Seeing that we’re plugging new websites today, I thought I’d announce a site that is not mine, but which I’m proud to be a part of: Our Word (www.OurWord.org).
I’ll start with the mission:
Our Word is a community where women’s voices are valued and respected, a space for telling the truth of women’s lives and working together to improve them. This site is owned by all members who post here. It is the aggregate of all of our words, all of our ideas, all of our experiences.
A little more below the fold:
The thumbnail history that’s been put forth about Our Word’s genesis is that it’s a reaction to the infamous pie fight. On the surface, there’s perhaps a small grain of truth to that. The pie fight left many women (and men) rather outraged and disgusted and feeling betrayed. I don’t need to review all that here. The long and short of it is that a temporary blog was formed, which led to a mail list, which led to a lot of discussion that included, among other things, creating a women’s space online.
But the real reason I think is a bit deeper. The thing is, what many feel is that the pie fight was merely symptomatic of a far greater problem, which is largely the dearth of women’s voices in the mainstream political dialog.
From my perspective, it’s important for Booman members to understand that Our Word was created not to balkanize the dialog by trying to take away women’s voices from political sites and draw them to a women’s site, but rather to fill in a need many of us saw for a meta-blog where people could go to talk about how events in politics, business, culture and personal life affect women. –And that’s only part of it. I’d go on but I’m not one to define what Our Word is or isn’t. More of that can be found in discussions on the site itself.
What the site will become depends upon who joins, and what people end up talking about. The site’s been up for a few days and already has some interesting content going on by, among others, not a few Booman members.
I hope more people from her will check it out and join in, not as a replacement to this wonderful sanctuary, but as an augmentation of our current dialogue.
Thanks.
Very good site. I’ve gone over a couple of times to read the posts and they’ve been very interesting.
However, that pinkish-purple color literally hurts my eyes. And I find it hard to read as well.
At this point, you can choose from two very different themes once you’re registered. The other one is more along the lines of earth tones.
Right now a poll’s up to see if the other one should be the default. (I find the pink difficult, too, but I’m just one person.)
I just went myself and signed on. Once signed on you can change the template. I’ve selected the darker font, and it is much easier to read.
I’m so excited today. It’s like blog Christmas today w/ all these new blogs to explore – My Left Wing, Our Word. And to see familiar names too. Love it.
I’ll probably sign up but the default is what visitors see and that’s why I mentioned that I thought it was hard to read.
I’m not sure how excited I am – I can only afford so many distractions from work 😉
Good point re: the visitor’s view. The point is to get people reading, not clicking away if it’s hard to read.
And I hear ya on the distractions. Adding more blogs to the daily check list will definitely impact my off-line productivity!
I would also like to add that a safe space for women’s voices online, created, empowered and configured by women, and open to all who respect the mission statement, is not only proper and fitting, but something everyone should be proud of, woman or man. I’m proud to be a member of Our world. And I’m proud to be a Bootribber!
I wrote:
I’m proud to be a member of Our world.
I meant:
I’m proud to be a member of Our WORD. :::blushing:::
Now, the good news is that using Drupal, the software running Our Word, I could have corrected that mistake by editing my comment. :::wink::::
It’s okay, this isn’t men’s news daily so you can be both a member of “our word” and “our world” ;->
as media girl said, no one member can define ourword, because ourword is more than any one person’s persective on it. i was lucky enough to be part of the genesis of ourword last week, but i am just one member. how do i see our word? what media girl said. her description of ourword as a meta-diary is right on in my mind.
i hope that ourword will be a safe space for women and men to discuss why women’s truth matters without fear of ridicule or trolling. by being a safe space, i hope that for some it will be an incubator. a place for women and women-positive men to explore their thoughts, shape their ideas, and test their voices in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.
i hope ourword will become a gathering space, like a college student union, a safe place to hang out and discuss everything from philosophy to politics to the latest new band. A place to paper the walls with announcements of upcoming woman-positive events.
providing a safe, woman-positive meta blog, where every member’s voice is valued and respected, will hopefully encourage woman to participate in other blogs and take the risk of speaking their truth in other places. because they will know they always have a safe space to return to.
Great idea and I’ve been over and signed up. I think any blog eventually takes on their own ambiance which is due to the people who diary and the attitude of people are commenting. Also I don’t think this will take anything away from Bootrib anymore than Eurotrib does.
I think of it more akin to having friends who have different styles of decorating their house. You like all the styles but on any given day you might be in the mood for one in particular welcome mat over another. Or just be a gad-about and visit all your friends every day.
…and sometimes we just need to get together for a little girl talk. (Guys are welcome, of course!)
I agree about the girl talk. As for the men, I’ve always said if they really want to understand women they have the-gasp-revolutionary idea of just listening to women, really listening. The added bonus for men would be, in my view anyway, that there is nothing sexier than someone who really listens to you.
So I’ve blogrolled Women Kossacks here, but there seems to be no more action over there, and now this OurWord site comes along. So would it be appropriate for me to de-blogroll Women Kossacks as a dead site and replace it with OurWord?
I cannot speak for NYCO, who set up Women Kossacks, and she’s been busy with other things since the last post there. I can only say that it seems many, if not most, of us are on Our Word (too). Defining what it is or what it will become is beyond my ken. I’m just trying to keep up.
Thanks for the (possible) link!
You’ve been added. I took down Women Kossacks because they’re currently inactive — if they do come back up, I’ll add them again.
Good luck!
Thank you. We all appreciate it. I hope you’ll drop by and post a bit there, too.