Gender Talk 211 was established in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when South Sudanese social media, particularly Twitter, had become increasingly hostile toward young South Sudanese feminists. A number of outspoken young South Sudanese women who advocated for women and girls were facing intense anti-feminist backlash, including coordinated trolling, harassment, and abuse. Rather than reacting individually or defensively, the platform emerged from a need to respond collectively and constructively. The intention was to create a space where South Sudanese feminist voices could be held and amplified through analysis and shared political language.
In its earliest form, Gender Talk 211 primarily served as a social media platform that curated conversations led by South Sudanese women experts, inviting them to discuss issues ranging from gender norms and violence to culture, labor, health, disability rights, and political participation. A few male allies also led conversations on positive masculinities. These early engagements created space for thoughtful exchange, feminist analysis, and narrative countering at a time when such spaces were scarce. In the same year, the platform expanded beyond social media into radio, enabling conversations to move beyond online audiences into broader public spaces. Live discussions and radio conversations became central to the platform’s work, deepening engagement and widening access.
Today, Gender Talk 211 is a feminist storytelling and media practice rooted in South Sudan under Ma’Mara Sakit Village. It creates sustained public platforms where South Sudanese women and girls speak for themselves and shape how gender, power, and justice are understood. The platform now works across multiple mediums, including radio, television, digital conversations, in-person dialogues, feminist visual storytelling, narrative photography, writing, and curated multimedia, among others.
Alongside public conversations, Gender Talk 211 has grown into a practice of documentation and archiving. The platform records women’s stories, reflections, and analyses over time as feminist knowledge and historical record. This work contributes to a growing feminist archive rooted in women’s voices, cultural memory, and lived experience.
At its core, Gender Talk 211 is grounded in a simple yet radical belief that South Sudanese women are the primary authors of their narratives. Their experiences of survival, resistance, care, labor, joy, healing, and imagination are not secondary stories to be interpreted by others. They are feminist analysis, cultural memory, and political thought. This project is an ongoing narrative infrastructure, designed to evolve, endure, and hold space for South Sudanese girls and women’s voices across moments, mediums, and generations.
