Honoring an extraordinary feminist activist and intellectual working in the US
Ann Barr Snitow (1943–2019) was a much-loved feminist writer, political activist, teacher, and co-instigator of groundbreaking feminist organizations including No More Nice Girls and the Network of East-West Women. Her death leaves an immense hole in a world that needs strong, original feminist voices and visions. The Ann Snitow Prize was established to carry on Ann’s legacy.
Nominations are now closed for the 2021 award.
Organized by her friends and admirers, the Prize is an award of $10,000 to a person of extraordinary vision, originality, generosity, and accomplishment who is currently engaged in work that combines feminist intellectual and/or artistic pursuits with social justice activism. The Prize will exist for ten years and be retired. Ann did not wish that her namesake prize—or she—become a monument.
“For better and worse, feminism is not a consistent ideology promising knowable ends or a panacea applicable in all situations,” wrote Ann in The Feminism of Uncertainty, the book—and the phrase—that defined her worldview. “I believe feminism has great longevity, but only if it is a continuous shape-changer, capable of responding to new conditions and expectations.”
For Ann, feminism was disruptive and dangerous. It spoke for freedom and resisted all oppressions. And it brimmed, as should life, with pleasure.