Meryl Streep and Ai-jen Poo urge everyone to join them in fight against 'power imbalance'
Actor Meryl Streep and activist Ai-jen Poo stood shoulder-to-shoulder in solidarity on the red carpet at the Golden Globes with a message for all.
"We wanna say to everyone that they should join us," said Poo—director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance—who was one of several activists brought to the awards by female Hollywood stars.
"I think that people are aware now of a power imbalance, and it's something that leads to abuse," Streep told Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet. "It's led to abuse in our own industry and it's led to abuse across the domestic workers' field of work. It's in the military, it's in congress, it's everywhere."
Streep said that she and Poo want to "fix" the power imbalance. "We feel emboldened in this particular moment to stand together in a thick black line dividing then from now," she said.
Poo said she hopes people see the "momentum and the energy" and the fact that women are "uniting across all industries and all communities" demanding workplaces where "we're safe and where our work is valued and we can live and work with dignity."
"That's the future and we have momentum, and we wanna say to everyone that they should join us. This is a movement where there's space for everyone and there's a role for everyone," she continued.
In a statement, Poo said she was "honored" to attend the Golden Globes "representing the 2.5 million nannies, house cleaners, and home care workers that care for our families and homes."
"Domestic workers, as some of the most at-risk and invisible workers in the nation, want to send a clear message: from the casting room to the kitchen, all women deserve dignity and safety where they work," said Poo.
Poo added that domestic workers "see this moment of unity among women across industries" as a "turning point" for the movement to end sexual harassment and violence.
Topics Activism
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
