Rebecca Traister
Author, Political & Cultural Journalist
Rebecca Traister is a senior writer at Salon.com, where she has covered women in media, politics, and entertainment since 2003. She covered, with much attention and acclaim, the 2008 campaign from a feminist (and personal) perspective. She received a huge response to her pieces on Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, the media’s coverage of the candidates, and the role of women within the media. Her book Big Girls Don't Cry is the result. It makes sense of this moment in American history, in which women broke barriers and changed the country’s narrative in completely unexpected ways.
At the podium, Traister shares her first-person account of being a young woman navigating this turbulent and exciting time while keeping track of the modernization of the women's movement and the explosion of a new generation of feminism. She explains how – thanks to the campaigns of Clinton and Palin, and the history-making work and visibility of Michelle Obama, Tina Fey, and Rachel Maddow, Katie Couric, and others – America got a powerful view of the ways and directions in which roles for women had expanded in the forty years since the second wave, as well as the limitations that remained.
An in demand speaker, Traister speaks regularly at prominent national events, including on panels at the EMILY’s List annual gathering, NARAL events, among other women’s organizations, and at events surrounding the Democratic National Convention. She is perfect for universities, town halls, in addition to other conventions, conferences, and organizations looking for an intelligent and contemporary take on feminism and its evolution in politics, media, entertainment, and society at large.
Traister has also written for a range of national publications, including a profile of a trip to Africa with Bill Clinton for Elle, the New York Times, Vogue, and a profile on Rachel Maddow for the Nation. She has appeared on CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show, and other TV and radio outlets.
Traister started out in the media as an entry level assistant at Talk magazine, and then as a fact checker at the New York Observer, where she soon became the most unwilling gossip columnist in the history of New York nightlife, before reporting on the film industry in the city. In 2003, she moved to Salon.com, where she had been hired as the Life section’s staff writer. She wound up writing so many stories from a feminist point of view, and soon her beat simply became about women.
Traister was raised outside Philadelphia, where she attended Quaker high school, and then went on to major in American Studies at Northwestern University. She lives in Brooklyn.
Interested in booking Rebecca Traister to speak at your next event?
At the podium, Traister shares her first-person account of being a young woman navigating this turbulent and exciting time while keeping track of the modernization of the women's movement and the explosion of a new generation of feminism. She explains how – thanks to the campaigns of Clinton and Palin, and the history-making work and visibility of Michelle Obama, Tina Fey, and Rachel Maddow, Katie Couric, and others – America got a powerful view of the ways and directions in which roles for women had expanded in the forty years since the second wave, as well as the limitations that remained.
An in demand speaker, Traister speaks regularly at prominent national events, including on panels at the EMILY’s List annual gathering, NARAL events, among other women’s organizations, and at events surrounding the Democratic National Convention. She is perfect for universities, town halls, in addition to other conventions, conferences, and organizations looking for an intelligent and contemporary take on feminism and its evolution in politics, media, entertainment, and society at large.
Traister has also written for a range of national publications, including a profile of a trip to Africa with Bill Clinton for Elle, the New York Times, Vogue, and a profile on Rachel Maddow for the Nation. She has appeared on CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show, and other TV and radio outlets.
Traister started out in the media as an entry level assistant at Talk magazine, and then as a fact checker at the New York Observer, where she soon became the most unwilling gossip columnist in the history of New York nightlife, before reporting on the film industry in the city. In 2003, she moved to Salon.com, where she had been hired as the Life section’s staff writer. She wound up writing so many stories from a feminist point of view, and soon her beat simply became about women.
Traister was raised outside Philadelphia, where she attended Quaker high school, and then went on to major in American Studies at Northwestern University. She lives in Brooklyn.
Interested in booking Rebecca Traister to speak at your next event?
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