Reproductive Justice: The Ongoing Struggle for Bodily Autonomy (Encore)
Today we share excerpts from “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry,” a documentary filled with stories that still resonate today as women face new challenges around reproductive rights and sexual violence. The documentary tells the stories of the activists of the Women’s Liberation Movement that gained traction in the late 1960s and led to social and policy changes that set women on a path towards equality and reproductive...
The Feminist Birth of the Home Pregnancy Test
In 1965 Margaret Crane was a young designer creating packaging for a pharmaceutical company. Looking at the rows of pregnancy tests she thought, “Well, women could do that at home!” and so she made it a reality for potentially pregnant people to be able to know about and take control of their own lives and bodies. But while the design of the prototype was simple, Crane faced the issues we continue to fight when it comes to...
Revolutionary Mothering (Encore)
In the mid 1990s, the Reproductive Justice movement was formed by Black and indigenous women as a response to the limitations of the “reproductive rights” movement. Movement leaders argue, “rarely do we find ourselves fighting for just one aspect of reproductive justice such as abortion rights” – SisterSong. Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, scholar and writer, joined us to talk about her book Revolutionary...
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry
In this week’s show we’re presenting excerpts from the documentary “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry,” a reflection on the rise of the women’s liberation movement in the United States, which explores the emergence of political thought that challenged systems of patriarchy. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL does not try to romanticize the early movement, but dramatizes it in its exhilarating, quarrelsome, sometimes heart-wrenching glory. The...
Fallen Heroes 2021: bell hooks, Nawal El Saadawi, Carrie Dann, Margo St. James, and more
Making Contact · Fallen Heroes, 2021 Thousands of social justice leaders in communities all over the world passed away this year. In our annual Fallen Heroes episode, we share words of inspiration from, and about, some grassroots activists that may not have been very well known outside their particular communities. Special thanks to the following for use of audio: Clandestino Institut Outlaw Poverty, Not Prostitutes produced by...
Grace Lee Boggs: Sister Revolutionary (Updated Encore)
Making Contact · Grace Lee Boggs: Sister Revolutionary (Updated Encore) Anti-Asian violence and hate has increased since the start of the pandemic last year. #StopAsianHate became a viral hashtag much like #BlackLivesMatter in the wake of Black people killed by police officers. The relationship between Black and Asian Americans is complicated. However, the groups are united in their efforts to call out white supremacy as the...
Witch Hunts and Enclosures: Bodies, Land and Women
Witch Hunts and Enclosures: Bodies, Land and Women How are witch hunts and Capitalist economies linked? Silvia Federici, wrote the groundbreaking book, Caliban and the Witch. In that book she argues that the witch hunts of the fifteenth century were a necessary pre-condition for Capitalism to flourish. Just as the enclosures of the middle ages created a population of landless peasants, women were experiencing a...
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry – The Personal Is Political
For this edition of Making Contact, we’ll present the documentary, “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry,” a reflection on the rise of the women’s liberation movement in the United States, between 1966 and 1971. She’s Beautiful explores the emergence of political thought that challenged systems of patriarchy. This documentary provides important historical insight at a time when our country is experiencing regression around issues of...
Fallen Heroes of 2017
Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks! Thousands of local social justice organizers, activists and other leaders passed away this year. People doing crucial work in their communities, whose deaths didn’t make the headlines. On this edition of Making Contact, as we do every December, we’ll hear about some of the fallen heroes of 2017. Special thanks to...