“Without the Feminist Press, we might not have known that women have always been writing our hearts out. We would have gone on thinking we were inventing the wheel instead of understanding that our mothers and grandmothers had been speeding along on their own. And we definitely wouldn’t have been able to read our counterparts in Africa or Asia.” Gloria Steinem
Did you know that CUNY is home to longest-operating feminist publisher in the world? The Feminist Press (FP) is an independent literary publisher that promotes freedom of expression and social justice. Its mission is to publish “books that ignite movements and social transformation” and it describes itself as “grounded in the knowledge that mainstream publishers seeking mass audiences often ignore important, pathbreaking works by women from the United States and throughout the world.”
The Feminist Press was founded in 1970 by Florence Howe. Florence was an educator, feminist, and writer. She became involved with the women’s movement after her participation in the civil rights and peace movements. Florence was teaching university literature courses in the late 60s, and her students would ask her for books written by women writers. But other than the classics by women like Louisa May Alcott and the Brontë sisters, there were very few books available. Florence became determined to change this status quo.
Under her leadership, the Feminist Press began to reprint feminist classics like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Zora Neale Hurston’s I Love Myself When I Am Laughing, and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive, and started publishing new texts in the field of women’s studies, including books by Barbara Ehrenreich and Grace Paley. During the 50+ years since its founding, the Feminist Press has published hundreds of books by, for, and about women.
The Feminist Press has a longtime partnership with the City University of New York. The Press moved to CUNY in 1985 and then to the Graduate Center in 1999. FP teams up with CUNY programs and centers, such as the Center for LGBTQ Studies and the Center for the Study of Women and Society. FP also publishes WSQ, a scholarly journal edited by CUNY faculty and supported by CUNY students.
Today FP publishes diverse work including experimental fiction, activist nonfiction, memoirs, children’s books, and feminist literature from around the world. Their books on issues of gender, race, and class amplify important feminist perspectives and marginalized voices. The City Tech community can access many Feminist Press titles through the Proquest Ebook database. Check them out for Women’s History Month!
