Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte
Amanda Marcotte in May 2013
Born	Amanda Marie Marcotte (1977-09-02) September 2, 1977 El Paso, Texas
Occupation	Blogger
Citizenship	American
Alma mater	St. Edward's University
Subject	Feminism, politics
Partner	Marc Faletti

Amanda Marie Marcotte (born September 2, 1977) is an American blogger who writes on feminism and politics from a radical leftist perspective. Marcotte has written for several online publications, including Slate, The Guardian, and Salon, where she is currently senior politics writer.

Early life

Born in El Paso, Texas, Marcotte was raised in the small town of Alpine in the west of the state. She graduated from St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas with a degree in English literature. Around 2004, she began writing for the liberal blog Pandagon.net, then later for Slate and The Guardian.

In 2004 she won a Koufax Award for her "Mouse Words" blog.

Writing and activism in 2007

Time magazine described her in early February 2007 as "an outspoken voice of the left," and said "there is a welcome wonkishness to Marcotte, who, unlike some star bloggers, is not afraid to parse policy with her readers." Time also described Marcotte's blogging as "provocative and profanity-laced."

On January 30, 2007, the John Edwards 2008 presidential campaign hired Marcotte to act as the campaign's blogmaster. She was soon criticized for her previous work. The campaign responded that, while Edwards was "personally offended" by some of Marcotte's remarks, her job as their blogmaster was secure.

In January 2007, Marcotte wrote controversial statements about the Duke lacrosse case, including that people who defended the accused were "rape-loving scum". A few months before all charges were dropped in the case, on a blog post titled "Stuck at the airport again....." Marcotte wrote in part, "Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair." The post attracted criticism, including from The New York Times. Cathy Young described Marcotte as a leader of a "cyber-lynch mob," writing that, "in Marcotte's eyes, the real crime of the independent feminists is helping preserve the idea that the presumption of innocence applies even in cases of rape and sexual assault." Marcotte later deleted the post.

On February 12, 2007, the Catholic League called Marcotte's review of the film Children of Men "anti-Christian". Later the same day, Marcotte announced that she had resigned from the Edwards campaign, accusing Bill Donohue of a sexist perspective in the calls for her resignation. She returned to her work on other blogs. In an article for Salon a few days later, she said the reaction to her comments on the Duke lacrosse case was the first in a series of "shitstorms" that had prompted her to resign from the campaign.

Activities since 2008

Marcotte's writing around 2013 included articles on the treatment of women in the secular and skepticism movements, issues surrounding reproductive health, and the efforts to limit access to reproductive health services in the United States. She has written opinion pieces on ways to promote healthy sexual behavior.

In 2014, Marcotte criticized journalists who investigated and helped debunk gang rape allegations from Rolling Stone's "A Rape on Campus" story, which was later discredited and retracted. She wrote of those who questioned the details, "it’s really time for people to understand that rape denialism is like Holocaust denialism: a broad refusal to face reality", a comment that the Daily Beast called "Reductio ad Hitlerum" She later argued on the Huffington Post Live that discrepancies were due to trauma-related memory loss and that Jackie may have been raped at a different fraternity. When Rolling Stone apologized for errors in its reporting, Marcotte tweeted "interesting that rape apologists think that if they can ‘discredit’ one rape story, that means no other rape stories can be true, either". Lizzie Crocker from the Daily Beast cited Marcotte's statement as an example of shifting "focus to how “rape apologists” will greet the news of Rolling Stone’s admission of their report’s shortcomings, while still believing Jackie’s story"

Marcotte currently blogs at The Raw Story, contributes to Slate, The Guardian, Salon, and does a weekly podcast called RH Reality Cast.

Marcotte has given presentations at Skepticon, SXSWIII, Women In Secularism 2, and SkepchickCON. She is on the speakers bureau of the Secular Student Alliance.

Marcotte is the author of It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments (2008) and Get Opinionated (2010).

External links

• Pandagon blog
• Amanda Marcotte's author page at Slate