February 2012
3 posts
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High fashion, minus the labels | CNN.com →
Here’s a quick read for your lazy long weekend! A CNN piece I was quoted in:
Twenty-year-old, 6-foot-1 Andrej Pejic is a model for success: a women’s size 2 or 4; angular cheekbones; full, pouty lips; bleached-blond hair; and impossibly long legs. Yet the walk down the runway — often squeezed into a ladies’ size 10 shoe — hasn’t always been a smooth and glamour-ridden one.
...
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WatchJoin me and XOXOSMS for Virtual V-Day!
In an LDR? Totally bummed you can’t snuggle up to your sweet this Valentine’s Day? We’ve got something just for you! On Februrary 14th at 6pm EST, join us for the premiere of xoxosms followed by a panel about love, intimacy, sex, and the Internet (all of our favorite things!).
This is a date night for the 21st Century: fire up Skype (or gchat or oovoo!),...
January 2012
3 posts
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10 Myths About Sex and Virginity - Debunked →
So glad to see that people are still talking about this! Over at lipstick-feminists, a reader submitted a piece by the fab Lori Adelman about some takeaway points from the Rethinking Virginity Conference I organized back in 2010. Lori wrote:
The conference was organized by Lena Chen and the Harvard Queer Students’ Association, and brought together an incredibly diverse and impressive group of...
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Upcoming Speaking/Travel Dates →
Holy crap, traveling for the past month has totally done a number on my skin, immune system, and sleep schedule. Three more days in China and then I’m off to LA for a week - yet another climate and time change. Never thought I’d be looking forward to returning to the frigid New England winter, but I’m longing for some normality (and a wardrobe change) after weeks on the road.
After I get...
November 2011
5 posts
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Voice Of Russia | Violence Against Female Bloggers →
Following up on my post about the recent Twitter campaigns to bring awareness to gendered cyber harassment, here’s a link to a radio segment I did on the topic as part of Jamila Bey’s SPAR (Sex, Politics, and Religion) show, airing on Voice of Russia’s American outlet (AM 1390 in DC / AM 1430 in NYC). Rebecca Watson, the founder of Skepchick and co-host of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, was...
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The Girls' State Of The Union Video Contest →
UPDATE: The Women’s Media Center has extended the deadline for its Girls’ State Of The Union contest to December 12th.
The Women’s Media Center invites girls from all over the United States, ages 14-22, to create a 1-5 minute Girls’ State of the Union video in response to the President’s speech. Like the President’s report, the Girls’ State of the Union will sum up the condition of...
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Bedsider.org Is Here For All Your Contraceptive... →
As many of you know, the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has been a client of mine for the past two years. Today, they are launching Bedsider.org, and I’m SUPER EXCITED to introduce such a relatable and valuable resource to you guys. Given the litany of contraceptive options out there, it can be intimidating to navigate those waters on your own. Birth control is one of...
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The Daily Beast | The Reality Of Misogyny Online →
It’s been an eventful week for the targets of online misogyny. Just a few days ago, bloggers began tweeting under the hashtag #ThreatOfTheDay to bring awareness to the violent threats and harassment they face everyday on the Internet. Yesterday, Sady Doyle at Tiger Beatdown wrote about how she was completely blindsided by the extent of the sexism she encountered as a woman blogger:
What I got,...
October 2011
8 posts
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MookyChick's Feminist Flash 2011 Competition →
I’m judging an awesome writing contest over at MookyChick, a UK-based alternative women’s site. (You might remember this interview they did with me last month.) It’s easy to enter — the maximum word length for each entry is 200 words — and there’s a cash prize (as well as a feministy one) involved. Here are the details:
Slut shaming. Contraception. Body dysmorphia. Ladette culture. Impossible...
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Vote for College Candy's Most Influential Women →
Happy Monday! I’m nominated for Most Influential Female Blogger over at College Candy. Check out all the nominees in the different categories and fill out a survey of who you think represents the best of the best — everyone who votes gets entered to win a prize from Rent The Runway :)
Debut Giveaway For My New "Ch!ckTalk" Subscribers →
Listen up! If you haven’t subscribed yet to Ch!ckTalk, you need to do that like right now. All you commit to is one email per month (full of updates, awesome events, Hamlet photos, and unfinished writing I’m too embarrassed to post in public). Each month, I’ll also have a different sponsor (or sponsors) offering an exclusive discount to all list members and an awesome prize to one lucky...
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Help Me Win My Own Show On Shape.com! →
Hi folks, I’m currently up for the Best Blogger Awards at SHAPE Magazine — and the grand prize winner gets their own web show sponsored by the magazine! If you want to see a mainstream women’s website host a video series promoting positive body image and sexuality, please take a few seconds to click over and vote for The Chicktionary.
To promote my blog’s nomination, I’ll be hosting interviews...
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Vote For Me In The 2011 WMC Social Media Award →
So kids, I’m a nominee for the 2011 Social Media Award from the Women’s Media Center. If you’ve found my blogging and online communication strategy* to be helpful/entertaining/educational/etc., cast a vote for me here!
Y’all are always asking me for website recommendations, so here’s a tip: check out the other nominees in the category. According to the Women’s Media Center, “The nominees...
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Sex Really | Are Stayover Relationships the Wave... →
What do you call it when you really like someone, spend the night together all the time, but don’t necessarily want to shack up? According to a team of University of Missouri researchers, that’s a “stayover relationship,” and it’s becoming a popular dating model for young adults …
So! This was the topic of my latest piece for SexReally.com, and I’m dying to know: has anyone heard of the term...
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September 2011
7 posts
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Mookychick | Interview With Lena Chen →
Magda Knight from the UK alternative women’s site Mookychick did an interview with me on sex blogging and feminism. Here’s a snippet on the politics of coming out:
Magda: We were really interested by something John Barrowman said recently in a Metro interview, that he felt it was totally reasonable to stay in the closet if you weren’t ready to come out for personal reasons, but he hoped...
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Rookie | I Was a Teenage Activist →
Sady Doyle interviewed me a while back for this just-published feature in Rookie, a new online publication started by Tavi Gevinson, the 15-year-old fashion blogger behind Style Rookie. Rookie is unlike anything I’ve seen for the teenage girl demographic, by which I mean that it’s actually relatable and doesn’t assume that girls need make-up tips. (How To Turn Your Life Into A Coming-Of-Age...
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AskMen.com | Dating And Race →
Check out Rachel Khona’s “Dating And Race” piece for AskMen.com. It’s chock-full of ludicrous examples from Rachel’s love life (as well as my own), all illustrating the level of ignorance that she’s encountered over the course of her dating history. Like Rachel, I’ve been mistaken for Latina (which is just … odd), and guys have made really strange...
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Publimetro | "Amigos con ventaja" podría derivar... →
Publimetro Internacional, a Chilean publication, explores the friends-with-benefits phenomenon with some commentary from yours truly. (My quotes have been translated into Spanish.) One of the other sources in the article, Professor Rebecca Plante, was the moderator at a talk I did at Cornell last year. Weird coincidence!
August 2011
4 posts
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“The Women’s Center at Harvard offers an orgasm seminar, and Harvard was the...”
– The Boston Herald, “Harvard at top of class in sex-friendly ranking”
Congrats to my alma mater!
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DC-Bound For The Progressive Women's Voices... →
Very honored to be a part of the inaugural DC class of the Progressive Women Voices program, run by the Women’s Media Center (the same folks who brought me to San Francisco this past spring). I’ll be in Washington DC from August 25th to 30th for PWV and a much-needed reunion with my best friend Kennedy :) Shoot me a line if you want to meet up!
The Women’s Media Center will host an elite women’s...
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June 2011
4 posts
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BUST Magazine | The Naked Truth →
As I mentioned, I’m doing some catch-up blogging at the moment! Here’s a much belated copy of the February/March issue of BUST Magazine, which featured me in a story by Emily McCombs about sex bloggers who have been outed or subjected to harassment as a result of their writing. I’ve already blogged quite a bit about the vicious attacks that my friends and family have suffered over the...
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"I was the Harvard Harlot" | Salon →
As promised, here’s the link to my personal essay for Salon on learning sexual shame from my sex blogging days in college. It only took an hour before I got my first “You will never find a husband comment”! That’s got to be a record, right?
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Yale In New York | Conversation With Lena Chen →
Hey Yalies in the city! I had a great time meeting y’all and chatting freelance writing this past Monday in the Lower East Side. I’m glad we were able to forget this whole school rivalry thing and just agree on the common enemy: Princeton ;)
A Conversation with freelance writer, Lena Chen. 8pm on Monday, June 6, 2011 Antibes Bistro, 112 Suffolk Street, New York
Hosted by Yale In New...
April 2011
5 posts
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WatchHere are some snippets from Ain’t I A Woman: Race In The Feminist Movement, an event organized by Morgane Richardson, Jamia Wilson, Shelby Knox, and Ileana Jimenez:
On April 11th, 2011 in Brooklyn’s Galapagos Art Space, a group of women came together to ignite a discourse about the experiences of women of color in the feminist movement and beyond. On this night, six outstanding feminists...
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Bitch Magazine | Feminist Portrait Project Blog... →
So, Women’s History Month is now officially over and we have raised just shy of $14,000 on Indie Go Go over the course of our fundraiser for Bitch Magazine. That’s amazing!
We’ve also spent the week playing host to invited bloggers from all corners of the web who have contributed to the Feminist Portrait Project’s “click” moment blog-a-thon. Don’t ask me how I organized this — I’ve been...
March 2011
7 posts
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Speaking at Brown Sex Week →
If you live in the Providence area, come check out my talk at Brown University’s Sex Week 2011. It’s a condensed version of the Rethinking Virginity conference I organized at Harvard last year, and after bringing it to students at Rutgers University and Stanford University, I’ve polished it and made it into a workshop I’m really proud of:
“Am I A Virgin If …”: Deconstructing The Myth of Sexual...
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Feminist Bloggers Convene at Harvard | The Harvard... →
Last night’s “Activism & the Feminist Blogosphere” panel (in honor of Feminist Coming Out Day) led to great discussions about the rewards and pitfalls of feminist blogging. Some takeaways:
Blogging is much more democratic than mainstream media, since it allows marginalized groups and those without the power of capital (like the teenage contributors to The FBomb) to establish a platform...
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MTV Staying Alive Campaign | International Women’s... →
I just started writing for MTV’s Staying Alive campaign, the world’s largest youth focused HIV and AIDS prevention campaign. I love the project’s use of multimedia and its global outreach. Most of my freelance clients are American and focus on issues affecting populations in English-speaking developed countries, so I’m excited for the opportunity to explore how gender inequality and health care...
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CollegeCandy | Women's History Month: 9 Inspiring... →
Never thought I’d be appearing in a list that includes Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga (who I’m seeing in concert on Tuesday!). Thanks for the shout-out, CollegeCandy. Click here to read the full piece.
Also listed are fellow Harvard alum Natalie Portman (who rocked my favorite movie of the year), my friend and fierce feminist organizer Shelby Knox, and other awesome gals.
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February 2011
6 posts
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Lena Chen on Feminist Wednesday | Vocalo.org 89.5... →
This morning, I was on Feminist Wednesday with Molly Adams and Brian Babylon on 89.5 FM in Chicago/Northwest Indiana. We talked about Feminist Coming Out Day, gender expectations, and the intersection between feminism and queer equality. If you missed it, here’s a link to the recording of our chat.
ALSO! Local listeners can win a “This Is What A Feminist Looks Like” t-shirt by becoming a fan...
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Rutgers University 2011 Sex, Love, & Dating...
This weekend, I’ll be in New Jersey to speak at the 2011 Sex, Love, & Dating Conference, taking place this Sunday on the Rutgers University Busch Campus. You can pre-register (for free!) here. Hope to see you there! I’ll be presenting for Workshop Blocks 1 and 2. These are the titles and descriptions:
”Hooking Up & Getting Down: The State of Casual Sex & The College...
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Dollmag.ca | Digitizing Feminism →
Check out my interview with the Toronto-based Dollmag.ca! I talk about the impetus behind Feminist Coming Out Day and lament the highly idealized version of sex depicted in popular culture. An excerpt:
“Real sex is sometimes messy and embarrassing and doesn’t always work out the way you planned. Treating it like it’s something that’s perfect all time (makes) people feel like there’s...