Text by Dev Gough.
The Emily was a feminist newspaper produced at the University of Victoia (UVic). The first edition of The Emily was released on October 28th, 1982, just one year after the Women’s Centre opened on February 28th, 1981. The first publication of The Emily explained that the newspaper was named after Emily Bronte, Emily Dickenson, Emily Carr, Emily Murphy, and Emily Pankhurst: essentially, after white women, but the paper did not mention the women’s whiteness. The Emily was created out of a felt need by the Women’s Collective to “reach out to more women on campus” and to educate students, faculty, and staff on “women’s issues and interests from a feminist perspective.”
The Emily was produced by student volunteers within the Women’s Centre on UVic’s campus. The Emily reported on a range of women’s issues and interests. The content of the publication was rich and expansive and contained numerous identifiable feminist topics of discussion. Key themes included childcare, anti-militarism, pornography, sexual violence, abortion, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, motherhood, lesbianism, sexism at UVic, sex work, spirituality, prison abolition, vegetarianism, amongst an array of additional topics. The wide spectrum of women’s issues taken up in The Emily appeared in a variety of formats: from short fiction, poetry, photography, and visual art graphics, to film, music, and book reviews, as well as non-fiction and journalistic reports. The Emily ran as the sole Women’s Centre publication out of UVic until 1996.
Ain’t I A Woman? was a second newspaper produced at UVic’s Women’s Centre. The initial release of Ain’t I A Woman? was in March 1996, however, despite efforts, the original publication could not be located within the archives. Ain’t I A Woman? was first published in March 1996 by a coalition made up of The Emily collective, the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group (VIPIRG), and a Women’s Studies Class (Women’s Studies 351). The second publication of Ain’t I A Woman? clarified that the newspaper was named after a famous speech given by Sojourner Truth at the Akron Ohio Convention in 1851.
Ain’t I A Woman? was created out of a felt need for a journal on campus that focused specifically on issues of “race, gender, and colonization.” Issues that The Emily wasn’t adequately addressing, keeping in their front focus. Writers of The Emily sometimes overlapped with writers of Ain’t I A Woman? and vice versa: as both publications ran out of UVic’s Women’s Centre. Ain’t I A Woman? reported on an array of topics which included, but were not confined to critiques of white feminism, antisemitism, reclamation politics, identity politics, identity politics, cultural appropriation, racialization and race, racism at UVic, gendered roles and racism, sexual violence, and histories of colonialism, immigration and eugenics. Like The Emily, Ain’t I A Woman? presented these issues in a variety of formats including fiction, poetry, photography, and artistic graphics, along with film, play, music, and book reviews, and also non-fiction and journalistic articles.
In 1999, The Emily and Ain’t I A Woman? were consolidated into one newspaper “based on the feminist concept of complete integration and analysis of race, gender, sexuality, class, age, and ability issues. In 1999 the two newspapers became one as The Womyn’s Publication Netwerk. The Women’s Centre newspaper was renamed Thirdspace in 2000 and ran as a newspaper turned magazine turned magazine turned zine until its eventual dissolution in 2016. https://www.instagram.com/p/C0DLY7TsDxV/?img_index=0