Amy Richards

Amelia Richards (born February 9, 1970) is an American activist, organizer, writer, television producer, feminist, and art historian, currently residing in New York.^[1] She produced the Emmy-nominated series Woman, which airs on Viceland.^[2] She is the president of Soapbox, Inc., a feminist lecture agency.^[2]

Richards was born on February 9, 1970, in Alexandria, Virginia, to Albert Wentz and Karen Richards.^[3] She grew up in Pennsylvania.^[3] Her father, Wentz, was not a part of her life.^[3] She attended Tabor Academy, a private boarding school in Marion, Massachusetts.^[3] After graduating high school from Tabor, she graduated cum laude from Barnard College with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History in 1992.^[3] She was an NCAA Division I soccer player at Barnard.^[2] She is also a four-time marathon runner.^[2]

Richards became involved in a summer project, Freedom Summer '92, a cross-country voter registration drive.^[3] She co-wrote Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future with Jennifer Baumgardner.^[2] The book was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2000 with an anniversary and updated edition published in 2010.^[2] She authored Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, about feminism and motherhood, and is a co-author of Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism.^[2] She wrote Insight Guides: Shopping in New York City.^[2] She also wrote the article "LIVES; When One is Enough", about her experience becoming pregnant with triplets, and deciding to terminate two of them, giving birth to the third.^[2] She and Marianne Schnall contributed the piece "Cyberfeminism: Networking the Net" to the 2003 anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium, edited by Robin Morgan.^[2] Her writing has appeared in The Nation, The LA Times, Bust, Ms., and numerous anthologies, including Listen Up, Body Outlaws and Catching A Wave.^[2] She has tackled issues ranging from plastic surgery to abortion politics.^[2] She was the interim project director for Twilight: Los Angeles by Anna Deavere Smith.^[2] She is also the editor of I Still Believe Anita Hill, a collection of essays featuring Eve Ensler, Catharine MacKinnon, Lynn Nottage and others.^[2]

She is the voice to "Ask Amy", an online advice column she has run at feminist.com since 1995.^[2] She produced Viceland's Woman, as well as being a consulting producer for Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words for HBO and an advisor on MAKERS: Women Making America, a PBS documentary on the women's movement.^[2]

Richards is a co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation, which is now known as the Third Wave Fund, a national organization for young feminist activists between the ages of 15 and 30.^[2] The Third Wave Fund co-founded by Richards promotes gender justice, a movement to end patriarchy, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny.

In July 2002, she co-founded and became president of Soapbox Inc., an organization based on feminism.^[1] She served as a cultural attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Russia, consulting on women’s issues.^[2] She has been a long-time consultant to Gloria Steinem and Anna Deavere Smith, as well as the Columbia School of Public Health among other places.^[1][4] She serves on the boards and advisory boards of organizations such as Sadie Nash Leadership Project and Chicken & Egg Productions, feminist.com, Ms. Magazine, and Fair Fund.^[1][2] She is an abortion rights activist, having terminated the pregnancy of her twins within a pregnancy where she was expecting triplets.^[5]

• Baumgardner, Jennifer; Amy Richards (2000). ManifestA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.^[2]
• Baumgardner, Jennifer; Amy Richards (2005). Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.^[2]
• Richards, Amy (2008). Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.^[2]

• Soapbox profile
• Third Wave Fund Profile^[1]