Support feminist media: Women’s eNews

In this guest post, Charlotte Cooper explains what Women’s eNews does and calls for donations

womensenews.jpgFor those of you that don’t know, Women’s eNews is an award winning nonprofit news service based in New York and covering international news. With freelance reporters across the US and the world, the site features independent reporting available in both English and Arabic. Since the organisation snapped me up from the UK, and sadly from feminist magazine Subtext, I have thoroughly enjoyed playing a part in a news organisation that goes looking for stories that more mainstream organisations miss or don’t prioritise and looks deeper into the news, shining a light on discrimination because of gender, sexuality, race, class and disability.

As a nonprofit we’re lucky enough to gain annual grants to cover the bigger themes in our news reports, such as:

  • black maternal health (in the US, African American women are up to six times more likely to die during childbirth than white women);
  • poverty (we discovered women were sought out heavily in the selling of subprime mortgages despite the fact that they qualified for something more stable. When you start breaking the stats down including by race and gender, we saw a further increased pressure on women of color to buy into subprime); and
  • immigration (with immigration in the news all the time we looked at where women’s needs weren’t being met or identified – we got to testify at Congress for that one!).

    But the everyday coverage – like reporting on changing sexual harassment laws in Japan, reporting on what feminists are doing to make change and keep peace internationally, and reactions to the political and media landscape in the US and Europe have to come out of our annual budget – and we make that through fundraising.

    So, here’s a plea to support reporting on women’s lives that understands the notions of patriarchy and oppression of women of all ages, races and backgrounds; that sees the need to report about violence against women until the rest of the world starts listening and to toast to the successes of women and men in improving the life of generations of women and girls to come.

    We do of course appreciate your donations which you can do here – www.womensenews.org/donation – and, as they say, every little helps and you can find out what you’ll be helping here.

    Money is tight, I understand that. You can also support us by signing up to the newsletter, commenting on our stories when you’re angry or agree – and help add the fuel to gain more funding to expand our reporting on certain issues. You can tell your friends about us, blog about our articles and link to them, knowing that you’re not only supporting feminist-friendly reporting but that you’re educating and informing a big bunch of chums through international news.

    Additionally, my wonderful Europeans, if you’re a reporter submit your pitches to [email protected] because we don’t get enough coming in from my favourite shores and I know very well there’s a lot going on the rest of the world would like to know.

    So when you jingle your bells this Christmas remember to jingle your pockets onto the Women’s eNews donate now page.