As parents of baby-boomers age and decline, caring children and grandchildren need to navigate differences not only of age and ability but also of culture and values. Kathe Forrest of KGNU-FM interviewed psychologist Mary Pipher, author of Another Country: Navigating the emotional terrain of our elders,  Reviving Ophelia: Saving the selves of adolescent girls, and other books about improving lives through cultural understanding.

Corporate pornography is changing cultures worldwide, in both developed and traditional societies.  Speakers: Sheila Jeffreys, Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Melbourne; and Meghan Tyler, PhD student, Univ. of Melbourne. Recorded at a 2007 conference, The Pornification of Culture, a Feminist Response.  Produced by Elanor McInerney of Women on the Line, Australia. Edited for WINGS by Frieda Werden. Music: "Who's That Girl?" by Robin.  Show is censored to protect our US affiliates.

It rained on Hillary Clinton and her NGO listeners at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in China.  Those who waited heard her talk of power and what it can do for women. Til then, Shirley Mae Springer Staten pacified the crowd. Production and update: Frieda Werden.  Thanks to Eliza Graney.  Travel support: Foundation for a Compassionate Society.

Patricka Dallas explores this major theme of the 2008 UN Commission on the Status of Women with Ireen Dubel, a program officer for the Dutch funding body HIVOS the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation. Links: http://www.hivos.nl ; http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/csw/2008/

WINGS UN Correspondent Patricka Dallas interviews seven young women delegates at the UN’s Global Youth Leadership Summit (New York, October 2006) about the UN’s Milennium Development Goals. http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3446.html

PART I: Sally Maipelo Sinaha is a 17 year old from Botswana with a strong interest in science; Hadar Duskin Bitan from Israel  is a medical student and part-time physician’s assistant;  Sara Fazlali from the UK recently wrote her Masters dissertation in Philosophy and Social Anthropology at Oxford focusing on, gender construction in sports.

From the WINGS Archives, Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things, reading her 2001 essay "War Is Peace." It’s a mesmerizing account of the background, causes and effects of the US attack on Afghanistan after 9-11 and the human and political costs of a continuing war.  As of 2008, the war now involves NATO and 39 countries – many of them considering pulling out.  Produced by Yun Suh.  Intro updated in 2008 by Frieda Werden.

GABRIELA Network (GABNet) is an international solidarity group linked to GABRIELA, a leftist feminist group in the Philippines.  After attending the 10th biennial Women’s Solidarity Affair in August 2007, three leaders of GABNet were prevented from boarding return flights to the US. An international solidarity campaign on their own behalf got them off the Philippines’ anti-terrorist watchlist.  Speakers from GABNet in this program: National Chairperson Dr. Annalisa Enrile, a University of Southern California professor; International Relations Officer Judith Mirkinson; and Josephine Michael from GABNet Portland.  Program produced by Miae Kim.  Links:  http://www.gabnet.org/  ; http://members.tripod.com/~gabriela_p/home.html

Sanghamita Iyengar is Director of Samraksha, the AIDS/HIV and reproductive health unit of Samuha, an NGO working with vulnerable people to improve their quality of life. They run Asha jyotiaashaajyooti, a care centre that changes attitudes, they meet basic needs, and they work for policy change.  In fall of 2007, three interviewers came from Bangalore: Indu Ramesh of WINGS, Ujvala Jatkar of Communication for Development and Learning, and Shamanta of Saarathi, a communication resource centre. Iyengar explained the relative position of India in the global AIDS epidemic, and how the epidemic and the ways it is addressed have changed.  She points out that unlike with malaria, for which one can spray, only public education, treatment, and meeting human needs can stop AIDS transmission.  Radio project funded by NORAD, FOKUS and the International Association of Women in Radio & TV.

This award-winning 1995 documentary was adapted for radio in 2000, by the filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman and WINGS producer Frieda Werden.  It chronicles the brave actions of many caring people, from doctors and nurses, to ministers and politicians, who put their careers on the line to help women get safe abortions and to change policies, even before the US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade that legalized abortions in 1973.  Link to video information: http://www.concentric.org/projects/danger.html

Canadian Irshad Manji authored The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith.  She discusses women's equality; ijtihad (Islam's long-ago-suppressed tradition of debate); women’s rights vs. honour; Muslims in the West; the value of religions; and Islam and lesbianism. Interview by Dheera Sujan courtesy of Vox Humana, distributed by Radio Netherlands in 2006.  WINGS series editor: Frieda Werden. Links: http://irshadmanji.com  and  http://www.radionetherlands.nl/radioprogrammes/voxhumana/051111vh

#32-07 Prostitution as a Practice of Racism
Time: 28:51

In March 2007, the UN Commission on the Status of Women took up issues of The Girl Child.  WINGS UN Correspondent Patricka Dallas interviewed delegates who work to improve the education of girls in wartorn countries.  Differing opinions were expressed by Narda Tubara Subra, V-P Lebanese Council of Women, and Marie Khoury, Counsellor, Notre Dame University of Lebanon, and Professor at The Lebanese University. Fatima Ahmad,Zainab from Women  in Development–Sudan discussed both the southern conflict and Darfur.  Editing by Howard Katzman.

Folk initiation rituals in the military are standing in the way of gender integration and are disruptive of efficiency and good order.  So says Carol Burke, folklorist former teacher at a military academy, and author of the book Camp All American, Hanoi Jane, and the High and Tight: Gender, folklore, and changing military culture.  Interview by Shamaan Eagle, producer of the Living Well Show on KRZA-FM. Co-producer, Donna Descoteaux, support from the Paul Robeson Fund and Telos.

Women in Film and Television Vancouver is one of 40 chapters of WIFT International. Managing Director Yvette Dudley-Neuman reveals the complex strategy they’ve devised to network with an industry where knowing and working with insiders is increasingly essential to have a work funded and shown. Interview by Kelly Gill of the Intra-Venus women's radio collective at CJSF-FM, Burnaby, BC, Canada.

Rebecca Okwaci [o-KWA-chee], Executive Producer at Sudan Radio Service, formerly was an active journalist and peace activist from within the rebel movement. She now works with media and women’s NGOs to disseminate the peace accord and stabilize Southern Sudan. -Recorded by Frieda Werden at the International Association of Women in Radio & TV conference, Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 29, 2007. 

Chung Hyun Kyung, Korean feminist theologian, gave a keynote address at a gathering of women theologians from 25 countries, who met in San Jose Costa Rica in December 1994 to discuss "A spirituality for Life: Women struggling against global violence." Professor Chung draws lessons from the survival of Subok, a so-called "comfort woman" taken by the Japanese during WWII, and from women surviving economic sexual slavery today. Audio courtesy of FIRE: Feminist International Radio Endeavour/Radio Feminista Internacional www.fire.or.cr Narrator: Felicia Hayes.

Dorothy Roberts is the Kirland & Ellis Professor at the Northwestern University School of Law, and author of Killing the Black Body;  Race, Reproduction & the Meaning of Liberty; and Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare. Her speech at the Sistersong reproductive rights conference in Chicago, 2007, covers reproductive repression, new genetic technologies, and reproductive justice for women of colour. Producer: Sarah Olson.

First, Carmen Barroso, Western Hemisphere Regional Director of International Planned Parenthood Federation gives a brief overview of abortion rights in Latin America (interview by Melinda Tuhus).  Then, listen to Marie Trigona’s rousing documentary on Argentina’s 21st National Women's Congress, held in Oct. 2006, in Jujuy. There,10,000 women marched for sexual & reproductive self-determination.  Interviews: Liliana Pomilo, educator from Cordoba; Natalia Garcia, from the lesbian group Zafinas; Corina Nunez, barrio gender worker, Buenos Aires; Maria Eva Losana, worker, Bauen Hotel Cooperative; Carla Moyano, Movimiento de Mujeres de Cordova (Mujeres a bordo).  Final production, Frieda Werden. Extra translation: Claudia Fanton. Voiceovers: Fanton, Trigona, Jill Stainsby, Werden.

Speech at Yale University and interview by Melinda Tuhus, of the author of Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. Link for info: http://theislamicdream.com/

Two-spirited (lesbian) voices from the Indigenous Women's Network conference on sustainable communities held at White Earth in 1994 - on prejudice, leadership, AIDS, and tradition. Marsha Gomez, organizer; Yako Myers, a Mohawk of the Iroquois nation; Bonnie Blackwolf of the Blackfeet nation.  Agnes Patak of KMUD; Felicia Hayes of Austin, Texas

Canadian healthcare - the envy of US viewers of the new Michael Moore film Sicko -  is under threat of privatisation. Mary Boyd of The Grail, Canada, traveled to Australia to discuss a resistance movement: "Our World is Not for Sale." Interview by Helen Lobato for Women on the Line, Australia. Update by Frieda Werden.

Shekhinah Mountainwater (nee Ellen Adler), lived October 24, 1939 to August 11, 2007. A New York folksinger in ‘60s, she migrated to California, where her music became ecstatically goddess-evoking.  Interview in 1994 by Frieda Werden.

Labour from Korea and the US unite to mount opposition to free trade rules written by corporations. Speakers, from a people’s forum in Washington DC and protests in Seattle, are: Tea Lee, Policy Director for the AFL-CIO [a major US labor union]; Ban Myong Ja, for the Korean Government Trade Unions; Yvette Peña Lopez, from the Teamsters USA union; and Jane Carter, coordinator of the ANSWER coalition.  Related websites: Korean Americans for Fair Trade: http://www.kaft.org/media.html ; Korean Americans Against War and Neoliberalism: http://kawanlist.blogspot.com/

WINGS UN correspondent Patricka Dallas covered the March 2007 UNCSW meeting held in New York.  The 2007 theme was The Girl Child.  Delegates from Iraq, St. Lucia, Nigeria, and India discussed national perspectives.  Eding by:Howard Katzman.

#14-07 Part III
28:49

#13-07 Part II
28:45

#12-07 Part I
28:48

Dr. Lauren Rosewarne has just completed a PhD dissertation analysing sexually explicit ads she sees on her way to work.  She compares this tolerated imagery with pinup imagery in the workplace that is considered sexual harassment of female workers.  Dr. Emma Rush from the Australia Institute co-authored a report on “corporate Paedophilia” – about the impact of sexualized images of children in ads.  Alex Burt interviewed them for Australia’s Women on the Line in October 2006.  www.womenontheline.org.au

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) is a forum of 65,000 sex workers, based in Calcutta, West Bengal, India.  Their activities include a self-regulatory board for their profession, and  the Usha Multipurpose Cooperative Society, which founded the first sex workers’ cooperative bank.  Feb. 25 – March 3, 2007, Durbar convened the first national conference of sex workers in India. Reporter Kalpana Pradhan interviews the convenor, Mrs. Bishaka Laskar; about sex work as an entertainment profession, and Mrs. Rama Debnath, a member of the DMSC Sex Workers’ Self-Regulatory Board, which is working to stop child prostitution and trafficking.  Another reporter, Nilanjana Bhowmick, interviews members of the sex workers’ cooperative bank, and also talks with children of sex workers, who are themselves organizing to deal with the stigma against their mothers and themselves.  Additional music: “Maa” by Autorickshaw, from the CD So the Journey Goes.  Editor for WINGS: Jane Williams.

Laura Durnford produced this 2004 documentary about the first Dutch woman to become a medical doctor (1878). Jacobs started a birth control clinic for poor women and was a leader of the international women’s peace and suffrage movements.  Historians interviewed are Inge deWilde; Mineke Bosch, Jacobs biographer; and Ena Jansen. Milisa Coops and Thea Koopenburg remember Jacobs as a friend of their mother. Readings are from Jacobs’ book, Memories. My Life as an International Leader in Health, Suffrage, and Peace. Edited by Harriet Feinberg; translated by Annie Wright (New York 1996: The Feminist Press).  For the original sound file, plus nine pages of photos and history in English, visit  http://www.radionetherlands.nl and search for Aletta Jacobs.

1. Claudia Cragg on the new divorce law in Japan.  Women have been waiting for this change that allows a divorced housewife half the husband’s pension. Street interviews.
2. Excerpts from Miae Kim’s film Pyongtaek, Struggles of South Korean Farmers for Land, about farmers displaced twice by American base expansion. Voices: Medea Benjamin, Code Pink; Chin Jae Hun, People’s Solidarity for Social Progress; Kan Yang Sak, a villager
3. Emily Falk on Annie Tummino’s lawsuit challenging the US Food and Drug Administration’s age restriction on over the counter access to Plan B, the morning after pill.  (For more on Plan B, listen to WINGS #19-06.
4. Kellia Ramares interviews Jeannette Fitzsimons, New Zealand’s Green Party co-leader and spokesperson in Parliament on energy and the environment. Fitzsimons describes how New Zealand is taking the effects of Peak Oil – the decline of fuel availability – and climate change.
5. Patience Dapaah reports on Ghana’s new Domestic Violence Bill, which was finally passed on February 21, 2 weeks before the country’s 50th anniversary of independence.  Interviewees: Minister of Women’s and Children’s Affairs, Hajia Alima Mahama; gender activist Angela Dwamena Aboagye, Executive Director, The Ark Foundation; Gender Co-ordinator for Action Aid Ghana, Mrs. Rosalyn Baaltonkuu Obeng-Ofori.

#49-06 Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Time: 28:40

Adeline Sanchez, Mary McClure, Stella Sanchez, Deb Nichols, and Jenny Sanchez tell producer Sarah Parker how decades of women's hard work and activism since the 1960s has been largely successful in counteracting racist policies against Mexicans, especially in the educational system and politics.

Producer Indu Ramesh and friends Roopa and Tirumalai, travel 160 km from big-city Bangalore to Begur. This semi-rural community has been transformed by an Indian couple who returned from the US bringing new ideas about money, health, and education.  Interviewees: Bhagya Ajaikumar, Trustee, International Human Development and Upliftment Academy (IHDUA); Anjali, a student from Chicago; Devamani, Mahadevamma, Timmamma, and Sumitra, members of self-help groups inspired by Bhagya; and an American friend of Bhagya's.

Producer Melinda Tuhus interviews Lisa Curran, a full professor of Forestry at Yale University, and a 2006 recipient of the $500,000 MacArthur “genius award.” Curran talks about her collaborative methodology, about working with women, and about the dramatic collapse of the forest ecosystem due to illegal logging on the Island of Borneo,  Indonesia.

Producer Sue Supriano interviewed two Iraqui Christian women living in California, Romi Kanani, and “Marie.”  They recalled Saddam as a progressive ruler who put the money from Iraq's nationalized oil into education and jobs for both men and women, infrastructure, childcare and child allowances – for all ethnic groups in the country.  They viewed British and US government efforts to destabilize the country as the source of Iraq's ethnic problems.

Producer Liesbeth de Bakker had a baby at home – an experience shared in about 30% of all births in the Netherlands – and this inspired her to produce a documentary about the future of homebirth.  She talks with midwives, doctors, mothers who gave birth at home, and mothers who ended up in hospital after all.  Among the factors working against homebirth are changes in insurance, hospital centralization, increases in testing, and perhaps a lessening of women's confidence in their bodies.  Working for it are the independent profession of midwifery, women's many successful experiences, and a longstanding national belief that birth is normal and birthing at home is good. This program was provided to WINGS by Radio Netherlands <EuroQuest@rnw.nl>.

Kalpana Prodhan covers the national women's conference in Bangalore, India, and its major issues including caste-ism, violence and rape, and lesbian rights.Nilanjana Bhowmick documents the complex struggle against child marriage, being pursued with some success by a new non-governmental organization.  Editor and narrator for WINGS is Agasel Lindawan.

Producer Miae Kim is somewhat shy about her accent in English, so she produced this documentary about accents, including scholars who study accents and women who have accents.  She found that there is discrimination on the basis of accents – and against some accents more than others, and that many people tune out when they hear an accent – often because they lack the confidence to try to understand.  But having an accent is also something to be proud of – because you did learn to speak one or more languages other than your native tongue, and because the accent reflects who you are.

Producer Indu Ramesh of Voices and her herbalist friend Gangama travel in rural villages around Bangalore, helping women realize that they have valuable health wisdom in their own traditions. Narrator for WINGS: Nafisa Hoodbhoy.

WINGS' documentary on  the 1991 World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet, convened by Bella Abzug in Miami in 1991, to hammer out women's demands for the UN environment summit in Rio.  Women's Agenda 21 is still ahead of its time today.  Stunning diversity of voices and ingenuity of ideas.

Urvashi Butalia of India and Zubeida Mustafa of Pakistan explain legacies of the separation of their countries in 1947.  Recorded at Westfield State College by Frieda Werden in 2002. Editor: Stacy Pettigrew

Betty Friedan, psychologist, author, media analyst, and a founder of the modern women's movement, died February 8, 2006.  From the WINGS archive, a 1995 address to the American Association of Women in Radio and Television.  Introduction by Nancy Woodhull.  Recording: Flavia Potenza.  Original edit: Melanie West.   Update: Frieda Werden.

In October, Canada re-legalized silicone breast implants after a 14-year moratorium.  The US may be poised to follow suit.  This program updates reports from the 1990s by Women on the Line and WINGS about the harm women report from this type of procedure – and the vast lawsuit women won against manufacturers in 1992.

On the day the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan surrendered Northern Korea to the USSR.  A month later, they ceded Southern Korea to the US. The devastating land war that followed led to permanent US occupation of the South.  In 1999, Koreans began openly discussing the Korean War, which killed 5 million Koreans, half of them women and children, and is not really over yet. Kellia Ramares interviews Hwa-Young Lee of the Pan-Korean Alliance for the Unification of Korea (USA).

Beck Muir of Women on the Line talks with women activists in Australia, the UK and the US about continuing examples of slavery - forced labour - in the world today and efforts to eliminate it.

The 2006, book 1000 Peace Women Across the Globe profiles women jointly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.  They did not win, but the effort raised awareness that peace is built by daily collaborative actions of committed women (and men), and not only a few celebrities.  WINGS producer Nusrat Ara profiles nominees from Indian-administered Kashmir:  Nighat Shafi Pandit’s Human Efforts for Love and Peace (HELP) Foundation assists orphans and widows and promotes inter-communal harmony;. Parveena Ahangar founded the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, which won a government promise to end a practice that disappeared nearly 4000 people in custody;  Dilafrose Qazi runs an engineering college and other programs to help restore educations disrupted by 16 years of war.  Nusrat also visits Darpura, a village with over 300 widows.  Hasina’s, husband was killed for being a militant, Shaha’s was killed by militants.  We closewith two speakers from an event celebrating the peacewoman book: Devaki Jain, a feminist economist from India whose research is used to reshape policy and serve rural women; and Betty Reardon of the USA, founder of the International Institute on Peace Education.  Both were recorded by Lys Anzia.  Editing for WINGS by Agasel Lindawan.  Additional script: Frieda Werden.  Link: www.1000peacewomen.org

Emily Falk is a health researcher and community radio producer, and big sister of Lily Falk. At 9, Lily is old enough for a newly approved vaccine against sexually transmitted forms of human papilloma virus (HPV) believed to be the cause of cervical cancer.
Emily discusses the vaccine with Lily and their parents, Nils and Katherine Falk, and takes their questions to others: Dr. Michelle Seelig, physician; HPV researcher Dr. Susan Baldwin; Dr. Rick Brown, Director of UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research; Dr. Paula Tavrow, Director of the Bixby Program in Population & Reproductive Health at UCLA; and Dr. Doreen Rosenthal, Director of the Key Center for Women's Health in Society, in Melbourne, Australia.

#23-06  Childcare Privatisation - Australia
Time: 28:58

Jen Moore interviews Frieda Werden, co-founder and current producer of Women’s International News Gathering Service, about the lively history of this radio program.

Jewish, Catholic, and Muslim women stand up to sexism and demonstrate how they believe religions should be practiced.    1. Kadima, a Jewish feminist community in Seattle has commissioned the first Torah to be scribed by a woman. On tape: Wendy Graff (Women’s Torah Committee), Aviel Barclay (scribe). Produced by Chana Joffe-Walt. 2. Bridget Mary Meehan, one of 12 women ordained Catholic priests in Julya  2006. Recorded by Vincent of Blast Furnace Radio.   3. Sharifa Khanam of Tamil Nadu, India, founded a growing movement to establish a women’s mosque. Interview produced by Jean Parker. Editor for WINGS, Frieda Werden.  Music (excerpted and re-mixed): “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof (original Broadway cast); “O Ignis Spiritus” by Hildegard von Bingen; muezzin from DC Indymedia.

Produced by Darby Hickey and Selina Musuta of the DC Radio Coop. Sex workers and advocates from around the world (some male voices): Robin Few, Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP-USA) (California); Elena Reynaga, Association of Female Sex Workers of Argentina/Asociacion de Mujeres Trabajadores Sexuales de la Argentina (AMAR); Claire Thibotet, Stella (Montreal, Canada); Jin and Mei, Action For Out Reach (Hong Kong); Catherine Delaney (Canada); Rama, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) (Calcutta, India); Prof. Don Kulick, New York University; Johannes Erikkson (Sweden); Sealing Cheng, Assistant Prof., Wellesley College; Rep Henry Waxman, Ranking Member, US House of Representatives Government Reform Committee; Liad, Israel; Monica Forrester, The 519 Community Center (Toronto, Canada); Catherine Healy, New Zealand Prostitutes Collective. Music excerpts: Salt N Pepa: Let’s Talk About Sex; Fischerspooner: Invisible, The Turn On; City High: What Would You Do?; Demphra: Push; Destiny’s Child: Independent Woman. A version of this program aired in Sprouts, a series produced by and for community radio affiliates of the Pacifica Network.

The medication known as Plan B, emergency contraception, EC, levornorgestrel, or the morning-after pill, is a hormone concoction designed to be taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex.  Like the birth control pill, it prevents ovulation, and may also prevent implantation of a fertilized ovum.  Available without a doctor’s prescription in many countries, Plan B has been a political hot potato in the US, with fundamentalists asserting it was an abortifacient and would encourage sexual immorality.  Frustration over inability to get this pill made non-prescription led Dr. Susan Wood to resign from her post as Assistant Commissioner of the US Food & Drug Administration.  Eventually, political pressure led by US Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton caused the FDA to approve non-prescription dispensing, but only to women 18 and older.  Producer Emily Falk talks with Wood, and with Dr. Susan Baldwin, researcher/ women's health advocate; Dr. Michelle Selig, physican and researcher; an anonymous pharmacist; and Alina and Caroline, women who have used Plan B.  Original music by Mike Lesnick.

Prof. Clauda von Werlhof, Women's Studies, University of Innsbruck, Austria, analyses the rise and maintenance of patriarchy to through a system of war, mythmaking, and private property.  She traces the word private to the root privare - to rob.   Recorded November 13, 2004, at the International Conference on the Gift Economy in Las Vegas, Nevada, convened by Genevieve Vaughan.  Recorded and edited by Frieda Werden; thanks for backup to L.A. Sound Posse.  (Read Vaughan’s new book Homo Donans on line at www.gift-economy.com .)

The Australian state of Victoria criminalized abortion in 1958, but a judge ruled it legal for health reasons in 1969. The state’s ruling party, the Australian Labour Party, has offered to take it out of the Crime Act if they win the next election.  Producer/Host Elanor McInerney of Women on the Line.  Guests: Dr. Leslie Cannold, Reproductive Choice Australia; Dr. Jo Wainer, Dir. Centre for Gender and Medicine, Monash Univ., editor of the book "Lost: Illegal Abortion Stories."  Music: Carrie Ann Cox's "She's Got a Story, Too"; Libana's "A River of Birds."  Contact: www.womenontheline.org.au

Dowry, once a safeguard for brides in India, has become a bribe to the grooms.  Illegal now, it’s still practiced.  Even Muslim families often give dowry in excess of their traditional mahar (which the groom gives the bride).  Discussion hosted by Indu Ramesh in Bangalore, India, with Roopa Tirumalai, history researcher; Hemalata Mahishi, attorney and member of the state women’s commission; Aparna Deavagiri, singer and human resources vice president of a company; village women Nagamani and Chikkiramma, who learned of the law against dowry by watching TV.  Recording by Ramamurty.

Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was the author of The Life and Death of Great American Cities, and a grassroots organizer who prevented freeways from bisecting New York’s Greenwich Village and Toronto’s downtown core.  A proponent of people’s common sense, and an opponent of war, she relocated from the US to Canada to protect her sons from the Vietnam era draft.  One of her last public talks was given in Vancouver BC,  in 2004, to discuss a new book, Dark Age Ahead.  On stage with Jacobs was then- City Councillor Jim Green.  This talk can be found unedited at www.necessaryvoices.org and in 1-hour edited format at http://kootenaycoopradio.com/canadianvoices
Half-hour version re-edited, scripted and narrated by Frieda Werden of WINGS. 

Women on the Line’s Shelagh Ryan conducts interviews about women and circuses:Nicola Brackertz is a lecturer in Circus History at Swinburne University; Ebony is a grad of Australia’s accredited National Institute of Circus Arts, now working professionally; Francesca Scully teaches and performs with the feminist and community-based Women’s Circus. Contact: www.womenontheline.org.au

Rebick answers questions from the audience at the Women in Radio Conference of the NCRA, about podcasting, her media career, and the women's movement in Canada. Questions from the audience re-voiced by Bea Bernhausen of CJSF-FM; recording by Frieda Werden; edited by Bea Bernhausen and Frieda Werden. 

The Canadian feminist with the most media experience, both mainstream and alternative, is probably Judy Rebick. Here she gives the Women in Radio Conference keynote, during the National Campus and Community Radio Conference, June 2006 in Ottawa.

Elanor McInerney of Australia’s Women on the Line interviews three women who have one-woman shows in this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Nelly Thomas, a graduate of the Jeez Louise Funny Women’s Forum now an award-winner for stand-up; Wendy Little, creator of Limited Sedition; and Jo Randerson of New Zealand, another award-winner whose new show’s called Skazzle Dazzle.

Since 1982, feminists in Oslo have had a regular piece of the airwaves. The station is constantly renewed by being passed on to younger women. Frieda Werden interviewed Ingrid Wergeland and Liv Gulbrandsen, producers at this station, in Balatonfured, Hungary, in 1999, about the station, its aims, and its programming. Also heard music from Norwegian women’s bands of the late 1990s. These days, you can listen live to RadiOrakel online at www.radiorakel.no/ -- see also: www.radiorakel.no/Main/English

Speaking at the International Conference on the Gift Economy, Armstrong explains practices of giving, balancing, and leadership among the Nsilx people of the Okanagan Valley in Canada. Armstrong is the author of Whispering in the Shadows (Penticton, BC, Canada: Theytus Books, 2004) and Slash. (Theytus Books, 1988). The unedited version of her speech can be heard at www.radiofeminista.net/nov04/notas/gifteconomy2.htm . Thanks to Genevieve Vaughan, event producer; L.A. Sound Posse, for audio CD. Edited for WINGS by Frieda Werden.

Banned by the Zimbabwean government and without a passport, Violet Gonda pursues her journalism from SW Radio Africa, a London-based shortwave, medium-wave and internet station designed to give news and hope to Zimbabweans resisting the Mugabe regime. Phone interview by CJSF-FM volunteers Elaine Long and Daniela Farrenti is followed by an excerpt from “Arise, Women of Zimbabwe” -- a documentary based on Gonda’s work, which won the top radio award in 2005 from the International Association of Women in Radio & TV. Editing by Elaine Long and Frieda Werden Links: www.iawrt.org ; www.swradioafrica.com .

#51-05 Leslie Feinberg Part II: A-historical gender diversity (28:40)

#50-05 Leslie Feinberg Part I: on the history of gender struggle (28:40)

This 2-part series is based on a highly passionate and witty speech by the “gender queer” author of Stone Butch Blues, Transgender Warriors, Lavender & Red, and Drag King Dreams. Recording and incidental music by Wynde Priddy, originally aired on CJSF-FM. The talk was hosted by the Simon Fraser University Women's Studies Department, as part of their 30th anniversary celebration in February 2006. Re-edit for WINGS series format by Frieda Werden.
Part I: on the history of gender struggle (28:40)
Intro by Helen Leung, Assoc. Prof. of Women's Studies, SFU. This section of Feinberg’s talk includes US and German relationships between sexuality liberation movements and anti-slavery, feminism, and anti-war movements.
A-historical gender diversity (28:40)
Continues to discuss gender as part of a panoply of diversity and a unified basis for struggle. Web link: www.transgenderwarrior.org

1. “Mukhtaran Mai case in Pakistan” – interview with Pakistani journalists Nafisa Hoodbhoy, produced & edited by Frieda Werden;
2. “Grassroots Women’s Tsunami Relief in India,” produced by Jean Parker;
3. “African women at the 2005 UN Commission on the Status of Women Meeting,” produced by Patience Dapaah;
4. “Women in The World’s Parliaments,” courtesy of UN Radio’s “Women” Mr. Anders B. Johnsson [male], Secretary-General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union; Madame Nahayo Immaculée, Speaker of Burundi’s National Assembly , report by Dee Ann Penn; website: http://radio.un.org
5. “Women Workers Still Standing,” from interview with Dr. Karen Messing, produced and edited by Kellia Ramares, interview by Frieda Werden.

Radhika Coomaraswamy Chairs the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, and is the former UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. Irene Khan is the first woman, the first Asian, and the first Muslim, to become Executive Director of Amnesty International. Both spoke on current human rights and women’s rights issues at an International Consultation on Human Rights Defenders, held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in late 2005. Rowan McRae produced this piece for Women on the Line, and shared it with WINGS. More audio from the consultation can be found on the web site www.fire.or.cr/nov05/whrd/audio.htm and the conference report is at www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org.

Deborah Harrison is a Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick who has researched military families from a feminist perspective for 15 years. She finds the military’s emphasis on loyalty and hierarchy and its need to mythologize its members as heroes become forces behind trivializing domestic violence. Harrison addressed a 2004 panel on Militarism, War & Women, at St. Thomas University. Her talk was recorded and edited by Candace Moers, producer of the program F-Words & Ms-Conceptions, at CHSR-FM, in Fredericton, NB, Canada.

Since Katrina and Rita hit, many people have gone to affected areas to help. Producer Melinda Tuhus visits New Orleans and the Bayou country: Mary Lorenzi drives a bus where a busted levee swept a neighbourhood away. Eighty-four-year-old Grace Wright lives without heat or light, fed by the Red Cross and her neighbours. Her Pekingese dog was rescued and returned. Brenda Dardar Robichaux, Chief of the Houma nation, says progress was washed away, but her people kept their spirit. Ruth Reeves, fresh out of grad school, came from New York to rebuild roofs and muck out mud.

In 1996, Australian Senator Brian Harradine sold his vote to block importation of RU-486, the European drug used for non-surgical abortions. While the US and New Zealand have approved the drug as safe and effective, it is unavailable in Australia, and anti-abortion politicians hold the balance of power. Women Senators and MPs have introduced a bill to de-politicize the approval process. Elanor McInerney of Women on the Line interviews Dr. Leslie Cannold, of Reproductive Choice Australia; Dr. Caroline de Costa, professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Senator Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats. (Makers of the drug have refused clinical trials that could lead to the drug’s approval in Canada.)

In Vancouver BC, Frieda Werden interviews Adriana Paz, a feminist radio producer from Bolivia, about the reasons for the recent electoral victory of incoming President Evo Morales – especially the role of women.

A group of producers from the Welfare Radio Collaborative in Oakland, California, made this documentary on the history and value of publicly supported childcare in the US – including its biases and deficiencies. Producers are: Shanina Shumate, Renita Pitts, Sarah Olson, Kimberly Ross and Malikah Floyd.Voices include: Renita Pitts; Malikah Floyd; Shinina Shumate; Lisalyn Jacobs, Vice President of Government relations at Legal Momentum; Edwina Jones; Patty Siegel, executive director of the California Child Care Resource & Referral Network; Rotisha Davis; Tamara Smith and her daughter Ashley Smith; Monique Carter; Nancy Strohl, of the Childcare Law Center; and Mildred Lewis, Program coordinator for CARE (Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education). For more on the Welfare Radio Collaborative, visit www.radioproject.org/desks/welfare_radio.html.

Ergonomics as practiced in French-speaking countries is not just about adjusting your chair when you use a computer; like the original ergonomics of the last century, it studies both physical and social determinants, of physical and mental health at work. In this two-part interview, producer Frieda Werden talks with Professor Karen Messing, a biologist turned ergonomist, and co-founder of the Center for the Study of Biological Interactions between Health and the Environment, at the University of Quebec in Montreal. Messing edited the handbook “Integrating Gender in Ergonomic Analysis,” published by the Technical Bureau of the European Trade Union Confederation, and wrote One-Eyed Science, a book about the failure of scholars to properly research women’s work. She discusses issues involved in cleaning, elementary school teaching, women’s shelter counseling, ergonomics research itself, and retail sales. Her recent article about retail workers is: "Standing Still: Why North American Workers Are Not Insisting on Seats, Despite Known Health Benefits.” Music in Part I is “Bread and Roses,” sung by the Solidarity Notes labour choir of Vancouver BC; from their self-published CD. To order the CD, email: LauraStannard@shaw.ca