Liz Abzug takes the podium to wrap up the wrap up, hitting on numerous themes:
“I tell my students, who don’t understand why we still need feminism: You/we have a lot of unfinished business. We have tools that we haven’t had — new technologies, all kinds of collective vehicles in art and music and song — and we can link this movement domestically and internationally.
We have to take the contexts that the second wave of feminism worked so hard to create and let a new genration use its own linguistics to create a new wave of feminisn.
There is energy — as you heard in this room — to move to the streets. We have to take the energy from the recent election of the current President, and the energy from the race of Hillary Clinton. We must leave no woman behind, across socioeconomic status, race, everything. We had some early mothers — Betty Shabazz — that gave birth to this new feminism.
We have to allow this catharsis, this transformation, and build on it through realistic measures like, yes, the stimulus pacakge. We need to make sure there are nontraditional jobs for women, childcare, etc in that package.
We have to use our creativity, connect through our actions, connect politics to art, connect women and power, poor women, rich women, everyone in between, of all races, nationalities, creeds, and backgrounds. We have to decide, each for ourselves, how we want to be heard.
We have to use the modern technologies to express and seize upon this moment, to create the Feminist New Deal — a movement where we spark, lead, and inspire.
We need to collectively build on our foremothers. We need to take the wisdom of the women who are older than us, and the wisdom of women who are younger than us. We need to take the men along.
Something my mother [Bella Abzug] really understood when she founded WEDO:Â Feminists internationally need to work on a common agenda.
There is quick movement in the new Obama Administration to work on women and girls rights.
We need to work together to finish the business of true equality, to create gender equity in the 21st century.”
Comments 3
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