Elisa Hendriks MA

PhD candidate

E-mail: [email protected]

Area(s) of interest: Gender, Oral History & Life Writing, Urban History, Media History

Cohort/Start PhD: 2023-2024

Women making waves: How women created feminist radio broadcastings in the Netherlands in the 1980s

Radboud Universities
supervisor(s): Prof. dr. Jan Hein Furnée, dr. Marloes Hülsken, dr. Remco Ensel
Start date: April 2024

In the Netherlands in the 1980s, women sought to change society by bypassing mainstream media and making feminist radio programmes themselves. Coming from different protest groups, such as feminist, squatters, anti-racist and queer movements, these groups of women made their views heard, connected with other women, and challenged social and cultural norms and values to change lives of women for the better. Through these radio programmes, these women crafted a space of their own on air, where they could broadcast women’s music, have discussions on feminist literature and talk about societal challenges that women faced. But these feminist radio makers went even further: they encouraged their listeners to take direct action against patriarchy, racism, rearmament, religion and society’s heterosexual norms. My doctoral research project shifts focus away from the presumably monolithic feminism in the Netherlands in the 1970s and beyond towards a more geographically and ideologically diffuse feminism in the 1980s scattered throughout the periphery of the feminist movement. My research will draw on oral history, audio, visual and paper archives to explore feminist women’s networks, ideologies, practices, methods, identities and memories.