, who was both Black and male with dreads and a Rasta. I was always an observer, witnessing injustice and the inequities in people’s lived experiences and how they are viewed. This was an essential part of my upbringing.

I’m also a type 1 diabetic and live with a disability diagnosed in 5th grade. I’ve always wanted to do something about inequity. It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to be in the streets as an activist—though I did that in my remaining years—but more so that I wanted to raise awareness through different mediums, whether through film, media, or music. Music has always been my vehicle for understanding the world. I knew that would always be my North Star: to educate people about various issues through media.

Jacobsen: Aisha, are there any final notes or points that should be publicized about feminism and its participation in this event? This interview will be published after the event, so from that perspective: what’s helpful to share?

Becker-Burrowes: I’m considering reiterating the importance of building and living global solidarity, especially around reproductive rights. Yes, we live in the United States, but this fight is unfortunately happening everywhere. It has a trickle-down effect—or, hopefully, it could also help improve social justice in other places.

That’s why I’m excited we’re coming together during the UNGA. I’m excited about the many different partners we’ve involved. We’re bringing so many other topics, conversations, and people to the table to pause and reflect on the state of reproductive rights globally.

Jacobsen: Excellent. Aisha, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it.

Becker-Burrowes: Thank you. I had fun. We made it!

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.