Urania (journal)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Urania was a privately circulated feminist journal about gender studies, published from 1916 to 1940. It was edited by Eva Gore-Booth, Esther Roper, Irene Clyde, Dorothy Cornish, and Jessey Wade. At first it came out every two months, but from 1920 the issues appeared three times a year because printing was expensive. Many editors were connected to the Aëthnic Union, a short-lived radical feminist group formed in 1911. The journal aimed to challenge gender stereotypes and bring an end to the gender binary. Each issue stated, “There are no ‘men’ or ‘women’ in Urania,” and it often used the phrase “Sex is an accident.”

Urania was privately published in Bombay by D. R. Mitra of Manoranjan Press. It was never sold publicly; a note in every issue said it could be obtained by friends. The editors built a network of supporters who could sign up to receive it. The journal claimed about 250 readers and was distributed free of charge. Some university libraries in Oxford, Cambridge, and the United States kept copies, though a few Oxford women’s colleges banned it. Content included reports on feminist movements around the world and information about gender-reassignment surgeries. The Women’s Library at the London School of Economics digitised Urania’s run from 1919 to 1940 and made it available online in 2023.