On April 8th, let’s create a more feminist future

Remember that impact paper I mentioned in my retirement post that I’m co-authoring with fellow Editor Emerita Courtney about online feminism? Well, we’re just about ready to unveil it to the world. On Monday, April 8th, we’ll be releasing the paper online (along with some awesome visuals via Megan Jett — a sneak peak above) and celebrating its launch at Barnard College in New York. Time to rally, y’all.

The birth of this paper was actually sparked when Courtney retired from Feministing, as she pledged to herself that she would create something meaningful about the sustainability of online feminist work. As many know, Feministing and dozens of other blogs and online organizations have been making an enormous impact in gender and social justice for the last decade — all while struggling to find the resources and build the infrastructure needed to sustain this unique movement.

Published by the Barnard Center for Research on Women as a part of their New Feminist Solutions series, the paper was synthesized largely from the ideas that came out of a day-long convening that Courtney held last June with an incredible crew of online feminist influencers. (Here are just a few of the movers and shakers who represented.)

We’ll have much more to come in the following week, but in the meantime, start engaging on Twitter using #femfuture. (Big ups to Samhita for creating the hashtag!) Spread the word about the 8th, tell us what #onlinefeminism means to you, and share ideas about how you think we could build a healthier, higher impact movement. Online feminism is arguably the largest and most effective innovation in the feminist movement in the last 50 years. Just imagine the possibilities.