RADICAL FEMINIST LINKS
As always, this is an inevitably idiosyncratic list, primarily extracted from the main Random Sites page. In terms of what I mean by "Radical Feminism," I have come around to agreeing with Catherine MacKinnon in her earlier days, that it is Feminism Unmodified. That is, it is about women seeking and implementing respect for their rights as human beings, including achieving freedom and safety to contribute fully to their societies. Or, as Marie Shear observed in 1986, "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." Men cannot be women, Feminism is not about men, and women are not required to worry about men or try to appease men while carrying out Feminist work.
- After Dinner Party) : In the early 2010s Lynn Schirmer founded and led the now completed multidisciplinary and multimedia project intended to better share correct information on clitoral anatomy and prevent it being strategically "lost" in the ongoing patriarchal conditions. The project and website refer back to Judy Chicago's monumental art project, The Dinner Party.
- Alix Dobkin : If you haven't had an opportunity to hear Dobkin's music and you enjoy folk music, then you are in for a treat. Her recording career began in 1973, and she continued recording and touring alongside a rigorous schedule of activist and music business development work, until her passing a few years ago. She also has a new memoir coming out soon.
- Alpennia : A surprisingly rare sort of website, for author Heather Rose Jones. She writes primarily fiction, typically historical, historical fantasy, and fantasy. Jones has also been writing, narrating, and producing a longrunning podcast on lesbian historic motifs alongside a major annotated bibliography of same. For the most part she has resisted the recent transmadness and makes minimal use of the slur term "queer."
- Bev Jo - Radical Feminist Writing : This blog is just what it says, and includes the wonderful on-line, updated edition of "Dykes-Loving-Dykes: Separatist Politics" which she and her coauthors originally published in 1990.
- Bonnie J. Morris : Lesbian historian Bonnie J. Morris has been doing her part in recording and compiling women's and lesbian history, from chronicling the women's music movement to challenging misrepresentations of the feminist movement over time. Besides her non-fiction work, she is a prolific poet, has two successful novels and several hilarious plays to her credit.
- Writings by Carol Hanisch : This founding member of new york radical women continues her vigorous activist practise to this day, including writing, organizing, and editing. Some of her work is also in print and hard to find, so don't miss out on picking copies up should they turn up in the course of a visit to your local used bookstore.
- Carolyn Gage : Veteran lesbian playwright, whose works range across genres including musicals, one-woman shows, one-woman shows, dramas, radio plays, murder mysteries, farces, and comedies. She is leading the Butch Visibility Project, including writing and producing a long list of plays and monologues. Her fiction and non-fiction is great too, keep an eye out for Like There's No Tomorrow: Meditations for Women Leaving Patriarchy.
- Chicago Women's Liberation Union Herstory Project : Women documenting their own movement and curating it online for themselves, now from their own domain name. Alas they are using square space and so have a temperamental menu system, but it can generally be worked around with little trouble via a search engine or simply viewing page source to pick out the links.
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Citations féministes : A growing archive of citations of radical Feminist thinkers in both french and english, including a range of translations and excellent scanned texts and photographs. It is a project of the blog Sexisme et Sciences humaines – Féminisme, which works to reveal sexist mechanisms that maintain women's oppression so that they can be destroyed. I suspect that it will move off of wordpress.com soon, if it hasn't already.
- Dame Ethel Smyth : The indomitable Ethel Smyth has bobbed back up into musical consciousness in spite of the usual attempts in the mainstream to ignore women composers and musicians. Defiant lesbian, feminist, suffragette, and composer, her music is now being recorded. This site provides a solid overview of her life and a fairly complete discography and manuscript list.
- Denise Thompson, Feminist Theorist : One of the best sources of radical feminist writing from theory to history on the web by a longtime activist and scholar whose books are not nearly available enough. See her excellent dissertation Against the Dismantling of Feminism: A Study of the Politics of Meaning for a classic analysis that is as relevant today as ever.
- Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum : This is the companion site of the now permanent home of Judy Chicago's major artwork at the brooklyn museum since 2007. Unfortunately the two book set she and Susan Hill composed on the project are no longer in print, but this is an excellent overview. The gallery that the artwork is installed in is named for a member of the infamous Sackler family of opiate marketing fame.
- Feminist Reprise Library (ARCHIVE) : A site providing access to hard to get papers and excerpts from various feminist authors, especially lesbian feminists whose works are all too often out of print. The person who created and maintains the site provides very little information apart from the articles themselves, and it is mercifully devoid of the social media tags that proliferate like a bad rash on so many sites these days.
- Feminist Theory Reading Group : I will be pleasantly surprised if this site continues to survive automattic's ongoing attempts to censor Feminist and gender critical discussion wholly from its platform, which is now too big to be treated as an ordinary private business like a bookstore. Contributors read excerpts of classic Feminist works and other relevant works for themselves and comment on and discuss them. Of course this means that they don't necessarily agree with the arguments made in the excerpts or even completely among themselves, in an excellent example of civil discussion and making an effort to read the original fairly and critically.
- Feminist International Network Against Artificial Reproduction, Gender Ideology, and Transhumanism : In many ways a successor of FINRRAGE, with an updated descriptor to make explicit that the radical feminist activists are aware of the changes in efforts to develop and market various types of pharmaceuticals and genetic manipulations. They are deeply concerned now as FINRRAGE then, to oppose the patriarchal malestream obsession with necrotechnology and destruction of life.
- Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering : This is primarily a historical record site of the radical feminist organization founded in 1985. It started and to this day is still an international coordinating organization for activism opposing the various so-called reproductive technologies and the accompanying forms of genetic manipulation. Its conferences rotated between countries and continents, and its members were so effective necrotech corporations and governments targeted it for interference by using bribes and police harassment.
- Frauenkultur : Another impressive project started by Bec Wonders, this one indexing second wave feminist texts written between 1965-1995. It ranges from poetry to philosophy and political theory to novels and sharp critical exposés and historical reconstructions. Many of the periodicals and pamphlets are available to read from the rapidly expanding digital archives at institutions like duke university.
- GenderTrending (ARCHIVE) : As she promised, Gallus Mag did not give up when the first censorship wave imposed by automattic took down her blog providing journalistic coverage of developments in women's rights and transgender activism in late 2019. Whatever your opinion on those issues, Gallus has also taken care to provide exemplary coverage of ban waves and other forms of censorship via search engine result manipulation and other techniques, and it is worth watching for her updates on that subject. Unfortunately, she was not able to continue, in part because wordpress software is designed to make it hard to get data out.
- Get the L Out : It is a sad fact that the only people looking out for lesbians is lesbians, and this is a key source for information on new developments as lesbians leave the so-called "LGBTQT+ good for anyone but women" movement. Great links and important information on recent protests that doesn't repeat misogynist talking points provided by people claiming to that stating the facts about being a lesbian is "transphobic."
- Greenham Women Everywhere : An amazing and ongoing project of documenting and presenting oral interviews with women who held the space of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. Photographs, essays, and oral interviews are the core of the site, and to the credit of the Scary Little Girls theatre hub and The Heroine Collective, they are hosting the audio on the site itself in accessible formats.
- Heretics, The : Website home of Joan Braderman's documentary film about the Feminist art movement, with a focus on the Heresies Collective, a significant participant in what was a worldwide drive contributed to by thousands of individual women and women's groups. All this it is worth noting, long before "the internet" and including extensive adaptation of newer visual techniques and performance modes. Don't miss the archive of the 27 issues of the Heresies journal.
- Hilary McCollum, Writer, Activist, Playwright : McCollum is building a unique body of work exploring lesbian history and experience, including a memoir, two novels, and several plays. She is currently pursuing graduate research work on the recreation and documentation of lesbian history by means of novel writing.
- I Blame the Patriarchy (ARCHIVE) : At turns hilarious, infuriating, and invigorating, Twisty Faster skewers more than a few nonsensical claims about Feminism and the supposed wide openness of everyone's choices in this day and age. Alas, Twisty has not been posting much for the past several years, probably because like so many women she is responsible not only for herself but other people and other than human animals in her life. Any post is a great place to start, though a non-traditional way to get introduced is via Twisty's description of her blog.
- Institute of Feminist Thought, The : A new project from Jane Clare Jones, in which she is providing online courses, including readings and discussions. The first offering is scheduled for april, and it sounds like interested women are already asking for additional courses such as one on the vexed subject of "french feminism" – a label which does not necessarily correspond to people from france engaged in Feminism, astonishingly enough.
- Jamie Anderson : Following further along the thread of brilliant women historians. Anderson is a practising musician, songwriter, teacher, and now author of a history of the women's music movement through the 1970s and 1980s. She also has an excellent comic wit and a marvellous laugh, combined with a busy music journalism and web copy practice.
- Jane Clare Jones : Blog of Feminist philosopher, teacher and activist Jane Clare Jones. Brilliantly funny and constructively thought-provoking, including wonderful footnotes and clear references. She has also done some intriguing work on Prince and how he was represented by the mainstream media versus how he represented himself. The posts categorized under Feminism are of course a great starting point.
- Janice Raymond Official Site : Long a controversial scholar and hard working activist, Janice Raymond is another of those people whose work should be read in the original, rather than accept secondhand accounts. She is a great Feminist activist engaged in opposing sex and child trafficking as well as arguing for an end to forcing anyone to behave according to sex role stereotypes.
- jofreeman.com : Radical Feminist political scientist Jo Freeman is the author of many germinal works, including the BITCH manifesto and the still standard starter textbook in many women's studies departments that have survived, Women: A Feminist Perspective. She is also well worth reading on the realities of "meritocracy" and academic precarity.
- Judy Grahn : Judy Grahn is a well-known poet and activist, this site effectively serves as a lightly annotated catalogue of Grahn's books and recordings, and occasionally purchasing information. There are some curious omissions, such as The Highest Apple, a valuable though flawed study of lesbian poetry, so it is worth checking the online catalogues of second hand bookstores as well as your local library for more of her work.
- Julie Bindel : A major Feminist activist who works to end violence against women and children, co-founder of Justice for Women, and prolific author of books, articles, and papers. Her work is well worth reading and thinking through, regardless of whether or not you agree with her because she is an excellent writer who sets out her arguments in a clear fashion, which is all too rare in this strange age of "queer theory."
- LAVA - Lesbian Action for Visibility in Aotorea : An excellent site full of resources, from reports to relevant links, a pitch-perfect and often very funny FAQ, plus important news coverage and editorial pieces. It has been somewhat quiet recently, but the members for organization have been very busy preparing for their upcoming national census and elections.
- Le Blog de Christine Delphy : Distinguished Feminist theorist and scholar Christine Delphy posts articles in both french and english, taking a firmly intersectional perspective. She is often most cited for her work on the journal "Nouvelles Questions Féministes," and her 1982 book Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women's Oppression, but she has many more recent works, from Familiar Exploitation: A New Analysis of Marriage in Contemporary Western Societies to Separate and Dominate: Feminism and Racism After the War On Terror.
- Lesbian Avengers : For information on the origins and history of this remarkable direct action group founded in 1992, this site is the place to visit. They produced newsletters and engaged in multiple funny, irreverent, and powerfully change making actions right into the early 2000s. They are now engaged in writing books and producing documentaries.
- Lesbian Herstory Archive : An american, grassroots lesbian archive founded in the 1970s by a feminist collective and supported to this day primarily by thousands of hours of volunteer work and dollars of donations. This amazing work of lesbian herstory recording and archiving is more important everyday, and especially now in a time of resurgent attempts to delete any acknowledgement whatsoever of lesbian existence.
- Lesbian History Group : Online home of the resurgent group of organizers and researchers who helped prevent the erasure of lesbian history and lesbians from history. Today their efforts are desperately needed, especially in light of recent attempts to claim lesbians and any other women who did not perform according to sex role stereotypes were in fact men. Check out the resources page for access to pdfs of classic and controversial articles. It has also managed to survive the censorship regime at automattic to date, but don't be surprised if they end up finding a new online home soon.
- Lesbian Home Movie Project : A united states-based project founded by lesbians who realized how remarkable it is that turn of the twentieth century lesbians have left both photographs and home movies to posterity. They were on the leading edge of technology adaptation. The kernel the project started from film maker and teacher Ruth Huntington Storm's (1888-1981) reels.
- Liberation Collective : Collective blog of six Radical Feminist thinkers who, "hope to provide an online space for radical feminist commentary around issues of interest to our community." Besides the six principle writers, who hold and express diverse views, they welcome guest writers. Posts are generally lengthy and carefully written with good footnotes, and the comment moderation is judicious.
- Lierre Keith : A great starting point to get an overview of the work of this storied and busy radical ecofeminist activist who is also an extraordinary writer and public speaker. Keith is perhaps most famous and controversial for her book The Vegetarian Myth, which is a careful and compassionate exploration of why neither vegetarianism nor veganism can save the world, despite the earnest determination of so many who follow those diets.
- LilyMaynard.com : Undaunted by the ongoing campaign of censorship of Feminists and gender critical women on wordpress.com that led to the deletion of her website without warning, Maynard has moved to her own domain name and besides setting up her site again continues to write excellent long form posts. If you are looking for respectful, compassionate, non-technical, no bullshit discussions of "gender identity" and its ancillaries, her site is a wonderful place to start.
- Listening2Lesbians : This site can be a difficult read, because it is a news service covering "women's experiences of being abused or silenced as lesbians and of being subjected to misogyny and lesbophobia within and outside the community." This is tough work that absolutely needs to be done, and includes important investigative work from stuff that might seem less important (frackbook and its latest misogynistic attacks on lesbian speech and participation) and the viscerally critical (recent murders of lesbians).
- Marge Piercy : One of Piercy's most famous novels is Woman on the Edge of Time, but if that is the only thing you have read of hers you are letting yourself down. She has many other books, novels, poetry, and a range of essay collections let alone her blog and other projects. This website provides a great peek at her most recent projects.
- Monica Sjöö : The central site curated by Feminist artist, writer, and activist Sjöö's family in her memory. It delves into the wider range of her many projects, from her central visual works to her books, including the best known, The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of All authored with scholar and poet Barbara Mor.
- Monica Sjöö Art Online : An online gallery of a selection of Feminist artist and activist Monica Sjöö's visual art works. Prolific and hardworking, Sjöö produced hundreds of paintings and posters reflecting on women's rights and women's rites. This gallery was created and is maintained by her family.
- Olympe de Gouges - English Translations of the Original French Texts : An ongoing translation project by Clarissa Palmer, herself a biographer and playwright. De Gouges was among the earliest bluntly feminist and highly effective female political activists in early modern france, and as is all too usual has been buried in obscurity under accusations of being a prostitute. She was in fact a bold theorist and social critic "whose vision is still so relevant today" as Palmer observes in her introduction to the site.
- Phyllis Chesler : Home on the web of brilliant, fierce, and still working everyday Feminist activist and theorist Phyllis Chesler. She has been hard at work since the 1970s, including controversial examinations of the part of the Feminist movement she is part of. Her writing and speeches include a deeply encouraging and helpful exploration of how unreasonable it is to expect to agree with one another about everything and the absolute necessity to be brave and refuse to engage in trashing.
- Project Continua - Women Who Persist : A collaborative female biography archive and ongoing project spawned by the Female Biography Project (further information on the Project itself) in which an international team of women scholars annotated and added to Mary Hays' 6 volume work Female Biography originally published in 1803. The website, founded circa 2014, is busier than it looks, so keep checking back for new biographies. Alternatively, you can check out the site circa february 2015, before the server move that has caused some rendering issues.
- Radical Notion, The : A brand new Radical Feminist quarterly, with both electronic and hard copy formats. As the introductory page of the site notes, the editors are committed to a materialist analysis of the oppression of women, and that means that contributors will not be hiding behind spurious claims about how supposedly all that is needed to change the world is to change the words. Materials included are not just written either, images are accepted as well.
- RadFemArchive : One of the great frustrations for Radical Feminists and those who would like to learn more about their theory and politics whether or not they agree with them, is the difficulty of keeping Feminist works generally in print. The RadFemArchive makes electronic copies of out of print texts available for free and beyond the confines of university libraries, an important service.
- Rain and Thunder - A Radical Feminist Journal of Discussion and Activism : Founded in 1998 and online since 2009, publishing articles by radical feminist women, and curating an important and extensive catalogue of resources both on and offline. They are entirely reader- and donor-supported, maintaining editorial independence. It is possible to order their back issues, which typically run around $7-10 u.s.
- Redstockings : A Volunteer-run and curated archive of documents, photos, and other historical materials from the Women's Liberation Movement, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. This is another contribution to the critical necessity for women to create and maintain their own historical documents.
- Rise Up! A Digital Archive of Feminist Activism : An ongoing project focussing on canadian Feminist activist materials dating from the 1970s to the 1990s. It is another key part of the effort to document the range of documents and items produced and used during these critical decades, from newsletters and buttons to t-shirts and flyers, and includes an option to contribute by scanning and uploading documents.
- Robin Morgan : Radical feminist activist, author and poet, editor if the breakthrough anthology Sisterhood is Powerful among many other books, and still raising hell today. This site provides an overview of her career, many publications and political actions, as well as access to her blog, which she updates regularly.
- Said It - Feminist News, Culture, and Politics : Founded and edited by Adriene Sere in 1999 and publishing monthly until 2017, Said It was a seattle-based online feminist free speech venue. Sere established it specifically for woman-identified women and girl-identified girls, covering politics, activism, spirituality, and a women's events calendar. Now viewable via the internet archive, it includes classic articles such as Sere's In Remembrance of Mary Daly: Lessons for the Movement.
- Sally Roesch Wagner : A key builder and restorer of women's history, from challenging attempts to erase the brilliant Radical Feminist activist and scholar Matilda Joslyn Gage to honouring the Haudenosaunee women's influence on the early Feminist movement in the united states. Arguably Roesch Wagner has taken Gage as a role model, considering she is an activist, historian, and leading scholar herself.
- Sarah Lucia Hoagland - Lesbian Feminist Philosopher : This site provides an excellent overview of Hoagland's research and publications, including a way to order a copy of her major publication, Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value. She is busy with the task of breaking down false definitions of oppressive systems as equivalent to society and insisting on human capacity to make ethical decisions under constrained conditions.
- Sheila Jeffreys : As you would expect, Jeffreys' official homepage, featuring her books and a range of articles. It includes video and audio recordings well worth the time spent with them. She has been an active lesbian Feminist for many years, and continues to serve as a key gender critical speaker and writer since her retirement from academia. The current most recent update is from 2014, but there should be new postings soon because Jeffreys has a new book coming out in august 2018.
- Sister Outrider : Claire Heuchan's blog, currently precariously hosted by wordpress.com. As her site's subtitle notes, it is all about "A Black Radical Feminism." Heuchan has bounced back after a writing hiatus enforced by depression and a need for a digital detox, which she discusses frankly in one of her most searing posts. She also contributes to AfterEllen, and is not to be missed.
- Spinifex Press : A Feminist press founded in 1991 by Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein with over 200 books in print in multiple formats. Among the first presses to have a website and online ordering, Spinifex takes a firm Feminist position and has taken a leading role in organizing in Feminist publishing, helping bring it through the 1990s backlash. They have recently established a pamphlet series, "Spinifex shorts" to provide solid introductions with references to a range of topics from publishing to surrogacy.
- Storm Force Feminists : An irish Radical Feminist site with a growing number of articles, including wonderful historical pieces and trenchant political critique. For the moment they are hosted on wordpress.com, so it is likely that they will switch to new hosting soon in light of the growing censorship of Feminists generally online.
- Suppressed Histories Archives : For some reason I was sure I had already added Max Dashu's amazing site to the Random Sites list, but on checking to be sure I see that I have been remiss. Dashu is an incredible, dedicated historian who has written multiple books, made dvds, and curated a huge archive of potent imagery that she has fundraised to digitize and make more widely available. She teaches courses, gives talks, and is an all round historian powerhouse. Her site is not to be missed.
- Through the Flower : The Feminist organization founded by Judy Chicago "to educate a broad public about the importance of art and its power in countering the erasure of women's achievements." It started as a way to fundraise for the monumental Dinner Party project, which to this day is lauded and pilloried by turns, yet is one of the greatest works of Feminist multi and interdisciplinary history ever realized.
- Time and Tide Magazine : A project website commemorating the originally feminist journal Time and Tide, which had its heyday from its founding in 1920 until 1945. In this time it represented feminist politics in all its diversity and creativity and published a range of important women authors, from Virginia Woolf to Rebecca West. A great place to start is the timeline.
- Tradfem Collective de traduction de textes féministes radicaux : A collective of translators working to make Radical Feminist essays and books available in languages besides english. So far the majority of works have been translated into french and german, starting with a selection of articles by Andrea Dworkin. New translations are posted each week.
- Websters' First New INTERGALACTIC Wickedary of the English Language, Conjured by Mary Daly in Cahoots with Jane Caputi, hacked by Madrid Tenant : An intriguing early hypertext project now held in the internet archive, produced as a chapter in a master's thesis project by Madrid Tenant. Besides the intriguing radical lesbian Feminist aspects, the way this site applies a database and script access approach to the manipulation of hypertext data is prescient. It is in fact early enough in time that in order to create the bread crumbs for each exploration of the Wickedary scripting is required because cookies were not implemented. The starred link is to an archived version.
- Wild Womyn Workshop : A lesbian owned and woman centred business busy making and selling amazing radical Feminist and lesbian art, from mugs to pins and shirts. Recently given a great boost by a recommendation from J.K. Rowling, I suspect not least because their work is beautiful, unshrinkingly political, and often funny.
- Women's Declaration International : The original site, including links to sign up for international webinars, find country-specific contacts, and join campaigns. The resources available are extensive, including a deep catalogue of videos and audio files, statements, letters, and talks. WDI published its first book in october 2023, Women's Rights, Gender Wrongs, which can be purchased through the site as well as a selection of other branded merchandise.
- Women's Declaration - USA : The place to sign up for united states-specific Women's Declaration International webinars, as well as join campaigns and access resources specific to that country. Lesbian members have recently founded a caucus and written a remarkable and inspiring Bill of Lesbian Rights.
- Women's International News Gathering Service : A remarkable project that has been going for twenty five years strong, put together by women building a regular news program made available online and broadcast on a range of radio stations throughout the world. Led by Frieda Werden, the collective produces six newscasts a year and maintains important physical and online archives. It can seem a bit of a puzzle to listen to the programs online, but luckily WINGS is also a member of archive.org, where so far the completed programs back to 2008 are posted.
- Women's Liberation Music Archive : An unpleasant but also unsurprising phenomenon is the widespread attempt to delete the Women's Liberation Movement right out of the history of the 1970s and 1980s, complemented by mockery of the creativity that accompanied and accompanies Feminist activism. This website counters such nonsense and provides biographies, descriptions, and access to a vast catalogue of samples.
- Women's Liberation Radio News : Brilliant Radical Feminist news site founded in 2016, home of the WLRN podcast and music hours. The news, commentaries, and music hours are all volunteer-written, -created, and/or -curated by women. New volunteers are always welcome, and WLRN staff are open to women looking to build their skills in areas called for by WLRN's work. Among many great resources within the podcast notes and the overall WLRN site is the numerous references and titles of relevant books, articles, music, and films.
- Women's Studies Online : A canada-based radical feminist-oriented research, education, action, and community bulding platform. Their tagline is wonderful, "putting women back in women's studies," and they run a busy schedule of online classes and lectures funded by donation.
- Writing by Renee : Another excellent blogger who writes about women's rights, Feminism, education, militarism, and the literacy gap. Renee Gerlich is part of the growing numbers of women writing great long form pieces with excellent cross references and source links on controversial issues. In other words, contributing to the better and more useful parts of the internet. Gerlich has also established Dragon Cloud Press.
- XX Amazons : A political and literary site founded in 2017 by Susan Wiseheart, Paula Mariedaughter and Jeanne Neath, in part as a response to the continuing deplatforming and increased social abuse of lesbians across the political spectrum. They make a powerful editing trio of determined lesbians holding space for ways of being sex role stereotype defiant for younger lesbians other than transing, while honouring that for some women and men, transing is the right path for them.
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