What are you enjoying doing at the moment?
I’ve been indulging in science fiction/dystopia shows lately (much to the happiness of my hubby). I realised that immersing myself in different worlds and futuristic futures is something that I do daily as part of the violence prevention and gender equality work. We, too, are engaged in building our vision of a different (equitable/just) future!

If you were a super-heroine, what powers would you like to have?
I would fly (and yes, I have thought about this extensively). Forget the missing traffic factor, I want to know what birds feel like soaring the clouds.

What’s your favourite word and why?
Can I cheat and say my favourite phrase? It’s an Egyptian phrase, ‘teslem edek/y’, which we say to the person/s who have cooked the shared meal. It translates to ‘bless/thank your hands’. Sharing food is a big part of my culture, and this phrase captures the love that envelopes any of our food rituals.

Tell us about an amazing woman you know.
My mother (I call her mama) is my heroine. She married my dad in Egypt and moved across many oceans to start a new life in Aotearoa New Zealand. The courage, the curiosity, the strength… I’m so in awe of everything it would have taken for her to build the life my sister and I had.

If you could meet the Prime Minister tomorrow, what would like to tell him?
I would tell Scott Morrison that: ‘You can’t see bias if it’s institutionalised’. Some of us may benefit from the status quo, but the government serves all people who are in this country (Australian citizens or not). It’s the government’s responsibility to dismantle institutional racism and sexism embedded in the way Australia is governed.

Finish this sentence: We need feminism because…
we aren’t anywhere near building the gender and racially equitable world that feminism demands!