Tuesday is Donald Trump’s very first State of the Union address (and hopefully his last), and it’s raised all sorts of interesting issues: Who will attend, who won’t attend, who will people bring as guests to make a statement, and how on earth we got to a place where a Klan-backed serial adulterer who lost the popular vote by a huge margin is actually giving the State of the Union address.
But the SOTU is as good a place as any to make the aforementioned political statement, and the women of the Democratic Party are planning to do just that.
Much of the news really of the last entire year has been centered around movements driven by women — the Women’s March that took place right after the inauguration, as well as the social media-spread movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp — that are partly in reaction to the exposure of predators in the entertainment industry and partly as a result of decades of oppression.
So when a movement like that offers up a powerful slogan or piece of imagery, the best way to spread the message of it is to carry it into the most visible settings possible — Awards shows, public appearances, legislation, and now, the State of the Union address.
Like the women who attended the Golden Globes at the beginning of January, Democratic women are planning to wear black in solidarity with the Time’s Up movement and to show Donald Trump — who has been accused of sexual misconduct by no fewer than 19 women — that the world of politics is not immune to the demands of equality and the end of oppression.
Rep Lois Frankel, the Chair of the Democratic Women’s Working Group in the House of Representatives, said in an interview with Vox,
There was so much — and still is — agitation about the president and our fears of what he was going to do to the women of our country and the world. Of course, our fears have come true.”
Now it’s Trump who should be worried about his own fears coming true.
Featured image via Sarah Morris/Getty Images
