As Friday morphs into the weekend and Mother’s Day approaches and floods many of our inboxes, I am feeling an immense amount of gratitude to the women whose shoulders we stand on as feminist organizers persisting through the pandemic, day in and day out. When I’m feeling overwhelmed by the moment, I take a step back and remember how far we’ve come. Pictured above are two friends and former Mass NOW State Presidents, Toni Troop & Cheryl Garrity at the Feminist Affair this past October. I love my job as a ‘full-time feminist’ and thank all our 3,500+ members across the Commonwealth that allow me to wake up, sit at my kitchen table, and push our feminist agenda every single day.
Since the pandemic started we have:
- Convened NOW state presidents from around the country in weekly 2 hour organizing calls
- Turned our Period Poverty Lobby Day into a Menstrual Equity Coalition Briefing
- Hosted 6 Feminist Friday Happy Hours on Facebook Live – see you tonight for #7!
- Hosted 2 webinars for NOW members across the country
- Endorsed, submitted testimony & organized around emergency legislation on the state & federal level
- Launched our Consciousness Raising Toolkit on our new Mass NOW Member portal
- Trained more Mass NOW feminist organizers through our Consciousness Raising training, PAC and more. Click here to learn more and sign up to join us!
When every issue is a feminist issue, it’s hard to know where to start. Mass NOW is a part of a number of coalitions on the state and federal levels. Since the pandemic we have take action and educated our members on:
- Moratorium on Evictions and Foreclosures – signed into law on 4/20/20!
- Emergency Paid Sick Time and COVID-19 Protection for Working People
- Safe Access to Testing and Treatment for Immigrants
- Data Collection and Action Planning for Equity
- Decarceration and Social Distancing in Prisons and Jails
- Access to Self Medicated Abortion
- Parenting during the Pandemic and the Need for a Childcare Bailout
- Ending Period Poverty during the Pandemic
- Address the Crisis of Murdered Indigenous Women
- Federal funding for supporting victims and survivors of sexual & domestic violence
This past weekend the Mass NOW board made the wise decision to commit to all digital programming for the rest of the year. Until there is an antibody test and vaccine that makes it safe for all of us to go outside, we will make sure our events are accessible to everyone. The pandemic has us living in an impossible holding pattern, and we are committed to planning and organizing to scale up and grow our movement this year. Check out our upcoming programing on our website and stay engaged with us every day on social media for action alerts.
During this crisis, our work to build a feminist democracy is more urgent than ever.Our board has taken a deep dive into as much Mass NOW and feminist history as we can find and are excited to continue developing an activism and organizing strategy to scale up our movement.
I’ve never been good at asking for money (we’re working on it), but if you are able, please consider giving a donation to Mass NOW this #GivingTuesday, this Mother’s Day – this spring to support this moment in the movement to push our feminist agenda!
No gift is too small – or too big. We are a member-led movement and I am thankful to be in this together with you as my feminist family.
In solidarity,
Sasha Goodfriend
Mass NOW State President
