Quote of the Day: Women Farmworkers Are Very Powerful

Damn right.

Yesterday, actress America Ferrera and Mónica Ramírez, president of the National Farmworker Women’s Alliance (Alianza Nacional de Campesinas), appeared on the Today show, to talk about the new Time’s Up campaign to end workplace sexual violence and harassment.

TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie spent a lot of time directing questions and commentary to Ferrera (“you’re having a baby!”), before finally turning to Ramírez, saying, “It’s interesting because you [farmworkers] reached out to the Hollywood actresses in that industry, which you think of as a high-profile industry and women who do have a lot of power. And yet the focus now through this Times Up campaign is for women who don’t have that power.”

Ramírez responded perfectly, gently reminding Guthrie that farmworkers, who have been on top of this issue way longer than Hollywood, bring a hell of a lot of organizing power, expertise, and knowledge to the table:

People think that farmworker women are not powerful. Farmworker women are very powerful, and have been organizing for a long time around this issue. We have the experience, not just of having suffered from this problem, but we also have the experience of years of organizing that we wanted to bring forward to support the women in Hollywood who are coming forward.

Be still my heart. You can find Ramírez on Twitter and donate to the Times Up legal defense fund here.

Header image via.