Feminist International Radio Endeavour

        Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE), founded by Maria Suarez Toro and Katerina Anfossi Gomez, is a prime example of how the mass media has positively impacted the women’s movement. Making strategic and resourceful use of one of the most internationally accessible mediums has allowed the leaders at FIRE to give women a loud and audible voice that can be heard around the world, as well as redefine the idea of “human rights” to include women’s rights (as stated in Suarez Toro’s book chapter “Women’s Human Rights”).
           According to the Thompson and Suarez article, “Giving Women a Voice in the Face of Globalization,” FIRE gives priority to women’s perspectives and contributions. The radio endeavor gives women the opportunity to share their own personal stories and broadcast them, so they can be heard for the first time. Additionally, the article states that FIRE brings forth particular issues that are often silenced in mainstream discourse. Thus, FIRE diversifies the conversation and helps to democratize communications. By connecting voices and actions, FIRE places the power of the media in the hands of women (Suarez and Thompson).
           The radio, unlike other mediums such as the internet, is incredibly accessible and readily available around the world. Thus, by choosing to broadcast women’s voices on the radio, FIRE is able to capture a very extensive reach, including a huge amount of women (and men) in the Global South, which is where FIRE is based. The intelligent and hard-working women behind FIRE have actively promoted better representation of women in the media, greater inclusivity of women in the media field, and have fought to foster genuine networks between women around the world (official FIRE website). Through radio, FIRE has made major strides in all of those progressive objectives.

Official FIRE website found at:
 http://www.fire.or.cr/indexeng.htm