Ottawa is Outstanding

I just got back last night from our second awesome stop on the Feministing tour: The University of Ottawa. Vanessa, Miriam, and I were amazed at the awesome coordination on the part of the folks that brought us out. They were an incredible group of feminist activists, attuned to intersectional feminism and adept at turning their values into real world actions on a regular basis.
We did a blogging workshop in the afternoon, which mostly amounted to a big ol’ conversation about our structure as a blog, our ongoing struggle to moderate comments, online identity, sexism and harassment, and much more. Miriam and I talked afterwards about how helpful it was for us to articulate answers to questions about some of our ongoing internal processes and challenges. Thanks for providing that space crew.
In the evening we presented with another amazing student panelist, this one named Sarah Jayne. She talked a lot about the great campaigns that local feminists have waged against sexist newspapers and administrators (guest post to come!). Miriam, once again, spoke about gender identity, and Vanessa focused on the blogosphere through a gender/activism lens.
The questions were fantastic and thought-provoking, including gems like these:

How do you get someone with unexamined privilege to stop taking up so much space in meetings?
How do you manage ongoing conflicts with family members who don’t agree with your politics?
What is feminism’s most effective response to the Tucker Max’s of the world?
What about the intersections of race and sexual identity? People don’t seem to talk about that enough.
Why aren’t more women successful in the political sphere?
How can we convince skeptics that there is a place for humor when it comes to serious issues like sexism, racism etc.?

Such smarties. Next stop: Boston College on Monday.