Most women hosting national radio talk shows are rabidly conservative -- Laura Schlesinger, Debbie Schlussel, Laura Ingraham -- but in our market, you're lucky to find a female voice that isn't just a sidekick to a dominating male. That's what makes 90.1's Barbara Crist's no-nonsense style stand out from the madding crowd. "I don't think the L-word is bad," says the longtime lefty. "And I use the F-word a lot. As in
feminist." Crist started out, she says, as a "pushy feminist" including a stint as president of Missouri's National Organization for Women chapter, which led to her first public-access TV show in the 1980s. Dressed in hats and pastel frocks, Crist's demure image defied her views, which so upset male callers that one phoned in to accuse her of being a lesbian. She's not, but she thanked him for the compliment on the air. Another viewer left a Bible at her front door. Her callers are much less hostile on the left-leaning 90.1, but she's still up for a verbal rumble from 6 to 7 p.m. every Tuesday if she's pushed into one.
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