Finding Humanity

According to the United Nations, as of  2021, there were only 26 women serving as Heads of State or Government. Globally, only 21% of government ministers were women, with only 14 countries having achieved 50% or more women in cabinets.  If we don’t have more women and women of color in leadership, our policies won’t address their needs. Yet, at the current rate, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not ...

The world is increasingly determined by the way we design our technology. Yet, in the U.S.  Black and Indigenous women occupy less than 10 percent of positions in the fields of STEM –science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In this episode we hear from two women who founded organizations that teach girls the skills they need to pursue careers in STEM. We also go back to the history of this field, and examine why closi...

Study after study shows that looking at idealized images of women in the media results in lower self-esteem, particularly for young women and girls.

Hoping to challenge what is perceived as beautiful, designer Carrie Hammer founded Role Models, Not Runway Models, a movement credited for kickstarting the body positive movement in the fashion and beauty industries.

In this episode we hear how Carrie made history by creating the first...

Male athletes in most sports make significantly more than female athletes. One of the reasons for this pay gap is that men’s sports receive vastly more media coverage, television licenses, and sponsorship deals. However, even in cases where women’s sports are as popular, we have been slow to achieve equal pay.

In this episode, we hear from former basketball player Tajay Ashmeade about the ways in which her gender impacted her caree...

To protect democracy, we must first protect journalists. Yet, women journalists experience approximately three times as many abusive comments on Twitter, compared to their male counterparts. In this episode, we examine the disadvantages female journalists around the world face. We also explain why we must recognize online harassment against women journalists as a threat to the freedom of the press.

Featuring Carla Minet, Executive ...

Investing in women and women-led companies is not only the right thing to do, it’s also good for business. Yet, women and women of color in particular continue to face disadvantages in the workplace. In 2021, only 2% of venture capital went to companies founded only by women and 15.6% to those with at least one woman on their founding teams. Women are also 30% less likely to be considered for a job position than men.

In this episod...

In the U.S., women of color hold only 4% of C-suite roles in media and entertainment. As a result, we rarely find their stories featured in films or T.V.

Growing up as a Muslim who wore a headscarf, Marya didn’t see herself represented on the screen. Yet, she found her way into Hollywood through a handful of pioneer women of color in the industry. As a vice-president at Walt Disney Studios, Marya is now advancing social change thro...

From a young age, Selin Ozunaldim questioned gender stereotypes. When she was 17, her little brother told her that she didn’t need to worry about studying because she could always get married. Hearing her brother say that made Selin realize she had to do something to change this way of thinking in her community. Now 19, Selin is the youngest representative of the United Nations’ HeForShe movement in Turkey, a global effort to engag...

Throughout history and across cultures, inspiring women and girls continue to break records and blaze trails—shattering glass ceilings while imagining and innovating the way forward.

On season 5 of the Finding Humanity podcast, we bring you powerful voices of women shaping history by overcoming innumerable challenges to achieve greatness. You’ll hear the inspirational stories of leaders in arts, entertainment, science, sports, poli...

BIG NEWS! Our podcast has just been nominated for this year’s Webby Awards! The show that you have supported since we launched in 2020, has been singled out as one of the five best podcasts in the world for Public Service and Activism.

But we need your help! The Webby People’s Voice Award Winners are chosen by listeners like you. Take a minute to vote for Finding Humanity through this official voting link. Voting closes on A...

In 1970, the New York Times published Milton Friedman's seminal essay, "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits." For more than half a century, Friedman’s doctrine of profit maximization helped accelerate the racial, economic, and environmental injustice we see today.

In our final episode of this special series, we discuss corporate solutions to our broken economic system. We examine stakeholder governance ...

Replacing your smartphone every two and a half years is not uncommon. In fact, it’s by design.

The consumer electronics industry is fraught with unethical business practices, from planned obsolescence to the dark side of cobalt mining, to the 40 million tons of electronic waste that's generated each year. In this episode, we learn about Fairphone, a social enterprise that creates smartphones that are both repairable and built to la...

Each year, about a third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Food loss and waste contributes to some of the most pressing health, environmental, and economic challenges of our day, accounting for 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions and $1 trillion in economic losses annually. How can businesses innovate and help win the fight against food waste?

In this episode, we explore how global brands like Danone are ...

What if businesses removed barriers to employment and gave job seekers a fair shot at self-sufficiency?

For the formerly incarcerated, unhoused, or people with limited education, getting a job can be extremely difficult. In 1982, Greyston Bakery piloted Open Hiring, a recruitment practice where simply putting your name on a list could get you hired — no work experience, background checks, resumes, or interviews.

Now adopted and sca...

Can businesses help solve the greatest societal challenges we face?

Historically, the business sector has accelerated social inequity, fueled human rights violations, and exacerbated climate change. With a global cultural shift underway, are businesses truly evolving from contributors to humanity’s biggest problems to drivers of positive change?

In this special series from Finding Humanity, we’ve partnered with B Lab to bring you h...

Dan's wife Brittany Maynard sought adventure up until the very end. When it became clear that the brain tumor she'd been diagnosed with would ultimately take her life, Brittany chose to end things on her own terms.

Medical aid-in-dying, commonly known in the U.S. as "death with dignity," enables someone with a terminal illness to request a prescription for medication that will end their suffering. In the final episode of season 4, ...

Ronald fell in love with television as a child, but as a queer, black boy from a Latinx household, representation was deeply lacking. In this episode, we focus on "colorism," or discrimination that occurs based on skin color, and how misrepresentations of people of color in the media often have real-life consequences.

Featuring Ronald Hinton, actor, writer, and founder of Shared Soil Productions, ReNika Moore, Racial Justice Progra...

Kimi Ceridon and her sister never went without food growing up, but living paycheck-to-paycheck meant her parents constantly worried about how to pay for meals. What they did eat was often low-cost and low-quality food.

This is what experts call ‘food insecurity,’ an issue that has grown substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic to affect over 750 million people worldwide. In this episode, we dig into why so many people are unable...

Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General, joins hosts Mary Robinson and Hazami Barmada to discuss the persistent, global injustice that is violence against women.

1.3 billion women and girls around the world—equivalent to the entire combined populations of North America and Europe—have experienced violence at some point in their lives. This has significant political, economic, and cultural consequences. In this episode, global lead...