Online Resources
Insights and Examples Outside the Blogosphere
While the blogosphere provides a new and growing site for activism
and discourse, other resources on the Internet—such as magazines,
forums and campaigns—are a necessary part of online feminist activism.
Center for New Words
The Center for New Words is dedicated to a simple mission: "To use the
power and creativity of words to strengthen the voice of progressive
women and women speaking from the margins of society." CNW programs
support diverse communities of women who engage with the written and
spoken word in all of its expressions, from reading to blogging to
creative writing to theater and performance to opinion-making in the
media.
FIRE Radio
Radio Internacional Feminista (FIRE) began in 1991 as a bilingual
(Spanish and English) short-wave radio program broadcast from Radio for
Peace International on the campus of University for Peace in Costa Rica.
Since 1998, it has switched to broadcasting through streaming audio over
the Internet, and can be heard over http://www.fire.or.cr.
FIRE, lead by Maria Suarez, also recently started the Women's E-Media
Pool. Used during this year's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW),
the Media Pool was used to coordinate women media professionals covering
the conference.
Girlistic.com
Self-described as the "ultimate feminist resource," Girlistic.com
features a blog, a quarterly online magazine, a calendar for posting
local feminist events, a feminist clip art gallery, and forums on
everything from arts & crafts to equality at work and home. The Spring
2007 issue of Girlistic Magazine focuses on feminism & technology.
Global Voices
Global Voices Online is a non-profit global citizens' media project,
sponsored by and launched from the Berkman Center for Internet and
Society at the Harvard Law School. Global Voices is a cooperative effort
of contributors from every continent and dozens of countries which aims
to redress some of the inequities in media attention by leveraging the
power of citizens' media. Using a wide variety of technologies—weblogs,
wikis, podcasts, tags, aggregators and online chats—Global
Voices aims to call attention to conversations and points of view that
they hope will help shed new light on our interconnected world.
Holla Back NYC
HollaBackNYC is a collective comprised of men and women who believe in
building communities where everyone feels comfortable, safe, and
respected. Many people, particularly men, are unaware of the frequency
and severity of disrespect and intimidation that numerous folks,
especially women, experience in public spaces on a daily basis.
HollaBackNYC is set up in blog format and publishes the experiences of
people who have been sexually harassed on the street, sometimes posting
photographs of the offenders. In so doing, HollaBackNYC provides a
revolutionary new way to use technology to expose and combat street
harassment as well as provide an empowering forum in this struggle.
IndyMedia
The recent anthology The Fire This Time: Young Activists and the New
Feminism featured an article by the co-founders of the Independent Media
Center (IndyMedia), Joshua Breitbart and Ana Nogueira. The article
focused on the feminist nature of IndyMedia, stating that the online
forum "combines technological innovations with feminist organizational
principles in an attempt to open the media-making process up to multiple
progressive voices." Breitbart and Nogueira also link alternative media
to activism, arguing that: "[t]oday's media activists are fighting for
the human rights to communicate not because it is more important than
other struggles for social justice but because it is a necessary
component of all those struggles."
MisFortune500
MisFortune 500 is a project of Women's Environment & Development
Organization (WEDO). A parody of Fortune Magazine's annual listing of
top profit-making companies, MisFortune 500 challenges corporate
injustice against women. Instead of ranking "winners" and "losers,"
MisFortune 500 exposes corporate activities that violate women's rights,
threaten lives and livelihoods, and destroy the environment. The website
also documents women's resistance and promotes corporate accountability
by providing information on women's activism worldwide, along with
advocacy tools, related publications, and other useful resources.
MySpace Groups
Social networking websites like MySpace and Friendster are a
fast-growing medium for activism. Existing organizations, magazines,
and grassroots campaigns are using the amazing outreach capabilities of
these networking sites to further their reach and their goals. By
creating "groups" on MySpace of Friendster, like-minded activists can
meet up, discuss issues, and network with people from across the US
and internationally. Some groups include:
NYC-rapemap.org/ NYC-safestreets.org
After several rapes in the Williamsburg and Greenpoint sections of
Brooklyn in 2004, several women created NYC rapemap.org and NYC
safestreets.org to map unsafe locations (locations where the rapes had
taken place) and also provided a resource section, along with a "safe
streets haven"—houses and businesses that serve as safe havens for
someone in danger, indicated by a poster with a yellow whistle which is
taped to the window. In addition to providing web resources, the project
also works with area businesses to paste maps in public locations.
Our Truths/Nuestras Verdades
Our Truths/Nuestras Verdades is an online and print bilingual
zine dedicated to bringing to light women's (and men's) abortion
experiences. The magazine focuses on the voices of women of color
because, according to their mission: "in many cases they are the most
marginalized from the mainstream pro-choice movement and that they often
have fewer opportunities to see their abortion experiences reflected in
public spaces."
Relief Map of Boston
This electronic project is designed to help people find "gender safe"
public restrooms in Boston for transgendered and other gender variant
people. The website, which is currently in its development stage, also
lists whether or not restrooms are accessible. Several similar web-based
maps have also popped up, including one run by the LGBT Resource Center
at the University of Missouri-Columbia and another by
People in Search of Safe Restrooms (PISSR)
in San Francisco.
REAL hot 100
Recognizing that media is the new battleground for younger women, the
REAL hot 100 was founded in 2005 in an effort to combat the lack of
positive, strong images of young women in mainstream media. The REAL hot
100 defies the popular notion that all young women have to offer is
their ability to appeal to men while highlighting, the important—but
often overlooked—work young women are doing. The website,
therealhot100.org,
features nominee profiles and content relevant to the
program's targeted audience. In its first year, the REAL hot 100
received more than 350 nominations from around the country, from which
its founders selected 100 REAL hot women who represented the
intelligence, drive and diversity of young women in the US.
SheSource
The White House Project, Fenton Communications and the Women's Funding
Network are taking on the lack of women in the media with the
newly-created SheSource. SheSource, which will launch in the fall of
2005, will provide an online resource of expert women who can serve as
spokeswomen, pundits and sources: "Media presence is one of the most
visible forms of political power—and women's leadership, credibility
and effectiveness in the public policy arena will increase in direct
proportion to their influence in the news media. Despite their growing
ranks as experts in fields ranging from national security and military
spending to technology and health care, women are drastically
underrepresented in the news media as shapers of policy and leading
voices of experience and authority on critical issues. Our primary goal
is to ensure that women are recognized as stakeholders and called upon
as experts in all fields. SheSource will help amplify the voices of
women and promote their solutions in the news media."
Women's eNews
Women's eNews' Mission Statement reads: "Women's eNews is the definitive
source of substantive news—unavailable anywhere else—covering issues
of particular concern to women and providing women's perspectives on
public policy. It enhances women's ability to define their own lives and
to participate fully in every sector of human endeavor."
Women in Media & News (WIMN)
Women In Media & News (WIMN), a national media analysis, education and
advocacy group, works with journalists to broaden the quantity and
diversity of women's voices appearing in the media. WIMN was founded in
2001 by media critic and journalist Jennifer L. Pozner, with guidance
from a diverse team of advisors including journalists, feminists, social
justice activists and media reform advocates. WIMN works to increase
women's presence in the public debate by analyzing representations of
women in media, training women's and social justice groups to hold media
outlets accountable to the public interest, and advocating for policy
reform and structural change.
S&F Online Blogroll
Alas, a Blog
AngryBlackBitch
AngryBrownButch
Bad Feminist
Bitch. Ph.D.
blac(k)ademic
BlackFeminism.org
Black Looks
Broadsheet
culturekitchen
Echidne of the Snakes
the f blog
F-Words
firedoglake
Feministe
Feminist Law Professors
Girl with Pen
Global Voices Online
The Happy Feminist
Holla Back NYC
I Blame The Patriarchy
Liberal Feminist Bias
Lynne d Johnson
Lucky White Girl
Majikthise
Media Girl
Pacific Views
Pam's House Blend
Pandagon
Pinko Feminist Hellcat
PopPolitics
Rox Populi
Shakespeare's Sister
SistersTalk
TalkLeft
Vidilicious
Trish Wilson
WIMN's Voices
Bloggers in this Issue
Amanda and Pam
Pandagon
Echidne
Echidne of the Snakes
Jill
Feministe
Kortney
Blackademic
Morgaine Swann
The-Goddess
Pamela
Pinko Feminist Hellcat
Samhita
Feministing.com
Shakespeare's Sister
Sokari Ekine
Black Looks
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