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Amira Hanania: Making Palestinian Women’s Voices Heard

This is the trailer for Live from Bethlehem, a documentary featuring the Ma’an News Agency, the only independent news network in the Palestinian Territories. Earlier this week, I went to hear Palestinian journalist Amira Hanania speak about her work as the only woman lead journalist for Ma’an — and, by extension, the only independent woman journalist in Palestine.
A daring journalist committed to challenging sexism even in times of war, I found Hanania’s own story as fascinating as the stories she’s exposed. At 26 years old, Hanania has been an advocate of independent media in Palestine for a decade, since she went on the air with her own talk show at age seventeen. And she’s a vocal proponent of making Palestinian women’s voices heard in Palestine and beyond, reporting on everything from the war in Gaza to Palestinian marriage laws through a strong feminist lens.
No matter what your view on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, this woman is a real kick-butt feminist hero.

New Study: 2008 Election’s Impact on Girls

Obama’s election means a lot for women — and, of course, girls. No big surprise there.
But according to a new study conducted by the Girl Scout Research Institute, the presidential race was influencing girls across the country even before Obama won. Their survey of over 3,000 boys and girls (including non-Girl Scouts) found that the election increased girls’ interest in leadership, but also heightened “their appreciation for the difficulties that women face in our society.”
According to the study, 43 percent of girls today strongly believe that “girls have to work harder than boys in order to gain positions of leadership,” a statement that just 25 percent of girls agreed with just a year ago. And the ...

Obama’s election means a lot for women — and, of course, girls. No big surprise there.
But according to a new study conducted by the Girl Scout Research Institute, the presidential race was influencing girls ...

Friday Feminist Fave: Girls’ Leadership Workshop

I was going to post this yesterday as a Thank You Thursday, but then I ran out of time; hence, it’s a Friday Feminist Fave!
Last year, Courtney posted on Eleanor Roosevelt , a phenomenal activist in her own right and an important foremother of the second wave. I’m a big ER fan, too, for those reasons and for one other reason: the Girls’ Leadership Workshop.
When I was fifteen, I attended the Girls’ Leadership Workshop, or GLW, at the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill, the place that was once Eleanor’s private home. GLW is a nine-day summer feminist leadership program for teen girls entering grades ten and eleven. It’s a phenomenal program, packed with workshops with ...

I was going to post this yesterday as a Thank You Thursday, but then I ran out of time; hence, it’s a Friday Feminist Fave!
Last year, Courtney posted on Eleanor Roosevelt , a phenomenal activist ...

The Facebook Feminism Debate, Continued

Self-described sexologist Logan Levkoff posted an interesting piece on HuffPo a week ago (AlterNet also recently picked it up). The title is one of those feminism-is-dead titles apparently meant to inspire shock: “Facebook, Relationship Statuses, and the Demise of Feminism.” Here’s what Levkoff has to say:

“While I like Facebook in many respects, I find the “Relationship Status” part completely juvenile, if not damaging. Why do we feel compelled to announce or define our relationships for everyone else? (There is already a part where you can write your interests i.e. dating, networking, etc.) Why isn’t it enough to define our relationship with our partner? Why must we formally legitimize our relationships for the greater public? Is it really anyone’s ...

Self-described sexologist Logan Levkoff posted an interesting piece on HuffPo a week ago (AlterNet also recently picked it up). The title is one of those feminism-is-dead titles apparently meant to inspire shock: “Facebook, Relationship Statuses, and ...