Diving Deep: IISE Global’s Book Club on Caste and the Journey Inward
- Dr. Eddie & Dr. Rita
- Oct 7
- 2 min read
By Dr. Rita
At the International Institute for Sexual Empowerment (IISE Global), our book clubs aren’t casual reading groups — they are sacred spaces. When we embarked on our shared journey through Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, we knew we were in for difficult truths. What we did not anticipate was how transformative the process would be: in our readings, our conversations, and the ways that the text opened doors into our inner landscapes and collective wounds.
For our IISE Global community — committed to sexual empowerment, justice, and transformation — Caste offered a mirror and a challenge. If the hierarchies that harm us in one domain (racial, class, gender) are often the same systems we replicate (even unconsciously) elsewhere, then our work in sexual, relational, and community empowerment demands this reckoning.
What surprised us most was how profoundly relational this work became. As we revealed fractures inside ourselves, we also discovered new layers of connection with one another. In many sessions we said, I never told anyone that before. In other moments, we witnessed someone else’s courage to speak things we also carried but had not voiced. The text became a scaffolding for trust.
It was not easy. There were moments when participants wondered if we had gone too deep, if we had exposed too much too early, or if the emotional cost was too great. But even those tensions became generative: we talked about boundaries, self-care, collective care, and the necessity of returning — again and again — to this work with gentleness and persistence.
In short, the book club on Caste was never just about a book. It was — and continues to be — an internal, communal, spiritual journey. It is a practice we now carry forward.
These lessons continue to ripple into our work at IISE Global — in how we structure programs, invite dialogue, and hold space for transformation.
