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.
