In July 1977, about a year and a half before the national Feminist Perspectives on Pornography conference, WAVPM reported exciting news from New York City. A contingent of well-known feminists had decided to form an anti-pornography action group. Organized by Susan Brownmiller, the membership roster read like a who's who of the New York radical feminist community. Gloria Steinem was the most famous feminist in the nation, and the editor of Ms. Robin Morgan had edited the important radical feminist anthology, Sisterhood Is Powerful, and had published a collection of her own essays. Shere Hite was known for her groundbreaking study of American women's sexual lives. Leah Fritz had been part of the 1968 Miss America protest in Atlantic City, and her collection of essays, Thinking Like a Woman, had been published in 1975. Grace Paley was a leading antiwar activist and award-winning short-story writer. Adrienne Rich was a nationally recognized lesbian-feminist poet. Lois Gould was a well-known journalist. Barbara Mehrhof was an anti-rape activist and had been a member of some of the leading radical feminist groups, including Redstockings and THE FEMINISTS.

Many of these women had been present at Brownmiller's Greenwich Village apartment in December 1976 when Julia London traveled to New York to present the WAVAW slide show and discuss the Warner Communications boycott. Impressed by the media violence work being accomplished around the country, they decided to launch a new East Coast-based group called the Women's Anti-Defamation League.