A massive network of women activists across the country — that’s the vision of the new activist org Supermajority and its leadership, which is a dream team of organizers. Former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, Black Lives Matter Global Network co-founder Alicia Garza, and National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) director Ai-Jen Poo are just three of the women helming the group named for the fact that women are a majority of the country’s electorate.
“Women are marching, running for office, donating to, and advocating for causes and campaigns, and voting in record numbers. We can be the most powerful force in America — if we do the work together,” the group, which launched April 29, says on its website. “We’re building a Supermajority of women [and everyone who shares our values!] who are organizing for gender equity.”
The leadership behind the group is a who’s who of powerful women. Aside from Poo, Garza, and Richards, there’s Deirdre Schifeling of Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund; Jess Morales Rocketto of the NDWA, Care in Action, and Families Belong Together; and NYU professor Katherine Grainger of Civitas Public Affairs Group.
“We want to connect people,” Poo tells Teen Vogue in an interview. “We want to add oxygen to what people are already doing. We want to provide tools and resources and training. We’re organizers, so we want to think about all the things that women need to build power together.”
Poo told Teen Vogue all about the new group, how it came together, and what it hopes to accomplish.
Teen Vogue: What is Supermajority?
Ai-jen Poo: Supermajority is a new home for women’s activism. Basically, we have to come together as organizers who have been organizing with different constituencies of women. I’ve been organizing with domestic workers for 21 years, and I've seen the power of women’s organizing to make the impossible possible. I've been watching as this incredible surge of women’s activism has seized the country in the past couple of years.
Listening to women, what we found across the board, across generations, across race, across class, and also across geographical areas — everybody was already in motion and wanted to do more. They wanted to not just resist, but they actually wanted to solve problems and win.
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TV: What do you mean by winning? Is that in terms of elections?
AP: I’m talking about winning actual change — an agenda for women that allows us to achieve equality on the issues we care about. We’ll see down the road, we want women to be engaged in the civic process.
TV: So organizing is the priority right now?
AP: Exactly — building our power together, being more than the sum of our parts. We’re going to spend the summer talking to women all across the country about the issues they care about and building an agenda for women — almost like a New Deal for women.__
TV: Is there any connection between Supermajority’s New Deal language and New Deal architect President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s belief in a second bill of economic rights?
AP: Not really a direct correlation. It’s a comprehensive or holistic agenda that really addresses the needs, hopes, and aspirations of 21st-century women for equality and equity. Certainly, economic issues are a big part of it. Still, two-thirds of all minimum-wage workers are women.
TV: Do you have any concerns about the challenges of coming up with a cohesive agenda for a demographic as diverse as women?
AP: This is a home for all people who share our values and believe in equality. So it’s not just about women. The way that we think about women is inclusive of anyone who identifies as a woman; it includes gender non-conforming women, disabled women, and all the identities with which women also identify.
If we think about domestic workers, they’re women, they’re low-wage workers, and they’ve been excluded from labor protections, in fact, from the New Deal. And they’re immigrant women, some of them have disabilities. All of the dimensions of their identities and who they are as whole human beings are part of this vision.
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TV: Do you think there are any lessons organizers can learn from the Women’s March?
AP: I think the Women’s March was incredibly successful — one of the most historic and important mobilizations in the history of this country. And I see the Women’s March as a really important part of an ecosystem of organizations that are going to supercharge this movement in 2020 and beyond.
The definition of a movement is many, many organizations moving in the same direction. Any time you’re trying to do something this ambitious like achieving equality, it does require a movement. And movements are made up of people, and people are very complicated.
TV: How did you get involved with this project?
AP: Actually about over a year ago, my colleagues, including Alicia Garza and Jess Morales, and I started talking within our organization about how to meet this moment with women. We knew that women in other organizations were having the same conversation and we basically tried to connect. Within Planned Parenthood, Cecile and Deidre were having the same conversation.
The team has just coalesced. It’s almost like a Voltron has kind of formed, and it’s our hope that more pieces of this incredible network of women organizers are going to meet up and join together.
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TV: Do you think Supermajority is poised to build on the momentum women built in the 2018 midterms?
AP: We want to supercharge that. This is a real moment and a movement that is just growing in power.
After the first Women’s March, all the media was asking, “Are women tired?” and “Are people going to get burned out?” I think what we saw in the 2018 midterms is the opposite. Women are wanting to do more and build our power for the long haul.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Cecile Richards on Making Trouble, Activism, and How Young People Will Change the World
