Viva la Feminista

Just a quick note to point out two pieces that I wrote for other sites that perhaps you missed... 1) I interviewed US Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius while she was in town for Blogher '13: This week a little boy was born in London . One day he will grow up to be the King of England. This week a little boy was born in Chicago. Who knows what he will grow up to be. One thing we do know is that the future king’s birth most likely cost half as much as baby boy Chicago.    The state and cost of health care in the USA is why the Affordable Care Act is an important piece of legislation. I am unsure if the cost of health care will go down under Obamacare (I hear it won’t), but we do know that everyone will be mandated to have insurance. This, hopefully, should put health care in the affordable category for most of us. But will it help minimize health disparities in the US? This is what I asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen...

Back when I thought that I would be going to Blogher 2010, I submitted a bunch of posts for the Blogher Voice of the Year contest . Yes, it's a contest. People read the entries, people vote and only a few get to read their post to the conference. Anywho, I didn't win, but I am a finalist. And as such will be celebrated at the Blogher 2010 Gala and Art Auction. So yeah for not winning! My not-quite-winning post was one that I wrote for Girl w/Pen on the balance between human life and scientific discoveries/guidelines in light of the new mammogram guidelines. I'm happy that my writing was honored, giddy that it was something on Girl w/Pen and fucking off the wall that it was in the Geeky/Nerdy category. I'm disappointed that I won't be there for the Gala, but I couldn't do both Bloger and Netroots. A grrl on a budget has to make choices.

Ah, Blogher fumes still rumbling thru my veins... So Florinda mentions TWICE my most embarrassing moment of Blogher. She asked me for an autograph on the Ms. magazine that I just handed her. I laughed and saw she was dead serious. It was extra funny because my husband had just been teasing me the day before about "When is your signing at Women & Children First?" But Florinda was serious and since I love her so, I took her pen, my pen?, and signed my name under my photo. I meant to write a peace symbol and then my name. But it came out as [Peace sign], [heart] and feminism. Then came my favorite sluts ...I gave them a copy of the magazine before the panel started. After I composed myself from signing Florinda's copy, one of them asked me to autograph their copy with a fushia Sharpie. More nervous chuckling. By now my dear readers, you should know that while I'm excited about all the stuff I do, I am also a horrible promoter. I'm currently fundraising to hire Ci...

and I'm pooped! But as is par for the course, life's roller coaster keeps chugging up that hill. I was lucky enough to get a small number of Ms. magazine copies to pass out at Blogher and I've already gotten word that some stores are selling it despite an August 4th news stand date. This means that I need to brace myself for a small uptick in traffic. I have to laugh at this because I spoke this morning at the National Council for La Raza (ya know, Sotomayor's racist organization !) on social media and one of the last questions was about rankings. I told the man (damn, what was his blog again? This is what happens when I'm on stage without a pen!) that I gave up on my stats and rankings a long time ago. I gave up because I know I'm listed on some pretty big blogs exclusive blogrolls. I know that I go to places like La Raza & Blogher and get "I love your blog!" comments from people who I have no idea who they are. Thus, stats can suck it. Feedburne...

You might have clicked on that link in your latest Blogher Attendee newsletter and found yourself here. First let me say thanks for clicking! Or oops, you clicked, but stay a moment. Next, come say hi to me at the " Leadership: What is "Pro-Woman" in a Post-Palin World? " panel on Friday! It's at 2:45 pm. So take your break before me. I'm sure it's gonna be a fab conversation. Lastly, don't forget why my link was even in the Blogher newsletter - BlogHer SOS! BlogHer 's Rock! That is all we have to say. Okay maybe we have a little more to say... Thanks to the fabulous idea from Veronica and Kim we will be hosting " BlogHer SOS - Save our Soap". This means we will be gathering unused amenities at the registration desk to be donated to Deborah's Place in Chicago. The pickup is on Saturday so if you want to donate, do it before Saturday. Also, the Hotel does donate used amenities to a local shelter, so nothing will go to wast...

Me and Mine Meme 100 Directions: 1.) State the name of your blog, your real name or your online name, and link to your "about me" page. Viva La Feminista Veronica No about page...this is what you get. 2.) Say you want to be profiled on BlogHer as a family blogger and link back to this post. I do! I do! 3.) Tell how long you've been blogging. Here, since the summer. Ever? Since 2000. 4.) Pass this meme on to three other bloggers that you think should be profiled/interviewed. a. BirdieRoark b. Marcie c. Kim Technorati tags: blogher , mommy blogging

When Melanie Stokes become pregnant, she seemed to have everything in place. She was a successful pharmaceutical sales manager happily married to a physician. She had a supportive family and her share of brains and beauty. She was a radiant pregnant woman, eager to meet the child inside of her and to begin her new life as a mother. On February 23, 2001, Sommer Skyy was born, beautiful and healthy. When Sommer was only a month old, Melanie's depression had grown so severe that she had stopped eating and drinking and could no longer swallow. She began to have paranoid thoughts about others--she thought that her neighbors across the street had all closed their blinds because they thought she was a bad mother. She became gaunt, hallow-eyed, a shell of her former self. Then, she began searching for a way to end her life. Melanie's was hospitalized three times in seven weeks. She was given four combinations of anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant medications. She also un...

View MicroPoll Web Survey Free Web Polls Voting ends at midnight on August 25th. Technorati tags: blogheract , health

...was that out of all the gazillion Presidential candidates only two bothered to send any representation. Elizabeth Edwards (who should be running for something!) gave the closing plenary on Saturday. She was eloquent, sincere, and had a great knack at turning a negative question into a positive one, at least for John. Hillary Clinton sent a representative, whom I've now seen at 2-3 conferences, who spoke at a few sessions including the one that talked about Hillary and how women voters see her. NONE of the GOP candidates came out and especially odd was that my own senator, Barak Obama, was no where to be seen. Dude, you live down the street! So what does this tell me? What should be read from this? That the largest blogger conference happened in Chicago and only two candidates showed. One look at this weekend's YearlyKos speaker list shows at least six Democratic candidates. Considering it's a progressive con, you don't expect the GOP to show up. But Blogher is evenly...

Here are the links to all my Blogher 2007 liveblogging posts: Blogher Pre-Party Not liveblogged, but I wanted to include it this summary post. Blogher - Friday morning session Friday - Breakout #1 "Art of Life: Finding and Following Your Passion" Friday - Breakout #2 "Our Bodies, Our Blogs" Friday - Breakout #3 "The Art of Writing Reviews" Friday - Breakout #4 "The State of the Momosphere" Friday - Breakout #4 (part two) "Getting it On(line) for a Cause: Part 2 - Raising Consciousness" Saturday Morning Keynote Saturday - Breakout #5 ...

She came to Blogher because she does believe that the blogosphere is the new town square. You don't get to see too many people on the street corner expressing their interest. She started online with her kids by doing various things like bidding on sports cards with her son. After Ward died, she joined mailing lists that functioned like blogs. Grief ones were like that. Blogs are an enormous opportunity to meet and discuss issues with people we might never had met. We form natural connections without much thought to gender, race, etc. Elizabeth just noted that "It's like an addiction. You all don't know about that, right?" Good one. We just segwayed into discussion about trolls by citing her recent confrontation with Ann Coulter. She's never had a personal blog/online diary. She admires us for our dedication & focus. She did participate under screen names, but now feels she owes it to everyone to be honest about who she is when online. She does write everyt...

"Patriots Act: How to turn Your Blog into a GOtV Machine" Put voter registration buttons/links on your blog get your local media contacts Get offline and interact with people Should have an email list of people who can help you with an issue. This will help you find a pattern of who knows who. Don't let my lack of blogging mean that this session isn't good. Partly I'm finally feeling tired and partly I'm just pretty amazed by the panel. OK...I'm really tired. A lot of mainstream organizations fear blogging only because they don't see how blogging can turn bodies out into the street (2006 Immigration marches & 2004 March for Women's Lives). Keep in mind that a lot of the political campaigns are run by young people, mostly men, and often child free, so...they don't have a full range of experiences to impact the campaign. Believe in your experience and communicate it to the campaigns. And bring 10 of your friends to make a larger statement. Al...

"How to write great political coverage: From breaking news to Op-Ed" We're starting out in break out groups to answer: "Is a political blogger the same as a person who blogs about politics?" My group came up with a distinction between the two in the a political blogger is someone who is trying to effect a particular outcome, targeting a segment to sway. Then there are those whose blogging about politics is storytelling. We did note that blogging can become political even when we think we're not writing politically. The woman who noted this mentioned that she usually blogs about jazz and then Katrina happened. She had always lamented why jazz doesn't hold a higher status in our society and came to the conclusion that it was a race issue. She did visit NOLA soon after the disaster to help with clean-up. Two points have bubbled up in the larger conversation: Use primary sources: don't just depend on the AP, WaPo, etc. to tell the facts; read govt report...

"Earn Our Votes: " The goal of this session is to come up with 12 questions that Blogherites want answered by candidates, especially Presidential candidates. We are warned that Blogher is a nonpartisan. A GOP advisor (use to work on the McCain campaign) says that if they can get to close to 50% women voters, they win. The gender gap is huge. Thanks to Ellie Smeal for documenting it in the 1980s. Women care about: Iraq, Health care, jobs, immigration, terrorism, and environment in that order in a recent poll. Women btw 18-49 care about health care more than other age groups and immigration is of more concern for men. Iraq: Younger women (YW) and older women (OW) think it's gotten worse. Immigration: Women think it hurts more than it helps BUT it's not a top issue. 47% hurt vs 41% for men. When women talk about immigration they talk about how their children don't get enough attn in school due to spanish speaking children, longer waits at ERs due to people without h...

I got here late, so forgive me! I walked into the room with NOW President Kim Gandy* and the first thing I heard was something about sex fetishes. GOOD MORNING! Right now there is a discussion whether or not blogging is elitist. One speaker said it perfectly, it's not elitist in that only upper class discussions occur, but that it is elitist in that there is a digital divide. Now a discussion about literacy itself. I know that some of my blogging friends & I kid about the NSA looking thru our emails and blogs, but one speaker mentioned that in conversations with poor communities could care less, they just want to be online - for job applications, community, and all the fun that we take for granted. Community is a huge theme, especially within the momosphere. I made a parallel yesterday to someone. That our lives are so crazy that we don't have time to chat over fences with neighbors, so we have created online intimate communities. Do we need to change technology to suit wom...

Now I'm in the session called "Getting it On(line) for a Cause: Part 2 - Raising Consciousness" Women care about community and understand what's going on with other people. There is synergy to be used. Global Health what do we mean by this? safe motherhood UNFPA and the Bush administration refusal to fund it make it clear that when we talk about global health we're talking about women. changing the public debate to include women as members of the world (that one came from Jennifer Pozner of WIMN ) need to keep in mind separation of church & state as our politics here in the USA affects the politics of other countries that take their cue from the USA we have to depoliticize this debate (ok...how is safe motherhood political?!?) increasing education for girls (if you get girls to 2nd grade, her families health increases 40%. People, that's only to second grade!!) 34 Million Friends A "both...and" strategy focus on empowering women to take care of t...

"The State of the Momosphere" And we're off...This session came from mommy bloggers requesting it. There was a lot of discussion afterwards if mommy bloggers mattered. Well course we do and now we're here! What does it mean to identify as a mommy blogger? What makes a mommy blogger? What does it mean now that advertisers want to reach us? Do we change? What do mommy bloggers want? PRIVACY Responses: Finding a shared story; community; finding others who are going thru the same experience (post-partum, etc.) Support and advice community Started as a journal It's unpolitical in that negative interaction, people playing politics, even thou there are shifting nodes, groups, and communities, a social & normal part of the community Much more like a salon or cocktail party It is very much like high school to people who are being left out Is there active exclusion? Is not being on a blogroll an act of exclusion? What do you do when you need to remove someone? Are we mo...

"The Art of Writing Reviews" "What makes a review?" Ooohh...this is gonna be good. Engadget is middle ground between a 'professional' review and conversation between friends. Eugenia adds in that she bounces between professional review and not. Her site Literago is unique by reviewing book readings. Claire Zulkey talks about writing reviews on sites like Metromix.com where you get practice. You shouldn't just watch a show and write the facts and add in whether you like it or not. Example: "So You Think You Can Dance" and parallel to other dancing shows, compare to other summer shows, etc. Tips: Make product reviews as general as possible and talk about how it could fit into someone's life or your life. Tips on to summarize movies, shows & books: Keep it down to a few sentences, stay away from plot summaries - they are boring, Claire says it is opposite for TV shows - include spoilers, --> Check out how much a NYTimes reviewer summari...

"Our Bodies, Our Blogs" Chicagoan Wendy McClure talks about the evolution of her website into a blog into a book and how during the course of writing her book, she gained back the 40 pounds she lost. She only recently decided to talk about it. She's reviewing the push-pull feelings behind the Dove campaign. OOH, she doesn't want to be sold the idea that real beauty is real and that we should buy Dove to promote real beauty. OTOH, she also ridiculed men who were grossed out by the Dove campaign because they want to see skinny models. She doesn't get Love Your Body Day?!? I guess when she says she's cynical, she really is. Laurie Toby, a photographer, uses her craft to talk about body image by photographing large women in the nude. She's speaking about how raising daughters raised her awareness of body image in our society - this was 25 years ago! She's been the token skinny woman on a panel of fat women discussing fat and feminism. Since then she's ...

"Art of Life: Finding and Following Your Passion" So far most of the audience questions are from women who seem new to blogging and are trying to find their niche/voice. I think I know my niche. Why am I here then? I'm struggling with my online voice, specifically on how to balance RL and BL. After 7 yeas of blogging you'd think I would have figured it out. Problem is that for 6 of those years I could count all my readers on both my hands. Now I have way more readers than I know what to do with. Part of what I started blogging for is to improve my writing. Not so much the technical parts (spelling/grammar), but the feel of my writing. I need to figure out the next step in all this insanity. A 72yo blogger is speaking right now. She's so kick ass. OK...so do you set up your blog as a one show pony or a junk drawer as a punk mama just described her blog? I'm a fan of the junk drawer blog because my mind is not a one track mind. My overarching theme is feminism, ...