like so many good things this story
starts with tacos a March 24th 2011
exactly seven years ago today I invited
a group of women to meet me for dinner
at one of my favorite Mexican
restaurants now most of these women I’ve
never met before they didn’t know me and
they didn’t know one another but we all
had one thing in common we all love to
write some of these women were poets who
saw writing as music the song of the
soul some were fiction writers obsessed
with creating imaginary world some were
journalists fighting to give a voice to
the voiceless by helping people share
their story and some were bloggers and
si is slowly finding the courage to
share the stories of their own life I’ve
reached out to these women because I
wanted to start a networking group for
women who write now whenever I share the
story of starting and growing this group
I often recite a grand mission statement
about how I wanted to empower women to
speak their minds even if their voices
shaped or I guess in our case it would
be right you’re mine even if your pin
shakes I don’t know but if I’m honest I
started this group for selfish reasons I
wasn’t setting out to change live I
started this group because I was lonely
two years earlier I left my job as a
newspaper reporter in Louisville
Kentucky and moved back to my hometown
of Birmingham Alabama to teach English
now even though it’s quite fond of my
new colleagues
I miss the group of women writers I have
been
surrounded by in my newsroom as one
friend put it I needed a Sisterhood of
the Traveling pins in seven years this
group has grown to an international
online community of nearly 1,000 women
and a thriving local community of women
who are not just my friends but some of
them feel like family
but beyond the relationships this group
is also my form of activism as a
feminist yes I said the f-word feminist
but I hope in 2018 we know that being a
feminist doesn’t mean I hate men or
marriage or motherhood or makeup in fact
according to the dictionary and by the
way in 2017 feminism was actually the
merriam-webster word of the year and
according to the dictionary a feminist
is someone who believes in the social
political and economic equality of the
sexes but I said it is that really all
it means Gloria Steinem who was a face
of the American feminist movement of the
late 1960s early 1970s was once asked in
an interview how she would define
feminists and she agreed with Webster
she agreed that feminist is someone who
believes in the social political and
economic equality of the sexes but she
went on to say I would just add and
was I doing something about it sure I
vote whenever there’s an election in my
town I help raise money for
organizations that support women and
children and last year I participated in
the women’s March but I’ve never started
a petition in support of Planned
Parenthood I didn’t do anything special
to help with the passing of the lilly
Ledbetter Act although I did fangirl out
when I met her in 2016 but I don’t even
get into intense political debates with
my friends on social media I just write
but when I wrote a personal essay for
local magazine about being a feminist
wife several young women who were
recently engaged to be married emailed
me thanking me for showing them that
they could love their husbands without
losing themselves and when I write
profiles of women who are doing amazing
things in their communities people read
these stories and they can inspire to
support these projects or sometimes they
get inspired to start projects for their
own and every time I host an event for
my women’s writing group at least one
attendee tells me afterward that my
words have somehow pushed her to go
after dreams she’s been putting off for
years this is why I believe writing can
be a feminist act by sharing her story a
woman cannot only fight for equality but
discover why she deserves it in the
first place the writing a woman can
learn to love herself and in a world
that is constantly telling women we are
not enough self-love is a revolutionary
I learned to love my sometimes unruly
curls by writing about african-american
women and the natural hair movement I
learned to love my dark brown skin by
writing about colorism and by seeing my
byline my name in national magazines and
newspapers I learned to love that name
and name that growing up I was told
would be a liability because it sounds
too black but is this enough am i just
practicing lifestyle feminism that’s a
term that’s been going around the
internet lately it’s sometimes called
cultural feminism or pop culture
feminism and most of the people writing
about it are not doing so to praise it
Jessa Crispin says that contemporary
feminism has become wheat and too safe
she writes that for too long feminism
has moved away from being about
collective action and imagination and
tor being a lifestyle and she says
lifestyles do not change the world but I
have to believe that changing a life can
so I’m a writer that’s why I’m a teacher
and so one day I started thinking what
if I and the women of my writing group
had found confidence through writing
when we were girls how would our lives
be different today how would the world
be different that’s when I decided I
needed to bring this idea of empowering
oneself through writing into my
classroom I needed to show my students
especially the girl that writing can be
a feminist act I wanted to show them
that through writing they could fight
for equality and discover why they
deserve it I wanted to teach them that
through writing
they could learn to love themselves in
spite of all the messages telling them
that something or everything about them
needs to be fixed so in 2013 I started
an elective at my school called women
and the media this class was sort of
part journalism 101 part Women’s Studies
and it teaches students both boys and
girls how to write for the media but
also how to examine representations of
women in the media and it’s working
one student wrote an award-winning essay
about the need for our justice system to
hold male celebrities accountable for
domestic abuse another student published
an opinion piece in a local newspaper
about the need for more realistic and
complex Hispanic characters in
television and film and another student
a student with skin like mine a student
who also grew up being told she was
pretty for a dark-skinned girl started a
blog celebrating black beauty a blog
that helped her learn to love the skin
she’s in and a blog that she hopes will
help other girls do the same we
feminists fight for equality because we
want women and girls to live their best
lives and I believe that by sharing your
story and helping other people share
theirs that is often the first step to a
better life and can be a gateway to
activism whether you are writing a blog
post an article an essay a book or even
the script to a podcast or a YouTube
video and then listen up you are not off
the hook
you play a role in this too husbands
encourage your wives to write that book
brothers encourage your sisters to start
that blog and fathers teach your
daughters that they can and should be
the authors of their own lives and don’t
neglect sharing your stories either
especially those stories that teach your
sons that boys do cry and that’s okay
because some gender stereotypes can be
just as harmful to our boys as they are
to our girl I believe that every girl
every woman every person has a story
worth sharing and I believe that my
story your story our stories have the
power to change lives and it is my hope
that by changing one life at a time one
story at a time
we the storytellers can change the world
thank you [Applause]
starts with tacos a March 24th 2011
exactly seven years ago today I invited
a group of women to meet me for dinner
at one of my favorite Mexican
restaurants now most of these women I’ve
never met before they didn’t know me and
they didn’t know one another but we all
had one thing in common we all love to
write some of these women were poets who
saw writing as music the song of the
soul some were fiction writers obsessed
with creating imaginary world some were
journalists fighting to give a voice to
the voiceless by helping people share
their story and some were bloggers and
si is slowly finding the courage to
share the stories of their own life I’ve
reached out to these women because I
wanted to start a networking group for
women who write now whenever I share the
story of starting and growing this group
I often recite a grand mission statement
about how I wanted to empower women to
speak their minds even if their voices
shaped or I guess in our case it would
be right you’re mine even if your pin
shakes I don’t know but if I’m honest I
started this group for selfish reasons I
wasn’t setting out to change live I
started this group because I was lonely
two years earlier I left my job as a
newspaper reporter in Louisville
Kentucky and moved back to my hometown
of Birmingham Alabama to teach English
now even though it’s quite fond of my
new colleagues
I miss the group of women writers I have
been
surrounded by in my newsroom as one
friend put it I needed a Sisterhood of
the Traveling pins in seven years this
group has grown to an international
online community of nearly 1,000 women
and a thriving local community of women
who are not just my friends but some of
them feel like family
but beyond the relationships this group
is also my form of activism as a
feminist yes I said the f-word feminist
but I hope in 2018 we know that being a
feminist doesn’t mean I hate men or
marriage or motherhood or makeup in fact
according to the dictionary and by the
way in 2017 feminism was actually the
merriam-webster word of the year and
according to the dictionary a feminist
is someone who believes in the social
political and economic equality of the
sexes but I said it is that really all
it means Gloria Steinem who was a face
of the American feminist movement of the
late 1960s early 1970s was once asked in
an interview how she would define
feminists and she agreed with Webster
she agreed that feminist is someone who
believes in the social political and
economic equality of the sexes but she
went on to say I would just add and
was I doing something about it sure I
vote whenever there’s an election in my
town I help raise money for
organizations that support women and
children and last year I participated in
the women’s March but I’ve never started
a petition in support of Planned
Parenthood I didn’t do anything special
to help with the passing of the lilly
Ledbetter Act although I did fangirl out
when I met her in 2016 but I don’t even
get into intense political debates with
my friends on social media I just write
but when I wrote a personal essay for
local magazine about being a feminist
wife several young women who were
recently engaged to be married emailed
me thanking me for showing them that
they could love their husbands without
losing themselves and when I write
profiles of women who are doing amazing
things in their communities people read
these stories and they can inspire to
support these projects or sometimes they
get inspired to start projects for their
own and every time I host an event for
my women’s writing group at least one
attendee tells me afterward that my
words have somehow pushed her to go
after dreams she’s been putting off for
years this is why I believe writing can
be a feminist act by sharing her story a
woman cannot only fight for equality but
discover why she deserves it in the
first place the writing a woman can
learn to love herself and in a world
that is constantly telling women we are
not enough self-love is a revolutionary
I learned to love my sometimes unruly
curls by writing about african-american
women and the natural hair movement I
learned to love my dark brown skin by
writing about colorism and by seeing my
byline my name in national magazines and
newspapers I learned to love that name
and name that growing up I was told
would be a liability because it sounds
too black but is this enough am i just
practicing lifestyle feminism that’s a
term that’s been going around the
internet lately it’s sometimes called
cultural feminism or pop culture
feminism and most of the people writing
about it are not doing so to praise it
Jessa Crispin says that contemporary
feminism has become wheat and too safe
she writes that for too long feminism
has moved away from being about
collective action and imagination and
tor being a lifestyle and she says
lifestyles do not change the world but I
have to believe that changing a life can
so I’m a writer that’s why I’m a teacher
and so one day I started thinking what
if I and the women of my writing group
had found confidence through writing
when we were girls how would our lives
be different today how would the world
be different that’s when I decided I
needed to bring this idea of empowering
oneself through writing into my
classroom I needed to show my students
especially the girl that writing can be
a feminist act I wanted to show them
that through writing they could fight
for equality and discover why they
deserve it I wanted to teach them that
through writing
they could learn to love themselves in
spite of all the messages telling them
that something or everything about them
needs to be fixed so in 2013 I started
an elective at my school called women
and the media this class was sort of
part journalism 101 part Women’s Studies
and it teaches students both boys and
girls how to write for the media but
also how to examine representations of
women in the media and it’s working
one student wrote an award-winning essay
about the need for our justice system to
hold male celebrities accountable for
domestic abuse another student published
an opinion piece in a local newspaper
about the need for more realistic and
complex Hispanic characters in
television and film and another student
a student with skin like mine a student
who also grew up being told she was
pretty for a dark-skinned girl started a
blog celebrating black beauty a blog
that helped her learn to love the skin
she’s in and a blog that she hopes will
help other girls do the same we
feminists fight for equality because we
want women and girls to live their best
lives and I believe that by sharing your
story and helping other people share
theirs that is often the first step to a
better life and can be a gateway to
activism whether you are writing a blog
post an article an essay a book or even
the script to a podcast or a YouTube
video and then listen up you are not off
the hook
you play a role in this too husbands
encourage your wives to write that book
brothers encourage your sisters to start
that blog and fathers teach your
daughters that they can and should be
the authors of their own lives and don’t
neglect sharing your stories either
especially those stories that teach your
sons that boys do cry and that’s okay
because some gender stereotypes can be
just as harmful to our boys as they are
to our girl I believe that every girl
every woman every person has a story
worth sharing and I believe that my
story your story our stories have the
power to change lives and it is my hope
that by changing one life at a time one
story at a time
we the storytellers can change the world
thank you [Applause]
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