Happy New Year – And Happy Voting!

On behalf of everyone here at The Dawn Chorus, happy New Year and thanks for becoming a part of our first “year” in earnest. We’ve shone the Australian feminist spotlight on everything from underage female bodybuilders to hypocritical gymnastics coaches, airbrushing in political campaigning to dressing for your sex (or lack thereof), not to mention ongoing coverage of reproductive rights, violence against women, media sexism – and, because we’re not just angry all the time, the amazing feminists making a difference throughout the world and the women we love.

Now, if you look to the right-hand side of the page, you’ll notice a new little banner – yes, in just six months of posting, The Dawn Chorus has been nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award for Best Australian or New Zealand Blog! Voting opens today (January 5th) and continues until the weekend, and since we would very much like to be able to thank the academy, VOTE! You can do so once each day for the duration of the voting period. Encourage your friends and family to vote! Re-blog the banner, email out, send postcards, whatever!

Let’s make 2009 a feminist spectacular, and here’s to two-thousand-and-fiiiiiine!

Why Yes, We Did Do Something With Our Hair

Thanks to all of our fantastic readers for filling out our recent survey; it was great to learn a little more about who you are and what you want from the site – the best bit was seeing that not a single person thought feminism was dead, and reading everyone’s eloquent discussions of their favourite feminist icons and passionate arguments as to why feminism is still needed.

Over the next month or so we’ll be rolling out some changes around here, including a real domain name and – eventually – a move to a server where we can get jiggy (sorry) with a proper redesign and better site functionality.

In the meantime, we’ve switched to an easier-to-read layout and look forward to bringing you more and more fresh Australian feminist thought on a daily basis. As, always, feel free to keep in touch and keep letting us know what you want from the site. What’s ours is yours!

Getting To Know You

The Dawn Chorus will be growing bigger and better over the next month, and we’d like to know what you want to see on the site (and what you don’t!) and a whole mess of other information about you, so we can tailor the site to keep our readers happy.

So, we’d like you to take a few minutes to answer some survey questions about the site, the feminist web, and yourself. Don’t worry, we don’t want to know how much you earn, where you live or what dunny paper you use, and we’re not going to sell your 0s and 1s to any corporations; we just want to know who you are and why you come here!

Ready? Take us there, Mr Sulu!

A Note From The Editor

Just a brief note this morning to say a hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY to The Dawn Chorus’ most excellent Contributing Editor and all ’round tops chick Mel. To celebrate, why not reacquaint yourself with some of the amazing pieces she’s written for the blog?

Happy birthday, Mel!

Announcement: Meet The Team!

After a good month of posting, I feel it’s time to formally introduce you to the team of diverse and inspiring women who make The Dawn Chorus the multifaceted wonder that it has grown to be.

If you look up the top, you will see a new tab entitled ‘The Chorus‘ – click on that to learn a little bit about each of the Dawn Choristers and what makes them tick, feministically speaking (and yes, I just made that word up).

The Dawn Chorus team is not a royal “we”; each post is infused with the individual feminist stance of the post’s writer – though just like the dawn chorus that inspired us, we may be singing different parts, but they harmonise and come together to create one powerful whole.

Anyway, I’ll leave the school choir metaphors for now, and hope you enjoy getting to know your fellow Choristers a little better. I for one am proud to call them my colleagues!

x Clem

Be Our Fan!

Because here at The Dawn Chorus we spend too much time on Facebook are totally hip with the taste of a new generation, you can now be our “fan” on Facebook!

Check out the page and add us here, and then tell all your friends! And then GET BACK TO WORK. (Only kidding.)