Feminist Radio Magazine Show Ends Today

After five years on the radio, “The Ms. Biz Show,” which covered feminist issues and billed itself as “the magazine show for the woman who wants to get ahead,” will air its last show at 8 a.m. today.

The half-hour program, which aired on 3,000-watt KFOX-FM (93.5), “spotlighted a different way of thinking that has been associated with feminism,” said Jude McGee, the program’s host and creator.

Half of the show revolved around an interview with an author of a book about politics, economics, psychology or “how the business game is played.” The other half was targeted to professional women in the business world and focused on computer technology and “ethical investments.”

“We were trying to reach people who already were pretty well educated and well informed and who mostly just listened to the radio for music,” said the 44-year-old McGee.

KFOX, a station where air time is brokered--purchased by individuals who, in turn, offset costs by seeking their own sponsors--doubled the rates for McGee and her partner, Mary Rich, from $100 to $200 for a half hour of air time.

“That’s why we have to stop--because we just couldn’t afford the increased expense,” McGee said.

More often than not, McGee and Rich said, they were unable to find advertisers and were forced to pay for the show out of their own pockets.

McGee feels this was due not to the subject matters discussed on the program, but to the fact that the Redondo Beach-based station reaches a very limited audience (from the South Bay north to Malibu and east to West Hollywood) and was not a subscriber to the Arbitron ratings service. (Arbitron ratings determine where sponsors place advertisements.)

Others in radio speculate that the appeal of feminist shows may have waned since the early ‘80s and that the term feminism has taken on a negative connotation. A check of local radio programs revealed only one other strictly feminist show--”Feminist Magazine” on KPFK-FM (90.7).

“In the ‘70s, it seemed like there were so many shows related to women and feminist issues, and we just don’t find that now,” said Larry Mantle, program director at KPCC-FM (89.3), a public radio station based in Pasadena. “From a positive angle, maybe it’s been incorporated into other shows. But also, in a sense, feminism has become a kind of dirty word.”

KGIL-AM (1260) talk show host Carol Hemingway eschews the feminist label herself, but said she covers a lot of issues that could be called feminist.

“I think that to market something, using the word feminism probably isn’t going to sell,” Hemingway said. “Basically you can sell anything if you make it sexy, and right now the word feminism just isn’t selling. So drop the word and market the idea, make it sexy for both men and women. That’s what I do on my show.”

McGee agrees. She said she tried to change the show’s focus to accommodate this shift in perception.

“I am a feminist and I don’t shy away from the word, but the word is off-putting,” McGee said. “There’s somewhat of a media-created definition of what it means: bra-burning, unisex bathrooms. . . . I think that the way you call things can alienate people you actually do want to speak to.”

So she modified her approach.

“We used to be more specifically feminist, more identifiably feminist, more banner-waving,” McGee said. “We used to have ‘male chauvinist oink oink of the week’ on the show. We had the most awful sound effects of snorting pigs. But now, that seems dated.”

Consequently, the show broadened over the years from “traditionally feminist issues” to “making sure that women and men have exposure to these fundamental ideas that would allow them to make changes in their lives, both personal and political,” McGee said.

However, she still feels that radio is a “male, misogynist medium” where 18- to 24-year-old men are the most sought-after audience.

For her farewell, McGee is planning a show that she says embodies the focus of the show. She will interview Marilyn Waring, a member of the New Zealand parliament, who wrote “If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics.”

Guests on past shows have ranged from linguist Noam Chomsky to Supreme Court candidate Robert H. Bork to feminist authors such as Sarah Ruddick, author of “Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace.”

Although she is writing teleplays and has “2 or 3 books in the hopper,” McGee said that she still would like to see the show “reincarnated in another form.”

“We would like to get on a bigger station or on television, or someplace that would be more expanding,” she said. But she acknowledged that the focus of the show might not be commercial enough for most stations.

“It would be hard because of the politics,” she said. “I mean, who’s going to sponsor a show like this?”