Feminista Jones is a feminist writer, public speaker, community activist and retired social worker. Twice named one of the top 100 most influential people in Philadelphia and named one of the top 50 feminists in the world, Femnista Jones is a feminist thought leader and social media influencer honored for online activism.
This is a hybrid event. Attendees can join the event in person in the Gould Auditorium or virtually via a livestream on this webpage. For questions about this event, please contact edi-events@utah.edu.
This event is part of Women’s Week: February 27 – March 3, 2023.
Women’s Week is an annual, weeklong event focused on gendered issues and challenges faced in today’s socioeconomic and political climate, intersectionality, and cultural movements. Women’s Week 2023 events will investigate when public policy becomes personal, and explore what this means for us as individuals, citizens, and participants in a diverse democracy.
Women’s Week 2023 is planned in partnership with various organizations across the University of Utah and sponsored by 
Feminista Jones is a feminist writer, public speaker, community activist and retired social worker. She is an award-winning writer and the author of the critically acclaimed Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World From the Tweets to the Streets (Beacon). Her work centers around diversity, equity and inclusion, critical race theory, intersectionality, mental health, queer identity and social work. She teaches courses on race, gender and LGBTQ experiences at Temple University.
Jones’ passion and talent for writing have led to her being featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Essence, Out, Complex, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Salon, and EBONY magazine to name a few publications. She currently operates her own subscription-based platform and contributes to various publications as a freelancer and commissioned writer. She’s also been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Because of her work, Jones has been extensively featured in publications around the world, including The Boston Globe, Detroit Free Press, Huffpost, Jet magazine, Ms., The New York Times, NBC News, Newsweek, NPR, The Washington Post, USA Today and The Intercept.
Since 2013, Jones has presented and lectured at various colleges and universities, including Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Boston University, UC Berkeley and The University of Pennsylvania. Represented by APB, Jones is a highly sought-after lecturer, panelist and keynote speaker for major conferences and has been a featured speaker at several, including Stanford’s Online Feminism Conference, Drexel’s Racism in Medicine Conference, the Society for Social Work and Research Conference, Netroots Nation, SXSW, BlogHer, Woodhull Freedom Summit, and more. In 2018, she was honored to give the Baccalaureate speech during Vassar College’s Commencement weekend.
In 2014, she launched a global anti-street harassment campaign (#YouOKSis) and a National Moment of Silence protesting police brutality (#NMOS14), both of which received international media attention. That year, she was named one of the Top 100 Black Social Influencers by The Root. In 2015, she co-founded and served as General Director of the
Women’s Freedom Conference, the first all-digital conference completely organized by and featuring only Women of Color. For her work, she was named one of SheKnows 2015 “Voices of the Year”. In 2017, Jones was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Philadelphia by Philadelphia magazine and was later featured in Philadelphia Style magazine for her community work. In 2020, Jones was named one of the “Bitch 50”, honoring the work of feminist women around the world and one of the 76 Most Influential People in Philadelphia.
In 2019, Jones joined two of her closest friends to create Black Girl Missing, a true-crime podcast that focuses on the stories of missing African American girls in the United States. Jones is also a mom, an organizational leadership, management, culture, and diversity consultant, a mentor to young girls and women, a Ph.D. student at Temple University and an outspoken advocate for the homeless, people living in poverty and those living with psychiatric disabilities.