Collective Powerlifting

I worked in the U.S. labor movement for a decade, traveling the country documenting union contract campaigns, workplace safety issues and legislative fights. From freight rail workers to flight attendants, subway conductors to casino dealers, I regularly documented how sharing power can increase it. How collective power broadens your reach and resources, further spreading your mission. The labor movement is not without its challenges, and could certainly use many, many more women of color in high leadership positions, but a united labor force is a powerful body that can bring leverage, influence and even some hope, if you let the light in a little.

I worked with a countless number of labor leaders through the years, mostly men, mostly white. Labor leadership is elected by delegates, and unions can be large and spread out, with labor locals sometimes acting autonomously from the national organization. This can make for a lot of internal political plate spinning, which not everyone can do well. I have watched leaders build power, grab it, squash it, withhold it and even squander it. Their leadership styles varied, but two things remained consistent: United, collective power was for boots on the ground union workers. Singular, isolated power in union leadership was so exclusive and so elusive it had to be hoarded away. Especially by men, who had no real interest in opening doors for women labor leaders. I saw many dynamic, qualified and gifted women cast aside, gone unacknowledged and underestimated, whose hard work was stolen, miscredited or completely ignored. Progress is slow but union (and non-union) women carry every community we are in, whether you elevate us or not.

In the early stages of developing Gal Pal, we reached out to women in our friend groups, families and across our careers for advice, guidance and encouragement. Women who answered our phone calls, texts and Facetimes, hopped on Zooms, shared templates, Google docs and countless links, all in support of the Gal Pal mission to elevate the voices of women. We experienced no gatekeeping, no clit blocking, just answers and insight and help. These women knew that hoarding power ultimately squanders it, like holding too tightly to a girlfriend who is already gone. Sharing knowledge, wisdom and opportunity is what opens the door to opening doors. To leveling playing fields, making positive impacts and lifting as you climb. I’m not saying Gal Pal isn’t competitive AF, we are. We strategize and organize and care deeply about the work we do and the community we are helping to build. There’s room for both: leading the way and making way.  

It's a shifting landscape, where wildly popular podcasts like Call Her Daddy, Good Hang and Adulting with Michelle Buteau out Rogan Joe Rogan’s numbers. We are watching sharp, original vertical YouTube series topple legacy studios and networks. Across this Museletter, on screens with our films and in the pages of our books, Gal Pal is greater than the sum of its parts. By uniting as a creative community, across media services, products and live events, we are powerlifting our collective connection that makes re-wiring highly faulty power structures truly possible. Even on the days when it feels like it’s just one wire at a time. We’re here for it. Glad you are too.

Mary Matthews is an award-winning filmmaker, illustrator, Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of Gal Pal. Follow her work @galpalmedia.