Presented by:

San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women

San Mateo County
Health Department

Peggy Orenstein

Peggy Orenstein is the author, most recently, of the memoir, Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, An Oscar, An Atomic Bomb, A Romantic Night and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother (Bloomsbury USA). An internationally recognized writer, editor and speaker about issues affecting girls and women, her previous books include Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Kids, Love and Life in a Half-Changed World (Doubleday/Anchor), and the best-selling SchoolGirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap (Doubleday/Anchor). A contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, Orenstein has also written for such publications as Vogue, Elle, Discover, More, Glamour, Mother Jones, Salon, Parenting, "O: The Oprah Magazine," and The New Yorker. Her work has been included in many anthologies, including The Best American Science Writing (2004). She has been a guest lecturer and keynote speaker at numerous college campuses; at state, regional and municipal conferences on gender equity and on juvenile justice; at the National Education Association's National Conference on Women and Minorities and at the conference of the Canadian Teachers Federation. She has published editorials relating to her research in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today and has appeared on, among other programs, Nightline, Good Morning America, The Today Show, NPR's Fresh Air and Morning Edition and CBC's As It Happens.

Orenstein has served as Managing Editor of Mother Jones magazine, and was a founding senior editor of 7 Days, a weekly magazine on New York City politics, arts and style. She was also an associate editor of Manhattan, inc. magazine and an assistant editor at Esquire. She has sat on the advisory boards of Oxygen Media's "Pulse Initiative"; the Smithsonian exhibition, "Game Face" on the history of women's athletics; Farallon Films; and "Kolot" the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College project on Jewish spirituality among adolescent girls. She has received awards from the Council on Contemporary Families, the Commonwealth Club of California, the National Women's Political Caucus of California, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Orenstein has been a San Francisco Public Library Laureate and was a United States-Japan Foundation Media Fellow as well as a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council's Arts in Japan fellowship. Her film work includes executive producing the Oscar-nominated documentary The Mushroom Club, producing and narrating a segment on the Minnesota State Fair for PBS's Life 360 series, consulting on the HBO documentaries Black Tar Heroin and Rehab, and appearing as an on-camera interviewer in the documentary Crumb. She has also been featured in the PBS documentaries, Digital Divide and Searching for Asian America.
      

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Orenstein is a graduate of Oberlin College and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, filmmaker Steven Okazaki, and their daughter, Daisy Tomoko.