One of the main feminist blogs that I always read, and one of the first to publish some of my early posts, was Feministing. If you haven’t heard of it, I highly recommend you check it out not only because it provides analysis on mainstream culture and women’s rights issues from the point of view and voice of young women, but because its posts make for intelligent and insightful commentary.
The woman behind this blog, feminist author Jessica Valenti pretty much reclaimed the American feminist movement for young women by giving them a voice in it through Feministing, and her books such as “Full Frontal Feminism,” “The Purity Myth,” and “He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut.”
Jessica took her contribution to the global women’s movement a step further this week by sharing the traumatic experience she had giving birth to her daughter, Layla.
When we hear about issues of maternal health or women dying by the hundreds of thousands every year from preventable and treatable complications, we are often shown images of women in some “Third World Country”, or somewhere in Africa.
Valenti’s raw, emotionally honest account of her experience with pre-eclampsia reminds us that all over the world, in countries rich and poor, women encounter serious pregnancy related complications. The greatest inequality is a woman’s ability to access life saving medical services; the greatest injustice is having the right insurance policy that will cover your condition.
You can read Jessica’s moving and powerful post “My New Normal” here.