Women on the Line

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. 

This week on Women on the Line we’re going to be looking at climate issues, specifically coral bleaching in Australia. Listeners may have heard the news which has emerged in the last few weeks 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’ll speak with Dr Mia Hoogenboom from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral...

Cherchez La Femme, Melbourne-based feminist group, had an advertisement featuring plus-sized model Tess Holliday banned by Facebook for 'health reasons'. In this week's episode, we express our support for the group, and for Tess, in a show of Australian feminist solidarity. LINKSCherchez La Femme: http://cherchezlafemme.com.auTess Holliday: https://www.facebook.com/TessHollidayOfficial/ 

The Red Pill, Pick-up Artists, the Beta Uprising and MGTOW …the rallying ideas of a bewildering mess of anti-feminist online subcultures. Are these online spaces a meeting place for lonely social misfits, or organising hubs for powerful misogynists and murderers ... and what’s the link to Donald Trump?  This week’s guest Angela Nagle has spent years observing these deeply sexist subcultures, and g...

This episode of Women on the Line we speak to documentary film maker Rihab Charida about her project A Disturbed Earth, in which she embarks on a journey with her father, a Palestinian refugee, back to his home village which was destroyed in 1948.If listeners want to support A Disturbed Earth, crowdfunding for the project via the Australian Cultural Fund is open until May 17 and can be accessed at...

 Black Mist, White Rain was a four city speaking tour presented by ICAN, the International Coalition Against Nuclear Weapons, focussing on the idea that for many people in Australia and the Pacific nuclear weapons are not an abstract threat but a lived reality, and it is indigenous peoples who bear the brunt of this. Exploring the stories of people who live with the ongoing consequences of nuclear...

Sex is a tricky topic: many of us struggle to communicate about sex.  When times get rough, it can feel like there isn’t much guidance out there and it can be hard to recognise our own needs - let alone talk openly about our needs. Amy Middleton speaks to two women experts who empower people to address their desires and learn to speak up about those desires. For more information check out Cyndi’s...

Women with Disabilities Victoria's new programme brings women with disabilities and women working against sexual violence into disability services to work with management, staff and clients as part of the Gender and Disability Workforce Development Programme. In this week's show, we talk to staff and participants to see how it works, and where progress is being made. Thanks to our guests Keran How...

Today, we meet half of Sydney-based feminist cabaret quartet Lady Sings It Better. The troupe perform pop songs with a hilarious and poignant feminist subtext, taking to the stage at comedy festivals, fringe festivals and queer community events around Australia and the world. Amy Middleton chats with artistic director, Maeve Marsden, a writer, producer and performer with a long and impressive hist...

Two members of the excellent Hot Brown Honey team, Busty Beatz and Lisa Fa'alafi come in to chat with us about their Melbourne International Comedy Festival show! Hot Brown Honey is a radical, cheeky, political burlesque show written, performed and invented by a team of Black and Brown women artists across Australia. The show ends in Melbourne on April 16 so get your tickets quick! hotbrownhoney.c...

Cherchez la Femme put together an important discussion on feminism and violence late last year which is especially relevant in light of the release of the family violence report and recommendations from the Victorian Royal Commission. Moderated by Karen Pickering, we listen to a discussion between Celeste Liddle, Grace Lee, Nabila Farhat, Jax Jacki Brown and Fiona McCormack .For more information o...

Money, migration, marriage: After talking to many Anglo-Australian couples while researching her book ‘Marriage Money’, this week’s guest Supriya Singh shows that couples share financial matters not only because it’s practical, but as a way to express commitment in their relationships. Parents may financially support children long into adulthood as a sign of care and support. Yet for many migrant...

We chat to Kaitlyn Plyley, host of monthly podcast ‘Just a Spoonful’ -- which profiles young people living with chronic illness and/or disability. Kaitlyn lives with myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome. Trigger warning: Brief discussion of suicidal thoughtswww.justaspoonfulpodcast.com

 Rack Off! is a feminist music festival which took place on March 5 at the Tote Hotel in Fitzroy, Melbourne in support of YWCA Victoria. All of the 15 bands and artists who played were women and/or gender non-conforming people, or significantly featured women or gender non-conforming people as members. Women on the Line attended the event and spoke to people who performed, attended and did sound,...

We speak with Sri Lankan-Australian musician and activist, ELSZ, about her debut album 'Blue Scar' which centers an “intimate and confronting testimony about gendered violence” with a focus on how it is experienced in Sri Lanka. Women on the Line is also excited to launch the first single 'Poison' on the show just in time for International Women's Day! Women in NeedELSZ's SoundCloudSingle and Vide...

Joan Nestle has led a passionate life of resistance. We talk about her formative years in the criminalised butch-femme bar scene of New York in the 1950s. There she discovered that desire could not be contained. A working class, Jewish lesbian, Nestle celebrated her marginalisation, and her community carved out a space of their own. From there she became involved in political campaigns including c...

Women's Circus is a feminist, community and arts organisation. A central part of the community where it's based in Western Melbourne, they use the medium of circus skills and training to bring women together for social change. Speaking to the Executive Director Devon, trainers Emily and Bianca and participants Olivia and Anj, producer Aoife Cooke looks at what direction Women's Circus will take to...

ID in Me is a workshop series that aims to bring together young women from diverse backgrounds to explore themes relating to identity, gender and culture. We speak with organisers Akimera and Mazna about the importance of such projects and decolonising community and cultural development in Australia. There is a Facebook event page with more information and you can register on the City of Melbourne...

This episode of Women on the Line discusses women and wealth inequality in light of the report "An Economy for the 1%" released by Oxfam in January 2016. We speak with Oxfam Australia chief executive Helen Szoke and Lin Hatfield Dodds, national director of UnitingCare Australia.