Amplify InBetween: The Second to Last
Welcome to our second-to-last piece of Amplify of the year and our final Amplify InBetween for 2022! We hope you enjoyed learning about the fantastic womxn we shared this year. To end the year, we’re doing something a little different. By now, everyone’s a little burnt out for the year, so instead of an entire article, we decided to switch it up. This piece will give you some resources and recommendations, a short article on a womxn you should know, and what’s to come from Amplify in the future.
Amplified Resources to Check Out:
Interested in learning more about activists’ fight for women’s rights? Check out the graphic novel Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for Their Rights by Mikki Kendall.
Sex Workers Unite: A History of the Movement from Stonewall to SlutWalk by Melinda Chateauvert is an excellent book on the sex workers movement and how sex workers have been at the forefront of many activities, including abolition.
Fun Fact: 112 years ago, one of the biggest strikes in Chicago history began. Seventeen-year-old immigrant Hannah Shapiro led a walkout at the Halsted Street shop of the Hart, Schaffner & Marx clothing firm to protest a pay cut. A month later, forty thousand garment workers went on strike.
She Caused a Riot: 100 Unknown Women Who Built Cities, Sparked Revolutions, and Massively Crushed It by Hannah Jewell is a book filled with many Amplifiers who fought to make the world a better place for all.
Check out the movie The Swimmers (Netflix) about the Mardini sisters’ journey from war-torn Syria to the Olympics.
Fun Fact: US game designer Lizzie Magie (1866–1948) invented The Landlord’s Game, the precursor to Monopoly, showcasing the evils of capitalism.
Have you ever heard of Lilith Fair? The women-fronted festival that took place three summers in a row and raised money for women’s DV shelters, and more? Check out the mystery behind building this amazing moment in womxn’s herstory.
At Amplify, we’re all about Anarcho-Feminists, especially the ones who build safe spaces and healthcare for those around them. Listen to the amazing story (via the podcast Totally Trans) of two trans womxn who made and ran an underground trans-surgical clinical in a shed in rural America.
Fun Fact: Elizabeth Peratrovich: this Tlingit woman was instrumental in helping pass the first civil rights act in the US, in territorial Alaska—two decades before the federal law was passed. Her speech before the territorial legislature was legendary.
Highly recommended book of the year: Disability Visibility is an anthology edited by Alice Wong that shares first-person accounts on relationships, building community, disability rights, and more.
Check out an interview done by Filipina Director Marilou Diaz-Abaya on women and her film Moral (1982). Moral is a coming-of-age Filipino film written by Ricky Lee and directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya that focuses on women’s issues like abortion, rape, and gender inequality.
Here’s a quote from Diaz-Abaya’s interview: “Women ought to have the real option of whether or not they want to be a full-time housewife, a full-time career woman, or both.”
Civil Disobedience: Nwanyeruwa Oleka Okpo and the women of Oloko
Have you heard the story of the ten thousand women’s war or the Women’s Market Rebellion of 1929? It was a war against colonialism led by Nwanyeruwa Oleka Okpo from the village of Oloko in southeastern Nigeria. Most people believe the women were fighting the British only because they were taxing them, but it was more than that. How else would you explain their civil disobedience as they destroyed everything around them and defied police orders? Yes, leader Nwanyeruwa Oleka Okpo and her band of sisters protested against the British because of their continuous tax on goods, property, and more, but it was more than that. It was about the British denying Nigerians access to their own land and way of living, about how the British treated the people of the land as less than others, and about fighting against colonialism.
Check out The Heroin Collective for the full story, or watch Journey of an African Colony: The Making of Nigeria on Netflix for the amazing womxn of Oloko who defied and marched against oppression, even in the face of bullets.
Here is a hint of what’s to come:
Amplify 2022 has been excellent. We’ve introduced you to some fantastic womxn, added new features/digital content, i.e., polls, graphics, interviews, and a comic, and presented our second series, “Shapers of A Movement.”
So what’s next?
Well, we have one more surprise for you. To end the year, we’re looking back at Amplify to see “how far we’ve come.”
And for 2023?
Well, that, I don’t know. This is my last year as your Amplify columnist, so I can’t tell you what’s in store for next year, but I’m hoping for something and someone new. 2022 was filled with many surprises, and I hope the same can be said for 2023.
Joycelyn lives in Cypress, Texas. She’s the daughter of immigrants and did not go to law school, but she received three degrees (BA, MA, MPH) and is happily freelancing and working in the nonprofit world. She enjoys writing about healthcare recruitment and even worked as a Healthcare Organizer. When she’s not writing, she’s transcribing, developing community toolkits, and researching womxn’s history. Which is why she’s excited about writing for AMPLIFY. On her off days, she spends her time on Twitter, reminding everyone to drink water and enabling others to watch more dramas. Follow her on Twitter: @jg_humanitarian