Contribute Toward The Next Great Women’s Organization
As someone who’s rather skeptical of how charitable donations are spent, I’ve only ever given money to a few organizations, including the ACLU and GLSEN. I’m adding another group to my list this week, and I hope some of you will consider it a worthy cause as well.
The Women, Action, & the Media Conference, also known as WAM! (exclamation mark officially included), is splitting off from the Center for New Words to become an independent national organization. CNW is a prominent feminist non-profit in Cambridge whose programming reflects the diverse groups the organization tries to represent: women of color, disabled women, queer women, poor women, and basically any women outside the American mainstream who has a hard time getting her voice heard. Run by Jaclyn Friedman, who co-wrote Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape
WAM! isn’t some insidery networking event that only pays lip service to feminism. Instead, its attendees are a diverse group of like-minded media makers and shakers who are passionate about women’s rights and social justice. Conference programming helps young activists find starting points from which to start their own careers, offers practical advice to those want to balance their passion for feminism with financial realities, and trains representatives of organizations without the means to pay for exorbitant PR services. Contrary to some critics who called last year’s WAM! not inclusive enough, I found the other attendees extremely warm and friendly and the organization as accommodating as you could expect a small non-profit to be (my registration fee, for example, was waived by more than 50 percent). Last year’s attendees included representatives from Feministing, Bitch Magazine, Babble.com, Feministe, BlogHer, AlterNet, Our Bodies Ourselves, and a busload of awesomely radical Smith students.
So what will it take to get WAM! off the ground as an independent organization? Less than a year’s worth of Harvard tuition. Below is an email written by Jaclyn Friedman, who puts it better than I could:
So far, nearly 75 of you have together contributed $8,636 to help make the new WAM! a reality. And whether you’ve given $3 or $3,000, you’re now a part of a growing movement that will settle for nothing less than complete gender justice in media.
But there are thousands more of you who haven’t given yet - and time’s running out. We need to raise $30,000 by October 20, and it’s going to take every one of us to get there.
As Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing and author of The Purity Myth, rightly says, a gift to WAM! is a gift to yourself, and to all of us:
The WAM conference has been an incredible resource (and source of inspiration!) for women media makers and consumers for years. Under the leadership of the inimitable Jaclyn Friedman, I know that WAM will continue to grow, and further social justice, equality and progressiveness in the media. WAM has given so much to women in the media and beyond for so long: now is the time for us to give back. A donation to WAM is a donation to the future of women in the media, and really a gift to ourselves.
Maybe you don’t think you can give enough to make a difference? Think again. Colleen Flannery’s income hovers around the poverty level. Here’s what she told us about why she donated $3 to WAM!:
- Because I still get into conversations in which women say, “I mean, I’m the furthest thing from a feminist, but…”
- Because I have a collection of political cartoons featuring Hillary running for president as a desperate harpy in caked-on makeup.
- Because yesterday someone said to me, “There’s nothing wrong with a woman who knows she’s a woman.”
- Because people still scold me for jogging at night.
- Because in my home state of Florida lesbian couples are legally considered unfit to adopt children. Thanks, Anita Bryant!
- Because Cosmo-feminism isn’t my definition of feminism.
- Because there were girls in line at the Tucker Max premier.
- Because conversations desperately need to happen between women of all races, ethnicities, income brackets, nationalities, gender expressions and sexual preferences.
- Because my emotional life, sex life, work life, and family relationships depend on my ability to rethink femininity.
- Because the need to find new words and new forums to express an ever-broadening definition of femininity has never been more urgent.
- Because if we each donate $3, that’s a lot.
In the next two years, we can launch thriving local WAM! chapters in major cities across the country, which will foster on the grassroots level the kind of cutting-edge thought and action WAM! already inspires nationally. We can build an engaged online WAM! community through monthly webinars on timely topics, a brand-new WAM! website designed to foster action, and of course, our ever-flourishing listserv. And we can ensure that the next WAM! conference — now planned for Chicago in March 2011 — is the largest and most influential yet, creating an unstoppable force for gender justice that will change the media landscape for good.
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I’m not exactly swimming in cash at the moment, so my donation will be in the modest two-digits. But as Jacklyn says, any donation, no matter how small, is significant for an organization of this size, and hopefully, it will be just the first step in getting more people involved. Please reblog, Tweet, Facebook, and email out the news about WAM! As motivation, I’ll be giving out prizes later this week to some of the readers who publicize or donate to the campaign (Just take a screenshot as proof for now — more details to come.)
Keep on fighting the good fight!
