2004 Visionaries in Residence, May 4 - 7:
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards
Co-authors of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future
Contact Xenia.Markowitt@Dartmouth.edu for more information.
JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER
Jennifer Baumgardner moved to Manhattan from her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, in 1993 just after graduating from college. Her first real job was as an editor at Ms. magazine. When she left the 9 to 5 life in 1997, she began writing for Harper's, Bust, The Nation, Jane, Glamour, Marie Claire, Z, Nerve, and Ms., among other magazines. Jennifer is a pundit on She Span, a political roundtable on the Oxygen Network for women (Thursdays, noon EST) and is currently organizing and introducing the reissuing of a series of feminist classics for Farrar, Straus & Giroux (the first classic is Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch). Jennifer is currently writing a new book called Look Both Ways: Girls and Sex (due out in 2004). She and Amy are co-authoring a follow-up to Manifesta called Recipe-tested: An Idea Bank for Everyday Activism. She works with organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Honor the Earth, Third Wave, and History In Action, as well as organizes abortion fundraisers and intergenerational events on her own or with her writing partner, Amy Richards.
AMY RICHARDS
When Amy Richards spent her first post-graduate summer organizing Freedom Summer '92, a cross-country voter registration drive, she did not know that it would be the beginning of her career as a feminist activist and organizer. When she was at Barnard College, Amy expected to use her degree in Art History to work in a museum. Instead, Amy organized the voter drive, and went on to cofound the Third Wave Foundation, a national organization for young feminist activists between the ages of fifteen and thirty. For a decade, Amy led Third Wave as it grew from a small, grassroots group into a national institution; she created and sustained Third Wave's program areas, including grantmaking, public education campaigns and a national membership. Through this leadership, Amy became a spokesperson and leading voice for young feminist issues. She has spoken at hundreds of universities, dozens of community forums and has appeared in a range of media venues, including The O'Reilly Factor, Oprah, New York One and CNN.
As Amy moves into her thirties and away from her commitment to Third Wave, she makes her living as a lecturer, writer and consultant. Recently, Amy was the interim director for Twilight: Los Angeles, a film and outreach project based on the film by Anna Deavere Smith. She consulted for Scenarios USA on their peer educational videos, as well as for Gloria Steinem on her writing and political commitments. Amy is also the voice behind Ask Amy, the online advice column she launched at feminist.com in 1995.
Amy's first book, Manifesta: Young Women Feminism and the Future, which she coauthored with Jennifer Baumgardner, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in October 2000. Amy and Jennifer are presently at work on their second book, Recipe-tested: An Idea Bank for Activists, and have recently created Soapbox, a lecture agency for "speakers who speak out." Amy's writing has appeared in The Nation, The LA Times, Bust, Ms. and numerous anthologies. Insight Guides recently hired Amy to write a shopping guide to New York City, which will be published in the fall of 2002. She is very involved with the organizations on whose boards she serves, such as Third Wave, Choice USA, feminist.com and Planned Parenthood of New York City.
