What is The Frontline?
The women’s movement has always used the printed word to build communities, share stories and ideas and advance our rights. Mary Woolstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. The suffragette movement published The Suffragette. And second wave feminism of the 1960s and 70s saw an explosion of local and national titles - the most famous in the UK was Spare Rib, and in Scotland a women’s collective published MSprint for three years from 1978.
The Frontline follows in the footsteps of all the women who have used stories to spread the message of women’s liberation. We may be digital but our values are timeless.
The Frontline is a bold, unapologetic publication that allows women to share their stories directly with other women – to amplify the power of those women’s voices which are all too often excluded by mainstream political and state-funded civil society organisations.
The experiences shared may range from those of young women refugees fleeing the Taliban to older women coping with caring responsibilities and ill-health. Women of all ages will explore issues relevant to their lives, from political representation to porn culture. We also want to build an accessible archive of first-hand accounts of women's struggles for their rights, from the last century to the present.
Above all, our Women on the Frontline essays will be a space for women to tell their personal stories, to share with other women their experience of being a woman in the first half of the 21st century. This is a publication where women can talk to each other about the issues that matter to them.
There will be regular features too, including Woman of the Week by Lily Craven – whom some of you may know as @TheAttagirls on Twitter/X. In this launch edition, she explains why remembering women’s history is a radical act. As editors, we will bring you Power and Policy, a watching eye on relevant developments in the world of politics and government in Scotland and the wider UK. As we progress, we hope to add interviews, feminist history, book reviews and your photographs. We want to celebrate women’s boundless creativity, as shown in the recent resurgence of feminist art used by women’s rights campaigners. If you or your organisation would like to contribute to The Frontline, please do get in touch.
Our email is ethelmwrites@gmail.com. If you are interested in writing for us, we will send you our editorial guidelines.
Why subscribe?
It is important to us that The Frontline has no paywall. Women remain more likely than men to be low earners or unpaid carers, and to have less to live on in retirement. So it was an easy decision for us that the full content should be free for those who are unwaged or on a low income.
However, we do need financial support. It is very important to us that each woman we commission is paid for her work, and that that work is presented well. Your subscriptions will allow us to do that.
For those who can afford to pay, our monthly subscriber fee is £5. An annual subscription offers a 17 per cent discount, at £50 a year, and there is a special founding subscribers’ rate of £100. Paid subscribers will help keep the full content open to all women. We will trust our readers to decide into which category they fall.
We will publish fortnightly, around midday on a Friday.
The editors
Our role as editors is largely a backroom one. Our job is to provide the platform and to support our writers in finding their voice. We will publish the occasional editorial and we will bring you Policy and Power in each edition.
But The Frontline is not about us. It is a place where women can feel connected and make new connections in a world that too often feels to have come adrift, where reality matters and women’s voices have power.
Welcome to The Frontline – a fortnightly feminist publication for the 21st century.
Stay up-to-date
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