Women are taught the rules from an early age. Smile, be polite, be modest, ignore the cat calls, boys will be boys. Later we learn the next set. Stay in your lane, don't ask for a raise, hide your pregnancy or risk losing your job, don’t speak up - they won’t believe you anyway. These are just a few of society’s unwritten rules that are holding us back.
Women make up more than half of the country and nearly half of the American workforce. We are the majority of organizers, activists and voters. Women are at the front lines – from town halls defending access to health care to the U.S.-Mexico border working to reunite separated families. We are a powerful supermajority and it’s time we come together and write new rules that lift us up because each of us has the right to dignity, safety and respect.
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This spring, we launched Supermajority and Supermajority Education Fund to build and activate the power of women of all backgrounds, races and generations. Since then we’ve heard from women across the country who are saying they’re energized and want to do more.
That is why, today, we’re hitting the road for the Supermajority and Supermajority Education Fund bus tour. We are traveling to 14 states and Washington, D.C. – starting in Atlanta, Georgia – and wrapping up in Las Vegas, Nevada, to meet women where they are, from living rooms to churches to small businesses to union halls.
While on the tour, we are announcing Majority Rules, the values women want to see reflected in our homes, work and society. The Majority Rules are informed by tens of thousands of women across America through in-person discussions in their communities, focus groups, online polling, targeted research and the 75,000 women who took Supermajority Education Fund’s Women’s Poll. Majority Rules is women’s collective vision for how we live, work and rise together.
During the tour, we are providing women the rare opportunity to rally around a shared set of values, in-person and online, alongside fellow women who have also raised their hands and said, “I want to step up.” We are organizing, training and providing women the information, tools and support they need to take action this year and next. We will make sure those in power truly see us and hear us – in the public debate, policy decisions and in the voting booth.
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Supermajority is building the largest woman-to-woman voter engagement program in America and will use the Majority Rules as a tool to hold leaders accountable.
No longer will we accept what has been decided for us and expected of us.
We will not tolerate the need to look over our shoulders. We deserve to live free of fear, intimidation and violence at home, work and in our communities.
The health care system – created by and for men – will take women’s needs and choices seriously. Care from birth to old age will be affordable and accessible to all, and women will not carry this responsibility alone.
Women are clocking long hours and we’re being paid less than our male counterparts. This will change. Our work will be valued. Our employers will pay and promote us on an equal basis based on our skills, not our gender. Jobs primarily held by women – from teaching to caregiving – will be valued for the importance they carry. Women will be empowered to retire with dignity.
No longer will we be forced to make impossible decisions that pit family against work, like struggling to afford child care so we can keep the jobs that support our families. No longer will we put ourselves last to take care of others first or be made to feel guilty that we have a sick child, partner or parent who needs us. Our families will be supported.
And women will be represented – from the school board to the Oval Office – and have access to the polls, where all of our votes will be counted. We will lift each other up so holding a position of power is a dream anyone can accomplish.
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These rules are grounded by the Super Rule, which demands the lives and experiences of women – particularly women of color – are front and center in addressing all of our nation’s challenges. From climate change to immigration to criminal justice reform, we will be resolute in ensuring those who are impacted most are counted and considered first.
It’s time we live in a society where the rules work for everyone. Ahead of the most consequential election in our lifetime, we are bringing women together to ensure those in power put our priorities first. Women have already demonstrated our influence at the ballot box - making up 53 percent of the voters in 2018. That force will only grow in 2020 as we organize women from coast to coast. Because women are not a special interest group.
We are the Supermajority.
And it’s time the majority rules.
Cecile Richards, Ai-jen Poo and Alicia Garza are co-founders of Supermajority and Supermajority Education Fund, a new effort to build women's power across the country by training and mobilizing a multiracial, intergenerational community who will lead the fight for gender equity.