Tonight we share pints with Yasmine and Carmen (left and right respectively, at Beauty Bar) in a balmy beer garden in west Austin. The two have never met: Yasmine is a friend of mine from high school, and I know Carmen from college. But they have a lot in common, both with each other and [...]

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We meet Ingrid, 20, for a quick Mexican lunch. She is a history and philosophy senior at the University of Texas-Austin and was raised in DC, Connecticut, and NYC. Ingrid wants to be a journalist in the deep South after graduation. Another one of the ladies who reached out to us through our blog, Ingrid [...]

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Abby and Ginger met at UT-Austin freshman year. They share a similar ethos and wide-eyed gushy exuberance. Neither identifies as “feminist” per se, but as Abby puts it, “I’m probably going to get pissed when men stand in my way.” They count themselves as members of the boy’s club. Abby feels closer to dudes in [...]

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Texas organizers are a different breed entirely from your garden variety east or west coast activist. Austin, an oasis of liberal bustle in the thick of Texas’s vast conservatism, seems to be a springboard for bad-ass women committed to local organizing. We talked to 3 native Texans these last few days, all of whom feel [...]

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Liza is originally from New York, moved to Austin after her Americorp service in New Mexico, and now teaches at a public high school. She is also a member of a mostly male anarchist soccer team–“One day, a woman player told me she was sick of playing soccer and not having enough confidence for it, [...]

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The minute we land in Austin, we meet with Big Star, a plus size burlesque troupe. Here are the ladies: Raine (left), 22, was born in Austin, has been doing burlesque for a year and is the head seamstress in soft goods for SewSister.com (a lingerie company). She lives with her husband in the house [...]

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Melody had invited us to stay with her in Tulsa a few weeks ago, finding out about our project through a post on Feministing. She was raised in Colorado Springs in a traditionally Christian household and is a senior at Tulsa University. Melody, 21, invites her friend Mana to the interview, a graduate of TU [...]

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My mother, journalist, feminist and cultural critic Ellen Willis, died a year ago today. I’ve been honoring her by reliving the time following her death—obsessively sifting through writing by her and about her. After the funeral, it was sensory overload for weeks on end, not only because responses to death are emotional hurricanes, but because [...]

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Flustered and late, we are greeted with breakfast at Maria Buszek’s house on a street lined with autumn leaves. Maria, a third waver, has been a feminist since age 9, when a new papal law banned her from being an altar girl in late-seventies Detroit. “Does the pope think we’re not as good as boys?” [...]

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Monica (above): 25, was raised in Texas and Kansas, born to “free spirit” Mexican-Indian father and an immigrant German mother, former air force worker (kicked out and arrested for smoking pot), aspiring art teacher. “I’m raunchy. I’m insulting. I’m sexually harassing. I exploit women. I want to grow up and make my house all pretty [...]

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