blogging life

This just in: Rachel Kramer Bussell, along with her fellow Cupcakes Take the Cake bloggers, will be appearing on The Martha Stewart Show this coming Monday, March 31st, to kick off Cupcake Week on the show. As Rachel notes, that’s not (yet) a national holiday. They’re on at the top of the hour (1 pm ET on NBC). Click here for local listings.

Now, I’m just waiting for the moment Rachel, who also blogs at LustyLady and edits these amazing sex anthologies, slips sex toys into the conversation with Martha.

Rachel also just passed along a great link to me–an article by Violet Blue about how women are treated online, over at SFGate. Read it and weep. And then, go eat a big fat cupcake. For reals.

Thrilled to announce that a handful of previous GWP guest posters will soon be guest blogging on a regular monthly basis over here. The regulars will include the venerable young’un of WomenGirlsLadies, Courtney Martin, and my feminist dude Marco Acevedo. If you’re interested in being a monthly guest blogger (Virginia? Rebecca? Cathy? Heather? Elizabeth? Jackie? Mel? Elline? Others?), please contact me and we’ll go from there!

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Women’s Voices. Women Vote is honoring women in the blogosphere, through a Women’s Voices Making History contest.

Nominate your favorite female bloggers through March 21, after which WVWV will list the top 10 female bloggers at www.wvwv.org and then they’ll ask everyone to vote for their favorite.

Nominating form available here.

(Thank you, Catherine Morgan, for the heads up, and, well, for your know what!!)

Girl Sailor has had so many awesome posts lately, I don’t know which to link to first. So I’m just going to point GWP readers over there, for fare like “A Woman of Amazon Proportions” (on guess who), “Reading Infidel in DC,” and an email about the observance of Women’s History Month sent by the Chief of Naval Operations via his administrative staff to all Navy Personnel.

In addition to being an active blogger, Girl Sailor is an ensign on active duty in the U.S. Navy.

Happy Women’s History Month, GS, with love, and deep gratitude, from GWP.

One of my favorite things about what I do is when I’m able to bring other women into the fold. Blogging is contagious, and it is a joy beyond measure to see feminists find their online voice.

And so I am thrilled – THRILLED! – to formally introduce a new blog on the block: PursePundit. The host pundit over there, Jacki Zehner, is a frequent commentator on women’s success in the workplace, women and wealth, investing, and philanthropy. And she knows from whence she speaks–she was the youngest woman, and first female trader, to be invited into the partnership of Goldman Sachs.

Jacki’s since been recognized not only as a “Wall Street Trailblazer” but as a “next-generation role model” for women navigating the complex constellation of work, family, civic service, and social activism. Jacki’s work is informed by her own journey from humble beginnings to Wall Street success. She learned early on the power of the dollar working as a cashier in her father’s grocery store. An impassioned philanthropic visionary committed to the economic empowerment of women, she now serves on the boards of The Women’s Funding Network, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, The Center for Work Life Policy, and more. I met Jacki when she was on the board of the National Council for Research on Women, where I used to work.

Like me, the gal’s a bridger. These days, through multiple platforms, Jacki leverages her access and expertise by bridging knowledge across corporate, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors. I learn things from this wonder woman daily. Visit www.pursepundit.blogspot.com for musings on “markets, money, and changing the world” and I guarantee, you’ll learn from her too.

I’m equally thrilled to announce that Girl with Pen (aka me) and PursePundit will be teaming up on a number of projects around women’s economic empowerment and financial literacy this year. Our first collaboration has been a series of posts on the crazy market events of the past week, over in the Business section at Huffington Post. In case ya missed them, they are here, here, and here. More on our emerging partnership, soon. In the meantime, please help me welcome my new favorite blogger friend, a woman who inspires the heck out of me and has one of the largest hearts of anyone I know.

New blogger on the block/financial whiz girl Jacki Zehner and I coauthored another one today over at HuffPo. Come visit, and read our take on the week’s market events! There’s a groundhog involved. For reals.

I recently discovered a very cool new blog called Sociological Images, run by Professor Lisa D. Wade at Occidental College. Sometimes, images speak more than a thousand words. Much, much more, here. (Thanks, Virginia, for the heads up!)

Damn. There’s wireless at this here writing retreat. For the most part, though, I’m being “good.” Meaning, staying offline. But I couldn’t help but post this cool button below, once I signed up for Blog for Choice Day, which will take place on January 22, 2008–the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Which, as I’m watching the caucuses and primaries, seems to be a pretty important thing to continue making tons of noise about, if you know what I mean.

I love feministing and Broadsheet. But now I heart them even more for posting the year in feministing and the year in Broadsheet. It’s like a whirlwind tour through feminist (and antifeminist) America circa 2007. The scholar in me is thinking how great this kind of thing is for online archives, future feminist scholarship, and the like. But the girl in me is just thinking this kills. Remember when there weren’t yet blogs like these around? When keeping current on feminist news and issues and happenings was a far more scattershot endeavor? When researching a previous year’s happenings was not quite so easy as the click of a mouse? Keep it up, feministing and Broadsheet gals and readers. The womengirlsladies are cheering you on. (More on that clunky but catchy run-on word soon….)

As those who know me know, I’m all for the innovative intersection of politics and glam, if it helps engage more women in a worthy cause. Like voting. And campaigning. And just the other week, Glamour magazine launched a blog with promise: Glamocracy.

As Broadsheet’s Carol Lloyd notes, “it’s a clever move when an estimated 25 percent of the voters are 18-29 and an increasing number of those younger voters are actively following the presidential elections.” Here’s Lloyd’s assessment:

The idea behind Glamocracy is simple but deft. Five women from different backgrounds (but all within the youngish Glamour demographic) blog weekly on the 2008 elections. Amanda Carpenter, a 25-year-old reporter for conservative Web site TownHall.com, and Asma Hasan, a 33-year-old Muslim-American who describes herself as a moderate and currently registered Republican, fill out the right flank, while Fernanda Diaz, a student from Columbia University and first-time voter, and Caille Millner, a 28-year-old African-American editorialist for the San Francisco Chronicle and unabashed Barack Obama booster, make up the left. Only Rebecca Roberts, a 37-year-old journalist (and daughter of pundit Cokie Roberts), claims journalist’s license and resists showing her political undergarments….Diaz’s post — about the candidates acting as if the youngest voters are “exotic animals” requiring full-time youth-outreach specialists and MTV-style events while regularly ignoring the international issues — taught me something I didn’t know. As might be expected, though, there’s plenty about candidates’ wives and daughters. So far, mercifully, there’s not a single fashion do or don’t.

Personally, I think it’s brilliant. I’ll look forward to watching it maintain its integrity, which, with these five writers behind it, should not be hard to do. They’re off to a great start.