The power of blogging

Newsweek covers feminist blogging. Who would have thunk it? They point to the huge success of the 2004 March for Women's Lives that brought out more than one million people. In the three years since the march, this is the ONLY citation I can find on their website about it. I guess late is better than never, eh? Criticism aside, it does mention THIS BLOG! I feel a slight brush with fame since I wasn't here at the beginning. Word to Nathan, Carrie & the crew!

"Older feminists worry that ERA-era feminism's declaration that "the personal is political" has been lost on the latest generation, who don't realize that their personal struggles should be addressed collectively." Despite what some GenX/Millennial feminist bloggers may think, I think that what happened right here in Aurora, Illinois, blue-state that it is labeled, shows that the personal is STILL the political. What can be more personal than control over our reproduction? And clearly, what happens in our wombs is still hotly political. That's coming from a GenX feminist mom who has reproduced and pumped her way through the March. Seriously!

The piece ends with this:

The space for that conversation may be the Internet, on sites like Feministing, Feministe, Pandagon and Echidne of the Snakes. Valenti of Feministing.com says feminist blogs drove the million-plus turnout at the 2004 March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., and helped secure the opening earlier this month of a controversial Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Ill. But even if blogging can translate into real-world activism, will it be enough to hold a movement together? That's a question this generation of feminists will have to answer themselves.

I posed that question to PPCA CEO & President Steve Trombley. Did he feel that the feminist blogosphere was critical to the opening of the clinic?

I think that blogging can “hold the movement together” and that it definitely translates into “real-world activism” We wouldn’t have won the fight to open the Aurora clinic without the hundreds of local activists and thousands of national activists who showed up at rallies and contacted local officials in Aurora. While they may have heard about the fight from the media or from our action alerts — it was the blog that kept them involved in the fight. I heard this over and over from our supports both nationally and locally. As someone who started his career as an organizer I know that there is nothing more important than making sure that your activist are feeling “in the fight” and the blogging is a great way to give everyone a sense of being on the inside, of being involved and also ready to take action.

Thank you to everyone who visits and especially to those of you who take the time to comment. Thanks to everyone who reads and passes along information. Planned Parenthood serves the community and that is the mission for this blog. To serve you with information as long as it is needed and wanted. Now let's get out there and continue to make this world a better place.

technorati tags: Newsweek, feminist, feminist blogging, Planned Parenthood, Aurora, March for Women's Lives