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Extended Interview: Meet Five of the Women Who Staged Golden Globes Protest Against Gender Violence

Web ExclusiveJanuary 12, 2018
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Extended interview with five of the women who took part in the “Time’s Up!” protest at the Golden Globe Awards, where the red carpet went dark, with many dressed in black to show their solidarity with the movement to demand gender and racial justice and a world free of sexual harassment and assault. We speak to Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement; actress Shailene Woodley; Mónica Ramírez of the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance; Calina Lawrence of the Suquamish Tribe; and Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Part 2 of our discussion about Time’s Up. That’s the rallying cry bringing together women, from Hollywood actresses to housekeepers to farmworkers, to demand gender and racial justice and a world free of sexual harassment and assault. The movement launched last Sunday night at the Golden Globe Awards, where the red carpet went dark, many people dressed in black to show their solidarity with the movement. And it wasn’t just actors and actresses. A number of Hollywood stars brought social justice activists with them to the Golden Globes.

For more, we’re joined by five remarkable women, who helped launch the Time’s Up movement, were all at the Golden Globes, activists and actresses alike.

Here in New York City, Tarana Burke is with us. She is founder of the #MeToo movement, established the organization in 2006 to focus on young women who’ve endured sexual abuse, assault or exploitation, now a senior director at Girls for Gender Equity.

In Chicago, Ai-jen Poo is with us, executive director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, co-director of Caring Across Generations.

In Washington, D.C., Mónica Ramírez, co-founder and president of the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance.

And in Seattle, Washington, Calina Lawrence is an artist and activist, enrolled member of the Suquamish Tribe, attended Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards with actress Shailene Woodley, who is joining us, as well, from France by Democracy Now! video stream, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for the TV series Big Little Lies. She also starred in The Divergent Series, Fault in Our Stars and other films.

I want to start with Tarana Burke here in New York. I mean, Tarana, the trajectory of your work is quite remarkable. You know, the #MeToo hashtag started, and people thought it was actresses who had come up with it, but they had taken and credited you with this whole #MeToo movement at the beginning, that you started years ago, before hashtags. Now, with all of the attention, you ended up dropping the ball—though you’ve hardly dropped the ball in your life—on New Year’s Eve. You went to the Golden Globes for this Time’s Up initiative. Talk about how the Time’s Up initiative began.

TARANA BURKE: Well, Time’s Up initiative didn’t begin with us. This was something that was created by the women who work in Hollywood. But I think it’s a perfect complement to what has been happening. Time’s Up—you know, we are not necessarily a part of Time’s Up, but we stand in solidarity with them, because they represent the work. You know, there’s a spectrum of work that needs to happen, and it’s going to take all of us, all of our different organizations and all of the different ways that we move in this movement. It’s going to take all of us collectively to really move the needle—right?—and find justice for women and people who are survivors of sexual violence. And so, it was really important, I thought, for us to be together on the red carpet to, one, show solidarity with the work that the women in Hollywood are doing, because it’s so important. So many people who deal with sexual harassment don’t have the means to file lawsuits or to get legal representation or legal advice. And so, that’s definitely a major concern.

AMY GOODMAN: You went with Michelle Williams.

TARANA BURKE: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Michelle Williams is making headlines right now, whether she wants to be or not—

TARANA BURKE: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —starred in All the Money in the World. And that film got a lot of attention, because right before it came out, Kevin Spacey was publicly accused by a number of men of having sexually assaulted or harassed them, and so they took him out of the movie. They had to reshoot it. Michelle Williams, who was up for a Golden Globe for her starring role. Mark Wahlberg was also starring in the film. He got a million-point—he got a million-and-a-half dollars to reshoot the film. Michelle Williams got $1,000. One thousand versus 1.5 million. Let me put that question to Shailene Woodley, who is an A-list actress in Hollywood. Were you shocked by this?

SHAILENE WOODLEY: I wish I could say I was shocked. That gap is shocking. But the act of that gap, the fact that that gap exists, is not shocking to me, because that gap has existed for as—I mean, for as long as I’ve been in this industry and decades before me. And it’s not just our industry, as well. Obviously, it’s every single industry, which is why we’re having these conversations today and why we’re standing up.

Yeah, you know, there’s nothing—there’s no irony lost on me that these are the headlines that are coming up right after the Golden Globes, right after that beautiful speech by Oprah, right after every single person wearing black to stand in solidarity with women and women’s rights and women’s equality. This cannot go. This cannot be silenced.

Those numbers are large numbers, but what those numbers represent, if we take away the quantity of the amount, is the disparity between men and women still. And that, to me, is the theme, the ongoing theme, that we have to keep paying attention to. And I think—I think people will. I think Sunday had a huge impact on our industry. And every single day, for that matter, for the last couple months has had a huge impact when it comes to looking at the differences between how men and women are treated. And so, not shocking to me for that headline, but also a little bit promising, because I hope that some momentum has been made in the past week and that we’ll be able to look at this from a new perspective and that something will be done about it pretty quickly from those who have the power to do so.

AMY GOODMAN: And let me ask you, Shailene Woodley, about Natalie Portman, when she got up to introduce the best directors of films, commenting they were all men.

SHAILENE WOODLEY: Yeah, I was actually backstage when that happened, so I didn’t—I didn’t see that happen, but I did hear about what happened, afterwards. And that’s something to pay attention to. I mean, there’s a lot of arguments—right?—about how, well, they were the best ones this year, and maybe there weren’t enough female directors out there to be compared to. And that’s what the conversation needs to be had, not necessarily that they were the only ones nominated, but why are they the only ones nominated. Is it because they really truly were the best artists this year in their category? It could be so. It could be. But is it also because there are more male directors than female directors, so more males have the chance to be recognized for their artistry than females do, because, statistically, they’re the ones who are sort of running the game right now? And that’s the dialogue that I think Natalie Portman was able to elicit amongst people, was we need to be aware and mindful that these nominees are all male, and look at the whys of that. And then, how do we change that? How do we work on that? And how do we make it—how do we make it our priority to make sure again that those gaps are lessened?

AMY GOODMAN: And then, let’s talk about your TV series, which is remarkable. And your performance is so horrifying, jarring, astounding in this, in Big Little Lies, where you have these five women stars, or five women in Monterey, California, and so much of it, and certainly your character, Shailene, revolves around abuse. Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern won the Golden Globes. Laura Dern, her daughter, who’s a child—how old is she? Five or 6 years old—is being bullied. Nicole Kidman plays a character who’s being sexually abused. And, of course, you, yourself. Talk about this film—this TV series, why you did it and the kind of response you’re getting to it.

SHAILENE WOODLEY: I did it—I did it based on the first episode, because that was all I had read when I agreed to do the show. And so I didn’t know where it was going to lead. I hadn’t read the book yet. But to work with that many strong women, to me, that opportunity just doesn’t come around. So that was the first drawing point for me for the show. And then, as I began to read more episodes, I began to understand the gravity and the depth of what we were actually creating. And again, it’s so—it could be said ironic, or it could be said serendipitous or kismet. But there’s a reason why this show is out right now in this time, when our voices are being heard more, when we are unifying more as women, when we are standing together in solidarity.

And it just goes to show—we weren’t planning to do a season two, and we’re going to do a season two now, based on the public’s response, which also very rarely happens. There were no plans to continue the series, but because so many women could relate to the story—and men, as well—we’re doing a second one. And, to me, that shows that the relatability factor of violence is prevalent, the fact that so many people were connected to these characters and to the internal dialogues and the internal psychology of women. First off, we very rarely see anything in film and television where women are allowed to—or where we, as an audience, are allowed inside the psyches of women and understand the emotional impact and the feelings of what women go through. So, that’s very—that was a very exciting factor. But also the fact that, again, we all can relate to violence, whether we’re men or women, whether we’re on the receiving end or the giving end. Violence is something that, unfortunately, we all know, in this day and age, and something that we all have experienced. And I feel very honored and very privileged to be in a position to tell a story that’s not only something I relate to, but to know that, take away circumstance and take away external experience, the underlying emotion of it all is something that all of us can relate to. And, to me, that’s where the real healing begins, is when we strip away our labels and our divisions and our experiences to be able to relate on an emotional level. That’s how we’re going to be able to change this world, because we can’t agree with everyone.

AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times headline, with a picture of you all kissing the Golden Globes, is “After Globes, Women Declare Success. But What About the Men?” Shailene?

SHAILENE WOODLEY: That’s a great—that’s a great question. What about the men and how they felt after the Globes?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the question of The New York Times. That’s the headline: “After Globes, Women Declare Success. But What About the Men?” And, of course, what this means for all of Hollywood in this post—is it post-Harvey Weinstein age?

SHAILENE WOODLEY: I mean, Harvey Weinstein is one person, right?

AMY GOODMAN: Right.

SHAILENE WOODLEY: But there’s so many people that this has happened to, inside and outside of Hollywood. I think he was just the catalyst for the can to burst open for all of us to begin unifying and feeling safe to communicate with one another and feeling that our voices will be heard.

I can’t answer the question posed by The New York Times, because I’m not a man. But my hope would be that—and, actually, my experience at the Globes, like I mentioned earlier, it was the first award show where I looked in every single person’s eyes, and I saw nothing but who they really were. And I saw nothing but what they really wanted to learn and experience and grow towards. And that was beautiful to me. And that occurred with both men and women. So, I hope that post-Globes the men feel as empowered as the women do to use their voices to stand with us, because we need male allies. This is not just a movement by and for women only. This is a movement for women and for men to be able to understand each other on a level that we haven’t been able to before, for women and men to be able to communicate in a good way and in a safe way and in an appropriate way that feels good to both parties. So, I hope that males have walked away with a new sense of accountability, a new sense of responsibility and a new sense of allyship.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Tarana Burke, you don’t usually occupy this world, walking the red carpet. And following up on what Shailene Woodley is talking about, perhaps moments of authenticity there, what this means for your work? You’ve been doing this for years, well over a decade. But this level, this critical moment, this critical mass that has been reached—

TARANA BURKE: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —has it changed your work?

TARANA BURKE: Well, it’s definitely changed the work. And I had no expectation. It wasn’t like a dream of mine to go to the Golden Globes. And I’ve never felt that my work was connected to Hollywood in that way. But I will say, when Michelle first called me to go to—to invite me to go to the Globes, my first question—

AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Williams.

TARANA BURKE: Michelle Williams, the actress. My first question was “Why?” And we had, you know, a 45-minute conversation. And at the end of that conversation, I realized that what she was—it was a genuine invitation, and we had a discussion about, you know, her world and my world. And what I said to her was that I think that this—you know, inviting me is great, and I’m one person that would be on the red carpet, but what would happen if we invited several women? Right? There are women all around the country that I know who are doing this work, who need to be heard, whose voices need to be elevated.

And so, I learned so much this weekend, in this process, and forged new friendships and new alliances. But I think that this has changed all of our work, in some ways. We had—and I really wanted to underscore Michelle Williams’ role in making this happen. You know, she initially invited me, and I proposed this idea to expand to other people. And she took it right away and took leadership in trying to make and making that happen. So, I want to make sure she gets props for that, because none of them had to do this, even conceding their time on the red carpet for us to talk about issues that are never talked about. I mean, people don’t come to the Golden Globes to talk about sexual violence and talk about domestic workers or restaurant workers or farmworkers or survivors of sexual violence. So, this has given us all an expanded platform and more visibility. And I know that all of us are committed to using that visibility to expand our work, to talk to more people, to talk to people. A lot of times, in our world, we sort of talk to each other, you know, and we spend a lot of time sort of preaching to the choir. We speak to the converted already. And something like being on the Golden Globes gives us a wider audience to speak to, to people who may not be as invested in the work that we’re doing. And so, that was the golden opportunity.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do the young women feel, that you work with, at this moment, with this #MeToo movement, as people’s voices are being respected, young women who felt a year ago, perhaps—or is this romanticizing it? Is this saying, “No, you’re making much too big a deal of this”? Do people feel safer to speak out, to name names?

TARANA BURKE: You know what? I think that we have to do a better job of including young people in this conversation. I will say that I think, because it’s on social media and it’s a hashtag and there’s like a lot of pop culture involved now in this, that it’s—that’s another way for it to help us reach a wider audience, including young people. But we definitely have to do a better job of speaking to the issues, like sexual harassment in schools, that leads to school pushout, and things like that.

So, at Girls for Gender Equity, we certainly do that work, and we are in communication with young people all the time. And so, the young people who I talk to are very excited, of course, because they sort of see not just me on television, but talking about things that we talk about in small groups and things like that. But I do think, on a national level, on an international level, we have to do a better job of including the voices of young people and the issues that young people face around sexual violence.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to put the same question to Ai-jen Poo, who—you have been working for decades. You are executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. And then you’re on the red carpet with Meryl Streep, who had actually taken on President Trump before—right?—famously, last year, President Trump who himself has been accused of sexual harassment, assault or misconduct by at least 16 women publicly at this point. And people saw that happen through the past year. And then they also saw him being elevated to president of the United States, after these women had spoken out. But can you talk about how this has changed your work? You represent nannies. You represent domestic workers. You represent home healthcare workers, home aides. What are people saying to you? Is this a kind of magic moment? Has it reached critical mass? What kind of legislation are you getting pushed through? And is legislation the answer?

AI-JEN POO: So, one of the things about the workforce that I represent is that it is almost defined by invisibility. If you think about it, you could go into any neighborhood and not know which homes are also workplaces. So, the work is hidden behind closed doors, and the workers are incredibly isolated. There’s no water cooler. There’s no HR department.

And so, the fact that we were able to have this kind of visibility was actually incredibly game-changing. And what you saw on social media is domestic workers all over the country wearing black, taking selfies, posting their own stories on Sunday night. And I think that, as organizers, we always talk about how a victory isn’t really a victory if nobody feels it’s theirs. And what we felt, I think—Tarana, Mónica, so many of us who were there, Calina—is that the women that we’re connected to, in these kind of webs of networks of women who support each other and have always supported each other, is that we all—such a diverse cross-section of us did feel connected to that moment of visibility, that breakthrough.

And I think there’s so much more work to be done. We have to build upon this momentum to really make sure that both the written and the unwritten rules change. Right? There’s so many groups of workers who fall through the cracks of protections, not just in terms of assault and harassment, but all kinds of protections that ensure that we can have dignity and respect at work.

I think what we saw with Michelle Williams was something that’s endemic to our entire economy, where women’s contributions and our lives are devalued. And in order for that to change, there’s got to be this ongoing groundswell—right?—across industries, across communities, that is about changing both our culture and our practices, how we treat each other, how we value each other, how we listen to each other and recognize each other’s humanity and policies. So, we’re looking at a whole sweeping reform of policies that protect women and all people from harassment in the workplace. And we’re going to be working really closely with the farmworkers on that piece, as the two groups of workers who’s been the most systematically excluded from our labor protections. So, stay tuned for more on that front.

AMY GOODMAN: And before we go back to Mónica Ramírez, I wanted to go back to 2011. We’re talking about this magic moment, this critical mass, that has been reached in 2017, '18. But let's go back to 2011. A New York hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, accusing the former IMF chief and possible, well, at the time, future French president, it was believed, Dominique Strauss-Kahn—she accuses him of attempting to rape her, of attacking her. This is Diallo, an immigrant from the African nation of Guinea, speaking out. She said the case has taken a huge personal toll, but she was determined to bring it to light.

NAFISSATOU DIALLO: Today I promise I’m going to be strong for you and for every other woman in the world. What happened to me, I don’t want that to happen to any other woman, because this is just too much for me. It’s too much for me and my daughter. And I’m here to thank everybody. I’ve been receiving notes. People support me. I want to thank everybody. I thank everybody. I’ve been crying, asking God, “Why me? Why me?” But I just want to thank everybody.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Nafissatou Diallo. She was the woman who accused and brought down the IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, after she said he attacked her in a hotel room in New York. Ai-jen Poo, the significance of what she did? These women, like Nafissatou, are who you represent.

AI-JEN POO: Absolutely. It is incredible, the kind of courage that is required and that women demonstrate every day to come forward and share their stories. And I think one thing that is also really important to raise up is that different women face different challenges. And right now in my workforce, for example, there’s a—it’s the largest concentration of undocumented immigrant women of any part of our workforce. And the additional pressures—when you are undocumented, every time you step forward or you speak out, you risk being permanently separated from your family through deportation.

And so, just the incredible stakes that women break through in order to speak their truths, they do it not just for themselves, but they do it for other women. Meryl Streep, on the red carpet on Sunday, talked about how courage begets courage. And that is definitely the case. What I’ve seen among domestic workers is that courage is contagious. And I think what we’re seeing now across industries is that women are inspiring each other to step forward, against the odds, and we’re starting to create a real culture shift.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Mónica, and I want to go to her. Mónica Ramírez is head of the—Mónica Ramírez is head of the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance, talking about the invisible workers and the kind of protections you need to push through, that even with labor unions, you are the least represented. And what you think needs to happen, the kind of alliance you’re forming with Ai-jen Poo and the domestic workers?

MÓNICA RAMÍREZ: Sure. I mean, I think that it’s important to note that farmworkers, outside of the state of California, cannot unionize. So, to the extent that unionization is a solution or a way to address this issue for farmworker women and for domestic workers and for others, it’s not—it’s not an option, because we cannot organize in that way. And so, the organizing that’s happening on the ground is through collective efforts, but not through formalized unionization.

And what needs to happen—you know, our experience over the years, because we’ve been working on this issue for decades, organizing women, helping women to bring complaints forward to the EEOC, supporting women and bringing cases on their behalf—and the law does not work for our community, as it currently exists. You know, the federal protections that are on the books are very difficult to access. And I’ve said repeatedly that the law is—if the law is not accessible to the people, then the law is not good enough. And for our community, that is certainly the truth.

We need to look at what is on the books, and we need to figure out how to ensure that all workers are covered by the law, because currently you’re not covered unless you have 15 employees or more. So the employee threshold is a real problem for farmworkers on small farms, domestic workers and others. We need to look at the filing time for making a complaint, because it’s a very short window of time. And if you’re a migrant farmworker who doesn’t even know what state you live in, let alone how to find an organization or some service to be able to help you, that window of time is—it’s a huge barrier to being able to access justice. There are many other things that we’re looking at that need to be addressed, in both the policy work as well as the administrative advocacy, because once people come forward to make complaints or to try to pursue their claims, navigating the existing administrative process is extremely difficult, and very few people can navigate it on their own. So there are many barriers that exist.

We’re trying to think through how to make good recommendations that can address some of the shortcomings of the law, based on our years of experience bringing these cases and supporting women who have bravely come forward. But we think that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, and it’s not one strategy. It has to be a multipronged strategy that uses advocacy, law reform, as well as culture shift.

And we cannot forget the fact that if a woman is devastated, as every victim that I’ve worked with and every survivor that I’ve worked with, if they don’t get the care that they need, the mental healthcare and other care that they need, there will be no case. And so, we have to think broadly about the kind of care that individuals need in order to be able to really seek justice and see the process through in order to obtain justice.

AMY GOODMAN: Calina Lawrence, I want to ask you about the issue of violence against indigenous women. Democracy Now! recently spoke to Mary Kathryn Nagle, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, an attorney on tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction. After Olivia Lone Bear, a Native American woman, went missing in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota. This is what she said.

MARY KATHRYN NAGLE: Amy, this is all too common. And we have the highest rates across the United States, again, in Indian country, of violence, but in particular in North Dakota, where the rates of oil extraction have skyrocketed since 2005 in the Bakken oil boom.

As a result of that, over 100,000 men from outside of the state of North Dakota have moved to the state of North Dakota to live in man camps that the oil companies have set up. And, unfortunately, as Senator Heidi Heitkamp has noted, as the former U.S. attorney for the state of North Dakota has noted, the resulting rates of violence, drug, of course, and crime and burglary have skyrocketed, but also, in particular, domestic violence and sexual assault, including rape and sex trafficking.

And numerous leaders, both at the state and federal level, have now noticed that North Dakota—some of the towns in North Dakota within the Bakken boom and some within the Fort Berthold Reservation, where Olivia is from, now have some of the highest rates of sex trafficking in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mary Kathryn Nagle, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, talking about what happened to Olivia Lone Bear. We still don’t know. It has been months. She disappeared, a Native American woman lost in the Bakken oil fields, disappeared in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota. The man camps she refers to, your activism around oil politics, if you can refer to that and also, even just this week, the multi-day occupation of the Washington state Capitol, with tipis erected on the Capitol lawn, demanding a liquefied natural gas plant be stopped? The connection between violence against women and oil politics in this country?

CALINA LAWRENCE: Absolutely. One of the main things that we have been pushing is that the two are synonymous. The violence against women is synonymous with the environmental injustice that we have been facing. And one of the things that has come out of this, this further analysis of Big Oil, is that it’s a very—it’s a very evident and permanent thing we can point at and say that there is a direct correlation. There’s no way that we can deny that.

So, the fact that so many of us have to do both the work against violence and the work in fighting for our land and to preserve our landscape, our resources, our direct sources of life, like water and all of our non-human relatives, who contribute to the entire life cycle of more than just humanity, is something that we continue to push as a narrative, and really recognizing this importance of combining—right?—combining so much of the work that we do. I often talk about the fact that Native people are at an intersection, right? So the reason that I advocate and have to fight for so many different causes is because I’m impacted by all of them. And so, when we can find a way to make those correlations and strengthen our need to be included and our need to be recognized, it really shows that as soon—you know, one of the main things that has come from these incredible, incredible women, you know, the activists who I was just honored to stand beside and learn from at the awards, is the fact that we can come together and find ways to advocate for each other.

And I just have to mention, you know, I’m only 24 years old, and I’m still learning so much. And, for me, a lot of the women that we’re talking to today and the women who were at the Globes, they’re my role models, right? They’re people who I look up to in organizing. And the fact that I’m learning so much from them helps me to figure out how to better not only represent, but work in the streets and in the communities.

And one of those ways is to—I’ve been participating in the No LNG 253 fight with the Puyallup Tribe and the citizens of Tacoma, who are indeed fighting this 8 million gallon liquefied natural, but fracked, gas facility with a three-and-a-half-mile blast zone. And LNG is very deceiving, right? The idea of natural gas is, is that if it’s fracked, there’s somewhere—there’s a community somewhere, most likely a Native community, who is suffering from those repercussions, right? But also, what do we do? What do we do when it explodes? They have previously built a similar facility, and it has exploded.

And so, now you’re—for one, you’re violating the supreme law of the land, which is—which all treaties in the United States are the supreme law of the land. And so, any time that any Big Oil or any corporation is not in communication with Native tribes, you are violating and breaking the law. And besides that, there are non-human relatives who are at stake, are the quality of our water, our salmon, our killer whales. Just so many different vital parts of the cycle of life are at risk. For what? Right? We know that there are more sustainable ways to live. And so, this is similar to Standing Rock, where the facility is continuing to be built without permits and without consent, improper communication with tribal leadership for government-to-government sovereign rights. And because of this, it’s an ongoing attack on our legitimacy, but also on Mother Earth and all of the sources that we need in order to exist and preserve and persevere.

So, there is a direct correlation between environmental injustice and violence against women. And until we can really sit down and continue conversations like this, that address that very—that reality for the most marginalized, the most vulnerable, which, in my experience, is Native American women and LGBTQ and children—now that we’re included in the conversation on this level and we are able to continue to build, to use tools and build, we have a real shot at redefining our humanity and redefining how we exist and coexist with Mother Earth.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you all for being with us. And I want to end where we began Part 1 of this discussion, which people can check out at democracynow.org, with Tarana Burke, who ushered in the new year by—was it actually dropping the ball or pressing a button?

TARANA BURKE: Pressing a button.

AMY GOODMAN: Describe the experience on New Year’s Eve and the metaphor of this, for whether this is launching a new era. But describe exactly what happened here in New York, when the world was watching, a million people crowded into sub-freezing weather in Times Square.

TARANA BURKE: Well, it is pressing the Waterford crystal button. And I should also say that I wasn’t alone on the stage. I used that opportunity to bring two survivors with me, Jerhonda Pace and Jenny Lumet. And I wanted—and I want to just mention them, because I think that’s the symbolism that I wanted to convey on that evening, is that this is bringing in a new year and ushering in a new time in our history, a new moment in history, where survivors will be centered in the work to end sexual violence and where this conversation around sexual violence is going to shift, and we will be talking about women of color, we will be talking about black women, brown women. We will talk—we’ll be talking about young people. We’ll be talking about people from the LGBTQ community. And so, that experience was something I—you know, I don’t even know how to describe it. It was very cold, but it was also very exhilarating and, I think, hopeful for a lot of people. And that was the goal.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you all for being with us, Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement; Shailene Woodley, TV and film star; Mónica Ramírez, a founder of the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance; Calina Lawrence, artist, activist, member of the Suquamish Tribe, speaking to us from Seattle, Washington; and Ai-jen Poo, a head of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Thank you for joining us for this very important discussion, from Times Square to Time’s Up.

I’m Amy Goodman. To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracynow.org. Thanks so much for joining us.

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