Margaret Atwood addressed US campaign at LEAF gala

Margaret Atwood addressed the annual “Persons Day” gathering in Toronto on October 19th, 2016.

The occasion commemorates the British Privy Council ruling in which women were to be considered persons under the law, and therefore eligible to sit in the Canadian senate. Britain’s Privy Council was Canada’s highest court of appeal at the time, and the ruling was issued on October 18, 1929.

Now LEAF, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund commemorates the development and Margaret Atwood, the doyenne of Canadian literature and a unique Canadian voice, was the featured speaker this year.

“An outpouring of misogyny not seen since the Salem Witch Trials”

To the sold-out breakfast gathering Atwood said it was “a mere 87 years ago” that some women’s legal rights were granted,

Meanwhile the movement to “Repeal the 19th” in the United States was in the spotlight. During what has been one of the most divisive American election campaigns, a group of Donald Trump supporters used the Twitter hashtag #repealthe19th, to reveal Trump’s guaranteed victory after a map showed he would win the election if only men voted.

The 19th Amendment was passed in 1920 and granted women the right to vote in the United States.

Atwood described this U.S. election campaign as an “outpouring of misogyny not seen since the Salem Witch Trials”.

She encouraged the women in the hall to “celebrate your person-hood”.

Atwood said that “something’s out of the box, but it’s interesting to see it now that it is out of the box.”

She spoke of the warming of the oceans as her paramount concern these days, and reminded everyone that “nature is what your breathing into your lungs right now”.

“Dear Americans: It will be all right in the long run. (How long? We will see.) You’ve been through worse, remember.”  This is what Margaret Atwood tweeted this morning.