CWLU Herstory Blog

Feministing.com is a bold brash feminist blog site where many women and some men start their day by reading the articles and opinion pieces and then posting their comments.

The youngish organizers of Feministing represent a generation of women who are fighting the complex 21st century battle for gender equality. They are web-savvy, very smart and refreshingly outspoken.

Now they are trying to create network of likeminded groups through an online initiative called the Feministing Alliance.

According to Feministing.com:

Feministing has partnered with Meetup to form a Meetup Alliance - a tool that will help feminists all over the country meet and organize in person. Here's the cool part: it's all up to you, dear readers, to get this shit moving!

If you want to start up a feminist group in your area, or if you want to promote your existing local feminist group, this is your chance! Our new Feministing Meetup Alliance will act as a kind of umbrella for organizers of local feminist Meetups - connecting feminists who want to meet, talk and even organize.

Join author Paula Giddings for a reading and discussion of her new book Ida: A Sword Among Lions on March 10 at 6 pm at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum.

Ida B. Wells was one of the most fearless crusaders for civil rights and women's rights in United States history. She was a newspaper editor and publisher, investigative journalist, co-founder of the NAACP, political candidate, mother, wife, and the single most powerful leader in the anti-lynching campaign in America.

Located close to the Capitol building in the heart of the federal city is the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum, the headquarters of the National Women's Party and the former home of women's rights leader Alice Paul.

The Sewell Belmont House now offers a free downloadable guide for a special walking tour of Washington DC women's suffrage history. For a copy, visit the Museum's homepage.

If you have never visited the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum, it is open 5 days a week, staffed by friendly and knowledgeable docents. A donation of $5 per person is suggested.

You can walk through the rooms where women's history was made and get a deeper appreciation of First Wave feminism. If you are a student or a researcher, the Museum has an archive of national Women's Party documents, photos, banners, newspapers, cartoons, buttons and more.

If you are unable to actually visit the building, the Museum now has an online digital collection which you can visit here .

We learned of the death of Barbara Seaman last week from Jennifer Baumgartner's remembrance on Feministing and we are updating our original blog entry with an announcement of a memorial service in Barbara's honor. If you are in the NYC area, please attend if you can.

A memorial service for Barbara Seaman will be held on Thursday, March 6 at 5:30 pm at the Riverside Memorial Chapel at 180 West 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.

Barbara Seaman was one of the leaders of the women's health movement. Way back in the 1960's, she warned us about the dangers of birth control pills in her magazine articles and in her book The Doctor's Case Against the Pill . It was largely due to her efforts that warnings were placed on the pill and people became aware of the dangers of excessive estrogen ingestion.

We received this essay on the 2008 election from Aurora Levins Morales. Aurora is a Latina-Jewish poet, scholar and activist. Aurora and her mom Rosario were both members of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union. In it Aurora discusses the sexism and racism that have characterized this election season.

Over the last few weeks, and increasingly the last few days I've been getting emails from every direction, (particularly the progressive friend who have my address,) telling me why we should all get behind either Clinton or Obama. Since I'm not a registered Democrat, I won't be voting in this primary, but I've been thinking about it a lot.