In 2025, AVG-Carhif celebrated its 30th anniversary. To mark the occasion, we posted a monthly favourite from the team (and more) on our social media, which you can find now on our website too.
Nadine Plateau, a retired teacher who has been active in the women’s movement since the 1970s, introduces you to the breast: the feminist radio station Klet Mariette, in which she participated…
English translation of the video
Klet Mariette: You are listening to Radio Klet Mariette, broadcasting on 102 MHz every Saturday morning from approximately 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
AVG-Carhif: Who are you? Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Nadine: My name is Nadine Plateau and I am a retired teacher and a non-retired feminist. I have been active in the women’s movement since the 1970s. First, I was part of a group that sought concrete solutions to the problems faced by women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies. Then we created the Maison des Femmes. I would say that in the wake of this collective action, we created Klet Mariette in the late 1970s.
AVG-Carhif: Can you tell us more about Klet Mariette radio?
Nadine: We prepared the programmes with great care, following current events and feminist news. For example, when there was a conference on motherhood, we tried to get one of the participants or speakers to appear on the programme. We prepared the topic by reading books or articles, or we prepared music related to the theme.
Radio is also a technical thing, so it’s not just a means of broadcasting and content, it’s also equipment and connections between equipment. At the time, it was still relatively simple, but for us, it was really important to be able to master this technology. And so it was part of the whole process of women’s emancipation. It was a way of taking ownership of a field in which they were absent, to which they had no access. Anything technical, scientific, etc., it wasn’t for girls, it wasn’t for women. So for us, it was really important to master this tool, which we quickly learned to use. For example, there are a few posters left from our radio station, Klet Mariette. And I remember that we made those posters from A to Z. That is to say, we stuck the letters A to Z onto a film, transferred the film onto a screen-printing screen and printed these posters with a squeegee. I remember we put on the colour and pulled the squeegee.
AVG-Carhif: Why was radio important to you and your friends?
Nadine: We really liked the idea of challenging the state monopoly that was RTBF and broadcasting programmes illegally on the FM band. It was good, it was a bit of fun, I’d say. Because we were marginalised voices, we were minority voices. As a women’s movement, we weren’t well known, so free radio stations were a way for us to make ourselves known and to publicise our actions, our thoughts, etc. But also, since it was a radio, we played music, promoted female singers, composers, women’s bands, etc. We realised that everything that was broadcast on the radio was a certain representation of women and that all the feminist ideas that had emerged in the 1970s were not appearing in the mainstream media. So it was an attempt to intervene in the media landscape, I would say.