Jennifer Baumgardner

Jennifer Baumgardner, the 2024-2025 Lakes Writer-in-Residence at Smith College, is a writer, editor, activist, filmmaker, and speaker.

In 1993, Jennifer took a midnight train from Fargo to New York City to take an unpaid internship at Ms. She’d just graduated college (English, B.A., Lawrence University) and soon graduated from intern to assistant to editor. After five years at Ms. magazine, Baumgardner began writing for publications including Glamour, Teen Vogue, Bust, Dissent, Harper’s Bazaar, Harper’s, The Nation, Elle, New York Times, and n+1.

She is the founder and publisher of Dottir Press, a woman-owned feminist imprint that produces works by and about feminism and publishes LIBER: A Feminist Review. She is also the author of several books on contemporary feminism, including "Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics" (FSG, 2007; a Lambda finalist) and "Abortion & Life" (Akashic, 2008). With Amy Richards, she co-authored the best-selling "Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future" and "Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism". Other books include "F ‘em! Goo Goo, Gaga, and Some Thoughts on Balls" (Seal, 2011) and "Feminism in the Nineties" (Audible Original, 2020).

As a producer, Baumgardner created two feature-length documentaries, It Was Rape and I Had an Abortion, the I Had an Abortion Project and, with Katie Cappiello, the national tours of SLUT: The Play and Now That We’re Men (written by Cappiello).

Baumgardner has served as writer-in-residence at The New School (2008-12), executive director of the Feminist Press at CUNY (2013-17), and editor in chief of the Women’s Review of Books at Wellesley (2018-22), as co-founder of Soapbox, Inc. speaker’s bureau and of Feminist Camp. As a speaker, she has keynoted at more than 300 universities.

She’s been honored by InStyle magazine, Jezebel, the Feminist Press, the Feminist Women's Health Center of Atlanta, and her alma mater. The Commonwealth Club of California honored her in their centennial year as a “Visionary for the 21st Century,” commenting that “in her role as author and activist, [Baumgardner has] permanently changed the way people think about feminism…and will shape the next 100 years of politics and culture.”