Let’s dance!
Music, dance, and radical love are the only human traits older and more universal than war.
In 1931, radical immigrant Emma Goldman reported saying to her fellow male radicals, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”
Though at first she accepted violence as a means to change, she renounced it later. She founded a magazine she named Mother Earth, publishing wild ideas like organizing workers after a huge financial crash, resisting conscription for the draft, condemning war profiteering, and why family planning and birth control, and a 40-hour work week made sense.
Next year marks a serious American pivot point, determining whether we’ll preserve our imperfect moves toward a more perfect union and democracy, or collapse into a Kraken world of autocracy, lies, and violence. Think of this pivot point, not in need of another military tactic, but of an awe-inspiring dance move — a sweeping change in economic purpose and direction.
And know that, here at AEOO, we’re ready to continue moving and shaking for change — with your help. Join our Giving Circle today to fuel progressive, feminist economic solutions.
While there are many feminist-powered organizations we admire, we haven’t found another one quite like AEOO, focused on boldly centering women in economic change, while educating them about feminist solutions. We want women and all those who love them to be able to select and learn about those issues most pressing to them.
Each of our Zooms of Our Own tackles a subject of personal importance to diverse women, our families, and overlooked communities — discussing solutions like affordable housing and food, social entrepreneurship, cooperatives, banking, confronting racist and sexist barriers. Most recently we showed you how common money trauma is and ways to address it, and explored women’s investing activism for healthier communities and their environments.
We want to continue developing a community through public events — Learning Circles, online courses, and book clubs — and expand our online Resource Library to build women’s knowledge and civic action around economic solutions.
This past year’s work by AEOO was made possible by those volunteers and 134 gifts from our Giving Circle that ranged from $5 to $100/month. The average annual gift size was just $31 — and yet look at all this accomplished! To expand next year’s offerings during 2024’s pivotal year, we’ve set a goal of raising $47,500.
While times are tough, especially for those of us who most need a change in economic purpose, building for the future isn’t as impossible as it may first appear. If just 1532 women (and the men who love us) invest $31 in An Economy of Our Own for 2024, we’ll meet our goal of $47,500! Those of you who already give might even be moved to give a bit more.
The first step to making sweeping change is women crossing racist, sexist, and cultural walls to find a united and common cause — rather like the founding fathers did, but incompletely, since they only allowed white male slave-and-property-owners to vote. We the people are diverse in race and age and interests, but Dobbs surely made it clear that female-identified people and those who love us have much in common in the US today. We have much at risk, too. Being female-identified or LGBTQ or shades darker than white and blond feels far more dangerous today. Enforced state pregnancy makes all our families’ health and livelihoods less economically feasible.
We need our freedom and that room of our own — An Economy of Our Own — where asking questions and voicing thoughts and ideas builds confidence in women’s economic wisdom.
Let’s build a feminist economy — and a feminist future — together.
We’re still dancing. We hope you’ll join us.
