Feministing Fall Tour: Wheaton

My mom says I’m setting the movement back ten years when I am sexually assertive. What should I tell her?
Why do you think there aren’t more men at this lecture?
Why and how did you get into blogging?
I feel like I have to be the spokesperson for both feminists and feminists of color all the time. What should I do about it?

These were just some of the questions that Samhita, Miriam, and I answered last evening at Wheaton College as part of our Feministing Fall Tour. It was a great event, kicked off with a talk in a lively Intro to Women’s Studies class, where we discussed quite a bit about the blogging life–both its highs and lows, freedoms and insecurities. Then after a podcast interview with new campus publication, The Bubble, we went on to dinner with a lot of great women’s studies students, and then, of course, the official panel.
Roxie, our student panelist, was amazing. She spoke about the pressures of being an Iranian feminist leader on the Wheaton campus–how there is a double burden of pressure to do good because she wants to prove that women are capable and Iranian aren’t terrorists (or other such misconceptions on the part of post-9.11 Americans). She also spoke about the need for everyone to get involved and reminded her community of the flabbergasting fact that there hasn’t been a woman president of the student government since Wheaton went co-ed in 1988. We hope to be featuring a guest post from her very soon.
Thanks to all the great organizers at Wheaton who put energy into bringing us, all the students who asked fantastic questions, and my badass co-panelists Miriam and Samhita. Off to the Holiday Inn pool!