WOMEN RISING RADIO profiles women in leadership across the world for peace, ecology, civil society and women’s, children’s and human rights. The series offers them prime air time to speak about their work, their issues, their dreams and visions. We invite you to get to know all these women, and to educate yourself to the issues they are struggling to resolve. We also invite you to take a journey of self-discovery, so that you can consider who you are, what issues are most important to you personally, and how you personally want to work on those issues in this world. So, listen to the voices of your sisters worldwide, explore your own options, and join in, participate in the work, the struggle, the journey.
“Nothing causes more trouble to the established order than women who struggle and dream..”
Those words from the Movimento Sem Terra, the Movement For the Earth, are prophetic. When we women and girls dream, we transform the world. And the transformation of this world for the good, for peace, for justice and for equality must be done by us. We must make the trouble that brings the changes we need and want.
And we know, from looking around the world, that women are still not part of the established order. Not that we don’t do our part. As the Chinese proverb says, “Women hold up half the sky”…but the way the game is still played around the world, we don’t have parity or equality. Only 1% of the world’s assets are in the hands of women. 70% of people living in poverty are women. While women do 70% of the farm work in the world, we own less than 10% of the land. In developed nations, only 33% of managers and administrators are women; 15% in Africa and 13% in Asia and the Pacific. There are only 5 women chief executives in the Fortune 500 companies. And in media, only about 12% of broadcast media “experts” are women.
More often than not, the “established order” means war, economic exploitation of the many by the few, disenfranchisement of the many by the few. Disproportionate among those many are women. Worldwide, women and girls are profoundly impacted by all forms of societal violence, from domestic violence, economic and cultural suppression, to the rape, murder, torture and displacement that are the tragic methods of war. Even in peace time the paradigm of societies is still far from inclusive or egalitarian. This we know. So we struggle and dream. And very many of us manage to accomplish triumphant victories… spearheading work that transforms and uplifts our societies, bringing peace, justice and well-being. And we have the potential to bring our own unique perspective to the work we do, changing the “old boy” paradigm of violence, greed and power politics.
WOMEN RISING RADIO airs 24/7 worldwide with the Progressive Radio Network. We’re archived online at the site of Making Contact. After a creative and productive relationship with Making Contact for over a decade, we are now associated with Media Freedom Foundation – our new fiscal sponsor and the producers of the renowned radio program Project Censored.
About the photograph above, from the Occupy! movement… It says what we want to say, and what the great progressive activist Emma Goldman said: “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution!” We women will shape the yet-to-be-born society with our vision! _____________________________________________________________ REVIEWS OF WOMEN RISING RADIO! MEDIA AND OTHERS:
Here is a review of our program #IV (religious activists) from Dheera Sujan, producer of Vox Humana in the Netherlands. It was published on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX):
Posted on July 08, 2005 at 02:22 AM
Review of Women Rising IV: International Changemakers – Women as Religious Activists
There’s one word that pretty much describes the impact of listening to the 3 women selected to this programme: WOW
Elana Rosenman, Irshad Manji and Regina O’Callahan are all hyper articulate and I could easily listen to each woman for an hour.
Elana Rosenman talks about how the experience of seeing her son all but killed by a suicide bomb attack turned her towards the interfaith movement, her story made all the more powerful by her gentle, reasoning manner. Regina O’Callahan says faith cannot be threatened by knowledge. Irshad Manji mentions that she’d just received yet another death threat on her email saying that what happened to Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh would soon happen to her (he was ritually slaughtered by several stab wounds). Yet she has never wavered from her path – trying to tell the world of the inherent feminism of Islam and to speak against its more fanatic interpretations. She continues to have the courage to speak out – we the broadcasters must give her the forum to do so.
If you’re a station that is looking for intelligent, unbiased and gripping talk content, please play this piece.
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And here’s a recent review by Mark Purcell of Path To The Possible:
Women Rising Radio
BY MARK PURCELL
There is no shortage of alternatives to the soothing, stupefying NPR, but many are shrill or amateurish or just hard to listen to. So I was happy to hear this feature today on activists who are waging creative non-violence. It is part of a long series profiling women (both activists and not) called Women Rising Radio.
From AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:
March 20, 2016
Peter Salmon-Lomas: Women Rising Radio is a great venture & needs to be encouraged by helping to widen knowledge about it. Thank you Lynn for the vital role you have & are playing within this important project. This project can give women who are suffering abuse of any sort , &/or disparity in the work or home environment a sense of belonging & understanding which is essential support for many victims.
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