WLRN's Thistle Pettersen was able to connect with Venice Allan on January 22nd to talk about her recent suspension from the UK Labor Party. Ms. Allan is accused of bullying and harassment of Labour Party officials and trans-identifying males. These people include Heather Peto, TIM running for MP and already on the Labour Party's All Women Shortlist, Lily Madigan, Women's Officer, Jon Lansman, recently elected to the National Executive Committee, Paris Lees, a trans-identifying male activist, Eddie Izzard famous cross dressing British comic and CLITORIS, an unknown ‘cis’ councillor bloke from Anne Ruzylo’s constituency. Ms. Allan was also targeted in an open letter from some Irish feminists that you can see in the link below. They do not want her to come to Ireland on the We Need To Talk Tour that is slated to have an event on February 14th. https://feministire.com/2018/01/22/an-open-letter-to-the-organisers-of-the-we-need-to-talk-tour-from-a-group-of-feminists-in-ireland/amp/?__twitter_impression=true Ms. Allan and other feminists are promoting a gofundme campaign to raise money to take the British Labour Party to court for not following their own rules about people running for women's positions within the party. Ms. Allan and others argue that men running for women's positions in the party should have a gender recognition certificate in order to run. Those accusing her of bullying are saying they do not need the certificate to run for women's positions, but rather that the "unwritten policy" of the party is to allow men to self-identify as women and run. https://www.gofundme.com/fighting-for-female-representatives

This week, in honor of two old strong female activists of social and racial justice, I dedicate this hour of music and spoken word to Jackie Anderson of Chicago and "Jan" of South Jersey. Please read of Jackie Anderson's life of service to Lesbians and other oppressed peoples: PASSAGES Activist, professor Jackie Anderson dies - Gay Lesbian Bi Trans News - Windy City Times Songlist: Miss Celie's Blues Suede Barely Blue Wild Things Cris Williamson The Changer and the Changed Fannie Lou Hamer Sweet Honey I'm Every woman/Respect Aretha Franklin Great Diva Classics No Man's Mama Carolina Chocolate Drops Leaving Eden The Magdalene Laundries Cris Williamson Motherland By Way of Sorrow Bearfoot Cry, Cry, Cry Oughta Be a Woman Sweet Honey Breaths Still Gotta Get up in the Morning Sweet Honey Still the Same Me Four Women Nina Simone The Best of For Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash Joy Harjo Weaving the Strands Yesterday's Lessons Sharon Isabel Any Woman's Blues Woman Slaughter Pat Parker Any Woman's Blues Stop Killing Us Lenelle Moise Madivinez How Long? Sweet Honey Breaths Emily Remembers Suede On the Day We Met Mirror Helen Jane Long

Max Dashu, Riane Eisler, and Starhawk discuss ancient gynocentric societies, challenging stereotypes, exploring matrilineal societies, and the possibility of creating a gynocentric culture in the 21st century.

This week for Deep Winter’s Women’s Liberation music hour, I feature songs from female musicians of various parts of the world. All but the first one are either purely instrumental or have lyrics that are not in English. I hope my selections will help to shift your consciousness away from the ordinary, bringing the deep calm of yourself as Female and all the expansiveness and connectivity to Her and Her beneficent Life. Photo Credit: Hamid Sardar-Afkhami Girl-child is of theTsaatan (Dukha) Reindeer Nomads from the Mongolian North Play List: In background: Siber-Shaman Sainkho Namtchylak Naked Spirit Into the Dark Melissa Etheridge Breakdown Moon Chant Aco Takenaka Moon Chant Embers Helen Jane Long Embers Collage of Koleda Carols (Bulgarian) Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble Evening Star Shaman Weavers’ Dance Carolyn Hillyer The Wyched Wombe Trollobundin (Live) Eivor Palsdottir Rain Foryar, Min Modar Eivor Palsdottir Vision Hildegard of Bingen Rosna Livada Labooratorium Piesni Rosna It Ain’t Necessarily Evil Mari Boine You Never Know Mari Boine Eight Seasons

WLRN's Thistle Pettersen got to sit down with Riane Eisler, a prominent scholar who influenced Ms. Pettersen's thinking greatly in her youth. Dr. Eisler contributes much to conversations past and present about the status of women and how radical and lesbian feminists are on the cutting edge of the movement for a more humanitarian and just society. Riane Eisler is an eminent social scientist, attorney, and women’s human rights activist who pioneered the recognition of women’s rights as human rights. She is best known for her writings, including the international bestseller, The Chalice and The Blade, translated into 26 languages and now in its 57th US printing, with a new epilogue. She founded the first center on women and the law in the United States, wrote the Equal Rights Handbook on the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, and is the author of other award winning books as well as hundreds of articles and book chapters. Dr. Eisler is president of the Center for Partnership Studies (www.centerforpartnership.org) and editor in chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies housed at the University of Minnesota. Her book The Real Wealth of Nations was hailed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as “a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking,” by Gloria Steinem as “revolutionary,” and inspired the Center for Partnership Studies’ Caring Economy Campaign (www.caringeconomy.org) which offers online leadership training and has developed new Social Wealth Economic Indicators that demonstrate the enormous economic value of the work of care still largely performed by women worldwide. She consults to business and government about the partnership model introduced by her work, keynotes conferences worldwide, and teaches online courses about cultural and economic transformation. She shows that the women’s movement is the leading edge of the partnership movement, and, as summarized in the title of talks she gave at platforms such as the US Department of State, that what’s good for women is good for the world. She has received many honors for her work for women’s and children’s rights and peace, and is the only woman among 20 great thinkers, including Hegel, Adam Smith, and Marx, included in Macrohistory and Macrohistorians in recognition of the lasting importance of her work. Contacts: www.centerforpartnership.org; www.rianeeisler.com; center@partnershipway.org Some of her pertinent works include: Riane Eisler. (2015). “Preventing Violence against Women: Four Strategies.” In Women, War, and Violence: Typography, Resistance, and Hope, Volume 1. Mariam Kurtz and Lester Kurtz, editors. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Riane Eisler. (2015). Nurturing Children’s Humanity: Partnership Education.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, 2 (2) Fall, Article 5. http://pubs.lib.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=ijps Riane Eisler. (2015). “Can International Law Protect Half of Humanity? A New Strategy to Stop Violence against Women.” Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research, 7(2), 88 - 100.

This week I’m foregrounding music that quiets. Even though we all have both individual and collective fights against male supremacy, we need time to rest, replenish the reserves. And I know how often it feels like there’s not time for that. When we are working 40+ hrs a week, have families and loved ones who need our attention our energy; when the Liberation front needs our fuel...after all, male supremacy and injustice does not sleep! How can we dare to rest? We dare to rest to keep our sanity! So, this hour is to inspire the necessary quiet for our bodies and our psyches. I hope you are fed. As always I welcome your feedback and suggested music: feministwomyn11@gmail.com. Thanks for your encouragement; it keeps my fires going! Blessed be, Phoenixx Playlist: Winter Susie Suh Icicles Patti Griffin Draw us Down Carolyn Hillyer Night Woman Carolyn Hillyer Inanna Suzanne Sterling On the Other Side Gabrielle Roth & The Mirors The Cave Beyond the Cave Carolyn Hillyer Hawaiian Healing Nhanda Devi Come Tenderness Lisa Gerrard Returning Jennifer Berezan May I Suggest Red Molly Harmless Love Ferron

Think of the first song you ever heard. Was it the lullaby your mother sang at night? Perhaps it was some wind chimes tinkling in a storm. No matter the tune, music resonates with our souls far deeper than any writing or speaking ever can. Music, that unique organization of sound in time, is the oldest art. Before notated language, women spoke our herstories to the beat of drums. Thrumming on taught skins and hollowed logs sent messages into our bones. We breathed life into pipes that trilled the melodies of now forgotten times. We used our lilting voices to recant folktales and frights, the lessons of our lives, and funny tales of fluky passerby. Melodies, like recipes, can retell herstories, bridge social divides and unite minds. Pulsing chants can rally warriors while charming hymns can heal those wounded spirits. In our current time, these singsong rhymes are claimed and maimed by male supremacy: men relegate women musicians and our works to the background of the industry. Well, the women of WLRN say FUCK THAT NOISE! Let's listen to what women have to say! Starting off our jam-packed podcast is Sekhmet's latest headlines, followed by Heart’s Love Alive. Next is Julia's interview with Brenna and Melanie of BLEEDERS, a pro-woman gash rock band whose recent tour included kicks from the crowd. “Backstabbing Scumfucker” by BLEEDERS is followed by “Traffic” by Bitch and Animal. Then Thistle interviews Bitch, whose shows, like her name, are exercises in self-liberation. Ferron’s “Testimony” offers us a moment of reflection. Thistle’s interview with Ferron, an herstorically influential lesbian musician from Vancouver, is followed by Pink’s “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.” Thistle rounds out the hour with her commentary sandwiched between her songs “Bella Ciao” and “O’ Madison,” which she wrote after facing misogynist discrimination in Madison, Wisconsin. Ani Difranco’s “Make Them Apologize” segues into an announcement of the winner of WLRN’s very first T-Shirt Contest. Enjoy! Photo is of Melanie of the Bleeders, performing her art.

This week, I call on music that invokes Spirit in me, and hopefully in you. For me, there can be no Revolution without some ground in one's soul or connection to a notion of Mystery/Spirit/Divinity. That looks different, of course, to all of us, but for the purposes of THIS fight for Women's Liberation, that Mystery, that Divine, that Spirit is Female. SheWho, as Judy Grahn named. Hope you enjoy my selections! Please let me know of songs that inspire Spirit in you; I'm always collecting new music to share: Feministwomyn11@gmail.com. I also welcome your suggestions, feedback and general encouragement to keep my own fires burning. Blessed be! Phoenixx Play list: Spiritsong(background to intro) Shawna Carol She Who Judy Grahn Wash Your Spirit Clean Walela Earth Prayer Alice Gomez The Divine Mothers: Auset&Yemaya Ancestral Rhythms The Ancient Ones Kelliana Ancient Mother Keruna Spirits Barrel House Mamas The Road I took to You Meg Christian My, my Ferron Light of my Light Ferron Song of the Soul Cris Williamson and women of Olivia Hold it up Linda Tui Tillery, Jeanette Lazam, Barbara B.G. Glass, Pat Parker, Anita Taylor and female inmates of San Bruno Women's Jail, 1975, Any Woman's Blues She Whose Head is on Fire Judy Grahn Oh My Spirit Nalini Sweet Wonder Carolyn Hillyer

As promised, this week I devote an hour of Women's Liberation Music to Lucie Blue Tremblay. Her music exudes such love,tenderness and ease all of which we as warriors/Amazons for Femaleness/Justice need every once in a while, hmm? I hope you will find time in your day to settle in for the next hour to allow Lucie Blue to sing to you, Sister. Remember you are deeply loved and held by something larger and deeper than the mess we face everyday under male supremacy. Blessed be, Sister. Enjoy! Saint-jean-port-joli 1986 Lucie Blue Tremblay Mademoiselle 1986 Lucie Blue Tremblay Politique 1989 Tendresse The Water is Wide 1989 Tendresse Absence 1989 Tendresse Homeless 1992 Transformations La Tete De L. Lndien 2017 Counting My Blessings Driving Home 2017 Counting My Blessings Two Lives 1989 Tendresse A Place in The Woods 1992 Transformations Getting Old 1992 Getting Old Stand up and Rise 2017 Counting My Blesseings NOTE: Her album When I was a Puppy features many of her old songs from your probably worn out albums! Buy her music--let's support this womyn! www.luciebluetremblay.com Also she does incredible house concerts!!

Check out this opportunity to get your art out there and to support feminist community radio on the interwebs!