Viva la Feminista

Nearly three hundred bad feminists gathered at the Chicago Temple on December 10 to hear New York Times best-selling author Roxane Gay discuss issues around feminism, inequality, and the struggles that 21 st century women still face at an event hosted by Women Employed. Gay’s commentary and criticisms on Wednesday were in line with those found in her recent book Bad Feminist —incisive and insightful, covering a broad range of topics with her signature quick-witted sense of humor. Some highlights from the evening: On the wage gap: “Women have compromised enough! 77 cents is a compromise. Pay me a dollar, you asshole!” On burning out in social services and activism: “Self-care is a priority. You must decide how much self care you need. If you burn out, then you’re not doing anything. If you’re not here, you can’t do any good in the world.” On not always having an opinion: “Sometimes it’s Tuesday and I’m thinking about macaroni and cheese.”  On privilege: “Sayi...

VLF welcomes Lauren Miller's guest post about a recent viewing of "Anita: Speaking Truth to Power."Lauren is a Chicago-based womanist impassioned about all things related to holistic wellness for marginalized women. As Engagement Coordinator at Women Employed , she energizes young professional women online, and offline, to promote practices and policies that support real change for America’s working women. “I was raised to do what is right. And can now explain to my students, first hand, that despite the high cost which may be involved, it is worth having the truth emerge,” asserts Anita Hill in 1991 to a crowd of familiar faces in Oklahoma. This moment, and the power of those words, were experienced yet again to a sold-out crowd of professionally diverse women of all ages during an event hosted by Women Employed on August 5th. The eyes of Chicagoland’s foremost women lawyers, political leaders, and advocates of Women Employed were transfixed on the screen displa...

Viva la Feminista welcomes, Ambar Mentor-Truppa as a guest blogger today! Ambar is a Chicago-based feminist and public relations executive committed to cultivating the next generation of women leaders. As a board member and chair of Women Employed’s Advocacy Council, Ambar mobilizes young professional women to advocate on behalf of all working women and families.  “I lived through the Mad Men era!” That’s what author and trailblazing journalist Lynn Povich told the crowd gathered for a panel discussion co-hosted by Women Employed on February 13th. The audience listened attentively as Povich continued, sharing the story of how she and her female colleagues confronted the blatant sexism at Newsweek in the 60s. When they were told that “women don’t write at Newsweek,” the women not only didn’t accept it; they fought against it. In 1970, Povich and 45 other women sued the magazine for sex discrimination. “We loved Newsweek—we just wanted Newsweek to be better,” Povich explain...

The question of where the ERA fits into the feminist movement is one that I wrestle with a lot. I got word that there was a conference on the ERA coming up, but since I couldn't attend I was all, "BOO!" Thankfully an attendee sent me this to share with y'all:  by Colleen Giles Last weekend I attended a conference at Roger Williams University titled "The ERA in the 21st Century." The conference brought together accomplished scholars, national activists, and twenty-something feminists like myself that are still learning to navigate their own paths to equal rights.  The conference aimed to open a dialogue about the place of the Equal Rights Amendment in American culture and politics.  The ERA galvanized the Second Wave feminist movement, though it failed ratification in enough states to become an amendment in 1982.  The ERA has also been a part of Third Wave feminism, with Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards naming it as an essential comp...

Thanks to BoricuaFeminist from Boston, MA for this 16 Days post. Again, this is late due to my schedule, not anything she did! You can reach her at Twitter . Last weekend my best friend, my boyfriend and I participated in the Hot Chocolate Run in my hometown of Northampton, MA. The Hot Chocolate Run is an annual fundraising event where people run a 5k, or in my case walk 2 miles, to raise money and awareness for Safe Passage. Safe Passage provides, “shelter, peer-support, counseling, education, advocacy, legal support and community education,” to women and children who are domestic violence survivors. It was an amazing sight to see 5,500 participating, and more community members observing, in an event to bring awareness to the issue of domestic violence. Many walkers/runners wore stickers with the names of loved ones they had lost due to domestic violence. Domestic violence is still silenced in many homes and communities. It is powerful to see women, men, children and families g...

Thanks to fellow Chicagoan, Ann Santori of Half-Way to a Mid-Life Crisis for this post in commemeration of 16 days. This is posted late due to my fault not Ann's. You can reach Ann on Twitter & Tumblr . According to a 2005 World Health Organization study, at least one in every three women across the globe will be abused physically and/or sexually at least once in her lifetime. The UN designates November 25th as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and December 10th as International Human Rights Day. Since 1991, the intervening sixteen days have been designated for the 16 Days Campaign, which focuses on awareness of gender-based violence. The 16 Days Campaign, by its nature, is critical in thought and tends to focus on the specific factors that create a culture of violence. This year’s theme, for example, “highlights the role militarism plays in perpetuating violence against women and girls” as the amount of small arms in private ownership r...

Thanks to Erin McKelle from Ohio and Fearless Feminism for today's post. Gender based violence is such a huge problem in communities everywhere and it infuriates me that most refuse to acknowledge it. 1 in 3 women will be victims of domestic violence in their lifetime, 1 in 3 will be the victims of sexual violence and 1 in 4 the victims of sexual assault. Women are told by society to be careful. To not be one of these victims, to protect themselves. We are told to not dress slutty and not get too tipsy. We are constantly being blamed for our own victimization. This message is seen everywhere and is internalized to make us fearful. I think most women would agree that there is some level of fear going out alone at night or going to a rough neighborhood by ourselves. This comes from the media telling us to always be scared. That crimes happen randomly to women and that you'd better watch your back. The consequence is that women are living in constant fear and uncertainty. ...

Thank you to R. Femme (mistakenly credited for yesterday's post...sorry) for this touching post about violence within one's family. As I have never posted about such a personal topic on the internet before and this is my first involvement in the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, I hope that those who read this can appreciate my attempt to tell my own story as well as take a stance against gender violence. I grew up in a dysfunctional household; my father was extremely abusive, not only to my mother but to myself, my sister and my brother. We never knew exactly why my father was angry but when he was, we all felt his wrath; he would scream, throw things, and all to often hit one of us. My mother was brave enough to protect us for the most part; she often put herself in between us and my father when he went into his spontaneous and uncontrollable rages. I lived with my father until I was fourteen when my mother decided to finally leave him; my mother and I moved ...

Thanks to JennaMurphy47 from Ontario, Canada for this guest post.  This post is especially poignant coming so soon after the murder of Kasandra Perkins.   I could spend days, weeks and even years discussing my outrage about acts of gender violence in my home country of Canada, as well as other countries all over the world, but I would like to talk frankly about an issue that is affecting my community right now. I live in a small city in South Western Ontario and we are about to embark on our first annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes ® men’s march to stop rape, sexual assault and gender violence. Over the past few years I have been an active volunteer with my local women’s emergency shelter and when they had discussed launching this event in 2013 I couldn’t have been a stronger advocate. My first experience with gender violence in my community was in 2002 when a 21 year-old woman was stabbed to death 58 times by her ex-partner in her parking complex. I was a youn...

Review by Trish Wilson  Dr. Phyllis Chesler has updated her groundbreaking book Mothers On Trial for the twenty-first century. Revised with seven new chapters, a new introduction, and a new resources section, this book is required reading for any mother going through a child custody battle. Chesler lays out the groundwork proving it's a myth that mothers have always had custody of their children. That myth is one reason I wanted to review Dr. Phyllis Chesler's revised edition of "Mothers On Trial" since I heard she was writing it a few years back. In the nearly thirty years since she wrote her first edition, things have gotten much worse for mothers. Mothers retain custody of their children only when fathers do not make an issue of it. When a mother and father go to court to fight for custody of their children, the father usually gets it even if he had been absent, neglectful, never married to the mother, controlling, absent for many years, a felon, or simply n...

By Mandy Van Deven Today’s guest post is part of the Hey, Shorty! Virtual Book Tour . Check out this lin k to find out how you can support the 25-date nationwide tour! In the spirit of transparency, I find it necessary to let you know that I am not a parent. I am a person who has children in my life whom I care deeply about and who has worked with parents and children for a number of years; however, I understand the parameters of my experience only extend so far and there is a limit to the usefulness of my knowledge when it comes to real life practice. I say this because it is important to note that the information I have about how parents and caregivers can intervene in and respond to sexual harassment in schools is either observed or secondhand, and I encourage those who are raising children to add your own expertise to the comments of this post. Learning from each other is crucial and there are so few places where parents come together to talk about sexual harassment in schools....

This was originally posted at Blog for Choice and reposted with their permission.  The murder of Dr. George Tiller in his church on May 31, 2009, caused great sadness and profound anger for all of us who hold the values of women's right to privacy dear. This heinous murder made headlines at the time, but we must be vigilant in making sure Americans don't forget. One journalist has not allowed the story to be forgotten: Rachel Maddow. She just announced that she'll air an hour-long documentary on the murder of Dr. Tiller and the latest developments in the investigation . "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller" will broadcast on Monday, October 25 at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC .  Dr. Tiller was a tireless advocate for reproductive health who urged society to "trust women" to make the personal, private decisions that are best for them and their families. Anti-choice extremist Scott Roeder was convicted of Dr. Tiller's murder, and a grand jury is invest...

NARAL Pro-Choice America is made up of pro-choice women and men across the United States who come together to protect a woman's right to choose. These individuals are our backbone, and their stories remind us of why we do this work. Behind every statistic or heated argument about abortion is a real woman's experience.  On our website, ProChoiceAmerica.org , we offer a safe space for people to share their stories because sharing stories is a way for our supporters to connect. Our Women's Stories page gives powerful and heart-felt accounts of women's personal lives and the difficult decisions they've made. As someone who talks with women about what it means to be pro-choice, I understand the courage it takes to share a story with us and the world.  That's why I was deeply disgusted and outraged when I discovered that an anti-choice blogger mocked these personal stories through a series of "Parody Testimonials" blogs .  The blogger crudely...

Dr. Gail Dines is a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, an internationally acclaimed speaker and author, and a feminist activist. I invited her to guest blog here as I await the arrival of her new book, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality . Her work fits right into many of the concerns I have about how women and girls are portrayed in the media. That said, these are her words and I welcome all constructive critiques as well as high praise. ~veronica Watch MTV, flip through the pages of popular women’s magazines, or just glance at billboards, and you’ll see slight variations on a theme: a heavily made-up, young, attractive, technologically perfected woman devoid of body hair, cellulite, age lines, or physical disabilities. She’s minimally clothed, with a seductive look plastered on her face. Whether it be an almost- naked Britney Spears writhing around on stage or a Victoria’s Secret model clad in a plunging bra and thong, women an...

This is reposted from b-side chats with permission. I decided to repost this awesome interview because when the fbomb launched I was so damn busy that I didn't have time to help promote it. Plus it's awesome.... We had the opportunity to talk to one of the busiest (and youngest) bloggers on the web, Julie Zeilinger, sole founder of the Fbomb , a feminist blog for teenagers. Let us rephrase: while the blog may be run by a teenager and posted from a teenage perspective, the content is relevant for any feminist young and old.  Zeilinger attracts an international array of young feminists while posting from Pepper Pike, Ohio. In this interview, she tells us how her feminist outlook was shaped,  juggling school, the blog and the way her peers and parents view her. What made you start the Fbomb? I started the FBomb after reading a lot of other feminist blogs, like Feministing and Jezebel. I loved those blogs but I thought that the teenage perspective on the issues ...