The Femizine
The Femizine was a science fiction fanzine published by The Fannettes.
The Fannettes were a group of women who were all science fiction fans, and The Femizine served as their official organ. The organzier of the group was Marian Cox, later known as Marian Oaks. The Femizine was published in the early 1950s.
In his notes for "Fractured Fandoms", Richard Lynch writes, "...in the first half of the 1950s, Oaks had published what may have been the first fanzine, FEMZINE, that specialized in featuring material by women." The Fancyclopedia, however, asserts that the name of the fanzine was The Femizine.
Members of the Fannettes included Margaret Dominick (DEA), Vee Hampton, Carol McKinney (Deviant), and Maril Shrewsbury, among others.
Well known is Marion Zimmer Bradley's letter to The Femizine in which she stated her reasons for choosing not to contribute to the fanzine, "Women alone, sans masculine influence, impetus, or admiration, produce nothing of any worth."
In the late 1950s, Marian Oaks hosted the 'Baltimore SF Forum', as it was known, in her home. The group, which included John Hitchcock, John Magnus, Raleigh Multog, Ted Pauls, George Wetzel, and Ted White, met monthly till around 1962.
