Gilmore, H. 2017. “A woman's place is in the resistance/Haley Gilmore.” Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017649631/.
This protest sign offers viewers a variety of entry points to conversations about representation, symbolism, connotation, denotation, and imagery in protest messaging. The intersections among feminism’s first, second, and third waves are represented by an iconic pop culture image of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia dressed in white—a nod to the first-wave feminists—and as a leader of the rebel alliance in the original Star Wars films of the 1970s and the early 1980s—a nod to second-wave feminists as powerful leaders—provide a pivotal example of leadership and resistance for third-wave feminists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The poster’s diction and color scheme also serve as points of analysis for potential messaging and expression.
Twenty-first century students are currently living in an era where legislation at the federal and state level is increasingly infringing on women’s equal rights under protection of the law. The Women’s March on Washington in 2017 was a direct response to the 2016 election results in which Donald J. Trump—a candidate who has publicly made statements against laws protecting women’s rights to make healthcare decisions related to sexual and reproductive health—became the president-elect. The poster’s iconic image of actor Carrie Fisher in one of her most famous roles—Princess Leia, a science-fiction princess of the Rebel Resistance who served as a founding member and leader of the New Republic in the Star Wars saga—connects pop culture references to real-world scenarios where women rise up and take the lead to fight oppressive leaders and unjust laws. The poster’s faded nature can serve as a representation of the decades-long fight for equal rights for women in America. This poster represents a call to action and empowerment for women across the country to exercise their first amendment rights to elicit social change.
“A woman's place is in the resistance / Hayley Gilmore.,” according to the Library of Congress website, “has a faded, red print image of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia clutching her blaster and staring down the camera behind the poster's slogan ‘A Woman's Place is in the Resistance.’ . . . The poster was created for the Women's March on Washington.”
- How does this poster shape our understanding of women’s role(s) in protest movements?
- What does this poster reveal to viewers about the connections between pop culture and real-world examples of women in resistance movements?
- How does this poster demonstrate elements of connotation and denotation in regards to messages of leadership, resistance, and protest?
New York State Next Generation Learning Standards for ELA
New York State Next Generation Writing Standard 11-12W4: Create a poem, story, play, artwork, or other response to a text, author, theme or personal experience; demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a variety of techniques and genres. Explain connections between the original and the created work.
- Students can view the poster and craft their own poem, short story, piece of art, or other written response to demonstrate connections to common themes such as: women’s rights, protest/demonstration, empowerment, community, and leadership (among others). Students can include a reflective piece that explains the connections between their own writing and the image on the poster.
New York State Next Generation Standard 11-12R9: Make connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives, eras, and personal experiences. (RI&RL)
- Students can view this image and compare it to other primary source images of the Women’s March on Washington (2017) and other protests and demonstrations that women led to fight for their rights in the United States spanning over the last 100 years (from the late 1800s to 2024). Students can make social and political connections across these sources and analyze them through their own personal or historical/cultural experiences with representation and freedom of expression for women.
- This image would pair well with demonstration artifacts and stories that touch upon first-wave, second-wave, and third-wave feminist movements and their roles in advancing equal representation and rights for women in the United States. They can identify common themes, messages, and (pop) cultural references for each era as they are represented in protest signage.
- Students can work individually or in pairs/small groups to analyze the symbolism for each element of the image on the poster, and then connect their findings to larger themes of equity, justice, and protest.
- This image can also serve as a paired text with Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale or Octavia Butler’s dystopian, science-fiction text, Parable of the Sower. Each text features women/young women in leadership roles who fight against oppressive governments and society’s collapse.
- The image could be challenged for its connections to specific elements of the Women’s March that are linked to abortion rights and issues of women’s reproductive health. Those who have personal objections to any protests or movements related to abortion or women’s reproductive health may object to having students view the image of a protest sign that is associated with a protest/demonstration that includes connections to such personal and political messaging. Some may object to the image of Princess Leia holding a blaster weapon in her hand because they may find this to be a potentially “violent” image or message.
Links to resources for approaching those topics:
- UN Women is “the United Nations[’] entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.
- UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality, and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on four strategic priorities:
- Women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems
- All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence
- Women and girls contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from the prevention of natural disasters and conflicts and humanitarian action
- UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality, and in all deliberations and agreements linked to the 2030 Agenda. The entity works to position gender equality as fundamental to the Sustainable Development Goals, and a more inclusive world” (https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/about-un-women). The UN Women website features a specific story that was published in March of 2019 that reflects on women’s roles in activism, protest, and resistance movements. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/3/compilation-womens-activism-thats-changed-the-world\
- Britannica.com provides an overview of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington that includes information about the global demonstrations that were also held in solidarity with those in the United States. This resource includes statistics regarding numbers of participants at specific marches across the United States, as well as the demonstrations’ connections to past/historical women’s rights movements. https://www.britannica.com/event/Womens-March-2017
- “Hear our voice Women's March on Washington, January 21, 2017 / / @Womensmarch + Theamplifierfoundation.org + Liza Donovan.” is a poster from the Women’s March on Washington (2017) that features a drawing of womens’ hands holding up a liberty torch with a peace dove radiating light from its beak. The words “Hear Our Voice: Women’s March on Washington 2017” appear at the bottom. This image features patriotic symbols—the torch, the peace dove, stars and a red, white, and blue color scheme—which may appeal to those who want to focus on messages of women’s empowerment and its connections to patriotism. https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.13017/
- “The Women's March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers' rights” is photograph of two women wearing American flags as headscarves while at the Women’s March on Washington demonstration in 2017. In this image, the women are smiling and engaging in what seems to be a joyful, peaceful moment of patriotic pride. This photograph offers insights to the peaceful, empowering, and communal elements of women protesting. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.51576/
- The Southern Poverty Law Center’s magazine includes an article written by Dorothee Benz, PhD, that reflects on the historic impact and measures of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington. It can help provide more points of analysis for students to review on the demonstration’s social, cultural, and historical impact in the United States. https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/the-womens-march-protest-and-resistance
- In April of 2021, PBS News reported a story about Judy Batalion’s book, The Light of Days, which “details acts of heroism by Jewish women in the ghettos of eastern Europe—and even within the death camps. She documents how female couriers hand-carried crucial messages, weapons, and ammunition as part of the resistance in besieged Jewish ghettos” (pbs.org). This news story features interviews with descendants of the Jewish women who were part of the resistance during Nazi occupation in eastern Europe. It can serve as a historical framework for women as members of resistance movements. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-book-explores-the-heroic-women-run-resistance-inside-nazi-death-camps