Feminist Writing. Fourth Wave. For Women.

4W is Leaving Patreon!

Please consider signing up to our new, self-hosted membership platform

4W is Leaving Patreon!

Dear 4W Supporters,

Since 2019, 4W has relied on Patreon, a third-party platform, to manage and process our monthly donations. We are endlessly grateful to each of you who signed up to support 4W on Patreon over the past three years. It is thanks to our patrons that 4W is able to pay our team of bold feminist writers and editors from across the world, bringing you stories that the mainstream media ignored.

But using Patreon has always been a risk. Patreon has a murky, at best, history of supporting free speech – especially for feminists who speak out against "gender identity." Since 2021, Posie Parker, Vanessa Vokey, and feminist Youtuber "Exulansic" all had their accounts suspended by Patreon. The platform's content guidelines give the site full discretion to suspend any account based on a loose notion of "hate speech," and according to some banned creators, this often involves holding donor funds hostage.

4W never planned on staying with Patreon forever, but we were waiting for the right moment (and the right platform) to make the migration. With the release of Ghost 5.0, we think now is the time.

Since 4W was banned from Medium in 2020, we have been using Ghost – an independent and open source publishing platform that we are able to self-host. This has meant that our articles and writers are uncancellable – we fully control all of our content. A recent major update to Ghost now means that we can also manage our membership, newsletters, and donors through Ghost.

Patreon also takes a huge cut out of our donations: eight percent, plus processing fees. By moving our donor processing to Ghost, we only have to pay card transaction fees – which means we can support more writers with the extra money we'll save.

We will keep our Patreon open as long as we still have patrons there. However, we kindly ask that our patrons please move their membership to our self-hosted subscription platform, available here. More information on how to move your membership from Patreon to Ghost is available below.

Thank you again for your ongoing support of 4W. This work would not be possible without you!

Sincerely,
M. K. Fain
4W Founder and Editor in Chief

Sign up through our new membership portal here: https://4w.pub/#/portal/signup


FAQs about 4W Leaving Patreon

If you have other questions, please feel free to shoot us an email at: [email protected].

How do I sign up for a membership on Ghost?

First, go to the new 4W membership signup portal here: https://4w.pub/#/portal/signup

When you put in your name and email and select a tier, you will be emailed a secure sign-in link to your account. Click the link to confirm your membership and sign in. This will sign you into the "free" membership tier. Then, upgrade your plan to the tier of your choice by clicking your account, or going here: https://4w.pub/#/portal/account

You will then be redirected to checkout via Stripe. 

How do I delete my Patreon subscription?

After you have successfully signed up for a membership on our new Ghost portal, you can safely delete your Patreon subscription. You can manage your Patreon memberships here: https://www.patreon.com/pledges. From there, click the option to "Edit or Cancel Membership."

What if I don't feel like moving my donation from Patreon to Ghost?

That's totally fine! You do not have to move your membership from Patreon to Ghost if you don't want to. We plan to keep our Patreon account open and will continue to receive your donations there as long as we are not banned. However, we will not be continuing support or benefits for Patreon moving forward – so you may miss out on special content created specifically for your tier on Ghost.

Will you still be offering merch benefits to donors?

No, as part of our migration away from Patreon we are discontinuing the tier merch program. We received a lot of feedback from our supporters on Patreon that most people do not donate to 4W because of a "free" sticker or mug – they donate to support our work. In fact, many of our donors have historically opted out of receiving merch benefits by mail. Because of this, we will be focusing on providing our paid monthly subscribers with additional content benefits moving forward (TBA).

You can still get all of our merch including stickers, buttons, mugs, shirts, hats, and more in the 4W merch shop!

If I signed up on Patreon recently, will I still get my sticker/mug/etc?

Yes! Everyone who signed up on Patreon and opted into mail benefits will still receive the merch for their tier. If you haven't gotten it yet, it's probably on its way. If you signed up on Patreon over two months ago and still haven't gotten your merch - please email [email protected] and we will sort it out!

Did 4W get banned from Patreon?

No! We are preemptively leaving Patreon to avoid being banned in the future. This will allow us to have full control over our membership and donor base moving forward, and save money on platform fees.


The generous support of our readers allows 4W to pay our all-female staff and over 50 writers across the globe for original articles and reporting you can’t find anywhere else Like our work? Become a monthly donor!

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