Hi there! Welcome to Easy A–Your go-to source for quick and easy actions you can take in five minutes or less about the issues you care about.
Are you a busy mom? Or maybe your work is so hectic you can’t think about anything else during the day? A lot of us are also taking care of parents or other loved ones too, leaving little time for anything else.
The good news is that these are things you can do while you’re waiting in the school pick up line, on your lunch break, or even at your kid’s soccer practice – anywhere you happen to be! And you can easily share Easy A with your friends so they can be in the know, too! We’ll send you a new action to take every week–just one, we promise –and it will always be something you can do in five minutes or less. Ready to get started? Let’s go!
Read This: A Seriously Brief Timeline of Women Organizing for Good
Throughout history, women have organized and fought for the greater good. Right now, as we witness great injustices and many of our freedoms are at stake, let’s recognize and celebrate some of the American women who showed us what’s possible through local organizing.
Esther de Berdt Reed
In 1780, Esther de Berdt Reed formed the Ladies Association of Philadelphia to support soldiers in the Revolutionary War. She organized dozens of women to go door-to-door raising more than $300,000 from 1,600 individuals! Working with George and Martha Washington to decide how to use the money, the women purchased linen and made much-needed new shirts for the soldiers in the field. Their efforts became a standard for combining social and political activity for good causes in other states.
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland. In 1849 she escaped and made it to freedom in Philadelphia, but her family stayed behind. She decided to return to help them and became a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, building a personal network of abolitionist friends and helpers. In 1854, she succeeded in helping her parents, brothers, and others escape to freedom. In total, she made about 13 trips, helping an estimated 70 people reach freedom in the north.
Ella Baker
Ella Baker, the Executive Secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was impressed by the student sit-ins during the Civil Rights movement. In 1960, she organized a conference to bring all the student leaders of the sit-in movement together. There, she encouraged the 126 students in attendance to create the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She connected them with each other and with powerful leaders from the NAACP and SCLC. Many Civil Rights leaders grew out of the SNCC and the organization went on to become an important part of the movement.
Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta grew up in an agricultural community of diverse, working families in California. As a teacher, she was bothered by the economic injustices faced by her students. This led her to become an organizer with the Stockton Community Service Organization and to found the Agricultural Workers Association. She arranged voter registration drives and advocated for workers’ rights. That’s how she met César E. Chávez and together, in 1962, they started the National Farm Workers Association to help farm workers organize, negotiate for better work contracts and insurance, and secure aid and safer working conditions. At 95 years old, Dolores still travels the country helping working families organize and advocate for themselves.
Heather Booth
Heather Booth was already active in civil rights causes in 1965, before Roe v. Wade, when she formed JANE, a secret abortion service. She organized ten women and even more anonymous volunteers to run JANE. For seven years they helped 11,000 patients get the safe healthcare they needed. Heather never stopped organizing and also founded Midwest Academy, which trains grassroots organizers on how to successfully make positive change in their communities.
Ai-jen Poo
Ai-jen Poo is the daughter of immigrants who volunteered in an Asian women’s shelter and saw the struggles faced by domestic care workers — low pay without benefits, overwork, and workplace violence. She started a campaign to organize domestic workers — mostly immigrants — through the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV): Organizing Asian Communities. She did true grassroots work, visiting playgrounds, parks, and churches to connect with workers. Since then, through founding other organizations, Ai-jen has continued to fight for better resident care in nursing homes and for improved working conditions for caregivers and domestic workers.
Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi
In 2013, George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. This sparked the creation of the #BlackLivesMatter movement by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. A year later, after Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson, MO, the movement spread with more than 600 people gathering in St. Louis to protest. From there, these organizers were determined to help any communities fighting violence against Black people. Initially spreading to 18 more cities, #BlackLivesMatter is now a global movement with a network of support for leaders making a difference in their communities.
All of these women saw an issue they cared deeply about and set out to fix it. And this is obviously a non-exhaustive list! There are countless other women – sung and unsung — who have organized in big and small ways to make a positive difference in their communities and in the lives of others. We are so inspired by all these women and hope you are too!
Listen to This: Decoding Parents’ Rights
Mainstream parents have had enough of the “parents’ rights” crowd telling them how to parent their children. We all want to be able to make parenting decisions that are right for our family. Listen to a short clip of our conversation with Red Wine & Blue founder, Katie Paris on The Suburban Women Problem podcast. Katie declares that we all have the freedom to parent our 21st century kids and we couldn’t agree more. Our kids need to be ready for the modern world.
If you want to hear more of our conversation with Katie Paris, you can listen to the full interview on The Suburban Women Problem podcast, season 3, episode 13 – Mainstream Parents are Calling BS with Chastain Buttigieg and Katie Paris. Also available anywhere you get your podcasts.
Read This: Decoding ‘Parents’ Rights’
Have you noticed everyone seems to be talking about “parents’ rights”? Lately, it’s been all over the news and even in our local chat groups. On the surface, it sounds like a good thing, right? I mean, we probably all agree that parents should have certain rights when it comes to parenting our kids. But don’t we already? What exactly are they talking about?
Here’s the thing. Extremists are using the term “parents’ rights” to confuse and mislead us. They want to control how ALL parents raise their kids and they want to pass laws to do it. According to them,there’s only one “right” way to raise kids, and it’s their way.
So what are these extremists really after? They are trying to destroy public education by taking out our trust in our public school teachers, administrators, and librarians. Public education is the great equalizer. Access to free public education is key to our democracy. But these folks don’t want every American kid to be prepared for living in the 21st century – they just want that for a select few.
Parents should be free to make their own parenting decisions – about their own kids. For example, if a parent doesn’t want their kid reading a certain book, they can make that decision and let the teacher know, and the teacher can give that student a different book. But that one parent shouldn’t get to decide whether all the other kids in that class can read that book. That is NOT their right as a parent. But that’s exactly what this very loud, but very tiny group is trying to do.
And even scarier, here are some other things they are trying to sneak in under the guise of the “parents’ rights” agenda:
- Tracking kids’ periods
- Requiring genital inspections for kids to participate in school sports
- Suing teachers who wear “I’m here” badges in support of LGBTQ+ students
- Banning books about the Holocaust, civil rights, climate change, and accurate American history, even books about historical figures like Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges, MLK Jr., or that contain LGBTQ+ characters.
- Erasing history of racism from textbooks
- Completely defunding public schools in a move to privatize education
None of these restrictions actually protect individual freedom. Instead, they’re about controlling what students and families believe, do, read, and learn. These bans and laws take away our rights and the rights of our kids.
It’s important to understand that his whole “parents’ rights” campaign isn’t even a real movement. It’s driven by national extremist groups with big outside funding. In many cases, the people yelling at school board meetings don’t even have kids in the school district. Even worse, they’ve become known for using harassment and intimidation to silence librarians, teachers, parents, students and community leaders. Moms for Liberty members have threatened people with gun violence, accused parents of child abuse and grooming, and even tried to have children removed from healthy family homes.
The chaos is causing real harm in our communities, and it’s getting expensive. One school district has racked up $1 million in PR and legal fees as a result of its discriminatory policies. Those are taxpayer dollars that could have gone to improving our public schools. And that’s really the whole point. The extremists causing this chaos are intentionally undermining our public schools, which eight in ten children in America rely on for their education.
Mainstream parents like you and me don’t want to be told how to raise our kids. Parenting is hard enough – we’re done letting extremists who want to ban books, censor school curriculums, whitewash history, and target families of transgender children control the conversation. We want the freedom to raise our kids and prepare them for the real world.
Take it One Step Further: Book Bans
Still feeling curious about book bans and want to learn more? Are you a bookworm who just loves reading books? We’ve got just the thing!
Join our Banned Book Club Every 6 weeks or so, we pick a new book to read, then we get together online, learn a little from a guest speaker, and then break up into small groups for the discussion questions. It’s a really wonderful way to make friends and stand up to book banners at the same time! We’d love to see you there.
Do This: Help Warn Your Friends about the Dangers of Book Bans
Did you know that one of the most effective things you can do is talk to your friends and family about issues affecting our communities? That’s because people trust their friends and family and are more open to learning from them than from strangers. For this week’s action, take a minute to share this post on social. We’ve made it super easy – just click!
Watch This: Author Jodi Picoult Talks about the Problem with Book Bans.
Some of our favorite authors are getting banned, and it’s usually for very questionable reasons. Check out our conversation with best selling author, Jodi Picoult as she shares how one parent had 20 of her books banned in one county.
If you want to hear more of our conversation with Jodi, listen to her full interview on our podcast, The Suburban Women Problem. You can also listen anywhere you get your podcasts.
Read This: What’s Up With All The Book Bans?
These days it might feel like everyone is talking about book bans, from the U.S. president to the PTA. That’s because these bans are happening all over our country, and affecting every community. Whether it’s a ban in a school, a bookstore, or a public library, these bans affect us all, so it’s important to learn about these book bans and why they are happening.
Ok, so what exactly are these book bans all about? Despite the fact that 80% of Americans oppose banning books, in the last few years extremists have become laser focused on trying to control what our kids can read. It’s not enough to just tell their child to not read a book – under the guise of “parents’ rights,” they want to stop all kids from reading certain books. And it’s not because these books are actually dangerous or harmful. It’s because they are written by or about people of color or the LGBTQ+ community or they discuss things extremists don’t want kids to learn about, like accurate American history, sexual education, mental health, even climate change!
Who is banning books? Are you ready for a really crazy statistic? It turns out that just 11 people are behind nearly all banned or challenged books in the US! In many cases, just one person can get dozens of books banned, simply by filing a complaint – even if they haven’t read the literature. They don’t even have to be a local parent or member of the community to do it. This is why the same books tend to get banned across several communities – well-funded, national groups posing as grassroots organizations are targeting these books.
How are our kids impacted by book bans? First, we want to make sure it’s clear these books are being banned and challenged under false pretenses. Age-appropriate books are being pulled from shelves every day for misleading reasons with really harmful consequences. Not having access to these books prevents kids from better understanding the world around them and better understanding themselves, making them less prepared for the real world. We are not helping our kids by banning teaching accurate American history, by erasing LGBTQ people from our schools, or by eliminating comprehensive sex education curriculum.
Want more info? Check out the map below from American Library Association or click here to see a map from Pen America of where books are being banned and why.