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. Mo

Basic information

WIFP was founded in 1972 by Dr Donna Allen in Washington, DC. She was an economist, historian, and civil rights activist. The organization conducted seven conferences at the

National Press Club Organizations A press club is an organization for journalists and others professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Pre ...

in the 1970s and 1980s on "Planning a National and International Communications System for Women". WIFP held two international satellite teleconferences from the 1975 UN World Conference of Women, in

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in 1980 ("Dateline Copenhagen: A Woman's View") and

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in 1985 ("Dateline Nairobi - Woman's View"). 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. Burt, Elizabeth V., ed. ''Women's Press Organizations: 1881-1999''. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000. Print. 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.

Publications

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 Dr Donna Allen. ''Media Report to Women'' was transferred in mid-1987 to Communication Research Association Inc., where it is still published. WIFP currently publishes two annual print periodicals: ''Voices for Media Democracy'' and the ''Directory of Women’s Media.'' 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.

Issued awards

Women and Media Award

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: * 2012 – Maurine Beasley * 2014 – Tobe Levin * 2015 – Roxanne Dunbar * 2016 – Soraya Chemaly * 2017 –

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* 2018 – Angela Peabody * 2019 - Luci Murphy * 2020 - Esther Iverem, Eleanor Goldfield, Medea Benjamin, Margaret Flowers, Alina Duarte, and Anya Parampil * 2021 - Margaret Kimberley, Laura Flanders, Jennifer Pozner, Barbara Ransby, Nayoung Kim Park, and Carolyn LaDelle Bennett

Staff and Associates

Staff

President

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.

Director

Martha Leslie Allen has been the Institute's Director since 1985. She is an activist for media democracy and the promotion of women's involvement in the media. 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. Martha 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.

Associate Director

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. Dr. 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. Dr. Anderson serves as an Associate Artistic Team Member of Chicago-based Deeply Rooted Productions.

Associates

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." This network grew to over 800 members; some of the notable associates are listed below. *

Jennifer Abod Jennifer Abod (born 1946) is an American feminist activist, musician, journalist, and filmmaker. Education Jennifer Abod is the sister of feminist activist Susan Abod. She obtained her Bachelor of Science from Southern Illinois University, her ...

* Caroline Ackerman *

Margie Adam Margie Adam (born 1947) is an American musician and composer. Early life and education Margie Adam was born in 1947 in Lompoc, California. Her father was a newspaper publisher who composed music on the side, and her mother was a classical pian ...

* Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie *

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* Sandra Bartky *

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* Joan Biren *

Anne Braden Anne McCarty Braden (July 28, 1924 – March 6, 2006) was an American civil rights activist, journalist, and educator dedicated to the cause of racial equality. She and her husband bought a suburban house for an African American couple during Ji ...

Susan Braudy Susan Braudy (born Susan Orr July 8, 1941) is an American author and journalist. Early life and education Braudy grew up in Philadelphia and relocated to Manhattan, New York, and attended University of Pennsylvania and Yale University graduate sch ...

Susan Brownmiller Susan Brownmiller (born Susan Warhaftig; February 15, 1935) is an American journalist, author and feminist activist best known for her 1975 book '' Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape'', which was selected by The New York Public Library as o ...

Charlotte Bunch Charlotte Bunch (born October 13, 1944) 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 Rutg ...

* Martha Burk *

* Urvashi Butalia *

Toni Carabillo Toni Carabillo (March 26, 1926 – October 28, 1997) was an American feminist, graphic designer, and historian. She was born Virginia Ann Carabillo on March 26, 1926, in Jackson Heights, Queens. She graduated from Middlebury College in 1948 an ...

Jacqueline Ceballos Jacqueline "Jacqui" Michot Ceballos (born September 8, 1925) 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 organi ...

Peggy Charren Peggy Sundelle Charren (née Walzer; March 9, 1928 – January 22, 2015) was an American activist, known as the founder of Action for Children's Television (ACT), a national child advocacy organization, in 1968. The organization was founded in an ...

* Maralyn Chase *

Phyllis Chesler Phyllis Chesler (born October 1, 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island ( CUNY). She is a renowned second-wave feminist psychologist and the auth ...

* Judy Chicago *

Michelle Cliff Michelle Carla Cliff (2 November 1946 – 12 June 2016) was a Jamaican-American author whose notable works included ''Abeng'' (1985), '' No Telephone to Heaven'' (1987), and ''Free Enterprise'' (2004). In addition to novels, Cliff also wrote ...

Marjory Collins Marjory Collins (1912–1985) was an American photojournalist. She is remembered for her coverage of the home front during World War II. Personal life Marjory Collins was born March 15, 1912, to Elizabeth Everts Paine and writer Frederick Lewis ...

* Blanche Wiesen Cook * Flora Crater * Mary Daly * Thelma Dailey-Stout *

Karen DeCrow Karen DeCrow ( Lipschultz; December 18, 1937 – June 6, 2014) was an American attorney, author, activist and feminist. She served as the fourth national president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) from 1974 to 1977. She was also a str ...

Barbara Deming Barbara Deming (July 23, 1917 – August 2, 1984) was an American feminist and advocate of nonviolent social change. Personal life Barbara Deming was born in New York City. She attended a ''Friends'' (Quaker) school up through her high sch ...

Alix Dobkin Alix Cecil Dobkin (August 16, 1940 – May 19, 2021) was an American folk singer-songwriter, memoirist, and lesbian feminist activist. In 1979, she was the first American lesbian feminist musician to do a European concert tour. Early life Dobki ...

Ariel Maria Dougherty Ariel Maria Dougherty (born May 21, 1947) is an American independent film maker, feminist media advocate and activist. She is best known as the co-founder of non-profit media arts organization Women Make Movies. In recent years she has written exte ...

Claudia Dreifus Claudia Dreifus is an American journalist, educator and lecturer, producer of the weekly feature ''“Conversation with…”'' of the Science Section of ''The New York Times'', and known for her interviews with leading figures in world politics ...

Andrea Dworkin Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo ...

* Mary Eastwood * Martha Edelheit * Riane Eisler *

Jo Freeman Jo Freeman aka Joreen (born August 26, 1945), is an American feminist, political scientist, writer and attorney. As a student at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s, she became active in organizations working for civil liberties ...

* Margaret Gallagher * Georgie Anne Geyer *

Marcia Ann Gillespie Marcia Ann Gillespie (born 10 July 1944) is an African-American magazine editor, writer, professor, media and management consultant, and racial and gender justice activist. She previously served as editor-in-chief of ''Essence'' magazine and '' ...

Barbara Grier Barbara Grier (November 4, 1933 – November 10, 2011) was an American writer and publisher. She is credited for having built the lesbian book industry. After editing '' The Ladder'' magazine, published by the lesbian civil rights group Daugh ...

Susan Griffin Susan Griffin (born January 26, 1943) is a radical feminist philosopher, essayist and playwright particularly known for her innovative, hybrid-form ecofeminist works. Life Griffin was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1943 and has resided i ...

Grace Halsell Grace Halsell (May 7, 1923 – August 16, 2000) was an American journalist and writer. Early life and education The daughter of writer Harry H. Halsell, she studied at Texas Tech University from 1939 to 1942. During the 1940s, she was briefly ...

Wilma Scott Heide Wilma Louise Scott Heide (February 26, 1921 – May 8, 1985) was an American author, nurse, and social activist. Born in Ferndale, Pennsylvania, Heide trained as a registered nurse in psychiatry at Brooklyn State Hospital. She began her career ...

* Carolyn Heilbrun *

Keiko Higuchi is a Japanese activist, journalist and writer. She teaches as professor in faculty of letters of Tokyo Kasei University. As an activist she has been known as feminist, but since the 1980s active on warfare around aged people and their families. ...

* Shere Hite * Victoria Hochberg * Patricia Hogan *

Michael Honey Michael K. Honey (born 1947) is an American historian, Guggenheim Fellow and Haley Professor of Humanities at the University of Washington Tacoma in the United States, where he teaches African-American, civil rights and labor history. Early life ...

* Fran Hosken *

Florence Howe Florence Rosenfeld Howe (March 17, 1929 – September 12, 2020) was an American author, publisher, literary scholar, and historian who is considered to have been a leader of the contemporary feminist movement. Early life Born in Brooklyn, New ...

* Donna Huata *

Perdita Huston Perdita Constance Huston (May 2, 1936 – December 4, 2001) was an American journalist and women's rights activist. She is commemorated by the international Perdita Huston Human Rights Award. Born in Portland, Maine, Huston studied in France ...

Mildred Jeffrey Mildred McWilliams "Millie" Jeffrey (December 29, 1910 – March 24, 2004) was an American political and social activist during the labor reforms, women's rights, and civil rights movement. Biography Mildred Jeffrey's mother, Bertha McWilli ...

* Mal Johnson * Sonia Johnson *

Jill Johnston Jill Johnston (May 17, 1929 – September 18, 2010) was a British-born American feminist author and cultural critic who wrote '' Lesbian Nation'' in 1973 and was a longtime writer for ''The Village Voice''. She was also a leader of the lesbian ...

* Paula Kassell * Flo Kennedy * Jean Kilbourne * Anne Koedt * Lucy Komisar *

Cheris Kramarae Cheris Kramarae is a scholar in the area of women's studies and communication, with her research primarily focusing on gender, language and communication, technology, and education. She is mostly known for her contributions to muted group theo ...

Suzanne Lacy Suzanne Lacy (born 1945) is an American artist, educator, writer, and professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. She has worked in a variety of media, including installation, video, performance, public art, photography, and art books, ...

Louise Lamphere Louise Lamphere (born 1940) is an American anthropologist who has been distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico since 2001. She was a faculty member at UNM from 1976–1979 and again from 1986–2009, when she became ...

* Betty Lane * Laura Lederer * Rochelle Lefkowtiz *

Dorchen Leidholdt Dorchen A. Leidholdt is an activist and leader in the feminist movement against violence against women. Since the mid-1970s, she has counseled and advocated for rape victims, organized against "the media's promotion of violence against women", ...

* Tobe Levin *

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...

Patricia Mainardi Patricia "Pat" Mainardi (born November 10, 1942) is a leading authority on nineteenth-century European art and European and American modernism, and a pioneering professor of women's studies. Career and activism Pat Mainardi was part of the radical ...

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Judith Meuli Judith Meuli (January 15, 1938 – December 14, 2007) was an American feminist, activist and scientist. Early life and education Judith Meuli was born in 1938 to parents Isabel Meuli (''née'' Dresel) and Earle Meuli in Chippewa Falls, Wis ...

* Casey Miller * Susan Miller *

Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors ...

Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, (January 28, 1932 - September 25, 2020) best known for her "God of the Breasts" interpretation of ''El Shaddai'', spent her 44-year professional career teaching college level English literature and language, but develope ...

Robin Morgan Robin Morgan (born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the ...

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Eleanor Perry Eleanor Perry (née Rosenfeld; nom-de-plume Oliver Weld Bayer, October 13, 1914 – March 14, 1981) was an American screenwriter and author.''Variety'' "Eleanor Perry Obituary" March 17, 1981 Film critic Charles Champlin fondly remembered Perry ...

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Letty Cottin Pogrebin Letty Cottin Pogrebin (born June 9, 1939) is an American author, journalist, lecturer, and social activist. She is a founding editor of ''Ms.'' magazine, the author of twelve books, and was an editorial consultant for the TV special '' Free to B ...

* Anne Pride * Lana Rakow *

Frances Reid Frances Reid (December 9, 1914 – February 3, 2010) was an American dramatic actress. Reid acted on television for nearly all of the second half of the 20th century. Her career continued into the early 2000s. Although she starred in ma ...

Malvina Reynolds Malvina Reynolds (August 23, 1900 – March 17, 1978) was an American folk/blues singer-songwriter and political activist, best known for her songwriting, particularly the songs "Little Boxes", "What Have They Done to the Rain" and "Morningtown ...

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* Florence Rush * Diana Russell * Bernice Sandler * Doris Evans Saunders * Ann Scott * Ntozake Shange * Gail Sheehy *

Alix Kates Shulman Alix Kates Shulman (born August 17, 1932) is an American writer of fiction, memoirs, and essays, and a prominent early radical activist of second-wave feminism. She is best known for her bestselling debut adult novel, ''Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Qu ...

* Joy Simonson *

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Dorothy Sucher Dorothy Sucher (May 18, 1933 – August 22, 2010) was an American author and psychotherapist who worked as a reporter at the '' Greenbelt News Review'', where an article that she wrote that quoted critics of a developers calling his plans "blac ...

* Kate Swift *

Irene Tinker Irene Tinker (born March 8, 1927, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin), is professor emerita in the Departments of City and Regional Planning & Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching from 1989 to 1998. She was the founding Board p ...

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* Margaret Traxler * Carmen Delgado Votaw *

Ellen Wartella Ellen A. Wartella (born October 16, 1949, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) is a leading scholar of the role of media in children's development. She is the chair and professor of communication, director of Northwestern University's Center on Media an ...

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Barbara Wertheimer Barbara Mayer Wertheimer (1926 – September 23, 1983) was an American historian and labor organizer. Her research specialized in United States labor and gender history. Wertheimer served as an associate professor at Cornell University from ...

Celeste West Celeste (Celestia) West (November 24, 1942 – January 3, 2008) was an American librarian and lesbian author, known for her alternative viewpoints in librarianship and her authorship of books about lesbian sex and polyfidelity. She herself wa ...

* Mary Williamson *

Betsey Wright Betsey Ross Wright (born July 4, 1943) is an American lobbyist, activist, and political consultant who worked more than a decade for Bill Clinton in Arkansas.Baquet (1994)Gambrell (2009)Linn (2009) She served as chief of staff to Governor Clinto ...

Laura X Laura X (born Laura Rand Orthwein, Jr.; in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1940) is a women's rights advocate. Laura X changed her name in 1962 to Laura Shaw Murra, which remains her legal name. She took the name Laura X on September 17, 1969, to symboli ...

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References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Publishing organizations Women's organizations based in the United States Feminist organizations in the United States