Your Women's History Month Action Plan (No Pink Merch Required)

TL;DR: We just read about the women who changed history. Now here's your five-point action plan for changing your own corner of it — no pink merch, no "awareness" hashtags, and definitely no waiting for a company email to tell you when feminism is allowed.

Okay, let's unpack this.

This morning we talked about the names they left out of the textbooks. The organizers, the dissenters, the women who got things done and then got written out of the story. (If you missed it, go read it — it'll make your afternoon better.)

But here's the thing I always have to say after a history deep-dive: learning the names isn't the action. It's the fuel for the action.

Women's History Month has a way of turning into 31 days of Instagram graphics, a company Slack message about "celebrating our incredible women," and maybe a cupcake in the break room. And look, I love a cupcake as much as the next person. But Dorothy Zbornak did not survive three Miami marriages and a sub-teacher salary just so we could post a sepia-toned portrait of Sojourner Truth and call it advocacy.

So here's your actual action plan. Five things. Concrete steps. Real stakes. No awareness required—only doing.

Step 1: Share Your Salary With One Trusted Colleague This Week

I'm putting this first because it's the one that makes people most uncomfortable, which is exactly why it needs to be first.

Pay secrecy is not an accident. Companies have spent decades (and significant HR budgets) convincing workers that talking about money is tacky, unprofessional, and something polite people just don't do. This is by design. When you don't know what your colleague makes, you can't negotiate from a position of power. You can't file a pay equity complaint. You can't even tell if the system is working fairly, because you have no data.

Here's the actual legal reality: in the United States, the National Labor Relations Act protects most private-sector workers' right to discuss wages with coworkers. Your employer cannot legally discipline or fire you for it. (Note: managers and supervisors have fewer protections here, and federal employees operate under different rules — but if you're a non-supervisory private-sector worker, this protection is yours.)

The action: Pick one trusted coworker. Over coffee, in a text, however feels right. Say: "I'm trying to get a better sense of our market rate. What are you making? I'll go first."

Then go first. That's the whole thing. You go first.

Pay transparency is a collective act. It only works if someone cracks the silence. Let it be you.

Step 2: Attend One Local Government Meeting This Month

I will say this until I lose my voice: the school board meeting in your suburb is doing more damage to women's lives right now than any Senate vote you read about in a national newsletter.

Curriculum. Library books. School counselor staffing. Title IX enforcement at the building level. Policies about gender in sports and bathrooms. Childcare facility licensing. Domestic violence shelter funding. These are all decided at the local level, in rooms that are often half-empty, by elected officials who sometimes run unopposed because nobody shows up.

Here's what I want you to do: Go to your city or county's government website right now and find the public meeting calendar. Look for school board, city council, or county commission meetings. Most are open to the public. Most have public comment periods. Most are attended by almost nobody except the board members themselves and a handful of regulars who know that showing up is power.

You don't have to speak. You don't have to have an agenda. Your physical presence in that room is a political act. It tells elected officials that someone is watching. That someone is going to vote. That the room isn't empty.

Go once. See what's on the docket. I promise it will radicalize you faster than any podcast.

Step 3: Read One Union Contract (I'm Serious — They're Actually Interesting)

Stay with me here.

Union contracts are public documents. Teachers' union contracts, nurses' union contracts, hotel workers' contracts — many are available on union websites or through public records requests. And they are, honestly, one of the most feminist documents you'll read all month.

Why? Because a union contract is what happens when workers collectively say: we are not going to let you treat us however you want anymore. Here are the rules. We negotiated them. They are legally binding.

Look for: paid parental leave provisions. Seniority-based raises that close wage gaps. Grievance procedures for harassment. Healthcare coverage language. The contrast between what unionized workers have negotiated and what non-union workers "receive" at the company's discretion is one of the most clarifying reads you'll do.

Start with your local teachers' union — they're typically the most publicly available and most directly tied to community wellbeing. Find their current contract. Read the sections on wages, leave, and grievance procedures. Then look at what non-union teachers in neighboring districts have. That's the gap that organizing closes.

The math isn't mathing for workers without a contract. Reading one will show you exactly why.

Step 4: Make One Phone Call to Your Representative About One Specific Bill

I have a folder on my desktop called "Emergency Action." Inside are templated scripts for calling elected officials on specific issues — reproductive rights, labor protections, housing, healthcare. I update it when major legislation moves.

Here's what that folder has taught me: one specific call about one specific bill is worth ten vague "I care about women's rights" emails.

Staffers track calls. They log which bills constituents mention by name. A high volume of constituent calls on a specific bill tells a legislator something real about where their electorate's attention is. Generic outrage does not do this. Bill numbers do.

Your action for this week:

Go to your state legislature's website and search for pending bills related to paid family leave, reproductive health access, or workplace discrimination — depending on what's most relevant in your state right now.
Pick ONE. Read the summary (just the summary).
Call your state representative's district office (not DC — the district office has better call-to-staffer ratios). Say: "I'm a constituent calling about [Bill Number]. I support/oppose it because [one sentence]. I'd like the representative's office to know my position."
That's it. Takes four minutes.

The script is that simple. The barrier is just convincing yourself it matters. It does. Especially in state legislatures where margins are thin and constituent pressure is genuinely felt.

Step 5: Leave One Honest Workplace Review — Specifically About Pay Culture

Sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, and Blind exist because workers needed a place to tell the truth that their HR department wouldn't let them tell out loud. They are imperfect, often anonymous, and genuinely useful.

If you've ever worked somewhere with pay inequity, opaque compensation, retaliation culture around wage discussions, or a "we're like a family" vibe that translated to "we expect unpaid overtime" — say so. Publicly. Where job seekers can find it.

This is not revenge. This is labor movement work. You are building the collective knowledge that helps future workers negotiate with receipts.

Be specific (without burning yourself): "The company has no formal pay bands. Raises are highly variable and not tied to documented criteria. When I asked a manager about compensation equity, the question was deflected." That's a review that helps someone. That's a review that costs nothing but the ten minutes it takes to write it.

And if you worked somewhere great — somewhere with pay transparency, robust parental leave, and a manager who actually advocated for your raise — write that review too. We need to be able to see both ends of the spectrum to know what's possible.

The Quick-Action Recap

This week: Share your salary with one trusted colleague. You go first.
This month: Attend one local government meeting. Bring your body to the room.
This month: Read one union contract. Understand what collective bargaining looks like on paper.
This week: Call one rep about one specific bill. Bill number, position, one sentence. Done.
Whenever you're ready: Leave one honest workplace review about pay and compensation culture.

These are not grand gestures. They are not "creating change from the inside" in a way that exhausts you while protecting the system. They are concrete, doable, and cumulative. Five people in a room at a school board meeting change the dynamic of that meeting. Fifty people doing it regularly change who wins the next school board election.

This is Women's History Month. The women in the history books didn't get there by sharing awareness graphics. They got there by doing the next thing, in the room they were actually in, with the tools they actually had.

We have more tools than they did. Let's use them.

In solidarity and with a lot of coffee, Maya.

Now, what are we doing about it?