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Abstract
Introducing a special issue about the business aspects of feminist and women’s movement publishing, this article surveys the perennial tensions between cultural and political aims and the economic models necessary for sustainable operation. Addressing a range of beloved periodicals and book publishing ventures, including Spare Rib, Ms, Red Rag, Virago, Des Femmes, Honno, Sheba, Bogle L’Ouverture, Onlywomen Outwrite, The F-Word, The Vagenda, Feminist Frequency, Feministing, The Establishment, Crunk Feminist Collective and Cassava Republic Press, I identify a shared scene of hopeful activist enterprise within a complex ecology embracing the market, public funding, philanthropy as well as the feminist ‘gift economy’ of voluntary work and bartering. I argue that, where ventures failed, they nevertheless generally acted as socially responsible businesses, producing publications with a long tail of value which includes and exceeds the economic. I apply this lens to the case of Women: A Cultural Review itself, revealing its former incarnation as a feminist arts magazine Women’s Review, which ran from 1985 to 1987, and the way its meaning, purpose and value has been preserved under new ownership. This raises general questions about the business of academic publishing, university markets and the paradoxes of platforms which enable protest about the terms of their production.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Claire Hardisty for much of the business detail about Women’s Review. I am also very grateful to Helen Carr for her generous help in providing access to Hardisty’s work and to her own invaluable memories. I also warmly thank Sarah Kember, Dorothy Griffiths, Gail Lewis, Jane Cholmeley, Deborah Philips, Tracey Brett, Isobel Armstrong, the BOWW team and the anonymous reviewers for their help.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/23/gender-pay-gap-figures-reveal-big-publishings-great-divide.The Publishers Association’s 2019 survey states that 53 per cent of executive positions are held by women and the workforce is 13 per cent BAME. However, 18.8 per cent attended an independent or fee-paying school. See https://www.publishers.org.uk/publications/diversity-survey-of-the-publishing-workforce-2019/ (accessed 28 August 2020).
2 See https://www.womeninpublishinghistory.org.uk/content/category/themes/the-beginning-of-women-in-publishing (accessed 28 August 2020).
3 Sadly, this digitized resource had to be removed after Britain left the EU in 2021, as British copyright law does not currently offer the same protection for ‘orphan works’ which account for much of the resource’s content. The British Library curated Spare Rib website remains available, however, with articles and images from the magazine and contextual images. See: www.bl.uk/spare-rib.
4 Red Rag has been digitised. See http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/redrag/index_frame.htm (accessed 28 August 2020).
5 Beatrix Campbell, Sisterhood and After oral history, transcript p. 87/track 5.
6 Kirsten Hearn, Sisterhood and After oral history, transcript pp. 69–70/track 3; Jane Cholmeley, personal communication to the author.
7 See https://www.rimnetwork.net/aboutus/ (accessed 28 August 2020).
8 The Women’s Review of Books piloted in 1983. It was published by the Wellesley (College) Center for Research on Women. See https://www.wcwonline.org/Research-Action-Report-Fall/Winter-2002/qaa-with-linda-gardiner-editor-of-the-womens-review-of-books (accessed 28 August 2020).
9 Deborah Philips, ‘The Women’s Liberation Movement’ Witness Workshop.
10 A golden share enables veto power.
11 Janice Winship praised Women’s Review’s understanding of the role of visual pleasure in contrast to other movement publications, p. 159. Janice Winship, Inside Women’s Magazines, London: Pandora, 1987.
12 The £39 K was from Greater London Council’s Industry and Employment Department. They also received £4 K from Greater London Arts for contributors’ costs; a rent grant from Hackney Economic Development Unit and the Department of Trade and Industry’s Business Expansion Scheme’s tax relief for investors of over £500 (Claire Hardisty, ‘Women’s Review 1984–1987’, Masters, Middlesex, London, 1992, pp. 152–3).
13 Conversion using https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/#currency-result.
14 Other members were designers Judy Crammond, Jo Hughes and Caroline Grimshaw, also Jane Ferret and unpaid advisor Beverly Stern. Their accountant, typically, was a man: Paul Beber, whom Andrew Ryan put them in touch with.
15 This contrast was also made at the time. See Susan Ardill and Sue O’Sullivan, ‘Dizzy Pace in Women’s Publishing’, New Statesman, 25 October 1985, p. 12.
16 Isobel Armstrong, personal communication to the author.
17 Deborah Philips, ‘The Women’s Liberation Movement’ Witness Workshop.
18 Deborah Philips, ‘The Women’s Liberation Movement’ Witness Workshop. Philips made this point at the time, in the well-attended Feminist Book Fair meeting ‘Who Reviews Feminist Books—and Why?’, a meeting described with some frustration by Susan Ardill in Spare Rib. Susan Ardill, ‘Reports on the Bookfair: Reviewing the Reviewers’, Spare Rib, Undefined 146, 1984, p. 28.
19 One American reviewer concluded that ‘for most libraries this lively monthly will not be an essential purchase, but it deserves careful consideration by all women’s studies collections and libraries supporting research on British mores and culture’ American Library Association, ‘Choice Review’, Publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries 24, 1986, November, p. 445.
20 It now publishes four issues per year.
21 Many others of course have supported the journal including a stellar advisory board, Trudi Tate as Reviews Editor from 1997 and Clara Jones since 2019.
22 Helen Carr, The Business of Women’s Words oral history, transcript p. 75/track 2.
23 Deborah Philips is now Professor of English Literature at the University of Brighton and a member of the W:CR Consultative Group, and Nicci Gerrard writes bestselling novels with her husband Sean French as Nicci French, and won the Orwell Prize in 2016 for her campaigning journalism on the treatment of dementia.
24 Women’s Review benefitted from the Business Expansion Scheme’s tax relief for investors of over £500 (Hardisty, Women’s Review 1984–1987, pp. 152–3). The Enterprise Allowance Scheme (1982–91), enabled participants to draw unemployment benefits whilst working to establish a business, if they could demonstrate £1,000 of capital. See https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/venture-capital-schemes-manual/vcm2020 (accessed 28 August 2020).
25 See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49841620 (accessed 28 August 2020).
26 They dedicated the issue to Scott Walwyn (who died young in 2002).
27 See also Gail Chester in this issue and Catherine Hall, Sisterhood and After oral history, transcript pp. 71–5/track 2. These struggles to fulfil ideals and diversify in all respects continue, in 2020 notably linked to the challenges of academic labour and publishing.
28 Statement published at: https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.sussex.ac.uk/description/FER (accessed 28 August 2020).
29 Rates taken from W:CR, Volume 2, Issue 1. Launch prices were at £30/£15 for the volume only.
30 Helen Carr, The Business of Women’s Words oral history, transcript p. 71/track 2.
31 Rates taken from W:CR, Volume 10, Issue 1, 1999.
32 The journal is Abstracted/Indexed in: Alternative Press Index; British Humanities Index; Educational Management Abstracts; Educational Research Abstracts Online; Feminist Periodicals; Film Literature Index; Humanities International Index; International Bibliography of the Social Sciences; OCLC; Periodicals Index Online; Religion Index One: Periodicals and Studies on Women and Gender Abstracts. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.sussex.ac.uk/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rwcr20 (accessed 28 August 2020).
33 Note T&F’s disclaimer on the accuracy of its metrics. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.sussex.ac.uk/article-citations-disclaimer (accessed 28 August 2020).
34 See https://www.animemangastudies.com/2015/05/31/anime-and-manga-in-the-oa-comic-book-graphic-novel-collection/#more-1244 (accessed 28 August 2020).
35 https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-open-access/ (accessed 28 August 2020).
36 https://taylorandfrancis.com/careers/ (accessed 28 August 2020).
37 https://unpaywall.org/ (accessed 28 August 2020).
38 Project Muse as a non-profit journal publisher provides an interesting model.
39 See https://www.feminist-review-trust.com/about-the-feminist-review-trust/ (accessed 28 August 2020).
40 Dorothy Griffiths, personal communication to the author.
41 SAGE describes itself as ‘independent’, and still majority-owned by founder Sara Miller-McCune. See ‘About’ in https://group.sagepub.com/ (accessed 28 August 2020).
42 https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.sussex.ac.uk/description/FER (accessed 28 August 2020).
43 Helen Carr, The Business of Women’s Words oral history, transcript p. 77/track 2.
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