Support Feministing’s work: A message from Veró

Feministing needs your help. We need to raise $30,000 this month to continue bringing you the feminist news, analysis, and ways to take action you love. This month, members of the Feministing crew are sharing stories about the work they do.  If you agree with us that it’s important and impactful work, please support us by donating to Feministing. 

I’m a weekly columnist at Feministing, and I write about…lots of different stuff? Basically the sort of thing I could probably only get away with here at Feministing, which is one huge reason to support it — this site allows for the exploration of feminism’s full potential.

In my day-job life, I’m a policy wonk with a radical heart. I’m currently doing work on policing, and have also worked on reproductive health and immigration policy — all of these with both LGBTQ and racial justice lenses — so all that seeps into my writing. I’m about doing the incremental work to change policies in ways that will center the most marginalized communities, reducing as much harm as possible on our way to completely eradicating the systems that are meant to destroy us, and generally getting our people ready for the revolution. Ultimately, I’m a reproductive justice kinda lady, which means I see all of these things as intricately connected to each other, mapping themselves out on our bodies. You can find me making those connections in my writing here.

I also like to think about art — what gets called art vs. not, the ways that is gendered — and other creative ways that people are resisting patriarchy. Even though I’m super committed to policy change, I know that a shift in policy without a shift in culture is meaningless.

Which brings me to Jamz!

I created and do most of the writing for Feministing Jamz, in which I do some music writing, some really fun interviews, and feature cutting-edge women, queer, and trans and gender non-conforming artists. Almost all of these artists are POC and many of them are queer, trans or gender non-conforming. I guess this reflects a political agenda, but also it’s who’s making the music I like. I like more music than what’s on Feministing Jamz, but I’m not ever gonna feature something that sounds like shit because it’s good politics either. I’m gonna need to dance my way to the revolution. Someone once called me the DJ for the feminist movement, and while I think that’s a tad grandiose, I was still pretty hype about it.

And it’s a lot of work. Figuring out what I’m gonna write about, what I’m gonna say, how I’m gonna say it. What artists to feature, why I want them on Jamz, which ones I should reach out to for interviews. It all takes a lot of time, and as you might imagine for someone doing policing work at this moment (in addition to leading an organization through a transition at the board level), I don’t have a ton of that. I sometimes feel like I’m too tired, don’t have enough time, or maybe should stop, but the truth is that I enjoy the regularity and the habit of it. Feministing keeps me on my toes.

This takes a lot from us, but it’s totally worth it. We couldn’t do it without your support — we hope it’s worth it to you.