Duke University Will Train Feminist Bloggers

Duke University’s Women’s Center is launching a new media activism program called Write(H)ers that will help “create a community of feminist-oriented writers,” according to the Duke Chronicle: program members will participate in personal blogging and workshops with professional journalists (including Jill Filipovic, Heather Havrilesky, Rebecca Traister, and former Jezebel writer Irin Carmon) and write at least three blog posts over the course of the semester.

We’ll save the snarky bloggery comments re: output (three blog posts a semester?!?) because this is awesome news for the 22 women and 1 dude who got into the program.

“This will be such a positive experience because it gives me a small window into the perspectives of several women involved in fields that still deal with huge gender disparities,” said senior Nathan Nye, the aforementioned lone male student. “I am fascinated by how women are portrayed [by the media] and how different this portrayal is from the women I’ve known my entire life.”

The article notes that although Write(H)ers is “primarily for those who openly identify as feminist, another goal of the program includes reaching out to people who might be allies to the feminist movement but have never talked about gender issues openly,” because “day-to-day activism is about trying to look at the world in a different perspective.”

“There are a lot of people here who have never considered what it’s like to be a woman in that you’re constantly told that you have to be on the watch when you’re walking home by yourself, or watch what you’re drinking and wearing when you go out,” said senior Sarah Van Name, a member of Write(H)ers who is already a contributor to Duke’s feminist blog Develle Dish. (Is she referring to these guys, perhaps?)