The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the PressChapter 4
The Development of Communication Networks Among Women, 1963-1983
– a history of women’s media in the U.S. –
by Martha Allen
Chapter 4: MULTI-ISSUE WOMEN’S PERIODICALS, 1973-1983
While the pioneer periodicals, 1968-1972, set the basic and enduring characteristics of women’s communication networks, the next ten years marked the major difference between women’s media of this period and those of all past history: their remarkable extensiveness. The communication networks in this decade reached all parts of the country and women in all walks of life. As a result, the women’s movement came to be considered a permanent part of modern society.
The eight characteristics of women’s media that we saw in the early women’s periodicals continued to appear in the women’s papers that now sprang up across the country in the hundreds. These characteristics, indeed, became the identifying qualities of the movement itself, as the new papers made clear.
Yet, while these characteristics arose spontaneously among women’s media, to maintain some of them often took creativity. This was particularly true of the collective structure of women’s media. Although it was sometimes inefficient for accomplishing tasks, the collective approach was adopted or maintained in many cases because it was considered more egalitarian. While the non-attack, no-name-calling characteristic of women’s media did prevail, it too ran into trouble when the anger that women felt in experiencing and reporting injustices impelled them occasionally into a “blaming” style of journalism rather than their more usual approach of giving the information, providing analysis, and offering possible solutions. In such cases it took a conscious effort to adhere to the non-attack approach, and they sometimes had to write out guidelines for themselves and others writing in the periodical. In the course of resolving such problems women found themselves developing a new kind of journalism.
The first characteristic, as we saw in the last chapter, was the practice of women writing for themselves rather than reporting other women’s news and opinions for them. This was clear in the first newspapers published in the period 1973-1983 that followed the pioneers. Distaff, a New Orleans newspaper appearing in January of 1974, stated that it was “a forum through which women can express themselves in a creative manner through poetry, short stories, essays, photography and political opinion.” Texan Woman, published in Austin in 1973, wrote that it came into existence “to provide a forum for the voices of Texas women.” She, a paper from Chicago, Illinois, described the “marvelous stories” by women that came into their offices “by mail, by person, by phone, on the street.” They felt a need to publish these experiences of women for the benefit of all. Editor Peggy J. Durham noted that Sister Advocate did not write about the lives of other women but instead accepted articles which poured into their office in Oklahoma City written by women from all parts of the state.
Reminiscent of the first paper, Voice of Women’s Liberation in 1969, whose editors used the journal as a means for women to write to each other, Pandora: A Washington Women’s News Journal, of Seattle, became “a forum for women across Washington to communicate with each other.” The Allegheny Feminist stated a similar approach in their March/April 1977 issue: “Our purpose is to provide a communications medium for all feminists in Allegheny County and neighboring areas, regardless of group affiliation or lack of it, special interest within feminism, or degree of activism,” and pointed out “We would like to document what is happening now, the changes women are going through themselves and making happen around them, and to tell it from the woman’s point of view.”
The question of exactly how literally to take the philosophy of women “speaking for themselves” came out most clearly in facing the dilemma of how much editing should be done to articles submitted to the periodicals. The Marin Women’s News Journal discussed this and related points:
Staff discussions have brought out two main philosophies of what the Journal should be. Some of us feel that its main purpose is as a source of expression for women. We all need to be heard. They favor a policy of no editing, allowing other women to experience a woman’s work just as she created it. This has largely been our policy in the past. Also, the Journal has, to this point, published almost every article submitted.
Others on the staff felt that editing aided understanding. They wished to more closely take into consideration the interests of their readers and what readers might wish to see in the paper. They argued that to move toward reader orientation would enable them to be in closer touch with their readers.
Women, A Berkshire Feminist News Journal, published in Massachusetts, even invited the author to participate in the editing of articles, carrying this statement on author participation. “If you would like to supervise the editing of your article or feel that no editing is necessary, we welcome you to our meetings,” they wrote. “Articles are read by the women on the staff and changes are discussed by the group.” Again, allowing women to communicate their own information in their own way was a high priority, but they also wished to merge that principle with space considerations and with what they considered to be readability. It was to accomplish this that they urged the participation of writers in the process of editing.
Sister, West Coast Feminist Newspaper, was “a communication media by, for, and about women.” It declared: “We see Sister as a communication channel for women to express themselves on topics of concern to feminists.” The characteristic of women speaking for themselves, in one way or another, was expressed time and again in the women’s periodicals, not only in the early years but throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The second characteristic of women’s media — their collective structure, which characterized the early women’s periodicals, also continued to identify the periodicals of the next decade. This characteristic of collectivity also helped to shape the women’s movement. Only a few of the many women’s periodicals with this characteristic structure can be mentioned here, but even the periodicals that maintained staff positions often made use of collective discussions to give direction to the periodical. With the periodicals viewed primarily as communication vehicles rather than businesses with rigid hierarchical structures, and with a philosophy of equality in the communication process, it is not surprising that women’s media sought a collective approach, despite any inefficiency that might result.
Chrysalis, A Magazine of Women’s Culture, a quarterly with a circulation of 13,000 subscribers, published in Los Angeles, told their readers that their editorial decisions were the result of a collective process. “Admittedly this is a slow process,” they wrote, in describing what was involved. “But it is effective in maintaining our feminist commitment to feminist values and feminist process.” OURS, A Feminist Newspaper, published in Little Rock, Arkansas, called themselves “A Feminist News Collective” and stated in their pages that they operated collectively, as also did Second Wave, a feminist journal of radical politics and literature published in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sister Courage, Greater Boston’s Independent Feminist Newsjournal, stated prominently in the paper that it was run by an open, structured collective.
Distaff, the New Orleans periodical whose first issue stated it was “a feminist paper collective, open to any women who want to participate” but which ceased after 13 issues, was later reorganized under a partnership of a black woman and a white woman, Donna Swanson and Mary Gehman. The paper continued to see itself as providing a forum for women’s information, encouraging women’s input and support. After another hiatus from 1977 to 1979, Mary Gehman joined with three new women to explore the possibility of once again publishing the paper and came out with their first issue in November 1979. The staff then expanded to include five more women. Despite the many changes — and even when the periodical had a staff structure of editors, writers, and production workers — collective orientation and publishing methods were generally followed.
The third characteristic of women’s media — their noncompetitive, sharing attitude — also continued strongly throughout this period. Women’s periodicals exchanged information, reprinted items from one another, and promoted each other to their readers. Equal Times, published in Boston, for instance, told about Womantide Magazine in Provincetown, Massachusetts, expressing not a sense of competition but of sharing. Equal Times also described other forms of media, such as the Women’s Video Collective, which had formed in 1983 for the purpose of videotaping the Women’s Peace Encampment in upstate New York. It described the new women’s press, Pandora Press, and Cleis Press, which was publishing a disabled women’s anthology, edited by three disabled women seeking submissions from other women who were disabled. Sojourner, in Cambridge Massachusetts, told of other women’s periodicals, such as Chomo-Uri, a women’s magazine publishing poetry, fiction, black and white graphics, and non-fiction articles, and Focus, a monthly journal of Daughters of Bilitis which featured articles, poetry and reviews. Amazon, Milwaukee’s Feminist Press, carried a story on women’s media, including the feminist music journal, Paid My Dues. The widespread practice of sharing information is well illustrated in the pages of Pandora, which printed items from such periodicals as off our backs, Majority Report, The Spokeswoman, Womanpower, Plexus, Media Report to Women, Marin Women’s News Journal, Prime Time, Her-Self, and Big Mama Rag. When a periodical faced problems, financial or otherwise, other women’s papers responded to calls for help. Plexus, A Bay Area Women’s Newspaper, made a plea for financial support on behalf of Big Mama Rag when it was vandalized in August 1975, urging it to “stay strong, free and outspoken!”
The fourth characteristic of women’s media, analyzing the role of mass media, achieved new levels of understanding of the mass media’s approach to the women’s movement. The need for women to actively participate in their own communication was not recognized at all by mass media. Quest ‘s special issue on “Communication and Control,” drew the issue sharply. Alexa Freeman and Valle Jones wrote: “[F]eminist communication must incorporate the notion that to communicate is to share, that it is, through whatever medium, a process by which something is exchanged. It is, ideally, a mutual process. This principle of mutuality demands both that we have access to the tools of communication and that we actively participate in it. Current media allow us neither.”
Women’s media saw themselves as a way to publish the first hand information of women. They would not be merely media owners and writers giving information to readers. Women realized that to be a communications network rather than a means to control others through the manipulation of information of the few dispersed to the many, there needed to be two way communication. This realization was key to the network-building they had begun.
Sojourner, The New England Women’s Journal of News, Opinions, and the Arts, in its special issue on “Women, Media and Power” in 1979, wrote, “there is a growing movement of people in this country who are producing and distributing alternative media,” and added, “Women are very involved in the movement, mostly because commercial media has done such a poor job of being responsive to the needs of women, and portray us in unreal and often destructive ways.” Pandora carried a regular media column by Colleen Patrick entitled, “Mind Over Media.”
Plexus analyzed the phenomenon they saw in the media in 1975: a national focus on what Plexus called an unfounded connection between women and violence, carrying a derogatory implication for the whole women’s movement. “The mass media portrays feminists,” they wrote, “as sadistic trigger-happy bulldykes, i.e. as pseudo-men who can only imitate the worst forms of male behavior. This image is intended to turn people off, obviously. It also indicates that the men who dream up these fantasies can’t comprehend what we’re about, that they have fallen for their own big lie.”
Womenews, published in Cleveland, Ohio, was another of the many women’s periodicals that provided critiques of mass media, noting that omission of women was often as damaging as misportrayal. “The Women’s Movement isn’t dying, you just haven’t heard any news coverage of women on television,” they stated. “Around the United States, the Equal Rights Amendment is the issue that will be affecting the entire population. However, the majority of the population does not know the wording of the proposed 27th Amendment to the Constitution, nor even know of its history. The Women’s Movement isn’t dead, it’s just that the newspapers make little mention of it. It’s just not getting any news coverage.”
The evaluation of mass media’s inadequate job of providing communications for women, as well as their stereotyping of women, added to the need women felt to strengthen their own communication networks. Women recognized the importance of controlling their own media; they could see that relying on mass media would in no way provide communication among them. Distaff stated that when their preview issue appeared in January 1973 it was greeted by its readers as a positive addition to the press in New Orleans and “a chance for women of the city to control their own media, to be heard on common issues and to communicate with each other.” Many women’s periodicals printed the Susan B. Anthony quote on media control by men. Both Distaff and Pandora ran the quote in every issue: “Just as long as newspapers and magazines are controlled by men, every woman upon them must write articles which are reflections of men’s ideas. As long as that continues, women’s deepest convictions will never get before the public.”
Distaff noted that in the 1960’s and early 1970’s women started developing their own media and that this was necessary for progress for women. “Essential to any socio-political movement is a voice, a place to disseminate and share ideas, news, theory and information,” they wrote. “We could not depend on the establishment media to provide that — we had to make it ourselves. Consequently,” they wrote, “there was a spate of all kinds of women’s newspapers, newsletters, magazines, books, catalogues, directories, radio and TV programming, films and informal means of communication.”
Periodically mass media would present a program on the topic of women. These programs were scrutinized by women’s media. They were found to be either inadequate accounts of women’s progress, or they were distortions of women’s true situations. When NBC aired a program entitled “Women — Men,” for example, Jan Gilbert analyzed it in Distaff. Why, she asked, “when the E.R.A. is yet to be ratified, when female prostitutes are being jailed while the male counterpart goes free, when rape is a virtually unprovable offense, when the long overdue right to a rip-off abortion is in danger of being repealed, when . . . (for the sake of brevity I’ll let the reader fill in her own concept of injustice), why is the Movement now a subject for a network ‘Special’?”
Her analysis suggested that mass media cared more about making money, not communicating the needs and experiences of women. “It is crucial for women to understand that the media is making money off the movement, and that is why we are allowed to exist,” she wrote. Of all the issues of great concern to women, the program focused instead on such things as two young girls shown in a boxing ring slugging away at each other to the cheers of onlookers. The program described two women who broke into, as the writer described it, “that citadel of higher masculine education, Princeton.” One woman’s romance with a man, both of them in the school of architecture, was broken off because of the professional competition, the program related. The other woman was accepted because she had proven that she was “just like one of the guys.” At the program’s end Jan Gilbert counted few women among the many credits.
The fifth characteristic that we called in the pioneering women’s periodicals as the non-attack, no-name-calling approach to journalistic reporting, continued to be evident just as prominently in the periodicals that arose after 1972 as it was before. Plexus, the paper published in the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, was explicit in its adherence to this philosophy. “We print nothing that is defamatory to any group or individual,” they wrote on their editorial page. Distaff stated in its first issue that they would accept articles “as long as they do not discriminate against persons according to sex, race, class or ethnic membership,” and, they wrote, “we will not publish articles that pit women against women.” Sojourner wrote that it would consider for publication “anything that is not racist, sexist, or homophobic in content.” It was considered important also to extend the prohibition against derogatory name-calling attacks to advertisements as well. Pandora stated that it did not accept “sexist or racist advertising or any advertising which is demeaning to any age, ethnic, religious, or sexual preference group.” The women on the Little Rock newspaper, OURS, said they opposed racism and “point out the double burden of racism and sexism placed on third world women.”
The sixth characteristic of women’s media found in the early years’ periodicals — that of being an open forum for all women — remained fully as important throughout the next decade. Sojourner , in fact said that it had been “founded on the principle of presenting an open forum for women.” The principle was also commonly stated in later women’s periodicals. It was very clear to those in women’s media that the channels of information had to be open to all women, and they said they intended to make special efforts to involve women of various backgrounds. She, with a circulation of 60,000 and a staff of eight women, called itself “the open forum for women’s voices, from the homemaker to the professional” and described itself as “a newspaper for women of all ages & philosophies.” The paper stated it was a reflection of women universally and that since women universally ask for justice and compassion for all people, injustices of all people would be heard in its pages. “[T]here can never be equality for one without equality for all!,” they wrote. Second Wave stated that although their collective was diverse in class background and ages, they were all white. “[W]e recognize that our experience is not representative enough of the feminist community we are trying to serve;” they wrote, “therefore we would especially welcome women of color.” Texan Woman reached out in its effort to get ethnic diversity, carrying, for instance, an article on black feminism in Austin. Some women’s periodicals continued to omit editorials in the belief that this helped them to be more of an open forum. Sojourner wrote that it did not write editorials “because we want all women to feel that their opinions are welcome on our pages.”
Women’s periodicals’ most consistent quality was provision of new information not found in mass media. This seventh characteristic, which women’s media took very seriously, was often said to be a primary reason for their existence. The Hudson Valley Women’s Times, published in Hyde Park, New York, was “a publication containing little known, but vital, information pertaining specifically to ALL women, and society in general.” It stated, “Women’s concerns and women’s opinions will be front page news for a change.” Sister Advocate, founded March 1975 in Oklahoma City and published for 64 consecutive months, wrote that they printed articles that other publications rejected, “touching on topics rarely discussed by your average Okie: Women in Prison . . . Women in Military . . . Women in the Arts . . . ERA Opponents . . . Misogyny or Woman-Hating . . . ERA Marches.” Donna Swanson, of Distaff, wrote: “Mary Gehman and I work seven days a week in order to provide information and coverage of events that you won’t find any place else.”
The music of the women’s movement, which received almost no coverage in mass media, was given full play in Allegheny Feminist, one among several women’s papers that now began to feature the steadily growing-field of women’s music. “Just Wimmin” was Pittsburgh’s only all-women feminist band, formed in September 1978, formerly called “Coco & Co.” The group of four black and one white women felt they had an important task to interest more black women in the women’s movement but stressed their group was open to women of every color and nationality. Other periodicals that covered women’s music were Maine Freewoman’s Herald, which reported information not only about the New England Women’s Music Festival held in May 1978, but also about the Boston women’s bands, New Harmony Sisterhood Band and Lilith.
The Allegheny Feminist also carried numerous articles on pornography and women’s responses to it, including a report from an Anti-Pornography Conference held in New York on the multi-billion dollar industry, a March Against Pornography, a Rape Awareness Week, and a call for action against pornography. Sister Courage dealt with the issue of violence against women in devoting a page to the description of a protest demonstration against the advertising of men’s clothes in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, display window which posted a sign saying “We’d Kill for These Shoes” and showing a woman’s mutilated body. The paper also printed the store’s press release justifying the display.
New Women’s Times, in Rochester, New York, provided in-depth information, also not found in the mass media, about the 1980 World Conference of Women in Copenhagen, Denmark. “Those in Copenhagen had experiences they’ll never forget,” Karen A. Hagberg wrote. “But what about the rest of us?,” she asked. “The establishment press told us practically nothing. It mainly gloated over women’s disagreements around men’s politics. We got none of the flavor of the event . . . no analysis of whatever feminist significance the event might have had.” She then described the approach of women’s periodicals:
“And what about the feminist press? What will we bring you? Many of us subscribe to an ad hoc news service set up for the sole purpose of covering Copenhagen; some of us sent staff members to get first-hand stories; and all, I am sure, know women who were there. In other words, we are in the fortunate position of knowing a lot about what went on in Copenhagen.”
She reminded her readers that despite the fact that a significant portion of the double issue was devoted to the Copenhagen Conference, it was only a small part of a very big story.
The eighth characteristic of women’s media — their activist tendency — remained as strong in other papers over the decade as it had been in the pioneer women’s press. Florynce Kennedy, black feminist attorney whose analysis of media provided frequent insights into the importance of women’s media, spoke in New Orleans, in 1973, and members of the Distaff collective caught a few minutes with her in private on the way to the airport. “Objective reporting is a myth in the first place,” Kennedy stated. “You’ve got to be actively causing things to happen and then cover them.” She said she saw Distaff as a centralizing force to gather women together for political action, to initiate pickets and protests and then write about them. That way readers would relate to an active political unit, not just a journalistic body. Distaff said that they covered “urgent issues in the interest of freedom of all women” and therefore included both action-oriented issues and philosophical topics, because “action is not possible without philosophy.” OURS, the Little Rock, Arkansas newspaper, was another example of this activist characteristic of women’s media. They reported: “OURS, acting on the request of several local women, has set up a special fund to help a 17-year-old North Little Rock woman who was jailed and ordered to pay $510 after she failed to show up at the trial of three men accused of raping her.” The paper set up a fund to help pay the woman’s fine. Maine Freewoman’s Herald stated that they have come to see more clearly what needed to be done to improve women’s lives.
Allegheny Feminist included information on violence against women, a major concern covered by women’s periodicals. From Her Say news service they obtained information about a group of women who had organized a “Pervert Control Center.” The center was a network of women using guerrilla tactics against male obscene telephone callers. To deal with a man who falsely advertised a cheap and spacious apartment for rent, then subjected inquiring women renters to telephone interviews about their sex lives, the “Pervert Controllers” published his number in a feminist newspaper, with very effective results. He changed his number and when women reached him at his new number, he answered in tears, begging for the calls to stop.
Summary
The more than 569 multi-issue women’s periodicals which demonstrated eight characteristics of women’s media contributed a vital communication link among women working on diverse issues. While the multi-issue papers could not provide the depth that the single-issue periodicals provided, they exposed women to the full range of issues of concern to women, and they connected all of the issues together for greater understanding of the women’s movement as a whole. Women focusing on a particular concern could not only learn about information and activities of women in other areas, but could find out how to become active on other issues. The multi-issue periodicals provided a network for the formation of coalitions and broader perspectives that could further the overall progress of women.
Multi-issue, single-issue and special identity periodicals all shared the challenge of how to maintain their existence with limited finances. Many could not continue in existence indefinitely when they were unable to provide a paid staff. Her-Self, for instance, stated in their goodbye letter that they were ceasing publication “due to lack of money and womanpower.” Sister Courage, which published between 1975 and 1978, folded as a result of the full time work and other priorities of the staff members, all of whom were volunteers. They also mentioned that they were a diverse group of women and the collective process required attention but if they stopped printing long enough to deal with this aspect they would not be able to pay their bills. Citing lack of sufficient funds, the quarterly journal United Sisters discontinued publishing. “Subscriptions alone never could carry a publication,” stated editor and publisher Ginger Daire Reber of Tampa, Florida. Like other feminist presses, she said, they had a difficult time obtaining advertisements to help sustain them. Additional factors sometimes aggravated financial and time limitations, such as the situation with New Women’s Times. A costly lawsuit challenged their right to their name because the phrase ‘New Woman’ was owned by the male publishers of ‘New Woman’ magazine. The long-term staff members were suffering from what they termed “burnout” and they had difficulty sustaining volunteer help, which they said for their not-for-profit organization had always been essential to their survival. Women’s periodicals sought solutions to the challenges they faced short of ceasing publication. It is not rare that a periodical would resurface after months or longer after desperately working on seeking solutions to their predicaments. But often they were simply unable to overcome the obstacles. Chrysalis ceased publication after struggling for years with extreme financial difficulties. “We worked to find alternatives to our increasing debt,” they stressed. “We sought out University programs that might adopt us, initiated conversion to a nonprofit foundation structure, asked for institutional funding, and, of course, pan-handled among our sisters.” They told their subscribers and readers, “please believe us — we tried.”
Turning our attention now to single issue periodicals, which were, in fact, flourishing alongside the multi-issue papers, we will examine their unique contributions to the development of women’s communication networks, whether they called themselves feminist, radical, liberal, or some other descriptive term.
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Chapter Four Footnoes
1 “Editorial Reply,” Distaff, January 1974, p.4.
2 Texan Woman, 1973.
3 “Editorial,” She, September 1977, p. 2.
4 Pandora: A Washington Women’s News Journal, July 1979, p. 2.
5 The Allegheny Feminist, 15 March 15 April 1977.
6 “Editorial,” Marin Women’s News Journal, July 1973.
7 “Editorial Policy,” Women, A Berkshire Feminist News Journal, March 1975, p. 31.
8 “The State of Sister,” Sister (Oct./Nov. and Aug./Sept. 1977)
9 “Dear Readers,” Chrysalis, A Magazine of Women’s Culture, Summer 1979, p.3; Chrysalis, A Magazine of Women’s Culture, 1980, p. 4.
10 “Statement of Principles,” OURS, A Feminist Newspaper, Spring 1979, p. 2; Second Wave, quoted in “Connection Section,” Equal Times, 2 January 1983, p. 21.
11 Sister Courage, Greater Boston’s Independent Feminist Newsjournal, July/August, p. 2.
12 “Editorial,” Distaff, February 1973, p. 12; November 1980, p. 8.
13 “Connections,” Equal Times, 19 June 1983, pp. 16-17; 11 September 1983, p. 17.
14 “Services,” Sojourner, February 1975, p. 25.
15 “Directory,” Amazon, Milwaukee’s Feminist Press 8 (December/January 1980): 56.
16 Pandora, July 1974, pp. 5, 15; November 1974; June 1975, p.3; February 1976, pp. 3, 4; December 1978, p. 8.
17 “Feminist Publication Vandalized,” Plexus, A Bay Area Women’s Newspaper, October 1975, p. 2.
18 Alexa Freeman and Valle Jones, “Creating Feminist Communications,” Quest, Fall 1976, p. 5.
19 “Women, Media and Power,” Special issue, Sojourner quoted in Media Report to Women, February 1980, p. 13.
20 Nancy Stockwell, “Women Monsters, Media’s New Jaw,” Plexus November 1975, p. 12; Martha Shelley, “A Piece of the Action,” Plexus, December 1975, p. 4.
21 Donna Krause, Womenews, August/September 1977.
22 “Editorial,” Distaff, February 1973, p. 12.
23 “Editorial,” Distaff, 15 March April 15, 1975, p. 2. The original Anthony quote appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 28 May 1893.
24 Mary Gehman, “Distaff Marks Special Anniversary, Roots,” Distaff, November, 1980, p.8.
25 Jan Gilbert, “Analysis, NBC’s ‘Women Men,'” Distaff, 15 January – 15 February 1975.
26 “Editorial,” Plexus, quoted in Media Report for Women, April 1979, p. 10.
27 “Editorial,” Distaff, February 1973, p. 12.
28 Sojourner, February 1979, p. 2.
29 Pandora, June 1975, p. 13.
30 “Statement of Principles,” OURS, Spring 1979, p. 2.
31 “Editorial,” She, September 1977, p. 2.
32 Second Wave, quoted in Equal Times, 2 January 1983, p. 21.
33 Interview with Frieda Werden, co-founder, Texan Woman, 12 November 1986.
34 Sojourner, February 1979, p. 2.
35 “Editorial: Who We Are And Where We’re Going,” Preview Issue, Hudson Valley Women’s Times, (Hyde Park, New York)
36 Donna Gates Meyer, “Sister Advocate Says Goodbye For Now But Watch Out, Oklahoma!,” Sister Advocate, 25 July 1980, p. 2.
37 “Editorial,” Distaff, December 1974, p. 2.
38 “Just Wimmin,” Allegheny Feminist, June 1979, p.6.
39 “New England Women’s Music Festival,” Maine Freewoman’s Herald, Summer 1978, pp. 4-5.
40 Sister Courage, April 1977, quoted in Media Report To Women November 1977, p. 8.
41 Karen A. Hagberg, “Editorial,” New Women’s Times, 26 September 1980.
42 “Flo Kennedy Raps About Distaff,” Distaff, April/May 1973, p. 3.
43 “Editorial Reply,” Distaff, January 1974, p.4.
44 “Appeal for Help”, OURS, Summer 1979, p. 2.
45 Maine Freewoman’s Herald, April-May 1974, p. 16.
46 “Pervert Lacks Sense of Humor,” Allegheny Feminist, June 1979, p. 7.
47 Letter from Her-Self, December 14, 1976, p. 1.
48 Letter to Friends of Sister Courage, 1978.
49 United Sisters, Inc., “Feminist Publication Folds,” press release (no date).
50 “To Our Subscribers,” fliers from New Women’s Times, (no date).
51 Letter from collective members of Chrysalis, “Dear Friends and Readers,” (no date).
