Skepticism

Women Thinking Free is no more…

When we started this organization back in 2010, we never dreamed that we’d be presenting ourselves far outside of the skeptical movement. Our goal was always to bring more women into organized skepticism, if not just to encourage women to think more critically. The Women Thinking Free, or WTF, was a name that said that we were free thinking women who didn’t take ourselves too seriously and that we had a sense of humor in our mission. As an organization with roots deep in the Skepchick community, I felt that the WTF was a name that expressed a lot of my persona, and reflected the tone of the community.

But the Women Thinking Free is growing. And we’re growing up. We’re doing more work on a national level and putting ourselves out to organizations who are less or maybe totally un-familiar with skepticism and the skeptical community. We do great work, and we intend to keep on doing that great work.  And while I loathe to take myself seriously, it is time to take my organization seriously. We have a hardworking core of board members and volunteers who work tirelessly, and they deserve to be taken seriously. And we need to tell those who don’t know us that we are an organization worth investing in and believing in. We’re not a dopey bunch of girls who don’t know what WTF means… and we’re not a group who doesn’t care how your organization will look being affiliated with “WTF”.

So we’re changing our name.

We’re still a fun group. We still don’t take ourselves too seriously. The only thing that’s changed is that we’ve realized we’ve created something good enough to present in a way that won’t be dismissed out of hand… and without having to argue over adverbs.

We are now Women Thinking, inc. See? Not a lot has changed. Just a couple of words. We’re still women. We’re still thinking. We’re just a little classier.

We also still need your help in raising funds to do all the great stuff we have planned over the next year.



So what does the Women Thinking, inc have planned? A lot of the stuff we’ve always had planned.  More vaccine clinics and plans to expand our clinics beyond skeptic and geek cons. We will be doing more outreach. Soon, we will be presenting research we’ve been working on with the James Randi Educational Foundation for the past year and a half, and we plan to use that research to create programs that will work to inform and encourage new and expecting parents to vaccinate their children.

And Sasha Pixlee is doing great work running our More Than Men project, a project to get the men of our community to speak up about why diversity matters, while encouraging and inspiring others to take action.

Right now the only roadblock we have to running more clinics and rocking our mission to save the world harder is funds. Every penny helps. Please help us out by donating to Women Thinking, Inc. 


Thank you all for making our organization so successful! We hope to keep making you proud!
(PS… a new sloth-based Hug Me theme may or may not be in the works for TAM.)
Hug Me I'm vaccinated with adorable sloth

Elyse

Elyse MoFo Anders is the bad ass behind forming the Women Thinking, inc and the superhero who launched the Hug Me! I'm Vaccinated campaign as well as podcaster emeritus, writer, slacktivist extraordinaire, cancer survivor and sometimes runs marathons for charity. You probably think she's awesome so you follow her on twitter.

Related Articles

20 Comments

  1. I’m not sure “serious” is something to always strive for. “Noticeable” probably works better when it comes to organization names. WTF created that immediate impulse look further to find out what it actually stood for. WTI might be automatically dismissed as “World Trade Institute” or something equally boring.

    Nevertheless, it is all in a good cause. Keep up the good work.

    1. Unfortunately, now that we’ve expanded beyond the world where people know who I am, WTF is not cute or funny… it’s a little obnoxious and a turn off from anyone whom we might ask for grants.

      We don’t have to BE serious to be taken seriously. There’s a difference. So… in the interest of professionalism, we have to shed a little of the silly exterior.

      But then we have sloth shirts, so it’s totally worth it.

  2. I was sad when I read the headline, until I discovered you were just leading us on. See you at TAM (well, the WTF WTinc, if you’re not there personally.)

    I don’t think I need a Tdap because I got one about 4 years ago. On the other hand, I got a hug yesterday from someone wearing a “Hug Me, I’m Vaccinated” Surly. I don’t think there’s any minimum recommended interval on hugs.

    1. It was the same with me, my heart went right into my boots for a minute!

      The same with Rebecca’s April Fool post – then I was all, “Hang on what’s the date again?”

      The Skepchicks are amazing, a real inspiration, they never give up and don’t afraid of anybody.

  3. Donation complete…..wish it could be more. Kudos to you and you gaggle of gals! Money is probably the most important contribution we can make, but if there is any need for sweat equity, please put let it be known.

  4. And donated! Have some good Aussie gold in support of the fight for logic and reason.

  5. …and for women everywhere and smack some fundies for me and get some kids vaccinated!

  6. I’m not exactly sure of the legal implications of various organisational forms, but doesn’t “[b]inc.[/b]” imply some sort of commercial interest (which would clash with the not-for-profit concept of the organisation)?

    Just wondering …

  7. Hmm, instead of Women Thinking Free = WTF, which is kind of unfortunate, I would go for Free Thinking Women = FTW – For The Win. ;)
    Still, CONGRATS and carry on!

  8. Congrats on the growth of the group!

    The name change is probably for the best, not just because of people not taking it seriously, but also because there’s already a major international organization using WTF as their logo (the World Taekwondo Federation).

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button