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Women's Media: The Way to Revolution
by Martha Leslie Allen
off our backs, February, 1990
20th Anniversary Issue
Washington, DC
I became involved in the women's movement in 1968 when my sister, Dana Densmore, and my mother, Donna Allen, began sending me items to read. I responded immediately, already being involved in the left movement at the time. The radical feminist media was no longer sporadic by that year; fliers and position papers continued to circulate, but so did journals and periodicals that launched the current women's media movement. I graduated from college and headed south to work in the civil rights, anti-war, and women's movement.
Almost immediately I found myself in jail in a case involving civil rights and free press issues. The organization I worked for publicized the case with a pamphlet of a speech my mother had made previously entitled: "So You Think You Have a Free Press." In 1972, Donna founded the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP) and launched the periodical Media Report to Women.
WIFP, a non-profit, tax-exempt research and educational organization working toward a radical restructuring of the world's communication systems, publishes works both theoretical and practical on the communiation of information. From 1972 to 1987, Donna edited Media Report to Women, covering "what women are thinking and doing to make world communication more democratic." (It continues to be published without the subtitle by Communication Research Associates.)
From Louisville, KY, I moved to Memphis, TN, where I lived from 1970-1975. I became a part of the women's media network by organizing the Women's Media Project to analyze local broadcast practices (both portrayal of women and employment discrimination) in order to challenge the licenses of those with whom we could not reach agreements (as was happening elsewhere in the country).
In 1973 it even looked as if Memphis might have the first women's cable channel through efforts of women working on this front, so we began training in the use of video equipment. Memphis women organized the city across race, educational and economic barriers and submitted to the city a joint application by 69 women's (and a few mixed) organizations for a cable TV channel for women. Workshops were held and contacts were made with other cities where similar efforts were made. Media Report to Women documented the details of the endeavors. Unfortunately, long delays in the implementation of cable resulted in eroding, not strengthening, the movement and the channel was not obtained.
Women launched so many media projects (remember the videoletters where women shared with each other what was happening in their cities by exchanging videos?) that the need for a Directory of Women's Media became evident.
In 1974 I began indexing the issues of Media Report to Women and traveled to Washington, DC to put together this index and a directory of all forms of media (periodicals, publishers, news services, film, video, broadcast, music, theater, etc.). The first edition came out in January 1975. By the end of the year I had moved to D.C. to devote more energies to WIFP (and began work on my Ph.D. at Howard University). The current edition of the Directory of Women's Media is the 15th!
The growth of the women's media movement has been inspiring, especially the level of international networking. off our backs clearly provided much of the enthusiasm that existed in the early years about the need for women's media. Its pages bulged with items analyzing and critiquing the mass media, as well as the need for women to communicate directly with each other.
Marilyn Salzman-Webb wrote in the April 25, 1970 issue: "Women's liberation is a movement developing critical theoretical and programmatic direction and it cannot be left to back pages or put aside for special supplements or lost forever . . . It should be our responsibility as a movement to see that an independent women's media is developed."
And Fran Pollner wrote an item headed "turn on, tune in and take over" in the Oct. 1972 issue: "There is a pervasive, insidious and overt dehumanization of women and girls performed daily before millions of our very eyes and in the sanctity of our own rooms. Women know it and are digusted and furious; men know it and love it; children lern it, and advertisers make billions off it." there is no doubt that we have made progress, but there is also no doubt that these statements are as true today as they were then.
The April 25, 1970 oob article "Survival / On Our Feet" stated, "As we begin to create and support our own media, the very definitions of news will change as we gain the power to describe it as we see it and as we make it."
In examining women's media over these past two decades, we see that this early insight has validity. But we still face making this transformation on a mass scale -- that involves a restructuring of the communications system.
Having seen that women's media has characteristics distinctly different from the male-owned mass media, I am excited about the possibility that comprehensive change will come. More women are getting into various positions in mass media and raising our issues in the mainstream media. There need to be ties between the feminists in mass media and the women's media where our issues are raised and analyzed. This is happening but it must increase further for significant changes to result.
What I miss most over the years of the growth of the women's media movement, despite the greater strength and numbers of women's media, is the passionate expounding on the need to make changes in the current communications structure, and to be aware of the role owners of mass media play, and their power, as well as to strengthen women's media speaking for ourselves.
Early women's periodicals expressed similar sentiments to those of oob. Notes from the Second Year (1969-1971) stated in 1970 (p.2), "We are sick and tired of having our views presented for us to other women by (usually distorting) intermediaries." Women, a Journal of Liberation (1969-1983) published "A Working Paper on the Media" by Carol McEldowney and Rosemary Poole. Expressing what is now taken for granted by many, but infrequently discussed very deeply today, the authors laid out some of the issues that concerned them about the mass media:
"The Mass Media plays a critical role in creating and perpetuating America's dominant ideology: racism, imperialism, chauvinism, authoritariansim . . . . We have been brainwashed to believe that the American press is free, that it provides objective coverage of the news, all the news, and that it is a public service."
"It is time for us to destroy that myth:
"The Press is basically he voice of the ruling class, not an open forum for the expression of all. . . .
"The press is not objective. . . .
"The press covers the news it thinks is important and therefore able to define social reality for millions of people."
Our women's media were painfully aware of how women and the feminist movement were portrayed in the media and they spoke out about the distortions. San Francisco Women's Liberation Internal Newsletter (1970-c.1972) on May 16, 1971 wrote: "The media (and we all know who controls that) has coined one abusive term after another to describe us, the latest one being libbers."
And Carol Lease wrote in Big Mama Rag (1972-1984) in their first issue: "I ask myself why feminism is always distorted by the media, why half-nude women are on T.V. selling shaving cream or toothpaste, why the women's movement is portrayed as a bunch of howling bra-burning castrating women, look at the men who are writing these stories!"
Women's media would operated differently than the male-owned mass media. Up From Under (1970-1978), in their Jan./Feb. 1971 issue, stated: "Unlike Ladies Home Journal, Up From Under is truly a magazine for women. We speak in our pages about the personal / political issues which concern all of us as women, as human beings. We refuse to print advertisements which in any way, no matter how subtle, exploit or insult women (or anyone else)!"
Among the characteristics I found in reading women's media over the two decades was the concern that each and everyone be able to speak for themselves rather than having others portray them. Women's periodicals and other forms of women's media consistently advocated this philosophy and put it into practice.
It is the approach that we at the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press encourage the most, as this would lead to restructuring of communications on a new basis if put into practice. We need to take all the steps we can to bring about equality of outreach for the great diversity that makes up this country, and the world, not just leave communications on a mass scale in the hands of the extremely wealthy who sometimes presume to speak for us.
I'm inspired that there are over 700 women's periodicals internationally now (387 in USA, 315 outside US are listed in the 1989 Directory of Women's Media), raising issues and discussing strategies and providing a means for more women to speak for themselves, even if the outreach is miniscule in coparison to mass media owners.
I'm pleased that women are communicating on every conceivable issue. More than half of women's periodicals focus on single issues or write from a particular perspective (specialized periodicals such as Welfare Mothers Voice, Wilderness Women, Blue Collar Women, Lesbian Herstory Archives Newsletter, Phoenix Rising: The Asian/Pacific Sisters Newsletter, and so many more). I'm encouraged that women of color are producing greater numbers of periodicals and that we have Kitchen Table Women of Color Press.
But we are up against serious life-threatening problems that must be resolved and I believe we need to take on the issue of the inequality of outreach of communications in order to solve all the problems we face. It is important for us to be using sophisticated technology in addition to our person-to-person communiction and our small outreach methods.
We need to see what we can do to change the current struture of communications to make it more democratic with more equality of outreach for all of us. And we need to strengthen the women's media that already exists and support them.
I know the value that oob provides, for instance, in its coverage of women's conferences and conferences of concern to women. Like most women, I do not have the finances and time to go to many conferences that I want so much to attend. oob does excellent coverage, giving details of many workshops nd extensive coverage of women speaking for themselves so I feel as if I had been there for important parts. oob does interviews of women and women's media throughout the world. This is information that I cannot get from the mass media, or from the left press (there has been some improvement with the left press but it remains miniscule).
Having a positive outlook and not getting discouraged is extremely important for our progress. Being respectful toward each other as we work diligently on eradicating sexism, racism, and poverty, and building a world where justice prevails is critical. Working toward the possibility of all women having the opportunity to share their perspectives and information is necessary in building our new world. The structure of the communications system is central to power and progress.
The existence of a strong independent women's media is an essential basis for exploring what changes are needed. Therefore I am grateful for the opportunity to salute oob for its two decades of publishing, providing the international women's movement both information and a means to communicate with each other about isues vital to our lives and to the world.