Valenti is an American blogger and feminist writer, founder of the Feministing blog in 2004. She is the author or co-author of six books on women's issues: Full Frontal Feminism, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape with Jaclyn Friedman, He's a Stud, She's a Slut, The Purity Myth, Why Have Kids?, and Sex Object: A Memoir.
In "What Does a Lifetime of Leers Do to Us", published in the New York Times, Valenti talks about rape threats, being called a whore, and other par for the course experiences of women, particularly those who speak up. Her commute to school in junior high and high school became a time when it was not unusual for a man to grope or flash her. "Today one of the more unpleasant parts of my job writing and talking about feminism is dealing with online harassment -- a now-common side effect of writing online while female. . . . For me, it's not one particular message or adolescent incident that bothers me; it's the weight of years of multiple messages and multiple incidents. It's the knowledge that this will never be just one day, just one message, just on hateful person. It's a chipping away of my sense of safety and my sense of self. I have a 5-year old daughter now. I want to prepare her for the inevitable leers and slights without making her fearful. I want to help her become the person she is meant to be, the person she'd form into with out the influence of misogyny. . . . We still have no good way to explain to young women and girls that they need to brace themselves for years of feeling like an object. . . . It's a problem that should have a name."
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