Dearest Meteor readers,

I gotta say I’m looking forward to this weekend—and not only because there’s a Hands Off! protest a mere five-minute drive from my upstate New York home, which NEVER happens (find the closest event to you here). A friend is also throwing a White Lotus finale party, and I could use a party in my life.

Today, we look back at our favorite filibuster in the wake of Cory Booker’s marathon speech. Plus, where American women have the most (and least) power, and your weekend reading.

With love and tsunamis,

Nona Willis Aronowitz

WHAT’S GOING ON

The art of the filibuster: Sen. Cory Booker broke a Senate record earlier this week when he spoke on the floor for more than 25 hours to protest the actions of the Trump administration. Without taking a bathroom break or even sitting down, he addressed an array of issues, from Elon Musk’s government takeover to tax cuts for the rich. Underneath the livestreams on YouTube and TikTok, encouraging comments whizzed by at breakneck speed.

Was it political theater, a stunt? Absolutely (and maybe that’s a good thing). Could it actually do something? Depends on how you look at it.

Unlike a traditional filibuster, Booker wasn’t trying to hold up particular legislation; rather, he was there, as he put it, “disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate.” And even true filibusters don’t have a great record of halting the laws they’re protesting. Sen. Strom Thurmond, a segregationist who held the previous record of longest speech in the Senate by filibustering the Civil Rights Act in 1957, failed to block the historic legislation. “I’m here despite his speech,” Booker noted. The more recent filibusters of Sen. Chris Murphy and Sen. Ted Cruz didn’t kill any laws, either.

What highly publicized marathon speeches like filibusters can do, however, is drum up energy, draw focus, and create symbols that inspire tangible action. Take the case of Wendy Davis, the first filibuster I personally remember watching. In 2013, the then-Texas State Senator held an 11-hour-long filibuster to block SB5, an omnibus abortion bill that, among other restrictions, banned abortion after 20 weeks in the state and required that abortion providers have admitting privileges to nearby hospitals. (Sounds quaint now, but these laws really were canaries in the coal mines.) Flanked by abortion rights supporters who one Republican called an “unruly mob,” Davis and the Democrats managed to run out the clock past midnight, preventing SB5 from being signed into law.

WENDY DAVIS IN THE EARLY HOURS OF HER 2013 FILIBUSTER. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

It was an electric moment in politics and feminism. Davis—a telegenic lawmaker with a powerful backstory who, the internet noted at the time, bore a striking resemblance to Friday Night Lights’ Tami Taylor—became an instant icon of reproductive freedom. Even the pink running shoes she wore during her filibuster got famous. For a while, Davis was the toast of national Democrats, not to mention a then-thriving feminist blogosphere.

We all know how this story ends: Wendy Davis’ unforgettable stand did not stop the anti-abortion movement. The Texas abortion bill eventually passed in the form of HB2—and although the Supreme Court struck down that law in 2016, it would later overturn the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. For her part, Davis ran for governor in 2014 and lost badly. And yet, Davis’ filibuster made its mark. It inspired women to run for office, get involved in politics in her state, and start new abortion funds. From all the way in New York, I became aware of red-state movements to protect abortion in a way I wasn’t before.

Meanwhile, I am no fan of Booker’s, but even I have to admit that his speech lifted my mood. I was impressed by his stamina; I spent more time than I’d like to admit looking into the, um, physiology of it all. Will those rah-rah comments under the livestreams translate into action? Into mutual aid, into more public refusals, into other members of Congress disrupting Trump’s plans, into some of us running to replace them if they don’t? I sure hope so.

 AND:

• Yesterday was “Liberation Day,” with Donald Trump proclaiming America’s “economic independence” from the rest of the world. The massive taxes on imported goods he announced represent the largest tariff hike in 95 years, since the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. But you know what really smoots our hawley? The likelihood that, like so many other economic burdens, this one will be felt most by the people who can least afford it. Research shows that lower-income Americans pay a larger chunk of their disposable income to tariffs, and this week’s tariffs exacerbate that effect, per calculations by the Yale Budget Lab yesterday. Tariffs also typically land heaviest on women, too, in part because of higher tariffs on women’s clothing (our underwear literally gets taxed more than men’s). Annoyed by this “financial microaggression”? So are Reps. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) and Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), who, as The 19th reported last month, have reintroduced a bill that would study “pink tariffs”—and, presumably, give us the ammo to fix the tariff code. That won’t undo the damage done to Americans by Trump’s moves yesterday, but it would be an important step to understanding exactly who those moves are hurting.
• Protests have broken out across Italy over the murders of two female students, found within 48 hours of one another this week. Sara Campanella, a 22-year-old biomedical student at the University of Messina in Sicily, died Monday after being stabbed; Ilaria Sula, also 22 and a statistics student at Sapienza University of Rome, was found Wednesday, also an alleged victim of stabbing. The deaths are apparently unconnected, unless you consider the horrific frequency of femicide a connection, which we do: Police reportedly suspect a classmate and an ex-boyfriend, respectively, in the murders. The killings—which bring the count of femicides in Italy this year to 11—have sparked protests across the country, especially on campuses, reigniting the rage that rippled across the country in 2023 after the murder of student Giulia Cecchettin by her ex-boyfriend. As Cecchettin’s sister Elena said at the time, “Don’t hold a minute of silence for Giulia – burn everything. We need a cultural revolution to ensure that Giulia’s case is the last.”

AN ACTIVIST MAKES THE VULVA SYMBOL DURING THE 2023 PROTESTS IN TURIN. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

• Activist, Gen Z Girl Gang founder, and Meet the Moment speaker Deja Foxx, 24, announced yesterday that she’s running for Congress—vying to represent her home state of Arizona, in a special election to fill the seat of the late Raúl Grijalva. Her news follows an announcement by 26-year-old content creator and former extremism researcher Kat Abughazaleh, who launched her campaign to represent Illinois’ Ninth District in Congress last month. If this is a trend, we’re here for it.
• Sorry, Hacks fans: Looks like Deborah and Ava aren’t gonna get it on anytime soon, although national treasure Hannah Einbinder fully supports your fanfic! 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

Three Questions About…Power

Where women have the most (and least) of it, from a new study by Dr. C. Nicole Mason

BY SHANNON MELERO

Last month, the new initiative Future Forward Women published its first U.S. Women’s Power and Influence Index, a state-by-state breakdown of where women have the most and least overall power—as measured by education, economic status, political inclusion, and a dozen more key indicators. The report found that Alabama is the lowest-ranking state, with women wielding the least overall power there, and the highest-ranking isn’t even a state—it’s the District of Columbia.

We asked Future Forward Women president Dr. C. Nicole Mason three questions about what it all means.

First, how did you define“power” for this research? 

For me, “power” is the ability to influence or direct the actions of a group or society toward a specific desired outcome. I started with the premise that although women are 50 percent of the U.S. population, we are still the most likely to live in poverty, to experience sexual harassment or gender-based violence, and to live in states where we don’t have complete bodily autonomy. Politically, we hold less than a third of elected offices.

I wanted to understand why—and the why for me was power; we don’t have enough of it. Or at least not enough to…pass common-sense laws and policies that would make our lives better. In our society, it’s not okay for women to say they want power—but that’s what we need, especially right now.

Which finding surprised you the most?

The states of Florida and Texas ranked third and fourth in terms of women’s political power and influence [but ranked 25th and 45th, respectively, in terms of the overall power women wield]. What we observed is that even though both Texas and Florida have high numbers of women in their state legislatures, Congress, and executive leadership positions, that’s not enough. Yes, we want women in political office, but these women and men must support policies favorable to women and families.

Washington, DC, ranked number one in the index because DC has the highest median earnings for women in the nation, along with high levels of education. However, across all states, without exception, women of color are not doing as well as their white counterparts. For example, in the District of Columbia, the poverty rates for Black women are notably high. There is not a single state where women of color are faring [just as] well or better than other women.

What are the most important takeaways from the report?

We need to decide that it’s not okay for state borders to determine the rights that women have or don’t have in this country. It wasn’t okay 400 years ago and is not okay now.

For new models and inspiration, we should look to other countries’ universal childcare, paid sick and family leave, reproductive freedom — [and ones] that have faced similar threats to democracy and the erosion of rights.

We should also go to the states where women have the least power and influence. Not going to those states will cost us because they become the testing ground for bad policies. Living in a high-power state will not protect you. We are in this together.

Lastly, we need to have radical imaginations, dream big, and say what we want out loud to inspire others to join us. We need everyone, in their own way, to help us win big.

WEEKEND READING 📚

On history’s “quiet moments”: Presidential historian Alexis Coe looks back at Lyndon B. Johnson’s hire of Geri Whittington, the first Black woman to be a president’s secretary and a “testament to his administration’s complex, often contradictory, yet unwavering commitment to racial equality.” (Harper’s Bazaar)

On sex and death: A tantalizing profile by thee Rachel Handler of Michelle Williams, who stars in a new FX show, Dying for Sex, about a terminal cancer patient’s last-ditch sexual odyssey. (Vulture)

On grief and care: Years ago, Houston-based Black midwife DeShaun Desrosiers experienced a traumatic birth. She’s now on a mission to train doulas of color in her community. (Houston Landing)

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