Episode 62: Zeynep Karatas, Eugenia Ricciotti, and Tata Varadashvili, Part One

Zeynep Karatas, a UC Irvine honors graduate in Political Science and International Studies, has worked with The Borgen Project, Lawyers Without Borders, and the United Nations Association of the USA. She held leadership roles on campus and presented her award-winning thesis on the European Court of Human Rights at three conferences. She plans to pursue graduate studies and a career in international human rights law.

Eugenia Ricciotti, a law graduate from the University of Trento, is completing a Master’s in Human Rights and Sustainability at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek. She interned with The Advocates for Human Rights, contributing to advocacy, women’s rights, and the Beijing+30 project. Her focus is on minority rights and gender equality as a researcher and advocate.

Tata Varadashvili, based in Vienna, holds a degree in Political, Legal, and Governmental Studies from Central European University and will soon begin an LL.M. in Human Rights. She served as First Vice Chair of the Student Union and has participated in multiple human rights initiatives. Currently interning with the WAVE Network, she aims to focus on women’s rights and international criminal law.

Episode 62 features young feminists Zeynep, Eugenia, and Tata, who share how personal experiences—from femicide in Turkey to restrictive abortion laws and warnings about lost freedoms—inspired their commitment to women’s rights. They reflect on the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women as a turning point that remains underrecognized, stressing the importance of raising awareness and integrating women’s rights into education. Comparing struggles from 1995 to today, they note continuing limits on reproductive rights and education, the rise of authoritarian regimes, and the slow pace of change, while also recognizing feminism’s growing intersectionality. The conversation explores the promise and risks of digital activism and outlines the challenges young feminists face, including systemic inequality, lack of funding, backlash, media misrepresentation, and burnout from unpaid labor—closing with strategies for sustaining activism amid these barriers.

Topics discussed:

• Personal motivations: Influences of literature, femicide, and family warnings on feminist awareness
• Beijing 1995 legacy: Need for more awareness and integration in curricula
• Then vs. now: Continued barriers to women’s rights; slow progress; rise of authoritarianism; growing intersectionality
• Digital activism: Opportunities for mobilization but risks of harassment and misinformation
• Challenges for young feminists: Funding gaps, institutional sexism, media misrepresentation, backlash, and burnout
• Closing reflections on sustaining feminist struggles

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Introduction and Closing Music Credit: “Awakening-Spring” by Ketsa, from the Album Night Vision. Available at the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/night-vision/awakening-spring/

This music is used in accordance with this Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Information about that license is available here https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Human Rights Education Now! is produced and distributed in accordance with Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International. Information about this license is available here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/