You may have seen this video floating around your social media feeds and wondered what exactly the United State of Women is. Well, it’s a summit started by the White House (spearheaded by Michelle Obama) that’s happening today, bringing together prominent activists to talk about solutions that we can start implementing to work toward gender equality in this country. You can check out the live stream above.
The United State of Women Summit is happening right now in Washington D.C, and will be going on all day, tackling six key areas of focus: Violence Against Women, Health and Wellness, Educational Opportunity, Economic Empowerment, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Leadership and Civic Engagement. The summit will be going on until about 7PM Eastern today.
According to the summit’s website, “There’s a lot that’s been done by and for women and girls, but there’s still plenty to do. Convened by the White House, this Summit will rally all of us together to celebrate what we’ve achieved, and how we’re going to take action moving forward. Covering key gender equality issues, we’ll make a powerful difference in our collective future.”
As I’ve been listening to the livestream (and I’ll likely be listening all day), I’m heartened by several things. First, the rhetoric is inclusive of transgender women and gender non-conforming people, and people like Bamby Salcedo, President & CEO, The TransLatinx Coalition (who brilliantly asked for a Moment of Power rather than a Moment of Silence for the victims of the Orlando shooting) were invited to speak and make the voices of those communities heard.
Second, whenever men have participated in the conversation, they are there to be allies by taking the lead from women. For example, Quentin Walcott (Co-Executive Director of CONNECT NYC) and Matt McGorry (How to Get Away With Murder and activist) spoke during the Violence against Women section, and the solutions they proposed were quoted from women that they admire and are important to them, in addition to speaking directly to men (because, as McGorry said, “We don’t need to mansplain feminism to 5,000 women.”) about how important it is for them to make feminism their issue, too.
And lastly, there are so many women of color representing at this event, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. The conversation as I’ve seen it so far has encouraged and practiced intersectionality, which is the only way feminism can benefit everyone.
The news these days can often make any sort of progress toward equality on all fronts seem hopeless, but I feel less hopeless today, because I know that there are people working hard doing the nitty-gritty work of actually creating change, coming up with and enacting concrete solutions. It’s happening right now. I hope we can all be a part of it.
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