In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Happy New Year!

Hope you all celebrated and had a grand ol’ time. Sorry I’ve been MIA from the blog — December was a big month of travel for me, often without great internet. One of those trips was to Malawi, which is a fantastic country in East Africa, small and extremely poor but the locus of some really innovative development efforts. I met a lot of bright, interesting girls doing fantastic advocacy and activism work in their communities. Unfortunately, they’re looking at being defunded: Endemic corruption in Malawi is a national scandal, with millions in donor aid plundered by politicians. Now, many Western governments are suspending funds. I wrote about it for the Guardian, so click over and read the whole thing. I’m happy to start 2014 with a reminder that there are some pretty amazing young women advocating for their own futures all over the world.


14 thoughts on Happy New Year!

    1. If you read the Guardian article Jill wrote, you’d notice that yes, they are actual girls. The issues Jill largely addresses – lack of schooling, child marriage, underage childbearing – that are at the root of much of the country’s ills disproportionately affect female children – or in the vernacular, girls.

    2. Maybe this year, we can all begin from a good faith place and not assume that Jill and/or Feministe in general is the same as the patriarchal forces we all resist.

  1. Happy New Year, Feministe! 2013 was a horrible year for me and many other people I know. I hope that 2014 will be much better, although I’m becoming kind of worried because 2014 for me is about to become very stressful within the next few weeks. Still, I’m trying to be optimistic.

    1. Hang in there, Ally. Granted your first quarter wasn’t the best (to put it mildly), but there are friends rooting for you — don’t forget that. Best of luck with this week, especially if you’re returning to uni…

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