{"id":115,"date":"2021-04-28T18:22:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T22:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/arx340-ebwalsh\/?page_id=115"},"modified":"2021-05-12T23:28:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T03:28:34","slug":"dyke-tv-and-media-visibility","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/beyond-visibility\/dyke-tv-and-media-visibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Dyke TV and Media Visibility"},"content":{"rendered":"
Because If We Don’t Put Ourselves On The Air,\u00a0Nobody Else Will<\/em><\/h5>\n

Public space is not given. It’s always a battle. The project of Dyke TV is evidence of the ongoing struggle lesbians face to be seen as legitimate political actors with voices worth listening to in the public arena.<\/p>\n

Founded in December 1992, Dyke TV was both a reaction to the gross misrepresentation of lesbians in the mainstream press and a continuation of the lesbian community’s AIDS-era activism. Its programming was totally ad-free and grassroots, pulling about 80% of its funds from community grants and the other 20% directly from viewers,1<\/a><\/sup> allowing Dyke TV producers the independence to create television to “incite, provoke, subvert, and organize” just how they wanted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Dyke TV brochure, Box 71, Folder: Admin: material from general admin files, n.d., Dyke TV Records, Sophia Smith Collection, Northampton, Massachusetts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1993 March on Washington<\/h4>\n

On April 24th, 1993, the Lesbian Avengers organized the first ever Dyke March in Washington, DC. Just one day before the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, some 20,000 lesbians mobilized in protest of the overwhelmingly white, male focus of Gay Liberation movement.2<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 In this clip from the march, aired on the first ever episode of Dyke TV, members of the Lesbian Avengers can be heard chanting, “We’re dykes! We’re out! We’re out for power!”3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n