The feminist blogosphere has exploded over the past few years, in both size and influence. At the 2011 Women, Action and the Media (WAM!) New York City conference, some of the leading voices in this online space for women weighed in on what the growth of the feminist blogosphere means for the online activist community and for media in general. Moderated by The Nation’s web editor, Emily Douglas, the panel featured bloggers Lori Adelman, Irin Carmon, Amanda Marcotte and Andrea Plaid.

The bloggers describe the growing presence of online pieces written by women that cover topics relating to women’s issues as a new era of female journalism. In the absence of the institutional barriers of traditional journalism, the Internet has opened up the media to a wider spectrum of women’s voices than ever before.

“It’s not just trying to promote our own views and get them out to bigger audiences. Its also just being a platform for people whose voices are not heard, or who are used to being spoken for in these arenas," Adelman says. "The time is over for that. We speak for ourselves now."

—Sara Jerving