From Disappointment To Action: Arizona’s Pantsuit Nation Draws 800 In Tempe
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Many women who voted for Hillary Clinton saw the 2016 presidential election as a chance to make history.
But Clinton didn’t become the first woman to be elected president of the United States. And now the loss has mobilized millions of those women to take action. It started as an invite-only Facebook group called Pantsuit Nation, a nod to Clinton’s signature outfit choice, and it has quickly spread.
In the two weeks since the election, the main Facebook group has grown to nearly 4 million members nationally and, here in Arizona, 800 people came to the first Pantsuit Nation meeting in Tempe on Sunday.
Because of the turnout, event organizers said they couldn’t fit everyone who registered into the meeting because of the fire code, so they held a second meeting. In between the two meetings, a line of women — some with their young daughters — stretched out the door.
Everyone got a name tag, and then filed down a long table covered in sign-up sheets to pick a subcommittee they wanted to join.
“Women’s rights and reproductive rights, so that’s been a big issue, interfaith outreach has had a big outcry, Black Lives Matter has had a big outcry, environmental protection, education and children’s services,” said Erin Van Liew, the group’s Regional Committee director.
Van Liew, along with other group organizers, said she was devastated on Election Night when she saw the results come in. But the sadness quickly turned to action.
“For me, it was sort of, a little bit, disappointment, sadness, and then that call to act,” said PAC and Legislative Officer Kelsey O’Neill. “I felt, especially in that moment, that I couldn’t take this one lying down. To me, it was not the same for me as, say, other elections, and so it was like, I need to do something, need to channel this disappointment into action.”
“I think we all sort of went through stages of grief, certainly, there was a lot of tears shed in my house on election night,” said Interim Director Cassie Chilton. But she said she is a middle-class white woman who is in a position of privilege that many minority populations are not.
“I can’t be grieving,” she said. “I have to stand up and advocate for those who are in immediate danger.”
None of these women are politicians or even work in politics. O’Neill is a stay-at-home Mom, Van Liew is a school psychologist, and Chilton is a full-time student. They all said that they realized no one else was going to do it if they didn’t do it, so they got involved.
As they look to the future, they said they are starting local, forming these subcommittees for people to join and then, that will shift as election season approaches again.
“As we approach election season, our focus is going to shift more towards civic engagement, voter turnout and supporting candidates who align with progressive values,” Chilton said.
They’re also looking into forming a political action committee so that they can raise money to fund local campaigns for progressive candidates.
The group leaders said Pantsuit Nation is not exclusively for women. But, they all said that women’s rights are central to what they’re doing here and that being a woman during this election was different than it ever had been before for them.
“Being a woman in this election just meant so much more,” Van Liew said. “We had an emotional investment and, when it all fell apart that Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I think, we saw opportunities for our voices to be heard slipping away.”
So, they decided to act.
“Nobody’s going to do this for us, we’re going to have to start being that voice. We can’t expect someone else to stand up and be that voice, we need to be that voice,” Van Liew said.
