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Title: Burn that Witch!
Author: Donna Hoffman
Date: 1994
Language: en
Topics: women, radio, Workers Solidarity
Source: Retrieved on 15th November 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws94/witch41.html
Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 41 — Spring 1994.

Donna Hoffman

Burn that Witch!

‘Not Your Girl’, a women’s radio programme was taken off the air at Anna

Livia FM by an all-male Board of Directors just before Christmas.

Listeners phoned to complain about a programme on “Female Sexuality”

after ‘Not Your Girl gave away a book (Sue Lee’s Sugar and Spice:

Sexuality and Adolescent Girls) to the first caller with the correct

spelling of “clitoris”. The Directors wanted the team to apologize and

concede that the quiz question was in “bad taste”. The team would not

agree upon this wording and the programme was suspended.

The Directors of Anna Livia decided the programme could recommence but

that the producer was banned from further participation. Without

discussion, they refused the team’s request for representation at the

meeting in which they decided this. Ultimately, the women on the ‘Not

Your Girl’ team voted not to continue unless the Board took the group as

a whole.

The Programming Head gave a reason for banning the producer. It was the

“whole slant” of the series. He mentioned “Amnesty International

announcements”, specifically, something about “Chile”. The week of the

banning, ‘Not Your Girl’ did read an Amnesty call for support for an El

Salvadoran woman journalist who has been disappeared by the death squads

operating in that country. ‘Not Your Girl’ also regularly included the

Women’s Information Network phone number for non-directive pregnancy

counselling [679–4700].

This was not the first time the Anna Livia Board of Directors cancelled

‘Not Your Girl’. The first censoring followed commentary and debate

about abortion during Spring of ’93. With support from women’s groups

and colleagues within the station including a woman previously serving

on the Board, ‘Not Your Girl’ won back its broadcast time. This Winter,

the Board of Directors would locate the problem in one individual, when

it really comes down to intolerance for political difference and an

absence of democratic structures or practices at what’s supposed to be

Dublin’s model community radio.

In the row when the programme was suspended, the Programming Head

commented that they could not have everyone saying whatever they wanted

all the time; that would be anarchism! Hmmmm. Sounds better than a

clitoridectomy. Anyday.