When the airwaves hum in the early morning across Kashmir’s mountain valleys, what often rises before the sun is the crisp voice of a young woman in headset and mic, greeting listeners of the local station. But behind that friendly “good morning” in Urdu or Kashmiri lies a fierce battle: for respect, for recognition, and for a voice in a world where many still believe a woman should stay silent. In Kashmir, female radio hosts repeatedly face sexist taunts, trolling and smear campaigns just for doing their job of talking, reporting and connecting communities. One of them, Mehak Zubair, told a video piece by Deutsche Welle that the hate-messages come not because she claims to be superior, but simply because her voice crosses a boundary.
These hosts are part of a broader yet too-little-told narrative across South Asia: women behind the mic, narrating lives, connecting rural and urban, raising issues from domestic violence to misogyny, and facing the backlash every time they dare to broadcast. In each country, the backdrop differs — tidal waves of patriarchy, online hate, digital harassment, cultural taboos — but the pattern is similar: a woman speaks, the trolls attack.
Take Radio Begum in Afghanistan, launched by journalist‐entrepreneur Hamida Aman on International Women’s Day 2021. It was described as “by women, for women” and offered education, health information and women’s rights programming in a country where girls’ schooling has been repeatedly eroded. Yet despite its vital role, the station was suspended by the Taliban in early 2025 on dubious licensing grounds, highlighting how a woman’s voice on air can be treated as a threat.
Then there’s Bangladesh, where rural community radio stations are increasingly harnessing their grassroots reach to tackle gender-based violence and technology-facilitated online abuse. A recent workshop by the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication curated programming to help stations recognise and counter digital misogyny, especially in peripheral districts. These radio hosts play a stealth but critical role: enabling domestic-violence survivors to speak, helping girls understand their rights, and channel-ing rural women’s voices into the national conversation.
Why is this fight so intense? Because radio is one of the few mass media channels still accessible in remote South-Asian hinterlands, and when women operate it, or feature on it, the message is: we belong in the public sphere. That alone disrupts centuries-old norms. Online abuse of female journalists is now well documented across South Asia: the International Federation of Journalists describes the trolling of women media workers as “intense, discriminatory, vile”. Whether on Instagram or WhatsApp or call-in shows, the insults are rarely about content—they are about identity: you should not be here, your voice should not carry. This is gendered harassment in its rawest form, and for female radio hosts in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and beyond, it’s a daily reality.
And still they broadcast. The host in Kashmir says she has to moderate her online persona, scrub photos and avoid certain topics—but she stays on air. Radio Begum continued to broadcast—even while under threat—because the listeners (many women, many young girls) lean into that voice as proof of possibility. In Bangladesh, community stations empower even non-trained women broadcasters to make programs on violence, digital abuse and local rights, proving that the mic doesn’t have to stay silent. These women are not simply “hosts”; they have become local agents of change.
Culturally, the stakes are high. In parts of South Asia, a woman’s public voice still triggers questions: “Why is she speaking?” “What is she wearing?” “Whose permission does she have?” Female radio hosts disrupt all of that. They challenge the norm that women stay behind closed doors. When they announce a show, interview a domestic-violence survivor, or moderate a community call-in on abuse, they are publicly asserting: my voice matters, my perspective counts.
What comes after the mic matters too. Many stations now take safety and digital training seriously, recognising that harassment doesn’t end when the broadcast ends—it extends into WhatsApp groups, into DMs and into private terror. Organisations are offering counselling, legal aid, peer networks. For instance in Pakistan, networks such as the Digital Rights Foundation support women journalists facing online attacks. Female radio hosts in this region often need that support more than male colleagues.
In a world of dark misogyny, where digital harassment cascades like a virus, the microphone becomes a shield, not just a tool. These women are not merely reading weather reports and morning schedules—they are wielding sound as resistance. They are reclaiming the air, the internet, the public square. The chips are stacked: conservative norms, digital trolls, weak protections. Yet they persist because they know: if the women won’t talk, no one will.
South Asian sisters with the microphones — I see you. I hear you. And I feel the fire in your voices. Let me tell you something: there is no courage like a woman who speaks publicly in societies where silence is considered a virtue, obedience a duty, and invisibility a safety measure. Turning on that mic? That’s not just a job, love. That’s resistance with frequency modulation.
There is something sacred, almost revolutionary, about women claiming sound. For generations, the loud voice belonged to the man — the preacher, the politician, the father of the house, the neighborhood uncle who always had too many opinions and not enough self-awareness. Women’s voices were expected to be lilting, soft, careful. South Asian femininity has been a performance: smile, nod, swallow the anger, don’t embarrass the family.
But these radio hosts — in Kashmir’s misty valleys, in Bangladesh’s riverine towns, in Afghan homes where the windows must be shuttered — they have chosen another script. They have chosen to speak loud enough to be heard by strangers.
And of course, the backlash comes running like wild dogs. The hate messages. The “character assassination.” The endless stream of men whose fragile masculinity cracks like cheap porcelain the moment a woman talks about domestic violence, rights, or simply the weather in a confident tone. “Who allowed her to speak?” they ask. The answer is simple: she did.
What I love most is how these women transform the airwaves into community. A platform. A lifeline. A reminder to the isolated woman in a small town that she is not alone. That someone out there is claiming space, speaking truth, cracking jokes, holding grief gently, naming what others hide. The radio becomes a home where patriarchy’s walls can’t quite close in.
Yes, the trolls bark. Yes, the authorities sometimes threaten. Yes, the misogyny is relentless. But listen closely: the voices continue. They open every show. They greet their listeners. They read the news. They discuss life. They remind us that courage doesn’t always wear armor — sometimes it wears headphones and lip balm, sitting in a small studio with a red “ON AIR” light glowing like a heartbeat.
To my sisters at the microphones: Auntie bows deeply. You are the front line and the frequency. Keep speaking. Keep broadcasting. Keep breaking the silence.
The airwaves are yours.