ABSTRACT
We have drawn consciously on past experiences of having our own work edited, of previous editorial responsibility and of feminist literature detailing the dilemmas and excitements of being feminist editors. We realized quickly our knowledge of being edited by others brought mixed emotional baggage to the surface. We share positive memories of being edited for inclusion in non-feminist texts, yet, our involvement in feminist publishing projects has, at times, been less comfortable. Indeed, our looking for ‘comfort’ in the process led us to consider the distinctiveness of feminist editing as opposed to non-feminist endeavours. One of us, Danusia, had never acted as editor of a book before, while Sian continues to be involved as an editor of non-feminist texts, in the main. Our search for inspiration and direction from feminist material on the subject of feminist editorship left us wanting - many writers allude to the difficulties and dilemmas of the process (see for instance diverse sources such as Keith, 1994; Atwood, 1989; Ginsberg and Lennox, 1996; Russ, 1984; Leslie and Sollie, 1994). Such literature nevertheless
offers little analysis of, for instance, the nature of women’s gatekeeping and of feminists as silencers of other women’s voices within the making of public feminist scholarship (Spender and Kramarae, 1993). Obvious exceptions to this are the writings of black women who have systematically challenged the erasure of black female presence in feminist scholarship (examples being Carty, 1991; hooks, 1989; Ngcobo, 1988). Equally, feminists who do not conform to the heterosexualmiddle-class-ablebodied-young-western category of generic woman (Kitzinger and Wilkinson, 1993) not only struggle within mainstream publishing circles but also in feminist publishing channels (Raymond, 1993). We say this because as Dale Spender puts it, ‘I would like to . . . claim that feminists are completely open-minded, I have to state that many feminist reviewers find unacceptable those articles that do not share their own political beliefs’ (1981, p. 195). As Dale Spender also points out, this problem is not peculiar to feminist journals; rather, it appears that it is feminists alone who are willing to recognize (if not analyse) bias and prejudice in pre-publication practice.
