diff --git a/Doc/whatsnew/3.5.rst b/Doc/whatsnew/3.5.rst
--- a/Doc/whatsnew/3.5.rst
+++ b/Doc/whatsnew/3.5.rst
@@ -152,16 +152,23 @@ contextlib
 ----------
 
 * The new :func:`contextlib.redirect_stderr` context manager(similar to
   :func:`contextlib.redirect_stdout`) makes it easier for utility scripts to
   handle inflexible APIs that write their output to :data:`sys.stderr` and
   don't provide any options to redirect it.
   (Contributed by Berker Peksag in :issue:`22389`.)
 
+distutils
+---------
+
+* The ``build`` and ``build_ext`` commands now accept a ``-j``
+  option to enable parallel building of extension modules.
+  (Contributed by Antoine Pitrou in :issue:`5309`.)
+
 doctest
 -------
 
 * :func:`doctest.DocTestSuite` returns an empty :class:`unittest.TestSuite` if
   *module* contains no docstrings instead of raising :exc:`ValueError`.
   (Contributed by Glenn Jones in :issue:`15916`.)
 
 glob