“We all deserve workplaces where we’re safe and our work is valued and we can live and work with dignity,” said Poo in an interview on the red carpet.
Ai-jen Poo on Twitter
Selfie in case I forget once everything gets started! #TimesUp #GoldenGlobes
Activist Ai-Jen Poo walked the red carpet with Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes, Sunday night, as part of an effort at the event to highlight harassment and inequality. Streep was one of eight actresses who brought activists as their plus-ones. Streep and Poo also joined with many other attendees at the ceremony in wearing black as an expression of solidarity with victims of sexual assault and harassment.
Poo, who Lion’s Roar’s Lindsay Kyte profiled last year, is the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-director of Caring Across Generations. She is also a MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, and describes herself as an “aspiring Buddhist.”
In a statement by the eight activists — who also included Tarana Burke, Marai Larasi, Rosa Clemente, Monica Ramirez, Calina Lawrence, Saru Jayaraman, and Billie Jean King — they wrote:
“We have each dedicated our lives to doing work that supports the least visible, most marginalized women in our diverse contexts. We do this work as participants in movements that seek to affirm the dignity and humanity of every person.”
“Too much of the recent press attention has been focused on perpetrators and does not adequately address the systematic nature of violence including the importance of race, ethnicity and economic status in sexual violence and other forms of violence against women. Our goal in attending the Golden Globes is to shift the focus back to survivors and on systemic, lasting solutions.”
In an interview with E! on the red carpet, Poo said,
“I hope people see the momentum and the energy and the fact that we’re uniting across all industries and all communities standing together, saying, we all deserve workplaces where we’re safe and our work is valued and we can live and work with dignity. That’s the future. And we want to say to everyone that they should join us. This is a movement where there’s space for everyone and there’s a role for everyone.”
