Women on the Line

This week on the show we head to Westernport on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, where AGL have proposed the Crib Point gas import terminal. We’ll hear about the campaign to stop the floating gas infrastructure project from:- Louise Page of local activist organisation Save Westernport- Zianna Fuad, the coordinator of Quit Coal collective, part of Friends of the Earth Melbourne- Excerpts from...

In Melbourne, as part of a joint investigation between the Royal Melbourne Hospital Refugee Health Program and Cohealth Community Health Service, a team of public health professionals have been conducting research looking into the experience of precarious housing amongst refugees in Melbourne and the perceived health impacts of housing. We speak with Dr Kudzai Kanhutu, an infectious diseases physi...

Salome’s dance of the seven veils is inspiration for the name of a collective of strippers and adult industry performers who have come together to build community and improve working conditions as Salome’s Circle. In the new testament of the Christian bible, Salome danced before Herod with the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter, and has become a symbol of dangerous female seductiveness i...

This episode of Women on The Line we look at women, their bodies and the institutions which attempt to govern us – the health and medical industries. We’ll hear from Sheridon Byrne, a feminist activist, doula and educator, about birth justice and the struggles that women and other birthing people face to birth on their terms. You’ll also hear from Sangeetha Thanapal about issues surrounding fat id...

On this episode of Women on the Line we speak with three female cast members of The Fall - a protest theatre production documenting the South African student movement of 2015. we speak with Ameera Conrad, Thando Mangcu and Tankiso Mamabolo. 

On this week on Women on the Line we take a closer look at the recent changes to the Australian Government's My Health Record system. Earlier this year the Government announced that the system would be changed from an opt-in to opt-out system. What are the implications of these changes? We chat with Katina Michael ,who is a Professor in the School of Computing and Information Technology at the Uni...

Women on the Line hears this week from OWLS, Older Women Lost in Housing. At an event hosted by the Justice Committee of the Victorian Women Lawyers, we hear from two speakers, Penny Leemhuis, an OWLs Advocate, and Lucy Adams from Justice Connect, a Victorian organisation which provides people locked out of the justice system with free legal help. The music for this week's show is Lost in the City...

"Food is more than sustenance and nutrition, it has social, cultural and symbolic meanings which structure not only our daily lives, but also life transitions...Food represents an arena where powerful values and beliefs about being a human are evident. Food practices also demarcate cultural boundaries of belonging and not belonging." (Dr Ruth de Souza, 2017) On today's show we chat with Cinday, ow...

This week on Women on the Line we bring you the second part of the 2018 NAIDOC week panel discussion of Feminism in the Pub, “Because of Her, We Can!” presented by the Victorian Trades Hall Council. Listen back to the first part of the discussion here.  The panel discussion took place on Wednesday July 4 at Trades Hall and featured speakers Celeste Liddle, Marayne Muller and Robyn Oxley in convers...

We commemorate 30 years since the first Fairlea Wring Out demonstration with community activists, academics and prison abolitionists Amanda George and Emma Russell. The first Wring Out Fairlea demonstration was organised by the Coalition Against Women's Imprisonment and took place at the former Fairlea women's prison in Melbourne on 26 June 1988. The Wring Out action was repeated three more times...

‘Aboriginal women have been displaced from being the experts of their birthing experiences through tradition, culture and experience, to being passive recipients of medicalised and institutionalised pregnancy care’ (Ngaanyatjarra Health Service, 2006).We speak with Cherisse Buzzacott, an Arrernte woman from Alice Springs, a midwife and project Officer for Birthing on Country (BoC) - a Project aime...

This week on Women on the Line we bring you excerpts from a special NAIDOC week edition of Feminism in the Pub, “Because of Her, We Can!” presented by the Victorian Trades Hall Council. The panel discussion took place on Wednesday, July 4 at Trades Hall and featured speakers Celeste Liddle, Marayne Muller and Robyn Oxley in conversation with panel chair Edie Shepherd.

A celebration of women in comedy. Comedy is more than just a pleasant way to pass an evening, humour more than something to amuse. It is interwoven into the fabric of our everyday existence - humour is everywhere! However on a professional level, women comics are still fighting the unfunny fight for equal respect, equal opportunity and equal pay. In this episode we chat with Kirsty Webeck, a Melbo...

Mandatory sentencing for attacks on emergency workers are proposed as a tough but fair health and safety measure. Yet this approach has been shown to be ineffective, while devastating the lives of community members with addiction, severe mental health challenges and people subject to family violence. Yet the Victorian State Government is now putting this bill on the table with bipartisan support....

On this episode of Women on the Line we look at race and community care. We chat with Caroline Ridler who is the Coordinator for the Queer Trans Indigenous People of Color (QTIPOC) project at Switchboard Victoria. Caroline chats with us about the upcoming panel she is coordinating and moderating, 'The Qtipoc project presents:Race and Community Care'. She shares with us her insights into anti-racis...

This week on Women on the Line we feature three perspectives on legislation that has a significant impact on people's lives. Jiselle Hanna speaks with Sally Goldner of Transgender Victoria about the end of forced divorce laws for transgender people in Victoria in the wake of marriage equality. Emma Hart speaks with Jane Green of Vixen Collective about recent decisions made by the Victorian Liberal...

On this episode of Women on the Line we chat with two feminist writers of colour about mentorship and writing feminism. We chat with Natalie Kon-Yu about the Feminist Writers Festival, mentorships in the australian literary industry, academia and motherhood. Later in the show we chat with Shu-Ling Chua about memoir writing, mothers and writing sexuality. BiosNatalie Kon-Yu is a creative writer, ed...

Today we look at violence against women and the response of the criminal justice system. The community response is often surrounding the need for greater police responses and a tougher approach on the perpetrators of these violent crimes. But is it within our criminal justice system’s interest to support and empower women?

This week on Women on the Line we chat to Inez Trambas about Negro Speaks of Books. Negro Speaks of Books is an online platform created to host conversations about books written by authors of Colour. Taking its name from the poem ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’ by Langston Hughes, Negro Speaks of Books celebrates the diversity of Bla(c)k literature across the Diaspora, and recognises the necessity of...

On this episode of Women on the Line we look at the recent Trump legislation SESTA/FOSTA and how it impacts sex workers and internet censorship. We chat with Daisy who is the co-founder of All Sex Workers Go To Heaven (ASWGTH) and Sandy who who is a cam model and freelance artist who has studied performance and video art. They chat with us about representation of sex workers on the internet, in fe...

Medically Supervised Injecting Centres have been proven to be an effective way of preventing deaths from from drug overdoses, and helping people to access safe injecting equipment and support services. Late last year a trial of a medically supervised injecting centre for North Richmond in Melbourne was announced by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and is due to start in June this year. This week o...

Mental health advocates have increasingly called for the need to reinstate female-only psychatric wards. These campaigns are about improving the safety and experience of women in crisis, including reducing incidents of sexual assault. This week’s edition of Women on the Line features an interview by Hope Mathumbu with Prof of Psychiatry Jayashri Kulkarni, director of the Monash Alfred Psychiatry R...

On this week's Women on the Line we head to the Bay Area in California and Hong Kong to hear from two artists chat about zines, DIY culture, and making art in their respective hometowns. Multidisciplinary artist and curator Renae Moua chats with us about their art practice, DIY culture, their teaching philosophy and zines! Later in the show, we hear from Elaine W.Ho who chats to us about 展銷場 Di...

On Women on the Line we look into the language of distance. How do we navigate both visible and invisible borders? Where is home and who gets to feel at home? We chat with artist and curator Talia Smith about her upcoming exhibition,I Can See for Miles, held at the Centre for Contemporary Photography. Later in the show, we hear from artist Lana Nguyen who walks across invisible borders everyday. S...

Today on Women on the Line, we look at some research that’s being done in the space of revenge porn, more accurately labelled, image based abuse. Recent research has found that one in five australians has experienced image based abuse, mostly in an online environment. 20 per cent had experienced the non-consensual creation of nude or sexual images11 per cent had experienced the non-consensual dist...