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This is a guest post of the presentation given by our incredible student panelist at the University of Iowa for our college tour, Conner Spinks. Just a freshman, Conner's insight, brilliance and general bad-assery absolutely blew us away.

To begin, I want to explain my own relationship to feminism. Personally, it has never been a word I shied away from. I was a loud mouth tom boy and I saw how my interest in tools and trucks over dolls was thought of as strange. I saw how confused my father was when I refused to put on a dress and if forced, would sit with my legs as wide as possible, which eventually led to pants anyway. My independent minded mother would try to calmly explain to aghast relatives that "No, she doesn't think she's boy, she just doesn't like dresses." Or her favorite, "No, she's just being Conner." Clearly, my mom doesn't subscribe to traditional gender norms. My name is Conner.

As I grew up and learned about the inequalities faced by marginalized populations, and discovered there was a word for the fight against those inequitable distributions of power, I was all over it! I was eager to claim the identity of feminist. That identity is something I still debate about labeling myself because that label to some is enough. There is no need to truly question your own relative privileges or power, you're a feminist. There's no need to listen to claims of struggle that you don't face, you're a feminist. Because of that label, you can't be ableist or transphobic, you're a feminist!

I am not calling in to question how a good a feminist someone is. I am questioning what feminism means to the students on this campus and that ambiguity is what causes me pause when it comes to applying the label to myself.

This campus especially has shown me these feminist in name only. People who have regressive views of gender are looked at like Neanderthals and openly argued against. But regressive views of race that are patently obvious to me, go unquestioned or even unnoticed. Sometimes, I have literally looked around and asked, "Am I the only who heard that?"

We couldn't go to Minneapolis without stopping by the infamous Smitten Kitten.

So Samhita, Miriam and I finished up our Midwest tour out in Iowa and Minneapolis this week, and holy warm feminist fuzzies! The folks out at the University of Iowa and University of Minnesota (big ups to WRAC and WSAC!) were not only incredibly hospitable and engaging, but seriously kick-ass organizers -- there's a ton of feminist activism going on at these campuses and it's because of these incredible groups. We hope they enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. We'll also be posting the presentations of our amazing student panelists, so look out for them.

Some extra props go to the folks at the White House Project for putting the happy hour together after our panel; there are only two staff members at the Minnesota chapter, but they've accomplished what a staff of 20 could achieve. We were impressed, to say the least. And our tour organizer Martha (from the Midwest herself) has done an amazing job putting this entire tour together -- for that, we are eternally grateful.

On that note, because we're just getting back to the daily grind and Samhita is settling into/causing some trouble at SXSW, posting may be a bit sparse today. Happy Friday, folks!

The two definite highlights of the evening were Mo'Nique's win for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Precious and Kathryn Bigelow's win for Best Director for The Hurt Locker.

Kathryn is the first woman to ever win in the Director category, and as was pointed out by AnnaLeighClark on twitter last night, it happened just before midnight and the start of International Women's Day. Also, as Shelby Knox pointed out, the statistics about this award were pretty stark: 82 years, 400 nominations, 4 women nominated, 1 awarded.

Mo'Nique's win was breathtaking, and her passion was there in her acceptance speech. She also made a point of referencing Hattie McDaniel in her speech as well as her outfit. Hattie was the first African American woman to win an Academy Award, also in the Best Supporting Actress role in 1940.

Mo'Nique's acceptance speech:

First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics. I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to. Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey because you touched it, the whole world saw it. Ricky Anderson, our attorney of Anderson & Smith, thank you for your hard work. My entire BET family, my Precious family, thank you so much. To my amazing husband Sidney, thank you for showing me that sometimes you have to forego doing what's popular in order to do what's right. And baby, you were so right. God bless us all.

What were your highlights of the evening?

So as you may already know, Feministing decided last year to start an official college tour, and oh, did we have fun in the fall. Not only were we humbled to find we had so many awesome readers in Canada and Boston, but were also thrilled to be able to collaborate with schools and highlight some of the amazing student panelists that joined us to engage in our discussion on the state of the feminist movement.

And now that the Spring is here, we're back for more. Samhita, Miriam and I will be in Iowa and Minnesota next week and we would love to have readers in the area come out and support. Here are details:

University of Iowa
Tuesday, March 9th
7:30 p.m.
@ 100 Phillips Hall

University of Minnesota
Wednesday, March 10th
6:00 p.m.
@ Coffman Memorial Union
300 Washington Avenue SE
Afterparty at the The Blarney Pub with the White House Project
8:00 p.m.

We're in the process of booking tours in April and May, so contact our tour organizer if you're interested in having us come to your school!

March 3rd is International Sex Workers Rights Day. Some history, from Sex Worker Outreach Project USA (SWOP-USA)'s website:

The day originated in 2001 when over 25,000 sex workers gathered in India for a sex worker festival. The organizers, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a Calcutta based group whose membership consists of somewhere upwards of 50,000 sex workers and members of their communities. Sex worker groups across the world have subsequently celebrated 3 March as International Sex Workers' Rights Day.

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (2002): "We felt strongly that that we should have a day what need to be observed by the sex workers community globally. Keeping in view the large mobilization of all types of global sexworkers [Female,Male,Transgender], we proposed to observe 3rd March as THE SEX WORKERS RIGHTS DAY.

Knowing the usual response of international bodies and views of academicians and intellectuals of the 1st world [many of them consider that sex workers of third world are different from 1st world and can't take their decision] a call coming from a third world country would be more appropriate at this juncture, we believe. It will be a great pleasure to us if all of you observe the day in your own countries too...We need your inspiration and support to turn our dreams into reality.

A note that the events listed at the SWOP-USA link are from last year. Events for this year are being advertised on local SWOP chapter websites, so I would suggest googling SWOP in your region. They are also being posted on the wall of the Facebook group "Love your hooker and pay them well," which was created in response to the "Kill your hooker" groups we've written about before. You can also post in comments here about events taking place in your community.

Related post: Guest post: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers...My Thoughts by Audacia Ray

If you are living in NY than you woke up to several inches of snow outside. This is what my quiet Brooklyn street is looking like right now.

Posting might be limited today. Feministing is having a retreat this weekend and we are going to be getting ready to meet up this afternoon...assuming we can get our front doors open. There maybe some snowshoeing in my future.

If you are on the East Coast enjoy the snow today and hopefully whatever you were supposed to do was canceled. If you are not on the East Coast or in a place where it doesn't snow 12 inches all the times, well, be glad you don't have to deal with it. Or be jealous that we have an excuse to stay home :)

I'm a little late with this post, but I couldn't skip covering my favorite panel I attended at Creating Change. The history we hear the most is written by power. Hearing the stories of our communities from those elders who actually lived them is a powerful way to maintain a knowledge of our truth and our struggles.

Tom Weber from SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) organized the panel, "40 Years After Stonewall: A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Activist Timeline," with Jim Fouratt, Roger Goodman, Carmen Vasquez, Ellen Ensig-Brodsky, Phil Johnson. Some of these speakers participated in the Stonewall uprising, and all of them have seen moments in TBLG history that must not be lost. Their stories tell us of our challenges, but also of our potential.

I was in tears during this entire panel. There is no way a few quotes can convey the experience of hearing queer history from those who lived it, but I hope this post adds a little something to our collective memory of struggles and community building. Some highlights from the panel after the jump.

By far my favorite plenary at Creating Change so far, the Youth of Color Panel featured young leaders speaking to the priorities of the communities they represent. Kai Wright did an excellent job giving these folks space to share perspectives that are outside the mainstream of the LGBT movement. They articulated a vision that moves beyond marriage to the issues that actually impact their lives. Some highlights from the panel, which had the crowd whipped up like no other large session, after the jump.

Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, spoke to the state of our movement at Creating Change today. Carey highlighted the many local, state, and national victories over the past year, the harsh losses, and the frustrating lack of action at the federal level, as well as an agenda for moving forward. Some highlights from her remarks, which received a standing ovation, after the jump.

Love Won Out (LWO) is the traveling ex-gay roadshow put on by Exodus International and Focus on the Family. Elizabeth Fregiato and Jean-Marie Navetta from PFLAG, who attended an LWO conference, presented an eye-opening view of the increasingly complex messaging used by the ex-gay movement. As someone who grew up a Christian fundamentalist I was particularly interested in hearing how this movement has evolved.

LWO's approach has shifted based on the fact that people, you know, don't turn ex-gay. And that polarized, hateful messaging isn't reaching all the populations they want to convert. Their focus is not on reparative therapy. They use language like "gay identity" rather than "homosexual lifestyle" to make themselves more acceptable to potential allies or members of the LGBT movement. They're telling folks not to use the language LGBT organizations have critiqued. They use the language of addiction, saying someone is born gay but can choose not to live that identity. In fact, members of the ex-gay movement are attending different "Anonymous" groups to pull in folks when they're at their most vulnerable.

Jos and I are at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Conference, Creating Change, this weekend and we'll be blogging from the conference. If you want to follow what's going on, you can check out the twitter hashtag #cc10.

Thomas Saenz, President, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund's remarks after the jump.

Sean James and Al Joyner are providing fine examples of what it means to be male-allies this week, reminding me that there's still an opportunity for others to follow their lead.

I believe that change happens when there is real action, and critical mass involvement...youth voices are critical in that process. Being part of this change campaign would avail me the opportunity to....be equipped with tools and knowledge for adequate engagement in ending violence against women. In my community women bear the blame after rape...people in power would seek for sex before assisting a young lady...and women face exclusion when it comes to governance.

The Women's Therapy Centre Institute--an amazing organization chock full of feminist therapists--is hosting their annual event and this year they're honoring none other than Nona Willis Aronowitz, author of the awesome Girldrive.

Cheryl Cochran, actor and elder at Middle Collegiate Church will also enact a piece from Toni Morrison's Beloved and there will be a diverse art show with pieces on the theme of women's bodies. Additionally, there will be a speak out. I attended last year's and it was incredibly moving--a sort of consciousness raising and testifying on women's relationship with their bodies.

Deets below. Come support Nona and the WTCI's work if you're in town and interested.

February 6 INDWELLING IV: Living in a Female Body Friends Meeting House, 15 Rutherford Place 15th St. between 2nd and 3rd Aves - near Union Square New York City 1:00pm - 4:00pm Tickets: $10-$75 available in advance or at the door

If you haven't seen Staceyann Chin at a poetry event or in her one woman show, or read her memoir, The Other Side of Paradise, you're missing out. Here's a taste:

The 92nd Street Y in New York has offered Feministing some big discounts on her upcoming performance--50% off for everyone who calls into buy a ticket (readers need to use the code "STA1" to get the discount) and two free tickets a piece for the first two people to write an answer (in comments) to this question:

What's your favorite line of Chin's poetry?

Full bio for Staceyann after the jump. Anyone who's got time to do a transcript, go at it!

It is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, he would have been 81, and today I am thinking about love and the role that love and compassion plays in social movement building.

The Feministing crew is taking the day off to celebrate MLK's birthday and will resume posting tomorrow.

Please put in comments your favorite MLK quotes, links, stories, memories and thoughts to commemorate one of the few holidays we celebrate as a nation that acknowledges the validity and importance of the civil rights movement and reminds us of the ongoing struggle for justice.

UPDATE:

A few MLK related links.

Remembering the untold legacy of MLK.

On the forgotten promise of Obama's race speech.

Ten OTHER things MLK said.

Dr. King...the forgotten radical.

The Santaclausification of MLK.

Two less heard speeches of MLK.

Just a reminder that there are two opportunities to celebrate the holidays with Feministing this week!

Tonight you can hang out with the DC based Editors and Contributors at the Science Club at 6pm. Details here.

On Wednesday, hang out with the NYC based crew at Lunasa. Details here.

The Washington, DC Feministing crew is shamelessly imitating the NYC contingent and having a Happy Hour next week to celebrate Christmahanukwanzasolstieidadonyule (or just December). Whether you're a holiday addict (like me!) or more into critiquing the season and its consumer culture-ness (a conversation I'll also happily join), we hope you'll come out for cheap drinks and feminist community.

DC Feministing Holiday Happy Hour

@ Science Club

1136 19th Street NW
Washington, DC

Monday, December 14th - 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Happy Hour all night

Please RSVP to our Facebook event here.

It's that time, folks. As the holidays are upon us, the NYC Feministing crew decided to get together next week and make merry of/protest the most celebrated/consumer-f*cked time of the year - with some cheap drinks.

NYC Feministing Holiday Happy Hour
@ Lunasa
126 1st Ave # A
New York, NY 10009-5783
New York, NY
(Between 7th St. and St. Marks Place)

Wednesday, December 16th - 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Happy Hour until 7 p.m. - 1/2 price beer, wine and drinks

We hope you can join us in the feminist yuletide! RSVP to our Facebook event here.

Today is World AIDS Day a day dedicated to raising awareness about HIV and AIDS and those that are surviving daily with AIDS. It was started in 1988 by the World Health Organization to be every December 1st and to provide "opportunities for governments, national AIDS programs, faith organizations, community organizations, and individuals with an opportunity to raise awareness and focus attention on the global AIDS epidemic" (via HHS).

Also from the White House,

Our Nation joins the world in celebrating the extraordinary advancements we have made in the battle against HIV and AIDS, and remembering those we have lost. Over the past three decades, brave men and women have fought devastating discrimination, stigma, doubt, and violence as they stood in the face of this deadly disease. Many of them would not be here today, but for the dedication of other persons living with HIV, their loved ones and families, community advocates, and members of the medical profession. On World AIDS Day, we rededicate ourselves to developing a national AIDS strategy that will establish the priorities necessary to combat this devastating epidemic at home, and to renewing our leadership role and commitments abroad.

I can only hope this is more than political gesturing as the last administration made such severe cutbacks to funding for HIV/AIDS at home and abroad. The overturn of the travel ban was a step in the right direction, but we have keep this fight on the forefront of the nation's imagination. As someone who has friends that have suffered with and without support, through shame and a world that discriminates, and has worked to overcome my own fears, I strongly recommend reading some stories, educating yourself and breaking out of the cycle of shame by talking. I think about the AIDS epidemic on many days, not just on World AIDS day, but I will take this day to remember people I have loved, people that have suffered and people that have shown me courage I never thought possible.

For a full list of events worldwide the World AIDS Campaign has a full list of events and the official website of WAD has some great information as well. Please put additional links articles or stories in comments. Also, a very interesting story on a program in San Francisco that is tracking treatment in neighborhoods that have high rates of HIV/AIDS to find if there is disparity.

I just went to a really cool event at the Brooklyn Museum of Art where Kiki Smith, artist, and, Catherine J. Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, had a conversation about Smith's work, it's intersections with feminism, themes of the body, the personal as political etc.

If you aren't familiar with Kiki Smith's work, you should definitely check it out. She's dealt with a wide range of fascinating themes over the course of her career in all sorts of mediums (many of them previously positioned as the "manly" variety).

I was so struck by her stage presence. She was truly in her body, so authentic that I was a bit disarmed. It was clear that she didn't feel any compulsion to play the part of the highly articulate, beyond-it-all artist; she just was. And in her "just being," she said some really profound, simple things. Given my recent experience of being criticized for my voice, my idealism etc., it felt awesome to be reminded how refreshing and critical it is to be comfortable with your own authentic identity in public.

Here are a few of my favorite quotations from the afternoon.

On the personal is political vibe in the 70s:
"You realized what was happening outside your house was also going on inside your house."

On art making:
"Embrace the fragility. Embrace what is tentative."

On resisting hegemonic art norms of what's hip or trendy:
"I don't want to be owned by ideology."

Miriam and I are reading from Yes Means Yes tomorrow night at Charis Books at 8pm. Come through if you are around!

Miriam, Samhita, Jess, and I are headed to Hotlanta tomorrow for the National Women's Studies Association's annual conference. We look forward to meeting readers there for the first time and reuniting with old friends. (And pretty please, if any community posters are there and get to see Angela Davis' keynote tonight, please write about it. We were all dying to see it but couldn't get out in time.)

Anyways, we're doing a panel on bringing off line and on line feminisms more, well, in line. I thought I'd throw an excerpt of the abstract up here and see if anyone had any thoughts/questions for us as we head into our lil' talk:

There is no question that the internet is one of the most vital sites of feminism activism today, but too often the women's studies classroom feels separate from, at best, and alienated from, at worst, this valuable resource. Some academics may not be familiar with the terrain of feminist blogs and intimidated by learning the language and customs associated with them. Some may have had a taste and decided that contemporary feminism needs more, not less, grounding in theory and history.

Many bloggers, for their part, have turned to the internet as a medium in direct opposition to what feels like an academic discipline that increasingly falls into the same traps of inaccessible language and unnecessary bureaucracy as its patriarchal counterparts in the university system.

So how do we bridge the divide? It is our conviction that the feminism's very survival depends on the interplay between the academics that train young women and men to be critical thinkers about gender and power, and the bloggers that continue to engage them in grassroots movements and continued analysis of this half-changed world. And of course, many of us are both in the same body--professors and bloggers, academics and activists, theorists and artists. How do we bridge the sometimes largest gap of all--that within ourselves?

If you're in NYC, please consider coming to a great panel discussion tonight (with a happy hour preceding the event!) to support PPNYC.

I'll be with writer Lynn Harris and Gloria Feldt, former president of Planned Parenthood. Tickets are only $15, and it goes to a good cause!

The Tank
354 W 45th Street
New York, NY 10036
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

This year marks the 45th anniversary of Mario Savio's tremble-worthy speech on the UC Berkeley campus at the pinnacle of the Free Speech Movement. Notably, 45 years later, the faces of the new UC Berkeley movement now include women leaders and students of color. As part of a week of events to celebrate both Savio and the public university itself, I will be speaking on a panel with University of California faculty, California State Assembly members, and local government officials about the erosion of public funding, diversity, and popular support for public education in California.

On November 17, the UC Board of Regents, a group of decision makers appointed by the Governor of CA, will vote on a proposed 32% increase in student fees for in-state California students. Accompanied by additional fees for UC professional, engineering, and business schools, this will force fees above $10,000 for the first time in University history, systematically denying access to underrepresented, lower-income, and now, middle-income students.

Come out if you are in the Bay Area! The week of events also includes a guest lecture by Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, on Californian crisis politics:

10/26 The Crisis of the Public University
Monday 4-7 PM
Pauley Ballroom

Speakers:
Ariel Boone, ASUC Senator
Jayna Brown, UC Riverside
Stan Glantz, UC San Francisco
George Lakoff, UC Berkeley
Ananya Roy, UC Berkeley
Nancy Skinner, California State Assembly
Phil Ting, San Francisco City Assessor-Recorder
Alberto Torrico, California State Assembly Majority Leader

10/27 Naomi Klein "The Shock Doctrine: California Style"
Mario Savio Memorial Lecture
Pauley Ballroom 8pm

We mentioned this summer that we were organizing a Feministing Tour. Well it begins this week with four events! Thanks to all the amazing students who worked hard to bring us to their campuses--organizing, fundraising and general awesomeness. We're really looking forward to dialoging with and meeting you all.

Queens University
Kingston, ON Canada
Tuesday, October 20th
7pm

University of Ottawa
Wednesday, October 21st
7:30pm
Alumni Auditorium of the University Centre

Boston College
Monday October 26th
6pm

Wheaton College
Wednesday October 28th
7pm
Holman Room, Mary Lyon Building

Sorry I don't have all the location details folks!

If you're interested in trying to bring a few Feministing Editors to your school or community, email Martha, our tour coordinator extraordinaire at polk.martha[AT]gmail[DOT]com. We'll be scheduling events for the spring soon!

From one of the partner organizations, Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom:

SYRF is working with several partner organizations (including Advocates for Youth, Catholics for Choice, Choice USA, Law Students for Reproductive Justice, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, and the Sierra Club) to make October 2009 an entire month of collective advocacy and organizing for comprehensive sexuality education.

Many faith groups support comprehensive sexuality education and some denominations even have their own faith-based curricula. Unfortunately, proponents of abstinence-only programs have succeeded in getting over $1.5 billion in funding for dangerous ineffective programming. You can help. By raising awareness in your community about the harm these programs have on the health of students, we can work towards a time when classrooms will teach medically-accurate, positive, and honest messages about sexuality.

Awesome. Learn more about the month of action at the partner websites.

Tonight, I am headed to the 2009 production of Sins Invalid: An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility, and I can't wait.

Chloe interviewed the Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Patty Berne, last week, and in another interview, Berne explained what audience members should expect:

"In the theater, the audience seems to go through a kind of transformation as they bear witness, there's a real paradigm shift happening in the room. On stage, all these people that are considered somehow non-normative, expressing their power, sexually and politically, in a beautiful loving way. We're used to people who look like Paris Hilton saying they are hot. But we're not as used to us, the majority of humankind, being proud of our bodies. Most of us live with shame in our bodies. So when somebody that has a non-normative body expresses love and sexual power on stage it opens up an opportunity for audience members to claim their bodies are beautiful as well."

The show is hot and thought-provoking. You can still buy tickets for Saturday's and Sunday's shows!

I have had the opportunity to see a lot of really powerful speakers at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting. Talk about internalized patriarchy: I was most excited to see Presidents Obama and Clinton speak, and though I was excited to see Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she was not at the top of my list. I have to tell you all, I was most personally affected by Secretary Clinton's words. Our politics differ in a number of ways, but seeing her speak in person her morally motivated passion is undeniable. As she talked about fundamentally shifting our approach to hunger I got chills and even teared up a little. I have heard Secretary Clinton be accused of acting only out of a desire for power probably more than anyone else in politics. I think this stems partly from an insidious assumption that for a woman to be successful she must lose part of her humanity, which is supposed to be focused on nurturing others.

In his introduction of Secretary Clinton, President Clinton said that in the second half of 20th century the U.S. government gave up on helping those in poverty feed themselves. The thinking became that those with food would just give some to others. "This persisted through Democratic and Republican administrations, including my own. We were all wrong." By focusing on aid in situations of crisis instead of empowering small farmers and creating structures for them to sell their crops locally, "We forgot the dignity element of being able to feed yourself."

As you all know, Jos, Vanessa and I have been attending the 5th Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initative this week in Manhattan. We've put up several posts already about the event, including coverage of the opening session, photos from the first day, and coverage of Wednesday morning's Plenary Session on Investing in Women and Girls.

I'd like to offer a different kind of coverage here, one that tries to understand if and how the broader thematic goal of the Meeting- namely, cross-sector participation in addressing the world's problems- works, and how it will ultimately affect women and girls globally.

In other words- Can business interests and NGO interests ever align productively? Can the World Bank really make positive contributions to social change, given its rather horrific history of debt-mongering and culturally insensitive politics? Or are these interests mutually exclusive, in constant battle over zero-sum resources and therefore doomed to clash? CGI suggests convergence and collaboration can benefit all. I ask- what kinds of compromise on women's issues does such an ambitious mandate demand?

Today the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting hosted a press conference on human trafficking headlined by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Women's Issues. I am very glad to see a focus on this incredibly important and too often ignored issue.

Mira Sorvino, who is a Goodwill Ambassador with a focus on human trafficking, framed the lack of knowledge about modern day slavery in the U.S. through her personal experience: "Like many Americans I thought slavery had ended with Lincoln... It's this unbelievably subterranean crime."

President Clinton opened the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting by reciting damning statistics about women's economic marginalization, including that only 30% of the world's workforce is made up of women. Women do 66% of world's work, make only 10% of world's income, and own only 1% world's property. He said investing in women "can unleash an estimated $15 billion in annual productivity."

Investing in Girls and Women was hosted by Diane Sawyer. The panelists were: Edna Adan, Director and Founder, Edna Adan Maternity and Teaching Hospital; Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO, The Goldman Sachs Group; Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO, Women for Women International; Rex W. Tillerson, Chief Executive Officer, ExxonMobil Corporation; Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Women's Issues, U.S. State Department; and Robert Zoellick, President, The World Bank Group.

It's Day 2 of the 5th Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan, and I'm sitting next to Jos in the press room trying to organize my thoughts on everything that's been going on. I mean, wow. I'm surrounded by conference participants, which range from diplomats to heads of state to movie stars to business executives to NGO presidents and CEOs to prestigious journalists and high-powered bloggers. I've got to be honest- I don't think I've never been in the same building as so many smart, powerful, and- let's face it- rich people before in my life.

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting kicked off yesterday with an Opening Plenary hosted by President Clinton. Thanks to Lori's crowd navigation skills we were able to be in the room for the plenary (instead of watching it on TVs in the press room) and even sat within 100 feet of the podium.

In his opening remarks President Clinton told CGI members this is the only conference they will attend where the gift bag is just that - a bag. Sounds like every activist conference I've been to!

Gary White and Matt Damon (*swoon*) spoke about access to water and sanitation. Many of us in the U.S. take clean water for granted. For much of the world, though, access to water is perhaps the largest health issue. White and Damon were there to promote water.org and their new focus on Haiti.

Linda Lockhart, founder of Global Give Back Circle, spoke about her work on education for girls in Kenya. Lockhart said, "Our goal was never to be the voice of the girls. It was to give them a voice." This was demonstrated through a video (which reminded me of this) and a powerful spoken word performance by three young women from St. Martin's School for Girls.

Lori and I will be covering the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting for Feministing over the next few days (we're in the press room right now). Some basic info on CGI:

Building on President Clinton's lifetime in public service, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) reflects his belief that governments need collaboration from the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and other global leaders to effectively confront the world's most pressing problems. After attending thousands of meetings during his career in which urgent needs were discussed but no action was taken to solve them, President Clinton saw a need to establish a new kind of meeting with an emphasis on results.

In 2005, President Clinton established CGI to turn ideas into action and to help our world move beyond the current state of globalization to a more integrated global community of shared benefits, responsibilities, and values. By gathering world leaders from a variety of backgrounds, CGI creates a unique opportunity to channel the capacities of individuals and organizations to realize change. To fulfill the action-oriented mission of CGI, all members devise practical solutions to global issues through the development of specific and measurable Commitments to Action.

The meeting should be a fascinating experience. Some of the most powerful people in the world are gathered here to discuss what they consider the most pressing global issues. This includes a focus on women and girls. Check back for more on CGI and the topics covered over the next few days.

There has been a lot of amazingness at this conference, so one would think it would be difficult to pick out a favorite moment or aspect of Women & Power. But not for me.

By far the best part of the conference has been meeting this amazing group of young women who came to Omega after seeing our post about scholarships for the conference. Not only is my heart warmed that they ended up here because of our blogging - but the fact that they met each other and connected is similarly amazing. In fact, they've connected so much that they've decided to start a group blog together - woot!

Sometimes I forget that despite the downsides of blogging - hating on each other, out-of-control threads, feminist one-upmanship, etc - the communities we create through blogging really do inspire real life activism and serve an important role in a lot of people's feminism. And I can't imagine a better lesson to remember this weekend than that.

So a big thanks to the young women I've met this weekend; you remind me why I do this work.

The Omega Women and Power Conference knows how to put on a party. We are at the evening performance and it some stage acting from Sarah Jones and a musical performance from Natalie Merchant. Yeah, amazing. Since you can't be here, enjoy the videos below.

My favorite ever 10, 000 Maniacs song.

Check out Lateefah Simon - who has us all in awe of her. More video of the conference to come.

You know you are in a powerful conference space when there is a buzz around you of inspiration, innovation and creativity. The concluding morning panel is a discussion with all the morning panelists about what they are getting out of the conference so far and how they do the work they do. I thought the answers about how the overcome fear were the most powerful.

What is the practice or script you use to push yourself past fear?

Sakena Yacoobi: "Every time I am walking out of my house I am taking a risk...it is my faith that carries me through, side by side."

Alberta Nells: "Spirit, tradition. Instead of wallowing in fear, I pray and go into ceremony so my fears won't happen."

Gloria Steinem: "I was too afraid to speak in public until after 30 and finally decided to speak because of the women's movement and I still was terrified, but I realized if women can't do anything fucking right anyway, might as well do as you please."

Jensine Larsen: "Still have knots in my stomach, I fear I am not doing enough. I go to my stomach and think about my sisters in the struggle around the world and trust peace and that things will happen in time."

Lateefah Simmons: "If my grandmother had a soapbox or a bullhorn, what would she do? I try and garner their strength and all the women that came before us."

I also have to appreciate that Gloria Steinem brought up the irony of us asking Alberta Nells what feminism is to indigenous movements, since indigenous resistance and practice were one of the inspirations to the women's movement in the United States, but was polluted by the legacy of colonization. "Feminism is about memory," she said, and I would add, feminism is about our collective memory and our overcoming the way we have been taught to remember to forget.

I am currently watching a panel discussion with three young leaders and each are so inspiring that I find myself repeatedly holding back tears. Jensine Larsen, Alberta Nells and Lateefah Simon have in common deep roots in community based organizing efforts and a deep connection with a spiritual force that is moving them to action.

First up, Jensine Larsen founded World Pulse an interactive media center that projects the stories of women around the world and analysis of international issues through their eyes. She believes that "pulse" symbolizes the electricity of women's voices rising around the earth. She says, "the creative human potential of women and girls is the greatest untapped resource on the earth and we can use technology and communications to connect and empower these voices." To add she says,"When women control the communications channels, they control their destiny."

There are countless examples of women having even a tiny bit of access utilizing it to share their voices, be it one computer, text, one blog or the strategic use of web 2.0 technology, she tells us. Often women don't have time to be online to blog, their husbands sitting next to the computer disallowing them from using it. She concludes with an example of a woman in Kenya that had been dying of AIDs but managed to retrieve retroviral drugs for herself and 17 other women in her village. Through the use of World Pulse and web 2.0 technology, they were able to bring her story to life and is now flown all over the world to tell her story and train other rural women in how to organize their communities. "How can I go to sleep when my country is burning and Pulse-Wire is my light?"

Up next, Alberta Nells, a young leader/organizer, Navajo organizer. Southwest organizer, her work is focused on protecting indigenous rights to land. When she found they would use recycled waste water as snow on sacred land, that is when she knew she had to speak out, "I can't allow this to happen to my people, to the teachings of my people." She speaks tenderly of her relationship with her grandmother and the power of teachings from a previous generation on how to move our people. She speaks to the power of song to organize and uplift and specifically the teachings of women. When asked about Navajo relationship with feminism, she says she doesn't understand the question as they believe in the balance between the feminine and masculine energy, or recognition of two-spirit in all of us. And concludes, "each one of us is indigenous to a different place and we must tap into that energy."

Finally, Lateefah Simon, 32 feels old as we carry the weight of our grandmothers and came to this work because of our grandmothers and mothers. Lateefah became an organizer by giving out condoms she got in her girls group in high school. It was her informal realization that this is what organizing is. She worked deeply with communities that people wouldn't touch, drug addicts, sex workers and holding them and giving them support. She understood at a young age how to raise money and build resources, "if we could battle pimps on the street, it was easy." When she realized that there was a choice to parent, she embraced the power of that choice and decided to become a radical choice organizer for the African American community. In talking about the prison industrial complex and re-entry programs she says, "human and civil rights issues are women's issues" and concludes, "of all that we have learned in our work how to do we move that power and use it in a man's world?"

I don't think this live-blog can even start to do justice to how powerful this session was. We took some video so we will be posting that as well.

Gloria Steinem was seriously bad-ass tonight. I have no idea if she reads Feministing - but in case she does...

Gloria, all the folks at Feministing would like to formally invite you to write a column for us called "Cunt Power." What do you think?

Lateefah Simon (who is amazing, btw) introduced Gloria Steinem who is one of the great speakers kicking off the conference tonight.

Steinem says that while "difference is the source of learning" and that "difference is a gift," we should focus on our shared humanity. Also, she is hilarious: apparently back in the day "studies" said that only women should type because we had the necessary motor skills to do so. Then computers came long. (Ha!)

I'm also glad that she's talking about forced sterilization as its related to reproductive justice and that racism and sexism are "intertwined and cannot be uprooted separately." Also, she mentioned the prison industrial complex - as Miriam said in her conference tweet: Rock.

My favorite line of the night: "The stereotype about young women is that they're ungrateful and inactive - this is utter bullshit."

Also: "More young women identify as feminists than older women, yet we're led to believe that the opposite is the case." Sweet.

And scary: "If only white women had voted, John McCain would be president."

And... "Is the women's movement racist? Yes, the country is racist."

And more amazing: Older women ask her if she's surprised about the way young women and dress and she responds, "well I wore miniskirts and a button that said 'cunt power,' so..."

As you may already know, the Feministing crew is in upstate New York at Omega's Women & Power conference. We'll be liveblogging a good deal of the conference's events and posting pics and videos of the amazing women participating this weekend.

We just finished up dinner (we're still recovering from the awesome chocolate cake) where we met all of the bad-ass faculty here, and waiting on tonight's speakers. More to come!

Adrienne Rich is going to be speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York on Monday, Sept. 21 at 8 pm, and the venue was gracious enough to give Feministing two free passes for a lucky reader. I'm sure most of you know about Rich, but just in case:

She was hand-picked by W.H. Auden as a poet to watch. She refused to accept the National Medal of Arts, offered to her by former President Clinton. And at age 80, she is still prolific - as evidenced by her recent book, A Human Eye: Essay on Art in Society (W.W. Norton, April 2009). She is none other than Adrienne Rich, and she will kick off the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center 's 71st season by reading select works from her vast poetry oeuvre. "...Rich is still uncannily curious and idealistic, someone who continues to struggle to understand love and life and politics and war and male aggression, and what drives us apart from one another," wrote The Forward.

When Rich won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974, for her collection Diving Into the Wreck, she refused to accept it individually. What other two poets did she join with in accepting the award on behalf of "all silenced women?"

Last week, I was lucky enough to be in the Bay Area and was invited to do my annual blog training at the YO! summer program (a project of New America Media). I have gone for the past 3 years and the students and staff never cease to amaze me. The YO summer program is in part funded by the San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and is focused on youth that have been in some way touched by the juvenile justice system. They seek to give youth skills with the hope to not only tell their stories, but to stay out of the criminal injustice system. Harris has recently come under scrutiny after having been accused of allowing "illegals" back on the street due to her support of re-entry programs. This criticism has been part of conservative attacks on spending money on rehabilitation for criminal offenders.

This year we tried something different at the summer program. In trainings in the past we have usually discussed what blogging is and how young journalists and media makers can use new media in their work. This year, Neela Banerjee, director of the program (and my BFF), asked me to focus explicitly on what it means to be blogging about gender and sexism. So that is what I did.

We started by asking the group what they perceived sexism to be. Around the board the youth answered (2 women and 3 young men) that it was pay discrimination, hiring practices and the "get back in the kitchen" attitude. They hit the nail on the head, but interestingly their perception of gender issues were ones they had not experienced themselves. When I asked them to think about the ways sexism plays out in domestic violence, sexual violence or even in popular culture, they were more reserved in their responses.

Finally, I asked them what they felt about the depiction of women in Lil' Wayne's track (see above), "Every Girl," and had them compose their own blog entries around the topic. They had to write three paragraphs where they listen to the lyrics and defend their point of view. Initially, most of the youth were stuck, debating how to write about a track critically that they enjoyed so much. I admitted myself how much I can enjoy hiphop that may not portray women that well, but can evaluate it critically while still enjoying it (at least most of the time).

It is always interesting reading what different people get out of conferences and how they apply it to the work they do. Netroots is one of those spaces that are unique in that people from all walks of life converge for something they are passionate about, something that they often don't get paid to do and something that is trying to bring some semblance of justice and accountability to our legislative process. It is this process that Feministing has given me some access to, by having such a loud megaphone to discuss issues that I think are important and I want you, the voting public, to read about.

Netroots was an interesting experience for me, but not for the same reason it may be for other bigger bloggers, or bloggers that are professional, maybe more moderate and often, don't write about their personal experiences or opinions in the way that I do. Netroots was exciting because it connected me with a subculture of people that drift around the Netroots and connect everywhere we go, constantly engaging in what we have learned thus far, how far we have come and what we can do to better incorporate the voices of our most marginalized in our coverage.

I won't lie, I was critical of how I would feel at Netroots, similar to how I am critical of many mainstream conferences that are consistently by and for a very specific subset of able-bodied, heteronormative, white, male, middle class, college educated constituency. And I was right, the conference at a cursory glance was not as diverse as say, The Allied Media Conference or the US Social Forum, or Sister Song and other spaces that foster and centralize diverse voices.

But what was notable, and made me happy to be there was to be able to connect with all the people that make my world go round and to further make our impact known in a world that has been historically dominated by certain voices. Perhaps it was the hallway conversations with Baratunde Thurston and Jill Filipovic. Or the late night drinks with Amanda Marcotte and Khari Mosley. Or bumping into Melissa Harris-Lacewell and James Perry (or rather, them catching us staring at them and admitting what big fans we are, FYI MHL loves Feministing!). Or late night eats with Davey D and Goddess Jaz. Or bumping into Biko Baker and Billy Wimsatt in front of the convention center. Or partying with Jaclyn Friedman and our very own Ann. Or hanging out with the bad-ass ladies of the Media Consortium. Or finding out that Atrios knows who I am? Or seeing a fantastic panel on Immigration coverage with Rinku Sen and Cheryl Contee and some other awesome folks and watch them call out progressive bloggers for their inability to effectively cover immigration. Or the sit down I was graciously invited to with Jerry Nadler, aka "one of the good ones." Or perhaps it was sitting on a panel with some really talented lady-bloggers and watching as people inhaled our every word, that made me realize, again and again, we need to be here.

It is easy to have our voices drowned out, even in a crowd that may have the same values as we do. But despite that reality, we cannot deny the constant murmur of justice as held by the figureheads I named above and the impact of the work they do, to not only bring diversity in the Netroots but in bringing the power of the netroots to their diverse constituents.

That is what made Netroots rock for me, and yeah, that story is not about specifics on how to change policy, how to use these tools in accountability or how to reframe the healthcare debate. But all of that is affected by the diversity of the people doing the work, and the more diverse it is, the more effective and comprehensive any change we make using new technology will be.

I am in Pittsburgh for the Netroots Nation conference. This is my first time and so far it has been filled with run-ins with some of my favorite bloggers and lefty communications folks, meeting a famous NFL players who I didn't know and his son who is running for Mayor of Pittsburgh and of course getting to know the Pittsburgh nightlife, with a quick blogger party at the Andy Warhol museum.

I am heading to my first set of panels now and don't forget if you are here to check out my panel with Jill, Amanda, Linsdey and Pam tomorrow, "Woman Bloggers Found."

If you are here, say hi and you can follow the official Netroots Nation twitter feed here and follow me on twitter at desifeminista.

Cuz I am going to be there! And I am going to be on an amazing panel of bloggers including Jill from Feministe, Amanda from Pandagon, Lindsay from Majikthise and Pam from Pandagon and Pam's House Blend.

Our panel is about feminist blogging. Shocking, I know :)

Women Bloggers Found: Has Feminist Blogging Gone Mainstream? Saturday, August 15th 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM Panel, 317 Time: Saturday, August 15th, 3:00pm - 4:15pm Room: 317

A few years ago, male bloggers 'round the liberal bloglandia were wondering out loud, "Where are the women bloggers?" Many of the women in the feminist and progressive blogospheres responded with frustration--we were there, and had been, the whole time. Today, the blogosphere looks awfully different, as feminist bloggers are increasingly mainstreamed and able to exert stronger influence on online discourse. But "blogging while feminist" isn't always easy, and feminist bloggers have faced harassment and threats that are uniquely gendered and sexualized. Feminists who have been most successful at running bigger blogs have also been mostly young, white, heterosexual and middle-class--so their issues have been presented to the mainstream progressive movement as the whole of feminism. This panel will look at what has changed, what hasn't and who remains on the edges of progressive blogging. It will also examine how female bloggers--and feminist bloggers in particular--are treated in mainstream spaces, and what we can do about it.

I am excited. I am sure I will learn a lot, but will also have a lot to say so expect live-blogging!

Are you coming to Planned Parenthood of NYC's fabulous summer fundraiser at the Museum of Sex on Thursday? If you're in or around NYC, I highly recommend going; with a silent auction, live music, VIP goodies and open bar, it's going to be quite the party. (And for a great cause!)

What's even better is that they have two tickets to give away to the first Feministing reader (and their friend) who emails me the correct answer to this reproductive rights trivia question:

New York City Public Schools require comprehensive sex education to be taught:

A. In 3rd -12th grades

D. New York City public schools do not have a mandatory sex education program

Good luck! We'll post the answer after we get our winner! And if you missed the trivia but still want to join the feminist fun, click here to buy tickets.

UPDATE: Reader Dana got the correct answer, which is D. NYC public schools actually don't have a mandatory sex ed program. Check out PPNYC's website for more info. Congrats, Dana!

The very first non-profit I worked for, Girls for Gender Equity, is having their 4th Annual Gender Equality Festival in Brooklyn on Saturday. And it's going to be quite the event.

So come network, enjoy some free entertainment, or just chill at the park on a Saturday afternoon with a kick-ass organization. Hope you New Yorkers can make it!

What do you get when you put open bar, live music, a silent auction and pro-choice activists together in the Museum of Sex? A damn good party, that's what!

Planned Parenthood of NYC is having their annual summer fundraiser on the 23rd and Feministing is happily sponsoring the jammy jam. Check out details below and come join if you live in the area and want to support the organization.

Annual 'Summer, Sex & Spirits' Fundraiser

Open Bar all night
VIP Champagne Reception
After-hours access to museum exhibits
Silent Auction
Music by Donna D'Cruz

Thursday, July 23, 2009
8:00pm-11:00pm
(7:30 - VIP champagne reception)

@
The Museum of Sex
233 Fifth Avenue, at 27th Street
New York, NY

Go here to buy tickets.

They also have a few special guests (like Bill Clinton, ahem). It's a pretty amazing program and best of all it's free. Check out the agenda here to see the great line up of speakers and panels.

In DC next week? Apply for the conference now!

PS I will be there :)

Check out some pics I took from this past weekend's amazing NYC Pride Parade. And be sure to share your stories and experiences of Pride in comments!

The 2nd US Social Forum will be in Detroit June 26, 2010. If you don't know what the US Social Forum is (shame on you! what kind of progressive are you?? ahem), learn more about it here.

Spread the info.

I'll see you there.

This is what success looks like-my teacher orientation bag, was a condom bag and yes, that is a condom with my name on it.

Yesterday was the first day of my summer class at the National Sexuality Resource Center's Summer Institute and it was awesome. If you don't know what NSRC is or what they do, check them out here, there work is truly amazing. My class is full of superstars, activists, organizers, academics, direct service professionals, writers and hip-hop heads. It is a dynamic group and I am so excited to teach the class. I will post updates on the things we discuss and hopefully get some of the students blogging on the community site as well.

The name of the course I am teaching is called, "I Am Not Who You Think I Am: Identity Politics, Activism and the Internet." I have put together a series of readings on feminism and the internet, technology and identity, racial identifications online and a lot of studies about who is actually online. It is rare I get to totally geek out on internet theory so I am pretty psyched about that.

Some key questions I am asking that I feel you as readers of mine might find interesting include:

1. What is the difference between using your own identity online verses being anonymous?


2. Do race, class, gender and sexuality differences reproduce themselves online or is the internet a free-space?


3. What does privacy mean on the internet?

People have divergent and detailed answers about all those questions, but I think for me the one that always resonates is how do race, class, gender and sexuality difference reproduce online? Many internet theorist talk extensively about how the internet is a free and democratic space, but as feminist bloggers we realize that it is a highly mediated space of privilege that is deeply influenced by market forces. The question is how does that affect what we write about and is it even possible to create social change using tools that are so complicated?

Anywhoo, I am really excited about the class and hopefully all my live-blogging won't bore you!

At long last, our five year anniversary party pictures! Thanks to Nik for the bad ass shots.

(Just as cool - the one and only Jay Smooth took video of the party as well. We're working on putting that together and getting it uploaded to the site soon!)

If you're in the Brooklyn area, don't miss our intergenerational conversation in honor of Father's Day where we'll be exploring questions like:

• How were your ideas about men and masculinity formed while growing up?
• How did men shape your thinking about your own identity as a woman?
• What is the role for men in the contemporary and future feminist movement?

It's really meant to be a dialogue, so the more folks we can pack in for their perspective, the richer the learning. Best of all, it's basically free (voluntary donation on the way in).

Deets:
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Saturday, June 20th, 2-4pm
Courtney Martin, Gloria Feldt, Deborah Siegel, and Kristal Brent Zook

And for those of you who liked Spy vs. Spy, the DJs that started the anniversary bash out right, consider ending the day lovely at Underwater Lounge in D.U.M.B.O. Brooklyn (no cover). They claim that if you show up in summer gear, they'll buy you a drink?!

Vanessa and I had the opportunity yesterday to meet with Former President Bill Clinton along with a group of fabulous bloggers to discuss his work around the Clinton Foundation including his work with his many global initiatives that deal with climate change, HIV/AIDs, health care, agriculture and education. He answered a series of questions from us on a variety of topics including health care, education, reproductive rights and even a bit on identity politics. Scott has a good post on Clinton's suggestions to push for health care reform and Chris Bowers on the climate change bill being held up currently.

Emily Douglas at RH Reality Check has a nice recap of everything he talked about including his response to her questions about reproductive rights and women.

When I asked what the Clinton Foundation does to promote women's rights and reproductive rights as a cornerstone of global economic development, Clinton observed that the "practice that has worked uniformly across all cultures and religions" to depress the birth rate, the rate of unintended pregnancies, and of abortions, is "universal access to education and universal access to the labor market for women."

"Part of the world's instability is rooted in inequality," Clinton observed.

To add to that, his consistent message was for us to push in the places we can actually affect change including on the issue of women's rights. It would have been interesting to hear what he has to say about access to reproductive health care in the United States where pushing where we will be most successful is not always an option.

Finally, it was so interesting to hear him talk about what he feels is the role of identity in politics and what I would call theories of nation building. He asked the question, "how do we build our own identity without making others look or feel bad?" in response to Armando from Talk Left asking, how do we continue to talk about diversity in the current historical moment. He said that the shift in power from oppressed to oppressor to a more interdependent form of state control allows disenfranchised greater access to the means to overthrow regimes, but is difficult to do if the tools are consistently hijacked by what he called "evil." I don't have his direct quotes, but this is what I took from what he was saying.

It was a very interesting experience and I felt honored to be alongside such amazing bloggers.

UPDATE: Another post from Eve at Daily Kos on the obstacles ahead for passing the health care bill and some other observations from the meeting.

In New York and looking for something feminist to do tonight? The Barnard Center for Research on Women is having an awesome event, Women and Work: Building Solidarity with America's Vulnerable Workers. (It's in conjunction with the National Domestic Workers Alliance Conference.)

Last year, BCRW hosted the first National Domestic Workers Alliance conference, bringing together domestic workers from across the country to develop a national agenda, and to discuss how best to educate the public and strategize to achieve fair labor standards for domestic workers, including a living wage, basic benefits, and health care. This year, we will once again host the National Domestic Workers Alliance for a conference that will discuss issues that are of particular importance to domestic workers on the East Coast. A largely invisible but supremely vital segment of the economy, domestic workers care for children and the elderly and perform domestic and housekeeping work, often making less than minimum wage and working long hours without paid sick days, vacation time, or other basic protections that most other workers in the U.S. enjoy, all the while making it possible for their employers to balance work and family. Support for domestic workers not only makes our society and economy more just, but also benefits employers who rely on the labor of others for childcare, elder care, and housekeeping in order to meet their work and family obligations. Please join BCRW and the National Domestic Workers Alliance to raise awareness on how to extend basic protections to all working women.

Monday, June 15, 7:00 pm
Held Auditorium
Barnard Hall, 3rd Floor
Barnard College
3009 Broadway (at 117th Street)

We're getting ready for our big five year bash tonight with performers, special guests, raffle prizes and all-around revelry, so posting may be cut a bit early today as we're all be traveling and preparing for the festivities.

A big warning for those who haven't bought tickets - we will be closing off online sales at noon today. After then, all tickets will be sold at the door for $5 extra each.

We can't wait to see all of you coming and will have pictures and video for folks who can't make it after the weekend! Happy 5 Year Anniversary, Us!

UPDATE: We're extending online sales to 12:30.

A note to those who are buying tickets online for our big five year bash tomorrow: you don't need a receipt or to print anything out for verification. Your name will be on a list, so just bring your bad self! (And if you bought multiple tickets, just tell your guests to mention your name at our check-in table.)

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Did we mention Kathleen Freakin' Hanna of Le Tigre is going to be at our 5 year party this Friday?

You played...you won...and here are the answers to the Feministing Trivia we had on Friday to give donated tickets away to readers.

1. When is the exact date of our anniversary?

April 12th!

2. What are the names of the two women who founded the site with Jessica and myself in 2004?

Lauryn and Hannah.

3. How many posts have we had on the Feministing Community since its launch last year?

Since its launch last June (another anniversary to celebrate!), 3,532 posts (and counting!) have been published on the community site. Woot!

Congrats to all the winners!

As the big night nears, I can't tell you how frakin' (sorry, I've been on a Battlestar Galactica marathon this week) how excited we all are to celebrate the five year mark of Feministing with our friends, readers, fellow activists and bloggers. (And for those who can't make it, only one week left until you'll never have to see these annoying reminders ever again! Yay!)

For folks coming who haven't bought your tickets yet, keep in mind that ticket prices will go up $5 at the door, so please buy your tickets online ASAP!

So we've been getting tons of donations from folks who can't make it but still wanted to support, and we're using their generosity to give away tickets to folks who want to come but whose wallets might be a little tight to spend the dough. With that being said, we've received donations for 21 free tickets to give away! Thanks so much to our generous donors. Now let the Feministing trivia begin!

The first 21 people who email me at least one correct answer to these questions will get your ticket to come party the night away with us next week. (You don't need to answer every question either!)

1. When is the exact date of our anniversary?

2. What are the names of the two women who founded the site with Jessica and myself in 2004? (Just first names are fine!)

3. How many posts have we had on the Feministing Community since its launch last year? (Whoever guesses a number within a certain range that's close enough to the correct answer will win!)

OK, full confession, I am totally not a poetry buff, but I recently received as a gift from my best friend a book of love poems written by Pablo Neruda and a poem from Cole Krawitz, "Ode to Aretha Franklin's Hat." They both reminded me of the power of poetry to move you to action, to reflect, to dream and to believe in the capabilities of yourself and your communities. My chosen form of communication to express my outrage at an unjust world has manifested through political writing, but there are multiple mediums through which activists and organizers communicate their messages, street theater, song, film, chanting and of course poetry. We choose these mediums often because mainstream media has failed us, and because we need spaces to speak our own truths.

So when lgbtq literary luminaries and fierce emerging writers come together to do an event on poetry, love, sex, politics, chisme and more, y'all know it's going to be hot. And hot it will be this Monday, June 8th when these poets, whose works testify to the many generations and stories of LGBTQ lives and experiences, hit the stage. For those of you in the Bay Area looking for some really amazing poets of the radical, queer, working class, activist, POC set, check out this event Testimonies, Chisme, Spilling the Tea: An Evening of Poetry featuring Dorothy Allison, Ching-In Chen, Elana Dykewomon, Rigoberto González, Eloise Klein Healy, Cole Krawitz, D.A. Powell, Ely Shipley & Griselda Suárez, and will be hosted by Jewelle Gomez.

Did we mention we're having a huge effing party next month?

Sincere apologies to our regular readers for the repetition of this reminder. And for those who don't know about our upcoming 5 Year Anniversary Fundraiser, check out our announcement post and party page to buy tickets.

If you're in the NYC area, Jessica will be at Bluestockings this Sunday at 7pm for a reading and discussion about The Purity Myth. Come by!

We've sold many tickets already for our huge anniversary bash next month (a big heartfelt thanks to all who have bought tickets or donated!) but we still need to fill up the space, so buy/donate your tickets if you haven't already!

If you don't know what "donating a ticket" means, we'll soon be holding an online raffle of sorts on the site to give away tickets that have been donated by supporters who can't attend but wanted to contribute, so that folks who may not be able to spend the money on a ticket can still come and party with us! Stay tuned.

For those who can support Feministing, do so here and buy a ticket. You can also RSVP on Facebook.

We hope you're as excited as we are!

Just a friendly reminder, folks; they're selling fast!

Just a reminder that I'll be doing a reading from The Purity Myth tonight at Revolution Books in Berkeley. Come and say hi if you're in the area! (RSVP to the event on Facebook.)

For other feminist events, don't forget to check out our calendar.

This is big, folks. On June 12th in New York City, we're holding the biggest bash we've ever had in celebration of our five year anniversary and in efforts to fundraise for the blog.

Because of the recession, we've lost a lot of dough in advertising (as most blogs have), so we're putting together a huge Feministing fundraiser for readers, friends and feminists alike to have some cocktails, enjoy some great entertainment, and help support the site and its growth. As longtime readers may already know, we blogged for free during the first four years Feministing existed, and only in the last six months had begun to dip into our ad revenue to pay ourselves small stipends and spend the money in more ways to make Feministing the best blog it can possibly be.

With that being said, we know that times aren't easy for everyone else either, so this party is going to be worth the price, we promise! We're going to have drink tickets, light bites and a fantastic line-up of entertainment and special guests, including:

The famous and fabulous Mr. Showbiz, Murray Hill! (swoon!)

Awesome indie band, BoySkout

Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls camper band, Saffire

DJ Tikka Masala will be bringing us some great hip hop beats

A special guest appearance by the amazing almighty Kathleen Hanna of Le Tigre and Bikini Kill! (full blown pass out)

This is our first big fundraising event ever, so please spread the word, buy tickets, and come party with us! And for folks who can't make it, you can still buy tickets for us to raffle off on the site to readers who can attend but may not be able to afford a ticket.

Click here for party details and tickets!

Click here for our Facebook event.

P.S. This was a huge upset for us while planning the party, but the venue we're holding the party at doesn't allow folks under 21 years old. We tried our very best, but it's very difficult to find a space that's affordable and big enough in the city that has the permit to do that. So in response, our next month's NYC happy hour is going to be a special one specifically for our under 21+ readers - because we know that you largely make this site what it is. More details to come.

Just a reminder for folks in and around New York that we're having our monthly happy hour tonight - and as an extra special bonus, are celebrating the release of Jessica's new book, The Purity Myth.

Check out deets here and RSVP to our Facebook event! Hope you can make it.

Hey West-Coasters, I'll be doing a reading of The Purity Myth next week at Revolution books. Come by and say hello!

Wednesday, May 6
7pm
Revolution Books
2425 Channing Way
Berkeley, CA

RSVP on Facebook.

Today is the National Day of Silence, which brings attention to LGBT bullying and harassment in schools. Some folks are tweeting, some are pledging their support and just generally getting involved.

Are you participating?

For a history of the Day of Silence, click here.

The anglerfish on the Community blog has more.

Our next NYC Feministing Happy Hour comes with an extra special addition - it's also Jessica's book party for the newly released The Purity Myth. Come celebrate with us!

Yeah yeah, we know it's a Monday, but at least it's something to look forward to on a Monday (for a change)! RSVP to our Facebook event here.

As you know, yesterday was our 5 year anniversary. And oh, have we got a celebration in store for you.

Special guests. Live entertainment. Feminist madness. To be held in NYC - more details to follow.

We don't know how we missed this! The first Global Symposium on Engaging Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality took place this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, concluding today. One of the things that came out of the conference was a Declaration and Call to Action. Here's a snippet:

We come from eighty countries. We are men and women, young and old, working side by side with respect and shared goals. We are active in community organizations, religious and educational institutions; we are representatives of governments, NGOs and the United Nations. We speak many languages, we look like the diverse peoples of the world and carry their diverse beliefs and religions, cultures, physical abilities, and sexual and gender identities. We are indigenous peoples, immigrants, and ones whose ancestors moved across the planet. We are fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, brothers and sisters, partners and lovers, husbands and wives.

What unites us is our strong outrage at the inequality that still plagues the lives of women and girls, and the self-destructive demands we put on boys and men. But even more so, what brings us together here is a powerful sense of hope, expectation, and possibility for we have seen the capacity of men and boys to change, to care, to cherish, to love passionately, and to work for justice for all.

While I've seen so many great local efforts by men working towards gender equality (like on college campuses, in organizational programs, etc.), to see activism on a global level like this is incredible. Check out the rest.

This is really cool, WAM is being covered live on twitter and you can follow the action. I am posting the widget here so even if you are not here you can see what everyone is talking about.

Sitting in an all-star panel at WAM 09 called In/Out of Focus, Broadening a Feminist Lens: Gender, Non-Conformity and the Media including our very own Miriam, Julia Serano, Jack Aponte and Kate Bovitch. It is excellent. They are discussing the different ways that gender variance intersects with feminism, femininity and the idea of woman and its relationship to identity based movement building. Also, what is the role of gender variance in media production and best practices on how to write about trans, gender non-conforming and gender variant community. Follow the discussion on twitter here. I am not even capturing the half of it, this panel is amazing.

It is clear that we have been in Austin for 6 days, I have lost my voice and we may have lost our minds. But please enjoy our take on being feminists at SXSW.

Check out our other posts on SXSW music and SXSW Interactive if you haven't already.

Full transcript after the jump.

So we are in the music portion of SXSW and Ann and I are having a blast. The city has gone wild and there is so much live music it is a little overwhelming. I am discovering tons of music and checking out things that I already love.

Of all the bands we saw yesterday and last night, I think Ann and I were most excited and taken aback by female MC Rye Rye. She is 17, from Baltimore, has a female DJ (who is basically the rebirth of Spindarella) and two back-up dancers who come out and dance during the chorus of her tracks. It is an amazing show.

Young, independent, confident women of color tearing it up. That is something I can get behind.

Other music I am checking out includes, King Kahn and the Shrines, Toki Wright, Janelle Monae, Jean Grae, Kid Cudi and an encore show from Rye Rye. I am so not ready.

Check out this free panel, Girls, Girls, Girls: Girlhood in America, a week from today, at The New School. I'm geeking out a little bit that I'm going to share the stage with rockstar Kathleen Hanna:

Plus, my friend Felice is going to talk about the invisibility of women artists in reality television, Rock of Love, and Fame. How could you miss that? (Unless you live in Boise, in which case, I totally understand. hehe).

The deets:
THURSDAY, MARCH 26TH, 6-9 PM
WOLLMAN HALL, 66 W. 11TH ST., 5TH FLOOR

Complete bios after the jump.

Having an Iphone has made these last few days in Austin a lot easier. Between the GPS and the scheduling function that SXSW has set up, I haven't been lost (unless I don't have service.) I understand I am very, very lucky to have an Iphone. I saved up for it and didn't splurge on other things, along with having a phone with an antenna (!) until a few months ago. Needless to say, similar to Nezua, I really love my Iphone.

If you are a nerd, like me, you have heard that the Iphone has released a new version of their Iphone software. It is going to add a whole new list of features that the current software fails to have. I am really excited about these new features. But as much as I love my Iphone, I have never thought seriously about having sex with my Iphone. I am going to be totally honest with you. Sometimes I want to make-out with my Iphone-it is just simply a divine piece of technology-but I haven't personally thought about using it as a vibrator or as device to have phone sex with someone.

These authors disagree. Both, My Sexy Professor and Gizmodo are discussing different ways you can have sex with your Iphone. Last year at SXSW I wrote about a panel that discussed the ways that humans interact with technology to have sex. I think this brings up really interesting questions about the role of technology in our sex lives. Generally, discussions of the role of technology (and by this I mean in the geek world, not dildonics) is generally skewed towards male sexuality (teledildonics, pornography, etc) but does the Iphone allow for a new more female centric form of sex via technology that the geek world has ignored until now?

Come to the Village Pourhouse tonight to rock out with the Feministing gals and support the kick-ass women of Girls for Gender Equity; 20% of the bar sales will go to the organization.

Feministing Happy Hour - GGE Edition

@ The Village Pourhouse

64 3rd Ave (and 11th St), New York, NY 10003

Wednesday, March 18th, 6:00pm-9:00pm

Happy hour specials until 7pm!

Hope you can make it! Also RSVP to our Facebook event here.

The Omega Women's Institute is holding an intergenerational women's conference for some thought-provoking panels and inspirational dialogue this coming fall, and we are incredibly stoked about it. So stoked, in fact, that we're teaming up with them to help spark some discussion in the blogosphere pre-conference as well as liveblog the actual conference for Feministing readers (and feminists worldwide!) to enjoy.

The unique thing about Women and Power: Connecting Across the Generations is that it will be coming out of the Omega Institute, which is one of the longest running centers on spiritual growth in this country. It was co-founded by feminist Elizabeth Lesser in 1977 and, as such, it has continuously been at the forefront of linking the personal and the political. We're excited to see the ways in which the Omega approach infuses the often disappointing dialogue on intergenerational feminism with the depth and complexity it deserves.

From now until the conference, the Institute and ourselves will be bringing you guest posts and other updates to foster some pre-conference discussion and give you more of an idea of what to expect on the conference weekend, September 11-13th. In the meantime, check out more info here and you can find all Omega-related updates on Feministing here.

I think it can be said that the Feministing/Pandagon Happy Hour was the best party at SXSW Interactive. We schmoozed, boozed, talked feminism and technology and more importantly got DOWN with some karaoke. Here are some pics from the party and sorry for the slow posting, our internet access has been spotty. Thanks for everyone that came out and note the picture of Amanda Marcotte singing "Lola" and Cecily singing "Heartbreaker" after the jump.

It's been interesting to note how many panels here at South By Southwest Interactive have a gender/sexism angle. On Saturday, Samhita and I caught a panel on the web and feminism with Heather Gold, Julia Angwin, Betty Flowers (director of the LBJ presidential library), and Danah Boyd. Boyd had some great thoughts on privilege and gender online, and we recorded some audio, which I'll post tomorrow.

Also, on Sunday, the awesome Liz Henry was kind enough to take super-detailed notes at Samhita, Amanda, Cecily and my panel about combating online misogyny. Her almost-transcript is here. A sample:

Ann: 6 of us who write on Feministing and we can all each other up and go "i know people say mean shit all the time but this one really got to me!" and we all know how it feels. sometimes you have to decide what is a good public fight to have, vs. "you just want to call me ugly and tell me to make you a sandwich" i know it sounds ridiculous but it is hard to tell the difference sometimes! we need help in figuring that out, when to engage and when not to. you can engage with people who just don't get it. But Feministing is on our terms. we don't like it, we can delete your comment. we can respond to just part of what you're saying and ignore the rest. or we can have a full blown back and forth, having a community to help decide and talk about how to engage has been crucial

Amanda: the purpose is to shut you up and if they don't get what they want, they stop trying to shut you up, the more I don't go away, and don't shut up, the less harassment i get. just go out there and write every day and eventually they will give up. it's not working, it's straight up behavioral science.

Cecily: these tools that help us to get our voices out there, also hurt us. social networking tools.

Samhita: Twitter is a very useful tool. Communities, we have different community that comments on our youtube videos, twitter is another micro group environment and you get to know people a different way. That's very powerful. I've had friends on my twitter feed who in the blogging worlds we have knock down "your mama" fights but on twitter I'm like "Oh you do yoga? i do yoga toooo!" lol. It's less serious, less formal, commenting on Feministing can feel very formal.

Still hoping we'll have audio/video from the panel shortly.

Right now there's a panel going on about Obama and the afrosphere. You can watch the livestream here.

Oh, and remember, our happy hour with Pandagon is TONIGHT. If you're in Austin, stop by! Who doesn't love feminists taking over a bar and rocking the karaoke machine?

Previous SXSW posts:
SXSW 2009: Can Social Media End Racism?
Beating Down Online Misogyny: Links

More to come...

Sitting in the panel right after ours at SXSW, "Can Social Media End Racism" and all of the panelists have agreed that social media cannot end racism, but is in fact a powerful tool to support in our overall goal to end racism. The panel is full of heavy hitters including, Kety Esquivel, Latoya Peterson from Racialicious, Jay Smooth from Illdoctrine and Phil Yu from Angry Asian Man. Latoya breaks it down that social media can help end racism by 1) spreading knowledge, 2) creating refuge, 3) mobilizing communities.

The audience seems deeply engaged with the content matter which is critical for SXSW. I am really happy this panel is following ours creating a deep and complex narrative around different ways that we as cultural and political workers and thought producers counteract narratives of race and gender.

Check the live twitter stream here.

Samhita and I just finished our SXSW panel with Amanda from Pandagon and Cecily Walker! Had a great conversation Will post video and more later today. In the meantime, check out the panel discussion on Twitter (#misosxsw).

As promised, here are a few links for additional info on the stuff that we discussed today:

University of Maryland: Female-Name Chat Users Get 25 Times More Malicious Messages

Jessica Valenti: How the web became a sexists' paradise

Take Back the Tech

Wikipedia: Disemvoweling (via epc on Twitter)

Feministe: AutoAdmit sued

Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog: Kill-filing repeatedly abusive commentors

Salon: Men who hate women on the Web

Ada Lovelace Day: "an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology" (via girlonetrack on Twitter)

Now we're watching a panel on social media and racism featuring Latoya from Racialicious, Kety from the Sanctuary, Jay Smooth from Ill Doctrine, and Phil from Angry Asian Man. (On Twitter, #racesxsw.)

More from SXSW later. And if you're here in Austin, come to our happy hour with Pandagon on Monday night! More info here.

I am finishing up the last of my packing to head to the airport to go to Austin, TX for the Annual SXSW Conference with Ann. We are going to rock it in Feministing style and don't worry, we will rep all of you that can't be there. If you are there, hit us up to say hello. You can follow me and Ann on twitter to get live updates of panels and web-star celeb sightings (haha.).

Finally, don't forget about our panel on Sunday morning, "That's Not My Name: Beating down Online Misogyny," the Feministing/Pandagon happy hour on Monday (that you don't need a badge to get into!) and please check back for liveblogging. I always find myself very inspired at SXSW, so I am excited to see what I will learn this year.

I can't wait. *squeal*

I've written a bit about my awesome road show of intergenerational feminists before:

I have had so many conversations with veteran feminists that have left me feeling like I am part of a vast and beautiful history, like I am one more radical thinker in a paradigm-shifting tradition. Most often, these are conversations that acknowledge our complexities.

For example, Gloria Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood who is in her 60s, challenged me on stage at one of our recent panels about my choice to support Obama. "Courtney, I'd love to hear from you on this," she began, then asked if I was worried about losing the potential to influence political leaders if a unified "women's vote" proved impossible to coalesce. A great question. I gave my most earnest answer -- that I think women, like men, are diverse and will never vote as a bloc.

I learned from the exchange (which was part of an ongoing dialogue Feldt and I have been having on stage and off) and felt like my perspective was respected and my thinking refined. I know that Feldt may not agree with all of my choices, that some of them might even disappoint or irritate her, but that she sees them in the context of who I am as a whole person, as a complex feminist.

We're hitting the stage again next week (co-sponsored by 85 Broads and the Women's Media Center): The deets:

Who: Me, Gloria Feldt, Deborah Siegel, and Elizabeth Hines (who is subbing for Kristal and is AWESOME!)
When: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 @ 7pm
Where: The 92nd Street Y-Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street
For more info.

And for those of you who aren't in NYC, we travel! Let us know if you'd like to bring us to your school, community center, or backyard BBQ. Intergenerational feminists love BBQ.

In light of my upcoming panel at SXSW, I was graciously interviewed by Belinda Acosta of the Austin Chronicle with two other panelists, Latoya Peterson and Steve Swedler, about social justice, activism, changing people's minds and the internet.

A snippet from the Austin Chronicle story,

AC: From your perspective, what is the "revolution"? What role do online communities and social networks play in it? What role do you play in it?

Peterson: All revolutions should be revolutions of thought - an ongoing evolution of ideas, the encouragement of the critical thinking process, the willingness to look past things that keep us stagnant and will allow us all to move forward. I have been re-evaluating my whole purpose for being online recently and I ultimately came to the conclusion that I want to facilitate conversations and spread information. I feel like that is the most powerful thing you can do - to provide someone with an argument or an idea they can mull over, accept or reject ... or revisit later.

Mukhopadhyay: I think a revolution can only happen with changes in mindset, yes, but also strategic campaigns using grassroots organizing models. ... But even prior to that, I think changing people's minds is important work with respect to policy change, I just don't know if blogging does that. Changing people's minds is hard and I'm not sure if it just allows people to debate and if not, reify what they believe. On the other hand, I get tons of [e-mails] from women that have never heard about the things we write about at Feministing [saying] how it truly changed their lives.

Swedler: In my opinion, the "revolution" is undefined. It is up to every individual. My revolution might be very different than yours, but online communities can only be as effective as you make them. The level of discomfort in getting up on your soapbox on Facebook or Twitter is equal to the extent you are willing to go to make a difference in your "revolution." It can be difficult to be sure, evidenced by the complete lack of McCain support on Twitter. Is it because no one on Twitter voted for him, or was it because it was too uncomfortable to speak out in the vast sea of Obama supporters?

This interview really got me to thinking about the role of new media and political blogging in changing people's minds about different issues. I think this is one of those trends that is really hard to quantify. Does blogging raise awareness, get people on board with critical decisions and therefore impact policy changes?

I have found that blogging has led to an increase at the rate at which information can flow and the way in which people can intercept with ideas, that traditionally may have been more difficult to access and interact with. But as Steve mentions early in his interview, there are still more people off the internet than on. Outside of mobilizing my own personal voice and that of my co-bloggers and commenters, does blogging do more than give voice to issues and certain people? Does blogging change people's minds? Or does it just allow people to debate more about issues they already feel a certain way on? What do you as members of our community, commenters and/or lurkers and readers think?

Our next NYC Happy Hour is a very special one for Women's History Month.

The Village Pourhouse is having a fundraiser for Girls for Gender Equity, a fantastic organization I had the honor of working for back in the day. They're one of the fabulous grassroots organizations out there working on the ground to improve girls' lives in low-income communities in NYC, and 20% of the bar sales that night will go towards their efforts.

Feministing Happy Hour - GGE Edition

@ The Village Pourhouse

64 3rd Ave (and 11th St), New York, NY 10003

Wednesday, March 18th, 6:00pm-9:00pm

Happy hour specials until 7pm!

Hope you can make it! RSVP to our Facebook event here.

Happy March, y'all. Just in case you haven't been keeping up with the events calendar, check out all of the great events on tap around the country. (They're listed below by date and location, to make things easier. Check the events calendar for more details on all events below.)

March 5
New York, NY: Commemorate the 1969 Abortion Speakout
New York, NY: The Lonely Soldier Monologue
College Park, MD: How are Women Affected by the War on Drugs?
Columbia, MO: Women's Health Gathering

March 6
Chicago, IL: Chicago Feminisms: Past, Present and Future
Newark, NJ: The Gender Dimensions of Terrorism: How Terrorism Impacts the Lives of Women
San Francisco, CA: National Lesbian Health Summit (through March 8)

March 7
Ithaca, NY: Summit on Women's Issues in Global Health & Development
Bangalore, India: Protest the attacks on women in Karnataka. Here's a list of events happening on March 7 and 8. If you can't make it in person, participate in a Pink Chaddi event in your town.

March 8
International Women's Day! What are you doing? Also, from the community blog, check out this list of events in Canada.

March 11
New York, NY: Susie Orbach: Loving Our Bodies

March 12
Columbia, MO: Latina Visual Artists and the Politics of Everyday Aesthetics

March 15
Austin, TX: That's Not My Name: Beating Down Online Misogyny (panel discussion at SXSW featuring me and Samhita, as well as Amanda from Pandagon)

March 16
Austin, TX: Feministing/Pandagon SXSW Happy Hour!
Kirksville, MO: Pap Art exhibition

March 18
Austin, TX: Bitch Magazine party at SXSW

March 21
Washington, DC: National Young Women's Leadership Conference: From Campus to Congress

March 24
Atlanta, GA: Motherhood at the Intersection of Race and Class: A Keynote Address for Women's History Month

March 25
Atlanta, GA: Legislate THIS! Reproductive Justice Now

March 27
Cambridge, MA: Women, Action and the Media (WAM) Conference www.wam2009.org

Again, check out the calendar for more info on all these events. And remember that our calendar is only as good as you make it -- we rely on your event submissions!

Click here to submit an event.

Ann and I are traveling to Austin next week for the annual SXSW conference. We are presenting at SXSW Interactive on panel titled, "That's Not My Name: Beating Down Online Misogyny." If you are going to be at the conference, please come check us out!

And for those of you both that will be at the conference and those of you that are in the Austin area, we are joining forces for one night with Pandagon to have the ultimate feminist blog extravaganza. This event is before the music festival starts so you do NOT need a badge to get in.

Don't sleep on this. Come say hi, have a drink, talk feminism, technology and whatever else you want. And if you *really* want to party, stay after for the karaoke that starts at 10pm.

Monday, March 16, 2009
7:00pm-12:00am
Beerland
711 Red River ST
Austin, TX

If you are on Facebook you can RSVP here.

PS: Ann and I are also staying for music and plan to be at the Bitch/KRS party on Wednesday. Let us know of any other feminist friendly events we should show up to!

Yesterday marked the start of the 53rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. I have to say, I miss working in the international sphere, and CSW was one of my favorite events. (If you want a history of CSW, click here.)

This year, the priority theme being discussed is "The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS."

From UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro's opening remarks yesterday:

Imbalances and inequalities in the sharing of responsibilities between women and men persist in both the private and public spheres, and in relation to both paid and unpaid work. Most domestic and care work, for example, is done by women and girls in developed and developing countries alike.

As a result, women face restrictions in employment, education and training, and in participation in public life. And men are constrained in playing an active part in the lives of their families. Families, communities and society as a whole suffer the consequences.

The HIV and AIDS pandemic has illustrated clearly that a range of stakeholders -- including the State, private sector and civil society -- must play a role in caring for people. This is an urgent task that requires a comprehensive approach.

If you're in New York and interested in CSW, you need not be working for a NGO or the UN to get involved. All week, parallel events are being held that are open to the public. For example, this Friday at Barnard College, the UNRISD Gender and Development Programme is holding a conference, "The Political & Social Economics of Care." (I'll def be there; it looks really interesting, plus a friend of mine organized it.)

If you're not in New York, you can follow along with CSW on the UN's Women Watch website.

Thanks to votes from many of you, some of the Feministing ladies (myself and Ann) and Amanda Marcotte from Pandagon and moderated by Cecily Walker will be on a panel at SXSWi, called "That's Not My Name: Beating Down Online Misogyny." If you are going to be in town please come through and say hello!

Needless to say, online misogyny is a topic we deal with regularly and it is a condition that we face online. Despite our ability to move towards a more free space where we can voice our opinions, we are consistently threated by emails, commenters and on other blogs and videos, with sexualized violence or we are just plain ridiculed for speaking in ways that disrupt sexual imbalances of power.

Our panel is going to focus not only stories of our own experiences with online misogyny but ways we have overcome it and best practices for other political and feminist bloggers on how to maintain your identity and politics in a hostile climate.

I am on this week's RH Reality Check podcast talking extensively about this topic. Check it out!

Looking for some fun feminist activities? Make sure to check out the Feministing Calendar. Some upcoming events....

Tomorrow
Yes Means Yes reading in Cambridge, MA
6pm, Cambridge YMCA Theater, hosted by Center for New Words
You'll get to hear from me, Jaclyn Friedman plus fantastic contributors Kate Harding and Toni Amato.

Feb 2
You're Invited to Talk About Choice in Alexandria, VA
7pm, Durant Center, 1605 Cameron Street
Join NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia for an activist training where you'll learn strategies for effectively talking about your pro-choice values - to your friends, neighbors, and even legislators.
RSVP to Gwen at gemmons@naralva.org.

Athens Boys Choir at MU in Columbia, MO
8:00pm, University of Missouri, Neff Auditorium on the Quad
Athens Boys Choir, aka solo hip hop, spoken-word artist Harvey Katz, will bring his witty, gender bending wordplay to Mizzou. Athens Boys Choir has been touring nationally since 2003, releasing four albums along the way. This show is free and open to the public .

Both the LA and SF happy hours were a tremendous success and thanks to everyone that came through! You are what makes it worth it to blog and it is so flattering and impressive that so many of you not only read and keep up with feminist news, but are so supportive and actually come out to meet and greet. I will definitely continue to have parties when I am visiting your city! And a special thanks to the staff at Lazlo and Akbar who were amazingly hospitable and both great places to have feminist meet-ups!

Some pics (and apologies for not getting names, so please please put them in comments!)

Bay Area Feministing Happy Hour

Sorry ladies, you know I had to put this picture up!

More after the jump!

There are a ton of great events listed on our new calendar...here are a few that are happening tonight!

"This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor"
05:30 PM to 08:30 PM
Trinity Cathedral Commons
Cleveland, OH

Screening of Speak Out: I Had an Abortion
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
07:00 PM to 10:00 PM
People's Lounge
New York, NY

For full details, check out the calendar. Add you own event in here.

So you probably already know where you are going for tonight's festivities. And while many of us are cynics and we still have a lot of work ahead of us-tonight we have a lot to celebrate. So please consider this a party open thread and promote your inauguration event!

Where will I be? I am currently in LA and I am attending, "Obamas and Beer!"

Details:
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 6:00pm
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 2:00am
Senor Fish
422 E. 1st Street
Los Angeles, CA

Where are you going to be?

Today is the day! What are you doing?

Image via Jack and Jill Politics.

I am in the LA area and myself and a couple of Feministing readers are getting together. If you haven't heard here are the details and please stop by if you are in the area!

Monday, January 19, 2009
7:00pm - 10:00pm
Akbar
4635 Sunset BLVD
Los Angeles, CA

Happy Birthday, Dr. King.

More at Jack and Jill Politics, NewsOne, The Kitchen Table and Gothamist, which has MLK Day events from around NYC. Also, if you've never watched this, you should.

That's right! If you are in the Bay Area or in LA come say hi to me. I will be having 2 happy hours to celebrate in a time when we could all use some laughs, drinks and like-minded folks around us. So please come join me.

Bay Area Feministing Happy Hour
Date: January 16th
Time: 6-9pm
Place: Lazlo
2526 Mission ST
San Francisco, CA 94110
RSVP on Facebook and invite your friends!

LA Feministing Happy Hour
Date: January 19th
Time: 7-10pm
Place: Akbar
4635 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
RSVP on Facebook and invite your friends!

Let's meet, greet, chat and feminist!

More Yes Means Yes this week!

This time in Philly, tonight at Robin's Bookstore. Come check it out if you're in town. Also, Robin's is closing down next month (after 73 years!) so you can visit the store for one of the last times.

Robin's Bookstore, 6pm
108 S. 13th St, Philadelphia PA 19107

Jessica and I will be there along with Jaclyn and contributor Hanne Blank. Hope to see you!

My writer's group and I will be hosting a panel next week that I wanted to make sure the feministing community was aware of, since it seems like many of our readers and contributors are weathering the ups and downs of a freelance lifestyle:

How to be a Professional Writer, Create Community and Still Pay Your Rent

Yes, it IS possible for writers to succeed in New York. By cobbling together their passions, and supplementing their income with teaching, speaking, editing, consulting and blogging gigs, our panel of five young New Yorkers have been able to make it as writers - and still pay the rent.

Acclaimed writer Courtney E. Martin (Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters) will be joined by journalist Kate Torgovnick (Cheer!), author and performer Kimmi Auerbach, author Theo Gangi (Bang bang) and author Joie Jager-Hyman (Fat Envelope Frenzy). The writers will give you the real deal on issues like creating and maintaining a writing group (check out theirs at http://www.crucialminutiae.com), successful pitching and networking, the highs and lows of the freelance lifestyle, transitioning from a traditional job to the self-employed lifestyle and much, much more.

Date & Time: Wed, Jan 21, 2009, 7:30pm
Location: 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street Directions

Get a ticket here.

Photo by Ilana Panich-Linsman

If you're in New York and missed Monday's reading at Bluestockings, you should come down to KGB bar for the Yes Means Yes launch party!

7 to 10pm
KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street

I'll be there with Jaclyn Friedman and contributors Jill Filipovic, Brad Perry, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Anastasia Higginbotham & Thomas Millar.

Hope to see you there!

I'll be at Bluestockings bookstore tonight reading from Yes Means Yes, along with my co-editor Jaclyn Friedman, writer Anastasia Higginbotham and Jill Filipovic of Feministe fame. Come and say hi!

Bluestockings
172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington
7-9pm

(But of course, if you've checked out our brand spanking new calendar, you already knew all this.)

I'm super excited to announce the launch of our latest site tool - an events calendar! We get so many requests for posts on organizations' events, we figured it was about time we gave activists, orgs, and Feministing readers a place where they can promote their event easily. Anyone who is registered on the site can post to the calendar.

So now we not only have a separate calendar page, but we're also listing upcoming events in the right sidebar. (Check out, for example, my reading tonight at Bluestockings or Planned Parenthood's Bon Voyage Bush Bash!) And adding an event is super easy. Just enter your information, and a Feministing editor will approve it that day - much in the same way Community posts are approved.

This doesn't mean that we'll stop promoting events on the main page - but we wanted to ensure that anyone who had an event to share could do so.

So please try it out and let us know what you think!

If you have any trouble using the calendar/events page, please feel free to email me; just put "events" in the subject line.

Just in case you didn't know...today is blog for Lesbian Health Day! Folks are blogging as a lead up to the National Lesbian Health Summit.

The summit will take place March 6-8, 2009 in San Francisco and its goal is "to rebuild a multi-issue, multicultural women's health movement focused on long-term strategic goals for lesbian/bi/queer women's health and wellness that is reflective of the diversity of our community."

Here are some of the pics that my fella and friend Kimmi took at our awesome feministing holiday party in NYC last Friday. Thanks to everyone that came out. It was so much fun to meet so many readers and reunite with old buddies.

Apparently I really like listening to Vanessa

Yes, balloon animals were involved. And it's a sword you dirty birds.

Don't worry. He knows them.

More after the jump.

We're stoked for our Feministing Holiday Happy Hour tonight at Lolita, and hope all you New Yorkers can make it out to celebrate (or subvert) the holidays with the Feministing crew. Party starts at 7 pm.

Check out our facebook event page too for more details; we're expecting a great turnout!

Our lovely readers in LA are having a Feministing Holiday Happy Hour next week to benefit SAFER, an amazing organization that fights against sexual assault on college campuses. Here's a bit of info:

Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER) provides organizing training and support to college and university students so that they can win improvements to their schools' sexual assault prevention and response activities. By offering students the necessary support and resources, confidence-building and leadership training, SAFER empowers student activists to rally the community and push school administrations to take action.

We're bummed we can't make it, but we'll be there in (holiday) spirit! Check out their community post for details, and check out the facebook event.

Hey all, I'll be speaking at Brown University tonight - the amazing folks at Students for Choice are bringing me out!

The event is free and open to the public: MacMillan 117 (Starr Auditorium), 8PM

All the relevant info is also on Facebook. Hope to see you there!

For all of you NYC folk, we hope you'll join us December 12th for some feminist holiday fun at our annual Holiday Happy Hour.

We have much to look forward to this coming year, and would love nothing more than to share in the Feministing yuletide with our dear friends and readers. We hope you can make it! (Facebooker? RSVP on our event page!)

NYC Feministing Holiday Happy Hour
@ Lolita
266 Broome Street
New York, NY 10002
(between Allen and Orchard Street)

Friday, December 12th - 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Happy Hour until 8 p.m. - $3 well drinks and draft beer, $5 mojitos

The late Herb Ritts' piece with Derek and Drew Riker.

I went to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) OUTAuction 2008 earlier this week, and it was pretty damn awesome. In fact, it was so awesome it raised over $135,000!

I've always been a huge fan of (and occasional attempted maker of) art, so this was quite the treat for me. While the auction had pieces by the famous Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, some of the newer artists were pretty phenomenal. Check out the winners of the Best Emerging Artists on GLAAD's blog.

Last week I had the good fortune of going to see the play, "Angry Black White Boy," based on the Adam Mansbach novel of the same title at the Intersection of the Arts. If you are in the Bay Area, I strongly recommend you try and check it out. It is pay what you can on Thursdays.

It looks into the world of a young white man from the suburbs who becomes obsessed with black culture and overturning racism, only to find out that it in an effort to make whites pay for historical racism, he ends up caught in a self serving cycle. And watches the world around him collapse around his poorly thought out, yet bizarrely revolutionary, racial awareness.

It is excellent and if you are not in the Bay, pick up the book. That is what I am going to do.

I'm sorry to say that the event I publicized this week, an interview I was doing with writer Marilyn French at NYC's Tenement Museum, has been canceled. So sorry for any inconvenience this may cause folks who were planning on coming!

Hey NYC folks! I'm going to be interviewing Marilyn French tomorrow at the Tenement Museum about her new book. Info is below; hope to see you there!

Tenement Talks presents...

Wednesday, November 19 at 6:30 PM
From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World
A Conversation with Marilyn French and Jessica Valenti

Tenement Museum Shop
108 Orchard Street (Delancey)
221-982-8420; events@tenement.org
Free - seating is first come, first serve

Hope you can make it!

Racialicious and Feministing Happy Hour:

When: Tuesday, Nov. 18, 5:30pm - 8:00pm
Where: Chi Cha Lounge, 1624 U St NW, Washington, DC

Facebook event here.

For those of you in the DC area, Racialicious editor Latoya Peterson and Miriam and I are co-hosting a happy hour on Tuesday! The details:

When: Tuesday, Nov. 18, 5:30pm - 8:00pm
Where: Chi Cha Lounge, 1624 U St NW, Washington, DC

RSVP on Facebook here, or just show up. Should be super fun.

On November 15, cities in every state will host protests of the same-sex marriage bans in California, Florida and Arizona, and the unmarried-couple adoption ban in Arkansas.

Click here to find out where/when to protest in your state.

And New Yorkers, protest Prop 8 today:

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Time: 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Location: New York Manhattan Mormon Temple
Street: 125 Columbus Ave at 65th Street
City/Town: New York, NY

The Women's International Perspective, a young online news site, will be presenting a free event tonight that looks really fascinating. I'm out of town, so I can't go, but I can live vicariously. Details below:

What: Women as Social, Political and Economic Agents of Change

When: November 6th at 7:30pm

Where: Millbank Chapel, 525 W. 120th Street, New York, NY

Who: Monisha Bajaj, Leymah Roberta Gbowee, Gloriana Guillen, Nomi Prins

For more info.

I know it seems impossible to think about after the election... but the Center for New Words is hosting an awesome post-election event on Wednesday:

 
The Day After: A Feminist Town Forum
Wednesday, November 5 @ 7:00PM

PARTICIPATE IN PERSON: Cambridge Family YMCA, 820 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

PARTICIPATE ONLINE IN REAL TIME: Participate by logging on 11/5 at 7PM EST to any of our participating blogs, including Feministe, Feministing, Girl with Pen, WIMN's Voices, No Cookies for Me, Writes Like She Talks, Heartfeldt Politics, TakePart, or at our mogulus channel.

It's been a long election season, and now it's time to come together to figure out what it all means and what's next.

At this culmination of our This Is What Women Want election project, please join us, our panel of national leaders and the feminist community nationwide to discuss what happened on Election Day, and what we should be thinking about and doing now to fight for equality and justice for all.

This is a first of its kind event convening feminists from around the country live via the blogosphere! Watch live, converse with other audience members around the country and submit your comments and questions in real time.

Panelists will include:

BYLLYE AVERY: Founder of the National Black Women's Health Project and MacArthur Genius Award Recipient

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Journalist and author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism

ANNE ELIZABETH MOORE: Critic, activist, artist, journalist and author

PAULA RAYMAN: Founding Director of the Radcliffe Public Policy Center

LORETTA ROSS: National Coordinator, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective

ANDREA BATISTA SCHLESINGER: Executive Director, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy

Come optimistic, disgruntled, angry, or just exhausted. Come in person or online. But come. We need to hear every voice and idea!

(Facebook users: Click here to RSVP and invite your friends!)

If you're not in Boston, you'll be able to follow the conversation here at Feministing. Just load up our site on Wednesday at 7pm, and you'll be a virtual part of the town hall.

Just a little reminder that we'll be celebrating Samhita's return to the east coast tonight in NYC tonight for those who want to come by - here are details. Also check out our Facebook event.

Hope to see y'all there!

I gotta give my home state a shout out for this awesome theatrical event by Words of Choice. If you're in the area, check it out October 15-22nd.

This is What Women Want (brought to you by the fabulous Center for New Words) is hitting New York tonight for a pre-debate speakout.

Some of the speakers include Kate Bornstein , Kety Esquivel , Shelby Knox , Maegan "la Mala" Ortiz, Betsy Reed, Amy Richards, Deborah Siegel, Carmen Van Kerkhove, and others!

So if you're in the area, make sure to stop by; info is below the jump...

You best get used to that winter coat, Sami!

This Friday, the Feministing editors will be out celebrating our girl Samhita's homecoming; as most of you probably know, she just moved back to the east coast from San Francisco and we're very, very happy to have her back.

Since this is a special occasion, we're not making this a happy hour, but just happy times for this Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah Fun.

Hope you can make it!

For those of you who aren't aware of the wonderful women of The Hysterical Festival, we partnered with them a while back to have a Feministing Happy Hour right before their Hysterical Fundraiser, which was pretty awesome and hilarious.

Their 4-day long festival is already among us, and we wanted to alert you NYC folk to the event. You can check out the schedule here, but a few shows in particular I'd recommend to check out is Thursday's Ambiguously Brown Comedy Hour hosted by my homegirl Desiree Burch, Friday's Girls Gone Gay hosted by our huge crush Murray Hill, and Funny Bones Burlesque on Saturday night. Hotness.

We're also having a NYC Happy Hour next Friday, the 17th, for some pre-hysterical feminist fun. So save the date, location coming soon...

Hope to see some of you tonight!

Boston Feministing Happy Hour
Friday October 10th
5:30pm-8:30pm
Good Life Bar
28 Kingston Street • Boston, MA 02111
Anyone 18+ welcome to attend!

Facebook event here.

Hello from Beantown!

All you Feministing readers living in Boston, I hope you can come out this Friday to the Feministing Happy Hour. Shout out to readers Rachel and Sarah for helping to organize this event!

Boston Feministing Happy Hour
Friday October 10th
5:30pm-8:30pm
Good Life Bar
28 Kingston Street • Boston, MA 02111
Anyone 18+ welcome to attend!

So come and mingle with some awesome Boston feminists! Hope to see you all there. Facebook event here.

I'm the one youngin' representin' (look at me droppin' my g's like Palin) on a big conversation about the state of feminism for Sirius radio tomorrow. It would be awesome if people tuned in and, even better, called in to let us know your thoughts and help me address the kinds of issues that are critical to young women. Here's all the info:

Renowned broadcast journalist Lynn Sherr will host The New Feminism, a one-time special live SIRIUS radio show airing October 7, 2008 from 6:00 - 7:00 pm ET on SIRIUS Stars channel 102.

Sherr's scheduled guests include:

Christina Hoff Sommers - noted conservative and author of Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men.

Ellen Goodman - Pulitzer prize winning columnist, author, speaker and commentator

Gail Collins - columnist for The New York Times, the author of several books including America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines, The Millennium Book and a new book about American women since 1960. Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times editorial page.

Courtney Martin - columnist on politics and gender for The American Prospect Online and Book Editor of the widely read blog Feministing.

Robin Morgan - a founder/leader of contemporary feminism and a leader in the international women's movement. Morgan is an award-winning poet, novelist, political theorist, feminist activist, journalist, editor and bestselling author

Ronnee Schreiber - a leading expert on women and politics, Schreiber is a professor and author of Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics.

If you are interested in shifting the race debate from one of multiculturalism and inclusion to an actual racial justice agenda, then you can't miss the Facing Race conference this November in Oakland, CA. I will be there, live-blogging, along with some of the most important voices in racial justice today.

Get more information here and register if you can!

Hey hey Missouri feminists! The fabulous Shark-Fu will be participating in an event in St.Louis tonight:

A Girl like Me: A Conversation About Race, Beauty and Self-Image

Wed., Oct. 1, 2008 (tonight!) at 6 p.m.
Missouri History Museum in Forest Park
in the AT&T Foundation Multipurpose Room
Free!

Join us for a candid discussion about popular images, race and beauty. The program begins with a short documentary, A Girl like Me (7:08), created by high schooler Kiri Davis through the Reel Works Teen Filmmaking program.

Davis re-conducts the "doll test" used in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case and sheds new light on how society affects black children today.

Sounds awesome. Wish I could go!

UPDATE: For those who can't attend, you can watch the film online.

Contributed by Helen Boyd, (en)gender

National Stonewall Democrats set up a page on ActBlue specifically for the trans community and its allies to donate to Barack Obama. It's exciting in so many ways: for a historically gay and lesbian organization to do something so tangible for the trans community, to help make visibile the trans community and its allies, both within the LGBT community and on the national stage, and to raise money for the only presidential candidate who will help set a tone of tolerance and non-discimination toward trans people and their families.

I'm excited. Be excited with me. If you're a supporter of Barack Obama already, or a trans person and Democrat, or an ally, friend, or family member of a trans person, this is a great way to stand up and be counted: no matter how small the donation, it's the number of donors that matters most. Help make the trans community visible politically.

Other posts about Trans for Obama Day have been done by Andrea James, Kate Bornstein, Riftgirl (who does a mean Sarah Palin), A Dahl's House, and Caprice Bellefleur.

Helen Boyd is tracking all the posts and keeping everyone up-to-date.

It's time already to start thinking about the Women, Action and the Media conference! You (yes, you!) should totally propose a session.

All the info is here -- the conference is at the MIT Stata Center in Boston, March 27-29. Feministing is one of the supporting sponsors. This year's theme is "Inside/Outside."

Deadline to submit proposals is October 10. So get crackin'!

Also, if you haven't yet, go check out another awesome Center for New Words project, This Is What Women Want.

So I will be in Boston next week because some fabulous students from the Tufts Feminist Alliance invited me to speak. Shout out to Tiffany and Amanda for organizing that event! While I'm in town, I would love to organize a Feministing Happy Hour for all of you who live in Boston.

I'm looking for a volunteer to help me organize this happy hour, mainly finding a location. So email me at miriamATfeministingDOTcom if you want to help and have some ideas of public transportation accessible, affordable bars that will allow people under 21 to enter as well. Usually places that serve food are more willing/able. Also, it needs to be able to accommodate about 50 people.

Thanks everyone!

Where Brooklyn at? Well, hopefully at this panel that I'm MC-ing this weekend. Here's all the deets for those in the vicinity:

The American Hero and the American Dream:
Reflections on Our Contemporary Political Narratives

Date: Sunday, September 28
Time: 2-4 pm

Location: The Forum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum

In this interactive panel, academics, journalists, and comedians discuss the dominant narratives--perpetuated by both the campaigns and the media--during this unprecedented election. As they explore the ways in which these two presidential candidates and their VPs have been framed, they will also be examining the way the American public still thinks about race, class, and gender, and how this election has served to defibrillate so many beating, bleeding political hearts.

Moderator: Courtney E. Martin

Panelists:
Charlton McIlwain, Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication, NYU
Gloria, Feldt, author and blogger at Heartfeldt Politics
Ramin Hedayati, associate producer at The Daily Show

I'll be talking about my book, perfectionism, body image and the like at the University of Minnesota on Monday if anyone's around and interested. Details here. And thanks to U of M and the awesome Anitra Cottledge for including me in the Discover Exceptional Women Series. I feel sort of, well, exceptionally grateful. (Bonus: Elaine Tyler May will be introducing me.)

Ann and I are headed off to the Journalism & Women's Symposium this weekend. I'm doing a panel on work/life balance issues and Ann will enlighten folks on her election round table. If you're going to be there, come up and introduce yourself for sure!

Bush and McCain share cake for McCain's 69th birthday as Hurricane Katrina hits Gulf Coast.

With all the election news and the impending landfall of Hurricane Gustav, let's not forget that today marks the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Salon has an interview with Phyllis Montana-LeBlanc, who appears in Spike Lee's documentary about Katrina, "When the Levees Break." She describes her experiences:

Yeah, just as we were getting up to leave, a helicopter came by and we were like, "We can go now, we're saved." They came right in front of our faces, and the [pilot] looked at me, but they left. I couldn't believe they were leaving us and they were that close. But my thinking afterward, after reason hit, was that there was only 5 feet of water [where we were] and they had to go and get other people who were in more dire need. I understand that now. And I have great respect for those people, the Coast Guard, because they helped us a lot. They're heroes. But when you're in a situation where water's rising, and you don't know whether people are drowning, it's a different story.

So we were stuck there, looking at two blocks of water, before we could get to higher ground. It was me, my husband, Ron, my sister Catherine and my mom, and she can't swim, and we've got my nephew Nicholas, and he's autistic and he can't swim either. We had to get to higher ground, so we got them on refrigerators, and facing us was the longest two blocks I've ever seen in my life. And then there were the alligators and snakes that we'd heard about being in the water, eating bodies and stuff. It was beyond horrific. There was just two blocks, but you're thinking you may not be able to make it even two blocks. And the water smelled horrible. I can still smell it to this day.

Think Progress has a timeline of how events unfolded -- including a mention of the fact that Bush and McCain were eating cake together on this date three years ago. It helpfully illustrates the extent to which the Bush administration fucked up -- but I think stories like Montana-LeBlanc's are even more compelling. It's no wonder New Orleans is still struggling to recover.

Our NYC Feministing Happy Hour starts in just an hour, so if you're in the area and want to join some friendly neighborhood feminists for some end-of-the-summer cocktails, we'll be at Dove Parlor from 5 - 8 pm. You can see details also on our Facebook event page.

Hope you can make it!

For those in NYC, our summer happy hour will be at the fabulous Dove Parlor in the village tomorrow from 5-8pm. That'll give you plenty of time to get home or to your watch party to see Obama's acceptance speech for the nomination! Some of us will be heading to NARAL Pro-Choice New York's Watch Party at The Skinny afterwards. RSVP here if you're interested in going!

Check out our happy hour on Facebook!

Hope you can join!

For those in NYC, we're celebrating (and mourning) the end of the summer (and my birthday!) next Thursday with some cocktails and good old fashioned feminist fun at Dove Parlor in the village.

Hope you can join us!

P.S. See our event on Facebook!

Ann and I had a blast at the happy hour this past Wednesday. Thanks to everyone who came out, and we hope to make this a more regular occurrence. Special thanks to Latoya from Racialicious who made a surprise appearance. (There are plans in the works for a future combo Racialicious/Feministing happy hour in DC. Stay tuned).

The highlight of the night was when the bar manager came up to me and asked "How can we make this happen again?" Totally.

A few pics after the jump.

After Janna was so awesome to blog for us from the XVII International AIDS Conference (IAC) this week, the conference comes to a close today, but not without some things to take back with us.

International Planned Parenthood, Young Positives, the UNFPA and the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS collaborated together to release a new guide in an effort to improve HIV prevention among girls and young women.

The guide, "Make It Matter," focuses not only on increasing reproductive and sexual health services for girls and women, but addresses other problems that contribute to millions of women who have HIV every year like socioeconomic status and child marriage. Download the report here.

Heads up, Minnesota feminists!

via Poor Magazine:

"I was a formally homeless Mother who once lived in an abandoned building". This was my introduction to Cheri Honkala, Executive Director of the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), a coalition of organizations from across the country united in the mission to "abolish poverty everywhere and forever".

As Cheri's words came through the phone I felt an instant connection to her. Having grown up with a Mother battling addiction - evictions, hunger and instability were my constant companions.

Cheri and the PPEHRC foster that same connection in poor people across color lines and across the country. She has been organizing with other poor folks for the last twenty-five years, and on September 2nd, the second day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul Minnesota, over a year of Cheri's full time efforts will come to fruition as the PPEHRC embarks on "The March For Our Lives", what will be one of the largest poor peoples marches ever to take place.

The March for Our Lives schedule is here.

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign also has blog, where they're chronicling the process of putting together this mega-march. Check it out.

Hope to see ya'll there.

Details after the jump

Contributed by Janna A. Zinzi, Guttmacher Institute

The XVII International AIDS Conference (IAC) officially kicked off on Sunday as 25,000 delegates from all corners of the world descended upon Mexico City for an intensive week of learning, activism and dialogue. My Guttmacher colleague, Joerg, and I arrived a few days before the main event to participate in the aptly-named Fuerza Joven de Mexico (Youth Force of Mexico), a three-day pre-conference gathering for young advocates aimed at raising the visibility of youth HIV/AIDS issues before, during and after the IAC.

More than 300 young people, many connected to international NGOs, make up this vocal coalition promoting youth participation and youth-adult partnerships. Under this year's theme of "Rights, Respect, Responsibility, and Resources," Fuerza Joven's focus is advocating for early, comprehensive, evidence-based sex education to prevent the spread of HIV among young people who make up more than four in 10 new HIV infections. A number of sessions also focused on gender issues as well as the needs of marginalized groups, such as sex workers and gay youth.

Thanks to some extra awesome feministing readers (shout out to the Feminist Majority Foundation interns), Ann and I decided it was time for another DC feministing happy hour!

So come next week to Chi Cha lounge and chat with the others readers, commenters and lurkers at Feministing. An extra special invitation to all the interns in DC for the summer, who can hopefully make it before they head back to their respective schools and cities.

My fellow Missouri Feminist Mafia™ member, the incomparable Katie Spencer, gave me a heads up about this awesome conference. More info below from the organizers... --Ann

What: Femme2008 Conference: The Architecture of Femme!
Who: Femme Collective, along with speakers Dorothy Allison, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Julia Serano
When: August 15-17, 2008
Where: Chicago Wyndham O'Hare
How: Register online! Registration is still open, and is $95. You can get all the conference details at www.femmecollective.org.

Guest post by Charlotte Albrecht, Femme Mafia Twin Cities

For months now, I have been looking forward to attending Femme2008: The Architecture of Femme this August in Chicago. It has been just a few years since I started to claim a femme identity and only in the last year that I began to find community and connect with other femme-identified and femme-supportive people. As a mixed race light-skinned femme who grew up steeped in middle class white American culture, my models for femininity were clear and, like many other girls, I learned to examine all the ways that I deviated from this norm. When I started to acknowledge my desire for female-bodied people to myself and to those around me, I found myself wanting to be visible to those I desired. This desire coupled with my longstanding understanding of myself as "not feminine enough" added up to a gender presentation that was not true to myself. It wasn't until a few years later when I met femmes of my age who encouraged me to embrace whatever feminine parts of me there were, that I ceased apologizing for dressing up and accessorizing, and, more importantly, started to think critically about the relationship between my own femininity and my sexual desire.

So, first of all, apologies to those not living in NYC or DC for how geographically biased my event posts are. As the majority of us are based in those two cities, our event posting tend to be geographically weighted. Apologies, and a reminder that the community blog is a great place to post about events in your area!

Next week, the Feminist Majority Foundation is hosting a Congressional briefing on funding for reproductive rights.

The Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) invites you to attend a briefing on Capitol Hill on July 24, 2008 from 9:30 AM-11:30 AM

The event will feature Members of Congress and leaders in the global and domestic women's health communities. Speakers will discuss the critical need to increase U.S. assistance for international family planning. The panel will expose the ways in which cuts to family planning funds both domestically and globally are killing thousands of women every day.

Space is limited and available to first respondents. Light refreshments will be provided. To reserve your spot, please RSVP online.

Questions? Call (703) 522-2214 or Email ahossain@feminist.org

Ann and I are planning on going, so hopefully we'll see some other readers there to support the event!

H/t to the awesome FMF interns for the info

I will be repping Feministing at Y-Pulse today. If you are there please say hello! Here is the information and expect some live blogging.

For those in or around the NYC area, next week holds a couple of cool feminist events. On Wednesday the 16th, NOW NYC is holding a forum with financial planner Diane MacPhee where she'll be talking about the economy affects women and how to take a hold of your moneys.

That weekend on Saturday, July 19th, the inspiring Girls for Gender Equity are having their 3rd Annual Gender Equality Festival (check back on their site for more info) and a fundraiser, "Get Down 2 Get Up" with DJs spinning dope beats at Sputnik in Brooklyn. Click here for more info.

I'm sad to say I'll be on vacation joining Jess in Martha's Vineyard that week, but I highly recommend you join the summer feminist love.

Some of you may remember that last year the awesome bloggers at Feministing were awarded by Choice USA at their Generation to Generation Celebration. Well it's that time of year again, and they are awarding a new and great group of young activists. If you are in Washington DC you should make sure to make it out to this great event!

On July 17, Choice USA will host it's annual GENERATION-to-GENERATION Celebration and they're bringing folks together to celebrate six stellar individuals: Deborah Arrindell, Amanda Harrington, Kym Lovell, Amber Madison, Asal Sadatrafiei and Alisha Thomas Morgan - winners of the 2008 GENERATION Awards.

LEFTBANK
2424 18th Street NW
Thursday, July 17
VIP Reception: 6-7pm
Main Reception: 7-9pm
Tickets: $50
Student tickets: $35

The Women's Media Center has posted some great little clips from the panel I was on a few weeks ago at The Paley Center: From Soundbites to Solutions: Bias, Punditry, and the Press in the 2008 Election. Patricia Williams is especially amazing. Thanks to my friend Sean for the miso-ginee story.

One of my childhood best friends, Jen, is in town visiting me and she showed up with a pile of ridiculous notes from our junior high days (quizzes, up-to-the-minute emotional check-ins, and boy crazy posturing included). Stuck in among the pile of spiral notebook history was a letter I wrote to the debutante committee in my hometown, Colorado Springs, rejecting their invitation. A few choice snippets of my hyperdramatic take-down:

I write in order to decline your invitation to be a 1998 debutante...I believe that the Debutante fanfare is a glazed over form of outdated discrimination...The simple fact that there are still organizations, like yours and the Jolly Jills, who spearate black and white young women as they brink on the edge of their adult lives, is a sad, sad message...To uphold tradition and validate family and giving are wonderful values to introduce into society. But, if in the process, you also introduce notions of socio-economic discrimination and racial segregation. What an unnecessary shame.

Wow. I felt things deeply (um, yeah, and still sort of do). In any case, it got me thinking...is this tradition still around? In the haze of purity ball coverage and insane proms with post-proms and post-post prom breakfasts, I've lost track of the ladies in white dresses. Has anyone been a debutante? What was your experience like?

Feministing friend and author of Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons, wanted to let ladies know that she's speaking at an Omega conference in September on Women & Courage. There are scholarships available for young women here. Deadline is July 15th, so don't sleep on it. Speakers include Isabelle Allende, Tara Brach, and Queen Afua, among others, and the conference material reads, in part:

The classic myth of the hero traces an arc of death-defying adventure and violent battle. Yet, on our interdependent planet-with no territory left to exploit and no war that can be won-empathy, love, and wisdom have become the most heroic of all adventures.

It is time to change our definition of what it means to be a brave and daring human being.

I can definitely get down with that. Thanks for the heads up Rachel.

So, did anyone do any pride-related events this weekend? I'm sad to say I missed the NYC march...it looks like it was as fun as ever despite the rain.

Pic from Taylor Siluwe.

Today is the Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice, which is organized by the TransJustice working group of the amazing Audre Lorde Project. So if you're in the New York area, come out and march for trans justice.

Jack at Feministe has more.

I'm about to head back home from the very cool city of Toronto, and I just wanted to say a huge thanks to the Miss G Project for bringing me out here (especially Anne-Marie for her general fierceness). Not only did this feminist organization put together an amazing panel, they also hooked me up with the most hilarious hotel room of all time. (A young Ralph Macchio watched over me while I slept...)

So thanks, gals - and thanks to all the folks who came out (I'm talking to you nerdalert!). I had a great time.

I made it! I am in Detroit again for the Allied Media Conference. If you are here please say hello. I won't be doing any panels this year, but follow me on twitter. Check back for some live blogging.

I'm heading to Toronto next Wednesday for an event sponsored by the very cool Miss G Project.

I'll be at the Camera Gallery from 7pm till 10pm (more details here). Hope to see you there!

Hey all you women's studies devotees, it's time to gather round the proverbial fire and swap theories. Jessica and I are off to the National Women's Studies Association's annual conference tomorrow. This year the title is "Resisting Hegemonies: Race and Sexual Politics in Nation, Region, Empire" and it is in Cincinnati, Ohio. The keynote is (awesome, awesome, awesome) Patricia Hill Collins.

I'll be part of a roundtable on the election led by Ellen Bravo on Friday afternoon, and then Jess and I are doing a panel, along with my friend Amada from Princeton's Women's Center, called "Swinging Back to Center: Balancing Judgment and Empathy within the Women’s Studies Classroom and in the Feminist World Beyond" on Saturday. We hope to see old friends there and meet plenty o' new ones. Please introduce yourselves to us feministing readers!

Read more if you want a sense of what we're going to be talking about at our panel on Saturday...

Just wanted to say a happy (belated) daddy's day to all those great fathers out there! My father is a huge feminist and was definitely a tremendous influence in my politics - so thanks, Dad!

Also, as you can see from the pic below (my Dad is on the far left) - there were other things I inherited from him as well.

(And for anyone who's interested, the babe in the middle with the long hair is my mom.)

Feel free to share Dad stories in comments!

I'm humbled to be part of a really interesting event next Tuesday called "From Soundbites to Solutions: Bias, Punditry and the Press in Election 2008" over at The Paley Center. It's co-sponsored by The White House Project, the Women’s Media Center and the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Here's the rundown:

Keynote: TBA, but might be Christiane Amanpour

Political Panel (from 9:30 to 10:45)
Callie Crosley (moderator) Harvard
Celinda Lake, National Pollster
Patricia Williams, Columnist, The Nation and Professor of Law, Columbia University
Ron Walters, Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland
Sue Carroll, Senior Scholar, Center for American Women in Politics
Courtney Martin, Author and online columnist for the American Prospect

Press Panel (from 10:45 to noon)
Geneva Overholser, Director School of Journalism, University of Southern California (moderator)
Pamela Newkirk, Associate Professor of Journalism, NYU
Juan Gonzalez, Columnist, NY Daily News
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director, Annenberg Public Policy Center
Catalina Camia, USA TODAY Political Editor
Mika Brzezinski, Anchor, "Morning Joe" on MSNBC

If you want to register, go here. It's free, but I hear it's already standing room.

In case you're wondering what you missed at our four-year anniversary bash, we got some cool local press from Chelsea Now. Check it out - maybe it will inspire you to come next year!

By the way, that's me above with Gwynn Cassidy, Feministing friend, president of Girls in Government and director of the REAL hot 100. Gwynn was having contractions that night but still came to the party. She gave birth to the super adorable Gideon Jude that weekend. (Congrats, lady!)

Chelsea Now photos by Jefferson Siegel

I love NYC in the summer. There's always a ton of amazing feminist events going on, and it seems to have begun. This weekend kicks off with Rock for Young Women, an event to support the New York Metro Chapter of the Young Women's Task Force.

Then Monday, the amazing Girls for Gender Equity will be partnering with HollaBack NYC for a post-show talk back about subway harassment after a special showing of the play Standing Clear, described as "an ensemble piece that digs deep into the personalities we commute with each day."

Support and enjoy three awesome organizations in one week. If you're in the NYC area, be sure to check em out.

The chat is over, but you can still read it. Some of it was even more upsetting to me than the original article. A number of things really pissed me off. Here’s just a quick sampling.

An example suggested to me is that women of color are subjected to pressure NOT to reproduce -- one such report spoke of long term norplant type stuff as a condition of parole. This is different from the pressure TO reproduce that is the subject of much choice energy. The women's movement must protect women of color from this particularly female oppression, if the reports I received are true.

In response to a question about reconciling feminism with “the fact that racism, poverty, etc., disproportionately affects women of color and poor women vs. men of color and poor men?”

I do not know that racism disproportionately affects women of color vs. men of color or poor women vs. poor men. It would be interesting to think about how you weigh the oppressions. Men of color are disproportionately in prison and disproportionately subject to the death penalty. [Emphasis mine, I’ll come back to this later]

And, to clarify what I thought must surely be a misstatement basically blaming black women for Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court, she says

Several news sources, including the New York Times reported that polls showing that black voters backed Clarence Thomas were influential in determining the vote of the southern Democrats to confirm. It is a demographic fact that more black voters are female than male.

And, one last thing. I could do this for a long time, but I’m worried about experiencing a rage blackout.

In comments about making the choice to have a family Hirshman states

the heterosexual reproductive family is a fount in inequality. I think motherhood and family should be a central concern of feminism, starting with insisting that men shape their lives with the expectation that they will bear half the burden of child rearing and home making forever.

At 1pm eastern on WashingtonPost.com with Linda Hirshman, here. You can submit questions now. Jill’s take on Hirshchman’s article over at Feministe is wonderful, so go check it out.

Hirshman says,

A movement that uses intersectionality as a lens but banishes white, bourgeois, corporate older women might be a vehicle to glue what remains of feminism together, but it will struggle to achieve social change for women.

Er, bullshit. First of all, demanding that someone make room for you is not the same as forcing them out of the way. And, if your social change only helps rich hetero (etc.) women, your definition of success needs a lot of work.

Just a little reminder that tomorrow not only marks the 43rd anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, but unfortunately will bring out a slew of anti-choicers to protest at Planned Parenthoods across the country for American Life League's totally misleading and horrendous campaign, The Pill Kills!

Many targeted clinics will be needing support tomorrow. If anyone else knows of on-goings in their areas, post in comments. Otherwise, check out your local Planned Parenthood and find out about what they're doing, and if there's anything you can do to help.

For more info on "Protest the Pill Day," check out Dr. Dana's Stone recent guest post.

Don't forget that this weekend is Girls Write Now's Spring Reading. If you're in NYC, you really shouldn't miss it: June 8 at 4pm at the Barnes and Noble in Tribeca

A plug for an event (and organization) in Washington DC. The group is called the Women's Information Network (WIN) and it is a "Political and social network of young, pro-choice, Democratic women that provides a forum for advancement, mentoring and leadership opportunities."

This Thursday is their main event, Women Opening Doors for Women, which is a networking reception followed by a bunch of smaller themed dinners. If you're in DC, think about checking it out! I'll be speaking at the New Media, Same Old Boys Network dinner about blogging and new media.

It's our 4th anniversary party and are celebrating Jessica's second book in NYC. Come show some love and indulge in the raffle prizes, book signings, good drinks, great music and even greater company - Samhita and Ann are taking the trip into NYC to celebrate! Huzzah! See details here.

And for those who can't make it or aren't in the area, we'll miss you and will be sure to put pics up next week...

Hey crew, I've been asked to do a talk back after Neil LaBute's play, Reasons to be Pretty, on Tuesday, June 10th and the nice folks over there agreed to give feministing readers a discount if anyone wants to go. He's done a lot of controversial stuff, including 2005's Fat Pig and, prior to that, was kicked out of the LDS Church for a one act he wrote that starred CaIista Flockhart. Who knows what feathers he might ruffle this time around. Info below:

$35 tickets Tue, Wed, Thu eves; Sat, Sun matinees
$45 tickets Fri, Sat eves (regular $59)
Click here and use code FEMI.
OR call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 and use code FEMI.

MCC Theater at The Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher Street (New York, NY)

Many of you already know that I'm involved an incredible organization called Girls Write Now, which pairs at-risk high school girls with professional women writers as mentors and writing coaches. If you're in New York, they're having a reading on June 8 at 4pm at the Barnes and Noble in Tribeca. You can find all the information here and the invite here.

Here's a taste of the amazing writing you'll be hearing...

See more GWN videos here. I hope to see you at the reading!

I'm excited to announce this upcoming Washington DC event for three reasons. One, I helped to organize it. Two, it brings together two of my favorite topics, birth and abortion. Three, it happens to fall on my birthday!

Intentional Motherhood: Connecting Abortion, Pregnancy, and Birth
Considering the full range of women's reproductive rights:

The right to affordable birth control. The right to parent. The right to choose abortion. The right to midwifery care. The right to determine a birth plan. The right to prenatal care.

The DC Abortion Fund is excited to host a a book signing and discussion to explore the many connections between these issues.

Featuring Judy Norsigian, Executive Director, Our Bodies Ourselves Alexis Zepeda, Board Member, DC Abortion Fund Jill Morrison, Senior Counsel, National Women’s Law Center

Suggested Donation: $20

All Proceeds Benefit the DC Abortion Fund

If you have questions please contact Betsy Illingworth at betsyillingworth@yahoo.com or Dina Morad at dinamorad@gmail.com

Hope you can make it!