gender media history – German Historical Institute London Blog

Women’s Centres and their Newsletters: Feminist Spaces and Print Cultures in Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom

In April confusion reigned due to the last issue of Sisterhood thinking that the first Wednesday in April fell on the 8^th rather than the 1^st(Tut tut sack the proof readers I say). In the end we had two meetings but the discussion on Sexism and Education remained on the 8^th. As a result of the confusion only 7 women attended.¹

Taking place at the Cleveland women’s centre in Yorkshire, this seemingly benign communication mishap among the group producing the centre’s newsletter, Sisterhood, managed to leave the centre in disarray. In the end, the programme announced in the newsletter prevailed despite the organizers’ initial plans, illustrating just how central a role local newsletters could play in the basic functioning of key structures of local feminist scenes.

Sisterhood: Cleveland Womens Centre Newsletter, 3 (May 1981). [↩]

Conference Report: The History of Medialization and Empowerment: The Intersection of Women’s Rights Activism and the Media, 20–21 January 2022

The third and final meeting of the International Standing Working Group on Medialization and Empowerment was held virtually on January 20 and 21, 2022. At the end of a three-year project, looking at the interconnections, contingencies, and dependencies of women’s rights and the media throughout the long-twentieth century, the conference explored the role of the media in shaping and constituting discussions of gender roles and women’s rights globally. Convened by Christina von Hodenberg and Jane Freeland (London), it is part of the international research project Knowledge Unbound: Internationalization, Networking, Innovation in and by the Max Weber Stiftung and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Imagining a Transnational and Transhistorical Movement Against Violence

As a college student in the U.S. in the 1980s, I first became aware of Take Back the Night. In countless cities, towns, and campuses across the U.S., feminist organizations coordinated these annual events to protest violence against women. Participants—typically women (and often intentionally and exclusively women)—gathered for night-time marches and rallies to speak out against rape and other forms of sexual assault and to assert that women should have the right to occupy public spaces and travel at night without fear.

Understanding Social Change through the Digital Humanities

How has the mass media supported, enabled or challenged women’s emancipation? How have feminists used the media to promote women’s issues and rights? How have these messages been interpreted by the public? And how has this changed since the emergence of the mass press in the late nineteenth century?