About Me
I smash the patriarchy for a living! I’m the founder-director & editor-in-chief of Feminism in India (FII), an award-winning digital feminist media platform. I’m also a TEDx speaker, a UN World Summit Young Innovator and a Swedish Institute Alumni.
I started FII while I was still a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University and built it from bottom to top. I single-handedly expanded it from a blog to India’s most popular feminist media platform in just a matter of three years.
I was featured by The German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in a book on ‘Women in Tech’ for my work at FII and facilitated by Maneka Gandhi and Ministry of Women & Child Development, GoI as Web Wonder Woman. I have also been recognised by the Swedish Foreign Minister for my work on the gender gap on Wikipedia. Currently, I oversee the strategic vision and growth at FII.
My story
I started FII as a Facebook page in 2013 that curated feminist content from the Internet. It is now a full-fledged bilingual feminist media organisation that creates and publishes unique content everyday.
I began the Facebook page when I began my own journey as a feminist. With my background being in German Studies and not Gender or Women’s Studies, I began to look around on the Internet for accessible resources on the feminist movement in India. All I found were academic articles which were dense, theoretical and mostly behind a paywall, or content from Western feminist platforms like Bitch Media and Feministing.
FII thus, was created with a vision of having easy-to-understand, accessible, popular Indian feminist content on the internet written by Indian women for Indian women.
Skills
Feminist leadership is something very close to my heart and I practice it daily in my work at FII and also believe in developing leadership capabilities of my team.
I’m trained in storytelling & public speaking and have given ample talks on intersectional feminism and represented FII in national, regional and global forums.
I currently lead FII’s growth and business development and have worked with various brands and INGOs like Tinder, Puma, Oxfam, World YWCA etc.
I design, create and strategise high impact digital advocacy campaigns and communications strategies for non-profits and social enterprises.
I train and facilitate workshops on social media, gender sensitisation, gender in media, digital security, among others.
I have conducted and led multiple research projects on gender-based violence online and offline, SRHR and feminist media.
Employment
I founded Feminism In India (FII), an award-winning digital intersectional feminist media platform to address the gap of feminist content and new media in India in 2014. Today, I oversee the strategic vision and growth at FII along with a team of 10-12 members.
I worked as a research consultant with Freedom House in 2016 for their Hyperlinkers Project where I produced a research report on online violence against women and designed and implemented an online campaign based on the research findings. I represented the findings of my research at four international conferences.
I was responsible for planning, creating, editing and publishing information on sexualityanddisability.org – and for growing it. In addition, I launched and expanded the site’s social media presence and assisted in sex-ed workshops for women with disabilities.
I worked closely with the digital team, helped implement a comprehensive digital media strategy for Breakthrough’s various campaigns. I helped to develop high-quality communication material including blogs, infographics, and other campaign creatives.
Awards & Recognition
International Advocacy
- Imagine a Feminist Internet by Association for Progressive Communication, Malaysia, July 2015
- Stockholm Internet Forum by SIDA, Stockholm, 2015 and 2017
- Youth Think Tank by Asia Safe Abortion Partnership, Bangkok, January 2016
- RightsCon by Access Now, March 2016 and March 2017
- Freedom Online Coalition, Costa Rica, October 2016
- IGF 2016, Mexico, December 2016
- CSW by the United Nations, New York, March 2017
- Online Abuse talk, Amnesty Switzerland, September 2017
- Asia Pacific Feminist Forum, Chiang Mai, Thailand, September 2017
- Making a Feminist Internet, Malaysia, October 2017
- Re:publica, Berlin 2018
- Participated in SEVEN – the play, Geneva, June 2018
- WSA Global Congress Cascais, March 2019
- 4Gamechangers Festival, Vienna, April 2019
- Participated as a Youth Champion for a week long incubator by Rise Up, July 2019
- WHO Consultation on Abortion, Geneva, Sept 2019
- Attended Swedish Institute’s Leader Lab, Oct 2019
- Asia Pacific Review Beijing +25 in Bangkok, Nov 2019
Publications
Chapter: ‘Gender Politics and the State of Women Empowerment: A Feminist Perspective’
Chapter: ‘Writing Women into Wikipedia’
Talks & Interviews
A 101 on the feminist movement in India | Japleen Pasricha | TEDxGurugramWomen
What is Intersectional Feminism? By Japleen Pasricha
Japleen Pasricha On How She Helped Women Make A Difference | Multipurpose With Lakshit
“My vision is a feminist society”
Japleen Pasricha: Founder of Feminism In India (FII)
IRL: Elections with Japleen Pasricha
This is how I Lead from Within: Japleen
Education
I’m a German Studies scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who switched to Gender and Feminist Studies professionally.
M.Phil & M.A, German Studies
2010-2014
B.A. German (H)
2007-2010
Sapere aude!