<i>Woman Speak!</i> : documenting and detailing the Caribbean women's movement, 1979–1992

This article focuses on Woman Speak!: A Quarterly Newsletter About Caribbean Women that emerged in the context of the United Nations Decade for Women and the wider Women in Development (WiD) movement of the 1970s. I argue that Woman Speak! represented an important form of print activism within the Caribbean women's movement of the late twentieth century. In its early years the newsletter was focused on documenting the diversity of the Caribbean women's movement through highlighting projects and organisations, especially those linked to WiD initiatives. By 1983, Woman Speak! transformed to become a critical space for central themes within the Caribbean women's movement, including gender-based violence, labour and employment, and women's legal status. After the UN Conference on Women in Nairobi in 1985, Woman Speak! shifted again, adopting regional and international perspectives to focus on feminist concerns, including activism, organisations, and history. A close engagement with Woman Speak! helps reveal the significance of print culture in shaping the development of the Caribbean women's movement and the complex relationship of feminism within it, as well as themes of internationalism and neo-colonialism.