Author, Activist, Documentary Producer
Honors Convocation
“Climate Change We Can Live With: The Ecology of Justice”
Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 11:10 a.m.
A resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., Jennifer Baumgardner is one of the nation's prominent voices in the "third wave of feminism." A year after graduating from Lawrence University with a degree in English, she began a five-year stint as the youngest editor at Ms. Magazine.
Since leaving the magazine in 1997, Baumgardner has produced an extensive body of work, writing for a diverse array of publications. She has done investigative pieces for Harper’s and The Nation, has written several commentaries for National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” and regularly contributes to many of the major women’s magazines, including Real Simple, Glamour, Redbook, Babble, and Elle.
She has co-written two books with her former colleague at Ms. Magazine Amy Richards: 2000’s “Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future,” which received an enthusiastic endorsement from Gloria Steinem, Eve Ensler, and Naomi Wolf and “Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism” in 2004. Baumgardner also is the author of 2007’s “Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics,” which explores the intersection of bisexuality and feminism, and “Abortion and Life,” which was released in September, 2008.
The co-founder of Soapbox, Inc., a New York City-based feminist speakers’ bureau, Baumgardner created an “"I Had an Abortion” campaign in 2004 to encourage women to talk about their experiences. The project included t-shirts and a film documenting women’s stories of abortion. In 2008, she began a similar awareness project called "I Was Raped."
The Commonwealth Club of California hailed Baumgardner in 2003 as one of six “Visionaries for the 21st Century,” citing her role as author and activist for “permanently changing the way people think about feminism” and helping to shape “the next 100 years of politics and culture.”
Lawrence recognized Baumgardner in 2007 with the college’s Nathan M. Pusey Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award.
Listen to her entire convocation
