Spreading the word: feminist print cultures and the women’s liberation movement

This article investigates the significance of print cultures to women of the second wave of feminism. It takes a broad view of a male-dominated publishing industry and highlights the various ways that women intervened and responded through their writing, publishing and organisational skills and political commitment. It discusses the shifts in female publishing cultures, emboldened by the overarching Women's Liberation Movement and empowered through the establishment of separatist networks. Feminist activism, I argue, may be discerned in the impetus behind the construction and publication of feminist magazines. The last section considers the different publishing hinterlands of three feminist magazines, overlapping in their concerns, but distinctive in their approaches: Shrew, Spare Rib and Womens Voice, and argues that such magazines of the second wave represent the diversity and print activism of the WLM.