Why I love my community!

I was sharing some links and news stories with a friend the other day, and she said to me "How do you find all this stuff?" and I told her "once you start blogging, these things find you." While I am pretty sure not very many people read my little ho-hum blog, if you look to your right, you will see a whole big list of fabulous blogs and websites run by fabulous women in the feminist community. I appreciate all the women (and men!) who spend the their time writing and blogging and participating in our online community to keep other women updated on news stories and issues that affect us. But most of all, I just value them because we are a community. Which is why I really appreciated this article in Feministe where a reader wrote in and asked for advice about how to deal with sexism in social networking. The example she uses: "On social networks like twitter and facebook there are always jokes about women e.g. 'Why did the woman cross the road, no wait, why isn’t she in the kitchen?!' I don’t know what to do next, please can I have your help/advice/opinion"

I think as women, we have all dealt with this. My favorite thing that has ever happened to me? --I asked a "friend" if he was trying to hook up with a girl and he responded with something along the lines of "I can't believe such a feminazi would refer to it as 'hooking up.'"

Because apparently feminists are like nazis..... who don't believe in sex. Sigh.

So what I loved about this particular post, is that we have ALL been there. What do you say to annoying assholes on facebook who you aren't even really friends with anyway? And how do you deal with the inevitable, "can't you take a joke?" (No. No I can't when you refer to me as a nazi) I loved this post because the responses were overwhelming and helpful, and I thought to myself "Now THAT is the feminist community. Present for the big cultural debates like gay marriage, and present for the small piety problems other girls don't know how to deal with."

So thank you, my feminist community. I love you. Keep rockin'.

Love and Electricity,
-Shelby Leanne-