Tag Archive for "Interviews"

Posts Tagged Interviews

The Feministing Five: Jana Leo

Jana Leo is an artist, architect, teacher and author of the book Rape New York. The book, which came out earlier this year, is a monologue about her experience of being raped in her New York apartment, reporting the crime, and processing the emotional trauma of what was done to her. The books is alternately inspiring and nauseating, as Leo describes the fear and frustration and myriad other feelings she experienced during and after the attack.

Leo, who is Spanish, is also the founder of two think tanks in Madrid that study urban spaces. For Leo, the connection between urban planning, gentrification and personal safety is an important one, since her rapist was able to attack her in part ...

Jana Leo is an artist, architect, teacher and author of the book Rape New York. The book, which came out earlier this year, is a monologue about her experience of being raped in her New ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has represented the great state of New York in the US Senate since 2009. Gillibrand entered politics in 2006, running for Congress in upstate New York, and after two terms was appointed to fill Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vacated Senate seat.

Gillibrand is an outspoken supporter of reproductive rights and of LGBT rights. She has campaigned for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the extension of marriage rights to same sex couples, and in March of this year, along with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), she introduced a bill to repeal Defense of Marriage Act.

Recently, Gillibrand launched Off the Sidelines, a project that aims to get more women involved in politics. Gillibrand ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: Hanne Blank

Hanne Blank is a historian and author of several books including Virgin: The Untouched History, Unruly Appetites and the forthcoming Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. Virgin, which came out a few years ago, is one of the most thoroughly-researched and readable books about sex, culture and history that you’ll ever find, and I highly recommend you pick up a copy. Straight will be out in February 2012 and I suspect it will be just as rigorous and equally riveting.

Blank is also the author of Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex and Relationships for People of Size and Those Who Love Them. This book flies in the face of the idea that sex is only for ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: Feminist Hulk

If you spend any time in the feminist Twittersphere, you are probably familiar with Feminist Hulk. And if you aren’t familiar with Feminist Hulk, you are missing out on the hilarious anti-sexism goodness that Feminist Hulk portions out, 140 characters at a time. For example:

HULK SMASH UNDER HOT JUNE SUN! PATRIARCHAL DEBRIS MELT IN HEAT, FORMING PUDDLES OF SEXIST SOUP AT HULK FEET. SHOWER NOW.

and,

HULK SEW POCKETS IN TINY PURPLE SHORTS. NOW HULK HAVE SOMEWHERE TO PUT THE ANTI-HEGEMONIC POEMS HULK COMPOSE POST-SMASH!

Feminist Hulk has become something of a Twitter sensation, with over 40, 000 followers and a growing public profile. It helps that Hulk has an excellent sense of humour, as evidenced by this interview with ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: Nick Espinosa

Nick Espinosa is an activist for immigrant and worker’s rights best known for his glitter bombing of Republican politician Newt Gingrich last month. Espinosa, 24, has been an activist for years, but it was only recently that he discovered the power of humor and theatrics in politics. “Feel the rainbow, Newt!” he said as he poured silver glitter onto Gingrich at a book signing. “Stop the hate. Stop anti-gay politics. It’s dividing our country and it’s not fixing our economy.” And then security pushed him away.

Glitter bombing is controversial, but it is catching on, with another activist recently catching Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty unawares. But Espinosa doesn’t understand the concern that glitter bombing is violent or even, ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: Mac McClelland

Mac McClelland is the human rights reporter for Mother Jones magazine and the author of the book For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question: A Story from Burma’s Never-Ending War. Mac has reported from all over the world, most recently from Haiti and the Gulf of Mexico – she is currently reporting on the impact of budget cuts in her home state of Ohio. Her book, which came out last year, was the result of the time she spent among Burmese anti-government rebels, people who risked their lives to combat ethnic cleansing under a military dictatorship.

Mac has also written about the place of women within journalism, as issue that was on many people’s minds earlier ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: Erica Jong and Molly Jong-Fast

Erica Jong is an author, poet, social commentator and public intellectual, the woman whose novel Fear of Flying, became a cultural cornerstone for Second Wave feminism. Fear of Flying depicted women as unabashedly sexual at a time when such an idea was even more taboo than it is today. Jong has been a leading voice Second Wave feminism ever since, publishing books like Shylock’s Daughter and Any Woman’s Blues. She is, whether you agree with her views or not, a feminist icon.

Her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, is also a writer and the author of the books Normal Girl and Girl [Maladjusted]. Last year, Jong and Jong-Fast published side-by-side essays about motherhood, both of which engendered a good ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: JD Samson

JD Samson is a musician, producer, activist and gender rebel. Samson started her musical career with Le Tigre, the band that made songs like “Deceptacon” and “TKO,” creating music that was part of the cultural heart of Third Wave feminism, with the band that supplied much of the “grrr” in the Riot Grrrl movement.

JD grew up in the American heartland – in Pepper Pike, Ohio, a town that seems to breed teenage feminists – where it wasn’t easy to be a feminist, or an out lesbian, or an aspiring rock star. JD was all three, and she has written about her struggle with being so far from the all-American girl she was supposed to be. That sense of ...