In 2025 we are excited to mark Feminist.com's 30th anniversary, and we have much to celebrate as we look back at the last three decades! That includes these retrospective flashbacks to Feminist.com’s work and partnerships over the years. We look forward to celebrating our accomplishments with all of you and setting the stage for the next 30 years of impactful work together.
We celebrated Feminist.com’s 20th anniversary by holding a one-day conference with a range of exciting speakers, guests, and even a few surprises. Sponsored by the NoVo Foundation, The Jacquelyn and Gregory Zehner Foundation, Omega Women’s Leadership Center, Eileen Fisher Community Foundation, and the Harnisch Foundation, the jam-packed gathering took place at the Lower East Side Girls Club and featured thoughtful and timely conversations, including on the #SayHerName movement to center justice for Black women and girls; the next frontier of sexuality, identity and womanhood; spirituality, religion and feminism; feminist mass media; and women’s leadership. Interspersed with the incredible lineup of speakers and panelists, the conference also featured performances by poet and storyteller KAYLO (Kerri Lowe), The Arts Effect All-Girls Theater Company, spoken word poet Joanna Hoffman, pop rock band BETTY, and Tony-award-winner playwright, performer, and activist Sarah Jones. As Feminist.com founder and executive director Marianne Schnall said in introducing the event, “One of our most important functions [at Feminist.com] is to be a convener... My hope for the organization is that in the next twenty years we find even more meaningful and impactful ways to continue and grow our work and be able to serve these causes that we all care about so deeply.”
Learn more about the 20th anniversary conference here including the full list of speakers, program and schedule, and videos of the panel discussions.
2010 Fifteen-Year Anniversary Event
Feminist.com’s 15th anniversary event took place at New York City's Idlewild bookstore and was held in conjunction with Feminist.com founder and executive director Marianne Schnall’s book launch of Daring to Be Ourselves: Influential Women Share Insights on Courage, Happiness and Finding Your Own Voice. Feminist.com icons Gloria Steinem and Eve Ensler gathered for the celebration along with members of the Feminist.com board and advisory board and many longtime friends, supporters, and colleagues. Speaking at the joyous event, Steinem said, “I came to say thank you to the folks who put dot com in feminism. Who brought us into this millennium, who made us even beyond Women 2.0.” Ensler recalled how the idea for V-Day was formed just a couple years after Feminist.com’s founding, while sitting around the table in Schnall’s kitchen with Feminist.com board members. She stated, “Everything you’ve done since the very beginning of Feminist.com has been about serving and moving other women forward; and moving other women’s voices into the world; and promoting other women; and making other women better; and making other women freer; and making other women more alive and more empowered. And that’s what Feminist.com is—it’s the site for that.”
Learn more about the anniversary event and Schnall’s book here including transcripts of speeches and photos.
2014 - 2018 Women & Men as Allies Salon Series
Feminist.com held a series of events over the span of several years on “Women & Men as Allies” in partnership with Michael Kimmel of The Center for the Study of Men & Masculinities. In Fall 2014, we held our first salon on the topic at the home of Abigail Disney. Announcing the launch of the Men & Women as Allies initiative, a panel moderated by Marianne Schnall and Kimmel with Chloe Angyal, Abigail Disney, Carlos Andrés Gómez, Don McPherson, Esta Soler, and Niobe Way asked us to think about how women’s and men’s issues are interconnected and how men are stakeholders in the conversations on feminism. A second salon in the series, “Women & Men as Allies: At Work and At Home,” took place in 2015 with support from the Woodcock Foundation. Featuring a panel discussion moderated by Schnall and Kimmel with Jessica Bennett, Simon Isaacs, Alicia Jay, and Josh Levs, the packed room engaged in conversation about how women and men can be allies in the efforts to balance work and family.
Feminist.com held its third salon on “Women & Men as Allies: Now What?/What Now? The Urgency of an ‘Allies Agenda’” in 2017, following the first presidential election of Donald Trump. With support from RTM Limited, the event featured a panel discussion moderated by Schnall and Kimmel with Joelle Gamble, Dan Garodnick, Jimmie Briggs, and Alexis Grenell. Speakers and audience members engaged in an urgent conversation about the importance of this allyship for holding on to gender equality gains in the face of four uncertain, unstable, and unsettling years ahead.
In 2018, we held our fourth salon in collaboration with Women’s Funding Network “Women & Men as Allies: Developing a Solidarity Agenda.” It featured a series of panel discussions on a range of issue areas to explore how men and women can work together toward gender equality in all sectors of society, including: Workplace Culture with moderator Cynthia Nimmo and panelists Tiffany Dufu, Norma Kalami, and Michael Kimmel; Violence Against Women with moderator Ana Oliveira and panelists Ted Bunch, Gary Barker, Abigail Disney, and Mallika Dutt; Women in Sports with moderator Tuti Scott and panelists Don McPherson, Wendy Hilliard, and Phaidra Knight; and Women in Office with moderator Marianne Schnall and panelists Kimberly Peeler-Allen, Susannah Wellford, Jessica Neuwirth, and Jackson Katz.
2013 - 2015 What Will It Take Events on Women's Leadership
From 2013 to 2015, we held a series of events on women’s leadership, particularly around the launch of Feminist.com founder and executive director Marianne Schnall’s book What Will It Take to Make a Woman President? (Seal Press, 2013). Asking questions that continue to be as relevant today as the start of Feminist.com’s work three decades ago, Schnall writes, “Why haven’t we had a woman president, and what do you think it will take to make it happen? And why is it important? While I use a woman president as a symbol, this book is also about the broader goal of encouraging women and girls as leaders and change agents in their lives, their communities, and the larger world.”
The first book launch in November 2013 took place at Playwright Horizons in New York City and included a panel moderated by Pat Mitchell featuring Schnall, Marie Wilson, Elizabeth Lesser, Pat Mitchell, Joy Behar, Don McPherson, and Julie Zeilinger. In partnership with The Representation Project and The Conversation Podcast with Amanda de Cadenet, we held our second book launch in San Francisco in December 2013 with a panel moderated by de Cadenet with Schnall, Gavin Newsom, and Jennifer Siebel Newsom. A third launch took place in Washington, DC in May 2014, held in partnership with Political Parity, Running Start, and WUF-PAC at McDermott, Will & Emery on Capitol Hill. Political consultant and TV personality Marjorie Clifton moderated the event, which featured NFL veteran and political activist Don McPherson, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Marie C. Wilson, and Janet Foutty. In March 2015, Feminist.com convened an internal strategy session with thought leaders and organizations on the future of women's leadership, hosted by The Harnisch Foundation at the New York Palace Hotel.
Check out the What Will It Take page at Feminist.com for more resources on women’s leadership, including a podcast, articles, and book excerpts.
New York Event
San Francisco Event
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2013 Our Inner Lives: Spirit, Faith and Action
Feminist.com's salon, Our Inner Lives: Spirit, Faith and Action, was held in 2013 at the NYU Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life. The packed event was a celebration of multifaith diversity and included a thought-provoking keynote by Marianne Williamson, a moving musical performance by India.Arie, and groundbreaking discussion with such speakers as Gabriel Bernstein, Elizabeth Lesser, Maria Ebrahimji, Rabbi Jill Hammer, Chung Hyun Kyung, Agapi Stassinopoulos, Helen LaKelly Hunt, and Rev. Jacqui Lewis.
Feminist.com also presented the Spirit, Faith & Action award to Sister Joan Chittister for her commitment to feminist causes through a faith perspective. Participants and speakers discussed together the intersections of spirituality, activism, and feminism.
As speaker Chung Hyun Kyung explained, “Feminism is a deeply spiritual movement [in which] women try to find their true selves, and try to be really useful in the deepest, fullest, holistic sense.”
Watch some of the highlights and get more information about Our Inner Lives, including pictures and presenter bios.
2014 Young Voices: A Day of Reflection, Tough Thinking, and Imagining
In 2014, Feminist.com held an energizing day-long convening on Young Voices: A Day of Reflection, Tough Thinking, and Imagining—a think tank on the status of girls’ and boys’ lives and how we might improve upon them. In collaboration with Carol Gilligan, Amy Richards, and Antoinette Klatzky, and in partnership with the Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute, The Arts Effect, Awesome without Borders, and Women Moving Millions, this event brought together over 60 advocates for young people’s empowerment, including leaders in education, the media, health care, and the nonprofit sector.
The event intentionally centered girls’ voices, including through performances written by girls on such issues as body image, sexual assault, and sex trafficking. As Meg McInerney of The Arts Effect explained, “Girls of all ages and situations thrive when they have the chance to share their truth and are genuinely heard.” The event also featured expert speakers and opportunities for collective thinking on how to create systemic change.
Watch some of the highlights and get more information about Young Voices, including a report from the event and additional resources.
2012 FemSalon Series: Women & Money: Reimagining Economics
Our 2012 salon on Women & Money: Reimagining Economics was hosted at the NoVo Foundation and sponsored by both the NoVo Foundation and Women on Fire. The venue was packed with committed changemakers engaged in conversation on how to redefine money and economics toward abundance, sharing, and joy rather than scarcity, competition, and greed. Speakers Jennifer Buffett, co-president and co-board chair of the NoVo Foundation, and Kathy LeMay, formerly of Raising Change, shared the importance of imagining a new possibility—a transformation of our economy—similar to how a caterpillar transforms to become a butterfly.
As LeMay says, “All you have to do is look at the history of movement building throughout the world and you will see that people have made shifts that everyone at one point thought were completely impossible.” In an article for Feminist.com, Buffet asks, “What if we saw more clearly the design and limitations of our current financial system and started to create alternatives that were designed to support all of us? We’ve moved out of the industrial age into the information age, so why can’t our money system also change paradigmatically and evolve to reflect our evolution and changing needs?”
Watch some of the highlights and get more information about the Women & Money salon on Feminist.com, including a list of attendees and additional resources.
As protests sweep across the United States and many fear of escalating conflict around the world, we are looking back to our 2013 salon on Women & Peace: Transforming Conflict. Held in partnership with Peace Is Loud at the home of filmmaker Abigail Disney, the salon brought together incredible women peacemakers including Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Secretary General Madeleine Rees, Association for Women's Rights in Development Executive Director Lydia Alpízar Durán, World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda and the Honorable Shinkai Karokhail, member of parliament in Afghanistan.
A packed audience engaged in conversation on the power of collective activism, investing in intergenerational leadership, and women’s roles as agents of change. Twelve years later, the words of Gumbonzvanda continue to feel poignant: “There cannot be peace unless we dare... to turn anger into transformation we need to be shaping the narrative. That narrative is our narrative, we the majority of the population in many countries, and that narrative is about women’s human rights, it’s about freedom from violence, it's about living a world free of conflict, it's about making the personal very political, and lastly it’s about resources.” Get inspired by watching some of the highlights and learn more about Women & Peace: Transforming Conflict salon on Feminist.com, including speaker videos and a list of attendees.
We held the first salon of our FemSalon Series in Spring 2012 on The State of Feminism. Hosted by Gloria Steinem at her home, the room was filled with incredible people, longtime friends, supporters and colleagues, who gathered together to affirm the importance of women’s voices and leadership in all aspects of society – a message that perhaps feels even more relevant today. As featured speaker Carol Gilligan, psychologist and author, remarked, “feminism is... one of the greatest liberation movements in human history. It’s the movement to liberate democracy from patriarchy.”
Other speakers included Devaki Jain, Kathy LeMay, Pat Mitchell, Kathy Najimy, Marianne Schnall and Gloria Steinem. Watch some of the highlights and get more information about The State of Feminism salon on Feminist.com, including speaker videos and a list of attendees.
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