| Richards, Baumgardner: on activism and writing |
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| Written by Anne-Marije Rook - Argonaut | ||||||
| Monday, 13 April 2009 | ||||||
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Taking a little breather from their crammed two-day itinerary at the
University of Idaho, Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner sat down on
the cozy couches in the Women’s Center for a chat. The two women have come a long way since they met as 22-year-olds at Ms. Magazine. For almost two decades, Richards and Baumgardner have been prominent voices and go-to people for the women’s movement. Their work has appeared anywhere from Harper’s Magazine to Glamour, and in addition to speaking at more than 260 colleges, they’ve made appearances on shows such as “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Oprah.” “We’re writers and activists who live and work in New York City, primarily,” said Baumgardner, who is six months pregnant with her second son. She referred to herself and Richards as “parents of young children and good friends.” “I never really imagined myself living in a house full of men playing video games,” Baumgardner said. Richards, too, balances her career and mothering a son. “I didn’t think I would be where I am … the path sort of keeps appearing in front of me,” she said, “and yet I’ve made very deliberate choices, and so in a sense I’m kind of creating that path. It’s been a combination of very hard work and tenacity and aggressiveness and being unapologetic and at the same time being thoughtful and sensitive and constantly balancing that.” At 22, both women found themselves in New York — Baumgardner dreamed of starring on Broadway, and Richards took on a job working in the press office of Ms. Magazine. “Before I graduated from college, I realized I wasn’t going to do something explicitly with art history,” Richards said, who has a B.A. in art history from Barnard College. “I was like, ‘I can’t write about this esoteric French painting, that feels so meaningless to me,’” she said. “I found a way to bring my politics more to my theses and compared images of Queen Elizabeth I in England where women could rule compared to Marie de Medici in France, who could not rule.” Back in high school, Richards was pushed into a job working for Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., by her mother and found she actually enjoyed politics and working with the press. Baumgardner, on the other hand, had held more average jobs at coffee shops, the Olive Garden and in retail. She said interning at Ms. Magazine TV appearances on behalf of the magazine. She said interning at Ms. Magazine was a pretty big shift from her previous work experience, but within her year, she had her first byline in Ms. and was doing TV appearances on behalf of the magazine. “I was very unaware in the ways in which I was being an activist, but looking back, I had been working on activist-y things since childhood,” Baumgardner said. She said her Barbies had abortions and were lesbians, as she owned no male Barbies as a child. Through working in the same office, Ms. Magazine parties and a 1993 Madonna concert, the women formed a friendship. “We had been both working on separate book ideas, and then one drunken night, we were like, ‘let’s do this book together,’’’ Richards said. “At the time, we weren’t clear on how we were going to write a book together or even how our ideas were going to come together, but it very quickly became obvious.” By the time they started writing “Manifesta,” Baumgardner had already written for 10 national magazines, and Richards was an established activist — she co-founded the Third Wave Foundation and later led an advice column titled “Ask Amy” at feminist.com. “I was in touch with so many people who were inspired by feminism but were confused about feminism,” Richards said. “So, I came to Manifesta as an activist wanting a platform to expose those projects, and I knew that work needed attention and … that work would be inspiring to other people.” Despite differences in perspectives, backgrounds and even preferences of computers — Richards is a PC, Baumgardner a Mac person – they survived the writing process. “We grew a lot in our combined thinking,” Baumgardner said. “I am amazed how infrequently we argued given how much time we had to spend together.” Since then, Richards and Baumgarder have co-authored another book and worked on various projects together. “Now, when we write things together, it’s very easy for us to find our commonality,” Richards said. “I think we’re both hard-working, responsible people, and I think that’s what keeps the relationship going.” Both said the process of writing “Manifesta,” as well as the projects that followed, made them value writing as a medium of activism. “I see them very much as one now, the writing and the activism,” Richards said. Baumgardner said she likes the tech-savvy-ness of the young generation and sees the technological advances as a great tool for young feminists. Richards said our generation and society as a whole will have to deal with the fall of patriarchy. “Financial markets are crashing, wars are not working,” Richards said. “I think it is the first time that these bedrocks of American culture in particular — capitals and the military — aren’t proving to be able to stabilize the country in a way they once did. It’s been so long that we have bought this myth that those institutions were intangible, and now that they’re failing, it’s the first time we can re-imagine those structural issues.”  Add as favorites (43) | Views: 836
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