Women Changing the World

The term intersectionality is widely used in disciplines that deal with social identities. It is even catching on in everyday language. But the person who coined the term is not as well known as the word. Kimberlé Crenshaw was born and raised in Canton, Ohio. She was born in 1959 to Marion and Clarence Crenshaw. After graduating from Canton McKinley High School, she attended Cornell University.

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She earned a bachelor’s degree in government and Africana studies. It was at Cornell that she began to form the basis for her feminist theory. She observed that race and gender were taught as two entirely different subjects rather than intersecting identities. As a black woman she faced compounded oppression. Both subjects ignored the overlap and interactions between the two identities. Though the term intersectionality was being used in the late 70’s it wasn’t until 1989,when Crenshaw introduced it to feminist theory, that the term was officially recognized. In her work she uses the term intersectionality to refer to  the unique kinds of discrimination black women experience at the crosshairs of racist and sexist institutional practices. Intersectionality is vital to understanding how to dismantle oppression. The feminist movement needs to understand that certain women within their ranks need to fight multiple oppressions not just sexism. If the feminist movement is able to fight racism, transphobia, xenophobia and other oppressions then all women can be made free.

After graduating from Cornell, she went Harvard University Law School and received a J.D. in 1984.  She then went on to complete the University of Wisconsin master of law program. In 1986 she became a professor at UCLA where she lectured on civil rights, constitutional law, and critical race studies. While she was a professor at UCLA she founded the field of critical race theory. Her theory was eagerly embraced by the academic community and she has lectured all over the world. In 2000, she wrote the background paper on Race and Gender Discrimination for the United Nations’ World Conference on Racism. But she was more than an academic, she was also an activist.  In 2014 she speared the campaign that pushed President Obama’s In 2014, racial justice initiative, My Brother’s Keeper, to be inclusive of girls and women of color. In 2015, Crenshaw assembled a team of activists and researchers to advocate on behalf black women and girls. Thanks to the tirelessly work of this team the White House launched an unprecedented and groundbreaking initiative called the Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color. This initiative brought together together philanthropists and academics to research and fund concerns related women and  girls of color.

She also launched the #SayHerName initiative to draw attention to the violence inflicted upon black women and girls. She launched the campaign on the nonprofit think tank, African American Policy Forum. She co founded the forum in 1996 and was the director of it when she launched her initiative. The forum was devoted to “dismantling structural inequality” and “advancing and expanding racial justice, gender equality, and the indivisibility of all human rights, both in the U.S. and internationally.”(Insert citation). It sought to advance its goals by  building a bridge between scholarly research and public discourse in addressing inequality and discrimination.

Crenshaw’s work is vital to the feminist movement if we are to truly free all women worldwide.

When I was a junior in high school, I sang in the Georgia All-State Chorus. Prestigious and notoriously hard to get in to, All-State Chorus is a weekend of event in which selected singers from across the state travel to Athens, Georgia. During the weekend, singers work with a renowned director and prepare a concert in 1.5 days. Singers are randomly sorted into different choirs, the most coveted of which is the upperclass mixed choir, meaning it has both men’s and women’s voices. To my slight disappointment, I was sorted into the women’s choir.

No matter what choir you are sorted into, this event is very intensive; the singers rehearse all day long. It was toward the end of our first day and we were all really tired. You might find it hard to believe that though singing was energizing, our bodies were aching and stamina was fleeting. When our director asked us to stand and sing, we exhaled a collective groan and made a lethargic and recalcitrant effort to rise to our feet.

Our director, a small, sprightly, and nurturing woman, stopped us. She became angry, a marked departure from the genial disposition she had established. “We OWE it to these composers to stand and sing their music,” she admonished, “they deserve our respect, and their music deserves our respect. The least we can do is stand up when we sing their music. Do you have any idea who our composers are?” We all shook our heads in shame. She informed us about Saint Hildegard of Bingen, composer of the song we were asked to stand and sing.

Born in 1098, Saint Hildegard was a Benedictine abbess who was also a highly respected artist, author, composer, prophet, social activist, philosopher, pharmacist, poet, preacher, mystic, theologian, and polymath. This was in the high middle ages when women, as you might expect, had very limited options. Aside from a handful of powerful queens, regents, and abbesses, most women were either relegated to the domestic sphere as wives or chose to become nuns. Although nunnery often served as a way for women to escape wifery and childbirth, the sphere of the church did not offer a haven of equality.

Take this quote by Pope Innocent III in 1210, for example: “No matter whether the most blessed Virgin Mary stands higher, and is also more illustrious, than all the apostles together, it was still not to her, but to them, that the Lord entrusted the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.” The Church perceived God’s choice to deputize the male apostles, and not Mary, an objectively more exalted figure. With the evangelism of the New Covenant was an assertion of male superiority over women.

That is why Hildegard is such remarkable woman. After becoming a nun, Hildegard was approved by a committee of theologians to write down visions that the church deemed prophetic. She wrote many visionary theological texts, one of which caught the attention of Pope Eugene III. She became counsel and advisor not only to the pope, but to German emperors, statesman, and hundreds of other people who sought her advice. She also traveled throughout Germany, preaching and evangelizing to large groups of people about her religious insights. In Hildegard’s visions she saw the harmony of God’s creation on the place of both men and women in it, a radical view that many of her contemporaries rejected.

She challenged many other authorities and pushed back on policies she did not agree with, and, well, usually won. She also wrote botanical and medicinal texts, including the first one on gynecology. She wrote liturgical musical compositions, a play, poems, and invented an entire constructed language. Pope Benedict named her a doctor of the church, which is a title given to a Saint whose doctrinal writings have special authority, and has only been assigned to four women. She is also considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Hildegard’s participation in these disciplines revealed her status-quo-challenging beliefs that led her to ignore bans against women and to contribute to the Church’s body of knowledge and interpret scripture.

If you aren’t already convinced of Hildegard’s feminist boss-ness, consider this splendid quote of hers: “Woman may be made from man, but no man can be made without a woman.”

As our director finished her lesson, we came to realize that every one of the composers or lyricists of our set of music were remarkable women who defied societal expectations of themselves, challenged authority, and fought against institutional limitations levied upon them. Like Hildegard, they redefined what it meant to be a woman.

After this realization I suddenly found a new pride and empowerment in singing in the women’s choir. I had the opportunity to stand beside 200 other women and breathe life into the hallowed words of women who paved the way for the modern liberties that we take for granted -liberties that they themselves could not enjoy.

Hildegard was a voice for women when they had none, and her influence can still be felt today. She demonstrated the importance of listening to women’s voices and contributed an enormous wealth of knowledge across several disciplines of theology and academia. Contemporary theologian Matthew Fox wrote, “If Hildegard had been a man, she would be well known as one of the greatest artists and intellectuals the world has ever seen.” She continues to inspire artists and those with spiritual inclinations.

In just 2010, a community arts center was built in her name in Lincoln, Nebraska on the premise that “God finds us in our humanity…The arts is a path to the innermost reality of man and the world.” As a personal influence, Hildegard was integral in the formation of my own identity as a feminist and artist. If this one woman can span 900 years to inspire and empower a choir girl in Athens, GA then I can do my part to recognize and honor her legacy, and inspire future generations of feminists as she has inspired me. In fact, we can all do more to elevate the accomplishments of women, and give them the credit they deserve for changing the world.

She was South Korea’s most important woman and the 11th most powerful woman in the world. Now she lives in a solitary jail cell, eating $1.30 meals and sleeping on a foldable mattress on the floor.

At first, Park Guen-hye’s presidential election ignited global praise. As the first female president of South Korea, many believed that Park represented a ground-breaking, barrier-shattering achievement that would improve and diversify society. Not only would her position create space for greater female representation in politics, business, and media, but it would also enable more women to use their voices to change the world. However, Park’s impeachment and subsequent arrest pose questions as to how society interprets singular female narratives as representative of all women.

In 2013, Park Geun-hye (박근혜) was elected President of South Korea, representing the conservative Saenuri Party. Not only was she the first female president of South Korea, but she was also the first woman to be popularly elected as Head of State in East Asia. Running on a platform of economic improvement, national security, and strategic reconciliation with North Korea, Park promised to promote national growth and South Korea’s international status. Her background as a 14-year term as a member of the National Assembly and the daughter of former South Korean president Park Chung-hee (박청희) further cemented her political reputation. Many note that her presidential election was particularly progressive given high levels of gender equality in East Asia.

As president, Park Geun-hye hoped to foster “a new era of hope and happiness for all the people” through economic stability, international diplomacy, and social welfare. In her first year as president, her approval rating reached 63% and she was named 11th on Forbes’ “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” However, her approval rating declined to 30% over the next few years of her presidency, as tensions with North Korea remained stagnant and her administration was blamed for oversight leading to the 2014 Sewol ferry tragedy that killed 304 people. These tensions set a fragile relationship between the Park Administration and the South Korean public.

In 2016, Park was accused of corruption and collusion after allegations emerged of Park granting a close friend, Choi Soon-sil (최순실), access to confidential government decision-making processes. Choi was also found guilty of using her relationship to Park to pressure large companies such as Samsung into funding Choi’s non-profit foundations in exchange for government favors. In early 2017, Park was officially impeached by the Constitutional Court for “acts that violated the Constitution and laws,” as her acts “betrayed the trust of the people and were of the kind that cannot be tolerated for the sake of protecting the Constitution.” In April 2018, Park was found guilty of 16 charges of bribery and coercion, and was sentenced to 24 years in prison and $17 million in corruption charges. Current South Korean President Moon Jae-in (문재인) commented: “We need a national cleanup. We need to liquidate the old system and build a new South Korea.”

Park was not only the first female president of South Korea, but she was also the country’s first democratically-elected leader to be impeached. Undoubtedly, her controversial legacy as a world leader poses serious questions for the future of women on global platforms. Often times, when women break out of de facto gender norms, they are held to higher levels of scrutiny than male counterparts in equal positions of power. Rather than simply serving as a president, Park serves as a president and a woman. Because she is the sole example of a female president in South Korea, her failure as a political leader could be interpreted as an overarching failure of all women to be successful leaders.

In the end, I believe that the story of Park Guen-hye leads to one conclusion: we need more representation of women. Whether in government, business, medicine, academia, or really any industry, women bear disproportionate burdens of representing their gender in the workplace. While women who earn titles as historic “firsts” represent important movements toward gender equality, one example of a woman in power is not sufficient for representing all women. One narrative cannot capture the multiplicity, diversity, and intersectionality of women’s experiences around the world. As such, we need to keep empowering women to achieve and keep providing spaces for women to do so.

Monroe, North Carolina is founded on tradition and Southern institution. Notable for many reasons, to me, it was the place I have called home since birth, and to the rest of our nation, it is the birthplace of Belk Department stores, dedicated to “Modern. Southern. Style.”

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Monroe has been crafted on the Belk name, the original store still nestled in a prominent spot in the middle of downtown. We are proud to announce that the Belk inception took place there. It’s been a badge of honor and entrepreneurship for the townspeople. But not everything can be attributed to the Belk family, close friends of my family in the early 1900s. There is a story of a young woman and a pioneer intertwined in Monroe’s history, and my own history, as my great-great aunt.

Her story is one that has inspired me since I was a child.

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Breaking glass ceilings when they seemed bulletproof, Fola Williams’s name is legend throughout Union County, North Carolina, for numerous accomplishments that I have held in reverie since I was old enough to understand their magnitude. In a sense, for the young people of Monroe, North Carolina, she reconstructed the meaning of “woman”, and even more important, the meaning of “lady”.

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Fola Williams began her career with Belk Department Stores at eighteen, in 1922, unheard of for a young woman. At such a young age, she had already stepped outside of the boundaries set in place by Southern men for Southern women. They were supposed to get married! Have children! Fola Williams was not only a working woman in the early 1900s but a successful working woman. Though she started as a clerk, she formed a bond with the Belks, and climbing the corporate ladder, she became the first female buyer for the department store. Now, a company that has grown worldwide, she stands at the helm for all women involved in the corporation; a monumental accomplishment for women of the day. Fola Williams, alone, boarded a train to New York City, choosing what should be sold in the stores as they grew, the only woman at the time and most definitely the first. She was the first woman in Union County to get her driver’s license, ultimately having a street named after her in Monroe.

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While Fola Williams may not be a household name, she remains an icon for the young women in my family. We are constantly inspired by the barriers that she broke for the female population in our community; where women are not necessarily looked at as equals. I am constantly reminded of what has been achieved by those who make small movements toward equality through empowering themselves and others. Fola Williams did not change the world for all women, but for those in Monroe, North Carolina, she revolutionized the role of “woman”, simultaneously becoming a founding mother for one of the nation’s most well-known department stores. In that sense, she changed the world for me.

“Revolutionary men with principles were not really different from the rest. They used their cleverness to get, in return for principles, what other men buy with their money. Revolution for them is like sex for us. Something to be abused. Something to be sold,” Nawal El Saadawi says in her book Woman at Point Zero (1975). This quote is emblematic of the fearless El Saadawi: Marxist revolutionary, anti-imperialist, doctor, and prolific author, but above all, a brave feminist critic who shaped discourse on women’s liberation in the Arab world in a way no one had even dreamed of before.

Nawal El Saadawi was born in the small town of Kafr Tahlah in 1931, and as she details in her autobiography A Daughter of Isis (1999), it is her childhood that instilled in her the principles she carries to this day. She was born to an educated but in many ways traditional family. Her parents supported her education, but also forced her to undergo genital mutilation that traumatized El Saadawi. She details the struggles against pursuing suitors and the misogyny in her own family; all of these experiences filled her with a sense of gendered injustice at a young age.

El Saadawi completed her medical education at the University of Cairo and continued to work in the Egyptian health ministry until 1972. Of course, in this period, she did not shy away from activism; she published Women and Sex, a harrowing critique of female genital mutilation and other misogynist practices in her society. This book was condemned by religious and governmental authorities and caused her to lose her job in the ministry.

This was not to be Nawal El Saadawi’s only run-in with the authorities. She continued to perform psychiatric research, especially in neurosis in Egyptian women. This experience led her to one of her most famous and controversial books Woman at Point Zero, which delivers a first-hand account of a female prisoner who will be executed on the charge of murdering her oppressor. This work, like Women and Sex, includes discussion of genital mutilation, religion, and sex; these become common themes in all of Nawal El Saadawi’s work, fiction or non-fiction.

The publishing of The Hidden Face of Eve (1980), a historical and personal treatise on the role and treatment of women in Arab society and rejection of polygamy, the veil, and inequality, angered the Sadat regime in place at the time. El-Saadawi was jailed for a distressing three months. During this time, she wrote Memoirs from the Women’s Prison, exploring women’s resistance to state violence. When the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association that she founded was forced to shut down due to its opposition to the Gulf War, she was forced to flee Egypt in 1992 and spent much of the decade at Western universities.

What does Nawal El Saadawi write about that makes her so controversial even in feminist circles? For one, she is not afraid to criticize aspects of culture and society that were taboo in the 20th century and continue to be taboo today. She is frank in her hatred of genetic mutilation, but she also criticizes what she sees as other manifestations of patriarchy. She believes the veil, a common practice in many Muslim societies, is never a free choice.

“What do we mean by choice? It is pressure, but it is hidden pressure – she is not aware of it. I was exposed to different pressures from my sisters. We are all the products of our economic, social and political life and our education. Young people today are living in the era of the fundamentalist groups,” said El Saadawi

According to El Saadawi, “There is a backlash against feminism all over the world today because of the revival of religions… we have had a global and religious fundamentalist movement.”

It is not only these fundamentalist groups that are the problem; “I am very critical of all religions,” she says. “We, as women, are oppressed by all these religions.” On the role of Islam in Egypt in particular, she is critical of the lack of criticism of religion from all sectors of society, whether it be Islamic feminists or traditional patriarchs. While discussing the Hajj, she says “why do they need to stone the devil? Why do they need to kiss that black stone? But no one will say this. The media will not print it. What is it about, this reluctance to criticise religion?”

It is clear why many members of a conservative society in which religion is so deeply embedded would be offended; El-Saadawi is often called a sell-out, or accused of pandering to Westerners. However, she is equally as critical, if not more so, of Western society. In accordance with her Marxist and anti-Imperialist principles, she strongly disparages past and ongoing practices of colonialism, imperialism, and the West’s neo-imperialist alliance with political religious fundamentalism.

Beyond this, she also sees issues with the place of women in Western societies. In the West, “no one criticises a woman who is half-naked. This is so-called freedom, too. The problem is our conception of freedom. Men are encouraged neither to be half-naked, nor veiled. Why?… Liberate yourself before you liberate me!” Oppression of women is common to all patriarchal societies; while Western women are not subjected to genital mutilation, “they are victims of cultural and psychological clitoridectomy.”

It is May 20, 2016. The air is hot and humid outside of the Presidential Office of Taiwan, and reporters stand idly by, anxiously fidgeting with cameras and voice recorders. President Tsai Ing-Wen appears in a cream-colored suit and takes her place at the podium teeming with pink flowers. Despite stating that she is not the best public speaker, her voice is clear as she addresses the Taiwanese people. At this moment, she is not just a woman. She is not defined by her marriage status or the number of children she has. She is a leader.

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President Tsai Ing-Wen has paved the way for a new type of leadership. As Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-Wen represents change in multiple ways. As a Hakka woman, she is the first president to represent the ethnic minority, and she is also the first president who is not affiliated with a prominent political family. She is also the second president representing the Democratic Progressive Party. All past presidents, other than Chen Shui Bian, were of the Kuomintang Party. She was elected on January 16th, winning against Kuomintang party member Eric Chu in a landslide.

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Coming from humble beginnings, Tsai Ing-Wen grew up the daughter of an auto-mechanic. She was the youngest of 11 children and was often overlooked. With the encouragement of her father, she went to university to study law. An extremely bright scholar, she obtained degrees at Cornell, the National Taiwan University, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Upon returning home, she taught law at the Soochow School of Law and the National Chengchi University. In the early 1990s, she worked as a trade negotiator involved in Taiwan’s eventual entry into the World Trade Organization. She then went on to work as the Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council and chairwoman of the Consumer Protection Commission. In 2004, she became affiliated with the Democratic Progressive Party and later served as the DPP chairwoman.

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Despite winning the election, President Tsai Ing-Wen still faced backlash from opposing sides. Chinese military officer Wang Weixing wrote in the state-run newspaper Xinhua that the president “[did] not have the emotional burden of love, of family or children so her political style and strategies are displayed to be more emotional, personal, and extreme.” With Taiwan and China historically known for having patriarchal societies, Tsai Ing-Wen faced more than just policy differences as causes for doubt and contention. The sexist remarks backfired, as many citizens, both Chinese and Taiwanese, were angered over the blatant discrimination and were quick to jump to her defense. Sun Xingjie, a lecturer at Jilin University in northeast China wrote, “It is discrimination against women and being single. Putin divorced during his presidency. Has Russia’s strategy changed since?” President Tsai Ing-Wen had already proved she did not need a husband in order to win the election and take the chance to create change within the Taiwanese society.

Facing a long-standing issue of Chinese and Taiwanese relations, specifically concerning Taiwanese independence, President Tsai Ing-Wen has had to straddle the line of appeasement of China while remaining steadfast and uncompromising in her beliefs. A moderate within a party not known for being moderate,  her inauguration speech was crafted with a degree of ambiguity that sought to avoid alienating or provoking tension with China, while still asserting the importance of Taiwanese democracy. She has promoted a status quo policy with China, but also intentionally and noticeably chose not to address the 1992 consensus within her inauguration speech. The 1992 consensus stated that there is one China which has two states. The importance of the 1992 consensus is that it essentially affirmed that Taiwan belonged to China, but no one was sure of which China. There is one state, yet the interpretations of that state are purposefully unclear. In response to Chinese intimidation tactics of sending military ships and bombers to the island, Tsai Ing-Wen asserted that she wanted to make Taiwan indispensable and would earn the recognition Taiwan deserved on a global scale.

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In terms of other policies, she has emphasized support for education initiatives and economic growth by way of free trade agreements. She has publicly endorsed same-sex marriage and LGBT rights. Despite her promotion of social change, the implementation of legal same-sex marriage faces opposition, and the approval of the November 24th referendum, in which the public would vote on same-sex marriage, was seen as a lack of actual, meaningful support for the LGBT community on the part of Tsai- Ing Wen’s government.

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With issues of economic, judicial, and pension reform amidst navigating cross-strait relations, Tsai Ing-Wen faces considerable opposition from all sides. Yet, her message as a female leader is a testament to the idea that we should not have to qualify the word “leader” with “female.” The same as any good leader, she is staunch in her support of democracy and freedom. In a male-dominated political landscape, she has had to constantly prove herself and be a representation of her gender. In spite of this, her sole focus is the people. As she states in her inauguration speech,  “We, as a free and democratic people, are committed to the defense of our freedom and democracy as a way of life. Each and every one of us participated in this journey. My dear fellow Taiwanese, we did it.”

The 2018 midterm election has set records for women in Congress, with more than 250 women on the ballot, and over 100 women winning elections across the nation. Forty-two are women of color, and many are openly LGBTQ-identifying. Tennessee elected their first female senator, and South Dakota and Maine elected their first female governors. Seventeen Black women were elected judges in one Texas county. Pennsylvania previously had no women delegates – now they have four. Thirty-three congressional races featured women facing off against other women.

When Sharice Davids, member of Ho-Chunk Nation, won a seat in the House of Representatives, she became the first lesbian congresswoman from Kansas, and one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress. She is also the first openly LGBT woman of color in Congress. On election night she said, “We know there are so many of us who welcome everyone. Who see everyone, who know that everyone should have the opportunity to succeed, and today we showed that.”

The other elected Native American woman is Debra Haaland of New Mexico, a single mom and member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe. Out of about 12,000 people elected to Congress since 1789, only 300 have been Native American – none of whom were women. She told Vox about her campaign, “Just because you’re the first Native woman doesn’t mean you get any breaks. I think we’ve been working toward this moment; however, it’s not something that’s freely given.”

Danica Roem is the first trans person elected to Virginia legislature, and the first to serve as openly transgender in any U.S. state legislature. On her platform based on seemingly mundane concerns, she explained to Vox that, “You can’t just say, ‘I hate Trump, vote for me.’ That doesn’t win you the House of Delegates. If you can’t speak fluently about your local issues, you’re just not going to win, period.”

Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are the first Muslim women in Congress. Omar is also the first Somali American, first Muslim refugee, and first hijab-wearing Muslim woman elected to Congress, and the first woman of color to represent Minnesota in Congress. In her victory speech, Omar said, “Here in Minnesota, we don’t only welcome immigrants; we send them to Washington.”

Kyrsten Sinema is the nation’s first openly bisexual senator, and Arizona’s first woman senator. Ayanna Pressley is the first Black congresswoman representing Massachusetts, and she beat a longtime incumbent in the primaries. Jahana Hayes is Connecticut’s first Black congresswoman. Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia are the first two Latina congresswomen representing Texas. Young Kim is the first Korean American woman in Congress.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is the youngest woman elected to Congress. She won the primary against a 10-term incumbent. She told The Cut, “I felt like the only way to effectively run for office is if you had access to a lot of wealth, high social influence, a lot of high dynastic power, and I knew that I didn’t have any of those things.” Visiting North Dakota during the pipeline protests inspired her to work for her own community. In a victory speech she stated, “This is not the end. This is the beginning.”

Women are still far from having equal representation, as they make up 50% of the U.S. population yet only 1 in 5 members of Congress. Out of the women who do hold Congressional positions, not all actively work to further women’s rights. For example, Tennesse’s first woman senator Marsha Blackburn voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act, a law proposed to address the gender pay gap.

Compared to men running for office, women have always faced pressure to be not only qualified, but also likeable. Perhaps the greatest change this election season was a radical shift in the way that women were able to express themselves in their campaigns. They embraced their gender, and other aspects of their identities, as assets rather than obstacles. They eradicated conventional norms of presenting their public lives in a strictly professional light, vulnerably connecting to citizens on a personal level.

Iowa Representative Abby Finkenauer opened up about her student loan debt, her father’s struggle for employment, and her baby nephew. Texan MJ Hegar shared her family, her air force veteran status, her tattoos, and her childhood abuse story in advertisements. Wisconsin Senator Tammy Bladwin’s mother’s drug abuse informed her support of constituents who have lost loved ones to opioids. Georgian Stacey Abrams opened up about her brother’s mental health and addiction struggles. New Yorker Liuba Grechen Shirley successfully fought the Federal Election Commission to allow campaign funds to go toward childcare.

Women also played a role in canvassing, fundraising, and voting for other women. Donations from women to Republican men have plummeted since 2016, but donations from women to Democratic women have skyrocketed, representing nearly half of donations to women candidates in the House and Senate. Despite women not raising as much money as men for their campaigns, and many having little experience in politics, they are making history every election. The political system is still structurally oppressive, but as it still exists, women are doing what they can to bring about change.

When I was a kid, I wrote in my diary that I aspired to be the first woman president. I admire the grace, poise, and unwavering strength shown by Secretary Clinton in the face of sexism and humiliation during her presidential campaign, and I am not sure if I would ever be able to do the same. However, I have hope that as women continue to fight for representation, they will in turn inspire more women to run for office, and together we can envision and construct a more equitable society.

In 2007, Burke named a movement that did not gain mass attention until white actress Alyssa Milano tweeted about it in 2017. Though Milano reached out to Burke two days after her tweet asking to collaborate and claiming she did not know about her movement, the #MeToo movement’s reemergence follows the historical trend of white women discrediting, discounting, and excluding black women.

Burke told the New York Times: “I felt a sense of dread, because something that was part of my life’s work was going to be co-opted and taken from me and used for a purpose that I hadn’t originally intended.” Burke founded the movement eleven years ago to create solidarity between survivors; she should be given complete credit for founding the movement that has inspired and given hope to women across America. A quick Google search confirms the fact that Tarana Burke is still discredited and Milano’s lack of research has taken its toll; if you type in “Alyssa Milano Me Too” the second article is titled “Alyssa Milano on Her Me Too Campaign.” The campaign, in fact, is not “hers” at all; it is important not to forget that Burke is the original founder of the movement. Say Tarana Burke’s name over and over again. She is one of the most influential women in America trying to give a voice to women of color, a voice that has been continually silenced by white women like Alyssa Milano.

While Alyssa Milano has only recently gotten involved in sexual assault campaigns, Burke has dedicated her entire life to helping victims, especially young black women. In 2003, Burke founded a nonprofit called Just Be Inc., an organization that focuses on the “health, well being and wholeness of young women of color everywhere.” After working with sexual assault victims for years, Burke started the Me Too movement specifically for survivors. After Burke spoke with a young black girl named Heaven who told her about being sexually assaulted, Burke, a survivor herself, could not even bring herself to say the words “me too.”

Now, the #MeToo movement has drastically expanded beyond women sharing their stories. Yet, Burke is still doing the work to bring back the focus to victims, the people she was trying to help all along. Burke now works as the senior director at Girls for Gender Equity which, according to their website, works to “pass the mic to girls and young women of color” and “call gender based violence by it’s name.” While Burke could have basked in her fame after being named one of TIME Magazine’s 2017 ‘The Silence Breakers’ Person of the Year, she continues to do the work because she genuinely wants to make change and uplift victims of sexual assault. Burke said to The Guardian that if her fame had not come along, she would still be doing the work: “I would be right here, with my fucking Me Too shirt on, doing workshops and going to rape crisis centres.”

Like Burke, we must continue to do the work. Part of our job is to give credit where it is due because women like Tarana Burke are the ones propelling the women’s movement forward. We must constantly look for whose voices are being silenced and we must use whatever platform we have to help uplift others. Until then, Tarana Burke will continue to do the work and wait for us to join her.