Monday, October 8, 2018: Family Stories of Resistance and Resilience - Novelist Barbara Artson

Barbara Artson grew up NOT hearing the stories of her family's exodus from Russia in the early 20th century, or the experiences that led to it, but she saw their impact, in her mother's fear of anything unfamiliar, in her deaf aunt's experience of being cut off from the world and then treated as if she were unintelligent because she was cut off. In her debut novel, Odessa Odessa, Barbara imagines those experiences and uses her knowledge as a psychoanalyst to reflect on how the legacy of trauma affects multiple generations, not only in this country but in Palestine as well. She also connects the story she tells, in which a mother is separated from her son by immigration authorities - in this case in Germany - to the trauma of parents and children separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. Barbara and Kate will be in conversation on Thursday night at 7PM, October 18 at Books, Inc. in Berkeley at 1491 Shattuck Ave.



Listen now or Get MP3. 22:12 min

Click here for the entire show. 59:50 min

Also on today's show:
Berkeley High School's Women's Union
Artist Lucia Ippolito

Monday, August 13, 2018: What YOU can do to help immigrant detainees

Women's Magazine interviews Rebecca Merton of Freedom for Immigrants and Almadelia, whose husband Jasiel was the first person bailed out by the West County Detention Community Fund. Bay Area residents are raising money to bail out immigrants housed in the Richmond jail before they are moved to prisons further away; the West County Detention Center is ending its contract with ICE because of community protest. Volunteers are also needed to help with the bail process, which takes hours; attend a training on TUESDAY, AUGUST 14 at 6:00 to 8:00 pm in Berkeley at the Finish Center, 1970 Chestnut St. 

Bonds "...can be as high as 30 to 40 thousand dollars up front...you can't pay a percentage."-Merton

Find out how you can donate to the fund at Freedom for Immigrants. Also, there is a wealth of information and resources about immigrants and detention at the Freedom for Immigrants website.

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

Also on today's show:
Challenging Fictions with author Nina Serrano and playwright Anne Galjour

Get Trained As an Ice Detainee Bail-Out Volunteer (North Berkeley)

• Tuesday, August 14, 2018
• 6:00 PM  8:00 PM

• The Finnish Center1970 Chestnut Street Berkeley, CA 

Hosted by Samara Hayley Steele and Margaret Hurlbert

GET TRAINED AS AN ICE DETAINEE BAIL-OUT VOLUNTEER
~2 hour training with Rebecca Merton of Freedom for Immigrants~

For questions contact Rebecca Merton, Rmerton@freedomforimmigrants.org

Monday, July 2, 2018: L.A. Kauffman, author of DIRECT ACTION

Immigrants Are Welcome Here! Stories of Struggle, Triumph and Resistance

This week on Women's Magazine, after a week of historic protests around the country protesting the government's inhumane treatment of refugees from Latin America, we hear three stories about immigration:

First up, L.A. Kauffman, author of the book DIRECT ACTION and the forthcoming HOW TO READ A PROTEST, and a tactical coordinator at Thursday's women's mass civil disobedience at the Senate Office Building, takes us inside the largest women's direct action in history. How did it come about, what happened, and what comes next?

photo by L.A. Kauffman

Get MP3 and listen now. 15:36 min

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

Also on today's show:
Filmmaker, Valerie Lapin
Novelist, Yang Huang

Monday, April 30, 2018: Embrace Your Voice

Sharon Sobota produces and hosts today's show. Women of different generations and backgrounds share their stories and what inspires them.

Tarana Burke, founder of #metoo talks about her decade long work against sexual violence and healing.

Kathy D'Arcy is a poet and youth organizer living in Ireland, writing political poetry, women's rights and reproductive health care. Find her books through her website.

Shanthi Sekaran author of Lucky Boy talks about her non-linear path to writing and her now novel about immigrants from Mexico living in Berkeley, CA.

Betty Reid Soskin, the oldest National Park ranger and blogger, reads from her memoir Sign My Name to Freedom and talks with Sharon about her amazing life.  Betty says, "I am now living in the future that I helped to create."


Click here to listen now. 59:59 min

Monday, June 12, 1017: Aging With Dignity - Marginalized Workers Young & Old Take Charge

This week on Women's Magazine, we focus on some of the most challenged workers in today's workforce:  domestic workers and young women of color. 

At one end of the age spectrum, we talk to members of La Colectiva de Mujeres, the San Francisco Women's Collective, part of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, about their Aging With Dignity campaign. The campaign draws attention to the situation of over half a million workers over 50 who have no retirement benefits.

Domestic workers in the U.S. are 93% female, 20% without high school diplomas, and the median age is 44.  In California, 75% of the 336,000 domestic workers (doing childcare, elder care and housecleaning) are women of color.  Because domestic work is excluded from the Social Security Act, only 2% of domestic workers have any retirement benefits.

Listen now or Get MP3. 27:55 min

On today's show we pay tribute to Judy Brady, author of the classic article, "I Want a Wife." Judy Brady died on May 14, 2017. She was 80 years old.

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

Also on today's show:
Mamacitas Cafe - Marginalized Women Workers Organize!

Monday, April 24, 2017: Honoring our Mothers

Madres of the Plaza de Mayo
Mothers of the disappeared in Argentina

Today on KPFA radio's Women's Magazine Lisa Dettmer presents an early Mother’s Day tribute by daughters to their mothers who are often not recognized or appreciated and who have survived the war on women, some damaged, some whole.  You will hear the authentic and more complicated stories of daughters and mothers from Palestine to Argentina who bring out the pain and strength of mothers who have had to deal with issues of sexism,  poverty, racism and immigration in a society and world that often provides no day care, no pay for housework  and little economic support for women generally and mothers in particular and yet pretends to glorify motherhood and mothers.

Lisa Dettmer and her mother, Suzanne Adler

Click here to listen now. 59:50 min

Monday, December 1, 2014: Tru Bloo

Tru Bloo's new album

Samar Habib explores queer Middle Eastern counterculture with Lebanese-Armenian Bay Area hip hop artist, Tru Bloo. You can download Tru Bloo's new album Tru Starz at http://trubloo.bandcamp.com/. More info about Tru Bloo at http://therealtrubloo.com/.

Listen now or Get MP3.






Click here for the rest of the show including a tribute to Mary Berg and other local events. 59:50 min.

Also on today's show:
Thoughts on Ferguson
Wal-Mart Workers on Strike
Lesbian Avenger

Monday, December 1, 2014: Wal-Mart Workers on Strike

Strikers at Wal-Mart

Lisa Dettmer talks to striking workers and supporters at Black Friday's protest at Walmart in Milpitas. For more information about the Black Friday strike at Wal-Mart and how to contact managers in support of the strikers go to www.forrespect.org*. Listen now or Get MP3.





Click here to listen to a tribute to Mary Berg who every Sunday morning at 5 AM gave us A Musical Offering. Also on today's show:
Thoughts on Ferguson
Lesbian Avenger
Tru Bloo

*Correction: We mistakenly gave the website www.ourwalmart.org.  Sorry!  That domain is owned by OurWalMartFactCheck.com, a union busting site possibly paid for by Wal-Mart execs. 

Monday September 1, 2014: Drop the Charges on Rasmea Odeh

Rasmea Odeh, Chicago feminist community leader and torture survivor, faces prison.

Rasmea Odeh was arrested and sexually tortured by the Israeli military in 1969, eventually confessing to a crime she didn't commit.  After ten years in Israeli prison, Rasmea created a new life in the U.S., helping to found the Arab Women's Committee, a 600-member organization that helps immigrant Arab women learn English, find their voices, and support one another.  Now the U.S. government is threatening to strip her of her citizenship and send her to prison for another ten years because of her past as a political prisoner.  We talk about the case with Professor Nadine Naber, author of Arab America: Gender, Cultural Politics and Activism.

Call Tuesday, September 2nd to stop the deportation of Rasmea. Go to www.stopfbi.net for phone numbers. Click here to sign petition to drop the charges against Rasmea.

Rally for Rasmea on September 8th.

Listen now or Get MP3: 32:21 min.

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

Also on today's show:
Domestic Workers Organize in the US

September 1, 2014: Domestic Workers Organize in the US

Author Sheila Bapat on domestic worker organizing in the U.S.

When U.S. labor protections were being created in the 1930s, domestic workers, who were overwhelmingly African American, were specifically excluded as a concession to southern Democrats. Today, the women who do domestic worker are largely immigrants, and while they have won some rights, still face harsh conditions with little recourse.  But in recent years, domestic worker organizing has been one of the most successful labor movements in the country. Sheila Bapat, author of Part of the Family? Nannies, Housekeepers, Caregivers, and the Battle for Domestic Workers’ Rights, talks with Preeti Shekar.

Sheila Bapat is an attorney and writer covering economic and gender justice. Her work has appeared in Jacobin, Salon, Reuters, Slate, Alternet, Truthout, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law, PolicyMatters, and the Center for Women Policy Studies' series, "Reproductive Laws for the 21st Century." Sheila holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.

Listen now or Get MP3. 20:48 min.

Sunday September 7, 2014, 3-5p
Claiming our Voice: South Asian Domestic Worker Organizing
Held at Oakstop Coworking, 1721 Broadway, Suite 201, Oakland, CA 94612

Hosted by ASATA (Alliance of South Asians Taking Action) and Re-imagine RPE
Special Guest: Sheila Bapat, author of "Part of the Family?," a book about domestic workers' rights, Panel moderated by Preeti Mangala Shekar. For tickets and more info go to Claiming Our Voice.

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

Also on today's show:
Drop the Charges on Rasmea Odeh

Two Faces of Motherhood

Mani Feniger’s new memoir, The Woman in the Photograph, is a compelling narrative set in motion by an unexpected meeting with history.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the door to her mother’s vanished past sprang open and what she discovered irrevocably changed her life. Mani Feniger talks with Ruthanne Shpiner about her book, which documents her quest to learn about her mother's life in Europe after finding an old photo. 11:46 min.

Click to listen now or Get MP3

Eva and her family

Kate Raphael talks with Valori George and Kathleen Russell about the strange case of Eva Ruiz Gomez and the corruption and bias in the family court system. For updates and to help support Eva's case go to her website at www.friendsofeva.org.

Unfortunately many women and children have become victims of a family court whose reigning paradigm is showing an unwarranted bias toward giving the father shared custody, whether or not the he has a proven record of responsible and primary parenting, even in cases where the father has been abusive toward the child or the mother. For more information on the protection of family and children's rights in the  court system go to Center for Judicial Excellence. 44:41 min.

Listen now or Get MP3


Listen to the entire show as aired on KPFA. 59 min.

September 17th: Occupy Wall Street turns 1 year old and KPFA Women's Magazine asks how feminist is the movement and where is it going?

On the anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street, Kate Raphael asks if the movement is helping us build a new world or just a dressed up form of patriarchy?  Cyn, Kaitlyn and Frank of Occupy Oakland's Feminist and Queers Against Capitalism and Shaista Husain of Occupy Wall Street's Safer Spaces and Immigrant Justice Working Groups - share their thoughts on this and other Occupy-related issues. 55:22 min.

Get MP3

This program is re-broadcast from KPFA Women's Magazine on November 29, 2011

The Real War on Women; and the Value of Housework

Rose Aguilar

Kate Raphael talks with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW and columnist for Al Jazeera, about who's really waging war on women.  Rose shares strategies for getting women's real stories into the mainstream media.








And Ana Martino says instead of reclaiming the word "slut," feminists need to reclaim the word "housewife."  "Domestic Feminism" via WINGS and her radio show, Too Fat for Our Pants.

With host Eryn Matthewson, click here to listen to the entire show as it aired on KPFA Monday, April 16th. 58:38 min.

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.