Results tagged “young people” from Blog for Choice

Looking back on day one of Vision to Win, it's clear that the rest of the country can learn a lot from Montana on how to cultivate and engage young leaders. NARAL Pro-Choice Montana's staff is comprised of Millennials, as is nearly half of its boards.

We joined with young progressive leaders representing LGBT allies, civil liberties, and many more important causes. We shared the findings from our research project and then turned the floor over to the attendees. Here's what he heard:

• Keep the personal focus on this issue.


• Relate the issue to your community (such as a what is it like for women in your immediate area).


• Talk about choice as a value; don't forget that to appeal to people's hearts, not just their heads.


• Access to abortion is not separate; it is part of the decisions women make, like accessing birth control.

We can't wait to hear more from young leaders in Missoula. (BTW, going across the continental divide is like driving through the clouds.)

We are grateful. We wouldn't be here - in college or online speaking our filthy free-thinking minds, or serving in the armed forces or choosing if and when we have kids, or enjoying almost any of the opportunities we enjoy today - if it weren't for the visionaries who came before us. We are grateful. Perhaps we don't say it enough, but we are.

But here's the thing about gratitude: It's a two-way street. If you want to be recognized and lauded and thanked for all the amazing work you did, how about a little gratitude in return? How about recognizing that young women are here, and we're feminist, and we're working our butts off and getting results? That means acknowledging that your pro-choice organizations run on the unpaid or barely-paid labor of interns and volunteers, many of whom are young women. It means not dismissing the internet as less profound than in-person activism, and recognizing that sites like Feministing are the consciousness raising groups of the 21st century. It means including the voices of young women - women under the age of 40 or even under the age of 30 - when you're running a panel called "Young Women, Feminism and the Future." It means giving credit for the work that young feminists are doing today, work that looks different to what you did in the 70s, 80s and 90s, that is broader and more intersectional, but no less valid or important.

Young feminists are grateful for the example set by the remarkable women who blazed the trails that we now walk. But we have our own work to do now, and we're doing it. And we deserve - no, we demand - a little credit.

The article from this week's edition of Newsweek, authored by Sarah Kliff, generated a lot of healthy discussion. All of these opinions have merit, all of these arguments are valid, and all deserve the space and time to marinate both online and offline.

Since I am included in this story, and NARAL Pro-Choice America's research on younger voters is referenced, I want to explain a bit more of the rationale behind this initiative.

Myriad blog posts have drawn significant attention to the issue of younger people's involvement in the pro-choice movement.For instance, this section of the article:

These leaders will retire in a decade or so. And what worries Keenan is that she just doesn't see a passion among the post-Roe generation--at least, not among those on her side. This past January, when Keenan's train pulled into Washington's Union Station, a few blocks from the Capitol, she was greeted by a swarm of anti-abortion-rights activists. It was the 37th annual March for Life, organized every year on Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe. "I just thought, my gosh, they are so young," Keenan recalled. "There are so many of them, and they are so young." March for Life estimates it drew 400,000 activists to the Capitol this year. An anti-Stupak rally two months earlier had about 1,300 attendees.

Look - if I was a young reproductive-justice activist, I'd be really upset, too. I am not a young activist, and I don't like the way that paragraph comes off. I see the contributions young feminist activists are making everyday to the pro-choice movement, and I can only imagine how annoying it is for these young women and men to read over and over again about previous generations lamenting a lack of activism.

Like Jessica Valenti notes over at Feministing, young feminist activists are important and crucial players in everything we do, from the big events - like the 2004 March for Women's Lives, to much of the behind-the-scenes operations - like interning, volunteering, and using online tools for advocacy. Many of them are my colleagues here at NARAL Pro-Choice America (and more than half of my staff is under the age of 35).

Our whole purpose with the research project is to move the conversation forward. Our target audience wasn't the young people who already are engaged.

It's clear that many young people are already part of this movement, but there are some who may never attend a rally, post a pro-choice action on their Facebook page, or discuss the political implications of what kind of sex education they received in high school. Their level of involvement isn't as high, but we must remember that they are voters. As the political leader of the pro-choice movement, it's imperative for us to connect with these voters now.

The initial research (PDF) shows two primary findings:

1. Younger people are solidly pro-choice;
2. However, anti-choice younger voters are twice as likely to consider a candidate's position on abortion when voting then their pro-choice counterparts.

Our ability to effectively connect with voters who aren't necessarily activists is crucial if we are to close this intensity gap. That's why we're committed to initiatives like our research project that give us the ability to listen and learn from this influential bloc of voters. In short: we have to reach them where they are and bring them to us.

Keep in mind: this research was a start, not the end. We welcome any ideas, thoughts, and strategies on how we can strengthen our ties to this emerging electoral powerhouse. Take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments below, and thank you for your hard work. We would not be here without you.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, these conversations are healthy. I hope that we can all continue to have these discussions.