On Saturday, March 11^th, only shows about women will be heard for 24 hours on KPFA-Pacifica in Berkeley, California. From midnight to midnight, International Women’s Day will be celebrated with nonstop shows that are produced, engineered, and hosted by women at KPFA-Pacifica who are collaborating with other women from around the world, including producers throughout Pacifica  Network, independent production groups, and podcasts. The marathon will be heard on KPFA’s airwaves at 94.1 FM in the Bay Area and at kpfa.org. It will include interviews with women on issues from around the world along with women’s music.

Leading the production are KPFA news anchor Christina Anstead, Lisa Dettmer, KPFA producer and host Paula Burch, who is in training for production at KPFA, and Darlene Pagano, a producer trained at KPFA who is also now on KPFA’s local station board.

“International Women’s Day is a global holiday with radical origins,” explains Lisa Dettmer, “it was first observed as National Women’s Day in 1909 by the Socialist Party of America in New York City. Its observance spread to Germany, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, where there were large socialist movements with women contingents.”

Observance was held on various days. When, in 1917, women gained suffrage with the Provisional Government of the Russian Revolution, they designated March 8^th as the International Women’s Day holiday. It has been celebrated on that day by socialist movements ever since – and in the United States, more as a workers’ celebration. In the 1960’s, the global feminist movement adopted it and the holiday became mainstream throughout the world, following its adoption by the United Nations in 1977.

“When I moved here to the Bay Area 1988, we would have 5,000 people in the street on International Women’s Day, so it was something that had real significance,” recalls Dettmer. “People in the streets addressed violence against women, reproductive rights, and gender equality. Also, I remember us demonstrating in front of large corporations who supported things like apartheid. So the day incorporated kind of a leftist analysis as well.”

Although International Women’s Day is a serious event in many countries, interest in the USA has just kind of dwindled. When asked why the women at KPFA volunteer every year to celebrate International Women’s Day, Dettmer says, “We’re trying to revive International Women’s Day in the USA and we hope to bring in people from all different parts of the world. I do this because I want to see feminist voices on the air. I’m a Marxist, lesbian feminist,” she continues, “it’s a radical perspective and I want this to mean something to young women. If I don’t do it, it, that may not happen.” As part of a women’s radio collective, Dettmer co-founded, produces and hosts Women’s Magazine / Feminist Voices, which she says is KPFA’s “only multiracial, intersectional, and radical feminist show.”

In January, when the team at KPFA started organizing this year’s International Women’s Day broadcast, they reached out across Pacifica Network for story pitches. Pacifica Network includes more than 200 community radio stations and many independent production groups.  The KPFA team have worked with the chosen producers and radio hosts to develop the radio content. Some are repeat collaborators from previous years.