In reflecting on Women’s History Month, we have invited some Mennonite/Mennonear (near to Mennonite) women to share with us their concerns and hopes about women. Today, we’re joined by Stephanie Krehbiel of Into Account, Renee Kanagy, pastor of Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship, Rachel Epp Buller, professor of visual art and design at Bethel Collge and the author or editor of Reconciling Art and Mothering; Mothering Mennonite; and Alice Lex-Nerlinger: Fotomonteurin und Malerin / Photomontage Artist and Painter, and Regina Shands Stoltzfus, professor of Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies at Goshen College and co-author of Set Free: A Journey Toward Solidarity Against Racism. Here, each answers the question “Who should we be reading, listening to, and following on social media?”

I hope you are encouraged by what they share here–and that you take their advice and find some new folks to follow on social media!–RB-F

Stephanie Krehbiel: Wagatwe Wanjuki is my go-to source for commentary on current events related to sexual violence. She’s a writer and activist and rose to national prominence by taking on George Will of the Washington Post over his rape apologism. She’s as incisive and as badass as activists come. Also, she loves bunnies.  If you want to stay on top of Title IX-related developments, I recommend following the nonprofit legal organization Survjustice, and its founder, Laura Dunn. They’re currently suing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over her dismantling of Title IX regulations.

Renee Kanagy: The Women in Leadership Project  highlights women in their teens to elderhood.  Following it illuminates the beautiful particularity of women around Mennonite Church USA who are creative and bold leaders.

I also urge everyone to read the recent The Mennonite article covering the first conference in the United States highlighting scholarship of Mennonites complicit response to Nazism and anti-Semitism. We need to tell the truth. Doris L. Bergen, the keynote speaker, wrote the textbook on the subject. This is a woman writing about the silenced stories. [Editor’s addition: Check out the blog Anabaptist Historians for excellent engagement with this conference.]

Rachel Epp Buller: I highly recommend the writers of the Nursing Clio blog. It is an open access, peer-reviewed, collaborative blog focusing on gender and medicine in a way that connects historical scholarship to contemporary issues. As the website for the blog notes,” Bodies, reproductive rights, and health care are often at the center of social, cultural, and political debates. We believe the issues that dominate today’s headlines and affect our daily lives reach far back into the past — that the personal is historical.”  I wrote for Nursing Clio for a few years in its early days, but throughout its existence, I’ve been continually impressed at the hard-hitting, relevant, feminist historical scholarship put out by these authors on a weekly basis. Over the years, many of the contributors have been graduate students, and they are leading the way in utilizing a digital platform to connect historical and contemporary issues.

Regina Shands Stoltzfus: Definitely Stacey Patton.  She is a professor of multimedia journalism who writes, among many other things, about race and violence.  An adoptee and survivor of child abuse, Patton challenges the presumed necessity, by many, of corporal punishment. Her research on violence against African American children is currently focused on child lynching victims.

Above, Wanjuke, Dunn, and Patton.