I arrived in Mexico City on Saturday already worn out from a migraine and travel. As I rode in the car to the hotel I took in the sights while pondering why I was even there. I’m an academic and a blogger – why me? That night at dinner I started to understand.

During dinner we were briefed by human rights lawyers about the situation in Mexico and the women we would listen to over the next few days. Those of us in the US may think we know about the drug war. We see the headlines about kidnappings, beheadings and the lifestyles of drug lords. But we don’t know the full picture.

We needed to learn that it is not just that the drug war has gotten so violent that it has spilled out onto the streets, but rather that the Mexican government’s plan for winning the war on drugs is to send the army into the streets.

As we gathered to listen to women from different parts of Mexico at the University of Sor Juana, it was clear from the start that human rights, never mind freedom of speech, were the first casualties of the drug war. Mexico is the most dangerous place for journalists outside of Iraq. Women journalists have been murdered for writing about corruption and the impunity the army wields. One woman journalist was murdered and her body was left behind the newspaper’s office. On top of the overwhelming danger journalists — especially women journalists — face to get a story, they are then subjected to menial wages for their work. But they take the few hundred dollars a month because they know they must document what is happening.

Hearing and retelling stories is the mission of this delegation trip. We heard from mothers, sisters, nieces and representatives from organizations about the violence women face. Some organizations appear large, some were formed to address the disappearance of a few women. Maria, from Michoacán, came to tell us that nineteen young people have disappeared from her village — four of whom are her sons.

Yolanda detailed how families are left to search for loved ones on their own. She also discussed times when authorities not only ignore evidence, but destroy evidence and/or threaten the families to stop investigating.

Disappearances occur for many reasons, but the majority we heard about revolved around women and men who spoke out against injustice. A young woman from a family of bakers told of the murders of her family members, physical abuse and her own rape by authorities. Another young woman found the courage to speak of her parents’ disappearance that occurred just last month. She ended her testimony through tears with a plea for her mama to stay strong. Her parents crime? Organizing for environmental justice.

Fighting on behalf of farmers and land rights is another way to become one of the disappeared. At least two women spoke of a May 2006 incident in Atenco where women were arrested en masse, taken from their homes, and many were raped on the way to prison. Some were held in jail for 2-4 years. The women accuse a current candidate as being a responsible party to the atrocity.

This is an election year for both Mexico and the United States. This fact scares the women even more. In Mexican election years, there is a power vacuum. The current rash of violence began shortly after President Calderón came into office. He entered as a weak president and under a cloud of voter fraud. His method of showcasing his power was to empower the army to take to the streets. His drug war plan is taken straight from the plan the US has been using since the Nixon administration – attack the supply, ignore treating demand. This is where the elections in the US come into play. The US sets the stage for how the drug war plays out elsewhere.

Many of us on the delegation worried about the safety of the women testifying. Should we use their real names? Was it safe for them to speak out? The women we heard from have not much else to lose. They need to speak out on this international stage. Stories. It all comes down to stories. While some of the women spoke so fast our interpreters could barely keep up, we got the message. The government is failing the people of Mexico and hopefully the light we shine this week will help. But only if their stories are heard and retold.

This post originally appeared at Nobel Women’s Initiative. Cross-posted with permission.

As someone who has been a feminist activist in some form or another since high school, was a member of NOW and vice-president of a local chapter when I had my daughter, she knew I had keen insight. I was 28, so I was still considered a young feminist. My first National NOW board meeting had me towing my newborn along with me. I breastfed the kid as I sat next to Ellie Smeal.



But I’ve also been in conversations with fellow feminists before & after I became a mom about the flip side of hospital mergers: birthing choice and reproductive technology. But those issues fell flat. When I tried to explain that CHOICE is more than choosing NOT to be a mom, but to choose to BE a mom, it didn’t register as well as I wanted. Ditto for adoption. And this is why I told Nona that I think the pressure to BE a mom is so great on some young women that they don’t want to work on mothering issues.



As I have said at Fem2.0 and WAM! I still believe that the popular/mainstream/big mommy blogging sites are apolitical. My sisters over at MOMocrats are taking offense to the article. I can see why. But I want to say that I think that Nona was speaking to the mom blogs we see in the corporate media. The Oprah Show moms & the like. I haven’t read through all of them. I had my fill of them on Oprah.



But even if all of them were political uberfeminists, corporate media isn’t showcasing them as such. Forbes.com showcased mom blogs for Mother’s Day and not one blog they chose was described as a political blog.



Nielsen listed the top 50 power mom blogs and categorized them and guess which category was missing? Political/activist. Their piece on connection with power moms does actually use the word "political" in a graphic of what moms are talking about. And feminism was either not heard or was looked for in the mom blogosphere conversation.



Are there political/feminist moms blogging? Hell yes! Is corporate media paying attention? Nope.



We’re still riding the fumes of Mother’s Day coupled with the concern over swine flu, so mothering issues like paid sick days were hot in the past few weeks. But without a public health crisis, paid sick days wouldn’t have made more than a blip in media. In a few weeks mothering issues will be forgotten.



Does that mean I think that orgs like Moms Rising aren’t doing a good job? Oh hell no.



Do I think that orgs like NOW aren’t doing a good job with mothering issues? Considering that I’m the co-chair of the Mothers & Caregivers Economic Rights committee, oh hell no! What I do think is that given sending a TV crew to film a NOW rally on abortion versus a NOW discussion on post-partum depression, corporate media will always go with abortion. I’ve been in both situations.



And the media is what is pushing what issues are deemed "feminist" issues. Young women get their info from blogs and TV. What is discussed more often than not? Abortion, birth control and maybe lesbian rights. Those are hot button issues. They get play. BTW, I truly believe that if the media actually highlighted feminists working FOR mothers, that we’ll win it all.



I’ve read the web letters and I take part of the "blame" for exclusions in Nona’s piece. But as I said at the beginning, I focused on young feminism and what I felt were "typical" mommy blogs. We did talk about my work with NOW and my own blogging. I can’t recall if we touched on all the concerns people have brought up, but we covered a lot. I did enjoy remembering the early days of Feministe, pre-and-early-Jill, when it was run by a single mom who entered motherhood as a teenager. Lauren rocked my socks off with her feminist take on single teenage motherhood.



That said, I still stand by the premise that there is a disconnect between the more popular feminist blogs and the more popular mom blogs. Every now and then there is a connection. And those blogs like PunditMom, who is a dear friend, are not getting the play they deserve. If anyone deserved to be listed in a Top 50 feminist or mom blog list, she does. And that is just my point.



If the connections are to be made, we need to reach out both ways. Young feminist blogs need to link to mom blogs more often and vice versa. As Nona writes over at Feministing’s community site:


I know that young women and feminists care about these issues. My article (and Feministing) proves that. I also know that there are feminist/political moms out there. Still, parenting organizations who are under the media’s feminist radar but instituting real change need to align themselves with younger feminist blogs and organizations that get more face time. And vice versa. They should be linking each other, Twittering each other, and inviting each other to conferences. There needs to be groups like the MOMocrats that includes and speaks to non-moms, too. Young women need to not only comment on, but be engaged with these issues—and connect them to issues of abortion and birth control. It’s always hard to take action on issues that don’t directly affect you, but childless young feminists need to secure their futures.

I hope that this controversy ignites the connections I’ve been hoping for since I started blogging. The Dawns and PunditMoms of the blogosphere need to be recognized alongside the Jessicas and Jills. None are more awesome than the other. Each have their audience. But together? OMFG, together we would totally have world domination…with PunditMom in charge, of course.

Cross-posted from Viva La Feminista.

Somehow, I still don’t remember how it happened, I received an email from a new organization, Women Leaders Online (WLO). This email talked about how the Republicans had out-organized liberals and, as a response, they would send out a weekly email newsletter updating us on what the Republicans were doing in Congress. This was early 1995 — before you could get text messages of anything you wanted. The idea of a newsletter to keep us up on what was happening in Washington, DC was awesome! I started to print out the newsletter to share with classmates and my then-boyfriend, now-husband. Soon a list-serv for WLO began and that, my friends, is when online organizing ate me whole.

On this list I met an abortion provider in Arkansas, a college professor who escorted patients outside of Dr. Tiller’s Wichita clinic, a woman who helped write the Violence Against Women Act, and many more wonderfully feminist women and men. I also met Jennifer Pozner, who would become the executive director of Women In Media & News, where I serve on the board of directors. While the organization, WLO, is no longer around, our listserv keeps on going.

We’re been through Monica, Florida, Ohio and Hillary vs. Barack. We’ve mourned lives lost to terrorist attacks by fundamental Islamists as well as by Christian anti-abortionists. We’ve lost members to death and welcomed babies into our online family.

Through the flurry of emails I learned how to get out the vote, lobby, write letters to elected officials and countless other organizing tips from feminists who had been doing it well before I was born. It was and still is an honor to learn grassroots organizing methods and, especially, to be in the conversation about how to adapt them to the evolving technology.

That evolution obviously keeps on moving and as feminists we need to keep adapting or we risk being left behind, as people are drawn to organizations without a feminist focus but are using social networks to get laws passed and people elected. That’s why I am looking forward to attending Fem2.0.

This groundbreaking and some might say overdue conference will gather some of the best grassroots organizers with the savviest of online networkers in one place for one day with one goal: how do we learn from each other in order to take feminist activism to the next level AND bring more people out in our local communities? This is almost as exciting then when I finally figured out how to post to newsgroups.

Veronica I. Arreola is a founding board member of Women In Media & News and owner of Viva la Feminista, a blog about her experience of living at the intersection of feminism and motherhood.