WAVPM Records document the affairs of this prominent feminist organization of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The collection is divided into five series: Administrative, Communications, Events/programs, Research, and Audio-visual. Dated materials are placed chronologically within each folder. Folders without dates either contain material spanning the life of the organization or undated materials.

Women Against Violence in Pornography and the Media (WAVPM) was founded in 1977 following the 1976 Conference on Violence Against Women, sponsored by the San Francisco Women's Centers. Initially based in the Berkeley Women's Center, WAVPM moved to the Women's Building in San Francisco after its purchase in 1979. Perceiving a link between the debasement of women in mass media representations and reported increases in the number and severity of violent acts against women, members aimed to raise public awareness of these conditions. WAVPM, along with Women Against Pornography (WAP) in New York City and Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW) in Los Angeles, led women's groups of the late-1970s/early-1980s in crusades against pornography and promoted public discussion of the relationship between media depictions and sexist violence, bringing pornography to the top of the feminist agenda and exacerbating a division among feminists (and among leftists in general) between proponents of free speech and opponents of degrading images.

Copyright to unpublished manuscript materials has been transferred to the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California.

Collection is open for research.