aboutmaleprivilege:

I’ll just quote Teen Voices’ website (http://www.teenvoices.com/:

Teen Voices need your help. Because of a recent decrease in funding, we’re at a crisis. We must raise $300,000 by August 1. Yes, it’s that bad.

For nearly 25 years, girls and young women in Boston and beyond have counted on Teen Voices to provide a positive, girl-friendly space to grow as writers and leaders. We are not going down without a fight.

You know us, and you know our work—our girl-generated magazine is the only publication of its kind. Thousands of girls around the globe count on Teen Voices to publish their work and offer honest, positive stories that address real issues in their lives.

The good news is our magazine and our afterschool program are stronger than ever. We’ve produced two excellent issues in the past year and over 225 online articles—including interviews with inspiring girls in action and powerful leading ladies like Donna Brazile, Jennifer Buffett, and Maria Hinojosa. We consistently have a waiting list for our afterschool and summer journalism program, and our Boston-based teens consistently show growth in perseverance, social efficacy, and acceptance of others.

With a strong and dedicated staff and an army of passionate teens and volunteers, we are poised to take Teen Voices to the next level in 2013, reaching many more girls worldwide. We have a vision to increase our web traffic tenfold and become the go-to place for smart girl media. We have plans—and even a grant!—to make teenvoices.com an interactive, smartphone-friendly forum for girls to amplify their voices.

It’s all within reach.

But right now, we need funds to get around this challenging corner and move our organization to a stronger future. With your help, Teen Voices can partner and transform to amplify the voices of girls. Whether you can afford $5, $50 or $5,000, every donation brings us closer.


You can send a safe and secure contribution through PayPal:


Or mail a check to:

Teen Voices
80 Summer St, Suite 400
Boston MA 02110 


We need your donations by August 1!

Please forward this message to every person you know who believes that girls can change the world. And thank you for investing in the power of teen girls’ voices!

The Teen Voices team For updates on our campaign, like “Teen Voices Magazine” on Facebook and join the conversation on Twitter @teenvoices #notwithoutafight

To read our latest and greatest girl-generated media, visit www.teenvoices.com.

“So what?” You say. “Why should I care? It’s just a nonprofit in Boston.”
No, it’s not. I would know. I interned there. It was my first internship and in fact my first experience in any sort of feminist institution. I read just about every issue of Teen Voices—and that’s a lot of magazines—because I had to organize the archives. And those magazines were what eventually led to this blog.
Teen Voices was not “a feminist magazine”. It was a magazine by (primarily) young WOC in Boston during an after-school mentoring program. These girls were awesome. They were funny, kind, and the magazines they created cast light on issues that—if you have been reading this blog, you know—are invisible in popular media. Everything from trans* issues, suicide, surviving assault, foster family life, great restaurants run by women in Boston, interviews with CIBO MATTO (YES THE CIBO MATTO THAT DID “Know your Chicken” and “Birthday Cake”, it was in one of the old magazines, I told you Teen Voices is badass!!!1). At the back of the magazines was this awesome section where they took an advertisement from TV or a magazine and described in articulate terms just how it was objectifying a woman’s body or using sex to sell a product. Bam.


That was my first internship, and it was years ago, but I still have a couple of magazines on my shelf. They are evergreen. They’re filled with art people sent in, letters, advice, and positivity. There is no end of positivity in this awesome magazine.


TEEN VOICES NEEDS TO STAY ALIVE. Teen Voices’ slogan was “because you’re more than a pretty face” and now it’s “changing the world for girls through media” which fits what they do better.

I’m sounding like an infomercial now, but don’t take my word for it. Go to teenvoices.com right now, you’ll see what’s awesome about them. They recently interviewed a member of the Olympic Swimming Team in a great article. They have a review about a movie focusing on sexual assault in the military up right now, worth a look. Poetry, fiction, music reviews, art, photography—all by teen girls. You can read their magazine, which goes out to learning centers, schools, and many other institutions, online or in print if you donate for a subscription.


I KNOW MY FOLLOWERS ARE PROBABLY NOT RICH. BUT PLEASE, REBLOG THIS AND DONATE WHAT YOU CAN. TEEN VOICES IS NEEDED, NOT JUST IN BOSTON, BUT NONPROFITS LIKE THIS SHOULD EXIST EVERYWHERE FOR GIRLS ALL OVER THE PLACE. MAYBE GET YOUR EMPLOYER TO MATCH A DONATION WITH YOU. THIS IS A NONPROFIT, SO YOU CAN DEDUCT ANY DONATION ON YOUR TAX RETURN. THIS LINK I’M POSTING GOES TO THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE WITH A PAYPAL LINK.

http://www.teenvoices.com/2012/07/20/teen-voices-needs-your-help/


Thank you for reading this far. We now return to your scheduled programming where I call mean people bad words.