I am so excited for all of the changes. Everything looks great!

It looks great, but if you make the HTML tagging so easy then how can I demonstrate my leet skills?

awesome!

The new design and changes sound very exciting, especially the community blog.

Will pro-Feminist men be allowed to create profiles and/or blogs?

I understand that the site is primarily for women, and would enjoy just reading, but I hope you consider allowing men to participate in the community, under certain guidelines of course.

david

Congratulations! It looks like ya'll are going to give Kos a run for his money. I'm glad to hear that the front page will stay, and the extras look interesting. I'll miss the like-minded visitors that your long blogroll routinely sends me though, it has been a great way to find other feminist sites. Make sure you get a good ombudsman, as well... diarist can sometimes be trolls in sheep's clothing.

Hey - Congrats on the new site! I can't wait to see it in all of its glory.

I do have a question, though. While I agree that people spouting "-isms" can be disruptive to conversation, where does Feministing draw the line? I'm asking because as someone who identifies as a big ol' left wing feminist, I kind of enjoy seeing what the "other side" is saying.

Anyway - looking forward to seeing more great work from you guys!

"The community blog will feature all the posts written by readers who sign up to create their own blogs."

This sounds awesome. It means I won't need to check several different pages to see the latest posts by several different people. :)

David, of course - anyone is welcome to start a community blog!

this looks great! I can't wait to participate.

Looks really good!

Can't wait! Fully intend to start a blog/diary thingie on feminist parenting once it's up.

YAY! I am *so* excited about this - cannot wait! I will definitely be posting in the community blog...

Giddiness! Giddiness! Is that lame? Oh well...

Our plan is to bring another editor on, a Community Editor, who will moderate the community blog and comments and make sure that the discourse is progressive and that the community standards are maintained. We'll repeat this when we launch the blog, but so you know, these are the guidelines for post and comment content: "In order to maintain a progressive and safe discourse on the site, anti-feminist comments, blogs, and profiles are not permitted; the Feministing editors believe that racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and hate speech constitute anti-feminism and have no place on the site."
I am really glad for this. I stopped posting here for awhile because it really felt like things had gotten out of control, that there was no longer a dialogue, and it just seemed that there was a lot of hostility going around. Ironically, I came back during the troll influx from eBaum's world. Fun!

While I agree that people spouting "-isms" can be disruptive to conversation, where does Feministing draw the line? I'm asking because as someone who identifies as a big ol' left wing feminist, I kind of enjoy seeing what the "other side" is saying.
If you're interested in what the other side is saying, then why not go to Angry Harry or Drudge Report? There's a difference between discussing and promoting and that shit has no place here.

Thanks for the sneak preview! I'm dead excited and have been since the original announcement (last year?). The music and lifestyle forum I've heavily been a part of for over 5 years is closing down at the end of August so I really will need a few new forums to try to fill the hole in my heart. Cannot wait!

Yah!!!

Very exciting!

:-)

AWE-SOME.

I'm excited at the potential for making real-life activism easier to plan & realize.

Crud. It looks like I'm going to be on vacation during the switch-over, so to those of you who use my killfile Greasemonkey script: I'm sorry. You'll probably not get the "kill" and "hide comment" buttons back until about a week after the switchover.

Sounds exciting! I have one comment and one question.

It's great that the new site will encourage new bloggers, but where do you see more established feminist bloggers fitting into this? Will there be a way for us to, for instance, syndicate our sites to Feministing?

Secondly, I understand why you want to get rid of the long list of links, but I think they serve a purpose. The amount of traffic that I get from my link on the left suggests that a significant number of people browse through that list looking for new blogs. Feministing has THE audience, and it's nice that us smaller folks get access to a part of it...

OMG I am sooooo excited for this!!!!

Yes, this sounds really great. But considering all the classism I see, even from female regulars, re: the rights of the underprivileged to choose to have children, the underprivileged allegedly being a burden on those who pay [more] taxes, or the underprivileged allegedly choosing to be or remain that way, I can see a lot might get excluded. I'd rather see such a poster be enlightened by others than have such comments shut out.

"But considering all the classism I see, even from female regulars, re: the rights of the underprivileged to choose to have children, the underprivileged allegedly being a burden on those who pay [more] taxes, or the underprivileged allegedly choosing to be or remain that way, I can see a lot might get excluded..."

Notice how this post mentions taxpayers but completely disregards the burden of actually raising an unwanted child, and the burden of wondering what's happening to one's child in foster care/an orphanage/etc, on a woman or girl herself. Yes, even if she's not rich and white. Easy for someone else to accuse her of sucking up to taxpayers and eugenics, and claim she's too poor and/or brown to know what she really wants, when she chooses to not bear such a huge burden...

Are you one of the many here who decry or contest the right or the poor to have children, or the alleged burden they put on society/taxpayers? I particularly liked it when the 19 year old student got hot about what the poor were allegedly costing her.

"Easy for someone else to accuse her of sucking up to taxpayers and eugenics"

There should be no need to accuse Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, of being a eugenicist. She is and was one, self declared and proud. She did not want the "unfit" (her term, and according to her criteria, though poverty was the biggest factor) to have children. She also wanted to reduce the births of any more of "the unwanted and unfit." Her own organization's publications espoused her ideals for the race, which included holding up pre WWII Germany as the model of racial conservation, with forced sterilization if necessary, if (unfit) women were too stupid to control their own reproduction - "For those mothers--and there will always be such--who are too dull-witted, to careless or too inert to use even simple methods, under direction, sterilization is indicated." (Margaret Sanger, "Human Conservation And Birth Control," March 3, 1938. Typed speech. Source: Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection , MSM S71:0977 .)

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=220126.xml

That's right. This pioneer for choice was in fact, quite anti-choice if she considered the women unfit to reproduce or to make the choice AGAINST reproduction. She even approved of HUSBANDS being the ones to request or grant consent to have their wives sterilized. This is just some of what the founder of Planned Parenthood, thought of the underprivileged, women in particular. (She considered it relatively simple and risk free to sterilize a male.)

Anybody who would care to, can read the words of Sanger for themselves. It is not some selectively quoted anti-choice spiel, it is the Margaret Sanger Papers Project:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/

"and claim she's too poor and/or brown to know what she really wants, when she chooses to not bear such a huge burden..."

Why is the "choice" I hear championed (for others, not oneself), so often the choice NOT to have children? What's wrong with motherhood/parenthood, or having a handful of kids if it is what SOME people actually want? Why is it so "selfish" or burdensome to society/the taxpayer? What's wrong with being a SAHM or SAHD, if that is the choice some make? I don't criticize readers for being single or childfree; or for practicing contraception or actually having abortions, if it is what they choose. I thought that is what choice was about.

"Are you one of the many here who decry or contest the right or the poor to have children, or the alleged burden they put on society/taxpayers?"

Nah, I just noticed how often you cry eugenics and classism when someone who isn't Sanger tries to make childbearing a right for even the poor instead of a mandate for the poor ( http://feministing.com/archives/009043.html ), when someone who isn't Sanger makes it easier for a would-be mother to choose which man gets her pregnant ( http://feministing.com/archives/008302.html ), etc.

"Why is the 'choice' I hear championed (for others, not oneself), so often the choice NOT to have children?"

Because you're ignoring how often the alternatives gets championed, to the point where some of the champions want it to be mandatory. Things like marrying off girls ASAP, laws against abortion, raping fertile women and girls, a shortage of non-sex work opportunities for women to earn a living, etc. all make it harder for a woman or girl who doesn't want to give birth again to actually have that option.

It's also because you're not listening to mothers who champion their choice to not have more children. Even some of the teenagers who want birth control are mothers (like when a teenager who wants 1 child instead of 2 already has that child).

And since I brought up classism on this thread, yes, Sanger is the most classist feminist I can name. Reproductive freedoms go out the window in her opinion, when the "unfit" are involved. The "unfit" can "choose" not to have kids, or be forcibly sterilized. She even considered it allowable in that instance (and that instance alone), for husbands and doctors to make the decisions FOR the women to have them sterilized, to prevent more of the "unfit" from coming into the world, allegedly increasing their already considerable burden on society (which Sanger detailed in numerous writings). Because an "unfit" woman who was too "dull" or irresponsible to NOT choose contraception didn't deserve to choose for herself.

"Because you're ignoring how often the alternatives gets championed, to the point where some of the champions want it to be mandatory. Things like marrying off girls ASAP, laws against abortion, raping fertile women and girls, a shortage of non-sex work opportunities for women to earn a living, etc. all make it harder for a woman or girl who doesn't want to give birth again to actually have that option."

And when, in any of the most inflammatory of my opinions, have I been in favor of forcing anyone to HAVE children, or indeed, even promote childbirth or marriage or partnership of any sort? (I do recall promoting childbirth while one was still physically capable of doing so naturally, say before age 43, because fertility treatment is very unreliable as well as expensive, but that was for people who DO want biological children.) Does one wish to be single or childfree? Does one wish to give someone else's unwanted children a loving foster or adoptive home? Go for it and God bless. I'd like to see people's choices to be stay at home parents, or have children respected as well, without among other things, them being accused of being antifeminist or "selfish," on a feminist blog. WTF.

I don't know how you can keep ignoring what Sanger was REALLY openly and publicly promoting, before feminism or Planned Parenthood got better known, and what Planned Parenthood must today downplay or even deny. A nurse by trade, Sanger said she wanted to ease the burden on the *underprivileged* by promoting contraception and education (she recognized low risk medical abortion already existed in the early 20th century, but she did not promote it). She also wanted to improve the health of women and mothers. Fine. God bless her. But she crossed the line in later years when she took it upon herself to publicly judge who was "unfit" to breed, or indeed, to exist at all (she disparaged the already born, i.e., the adults, as well as a "flood of defective children"), and to publicly promote, through speeches and publication the idea that the "unfit" should be FORCIBLY STERILIZED, holding up NAZI GERMANY (1938) as a model for the US to emulate: "the last available figures from the Human Betterment Foundation show that to date of January 1, 1937, only 25,403 persons had been sterilized in state institutions in the United States." (Margaret Sanger, "Human Conservation And Birth Control," March 3, 1938. Typed speech. Source: Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection , MSM S71:0977.) IIRC, she also promoted segregation of the "unfit."

ONLY 25,403 institutionalized persons had been sterilized (Sanger considered the criminal or mentally deficient among the "unfit"). WTF. Considering how she kept on expounding on how many millions of underprivileged children, and how many millions of poor there were, I wonder how many forced sterilizations she considered enough:

"You cannot build a good house without a strong foundation, and the foundations of this nation are being sapped. While alarmists are shaking their heads over the declining birth rate, we had in 1935 (Huntington--"Children of Tomorrow") 90,000 feeble-minded and epileptics in institutions alone, with 2 million, estimated, in the population. Few state laws forbid the marriage of such persons. There were 324,000 insane in institutions and 184,000 criminals, confined, but constantly paroled to commit more crimes. There were 650,000 persons committed to jail each year. The cost of all this is staggering; it runs into many billions annually. In addition there were about 5 million who failed to go above the 4th grade in school and about 5 3/4 millions of that age in the United States."

"These are not reassuring figures, but if we do not really attack the problem intelligently, the totals will be worse in another generation. This is the size of the problem."

[omission]

"Again, however, we must stress the fact that in a national program for human conservation institutional and voluntary sterilization are not enough; they do not reach those elements at large in the population whose children are a menace to the national health and well-being."

"Reports in medical journals state that the indications laid down in the German law are being carefully observed. These are gongenital feeble-mindedness; schizophrenia, circular insanity; heredity epilepsy; hereditary chorea (Huntington's)' hereditary blindness or deafness; grave hereditary bodily deformity and chronic alcoholism."

"Surely everyone will agree that the children of parents so afflicted are no contribution to the nation for even if they do not inherit these defects they are children of parents so handicapped that life will give them little, owing to their necessarily bad environment."

"There are 1,700 special courts and 27 higher courts in Germany to review the cases certified for sterilization there. The rights of the individual could be equally well safeguarded here, but in no case should the rights of society, or which he or she is a member, be disregarded." (Margaret Sanger, "Human Conservation And Birth Control," March 3, 1938. Typed speech. Source: Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection , MSM S71:0977.)

HOLY SHIT. Not only are the millions of those Sanger considered "unfit," "no contribution to the nation," in Sanger's opinion, but their already born CHILDREN as well, "even if they DO NOT inherit" their parents' "defects." HOLY SHIT.

"And when, in any of the most inflammatory of my opinions, have I been in favor of forcing anyone to HAVE children, or indeed, even promote childbirth or marriage or partnership of any sort?"

When you complained about Australian Aboriginal girls getting more of a chance to not be forced, and when you claimed "unrestricted expression of reproductive freedoms could lead to outright eugenics," that's when.

"I don't know how you can keep ignoring what Sanger was REALLY openly and publicly promoting"

I keep acknowledging that many pro-choice people and effors are not Sanger and do not march in lockstep with everything she said.

For one of many examples, my parents weren't blindly following a bunch of Sanger quotes when they chose to have only 2 children instead of trying to outbreed the Jews...

And why does my questioning privileged people's placing a priority on controlling the reproduction of people of color, or underprivileged, whom have in the past been openly identified as being among the "unfit," mean I am anti-choice?

"For one of many examples, my parents weren't blindly following a bunch of Sanger quotes when they chose to have only 2 children instead of trying to outbreed the Jews..."

Because your parents, and myself and my wife with "only" two born children, unlike some people, probably do not judge in public OR private, who is "unfit" to reproduce (or even to exist), and promote population control or "race conservation" a la 1938 Germany. My wife chose abortion (at least twice) for herself. We respect other people's right to choose.

If you believe my posts are mere selective, out of context "Sanger quotes," why not read some of her collected works, from the alleged originals?

Did someone troll this thread off onto an abortion/eugenics debate? Great.

"And why does my questioning privileged people's placing a priority on controlling the reproduction of people of color, or underprivileged, whom have in the past been openly identified as being among the 'unfit,' mean I am anti-choice?"

Questioning more-privileged people's placing those priorities definitely doesn't. At the same time, paying lip service to less-privileged people having choices but complaining about their gaining access to those choices sure does give that impression...

"If you believe my posts are mere selective, out of context 'Sanger quotes,' why not read some of her collected works, from the alleged originals?"

That would still be irrelevant when it's not all about Sanger in the first place.

"My wife chose abortion (at least twice) for herself."

Just curious, did you lecture her about Sanger (who supported Planned Parenthood, which supports abortion) when you found out she made those choices?

"We respect other people's right to choose."

Yeah, I know that you support other people's right to choose. My parents and I support even more people's right to choose (even that of black teens who say they don't want to get pregnant this year). :)

"Did someone troll this thread off onto an abortion/eugenics debate?"

Check out the comment at http://feministing.com/archives/009264.html#comment-156957 .

Soooooo.....Back to the redesign:
I too am wondering who gets to post blogs or whatever (uh, revealing my lack of internet savvy here...) on the new format. I have seen plenty of people get hateful around here (um, I have been kinda bitchy a few times myself...) and all involved were identifying as feminists.

So, what is going to constitute "hate" speech or anti-feminism? I am obviously not talking about the trolling internet misogynists and the pick-your-racism assholes.

There are plenty of feminists who disagree (on porn, for example) and even with certain parts of what seems to be the majority view in feminism (totally unresricted abortion, for example)-- who are still intelligent and good feminists.

I would like to think the best of Feministing and of the potential for a community editor.
But I am also easily alarmed by talk of moderating speech, particularly if it is to be done by weeding out those who don't conform to the prevailing norms of this or that "wave" of feminism.

Can you give me a little help, here, Feministing? I would hate to lose my daily fix to a lot of back-patting with no discourse. Simultaneously occuring speeches is not the same as dialogue.

FYI, it should be "sneak peek", not "sneak peak". Unless you have a secret mountaintop somewhere. :)

Oops-- that said, I like the idea of community blogging, and the redesign looks interesting. Congrats!

crazylady, opposing feminist viewpoints will of course be encouraged! but i think there are some kinds of speech - racism, classism, etc - that we can all agree have no place on the site.

the community editor will be there to maintain a safe sapce for readers and posters - not to make sure any one platform is adhered to. :)