Amy Richards

Amy Richards (born ca. 1971) is an American activist, writer, organizer, feminist and art historian. She graduated from Barnard College in 1992. Richards has appeared in Fox’s The O'Reilly Factor, Oprah, Talk of the Nation, New York One and on CNN.

After graduating cum laude from Barnard College in 1992 with a degree in Art History, Amy Richards embarked on an unexpected career as a feminist activist, writer, and organizer. What began as a summer project, Freedom Summer ’92, a cross-country voter registration drive, eventually led Amy to co-found the Third Wave Foundation, a national organization for young feminist activists between the ages of 15 and 30. Amy’s launched her as a primary spokesperson and leading voice for young feminist issues and for the past fifteen years Amy has assumed that role by lecturing at hundreds of venues, writing books and articles about feminism today, and making numerous media appearances all in an attempt to confirm that younger people are making bold and transformative contributions to their communities.

Amy is most popularly known as the author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (co-authored with Jennifer Baumgardner and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2000 with an anniversary and updated edition published in 2010) and as the voice behind Ask Amy, the online advice column she has run at feminist.com since 1995. Amy is also the author of Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, about feminism and motherhood, and the co-author of Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism. Amy’s writings have appeared in The Nation, The LA Times, Bust, Ms. and numerous anthologies, including Listen Up, Body Outlaws and Catching A Wave—where she has tackled issues ranging from plastic surgery to abortion politics. Amy was also the author of Insight Guides: Shopping in New York City. She also authored "When One is Enough", about her experience becoming pregnant with triplets, and deciding to terminate two of them, giving birth to the third. She and Marianne Schnall contributed the piece "Cyberfeminism: Networking the Net" to the 2003 anthology Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium, edited by Robin Morgan.

Amy has appeared in a range of media venues including Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor, Oprah, Talk of the Nation, New York One and CNN. Amy was first publicly distinguished as a leader in 1995 when Who Cares magazine chose her as one of twenty-five Young Visionaries. She has gone on to win accolades from Ms. magazine, which profiled her in "21 for the 21st: Leaders for the Next Century,” Women’s Enews, which in 2003 named her one of their “Leaders for the 21st Century,” the American Association of University Women, which chose her as a 2004 Woman of Distinction, and her alma mater, Barnard College, which honored her for her achievements in 2007.