"Feminist Evangelist" Jessica Valenti Kicks Off Lebanon Valley College Gender Colloquium Series

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Author Jessica Valenti presents “The Purity Myth: Sex, Activism, and Battling Misogyny” Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. in Lebanon Valley College's Zimmerman Recital Hall

ANNVILLE, PA (08/26/2014)(readMedia)-- Author and self-proclaimed "feminist evangelist" Jessica Valenti is the first keynote speaker in Lebanon Valley College's 2014-2015 Gender Colloquium Series. Valenti's public lecture, "The Purity Myth: Sex, Activism, and Battling Misogyny," will be Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. in Zimmerman Recital Hall of the Suzanne H. Arnold Gallery.

Valenti-called one of the Top 100 Inspiring Women in the world by The Guardian-is the author of four books on feminism, politics and culture. Her third book, "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women," won the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Award and was made into a documentary by the Media Education Foundation. She is also editor of the anthology "Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape," which was named one of Publishers Weekly's Top 100 Books of 2009. Her latest book, "Why Have Kids: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness," was called a "brave and bracing critique of our unrealistic parenting ideals" by ELLE magazine.

Jessica founded Feministing.com, which Columbia Journalism Review called "head and shoulders above almost any writing on women's issues in mainstream media." Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian (UK), The American Prospect, Ms. magazine, Salon and Bitch magazine. She has won an IBIS Reproductive Health Evidence in Activism Award, a Choice USA Generation award and the 2011 Hillman Journalism Prize for her work with Feministing.

Gender actively and passively shapes our shared destinies. More than an idea, its practice and performance unfold within the constellations of biology and culture, bodies and institutions. In the face of powerful social conventions and the culturally constructed binaries of "male" and "female," "masculine" and "feminine," the complexities of gender challenge us to think beyond the genus, to reach beyond the type and category, and to step into the spectrum of being and becoming. More information and a complete schedule of Gender Colloquium speakers and films is available at www.lvc.edu/colloquium.