endorsements
Here's what Ann Snitow of New School University and The Network of East-West Women has to say about SoapBox inc: Speakers who speak out founders Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards:
Date: July 8, 2002
To Whom It May Concern:
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards have written the most important-by which I mean the most comprehensive, sophisticated, witty and inspiring-of the spate of new books by young feminists about what they interestingly call "the third wave" of U.S. feminism: Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future. The book is unusual in a number of ways. It combines: the excitement of wonderfully described, down and dirty debates with a fair- minded justice to all sides; a loving and subtle reading of all aspects of youth culture with an edgy critical distance on that culture; an ebullient energy and hopefulness about change with a patience and forbearance about how hard and scary it is to change something as fundamental to identity as gender.
My students—college freshmen and sophomores—adored Manifesta. They learned about a feminism that could be theirs without driving a stake through their mothers' hearts and without sacrificing sexiness, lipstick, and a wide range of relationships with men. The book was play for them, and in reading and discussing it they were exploring the often forbidden pleasures of rebellion and indignation. For some it was quite new to hear such unabashed, passionate and relentlessly reasoned feminist arguments from women of their own generation. The book put words in their mouths, and it gave them permission to explore the now sometimes unfashionable identity:
"feminist."
Jennifer and Amy agreed to visit the class. What a night. One student said afterwards, "It was wonderful how they didn't look like feminists." We older teachers fought them on that one(!), but we also knew just what they meant. Jennifer and Amy let people come at the material in their own way. They made space for teenage angst, for the urgent need to construct some kind of realistic, livable femininity, for the anxiety about the body that has become a central theme of the Third Wave. They were open, sympathetic, thoughtful and funny. And all this without pulling a single punch, or taking a single step back from their passionately held belief in the urgency of feminist projects. Their love of liberty and commitment to justice gave shape to my students' yearnings and aspirations. They were wonderful—and they made a difference in the future life of the class.
I understand that they are now thinking of teaming up to give lectures on a wide range of feminist subjects. What a perfect extension of what they already do so well. How right, and how exciting. Jennifer and Amy will begin where their audiences are, perhaps with the front page of the newspaper, the latest scandal, the current war, and then they will carry their hearers into new territory, into a new critique of common prejudices. They will bring new women of all ages, and particularly young women, into the popular conversation about women's lives now. They will hearten older women, particularly veterans of the women's movement, by their willingness to parlay and their unwavering belief in a living tradition of feminist thought and action. They will dramatize by their example how important it is that women's lives be public as well as private - part of the body politic.
Jennifer and Amy are both fluent speakers, fast on their feet, charming, and at the same time sharp, on target, epigrammatic. They are thrilling to hear and to talk to. I would hire them in a shot to speak at my university, or at the trainings I do for Eastern European activists. I look forward to hearing them warming up the crowd, then transforming that crown into people willing to entertain seriously the case they make for women's participation in building the world.
Ann Snitow
Professor of Literature and Gender Studies
Eugene Lang College and the Graduate Faculty
New School University
Co-founder, The Network of East-West Women
Also among the founders of: No More Nice Girls; The Feminist
Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT); New York Radical Feminists (N.Y., 1969)
More from Susan Shaw of Oregon State University:
August 19, 2001
I am writing to express my delight with the success of the campus visit of Manifesta authors Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards. These two young feminists are thoughtful, inspiring, challenging, and engaging speakers. I was especially impressed with their flexibility and willingness to adapt their presentations to the needs of students on our campus.
Jennifer and Amy are particularly adept at reaching college-age audiences with a voice of Third Wave Feminism informed by background knowledge of Second Wave Feminism. Their ideas provide a helpful bridge from the feminisms of the later part of the Twentieth Century to the emerging feminisms of the beginning of the Twenty-first Century. The breadth and depth of their knowledge of feminist theories and issues combined with their dedicated engagement in feminist activism provide credibility in an academic setting, while their awareness of pop culture and young women's issues makes their observations relevant to college students.
While at Oregon State University, Jennifer and Amy did a reading from Manifesta at our Women's Center, spoke to both an introductory women's studies class and an upper division/graduate feminist theories class, and held an open forum at our Black Cultural Center. In each of these settings, they were well received by students and faculty/staff alike who were intrigued by their understandings of contemporary feminisms and impressed by their own lived engagement with feminism.
I would highly recommend Jennifer and Amy to any college or university interested in highlighting women's issues in all their diversity. They are delightful, gracious, enjoyable guests who bring needed perspectives and challenges to long-time and budding feminists alike.
Sincerely,
Susan M. Shaw, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Women Studies Program
Oregon State University
Co-editor, Women's Voices, Feminist Visions
