Records of the Clearinghouse on Femicide, 1972-1999

The records of the Clearinghouse on Femicide include administrative and research files from the Clearinghouse and its precursor, Women Against Femicide. These records document the rise of the use of the term "femicide," tied both to Diana Russell's work and to its use by Domingo and other activists. Correspondence reveals national and international networks of feminist activists, especially responding to the Montreal Massacre. Some correspondence suggests tensions between feminists over carceral solutions to violence against women, particularly when women were incarcerated for fighting back or protecting themselves from attackers. In addition the research files evidence individual acts of femicide throughout the 1970s through the early 1990s. The records also document the difficulties of sustaining an information clearinghouse on a tight budget; struggles to raise money are evident throughout the records.

Chris Domingo is the creator of many of the files in these records, although a few were created by Clearinghouse volunteers or by Laura X. The Clearinghouse records remained with Domingo until her death in 2002. They were then in the custody of Domingo's friend Rik Penn and Diana Russell. Russell and Laura X added some relevant clippings to the collection through the late 1990s. In 2019 the Clearinghouse records were moved to the care of Danielle Pauley. Much of the collection arrived at the Schlesinger Library in titled folders. Titles in brackets in the inventory were created by the archivist. The collection is arranged in three series.

Series I, WOMEN AGAINST FEMICIDE, 1978-1982, contains administrative files from that group's short-lived history. Of note are a conference packet from the Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media 1978 conference, and a grant application Women Against Violence in Pornography used to raise funding for that conference, which Chris Domingo used as a model for a failed grant to create an international femicide conference. A number of Women Against Femicide files were built on or added to later as the Clearinghouse came to fruition; administrative files that span the two groups are in Series II (for example, "Visions" in Carton 3). Many of the clippings files in Series III were begun by Women Against Femicide. The series is arranged alphabetically by folder title.

Series II, CLEARINGHOUSE ADMINISTRATIVE, 1981-1999, includes meeting notes and minutes, correspondence, financial records and grant applications, layout drafts of the Clearinghouse's newsletter, Memory and Rage, and Domingo's writings on femicide. Administrative files show the work needed to run a small nonprofit on little budget; files on volunteers, bulk mailings, photocopying, grant funding, how to locate and organize information, all point to Domingo's vision for the Clearinghouse. Grant applications required Domingo to articulate that vision to potential funders, and also show the close networks of San Francisco Bay Area feminist organizations, as Domingo needed to have some of those larger non-profit organizations act as financial sponsors for money the Clearinghouse was granted. Correspondents include activists, academics, feminist organizations, and members of the public interested in the topic of femicide. Letter writers also include incarcerated women, and friends and family of women who were killed or are missing, seeking help. Significant correspondence is with Canadian feminists organizing around the Montreal Massacre. Files for individual issues of Memory and Rage are primarily print mock-ups of issues, but also contain draft articles, notes, and original artwork and clippings for some issues. Final issues of Memory and Rage that came with the collection were transferred to the Schlesinger's Books and published material department for individual cataloging. The series is arranged alphabetically by folder title.

Series III, CLIPPING AND RESEARCH FILES, 1972-1998, contains files on topics related to femicide. Most contain newspaper clippings; some also contain articles from small newsletters or feminist periodicals like Off Our Backs, scholarly articles, or book chapters relevant to the topic. Clippings are from San Francisco Bay Area newspapers as well as national papers. Some of these files, in general those dating from the 1970s, were begun by Women Against Femicide and added to by the Clearinghouse on Femicide. Several files contain clippings dating from after 1994; these were mostly added later by Laura X or other Clearinghouse supporters.

A few files focus on specific cases Domingo and the Clearinghouse were involved in. Several files highlight specific California cases involving femicide or women incarcerated for attacking or killing batterers. Files on Merrill Dedmon and Judge Golde in Carton 4 relate to a case of attempted murder by Dedmon's son-in-law and Domingo's opposition to Judge Golde being assigned to the case. This series also includes petitions the Clearinghouse disseminated and collected to create a national day of remembrance in Canada for the 1989 Montreal massacre of women students at the École Polytechnique (in Carton 6). While mainly focused on the United States and Canada, the Clearinghouse clippings files also include articles about international femicide cases. The series is arranged alphabetically by folder title.