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.
December 3, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
A Kenyan in the World
Maimuna Mwidau grew up in a polygamous household. Her father was Mayor of Mombasa and later a Member of Parliament. He saw political "convening power" in this daughter and encouraged her interest in politics. She was educated in Kenya and Canada, and became both a political analyst and an activist for women's political rights. Diana Wanyonyi interviewed her about her work on women's inclusion in Kenya's Constitution and her election observer work in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Somalia. While Mwidau once ran for a political office, she doesn't see a level playing field yet for women in her country, which lags behind many others in that respect. She would like elections to be about the issues, instead of mainly religion, tribe, and party affiliations. She comments on the failure to yet fully implement women's inclusion in politics in Kenya, and the possibility that the constitutional provision might be overturned. Mwidau was honored in 2013 for her work alongside both the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute - the foreign policy funding arms of the two major US political parties. She is a well known political analyst for various media, and is still researching barriers to women's political participation and how to make change.
ListenNovember 26, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
SEWA – Ela Bhatt’s legacy (Part 2)
SEWA [pronounced SAY vah] is a sisterhood of about 2 million women, organized locally and by trades. It operates in at least 16 states of India, plus other countries. Their philosophy is based on Ghandian values of simplicity, truthfulness and non-violence, and on non-hierarchical growth. This program covers examples of their projects, ranging from challenging employers and government to include home-based workers in social protection schemes, to identifying cleaning the trash off the road as part of the care economy. They also start community radio stations!
ListenNovember 19, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
India’s Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – Ela Bhatt’s Legacy (Part 1)
In Gandhi's birthplace, in 1972, a labor lawyer named Ela Bhatt [pronounced Eela But] gave birth to a union comprised of home-based workers, market vendors, cart-pullers and head-load carriers, agricultural and construction laborers, and other unrecognized forms of work done by women. Two producers from Bangalore travelled to Ahmedabad to cover this movement for WINGS. Ela Bhatt died November 2, 2022, but her legacy lives on.
Read MoreNovember 12, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Enslaved in Kuwait
Believing recruiters' lies, "Karine," "Susan" and "Cynthia" flew to Kuwait for well-paying jobs, only to find themselves as housemaids forced to work 18 hours a day, locked in with no means of communication, beaten, hungry, sexually advanced on, robbed of their possessions, and sleeping on the floor. They tell how they got there and how they escaped. Beatrice Titanji, National Vice President of the organization Nkumu Fed Fed. which combats Human Trafficking addresses the plight of these 3 women.
Read MoreNovember 5, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Outside In – A Political Memoir
From 1980 until 2015, Libby Davies represented the political interests of her neighbors, on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, including homeless and under-housed people, sex trade workers, low-waged workers, and people with addictions. In July 2022, she talked and read from her memoir titled "Outside In", about her six terms in city politics and six in Parliament with Canada's New Democratic Party. Issues she raised, like legalizing safe injection sites, decriminalizing sex work, raising minimum wage, and funding a national housing strategy, affected policies and continue to do so today. She also offered a workshop on Lobbying.
Read MoreOctober 29, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Linguist Dale Spender
Dr. Dale Spender is an Australian feminist scholar, teacher, writer and consultant. She argues that in patriarchal societies men control language, and use it to their advantage. Today's program provides a talk by Spender, delivered in San Francisco in 1989, which focuses on her research into characteristics of women's speech. Her findings showed that in conversations with men, women were regularly interrupted and talked far less than half the time; they also skillfully used eliciting cues that were useful - but not respected - in journalism. She states that most women, but few men, used language to create harmony in groups, and that women used language skills to keep men feeling good so that they would not misbehave. Listeners are asked to consider whether this culture of women's language use continues today.
Read MoreOctober 22, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
The Stolen Revolution (Part 2 of 2)
After the revolution of 1979, fundamentalist religious forces took over leadership of Iran. Women initially fought off the decree of mandatory veiling, organizing a large national women's union - but within two years it was too dangerous to go on. Nevertheless, Iranian women are more aware of feminism than ever and have continued to resist however they can until today. Featured Speakers/Guests are Haideh Daragahi, a former professor of English Literature at Tehran University when Khomeini took power; she has lived in Sweden since 1984 and has worked as an academic, women's rights activist and journalist. Also interviewed is Shahin Navai, a former organizer of Iran's national women's union and an entomologist. She now lives in Berlin.
Read MoreOctober 15, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
The Stolen Revolution (Part 1)
Iranian women were at the forefront of the revolution. But after the Shah was deposed and Ayatollah Khomeini returned to the country, the new regime turned against them and everything they had fought for. CBC Radio producer Donya Ziaee interviewed three participants about their thoughts and actions in the time since the Shah's overthrow. Her one-hour documentary, first broadcast on "Ideas," forms a two-part series for WINGS. Today's program features Minoo Jalali and Haideh Daragahi. Minoo Jalaili is a women's rights activist, retired lawyer and chair of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in London, UK. She fled Iran in 1983. Haideh Daragahi was a professor of English Literature at Tehran University when Khomeini took power and has worked as an academic, women's rights activist and journalist. She has lived in Sweden since 1984.
Read MoreOctober 8, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Durga Puja (Kolkata’s festival for a fierce Hindu Goddess)
Durga is a major Hindu Goddess. Puja is a word for any kind of ceremonial worship. But in Kolkata, India, the Durga Puja has a history of being as much or more about public display and festivities, going on for a period of ten days around late September and early October. UNESCO inscribed Kolkata's Durga Puja into its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in December 2021. Our reporter in Kolkata, Kalpana Pradhan, conducted interviews about Durga Puja for WINGS. She found it started out as a private display for Indian elites and their colonizers, then became a public celebration for everyone. Recently, organizations and political parties have been laying claim to festivities - and feminists have claimed women's rights to be celebrants of this powerful goddess, whose powers include the destruction of all evil.
Read MoreOctober 1, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
The Music of Life
Music is a source of harmony in the world, and in the human soul and body, too. Interviewed in her 90s, Isabel Samfield speaks with joy and pride about nearly 90 years of music teaching and directing, and what it has meant in her life and the lives of those around her. Isabel Miriam Leon Samfield (Posner), a lifelong musician and music teacher, died September 12, 2022.
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