WSW EDITORIAL Voly, no. 3

By Marycatherine Krause

Following a five-year recess, Women In Print (WIP) reconvened last month in Washington, D.C. as 200 women from across the country registered for a working weekend on feminist media. In the course,

News

* National

of the two-day workshop schedule, publishers, periodical staff members, printers, booksellers and distributors met and exchanged experiences with other women working in their fields. Underlying the 1981 WIP Conference was the belief that women's media must survive, not surprising given self-interest

CONTENTS

Reviews.

......6

Viewpoint: On Running...

Eleanor Holmes Norton: on Affirmative Action....4 House Wednesday Group: off Affirmative Action.4 Older Women's League......

Letters.......

.11

Breland Charges CPD with False Arrest.......

...2

Find It Fastest..

....back cover

Take Back the Night, 1981..

What's Happening...........

.8-11

Local

Dinner Party Desserts......

Classified Ads.....

Cover photo by Janet Century

What She Wants

What She Wants usually goes to production the third weekend of the month. Copy should be submitted by the 15th of each month so that we can discuss it and edit collectively at our editorial meetings. Contact us for specific deadlines. Please print or type articles. Mail material to WSW, P. O. Box 18465, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118.

WHAT SHE WANTS IS:

A MONTHLY NEWS JOURNAL PRODUCED FOR ALL WOMEN. We always like input from our readers in the form of articles, personal experiences, poetry, art, announcements, and letters. We welcome women who are willing to help us in specific areas of the paper (writing, lay-out, advertising, distribution, publicity, etc.) and/or who are interested in our collective.

WHAT SHE WANTS ADVOCATES:

...equal and civil rights

...the right to earnings based on our need, merit, and interest

...access to job training, salaries, and promotions we choose

...the right to organize in unions and coalitions to advance our cause

...the right to decent health care and health information

...the right to safe, effective birth control and to safe, legal abortions ...the right to accept or reject motherhood

...the right to choose and express sexual preference without harassment ...access to quality education and freedom from prejudice in learning materials

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

A one-year subscription to WSW includes

10 regular monthly issues

Individual $6.00

Contributing

$15.00

Sustaining $25.00

Non-Profit Org. $10.00

For Profit Org. $15.00

—

DISTRIBUTION OUTLETS:

East: Appletree Books, Coventry Books, CWRU Bookstore, Food Communities, Food Project, Hemming & Hulbert Booksellers

Central: Barnes & Noble, Publix Book Mart, Thorma's on the Square, WomenSpace

West: American Indian Center, CCC Bookstore, Plants Plus, Six Steps Down

Chagrin Falls: Little Professor Book Center

Akron: Cooperative Market

Kent: Kent Natural Foods Store

Columbus: Fan the Flames Bookstore

Boston, MA: New Words Bookstore

Business Group

Marycatherine Krause/Coordinator.

Dianne Fishman

Mary Redlinger

Editorial Group

Loretta Feller/Coordinator Marycathérine Krause/Coordinator

Production Group

Linda Jane/Coordinator Mary Walsh/Coordinator Willow Bentley Pat O'Malley Michele Vanderlip

coupled with the participants' knowledge that their organizations are links in the existing national. feminist/lesbian media network.

The Index/Directory of Women's Media, an annual publication of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP) since 1975, documents this network. A record of its links, the 1981 Index/Directory contains over 1,000 listings submitted by women's media groups and individual women working in print and other forms of media, e.g., radio, TV, film and multi-media. The Periodicals section alone indexes almost 200 publications, including newspapers, journals, magazines and newsletters.

In the introduction to the 1981 Index/Directory, WIFP summarizes their interest in a women's media network: "We believe that by building a, strong women's communications system, women can prevent a return to the 1950's, when there were no women's media and our options were limited to what the male-owned media told us were acceptable roles

To Contact WSW By Phone: Reach WSW staff members at 932-3672 6:00-9:00 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings only.

for women". Identifying women's demand for options as the content of women's media and the context of the Women's Movement, WIFP, in its Call for Research, outlines its analysis of media as a source of power for women:

1) Power is the ability to move something in a direction you want...2) the more people working with you, the more power you have...3)the more people you can reach with your information, the larger the number who will find your goal is their goal and join with you in attaining it. Thus, having a means of reaching people is crucial to increasing your power....Power (the ability to move things your way) depends on the number of people you can reach with your information. The source of power (where you obtain it) is media (i.e., having a means of communication). The more people we reach, the more power we have.

The next question for us as individuals, organizations, and as a network is a tough one: in what ways do we use or misuse this power? For monthly newspapers such as What She Wants, questions of whom we reach, whom else we would like to reach, and how we can reach them prompt us to look at how we operate, in ways as diverse as editorial policy-making

WSW has a general meeting the week after each month's mailing. It is open to all women who want to evaluate the new issue and brainstorm about news/issues/ideas of concern to women and feminists. This month's meeting is November 12. For more information, call 932-3672, 6-9 p.m., Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

(e.g., what issues are we covering? ignoring?) and monthly circulation decisions (e.g., where would we like to see the paper sold?).

We in women's media are in the unique and exciting position of working in media organizations we've created. Assuming that the WIFP analysis is correct, women's media emerged from our recognition that mass media images of women confined us, denied us options. Hopefully, our discussions of what media should do will be enlightened by our experience of what it should not.

(The 1981 Index/Directory is available from WIFP, 3305 Ross Place, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008, $8.00.)

November, 1981/What She Wants/Page 1.