Bitch Media Board of Directors and National Advisory Board

Board of Directors

Jodi Heintz, Board Chair

Jodi has been building communication and public education initiatives in the social purpose sector for close to 15 years. She currently serves as Director of Marketing for a top ten national animal advocacy nonprofit. Before moving to Portland, Jodi worked in New York City on domestic and international gender equity and poverty issues. She also worked at a nonpartisan think tank at Rutgers University on public education strategies to encourage women to run for political office. In her spare time she enjoys volunteer work, hiking and snowshoeing in the Cascades, and sampling the amazing plethora of beers and wines the Pacific NW has to offer.

Claire Mysko, Vice Chair

Claire is an internationally recognized expert on body image, leadership, and media literacy. She is the author of a book for girls, You’re Amazing! A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self, and co-author of Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat? The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby. She has served as the director of the American Anorexia Bulimia Association and has held senior positions at SmartGirl and Girls Incorporated. An experienced professional skilled at inspiring audiences to take action for personal and social change, she has developed national media campaigns, acclaimed outreach programs and pioneering online communities.

Beth Hutchison, Treasurer

Beth spent the last fifteen years nurturing interdisciplinary feminist communities and teaching courses in sexuality, film and cultural policy at Rutgers University. She has also contributed to projects focused on students at risk of dropping out of school, child abuse and neglect, and drug/alcohol abuse. She is currently documenting the cultural and scientific ways that blood is gendered.

Evy Cowan, Secretary

Evy Cowan is the co-owner of She Bop, a female-friendly sex toy boutique located in Portland, Oregon. She Bop's mission is to promote healthy and safe sexuality by offering body safe, quality products and educational workshops in a fun and comfortable environment. As a graduate student and graduate teaching assistant at Oregon State University, Evy studied Women Studies and Philosophy, focusing primarily on sexuality.

Jani Iverson

Jani Iverson has more than 15 years of experience as an active member of the non-profit community where she has taken on various roles, including that of a volunteer, staff member, leader and board member.

In September 2011, Iverson became director of the Oregon Zoo Foundation, leading a team of professionals in developing fundraising strategies and cultivating support for the Oregon Zoo. She also provides strategic direction related to the zoo’s membership program of approximately 45,000 households. In collaboration with zoo leadership, Iverson is currently working with her staff on developing a multi-million dollar fundraising campaign that will transform the Oregon Zoo into the best – and greenest – zoo in the world over the next 20 years.

Prior to joining the Oregon Zoo Foundation, she spent three years as part of the Executive Transition Services team at the Nonprofit Association of Oregon where she served as an interim executive director for organizations experiencing a crisis or transition. She also spent time facilitating trainings, and consulting on organizational effectiveness and community collaboration for the Ford Family Foundation.

Before moving to Portland in 2005, Iverson was a Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa, mentoring two national NGOs that supported women’s causes and was a founding board member of the country’s first HIV/AIDS-specific organization. Prior to her Peace Corps experience, she held various senior leadership positions with Planned Parenthood of Central Washington, focusing on her passions of providing women’s health care to underserved populations and teen pregnancy prevention.

Allison Sneider

Allison is a independent historian whose research and writing focuses on the political and legal history of women (www.allisonsneider.com). Most recently, she is the author of Suffragists in an Imperial Age: U.S. Expansion and the Woman Question, 1870-1929 (Oxford: 2008). She was Associate Professor of History at Rice University before relocating to Portland and a one-time assistant editor of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers. Currently she is at work on a book about the legal history of divorce. She received her BA from Reed College in 1989 and her PHD from UCLA in 1999. One of her favorite things about relocating back to Portland is indulging her passion for dance as a member of the audience to Portland's many fabulous dance companies and an eager adult beginner.

Amanda Jarman

A lifelong nerd, Amanda is currently putting her love of data and penchant for trying to save the world to work as the director of advancement services at Portland State University. She has over 15 years of experience in the non-profit sector, mostly in fundraising. Her previous work and life experience includes fundraising for a domestic violence shelter, coordinating volunteers at a food co-op, and organizing community-based feminist art/activism events. Amanda is a frequent speaker on topics related to fundraising analytics and data management, and writes the blog Fundraising Nerd. She also serves on the board of Willamette Valley Development Officers as analytics co-chair. A passionate feminist, Amanda started reading Bitch when she picked up the second issue at a zine store many years ago. Amanda is also an avid gardener and cat lady.

Grayson Dempsey

Grayson Dempsey has spent over a decade advocating for women and families through her work in the Reproductive Justice movement. She is the Founder of Backline, a nonprofit organization that promotes connection, conversation and support around all aspects of pregnancy, parenting, abortion and adoption, and served as the organization’s President from 2003-2009. In recent years she has served as a consultant to organizations such as the Abortion Care Network, Ipas, the Abortion Access Project, OHSU, Spence-Chapin Adoption Services, Open Adoption & Family Services, the Center for Health Training and Pro Kan Do. Grayson currently works as a Childbirth Educator at OHSU and sits on the Board of Directors for The Mother PAC and The Abortion Conversation Project, as well as the Advisory Boards of Backline and Nursing Students for Choice. Grayson holds a degree in Literature and Women’s Studies from the University of Florida, and is thrilled to be merging her love of writing and feminism by serving on Bitch Media’s Board of Directors.

Arianne Cohen

Arianne Cohen loves Bitch! She is a writer and speaker, best known as the curator of The Sex Diaries Project, which collects 7-day anonymous diaries of people's private lives for book, TV and museum projects, and analyzes how people are actually living their private lives. Her most recent book is The Sex Diaries Project: What We're Saying About What We're Doing. She attended Harvard University, and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in women's studies. Her writing appears regularly in publications including the Guardian, Elle, the New York Times, and many others. She is 6'2", which motivated her to write The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life From On High. She lives in New York and Portland, OR, and is obsessed with media, strategizing far-fetched business plans, and Peeps.

Megan Shipley

Megan Shipley is a nurse-midwife (CNM) who has worked in various practice settings since she graduated from Oregon Health Sciences University in 2001 with a Masters of Science in Nursing. She holds a BS in nursing from Columbia University and a BA in history from Georgetown University. Prior to her midwifery career, Megan worked in politics on the campaign of Senator Dianne Feinstein and later as a WREI Congressional fellow in the office of Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). As a fellow, she focused on healthcare issues as well as the ERA and legislation related to equal pay. Megan is an advocate of healthcare reform and is committed to getting more women elected to public office. She lives with her husband and two children in Portland, Ore.

Kendall Youngblood

Kendall is the daughter of two artists and the mother of two daughters. She is married to a younger man, her junior by four hours. She was schooled in California, and is now de-schooling herself and un-schooling her children. Professionally, she is helping create the new energy economy by selling the idea of doing more with less. Personally, she makes time to dance ecstatically, blog autobiographically, and communicate compassionately. Bitch is an essential resource to her as she figures out how to raise the next generation of feminists.