Recently in Feministing Category

Jos turns 25 today, and we wanted to give our amazing contributor some big birthday props.

Not only is Jos a kick-ass blogger and activist, but the word around town is that she is an incredible pizza chef as well. (I'm still eagerly waiting for my next trip to D.C. so I can show up on her doorstep for some yummy deliciousness.)

Happy birthday Jos!! Leave some birthday love in comments...

Courtney made it past the third round of the Washington Post Next Great Pundit Contest and now she needs your support again to make it to the next round.

You can vote for her here, as well as read her last challenge, a live chat Q&A with the other contestants.

If she wins this circus of a competition, she gets her very own column in the Washington Post. We all know that publication needs more feminist voices.

Voting closes tomorrow at 3pm, so get to it!

Thanks to all who voted for Courtney this week in the Washington Post America's Next Great Pundit Contest, as she came in as the second highest voted contestant and moved onto round two!

Now the next round of voting has begun again, and the polls will close on Sunday, 3 pm EST. This week, the contestants took on blogging, so naturally Courtney kicked ass.

Get voting y'all!

Look at her, all pensive! Definitely very columnist-like.

Hey y'all, voting for The Washington Post's "America's Next Great Pundit Contest" ends today at 3pm - so consider this your reminder to to vote for our gal Courtney, one of the ten finalists in the contest.

And please get the word out - blog, tweet and Facebook this after you vote yourself - and help make Courtney WaPo's newest columnist!

Hey folks, just a reminder to vote right now for our gal Courtney, who is currently one of ten finalists in the Washington Post's "America's Next Great Pundit Contest."

Courtney's latest column is here, and voting for the contest is currently in progress, but ends Monday at 3PM (ET). So please get the word out - blog, tweet and Facebook this after you vote yourself - and help make Courtney WaPo's newest columnist!

All of us at Feministing couldn't be prouder of gal Courtney, who is currently one of ten finalists in the Washington Post's "America's Next Great Pundit Contest."

[These] ten finalists will get to compete for the title of America's Next Great Pundit, facing off in challenges that test the skills of a modern pundit. They'll have to write on deadline, hold their own on video and field questions from Post readers. After each round, a panel of Post personalities will offer kudos and catcalls, and reader votes will help to determine who gets another chance at a byline and who has to shut down his or her laptop.

Here's your chance to help put a feminist (and a particularly awesome one, at that!) at The Washington Post. I don't have to tell you the powerful platform that WaPo is, and how needed feminism is in mainstream media outlets. You know this. And now we have an opportunity to do something about it.

Courtney's latest column is here, and voting for the contest starts Saturday. So please get the word out - blog, tweet and Facebook the shit out of this - and help make Courtney WaPo's newest columnist!

Yesterday was our awesome editor and co-founder Jessica Valenti's birthday.

It's been a big year for Jess, including the publishing of her new book, The Purity Myth, and a little ceremony you might have read about.

Congrats Jess and I hope this year is even better than the last!

Regular readers will have noticed that in recent months, Feministing has brought in a number of new contributors: Ariel, Jos, Lori, Rose Afriye and myself. No doubt you're getting to know them and their expertise by reading their posts and engaging with their ideas in the comments section, but I also suspect that you want to know a little more about these wonderful women (I know I do!). So, over the next few weeks, I'll be interviewing my fellow new contributors, so that you and I can get to know them a little better. This week I interviewed Ariel Boone.

Ariel is in her third year at Cal Berkeley, where she is completing a double major in Music and Political Economy. She grew up in Davis, CA, and was heavily involved with student activism during her high school career. At Berkeley, she is even more heavily involved in student activism, and her list of extracurricular activities reportedly makes her parents wonder how on earth she gets her schoolwork done. In addition to being a Senator in the Associated Students of the University of California and a member of Cal Students for Equal Rights and a Valid Education (CalSERVE), Ariel spends her summers doing a dizzying number of jobs and internships, working on a wide range of issues, from national security to reproductive rights.

Ariel is a self-described policy wonk and a huge West Wing fan (check out who her favorite fictional heroine is). She started contributing to Feministing this August, when she covered for Miriam when Miriam was on vacation. And I speak for all of us when I say that we're might glad that she stayed on.

And now, without further ado, The Feministing Five, with Ariel Boone.

When we started our Feministing College Tour this year, we had decided that we'd give each school we attend an opportunity to include one of their students as a panelist at our presentation so that we can have the school be a part of the process as well and speak to some of the issues that their feminist organizations and groups have been addressing. We also offered the student panelists the opportunity to feature their presentation as a guest post on Feministing. The wonderful and amazing Kym Nacita wrote the first of many to come. And here's our next student panelist, Sarah Jayne, from the University of Ottawa.

So what does this mean for us? It means we're challenging language. It means we're acknowledging the integral role that men play in ending violence against women. It means we understand that men can be feminists. It means we have finally started to push for the inclusion of other forms of oppression in our discourse. We are starting to see how race, gender identity, income or class status all play a role in the world we live in. The world we want to change.

As many of you know, a group of disability rights activists organized to call us out on our lack of coverage on disability issues and ongoing problem with ableist language at Feministing (sometimes on the part of editors, but mostly popping up in the comments sections). Some ableist language that I used in this post was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I apologized, pointing out that I really don't know enough about the field of disability rights and activism and want to learn more. And Miriam jumped on board to serve as another representative of Feministing who was interested in forwarding the dialogue about this intersection and it's presence or lack there of on our site and in feminism at large.

We moved forward by scheduling an online chat between these activists, who meanwhile started their own blog (their abelist word profiles are really enlightening, as are their regular recommended readings, and fantastic general content), Miriam, and myself. It was a productive and affirming experience for me personally. This group of activists and bloggers communicated their suggestions with incredible clarity and coordination, and as it turns out, most of their ideas were things that Miriam and I were either already discussing or open to implementing. The summary of the suggestions appear after the jump.

One of our problems, related to this issue and others, is capacity. We continue to maintain Feministing without enough time or money to realize our full vision of what it should be. Nevertheless, it was empowering, for lack of a less overused word, to go through this process of being called out on my own ignorance, widening the frame to the larger issue of the intersection between feminism and disability rights activism, dialoguing with a bunch of awesome activists, and now I'm excited to implement and learn more.

The crew is following up with some suggested resources (readings and the like), so I'll definitely communicate about that to the larger Feministing community. Meanwhile, we're excited to have a model of how to deal with criticism that makes us a better blog, makes each of us individually better thinkers/activists, and moves the movement forward. Thanks so much to the crew of folks from all over the world who are engaging with us in this process. You, in a word, rock.

In terms of addressing the capacity issues that this (and other situations in the past) have brought up, we're working hard at finding new solutions to deal with the volume and vibrancy of the Feministing community. A big part of this is comment moderation, which we'll be talking more about new ways to strengthen our ability to do this. We implemented a new policy this summer, in direct response to similar feedback about comment sections, and we're still evolving that policy. We'll make sure to keep folks updated as changes happen, but you should expect to see more posts with pre-approved comments as one way for us to better moderate.

The other main thing that this particular engagement brought up is our ability to be a truly intersectional feminist website. It's something we've struggled with before as we all bring different identities and expertise to the table. One way we open this up is the community blog, but we realize that's not enough. We're committed to continuing these dialogues to develop how all sorts of important issues that intersect with feminism are represented at Feministing.

The full summary of the suggestions from the group we engaged with appear after the jump. You can also see the transcript of our chat here.

Why teh internets hate us!

Sorry for the lag in posts and any difficulties in commenting. Should be up and working now.

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!

We'll be posting intermittently today and into the weekend because a lot of us are in route to Jessica's wedding. Woohooo! In honor of the exciting celebration about to take place, I give you bell hooks:

The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom.

In case you hadn't noticed, I haven't been blogging for a few days and it is because I have decided to take the month off and finish up my long lingering MA thesis (please, just shoot me now!). I wanted to take a few weeks to really buckle down and focus and well as you know, all us feministers have 9 different jobs and I am trying to only have 2 (OK, maybe 3) for the month.

But don't worry, you won't miss me! Meet Rose Afriyie, our newest guest blogger who will be covering for me while I am gone. I met Rose this summer in the class that I was teaching at National Sexuality Resource Center and I knew she was the one when she told me that even while recognizing the troublesome relationship women of color have with feminism, "it was one of the most transformative experiences of her life.

A little about Rose:

Rose is a black feminist who has a B.A. in English Writing and Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh with a certificate in communication. She has organized and lectured in several states on issues of gender, race and sexuality. Her articles have been featured on media justice blogs, university publications, TheRoot.com and in the Chicago Tribune. She is currently pursuing a Masters in public policy at the University of Michigan.

All this and she is only 25. You may have seen Rose's writing on the community site as well. Please give Rose a warm welcome and treat her well while I am gone until the middle of October.

You may have noticed that the bottom of our posts now includes a a "retweet" button for those who have Twitter accounts. Basically, this retweets the post from our @feministing account - so please make use of it! We want our stories out there. (On a related note, you can also share posts in any other number of ways - like through Facebook - on the larger button.)

And if you'd like to follow us individually, you can do that too: Vanessa, Samhita, Courtney, Shark Fu, Ariel, Chloe, Jos, Miriam, Lori, Ann, Jessica.

Sarah Jones, pretty much the most bad-ass woman playwright/performer/poet/activist of all time, loves Feministing. And we have the video to prove it. (Just another reason to love Omega's conference - you get to meet the coolest women!)

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?

In honor of labor day, we won't be laboring. Feministing will be back to regularly scheduled posting tomorrow - have a great day, folks!

This weekend was Vanessa's 29th birthday - so please give her some b-day love in comments. For those of you who don't know V personally - and that's most of you! - here are some essential things you should be aware of:

She will always win in a dance-off. (See picture above.)

She throws a mean party.

She can find orange salamanders in the woods in record time.

She is an amazing friend and sister (sniff).

If you get her on a good day, she'll tell you about the time she threatened to beat up Claire Danes. Seriously.

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).

I'm pleased as punch to announce the revival of our interview series and to introduce Feministing's new interviews contributor, Chloe! Chloe will be profiling amazing feminist women using a new format that we think everyone will enjoy: The Feminist Five. (No, you'll just have to wait and see.)

More about Chloe:

Chloe Angyal grew up in Sydney, Australia, and credits her radical parents and her all-girls high school for raising her to think that feminism was just common sense. She is a newly-minted graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in Sociology and founded Equal Writes, Princeton's first feminist publication. At Princeton, she worked in eating disorders awareness and prevention, and ran an all-girls dance company. Chloe has just moved to Manhattan, where she works for The Op Ed Project and Choices in Childbirth. She aims to be a writer, a professional feminist and an all-around good person.

Check out this really in-depth article following up on the some of the big picture questions I raised in my post last month about the new Google AdWords policy disallowing abortion ads in over a dozen countries.

The article was written by Masum Momaya of Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) and gives a dope analysis of this truly multi-dimensional topic. Also the article explicitly mentions Feministing commentors and a lot of the points you all brought up in my first post on the subject, which is awesome and a testament to all of your thoughtfulness!

*pause to reflect on the greatness of this community*

Anyway, one major reveal from the article is that, legally and practically, "those submitting the ads, and not Google Inc., should be doing the screening for legal compliance." So there goes the theory about Google AdWords initiating the abortion policy just to abide by local laws.

Also, the article gets to what I think is the heart of the issue by exploring the various competing interests that are informing Google AdWords decision-making behind closed doors: legal, social, and financial, and more, and then asking:

"So do we want Google Inc. sorting, accrediting and ordering our information for us, ads or otherwise? And is doing so in a truly unbiased way possible for a for-profit company whose major source of revenue is dependent on advertising?"

Yeah, and I would add that reproductive health care information in particular requires special defense, because it is so often under attack as being "controversial" or "politically risky" when it is just health care for women, who, need I remind you, constitute half of this earth's population!

Anyway, before I begin to rant more about that, let me get back to the article. Overall, I agree with the article's conclusion:

"It is important for women's rights activists and social justice advocates more generally to understand the issues and limitations behind what does - and does not - show up when Googling for "abortion" or any other topic, for that matter, and continue to be on the lookout for this 'invisible' violation of women's rights."

Word.

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.

My first ever profile picture! Taken on the night we decided to start Feministing, at a bar in the East Village.

Since our inception in 2004, we've published over 9400 posts. Since launching the Community blog just over a year ago, you all have published over 5000! (Damn, catching up with us!!)

Feministing has over 200,000 comments on its entries.

Two of the top search terms that bring people to the site are upskirt and ball busting.

Our look has changed significantly.

We've got another great guest blogger to introduce folks. Ariel will be blogging the next two weeks while I take a much needed vacation (from work and the internetz).

About Ariel:

Ariel Boone is a junior at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is an elected student government member. She's deeply involved in California Democratic politics, queer organizing, and the progressive coalition at U.C. Berkeley, CalSERVE. Beginning in June 2008, Ariel volunteered extensively for the Obama campaign in Reno and worked for a congressional campaign in California while interning in the California State Assembly. She continued commuting to Reno through the fall, while organizing voter registration drives, student lobby days for marriage equality, and on-campus events for the Cal Berkeley Democrats. She is currently finishing up an internship in DC at a national security think tank before she returns to school.

She maintains a blog, To Love My Country, and wrote in the community most recently about the discrepancy in White House seniority between men and women. A slam poet, a music and political economy major, and a self described "policy wonk," Ariel likes to write about statistical analysis, California politics, and the media. She is also on Twitter.

Give a warm welcome to Ariel!

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!

I just wanted to give folks an update - as you know we've been having a problem with really horrific weight loss ads popping up on the site. You all have been incredibly patient, and I know how much it sucks to keep hearing us say that we're working on it while the ads continue to appear.

So this is what's going on (for anyone who is interested)...

Hey all, I just got back from my pre-wedding honeymoon (fun!) last night and will back to blogging regularly this Wednesday. Until then, I thought I'd share this video of an interview I did with the wonderful Kendall McKenzie of Planned Parenthood about The Purity Myth. Hope you enjoy it.

We've been excited to begin the process of bringing some new voices to the frontpage at Feministing. Lori started a few weeks ago and now Jos is joining us. I'm happy to say I know Jos through her reproductive justice work and I'm psyched she's joining us (I've also had her really amazing pizza!). She'll be helping out while Courtney is on vacation.

About Jos:

Jos Truitt is a graduate of Hampshire College, where she was involved in immigrants' rights, racial justice, queer liberation, and feminist organizing and was the Student Conference Coordinator for the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program's annual conference "From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom." Jos has organized Choice USA's Hill Day both as an intern and consultant and has written for Choice Words, the organization's blog. She has also written for RH Reality Check. Jos joined the Feministing Community in April 2009 with a post on TransFeminism. She has written in the Community as Josh T.

Jos is passionate about raising the voices of people in the margins, highlighting the intersectional nature of identity, and creating space in social justice movements for traditionally excluded voices to be moved to the center. She is also a printmaker who produces colorful abstract images about her gender identity. Jos enjoys riding her bike downhill, makeup, bread baking, and making lots of pizza for her friends.

Welcome Jos!

Don't forget this is tonight!!!

The summer class I have been teaching at the National Sexuality Resource Center Summer Institute is coming to a close and we want to celebrate! Join us today, Wednesday July 8th, 2009 in San Francisco for a Bay Area meet-up. Apologies for the last minute notice, but if you are around please stop by and say hello! We had a great time at the last one!

Wednesday, July 8th
6pm-9pm
Laszlo Bar
2526 Mission St
(between 21st St & 22nd St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 401-0810
www.laszlobar.com

This has been a long time coming, but we're happy to finally present a new and updated comment policy. Our comment sections have been an integral part of this site for many years now, but moderating the discussions have been a challenge for all of us, to say the least. To that end, we've developed a few new strategies (tech and otherwise) to help deal with comments. They're reflected below.

We appreciate everyone in the Feministing community who has contributed to our comment sections, has helped us keep comment threads in check and report abuse by commenters. We also appreciate the feedback we've gotten on how to make our comment sections better.

In the coming months you'll be seeing more changes at Feministing, all in response to community feedback. We're starting to introduce some new voices this summer (like Lori!) and there will be more in the near future. We're also preparing to do a site redesign with the money we raised at our 5th anniversary bash, so more details to come with that.

The full revised policy is after the jump!

Celina de Leon, who has been our Interviews Editor since 2007, is leaving us. We're really sad to see Celina go, and will miss her fantastic Saturday interviews with great activists.

Good luck Celina, and thanks for all your hard work over the last two years!

You can check out some of Celina's great interviews here.

Hey folks, we'll be taking the day off to enjoy the long weekend full of barbecues and debauchery. We'll resume regular posting on Monday. I'll leave you with one of my old school favorites...

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Please give a warm Feministing welcome to the fabulous Lori Adelman, who will be blogging at the site for the next few weeks while I'm on vacation. More about Lori...

Lori, 22, currently works for the International Women's Health Coalition, blogging for Akimbo, among other communications-related duties. Previously, she worked in the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch in NY, where she is most proud of lending support to a U.S. tour raising awareness about the obstruction of legal access to abortion after rape in Mexico. She has also been involved with the Abortion Access Project in Cambridge, MA, working with healthcare providers to strategize the best ways of providing safe and comprehensive healthcare for women. Lori graduated from Harvard College in June of 2008, where she wrote her senior thesis on highly bad-ass (and highly effective) contemporary student social movements in Chile.

All of us at Feministing are really looking forward to Lori's posts (and I'm really looking forward to a blogging break!) and we're sure you're going to her love her stuff as much as we do. Say hi in comments!

For those who are seeing ridiculous weight loss ads, we're working hard to get them down. Sorry about that folks, and thanks for your patience!

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!

Congratulations to our own Miriam, #68 on "Top Hot Butches: The 100 hottest butch, masculine, androgynous, genderqueer, transmasculine, studs, AGs, dykes, queers, and transguys." (For those with concerns about how hot lists objectify, I think Sinclair's explanation here is really great.)

Check Jessica out on CNN talking about whether feminism is obsolete! (Can you guess what her answer is?)

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!)

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.

I am very happy to report that I will be back in the Bay Area as I have been graciously asked to guest lecture at the National Sexuality Resource Center's prestigious Summer Institute through San Francisco State University. I am teaching a seminar on the role of new media in identity formation, specifically around issues of race and sexuality. I am so honored to be joining an amazing staff. You can definitely expect updates as I teach the class and a Bay Area Feministing happy hour or two.

If you are interested you can find the syllabus here (you have to sign up for an account).

As all of you probably know, we had our five year anniversary party on Friday. It was amazing - thanks in no small part to the incredible amount of work that Vanessa and Samhita put into planning and executing the evening.

I also want to make sure to give props to the wonderful volunteers from Rutgers who ran the registration table, stuffed gift bags, and hauled music equipment - you all rock. In terms of folks volunteering their time, though, we can't thank Feministing intern Marlee enough - not only did she coordinate all of the Rutgers volunteers, she also helped tremendously with planning and even brought the gang cupcakes to keep our spirits up as we got ready the day of. Thanks, Marlee - you are the best!

Big shoutouts also go to our sponsors, who generously gave to make the party as rocking as it was: Babeland, Solstice Studio, KM Stitchery, Early 2 Bed, Tarot Card Reading by Karen, Bluestocking Bonbons, Lunapads, Feminist Press, On the Issues Magazine, Willie Mae Rock Camp, Bitch Magazine, Ice Magazine and Select Vodka.

And of course, the evening wouldn't have been complete with out the kick-ass performances by Murray Hill, Saffire, DJ Tikka Masala, Boy Skout, and an awesome talk from Kathleen Hanna.

We're going to have great pics of the night coming up (thanks Nik!) as well as some post-party highlights. (Like Kathleen Hanna giving us a trophy. For real. Proof of our love of said trophy after the jump.)

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!)

As many of you know, we had a super productive Feministing retreat last week where we discussed everything from comments and content to organizational structure and our five year celebration. It was wonderful to all be together to talk about what we want for the future of Feministing, and to ask the hard questions about how we can make this community an even better space for feminist discourse. We covered a lot, and you can expect to see updates as we finalize things in the coming months, but just to give you an idea of what you can expect...

A new comments policy! In the next several weeks we'll be posting about, and implementing, a new commenting policy with tech features to back it up.

We all feel strongly that helping to develop new feminist voices is at the core of Feministing's mission, so we spent a lot of time discussing how to cultivate new writers for the site as well as developing the roles that the existing writers have.

All of us have spent a long time trying to figure out a way to make Feministing self-sustaining - it's not easy running this site while all having full time jobs! - so you can expect to see updates as to our business model (sounds fancy, ya?)

Feministing will be undergoing a redesign in next six months, something I'm incredibly excited about. We're hoping that the redesign will not only give us a new spiffy look, but that it will also fix any of the tech glitches people experience when using the site as well as highlight and improve the community functions.

Since the site was founded in 2004 the core mission hasn't changed - but Feministing has. So we'll be posting an updated mission statement and vision for the site.

So please keep an eye out for posts about all of this Feministing-related madness. We're all really stoked about the changes and improvements we're making and we think you will be too. (On that note - thanks to everyone who participated in the polls about how you use the site. They were so helpful, and it's amazing to know that you all care enough about Feministing to help us shape the future of the community.)

We're working on getting the ridiculous weight loss ads down, sorry about that folks. (We have to identify specific code for every crappy ad and send it to our ad company.) Thanks for your patience!

"Unlike the 'Hers' sections of yore--women's magazines, or even Ms. Magazine--Feministing is not shaped by the fear of being offensive or 'unrelatable' for 'the average female reader'...it is head and shoulders above almost any writing on women's issues in mainstream media."
--Columbia Journalism Review

The editors of Feministing will be hitting the road this fall for a five year anniversary tour of college campuses, women's organizations, and BBQ joints. The keynote panel, guaranteed to feature at least three out of the six award-winning editors, will cover a range of hot topics, followed by a lengthy Q&A.

Questions we'll be posing to one another and to the audience include:

• How is the failing economy changing gender roles?


• What's up with the sexual climate on college campuses? Is hooking up really tantamount to sexual liberation?


• Is there such a thing as "women's issues" anymore?


• Why can't an older generation seem to embrace intersectional feminism?


• How can we heal intergenerational and interracial tensions after the contentious 2008 presidential election?


• Is feminism today still a bonafide movement? If so, where's the "moving?"

We're excited to interact, so we hope hosts will see our visits as a chance to really explore the present and future of the feminist movement. We've got some ideas, and we know you do, so let's talk about them.

We'd also be happy to do workshops on blogging for community groups during the day. Feministing sees spreading the word about the activist potential of blogging and educating people about the tools to make it happen as central to our mission. Added bonus: We'll blog along the way, bringing nationwide attention to the work of your center and/or campus.

If you're interested in bringing us to your campus, contact Martha, our tour planner extraordinaire, at polk.martha@gmail.com!

The baby among us is turning the big 2-5 today. I thought I'd record a little rap in honor of the occasion. At the retreat this week, Miriam was anointed with the name "THE business" because of her amazing financial and organizational prowess (she's been leading us all out of the unorganized darkness with her love of lists, transparency, calculations, and knowledge). So here you go Miriam, for better or worse:

The full (yes, I admit it, amazing) lyrics after the jump. Beat is by RJD2.

We're all back to our busy lives after a great few days of retreating up at the Omega Institute's Service Week (an opportunity for nonprofits and community organizations to get away and have much-needed respite and retreat). A more comprehensive update will come soon, but we just wanted to express our gratitude to Omega for the chance to pause and catch up to ourselves (we all work so hard to keep content fresh and frequent that we rarely get a moment to really think big picture and long term).

We saw bunnies and what we initially thought were beavers, and then decided were hedgehogs, but I now think must have been woodchucks (pictured here...can you tell there aren't too many nature gals among us?). We ate tons of bread with homemade jam and amazing, natural butter. We stayed up late into the nights talking about progressive media, DIY fashion, our families, our careers, and, yes, sex. We had intense sessions about comment policy, our roles and responsibilities, legal and financial structures, content, the future and so much more. We laughed a lot. As we always do.

So on behalf of all of us, thank you to Omega for giving us this space. On behalf of myself, thanks to my fellow editors for making the time, and for being so visionary and courageous and brilliant and fun.

Stay tuned for more updates...

We're having a big pow-wow about our five year anniversary fund raising blow out. It's so exciting--great DJs, amazing live bands, and gift bags for the first 50 people who show up and--we're hoping--really cool raffle prizes. First and foremost, don't forget to buy your ticket asap and tell all of your friends. The ticket price will go up day of.

We are looking for people who own businesses, provide services etc. that would like to raise their profile among our readers by donating items/services for the raffle. Do you:

• manage a clothing store or design your own clothing label?
• run a yoga studio?
• have a friend or family member who works somewhere that might want to donate awesome gadgets, gift certificates, or airline miles?
• work at a restaurant that might want to donate a dinner?

We're specifically looking for big, thrilling items for the raffle! Contact Vanessa (vanessa@feministing.com) with the subject line PARTY DONATION if you're got something to pass on.

Thanks y'all.

Thanks to everyone for being patient while we're away retreat-ing and figuring out how to make Feministing better! If you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit of info, it would help us a lot...

Just a reminder - we're at the last day of our Feministing retreat and will be back to regular posting tomorrow. Thanks for your patience all!

So we're at our Feministing retreat discussing our comments section, and thought we'd give y'all a poll to take on your participation in comments. Thanks!

Hey all, all of the Feministing editors will be in upstate New York through Wednesday for a retreat discussing the future of the site. So as Vanessa wrote on Friday - posting will be extremely limited until we're back on Thursday.

While we're gone, please hang out on the wonderful Community blog which will be updated as usual.

Also, since I've been remiss in my Monday Monty Blogging duties, there's a little present for you after the jump.

As for next week, the Feministing editors will be going to the Omega Institute for a strategic planning retreat where we'll be discussing and making decisions around various issues concerning the blog as well as benefiting from Omega's Service Week, in which nearly thirty other amazing organizations and groups will be receiving professional consultation on how to better their work. Among these grantees are organizations we know and love like Girls Write Now, Sadie Nash Leadership Project, and the Amethyst Women's Project.

Since we'll be pretty busy retreating and strategizing, our posting from Monday through Wednesday will be extremely limited, with most posts being Feministing-related as we enter each conversation topic during those days. For example, we might conduct polls on what you'd like to see covered more often, ask for your thoughts on comments, etc. We'd love your feedback, so please check in and give us your thoughts!

In the meantime, let the summer (finally) begin. Any exciting excursions for folks this weekend?

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!

Tune into NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday to hear Ann discuss feminist perspectives on Michelle Obama with host Liane Hansen and Tami of What Tami Said.

So don't miss it! Listen on your local NPR affiliate in the first hour of the show, or listen online. Go Ann!

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

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.

Yesterday was Samhita's 31st birthday. There is no question that this girl rocked out her 30th year, and we can't wait to see what comes for 31.

I personally love writing and fighting with this woman, and Feministing would not be the same without her.

Happy birthday Samhita!

I'm about a year late on this one, but the other's all posted videos of their Feministing Stories last year: Jessica, Samhita, Courtney, and Ann

Jessica actually introduced me to the blog in her Feministing story video. Aww.

Transcript after the jump!

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.

It's been a fun five years...

It's hard to believe, but today is our 5th blogiversary! (Even more difficult for me to fathom is that I'm home on a Saturday night/Sunday morning to blog about it. Ah, how times change.)

When I started Feministing five years ago, I definitely had no idea what was in store for us. And I certainly never imagined that we'd be as successful as we are - with such a talented roster of writers, dedicated community bloggers, and commenters and readers who make up what I think is a pretty fabulous feminist community. So thanks, y'all, for making Feministing what it is; I'm incredibly grateful to all of you. (Especially my co-bloggers, who rock my socks.)

I'm going to do a little blast-from-the-past and "best of" blogging today (after I get a little sleep!), but for now feast your eyes on what Feministing used to look like when we first started...

So Samhita and I will be holding it down for the Feministing Crew this year at the Women Action and the Media Conference.

If you're gonna be there be sure to come say hi and check out two Feministing events. The first, I'm speaking on a panel that I am super psyched about. Jack from Angry Brown Butch and Feministe, Julia Serano (amazing author, performer and activist) and activist extraordinaire Kate Bovitch and I will be speaking on a panel called In/Out of Focus: Gender, Non-conformity and the Media on Saturday morning at 11am. I'm honored to be on a panel with these awesome people and I think it will be a great conversation about gender non-conformity and feminism.

Also on Saturday Samhita and I will also organize a Feministing caucus, you can come chat and meet other Feministing readers. Look for info at the WAM registration area.

Hope to see you all in Boston!

Hey folks, we know folks are having problems with comments and are working to get it fixed. We'll have comments back up and working as soon as possible, thanks for your patience!

UPDATE: Comments are now working!

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.

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'm really excited to announce that The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women is out. (Though super nervous too!)

And while I'm anticipating some backlash - shit, even the title/cover of the book generated some conservative hand-wringing - I'm hoping that it will further the conversation about how the conservative movement uses young women's bodies and moral panic myths to push traditional gender roles and punish women who don't fit into the "pure" ideal.

If you want to get more of an idea of what the book is all about, you can download the Introduction here. Hope you enjoy it!

You can buy The Purity Myth on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's or Indiebound.

In case you missed this Sunday's blog talk radio hosted by Tami from What Tami Said, I just wanted to put up the archive and give a big-ups to my fellow showmates Latoya Peterson from Racialicious and Jill from Write Like She Talks, with call in questions from superstars such as Renee from Womanist Musings and Monica from Transgriot.

It was great to hear everyone's perspectives on how they got started blogging, what negotiations and sacrifices we make to blog, self-care and blogging, where we hope blogging can lead us and tips of the trade for newcomers to this thing we call blahg.

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.

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!

So we had a bit of a tech meltdown today - hence the gap in posting. We're still fixing bugs, and that's why the commenting is fucked. Apologies for the inconvenience - we're working hard to get things fixed!

UPDATE: We're back on!

Yesterday the birthday of Sharkfu, an amazing, passionate and always on point blogger. We're super psyched to have her thoughts posted here every week.

So give the woman some love, she's celebrating 36 years of rabble rousing and bitchitude. You can check out her work at angryblackbitch and rhrealitycheck.

Check out this article in India Currents that profiles our own feminist troublemaker, Samhita. She drops knowledge left and and right:

A lot of my work has been in the area of cross-cultural tension...The intersections between race, culture, gender, and privilege are tricky to navigate, and I can vouch that many Indian Americans (especially those of us who are American-born) find ourselves on the edge of two cultures, feeling unsure of our place. Awareness of the principles of feminism can lead one to turn a critical eye on our parents' homeland. We are caught between politics and a desire to defend "our own" culture.

Full article here.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my joining Feministing full-time. It feels like nothing compared to the almost five years that many of my co-bloggers have put into this site, but it's been an amazing ride so far.

Having this kind of platform, sharing it with such amazing women and getting to be in conversation with all of you is a privilege I'm thankful for everyday. Writing for Feministing gives my anger an outlet, my frustrations a venue, and even the most ridiculous things I want to write about have a space. Then I get to see how all of you feel about it too!

So, to honor my first year writing for this blog, a round-up of some of my favorite posts as well as one's that really pissed some of you off.

In this first year I've written 186 blog posts for Feministing. That's really a drop in the bucket compared to the THOUSANDS that my co-bloggers have written, but I'm proud.

Writing about queer issues has dominated my blogging at Feministing. I often wonder if some of you get tired of hearing about these issues, but then I get emails thanking me for the queer content.

My first post ever at Feministing, which was actually a guest post, was about being a radical doula. The responses to that post inspired me to start my own blog, Radical Doula.

Over this year I've written about cervixes, reproductive justice, frustrating gender norms, lots about feminist sex shops, going to the gyno, race, motherhood, fatness, birth, marriage, politics, my favorite authors and bloggers, movies, relationships, latinos, health, immigration and sex. Lots about sex.

Then there is the series I started that many of you love to hate, (Un)feminist Guilty Pleasures. I also wrote a highly contested post about long distance relationships and another one calling Angelina Jolie breastfeeding sexy. While it can be really hard at times to see commenter backlash about my posts, I appreciate that it helps me refine my arguments, shows me when I might have screwed up and promotes dialogue about these issues here.

It's a fitting time for me to reflect on my first year with the blog because there are a lot of changes coming my way. Today is my last day in my current position at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, a job I have loved and been at for two and a half years. I'll be continuing to work for them part-time doing online communications work, and will be taking the rest of my time to do more blogging, speaking and writing. I'm so excited about this new phase and grateful for the opportunities that Feministing has given me.

A big thanks to everyone who alerted us to the Burger King ads on the site; please be aware that we're working hard to get them off. If anyone is seeing them and can possibly send a screen shot of the page to us, it'd be greatly appreciated. (We need to get the ad code.) Thanks!

Tomorrow morning I'll be on BBC Radio 4 discussing Obama's agenda on equal pay, reproductive health, and other issues. For those of you in the U.K., it's on in the 10:00 (a.m.) hour.

For folks in the U.S., you can listen online here at any point during the day. (Unless you wake up reeeeally early and want to tune in live.)

On Monday, Yes Means Yes co-editors Jessica and Jaclyn Friedman will be livechatting on Feministing with contributors Miriam, Samhita and Cara from the Curvature and Feministe about the book.

The chat begins at 3 pm EST. Make sure to check it out!

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.

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!

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.

Ann's 27th birthday was this past Saturday - so make sure to leave her some love in comments!

Happy birthday, lady - you are so fabulous at 27, you make us all look bad. But we love you for it.

Some weight-loss ads have snuck their way into our ad queue - we're working to get them down now. Thanks to all who sent emails alerting us!

Hey all, I know a lot of folks have been having problems commenting (myself included!). I just wanted to assure you that we're on it. Apologies for the inconvenience!

We're actually a couple of days late on this due to the distraction of the holiday madness (forgive us Courtney!). This very special lady was, not surprisingly, born on a very special day: New Year's Eve. It is Courtney's 29th, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we are crazy grateful to have this amazing woman as a part of the Feministing crew. Between her incredible writing and ability to dance a mean roger rabbit, what more could we ask for?

Send her birthday wishes in comments. Happy Birthday C, we love you!

Feministing will be back on Friday, January 2. Have a wonderful New Years Eve!

The number 4 search term that brings people to this site is 'ballbusting'. Just in case you were wondering.

Woot!

We're having some tech problems - we should be back to posting regularly shortly. Thanks in advance for your patience!

Hey all, we're taking a couple of days off for the holiday season - we'll be back up and posting regularly on Friday. Good wishes and joy - if you're celebrating a holiday or not! - to you and your loved ones.

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!

It's that time of year, folks when the editors of Feministing (along with suggestions from readers) put out a list of the year's best feminist-minded gifts. And of course, given U.S.' economic crisis, we've also suggested a list of charities that could use your help this year as well.

Feel free to leave your own ideas in comments!

Activist-y gifts

Sticker Sisters has a ton of great, well, stickers. But it also has kick-ass t-shirts, magnets and buttons for the activist in your life. This one - meant to be stuck on offensive ads, products, whatever - is my favorite.

Buy your friend the gift of liberal discounts with the Liberal Card.

Or shop at MADRE's online store to support women worldwide.

Feminist Fashions, Housewares and Knick Knacks

Gotta love Miss Wit's stylings...

Not to mention our very own Feministing gear!

And nothing says "thank you for being a friend," than an homage to The Golden Girls.

I am woman, hear me roar. And write.

Or consider giving patriarchy the finger with some subversive cross stitching.

Ladypart-inspired gifts

Show your uterus you love her with a plushy toy.

When you go red, buy green.

And if you're buying sex toys this year, make sure that they're made of safe - for your body and the environment - materials.

Support feminist organizations!

Make it a very happy holiday for one of these amazing organizations (don't forget - leave others in comments!):

The Mautner Project, a national lesbian health organization.

The Abortion Access Project.

SisterSong, a reproductive health collective for women of color.

The Women's Prison Association, a service and advocacy organization that helps women with criminal justice histories.

The National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which works to protect the human and civil rights of pregnant women.

Give the gift of feminist media

Gift a gift subscription to BUST, Bitch, Shameless, make/shift, or New Moon.

And most importantly, spread the feminist love around this holiday season! Support blogs that aren't widely-read, local organizations and grassroots campaigns that don't get the same media attention big orgs do - whether that means volunteering, donating, or even dropping them a note of support.

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.

There are emails that the editors of Feministing get on a pretty regular basis (asking us about the logo, our comments policy, etc) and assumptions we know get made about the way the site is run.

So we figured we'd shed some light on the inner-workings of Feministing in a brand-spanking new FAQs section. Here you can find answers to some of the questions you may have about the site and our process; we'll probably add to this page in the future, but we thought this was a good start. Enjoy!

This was the healthiest way for me to deal with the frustration I feel sometimes from being a self-proclaimed feminist blogger. It is quick and to the point and happy hour style late.

Enjoy your weekend folks.

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

Not the massacre of native people "Happy Thanksgiving," but the thankful for our lives and communities and feminism and progress "Happy Thanksgiving." We're certainly deeply grateful for all of our readers and community posters--you all make this space truly alive and dynamic.

And, thus, feminism alive and dynamic. I'll drink a glass of wine and eat some mac n' cheese to that lovely thought.

By the way, we're taking the day off and will be back tomorrow with limited posting.

You're heard of the slow food movement, right? Well now folks are bringing that same sensibility--a mindful, patient, sensual exploration of the full enjoyment of the present moment--to one of the fastest of mediums: the blog.

The New York Times had a fascinating story on this trend on Sunday. It turns out that there is even a Slow Blog Manifesto, written in 2006 by Todd Sieling from (of course) Canada. Sieling writes:

Slow Blogging is a reversal of the disintegration into the one-liners and cutting turns of phrase that are often the early lives of our best ideas. Its a process in which flashes of thought shine and then fade to take their place in the background as part of something larger. Slow Blogging does not write thoughts onto the ethereal and eternal parchment before they provide an enduring worth in the shape of our ideas over time.

It got me thinking...what are the effects--both short and long term--of our speed as feminist bloggers? Sometimes we will have an activist goal in mind--eg. get Walmart to pull their sexist, violence-promoting t-shirts or make sure that Bush keeps his paws off our bodies in these last legislative days). In these cases, time is of the essence. It is less important that we write well, or get at the deepest recesses of the issue at hand, as it is that we get the content out there, incite outrage, and create collective action.

But other times, we feministing editors do try to insert some slower, more reflective posts. Vanessa thought back to her own experiences working in direct service with girls last week. I tried to introduce some of the ongoing questions in my own head and heart as I continue my feminist journey (interestingly, commenters were quick to speedy answers rather than the slow reflection I had intended.) I think sharkfu's beautiful stuff, more than anything on feministing right now, tends towards the reflective (even when it has decisively time-sensitive content).

So while I certainly don't see feministing as a member of the "slow blogging movement," I do think that we try to balance our quick hits with our slowly-developing consciousness, our action-oriented items with our reflection-encouraging content, and our sass with our search. What do you all think? Do you ever wish we were "slower" or "faster" (haha, sounds like we're doin' it)? For those participating in the community blog (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU), what do you notice about your own literary instincts in this regard?

*For more interesting, and very slow, writing on blogging, check out Andrew Sullivan's piece in this month's Atlantic.

My crush on Henry Rollins is no secret. As I have said before, he may be a complicated man, but I can appreciate that. Moreover, seeing that he not only reads, but recommends Feministing, well that just makes him my destiny.

*swoon*

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.

Hey all, you may have already noticed that we've changed up the comments format again. After some group discussion and listening to reader suggestions, we decided to tweak the comments rating system and only include the "I liked this comment," not the "dislike." (Of course, the "report abuse" link is still up so if you need to email us about trolls, that's how to do it.) This way, we're keeping it positive!

I am sitting with some lovely folks at the Facing Race conference (Jodie Tonita and Adrienne Maree Brown to name but a few) and listening to panelists debate the myth of post-racialism, asking the key question, is racism over now?

Obviously not. But what tools do we, as communicators and organizers, need to tell our stories of racism while recognizing the wins of this presidential election, yet recognizing that racism is alive and well. They are discussing two perspectives, one that is "colorblind" and the other that is "racial justice."

Here is one of the questions being debated:

Question 1: Are racial disparities responsible for differing health problems in different communities?

The traditional response is that health problems are based on personal responsibility and racist ideas of genetics, so if you want to be healthier you have to eat better and take care of yourself and no one can take responsibility if your community has a higher rate of certain diseases.

On the other hand, when you look at the way that resources are distributed and how low income communities of color rarely have access to healthy food, usually exposed to serious environmental toxins at work and at home and lack of access to affordable health care it is frequently not possible to even be able to take the personal responsibility.

What do you think? Why are health disparities so high?

So for those of you in the Bay or those traveling from out of town, remember the annual Facing Race conference is this weekend (November 13th-15th) in Oakland and it is going to be awesome. Here is a trailer for some of the amazing speakers and panels in store.

There will also be plenary sessions on:
* Post-Election Reflections: Examining Race in the Presidential Race
* The Race Debate: Challenging Colorblindness with Race Conscious Solutions
* Compact for Racial Justice: A Proactive Agenda for Advancing Racial Equity
* Race and the Global Economy

I will be liveblogging, so be sure to check back for that and shoot me an email if you are going to be there or say hello if you see me!

The Feministing editors are getting over last night's festivities and I'm on my way to Ramapo College to speak, so things may be a little slow here this morning. So talk it up in comments in the meantime...how is everyone feeling?!

Also a reminder that the awesome event we plugged earlier this week, The Day After: A Feminist Town Forum, has switched locations for those of you attending in person in Boston. The new venue is:

LESLEY UNIVERSITY AMPITHEATER
1815 Mass. Ave in Cambridge

And of course, those of you who can't make it in person, check the Feministing homepage at 7pm EST tonight to follow the conversation virtually.

Today, our Jessica turns 30. We'll have a little something special for her (and you all) tomorrow, but for now - Happy Happy Birthday, Jessica!

What can we say about this incredibly inspiring, intelligent, and hilarious feminist that hasn't already been said? One thing is for sure, finishing three books before you reach the age of thirty is a damn big accomplishment. And we are all so, so proud of her.

Send her birthday wishes in comments. Happy birthday, sis. Love you!

Cindy Rodriguez from the Allentown Women's Center sent us a picture of this awesome Feministing pumpkin she carved out for the clinic. Thanks for the awesome Feministing-o-lantern, Cindy! You can also check out some of her book reviews on Lesbiatopia.

What are you doing/wearing for Halloween tonight?

Click to enlarge

I'm super excited to announce that we've revamped our comments section to make them more organized, and more community-friendly. Here are the new functions in comments; let us know what you think!

Threaded comments: This means you can not only reply to the post, but you can reply to a particular comment (like I did above). This will help the conversations to stay more organized.

Rated comments: Similar to recommending posts, this "liked or disliked" function allows readers to put their two cents in about comments as well. I find this really helpful because if you don't have time to read a long thread, you can choose to ignore the comments that got a lot of low ratings from the community and focus on the higher rated ones. I think it's also a great way for the community to help moderate the thread.

Reporting abuse: Speaking of moderating...anyone who is a regular Feministing reader knows that we still have our fair share of problems with trolls. And now that we also have the Community site to moderate, it's become even more difficult to keep track of all the active threads. Here's where you come in. If you see a troll or an abusive comments, simply click on "report abuse." It will immediately send us email with a link to that comment. That email will also tell us what user reported abuse, so abusing the abuse button (heh) isn't possible.

Please let us know how you like the new format... And we're planning on bringing you more new additions to the site in the coming weeks, so be on the look out!

The fall issue of Ms. magazine should be hitting newsstands this week, and I've got an article in it about period-suppressing birth-control pills like Lybrel and Seasonique. (Timely, in light of the approval of a new low-dose version.)

Also, Veronica of Viva La Feminista reviews Yes Means Yes, the anthology edited by Jessica and Jaclyn Friedman that features essays by our own Samhita and Miriam, as well as Jill, Cara, Kate Harding, Latoya, Julia Serano, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and a roster of other awesome writers.

The issue also features an expose of crisis-pregnancy centers, a piece on innovative programs for mothers in prison (shout-out to the awesome Beth Schwartzapfel, who reported it), and short fiction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Unfortunately, articles aren't posted online, so check it out in your local bookstore. Or subscribe here.

Say it with me now, "ANN FRIEDMAN."

Former Ms. magazine editor Elaine Lafferty has been working as a consultant on the McCain campaign (yes, seriously), and has a bone to pick with feminists who dare to criticize Sarah Palin.

For the sin of being a Christian personally opposed to abortion, Palin is being pilloried by the inside-the-Beltway Democrat feminist establishment. (Yes, she is anti-abortion. And yes, instead of buying organic New Zealand lamb at Whole Foods, she joins other Alaskans in hunting for food.[...])

...[L]ike many other Democrats, including Lynn Rothschild, I'm tired of the Democratic Party taking women for granted. I also happen to believe Sarah Palin supports women's rights, deeply and passionately.

M-kay, whatever floats your boat I guess. Never mind that her record indicates quite a different story. But here's the kicker:

Last month a prominent feminist blogger, echoing that sensibility, declared that the media was wrongly buying into the false idea that Palin was a feminist. Why? Well, just because she said she was a feminist, because she supported women's rights and opportunities, equal pay, Title IV--that was just "empty rhetoric," they said. At least the blogger didn't go as far as NOW's Kim Gandy and declare that Palin was not a woman. Bottom line: you are not a feminist until we say you are. (Emphasis mine)

"Empty rhetoric," hmm? That sounds familiar. The anonymous "prominent feminist blogger" is our own Ann Friedman! But it seems that naming Ann is beneath Lafferty - as is bothering to engage with her in-depth look at how Palin's rhetoric does not match her record. Making women invisible: Now that's feminist!

Is it really so hard to name the person whose opinion you're (limply) arguing against? Ann Friedman. Check it out, I can even do it in all sorts of different ways:

Ann Friedman. Feministing. Ann Friedman, Feministing. Ann Friedman of Feministing.

It's like a typing miracle! Say it together, folks: Ann Friedman.

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!

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!

The Feministing gals Courtney, Vanessa and Samhita went out dancing last night while I was stuck in working. Sigh. So I made a little mix tape as an homage to their night out, with hopes that I'll get out of the house one of these days. Until then, I'll have to be satisfied dancing in my living room.

(One of the songs on this "tape" Courtney and I requested at the WAM after-party, just to have everyone else leave the dance floor in confusion as we happily busted moves. Any guesses which one it was?)

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.

While being Monty's auntie is one of the greatest joys in my life, I had to represent this once for my cat-lovers and take the opportunity to show off my newly adopted kitty, Tweet. This scrawny Russian Blue wants to eat everything at every hour of the day, creepily stares at me while I sleep and has a seemingly abnormal amount of flatulence. (I bet a bunch of y'all could say the same for your live-in lovas.)

Check out another pic after the jump of her and my other cat, Cracker, who loffes her. I mean, I've never seen so much ass-licking in my life. (Sorry, it's true!)

I'm sorry, I know I've already posted about the wacko responses to my book (excuse me, my book cover), but I just came across this and I just couldn't help myself.

Ericka Andersen at LadyBlog has written a post that has brought intellectual dishonesty to a new low. She even starts off lying:

For some thought-provoking reading, check out Jessica Valenti's "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women." Cassy Fiano's post on the book today lead me to check it out for myself.

Thought-provoking reading...really? You checked it out for yourself, did you? May I ask how? Because the book isn't going to be released for another five months. So, Ms. Andersen, if you've somehow stealthily broken into my apartment or hacked into my computer, I'd really like to know.

I grew up in a Christian environment where sex before marriage was frowned upon but never was the act of sex condemned. I was never told women don't like sex as much as men or that we were supposed to use it to get husbands. I doubt Jessica has really been in the midst of this environment but as someone who has, I can tell you women and men were both encouraged to be disciplined in their sexual urges. And...I've never once heard a church leader say you were a slut or a whore if you did choose to have sex. This is an assumption Jessica makes. (Emphasis mine)

Right, I make a whole book full of assumptions. Women are never ever told they're sluts or sullied or or less than or diseased if they have sex. I must be making stuff up!

But here's the part that had me screaming to my poor boyfriend about what fucking liars people are.

The real purity myth is what Jessica is telling women: that sexual consequences be damned as long as you feel good. God forbid you have guilt. Girls Gone Wild is better for young women that purity rings, she claims, but I doubt many people would sign up for that argument.

Sexual consequences be damned? I've spent my entire writing and feminist career advocating for young women to have medically accurate and unbiased information about sex so they can make the decisions that are best for them. I have never, never, said that Girls Gone Wild is anything but a fucked up organization run by a rapist. For people like Fiano and Andersen to warp - and just lie! - about this work that I do, it's just beyond disgusting. I understand that they have no actual argument to make (being that, you know, they haven't read the book), but simply making stuff up to suit their theories is not only dishonest, it's stupid. Because I'm not going to sit quietly and let people lie about me, about feminism, about this blog, or about The Purity Myth. Every time someone publishes some bullshit like this, I'm going to call it out. Welcome to my new post series, Pure Lies.

So bring it, assholes.

Listen to an interview with Samhita on RH Reality Check's podcast, Reality Cast.

Some topics covered: The Planned Parenthood donation chain, Sarah Palin's gay friend, the Colorado amendment and forced C-sections...

For those who want to check out Courtney on SIRIUS radio tonight at 7 pm ET on SIRIUS Stars channel 102, go here to sign up for a free trial and tune in.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Margaret Cho and Vanessa Valenti at Radio City Music Hall.

So Vanessa and I had the pleasure of seeing Margaret Cho on her tour, "Beautiful," at Radio City Music Hall this past Saturday. It was amazing, as per usual. But what was even more amazing is we had back stage passes and were actually able to meet her as well. She said she, "reads us all the time." *dies*

And she did in fact have the whole crowd singing, "Eat me out," at the end of the show.

Thanks for keeping it real Margaret. Real raunchy!

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 am *this* close to handing in my book on purity to my editor, and I'm just so happy that it's done! And it's not just that I'm stoked to get my life back (though finally seeing my friends will be a treat!), it's that this book is incredibly important to me. It's something I've been thinking about and working on for so long - to know that it's finally going to go out into the world is just the best. (Can you tell I'm in a good mood?)

If you want a sneak peek at the cover, it's after the jump!

Above: An artist's rendering of the men's rights trolls who populate this feminist blog and others. The jewels in their bellies give them magical powers that blind them to their own privilege!

Regular readers have probably noticed that the comment threads have been overrun as of late with a serious influx of trolls. We're not sure if it's just the Palin-related traffic lately, the general election frenzy, or some special link-lovin' from a men's rights site. In any case, we've noticed. We're on it.

What is a troll, you ask? A brief definition here.

More specifically, the breed of troll that's been showing up here lately typically...

• Has a username that's something vaguely female with some numbers at the end


• Makes racist/sexist/homophobic/generally ignorant comments


• Has a tendency to ask things like, "what about the MENZ?!" and "won't somebody think of the racism against white people?"

What to do if you spot a troll:

• Do not engage. It's a waste of your time, and the threads start looking very confusing after we delete the sexist/racist/otherwise ugly comments.


• Let us know. Send us an email with the trolling commenter's username, along with a link to the comment or thread in question. We are internet obsessives, so usually (sadly?) one of the editors is online at almost all times, but sometimes we leave to go eat dinner or interact with real, live humans or something. But we promise we'll delete the offending comments and ban the trolls as soon as we notice they're there.

We really value the comments threads as a place for everyone to engage and discuss and deepen our understanding of issues. Thanks so much for your patience while we work to resolve this. And double-thanks to our secret band of anti-troll vigilante commenters (you know who you are!) who have been so awesome about alerting us to trollishness on the site.

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!

So to really get our minds off the election I thought I would switch it up and do a Feminist Fuck Yeah to Henry Rollins. Why Henry Rollins? Well because he is awesome (this is more awesome), but we also got several emails from readers who have seen his spoken word performances (which are amazing) and apparently he is a fan of Feministing. If that is not FUCK YEAH worthy, I am not really sure what is.

And I have been known to bite his style from time to time. (And full transcript after the jump.)

My gay boyfriend Merv and I, caught on the scene (well more like at my apartment) probably after getting our thizzle dance on.

Now this is really really bad. It is so bad that I can't even believe I am admitting it. And not just because of the rampant misogyny in rap music videos (which is over the top, grotesque and unapologetic), but because I am considered a hip-hop head that should stick to the *real* shit mayne! There is just something about certain mainstream pop-like rap tracks that get under my skin and stuck in my head and before I know it I am head bopping with the best of them and sometimes even wearing my hat to the side with some electro-glasses on.

Mind you most of what I am listening to isn't even hip-hop, there might be some rapping but it is basically R&B and it has a groove that I can't resist. For example I love this Lil Wayne track with Lloyd, it just gets me up and singing. And it isn't just the super mainstream stuff, I like whatever young people are listening to all over the country. I just left the Bay and although it has seen its heyday, boy can I get down with some hyphy music, like E-40 or Mac Dre.

I have written about negotiating my feminism with my love for hip-hop, so this is something I have given a lot of thought to. And frankly, sometimes I can handle it, but most of the time I am thinking, was that really necessary? And there are moments that are so over the top (like Nelly's Tip Drill track) which is just too much for me and I am grossly offended and ready to boycott the artist.

Does this music have sexist attitudes in it? It sure can and a lot of times yes. But it is also what my friends and my community listen to and not all of it is horridly offensive. Some of it is just cute. I actually got into commercial rap by hanging out with lesbians (well that and working in public schools for 5 years). I am not going to make a case for some type of reverse signification where we are reclaiming the music. We aren't, we are human and we like good beats with cheesy bass lines and corny lyrics and relate to the universal themes of sexual attraction, love and heart break.

I have no idea how I will continue to reconcile my love for mainstream commercial hip-hop since I am aware of its nefarious corporate packaging, mistreatment of members and a form of music that people of my generation (from the golden years of hip-hop) consider to be responsible for ruining hip-hop as we know it. However, I will make the argument that I don't think rap/hip-hop is any more sexist than other male dominated forms of music. So maybe your guilty pleasure is cock rock and mine is faux mainstream gangsta' rap. Either way, if you see me dancing somewhere and you are like, "omg is that Samhita from FEMINISTING" just know I recognize the potential contradiction, but also, like everyone else like to have a good time, dance with my friends and have taken myself to the task of mastering the balancing act of hip-hop love and feminist self-preservation.

In the spirit of Courtney's ten things she could do without list last week and all the amazing responses I wanted to do my own list. Now we must pressure the other ladies to do them too!

10. Being told I have an accent but you can't place it, when the closest my accent comes to is California valley girl.

9. Shops that don't carry larger than a size 8.

8. Body hair removal.

7. Being asked for empirical, statistical and quantifiable evidence, policy briefs, historical documentation, video, and whatever other proof that racism exists.

6. Being told that because of my interests and education I am not really a person of color.

5. Progressive men that do sexist shit.

4. The McCain/Palin ticket.

3. Having my weight scrutinized by friends and family on a regular basis even though I am a grown ass woman and it is none of your business.

2. Homophobia/transphobia/queer-phobia/disability-phobia. It is gross, it is tacky and it is upsetting.

1. Dating.

For the slow posting today, we had some technical issues earlier. Thanks so much for your patience!

I am concerned about putting these on little babies, are we trying to ensure they are inundated with sexist imagery from birth?

It would be so much cooler if she was giving the finger, don't you think? I have thought of all kinds of different things I want to put the Feministing logo on, aprons, actual mud flaps, underwear....other ideas? Where can we have our gal flicking people off for their sexist attitudes?

And for those who perhaps take issue with our subversive appropriation of the mudflap girl, I suggest checking out a post Ann did on the topic.

I had to find a reason to post Tony Bennett. You know this.

So as you see I have gone missing again, but this time it is for two very positive reasons (as opposed to neighbors gone mad). The first is that I lost my Burning Man virginity (separate post to come on that, wowza), and the second is that I have left my beloved home of 7 years, San Francisco, and have moved back to upstate NY where I am originally from. I will be hanging out up here at my parent's house for a couple of months while I work on a book and get away from the hustle bustle of urban life. And apparently to find out if a 30 year old, actively single feminist can live in a small town with her parents. Wish me luck with that one!

But I already miss the sunny, liberal, beautiful, health conscious, fashion forward, musical, geeky city that I called my home for the last 7 years. It was a fun-filled, adventurous, loving and productive time in my life and I will never ever forget that place. If any of you have been there, you know what I am mean!

I think my neighbors here are McCain supporters (ew!) and I wasn't able to find soy milk creamer for my coffee. Yeah, you can laugh at me for that one. I am sure this is just the first of many new things I will have to get used to on my new east coast adventure. I will no doubt keep you posted.

I am thrilled to announce that Shark Fu of Angry Black Bitch will be contributing a weekly post to Feministing: Notes From a Bitch.

I have been begging Shark Fu (aka Pamela Merritt) to blog for Feministing for...well, it seems like forever! All of us here at Feministing have been fans of Angry Black Bitch for a long time, so we're all incredibly happy that she's decided to bring her incredible writing style and perspective to the site.

Be on the lookout this weekend for her first post - and leave words of welcome in comments!

I'm sad to say that our fabulous friend Jen is no longer blogging on Feministing. I know I speak for all of us here when I say her writing, wit, and ability to vlog hungover will be greatly missed.

Jen, thanks for all of your hard work and great blogging. Feministing won't be the same without you.

Feministing is taking the day off to fully enjoy our three-day weekend. But keep an eye on the Community blog for great posts throughout the day. See you tomorrow!

Don't let her celebrate alone, folks! Wish that girl a happy birthday!

My wonderful sister and partner in feminist crime, Vanessa, is turning 28 today. I'm so proud and happy - not just to have such an amazing friend and sister in V, but also that we've gotten to take this feminist journey with the site together. Love you, sis.

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!

We had a server glitch late last week and it's effecting logging in for some people. If you're having a problem, please email me all your info (username, the error message) here and our tech guru Matt will fix it up for you.

Thanks for your patience!

So, folks - discover us!

We know there are a couple of advertisements up right now that don't belong (cough, Dino Rossi, cough). We're working hard to get them down ASAP - thanks to everyone for the emails letting me know that they were there. Your support and concern about what goes on the site means a lot to all of the editors, and we take your input seriously.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled feminist blogging...

So this might be a little bit shameless, but hey it is for a good cause. I have submitted a panel to the annual interactive conference in Austin called South by South West. It is where creative tech people, bloggers and other web folk get together and share some of the brightest, newest and innovative ideas in technology and how to apply it to the work we do. I have gone before and it was great, but it was also clear that there needs to be more conversations about the way that women are treated online. So I put a panel together about best practices of beating down online misogyny and you can go vote for it so it is approved. It is pretty competitive so the more votes we get the better. Support women's voices! You know we should be there!

You can vote here!

/shameless promotion

Thanks to readers of The Frisky for voting us "the hottest blog!" Woo hoo!

Note: In our recent Feministing retreat, we decided that some back and forth dialogue between editors would be a cool thing, so every once in a while you may see a post title with "re:" in it - that's how you'll know it's us doing some good old fashioned feminist debating.

Miriam, I'm so happy that you posted this amazing video of An Open Letter to Alix Olson. I thought it was just incredible and I really appreciated your take on MichFest.

I have to say, though, that it really bothers me when MichFest is framed as a feminist "controversy" rather than straight up discrimination. This isn't a controversy - it's deliberate exclusion and it's shameful.

I also find the "Oh, but we're not doing genital checks"(!) just as offensive as a stated and enforced womyn-born-womyn policy. There doesn't have to be a written policy on the website for the discrimination to still be there. If MichFest wants to do the right thing, they'll be proactive and have a statement denouncing their womyn-born-womyn policy and stop hiding behind their silence on the issue.

I personally think the festival should be open to people who identify as women (or womyn), and if there are issues with safety or harrassment (which seems to be a fear) then they should be dealt with directly, not via discriminatory policies.

I totally agree, though I wanted to just point one thing out. I find the "safety" issue really uncompelling - as did Carasande in comments. Not only because it's not just penises* that rape women, but also because it uses rhetoric of the Right. As thebeatles11 noted on the Community blog, the latest anti-trans campaign (tellingly called "Not in My Shower") cites the fear that women will be assaulted as the reasoning behind their discrimination. Feminists shouldn't resort to the language (or actions!) of fear and discrimination - we're better than that!

You mentioned Julia Serano--who I think is probably the most brilliant feminist writing today--and I think that no one talks about trans woman exclusion better than she does. So I thought it fitting to end my post (though hopefully not the discussion!) with her words:

*Because the fear here does seem to be about penises, rather than "men."

If you haven't already, here's another request that you take a few minutes and answer our questions about how we can make Feministing better. To reiterate, this isn't a stupid advertiser-based survey about your online shopping habits. This is us wanting to hear from you about what you like and don't like about Feministing, and how you use the site.

Click here to take the survey.

Thanks!

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.

In our everlasting quest to make Feministing better, we've implemented a new function that allows editors to "front page" a community post. Basically, that means if we see a community post we really don't want readers to miss, in addition to recommending it, we'll reprint it on Feministing's main page. (It will stay on the Community page as well, of course.)

We'll be testing it out soon, so be on the lookout for some great posts from our amazing community bloggers.

Related: Don't forget that if there's a particular community blogger you like, you can subscribe to their RSS feed by clicking on their profile name!

At our retreat a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about what we (the editors) want for Feministing. But one thing we realized is that we don't have a good sense of what you like and don't like. So we created this short survey -- really, it takes less than five minutes to complete -- to ask you a few questions about yourself, how you use the site, and what you want more of on Feministing.

This is not one of those online surveys that asks you how many TVs you've bought in the past year, or how much you spend shopping online per month. Nope, these are just questions we have for you -- and none of the info is for advertisers.

Click here to take the survey.

We really, really appreciate your time.

Hope to see ya'll there.

Details after the jump

It's been over a month since we launched the community blog, and already you've written 400 entries! Because the blog is still kind of in experimental mode, we've got some bugs to fix and things to get it right. One thing we thought might be helpful was a more detailed guide to becoming a Feministing community blogger. If you've wanted to try it but been hesitant, or if you're already blogging but a little confused about how the whole thing works, below the jump there's a more detailed guide to using the community blog.

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.

(L-R) Jessica, Courtney, Samhita, Ann, Miriam, Vanessa

We had a fabulous time at the Feministing retreat in Woodstock, despite the insane thunderstorms, a power outage, and shaming game of "Never Have I Ever." (Okay, that part was kinda fun.) I'm sure the other editors had a good time for their own reasons, but I have to say that being able to work with such incredible feminists - not only on the site, but being able to just shoot the shit about anything from transnational feminism to queer theory to sex toys - is a ridiculous honor. So thanks, all, for being a part of this project and for being such amazing friends to boot. (Sniff.)

If posting is a little light today/this weekend, it's because all the gals are getting together for a super fun Feministing retreat at my parents' place in Woodstock, NY. It's rare that the lot of us gets together as a group, so we're all really psyched about it. We'll be talking about the new community site and how to make it even better, the future of Feministing, and our (eventual) transition to a nonprofit. (Also, we're going tubing!)

So be on the lookout for some updates next week (and maybe some video) on what we discussed, and what you can expect from the site in the coming months.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Pic from Alexiares.

Activate (of Flavorpill) interviewed me last week about feminism, blogging, politics etc. Check er out.

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.

My first ever print piece is up at the American Prospect about the blog Stuff White People Like. Enjoy!

Happy Monday, folks! So it seems that this week, nearly all of the Feministing editors are away on vacation. (Save for Samhita and Ann; sorry gals!)

It wasn't planned that way (wasn't planned at all, clearly) so I hope you'll be forgiving if we're posting a little slower than usual this week. On the upside, we'll be highlighting a lot of the community posts!

Have a fun week...

We just approved a whole load of community posts (sorry for the delay, too many of us are on vacation this weekend!) - and they are fantastic. Make sure to check them out; maybe they'll inspire you to start writing as well!

Jessica's new book, He's a Stud, She's a Slut, is reviewed in tomorrow's New York Times -- alongside Kathleen Parker's ode to gender difference, Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care. (Not familiar with Parker? She's said that women having sex without going through courtship rituals first is a "mental health crisis." And she looooves to talk about how women in the military should expect to get raped.) It makes for quite the contrast:

Both of them cite a study that shows that women are "biologically" programmed to like housework more than men do. Ms. Valenti denounces it as rank anti-feminism. "In our happy little sexist world, things run much better when women are relegated to the home," she writes.

Ms. Parker applauds it: "Allow me again to translate. There's no way to make men into women."

Read the rest here. You can buy Jessica's book here.

Link: sevenload.com

Sing it with me, now! (And the hammer-heading hitting thing? That's been me for this past week.)

I think the nightmare is over! The new site is up, it's moving super fast, and I feel like I can finally relax on my vacation. Thanks to Matt for all of his hard work and sleepless nights. And to our guardian angel, Destiny from MediaTemple, who swooped in when things were crazy and lifted us out of the tech muck. Amazing.

And thanks to all of you for the ridiculous amounts of patience you've shown. If you have any problems, email us or leave it comments...

Yay!

Our apologies to anyone having problems commenting as we're in the process of switching to the new site. You can email us with your thoughts or wait a couple of hours until we have the new site up.

Thanks to all for your patience!

UPDATE: They should be all good. Comment away.

Hey all, I hope everyone had a fun weekend. Just wanted to give folks a heads up and let you know that it looks like we got all the bugs out of the new design (and went back to our old fabulous server MediaTemple and left evil, evil HostGator). We'll most likely be switching over tonight. Thanks again for your patience - we really hope the wait and inconvenience will be worth the kick-ass version that is the new site...

We're taking the rest of the day off to venture off to roof parties and such; everyone have a fantastic weekend! Anyone doing anything special for the long weekend?

Hey folks, clearly we're having LOTS of site problems. Send good tech vibes our way while I pull my hair out.

Thanks.

This is what you'll be missing if you don't sign up to receive our new and improved weekly newsletter (put together by the fabulous Ann, who is currently on vacation):

Hey fab feminists,
We're relaunching our newsletter in the mold of the Harper's Weekly (if you're not familiar, check out their archive here). Basically, it's going to be a recap of the feminist news of the week, with links not only to the goings-on at Feministing and our community blog, but to other feminist blogs as well. Sorry for our hiatus -- and welcome back to the weekly newsletter!

xo,
Feministing

THE FEMINISTING WEEKLY

We launched the new community site!

It was a week of BOOBS. Boob-shamer Ann Althouse and cleavage-spotter Robin Givhan discussed Michelle Obama's arms on Bloggingheads. A former top McCain strategist blamed a campaign gaffe on "tremendous reporter cleavage or something." A new online meme features womens' breasts being slapped and punched. And, contrary to what some online publications told us this week, advancing your career does not depend on your ability to toss "gold-flecked body powder on your cleavage."

And speaking of boobs of a different sort, Don Imus continued his racist assholery. Unsurprisingly, the racist and sexist chatter about Michelle Obama continues... ThinkGirl posted a petition: Stop the False Race/Gender Divide. Sign it!

Female pro golfers are getting the WNBA makeover treatment... because what good are female athletes if they aren't sexy? Oh, and happy birthday, Title IX!

A Marie Claire beauty editor warned us that shaving your face will seriously throw your whole gender identity into question. Commenter ellestar echoes that emotion: "Yeah, ladies! Don't use the cheap, harmless method of removing hair from your face with tools you already have. Use the painful, expensive procedures using products you have to go out of your way to buy or you'll think you're a dude."

We reported that Moon Duchin is a total badass. And we lost a different type of badass, George Carlin.

Rinku Sen discussed gay marriage and communities of color, while Lisa Jervis examines her mixed feelings on gay marriage. We talked about how marriage laws erase people who are transgendered. (And we celebrated the Trans Day of Action.)

The UN recognized rape as a weapon of war. And Jill reported that an 11-year-old Romanian rape survivor was finally allowed to have an abortion. Twenty "pro-life" groups have threatened to press charges.

The Supreme Court threw out a murder conviction because the victim -- a woman allegedly killed by her boyfriend-- was not present to testify against him. And some idiot made a list of products about "how to kill your wife" on Amazon.

Democrats refused to take a stand on making birth control cheaper and on abstinence-only education.

Sign up for the newsletter in the right sidebar!

Those of you who couldn't comment (either here on the community site) should be able to do so today. For those with TypeKey accounts: please remember when signing in o click on the TK option (where it says "Log in using..." when you're logging in.

If you're still having problems, leave a comment on this thread (if you can) or email us here.

When you click on a post (try this Quick Hit about home birth as an example), in the right sidebar related posts from Feministing and the Community blog will show up. Nifty, right?

We try something new and it all comes crashing in around us! So sorry for the site crash today, folks. Apparently, there are just a lot more of you than there used to be - so we have to get a dedicated server. (Don't you feel special?)

I'm going to assume that there will still be glitches over the next day or two, but it looks like we've been through the worst of it! *crosses fingers*

Thanks again for all of your patience and don't forget to leave questions about the new site on this thread.

So, ladies and gents, as you can see - the new site is live! A big thanks to Jen and Matt for all of their hard work...

Below is some info on the new site, how it works, and how you can get involved. There will probably still be some bugs that we have to work out over the next couple of days. If you're having any problems please tell me in this thread. If you can't comment, email here with the subject line "tech problem."

Commenting/Posting to the Community Blog: Despite trying very hard and annoying the Movable Type people, it seems that there is no way for readers to post to the community blog unless they register directly with MT. For those of you with existing commenting accounts through TypeKey, that means that if you want to blog on the community page, you're going to have to re-register (using a slightly different name) where it says "register" in the upper right hand corner of the site. I know that's a total pain in the ass, and I'm sorry. The MT people tell us that the next upgrade they do of the software will make it possible for those with existing accounts to post, but they're not sure when that will be. If you're not interested in posting to the community site, or having a profile (check out mine for an example), you can simply keep your TypeKey profile and keep on commenting as you have been.

Feministing Community: We've been really psyched about the level of posts that have already been put up on the community site, and we're looking forward to seeing more! For those of you who are posting, or who plan to, here's the deal. Right now when you put a post up, it goes into moderation until we have a change to check it out and publish it. Once you put up several posts and we recognize your name (and that you're not some anti-feminist wackadoo), we'll make you a trusted poster - which means your stuff will automatically go up. And of course, if you've been posting often and we haven't "trusted" you yet, feel free to email me to give me a heads up.

A lot of you have expressed concern about the sheer volume of content - how can you possibly keep up with all the community posts? Well, if you'd rather not read through them all, the most recommended posts will be highlighted on the front page of Feministing, as well as in the sidebar of the Community blog.

There are other ways to get involved in the Feministing community without posting. As you can see in our "Feministing As You Like It" sidebar section, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, find us on Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, or join our MeetUp Alliance.

Relaunched Newsletter: After a long hiatus, our e-newsletter will be back! For those of you who have signed up yet - we're going to be posting what the new newsletter will look like on the blog today, so check it out. If you like it, please consider signing up!

I'm sure I'm missing something, so keep an eye on this post for updates. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the new site and that it gives you all sorts of new ways to get involved. Thanks again to everyone for their patience and support as we worked on the community site. We're so thrilled with the way it turned out (and the response we've gotten so far) - we hope you love it as much as we do...

UPDATE: There's a little rebuilding problem, so please forgive if you don't see your comments go up right away.

Hey folks! Just want to give everyone a heads up - we're switching over to the new site tonight, so things may be a bit wonky until the morning. First thing tomorrow, I'll have a post up explaining the changes in the site and how to use it. In the meantime, thanks for your patience!

Some great stuff over there today...

Lissette calls our attention to the fact that LPGA athletes are getting the WNBA treatment.

erica asks, "Will someone tell John McCain that the wife beating jokes just aren't funny?"

And Josh O. of Planned Parenthood of South Dakota writes about how his state has failed to keep pace with declining teen birth rates.

The community blog is looking awesome, make sure to check it out and let us know how the experience is. I was particularly taken with this post today by zohramoosa. Great job, all!

Hey all! So yeah, we didn't switch over to the new community site. Unfortunately we're still figuring out how to resolve our commenter issue, and we don't want to launch the site until every thing is a-okay. But here's the good news: We're opening up the Feministing Beta site for our readers to check out, try out and report back on. Here's the main Feministing blog, and here's the Community Blog.

This way, you can check out the new design, see what the community blog looks like and test out some features before the site goes live! If you run into any bugs or problems, please tell us about them on this thread. (And of course, we'd appreciate it if you kept your suggestions to functionality, not design.)

If you're not already a commenter on Feministing, but want to be part of the community site, you can register on the beta site and start posting on the community blog. However, if you already have a user name (one that you'd like to hold onto), you can comment over there, but we're still working on an easy way for you to post blogs. Again, a tremendous thanks for your patience.

Please remember, the beta site is not updated, you can't go there for new content (yet). This is just a space for you to check things out and poke around. We're hoping to do the final switch by the weekend.

So...what do you think?!

That the new site hasn't launched yet. We've run into a few bugs and we're working tirelessly (seriously, our poor developer has had no sleep!) to fix them. Specifically, we want to make sure that when the site switches over, that all of our existing commenters will have an easy time becoming community bloggers and creating in-depth profiles if they want to. (Right now, folks would have to re-register and create new profiles, which just seems like an unnecessary pain in the ass to us.)

We're still aiming to get this thing up and running before tomorrow, but we want to make sure that when it does launch it's seamless - so please be patient with us!

Thanks and hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend...

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!

Just a little reminder that we're switching over to our new site this weekend, so apologies in advance if things are a little wonky during the transition.

We hope you're as excited as we are!

I did an interview with the charming Lindsay Campbell of MobLogic. It was a fun time. Though, not-so-shockingly, the comments devolved into how ugly I was. Fun, it's like junior high all over again! (It's hilarious, you look primped up in one appearance and you're a flighty hot feminist with nothing more to offer than your looks; you show up un-made up and you're nasty. There's just no winning.)

What really bothered me, however, was my own reaction to these particular comments. I get hateful, violent, sexist comments and emails every day - mostly about how I need to get back in the kitchen, I'm a stupid slut/cunt/whore. You know, your run of the mill misogyny. I can handle those pretty well. But throw a couple of comments about ugliness my way and I'm all upset, actually thinking to myself, "I knew I looked like shit that day!" It's amazing how women are taught to hate themselves, and how no matter what we do and what we look like, no matter how confident we are, how many compliments we get or how much we don't give a shit - there's always that creeping voice in there telling you that you are indeed an ugly, unworthy mess. (And then there's the feminist guilt, of course, for caring about what some idiot says.)

Self-loathing rant over. Now, back to your regularly scheduled sexism-smashing. (Random note: I was totally wearing my "end patriarchy shirt," even though you can't see it.)

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

Hey all, we're still working out the bugs in our upgrade and I believe some of you are still having problems commenting. If you are, please email me with "Comment Problem" in the subject and give me as detailed an account as you can of what's going on. Apologies for the inconvenience - we're hoping to have this fixed as soon as possible.

Yes, comments are screwy. Some of you are not having your comments go through and that others are getting error messages - we're hard at work trying to fix the problem. It should be taken care of by tomorrow. Thanks in advance for your patience!

I am thrilled to announce that we will be launching the new community site in two weeks - on the weekend of June 21. I know it's way overdue - and all of us at Feministing are incredibly grateful for your patience and support. I'm so happy with the new site, and I think you will be too. Below the jump are some screen shots of the changes on the site, including a test profile (which everyone can sign up for!) and the community blog.

So we're all on the same page, here are the changes to the site:

There will essentially be two Feministing blogs - the front page, which is what you're used to seeing now, and the community blog. The community blog will feature all the posts written by readers who sign up to create their own blogs. The most recommended community posts will be featured on the front page of Feministing.

Blogroll and Links - Instead of having an amazingly long list of links on the front page, we've fixed it so that in each category (blogs, news, organizations, etc) there will be a rotating list of three links. If you want the full list, there will be a separate page for that.

Profiles - Those who sign up will get their own profile page. This will include info about you, your picture, your posts, recent comments you've made, responses to the comments you've made, and posts that you recommend. So if you want to direct people to your Feministing blog, you can give them your profile url.

Community Standards - Our plan is to bring another editor on, a Community Editor, who will moderate the community blog and comments and make sure that the discourse is progressive and that the community standards are maintained. We'll repeat this when we launch the blog, but so you know, these are the guidelines for post and comment content: "In order to maintain a progressive and safe discourse on the site, anti-feminist comments, blogs, and profiles are not permitted; the Feministing editors believe that racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and hate speech constitute anti-feminism and have no place on the site."

I'm sure as we move forward, more questions (on both of our ends!) will come up, and we'll do our best to be available to our readers as we make the transition. We do ask for you patience, however, as we get the community site up and going. And, of course, we hope that you're as excited about this as we are!

Don't forget to check out the screen shots after the jump.

Hey folks, we're in the process of upgrading our blog software as part of our redesign efforts, so we're going through some changes with comments. Most comments will be held for moderation - this isn't because we don't love you, it's because we're trying to cut down on trolls and trying out some new stuff on the back end. We'll free up your comments as quickly as we can, and once we launch the newly designed and community-oriented Feministing (we'll announce the launch date on Tuesday, along with a sneak peak of the new site!) commenting will be back to normal.

Thanks for all of your patience and support...

I just wanted to say thanks to all of the amazing Feministing supporters who came out to our four year anniversary party last night. We packed the room, had some laughs, drinks, and chats - though not nearly enough dancing!

Seriously, it was so wonderful to see old friends and make some news ones. (Like the group that drove in from Philly, and the wonderful women of MADRE!) Thanks to all of you for your continued support -- I hope we see you all again at the next one.

More pics of the party to come...

Yeah, a bunch of misogynist trolls have swarmed the site. I'm sorry to Feministing readers for the nonsense. I'm going to shut down comments for the weekend until they find something better to do (because I just can't spend all weekend online deleting and banning). If your comment gets erased in the cleanup, apologies!

But in the meantime, this serves as a pretty good reminder as to why feminism is so needed! (Even if it does kill my Friday night occasionally.)

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...

Today is quite the special day for Miriam, our newest (and youngest) member of the Feministing family. This kick-ass woman has achieved a helluva lot in the 24 years of her life: writer, blogger, doula, activist...and she's only going up from here. We are very lucky to have her.

Happy Birthday, Miriam!!!

Not only will it be lots of fun, with raffle prizes, drinks, and feminist dance party madness - but we've just found out that DC editor Ann and San Fran editor Samhita will be joining us in NYC for the party! So no excuses, folks. Get your asses out to party this Friday, 9pm at Black Door.

If you're on Facebook, you can let us know you're coming here.

Full invite is after the jump.

Feministing will be posting on a limited schedule through Memorial Day - have a great weekend, folks!

And since I got a got a few emails this week from people annoyed at my forgetting to Monday Monty blog, consider the pic after the jump a special edition weekend Monty post (Astoria Park edition).