Here’s a shot of yesterday’s intergenerational feminist panel at SUNY-New Paltz–Amy Kesselman, Elizabeth Gross, me (Deborah), and Heather Hewett, who graciously organized us all.

It was humbling to share the stage with Amy, a second-wave radical feminist/now historian, who shared a number of zingers herself, including: “Coming out of the 1950s, everything looks like progress.” Amy is currently working on the history of women’s liberation movement in New Haven and I can’t wait to read what she has found. Elizabeth–a very savvy sophomore who turned 20 yesterday and who heads up the only feminist group on campus, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance–spoke beautifully from her heart. (Welcome to the 20s, Elizabeth! The 30s get even better!) We talked a lot about forms of social activism, current attitudes toward political engagement, what issues we’d fight for, and what “the personal is political” still means to women of different ages. And we talked about the role feminism plays in our life. Amy has written how “Feminism saved my life.” I talked about how “feminism launched my life.” In Elizabeth’s words, “Feminism is me.” I wished the WGLs could have been there to hear Amy and Elizabeth–they both moved me to my core.

Here’s a shot of yesterday’s intergenerational panel at SUNY-New Paltz–Amy Kesselman, Elizabeth Gross, me, and Heather Hewett, who graciously organized us all.

It was humbling to share the stage with Amy, a second-wave radical feminist/now historian, who shared a number of zingers herself, including: “Coming out of the 1950s, everything looks like progress.” Amy is currently working on the history of women’s liberation movement in New Haven and I can’t wait to read what she has found. Elizabeth–a very savvy sophomore who turned 20 yesterday and who heads up the only feminist group on campus, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance–spoke beautifully from her heart. (Welcome to the 20s, Elizabeth! The 30s get even better!) We talked a lot about forms of social activism, current attitudes toward political engagement, what issues we’d fight for, and what “the personal is political” still means to women of different ages. And we talked about the role feminism plays in our life. Amy has written how “Feminism saved my life.” I talked about how “feminism launched my life.” And in Elizabeth’s words, “Feminism is me.” I’ve asked Elizabeth to do a guest post here on GWP, and she has agreed. Coming soon!

That pic to the right is the WomenGirlsLadies gang of 4 signing books at Eastern Michigan University last week. Our blog, offering “a FRESH conversation about feminism across generations” is now in full swing, over at: www.womengirlsladies.blogspot.com. Please do visit us over there and join the convo if so inclined!

WGLs immersed in post-panel conversation with audience members, and signing books!

So this week, I’m intergenerational-panel-cheating on my colleagues who have affectionately become known as the WGLs. But when Ann Snitow calls, I jump. And so, I of course said YES to participating on a panel this Wednesday at The New School in celebration of Women’s History Month.

Ann is coeditor of The Feminist Memoir Project and a founder of New York Radical Feminists (circa 1969), the group that brought us the Miss America Protest that put women’s liberation on the map, and so much more. The panel, “Feminist Generations/Feminist Locations: The Continuing Vitality of Feminist Thought and Action,” will take on the state of feminism across generations. Joining Ann and I on Thursday will be:

AI-JEN POO of Domestic Workers United
MEREDITH TAX of Women’s World
(a founder of Boston’s Bread & Roses – 1969)
CLEOPATRA LAMOTHE of Women of Color Collective, Lang
ERICA READE of Moxie, Lang College Feminist Club

When and where, you ask?

THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2008
66 WEST 12TH ST., ROOM 407
6:30-8 PM

For more info, please contact Soraya Field Fiorio, fiors393@newschool.edu.

On March 26: 7:30 p.m., I’ll be giving a talk at Lafayette College on….Sisterhood Interrupted! (How much fun is this Women’s History Month? I wish EVERY month could be Women’s History Month! Who do we petition?)

LOCATION: Kirby Hall of Civil Rights, Room 104. Co-sponsored by Office of Intercultural Development and Women’s and Gender Studies program. Come one, come all!

(I’ll be in New Paltz today.)

If this isn’t the coolest sounding conference: “Fear of Flying: Can a Feminist Classic Be a Classic?” On March 28, Columbia University will host a half-day conference at which speakers will revisit Erica Jong’s novel, assess the status of women’s writing and feminism in today’s literary scene, and suss out the possibilities of subversion open to contemporary young women writers. I’ll be at WAM!, or else I’d be here.

For those in need of a refresher, 35 years ago Erica Jong’s first novel, Fear of Flying, broke from conventional expectations and freed other women writers to write intelligently and openly about sex. It became an international bestseller. (“Zipless fuck” anyone?)

So Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired a large collection of Erica Jong’s archival material in 2007. And so the Rare Book & Manuscript Library will join the Columbia University Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Center for Research on Women at Barnard College as sponsors. I love it.

Speakers include novelists Min Jin Lee, author of the national bestseller Free Food for Millionaires; Aoibheann Sweeney, author of Among Other Things I’ve Taken Up Smoking; literary and cultural critics Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor, Comparative Literature and English, at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and author of But Enough About Me: Let Me Tell You About My Memoir; Susan Rubin Suleiman, C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France and a professor of comparative literature at Harvard, and author of Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics and the Avant-Garde; Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Director of American Studies, Stanford University, and author of From Fact to Fiction: Journalism and Imaginative Writing in America; and journalist Rebecca Traister, staff writer for Salon.com and a founding contributor to Broadsheet. The afternoon will culminate in a conversation between Erica Jong and Columbia professor and novelist Jenny Davidson, author of Breeding. “Fear of Flying: Can a Feminist Classic be a Classic?” is open to the public and will be held at the Social Hall, Columbia University Union Theological Seminary, 3041 Broadway at 121st Street, in New York City, from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m. A reception will follow.

Reproductive Justice: “the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic well-being of women and girls, based on the full achievement and protection of women’s human rights” (source: Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice)

SisterSong is putting together a special anthology on Reproductive Justice and is currently accepting submissions for consideration. Submit poetry, art, and manuscripts that have not been previously published, especially work by young writers, to

Guidelines for submission are available at www.sistersong.net. Submissions should include: 1) a completed cover page with identifying information (please remove all headers, footers, notes, and bibliographic entries from manuscript that might identify the authors); 2) three (3) copies of the manuscript formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style (14th edition) and printed on standard U.S. paper (8 1/2 x 11); and 3) three (3) copies of an abstract.
DEADLINE for submissions is no later than June 1st, 2008.

Sistersong adds: “We understand that submitting a manuscript can be a daunting and often intimidating process. We would like to extend our help in putting together your contribution for this anthology. If you have an idea, a sketch of ideas, or a rough draft for consideration please feel free to contact any one of us so that we can help you through the process. For questions about your submission, please contact one of the co-editors below.” Send submissions to one of the following addresses:

Lynn Roberts, PhD, Co-Editor Or Loretta Ross, Co-Editor
Urban Public Health Program SisterSong Women of Color
Hunter College of the Reproductive Health Collective
City University of New York 1237 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd., SW
425 East 25th Street, Box 766 Atlanta, GA 30310
New York, NY 10010 (404) 756-2680
(212) 481-5110 (404) 756-2684 fax
(212) 481-5260 fax Loretta@sistersong.net
lroberts@hunter.cuny.edu

This is my very young friend Charlie Zachar, checking out his Easter basket in my sweet hometown Chicago. Couldn’t resist!

On April 14 BUST Magazine will be throwing “The Hysterical Festival Fundraiser”, at Comix Comedy Club, 353 W 14 St (9th Ave) @ 8PM. The cost is $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Buy tix here.

The event will include performances by:

Heather Lawless (Be Kind Rewind, Variety SHAC, HBO’s Flight of the Conchords)
Mel and El (New York Musical Theatre Festival Concert Series at Ars Nova)
Rachel Feinstein (Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend”, Montreal Just for Laughs Festival)
Bridget Everett (At Least It’s Pink at Ars Nova)
Adira Amram (Upright Citizens Brigade, Jane Magazine)
Ophira Eisenberg (Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend”, US Weekly Fashion Police, VH1)

For media inquiries, contact Hillary Buckholtz at: 301-806-5519 or email mshbuck@gmail.com.

Join me, if nearby, for: “The Personal and the Political: Three Generations of Feminism,” an intergenerational panel co-sponsored by the Women’s Studies Program, the History Department, and FMLA.

Monday, March 24, 2008, 5:00-7:00pm, Honors Center, College Hall

Here’s the description:

How have feminists across generations understood the relationship between personal transformation and political activism? What tensions and insights surface from the intersections of personal life and social change? What visions and projects do women share across generations? How is our understanding of the second and third waves of feminism evolving, and what is feminism’s future? Come join three generations of feminists in a discussion about the relationship between personal life and political activism during the last fifty years of the women’s movement!

The panel will feature writer Deborah Siegel, Ph.D., author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild (Palgrave Macmillan 2007). Siegel is at the forefront of reexamining the feminist movement and the ways in which younger women are reinventing feminism. [WOW! THAT’S SO NICE OF THEM TO SAY! -A HUMBLED GWP] Contrary to those who have proclaimed the women’s movement dead, or too divided between older and younger generations, Siegel has brought attention to the continuities that cross generational lines. In Sisterhood, Interrupted, Siegel examines how the relationship between individual change and collective action has emerged as a recurring theme for both the second and third waves of feminism. Siegel will be joined by Amy Kesselman, Professor of Women’s Studies at SUNY New Paltz, a historian of second-wave feminism, and one of the founders of the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960’s. Our third panelist, Elizabeth Gross, president of the SUNY New Paltz chapter of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, will join them in what we hope will be a lively discussion that brings together intellectual inquiry, personal reflection and intergenerational understanding.

A bizillion thanks to the hard-working and brilliant Heather Hewett for making this happen. I’m really excited–I write about Amy Kesselman in my book. It’s truly humbling to be on panels with these women, and I’m totally looking forward to meeting Elizabeth, and to the conversation.