Women’s Rights Wins That’ll Fill You With Optimism
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On the big and small screen this year, a string of women-led and women-centric projects were released just when we needed them: from the too-real Handmaid’s Tale adaptation to the box-office successes of Wonder Woman and Girls Trip, proving female-led hits aren’t niche. In October, Alyssa Milano’s tweet encouraging women to share stories of sexual harassment and violence using the hashtag #MeToo—a phrase coined by activist Tarana Burke—poured gasoline on the fire that’s been simmering since assault allegations against Bill Cosby were publicized in 2014. The movement has resulted in some of the most powerful men in Hollywood and media leaving their jobs. Accordingly, TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year choice was not the president (to his apparent consternation) but the Silence Breakers—the editors noted that like many social movements, this one started with individual acts of courage.
PUTTING MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS
On New Year’s Day, 300 Hollywood insiders, including Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfery, announced the creation of Time’s Up, an initiative meant to build on #MeToo’s efforts to draw attention to and end sexual discrimination, especially in the workplace. Time’s Up made an entrance by turning the Golden Globes red carpet into a protest by wearing head-to-toe black, but it also raised a now-$16 million legal defense fund for victims of workplace harassment. “We use the voices and the faces and the profiles of women who can grab headlines with just a tweet, and we use that on behalf of the women who can’t,”director and Time’s Up advocate Ava DuVernay told Instyle earlier this month. Spearheaded by powerhouse attorneys Tina Tchen, who served in the Obama White House for six years, and Roberta Kaplan, known for representing Edie Windsor in the Supreme Court case that paved the way for marriage equality, the initiative signals a true partnership between Hollywood and women who’ve devoted their professional lives to civil rights.
THE FUTURE OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
All signs point to a continuation of women’s vocal activism: This weekend alone marks the second annual Women’s March and the SAG Awards, for the first time featuring an all-female roster of presenters. Time’s Up has indicated that more concrete action is to come, including through 50/50 by 2020, a women’s workplace parity initiative that has already received commitments of equal leadership representation from bigwigs like Creative Artists Agency. And we’ll likely see more equal pay activism—which been prominent in Hollywood—across other industries; earlier this week, Citi became the first U.S. bank to disclose its gender pay gap in response to a shareholder’s push.
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Still, the elephant in the room remains: The nation’s highest office is occupied by a man who’s continuously called out for misogyny, and more white women voted for him than Hillary Clinton.
For her part, Amanda Litman feels optimistic about the momentum building in 2018 and beyond, noting that we’ll soon start to see the effects of having more diverse voices—including those of women—in office. “They’re in charge, and they get a chance to show the value of having women in power and having progressives in these offices.” And, she points out, seeing non-traditional politicians achieve success has a snowball effect, inspiring more people like them to run. “You can’t be what you can’t see.”
We saw a glimpse of what this normalization can look like when Danica Roam appeared on CNN talking not just about being transgender but about … fixing traffic lights.
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