Dear John,
In moments as dangerous as this one, with an autocrat in the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress largely refusing to curb the administration’s abuse of power, it’s important to remember the resistance is pushing back and has been everywhere: in courtrooms all across the country, in the work of fearless, independent journalists, in powerful storytelling, and with protests in the streets with record-setting crowds.
This past Tuesday, we honored some of the leading feminists on the front lines of the resistance—the litigators, the journalists and the culture-makers—at the Feminist Majority Foundation’s annual Global Women’s Rights Awards. You can read more about our honorees: Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward; Jen Rubin and Norm Eisen of The Contrarian; and Bess Wohl of the smash-hit Broadway play Liberation.
At Ms., we know all too well that more often than not, women are the ones with the courage to call out the abuses that so often go unchecked in the halls of power. That courage was present last week on Air Force One when Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey pressed Trump on the Epstein files. After all, if there’s nothing incriminating, why fight so hard to keep the documents sealed? Trump’s response? “Quiet! Quiet, piggy.” As I wrote in Ms. this week, “A president reduced to playground cruelty, trembling at the ankles of a woman doing her job.”
And again, in the Oval Office, during the visit by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. ABC correspondent Mary Bruce asked whether it was appropriate for Trump’s family to do business in Saudi Arabia while he is president. Again, a response with fury: “You are a terrible reporter … a terrible person.”
As I note, not one of the male reporters standing beside Lucey or Bruce spoke up. But women in journalism have never had the luxury of silence, and they will not begin now.
There is no doubt that when historians look back on this sordid moment in history, they will conclude that it was women—and feminists—who led the way out of it, I reminded the crowd at Tuesday’s awards. The gains we’ve made and the resistance against the reactionaries are built by people like all of us, who see clearly what is at stake and who choose, again and again, to keep going.
As The Contrarian’s Jen Rubin observed on Tuesday, “Politicians follow the lead of movements. Litigation holds back authoritarians, culture keeps our humanity alive, and independent media ties it together. All of that is how we go forward. It is not politics that will save us, it is the people.”
If you read Ms., you’re a part of this great people-powered movement. Thanks for being here with us.
For equality,
