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10 Things the Obama Generation Needs to Know

By Dena Robinson, Colgate University Class of 2012 and Francesca Acocella, Wellesley College Class of 2013

Our generation helped elect our country’s first black president – no small feat. But we were reminded on July 6 at Campus Progress National Conference 2011 that that wasn’t enough. As two among the over 1000 attendees at the empowering and mobilizing training day, we heard from dozens of policy experts and lawmakers who left us with a sense of pride in our generation and two key ideas:

Knowledge and facts are power. Former President Bill Clinton told us that the American people make rational decisions based upon what they know. He reminded us to separate the hype from the facts, to discern effectively the misinformation from knowledge. In his keynote address, President Clinton hammered home the annual conference’s 2011 theme of turning truth to power, a play on the Quaker saying “speaking truth to power.” What’s the best way to turn truth into power? Personal stories, which make for more effective advocacy. What’s the best way to be an activist? Share what you know – this rings true for college students and older activists alike.

The speakers at Campus Progress reminded of the countless success stories of this kind of advocacy, from the LGBTQ rights movement to immigration reform, both putting faces on diverse, broad causes. But the rest of our generation is different. They don’t seem to find the statistics of women’s wages ...

Two Years After Tiller The Need To Secure Abortion Rights Continues On

This a guest post by Danielle Jackson, Online Outreach Associate at the National Women’s Law Center:

This Tuesday, May 31 marks the second anniversary of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the abortion doctor who was gunned down in his church in Wichita, Kansas. In many ways, Dr. Tiller’s death has shaped my professional life, as well as many of the women and men I work with every day. I heard of his murder the morning after he died, and just two days before I started my first job at a D.C.-headquartered abortion rights group.

In the two years that have passed, Dr. Tiller’s untimely death has been just one of many attacks on women’s ability to access abortion services. My ...

This a guest post by Danielle Jackson, Online Outreach Associate at the National Women’s Law Center:

This Tuesday, May 31 marks the second anniversary of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the abortion doctor who was gunned ...

Trusting Women

I will never forget the day I found out Dr. Tiller had been assassinated. I was driving through Pennsylvania with my parents when I received a text message from a friend, “Oh my God, Dena, Dr. Tiller was assassinated.” My first reaction was to scream, causing worry amongst my parents and, when I told them of the assassination, my mother began to cry. I felt fear, anger, sadness, even a sense of retaliation. Most of all, I felt hurt and anger for the thousands of women who have been helped by Dr. Tiller throughout their lives, the thousands of women who will never have the help of Dr. Tiller, a late-term abortion provider, again.

In such a short moment, I began ...

I will never forget the day I found out Dr. Tiller had been assassinated. I was driving through Pennsylvania with my parents when I received a text message from a friend, “Oh my God, Dena, Dr. Tiller ...

A Call to Action for Reproductive Rights Advocates

This is a guest post by Taylor Brannan, outreach intern at the National Women’s Law Center:

Today, Tuesday, May 31, marks the two year anniversary of the day that Dr. George Tiller was senselessly murdered at a local church in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller provided reproductive health care services to women with complicated pregnancies. Even amidst protest and media slander, he did not stop helping his female patients and it eventually cost him his life. While it is a comfort to know that his murderer, Scott Roeder, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars, there is a large community of women who are left without a man who would have provided support and help to them ...

This is a guest post by Taylor Brannan, outreach intern at the National Women’s Law Center:

Today, Tuesday, May 31, marks the two year anniversary of the day that Dr. George Tiller was senselessly murdered at a ...

Promoting Peaceful Protests

This is a guest post by Francesca Acocella, outreach intern at the National Women’s Law Center:

On the second anniversary of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, we must reflect on civility (or, indeed, the lack of it) in the fight for reproductive rights for women.

Disagreement, debate, and discourse are all valuable. They can even be productive. Violence is neither valuable nor productive. Those who are anti-choice and deplore what they consider the taking of unborn lives fail to see the irony that violence against abortion providers is also the taking of a life — and a life of someone well-established in a community, someone who has friends and relatives who will mourn him and who will miss him. ...

This is a guest post by Francesca Acocella, outreach intern at the National Women’s Law Center:

On the second anniversary of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, we must reflect on civility (or, indeed, the lack ...

Balancing Activism and Academics

Being a college activist is hard. Whether you are fighting for queer equality, gender and sex equality or inclusive sexual assault policies, it is very hard. I was moved to write this post after realizing that I oftentimes feel so busy that I don’t get to write as many blog posts as I’d like to at Feministing Campus or AbortionGang. How can one balance their activism with their academics?

For me, I bring my activist work into my academic studies. As a political science and women’s studies double major, I have always sought to bring my work as an activist into everything I do: the papers I write, the conversations I have, etc. I have found that to be a very ...

Being a college activist is hard. Whether you are fighting for queer equality, gender and sex equality or inclusive sexual assault policies, it is very hard. I was moved to write this post after realizing that I ...

Pushing for Transgender Rights on a College Campus

My best friend in college is transitioning. He first came out as transgender to our close friends at the end of the spring semester of last year. He performed a piece in front of the incoming class of 2014 (about 750 people to be exact) about being a trans man on our campus. This led me to think and write about: how do you help trans-identified students on your college campus and what can you do?

Does your campus have gender-neutral bathrooms or housing? At Colgate, our only gender-neutral bathrooms can be found in the Center for Women’s Studies—no where else on campus can these restrooms can be found. What must it be like to be trans-identified and be forced to ...

My best friend in college is transitioning. He first came out as transgender to our close friends at the end of the spring semester of last year. He performed a piece in front of the incoming class ...

Hello Feministing World!

Hello Feministing World!

Hello, so very nice to meet you!

My name is Dena Robinson and I will be blogging for Feministing Campus this year! I am a junior at Colgate University and will be writing on behalf of the Sisters of the Round Table (SORT), a feminist-womanist, all-inclusive organization of which I am the Chairwoman. In addition to running this organization, I am the Co-Chairperson of the Black Student Union and am a student sexual harassment adviser at my University. For the entirety of my Colgate career thus far, I have been working with the administration to revamp our school’s sexual assault and harassment policies. This past summer I interned with the Feminist Majority Foundation and blogged for their Choices Campus ...

Hello Feministing World!

Hello, so very nice to meet you!

My name is Dena Robinson and I will be blogging for Feministing Campus this year! I am a junior at Colgate University and will be writing on behalf of ...

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