Meet the women who are taking a stand in Trump country
Interesting story on PBS NewsHour
Buckhannon (West VA) is a town with a population of less than 6,000. It’s a deeply conservative place with a long history tied to coal. Its mayor calls it the most Trumpian place in America.
But Buckhannon is also where a growing group of women are finding their voice through protest and where speaking up has angered some people, including the men in their lives.
ELIZABETH FLOCK: I think it’s very isolating for a lot of the women in the town. They are just about 70 women in a town of 6,000, and most of the town doesn’t agree with them.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And so how does the town respond when they see these women picketing policies of the Trump administration?
ELIZABETH FLOCK: Not well. They have gotten a lot of pushback from the town, from everyone from the local fraternity brothers at the nearby college, to their husbands, to their neighbors, to people at the high school.
Some of their kids have been made fun of for the women protesting. Other women go home at night and their husbands get after them for appearing on the front page with a protest sign. So, for them, I think it’s a constant struggle to keep protesting, in light of the reaction that they are getting.
HARI SREENIVASAN: As you point out, a lot of these women were not engaged in this way before this election.
ELIZABETH FLOCK: Well, the most striking example was after the announcement of the proposed travel ban, when the women did a march at the county courthouse, and a number of trucks showed up in counterprotest, mostly men, members of the local fraternity from the nearby college and other locals, and basically spewed smoke at the women as they were marching.
They were enveloped in a huge cloud of black smoke, dropped firecrackers. It was a scary scene in which a lot of the women tried not to run or scream and give the men the reaction that they wanted.
More..
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/meet-women-taking-stand-trump-country/
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