Celebrating
Progress at the End of Women's History Month
By Maureen Martin
As Women's History Month comes to an end, it is a time to honor the outstanding achievements of women throughout history and celebrate the work that remains ongoing through various movements and organizations.
One such movement, #MeToo, was
founded by Tarana Burke. Ms. Burke appeared at Roger Williams University before
an enthusiastic audience where she explained that, "[t]he movement is
about supporting and healing survivors, about organizing communities to become
safe places, and about changing the culture of gender-based violence."
(PJ, 2/14/2018.)
It is not, she emphasized, about
"taking down men," but instead, it focuses on "making it safe
for people to speak their truth."
As for organizations, Time's Up is working to change culture, companies, and laws to increase women's safety, equity, and power at work.
Established last year by Hollywood
celebrities in response to the Harvey Weinstein scandal, it has raised more
than $22 million for its legal defense fund to support lower-income women and
men seeking justice for sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.
Several decades before the #MeToo
and Time's Up initiatives, another group of women was equally committed to
addressing the needs of women in the workplace.
Their goal was to create an
organization focused on making unions more responsive to the needs of working
women by providing a space for them to develop programs to help deal with their
concerns.
The Coalition of Labor Union Women
(CLUW) is an affiliate of both the local and national AFL-CIO with local
branches in states all over the country, including Rhode Island.
Both the national and state chapters
of CLUW have joined with other groups committed to eradicating discrimination,
but women know that there is much more work to do in this regard.
To that end, CLUW is conducting and
co-sponsoring various marches and peaceful demonstrations across the United
States. Through these endeavors and public displays of solidarity, CLUW
anticipates getting closer to the gender parity women have never experienced
but have always deserved.
After all, as UN Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres said: "achieving gender equality and empowering women and
girls is the unfinished business of our time, and the greatest human rights
challenge in our world."
Maureen Martin is President of the
RI Chapter of Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) and Secretary-Treasurer of
RI AFL-CIO.