Ann

Ed. note: This excerpt from a piece by Feministing Editor Emerita Ann Friedman is cross-posted from her Tumblr with permission.

In 2004, the year I graduated college, I had the cliched personal crisis that everyone has when What do I want to do with my life? suddenly becomes a practical question, not a thought exercise. I knew I wanted to be a magazine writer. But I couldn’t afford to take an unpaid  internship, and my only experience was in newspapers. I’d also recently started calling myself a feminist, which seemed irreconcilable with being an “objective” journalist.

So I followed my then-boyfriend to New York and took a job at a women’s rights nonprofit. I found myself bored and alienated. Until my boss mentioned ...