Women's Spaces

Through actions of the second wave of feminism, women sought spaces dedicated to both listening to and being heard by other women. Radio, a medium already highly associated with the home - something that could be listened to as a woman did housework, made meals, cleaned up - soon became a powerful tool within the feminist movement. 

In the early 1970s, feminist radio programming emerged as a distinctive manifestation of such spaces. In the United States, these programs primarily found traction along the coasts. Their impact, however, reverberated beyond geographical boundaries. Below is a timeline that demonstrates the spatiotemporal variance between these collectives.

These feminist programs often intersected with queer dialogues. Progressive radio stations strived for collaborative environments to amplify alternative or marginalized narratives. One notable example is still active today: WBAI, a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station based in New York City, once hosted many of the programs featured in our collection.

Our collection contains many examples of this feminist programming, from Martha Shelley’s prolific Lesbian Nation recordings, to recorded lectures and discussions, musical performances, and poetry readings. Liza Cowan, whose collection of assorted tapes is also held by the Herstory Archives, initially discovered the women’s liberation movement by tuning in to WBAI. Inspired, Cowan went on to produce feminist radio shows for WBAI before moving on to more radical spaces.

Feminist broadcasts also provided a channel for women’s music. The 1970s in particular experienced a wave of female musicians striving to represent their lived experiences rather than cater to mainstream tropes. In the memoir My Red Blood, musician Alix Dobkin recounts how feminist themes affected her participating in the Greenwich Village folk scene: “My new tunes would be showcased on the radio, not in a club scene that no longer drew me…my music no longer fit in there or anywhere else I knew of.”