So feminists, as I promised to myself, I am making the first textual contribution to our blog. (Thank you Sam for creating this and posting all of the pictures!) As I expressed this evening, I am determined to see through the documentation of this collective. I am so glad all of you are behind this and have introduced additional ways in which we can record our experience (ex. taking minutes for each meeting, etc.). While this fervent drive of mine for documentation is fairly recent, I am hooked. I see our videos, blogs, notes, etc. as not only useful to future generations of feminists, but extremely useful to ourselves. To reflect on the evidence of what we've accomplished together will give us a sense of being a part of a movement; and recognizing ourselves as part of something whole will give us personal strength as activists.

I want to say that I have hardly ever been involved in anything "extracurricular" before my involvement with NPFC, partially because no organization has ever quite been so in-line with my values, and mostly because I have never felt like I had a voice. (I believe many of you share the same experience.) As women, and as activists, and simply human beings with ideas and emotions, we all know the importance of speaking up, and I want to thank you all for collectively creating an environment conducive of us all to do so.

I have a really great feeling about this semester. I have a great feeling about our potential as a collective to make change in our communities. And I cannot speak for everyone, but I can say for myself that NPFC has already encouraged change in my personal life. I feel very fortunate to have found a space in which I am surrounded by such bright, compassionate, and driven individuals. And I'd guess we all feel the same.

I am truly excited and inspired by the thought of future women's studies students, feminists, and activists alike, reading this blog and seeing the evidence of a woman's movement, of community, of voices, and finding in our writings the assurance that feminism was never dead. We are not post-feminism. We are feminism. We have the control. And though certainly I wish for all of the oppressions in this world to vanish, I think it will always be important, whether in times of peace and equality, or war and injustice, for women to come together. Because we do have a past that can never be ignored, especially while we're busy creating the future.

So as a last hurrah to this very mushy gushy entry of mine, I'd like to propose a cyber-toast to the 2009 Fall Semester of the New Paltz Feminist Collective. Here's to our brains and our hearts. Here's to our ability to come together in common experience and common passion and common hope. Here's to change in ourselves, in our small spheres, and in the world. Here's to the women who came before us. Here's to the women of the future. Here's to us!

with much love-

Claire