Monday, July 9, 2012

On Doing "Good Work": Take-Aways from Feminist Brunch

Last weekend, my friends, Lucy and Carolyn, organized a small "feminist brunch" for a few of us politically minded women in our mid-twenties.  The agenda of the morning was clear: eat delicious assorted breakfast foods, drink mimosas, and talk social justice shop.  

We arrived early on Saturday morning, passions and appetites ablaze.  Over the next 3 hours, the four of us talked about everything from national news to trashy literature to community development.   If I had to summarize our unwieldy conversation--- which, oddly enough, never really landed on anything explicitly feminist-- I would say it revolved around what it takes to do "good work" in the world, and the specific personal and organizational challenges to pursuing this work {NOTE: I broadly define “good work,” as any related to social services, non-profits, research used for social benefit, urban planning, socially progressive policy/politics, etc.}

Before I begin, I must note that my friends and I are blessed to have options that are not available to everyone, and certainly were not available to women of previous generations.  However, we do face obstacles to doing the work for which we are passionate and must develop specific responses to address them.  This is what I write about today.

With that said, I want to present some take-aways from the morning: