Fight Like a Mother

by Shannon Watts

  Dana Loesch, a longtime NRA spokesperson, has called me a “ghoul” and tweeted “How dare you??” whenever I’ve suggested right after a shooting that gun laws need to be changed. She took it to new heights in 2015 after the San Bernardino shootings when she called Moms Demand Action volunteers “tragedy dry-humping whores” on her TV show. (I’m still not sure what that means.)

  By taking a page out of the NRA’s playbook, we now turn on its head the rationale that it’s inappropriate to talk about changing gun laws on the heels of a tragedy by refusing to be silent. After all, after a plane crash, you don’t say, “We can’t look for the black box yet, it’s too soon.” Right after tragedy strikes is exactly when you talk about preventing the next tragedy. You can be proactive as you mourn—as I’ve said, raw emotions are huge motivators for change. To wait until they’ve passed is to ignore a powerful tool. It’s also a recipe for missing the moment, and that’s exactly what the NRA has banked on—that by delaying talking about changing gun laws until a “more appropriate time,” the news cycle will have moved on and interest will have waned.

  Not anymore. You can see evidence that the culture has changed by looking at the teenage survivors of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—they dealt with their grief in large part by engaging in activism right away, and they made huge strides.

  I know how tempting it is to wait “until things calm down” before you take action. But if you do, you lose some of the strength and resolve that your being upset lends you. Also—especially with the vicious speed of the news cycles these days—you will be waiting a long time. Too long. When it comes to gun violence prevention, putting action off for another time means that lives will be taken.

  Be Undismissable

  Another bullying tactic that’s been a favorite of the NRA is to try to belittle me and Moms Demand Action volunteers by portraying us as 1950s-era housewives. In fact, it ran a feature article on me in its magazine called “Not Watts She Seems,” complete with an image of my head on a paper doll with an iron, a rotary phone, a feather duster, and a cast iron skillet filled with crinkle fries floating around it. (Really, does anyone use a feather duster?)

  As much as I might like to think that they target us solely because we’re so successful, they also do it simply because we’re women. The NRA appears to want to sell guns to more women. They air shows on NRA TV clearly aimed at a female audience, such as Armed & Fabulous and Love at First Shot, and they hire women as spokespeople, yet they’re notorious for their sexist views.

  In 2014, the NRA posted a video titled “Beauty Shots” comparing a woman’s body to an AR-15. Worse yet, the video was released three days after a gunman at the University of California–Santa Barbara targeted sorority houses in a clear attack on women. Talk about tone deaf!

  The NRA’s leadership has made a whole bevy of offensive remarks about women: when then-governor Sarah Palin considered NRA board member Wayne Anthony Ross for attorney general in Alaska, reports surfaced that in 1991 he allegedly defended the rights of men to rape their wives, saying, “If a guy can’t rape his wife, who’s he gonna rape?” And during a debate on the Equal Rights Amendment, he apparently said, “There wouldn’t be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouth shut.”1

  Another NRA board member, the singer Ted Nugent (of “Cat Scratch Fever” fame) called Hillary Clinton a “toxic cunt” and a “worthless bitch,” Senator Dianne Feinstein a “worthless whore,” and both Sarah Brady and Janet Reno a “dirty whore.” He also said a feminist “is some fat pig who doesn’t get it often enough.”2 I could go on. And the NRA invited him to address the Women’s Leadership Forum at the NRA national convention in 2018.

  Even more insidiously, the NRA plants seeds that women are not to be believed. They have been quick to suggest that some women will make up false claims of domestic abuse in an effort to get guns taken away from their abusers,3 and that many campus rapes are just drunk hookups that a woman decides she regrets the next morning (a statement a guest on NRA radio host Cam Edwards’s show Cam & Company made, to which Edwards agreed, on September 5, 2014).4 As if any young woman would willingly open herself up to the harsh judgment our culture affords rape victims if it weren’t something she had actually lived through.

  Whether through intentional targeting or a more subtle doubting of our motives, plenty of people question a woman’s ability to do anything important. And a big group of mostly middle-aged women? Forget it. Let’s face it, we’re basically invisible in this culture.

  In 2018, I was interviewed for a podcast and the host repeatedly asked, “You understand why people don’t believe you did this from your kitchen table, right?”—as if it were impossible to be a stay-at-home mom and create something powerful. Later in the interview, when I relayed how I had interviewed multiple potential organizations to partner with before we joined forces with Mayors Against Illegal Guns to create Everytown for Gun Safety, he was incredulous, saying, “You interviewed them?” I replied in the moment that I didn’t know whether I should be offended or flattered by that question, but really, if I had been a man, would he have asked me any such questions?

  Our motto for dealing with these micro- and macro-aggressions is “Keep going,” a mantra I cover in greater detail in Chapter 11. People can say or assume whatever they want, but we know who we are, and we aren’t going to stop doing all the things we know to be effective just because some group of (mostly) men can’t deal with the fact that we’re women—and we’re powerful.

  We also, honestly, often get a kick out of it—especially considering that I have never been a cook and never, and I mean never, iron. And drinking boxed wine? If only we could take it with us to legislative sessions, we’d be able to stay there for days.

  Remember, the very thing that our detractors think makes us irrelevant—that is, the fact that we are moms—is our greatest strength. Whether you handle bad behavior with humor or with directness, the best way to take the sting out of attempts to belittle you are to call them out. Don’t let it lie. And don’t let it quiet your voice. Speak up even louder.

  Being a Badass Isn’t Always Sexy

  Sometimes badassery is unglamorous. Try sitting in a statehouse for seventeen hours at a stretch—that’s how long Moms Demand Action volunteers sat in the Kansas statehouse in 2017 when the legislature was considering a bill to lower the age for concealed carry (it failed). Or in Oklahoma, when our volunteers sat in the statehouse to try to stop a permitless carry bill (it passed, but the governor vetoed it). It is tedious. It is uncomfortable. A million things in your regular life aren’t getting done during that time. Yet showing up and staying put can be a seismic act.

  Our volunteers spend their time in statehouse hearing rooms by tweeting, texting, talking, and trying to keep their toddlers from licking the floor. They do crossword puzzles and play games on their smartphones. One of our favorite ways to pass the time is to play a special form of bingo we created expressly for legislative sessions, where you get to cross out a square whenever you hear someone say specific words or phrases, such as “traitor,” “Second Amendment,” or “moms.” It helps us pay attention and takes the focus off of how long we’ve been sitting there.

  Some of our volunteers are prolific knitters who use the time to make gifts such as scarves and hats for gun violence survivors. Not everyone likes the fact that we knit. In fact, in Oregon, a gun extremist who regularly testifies against stronger gun bills once banged his fist on the hearing room table and shouted that our volunteers were being disrespectful for knitting while he talked about his rights.

  If he thinks that’s bad, he should brace himself: other women nurse their babies. One volunteer who has breastfed two kids, back to back, for the previous four years was initially told by security that she had to leave the hearing room “to do that sort of thing.” She said, “No thank you. I’m good here.” She swears there’s not one legislator who hasn’t witne
ssed her breastfeeding, and they finally gave up asking her to stop.

  Whenever we can, we use our spare time in statehouses to network: we pop into legislators’ offices to see whether we can have a quick meet-and-greet; if they’re not there, we get to know their staff members (and then look for them in the halls so we can show them that we’re present and we’re watching). We get to know the other groups that are there. Sometimes we recruit people to our cause—and sometimes those are people who walked into the statehouse as members of the opposition.

  A badass isn’t afraid of drudgery. Every single tedious little task counts and builds our collective power.

  The gun lobby and every other force in America trying to mold the culture and laws to suit their special interests are banking on the fact that we’re too busy and too easily distracted to put a sustained effort into resisting and creating change. Of course, you have to take care of yourself, your life, and your family, but a badass perseveres. And when she has to step back and take a break, a badass passes the baton. (Because there is always a fellow badass ready to have your back if you ask.) You don’t have to do it all on your own—and you couldn’t, even if you wanted to—but you are also capable of so much more than you think you are. The way you find that out is by trying.

  After all, as I’ve said, every day in your own family you already perform superhuman feats—and, let’s face it, a long list of tedious, repetitive tasks (making lunches, doing laundry, cleaning out backpacks) that go with the territory of parenting. That perseverance, no matter how painstaking a chore, that you’ve honed as a mom is a big piece of what makes you a badass. I like to think of the way we can tackle a heap of to-dos as relentlessness. And being relentless has been a crucial piece of our success at Moms Demand Action. Every time guns are discussed in a statehouse or in Congress, we’re in the audience showing lawmakers that we’re watching them. We’re making calls. We’re posting on social media. We’re showing up. Our power—just like yours—is in our passion. And our passion shows up in the midst of a fight as well as in the everyday grind.

  Be a Badass in Your Own Backyard

  It’s one thing to become more vocal online and to start showing up at your statehouse, but in my own experience and from what I hear from a lot of volunteers, it can make your knees knock even more strongly to become more visible as an advocate in your own day-to-day life.

  When you take a stand for something and start devoting time and energy to making a change, it can send ripples out into your world that knock a few relationships loose. In my friend circle, in my community, and even within my family, some people supported what I was doing, and others didn’t. (I’m sure you can guess which group I still have strong relationships with.) My uncle, for instance, is a gun extremist and started trolling me online to the point that I had to block him.

  Sometimes those ripples can affect your kids, too. In October 2014—less than two years after Sandy Hook—my daughter came home from school and said, “You’re not going to believe what happened today.” And she was right. The school had sponsored a Halloween costume contest, and a kid had shown up wearing camo and carrying toy AR-15s. Emma told me that when she passed him in a stairwell, she was terrified. He looked exactly like a school shooter. Worse yet, this was a kid we suspected had made online threats to both me and my daughter and had bragged about the fact that his parents had given him guns. Incredibly, he won first place in the costume contest.

  I called the school and emailed the principal—who was male. He said I was overreacting and that the school had sanctioned the costume. School administrators told Emma that I was being overly sensitive. But I knew that I was far from the only parent (or child) having this reaction (of course, all the other upset parents knew who to come talk to). It seemed like such a commonsense thing—that in this day and age it’s not okay to have kids carry toy guns in school. I couldn’t believe the school’s reaction.

  I posted about it on Facebook, and an Indiana Moms Demand Action volunteer reached out and said that her husband was a lawyer and he’d love to help me. He composed a letter that said if the school didn’t course correct immediately, school administrators would potentially face litigation. I never heard back from the school directly about the matter, but a few days later, a letter came home in the kids’ backpacks that said that toy guns were no longer allowed in the school. They even banned toy swords in the school play, which was perhaps a little over the top, but it was good to see that they had received some kind of message. Sadly, that message was probably the one from the male lawyer; without that letter, I was perceived as just another hysterical woman. Regardless, I’m glad no other kids at that school will have to experience the fear my daughter did.

  I know it wasn’t easy for my kids to be the ones with the mom who was stirring this particular pot, even though they believed in what I was fighting for. It’s vital to remember that the most important way we teach our kids about honoring their values is by modeling those values. If we only talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, we’re teaching them to not take action. So press on!

  Whether your bravery manifests as sharing your truth, confronting bullies, taking on your kid’s school, or doggedly doing one thing and then the next thing and then the next, whenever you choose to go about creating the change that matters to you, you officially become a badass. That’s why so many of our members have gotten “One Tough Mother” tattoos—once you recognize how much you’re capable of, you’re emboldened to be loud and proud about what you care about.

  4

  Losing Forward

  I’ve always been a go-getter and a list-checker—the exemplar of a type-A woman. As evidence, by the time I was twenty-nine years old, I had three children and was a corporate vice president. If there was one thing I was pretty confident I knew, it was how to succeed. But when it came to going up against the literal big guns, I had no idea just how much relearning I would have to do.

  My first lesson was delivered courtesy of the Manchin-Toomey amendment. This bipartisan bill was proposed in 2013 shortly after Sandy Hook by Senators Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania. It would have closed the background check loophole that allows unlicensed gun sales, mostly online and at gun shows. Passage of this bill would have been an important acknowledgment from Congress that our nation was in the throes of a crisis, and a demonstration of our nationally elected officials’ commitment to acting in the aftermath of such a horrific tragedy.

  It also became Moms Demand Action’s first major, coordinated initiative as a newly formed organization. I’d received a phone call from a White House staff member who said the administration wanted our support as they worked to push the new bill through Congress. It was a thrill just to be recognized by the White House. It was also a relief to have such a clear goal: Pass the bill. Enact change. Achieve success. Go back to our normal lives. Simple.

  Or so we thought. How could US lawmakers not act after twenty first-graders and six educators had been slaughtered in the sanctity of an elementary school? Other nations, like Australia and Scotland, had tightened laws and made it more difficult for dangerous people to get guns after shooting tragedies of their own. Surely, US lawmakers would do the bare minimum and make sure that every single gun buyer was required to undergo a background check.

  We threw everything we had into championing the bill. Our volunteers began calling, emailing, and meeting with members of Congress in the districts where we lived, asking them to support Manchin-Toomey. We stood behind President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden during a press conference at the White House urging Congress to act. And, in just a matter of weeks, we organized a national advocacy day called “Moms Take the Hill” in Washington, DC.

  The plan was for as many volunteers as possible to travel (on their own dime) from their home states to DC to lobby their lawmakers in person. We figured out every detail—the hotels, the transportation, the scheduling with lawmakers’ staff members—on
what seemed like hourly conference calls, attended and run by women who had never even spoken to each other before but who were now bound together by a shared mission.

  When the day arrived, just four weeks after the initial idea, I found myself at a press conference at the Capitol in the Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmerman Meeting Room, named for the man who was killed in 2011 while doing his job outside a Safeway in Tucson, Arizona, by a gunman who had attempted to assassinate then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Nearly a dozen congresswomen attended to throw their support behind Manchin-Toomey and Moms Demand Action. Just before it was my turn to speak, then-Rep. Nancy Pelosi put her arm around me and whispered in my ear, “Moms will get this done.”

  On April 17, 2013, the day of the Manchin-Toomey vote, I was able to finagle invitations for myself and a few other volunteers to sit in the Senate gallery to watch the vote. Even though we were hopeful that the senators who were on the fence would fall our way, media were reporting that the vote could go in either direction. Even my own Indiana senator Joe Donnelly hadn’t revealed publicly how he’d vote, despite the pressure we’d put on him for months.

  After the senators made their remarks for and against Manchin-Toomey, I was heartened when Senator Donnelly, a Democrat in a red state, cast a “yes” vote. But I was stunned when Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a mom and a Democrat representing North Dakota, voted against it. And then other Democratic senators followed her lead, including Senators Mark Pryor, Mark Begich, and Max Baucus.