This is a directory
of media owned and operated primarily by, for and about women.
We do not include men's "women's magazines" (magazines
directed at women), even if they have a female staff. We do include
many academic periodicals which are published by institutions,
but only those where women determine content and make up the majority
of the staff. If a woman's media feels it fits our definition,
we usually include them.

In the 1970's and '80's, the Women's
Institute for Freedom of the Press published 15 annual editions
of the Directory of Women's Media. The National Council
for Research on Women, in New York, published two more editions
in the early 1990's. Now, once again, WIFP is publishing of the
directory of periodicals, publishers, media organizations, and
other media categories. It is available here on the WIFP website
with no access charge. Since we are continually updating the Directory,
please send us any new entries or changes so we can immediately
include them. We want the Directory to be as accurate and
as inclusive as possible particularly when we produce our print
version of this Directory of Women's Media available.

Women's media associations have been founded around the world to
support women journalists. Their focus and activities vary depending on
the needs and desires of members. Some associations lobby media owners
for changes in how women are portrayed in the media. Others arrange
conferences on issues related to women in journalism. Many organize
roundtable discussions on women in the media.

If
you are interested in starting a women's media association, these tips from members of existing associations can help you get
started.

NEW YORK—The Open Society Institute today launched a fellowship program
to enable outstanding individuals from around the world to pursue projects that
will inspire meaningful debate and shape public policy.

The Open Society Fellowship will award $2 million in 2008 to scholars, journalists,
activists and others working on national security; citizenship, membership and
marginalization; authoritarianism; and new strategies and tools for advocacy.

“The Open Society Fellows will be idea entrepreneurs,” said George
Soros, founder and chairman of OSI. “The fellowship will generate new
thinking to tackle some of the most pressing questions of our day.”

Fellows’ projects may include books, articles, documentary films,
online media, and efforts to seed new campaigns and organizations. OSI
seeks fellows who will engage with its staff and inform its thinking.

OSI will provide fellows with competitive stipends and communications assistance,
and will integrate them into its networks of partners and grantees. Most fellowships
will be awarded for one year.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. For more information, please
see the Open Society
Fellowship guidelines.

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A
New Weave of Power, People & Politics:

The
Action Guide for Advocacy and Citizen Participation

by
Lisa VeneKlasen with Valerie Miller

A New Weave of Power,
People & Politics provides
a well-tested approach for building people’s participation and
collective power that goes beyond influencing policy and politics to
transforming public decision-making altogether. Based on 25 years of
participatory research, community development, neighborhood organizing,
legal rights education, and large-scale campaign advocacy experiences
worldwide, A New Weave combines concrete and practical action
“steps” with a sound theoretical foundation to help users understand
the process of people-centered politics from  planning to action.
Published in 2002 and reprinted in 2007, the guide is unique in its
emphasis on power and constituency-building discussed through the lens
of gender/race/class and based on the concrete experiences of social
change in dozens of countries worldwide.

Read reviews of the book in Popular Education News, by John Ruthrauff, for InterAction, and other praise.

Translations of A New Weave are available in Spanish, Russian, Bahasa Indonesia, and (soon) French. (more)

“The traditional approach to change is to look for the problem, do a diagnosis, and find a solution. The primary focus is on what is wrong or broken; since we look for problems, we find them. By paying attention to problems, we emphasize and amplify them. …Appreciative Inquiry suggests that we look for what works in an organization. The tangible result of the inquiry process is a series of statements that describe where the organization wants to be, based on the high moments of where they have been. Because the statements are grounded in real experience and history, people know how to repeat their success.”

Hammond, Sue. The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry. Thin Book Publishing Company, 1998, pages 6-7.

“Appreciative Inquiry focuses us on the positive aspects of our lives and leverages them to correct the negative. It’s the opposite of ‘problem-solving.”

White, T.H. Working in Interesting Times: Employee morale and business success in the information age. Vital Speeches of the Day, May 15, 1996, Vol XLII, No. 15.

“Appreciative Inquiry [is] a theory and practice for approaching change from a holistic framework. Based on the belief that human systems are made and imagined by those who live and work within them, AI leads systems to move toward the generative and creative images that reside in their most positive core – their values, visions, achievements, and best practices.” “AI is both a world view and a practical process. In theory, AI is a perspective, a set of principles and beliefs about how human systems function, a departure from the past metaphor of human systems as machines. Appreciative Inquiry has an attendant set of core processes, practices, and even ‘models’ that have emerged. In practice, AI can be used to co-create the transformative processes and practices appropriate to the culture of a particular organization.” “Grounded in the theory of ‘social constructionism,’ AI recognizes that human systems are constructions of the imagination and are, therefore, capable of change at the speed of imagination. Once organization members shift their perspective, they can begin to invent their most desired future.”

P. O.O.R. .

.Scholaz til we die

The Revolution begins with I

QUEENNANDI 2007

excerpt...

The sounds of survival, thrival and subsistence brushed past
the 21 determined faces of poverty, race, disability, inmigrante and
youth scholars from POOR Magazine (and repping the SF Bayview
Newspaper) about to embark on a revolutionary journey to the US Social
Forum in Atlanta. Residue of past and present domestic violence, low
wage jobs, gentrification and homelessness clung to our bodies as we
piled into our rented van, greyhound buses and friends cars .. This was
the first trip our organization had ever taken anywhere, and the first
trip many of us personally had ever taken, which was not a result of a
poverty crime, a crisis, an incarceration or deportation.

We were in pursuit of a dream. A realization of a vision of
cooperative, non-competitive media justice and media production at the
Ida B Wells Media Justice Center at the US Social Forum. A dream we had
launched, worked on and struggled to attain for the last year.

The first conversation

" Have you heard about the US Social Forum? " almost a year ago when Gretchen Hildebran, filmmaker and alumni of POOR Magazine ´ s Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute
asked me about POOR possibly doing some media for the forum, I
immediately reflected on other social forums that POOR Magazine never
had the financial resources to attend much less make media on.

I had heard about how media centers were structured at these
forums, how they are often completely inaccessible spaces for disabled
media producers, poor folks who are stuck in the crevasses of the
digital divide and folks who haven´t mastered the dominant (oppressors)
language due to global, local poverty, institutional racism and
classism, colonization and border fascism. In other words
notwithstanding the radical goals and objectives of the Forums held all
over the world, the media production is led by the same folks who
always make media, who always have the channels of access and privelege

" Well, why don ´ t we propose a new vision for media
production, you know, based on the model of POOR Magazine ´ s
indigenous media production. "

Gretchen being one of Mama Dee ´ s best students and a truly
creative and radical thinker responded quickly, " that would be great.
" ...

Carlsen and Kohlstedt discuss challenges and successes of the first U.S. Social Forum.

A rising wave of grassroots media activism is linking up with social
movements fighting racism, sexism, economic oppression, environmental
plunder and war - and organizing to re-center media reform efforts on
human rights and social justice. Introducing the Media Action Grassroots Network

(MAG-Net).

Several prominent grassroots organizations, hoping to increase the
diversity of voices within the overall media democracy movement,
recently launched a new coalition. The Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) will seek to strengthen the leadership, strategy and coordination of the grassroots sector of the media reform movement.

A description of 10 Patterns common to nonrpofit founders.