While some AWJers stayed in Chicago that last weekend of March, enduring rainy weather, some of us venturing out to talk tech at Ann Sather's, some friends and colleagues from Chicago--Christine Cupaiuolo, Kelly Virella, Cassandra West, Alice Kim, Marcia Lythcott, Zaida Sanabia, Sarah Haskins and Veronica Arreola, a self-professed professional feminist, mom, writer, Latina, ScienceGrrl, blogger and director of UIC's Women in Science and Engineering Program--were in Boston with other media-minded women, and some men, strategizing on how to get women's and girls' voices more fully heard in mainstream, independent, and alternative media.

Veronica Arreola offers her perspective.

One reason I like attending the Women, Action and the Media conference (WAM!) is that it's a place where everyone genuinely wants to learn from each other. Journalists, bloggers, activists and media makers converged on the MIT campus March 27-29 to discuss issues around rape, mothering while being an artist and an activist, blogging for payment/swag and other concerns regarding women's perspectives.

WAM! got off to a serious start with an opening keynote on international journalism. Three women, one each from Iraq, Columbia, and Zimbabwe, talked of being insiders, but also outsiders in their homelands. Their strength and courage to speak about their experience reporting from the front lines of war and civil unrest was breathtaking. These women helped the mostly American WAM! audience view their own media from the outside. Huda Ahmed talked about how American media were too quick to label Iraqis by either Sunni or Shia. Peta Thornycroft of Zimbabwe, warned of being so happy to get one bad leader out of office that journalists regressed to sunshine reporting. Jenny Manrique Cortes of Columbia talked of self-care for journalists as many are covering difficult issues.

Saturday was a flurry of panels, workshops and film viewing. I presented on a panel with Diane Farsetta, of the Center for Media and Democracy and Joanne Bamberger of Pundit Mom about blogging and how marketing and public relation firms have been pitching bloggers products and trips. The intensity of this practice has increased without much discussion about the ethics of transparency or even if it should be done. We also discussed that some are left out of the great blog giveaways as they don't appear to be the target audience of companies.

I also sat on a panel about feminist blogging and how we have evolved over the past year. Cynematic of the MOMocrats blog, Jennifer L. Pozner of Women in Media & News and myself talked about mommy bloggers finding their political voice, the feminist blogosphere's reactions to the racism and sexism in the Presidential election and where feminist blogging has influenced corporate media reporting.

When I was able to actually attend panels, I started off with a Chicago heavy panel, "Got Democracy? Media and Movements" where Alice Kim and Cassandra West were joined by Barbara Becnel and Liliana Segura. I only stayed for Cassandra's comments which were impressive. She talked about seeing the signs early on that print media was in trouble and that is why she got out early. She urged the audience to find new ways of getting our messages out and to create new venues for those messages.

I then panel hopped over to "The Other Glass Ceiling: We had a woman candidate, but where are the women in the political media?" with Mikki Halpin, Rebecca Traister of Salon and Lisa Stone of Blogher.com. The debate was not just between the three panelists on how media outlets cover women candidates, but also between the panel and the audience. Feminism, Michelle Obama's arms, and everything between was a point of contention.

Saturday night was capped off with a lesson by Chicagoan Sarah Haskins of "Target: Women" on how to create our own "Target: Women" episode. She was hilarious and gracious during the Q&A.

Sunday I got up early to attend "Hip Hop, Motherhood and Social Justice" with Jeannine Cook, DJ L’Oqenz, Sasa Ynoa and Sham-e-Ali al-Jamil. This panel focused on talking about how these three accomplished artists incorporate motherhood into their work. Two of the presenters had their children with them at WAM! as well. A discussion of how to get feminists to take up more mom/family issues as well as the need for childcare at conferences ensued.

The last panel I attended was "Women & the Economic Crisis: Getting Beyond the Corporate Media Narrative" with Julia Hollar, Susan Feiner, Abby Sher and Darleen Lambos. Most of the WAM! panels were videotaped and will eventually be uploaded for viewing online. This is the panel I cannot wait to watch. It was enlightening in how well each of the panelists took complex economic ideas and translated them into plain speak. By the end of the panel most of the audience was Twittering plans for a tax revolution.

The closing acts was not just a close, but also as a call to action to all attendees to do something with the information learned, the connections made and make the A in WAM! mean something. The next WAM! is scheduled for April 1-4, 2010 here in Chicago.

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If you are interested in learning how you can support WAM! 2010, please email Veronica Arreola at veronica.arreola@gmail.com. There's a May 11 planning meeting in the works.

Former AWJ-Chicago VP for Print, Tracy Van Slyke, director of The Media Consortium, co-editor of Build the Echo, was also at WAM! 2009.