Our Legacy

This week on your ‘Feminist To-Do List’

September 12, 2023

Hi Friends,

It’s been a couple of weeks since our board members Valerie Jarrett and Tina Tchen shared the news that USOW will be winding down. As we’ve reflected on the past seven years, we are so proud of all the incredible work we’ve done together and the power of this movement.

USOW may be coming to a close, but our collective fight is far from over — we want to connect you with our partners in the movement who are driving progress forward. Your ‘Feminist To-Do List’ this week and beyond is to connect with our partners who work in the areas we’re passionate about: reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy, economic justice, reducing gender-based violence, democracy and gender equality, justice for immigrants and their families, and youth-led movements. With the goal of bringing people together in the gender equity movement, USOW served as a convener, working closely with our powerful partners to galvanize the movement. You have been crucial to this mission and can continue to advance this work by teaming up with them.

From the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken action with us to our incredible organizational partners, each and every one of you has left a mark on our legacy. We couldn’t be more grateful for your support, passion, and dedication to this fight.

This may be a goodbye from us at USOW, but know that as individuals, we are nowhere close to being done fighting for a world where all women and gender-expansive people can thrive. We’re in this fight with you, and that’s not going to end. There’s still so much work to do.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. 

In solidarity,
Emily, Morgan, and Susana at USOW

Small actions with big impact. Cross these off your to-do list.

Protect health, reproductive freedom, and bodily autonomy.

• The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice fights for equal access to reproductive health for Latina/x communities, because all of us should have the power to make informed decisions about our bodies, families, and futures.

• The Trans Empowerment Project is moving the Trans community out of crisis and into empowerment by focusing on the abolition of white supremacy to ensure that our most marginalized community members: Disabled Queer, Trans, Intersex, and Gender-Expansive People of Color; can thrive and live their best lives.

• The National Network of Abortion Funds builds power with members to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice.

Ensure economic security for women and families.

• One Fair Wage conducts policy advocacy, voter engagement, worker and employer organizing, and culture shift activities to ultimately lift millions of tipped workers out of poverty nationwide and engage them in the political process that governs their lives.
• 9to5 is a multiracial, member-led organization working to advance economic justice through issue-based advocacy, grassroots organizing, and community education by directly engaging impacted women.
• The National Domestic Workers Alliance works to win respect, recognition, and labor rights and protections for the nearly 2.5 million nannies, house cleaners, and home care workers who do the essential work of caring for our loved ones and our homes.

Advance policies to reduce gender-based violence.

• Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence is a national resource center on domestic violence, sexual violence, trafficking, and other forms of gender-based violence in Asian/Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.
• Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition is a statewide Tribal coalition and national Tribal technical assistance provider that has worked since 2001 to end gender-based violence and enhance Tribal, state, and federal responses to sexual violence and sex trafficking.
• Founded and led by Latinas, Esperanza United leverages the strengths of Latina/x communities to end gender-based violence by ensuring Latinas, their families, and their communities receive culturally relevant advocacy and quality, appropriate, and effective resources.

Advance democracy, voting rights, and gender equality.

• Black Women’s Roundtable serves as the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation’s intergenerational leadership development, mentoring, empowerment, and power-building arm for Black women and girls; championing justice and equitable public policies that center racial, economic, and gender justice to promote health and wellness, economic security and prosperity, education, and global empowerment as key elements of success.
• Inspired by Jewish values, the National Council of Jewish Women is a grassroots organization of volunteers and advocates who strive for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.
• The Trans Formations Project is a trans-led organization dedicated to tracking and educating about the anti-trans legislative crisis currently sweeping the United States. Their database effectively compiles all information about bills that threaten transgender people and bills that could help transgender people.

Advance justice for immigrants and their families.

• Justice for Migrant Women aims to ensure that all migrant women are guaranteed human and civil rights, including the freedom of mobility, the ability to live and work with dignity, and the right to be free of threats of violence against them and their families, whether they are migrating across borders, around regions, or within states.
• By combining free legal services and social services case management with bridge-building policy advocacy and research-based training and education, Tahirih Justice Center advocates both for individual immigrant survivors and to change the systems that are complicit in the conditions of their oppression.

Youth-focused / Youth-led orgs.

• Justice + Joy National Collaborative’s goals are to achieve collective power to advance justice, establish affirming social narratives, and build ecosystems of support with and for cis and trans girls, young women, and gender-expansive young people, particularly those of color.
• Advocates for Youth partners with young people and their adult allies to champion youth rights to bodily autonomy and build power to transform policies, programs, and systems to secure sexual health and equity for all youth.
• Girls for Gender Equity works intergenerationally, through a Black feminist lens, to center the leadership of Black girls and gender-expansive young people of color in reshaping culture and policy through advocacy, youth-centered programming, and narrative shift to achieve gender and racial justice. 

Ending Period Poverty in Your Community: Lessons Learned from Project Local Access by The Flow Initiative and USOW

Period poverty, or inadequate access to menstrual hygiene tools and education, currently impacts an estimated 16.9 million people who menstruate in the United States. It creates barriers to menstruating individuals’ complete autonomy to decide what is best for their own bodies, livelihoods, and futures. We have to work together to end period poverty once and for all, and it starts in our own communities. Read this guide to learn how you can partner with your local library and other shared spaces to provide menstrual products for your community.