Amelia Richards (born February 9, 1970) is an American activist, organizer, writer, television producer, feminist, and art historian, currently residing in New York.[1] She produced the Emmy-nominated series Woman, which airs on Viceland.[2] She is the president of Soapbox, Inc., a feminist lecture agency.[2]
Amy Richards | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 9, 1970 Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. |
| Occupation | Activist, writer, organizer, feminist, art historian |
| Genre | Books, magazine articles |
| Subject | Feminism, parenthood |
Early life
editRichards was born on February 9, 1970, in Alexandria, Virginia, to Albert Wentz and Karen Richards.[3] She grew up in Pennsylvania.[3] Her father, Wentz, was not a part of her life.[3] She attended Tabor Academy, a private boarding school in Marion, Massachusetts.[3] After graduating high school from Tabor, she graduated cum laude from Barnard College with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History in 1992.[3] She was an NCAA Division I soccer player at Barnard.[2] She is also a four-time marathon runner.[2]
Career
editRichards became involved in a summer project, Freedom Summer '92, a cross-country voter registration drive.[3] She co-wrote Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future with Jennifer Baumgardner.[2] The book was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2000 with an anniversary and updated edition published in 2010.[2] She authored Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, about feminism and motherhood, and is a co-author of Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism.[2] She wrote Insight Guides: Shopping in New York City.[2] She also wrote the article "LIVES; When One is Enough", about her experience becoming pregnant with triplets, and deciding to terminate two of them, giving birth to the third.[2] She and Marianne Schnall contributed the piece "Cyberfeminism: Networking the Net" to the 2003 anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium, edited by Robin Morgan.[2] Her writing has appeared in The Nation, The LA Times, Bust, Ms., and numerous anthologies, including Listen Up, Body Outlaws and Catching A Wave.[2] She has tackled issues ranging from plastic surgery to abortion politics.[2] She was the interim project director for Twilight: Los Angeles by Anna Deavere Smith.[2] She is also the editor of I Still Believe Anita Hill, a collection of essays featuring Eve Ensler, Catharine MacKinnon, Lynn Nottage and others.[2]
She is the voice to "Ask Amy", an online advice column she has run at feminist.com since 1995.[2] She produced Viceland's Woman, as well as being a consulting producer for Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words for HBO and an advisor on MAKERS: Women Making America, a PBS documentary on the women's movement.[2]
Richards is a co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation, which is now known as the Third Wave Fund, a national organization for young feminist activists between the ages of 15 and 30.[2] The Third Wave Fund co-founded by Richards promotes gender justice, a movement to end patriarchy, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny.
In July 2002, she co-founded and became president of Soapbox Inc., an organization based on feminism.[1] She served as a cultural attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Russia, consulting on women’s issues.[2] She has been a long-time consultant to Gloria Steinem and Anna Deavere Smith, as well as the Columbia School of Public Health among other places.[1][4] She serves on the boards and advisory boards of organizations such as Sadie Nash Leadership Project and Chicken & Egg Productions, feminist.com, Ms. Magazine, and Fair Fund.[1][2] She is an abortion rights activist, having terminated the pregnancy of her twins within a pregnancy where she was expecting triplets.[5]
Books
edit- Baumgardner, Jennifer; Amy Richards (2000). ManifestA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[2]
- Baumgardner, Jennifer; Amy Richards (2005). Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[2]
- Richards, Amy (2008). Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c d "Amy Richards". LinkedIn.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "Amy Richards | Soapbox - Feminist Speakers and More". www.soapboxinc.com. Retrieved 2018-04-05.
- ^ a b c d e f Sophia Smith Collection. "Amy Richards Papers, 1995-2012". Five College Archives and Manuscript Collections. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
- ^ "MEET AMY". www.feminist.com. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
- ^ Barrett, Amy Richards As Told To Amy (2004-07-18). "LIVES; When One Is Enough". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
External links
edit- Soapbox profile
- Third Wave Fund Profile[1]
- ^ "Welcome to Third Wave Fund!". Third Wave Fund. Retrieved 2019-10-19.