The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the PressChapter 5
The Development of Communication Networks Among Women, 1963-1983
by Martha Allen
Chapter 5: SINGLE-ISSUE WOMEN’S PERIODICALS, 1968-1983
Single-issue women’s periodicals multiplied rapidly between 1968 and 1983 with some 620 coming into existence during these years. They fall into five overall categories, indicating the areas of interest that women were sufficiently concerned about to begin communicating through networks. Women developed specialized periodicals on: (1) health and safety, (2) media, (3) education, (4) politics, and (5) economics. In addition, several other miscellaneous or overlapping special interest periodicals stood as an important part of women’s sharply increasing periodical publishing activity in this period.
On health and safety, women established more than 98 periodicals, including many among women in sports. On media, women began more than 88 periodicals, some which dealt with specific media, such as radio, art and theater, music, film, video, and writing. The most activity occurred in the area of education, with women founding more than 155 periodicals, including literary publications. On politics women started more than 104 periodicals during this period while on economics they founded more than 130 periodicals.
Each of these clusters of periodicals represented a complex network of women, and altogether they greatly extended the women’s movement to include women active in a multitude of special areas of interest, concern, and expertise. The significance comes from carrying the women’s movement and its extensive communication networks to women who would not have been reached by the multi-issue periodicals, either because of those papers’ small circulations, or because they could not deal in sufficient depth with a particular issue. These single issue papers were able to relate to the particular and special area of greatest relevance to women’s personal or professional lives, politically, socially, and economically.
Health and Safety Periodicals
Even in the multi-issue women’s media health and safety were always a primary concern. Therefore it is no surprise to find so many periodicals focusing specifically on these areas. Sixty-one periodicals were devoted to health issues. In 1976 the National Women’s Health Network established the National Women’s Health Network News, which tied together this network among women. Published in Washington, DC, this newsletter provided up-to-date women’s health and medical information and analyzed the impact on women of federal health policies, Congressional legislation, and various health programs.
In addition, a network of newsletters arose out of the women’s health centers popping up across the country. In 1974 alone, the periodicals that arose out of women’s health centers included the Elizabeth Blackwell’s Women’s Health Center Newsletter, Minneapolis; Feminist Women’s Health Center Report, Los Angeles; The Speculator in Honolulu, edited by Nancy Moser; and the Feminists Women’s Health Centers Newsletter out of the Women’s Choice Clinic in Oakland, California.
In 1979 two quarterlies appeared. The New Hampshire Feminist Health Center published Womenwise and the Women’s Health Center in Milwaukee published Irregular Periodical: Newsletter of the Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center. Other health center newsletters included the Emma Goldman Clinic Newsletter [Emma’s Periodical Rag] which appeared in Iowa City; Half the Sky published by the Routh Street Women’s Clinic in Dallas, Texas; and The Hot Flash in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which, edited by Marmika, focused on traditional Spanish and Native American women healers.
Although many of the women at these health centers may not have subscribed to a multi-issue women’s periodical, they often said they avidly read their center’s periodical on issues of particular concern to them. These single issue periodicals carried the message of the women’s movement for equality as well as health news and information, thus extending the concepts of the movement to new women.
This same extension of the women’s movement accompanied the periodicals begun by and for women working in the health professions. Women in, or related to, the medical profession had a wide variety of periodicals through which they shared their experiences. For example, women in nursing practice, education, research and administration communicated through Cassandra: Radical Feminist Nurses Network, published in Williamsville, NY, beginning in November 1982. Medica: Women Practicing Medicine, edited by Ronni Sandroff in New York, dealt with the neglect and isolation felt by many women practicing medicine and addressed non-clinical issues, such as how to combine family and medical career, the ethics of artificial insemination and uncovering the history of women physicians. Jane Ayers and Ina May Gaskin edited the quarterly The Practicing Midwife News, in Summertown, Tennessee, to provide information for midwives on health issues and the politics of medicine. Even wives of doctors had a publication that found the women’s movement addressing their concerns. Medical/Mrs. Magazine, published in New York, was, as its editor Cynthia Smith noted, “solely directed to the spouse of a man who is in the position of a near-God.”
Still other periodicals, while containing health information for women in general, also served as a means to communicate their experiences among each other. The Monthly Extract: An Irregular Periodical, begun in1972, described itself as a “Communications network for the Feminist Gynecological Self Help Movement to fire the revolution by which women will rightfully reclaim our own bodies.” In 1974 the quarterly Healthright appeared in New York, edited by Carla Cassier and Andrea Boroff Eagan. The quarterly Hot Flash: A Newsletter for Mid-Life and Older Women in New York provided women over forty with an information network on health issues. In 1975 the Coalition for the Medical Rights of Women published Second Opinion, formerly The Coalition News, in San Francisco on a bi-monthly basis and continued publishing well past 1983. The Federation of Organizations for Professional Women published Women and Health Roundtable, focused on lobbying and women’s health issues, in Washington, D.C., beginning in 1977. The Women’s Legal Defense Fund also in Washington, D.C., put out the Pregnancy Rights Monitoring Project News, a free periodical providing information on laws affecting pregnancy rights in the workplace.
Two journals arose to deal with addictions among women, bringing the women’s movement ideas to thousands more women who probably never saw a multi-issue paper. For example, in the mid-1970’s, Women for Sobriety began publishing Sobering Thoughts for women alcoholics. Edited by Dr. Jean Kirkpatrick in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, this monthly newsletter pointed out that there were five million such women in the United States. The interdisciplinary quarterly Focus on Women, Journal of Addictions and Health, from Philadelphia, covered family violence, child abuse, occupational hazards, smoking, and drug abuse. The purpose of Feminist Health Fund, Inc. Newsletter, from Yellow Springs, Ohio, was to accept money from donors and give it to economically disadvantaged women during catastrophic illness.
Among the 37 periodicals on women’s health, there were at least 24 dealing with the issue of abortion rights. As early as 1969 the National Abortion Rights Action League Newsletter appeared in Washington, DC, edited monthly by Rebecca Saady Binghamand. At this same time, the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws published N.A.R.A.L. News in New York. Some women’s health papers linked the issue of abortion rights to all reproductive rights and some others also to efforts against sterilization abuse.
Related to these periodicals that were focused on health issues were at least 16 periodicals dealing with women and sports. Here, too, special interest periodicals extended the movement’s concepts of equality to a considerable number of women. In addition to the general sport periodicals like Sportswoman, published by Amazon Publications in 1973, WomenSports in 1974 in New York, and Women’s Sports in California in 1979, there were numerous specialized periodicals. The extensiveness of these developing, national communication networks can be seen in their titles alone: Camping Women Trails (California and later Nevada), Through the Hoop (Pennsylvania), Washington Women Outdoors (Maryland), Women at the Helm Quarterly (California), Women in Softball (California), and Woodswomen News. (Minnesota). Had it not been for such periodicals connecting women through their special concerns, the women’s movement would not have become as pervasive as it is.
Concern about safety also led to a rapid increase in the number of women’s periodicals on this subject and widespread attention to this problem resulted in such abuse gaining legal recognition as a form of sex discrimination. Here, again, the single-issue safety periodicals reached many thousands of women facing or experiencing violence who had not previously been aware of the existence of multi-issue women’s periodicals until they read about them in these papers. In this way the networks were extended to many more women.
Between 1968 and 1983 over 21 periodicals arose to provide communication networks for exchange of information on violence and abuse against women and on efforts to deal with it. As these periodicals became more numerous and more vocal, mass media began to report on women’s concerns for safety, although never enough to provide a substitute communication network for the one women had now developed. The issue was not as serious a problem to mass media as it was to the women who faced it, and therefore women stressed the necessity to speak for themselves on these concerns.
In 1974, Aegis: Magazine on Ending Violence Against Women, then under the name Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter, began, and well past 1983 served as the major communication forum for women working on issues of violence. Another organization, Women Against Violence Against Women, published newsletters in several cities, including Los Angeles and Seattle. These newsletters served as vital communication networks for women organizing to affect the level of violence directed against women.
Rape crisis centers across the country also published newsletters like Caring For Our Own in Washington, DC and the Rape Crisis Center News in Madison, Wisconsin. Women Organized Against Rape in Philadelphia began publishing WOAR Newsletter in1973, dealing with rape prevention, self-defense, lobbying, counseling, and education.
The number continued to increase through the 70’s. In 1976, the Center for Women Policy Studies began publishing Response to Violence and Sexual Abuse in the Family in Washington, DC, and in 1977 the National Communication Network for the Elimination of Violence Against Women appeared in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focused on rape and self-defense. That same year the Task Force on Battered Women and Sojourner Truth House in Milwaukee began publishing the bi-monthly Outcry on battered women and pornography.
Women in the self defense movement also saw the close connection with women’s movement concepts, extending them to whole new audiences of women and girls as they developed communication networks in at least five notable periodicals. Perhaps the most significant, and longest lasting of these, was Fighting Woman News, edited and published by Valerie Eads in New York and covering women’s martial arts, self defense, and sport — “Fighting in Sport or Necessity,” as Eads wrote. Eads had written feature articles for Black Belt magazine and other male-owned martial arts media but learned that she could not rely on the male-owned media as a means of communication for other women despite its impressive outreach. In December 1975, she decided to begin her own periodical.
Three months earlier, in September 1975, Black Belt Woman, The Magazine for Women in the Martial Arts and Self Defense had already been launched by Dana Densmore, one of the founders of the earliest (1968) theoretical journal on female liberation, No More Fun And Games. The publication emerged to serve as a communication and information network for all women in the women’s martial arts and self-defense movement. The characteristics of women’s media were particularly evident in the pages of Black Belt Woman. Densmore, the publisher, stated that the editors “believe in the power of information and the importance of communication” and for this reason the editors formulated a policy “to print essentially everything which is submitted, unedited, with only a few guidelines.” One of the guidelines, Densmore stated, “is that we want every woman to speak for herself.” This characteristic of women’s media was considered important because without it women could be isolated. Part of what kept women in the martial arts isolated, Densmore noted, was the presumption of others, including the male-oriented karate magazines, to speak for them, to represent them. Another characteristic of women’s media which the periodical stressed was to avoid articles that dealt in attack. Controversy was acceptable and considered useful. “Attacks are energy draining, hurtful, and no one likes to read them,” Densmore wrote, explaining the policy of the periodical. “No one is going to risk expressing her opinions, and especially not try out new ideas, if she has to fear she will be attacked.” The in-depth explanation of several of the characteristics of women’s media in this specialized periodical help indicate that they were concerns not only of the multi-issue periodicals, but also of single-issue periodicals as well.
Karen Lunquist of Washington, D.C. began the third martial arts periodical, The Girls’ and Women’s Taekwondo Newsletter, in 1982 to provide a communication network for women in the Korean style of martial arts and to expand the concepts of women’s equality to this traditionally male martial art. In California Beth Austin published the Women in Martial Arts Newsletter and then later edited the Velvet Fist, published by A.W.A.R.E. (A Woman’s Answer to Rape).
Women’s Media Periodicals
Media, as a single issue, itself was the subject of at least 86 women’s periodicals arising between 1968 and 1983 and probably had a greater influence on extending the women’s movement and women’s communication than any other of the single group of issues, excepting possibly education. In this case networks grew through the double outreach effort of the issue being both a subject matter and a medium itself — a periodical print medium about other media, such as art, music, video, and radio.
The periodical that provided significant analysis of both the women’s media networks in all its forms and also the male-owned mass media was Media Report to Women, launched in 1972 by the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP), in Washington, D.C. This periodical not only analyzed and documented the characteristics of women’s media, but it advocated new principles upon which to base journalistic decisions. One such principle was to emphasize facts over opinions. “Although entitled to express our opinions, even without giving the facts on which we based them, we believe that all people must find, as we do, that others’ conclusions are nearly useless without their facts to enable us to judge the opinion’s merit for ourselves, or to form our own,” wrote the editors. “Conclusions without facts keep us apathetic, powerless to act, and dependent upon the decision-making of others.” The WIFP’s annual Index/Directory of Women’s Media, which emerged in January 1975, not only documented the existence of women’s media in all forms, but in 1977 began including “The Seven Assumptions for a New Philosophy of Communication,” written by Donna Allen and Dana Densmore. By 1978 the Directory was also including WIFP’s “Radical Feminist Analysis of Mass Media,” originally published as their “Call For Research.”
Media Report to Women published comments by attorney Florynce Kennedy on media’s power to inhibit expansion of the women’s movement. Her insights articulated what many women were experiencing as to the effects of the mass media on women and the women’s movement. “The press divides us and asks why we’re not together,” she noted, continuing:
“For, as we all know from reading the papers and watching TV, feminists are nothing more than child-hating, white, middle-class, lesbians who are mainly interested in burning their bras and being called “Ms.” And, besides, they’re too homely to get a man. We also know from reading ladies’ page profiles and interviews that all women who have “made it” did it by themselves and are “no women’s libbers.” They say so themselves when the reporters ask them. And the reporters always do.
“One wonders how many child-tolerant, man-tolerant, non-white, low-income, straight, brat-tolerant women who don’t call anybody “miz” have been drummed out of the women’s movement, and how many never dared join because they saw it on TV.
“If the feminist movement doesn’t do something about the media soon, we run the risk of more press-provoked splits — and fewer members. Already, a women’s center in one of the boroughs which serves mainly working-class women has had to censor the word “feminist” from its publicity because its organizers fear no one would come to their programs.”
Women across the country who shared these experiences took up Florynce Kennedy’s call to examine the media and organized specifically around women and media issues.
In Memphis, Tennessee in 1973, the Women’s Media Project Newsletter began one project activating Southern women to negotiate agreements with local broadcast stations for employment of more women, especially black women, and for more women’s programming. Such newsletters were the means by which women in media spoke for themselves at the same time they were extending movement concepts to new women.
The earliest of the media periodicals began in 1969 when Media Women in New York published Media Women’s Monthly. Coming from media women, this journal covered not only media issues, but issues such as abortion rights, child care, the Equal Rights Amendment [ERA], and lobbying. In 1971 the Image of Women National Task Force Committee of the National Organization for Women published Electra. That same year the Image of Women Task Force in Eastern Massachusetts also produced a newsletter. And in 1972 the National Federal Communication Commission Task Force of NOW published a newsletter in Chicago which covered media, feminism, the ERA, lobbying and women’s rights in general. In 1973 the Feminist Media Project Newsletter began in Washington, DC. A monthly critique of women’s image in local and national print and broadcast arose in the mid-1970’s in Honolulu, HI, entitled Monitoring the Media in Hawaii.
On the West Coast in 1973, Booklegger Magazine arose in San Francisco, reviewing independently-produced feminist materials and media and publishing a guide in 1978, The Passionate Perils of Publishing, which included an analysis of the book publishing industry. Both carried feminist concepts to more women. “Book publishing, like all industries, is controlled by rich, white, heterosexual men,” it stated. “To retain this power, their books naturally reinforce status quo attitudes of privilege and discrimination.” In an article on feminists in print, the author mentioned the “amazing multiplication of women’s periodicals, publishers, distributors and bookstores.” Two of the characteristics of women’s media were stressed when she wrote: “Having realized that information is power and that this society is media manipulated, we want to speak for ourselves.”
Professional media women published their own periodicals. The National Federation of Press Women, Inc. published Press Woman; Women in Communications, Inc., Matrix; and American Women in Radio and Television, Inc., News and Views. All had chapter papers, such as AWRT’s Stand By, the Washington, DC chapter monthly newsletter featuring news, profiles, career hints and analysis of government rulemakings in broadcasting. Chicago Women in Publishing began their newsletter in 1972, including analysis of publishing trends from a feminist perspective, but also extending the outreach of other women’s movement concerns with articles on subjects such as self defense for women. The Committee on Women in Business Communications of the International Association of Business Communicators published Dialogue, while the women’s committee of the Association for Education in Journalism put out Status News.
Periodicals also arose among many non-print media, to be discussed more fully in chapter seven. The Feminist Radio Network published Calliope in 1978, for example, to assist women in the building of communication networks through that medium.
Women concerned about pornography communicated through various forms of media, both print and non-print, establishing periodicals that discussed common courses of action for all women to influence and change this form of media abuse of women. Women Against Violence in Pornography & Media Newspage, for example, edited by Laura Lederer in 1977 in San Francisco, served as the monthly newsletter of a 500-member feminist organization active in fighting abusive images of women in news media, magazines, advertising, and the openly pornographic print, video, and cable media.
The rapidly-expanding new media technology also gave rise to periodicals, extending the communication networks to women involved in and interested in these new technologies. The Feminist Computer Technology Project Newsletter in San Diego, California, for example, reported their efforts to make computer technology available to more women and to advance the feminist movement. Women in Instructional Technology, an organization founded to deal with the issues and concerns of professional women in educational communication and technology, published the periodical, Platform.
To assist women in getting their messages out, newly risen women’s bookstores across the country shared their experience and advice with each other through the Feminist Bookstore’s Newsletter, edited by Carol Seajay in San Francisco, which aided women writers, musicians, and artists in reaching many new women.
There were also resource periodicals on media. Catalyst Media Review appeared in New York as a quarterly review of audio-visual materials dealing with work-related issues of concern to women. And in 1981 Linda Parker put together the bimonthly Feminist Periodicals: A Current Listing of Contents in Madison, Wisconsin, which reproduced the table of contents pages of major feminist periodicals.
Art and Theater Periodicals
Approximately a third of the 90-some periodicals on media that arose between 1968 and 1983 dealt with women’s art and theater, ranging from the1971Women and Art, and the quarterly Feminist Art Journal that began in 1972, both published in New York, to the West-East Bag (W.E.B.) published in 1972 in Los Angeles by the International Liaison Network of Women Artists.
The National Organization for Women had numerous women-and-arts task force newsletters, and other women’s organizations also put out periodicals on women’s arts. In 1975 Women Artists Newsletter was published on a monthly basis by a New York organization of women committed to combating sex discrimination in the arts. In 1976 The Women Artists Group News began in Seattle as “a forum for the exchange of ideas and information vital to all women who care about the arts.” Women’s art centers also published periodicals, such as the Washington Women’s Art Center News, in Washington, DC which began a monthly in 1978.
Women founded independent ventures as well. A quarterly titled Womanart Magazine arose in New York devoted to women in visual arts with articles of historical and contemporary interest, exhibition reviews, and reports on current events, and Elisa Honig Fine published the Women’s Art Journal was published in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The women’s art community was replete with consciousness-raising periodicals, each extending the women’s rights movement to a different area of women’s art. Although few of these women may have been acquainted with the multi-issue periodicals, they sometimes read about them in their art periodicals. For example, the summer 1977 issue of Women Artists Newsletter contained a national news roundup covering events by Southern women and by women in California, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, and Boston. Included also was a story about the slide presentations selected by Women Against Violence Against Women primarily from Vogue magazine, showing images of violence and victimization of women. Art periodicals and their independent networks served women artists well. Each had their own feminist raison d’être.
Women in the theater and performing arts had several periodicals through which to communicate with each other. In 1975 they could read Women in Performing Arts Newsletter, and in 1983 they could turn to Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. Edited by Jill Dolan and Judy Rosenthal, Women & Performance, discussed feminist issues in theater, dance, film, video and ritual, and noted the inhibiting effect of mass media. “We are tired of our absence from established media — an omission that prevents us from communicating,” they wrote. “Creating this journal begins to give women a louder, more articulate voice everywhere in culture.” The journal was to serve “as a vehicle for discussion and analysis of our past, present and future activities,” the editors wrote. In studying the portrayals of women in films, Jane Dowd found a “flawed image, an illusion of liberation, an illusion of a metamorphosis.” She stated that most female protagonists were still trapped in old film myths that reward the passive and punish the strong. It was clear to them that women had to produce their own media.
Women’s theater groups sometimes also published their own newsletters, as did The Los Angeles Feminist Theatre in 1971 and At The Foot of the Mountain, a women’s theater in Minneapolis, in 1978.
Music Periodicals
Eight women’s periodicals dealt specifically with music, two of them arising in 1974. Founded and edited by Dorothy K. Dean in Milwaukee, the quarterly Paid My Dues included in its first issue “The Herstory of Women in Music,” interviews, record reviews, the words and music of four songs, and other articles. It also included a call urging women to send in articles to share their music and knowledge in a network section that would enable musicians to link up with others. The other 1974 periodical was Indra Allen’s Musica: A Newsletter About Women in Music and the Music in Women out of San Francisco. Its first issue included the names of women’s recording companies, a list of records already out, and of women interested in recording and playing with, or for, other women. It also included a few news items and information about where women were playing.
Exhibiting the characteristics of other women’s media, each of these music periodicals applied the non-attack approach to the question of whether music reviews should pass judgment on other women’s music. They sought to have women musicians speak for themselves. Dorothy Dean wrote in Paid My Dues that thus far she had reviews done only by people who were impressed by the albums, and asked her readers what they thought of this. Musica editor Indra Allen printed information about women’s music performances and albums, insisting that it be written by the musicians themselves. “Most reviews as they exist now consist of the opinion of a person who feels required to pass judgment on someone else’s work,” she wrote. “Just being another person is supposed to give impartiality. Too often a critic judges according to her or his own tastes, or by comparison,” she noted. “But who’s the better informed on the music that someone does than that someone?” In Musica, women’s reactions appeared as various individual’s opinions, rather than as a judgment passed by the editor or someone else who was supposed to be “objective.”
Potentially most crucial to making women’s music a network and greatly extending the women’s movement to these new women, were the producers, managers, and distributors of women’s music. Their international newsletter Music Women was published out of New York, with the express purpose of creating a network to share skills and set up tours.
Other women’s music periodicals were Clara, begun in 1977 as a bimonthly newsletter and research report on women’s music; the monthly Boston Women’s Music Newsletter, also begun in 1977, which provided information on women’s music, especially in the Boston area; the newsletter of the American Woman Composers, Inc., which served composers and musicians with articles on performances of women’s music, grants and competitions, record and book reviews; the International League of Women Composers Newsletter, quarterly publication of that organization; and The International Congress on Women in Music Newsletter, published quarterly in Los Angeles beginning in January 1983. Scarcely a facet of the women’s music world was without its communication network. Scarcely an aspect was untouched by the women’s movement or failed to make a contribution to it.
Periodicals of Writers’ Groups
For the woman writer, there were five significant women writer periodicals appearing in this 1963 through 1983 period. The Feminist Writers’ Guild published a national newsletter in Berkeley beginning in 1978, as well as numerous chapter newsletters. The Association of Women Writers’ monthly Bylines was edited in Honolulu by Roberta Caperoon. Network was the publication of the International Women’s Writing Guild founded by Hannelore Hahn in New York. The National League of American Pen Women published a monthly magazine in Washington, DC. A nationally distributed newsletter, Women Writing, appeared in western New York in the mid-1970’s “to increase communication with and mitigate isolation of women who are writing.”
Film and Video Periodicals
Seven periodicals dealt with film and video issues. As early as 1972 Siew-Hwa Beh and Sawnie Sayler edited the tri-annual Women & Film in Berkeley. In 1974 in Boston a group called Filmwomen published the monthly Workprint, to provide “a forum and communications network for the community.” The women’s film company, Women Make Movies, published a newsletter in New York; and Camera Obscura: A Journal of Feminism and Film Theory appeared tri-annually out of Berkeley, beginning in 1976. Washington Women in Film and Video, Inc. published a monthly newsletter in D.C. for its members working professionally in film or videotape; and the Women’s Access Coalition published a quarterly bulletin on women’s programming in the local cable systems in the Greater Boston area.
Educational and Literary Periodicals
The largest single issue area of network-building through periodicals, and the most extensive expansion of women’s movement outreach, was to be found in the educational and literary periodicals. More than 154 periodicals arose during this period. Of these 154 periodicals, 58 were literary and 96 centered on educational areas in women’s studies, women’s history, interdisciplinary approaches, equality in education, continuing education, and research periodicals.
Women’s studies periodicals sprang up across the country in the 1970’s, including many notable ones. As early as 1970 the Feminist Press began publishing Female Studies, edited by Florence Howe. Howe also edited the Women’s Studies Quarterly, published jointly by the Feminist Press and the National Women’s Studies Association in 1972. Feminist Studies, founded in 1969 by Ann Howard Calderwood, began publishing in 1972. It later became a quarterly edited by Claire Moses at the University of Maryland in College Park, and covered critical, scholarly and speculative essays and studies in all areas of feminist inquiry. Also in 1972, Sara Stauffer Whaley founded Women Studies Abstracts in Rush, New York, as a quarterly. It continues as an invaluable research tool. In 1973, Wendy Martin began the tri-annual Women’s Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal in Flushing, New York as a forum for presenting critical scholarship about women in such fields as literature, history, art, sociology, and science; she included poetry, fiction, and book reviews. The University of Michigan Papers in Women’s Studies, an interdisciplinary academic quarterly journal, published between 1974 and 1978.
In 1975 several more women’s studies periodicals appeared. The Women’s Studies Program at the University of Colorado in Boulder began publishing Frontiers; A Journal of Women’s Studies, while Indiana University in Bloomington published Women’s Studies in Indiana. From the Apple to the Archive of Columbia, Maryland, published from 1975 to 1983. In 1978 the Feminist Press began publishing Women’s Studies International Forum, originally as a quarterly and later twice yearly.
Women’s studies periodicals with particular focuses, such as history, arose during the later years of the 1968-1983 period. The Company of Women Newsletter focused on 18th Century American women’s history. In 1973 Folklore Women’s Communication began publishing tri-annually in various locations, primarily in the South. The Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages published Research in Progress in numerous locations, several as early as 1971. Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society began in 1975 as a quarterly international, interdisciplinary forum for research and discussion about women. Trivia, A Journal of Ideas, published in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1982, described itself as a magazine devoted to radical feminist thinking, publishing that thinking in the form of theory, scholarship and reviews. In 1983 Women’s Diaries: A Quarterly Newsletter began, edited by Jane DuPree Begos, to meet the needs of scholarship in the field of women’s diaries, including feature articles, book reviews, bibliographic notes, comments from readers, scholars’ queries, and notices of exhibits and workshops.
Libraries published several periodicals edited by women describing resources by, for and about women. In 1972 Ohio State University published Women Are Human [since 1979,Women’s Studies Review ]. In Madison, the University of Wisconsin published New Books on Women and Feminism, edited by Linda Parker, beginning in 1979. They also published a quarterly beginning in 1980, Feminist Collections: Women’s Studies Library Resources in Wisconsin.
Equity in education was a concern of women. As early as 1971 Bernice Sandler edited On Campus With Women, published by the Project on the Status and Education of Women in Washington, DC, covering sexism in education, minority women, lobbying, sports, career development, and international news. In 1977 The Women’s Equity Education Communications Network in San Francisco published the quarterly Network News & Notes, promoting women’s educational equity.
In 1978 a free quarterly national newsletter, In The Running, published by the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL) Fund in Washington, DC, focused on sex discrimination in sports, reporting news from all states of sex discrimination complaints and decisions.In 1981 Vicki Bortolussi and Diane Meredith Volz published and edited a quarterly newspaper, Women in Education, in Ventura, California, featuring women involved in the educational process including teachers, administrators, students, staff, and parents.
Literary Periodicals
More than 58 literary periodicals arose between 1968 and 1983. As early as 1969 three pioneering women’s literary periodicals came into existence. Aphra, a quarterly in New York, stated in its preamble: “Women have more to give the world than babies. Whole areas of life, of consciousness, a magazine free of ulterior motives, interested only in giving women a chance to express themselves to see themselves.” They wrote, “Rebelling against male-hierarchical coterie magazines, we seek work that is electrifying and makes us feel more alive, exposes previously unexplored aspects of women’s experience, and has authenticity.” Remember Our Fire, published by Shameless Hussy Press in Berkeley featured poetry by women. The third pioneering journal was Moving Out published by Wayne Women’s Liberation at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. “We are committed to reflecting the experiences of all kinds of women,” the editors wrote. “We like to reflect what is new and original.”
Two pioneering literary periodicals arose in 1971. Earth’s Daughters, in Buffalo, New York, appeared as a feminist arts periodical specializing in unusual formats. Black Maria arose in Chicago, published by the Black Maria Collective, as a quarterly dealing with essays and articles about current issues in the women’s movement.
The following year, in 1972, three more important periodicals appeared. Shameless Hussy Press began publishing Shameless Hussy Review in Berkeley. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Woman Becoming appeared as a bi-yearly feminist literary journal including political analysis and stories about adolescence, lesbianism, and motherhood. The editors described it as a journal “established for women to communicate with other women.” The Department of English at Douglass College at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey published Women & Literature, a quarterly devoted to reviews, articles and review-essays on literature by and about women, including an annual bibliography.
In 1973 Ellen Marie Bissert edited the semi-annual 13th Moon in New York, a women’s literary magazine publishing poetry, fiction, reviews, and graphics by women. In 1974 Chomo-Uri, in Amherst, Massachusetts, began on a tri-annual basis as a women’s multi-arts magazine offering perspectives on a changing society and committed to maintaining a relationship between artistic integrity and political expression. A semi-annual poetry journal by and for the women of Wisconsin appeared in Oconto in 1974, entitled Primapara, followed the next year by Aurora: Speculative Feminism, in Madison, Wisconsin, devoted to discussion of science fiction and fantasy from feminist points of view. Sibyl-Child, a women’s arts and culture journal, in Maryland, presented women’s work in all the arts, and The Wild Iris, a Berkeley, California journal of women’s writing, also appeared.
Nor did the pace lessen in 1976 when at least four more journals came into existence. The Bright Medusa appeared in Berkeley as a quarterly feminist journal of prose, poetry, art, essays and interviews. Calyx, A Northwest Feminist Review arose in Corvallis, Oregon as a journal of art and literature by women published three times a year. Room: A Women’s Literary Journal appeared in San Francisco semi-annually, edited by Kathy Barr and Gail Newman, including prose, poetry, humor, interviews, book reviews, with emphasis on diversity of style and content. Terri Anderson edited Solana, published by Androgyny Press in St. Louis, Missouri covering fiction, poetry, art, and photography.
In 1977 Blue Collar Press published The Sow’s Ear in Pittsburgh, California, edited by Edith Lloyd on a tri-annual basis. The next year, in 1978 Sing Heavenly Muse was founded in Minneapolis on a semi-annual basis to foster the work of women poets, fiction writers, and artists. In 1979 two periodicals still publishing today arose — Helicon Nine, A Journal of Women’s Arts and Letters, published in Kansas City, Missouri as a tri-annual publication of women’s accomplishments in the fields of literature, music, the visual and performing arts, and Kalliope, A Journal of Women’s Art, providing a forum for women in the arts, published in Jacksonville, Florida. In the early 1980’s women’s literary periodicals were still pouring out. Maenad, a women’s literary journal appeared in 1980 as a feminist quarterly of prose and visual arts, welcoming controversial manuscripts, and published in Gloucester, Massachusetts. New Moon: A Quarterly Journal of Science Fiction and Cultural Feminism emerged in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1981. In 1982 Rebirth of Artemis appeared in Methuen, Massachusetts as an annual publication of poetry written by women, about women. Hurricane Alice appeared in 1983 in Minneapolis as a quarterly seeking to provide a forum for feminist writings that were not publishable in more traditional or professionally oriented journals, and it included reviews of culture, women’s stories and letters.
Political Periodicals
Peace and freedom issues of the early sixties remained subjects of primary concern to women in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Increasingly women published periodicals focusing on women’s equality issues, both educational and legislative. Promotion of women’s electoral campaigns and support for the Equal Rights Amendment were also among the political goals of this period. More than 104 women’s periodicals dealing with political issues and perspectives came into existence between 1968 and 1983.
Women’s peace organizing accounted for the earliest of the political efforts, continuing down through the contemporary women’s peace encampments. More than 19 women’s peace periodicals arose during these years to add new voices to the already strong movement of the 1960’s. Some were new local newsletters of branches of such organizations as the International League for Peace and Freedom and Women Strike for Peace, and others were temporarily published for the duration of specific actions such as the 1971 newsletters of the United Women’s Contingent in Washington, DC and the Women United for November 6 Newsletter in San Francisco.
The Feminist Party News, periodical of Flo Kennedy’s Feminist Party in New York and San Francisco, focused on the importance of women and other oppressed groups demanding that the media, particularly television and radio, “produce programs that meet the needs and are relevant to our interests and concerns. In 1974 the periodical described the Feminist Party’s demand that the commercial TV networks, educational TV, and all affiliated stations of both, cancel all programs scheduled for Mothers’ Day, May 12th, and “devote all of their resources to producing programs for, by and about women.” The newsletter urged their 150 chapters across the country to join in the same demands to the networks and to the various local stations.
The National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), founded in 1970, contributed greatly to the communication networks on political issues through its national periodical in Washington, D.C. Begun as a newsletter in 1972, it jumped from a circulation of 350 to an audience of 15,000 in 1976 when it changed to a tabloid format as the Women’s Political Times. NWPC Chapter periodicals also sprang up across the country.
A number of periodicals dealt with women’s issues in Congress, such as the Washington, D.C. publications Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues in Congress, The Woman Activist, Women’s Lobby Quarterly, Alert of the Women’s Lobby, Inc., The Right Woman–Congressional News for Women & the Family, Eleanor Smeal Report, and Women’s Washington Representative. Other periodicals addressed legislative issues in various states, such as The New Broom, A Legislative Newsletter for Massachusetts Women, in Boston, Capitol Alert, in Sacramento, California, and Women for Legislative Action Bulletin, in Los Angeles. The Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL) in Washington, DC published the WEAL Washington Report, in 1971, and the WEAL National Newsletter beginning in 1973, as well as chapter newsletters such as WEAL Texas Newsletter in Dallas and the NJ W.E.AL.er in Old Bridge, New Jersey.
One of the state legislative bulletins also provided radio newscasts to stations, organizations and individuals in Pennsylvania. Another state legislative report, Alert, Women’s Legislative Review, in Middletown, Connecticut, arose in 1973 after the Equal Rights Amendment was voted down by the Connecticut State Legislature which also adopted a new restrictive anti-abortion law. Alert described organizing efforts of media women in the state, which culminated in a state-wide organization of media women. The women editing Alert gave it an activist orientation, joining with eight other group New Haven area groups to form the Feminist Committee for Media Reform, “in response to the negative portrayal by so much of the major media today.” Alert gave significant coverage of media sexism and women’s efforts to make changes, particularly covering the work done in the media field by the National Organization for Women and efforts to obtain women’s cable channels, such as the one initiated by Memphis women.
Many other periodicals focused on political issues arose during these decades covering a wide variety of concerns, including: Equal Rights Monitor, in Sacramento, California; The ERA Times, in Madison, Wisconsin; Women’s Newsletter on Socialist Feminism of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman chapter of the New American Movement in Durham, North Carolina; Public Policy Bulletin of the Federation of Organizations for Professional Women in Washington, DC; Susan Saxe Defense Committee Newsletter in West Somerville, Massachusetts; and the Women’s Legal Defense Fund Newsletter in Washington, DC.
Periodicals With Economic Focus
Many working women considered communication networks to be vital for improving their lives. If women had insufficient support networks in the economic sphere, other areas of their lives, such as politics, health and safety, and social concerns, suffered. Whether women made connections with each other in traditional or untraditional careers, the communication networks were felt to be crucial to progress for women, as evidenced by the fact that 130 periodicals focused on economic issues, with 65 of these from the perspective of professional women. The improvement in personal lives that resulted from economic independence made the economic networks paramount.
Working women communicated through numerous kinds of periodicals. The National Committee on Household Employment began publishing N.C.H.E. News in 1970 to protect and extend the rights of domestic workers. The Coalition of Labor Union Women issued their quarterly in 1975, and local chapter newsletters like The Union Maid in Madison, Wisconsin sprang up across the country. Union W.A.G.E. published by the Union Women’s Alliance to Gain Equality in the San Francisco Bay area arose in 1971. This coalition of women consisted of union and unorganized women interested in fighting sex discrimination on the job and promoting unionism among women. Women in the trades communicated through such journals as Tradeswomen Magazine: A Quarterly Magazine for Women in Blue-Collar Work in San Francisco, a magazine which described itself as by and for tradeswomen, and Women in the Trades in New York. A national coalition of farm women’s organizations began The Voice of the American Agri-Woman in 1975 in Illinois to serve as their communications link-up. FarmWoman, published and edited by Nedra Bayne Carpel in Washington, D.C., was a twice-monthly report of Congressional, regulatory and women’s issues.
Some periodicals encompassed of a wide range of fields of work, while others were more focused. The National Commission on Working Women in Washington, D.C. published Women at Work: News About the 80%, focusing on employment rights of women in clerical, service, sales, factory and plant jobs. Women’s Work [Connections], a national bi-monthly published in Washington, DC, focused on all aspects of women and work. The National Association of Office Workers published 9 to 5, formerly Working Women, in Cleveland, Ohio, a bi-monthly covering the activities of women office workers around the country. The Woman’s Advocate Newsletter, published monthly in Sacramento, California, was a national newsletter that focused on women in non-traditional careers and how women could start their own businesses.
Women in business turned to Ava Stern’s Enterprising Women, which began in New York in 1975 as a monthly with financial, legal, and practical information for self-employed, freelance, and professional women. The National Association for Female Executives published a bimonthly magazine in New York focusing on career advancement and financial planning for independent female entrepreneurs. The Executive Woman began in 1973 in New York as a monthly covering career developments and concerns of the executive woman. Some of the periodicals on women in business were locally or regionally oriented, such as the BusinessWOMAN magazine, a magazine for women in Northern California which contained information on career development, profiles of successful businesswomen, and listings of area networks.
Some periodicals dealt with women in poverty or with homemakers and working mothers, such as the New Mexico chapter of the National Organization for Women’s Sisters in Poverty, published in Albuquerque. As early as 1972 the organization for single mothers in Venice, California published monthly Momma; the Newspaper/Magazine for Single Mothers. Homemakers communicated through the Homemakers’ Equal Rights Association Newsletter, published in Bellevue, Washington and through Martha Matters, published in 1976 in Arlington, Virginia. Launching Martha Matters, the editors wrote that it was “perhaps the most important part of our organization.”
“It is one sure way we can stay in touch with each other, something we always need to do. One of our greatest assets as homemakers is our ability to touch each other with understanding, appreciation and insights; we often do it better than anyone else. We also have knowledge and experiences to exchange with one another. And there’s other knowledge that we seek in order to better ourselves. In all these areas, the newsletter will aim to serve.”
Evident in these sentiments expressed by the editors was that the existence of a network was the most important aspect of the periodical, allowing individuals to communicate with each other, rather than simply receiving useful information.
Professional Periodicals
Newsletters of professional women’s organizations sprang up in almost every field — women in history, political science, sociology, psychology, social science, social work, architecture, engineering, mathematics, anthropology, modern languages, law, science, geoscience, biology, libraries and archives, personnel, civil service, business and economics, instructional technology, academia and others. More than 65 of these periodicals focussing on professional women’s concerns arose between 1968 and 1983.
Special Interest Periodicals
Other single issue periodicals emerged with special interests in a particular area of life. The Braille Feminist Review, for example, appeared in the late 1970’s in New York as a quarterly publication in Braille for blind women. It consisted of selections from feminist periodicals throughout the country.
Several periodicals addressed the needs of the mature woman. The first was Prime Time, begun in 1971 in New York by Marjory Collins. As a national independent feminist monthly for the liberation of women in the prime of life, it soon reached a print run of 3,000 and brought women’s movement ideas to a then whole new audience of women. It was followed the next year by The OWL Observer published by the Older Women’s League. Women in Mid-stream Newsletter, arising from the Menopause Study Group of the University of Washington YWCA in 1973, ran for five years. Also in 1973, the NOW Task Force on Older Women issued a quarterly newsletter. A major and continuing publication began in San Francisco, in1978, Broomstick, a monthly national periodical by, for and about women over 40, set out to explore their experiences, politics, thinking and lives within basic feminist principles.
The movement communication networks were reaching women in prison as well. Women constitute only five percent of prison populations, but since the early 1970’s they have had communication networks. Women in prisons, for example, communicated through Inside/Outside, published in 1974 in Philadelphia; The Insider, in Clinton, New Jersey; Through the Looking Glass: A Women’s & Children’s Newsletter, published since 1975 in Seattle; and No More Cages: A Bi-Monthly Women’s Prison Newsletter, published in New York since 1979 by Women Free Women in Prison.
Single issue publications included a variety of other special interests. Motorcycle Woman, A Newsletter for women who rideor want to, provided a forum of instruction and exchanges of information among some of the 700,000 women motorcyclists in the U.S. For Us Women Newsletter, a bimonthly by Shakurra Amatulla, arose in May of 1983 in Washington, DC, to provide information on grants and other resource information for women.
More than 17 periodicals appeared with perspectives that arose out of their geographical focus. MAW: A Magazine of Appalachian Women was begun in 1977 in West Virginia in order to provide a communication network for women in this region to share their information and experiences. It carried a regular column entitled “Womanspeak” in which women were able to communicate directly with each other, speaking for themselves. “We invite your commentaries and inspiration for this space,” the editors wrote. An article about women against violence in pornography and the media, appearing in the fifth issue of MAW, indicated that the films, record albums, billboards and other forms of media which depicted violent and degrading abuse of women were of serious concern to women in Appalachia, as well as elsewhere in the country, and reflected the universality of women’s analysis of mass media as helping to keep women in oppressive conditions. In late 1979, MAW, renamed Appalachian Women, became a quarterly, published by the Council of Appalachian Women, who had purchased it the previous year from its original editor-publisher, Miriam Ralston. “When the Council was established in November 1976,” wrote Jane Weeks in the first issue of Appalachian Women, “one main goal was to set up a communication network for women in the region.”
Country Women, “a feminist magazine for women who live in the country or want to,” appeared in 1973 to discuss rural life. It included articles about personal experiences and country skills. Rural American Women News Journal, a bi-monthly, also provided a forum for these women, as did the monthly Something About the Women in Kansas, a feminist newspaper serving women in smaller communities and rural areas, and the quarterly Southern Rural Women’s Network Newsletter, Jackson, Mississippi. Founded on the premise that rural women working together could affect social change, the Southern Rural Women’s Network Newsletter sought ways to develop the leadership potential of Southern rural women. Neighborhood Women appeared in 1977 to provide a communication network for community women in the cities. Seacoast Woman, in New Hampshire, and Sea Wench Times, in Florida, concentrated on issues indigenous to coastal living.
Some women focused on issues with an international perspective. As early as 1971, The Fourth World, An International Women’s Paper was founded in Oakland, California, edited and published by Fran Hoskin in Lexington, Massachusetts. In 1972 the Women’s Caucus of Action Latin America in Cambridge, Massachusetts, published Revolution Within the Revolution. The monthly NAJDA: Women Concerned about the Middle East, edited by Audrey Shabbas, appeared in the early 1980’s in Berkeley, covering all aspects of the Arab world including material not widely circulated in the United States. Begun in New York in 1980, Seeds reported on women’s income-generating projects, with primary focus on the developing world.
In 1981 a collective in Oakland, California produced a quarterly journal of translations by, for and about women entitled Connexions . “Connexions is the collective product of feminists of diverse nationalities and political perspectives committed to building an international women’s movement,” the introductory issue stated. Articles in the periodical were all written by women from other countries, most direct translations of single articles and interviews. The editors wrote that they were interested in passing on, as directly as possible, women’s writings generally unavailable in the United States. Describing their story of how and why they came into existence, they wrote:
“There is a lack of information in the U.S. about other parts of the world. Often the viewpoints presented in the U.S. press vary greatly from what we learn through friends abroad and foreign publications. As we read and read to get a grasp on what is happening elsewhere, we find that there is never enough about women, and what little there is, is rarely written with a feminist perspective.
“In 1979, a few of us decided to do something about this lack of coverage by putting together an international women’s reader. For months we worked together, combing through magazines from the international feminist press, discussing all kinds of ideas and concepts.”
The result was Second Class, Working Class, published in November 1979 by the women’s printshop Up Press, which concentrated on working women. It sold well, and people asked them when the next issue would come out. They began thinking about a sequel. The women described how the international women’s conference in Denmark spurred the founding of their periodical:
“In July 1980, two of us went to the alternative women’s conference in Copenhagen to discuss with other women how to create an international feminist network. The beginning dialogue between women of industrialized countries and third world women made us more aware of our differences. Yet, it also helped us understand the similarities we share. We realized once again the importance of learning about each other and of exchanging information.”
After Copenhagen we formalized our plans to start a women’s journal of translations from the international feminist press. We talked to women outside of our group; many responded and joined us. We are women of diverse backgrounds. Some of us are from the U.S., many have lived abroad; some of us are from other countries. Our different languages allow us to read and translate foreign publications. We all speak English, and share a range of journalistic skills.
An important part of their goal was to “contribute to the growth of a worldwide network connecting women working on similar projects by researching, establishing contacts and exchanging information.” The first issue was a focus on women organizing against violence.
Summary
The more than 620 single-issue periodicals, exhibiting the characteristics of women’s media, played a very important role in the development of communication networks among women. While the multi-issue periodicals connected women in the movement and gave an overall understanding of the character of the women’s movement at any given time, the single-issue periodicals provided both depth and breadth crucial to the growth and survival of the women’s movement. Women all over the country were making connections with others sharing similar concerns as well as discovering that they were part of a broader movement to make changes in the lives of women. And women with special interests, in publishing their single-issue periodicals, were discovering that by networking with the multi-issue papers they could connect with other women who shared their particular interest. It benefited both the single- and multi-issue periodicals to exchange ads and tell their readers about each other’s periodicals. There was no sense of competition; they all knew that the way to reach more women was to support the existing periodicals in building ever-larger networks of communication among women.
Women with special identities were also communicating during these years, providing perspectives that would otherwise be missing from public understanding, perspectives that were particularly important for the women’s movement as it assessed its priorities and strategies. The next chapter discusses these periodicals.
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Chapter Five Footnotes
1 1979 Index/Directory of Women’s Media (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1979), p. 5.
2 The Monthly Extract: An Irregular Periodical, September/October 1976, p. 1.
3 Valerie Eads, “The ‘Fighting Woman’ Story,” Black Belt Woman, The Magazine of Women in the Martial Arts and Self Defense, March/April 1976, pp. 18-19.
4 Dana Densmore, “Editorial Policy,” Black Belt Woman, March/April 1976, inside front cover.
5 Dr. Donna Allen and Martha Leslie Allen, “Female Journalism Is Something Different,” Media Report to Women 4 (January 1, 1976): 2.
6 Donna Allen and Dana Densmore, “Seven Assumptions for a New Philosophy of Communication,” and “Call For Research,” 1977 and 1978 Media Report for Women Index/Directory (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1977 and 1978), pp. 32,55.
7 “Flo Kennedy on Media Deterrent Power,” Media Report to Women, January 1977, p. 1.
8 Valerie Wheat, “Booklegger’s Guide to: The Passionate Perils of Publishing,” and “Feminists in Print,” Booklegger, Summer 1978, pp. 6,51.
9 Regina Wells Morgan, “May Meeting: Self Defense for Women,” Chicago Women in Publishing, May 1982, p. 1.
10 1978 Index/Directory of Women’s Media (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1978), p. 24.
11 “Women Artists Newsletter U.S. News Roundup,” Media Report to Women, August 1977, p. 5.
12 “Editorial Voices,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Spring/Summer 1983, p. 3.
13 Jane T. Dowd, “Images of American Women in American Films: A Method of Analysis,” Women & Performance, Spring/Summer 1983, p. 50.
14 1975 Index/Directory of Women’s Media (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1975), p. 14.
15 1978 Index/Directory of Women’s Media (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1978), p. 17.
16 Some of the many other women’s literary periodicals not described in this section include Clear Beginnings Quarterly, published poetry, personal essays and fiction from women’s writing workshops in Ohio; Elima: A Journal of Writing, published and edited twice-annually contemporary poetry produced by a collective of published women poets meeting weekly for workshops, in Hartsdale, New York; The Greater Golden Hill Poetry Express, poetry publication of the Feminist Poetry and Graphics Center in San Diego, California; New Space: New Time, published twice yearly in Landenberg, Pennsylvania including feminist art, essays and poetry by local women; Primavera, A Women’s Literary Magazine, published by the University of Chicago Feminist Organization as a compendium of prose, poetry, graphics and photographs by women; Snippets, A Melange of Women was edited and published by Roberta Mendel in Shaker Heights, Ohio as a poetry monthly touching on varied aspects of the feminine condition; and, Up Against the Wall, Mother appeared as a quarterly poetry journal for women in crisis, published in Alexandria, Virginia.
17 “Preamble to Aphra,” Aphra (September 1969): 2-3;1975 Index/Directory of Women’s Media (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1975), p. 13.
18 Moving Out, Feminist Literary & Arts Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2.
19 1975 Index/Directory of Women’s Media (Washington, D.C.: Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, 1975), p. 14.
20 Feminist Collections, Winter 1984, p. 21.
21 “Feminist Party Mother’s Day Spectacular Proposals,” Feminist Party, March 1974.
22 “NWPC Newspaper A Proposal,” Women’s Political Times, May 1976, p.2.
23 Rita Townsner, “Media Reform,”, Alert, Women’s Legislative Review, May 1975, p.1; Anne E. McAloon, “Media Women Organize,” Alert, February 1975, p.8; “Alert’s Story,” 3-page flier, Alert office.
24 “N.O.W. Fights Media Sexism,” Alert, May 1974, p.2; Louisa MacLeod Avery, “Sexism in Newsprint,” Alert May 1974, p.2.; Patricia Strong, “Women in Cable TV,” Alert, May 1974, p.3. (See Chapter Seven for a description of the efforts to gain a women’s cable channel.)
25 “Martha Movement Publishes Number 1 of Newsletter, ‘Martha Matters,'” Media Report to Women, November 1976, p. 11.
26 “Motorcycle Woman’ Is New Paper For Women Who RideOr Want To,” Media Report for Women, June 1976, p. 2.
27 ” ‘Connexions’ To Build International Movement On Direct Communications,” Media Report for Women, 1 July 1981, pp. 1, 10.
28 ” ‘Connexions’ To Build International Movement On Direct Communications,” Media Report for Women, July 1981, p. 10.
29 ” ‘Connexions’ To Build International Movement On Direct Communications,” Media Report for Women, July 1981, p. 10.
© Copyright 1988 by Martha Leslie Allen
