Women on the Line

 On this episode of Women on the Line we hear from sex worker artists Rogelio Ruckus, Kayla Tange, and Daphne Nguyen speak to the erotic labour of art, family and futurity. This panel was held as part of ‘The Whore Gaze’– an exhibition curated by Elizabeth Dayton and Kim Ye at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. The exhibition showcased film, videos and a panel that celebrate the legacy of s...

 Trish Hepworth, Deputy CEO for the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and Dr Sarah Mokrzycki, academic in children's literature and creative writing at Victoria University, speak to Frances about the Cumberland city council’s ban of same-sex parenting books in May this year, its reversal, and the importance of free access to information and diverse representation. This conversa...

On this week’s episode, we speak to Sanne de Swart, Coordinator of the Nuclear Free Collective at Friends of the Earth Melbourne, and has been part of the anti-nuclear struggle since 2011 when she joined the ‘Walk Away from Uranium Mining’ event in solidarity with Aboriginal people to push for a ban on uranium mining in Western Australia. With the Coalition’s power plan having thrust nuclear energ...

On this episode of Women on the Line, we head to the Pride In Protest conference ‘Provocations’, which was held on Gadigal Land earlier this month. On International Whore’s Day, June 2nd, Asian migrant sex workers, Damien, Bee and NaMon spoke at the ‘Asian Migrants Sex Workers against the Border Force, racism and deportation!’ panel. Today we hear a portion of the conversation with Bee and NaMon s...

For more than four decades, the Sahrawi people have lived in exile, primarily in refugee camps in the harsh conditions of the Algerian desert. Despite these challenges, Sahrawi women have emerged as the backbone of their communities, driving both day-to-day survival and the broader struggle for self-determination. In this episode, we explore these stories of resistance with Gaby Alamin, a Sahrawi...

According to a 2021 report by the Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing, women on temporary visas experiencing family and domestic violence have been recognised as a particularly marginalised and at-risk cohort. On this episode of Women on the Line we speak with Peggy Kerdo, an experienced human rights lawyer practising mainly in immigration and refugee law, about working with clients on tempora...

On this week’s episode, we speak to Emily Duyên Đặng about her photovoice gallery project, Overcoming this Grief: Stories from Vietnamese women surviving family violence in Australia. Through photos and text presented in Vietnamese and English, these women share their experiences of migration, family violence and finding safety. In this conversation, Emily talks about her research into family viol...

On this episode of Women on the Line we speak with Cher Tan, who is an essayist, critic and editor based in Narrm. She previously lived in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide and Singapore, where she was born and raised. Cher Tan recently published her first book titled ‘Peripathetic: Notes on (un)belonging’ through UNSW Press. She chats about (un)belonging, the internet and writing her first book. You can find...

In today's episode, Professor Marianne Hanson, co-chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, joins us to discuss the increasing US-Australian military ties and the militarisation of Australian society and the education sector. This is a two-part interview; the second part will be broadcast in August. Later, we headed down to the University of Melbourne Gaza Solidarity encampme...

This week we head to Istanbul to speak with Tan Safi, a member of the Media Team for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is an international grassroots solidarity movement which is aiming to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza and deliver 5,500 tonnes of vital humanitarian aid by sea. Tan provides an update on what is happening now that the Flotilla has been unable to...

On this week’s episode we speak with human rights activist Khadija Gbla. Khadija was born in Sierra Leone and spent their youth in Gambia before coming to Australia. We talk about their experiences living at the intersections of disability, neurodivergence, queerness and Blackness, their activism in these spaces, and their hopes for young people like themselves. A note that this conversation cover...

On this episode of Women on the Line we continue our conversation with Yeoreum and Udie from Scarlet ChaCha– a sex worker-led organisation in South Korea. On 2 January 2023, the Mayor of Paju announced that he would demolish Paju’s red light district ‘Yongjugol’ within a year. In November last year the demolition commenced, and Scarlet ChaCha has been actively showing up in person for sex workers...

On this episode of Women on the Line we hear from Yeoreum and Udie from Scarlet ChaCha – a sex worker-led organisation in South Korea. On 2 January 2023, the Mayor of Paju announced that he would demolish Paju’s red light district ‘Yongjugol’ within a year. In November last year the demolition commenced, and Scarlet ChaCha has been actively showing up in person for sex workers in Paju’s Yongjugol...

This week on the program we speak with Danielle from Save Public Housing Collective about the Victorian State Government plan to 'retire and transform' 44 public housing towers in narrm Melbourne. While the state government is selling the scheme as an opportunity for improvement and renewal, those against the plan describe a poorly thought through strategy with zero consultation of residents, few...

On this week’s episode we hear from Dacia Abela, lawyer and program manager at Naarm-based Community Legal Centre WEstjustice, about economic abuse in the context of family violence. Dacia takes us through what this looks like on a practical level, the intersections of culture and gender, how CLCs are working to help victim-survivors and raise awareness, and what can be done better to support vict...

On this week’s episode we bring you an excerpt from the Teachers for Palestine Forum called ‘Why There’s No ‘Neutrality’ on Genocide’ that took place in Naarm earlier this year on January 22nd 2024. We play a speech delivered by Samah Sabawi, who is a Palestinian award-winning author, playwright and poet. This forum was organised by Teachers and School Staff for Palestine. Later in the show, we pl...

On this episode of Women on the Line we pay tribute to Cecilia Gentili. She was a mother and sister to many transwomen, migrant women, sex workers and the wider LGBTIQA+ community in New York City and globally. On 6 February 2024, she passed away leaving a burning legacy of love and sisterhood amongst the trans and queer community. We hear snippets from her funeral service held at St Patrick's Cat...

This week on the program we take a deep dive into Victoria’s parole system. First we hear an interview by 3CR Broadcaster Priya Kunjan with Karen Fletcher, Executive Officer of Flat Out about the impact of compounding and increasing barriers to parole on incarcerated people in Victoria. Then we hear Marisa from 3CR’s Doin Time show speaking with Sarah Schwartz, manager of the Wirraway Police and P...

On this week’s episode we talk about birth trauma, why so many women and birthing people in so-called Australia are experiencing it, and how it can be avoided. We revisit a conversation with Naarm-based birth educator Vanessa Shribman from August 2023, a few months after New South Wales began its inquiry into birth trauma, which received over 4000 submissions. The inquiry found that 1 in 3 women e...

Larrakia, Kungarakan, Gurindji and French writer and performer Laniyuk joins us to discuss the campaign to return Lee Point to Larrakia Care, as well as the history of the Australian and US defence forces' militarised occupation of Larrakia Country. Interspersed through this conversation, you’ll also hear from several Larrakia women - Jamilah Mills, Arbei Talbot, Hayley Mcadam, Aunty Aly Mills, an...

On this episode of Women on the Line we speak with Ryan and Sangwon from Bae Collective 배 컬렉티브. This collective aims to connect and build a community of Korean queer and trans folks who are living, working or studying in Naarm (Melbourne, so-called Australia). We chat about the dreams of Bae Collective and also this lunar new year of the Wood Dragon which officially kicked off on the 10 Febru...

This week on the program we hear from two of the speakers at the narrm Melbourne Invasion Day rally held on January 26.First we hear from Gunditjmara, Girai Wurrung and Djab Wurrung woman Sissy Austin. Then we hear the first part of a speech by Gunggari woman Dr Raelene Nixon, speaking about the death of her son Steven Lee Nixon-McKellar in police custody in Toowoomba in October 2021.#Justice4Stev...

On this week’s episode we hear from Jaya Keaney, author of Making Gaybies: Queer Reproduction and Multiracial Feeling, published with Duke University Press. Jaya is a lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Melbourne, where she researches and teaches in the areas of feminist science studies, queer studies, and queer of colour theory.  We speak to Jaya about her book, the complexities and i...

On this week’s episode we look into the prison industrial complex in so-called Australia and how private companies profit from the prison system. In particular, we focus on the high cost of phone calls and how this is impacting families and communities. Across the country, calls are free via payphones but in Victoria’s prisons they cost $7 and are limited to 12 minutes. We speak to Sarah Schwartz,...

On this episode of Women on the Line we speak with Lena Chen, a Chinese-American artist and scholar currently pursuing PhD in performance studies at UC Berkeley and her creative practice and academic work looks at Asian womanhood in the diaspora. Today we chat about her draft paper, ‘Performing Power: Asian American Resistance through BDSM’ and the online game ‘Only Bans’ she created to address su...