Focused Read in 3 minutes,
More, if you hit the link...
In her 2016, “No Shortcuts...” Jane McAlevey
“...concludes that, in order to win, progressive movements need strong unions built from bottom-up organizing strategies that place the power for change in the hands of workers and ordinary people at the community level.” ( Courtesy of Amazon )
"What #MeToo Can Teach the
Labor Movement"
By jane Mcalevey
My first #MeToo memory is from the kitchen of the Red Eagle Diner on Route 59 in Rockland County, N.Y. I was 16 years old,
had moved out of my home, and was financially on my own.
The senior waitresses in this classic Greek-owned diner schooled me fast. They explained that my best route to maximum cash was the weekend graveyard shift. “People are hungry and drunk after the bars close, and the tips are great,” one said.
… That first waitressing
job would be short-lived, because I didn’t heed a crucial warning.
… Although there were
plenty of other incidents in between, the next time I found myself
that shaken by a sexual assault threat, I was 33 and in a Manhattan
cab with a high-up official in the national AFL-CIO.
These two examples
underscore that behind today’s harassment headlines is a deeper
crisis: pernicious sexism, misogyny and contempt for women. Whether in our movement or not, serious sexual harassment isn’t really
about sex.
It’s about a disregard for women, and it shows itself
numerous ways.
For the #MeToo moment to
become a meaningful movement, it has to focus on actual gender
equality...Until we effectively challenge the ideological
underpinnings beneath social policies that hem women in at every turn
in this country, we won’t get at the root cause of the harassment.
This requires examining the total devaluation of “women’s work,”
including raising and educating children, running a home and caring
for the elderly and the sick.
It’s time to dust off
the documents from the nearly 50-year-old Wages for Housework
Campaign.
The union movement must step in now and connect the dots to
real solutions, such as income supports like universal high-quality
childcare, free healthcare, free university and paid maternity and
paternity leave. We need social policies that allow women to be
meaningful participants in the labor force.
… Sexist male leadership
inside the labor movement is a barrier to getting at these very
solutions.
... It rejects the possibility
that a future labor movement led by women in the service economy can
be as powerful as the one led by men in the last century...Educators
and healthcare workers who build, develop and repair humans’ minds
and bodies are considered white and pink collar. This workforce is
deemed less valuable to the labor movement, because the labor it
performs is considered women’s work.
… Many hold a related
but distinct assumption: that the so-called private sector is more
manly—and therefore, important—than the so-called public sector,
which is majority-women. This belief also contributes to the
devaluation of feminized labor.
This deeply inculcated
sexist thought—conscious or not—is holding back our movement and
contributing to the absurd notion that unions are a thing of the
past...
The union movement has
increased the number of women and people of color in publicly visible
leadership positions. But the labor movement’s research and
strategy backrooms are still dominated by white men who propagate the
idea that organizing once worked, yet not anymore...
… The central lesson the
labor movement should take from the #MeToo movement is that now is
the time to reverse the deeply held notion that women, especially
women of color, can’t build a powerful labor movement.
Corporate America and the
rightwing are out to destroy unions, in part, so that they can
decimate the few public services that do serve working-class
families, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP),
Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and public schools.
Movements won
these programs when unions were much stronger. It makes sense that
unions, and the women’s movement, should throw down hardest to
defend and grow these sectors ...
It’s time for unions to
raise expectations for real gender equality, to channel the new
battle cry to rid ourselves of today’s sexual harassers into a
movement for the gender justice that women in Scandinavian countries
and much of Western Europe enjoy.
… There’s enough
wealth in this country to allow the rich to be rich and still
eradicate most barriers to a genuine women’s liberation, which
starts with economic justice in the workplace...Unions—warts and
all—are central to a more equal society, because they bring
structural power and collective solutions to problems that are
fundamentally societal, not individual.
… This country is
seriously broken, and to fix it we must build the kind of power that
comes with high unionization rates, which translate into
political—not just economic—power.
… If we focus on
the power analysis, the answer is staring us in the face. There is no
time to waste. Everyone has to be all-in for rebuilding unions.”
You can read more here
( Courtesy of In These Times )
Personal Commentary ~
I am
not a fan of blanket assessments of communities and some of that
happens in the world of political advocacy in which I travel.
For example, I do not
believe the entire leadership of the Democratic Party is inept. In
fact, it is an assessment I find disturbing in light of the
fact that the party is a year into
transitioning from a part-time organization to a full-time
organization, close to, but not finished with, the enormous task of
reforming some of the issues raised in the 2016 presidential election.
I also do not
believe being a Democrat, charged with supporting corporations is
cause for a primary challenge. In fact, it is an assessment I find disturbing in light of the fact that all
corporations are not bad and the context of our system, including but
not limited to Big Lies, Voter Suppression, Russia and Voters, is typically missing from the conversation.
And, as a rule I
do not believe in litmus tests for candidates that circumvent individual choices at the ballot box.
Having said that – I do
believe “What #MeToo Can Teach the Labor Movement” is an amazing and critical
piece of work
reminding me that a patriarchal system is bigger than one powerful response to it or
another and that labor unions, self-defined as protectors of workers, can be considered to be an
established base for women in building power with the potential of
actually “perfecting our union, i.e. the United States, in bringing
its “idea” into the 21st Century at it's highest level of equality, yet.
Systems are only as good as those who run them and who runs the United States of America is up to the electorate...
Systems are only as good as those who run them and who runs the United States of America is up to the electorate...
📎 Note: I encourage you to hit the link above and reading the piece in full!
Focused Thought in 30 seconds
( Political cartoon courtesy of Clay Bennett )
Focused Action in 30 seconds
You can share the National Immigration Law Center's Tweet here
Focused Point of Interest in 1:30 minutes,
More, if you hit the link...
Top Ten Feminist Victories
of 2017 ~
Courtesy of the Feminist Majority Blog
(By Erin Gistaro)
1
The Women’s Marches on
January 21
2
Women are running for
office at an unprecedented rate
3
And in November 2017,
feminists won big
4
Nevada ratifies the
Equal Rights Amendment
5
Stopped the repeal of
the Affordable Care Act
6
Oregon and Illinois
Authorize State Funding for Abortions
7
State Attorneys
General Fight Back Against the Trump Administration
8
And We Have Feminist
Champions in Congress
9
The #MeToo Movement
10
We’re Heading Into
2018 With Incredible Momentum
You can read much more detail the selected "victories" here
.
.
.
→ Direct sources for Democrats:
* ( Personal favored and most informative follows are shared here with the understanding that readers will always apply their own critical thinking to any information provided anywhere by anyone. #StrongerTogether does not share sources of information lightly but -- no one is perfect! -- so always #DistrustAndVerify I am using a star rating that is strictly based on my situational experience with the work of the media personality specifically in relation to issues of interest to me. )
The Democratic Party Website
Also
C-SPAN (a good place for speeches & hearings direct source (s))
→ Fact checking organizations courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists
in alphabetical order...
→ Some of my favorite, most informative
follows on Twitter include:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ US Intelligence | Author | Navy Senior Chief | NBC/MSNBC
⭐⭐⭐ Federal Government Operations | Vanity Fair | Newsweek | MSNBC Contributor | Author
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Voting Rights/Voter Suppression | Author | Mother Jones
→ Some of the most credible media -- at the moment:
📰📰📰 Mother Jones
→ Some of the most credible Talking Heads -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
( ⬆⬆⬆ Wallace is new to the job but for right now
her work on Trump GOP has been credible, IMO )
...for Networking for Democrats today!
.
.
.
(Linked) "...is our 2016 platform...a declaration of how we plan to move America forward. Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.
It’s a simple but powerful idea: We are stronger together."
( #its2018now )
In honor of women leading the American Resistance ~
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (and just one of the ways they partnered to get the work done) are this month's Focused Inspiration:
" ... Susan, a Quaker, came from a background where girls were valued and educated just as Quaker boys were, but Susan began to see the real world when she became a teacher and was routinely paid about one-quarter of the salary she would have received if she had been a man.
Elizabeth was from a well-to-do family where boys were favored. Elizabeth married and began having children ... At that time, women had little opportunity to control whether or not they became pregnant, and it frequently happened that just as Elizabeth was about to attend a new round of meetings or take on a new push for voting rights, she would find herself pregnant and more or less homebound again. Despite this, Elizabeth attended everything she could and when she was needed at home, she served their team effort by writing speeches that Susan could use at conventions or on the road. ... "
" ... Susan, a Quaker, came from a background where girls were valued and educated just as Quaker boys were, but Susan began to see the real world when she became a teacher and was routinely paid about one-quarter of the salary she would have received if she had been a man.
Elizabeth was from a well-to-do family where boys were favored. Elizabeth married and began having children ... At that time, women had little opportunity to control whether or not they became pregnant, and it frequently happened that just as Elizabeth was about to attend a new round of meetings or take on a new push for voting rights, she would find herself pregnant and more or less homebound again. Despite this, Elizabeth attended everything she could and when she was needed at home, she served their team effort by writing speeches that Susan could use at conventions or on the road. ... "
You can read more about this power friendship here
*
Curated by Gail Mountain, with occasional personal commentary, Network For #StrongerTogether ! is not affiliated with The Democratic Party in any capacity. This is an independent blog and the hope is you will, at a glance, learn more about the Party and you will, with a click or two, also take action on its behalf as it is provided!
( You can also find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GKMTNtwits )
*
See the League of Women Voters website:
Vote411 here
Thank you for focusing!
g., aka Focused Democrat
✊ Resisting "Fake News"
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