As many of you know, we had a super productive Feministing retreat last week where we discussed everything from comments and content to organizational structure and our five year celebration. It was wonderful to all be together to talk about what we want for the future of Feministing, and to ask the hard questions about how we can make this community an even better space for feminist discourse. We covered a lot, and you can expect to see updates as we finalize things in the coming months, but just to give you an idea of what you can expect...
A new comments policy! In the next several weeks we'll be posting about, and implementing, a new commenting policy with tech features to back it up.
We all feel strongly that helping to develop new feminist voices is at the core of Feministing's mission, so we spent a lot of time discussing how to cultivate new writers for the site as well as developing the roles that the existing writers have.
All of us have spent a long time trying to figure out a way to make Feministing self-sustaining - it's not easy running this site while all having full time jobs! - so you can expect to see updates as to our business model (sounds fancy, ya?)
Feministing will be undergoing a redesign in next six months, something I'm incredibly excited about. We're hoping that the redesign will not only give us a new spiffy look, but that it will also fix any of the tech glitches people experience when using the site as well as highlight and improve the community functions.
Since the site was founded in 2004 the core mission hasn't changed - but Feministing has. So we'll be posting an updated mission statement and vision for the site.
So please keep an eye out for posts about all of this Feministing-related madness. We're all really stoked about the changes and improvements we're making and we think you will be too. (On that note - thanks to everyone who participated in the polls about how you use the site. They were so helpful, and it's amazing to know that you all care enough about Feministing to help us shape the future of the community.)
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Regarding the business model, would it be worth it to look into incorporating feministing as a nonprofit? I’m not sure how much time you spend on searching out advertisers, but as a nonprofit you’d be eligible for grants and fundraising. It could also be a nice possibility for getting younger feminists involved in the site, by allowing them to seek out and help you with grant proposals. It’s equally possible that this may be more work than it’s worth, but could potentially pay off in the long run and make the site more sustainable.
We definitely discussed this and lots of other incorporation models. We are still consulting with some experts (i.e. accountants and lawyers), but will be sure to let everyone know once we make a decision.
I also hope you discussed an investment in chairs.
LOL! Oh my goodness, too funny. When we signed up for the retreat, we were allowed to pick out chairs, or these floor chair things. It was an ongoing joke that weekend, but the floor thingies turned out to be super comfortable!
We have those floor things at the play group I take my baby daughter to every week. They're great. I feel like they make everything more relaxed and fun.
i look forward to the redesign and everything else. well, thank you all for running this website. I feel like Feministing has opened my eyes and forced me to think about gender issues in a new way.
keep up the great work!
Reading Feministing became part of my daily routine just over a year ago. It has changed my life. I can't thank you ladies enough for the work that you do and how much it has meant to me. It is truly appreciated.
I hope you discussed the erasure of women of colour on this website.
I completely agree
Many of my friends tell me they don't feel that gender inequality exists, yet it does and pervades our society. Thank you for helping me to be able to show them that we still need to be working to better our world.
By "new feminist voices" do you mean new voices of established feminist writers or voices of newly proclaimed feminists? I think that a column from someone who is newly arrived into the discourse about feminism could offer interesting insight.
Gender inequality is alive and well, the problem is that all too often it is only seen through the feminist lens.
I think cultivating new feminist voices is a worthy goal. As a trans woman I'm obviously interested in the voices of trans women being more prominent, but that is just a small part of what interests me. I am excited for a real diversity of women's voices discussing the real diversity of women's lives. Partly that is self-interest: in communities where no one demographic dominates (as cis, white, middle-class women tend to do in feminism) I find there is usually more investment in creating a welcoming community for everyone.
(This is why as a white trans woman I am much more trusting of groups with, say, strong representation of cis women of colour, because those situations tend to be far more inclusive and tolerant of me being trans. Diversity promotes diversity.)
I think, too, it is important for this site and for feminism in general to find and nurture feminist voices outside of traditional feminist structures. Often, to me, 'Feminist' seems like an academic title or certification, and creates a divide between formally-educated feminists and those of us who are not. One's authenticity as a feminist should never require the certification of a hierarchical structure, but I fear that happens both as a conscious silencing technique by some, and as a set of subconscious value judgments by others.
Finally, it is important that while making space for new voices we do not create 'ghettoized diversity,' where the trans woman only writes pieces on trans issues, or someone with a disability writes only about access issues, or a woman of colour only writes about race issues. Beyond the silencing of intersectional experience that model creates (i.e. it ignores the experiences of trans women of colour with disabilities), it also deprives us of the opportunity to share our common experiences. That, for me, is the foundation of community - the parts of our narratives that overlap. We can't enforce a definition of that overlap (as has been and still is done by some), but given the chance - and as the product of a diversity of voices - it will define itself, continue to grow and evolve. That is a community I am excited to take part in.
I wish I could click "like" on your comment about 80 times! Agreed on the idea of cultivating writers who might not have formal training in women's studies and the like, and on watching out for what you called ghettoized diversity.
Thanks for this, Aleisha. This gets at a lot of what we discussed with regard to both who is writing for Feministing, and what they are writing about. Diversity as you define it is something we are committed to working toward.
"(This is why as a white trans woman I am much more trusting of groups with, say, strong representation of cis women of colour, because those situations tend to be far more inclusive and tolerant of me being trans. Diversity promotes diversity.)
"I think, too, it is important for this site and for feminism in general to find and nurture feminist voices outside of traditional feminist structures. Often, to me, 'Feminist' seems like an academic title or certification, and creates a divide between formally-educated feminists and those of us who are not. One's authenticity as a feminist should never require the certification of a hierarchical structure, but I fear that happens both as a conscious silencing technique by some, and as a set of subconscious value judgments by others.
"Finally, it is important that while making space for new voices we do not create 'ghettoized diversity,' where the trans woman only writes pieces on trans issues, or someone with a disability writes only about access issues, or a woman of colour only writes about race issues. Beyond the silencing of intersectional experience that model creates (i.e. it ignores the experiences of trans women of colour with disabilities), it also deprives us of the opportunity to share our common experiences..."
Brava!
As for "Often, to me, 'Feminist' seems like an academic title or certification, and creates a divide between formally-educated feminists and those of us who are not," I'd add that you shouldn't have to take women's studies and/or gender studies courses in tertiary education to be feminist.
What about people who don't have the time, money, energy, entrance exam scores, and/or whatever to get tertiary education? What about people who are still in secondary school, elementary school, or even younger? I mean, I was a feminist at age 6 and I'm so glad I had the chance to learn about feminism that early, these opportunities are good for other people too!
Thanks for all your work, Feministing-ers! I can't wait to see the new changes!
And I want to say thanks for giving me such good information to be informed in my feminism - knowledge to be confident in my feminism - and backing to be strong in my feminism.
I'm like the batman of feminism now!
BAM! KAPOW! WHAM! ZONK! to sexism!
Squee! Exciting! I am looking forward to seeing Feministing grow and change!
I only started keeping up with Feministing a few months ago*, but I think I found it at just the right time in my life. I really needed something to care about. This community has definitely changed the way I look at the world and contributed to my becoming a much more active and involved feminist. I know people tell you all the time that you're just a blog and why don't you quit writing and go do something, but you ARE doing something, and all of the men and women who become engaged in feminism after visiting this website are doing something. Your words have a ripple effect.
So, thank you.
* I did a google image search for "vulva art" and ended up clicking on a picture of a vagina costume, which took me to this website.
So so excited. I can honestly say that I don't go a day without checking in at Feministing. I can't even begin to describe how much this site has affected my life. Keep up the amazing work ladies, I can't wait to see what you have in store for the Feministing future!
I love the site but really hate the way the comment registration and password retrival system works. I think this is like my 3rd registration because I am spacey and forget my username/password and then cant retrieve them.
Also while nested comments are really nice if I am only following one thread on a post they can be quite annoying once a post gets 50+ comments with several interesting threads. Figured I would point this out since it sounds like the site is going under some design/commenting changes.
I've also had to register twice for the same reason.
Also, I hate when I type a long comment, and then it tells me I have to sign in. This happens once every two or three days, even though I click the 'keep me logged in' button.
I would like to third this. It would be a really nice feature if we could have our password e-mailed to us if we forget it.
I've also had to retype comments several times after they've gotten lost when I clicked "post," only to realize I'd forgotten to sign in and were thus erased.
You can have your browser save your password. Chrome does, anyways.
I forgot the password for this site months ago but thankfully my computer remembers for me. :)
I also want to thank you, Feministing. As another poster mentioned, I too am a daily addict to this site. However, I am excited to hear, and will be excited to see, the changes that are being planned to the site. I have seen so many bring to light the much needed improvements in commenting & inclusion.
So thank you for existing, and thank you for changing (evolving).
Feministing will be undergoing a redesign in next six months, something I'm incredibly excited about.
Please keep it user friendly, And basic (IE : so there's not loads of fancy scripts running in the background etc. - Feminist pages load quickly due to lack of clutter and some of us can't afford to buy the latest PC)
In other words, please don't do a Facebook...
It's been a beautiful thing, watching this site and this community continue to grow and flourish! It has definitely gotten me thinking about issues in new ways. You all have such generous spirits in the way you encourage the development of others' voices and projects.
Thank you, Feministing! This is such a fabulous site & community. All the hard work is appreciated by so many, many of us! I too will look forward to the exciting changes!
I too want to thank all of you for what you do. Feministing is one of my favorite Web sites, period, largely because of the comment discussions. I feel like this site has really helped me crystallize what I believe and why. I've learned so much from everybody here.
I do have one idea, and I almost hate to bring this up because I know y'all don't exactly have gads of free time to spare... But have you talked about the feasibility of having volunteer editors for community posts? I for one would feel a lot more comfortable having one or two other people vet my posts to make sure I'm not sticking my privilege-foot in my mouth. It might be helpful to have someone else say, "Hey, maybe you should clarify this" *before* it goes live. I write and edit in my day job, and editing almost always strengthens the finished product.
Thanks for the updates! :)
As for the new comments policy, could it include making the anchor links and anchors match again? I mentioned this in an email but I'll mention it here again in case another sysadmin didn't get that email but still would like to know about the current glitch.
Basically, I like the Recent Community Comments sections in the right-hand columns of Feministing: Main, Community: Main, and the individual blog posts pages. Now that the comments are threaded and I can't see the latest ones just by scrolling to the end of a page, having links directly to the latest 5 posts is even more useful than it was before.
Unfortunately, the links in the RCC sections don't actually work - whichever program subroutine generates these generates the wrong URLs. For example:
When I click on http://community.feministing.com/2009/06/old-fashioned-used-as-euphamis.html#c263815 , my browser doesn't go directly to that comment. Instead, it just goes to the top of http://community.feministing.com/2009/06/old-fashioned-used-as-euphamis.html .
I checked the page's source code, and there actually isn't any #c263815 anchor in there. No wonder the link doesn't work. However, there is a #comment-263815 anchor in there. So, if I edit the URL in the address field of my browser, to go to http://community.feministing.com/2009/06/old-fashioned-used-as-euphamis.html#comment-263815 , then my browser goes directly to that particular comment.
Also, I just saw a comment at http://community.feministing.com/2009/06/what-is-feminist-humor-anyway.html#comment-264208 that's even more relevant here:
vhs said at June 3, 2009 9:05 PM:
"I'd love to read the website but it's hard. If you read the comments here and have anything to do with the website can you please take a note, that the choice of colors make it really hard to read anything on it for people with limited vision, older monitors AND people like me with excellent vision and monitors. Dark backgrounds for text are generally a bad idea and grey text on dark background is even worse."
I was thinking about what sort of new feminist voices I'd like to hear, and I realized that I would like to hear more voices of... teen moms. Not surprising, considering my username. But I feel that, if mothers are marginalized in society and even in many feminist spheres, teen mothers are doubly so. In being someone who chose a baby instead of an abortion (though I'm pro-choice), chose to slow down my educational path a little in order to devote myself to another being, I often feel like a non-entity pretty much everywhere, including around other feminists.
Hurrah for developing new feminist voices! It would be fabulous if there was a way for new writers to apply for the team, even if only every few years or so. I love your community blog and the way posts sometimes get migrated to the main page, and I think it would be great to take another step at giving those of us who'd like to "break in" to the mainstream feminist blog world an opportunity.
Hurrah for developing new feminist voices! It would be fabulous if there was a way for new writers to apply for the team, even if only every few years or so. I love your community blog and the way posts sometimes get migrated to the main page, and I think it would be great to take another step at giving those of us who'd like to "break in" to the mainstream feminist blog world an opportunity.