Women's Report
{{Short description|UK feminist newspaper published 1972–1979}}
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Women's Report was a second wave, feminist, bi-monthly newspaper published in the UK from 1972 to 1979 with international subscribers.{{Cite book |last1=Dena |title=Directory of women's liberation newsletters, magazines, journals ...: covering Scotland, Wales, England, N. Ireland |last2=Shaila |date=1979 |publisher=publisher not identified |language=en |oclc=779058176}}{{Cite web |title=Women's Report (Magazine, 1971–?) |website=Grassroots Feminism |url=https://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/node/526 |access-date=10 April 2022}}{{Cite web |title=1972 – Feminist Archive North |url=https://feministarchivenorth.org.uk/1972-2/ |access-date=11 April 2022 |website=Feminist Archive North}} In the spirit of the women's consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s and 70s, Women's Report was put together by a small, democratic group of unpaid women without a lead editor, editorial assistant, regular columnists, feature writers, hierarchy, commercial advertising, background capital or party-political affiliation.{{Cite news |date=June–July 1979 |title=Dear Readers |pages=2–3 |work=Women's Report |volume=7 |issue=4 |location=London England |issn=0306-1426 |oclc=648509447}}{{Cite web |title=British Library |url=https://www.bl.uk/sisterhood/articles/consciousness-raising#:~:text=Consciousness-raising%20groups%20allowed%20women,often%20for%20the%20first%20time |access-date=10 April 2022 |website=bl.uk}} Non-profit and self-financing, it set out to relay information and report news and events not covered in the UK national press; to comment on reported events which were of relevance to women; and, by collecting the news and information into a single publication to give them more impact and heighten women's awareness of their position in society. Women's Report was part of the array of crucial communication tools, used by feminists, that underpinned the Women's liberation movement.{{Cite journal |last=Forster |first=Laurel |date=2 September 2016 |title=Spreading the Word: feminist print cultures and the Women's Liberation Movement |url=https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/files/4147898/Laurel_Forster_final_proof_Spreading_the_Word.pdf |journal=Women's History Review |volume=25 |issue=5 |pages=812–831 |doi=10.1080/09612025.2015.1132878 |s2cid=148216392 |issn=0961-2025}}
History
Members of the Fawcett Society and other women formed the Women's Lobby, an extra-parliamentary lobbying group, to support the anti-sex discrimination legislation which was passed eventually in 1975 as the Sex Discrimination Act. The Women's Lobby turned into a magazine collective and produced the first issues of Women's Report. Members of the collective scanned the mainstream press and other news sources for items of interest to women. The aim was to monitor the state of women's affairs in family and marriage law, and social policy. It was then decided to have a visual arts/media section called 'Images' for which Griselda Pollock was responsible. The magazine also included short book reviews, information on groups and events and usually a feature article too.
By Jan–Feb 1974 (Volume 2 Issue 2) the magazine was being produced by The Women's Report Collective. Volunteers summarised, classified and discussed items of news every week for pages in the magazine headed Home, Legal, Work, Education, Mind and Body, Image/Art/Culture and Events. Extra research was carried out, articles debated, rewritten and edited in the collective, before being typed up, cut out, laid out on paper grids and pasted up with glue to make the original paper copy which was then litho-printed.
No bylines were ever added as the venture was wholly collaborative. The magazine was made easy to read by its non-corporate design, and by the addition of light-hearted comment and cartoons.{{Cite web |title=Search Results |url=https://archives.bristol.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=DM2123/1/Archive+Boxes+99-104a |access-date=10 April 2022 |publisher=University of Bristol}} After the printing, 2–3,000 copies were collated by hand, and copies posted to subscribers and bookshops at a cost of 30p a copy. Subscriber lists, business and accounts were also managed by members of the collective. The last issue produced was Volume Seven, Number Four, June–July 1979.
Angela Phillips,{{Cite web |title=Professor Angela Phillips |url=https://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/phillips/ |access-date=15 April 2022 |website=Goldsmiths, University of London |language=en}} Griselda Pollock,{{Cite book |last=Pollock |first=Griselda |url=https://primo.getty.edu/primo-explore/search?institution=01GRI_INST&vid=GRI&tab=all_gri&search_scope=COMBINED&mode=basic&displayMode=full&bulkSize=10&highlight=true&dum=true&query=any,contains,the%20ambivalence%20of%20pleasure&displayField=all&pcAvailabiltyMode=true&x=15&y=6 |title=The Ambivalence of Pleasure |publisher=The J Paul Getty Trust |year=1997 |location=Los Angeles, California |pages=70–71}}{{Cite web |title=British Library |url=https://www.bl.uk/spare-rib |access-date=13 April 2022 |website=bl.uk}} Gail Chester{{Cite web |title=British Library |url=https://www.bl.uk/people/gail-chester |access-date=11 April 2022 |website=bl.uk}} and Rachel Bodle and Zaidie Parr{{Cite book |last1=Parr |first1=Zaidie |title='68, '78, '88 |last2=Bodle |first2=Rachel |publisher=Prism Press |editor=Amanda Sebestyen |year=1988 |isbn=1-85327-022-9 |location=Bridport, Dorset, England |pages=193–203 |chapter=20 years in the lives of Zadie Parr and Rachel Bodle |oclc=18964520}} were part of the collective for some time, and went on to work on other periodicals and to contribute further to feminist thought. Issues of the periodical were sent to the British Library. Incomplete sets are now archived in Bristol{{Cite web |title=Search Results |url=https://archives.bristol.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=DM2123/1/Archive+Boxes+99-104a |access-date=11 April 2022 |publisher=University of Bristol}} and in the archives of the Feminist Library.{{Cite web |title=FL-Journals-A-Z-1. |url=http://feministlibrary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/FL-Journals-A-Z-1.pdf |access-date=15 April 2022 |website=The Feminist Library}}
Context of rise and demise of ''Women's Report''
The development of offset printing, which made printing easier and cheaper, had led, in the 1960s, to the development of an "underground press" spreading a counter culture. In the wake of this underground press, feminists were inspired to produce their own organs of information to inform women of the Women's Liberation Movement activities and make women aware of their oppression. Women's Report was one of the first women's liberation publications in the UK.{{Cite web |title=Our collection – The Feminist Library |url=http://feministlibrary.co.uk/about/about-the-collection/ |access-date=10 April 2022 |website=feministlibrary.co.uk}} The Women's liberation movement had held four national conferences but, as yet, there were few specialist campaigning groups working on issues such as health and safety at work, media images of women, or rape.{{Cite web |title=British Library |url=https://www.bl.uk/sisterhood/timeline |access-date=10 April 2022 |website=bl.uk}}{{Cite web |last=Eduqas |date=19 February 2018 |title=1D. Austerity, Affluence and Discontent: Britain, 1951–1979 |url=https://resources.eduqas.co.uk/pages/ResourceSingle.aspx?rIid=1160 |access-date=10 April 2022 |website=Eduqas}}{{Cite web |date=22 May 2017 |title=Starting out in the 1960s, working class and female |url=https://wcc-uk.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/05/22/starting-out-in-the-1960s-working-class-and-female/ |access-date=10 April 2022 |website=WCC-UK |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last=Binard |first=Florence |date=13 December 2017 |title=The British Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s: Redefining the Personal and the Political |url=https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1688#ftn64 |journal=Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. French Journal of British Studies |language=en |volume=22 |issue=hors-série |doi=10.4000/rfcb.1688 |issn=0248-9015|doi-access=free }}
In 1975, at the Women's Liberation Movement conference in Manchester, it was decided to set up a Women's Information and Referral Enquiry Service (WIRES) with a newsletter titled WIRES to collect and disseminate information pertaining to women's groups throughout the country.{{Cite web |title=WIRES (newsletter, 1975–1985?) {{!}} grassrootsfeminism.net |url=http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/node/533 |access-date=10 April 2022 |website=www.grassrootsfeminism.net}}
By 1979 many local newsletters and campaign groups had emerged.{{Cite journal |last=Binard |first=Florence |date=13 December 2017 |title=The British Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s: Redefining the Personal and the Political |url=https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1688 |journal=Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique. French Journal of British Studies |language=en |volume=22 |issue=hors-série |doi=10.4000/rfcb.1688 |issn=0248-9015|doi-access=free }} Spare Rib magazine, appearing monthly and available through newsagents such as W H Smith, offered a familiar magazine format but an alternative to traditional magazines like Woman and Woman's Own which focused on women's domestic roles. Women's Report had lost volunteers and was also having trouble attracting new members to its hardworking collective so the decision was made to close.
Bibliography
- Our Bodies Ourselves: A Health Book by and for Women by Angela Phillips and Jill Rakusen (1978). Penguin Books ISBN 9780140044300
- "How to start your own consciousness-raising group". Cwluherstory.com. The Chicago Women's Liberation Institution. 1971. Archived from the original (Leaflet) on 12 February 2004. Retrieved 18 February 2015.