In conversation with Heather Booth. ‘Love’ must be at the center of organizing.
by Ky Polanco
Read this in the FEMINIST ZINE
Heather Booth, 76, is a Jewish American organizer and political strategist who has worked in civil rights, feminist and other movements. While a student at the University of Chicago, she founded the underground abortion service provider known as the Service or Jane. A recently released documentary, “The Janes,” and forthcoming feature film, “Call Jane,” come at a critical time to inspire action and intergenerational conversations as we fight for reproductive rights in the US. FEMINIST co-founder Ky Polanco and Booth caught up to discuss why love must be at the center of organizing and what our generation can learn from her activism.
Ky: “What does being a feminist mean to you?”
Heather: To me it means that women have the chance to thrive in this society, and that all people will be treated equally with dignity and respect. And being particularly concerned about how women advance because we’ve so often been — have not been treated with equality and respect.
Ky: Mhm.
Heather: What does it mean to you?
Ky: To me feminism means operating from a place of empathy and understanding that we’re all interconnected, fighting for the liberation of all, because we need each other to truly live the world that we envision. It (feminism) really is for everyone.
Heather: Well – I love that.
Ky: I feel like a lot of people need empathy these days, right?
Heather: I particularly think we need to build a caring society where people care for each other. It’s one of the reasons I talk about – we need to organize with love at the center. And I think that means love for each other, love for ourselves, and love for this planet and the kind of world we’re in.
Ky: Mhm.
Heather: To where – I would put that love at the center, which is pretty central to how I see the world.
Ky: Yeah. And, do you think that along those lines, your definition of feminism has shifted throughout your life?
Heather: Well, it’s constantly changing. There’s some things that are fundamental and true. I think the values are true — are consistent, which is a caring society, a dynamism, an energy about moving forward, about building a better world where all people are equal and treated with dignity and respect. I think those things are consistent. One of the things that’s changed is now, it’s all over —
Heather: When the women’s movement was just starting, if you asked people who thought there should be equal pay for equal work, who thought that women should be in any profession, that there should be more equal opportunity in sports, that there should be equal opportunity in education, there were many who opposed it. In fact, there was that — I don’t know if it’s a true story or apocryphal — but when women were going to be added to the Civil Rights Act — that just said “no discrimination on the basis of sex,” as well as race, there was a — at least a story that went around, that said that was added in order to doom the Civil Rights Act. Because it just seemed — well, it’s one thing to not have discrimination on the basis of race, but to not have discrimination on the basis of sex, that was just ridiculous.
I don’t know if that’s a true or apocryphal story. But now, I think the overwhelming number of people would believe that there shouldn’t be discrimination on the basis of race, or sex, or gender. And so it’s been broadly accepted, mainstreamed, and part of the culture. There’s also been a transformation in terms of the roles we see for women. That you have a zine that’s so popular called Feminist!
Ky: [laughs]
Heather: That’s one example of just the explosion of popular support. I also think there has been a well funded, often partisan opposition that has made this an issue in ways that it wasn’t, quite, when the women’s movement was starting. It wasn’t really as much of a partisan issue. And –
Heather: I think that’s also part of the reality we have to deal with.
Ky: It certainly is.
Heather: I think in addition, who is involved? I think increasing numbers of younger people are particularly energized around this, whereas, I think the first parts of the movement were people — the first people who founded NOW, for example, were people from the working world, who already had started working. And then there was a — more of a youth movement that started that was part of the women’s liberation movement, kind of a student-level movement. And now I think it’s altogether — I also think it’s much more, what some might call intersectional, across race, class, region, faith, parts of the country. That partly has to do with the breadth, but also seeing that all the movements, all the concerns, are connected. That it’s not just, like, “Well, we need equal pay.” It means we need equality in all aspects of a society, and that they’re all connected. That the freedom to vote is tied to the freedom for reproductive freedom. They’re all related.
Ky: Do you feel like you are still learning, as like, being a feminist? And how do you respond to that change?
Heather: Absolutely! I also think if you’re not learning, [laughs] what’re— you’re not living. And the new conditions, and their new responses to those conditions, and, I mean, I’m — the number of things that either I’m learning or I know that others know and that I need to partner with them, whether or not I learn it, social media and technology being just one.
But even, ways of being. How to raise our voices, and where to raise them, and in what arenas, what’s effective? And I think our listening is as important as our sharing.
Ky: Listening is a really good point. How can we be more intergenerational in our fight for abortion rights?
Heather: Well, it’s essential —
[both laugh]
Heather: And partly it starts with knowing how important it is. The turnout of this last election was young people, that was the unexpected increase in turnout. I heard that it was a 27% turnout, which was one of the highest in midterm elections. And part of what I also just read made the change in the election is that women turned out in disproportionate numbers. Across age. And women of my age, who realize that they and our children and grandchildren, next generations — whether or not we have children — could lose various freedoms, then energize people to turn out. So I think people of all ages can be alert to issues, and we need each other.
Heather: But I think it starts by knowing how much we need each other and then finding ways in which our various strengths can partner. I know that for me, I often have young assistants. When I was doing the outreach — progressive and seniors outreach in the Biden campaign — my main assistant was eighteen years old, who was a college student who took off, I don’t know, almost six months to work as a partner with me. And I could not have done the job without her, and she learned a great deal by partnering in this new environment. In fact, by the end of the campaign, I thought, “I could leave the campaign, but she couldn’t.” That’s how essential her work was.
Ky: How do you use your power to empower your community?
Heather: To empower community… Well, one is — I like to go with both “I have a passion,” and “I particularly see that there’s an opening for the greatest number of people to make the greatest progress.” It’s where I particularly like to put my energy. For various communities, I want to know, does the community want my involvement, and what involvement do they want? What’s appropriate? But if there’s an interest in the community, if I have an interest, then, I think, having a strategic sense of how we can make a “theory of change” — of what is it that will make that greatest change possible? So that it’s not just random actions. That it’s intentional, an intentional movement.
Ky: Looking back on the organizing you’ve done, and how organizing needs to be a part of our movements on social media, that’s definitely something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. We’re seeing some of the rights you fought for being stripped away, but what is it that our generation can learn and take from?
Heather: In general, I think the main things I’ve learned are that if you organize, if you take collective action with others, with love at the center — that that is when we really make change. It doesn’t happen naturally. It’s like Dr. King had said, you know, “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” But it only bends when we put our hands and our hearts into it. And we bend. We do the bending. And… so those are the main lessons I learned. That we need to organize with love at the center, and sometimes you have to stand up to illegitimate authority.
And, also think about — there are three principles that I generally apply to a strategy. One is that it actually improves lives. That it’s not just about saying “We want change,” but it’s — it actually is gonna make lives better. Not abstractions — democracy, freedom, justice — as important as that is. But what will we do to improve lives? The second is to involve people themselves, so we give people a sense of their own power. That it’s not us doing something for someone else. Try and engage people so they learn and can be the creators of their own future. And the third is that you change the relations of power. And it’s not just about having something nice happen, as important as that is. But that we increase the power of regular people and increase the accountability of those who have power currently, which may be unaccountable power.
And so that we’re always moving towards greater democracy while we’re making changes possible.
Ky: Three principles. For those potentially reading this article, what’s a mantra you would give them to go out and take action?
Heather: I do think it’s that people should have confidence in themselves and each other, and that together we can make this a better world and move towards our dreams. So it’s both to dream big, and to then take the steps to move towards our dreams. What’s your mantra?
Ky: [laughs] Hmm…my mantra is “people over profit,” and applying that to everything in your life. Putting people first and thinking about how the way we move, the way that we share content out to the world, the way we talk to each other, asking ourselves if we are being empathetic, heart-centered, considerate, and how we are being a part of this larger picture.
Heather: I love that.
Ky: Yeah! [laughs] The thing is, along with that, being a feminist, too, is that I think what’s been so interesting about creating this zine is that everybody has their personal definitions that are based on the same values. And that’s been really beautiful to learn, and we’re excited to share that in the zine. I feel like that’s all the questions I have. The other one — the last one — might be just a little plug for the film. Why do you feel like the film, The Janes, is important now? You've had a really long career, and this film could have come out literally at any point, so why now, more than ever, should people watch it?
Heather: Because now, there’s such a — it’s not just the threat in the future. It’s the threat currently. And it’s a freedom being taken away that we have worked for for so long and that many have taken for granted. And so at a moment when there’s work to be done, to reinstate the freedom that we’ve had, and to expand it. It’s at that point that the story about how people were involved with this in a prior time is particularly potent. And also, I think the story is about ordinary people who end up doing extraordinary things. I was a nineteen-year-old student. One of the women was a social worker. One of the women was a housewife. One was a teacher. Just ordinary people who decided to take action together. And when you take action, you can improve lives, and you can change the world.