About

Women Make News is  an op-ed page for women. The site's goal is to encourage more women to engage in the public debate. Women Make News showcases the voices of many women—those connected in some way to a news story or those with an expertise to give their informed opinion. It publishes editorials, opinion pieces, reported stories and first person journalism.

The web needs more authoritative spaces for serious discussion about women and the issues of the day.  Daily newspapers often ignore stories of import to women--or do not include women's thinking about issues of the day. The op-ed pages are overwhelmingly male-written. (Of course, we will continue to press for diversity in the legacy media.)

Being totally open source, readers can put up articles or op-eds, as well as interesting news to share in the Good Stuff Section, or publicize their projects that might be of interest to readers. Anyone can put up her own blog post and get her opinion to a wider general audience. The site also enables readers to engage commentary and debate. Women Make News provides an outlet for that engagement.

About the Editor

In her 20s, Amy-Willard Cross, started her career by creating one of the first magazines for mid-life women, which was published under the unfortunate name Moxie.

For six years, she was an editor at the major women's magazine in Canada.  At Chatlelaine, she edited award-winning stories on subjects such as FGM in Canada or environmental links to breast cancer. As a special correspondent for that publication, she reported stories on work-life policies in Holland and an innovative women's medical practice.  While there, she edited a book on body image for girls, Written on the Body under the auspices of the Centre for Research on the Advancement of Women.

As a freelancer writer, she published articles in many newspapers and magazines on topics such as domestic metaphor and the emergence of doulas.  She wrote a column in Saturday Night Magazine, which covered the zeitgeist.  She's written two books as well as radio essays for CBC and Monitor Radio. Although she's written just about anything, Cross has always been most interested in women's issues.

Once reluctant to write for women's magazines, Cross relented after reviewing a book by Naomi Wolf which counted the absurdly small number of female bylines in the major magazines.

She's worked on a televisions proposal for a show on the dark side of mothering and wrote scripts for the half hour show Yummy Mummy.

Always passionate about gender politics, Cross's first play was a sci-fi futuristic scenario called Men's Lib, in which the women were the oppressors.  She wrote, directed, produced and acted in the piece, which was performed for her elementary school cafeteria.  Before she could drive, she participated in the ERA march in Washington  and subscribed to Ms. Magazine.

Since the women in her family have been going to women's colleges since 1860, when her great-grandmother studied astronomy, Cross went to Wellesley.  There she continued to write bad plays about gender.  Her middle name honors feminist and temperance activist Frances Willard, a colleague to her great-grandmother who named a daughter after her as well.  Cross's daughter is not named after a temperance activist.