Stand Up and Be Counted: Women and Social Justice in Michigan (1960-1985)

Title

Ain't I A Woman?

Alternative Title

No soy una mujer?

Description

Described as “a Midwest newspaper of women’s liberation,” Ain’t I a Woman? (AIAW?) began in 1970 as a project of a closed collective of the Iowa City Women’s Liberation Front. In the first issue of AIAW?, the collective explains their reasoning and goals behind the publication, explaining that "until now there have been no underground or peoples papers in Iowa City," only "the usual commercial town paper and the University paper"--neither of which could be trusted sources of salient information, "being written for the people not by the people." The collective expressed the need for women to publish their own paper outside of the mainstream media, which they described as being controlled by capitalist interests and riddled with "unmitigated sexism." Uniquely, the founders of Ain't I A Woman? rejected a hierarchical organization of roles (such as editor, assistants, and staff) in favor of a collective decision-making model for the paper's creation and publication, and claimed to maintain no "professional standards."

AIAW? also aimed to increase much-needed communication between women in the Midwest, particularly between lesbians and radical women who did not benefit from the community and resources of large urban areas: "Unlike our sisters in Chicago or Detroit, who have large brown and black populations and proportionately large working class populations, most of us [in Iowa City and in smaller Midwest cities] tend to work in groups that are campus rather than community based," limiting their ability to pursue a radical feminist agenda. Although based in Iowa City, AIAW's scope encompassed the entire Midwest region, in terms of both readership and contributions to the publication.

While at first, lesbians composed a minority of the AIAW?, by fall 1971 the collective became “almost all gay" due to turn over in the collective's membership as well as existing members “realizing they were gay or choosing against their heterosexual relationships" (“Finding Direction,” Ain’t I a Woman?, Oct. 15, 1971, 2). Although content dedicated to sexuality and the lesbian movement had been a part of the publication from the start, this marked a shift in the collective's stated intentions for the publication going forward.

Issues of AIAW? typically included poetry, illustrations, 'letters to the editor,' ads for feminist lesbian businesses and organizations, and lengthy articles on feminist theory, lesbian issues, and radical politics.

References and Further Readings:

Beins, A. and Enszer, J. (2013). “We Couldn't Get Them Printed,” So We Learned to Print: Ain't I a Woman? and the Iowa City Women's Press.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 34 (2), 186-221.

Format

Newspaper

Dates

1970-1974

Publisher

Iowa City Women's Liberation Front Publications Collective
Ain't I A Woman? Collective

Location of Publication

Iowa City, Iowa

Number of Issues

32

License

Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial

Web Source

Aint I A Woman? on JSTOR