WAM 2008!

For those of you unfamiliar with the WAM conference, let me give you the low down. The “Women, Action & The Media” conference is a yearly event held for women of all walks of life to get together and discuss our roll as females and feminists in the media. I had the pleasure of attending the pre-conference networking seminar this afternoon and will be giving you updates all weekend as the conference progresses.

Miriam Perez, author of the Radical Doula Blog and contributor to Jessica Valenti’s Blog, Feministing lead a discussion about starting out in the world of journalism and media as a woman. One of the major topics of conversation was the All Mighty Blog. Many of our readers no doubt have created their own Blogs and it is a great way to cut your teeth in this industry.

Blog writers are free to speak their opinions (most often) without fear of censorship. In a culture where so much of what is fed to us through mainstream media is inaccurate or just plain lies, this new form of media is especially relevant. From a feminist/riotgrrl perspective, The Blog is one of the few our movement can gain interest and attention without major marketing dollars. In the 90’s we made Zines. This was time consuming and could get expensive. Today any young woman who has something to say can turn on her computer and author a Blog.

In fact, you should! We are strong aggressive women with a lot on our minds. We have this free avenue of expression and an open audience willing to participate. I know this may be an obvious point, but Mariam illustrated so beautifully this afternoon the need for involvement.

You there reading this, what do YOU have to say?