The speech was originally scheduled for the week before Xmas, and I thought I had missed it due to my holiday travels, but for whatever reason, it has been moved.  To today.

I’m not sure what’s up with the sudden announcement (I just got a message from UNFPA about this), but at 2:30 today, you can dial up the ICPD site and watch HRC deliver her address.  Depending on what I see, I may be doing a follow-up post.

US-ers, you can also watch the speech on C-SPAN 2, if you have cable.

UPDATE:  Because we’re talking White House Time (WHT), 2:30 means shortly after 3:00.  C-SPAN2 is currently (2:55) showing an empty dais, but they’ve announced that the Secretary is “on her way.”

I’ve been a little out of touch the last few days, as there is one of the two major annual conferences for my field going on, and my days have been full of sessions and roundtables and happy hours and such.   I’ve seen good stuff and less-good stuff, and been privy to a lot of fun, smart, weird and/or rigorous conversations, including discussions of the early films of the Marx Brothers,  the meaning of Nadya Suleman,  the interplay of human rights and emergent technologies, and the uses and abuses of nostalgia, among other things.  Mixed in with all of this was a really big helping of feminist scholarship.

While I enjoyed all–okay, most–of the topics, what really made the conference for me was the amazing presence of women in all aspects.  Conference planners, senior scholars, student presenters, editors, mentors, etc.  My best and most productive conversations were with other women, making connections across schools, positions and sub-disciplines, to help each other out, offering CV counselling, publication opportunities, and a warm atmosphere.

Academia in general, and even my pretty progressive field, is not yet one of gender parity, but the balance is tipping in that direction.  Neither do I mean to imply that the rise of women in academia will make it a cuddly, everybody wins! GIRL POWAH!  atmosphere–I don’t wanna sing Kum By Yah, I wanna get my blah blah Foucault on.  But it is heartening to see so many women at so many different stages of their careers coming together to create female networks, if not an Ol’ Girls Club.  And these networks are, counter to “ivory tower” stereotypes, very invested in real people and the real world, where women and men are going about their lives.

Anyway, though I doubt that many of you will run out to your local research library, I wanted to put in a plug for feminist academic journals, of which there are many, in most fields of the social sciences and humanities as well as the professions. (I couldn’t speak to the math/science stuff).  Whatever you’re interested in:  languages, literatures, fine arts, the media, history, education, religion, sociology, anthro, cultural studies, national studies, race/ethnicity,  law, medicine…there will likely be a journal–or two– that will have a feminist bent.  Some will be heavy-duty theoretical stuff, like Duke’s differences, but there is a whole range, including the very accessible.  For any of our readers currently in school, I recommend you take a little while to search around JSTOR or Project Muse.  A short list:

Gender Place and Culture

Feminist Review

thirdspace

Hypatia:  A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

Feminism & Psychology

Signs

Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

Feminist Studies

Women’s Studies International

Feminist Law Journal

I could go on and on.  And I haven’t even mentioned Queer Studies, which would add a whole bunch more.  It’s not all gold, but it’s good, stimulating reading, a great resource to learn more–and more deeply–about whatever it is you’re interested in, whether you’re currently in an academic setting or not (although undergrads?  whip some of this stuff out if you wanna really impress your profs).  For those of you longing for a little good news, here it is:  a lot of women–and some men–are deeply invested, both professionally and personally, in the feminist enterprise.  It’s good to know.