Feminist publishing was a key element that allowed the early women’s studies movement to emerge, and the 1970s were, without a doubt, a ground-breaking time for feminist publishing. Women’s studies and feminist journals were a key index of the burgeoning field, as demonstrated by the following chronology. Feminist Studies, the first academic journal in women’s studies, was established in 1972, as was Women’s Studies Newsletter, now WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly.
These publications joined a nascent feminist periodical scene that already included the popular magazines Off Our Backs, launched in 1970, and Ms., whose first issue came out in 1971. These new publications were quickly followed by other interdisciplinary sites for publishing women’s studies scholarship, such as Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, founded in 1975; Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1975; Women’s Studies International Forum, 1978; and Feminist Review, 1979. As well, as the field grew, disciplinary-specific journals emerged, including Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture and Media Studies (1976) and Psychology and Women Quarterly (1976), and related fields of study also launched new journals, such as Journal of Homosexuality (1976).
These trends continued in the 1980s and -90s, as academic interest in women’s, gender, sexuality, and queer studies diversified; see, for example, Gender & Society, 1987; GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 1993; Journal of Lesbian Studies, 1996; International Journal of Transgenderism, 1997; and TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 2014.
Read: WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly
Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
Women’s Studies International Forum
Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture and Media Studies
Psychology and Women Quarterly
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
International Journal of Transgenderism
TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
Support: The Feminist Press