KPFA - Womens Magazine

This Monday February 9th on KPFA Radio’s Women’s Magazine Kate Raphael talks with Arlene Eisen about her new memoir In the Worldwide Family of Militant Women. Arlene has been a militant in the struggle against imperialism and white supremacy since the 1960s—first as a protester facing tear gas and later as a teacher and writer. She edited the newspaper called The Movement, and was a leading voice in the anti-imperialist women’s movement of the 1970s. At various times as she raised her two sons mostly as a single parent, she was a lecturer in sociology and women’s studies, a machinist, a journalist and public health expert. During the first ten years of her children’s lives, she was on welfare. In 2012 Arlene Eisen authored the groundbreaking study, Operation Ghetto Storm, published by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which revealed that an unarmed Black person is killed by an agent of the state every 28 hours in the united states. In the Worldwide Family of Militant Women traces Arlene’s journey from New York to Berkeley to Vietnam, China, Cuba, and back to San Francisco. She narrates her deep involvement in the Black Freedom struggle, the sixties counterculture, the movements to stop the Vietnam War, to support anti-imperialist struggles from Iran to Puerto Rico people, and the growing importance of feminism in helping her make sense of her own life. In the Worldwide Family of Militant Women is available from Iskra Books. And in the second half of the show Lisa Dettmer talks to composer and Musician Adrienne Torf. Adrienne Torf and her collaborator Raymond O Caldwell have produced an intimate portrait of well known local legendary black feminist and activist scholar, teacher and poet June Jordan by combining her words of fierce commitment to justice and self determination for all people with music and movement. The show, “Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience” is being performed in Berkeley for one night only on February 24th at the Freight and Salvage. This show is performed by six actors from the Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles production and Jordan’s collaborator and partner, composer/pianist Adrienne Torf. the show features Jordan’s poetry, interviews, and other writing, along with her work set to music by Torf, John Adams, and Bernice Johnson Reagon. “Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience” was honored with the Theater Washington Helen Hayes Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play in 2023. This performance on Tuesday February 24th at the Freight and Salvage will be the only one outside of Los Angeles this year. *Premium tickets include admission to a post-show reception with the cast and sponsors. The post Arlene Eisen memoir on Militant Women and Adrienne Torf on June Jordan show appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – February 2, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s program is the third part in a series that started with the April 2025 broadcast to spotlight the genocide of Rohingya people of Myanmar. In 2017, a violent military offensive forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee across the border to refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. More than 1.1 million people – 75% of them women and children – live there as of June 2025. There are also tens of thousands in refugee camps in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. This past week, on January 22, 2026, International Court of Justice began hearings on the genocide case brought by Gambia against Myanmar, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishmen of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar). Margo Okazawa-Rey interviews feminist advocates and activists Noor Azizah and Yasmin Ullah to gather updates for listeners about the court case and the current conditions in the refugee camps where thousands of people continue to suffer beyond our imaginations. The post The Gambia vs Myanmar: Feminist Analysis of Rohingya Genocide Case at the ICJ appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – January 19, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

Today I talk to Professor Jamie Harker, who is looking at the lesbian feminist movements and communities in the south in the 1970’s especially in the print world to find a lesbian aesthetic or queer utopia that may suggest a mode of resistance for the present and examines a past which can provide a historical reminder that resistance has been going on for generations. Jaime Harker is professor of English and the director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi, where she teaches American literature, LGBTQ literature, and gender studies. . She is the author of America the Middlebrow: Women’s Novels, Progressivism, and Middlebrow Authorship Between the Wars and Middlebrow Queer: Christopher Isherwood in America, and The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon among other publications. And we will share a segment of a radio documentary Sharon Sabotta produced about local legend Bette Reid Soskin who died last month at the age of 104 . Betty Reid Soskin has been a homefront warriors worker, a singer-songwriter and a performer, co-founder of the legendary Reid’s Records in South Berkeley, a writer and legislative aid and, until she turned 100, the oldest working National Park Service ranger. The post Lesbians in the South, and Betty Reid-Soskin appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – January 5, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – December 29, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – December 22, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – December 15, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – December 8, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – December 1, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – November 24, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – November 17, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

There have been two major socialist and socialist feminist victories in the last month. First was the election of socialist feminist Catherine Connolly to be president of Ireland and the other was the election of Zohran Mamdami to Mayor of NYC. But Mamdami’s election would not have been possible without the groundswell of activism by grassroots groups like Indivisible, Jews for Economic Justice and DRUM Beat, a progressive grassroots south asian group that really turned out the vote for Zohran in the south asian community. And similarly the election of a leftist feminist to President of Ireland wouldn’t not have been possible without the decades of struggle by Socialist feminists in Ireland. Today we will focus on these successes by talking to the activists that make these victories possible. In the first half of the show we will talk to two socialist feminist activists from Ireland to see what radical feminist organizing is happening there and what patriarchal forces they are up against. We will be joined by Camilla Fitzsimons who is a long-time socialist feminist and activist who has been involved in radical left-wing politics in Ireland all her adult life and has written two books on feminism in Ireland, “Ireland’s ongoing fight for Reproductive Rights” and her new book “Rethinking Feminism in Ireland.” And we will talk to Isidora Duran who is an activist with the ROSA socialist feminist movement. ROSA was established on International Women’s Day 8 March 2013 in Ireland as a feminist, anti-austerity and anti-capitalist group, seeking to build the socialist feminist wing of the growing abortion rights movement and was a major force in overturning the ban on abortion in Ireland in 2018. In the second half of the show I will talk to Simran Thind, a community organizer with the NYC grass roots progressive organization DRUM Beats. DRUM Beats is the sibling organization of DRUM ( Desis Rising Up and Moving) which is a multigenerational grassroots organization in NYC that focuses on building political power within working class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities to achieve radical social change . The post Irish socialist feminists Camilla Fitzsimons and Isidora Duran, and DRUM Beats organizer Simran Thind appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – November 3, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – October 27, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – October 20, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Today on KPFA Radio’s Women’s Magazine Nunu Kidane and Lisa Dettmer talk to ground breaking African feminist Hope Chigudu about how she bring hope, groundedness and self care into organizing. As she explains in her article “Strategies for building an organization with a Soul” she goes beyond focusing on the organizational structure to focus on how you can put caring values at the center of an organization, to find the beating heart of your feminist visions and values to create a truly sustainable and healthy organization to create lasting social change Hope Chigudu is a celebrated African feminist, a sociologist, an organizational development consultant, and coach who has supported many international justice groups and activist groups working across the African continent and beyond. She has served on the board of Global Fund for Women, Urgent Action fund, and is a founding member of Just Associates and has been involved with many other organizations across the continent and beyond. The post African Feminist Hope Chigudu bringing healing and hope to African feminist organizations appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – October 6, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This hour long radio program presents and discusses women’s lives and issues globally and locally from a radical, multiracial, feminist, mujerist, womanist perspective. The post Womens Magazine – September 29, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.