Lady Business: Planned Parenthood and silver linings during #MeToo
Hello and welcome to Lady Business, a weekly newsletter about women, the business world, and all the ways they overlap. You can sign up for Lady Business and read previous issues here. This is the thirtieth issue, published May 31, 2018.
Sleeping Giants
I sat down with Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president and acting director of Planned Parenthood, about a week ago. (That was so many news cycles ago! At least one cancelled date with North Korea, and two turns of the Roseanne loose screw.)
Laguens was in the midst of responding to the White House’s latest efforts to cut its federal funding, through what’s known as the domestic gag rule: “This is kind of a funny thing to say, but I’ve been talking nonstop about the gag rule,” she joked.
The gag rule, as proposed, could prevent Planned Parenthood from providing cancer and STD screenings, wellness checkups, and other general health services to about 1.5 million Americans, mostly low-income women under age 30.
Which is bad news no matter what your stance on abortion! (And if you do oppose abortion generally, may I suggest watching last year’s documentary Birthright: A War Story? It’s a sobering look at the horrible ripple effects of eliminating reproductive health services for women – even for pro-life women with pregnancies they want to keep.)
Laguens is in an interesting position as she faces this White House’s extended campaign against women and against Planned Parenthood; the organization’s longtime leader, Cecile Richards, stepped down this spring. But Laguens, as this extensive recent Glamour profile reports, says she doesn’t want the full-time job: “I’ve been at Planned Parenthood for eight years, and I like the job that I have,” as chief brand and experience officer, she told me. “We’re looking for someone who wants to be there for five or ten years.”
For the time being, she’s also in the position of leading an organization that is deeply tied into women’s growing political and social activism in the post-Women’s March, intra-#MeToo era.
Which leads to a tricky question: Despite all of the attacks on women, and all of the stories about decades of abuse and misconduct … isn’t this kind of a great era for women? Isn’t it better to know, and to finally take action against? Or as Laguens puts it, has this all “awoken a sleeping giant, or a not fully awake giant?”
“I don’t know that I’d call it a silver lining, but it’s incredibly important that people are reacting the way that they do,” she says, adding that women’s rights have become “a powerful, motivating issue for people in this country. … There is absolutely a moment.”
Lady Bits:
--Speaking of documentaries, please go see RBG, which manages to be a very fun biography of a very accomplished, extremely reserved woman. (Also, I might have fallen a little bit in love with her amazing, late husband.)
--And speaking of women leaders with amazing accessories, I want there to be more good writing about TV’s The Expanse, which is one of the best (and most diverse!) space operas currently around. This may be one of the only opinions I’ve ever shared with Jeff Bezos, but I’m very glad he stepped in to save it from cancellation! If only for Shohreh Aghdashloo’s insane Space Jewelry of Supreme Leadership:
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