National • News & Public Affairs
WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service is an all-woman independent radio production company that produces and distributes news and current affairs programs by and about women around the world.
WINGS is at different times horrifying, exciting, funny, eye-opening and definitely inspirational. — Nikki Reece, program producer, Plains FM, Christchurch, New Zealand
WINGS: Women’s International News Gathering Service is an all-woman independent radio production company that produces and distributes news and current affairs programs by and about women around the world. WINGS programs are used by non-commercial radio stations, women’s studies, and individuals. Programs can be heard on local radio stations, on shortwave, on the internet, and on cassettes. The WINGS Mailing List provides updates on stories and new information about women’s media. “Though I have been involved in women’s issues for years, I was still struck by the contrast of your broadcast to the news we are usually hearing — news reflecting male interests in a basically male world. Women’s affairs are a hidden current in the flow of world events.”– Kristin Reilly, listener, Buffalo, New YorkWINGS Mailing List:E-mail [email protected] to receive periodic e-mail updates about WINGS programs and women’s media issues.
Recent Episodes
May 21, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
WINGS’ 36th Anniversary
May 13, 2022, is the 36th anniversary of the release of WINGS' first edition. Much of the early history and the ongoing philosophy of the program was covered in this 20th anniversary interview conducted by Jennifer Moore. This program's featured guest is Frieda Werden, co-founder of WINGS (Women's International News Gathering Service).
ListenMay 14, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Accounting for Whom? (Marilyn Waring vs. the GDP )
Marilyn Waring, former chair of the Public Expenditures Committee of New Zealand's Parliament, asserts and documents that the UN-prescribed system of international accounts was designed to justify expenditures on war, that it serves weapons manufacturers very well, and has severe deficiencies as a set of decision-making statistics for governance. She gives examples from various countries of the perverse results of using money annually spent as the only measure of value and national success and taking no notice of other human activity or environmental conditions.
ListenMay 7, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Birthkeepers
Today's program discusses how midwives' care empowers birthing mothers in remote communities and disaster zones. In September 2021, Ibu Robin Lim addressed a Maternal Gift Economy Rising Salon via Zoom from Indonesia. We share excerpts from her slide talk, covering a combination of modern and traditional midwifery practices, the importance of love and caring to help women give birth in the best possible way even during the many disasters in the regions where she works, and criticism of colonization of the birth process. Mentioned near the end are the herb Andrographis paniculata and the International Childbirth Initiative https://icichildbirth.org/. Ibu Robin Lim is a Filipino-Micronesian-American Certified Professional midwife, whose passion is Human Rights in Childbirth. Her nonprofit organization in Indonesia is called Yayasan Bumi Sehat.
Read MoreApril 30, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Butch Is Not a Dirty Word
Women who find themselves "on the masculine side of center" often experience disapproval, rejection, and pressures to change. Today's guests, associates of "Butch Is Not a Dirty Word" (an Australian magazine and organization designed to admire, appreciate, and network those who live with butch identity) talk about their experiences in queer and straight settings, including overriding the butch/femme binary as a butch/butch couple; the pressures attendant on butch motherhood; views of butchness in communities of colour in the US and Australia; and the power to be comfortable in one's own preferred self-presentation and identity. Various butch identities are referenced, including trans butch.
Read MoreApril 23, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Mary Daly Meets 3rd Wave
This is one of the last interviews with Mary Daly; time traveler, theologian and radical feminist pirate. Mary Daly, a Catholic theologian born in 1928, became a fierce feminist critic of patriarchal religion. Her first books were "The Church and the Second Sex" in 1968, and "Beyond God the Father" in 1973. Her later works were famously full of outrage and playful language. In 1999, Daly lost her job at Boston College for insisting on teaching a class to women only. The last of her 9 books, released in 2006, is titled "Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big." Mara Williams (DJ Cariad), a third wave feminist, reached across the generation gap to talk with Daly about it on campus radio KDVS at University of California, Davis.
Read MoreApril 16, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Model Matriarchy (the Iroquois example of women’s responsible power)
Barbara Alice Mann, PhD, describes the inner workings of a long-established North American matriarchal society where women led the arrangement of life, including festivals, collective decision-making, management of longhouses, food storage, marriages, child rearing, inheritance, rotating land use, agriculture, food storage, sharing, gift-giving and war and peace. The program is introduced by Bernedette Muthien, a KhoeSan scholar/activist from South Africa.
Read MoreApril 9, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Irish Grannies Rage for Peace (and for Ireland’s neutrality)
Today's program is a documentary created by Margaretta D'Arcy which includes songs and lyrics by Galway's Raging Grannies and other granny groups, addresses Ireland's neutrality and its erosion (especially in allowing US military use of Shannon airport) and provides some Irish public opinion.
Read MoreApril 2, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Good Parliaments (gender sensitization in action )
This program provides a deep look at a long term process to make the world's parliaments and legislatures gender equitable, gender sensitive, diverse and a more humane workplace. Thanks to research, the creation of processes and handbooks, and outright pressure, the institutions show signs of giving in. The discussion is international, but with special attention to Canada and BC, and the UK.
Read MoreMarch 26, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Food Sovereignty (a grassroots movement in India)
The so-called Green Revolution in India increased one measure of "productivity" at the cost of much else, including nutrition, sustainability, loss of biodiversity, and local loss of control. The Green Foundation based in Karnataka state started by encouraging local seed-saving and has built a network of women farmers who also process their own crops locally - a growing trend in opposition to multinational corporate ag.
Read MoreMarch 19, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Solar Nuns of Pakistan (changing lives by bringing light)
Two young women with a mission to help the poor found their calling as both nuns and solar installers, bringing reliable electricity to communities where the electric grid is absent, or expensive and inconsistent. Doubly unusual in a primarily male-dominated Muslim society, they have persisted in sharing education, skills and technology with those who can use those things to progress in their lives. They help people overcome the unreliability of the local electric grid to run lights, electric fans, and more.
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