Abortion Rights, Sex Ed and Intersectional Feminism in Cambodia with Catherine Harry

Doing It! with Hannah Witton

Global Media & Entertainment

Health & Fitness, Relationships, Sexuality, Society & Culture

4.8 • 651 Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Hannah is joined by Catherine Harry, who is a feminist vlogger and sex educator. Cath talks about growing up in Cambodia’s conservative purity culture, being made to memorise the women’s code of conduct at school, and when she started questioning what she’d been taught. She gets into why she makes videos in Khmer, her most requested video topics, and how the people that take the biggest issue with her work are actually western white men. Cath discusses what intersectional feminism means to her, her work with abortion organisations, and what it’s like navigating access to sexual health services and contraception in Cambodia. Finally, Cath and Hannah talk about how LGBTQ+ rights have been improving in Cambodia, how race impacts how accepting Cambodian society can be towards queer tourists, and the importance of having a support system who care about you when you’re working as an online sex educator.

CW: discussion of abortions, mention of sexual assault

✨MORE ABOUT CATHERINE HARRY✨
Catherine Harry is a feminist vlogger and founder at A Dose of Cath, a channel that focuses on sex education, gender equality and cultural issues from a feminist perspective. Her channel has 1 million followers on Facebook. Asides from being a vlogger, Catherine is also an agented writer.

Named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2018 and shortlisted as one of Women of the Future Asia 2019, Catherine has been working to raise awareness on feminism and empower women to further the feminist movement.

When she’s not speaking in schools and making her vlogs, she’s an avid reader and a passionate writer who enjoys spinning tales in a way that’s never been told before. She’s also enthusiastic about environment causes and animal rights.

As an intersectional feminist, Catherine recognizes the challenges that women from different backgrounds have to overcome. She realizes that the feminist movement can’t be advanced without allies and support from other people, especially other women. With this in mind, she always looks for ways to empower women and inspire them to shine in their communities so that they can pass on the inspiration to more women.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, welcome back to doing it to the Sex and Relationships podcast where sex has never been so nerdy with me, your host Hannah Witten.
0:14.3	This week I am joined by Catherine Harry, a sex educator from Cambodia, who I actually first met at a UNESCO conference in Istanbul in February 2020,
0:25.2	where we were on a panel together about being sex ed content creators.
0:30.6	Catherine is a feminist vlogger and founder of a dose of CAF,
0:35.2	a channel that focuses on sex education, gender equality and cultural issues
0:39.9	from a feminist perspective. Named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2018 and shortlisted as one
0:47.5	of Women of the Future Asia 2019, Catherine has been working to raise awareness about feminism
0:53.7	and empower women and girls.
0:56.5	I wanted to get Kath onto the podcast to talk all about her work and experiences as a sex educator in Cambodia.
1:03.9	Kath told me all about what it's like growing up in Cambodia, how it's a conservative culture and what that looked like from being made to memorize
1:12.6	the women's code of conduct at school to the big purity culture.
1:16.6	Kath talked about the turning point for her when she started to unlearn these misogynistic
1:21.6	cultural values and how coming across videos about feminism led her to start to question everything she was taught and believed.
1:30.3	We talked about Kath's own sex education work and making videos in Khmer to make it accessible for all Cambodians.
1:36.3	We talked about her most requested topics and how she's taught a lot of people where the clitoris is.
1:42.3	Kath talked about the lack of adequate sex education
1:45.5	in schools, but how LGBTQ plus rights have been improving in Cambodia, with more pride events
1:51.3	and acceptance. Kath also talked about her work with abortion organizations and made an interesting
1:57.1	point that whilst the government isn't actively against abortion, organisations
2:00.9	actually tried to stay quite subtle so they don't provoke any overt opposition.
2:06.5	We spoke about what it's like navigating sexual health and access to services and contraception
2:11.1	in Cambodia and how misconceptions are the biggest barrier to sexual health rather than accessibility. Kath talked to me about what intersectional feminism means to her
	...

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