Women on the Line

Elousie Cobell was a Native American tribal elder, activist and banker. While treasurer of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, in the United States, she showed up many financial irregularities and deep mismanagement in trust funds held by the US government. This week’s show is about her case action lawsuit  which started in 1996, settling in 2010, where Cobell recovered royalties for 500,000 individua...

This week on Women on the Line we bring you an interview with the late Lisa Bellear. This interview was conducted by Women on the Line in 1992 and is part of 3CR's First Nations oral history project, Black Gold. In this interview Lisa describes her experiences growing up as an Aboriginal women of the stolen generation as well as her activism. Lady Lash - Memory Chambers

Clementine Ford is an Australian feminist writer, broadcaster and public speaker. She has a regular column in Daily Life. In 2015, Ford received abusive messages online and responded by making some of these messages public. In September 2016, Clementine Ford released her debut book, Fight Like a Girl, and here she reads the final chapter of this book to the Listen Conference, held in Melbourne in...

Clementine Ford is an Australian feminist writer, broadcaster and public speaker. She has a regular column in Daily Life. In 2015, Ford received abusive messages online and responded by making some of these messages public. In September 2016, Clementine Ford released her debut book, Fight Like a Girl, and here she reads the final chapter of this book to the Listen Conference, held in Melbourne in...

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...

We listen to interview with activist, author, academic and prison abolitionist Professor Angela Davis during her visit to the Moroccan Deli-cacy on Lygon Street for a panel discussion organised by the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance and RISE: Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees. Angela was here for Sisters Inside's 'Is Prison Obselete' Conference in Brisbane as well as the University of Mel...

In September 2016, producer Aoife Cooke joined the 'Walk with the Valley' event, walking 100 kilometers to demonstrate commitment to a ‘just transition’ for the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. Participants were walking for the creation of sustainable, dignified jobs for communities working their way out of the climate crisis. With guests Anna Boddenberg and Laura Williams of the Earthworker Cooperativ...

Today on Women on the Line, we look at a dispute at Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India factory in the North Indian State of Rajastan. The workers there have been on a hunger strike for over 3 weeks now following their dismissal over a campaign to try to form a union. Shivani Kaur discusses the issues specific to this dispute, strategies that work, and strategies that don't work to win industrial d...

This week on Women on the Line we bring you an interview with Alok Vaid-Menon from trans south asian performance art duo DarkMatter. Women on the Line was able to speak with Alok in New York City in August earlier this year in anticipation of their current visit to Australia and appearances in Melbourne this week. In this episode we chat about Alok's work, labour and social media, the relationship...

It's an exciting time for art in Australia and on this week's show we speak with two wonderful artists, Thando Sikwila and Amie Batalabasi about the work they're doing. Thando is a musician and actor, currently playing Shug Avery in the upcoming Australian production of The Color Purple at Chapel off Chapel launching on October 13. We chat with her about what it means to for Australian theatre to...

This week on Women on the Line we play a repeat of a show from June 2016 where we look at climate issues, specifically coral bleaching in Australia. Listeners may have heard the news that on average 35% of the coral across the Great Barrier Reef is dead or dying. To take a closer look at this phenomenon, first we speak with Dr Mia Hoogenboom from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies...

During Melbourne Writers Festival, we spoke to two writers making significant waves with their literature this year. Charlotte Wood picked up the Stella prize for The Natural Way of Things, while Fiona Wright won the Kibble Literary Award for her memoir Small Acts of Disappearance. Books available to purchase: www.readings.com.auAlso mentioned: www.archermagazine.com.au

[Image: Menstrual Designer Jen Lewis and Photographer Rob Lewis]This week’s show is about periods - the monthly mess we both celebrate and shy away from. There is recurring taboo around monthly cycles in pop culture, but at the same time, a neverending supply of goofy jokes have worn thin. But new levels of comfort talking about periods is shifting from the comedy circuit to both the union floor a...

This week’s show tells the story of the ‘Jobs for Women Campaign’ of the 1980s in Wollongong, New South Wales. Feminist-socialists and migrant women took on Australia’s then biggest employer, and won the right to work in male-dominated spaces. We’re joined by activist and former employee at the steelworks, Robynne Murphy. To support the Jobs for Women film, see their Facebook page, email jobsforwo...

What is gentrification and how does it work? This week on Women on the Line we bring you a snapshot of activism around gentrification, racism and police violence from Brooklyn, New York City. On August 13 community group Equality for Flatbush held a march against Gentrification, Racism and Police Violence in Flatbush and East Flatbush. Flatbush is a neighbourhood in the heart of Brooklyn, and Wome...

Karen Pickering is a feminist presenter, writer and educator and founder of Cherchez La Femme is Melbourne’s monthly talkshow of popular culture, news and current affairs from an unapologetically feminist angle. Her latest achievement is the publication of a book through University of Queensland Press, Doing It: Women Tell The Truth About Great Sex. We chat to Karen about her motivations, her expe...

Cash Savage and the Last Drinks are one of Melbourne's stalwart live bands, well-known for their magnetic on-stage performance. We speak to Cash Savage (singer and songwriter) and Kat Mear (fiddle and back-up vocals) about their new album, touring, grief and being women in music. Trigger Warning: This conversation includes brief discussions of death, grief and suicide. For support, call Beyond Blu...

This week on Women on the Line we’ll be bringing you a sonically diverse show featuring excerpts from “Poetry and Noise,” an evening of contemporary performances presented by Molten Upset which took place at West Space on 30 June 2016. Molten Upset is the collaborative project of poet Autumn Royal and noise musician Lisa Lerkenfeldt, who co-curated the evening with the intention of generating spac...

We chat with the wonderful artist and educator Grace Vanilau about her work in decolonising arts spaces and her involvement the West Writers Forum: Our Stories. Grace explains what it means to decolonise arts spaces and engage in thoughtful arts practices. We also hear three beautiful poetry pieces by the incomparable Mahogany L. Browne in preparation for One Night Stanza, the performance event at...

Women on the Line teams up with the Women's International News Gathering Service for this week's show. WINGS producer Smita Ramanathan traveled to Kerala to meet the ‘Pembillai Orumai’ or ‘Women’s Unity’ group. They are women tea worker leaders who led 10,000 people on strike to negotiate for their own wages, hours, and amenities in September 2015. And they did it without the support of their unio...

This week we talk universities. We explore how students of colour navigate these very white institutions and what services are available for them. Karen Jackson, director of Moondani Balluk Academic Unit at Victoria University and Betty Belay, the ethno-cultural students officer at the National Union for Students give us an idea of the issues faced, how they're being tackled and what more needs to...

This week on Women on the Line we’ll be presenting a snapshot of activism currently taking place around housing and homelessness in Melbourne. On the weekend of the 25th and 26th of June, in the lead up to the federal election, Women on the Line went along to two separate events took place in Melbourne CBD around housing and homelessness.https://www.facebook.com/expertsXexperience/https://www.face...

Note: this show contains sexually explicit language. Women On The Line is joined by Sista Zai Zanda, organiser of a special live radio event, Revelations. We explore what it means to be of African descent in a colonised world, and how art and poetry can lift and take space to re-imagine these identities in Australia today. This show features poetry, spoken word and dub poetry from a radio event in...

Youth Empowerment Against HIV/AIDS, or YEAH, Australia's only youth-led sexual health program, has lost its core funding from our federal government, and will close on June 30 without a lifeline. We interview the org's founder about how we can help save YEAH.Featuring: Alischa Ross; Claire ButselaarMore info: yeah.org.auSign the petition: yeah.org.au/sign 

The Pin is a discussion platform run by biracial Australians for all Australians. It exists to spark conversations about race, identity and culture through honest discussion. We speak with Lucie and Nkechi, co-founders of The Pin about all things representation and expression in Australia.