Monday, December 28, 2020: India, Farmers, and Democracy

 As we are broadcasting today, and despite the threat of COVID, hundreds of thousands of Sikh and other Indian farmers are protesting in the nation’s capital New Delhi. In this largest organized protest in world history, over 250 million farmers, workers, and their allies are demanding the government to rescind the neoliberal “reform” laws that will basically hand over farming to agribusinesses, thereby destroying the livelihoods of more than half of 1.3 billion Indian people who depend on agriculture. 

Women protesting against farm bills

The so-called reform is aimed at workers in general as well. The protesters are also demanding that Prime Minister Modi rescind a diabolical new law that basically criminalizes dissent and opposition to the government. Yet another threat to democracy in India and worldwide. The violation of Sikh people’s land, rights, and dignity is part of the Indian caste system and has a long history.

Margo Okazawa-Rey produced today’s show with Jagmit Kaur Dhami, one of the youth leaders in the Sikh Indian diaspora organizing to support the farmers movement. She is a second-generation Punjabi American from Bellingham, WA and a recent graduate of Occidental College.  Her roots as a Punjabi and Sikh make her incredibly passionate about the Kisaan Ekta movement. Her parents were farmers in Punjab and she has family currently in India who would be directly affected by the new laws. Jagmit sees social justice, identity, and storytelling as avenues to uplift voice and create change. I agree!

Click here to listen to the show. 59:50 min 

Further Information:

Video overview of protest in India: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CIjDeIrp_xN/?igshid=1dq84ev8lx7uk

Thread describing more in detail the situation: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIQagMrBhJj/

Actions to take:

Email US Congress members to condemn the human rights violations in India: bit.ly/farmers-protest

Text to send emails:

Instagrams to follow with more info:

@sikhexpo

@sikhcoalition

@himmatco

Monday, October 3, 2016: Pakistani Film maker, Maheen Zia

Next up Sharon Sobotta interviews Pakistani film maker Maheen Zia about her newest film, Lyari Notes. Through the lives of Hamza Jafri and his students, Lyari Notes provides an insight into just what it takes to have a voice in a country where self expression and music is often drowned out by cycles of violence…

A unique film project where two filmmakers Maheen (Pakistan) and Miriam Chandy Menacherry (India) collaborate to string a new political discourse through music. Lyari Notes is a project about melting boundaries…in spirit as well as how the film is being made.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:
Oldest Park Ranger, Betty Reid Soskin

Monday, December 7, 2015: Racism and the Global Beauty Industry

What is Colorism? What is Sexual Currency? What is Hip Hop Feminism? A New Look at Beauty

Meeta Rani Jha joins us to discuss her new book, The Global Beauty Industry: Colorism, Racism and the National Body. Kate Raphael talks with Meeta Rani Jha about internal racism as the offspring of or legacy of colonialism and white supremacy and more.

The Global Beauty Industry is an interdisciplinary text that uses beauty to explore topics of gender, race, class, colorism, nation, bodies, multiculturalism, transnationalism, and intersectionality. Integrating materials from a wide range of cultural and geo-political contexts, it coalesces with initiatives to produce more internationally relevant curricula in fields such as sociology, as well as cultural, women's/gender, media, and globalization studies.

This book is available at your local bookstore and online at Amazon.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min.


Also on today's show:
AIDS Activism as a Model for Social Change

Monday, March 30, 2015: India's Daughter

New Film: India's Daughter

Tara Dorabji discusses the controversial new film, INDIA'S DAUGHTER, with filmmaker Leslee Udwin and feminist journalist Padmalatha Ravi.

India’s Daughter, a new documentary of the 2012 brutal gang rape of a 23-year old woman on a Dehli bus who died from the injuries caused from the assault. The film sparked massive debate—India banned it and many feminists critique the work. Padmalatha Ravi, Indian film maker and journalist, discusses her response within the context of India’s feminist movement.

Listen now or Get MP3. 23:33 min.

"This is not an Indian problem, this is a global problem."

India's Daughter and Ravi's film, Good Girls Don't Dance are available on You Tube.

Click here to listen to entire show. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:
Rhodessa Jones' "Birthright?"

April 14, 2014: Kaya Press - 20 Years of Innovative Publishing

MIGRITUDE: Tara Dorabji talks with Shailja Patel, whose one-woman show Migritude, is now a book published by Kaya Press, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this week with a reading at City Lights.

Patel talks about the saris that her mother gave her and how that inspired her to write Migritude. She used these saris to weave a story about the women who migrate from India to East Africa. Patel has performed her show imany places around the world. Shailja will read from her book at City Lights 20th anniversary celebration on Thursday, April 17, 2014, 7:00 p.m., City Lights Bookstore. 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco. The reading will be followed by tiger-themed party at Leapo Lounge in Chinatown.

Listen now:






or Get MP3. 18:12 min.


Listen to entire show: Click here. 59:50 min.

Also on this show:
THE GERMAN DOCTOR: Kate Raphael talks with filmmaker and novelist Lucia Puenzo, whose film THE GERMAN DOCTOR (WAKOLDA), adapted from her novel, opens next week.

YOU, ME, AND THE FRUIT TREES: Filmmaker and activist Tracey Quezada talks about what's wrong with the criminal justice approach to child sexual assault and what we can do to address this public health problem as a community.

December 30, 2013: The Year in Feminism

Producers Eryn Ashleigh Matthewson, Preeti Shekar, Lisa Dettmer and Kate Raphael look back at 2013 and ahead to 2014.  Major points of discussion include Cheryl Sandberg (Lean In) and Beyonce, the annual gathering of UN Women, gang rapes in India, the arrest of Indian diplomat Deyvani Khobragade for visa falsification and underpaying her domestic worker, the commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington and the protests surrounding the George Zimmerman verdict.

We commented on a widening polarization between white and Black feminists and hoped that we will have more opportunity for nuanced dialogue in the coming year.  Several recent videos provide excellent food for thought:







Listen to the full show
 

November 4, 2013 - Kavita Krishnan talks about the Women's movement in India. Choreographer Jo Kreiter discusses her new aerial dance piece.

New Women's Movement in India

Kavita Krishnan

We hear from Indian feminist activist Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, a group that organizes poor women workers against feudal violence and state repression against women. We hear the talk she gave at UC Berkeley this September called Women Want Freedom -- Shifting the Terms of the Debate which is about the uprising that followed the brutal rape and murder last December in India of a young 23 year old woman which lead to a new type of movement against rape which had broad support and which raised important questions of male entitlement that had not been raised so broadly before. And she also raises questions about rape culture in India, the U.S and  internationally and the influence of capitalism and neoliberalism to structurally support all rape culture's by continuing to exploit women's labor in the home and the work place. Kavita Krishnan's talk was sponsored by the Center for South Asia Studies. 45 min.

Dance Explores Women Workers

Pictured: Christine Cali. Photo by Nathan Weyland.

Kate Raphael talks to Choreographer and founder Jo Kreiter who uses dance to engage imagination, physical innovation and the political conflicts we live with. Her pieces have explored the world of women garment workers in San Francisco and the women who worked on the Bay Area's bridges, to name only a few. Her new piece, "Give a Woman a Lift," opens this Friday Nov 8 thru Nov 16 at Joe Goode Annex. 14 min.

Click here to listen to entire show.

 59 min.

August 12: Art & Politics Do Mix

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima

Cecile Pineda, author of Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step-by-Step and Love Queen of the Amazon, talks about Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima, and what we must do to combat the nuclear threat and restore democracy.

"United We Stand Up"

Then comics Dhaya Lakshminarayanan and Shazia Mirza put a hilarious spin on Indian and Pakistani Independence Day, doing comedy for their home crowds and what their Indian and Pakistani families have in common (aren't you married yet?).  We'll have tickets to give away for their upcoming shows, "United We Stand Up."

Abortion Rights Freedom Riders

And sounds from the abortion rights struggle in Fargo, North Dakota, courtesy of the Abortion Rights Freedom Riders.

Click here to listen to the August 12th KPFA Women's Magazine. 59:47 min.

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.

August 22nd: Film, Art and The Intersections Between Them

Viola Davis stars as Abilene in "The Help"

Whether or not you loved The Help you'll appreciate this perspective on the movie based on Kathryn Stockett's novel. Eryn Matthewson speaks with Dr. Brittney Cooper and others about the controversial film, "The Help." Check out Dr. Cooper's blog or contact her.
Read more of what African American feminists have to say about "The Help".
Get MP3 or listen now. 17:48 min.

Preeti Shekar speaks with Aniruddhan Vasudevan about his upcoming show Brinhalla, part of the Queer Eye South Asian LGBT film and art fest. Vasudevan talks about his personal experience as a cross-dresser in traditional Indian dance and many aspects of sexuality and gender in Indian society both political and cultural. His performance will be at the Women's Building in San Francisco this weekend, August 28th at 5PM.

Get MP3 19:37 min. or Listen now.

Kate Raphael talks with Lynn Hershmann Leeson about her documentary, "!Women Art Revolution." Lynn has been filming women artist for four decades and her film features 65 Feminist artists from the 70's, 80's and 90's. Be sure to check out the interactive gallery.  The film opens on August 26th in San Francisco.
Get MP3 or listen now. 17:39 min.

Click here for the entire show as aired on KPFA.

October 25th: Migration Poetry, Feminist Peacemaker Legends, and honoring UNSCR 1325.

We speak with internationally acclaimed poet, performer, and activist - Shailja Patel - about her poetry and new book, Migritude. Historian Louise Knight talks about legendary feminist peacemaker - Jane Addams - as part of a 10 anniversary celebration of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. And of course, we bring you the Women's Community Calendar.

Listen to entire show.

July 6, 2005 Show - India, Cambodia and Feminist Spirituality

Download entire show

This week on Women's Magazine, we talk with Roke Chaudry, member of the South Asian Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans group Trikone, about the historic ruling decriminalizing homosexuality in India.



Also, an interview with Kris Steinnes, founder of Women of Wisdom, about her new book Women of Wisdom: Empowering the Dreams and Spirit of Women and their successful campaign to promote women's spirituality on Amazon.com.



And, Preeti speaks with Cambodian feminist Member of Parliament Mu Sochua, who has been targeted by her government with criminal prosecution because of the feminist policies she has promoted.