In the face of even the most ridiculous of attempts to destroy her, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren remains one heck of a strong candidate for president. The latest? Far-right smears against her popped up Monday after she spoke of losing a teaching job in the 1970s. Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson writes:
She told CBS News that, as the documents Free Beacon found indicate, she had initially been offered a second-year teaching contract. But that’s not the whole story, she said: “I was pregnant, but nobody knew it. And then a couple of months later when I was six months pregnant and it was pretty obvious, the principal called me in, wished me luck, and said he was going to hire someone else for the job.”
The challenges to Warren’s experience of being pregnant in the workplace led to many tweets from people who had either faced pregnancy discrimination in the workplace themselves, or knew someone who had. Such personal stories might go unnoticed by a less-engaged candidate, but this is Sen. Warren, who won’t leave an event until her hours-long selfie lines are cleared, and who reads the notes she receives from those same patient folks who wait for her.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that Warren dropped a new video on Twitter Tuesday night, in which, from her kitchen, she read some of those stories of discrimination from her phone, noting that sharing stories is “a good way to fight back.”
Here’s one from JCBC: In the early 2000s, I was nontenured faculty, was offered a contract for a year after pregnancy, asked for reduced workload in order to care for infant and was told no; asked for a year of unpaid leave instead and was granted that, but was not offered a contract for the following year.
That is just one of the stories that Warren reads. This video is worth watching in its entirety. Warren’s passion is palpable, and the stories are infuriating.
Warren closes the video by again asking women to keep telling their stories, because they are important, and this is how we make real change. Warren brilliantly took a negative experience and turned it into a springboard for fighting discrimination. Bravo!