Hey folks, I know a lot of you have been waiting patiently for our redesign launch and I just wanted to let you know it's on the way. Jen and our tech-guy Matt are hard at work, and I think everyone is going to be really pleased with the final product. And, again, a huge thanks to all of you who donated - we couldn't have done it without you!
In anticipation of our new community-driven site, we're super excited to announce that Feministing has partnered with Meetup to form a Meetup Alliance - a tool that will help feminists all over the country meet and organize in person. Here's the cool part: it's all up to you, dear readers, to get this shit moving!
If you want to start up a feminist group in your area, or if you want to promote your existing local feminist group, this is your chance! Our new Feministing Meetup Alliance will act as a kind of umbrella for organizers of local feminist Meetups - connecting feminists who want to meet, talk and even organize.
All you need to do to get involved is start a local Meetup group and join the alliance - Feministing readers can just search by their location and find the group nearest them. Too cool, right? Well, it gets even better. If you don't want to pay the $19 monthly fee to start a group with Meetup, you can also join the Feministing Alliance through your Google, MySpace, Facebook or Yahoo group. (We'll have some of our own Feministing-started groups in there as well, like our NY- and DC-based happy hours, but we've really started this up in response to so many of you all over the country who've expressed interest in getting together in "real" life.)
We're all really excited about this and think it's going to be an amazing part of the site as we move forward. But don't forget - this is on you all to take action!
So if you want to start, or already run, a local feminist group and want to talk to other organizers about how to make your group stronger, please join our Feministing Alliance at http://www.meetupalliance.com/feministing. Remember, only group organizers are able to join Alliance at the current time, but anyone can use the alliance to find the group that's right for them. In the meantime, until the Alliance is many groups strong, you can also search for feminist groups here.
So please, get moving and start some groups!
If anyone has any questions about the alliance, please leave them in comments - I'll be on hand to answer any concerns.
UPDATE: I'm so psyched with the amazing response we've gotten so far; thanks! Just please keep in mind, however, that only those who want to start a group or already have one (via Meetup, Facebook, Google, whatevs) can join the alliance right now. If you don't want to be a group organizer, you can find an existing group here and ask them to join the alliance...sorry for any confusion!
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I'm excited to see all the new changes to Feministing. I haven't been commenting for a long time, but I've been a long-time reader and fan.
Thanks for all the hard work you've been putting into the site!
Organizing people is not my strong suit, to say the least, but I'll be watching out for people interested in a group in Ohio.
Somebody in South Carolina make a group, please! I just moved here and don't want to be the only southern feminist!
Oh cool. I've just found a local feminism group through this Feministing alliance. I hope to check them out. Woot. Thanks so much for all your work!
Fantastic! I am hoping that recovering maleists (aren't we all recovering sexists, in the sense of the legacy of patriarchy's effects on all of us...) or, male feminists, will establish a group.
I may go down that road if feminists would not find that problematic. Any thoughts?
In the meantime, as Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville is thinking, maybe it is time to resurrect the National Woman's Party or start up a new third party called the Women's Party of America, which would truly honor, among other things, the one-person one-vote principle, and have as a policy, a nomination process which concludes with a national, one-day, primary and none of this really outdated "old school" DNC shambles of a nomination process.
Ooh, how intruiging! Sounds like it's going to be really exciting! Just pondering if this meeting thingamabob will extend out of America? For example the UK...*hints*
This is so cool! I joined the Dallas group - if anyone else here is in the metro, I'll see you there!
Men4Hillary, while a feminism group focusing on men might seem problematic in the abstract, I for one think it's a great idea. Go for it.
I am in South Carolina too, Columbia to be precise. There doesn't seem to be any Feminist Meetups around here. I'd be happy to take the initiative if enough people were interested.
Boston folks? Anyone? I am SO not an organizer, but I'd really love to be more involved than I am.
Northwest Arkansas, anyone? Otherwise known as Walmart country . . . anyone? I guess I will start a meetup and find out. . .
Well I joined facebook (for the love of pete!) just so I could TRY to get in contact with the feministing group that pandagon (sp?) has there. And yes, I will drive the four hours (8 round trip) to Austin just to meet with fellow feministing feminists because I'm that damn excited about this whole thing!
HurRRyyyy uuuUUPP, puhlezzzz!! I want to have my own feministing pagey thingy!!!
This is great! I can't wait to meet some of you in person!!! New Haven, CT anyone?!?!? :)
i second boston, someone get on that please :)
Good grief, women, stop whining and start a Google group for your town. It's not that damn hard or scary. How they hell are you going to fight for/restore your rights if you can't fill out a simple form?
@CurryandRicegirl -- I'm also in Columbia. Whee :) Signed up on the feminist.meetup.com site (3 so far!), so presumably I'll see whenever a group gets going...
@Serena -- I got from that, "Technophobes are useless as feminists." Neither true nor nice.
Serena, those of us who hope that someone else would like to start a group (or has already organized one) in our areas aren't just lazy whiners. I, for one, know that my organizational skills are somewhat lacking, and that schedule-wise (and experience-wise, for that matter) I'm not in a position right now to take on a leadership role. Sure, a google group is arguably a pretty minimal commitment, but as someone who's recently started one with very little success, I know that starting an email list and actually having productive conversation or real life action as a result are two very different things.
Erica, I think that's a lot to read in to my comment. I don't think it has anything to to with technophobia, but with expecting someone else to take the lead and then passively follow. Which you know damn well is part of the problem. I'm really not willing to accept that kind of attitude. I was hoping to encourage; to the extent I came across as insensitive or ugly, I apologize.