peggy orenstein
Peggy Orenstein is an internationally recognized writer, editor and speaker about issues affecting girls and women. She is the author of a recently published memoir, Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, An Oscar, An Atomic Bomb, A Romantic Night and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother; as well as Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Kids, Love and Life in a Half-Changed World, an examination of the politics and psychology of women’s life choices from their mid-twenties through their mid-forties; and the best-selling SchoolGirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap, an in-depth study of educational inequity and self-image conflicts among teenage girls in two diverse communities.
A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, Peggy has also written for such publications as Vogue, Glamour, Discover, Elle, MORE, O: The Oprah Magazine, Parenting, Mother Jones, Salon and The New Yorker. She has been a guest lecturer and keynote speaker nationwide on gender equity and on juvenile justice. She has published editorials relating to her research in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today and has appeared on, among other programs, Nightline, Good Morning America, The Today Show, NPR’s Fresh Air and Morning Edition and CBC’s As it Happens.
Peggy has served as Managing Editor of Mother Jones magazine, and was a founding senior editor of 7 Days, a weekly magazine on New York City politics, arts and style. Her work has received awards from the the Commonwealth Club of California, the National Women’s Political Caucus of California, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Her film work includes Executive Producing the Oscar-nominated documentary The Mushroom Club, on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; narrating the NHK-Japan documentary Life Was Good, on nuclear test site Downwinders, consulting on the HBO documentaries Black Tar Heroin, Rehab and the forthcoming White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She has also been a featured expert in the PBS documentaries, Digital Divide and Searching for Asian America.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Peggy is a graduate of Oberlin College and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, filmmaker Steven Okazaki, and their daughter, Daisy.
