Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

Maddy, you are very involved with activism surrounding sexual assault on campus. You’re a Sexual Assault Peer Educator, the president of Take Back the Night, and part of the Fellowship of Women Advancing Gender Equity. What moves you to do this work?

Maddy Moore: For a long time, I was passionate about gender-related issues. When I came to college, I realized how broad these issues are and how they extend beyond just gender and how they affect communities, particularly women, so . . . I came to see it as a community issue and felt compelled to do something about it. I found a passion for activism and organizing, and realized that if I use my voice to work collectively with other people, we can push for change on campus, on a national level, on an international level. I have a responsibility as a student here and as a person in this world to speak out against any form of violence, and this extends past gender-based violence to racial violence to systematic violence, any type of violence that is affecting marginalized communities.

You’ve mentioned the idea of responsibility, one that ties in to Catholic social teaching.

Moore: Yeah, since I’ve been at Georgetown, I’ve definitely grown more spiritual and come to realize how rooted a lot of this work is in Ignatian values and in Catholic social teaching and how it guides a lot of people that I really admire.

So the results of the presidential election stunned the country—the election went in a different direction that had been expected. How are you feeling about the election in general, and what does it mean for your work to have Donald Trump as our next president?

Moore: I was disillusioned overall with the election because it brought to light a lot of issues and there was a lot of blame placed on different populations, whether
that be people who supported Bernie, people who didn’t vote, communities of color, working class people. How do we move beyond that? How do we become stronger together, not necessarily in the same way as the [Hillary] Clinton campaign, but stronger together in recognizing that we have a collective responsibility to educate and address some very deep structural issues—whether that be poverty or racism or sexism? It’s important to give people space to process the results, but also continue forward with our work because the same issues exist regardless of who is president. People on the ground, like teachers and social workers and activists continue their work no matter who is present. If we can mobilize the “people power” to push and ensure that over the next four years the violence in our communities is not tolerated and people's immediate safety needs are met—that’s my next step.

We saw a lot of polarization and hateful rhetoric in this election, and now we’ve made it to the other side. Alexis, you’ve been involved with different social justice causes, like Hoyas for Immigrant Rights that were particularly relevant in this election, as well as worked on different projects around identity and dialogue. What steps do you want to see our politicians—like President-elect Trump and the leaders of the two parties—take to repair our nation and build solidarity and understanding?

Alexis Larios: I think this is a really good moment where a lot of people, like myself, aren’t feeling that this decision is a step towards leadership that’s for the people. I think political leaders can use this time to show that they are working for the people and that they are going to continue to lead these causes and fight these fights. I listened to the concession speech today and Hillary says that she is going to keep working hard and I think everybody should keep doing that. The sun will come out tomorrow, and leaders come and go, but that doesn’t mean that our values have to. We all have to remember who we are and what we care about and keep going in that direction.

In October, the political analysis blog FiveThirtyEight published a diagram showing how Hillary Clinton would win the election by a massive margin if only women were voting. This really brought up the magnitude of the influence of women voters—one New York Times article even referred to the “monster sorority”: not a monolith, but rather a vast network of sisterhood. This “monster sorority” didn’t quite materialize in the polls the way it had been expected to. On social media, women have been targeting each other, blaming each other for the election results, tearing each other down. What does this say to you about the state of the so-called “monster sorority”?

Larios: In this aftermath where we all want to place blame, women should not tear each other down. If we’re going to have a leader that may not necessarily care about women’s issues, then we have to continue to put our energy into the things that we do for each other, like building community and our organizations, and continuing to get women to run for office. Something that Trump’s election has overshadowed is that we have new female senators, we have the first black woman from California, we have the first woman from Nevada. Something that Hillary said in her concession speech that was very powerful was that young girls need to not see this as proof that they can’t achieve. They need to continue to see themselves as qualified and powerful and just keep empowering each other. I think women and everyone else who feels really betrayed right now needs to keep going. That’s what I’m trying to do, at
least.

I went to the interfaith gathering in Dahlgren Quad on Wednesday and I was feeling pretty broken. There was so much community there and I saw true solidarity on display. I think we throw around the word a lot, but what does it actually mean in action? And I saw it in action today by people who maybe don’t feel as directly threatened by Trump’s rhetoric, but still saying ‘I’m here today, I’m here for my friends, I’m here for you.’ I felt a lot of love and solidarity in various spaces at Georgetown today, which hopefully will transcend other spaces outside of Georgetown as well.

Alexis, you went to World Youth Day in Krakow this summer. Is there anything that you can share from your experience that could provide insight as to how we can come together as a nation and work for peace?

Larios: World Youth Day one, on the most banal level, really embodied an international
community coming together, which was really beautiful. On the final day, Pope Francis called on us, as he said several times, to build bridges and not walls. This administration would love to build some walls, and I think it’s still in our power not to let that happen. How do we fight hate? We fight it with love. If we keep building bridges, there’s no way that you can put a wall there. Another thing Pope Francis said, in a very Catholic sense, was that Jesus Christ is the lord of risk, the lord of always going beyond, and that Jesus is not the lord of comfort. And now, I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone. I’ve been pushed somewhat out of feeling completely safe. I have to challenge myself to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and to put myself out there and to not give up on the work that I do and to do it now with more energy and determination, giving one hundred and ten percent. 

I think this is a very rude but serious wake-up call, too, that this work that we do—that I do, that the Catholic Church does—it’s now right in front of our face why this is so important. It’s going to test us. I felt pretty knocked down by the election results, but thankfully with this really great community around me, I feel very energized to get back up and keep going.

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This election has been so partisan and polarizing, and so laden with distrust and blame, that it has very much intensified the divide in America. Now, in the aftermath, we see Americans turning on each other and vilifying other groups for their vote, particularly on social media. It has been so disheartening to see citizens of our country personally attack each other for their political views, and it is antithetical to what our nation
needs right now. We do not need more anger and distrust, but rather we need to come together—as women, as a nation, and as human persons. Maddy and Alexis offer keen insights on how we can strive to become stronger together. As Alexis said, to fight hate with love, and to challenge ourselves to keep going and fight for what we believe in.

Julia Greenwood (C'19) is an undergraduate studying American studies at Georgetown. Maddy Moore (SFS'18) is an undergraduate studying culture and politics at Georgetown. Alexis Larios (C'18) is an undergraduate studying government and English at Georgetown.