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.
Upcoming Episodes
May 4, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Red Rosa (Mayday Special)
Rosa Luxemburg was one of the most influential political theorists of her day. She lived from 1871 until 1919, when she was assassinated by the newly-elected socialist government of Germany. Luxemburg had written that socialism by gradual reform of the capitalist-oriented system would never provide for the needs of workers and that only revolution could do the job. She was strongly in favour of the innovation of May First as International Labour Day. In many countries, it's still a national holiday - but it originated as a day for workers across the globe to stop work and show their collective power. Rosa Luxemburg's life was complicated, but one author boiled it down to a popular book, "Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg." Here are excerpts from an interview with the author of that book, Kate Evans - courtesy of Mitchel Cohen of community radio WBAI in New York City.
Read MoreApril 27, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
The Motherworld (vs. the sky god )
Barbara Alice Mann, Ph.D., is a longtime Professor of Humanities at the University of Toledo. Among her numerous books are "Daughters of Mother Earth" (paperback as "Make a Beautiful Way") and "Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas." She is an Ohio Bear Clan Senece community member and lives in her Ohio homeland. This talk was her keynote speech to the event A (M)otherworld Is Possible, which was held in Toronto and was embedded in the 2nd World Congress on Matriarchal Studies, 2009. She contrasts the all-inclusive indigenous world with hierarchically imposed culture.
ListenApril 20, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
New Witches (Canadians re-creating the craft)
Two Canadians (one from a Scottish background and one from a Romanian background) discuss their historic links to witchcraft, their self-discovery as witches, and their analyses of what is happening with the craft. Featured speakers are Andra Zlatescu, musician, and Laura Hokstad, podcast host - both being Canadian witches.
ListenApril 13, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Matriarchal Societies
Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth, while on a tour of North America in 2013, discussed her latest book translated into English: "Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe." She was interviewed in Canada by Kristin Schwartz. The author explained that matriarchy does not mean rule by women, but rather that mothers/mother figures are the central organizers of these societies that prioritize the welfare of children, consensus decision-making, and role divisions based upon individuals' gender role choices rather than on biological sex lines. Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a German feminist and scholar, a founder of the modern matriarchal studies movement, and of the International Academy for Modern Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality (HAGIA).
Read MoreApril 6, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Not In Our Names
Many Jews today condemn Israel's holocaust against the people of Gaza and their civilization, asserting "Not in our names." But the current military frenzy is part of a long violent process. From the WINGS archives, 1990, six Jewish women from Israel and the US, tell Susan Rivo what opened their eyes, and made them say "Not In Our Names." Speakers in today's program are: Miranda Bergman, Break the Silence Mural Project; Marcia Freedman, former member Israeli Knesset; Penny Rosenwasser, journalist; Bracha Serri, Yemenite Israeli peace activist and poet; Naomi Seidman, student of Hebrew literature; and, Barbara Lubin, Executive Director, Middle East Childrens Alliance.
Read MoreMarch 23, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Suppressed Histories Archives
Women's International News Gathering Service (WINGS) contributor Mindy Ran interviewed Max Dash in Amsterdam via zoom in March 2024, for Women's History Month. Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women's history from an international perspective. She built a collection of more than 50,000 images (Website: suppressedhistories.net). In the interview, Dashu explains how and why she started the Suppressed Histories Archive and explains some of the obstacles and complications in appropriately finding and interrogating the biases of various kind of sources. She notes how the technical demands and opportunities have arisen for the project over its 54 years and her hopes for making the entire collection searchable and accessible.
Read MoreMarch 16, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Kenyans Walk for Palestine
The African Union has declared full support for Palestine, condemned Israel's actions in Gaza, and requested its 55 member states "to end all direct and indirect trade, scientific and cultural exchanges with Israel." But Kenya's government has pledged solidarity with Israel, and met large pro-Palestine demonstrations in the capital Nairobi with tear gas and arrests. On February 24th, 2024, hundreds of people took to the streets in Kenya's second-largest city Mombasa, to "walk for Palestine" - among them, women and children carrying placards condemning the ongoing killing. The interviewees provided local, national and international perspectives, and share recent statistics about destruction of Gaza and Gazans.
Read MoreMarch 9, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Truth To Power (women journalists vs. censorship)
The most dangerous job in journalism involves reporting on the wrongdoing of governments, corporations, and major criminals in one's own country. Forms of censorship can include imprisonment and death, even in alleged democracies. The women in this program spoke on a panel at a conference themed "Speaking Truth to Power" in Delhi in 2015.
Read MoreMarch 2, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Structural Adjustment (an economic tool to exploit women)
Structural Adjustment is the name of an economic regime imposed mainly on less developed countries that enforces drastic cuts to public employment and services spending in exchange for international lending. It also mandates privatization and opening to foreign investment, and pushes the resulting hardships largely onto women and their families. Speakers are Jamaican radio journalist and host Barbara Gloudon, and the following economists: Peggy Antrobus from the Caribbean and Gita Sen from India, founding members of DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era - an organization of economists from the global South); Elizabeth Lwanga-Okwenje, African Region Director, Oxfam America; Elaine Zuckerman, former employee of World Bank; and Alice Rivlin, Brookings Institution.
Read MoreFebruary 24, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Power Race Sex
For US Black History Month, today's program provides excerpts from a very vibrant - almost rollicking discussion among distinctive viewpoints on Black women's power and that of their communities from the panel "Power: Is It a Sexual Thing?" at the National Association of Black Journalists conference, 1991, held in Kansas City, Missouri (updated to 2024). The Moderator is Beverly "Bevy" Smith from Black Entertainment TV. Panelists: economist and columnist Julianne Malveaux; Gwendolyn Grant from the Kansas City Urban League and KCTP public TV; columnist Dorothy Butler Gilliam, first African American woman reporter at The Washington Post; and, anthropologist Niara Sudarkasa, president of Lincoln University.
Read MoreFebruary 17, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Accented English
Why do people whose first language is not English have different accents? How do North Americans' reactions to that affect the immigrants' lives? How can North Americans learn to listen better and with respect instead of stigma? Today's program addresses these questions and features: Rosina Lippi-Green, PhD in Linguistics and author of "English with an Accent"; Evelyne Ello-Hart of Cote d'Ivoire, program supervisor for the Africa Womens Coalition in Portland, Oregon (whom speaks seven languages, including Italian); a woman from Laos who works for the Refugee Resettlement Program whom speaks Vietnamese, Laotian Thai, variants of Chinese, and English; Dora Reina, an accountant from Mexico, living in the US and taking English classes; and, Tracey Derwing, PhD, professor in the TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) program in Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta, who co-directed the Prairie Metropolis Research Centre of Excellence for Research on Migration and Integration (she researched how to teach native speakers of English to become better listeners to people with different accents and she is the lead author of the book "Pronunciation Fundamentals").
Read More