Happy birthday Alexandra!

Alexandra and Lori

Alexandra and Lori, getting weird.

This coming weekend our own Alexandra Brodsky is celebrating her birthday. We’re so glad she came into this world, and even more glad that she entered our So You Think You Can Blog contest a year and half ago.

These days, Alexandra juggles being an editor at Feministing and leading a nationwide movement to end campus sexual assault that’s gotten the attention of very important people like Amy Poehler and the President of the United States. And I hear she somehow still has time to attend Yale law school too. 

Not only has Alexandra done a ton of work to highlight the efforts of campus activists fighting against sexual assault–and expose the failures of the system–she has really pushed the conversation around rape culture and sexual violence forward. She’s called for school sexual misconduct boards to be sites of transformative justice, challenged the singular narrative of the Platonic Rape Victim, and denounced victim-blaming time and time again–on this blog and in the mainstream media. Just yesterday, she had a really important piece about why you shouldn’t be friends with rapists, which you should read now. I have so much respect and appreciation for Alexandra’s deep commitment to not only challenging the status quo but also imagining and aiming for the world we want, and I’m incredibly thankful to have her insight on this blog.

Little known facts about Alexandra: She was a competitive chess player as a child. Her Hebrew name translates to “Queen Angel,” which was what she planned to name her pop debut as a kid. In related news, Alexandra’s nickname among the Feministing crew will henceforth be Queen Angel.

Join me in wishing Alexandra the happiest of birthdays on Twitter today!

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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