#UsToo: Overcoming Invisibility and Battling the #MeToo Backlash
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Friday, Aug. 3 10:00 AM (Eastern)
Ends: Friday, Aug. 3 11:15 AM (Eastern)
https://www.facebook.com/NetrootsNation/videos/10156392911789827
Movements like #MeToo and #TIMESUP have drawn an influx of new people, media and policy attention to longstanding efforts to end our society’s culture of sexual violence. But with heightened visibility comes a heightened risk of problematic “solutions” and vehement backlash. How can we leverage this visibility to make lasting change in schools, at work and beyond? How can progressives fight the erasure of communities most severely impacted by sexual violence to ensure that much-needed policy and cultural shifts center members of these communities? How do we create a world where care and respect are the norm, not abuses of power? Join this diverse panel of experts to build a future where no one has to say “Me, too” when it comes to sexual violence.
Moderator
Sabrina Joy Stevens
Sabrina Joy Stevens (she/her) is an accomplished movement-builder, storyteller, and strategist. She has contributed to some of the most impactful human and civil rights movements of the last 20 years. She helps advocates cultivate brave and joyful strategic communications and campaigns for justice. She also teaches people how to use values-driven narrative techniques to neutralize mis- and disinformation. Her work has appeared in media outlets like MSNBC, The Washington Post, Education Week, The Hill, and more.
Other sessions: Progressive Parenting, Consent Caucus
Panelists
Girshriela Green
Girshriela Green is an online to field organizer with the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OurWalmart) and a founder of “Respect the Bump,” a network of pregnant moms and people who have had issues with pregnancy who work at Walmart who are demanding better treatment. A single parent and a mother of 7, Girshriela is organizing to create a work environment at Walmart where pregnant workers can receive basic accommodations like more restroom breaks or water at the register and don’t have to be afraid to tell their employer when they’re expecting. Girshriela was one of the first 100 Walmart workers around the U.S. to stand up and organize as part of the OURWalmart effort. She is a leader who builds other leaders, starting with her old store in Los Angeles and also including organizing in Texas and Florida and Minneapolis. She is a founder of Walmart moms and she supported leaders who founded a network of LGBT Walmart employees.
Mary Cathryn Ricker
MARY CATHRYN RICKER is the executive vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. She was overwhelmingly elected to that position in July 2014 at the AFT’s biennial convention in Los Angeles. Ricker served as president of the Saint Paul (Minn.) Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 28, since 2005, as an AFT vice president since 2012, and a member of the AFT K-12 Teachers program and policy council since 2006. – See more at: http://www.aft.org/about/leadership/mary-cathryn-ricker#sthash.EBMWLKHo.dpuf
Other sessions: What’s a Strike and How Can I Help?, Making Progressive Values a Winning Issue: SCOTUS, Public Education and Guns (Sponsored Panel)
Catalina Velasquez
Catalina is the Executive Director of the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network (WAISN). She holds a M.A. in Feminist Studies from the University of Washington and Bachelors of Science in International Politics: International Law, Norms, & Institutions from Georgetown University. As a Doctoral Candidate in Feminist Political Economy at the University of Washington, Catalina’s research focuses on transnational relations, decolonial methodologies, following forced migration patterns, pursuing refugee justice, across-difference solidarity building, historicizing U.S. and Latin American foreign policy, engaging transgender and queer theory, and tracing political economies.