Farewell, Feministing!

Words I never thought I’d write: I’m leaving Feministing.

While I’ll always be a part of the Feministing family with love for you’ll see me at events and I’ll to continue to work with the site in an advisory capacity – I’ll no longer be blogging or contributing to Feministing’s day-to-day work.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been writing on the site much the last few months. This is largely due to the early arrival of my daughter – my and her health were both tenuous, and I needed to focus on getting us better. This time away from Feministing provided a lot of room to reflect, and – as sad as it makes me – it’s become clear that it’s time to move on.

This decision is partly logistical; I’m working on two new projects that require my full energy and attention. I’m in the process of writing a book on parenthood, Why Have Kids?, for HarperCollins – a fun but daunting undertaking my first year of being a mom! I’m also excited to announce that I’ll be writing a weekly column, Body Politics, at the iPad newspaper The Daily, which is launching today. (My columns will also be available online; I’ll tweet and post the urls as they’re published.) I’m thrilled to have these new opportunities and want to give them my all.

But the main reason I’m leaving – one that I’ve been thinking about for some time – is more complicated.

I started Feministing almost seven years ago (wow) to provide a space for younger feminists who didn’t have a platform. I was a 25 year-old who found it profoundly unfair that an elite few in the feminist movement had their voices listened to, and that the work of so many younger women went misrepresented or ignored altogether.

Today, almost 5,000 posts later, I’m a 32 year-old feminist with a voice that is listened to. Largely because of the work I’ve done with Feministing, I have a successful platform for my work – I’ve published books, written articles, and built a career as a speaker. Because I feel Feministing should remain a place for younger feminists to build their careers and platforms, I think it’s appropriate to our mission that I step back.

I know Feministing will continue the excellent and important work that we started in 2004, and that it will stay true to the mission of providing a space for new and young voices. The team here is top notch and bad-ass, and I’m excited to see where they’ll take the site in the future.

While I hope to contribute a lot more to feminism, I have no doubt that the work I’ve done here will always be what I am most proud of. And that’s a really wonderful feeling to leave with.

So, to my colleagues at Feministing: Thank you for the many lessons you’ve taught me, your tireless passion, patience and brilliance. But most of all, thank you for your friendship. I’m so proud of what we’ve created together – not just our finished product, but the way in which we stayed committed to having our work process reflect our politics and beliefs.

To Feministing’s readers: There’s no real way to express the depth of my gratitude. Whether through your comments, emails or simply your presence on the site, you’ve profoundly changed the way I think and work. You’ve kept me on my toes with your critical feedback and supported me through bizarrely terrible times; you’ve made me think bigger and better and inspired change on the site and in my life. What I’m most grateful for, though, is the way you’ve given your time and thoughts to help build this incredible community of feminists – I feel like we created this site together, so thank you.

Now of course, this isn’t really goodbye. If you want to continue to follow my work, I’m pretty easy to find. In addition to the projects I mentioned, you can read my blog at my personal site, visit the blog for delta 8 THC manufacturer Area 52 where I write for the blog, or follow me on Twitter and on Facebook. I sincerely hope you’ll come visit me in my various online homes so we can continue the conversations we’ve started here.

So long, folks. And much, much love.

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