Sisters are doing it for themselves

Established to promote women's rights in the sleepy rural counties of Yunlin and Chiayi, Sister Radio (姊妹電台) has blossomed since it first broadcast to households, factories and farms on FM105.7, for what was supposed to be a trial period two years ago on March 8.

The trial period was so successful that Asia's sole female-oriented broadcast network run by women for women became a permanent 24-hour fixture on the FM dial on Women's Day, March 8, last year. The station's popularity is now at an all-time high and even reaches audiences it never intended to reach.

Since it began broadcasting on Web radio the station has built up a solid reputation nationwide and now attracts thousands of listeners of both sexes on a daily basis throughout Taiwan.

The brainchild of ex-DPP lawmaker and longtime women's rights activist Wang Li-ping (王麗萍), the radio station offers listeners a wide selection of programs, including news, travel, music and literature. It also touches on more diverse topics such as car maintenance. It is the numerous talk and call-in shows that deal with women's rights and equality at home and in the work place, however, that remain at the core of the station's programming.

From the beginning, the station endeavored to capture a target audience of female listeners. According to the bleach-blonde and mohawked Wang, the station's main aim was (and still is) to bring women's issues and gender awareness to the forefront in rural areas, where such concerns once enjoyed little, if any media coverage. At the same time the station readily provides information for women suffering from spousal/family abuse, to those in need of help with regard to education and other matters.

There are plenty of resources available for women relating to gender issues in the cities, but very little in the country. Women in Taipei and Kaohsiung can pop into any one of dozens of bookstores and associations to find information, but there are very few bookstores here and the libaries offer nothing at all in the way of resources," said Denise Liang (梁瓊丹), host of Sister Radios' The Witch's Closet (魔女的衣櫃) and Witch's Delivery Service (魔女宒急便).

As well as acting as a sorting house for information, the station works in close conjunction with women's organizations like the Yunlin County Color Purple Women's Association (雲林縣紫色姊妹協會). Cooperation with such groups has proven invaluable, as every month the station receives one or two calls from women faced with problems ranging from domestic violence to pre-marital sex.

The station's format during the trial period proved remarkably popular and was one that the station management hoped to see continue, but Sister Radio was forced to alter it slightly after running into a couple of unforeseen, and somewhat bizarre obstacles.

Located in the heart of pirate radio station country, Sister Radio was forced to alter the language of many of its broadcasts early last year in order to distance itself from the many illegal "fake medicine-selling underground radio stations" (地下電台賣假藥).

However odd it may seem, especially considering that Taiwanese is the most commonly used language in the Yunlin/Chiayi area, the prolific number of pirate radio stations operating in the region meant that the station had to revert to the use of Mandarin in order to gain credibility.