The Daily - A Rift Over Power and Privilege in the Women’s March

Episode Date: January 18, 2019

After the divisiveness of the 2016 election, the Women’s March became a major symbol of unity. But two years later, a rift in the movement has grown. Guest: Farah Stockman, a national reporter for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. After the divisiveness of the 2016 election, the Women's March became a historic symbol of unity. Two years later, a rift has formed. It's Friday, January 18th. Farrah Stockman, how did the Women's March start?

So it started with an idea floated on Facebook by a woman in Hawaii who just said, we ought to have a big march against Trump. And it went viral. And a group of women in New York City wanted to turn that idea into a reality. And one of the first central organizers was a white Jewish woman named Vanessa Rubel. And she asked around and said, we need women of color. She asked some friends, do you know any women who would be good at helping to plan this march? And she got given the name of Tamika Mallory, who was a black gun control activist, and Carmen Perez, a criminal justice reform activist. And they all sat down together and started planning the march.

all sat down together and started planning the march. Well, more than 160,000 people are committed now to what's expected to be the largest demonstration in response to Donald Trump's inauguration. Organizers of the Women's March on Washington, which is set for the day after the inauguration, they say it's unclear just how big the march is going to get. So the march was huge. We go high, and they go low. We go high, and they go low. In the nation's capital, hundreds of thousands turned out for the Women's March on Washington. Organizers estimate that over 4 million more rallied against the Trump administration in some 670 sister marches in cities across the country and around the world. It was way bigger than the inauguration.

Beyond their wildest dreams, some of the organizers of the women's march telling me here tonight they had no idea the country would respond like this. Tell me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like! People came from all over, from all walks of life. I'm Jan, I'm from Fort Payne. And I'm here because I think we should all have equality. We came from Durham, North Carolina.

We took the train yesterday morning. We got here. I am myself. I'm a first-generation immigrant. And this really hits home very strong. As a black woman with a 30-year-old black son that lives in New York City, it should be an issue for all people, that our children are safe. We do not and we will not choose to deny our queerness,

our lesbian, gay, or trans selves. They were fighting for so many causes. We march to protect black colleges and black businesses, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrant and disability rights. Linking this racial justice with sexism, with climate justice. But what it does is it shows me and us and everybody here that tons of people care about the things that we care about,

that we're not alone. And I think it does make us feel like a more United States of America. And it was this grand vision of where the progressive movement was going to go and how it was going to fight Trump. But behind the scenes was a different story. There was this growing tension, sort of a feud brewing, and that was all about power and privilege and who gets to claim the mantle of the women's rights movement. So they have this amazing march.

It's incredible success beyond their wildest dreams. And instead of meeting to really celebrate what happened, this original group of women get together and meet. They're exhausted. They're tired. They're intensely irritated by one another. And they have essentially a fight. All right, you guys, the women's march movement was supposed to bring down the president,

the Trump administration. Instead, it may not survive to the second anniversary of his inauguration. And what happened? So Vanessa Rubel had invited these women of color to join the leadership team. And she imagined that they would be equal partners with her and they would put on the march together. But over time, she came to believe that they were taking over the march and that she was being sidelined because she was Jewish. She says that she was told that we couldn't center the One's March on a Jewish woman

because it would upset Black Lives Matter. Some Black Lives Matter activists have made common cause with Palestinians who are living under Israeli occupation. In fact, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory, the three women of color who joined this team, all have been to Palestine and have supported the cause of Palestinian rights. And these women have some ties to a man named Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam. Talking about the wicked ones in the Jewish community that run America, run the government, run the world, own the banks, the means of communication.

They are my enemies. Tamika Mowry is close to Farrakhan, and one of Farrakhan's big messages is that Jewish people have profited off of black and brown bodies. So this is what Vanessa says that first conversation was like. Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez

have a very different story of what happened that night, and that they said, hey, we're women of color, we're willing to join the leadership team, but only if you let us be leaders, because we're not here as the help, we're not interested in being in the background. And if you want us to join with you, you got to put us in charge. And they claim that Vanessa Rubel said, well, I'm a Jewish woman. I don't have white privilege. And that their response was, yes, you do. So Vanessa Rubel, the white Jewish woman, is claiming anti-Semitism. And the women of color are saying, no, no, no, we're not anti-Semitic. But we think that people of color need to lead this march because we're not going to be secondary

to anyone. Not anymore. Exactly. So what ends up happening as a result of this fight? Essentially, the women of color that Vanessa Rubel had invited initially to join end up telling her, we don't want to organize with you anymore. And they kick her out. Wow. And she left and she started a rival organization called March On. The other organization, Women's March, which is still led by Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen, they see themselves as claiming the mantle. And they go on to plan their own activities, which are sometimes in conflict with what March On is doing. So this thing that began as a symbol of unity for women across the country has now broken apart.

Yes, it has splintered and there are now factions that are pretty openly vying against one another. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. So it sounds like the fight between these two camps of women who created the Women's March is much bigger than the grievances and the words that they exchanged. So what is it that's really animating this fight? There has always been this tension over whether the women's rights movement was about only the needs of well-off white women, or was it about the needs of all women? And how do you incorporate the needs of all women in your agenda? You can see this as a debate or a struggle

over what are we marching for? Which rights and whose rights? Are we marching for Black women, undocumented, gay women? Are we marching for Palestinian rights? Or should we just stick to access to abortion and equal pay and trying to break the glass ceilings of corporations? And that question has always been there from the beginning of the history. corporations. And that question has always been there from the beginning of the history. You can go back to the very first women's march on Washington, which happened in 1913. They were marching for the right to vote. And the 69-year drive by women for the right to vote is climaxed by this appeal at the White House. And Black women were asked to march at the back of the line because they were told, hey, if you march up at the front, it's going to offend white Southern suffragists who are there.

So Black women were included, but they were completely marginalized to the degree that they were included. Right. So even in the 1960s, when you have the second wave feminist movement. Free ourselves! Free our sisters! Free ourselves! Right. So even in the 1960s, when you have the second wave feminist movement, when you look at Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique, it was all about suburban white women who were really bored with their lives. Each woman had been struggling with all these things alone. I mean, if she was a person, if she felt there had to be more somehow than baking bread, she was a freak, there was something wrong with her. But in my own suburb, it was so threatening, you know, I think, to the other women that I had the carpool with. And I sort of became a leper, like a pariah. And it was just too threatening at first to some of these other women. So Betty Friedan really wanted to portray the women's rights movement as upstanding and

normal. You know, it doesn't mean that we give up the home, but it has to be a different kind of home. We can't just... She wanted this to be socially acceptable everywhere. And so she kind of whitewashed it. It was not about Black women and Latina women who had always been working, right? They'd always had to work. There were lesbians in that movement. She hid them in the closet and under the rug. She didn't want anything that looked radical. And I think that was a tactical choice on her part. She didn't want it to be threatening. But to a lot of women of color or to gay women at the time, they felt sidelined. They felt as though their voices weren't being heard. They felt left out. So her view is that this is controversial enough as it is. So let's put white women,

is controversial enough as it is. So let's put white women who are, in her mind, the least controversial messengers at the front of it. Yeah, I think that the white, upper-class, educated women were the face of that movement. And if you look at who's really benefited, who's done well since the 70s, That group of women has made huge strides. If confirmed, she will be the first woman in 191 years, indeed the first woman ever, to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor, a 51-year-old judge from the Arizona Court of Appeals. As the challenger climbed today, it carried an American woman astronaut, Sally Ride, into space and into history. A historic day in the house as Nancy Pelosi is elected the first woman speaker. The Honorable Nancy Pelosi of the state of California.

My next guest is Facebook's chief operating officer and founder of the Lean In movement. Please welcome Sheryl Sandberg. They have broken a lot of glass ceilings, They have broken a lot of glass ceilings. But if you add class into it or race into it, it's been more of a struggle. What lessons do you think that each camp that currently divides the women's movement and march, what lessons do you think that they've learned from that history that you just explained? Well, I think the women of color who joined that leadership team said, hey, we're not just going to join. We want to be leaders. We want to lead this march. We are going to be front and center. We're going to be unapologetically Black, visibly Muslim.

We are going to be out there talking about these issues. We're going to have trans women on stage. We're going to send every memo possible to the world that this is not your grandma's women's rights movement. We're not marching so that you white women can go serve on a corporate board. And it sounds like their thinking is if we don't lead the movement, then we'll be left behind as we always were in past iterations of the women's movement. I think that's part of it. They would say that this is the first time in history that marginalized women are leading the mainstream women's rights movement and that you're going to get a better result. They would argue you're going to get more powerful coalitions because they're at the front,

that when Black women get rights, all women will have rights because Black women are the last to get rights, right? So they would argue that once we meet the needs of the most vulnerable, everybody else's needs would be met. But the question is, who else should be included? So if you're a white woman in Kentucky, you know, if you're a woman fighting for access to abortions in Texas, a white woman there, does your voice matter? Or are you simply a person with white privilege who should listen more and take directives from this group of women in New York City? And what about the other side, the other camp that has broken off? I think the other side would say, hey, we wanted you as partners and we want to be good allies,

but we don't want to be sidelined either. Can't we all be leaders? Can't we all work together? Why do I have to make myself small for you to have a leadership role? Can't we be all together here on the same team? It's not that the white women who were a part of that didn't see the importance,

but I think they had a hard time working their butts off and then being told, be quiet, this is not about you. In a way, this really reminds me of the battles underway in our larger politics in this country, especially inside the Democratic Party, which is now debating what exactly its focus should be. Should it be focused on long-term liberal goals around identity and equality? Should that be what the party stands for? Or should it be about shorter-term goals like beating the president in the next election? Because both of those goals might

not be possible, which sounds like the debate you've been outlining, the kind of the question of purity versus pragmatism. Yeah, I think there are a lot of echoes of that. So some Democrats talk about these rural white voters, how do we get back working class whites? And, you know, others say, well, you know, let them go because they are not going to vote in your interests. And we're tired of being sacrificed so that they can take priority. The percentages of Black women that vote loyally for the Democratic Party, 93 percent, 96 percent% you see in these elections. And then the percentages of white women that vote for the Democratic Party, in some cases, it's 40%. So, I mean, that alone has been used. Those statistics are used by women of color who say, we're the loyal

ones. We're the ones who need to be put forth as the leaders because we're the ones who actually get it done and go out there and vote. And we're the ones you've been taking for granted all this time. In the same way they feel they've been taken for granted by the women's movement. Right.

I mean, Tamika Mallory will say that. And white women who worked in the Women's March were tired of being told over and over again that a majority of white women voted for Trump. And they said, I didn't vote for Trump and I'm here working my butt off with you. Why do I get this thrown in my face every day? So even though people say they agree on the basic vision of where we should go as a country or on the principles, When you get down in the trenches, these are what the fights are about. Which is to say, who exactly is in charge

of these institutions, these parties, these movements? Right. Who gets to lead? Who gets to be the face of it? And whose needs are taken care of first? needs are taken care of first. So for this weekend, there will be marches in many big American cities. What is that going to be like? So this Saturday, we have the second anniversary of that march. In New York City, there's going to be two marches. In Philadelphia, there's going to be two marches. And all across the country, there's talk of this division. And people really have to decide which march feels more right for

them. And there's a march that bills itself as being led by women of color. And there's a march that bills itself as being welcoming to Jewish women and against anti-Semitism, people are going to have to decide which march they want to go to. And in that choice, they're kind of saying something meaningful about how they view that complicated history of feminism and who they think should lead the movement now.

And there's also the possibility that people throw up their hands and say, well, I guess I'm not going to go to a march. And that's not necessarily a great thing for the women's movement. Farrah, thank you very much. Hey, thanks so much for having me.

Here's what else you need to know today. A new report estimates that the Trump administration separated thousands more migrant children from their parents than was previously known. The report, conducted by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, found that the administration began separating children at the border in the summer of 2017, months before announcing it would in the spring of 2018, but kept such poor records that it's impossible to know how many separations actually occurred. And a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the president to postpone his State

of the Union address because of the government shutdown, the president has responded by canceling a trip Pelosi had planned to Afghanistan, scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The White House traditionally provides military transport for such congressional trips, but the president said he would withhold it in this case, arguing Pelosi should remain in Washington to negotiate the end of the federal shutdown. In a letter to Pelosi, the president wrote,

quote, Obviously, if you would like to make the journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative. The Daily is produced by Theo Balcom, Lindsay Garrison, Rachel Quester, Annie Brown, Andy Mills, Ike Srees-Conaraja, Claire Tennesketter, Michael Simon-Johnson, Jessica Chung, Alexandra Lee Young, and Jonathan Wolfe, and edited by Paige Cowan, Larissa Anderson, and Wendy Doerr. Lisa Tobin is our executive producer. Samantha Hennig is our editorial director. Our technical manager

is Brad Fisher. Our engineer is Chris Wood. And our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolmick, Michaela Bouchard, and Stella Tan. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Tuesday after the holiday.