Chicago: AMY

Amy Schroeder: 31, founder and editor-in-chief of the women-focused pop culture magazine Venus, through-and-through midwesterner, Third Wave feminist.

"In our new issue, we have a feature on the Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time. The reason we did it is because Rolling Stone in 2002 did a cover story on the Greatest Guitarists of All Time. There's 100 guitarists on that list. 2 are women. So that's why we did it, but I hate doing that in a way because its ghettoizing women. Saying like "Well, they're secondary" but they're fucking not. Yet if we don't do this list, then chances are these women won't be recognized anywhere else...It sucks to be thought as always the 'female guitarist,' but somebody's gotta recognize these women."

Update: We have a book deal!

Seal Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, has just offered to publish our book! Details will follow, but just so our readers and interviewees know: the GIRLdrive dream has now become reality. Our journey is by no means over--it has been instilled with new life (aka money) allowing us to finish up our interviews and turn our adventures into a coherent narrative.

We will be writing in Chicago but will be back on the East coast for a chunk of time in the summer, to interview the ladies we have missed!

Expect a new slew of blog entries, updates, and photos in the near future.

Love,

Nona and Emma

Madison: EMMA, EMMA, AND SUMMER

One night in a Madison bar, we met up with three ladies studying for their Masters in fiction at UW-Madison (and had our first taste of Wisconsin cheese curds). A long and winding feminist discussion ensued.

Summer: 31, worked for Court TV and the Christian Science Monitor until she moved to the Middle East and got married, came back to get her MFA in fiction, originally from Basking Ridge, NJ.

"I come from a very traditional family, my parents are immigrants from Lebanon and their roles are very defined...you can probably guess the details. When I got married, I really panicked, and was all worried, like 'Do I have to start cooking?' I just resisted it because it was so much the idea of a traditional mother, even though my husband never said anything about it...I had this weird experience where I start cooking all these meals out of anger...Now I'm more comfortable with the fact that my role is cooking in my marriage, but not because I'm a woman. We have our own way of splitting things."

Emma #1: 27, originally from Baltimore, went to Yale, taught in rural Louisiana and Beijing before going for her MFA.

"It's never really occurred to me to consider myself a feminist...I was having a conversation about this issue with my mother the other day, when Hillary Clinton beat Obama in New Hampshire, because she was super-excited, like 'Oh, this is so great for women, the idea of a woman president.' I was voicing to her, which she found to be heartening but also a little bit sad, that I just don't think about being female and being defined by that in the way that she does...It may just go back to childhood, because in my classes growing up, the girls were always smarter, more dynamic, talkative, and outgoing--the all-star students of the class."

Emma #2: 27, getting her fiction MFA, originally from New York, graduated from Oberlin.

"All my male friends now are single. They really don't feel pressure to get married the way some women our age do. They're all going out and dating and picking up girls in bars..and I'm not doing that, I've been in a relationship for 6 years now. I do feel this pressure, and it's connected to the idea of having children. If all women could have children at 45, it would be fine! I wouldn't worry about it. But it's not the case. And it's not like I want them to feel pressure, it's just frustrating."

Madison: KATIE

Katie: 26, grew up in Wausau, WI, single mom to 8-year-old Kaitlin (pictured here), works at domestic abuse agency and a captioning company, graduated from UW-Madison in 2006. Definitely a feminist.

"My grandfather had set aside some money for me and my brother and my sister to pursue school, and it's been gone for a long time now, but I have had a little more luck and opportunities [to go to school] then other young mothers in my position. I would like to see that change, for there to be a way for single mothers to have those opportunities without relying on a family member. My friend has a daughter who's Kaitlin's age, and she can only take 1 or 2 classes because she has to work during the day and night. Her family is just not supportive at all. And she's going for nursing, which isn't something she is all that interested in. It was a very practical decision--once she gets a degree she'll be able to support her daughter in the way that she wants to."

Madison: JACKIE

Jackie: 22, senior sociology major at UW-Madison, setter on the varsity Volleyball team, raised in the suburbs of Chicago, loves music, wants to be a college coach when she graduates. Is not a feminist because "people think of 'feminist' as an extreme position, and I tend not to be extreme about anything."

"There's a stereotype that if you're a woman athlete you're not necessarily feminine...I'll be out and a guy will come up to me, and instead of starting a typical conversation like 'How are you, what's your name?'...it's 'Whoa, you could beat me up!'...I've found that male athletes are easier to date, it's not as big of a deal, because you're into the same things. But any time I've dated a non-athlete, it's different because they see you as just an athlete sometimes. It's part of who I am, but not all of who I am, and sometimes guys don't see that."

Milwaukee: JESSICA

Jessica: 27, born in Milwaukee, was an education major at UW-Lacrosse, works at a small alternative high school for "at-risk youth" on the South Side, volunteers at Milwaukee's feminist bookstore, Broad Vocabulary (pictured here). Considers herself a feminist.

"I started volunteering here in the summer, when I was off from teaching. Working here I meet a lot of people that really open your eyes to a lot of things. It's almost still like it was 50 years ago in most of Milwaukee, where two guys or two girls walking down the street holding hands will still turn heads. The owners of this bookstore wanted to open this place not as a money-making profit enterprise, but as a space for people to come and network and seek a community space...to let people know that feminism isn't a scary thing, that it's not penis-hating women running around crazy."

The Streets of Bay View in Milwaukee

Update: GIRLdrive is in Chicago!

We are taking a semi-hiatus in Chicago, grouping all our material together and taking weekend trips around the area. Look out for snippets of our Madison/Milwaukee trip soon.

--Nona and Emma

New York City: MICHELE

Michele Wallace: New York-born feminist, author, cultural critic, professor of English at City College and the CUNY graduate center.

"College is a major agent of dissemination for feminist ideas. When I was a teenager, I saw a lot of activity in terms of feminism with my mother [artist Faith Ringgold] and activists in New York, but if it had not been backed up by one of the first women's studies programs here in City College, I don't know what it would have meant for me. I got to read women writers and also just see the struggle of the women faculty through this program. [Feminism] was always reinforced by school...and outside of New York, the academic part of it was even more important."

New York City: SHARYN

Sharyn: 28, native of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, bartender, graphic design student, former punk. Isn't sure what feminism means, "but do I support women's rights, do I feel empowered? Definitely."

"I come from a really traditional family...my mother's family is from Israel and my father's side, they're all Moroccan. Since I was a child, it has been banged into my head that I am to speak quietly and not have too many strong opinions and what I should be really good at is learning how to clean the house and cook food and raise children...When I was little, and kids would go and play in the park, I wasn't allowed to go, [my family] wanted me to stay home and mop the floors. I was the first one of my family born in the United States, and I remember thinking like, 'That's cool for you guys, but I'm American and I can do whatever I want.' I remember being really young and being so angry about that."

New York City: PIA

Pia: 25, raised in Crown Heights, dancer, choreographer, dance studio manager, afterschool teacher. Wouldn't consider herself a feminist.

"The first step to getting racial equality in an American patriarchal society is getting some perks for your men, and then hoping that your men are going to turn around and try to get some perks for you. I feel like that's why a lot of Black women don't label themselves as feminists...they'll label themselves under racial activists and then bring in women's issues as a second-tier thing. We are grappling with a whole different set of issues that just come first--I'm always reminded that I'm Black before being reminded that I'm a woman."

(Photo by Sadye Vassil)

New York City: MEHIKO

Mehiko: 23, one of the few non-Hasidic Williamsburg natives, born in Japan, law student at CUNY Law School, feminist.

"I would definitely like to see more girls involved in sports. I just think that athletics is a really important part of growing up, and I think it instills values you can't get anywhere else...Even now, you still get your boy a little football for Christmas and your girl a Barbie doll. I know some parents make a conscious decision not to do that. But I want it to be something that's unconscious...I want girls to want to do sports. It helps with body image later on, too, because you see your body as a tool rather than just an object of desire."

New York City: ANOTHER JESSICA

Jessica: 23, lifelong Brooklynite, stay-at-home-mom to Olivia, her 4-year-old daughter, aspiring illustrator or interior designer, feminist.

“Since I have a daughter, I’m really aware of the media and how it degrades women. It starts from a really young age. Like those Bratz Dolls—Olivia doesn’t have any of those, thank god—but they look like strippers. Even if you don’t watch TV, just walking down the street people are judging women everywhere. I don’t ever want my daughter scrutinizing herself or comparing herself to the way women are ‘supposed’ to look. [laughs] Part of me wishes that mothers would get involved in an anti-Bratz campaign or something.”

New York City: ERICA

Erica Jong (above, in her East side home): New Yorker, novelist, poet, media personality, pioneer of the sexual revolution, Second Wave feminist.

On young women, sex, and role models:

"I think young teenagers all need an older woman--maybe not our mother, since we are all rebelling against her at that age--who she trusts, with whom she can sort these things out. I had someone like that to talk to about promiscuity and my feelings about love and sex. Maybe every woman ought to have a mentor. Mentoring is the new feminism. I really believe that the next stage of feminism is going to be older women and younger women working together."

New York City: KATHLEEN

Kathleen Hanna (left, in her SoHo neighborhood): activist, teacher, musician, feminist; early Riot Grrrl upstarter, singer/songwriter in Viva Kneivel, Bikini Kill, Julie Ruin, Le Tigre.

On her falling out with Riot Grrrl:

“A lot of the cool people left, including myself…It's a problem on its own to look at anything as your savior, its this kind of Christian capitalist way of looking at things. But when the thing that’s totally saving your life is now choking you to death, the language that saved your life is being used to murder you, it's really incredibly painful…I haven’t moved away from feminism, and I haven’t become softer and "nicer feminist" style or something, I’ve just really gotten bored of myself and want to look towards other people...It’s the arrogance of youth that made anything happen. I am glad I opened my mouth even though I didn’t fully know what I was saying…I had all the knowledge [about feminism] I needed because I lived it, and that’s the part of it that stands the test of time, but there is another part which is arrogant and not feeding into a positive sense of continuum.”

New York City: ANYA

Anya Kamenetz (right, on her terrace in Williamsburg): 28, originally from Baton Rouge, journalist, personal finance advisor, author of Generation Debt. Considers herself a feminist.

"Women in general are bringing very high stakes to the work world. We are one of the first generations of women raised with the belief that we are going to work, and that it's not just about being a breadwinner. Men have their own pressures, like this intense fear of not succeeding and that he has to make his mark in the world. But for women, I think it’s more about finding a full expression of who you are in the work world, because if you don’t, you should be fulfilling the higher purpose of having children. A lot of women I know apply that binary to their lives."

New York City: JESSICA

Jessica Valenti (right, at a cafe in her Astoria neighborhood): 29, founder and executive editor of the blog Feministing, activist, author of Full Frontal Feminism.

On Girls Gone Wild:

“The way you deal with a phenomenon like that is to encourage women to be critical thinkers—ask her, ‘Why are you doing these things? Why does it make you feel powerful to get drunk and show your boobs?’ The myth of sexual purity is the real thing that is screwing up young women, not the fact that they are being sexual. Both Girls Gone Wild and abstinence-only [campaigns] are about dictating what young women should do. So no wonder why we are completely sexually confused. When you’re telling a woman that her moral compass is between her legs, that can really fuck her up.”

New York City: LAURA

Laura Kipnis: cultural and media critic, professor of media studies at Northwestern University, author of Against Love and The Female Thing. A feminist, but tries to avoid “being typecast as the pro-sex feminist…I get bored when people only ask me to write about those issues.”

On beauty:

"The hidden 'double shift' for women is spending an awful lot of time worrying about the way they look…It’s not like women don’t realize this [impediment], but I think they feel defeated by it. You can be self-aware of these things and still be on a constant diet. You can have read every feminist book on your bookshelf and still have issues about food and eating and the way your hair is styled. I guess you're not required to subscribe to this kind of regime, but it helps you blend in and offers you more sexual opportunity...because that's still the way the heterosexual world is organized, despite all the supposed female progress."

New York City: JEANIE

Jeanie (left, outside of Café Pick Me Up in the East Village): 23, raised uptown in Manhattan, actress, former champion fencer, temp at a banking software company. Considers herself a feminist.

“Growing up in New York surrounded by strong women doing their own thing, it was much easier to be an individual, and be supported for that...My sister and I were always fighting this idea of what it was to be a “girl." We were very physical tomboys. I remember one summer, we went to this daycamp upstate, and I was the only girl playing hockey with the boys. I wasn’t afraid of being sweaty or being loud…we have always had that sense of ‘We’re different, and we’re proud of that.'”

New York City: TECLA

Tecla (right, in her newly bought apartment in the Bronx): native New Yorker, 25, preschool teacher, plays keyboard and does backup vocals in the all-girl band Sweetie. Considers herself a feminist.

“Sweetie is a raunchy, raw, female, ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’ band. I like having that beautiful female vibe without having to deal with male energy. With men, there’s an unnecessary competition happening…their egos are tested. I know that women have their own issues with eachother, which is sad but true. But being with girl musicians feels like a more healthy, cohesive environment, where you can vibe in a pleasant way.”

Take a look at Sweetie's music video "17" on YouTube.

New York City: JENNIFER

Jennifer Baumgardner (right, on Broadway): author, activist, film-maker, Third Wave feminist.

“I feel nothing but excitement about the new generation of women. People say things all the time like, ‘It’s much worse now, if anything we’ve gone back.' People look at things like Girls Gone Wild or the fact that girls cut themselves, or violent body images issues, and think it’s worse. But it’s not true, it's not worse. The issue of early sexual contact for instance…certainly there are girls who aren’t self-protecting, but there’s also more girls in charge of their libido and having a sense of sexual expression, before they find themselves being 40 and finally getting their first vibrator.”