Cherry Bombe is honored to announce that Gloria Steinem is our closing speaker at this year’s Jubilee conference, taking place Saturday, April 12th, in New York City.

 

Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She travels in the U.S. and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles, and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. She now lives in New York City, and is the author of the travelogue My Life on the Road.

 

In 1972, she co-founded Ms. magazine, and remained one of its editors for 15 years. She continues to serve as a consulting editor for Ms., and was instrumental in the magazine’s move to join and be published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. In 1968, she had helped to found New York Magazine, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. As a freelance writer, she was published in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and women’s magazines as well as for publications in other countries. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film about the death penalty for Lifetime, and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime.

 

Her books include the bestsellers My Life on the Road, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words, and Marilyn: Norma Jean (on the life of Marilyn Monroe), and in India, As If Women Matter. Her most recent book, The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!, was released in October 2019. Her writing also appears in many anthologies and textbooks, and she was an editor of Houghton Mifflin’s The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History.

 

Ms. Steinem helped to found the Women’s Action Alliance, a pioneering national information center that specialized in nonsexist, multi-racial children’s education, and the National Women’s Political Caucus, a group that continues to work to advance the numbers of pro-equality women in elected and appointed office at a national and state level. She also co-founded the Women’s Media Center in 2004. She was president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, a pro-choice political action committee for 25 years, then with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund when it merged with VFC for the 2004 elections. She was also co-founder and serves on the board of Choice USA (now URGE), a national organization that supports young pro-choice leadership and works to preserve comprehensive sex education in schools. She is the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national multi-racial, multi-issue fund that supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls, and also a founder of its Take Our Daughters to Work Day, a first national day devoted to girls that has now become an institution here and in other countries. She was a member of the Beyond Racism Initiative, a three-year effort on the part of activists and experts from South Africa, Brazil, and the United States to compare the racial patterns of those three countries and to learn cross-nationally. As links to other countries, she helped found Equality Now, Donor Direct Action, and Direct Impact Africa.

 

 

 

Amy Richards is an author, producer, and organizer. Most recently Amy authored We Are MAKERS, a book based on the PBS documentary series MAKERS. She produced the Emmy nominated series WOMAN for Viceland and executive produced The Glorias, among other stage and video projects. Amy is the president of Soapbox, Inc., the foremost feminist lecture agency, and the affiliated Soapbox Foundation, creators of Feminist Camp. Her first book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism & the Future just issued a 20th anniversary edition. Amy lectures at dozens of venues each year and contributes, through her writings and media appearances, to the current public conversations on feminism.

In addition to running Soapbox, Inc., Amy also consults to many organizations and initiatives, including being a consulting producer on the HBO documentary Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words and an advisor to PBS documentary on the women’s movement in America, MAKERS: Women Making America. Amy also oversaw educational outreach for MAKERS and is currently working on a book inspired by the MAKERS’ film and digital platform. Amy also works closely with Gloria Steinem on her writings.

Amy co-founded and spent several years leading the Third Wave Foundation, a national organization for young feminist activists between the ages of 15 and 30, which continues today as the Third Wave Fund. During her tenure Amy created and sustained the organization’s signature program areas and initiated public education projects such as “I Spy Sexism,” and “Why Vote?” Amy’s leadership and visionary work launched her as a primary spokesperson and leading voice for contemporary feminist issues.

Amy is most popularly known as the author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (co-authored with Jennifer Baumgardner and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2000 with an anniversary and updated edition published in 2010) and as the voice behind Ask Amy, the online advice column she has run on feminist.com since 1995. Amy is also the author of Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, about feminism and motherhood, and the co-author of Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism. She is also the editor of I Still Believe Anita Hill, a collection of essays featuring Eve Ensler, Catharine MacKinnon, Lynn Nottage and others. Amy’s writings have appeared in The Nation, The LA Times, Bust, Ms. and numerous anthologies, including Listen Up, Body Outlaws and Catching A Wave—where she has tackled issues ranging from plastic surgery to abortion politics. Amy was also the author of Insight Guides: Shopping in New York City. Her latest book, We Are MAKERS, is out now. Amy has appeared in a range of media including Charlie Rose, Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor, Oprah, Talk of the Nation, New York One, and CNN.

Amy was first publicly distinguished as a leader in 1995 when Who Cares magazine chose her as one of twenty-five Young Visionaries. She has gone on to win accolades from publications including Ms. magazine, Scenarios USA, and her alma mater, Barnard College. Women’s eNews named her one of their “Leaders for the 21st Century,” and the American Association of University Women named her a Woman of Distinction.

Amy was also the interim project director for Twilight: Los Angeles, a film by Anna Deavere Smith, where she oversaw a national educational program that addressed race in America. She has worked with Scenarios USA helping with the distribution of their teen educational videos, and with the Columbia School of Public Health on a project addressing the long-term negative health consequences of welfare reform. She served as a cultural attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Russia where she consulted on women’s issues in that country.

She is also very involved with the organizations on whose boards and advisory committees she serves, including the Sadie Nash Leadership Program, Chicken & Egg Productions, feminist.com, Ms. Magazine, and Fair Fund. In the summer of 2009, Amy was in residence at Hedgebrook, the writer’s retreat for women authoring change.She graduated cum laude from Barnard College with a degree in Art History, where she also was a NCAA Division I soccer player. She is also a four-time marathon runner, an avid traveler, a decent cook, a great friend, and a mother.