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By Suzanna • 10 years ago

The Feministing Five: Samantha Geimer

“Mostly, I just wanted you to know that you are not alone.” So writes Samantha Geimer to the Steubenville “Jane Doe” in the concluding pages of her book, The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski. Geimer continues, “As this fades away to a memory of longer and longer ago, you are not alone. We are survivors, we are many, we are strong.” Geimer’s The Girlrecounts her girlhood, adolescence, and young adulthood as the person caught in the international media firestorm of the 1977 Roman Polanski rape case. Driven in 2009 to reclaim her own narrative and her own truth from decades of intrusive reporting, Samantha explains how her journey towards justice was grossly distorted by an inadequate legal system and sensationalist media.

By refusing to solely focus on that infamous day in 1977, Samantha directs readers to contextualize that story within her personal life and  changes in national culture. We are welcomed to meet more than just “The Girl.”
By Suzanna • 10 years ago

The Feministing Five: Riva Lehrer

Infusing her paintings with powerful activism, Riva Lehrer has explored such themes on the body, disability, and identity for over 20 years. She was born with spina bifida and has used her artwork to identify critical questions about bodies, creativity, and perspective. Her art has been featured in galleries and museums across the country, and Riva is also a writer and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Her work frequently is composed of portrait series like “Totems + Familiars” which addresses the connection between imagination, survival, and metaphor as well as “Mirror Shards” which extends her use of visual metaphor to explore human’s reliance upon animal symbols to produce empathy. We’ve included some ...

Infusing her paintings with powerful activism, Riva Lehrer has explored such themes on the body, disability, and identity for over 20 years. She was born with spina bifida and has used her artwork ...
By Suzanna • 10 years ago

The Feministing Five: Suey Park

Exemplifying the power and positive potential behind social media, last week’s #NotYourAsianSidekick Twitter conversation offered a fantastic opportunity for the Internet to discuss stereotypes and political challenges facing Asian-American-Pacific-Islanders (or AAPI). Originated by Suey Park, a freelance writer and organizer, #NotYourAsianSidekick quickly trended on Twitter and its energy immediately flowed over to the rest of the Internet, prompting relevant thought-pieces and segments.

#NotYourAsianSidekick demonstrated how young people and the Internet have the power to create significant opportunities for civil rights discourse. What I really enjoyed about #NotYourAsianSidekick was how it offered an opportunity for individuals to chime with their personal experiences of racism (and often with sexism woven in) while also creating a space for progressive organizations ...

Exemplifying the power and positive potential behind social media, last week’s #NotYourAsianSidekick Twitter conversation offered a fantastic opportunity for the Internet to discuss stereotypes and political challenges facing Asian-American-Pacific-Islanders (or AAPI). Originated by

By Suzanna • 10 years ago

The Feministing Five: Senator Gretchen Whitmer

In the latest episode of Are-You-Effing-Kidding-Me-Michigan, the state legislature has banned private health insurance plans from covering abortions unless a person has preemptively purchased separate abortion coverage. What takes the “No But Actually” cake is the fact that this law, which was just passed on Wednesday, applies to rape and incest. As this week’s Feministing Five interviewee Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer adamantly pointed out on the Senate floor, the law “tells women that were raped and became pregnant that they should have thought ahead and planned for it.”

Representing Michigan’s 23rd District, Whitmer has been a strident advocate for women’s rights throughout the state. And this past week, while publicly addressing her colleagues on the Senator floor, she revealed ...

In the latest episode of Are-You-Effing-Kidding-Me-Michigan, the state legislature has banned private health insurance plans from covering abortions unless a person has preemptively purchased separate abortion coverage. What takes the “No But Actually” cake is the fact ...
By Suzanna • 10 years ago

The Feministing Five: Sunny Clifford

If you haven’t seen “Young Lakota,” the documentary that explores the intersection of reproductive justice and indigenous rights through the perspective of then 21-year-old Sunny Clifford and her community at the Pine Ridge Reservation, stop what you’re doing and see where it’s playing near you.

(I’m serious. Search right now. This week’s Feministing Five can wait…Perfect, glad you’re incorporating it in your weekend plans!)

“Young Lakota” stunned me. Starting off wondering how she would be able to help her community upon returning from college, Sunny learns to assert her voice and her activism while protecting her community against restrictive legislation that would have severely limited women’s rights to access safe abortions. Throughout the film, she beautifully articulates the ...

If you haven’t seen “Young Lakota,” the documentary that explores the intersection of reproductive justice and indigenous rights through the perspective of then 21-year-old Sunny Clifford and her community at the Pine Ridge ...
By Suzanna • 10 years ago

The Feministing Five: The LatiNegr@s Project

Intersecting the archival with the digital, The LatiNegr@s Project curates, documents, and broadcasts Black Latino space both in the United States and Latin America as a whole. Their project ranges from pop culture to academia and provides an easily accessible archive that informs and prompts activism in and outside the classroom. While pundits play out the latest journalistic tic (“Are the Humanities Dying?!”), LNP reexamines historical questions with fresh perspective and innovative use of contemporary technology.

Following in their collectivist spirit, we were so excited to talk with two of their current members. Bianca Laureano is a first generation Puerto Rican sexologist, activist, and educator currently based in New York City. She was joined by Jessica Marie Johnson, Assistant Professor of ...

Intersecting the archival with the digital, The LatiNegr@s Project curates, documents, and broadcasts Black Latino space both in the United States and Latin America as a whole. Their project ranges from pop culture to academia and provides ...
By Suzanna • 10 years ago

The Feministing Five: Juana Rosa Cavero

We were thrilled to snag Juana Rosa Cavero for a quick conversation about her work as the director of the Reproductive Justice Coalition of Los Angeles. She has been working for reproductive justice, particular in communities of color, for several years, mixing astute on-the-ground advocacy experience with brilliant public policy analysis.

The Reproductive Justice Coalition works with over 25 social justice organizations, ranging from health-care to those that you might not expect to be associated with this work. Juana and her team remind us the importance and power in forging and strengthening these types of alliances and we will be sure to keep an eye on their future work!

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five with Juana Rosa ...

We were thrilled to snag Juana Rosa Cavero for a quick conversation about her work as the director of the Reproductive Justice Coalition of Los Angeles. She has been working for reproductive justice, particular in ...
By Suzanna • 10 years ago

We’re live on air: Coloring Latinidad

Coming at you live from the Interwebs! Feministing is hosting its first On Air Google Hangout today! We’ll be talking at 3 pm EST/ Noon PST about colorism within the Latin@ community with three amazing feminist writers. Come check it out and tweet us your questions and thoughts at #ColoringLtd.

We’ll be posting a written transcript of our conversation as soon as possible, so stay tuned.

 

 

Coming at you live from the Interwebs! Feministing is hosting its first On Air Google Hangout today! We’ll be talking at 3 pm EST/ Noon PST about colorism within the Latin@ community with three amazing ...

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