Lip-Syncing Ladies Against Romney

Lip-Syncing Ladies Against Romney

Sarah Sophie Flicker asked some of her fabulous female friends to do an impassioned lip-sync to Lesley Gore’s proto-feminist anthem, “You Don't Own Me,” creating what has to be the hippest election PSA ever.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

In the 2008 election, 60 percent of voters were women. Despite this, female legislators comprise only 16 percent of Congress while women in all fields earn only seventy cents to each dollar men make. This year, pollsters are estimating that 10 million more women than men will vote in the upcoming election.

Given the respective domestic agendas of the two candidates, the gender demographics of this election should make it an easy race for the incumbent. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are hostile to reproductive rights. Romney did not support equal pay for women (the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act). Romney has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood. Romney has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Romney doesn't want healthcare to cover birth control.

To make this gender gap even clearer, the über-talented filmmaker/producer/musician Sarah Sophie Flicker asked some of her fabulous female friends, including Alexa Chung, Lena Dunham, Carrie Brownstein, Tavi Gevinson, Zoe Kravitz and Natasha Lyonne, to do an impassioned lip-sync to Lesley Gore's proto-feminist anthem, “You Don't Own Me,” creating what has to be the hippest election PSA ever.

At the end of the video, Gore, the former 1960s teen idol, now 66, says, “It’s hard for me to believe but we’re still fighting for the same things we were then. Yes, ladies, we’ve got to come together and get out there and vote and protect our bodies. They’re ours. Please vote.”

 

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x