Pramada Menon

Pramada Menon is a queer feminist activist, stand-up comedian, gender and sexualiy consultant and co-founder of Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA).

Pramada began her career in advertising but was disappointed with the use of sexism and gender stereotypes to sell prodcuts. At 22, she joined Dastkar, a society for crafts and craftspeople which aims at improving the economic status of craftspeople, promoting the survival of traditional crafts. She started as Field Assistant in 1987 and worked there for 10 years. She became the Executive Director of Dastkar in 1993 and led the organisation for four years.

In 1995, she attended the Beijing Women's Conference and was actively involved with women's rights and livelihoods. In 1998, she left Dastkar and worked for two years as an independent consultant on the issues of women's rights, sexuality, literacy, livelihoods and empowerment.

With a group of other women's rights activists, Pramada attended the “Culture, Society and Sexuality” course at the Sexuality Institute in Amsterdam and was inspired to establish a comparable institute in India. In 2000, she co-founded CREA with Geetanjali Misra, using a human rights framework and working in the fields of sexuality, reproductive health, violence against women and economic justice.