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Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP) is an American nonprofit publishing organization that was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1972. The organization works to increase media democracy and strengthen independent media.
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Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP) is an American nonprofit publishing organization that was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1972. The organization works to increase media democracy and strengthen independent media.
WIFP was founded in 1972 by Donna Allen in Washington, DC. She was an economist, historian, and civil rights activist. [1] The organization conducted seven conferences at the National Press Club in the 1970s and 1980s on "Planning a National and International Communications System for Women". [2] WIFP held two international satellite teleconferences from the 1975 UN World Conference of Women, in Copenhagen in 1980 ("Dateline Copenhagen: A Woman's View") and Nairobi in 1985 ("Dateline Nairobi - Woman's View"). [2] [3] These were each four hours if international interactions between women. During the 1980 conference, women gathered in six US cities and several female delegates from other countries called in from the Second U.N. World Conference in Copenhagen. Five years later in Nairobi, groups of women came together similarly to in Copenhagen but with the addition of more countries and their delegates. [4] As of 2017, WIFP became a member of Corporate Reform Coalition, which is a group of organizations and individuals who join together to address the influence of corporate America on the country's elections through shareholder protection. [5]
When the Institute was founded, it immediately launched the periodical Media Report to Women with the subhead "What Women Are Doing and Thinking About the Communications Media." It was edited the first fifteen years by Donna Allen. [6] Media Report to Women was transferred in mid-1987 to Communication Research Association Inc., where it is still published. [7] WIFP currently publishes two annual print periodicals: Voices for Media Democracy and the Directory of Women's Media. [8] [9] The first version of the Directory was published in 1975, and had 154 women's periodicals. Out of these 154, there were 24 periodicals that were published outside of the United States. Fourteen years later, the Directory contained 702 publications with 300 published outside of the United States. [4]
WIFP began an annual award entitled "Women and Media Award" in 2013. It which is given to women who have made exceptional contributions toward expanding female voices in the media. The recipients of this award are:
Dana Densmore first became a board member and officer of WIFP when the organization was founded in 1972. During her time at the organization, she served as senior editor and research director. In 1968, when the women's liberation bloomed, Densmore had been a systems programmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As an outcome, she worked with Roxanne Dunbar to found the feminist organization Cell 16. The two women went on to found the journal No More Fun and Games as the organization's periodical in the same year. She is also the founder, co-director, and editor for Green Lion Press. She received her B.A. in 1965 from St. John's College in Annapolis and her M.A. in 1993 from St. John's College in Santa Fe. [10]
Martha Leslie Allen has been the Institute's Director since 1985. [11] She is an activist for media democracy and the promotion of women's involvement in the media. In 1973–1975 she founded and chaired Women's Media Project in Memphis, TN. Additionally, she was an organizer of the 1973 Women's Leadership Conference in Memphis. From 1978 to 1985, she served as the associate director of WIFP, before taking the director position. Allen earned her Ph.D. in 1988 from Howard University in Washington, DC, with a dissertation on the history of women's media. She is Donna Allen's youngest daughter.
Elana Anderson, with a Ph.D. from Howard University, is on the board of directors of WIFP, as well as serving as the Associate Director since 2011. Anderson is a native Washingtonian, instructor, lecturer, parent, and performance and fiber artist. She is a member of the American Guild for Musical Artists (AGMA) and the National Council for Negro Women. Anderson serves as an Associate Artistic Team Member of Chicago-based Deeply Rooted Productions.
In 1977, WIFP formed the Associate Network composed of "women who worked for media or were interested in how the media covered women and their concerns". [4] This network grew to more than 800 members; some of the notable associates are listed below.
Margie Adam is an American musician and composer.
The National Women's Hall of Fame (NWHF) is an American institution founded to honor and recognize women. It was incorporated in 1969 in Seneca Falls, New York, and first inducted honorees in 1973. As of 2024, the Hall has honored 312 inductees.
Charlotte Anne Bunch is an American feminist author and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. Bunch is currently the founding director and senior scholar at the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is also a distinguished professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers.
Martha Gertrude Burk is an American political psychologist, feminist, and former (2000-2005) Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations.
Frieda Lindfield Werden is an American and Canadian radio producer. She is the co-founder and producer of the weekly radio series WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service, which debuted in 1986 and has been in weekly syndication for more than twenty-seven years. Produced by and about women, WINGS broadcasts on non-commercial radio stations worldwide.
Joy Rosenheim Simonson was a feminist who worked on women's rights and progressive activist.
Anne Koedt is an American radical feminist activist and author of "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm", a 1970 classic feminist work on women's sexuality. She was connected to the group New York Radical Women and was a founding member of New York Radical Feminists.
Vinie Veronica Burrows was an American stage actress on Broadway.
Margaret Ellen Traxler, SSND, was a prominent American Religious Sister with the School Sisters of Notre Dame and a prominent women's rights activist. She was also a leader in developing institutions to help poor women in the city of Chicago.
Florence Rush was an American certified social worker, feminist theorist and organizer best known for introducing The Freudian Coverup in her presentation "The Sexual Abuse of Children: A Feminist Point of View", about childhood sexual abuse and incest, at the April 1971 New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) Rape Conference. Rush's paper at the time was the first challenge to Freudian theories of children as the seducers of adults rather than the victims of adults' sexual/power exploitation.
Jacqueline "Jacqui" Michot Ceballos is an American feminist and activist. Ceballos is the former president of New York Chapter of the National Organization for Women and founder of the Veteran Feminists of America organization which documents the history of Second wave feminism and pioneer feminists. Ceballos' 1971 debate on sexual politics with Norman Mailer and Germaine Greer is recorded in the 1979 film Town Bloody Hall. Ceballos is also featured in the feminist history film She's Beautiful When She's Angry.
Susan Miller, recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting, is perhaps best known as the author/performer of the critically acclaimed one woman play, My Left Breast and as Executive Producer and writer for the award-winning web series Anyone But Me. For her work on the web series she won the first Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media.
The Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards—first presented in 1977 by the now–Los Angeles chapter of the Women in Film organization—were presented to honor women in communications and media. The awards include the Crystal Award, the Lucy Award, the Dorothy Arzner Directors Award, the MaxMara Face of the Future Award, and the Kodak Vision Award.
Jennifer Abod is an American feminist activist, musician, journalist, and filmmaker.
Barbara Mayer Wertheimer was an American historian and labor organizer. Her research specialized in United States labor and gender history.
Tobe Levin Freifrau von Gleichen, a multi-lingual scholar, translator, editor and activist, is an Associate of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University; a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Gender Studies Centre, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford; an activist against female genital mutilation (FGM) and professor of English Emerita at the University of Maryland, University College.
Casey Geddes Miller was an American feminist author and editor best known for promoting the use of non-sexist writing in the English language. With Kate Swift, her business partner and platonic domestic partner, she wrote influential books and articles about sexism in the English language.
Carmen Delgado Votaw was a civil rights pioneer, a public servant, an author, and community leader. She earned an associate degree at the University of Puerto Rico and graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., with a bachelor of arts in international studies. She was subsequently awarded an honorary doctorate in humanities by Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.
Donna Allen was an American pioneer feminist, civil rights activist, historian, economist, and founder of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press.
Dorinda Moreno is an American Chicana activist, feminist and writer.
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