Women must be willing to make a stand

Frances McDormand delivered a powerful speech when accepting her Oscar for Best Actress at the 90th Academy Awards. She graciously addressed the issue of feminism and inequalities and offered a two-word solution: “inclusion rider.”

I applaud McDormand’s awareness of Hollywood’s troubles and her efforts to overcome them but am troubled by what she resorted to in making her point. To give perspective to the joy she felt in acknowledging the advances made by the feminist movement, she called upon all the other female nominees to stand with her in the room.

She asked them to stand, and for brief seconds nothing happened. Meryl Streep was seated front and center before her, and McDormand urged, “Meryl, if you do it, everyone else will.” Meryl stood, and then so did the other women, most if not all of them.

I can understand why many exploited women did not speak out at the time. Some feared for their jobs, their livelihoods, or their reputations.

But the women in the audience at this years’s Oscars have had the ground broken for them, and many are successful, with nothing to fear by speaking out for themselves or voicing their support for other victims.

Their initial reluctance to stand in support, as evidenced by McDormand’s plea to Meryl Streep, puts the MeToo movement in a diminished light. Women will gain rightfully deserved respect and the power that accompanies it when as individuals they stand up one by one, without fear of consequences. They should not have to look to a megastar such as Meryl Streep to validate their responses. There is work to be done.

Mary Schroder Valley Falls