Bernie Sanders won by a landslide in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary; on Wednesday evening the group Tampa Bay Women for Bernie Sanders will meet in St. Petersburg to dispel myths that women and feminists are supporting Hillary Clinton.
In New Hampshire, 55% of women voted for Sanders. This comes after a week in which high-profile Hillary Clinton supporters like Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem suggested that women should support a woman candidate like Clinton.
But Gina Castellano, who is helping to organize Wednesday’s Tampa Bay Women for Bernie meet-up, says there are plenty of women who support Sanders and many reasons why women should pick the self-described democratic socialist over Clinton.
The meet-up is part of coordinated Women for Bernie events nationwide. It begins at 7:00 p.m. and ends at 10:00 p.m. and will be at CASA, located at 1011 1st Ave N. in St. Petersburg.
Listen to interview here:
“Well, I recently became involved with the Women For Bernie because of their nation-wide meet-up that they’re having on the 10th – February 10th. And it’s just basically women who support Bernie Sanders. There’s a nation-wide group, there’s a state, there’s a Florida Women for Bernie and they are gathering women to talk amongst themselves–why they support Bernie Sanders and how can we get that message out to those who are undecided.”
There’s been a lot of talk recently from feminists like Gloria Steinem that say that women and especially feminist women should support Hillary Clinton and supporting other candidates is somehow maybe against feminism.
“Right. There’s a quote that I found and some people might have already seen this, but, Gloria Steinem said ‘a feminist is a person who challenges the power structure of our country’. And she also said Bernie Sanders is that kind of feminist. And she said that in 1996 when she came to help Bernie Sanders get reelected. And she even made him an Honorary Woman.
“So, you know, it’s just because, I know plenty of men who are feminists and just to vote for somebody because they are a woman, not looking at her voting history, what she has supported, that are even against working class women, men, families. You know I could go into–I thought about it this morning: Walmart. She was on the board of Walmart. Where was she standing up for these women who were making minimum wages or who are on welfare? And Walmart depended on that for their profits. Where was she standing up for women then? All the trade agreements she supported, well, now she says she doesn’t. But, they didn’t help women and children and families with all the jobs going overseas.”
And moving on to this weekend. There is a Bernie Fest in St. Petersburg. What’s that all about?
“Well they’re having a huge voter registration effort at Kymatic Studios on Saturday and Sunday. It’s a voter registration drive on 2436 Emerson Avenue South. You can go to TampabayforBernie.org and even Bernie Sanders’ … official campaign website will have all the information on that. They’re going to have bands. They’re going to have all kinds of entertainment. It’s just a huge party to try to get people who are undecided, who need to register, who need to change their voter registration to the democratic party. Because people have to understand to vote in the primary, to vote for Bernie Sanders, you have to be a democrat on your registration card.”
The last day to register to vote or to update your registration or political party in order to vote in next month’s presidential preference primary is next Tuesday.
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