July 25th, 2011 | by Veralyn Williams | published in Blog, Personal Essays, Videos
For quite some time I have wanted to vent my frustrations about not having health insurance–as that has meant googling symptoms and heading to the nearest pharmacy whenever I feel a cold coming on. However, venting alone is never productive, so I decided to find some folks who could relate. In my last vlog I […]
Remember #BringBackOurGirls? This Is What Happened In The 5 Months Since
As I mentally prepare to watch and discuss #GirlsRising today– a film that portrays the lives of nine young girls from around the world describing the challenges they face being denied an education– I googled “chibok kidnapping nigeria."
On the night of April 14, 2014, hundreds of schoolgirls at the Chibok boarding school in northeastern Nigeria awoke to the sound of gunfire. They saw men in camouflage approaching and thought soldiers were coming to save them from a militant attack, …
My new essay explores how Beyonce’s feminist stance in pop culture helped frame my own feminist awakening:
“I am in my 30s and was emboldened by Beyonce’s feminist stance on that stage, and can’t help but believe that that image will be equally as powerful to young people who witness that moment, whose first engagement with feminism will be that moment. Maybe, just maybe, Beyonce will serve as the bridgebetween pop culture and feminists like bell and Barbara and Audre, maybe some young woman bobbing her head to ‘Blow’ or ‘Partition’ or ‘Flawless’ will do so while reading Ain’t I A Woman? or Homegirls or Sister Outsider.”
—FROM my new essay: My Feminist Awakening & the Influence of Beyonce’s Pop Culture Declaration
