Recently in Thank You Thursdays Category

Ruthie Ackerman has written a lot of amazing work about Liberia--both past and present--as well as Liberian immigrants in the U.S. I had the good fortune of having coffee with her a month or two ago and was so struck by what a committed, courageous journalist she is, but even more, a truly incredible person. In her bio she explains:

It was following my second trip to Africa that I decided I had to do something. I could no longer just write and photograph people in communities far away from my own and then slip back into my comfortable life as if nothing ever happened. There had to be a way to show the world what I had seen, and that is when I made the decision to pursue a career in journalism. After one year in Cape Maclear and countless stories of adventures and hardships traveling in the region, I applied to New York University's Master's program in journalism and received a full scholarship. But before I left I promised myself that I would return to Cape Maclear someday to write stories that mattered about the women and people I encountered.

Ruthie has a sophisticated understanding of the complexity of telling others' stories (she and I hashed this out at length), and a real commitment to vivid reporting that reveals something about human nature, war, gender etc. She's actually in the process of working on a book about a group of Liberian immigrants in Staten Island, and meanwhile, is managing a really interesting blogging project that involves those folks--as well as a whole crew still in Liberia--to create their own content, use their own voices, tell their own stories. It's called Ceasefire Liberia.

It's exciting to see a forum where Liberians are speaking on their own behalf, instead of having their stories told through the lens of a white, Western journalist. I appreciate that while Ruthie is working on her own version of this story, she's inspiring her subjects to develop their own work as well. It's the kind of model I'm interested in following as journalism, as a field, starts to acknowledge the fallacy of objectivity and the intimacy (for so many) between writing or documentary work and activism.

When I was a little girl, my mom, along with her friend Donna Guthrie, started the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival in my culturally-deprived hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado. They had no idea what they were doing. Neither had ever studied film. Neither was a producer by-training. They just knew that my town needed more art and images of women by women, and so they went about making that happen. It's still one of my most inspired models of feminist activism at work. And there's no question that it is a huge part of why I am a feminist and a writer today; after all, I grew up watching diverse stories about women play out on the television in my living room from the time I was a tiny girl.

I thought of my mom and her amazing instincts when I came across an impassioned letter by filmmaker Ela Thier. After detailing the ways in which she's received ample praise for her amazing screenplays over her 20 year career, she then writes:

But the million dollar question remains, as one of my writing students asked after reading two of my scripts: "Why are these scripts not made? What better scripts could people possibly be reading?"

After years of learning, practicing, and teaching, after hundreds of hour devoted to each script, after years of query letters, phone calls, meetings, film markets, panels, classes, LA trips, networking, more networking, even more networking, my scripts - those ones that this reader liked better than the 150 scripts she read that summer - those scripts sit on a shelf. After years of trying and falling and getting up and trying, something finally dawned on me: maybe I'm not the most unlucky bastard that ever lived. Maybe I'm female.

She then goes on to detail some of the little ways in which sexism lives outside herself:
search:

Little hints of this invisible blockade pop up on occasion: a male student of mine with a fraction of my experience gets hired to direct a feature film; the manager who couldn't get my script out of his head tells me that he can't sell the script because the lead is a girl; an executive won't read my road movie because it's an ensemble with three female leads and, according to this executive, "women on the road has already been done." One producer urged me to pass my script to another director since I haven't made a feature before; this conversation took place while her husband was line-producing a $7M movie starring Bruce Willis, directed by a first-time male director.

But then she really blew my mind by writing about the ways in which sexism lives inside of herself:

I teach screenwriting and consistently notice the different regard that I feel for my male and female students. No matter how "enlightened" I think I am, I find myself having higher expectations of the guys. I just assume that they have more experience, more confidence, more intelligence...? I've recently noticed that when I receive quality work from a woman, I feel a sense of surprise. When I see amateur work from a man, I think "hmm... for some reason I had him pegged as an experienced writer." For some reason.

So if I, a woman filmmaker, the liberated one who's not afraid to use the word "feminism" in a sentence, if I myself carry misinformation about women that has me question our competence and intelligence, what thoughts do other people carry? What "feelings", stemming from centuries of fear and prejudice, and mistaken for intuition, dictate their decisions?

It's an incredibly brave and beautiful letter that resonates so much with what I've heard other filmmaker friends say--that being a woman in filmmaking is a constant fight, an unending battle to have your voice heard, your vision respected, your films funded and seen. I'm so grateful to Ela for having the courage to write this letter and make it public, because I think it's going to make a lot of other filmmakers feel seen and maybe even help tip the scales in a more feminist direction in the film world. What's even more amazing is how Ela has looked inward to try to examine her own internal sexism, a practice that is hugely transformative and rarely enacted.

Full, very long, letter after the jump.

Thanks to reader Laura and friend Jennifer Gandin Le for the heads up.

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've gotten a few emails from you college kiddos making your final jaunt across that stage for the very coveted and damn expensive diplomas. You're excited. You're scared. You're maybe a little hungover. You've asked us for advice on getting jobs in the feminist/blogging/writing worlds, and so I thought I would offer a few little things that I've learned the hard way in case they can be helpful:

1. Don't just apply to law school because it feels like something that you can tell your aunts and uncles at your graduation parties or makes you feel safe in this economy. Do it if you really want to be a lawyer.

2. You've heard it before from us. You'll hear it again from us. Negotiate. Even in this economy. Even with women bosses, who can sometimes be the worst about giving you the "oh, we're a poor organization, we couldn't possibly, we thought you were down" rigmarole. The worst they can say is no. And you shouldn't have to live off of Ramen noodles.

3. Take your work seriously, but have a sense of humor about yourself.
It's really important to be confident--you're a badass and you know it--but also to be humble and have a good laugh at yourself in the workplace.

4. Seek feedback. If you act like you'll break if people give you pointers, then you'll never improve or being more self-aware.

5. There's nothing wrong with combining creative or "intellectual" work with a job that pays the bills. I still think about waitressing sometimes because (a) I loved waitressing and (b) I loved the feeling of going home with cold, hard cash in my hand. Writing and activist work can sometimes feel like one long exercise in delayed gratification. Sometimes it's awesome to do something straight-forward, physical, and food-related.

6. Be patient. I know you hate that one, as did I, but it's just necessary. My first job out of college was nightmarish (think racism, plastic surgery, chain smoking in a tiny office, and control freak all packed into one tiny body of a boss), but I got through it.

7. Health insurance is important. I wish it weren't, but it is. Check out Healthy New York-type programs for low income people in your area. That's what I did for the first few years. Now I'm on Freelancer's Union health insurance.

8. Seek out mentors. Thank them often. Teach them about the world wide web and they'll love you.

9. House parties are way cheaper than going out to bars.

10. Just because you want to "do good" doesn't mean you should work at a nonprofit. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of jobs in the nonprofit sector that are awesome, but I think this is a default for so many young feminists who want to have meaningful work that ends up feeling really disappointing. What's more important than the 501c3 status is the quality of the relationships you can have at that office and the access to interesting work. And if you're drawn to the nonprofit sector, don't miss out on The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. I'm reading it right now and it's sploding my brain.

Since we didn't have a Thank You Thursday this week, I thought I'd take today to give some special Friday props for what happens to be National Volunteer Week.

It's hard just being employed in the nonprofit sector; I remember oftentimes while working at organizations, I would get so frustrated and depressed for dedicating my life to such important work and, well, getting paid so little for it. After all, so many of my friends had jobs that paid them three times as much for simply helping CEOs get richer. But that frustration and anger seemed to just float away whenever I encountered our volunteers.

So many grassroots nonprofit organizations doing real groundwork towards social justice are largely volunteer-run. Let me repeat that: they are literally run by volunteers. Meaning they simply wouldn't exist without them, meaning the hundreds or thousands of people that organization serve wouldn't be the same without the individuals who willingly commit their time and energy - and for free.

I feel like the very word "volunteer" is often generalized as an altruism of the economically privileged - for folks who have the time and resources to "give back." But I'll say that at least in my experience, nearly every volunteer I've met were hardly raking in the dough or with crazy free time to spare. They had jobs, they struggled, and they volunteered. That still amazes me.

So on this beautiful Friday morning, here's a huge thank you to the volunteers out there making the world a brighter place to exist. Share your stories of volunteering in comments.

*picture courtesy of Girls for Gender Equity

Check out this amazing profile of 20-year-old Charlie Rose (I know, crazy name), a teen mom and Smith student who is doing amazing work countering old, tired stereotypes about teen moms. An excerpt:

When she decided to have a child at 15 years old, Rose says that her biggest obstacle was not the physical pregnancy itself, which she describes as "easy," "wonderful" and "delightful," nor was it the financial burden - all of Cae's clothes and cloth diapers were handed down, and Rose made her own baby food. Instead, the hardships came from the labels and stigma attached to her decision.

"For some reason," she says, "people have very visceral responses to teen pregnancy. It's sort of the unifying issue, because everyone thinks that teen moms are awful. It challenges the idea of adulthood that we've established, the idea that teenagers are always irresponsible... From a patriarchal state, teen mothers are threatening because women are supposed to belong to their fathers until they belong to their husbands."

Thanks to J. Courtney Sullivan for the heads up.

Check out this awesome guest post by my former intern and good friend, Krystie Yandoli. She's currently a first year at Syracuse University and a Women's Studies major (who-hoo!).

Too often, the winners write history. Unfortunately even the women's rights movement is tainted with this reality--important people get shoved aside when it comes down to who receives credit and becomes a part of the history books. Matilda Joslyn Gage is a victim of this, but as far as I'm concerned she's going to make a comeback.

Gage was one of the original suffragists in the 1800's fighting for her and every other female's full citizenship and right to vote. She was a part of the unstoppable friendship trio that consisted of her, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. The latter may sound most familiar, and evidence shows this is because of Gage's two "buddies" pushing her out of history.

Gage's relevance to this part of American History is imperative. The women's rights movement would have fared very differently without her contributions to significant moments like writing and presenting "The Women's Declaration," advocating for a more equal dress code, and her famous speech at the 1852 convention after Seneca Falls.

The beginning of the end of Gage's close involvement with Stanton and Anthony was a financial crisis that inevitably led to the demise of their friendship. For economical purposes, Anthony joined forces with another group of women fighting for the vote. (Shocker, money played a role in destroying friendships and noble causes.) Gage did not support this because once they obtained the vote, members of this group wanted to diminish the goals of the women's rights movement.

Thank you to the late, great Conchita Cintron. As you might guess, I'm not a big bull fight fan (spearing animals=sad to these wimpy urban eyes), but I was totally blown away when reading Ms. Cintrón's obituary a week or so ago in the Times:

A headline in The New York Sun on Sept. 4, 1940, captured accurately, albeit with amused condescension, the startling anomaly embodied by Conchita Cintrón: "She's a Timid Blue Eyed Girl But -- She Kills Bulls Without Qualms."

Ms. Cintrón was 18 years old then and, as the headline went on to announce, had never been on a date, but she was already an international star of the bullring, a prodigy who was on her way to becoming perhaps the most celebrated torera in history. She was known as la Diosa Rubia, the Blonde Goddess.

"I have never had any qualms about it," she said of her deadly skill in the article. "A qualm or a cringe before 1,200 pounds of enraged bull would be sure death."

Ms. Cintrón, who retired from bullfighting after having killed as many as 750 bulls in the ring, died in Lisbon on Tuesday. She was 86.

Conchita Cintrón is a hero for any of us forging our own identity, our own work, in male-dominated spaces. She reminds us to depend on our strength--not just of brawn, but of brains and heart--while fighting all the metaphorical bulls (sexist dickheads, economic depression, objectification etc.) in our midst. Ole to that! RIP Conchita.

Thank you to Shark-Fu, Miriam, and all the bloggers who have responded to the recent discussion of the feminist blogosphere and "digital colonialism." It's critical that we stay conscious as feminist blogs carve out a major space in public debate, personal actualization, and political analysis. We must continually ask ourselves: Where is the power? Where is the potential for transformation? How can we make our voices heard?

I think these friends have some deep answers:

How precious it is to be made invisible by authors who are challenging a system they say is making women of color invisible.

Shit.

A bitch might not be all about the ego, but my ass sure as shit isn't some little blog that the big bad feminist blogs found and made a land claim on. I am the shit (wink)...and, as of this upcoming Sunday, I will have lived 36 years and all of them as a black woman...I know very well how the tools of oppression and colonization work and find the attempted tutorial on that shit insulting as hell.

Now let me get to the root of the problem...and that is the theory that my contributing to Feministing and Shakesville was a sell out move and that I'm just too damned stupid or Auntie Tomish to realize that my black ass is being played.

I reject the hell out of that. Mostly because my black ass has a very strong working understanding of what oppression, colonization and domination looks, feels, tastes and acts like.

Breaking News - I am a woman of color. I live that shit.

-Shark-Fu

Read the whole post at Angry Black Bitch.

You want to talk about tokenism?

Let's talk about tokenism. Let's talk about how it happens everywhere and everyday. Let's talk about how it's the flip-side of oppression. Let's talk about how it makes me question every award I receive, every job I get, every person who emails me, every opportunity I've ever had.

Let's talk about how often I make a joke out of my own presence to call attention to the hidden thought in the room before someone else does. Let's talk about how it makes me feel like I can only talk about a certain set of issues, that I have to be the one and only representative of an entire community. Let's talk about how I don't need to be publically reminded of something I think about every day.

-Miriam

Read the whole post at Radical Doula.

Also check out Feministe, Astarte's Circus, Tiny Cat Pants, Taking Steps, and Womanist Musings.

Ninety four year old Flora M. Crater died February 1st. Crater led a group of women known as Crater's Raiders to lobby for the ERA during the 1970s and 1980s, and still held out hope until the day she died that their fight would one day, finally, be won. She didn't see it as symbolic. She saw it as entirely possible.

In fact, Crater still published a newsletter called The Woman Activist at 91. Throughout her career, she was a champion for school integration and the advancement of women in general. In 1999, she received a Human Rights Award from the Fairfax County Human Rights Commission. She was also the first president of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the National Organization for Women and the first coordinator of the Virginia Women's Political Caucus.

The ERA, however, was her real baby. Just a few years ago she told her alma mater:

"We still need three more states. We have an active campaign going on right now in Florida."

So today we thank the late lady for reminding us that sometimes feminist fights are not won quickly, sometimes not even won at all in one's own lifetime, but that they are no less important. What's your ERA?

Check out her full obit in the Washington Post. Thanks to the Women's Media Center for the heads up.

I'm moonlighting on the Thank You Thursday post today to take some time and give a shout out to a blog that Feministing just discovered our mutual love for: The Kitchen Table.

This blog is written in the style of letters/conversation between two African-American Princeton professors, Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Dr. Yolanda Pierce.

Today I want to say thank you to those two dynamic women for creating and maintaining a truly refreshing and cutting-edge blog. First off, I love the concept. Harris-Lacewell and Pierce utilize the importance of the kitchen table and its role in families to create this space for their dialogue. From their first post in July 2008, Yolanda explains:

I remember when I "graduated" from the kids' table to the adult table during family holiday meals. I was truly a "woman grown" in the eyes of my family, but in my heart, I actually missed the kids' table. Growing up, the kitchen, and particularly the kitchen table was a site of comfort, laughter, advice, gossip, and good food. Important family decisions were made at the kitchen table; elaborate Sunday dinners of candied yams, fried chicken, and collard greens were prepared. At the kitchen table, homework was done and bills were paid (and left unpaid). I grew up watching generations of Black women experience the sorrows and joys of life at the kitchen table.

I find myself dining at all types of tables now, but none of these tables elicit the acceptance I once experienced at the kitchen table. As a Black woman in the academy, I've been invited to sit and eat at the Ivory Tower table, but I have not felt welcomed as a full participant in the meal. It wasn't so long ago that someone like me would have only been allowed to clean the table.

So, my hope is that this blog creates a "kitchen table" in cyberspace for those of us who struggle with being on the inside of an institution, but still feel like outsiders. I hope that we can model what has been glaringly absent in our own professional lives: a place of refuge and acceptance for all the roles we bring to the table. We are scholars, activists, mothers, and public intellectuals. And we need each other to survive and thrive. I hope there are other folks out there who'd like to join us on this journey.

Melissa's response:

I have no doubt that I will learn a lot from you. We are both 30-something black women who are raising daughters while teaching, researching, and writing in the wilderness of Central New Jersey, and yet we are still very different from one another.

I hate how the media always trots out one sister to give "the black woman's perspective" as though we there is a single experience of being a black woman. We can challenge that assumption here by giving ourselves and our readers a chance to share a place at the table even if we don't always agree. I can't wait to explore our political ideas, religious commitments, personal struggles, and pop culture tastes together in this little corner of cyberspace.

I really appreciate the perspective of this two women, particularly as academics, mothers and women of color in a white-dominated profession. I appreciate when academics reach outside of the academy and communicate their views and passions. Their perspective is always valuable and sheds light on important issues in new ways. The Obama campaign and election was particularly near and dear to both their hearts, and they were the first blog I went to on November 5th. I knew they would have something important to say about that monumental day. Definitely a must-read blog.

You might remember Melissa Harris-Lacewell from her many news appearances over the last year, particularly her debate with Gloria Steinem about gender and the election.

The Girls Education and Mentoring Service (GEMS) deserves some major props for the work they do day in and day out. GEMS is "the only organization in New York State specifically designed to serve girls and young women who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking," according to their website. It was founded in 1999 by Rachel Lloyd, a young woman who had been sexually exploited as a teenager. So amazing.

GEMS helps girls (ages 12-21) get out of the sex industry, heal from exploitation, and find their own voices and define their own dreams. It takes tireless mentoring and mothering, often resulting in girls who were former prostitutes becoming counselors for the next generation.

Check out this trailer of their new film on prostitution (trigger warning):

I'll be reviewing it later this month or next, so look out for that. And if you don't know what nonprofit to support this holiday, GEMS is a really meaningful option!

Need I say more?
RIP.

We're going to be taking the day off next week at this time, for one big serious Thank You Thursday (i.e. Thanksgiving), so I wanted to take this time to reflect on my own feminist legacy that I am so deeply grateful for. Feel free to write your own...

Thank you for the centuries of women who have listened to their own deep wisdom, even when society in various sexist forms tried to drown out their innate knowing.

Thank you for my grandmothers, Maryanne (pictured on the right) and Joan. Thank you for giving me the chance to live out some of Maryanne's unlived dreams and for the special time I had with Joan, her opening and softening and joyful nature.

Thank you for my mother, who is a fierce and rare mix of nurturing and fearless, brilliant and emotional, invested in both radical honesty and wise serenity. Thank you for the gifts she's given the world, including The Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival and my feminist brother.

Thank you for Lesline, her certainty and resilience in every situation, her capacity to raise four amazing children with less support than she deserved, her laughter and her accent, and her tender, tender care for my partner.

Thank you for all of my amazing mentors--both older and younger. Thank you for the opportunity to mentor others.

Thank you for the opportunity to write and speak with an authentic voice. Thank you to the women who created institutions and structures (women's studies programs, feminist nonprofits, alternative media) by which I could be a professional feminist and still pay my rent.

Thank you for my amazing friends who help people every day--the social workers, the teachers and tutors, the comedians, the writers, the artists, the doctors, the nurses, the community organizers, the activists.

And last but not least, thank you for feministing, my community of hilarious, real, smart, dedicated feminist friends, the platform it gives all of us to change the world, end suffering, build community, and its indistinguishable capacity to inspire.

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I read Margaret and Helen's best-friends-for-sixty-years blog, not because they're really old, but because I love old ladies and don't get to interact with them very often. My own grandmothers have passed away, and I don't run into too many blue hairs here in Brooklyn.

If, like me, you're hankering for some old lady interaction, do not stop go, do not collect one hundred dollars, but instead go directly to Margaret and Helen's awesome blog.

When 82-year-old Helen was recently called out by her readers for using foul language when talking about respected government officials, she writes:

New rules:

I will stop calling George Bush a jackass when he stops calling me a terrorist: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

I will stop calling John McCain an ass when he stops calling Barack Obama a socialist at every dog and pony show on the Straight Talk Express tour.

I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer. And I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops calling the parts of the country where I don't live more Pro-American than the part of the country where I do live. And I will definitely stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops acting like a bitch.

And don't miss the FAQs. An excerpt:

Are you for real? Why is that so hard to believe? Now I know what Santa Claus must feel like.

Have you really been friends for 60 years?
Some friendships last a lifetime. We just seem to be living a hell of a long time.

Is this a fake blog?
We got a few scary emails when I first wrote about Sarah Palin so my grandson told me to change our last names on the web page blog. Philpot was my grandmother's maiden name and Schmechtman is actually the name of a bird Margaret keeps as a pet. That bird shits on everything, but she loves him.

Thanks to Luckwouldhaveit for the heads up.

Please add other links in the comments to some of your fave elder bloggers!

I was so moved by the New York Times Saturday profile of Jenni Williams, "Zimbabwe's hell-raising practitioner of nonviolent civil disobedience." Williams is 46-year-old high school drop out, mother, and strategic activist who has taken on Zimbabwe's totally corrupt government through organizing women to do nonviolence sit ins, marches, jail time etc. From the piece: "Dozens of times, she has led seamstresses and maids, vegetable sellers and hairdressers onto the streets in Zimbabwe's struggle for democracy. They sing gospel songs, carry brooms to figuratively sweep the government clean and bang on pots empty of food."

She also has a bawdy sense of humor and an unbreakable belief in the power of citizens organizing. I know this wasn't exactly what we meant when we asked, "Can women have it all?" but it sort of seems like the most inspired answer.

An excerpt:

Mrs. Williams, listed as accused No. 1, faces an additional charge of causing disaffection among security forces, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. In a newsletter, the organization she leads -- Women of Zimbabwe Arise!, known as Woza -- said it told soldiers and police officers to refrain from beating people, a statement the police charged was "likely to induce the members to withhold their services or to commit breaches" of discipline.

"Hear us loud and clear -- your leaders may get generous retirement packages, but you will be left to face the justice of the law and the anger of the people," the newsletter warned.

Swoon.

First I have to admit, I am not all caught up so take my commentary here with a grain of salt. My honey and I just started blazing through this amazing show, first season, on DVD last weekend. But I just had to shout them out because I've been so affected by the gender dynamics that play out on the little screen on this wildly accurate historical drama.

For those who haven't seen it, Mad Men looks at the inner and outer lives of ad executives circa 1960. Sounds like a potential sleeper right? Except the creators and writers do a masterful job of looking at the time as this sociological flash point. Not only does it portray the rise of advertising culture in a way that makes me understand Naomi Klein, Adbusters, and every other brilliant critique of consumer culture more deeply, but it presents the gender dynamics and family lives of folks at that time in a way that is piercing.

I can honestly say that, even with all of my women's studies classes and feminist reading, I've never really understood how fucking limiting and objectifying being both a working girl and/or a housewife were at that time until I watched this show. I was even more stunned when I talked to feminist historian Elaine Tyler May about it, and she said that Mad Men is shockingly accurate in every way.

The secretaries are seen as pretty little slaves, always available for the vanquishing in a hotel room and never valued for their own ideas or identities. The housewives are completely trapped, sexually and intellectually starved, scared as all hell to counter their husbands' whims and ways, really frickin' joyless. I recognize that these are fairly one-sided portrayals. Certainly some women at that time found ways to feel powerful, work their ideas into the board room (even if under a male name), find joy in care taking and housekeeping, but I also believe that we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that these were majority experiences.

So this week, I thank the creators of Mad Men for really making me understand just how incredibly far we've come in so many realms. Speaking my mind has more meaning than ever.

They said it best over at Echidine of the Snakes, so I'm not even going to try to paraphrase:

Nancy Pelosi deserves a lot more respect than she's given. People on leftist blogs, particularly the boys, constantly slam her for not delivering what we want, seeming to think, somehow, the Democratic Speaker of the House hasn't delivered what a sizable portion of Democrats and others want because she doesn't want to. Well, let's again review her reality.

She is the farthest left of anyone in the direct line of succession of the presidency in the history of the United States, a remarkable achievement for anyone in 2008. I've pointed that out here before. She gained that position at a time when 'liberal' is a dirty word in the wider culture. She gained it by dint of her own hard work and intelligence. No one handed it to her out of the clear blue.

She holds that position by the fact that Democrats hold a slim majority in the House of Representatives, a majority won during her leadership. That is something her male predecessor couldn't seem to achieve. Least anyone forget, Nancy Pelosi is also the only woman who has ever been in direct line of presidential succession, the only one to lead either of the two houses of the legislative branch.

Read the rest here.

And an extra bonus: Cobert giving Nancy Pelosi an award at the Glamour Awards:

Thanks to Cate Friema for the heads up.

I'm sort of peeing my pants in excitement about tonight. What makes the anticipation even more intense is knowing that superstar Gwen Ifill will be moderating.

Ifill is not only one of the smartest interviewers and pundits on television, but she's irreverent and self-assured. When asked why she wasn't married, she told reporters, "I don't sweat it." Wow. Why is an unapologetic single gal so revolutionary?

And who couldn't love the moment with Cheney in last election's VP debates when he said he would need more than the alloted 30 seconds and she responded, "Well, that's all you've got." Sorry Dick.

The October issue of Essence magazine features all curvy ladies, including the amazing Mo'Nique, who talks openly about her sexual abuse history. I saw a couple of the editors talking about it on the TODAY Show; their idea was to top off fashion week, where size 3 is considered big these days, with some real looking women.

One thing that I found annoying was how much the hosts of the show (yeah, that's you Kathie Lee) seemed to struggle over terminology. They shifted back and forth between "full figured" and "plus size." Can we all just agree on something that doesn't make women feel like fast food meals (I'll take a plus size fries with that)? Ugh. Throw your suggestions in comments, if you will.

I've just discovered the Brower Youth Awards, an annual national award recognizing six young people for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental advocacy, and hot damn are they a good spirit lift among all this depressing economic news. Check out this video about the amazing Erica Hernandez:

Learn more about the Brower Awards and apply for one in 2008! And thank you from deep, deep in my heart to the Earth Island Institute for not only recognizing, but supporting, young leaders on the cutting edge of environmental justice.

Sherrlyn Borkgren began photographing conflict in 1993 when she awoke in the midst of a military coup in Guatemala. Ever since she has been documenting violence, and more recently love, in an attempt to bring attention to the neglected extremes of our human experience. We were thrilled to learn that Borkgren has won a $10,000 ShootQ Grant to document rape in the Eastern Congo in a clinic that will serve at least 8,000 women and children this year. Read her proposal here.

See a few samples from her incredible portfolio below:

Thanks to Anne for the heads up.

Jay Smooth said it pretty damn well, but I still feel a feminist obligation to talk back to the Republicans who made fun of community organizing last night.

Thank you to all the community organizers, past and present, who have recognized the ways in which the personal is the political, hearing--in the individual stories of ordinary people--a common thread of struggle deserving of action and resolution. Thank you to those who jump started whole movements (feminism, civil rights, labor) with their audacity and daily, hourly, minute-by-minute courage to knock on doors, sit down with friends and strangers alike, educate, and most of all, listen. Thank you to the community organizers who have targeted environmental racism--making sure that folks aren't poisoned in their own neighborhoods just because they don't have the resources to fight back. Thank you to the community organizers who have targeted civil rights, educational failures, classism, racism, sexism, ableism etc. etc.

Thank you to my friend Daniel, who has done community organizing from Harlem to LA to Boston. Thank you to Biko Baker of League of Young Voters, who I once interviewed and was immediately impressed by. Thank you to Saul Alinsky, largely considered the father of community organizing (pictured above). Thank you to all of you I don't know, who every day, make the choice to listen to ordinary people's stories and help them link these stories into a template for honest-to-goodness social change.

And, yes, thank you to Barack Obama, for making the choice to be a community organizer so many years ago and for continuing to be proud and loud about the importance of the role of the community organizer for our nation's wellbeing.

Since Courtney is on vacation, I'm stepping in this week to do my first Thank You Thursday post!

This week I want to dedicate to graphic novels, and particularly the bad-ass women who write them. In the pretty male dominated world of comics and graphic novels, these women rock their content. I love the way reading a graphic novel makes my brain work differently, giving visual context for the words and characters on the page. Two women in particular stand out for me: Alison Bechdel and Ariel Schrag.

I've written about Alison Bechdel's stellar book, Fun Home, before. It's gotten TONS of well deserved attention, and I've read it at least five times. She has such a witty and thoughtful style and tells the story of her own coming of age and coming out, as well as her dad's own struggle with his sexuality. She's also the author of the favorite comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, which is coming out in a collected edition this fall.

Ariel Schrag is a newer find of mine, but she's also a fantastic contributor to the lesbian graphic novel world. She wrote a series of graphic novels while in high school in Berkeley, one about each year. It's really cool to watch her skill and style develop and really fun to delve back into the world of high school through Schrag's eyes.

Both these women write with such honesty and humor it makes my life feel just a little less foreign.

Who are your favorite female graphic novelists?

This incredible Congressional leader is gone, but her legacy will live on in the fierce stand she took against the war and repressive Bush-era policies, her unflinching support of reproductive justice, and her insistence on speaking out often.

Tubbs Jones chaired the House Ethics Committee. In 2002, she voted against the use of military force in Iraq. And again, when most of our nation's leaders were hoodwinked by faulty testimony about WMDs and fear mongering, she was one of only 11 House members to oppose a resolution supporting U.S. troops in Iraq in March of 2003.

Tubbs Jones also opposed President Bush's tax cuts and the privatization of Social Security and spoke out against election fraud in 2004.

And by all personal accounts, she was a joy to be around. She will be missed, but modeled after for years to come.

We ask you to contribute to our redesign project, and you donate money with generous abandon. We create a community blog and you fill it full of fascinating analysis, personal experiences, and media debunking. We ask you to fill out a reader survey, and you do, in absolute droves.

Not to kiss your asses, but we really do want to thank all of those in our feministing family for being such involved, dedicated readers and writers. You make us smarter everyday. You confirm, for the millionth time, that feminism is obviously not dead. And you have a great sense of personal style. Well, we don't really know, but we can imagine.

We showed you McCain stumbling over the question of whether birth control should, indeed, be covered by insurance companies in the same way Viagra is (answer=hell yes). But who asked the question?

Many news outlets have alluded to "the woman from the LA Times," but we wanted to name her and thank her for doing what journalists are supposed to do--ask the hard questions and demand answers from our nation's political power players. Thank you Maeve Reston!

By the way, I love that community blogger JentheFem and others have started to write their own Thank You Thursdays. The best form of flattery!

Okay, so it's obvious that the feministing ladies have a bit of a crush on this dude, but don't you also?

I've long felt like calling people "racist" was the most pointless shit ever. It allows those who are doing the labeling to pretend they're not--even though we're all socialized in a racist society, and therefore, a little bit racist (in the words of Avenue Q). And it allows those who are the people being labeled to grow irate and not have a real conversation about race.

Thanks to Racialicious for the heads up.

On a related note, I'd like to personally thank Nicole Anderson, a history professor in Florida, who I met at the National Women's Studies Association conference this year. She and I resolved to do some serious frank dialogue on race and feminism after sitting through a heated session at the conference. I've already learned so much from our back n' forth. Stay tuned for the fruits of our shared labors...

Saunter over to your women's studies bookshelf and open up that first flap to discover who published your favorite feminist tomes. Chances are it wasn't Random House or Simon & Schuster, or one of the other major biggies (with a few exceptions). Instead you were probably introduced to feminism thanks to the ingenuity of publishers like the Feminist Press, Seal Press, or one of the other many, many small, independent publishers that takes a chance on feminist lit.

I just sold a new book (stay tuned for details), so I've been thinking a lot about ye ole publishing industry and the way it works. It is an industry that started out with a deep commitment to Ideas--to giving people the goods on how to live a great life, to challenging the status quo, to the development of long careers of writing, reading, and editing. But because of market forces hard to explain in one little blog post (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, the rise of less literary forms of entertainment etc.), the publishing industry is not heavily dependent on dollars and cents.

This isn't to say that some books aren't published simply because they contain brilliant ideas, but it is to say that we would naïve if we really bought the idea that publishers aren't primarily interested in the bottom line these days. Did my editor at Simon & Schuster buy Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters because she felt a moral obligation to spread the word about food and fitness obsession? In part. But in truth, she was able to convince her publisher to buy it because they thought it would sell. Point blank.

Feminist presses, on the other hand, still strain to juggle the bottom line with a higher calling. They are committed to spreading the feminist gospel, to challenging traditional notions of gender, to finding new voices who are marginalized and/or left out all together by mainstream publishers. For this--and for Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation, Riverbend's books out of Iraq, and Brown Girl, Brownstone etc.--we thank them from the bottom of our big, feminist hearts.

If there is a book, published by a feminist press, that changed your life, please let us know in the comments.

With all of this talk of potential first ladies in the news these days, it's got me thinking about one of my favorite feminist heroines of all frickin' time, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Not only did she chair the committee that created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but she can be thought of as one of the catalyzing forces that ushered in the second wave of feminism. Her personal life was also fascinating--from a love-starved childhood to her consistently contentious relationship with her mother-in-law, to her later alleged affairs with women and men alike (Franklin obviously had his lovin' on the side). Reading about her life is like peering into the history of women's transcendent public works alongside their tumultuous private lives.

Thank you Eleanor, for your incredible spirit, visionary leadership, and fiercely unique example.

So yeah, there's sure a lot of work to do in this damn country if we really want to eradicate institutional sexism, racism, classism etc. Yeah, we've got major media bias and a real problem with corporate conglomerates owning everything and people being consumer-obsessed. We're still involved in a deadly, unjust war and have a "big daddy" for a president.

BUT, I want to take this opportunity--the day before hot dogs and fireworks--to acknowledge that we also live in a country where a lot of shit is done really right, a country where there is a democratic process (though it doesn't always run smoothly) where people can change laws, get help, fight injustice. A country this is constantly striving to be better, that is made up of incredible immigrant stories, that has been transformed by feminist movements in innuberable ways. Here are five things I thank America for. Please feel free to add your own:

1. Title IX
2. Eleanor Roosevelt
3. The freedom of the press
4. Roe vs. Wade
5. Hot apple pie with cold vanilla ice cream on top

I had a really incredible experience a few weeks back and I wanted to write something about it for the feministing community because I hope it inspires others to do the same.

For many years my extended family on my mom’s side, which is mostly located in Colorado—with some outliers on the east and west coasts—has had a hard time getting everyone together. When I was growing up our Thanksgiving celebrations were legendary—kids everywhere playing board games and falling in the snow during touch football, parents laughing and reminiscing about old times, my grandmother pulling out her amazing pumpkin pie and drinking scotch on the rocks. But since we’ve all become adults, it’s gotten harder and harder to make this happen.

And let’s be honest, it’s not just a logistical difficulty. My family is really diverse, not in the ethnic sense, but in the political, cultural sense. We’ve got cousins who still think George Bush has been a great president, that abortion should be illegal, that homosexuality is an abomination. And then we’ve got my mom, for example, who uses words like “goddess” and “patriarchy” with ease, drives a Prius, and talks to animals in the backyard like they are her little friends. When the two meet—especially in these contentious political times—things can get ugly.

The women in my family—however—have a way of working with these differences that has always been more compassionate, more resilient, less fraught with black and white thinking. So, in the spirit of the amazing women who have come before, we decided to try an all lady reunion at my mom’s house in New Mexico.

It was amazing. It was actually more than amazing. I would sit around a table in the backyard and feel stunned by how unalike we all were, yet how wildly similar. It turns out that though we have traveled very different paths, so many of us have been traveling them in the same way.

We are a family of women with indistinguishable empathy and tireless work ethics, what my Christian cousins would call “servant’s hearts.” Among the “momma generation” we’ve got a psychiatric social worker, an emergency room nurse, a missionary nurse, a teacher in a poor, urban school, a business owner with a collaborative, cutting-edge ethic, and a bartender (aka another therapist). I’d never really seen all these women (at least with an adult consciousness) as a quilt of where I come from. I’d never felt my roots so deeply and profoundly as I did over this weekend.

It wasn’t easy to get everyone together. A lot of us, in truth, barely knew one another before showing up for this familial leap of faith. But I cannot tell you how grateful I am that we did it. I encourage you—especially if you come from a family like ours, where political tensions run high—to try to cut out the guys for a weekend (not forever, just for a weekend) and see what transpires. I have a feeling you’ll be as moved as I was…

(And if it’s something you’ve been thinking about doing, but just having gotten around to it, do it. Today. Email everyone or call and say, “Okay, let’s get a date on the books.” That’s what we had to eventually do to make it happen.)

Lorde's been on my mind as of late, I guess because I'm always thinking about the old master's tools/master's house dilemma (if you don't know, check her essay, "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” in Sister/Outsider). I can't help but wonder WWAS (What Would Audre Say)? so often when I am faced with modern day conundrums of politics, identity, power etc.

She was such an extraordinary human being, such an incredible thinker--one of the brave ones who spoke truth to power, who addressed the racial divides within feminism, who insisted that sexual orientation be part of the feminist conversation. Among other things, she was also an amazing educator--teaching at my own old stomping grounds, Hunter College.

We thank you Audre, now gone for over 16 years, for your legacy of truth-telling and, in particular, your profound exploration of power. I leave you all with Audre in her own words:

Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.

It sort of goes without saying that Hillary deserves our love this week. As you may know, from reading my writing elsewhere, I'm an Obama voter, but a Clinton supporter. I'm deeply touched by her courage, her grit, and her grace here at the end. I thought her concession speech was beautiful. She really led with her feminist identity--referencing Seneca Falls, invoking her grandmother, mother, and daughter, addressing race and social change. I especially loved these lines:

Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.

I wrote a letter in thanks, which you can read here, but this is an excerpt:

I thank you for weathering this storm of anxious masculinity and outright sabotage, but even more, for creating a moment where the kind of subtle sexism that women experience everyday—in boardrooms and courtrooms, in college classrooms and dining halls, on city streets and in small town bars —was brought to undeniable light. Your campaign was a perfect flashpoint to finally get us talking about the tangled knot of leadership and gender, our society's obsession with looks and youth, the double-bind that so many women in positions of power are forced to face—either you're a bitch or a doormat, no in-between. You made sexism newsworthy in a way it hasn't been since Anita Hill. No doubt young minds have been shaped and older minds have been changed by watching you over the last year.

I saw Top Girls last night with the ladies on my intergenerational feminist panel and it got me thinking so much about women's lives, childbirth, sacrifice, our feminist legacy etc. It started out with a crazy theater version of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, where all these women through out history had dinner together and told the stories of their lives (while sometimes interrupting, crying, screaming, and drinking a lot of wine). While it definitely confused me (she's all post-structuralist and Brechtian in this one), it also made me want to give a big ol' shout out to Caryl Churchill, the playwright, and other women playwrights over the years who have helped us look at some of our deepest issues through artful lenses.

Some of my favorites are Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, Nzotkae Shange, Margaret Edson, and Winter Miller.

Who are yours? What plays by women have changed the way you look at the world?

This might strike y'all as painfully obvious, but I just wanted to make sure that we officially devoted a little gratitude (or, make that a whole lotta) to the suffragettes. We wouldn't even be getting in all these Clinton/Obama shananagins if we didn't have the power to influence who was elected.

We don't normally link to Fox in a favorable light, but their's a first time for everything. Reader Amanda told us about this incredibly touching story that, we agree, deserves some serious play (ah, sports puns).

When Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University scored her first home run ever (whoooo-hoooo!) it looked like life was golden, but as she rounded first base, she cranked her knee and ended up on the ground, writhing in pain. Her opponents, who you think might have rejoiced, actually did the exact opposite:

Members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count - an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs...As the trio reached home plate, Tucholsky said, the entire Western Oregon team was in tears.

Every awesome sports movie song of triumph and sports(wo)manship is playing in my head right now. So awesome.

As Madonna celebrates the launch of another album today, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect a little bit on her influence on the way that we (or at least those of us born before, like what, 1985) think about our bodies and ourselves.

When my friends and I made dances in my living room, sliding down walls seductively, moving our hips in circles, donning those fingerless gloves, it was Madonna we were channeling. In a fairly frigid suburb, she was one of the only experiences we had of a girl/woman who seemed resolutely in charge of her own sexuality and the expression of it. I think amid all the virgin/whore thinking that permeates too much of most American girl's childhoods, she's was always an interesting anomaly, a woman who couldn't quite be pinned down, someone who disrupted all of those categories with a certain sinful glee (think "Like a Virgin" and "Like a Prayer").

Her legacy is confusing. After all, she is also the material girl--urging total conformity to conspicuous consumption. And as she says in the above clip, she can be "spoiled and petulant." But who can't? And how awesome is it that she is honest about herself? She did smooch Britney Spears during the VMAs in what seemed like a totally flagrant display of "kissing for boys' titillation." Her lyrics have sometimes been incredibly boring, but they've also been awesome: think "Express Yourself" and, one of my personal favorites, "Human Nature"--"Did I say something true? Oops, I didn't know we couldn't talk about sex. Did I have a point of view? Oops, I didn't know I couldn't talk about you?"

And as Latoya so thoroughly points out over at Racialicious (thanks for the heads up readers), she's got a really bizarre and possibly colonial mindset when it comes to race and the entire continent of Africa. Major grounds for pause.

Nevertheless, it's fascinating to me that this working class gal from the Detroit suburbs, who had dreams of becoming a ballerina and studied with Alvin Ailey, who dropped out of the University of Michigan and hopped on her first plane ever to New York City with $35 in her pocket, ended up changing the way just about every young woman of a certain generation understood sex. Thank you, Madonna, for being someone who complicated the idea of female sexuality on such a grand scale.

As sparks flew this week about intergenerational feminism and the current election circus, there was one thing that continually buoyed me: my girls. I got emails from Michelle at Lehigh and Debbie at Girl with Pen, I got calls and texts from my feministing co-editors and feminist friends offline, and, of course, Jessica's awesome post and Ann's great editing officially allowed me to feel "in cahoots" (best word ever?).

No matter what intergenerational misunderstandings may arise, it is so heartening to know that women my age stand in solidarity. We respect our elders, but god damn it's awesome that we also support, lift up, and value one another. I think we're getting better each generation at perfecting the psychology of abundance--the idea that one of us having success doesn't preclude anyone else's, and that in fact, the more young women's voices we get into the public debate and into positions of influence and power, the more all of us will be heard.

I know there are complexities within our generation of feminists--one can just look at recent blogosphere controversies for evidence of that--but I think it's important that we also recognize how much progress we have made in forming supportive friendships across class, racial, and other sorts of divides. We are down for the cause, but even more beautiful and radical, I think we do a pretty powerful job of being down for one another.

If you haven’t seen this amazing video of Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist, speak at TED about her experience of having a stroke and discovering nirvana, um, you should. (My mom sent it to me…momma, I promise to stop talking so much shit about the things you forward.)

Today I want to thank Jill, who was moved to study the brain because of her schizophrenic brother. That original love led to a whole career of critical research, and in this wild twist of fate, a stroke that led to a whole different understanding about the way our brains work, not to mention consciousness and life’s meaning as a whole.

At a time when brain research has become so trendy, and reductive female vs. male brain analysis particularly “sexy,� it’s moving to hear a female scientist (Larry Summers bite us) explore the brain and its interworkings in such a revolutionary, non-gendered way.

And while we’re at it, why not thank our sturdy, little, stupendous brains. Sure, sometimes they freak out, break down, burn too bright, but most of the time they are frickin’ miraculous.

This might seem sort of ridiculous, but this Thursday I’d like to take a moment of gratitude that I get to wear pants. It blows my frickin’ mind that there was a time when women like me—smart, ambitious, creative—were stuck wearing skirts seven days a week. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a princess-sleeve dress with a bell skirt, but I love it because I get to choose it.

Women first started wearing pants during World War II when they also filled in on jobs traditionally held by men. But when the men returned and the gender backlash commenced, women were back in skirts until the 60s when feminism’s second wave started to take hold and Audrey Hepburn made those black capris famous in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).

As I’ve been on the road speaking at colleges, I frequently get a question like, “Can you be a feminist and wear lipstick or high heels?� Hell yeah, and you know why? Because you can CHOOSE to wear those things. Or CHOOSE not to wear those things. Or CHOOSE to wear them on every second Sunday.

Now if we could only expand the clothing options open to men…

New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams was one of the first magazines I ever published in...I think I was about 16 and it was an essay about an old woman named Ana Lucia that I met while spending a summer in Costa Rica. She rocked my world and I immediately wanted to write about the experience, but what's a girl in the middle of Colorado Springs, Colorado to do with a lot of ambition and a cheesy personal essay? Send it to New Moon, it turns out.

New Moon has encouraged so many young voices over the years, many of whom I'm sure have developed into bonafide journalists and editors and poets as the years wear on. Part of this is due to the fact that the magazine recognizes that wellbeing and authenticity go hand in hand. You don't have to sanitize the content just to make it safe and you also don't have to dumb it down to make it attractive to girls. Let girls create their own media, and enlightenment follows.

Thanks to Nancy Gruver and all the other visionaries behind New Moon's founding and all those that continue to keep it alive and thriving.

*In this month's issue, by the way, is an interview with DJ Rehka alongside an essay with "examples of artists who bring positive messages to the airwaves while maintaining the true essence of hip-hop." See what I mean?

As anyone who listens to the music knows, it tends to be a man's game, but there are a few brave women who have shown that MC-ing isn't sex-linked to the Y-chromosome. In my book I talk about the negative affects of growing up listening to a music that essentially told me: "Your role in the music of your generation is as eye candy, the cute girl at the party who gets freestyled about [thanks Che DeLeon], not the one who does the freestyling. Your body is your voice." There were some spit-kickin' women, and more to come, who give young women a different message, that they have every right to make their voices and lyrics and stories heard within hip hop communities. Big ups to Jill Scott, Bahamadia, Jean Graye, Lauren Hill, Queen Latifah, Roxanne Shante etc. etc. (please free to add names in the comments section). And a personal shout out to Kate and Christina, Lengua 4 Eva.

I was on a panel of intergenerational feminists early this week and we were all charged with telling the stories of how we became feminists. You might expect to hear about Gloria Steinem, or workplace harassment, or some other galvanizing force. And there was a little of that, but you know what was an almost universal thread? Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. How amazing and unexpected is that?

I remember being totally blown away by this book, and the rest of Morrison's deep, intricate, challenging work, starting in high school. I've read The Bluest Eye almost every year since that first time when I was 15 or 16 and every time I am reminded of why it broke my heart and made me understand social change and the human psyche better. She weaves body image, sexual incest, racial segregation, class issues, and so much more together in this tiny little tome on what it means to be human.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for Title IX, which states:

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Passed in June of 1972, you all know what a huge difference this legislation has played in the lives of women and girls. The most celebrated benefit has been women's involvement in sports (amazingly, an unintended side effect of the original foremothers). In 1972, one in 27 high school girls played sports. Today 1 in 2.5 does.

I used to hear my grandmother's stories about only getting to bounce the ball three times in gym class and laugh my ass off. I--a two-sport captain--couldn't imagine such a limit! Sports were where I learned resilience, teamwork, risk-taking, and discipline, among so many other lessons. My sports moments were some of my most joyful through out high school. How did Title IX affect your life?

Check out this profile I wrote of the godmomma of Title IX, the AMAZING Bernice Sandler.

Thank you to the brave women of the feminist movement for making it normal for girls and women to entertain a range of career options. When my grandmother was young, she knew she could either be a teacher or a nurse. She chose teacher. When my mom was young, she thought she might be a secretary because she'd heard that if you did your work very quickly, you could read the rest of the day. She never thought she could go into publishing or be a writer or other fancy man jobs that involved books. Despite being brilliant and dynamic, she only saw a very narrow range of options open to her job-wise. (She later would become a superstar social worker/community activist).

By the time I was five-years-old I told my parents that I would like to be a part-time waitress and part-time doctor. Then it was ballerina. Then it was vet. Then it was lawyer (until my dad took me to work and made me watch him talk on the phone all frickin' day...it ain't no Law and Order people). Then it was, finally and forever, writer.

As intergenerational tensions started flaring up again around these primaries, it got me thinking about the claim that young feminists aren't aware of their legacy, that we take all the change that has happened for granted. I don't think that's true, but hearing the claim enough times has me wondering if it is one way of older women asking younger women..."Hey, could we get a little credit here?" This column is, in part, my way--feministing's way--of saying "Hell yeah, you deserve lots of praise and thanks. There are things about the previous waves of feminist thought and action that we disagree with, but there is SO much we are deeply thankful for."

Further, I think gratitude is just about the most delightful emotion on earth. Give me a thank you note to write and I'm instantly happy. Seriously.

And finally, it is hard to remember how much has changed, in part, because things have changed so dramatically in some spheres. I hope this will be a place for all of us to really take in how amazing and wildly effective feminism was and is (we hear the opposite message so often from mainstream media). Think of it as your weekly dose of proof that daily activism makes monumental social change.

So...

Today I want to express my deepest gratitude for birth control. For a nice little history, look here. I was interviewing Gloria Feldt once and she told me this amazing story about how the legalization of birth control in 1965 changed her life. She was living in Texas, struggling with a car full of kids that she loved but found draining, and then she got access to birth control, and in essence, the rest of her life. Of course she would go on to be the national president of Planned Parenthood (oh man, am I thankful for PP) and help secure so many women's access to safe and cheap birth control. I can't even begin to imagine--at 28--how my life would have been different if I didn't have reproductive control. For starters, I would have had a lot less sex. Just sayin.

Thank you to so many, but especially Margaret Sanger, Dr. C. Lee Buxton and Estelle Griswold, and Gloria.