So What Do You Do, Vanessa Valenti, Co-founder of Feministing.com and Fresh Speakers?

The social entrepreneur talks mixing business with passion, paying it forward and, of course, that viral street-harassment video.

Vanessa-Valenti-article
Women have always had a voice. What we haven’t always had is a platform to use it, not a ready-made one anyway. In 2004, Vanessa Valenti and her sister, Jessica Valenti, launched Feministing.com, pulling from women’s legacy of activism, remixing it with a digital interface and providing a media mouthpiece for the gender-equality dialogue.

The site became the largest online feminist community in the world, with its diverse treatments of and approaches to womanhood. Valenti, who spent nearly 10 years as Feministing’s managing editor, operates on an advisory status to the three-person staff now in charge.

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