March 18th: Women's Magazine: Aging Women, Housing Rights & Domestic Violence

"How we treat people in this country--it's shameful." Rose Aguilar

The connections between domestic abuse and homelessness, issues that are increasingly affecting an aging population of women in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, and leaving some women sleeping in plastic chairs. Do we have a real quest to invest in affordable housing in San Francisco? Or is City Hall too focused on tax breaks for new downtown businesses inviting higher rents? What are our priorities as we move forward as a City and as a nation?

 Rose Aguilar talks about older homeless women in San Francisco.

• Valerie Ibarra of Mutiny Radio interviews Rose Aguilar - Host of "Your Call" on KALW 91.7, author of "Old, Female and Homeless" in The Nation, February 13th. There are 19,000 older adults living below the poverty line in San Francisco. There is not enough affordable housing and the problem is getting worse. According to the Coalition on Homelessness, there are over 40,000 homeless seniors in this country. The amount of money spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in one month could house everyone in this country for a year. These are just a couple of astonishing facts presented in this segment with Rose Aguilar. She gives an up close and personal perspective of what it's like to be on the streets of San Francisco, how easily it can happen, what is being done about it and the huge challenge of fixing the ever-growing tragedy of homelessness.
• Resources for homeless people: St. Anthony's feeds, houses, clothes and provides other services. Mission Neighborhood Health Center offers health care, laundry services, showers and Ladies Night every Thursday. A Woman's Place, formerly OSHUN emergency shelter for women.

Listen now or Get MP3 21:53 min.

 One of the leading causes of homelessness is domestic violence.

• Lindsay Sweetnam, Community Programs Director of La Casa de las Madres, talks about La Casa, which provides a range of domestic violence services in San Francisco.

• La Casa de las Madres was founded in 1976 by a group of women who were survivors of domestic violence. It houses 35 women and children every night for up to 8 weeks in a safe, supportive, non-judgmental environment. La Casa provides many other services including counseling, support groups, education, legal support, referrals, and case management. They have two advocates working with the police at 850 Bryant and run 24 hour hot lines for help with domestic violence issues, including a hotline for teens.

• 24-hour hotline: 877-503-1850.
• 24-hour hotline for teens: 877-923-0700.

Listen now or Get MP3 34:58 min.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:51 min.

March 11, 2013: Special International Women's Day Edition

 On this exciting edition of Women's Magazine:

• URGENT ACTION FUND FOR WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS

“We need students, we need housewives, we need professional people, we need high profile people like religious leaders and actors, and singers and musicians, to all speak out in one voice against violence against women. One Billion Rising provides us with that opportunity.” – Sunila Abeysekera 

www.urgentactionfund.org

Kate Raphael speaks with Kate Kroeger, executive director of the Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights, which provides funding to grassroots women's organizations in the Global South on an emergency basis, responding to applications in any language within 72 hours.

• LABYRIS, the LGBT organization in Kyrgyzstan

 Anna Kirei, cofounder of Labyris, the LGBT organization in Kyrgyzstan, discusses the queer and feminist movements in the former Soviet Union and especially in Central Asia.  She also talks about the commercialization of International Women's Day in the Soviet Union.

Click here to listen to this segment. 27:20 min.

or Get MP3

• Rally to save City College, Thursday, March 14, 2013 at 4:00 PM in front of City Hall, San Francisco. More info at www.saveccsf.org

•  Workers at Walmart organize for respect, better wages and affordable healthcare.

And in keeping with the labor origins of International Women's Day as International Working Women's Day, also hear from Venanzi Luna of OURWalmart about the ongoing struggle for justice at the nation's largest private employer.



Listen now. 20:47 min.

or Get MP3

• Register now for the 6th Annual Bay Area Arab Women's Conference. $15 for students, $25 general admissions. Registration fee includes lunch.

Click to listen to the entire show and to hear about other fabulous events for Women's History Month. 59:51 min.

February 11, 2013: Raising Women's Voices

Today we look at four women-led media projects

First up, we hear from three recipients of the 2012 Media Equity Collaborative awards, and from the founder of the collaborative, Ariel Dougherty.

• Susana Morris, member of Crunk Feminist Collective, which "aims to articulate a crunk feminist consciousness for women and men of color, who came of age in the Hip Hop Generation."
• Angela Tucker, producer of the hugely popular web TV series, Black Folks Don't.
• Kellia Ramares-Watson, investigative journalist, working on a project on how Big Pharma and government institutions are combining to push psychiatric drugs.

Listen to the interview (22:13):



or Get MP3.

Support Media Equity Collaborative.

Sauda Burch and Xochipala Maes Valdez are the coeditors of Road to Ife, a multimedia journal of spirituality and activism.  Ifa is an ancient spiritual tradition from West Africa, that traveled to the Americas with the slaves.  It evolved differently in every community, and has practitioners all over the world.  With this new venture, initiates, writers and artists Burch and Valdez strive to address the needs of Ifa practitioners and connect with practitioners of other earth-centered traditions.

Listen now (25:44):


or Get MP3.

Two weeks ago, over 400 people from all over California marched and rallied at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.  Family members and friends of incarcerated women along with social justice activists from every community came together to protest the overcrowding and mistreatment of women being squeezed into even more crowded conditions as Valley State Women's Prison is being converted to a men's prison.  Governor Jerry Brown says the crisis over overcrowding and inadequate health care in California's prison system is over, but those with first-hand knowledge of the conditions for women disagree.

Listen now (5:55):


or Get MP3.

Listen to the entire show, including information about Thursday's One Billion Rising events.

Break the Chains: Forty Years After Roe v. Wade

Global Val speaks with Mona Lisa Wallace, a civil rights and environmental justice attorney and president of San Francisco NOW, and Rose Aguilar, host of the daily call-in show Your Call on KALW 91.7. We discuss the state of women's rights in our country 40 years after the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. We'll also be reporting on Eve Ensler's V-DAY (Feb. 14th) campaign this year called "One Billion Rising" which encourages people to Strike!Dance!Rise! and demand an end to violence against women around the world. The number is based on a United Nations study showing that 1 in 3 women on our planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime.

Listen now:


or Download the show.

Join us for the East Bay celebration of One Billion Rising. Night for the One Billion is a performance ritual featuring Bay Area artists and healers. 7:00 to 9:00pm at the First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway Street Oakland. Thank you all for those who have signed up to volunteer. We no longer need volunteers for the event.

Bay Area Rising--performers, ritualists, and advocates for women and girls--are offering a community-based performance ritual as an accumulation of energy and joy after a day of actions with One Billion Rising. Join Holly Near, Jennifer Berezan, Destiny Arts, Fat Chance Belly Dance, Dance Brigade, Grrl Brigade, Gina Breedlove, Afia Walking Tree, Mona de Vestel, Shelley Doty, Arisika Razak, Richelle Donigan, Eve Decker, Youth Speaks, Luisah Teish, Hand to Hand, and Chhoti Maa for an evening of beauty, community, and holding the collective consciousness for a violence-free planet.

Tickets purchased via Brown Paper Tickets are sliding scale $20-50. 100% of proceeds go to IDEX women’s projects around the world http://www.idex.org/ and local organizations serving women and girls. First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway Street Oakland. A social justice community.

For more information and/or Volunteer: www.bayarearising.org
To purchase tickets to the event, please visit: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/312857
To donate, please go to: http://www.razoo.com/story/Bay-Area-Rising?referral_code=share

The United Nations has declared that one billion women on the planet have suffered gender violence. Join 1 billion rising activities on February 14th. Be part of the change!

Get involved -- find a One Billion Rising event in your community

January 28th: "The Rhythm of Change"

Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin from her Blog

Sharon Sobotta hosted and produced today's show with a journalism class from St. Mary's College. This is a broad spectrum hour that talks about violence against women, restorative justice, Black History Month, and wholistic changes in the world today. Many amazing women participate in this Women's Magazine, including Betty Reid Soskin, the oldest National Park Ranger; Latoya Peterson from Racialicious; Julia Barboza and Leticia Brea from Bayview Hunters Point Foundation; Erin Baker, director of Heartbeat of a Planet; an interview with New Delhi native Roos Pal, Sujatha Baliga, Director of the Restorative Justice Project in Oakland, and Justa Gutierrez, the founder of an up and coming social justice website called 'likeyoumeanit.com. 1 hour.


Click here to hear the entire show.

January 14, Stories of Solidarity and Survival

Does India have a "rape culture?"

Vigil for New Delhi Rape Victim, Dec. 28th, 2012

We've all heard about the recent gang rape in India and the protest movement around that, but how unusual is that case? Does India have more or less of a "rape culture" than the U.S.? Preeti Mangala Shekar, Director of Narika, Amita Swadhin, Director of L.A. Peer Health Exchange, with Robynn Takayama of APEX Express.

Get MP3 or Listen now. 24:42 min.



The rise of Islamophibia and how feminists can stop it

Photo from Iranreview.org

Why are hate crimes against Muslim and South Asian people on the rise? And what can feminists do to stop that? Sabiha Basrai and Nadia Hussain of Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA) and the new zine, Totally Radical Muslims, have some very concrete suggestions.

Get MP3 or Listen now. 23:05 min.

Click to Listen to entire show, including tributes to two of our fierce cultural warriors: La Brava, poet, activist and producer on La Onda Bajita here at KPFA, and historian Gerda Lerner, who founded one of the nation's first women's studies programs. 60 min.

Drone Warfare

Val Ibarra of Mutiny Radio presents

Code Pink Delegates Report: CIA's Drone War in Pakistan

Interviews with delegates from the Code Pink trip to Pakistan in October 2012. Guests include Medea Benjamin (co-founder of Code Pink and Global Exchange, and author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control), as well as Dr. Dianne Budd and Toby Blome who went to protest U.S. drone strikes in the tribal regions of Pakistan. Hear the stories of the people and of the international movement to STOP drone strikes and alert the world to this 21st century arms and surveillance race. Want to know more? Go to droneswatch.org

Get MP3 or click to listen now.