“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”
The Women’s Caucus Leadership Conference held at UC Irvine on Feb. 11 and 12 gave women of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds a chance to discuss the pressing issues we face in our everyday lives. Although we had the opportunity to hear of the many accolades of women before us, we realized that there is still mounds of work left to do in order to ensure equality and liberty for all women to come.
The day started off promising with a keynote speech from assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher. Fletcher discussed her nonlinear path to becoming a successful assemblywoman pushing for bills that held significance to her. She highlighted the failures in her life and assured us that as women, we must not succumb to the failures in our lives, but rather use those to fuel our passion towards accomplishing our goals. She even went so far as to say, “if you’re not failing, you’re not reaching far enough”. Fletcher brought awareness to bills on the state assembly floor which need to be pursued further, but generally if the the public doesn’t pressure the legislators enough, those bills are ignored. With the new presidential administration it is imperative that we make our voices heard on a national level as well, to assure that our standards of liberty and equality are being met.
This event brought attention to bills on the house floor currently that restrict the rights of women all over the country. One of them being the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2017. This bill introduced in the House on Jan. 6, 2017 strives to prohibit federal funding to Planned Parenthood for one year. If this goes into effect, over 2.5 million Americans will lose access to the healthcare they need including contraception, cancer screenings, and tests and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases.
Fletcher also alluded to a bill she proposed which was then signed into law which granted farmers equal pay for overtime work. Hearing of Fletcher’s work was not only inspiring, but also eye-opening to the power we have as individuals in creating change within our societies. I implore you to look further into issues that resonate with you, and support organizations and legislators working to make your ideals a reality.