How She Will Fight Is Evolving and Why It Matters
We launched She Will Fight in late April with a simple idea: what if we made it easier for women to take local civic action, especially the ones who care deeply about what’s happening in the world but feel paralyzed about what to do?
It wasn’t a complete product. It wasn’t a polished rollout. It was a beta. (Still is.) Which is basically another way to say “we’re trying something scrappy to learn in public.”
Now, about six weeks in, here’s a little of what we’ve learned, what’s working, and what’s next.
Why She Will Fight
She Will Fight is a project of She Should Run. It’s a response to the moment we’re all living through: a time when rights are eroding, the news is chaos, and “getting involved” feels like a full-time job you’re somehow underqualified for.
The premise is simple. Give women a way in. Show them that civic action doesn’t have to be overwhelming or performative. Meet them where they are (burned out, busy, concerned, confused). And build tools and a community to make it easier to do something.
We launched with a virtual action center, hosted targeted workshops, gatherings, and focus groups, and invited women to take small steps where they live with weekly reminders to take one specific action. The beta runs through early August, and we’re on track to roll what we’ve learned into something bigger this fall. More on that in a minute.
Why It Matters
Things are moving fast. If it feels like the headlines just keep coming, you’re not alone.
We’re in what sociologists call a hypernormal state. Dysfunction is so constant it starts to feel like the baseline. Which makes taking action feel even harder. We knew this going in, and we’ve seen it play out in real time.
What the Beta Is Showing Us
The good news: we have 9,700 users. That’s not a rounding error. That’s real momentum, and it tells us women want to be part of something. They’re not apathetic. They’re just unsure how to begin.
The tougher news: it took a while to get people from sign-up to action. We saw a big early wave of interest, and then… hesitation. Life is a lot. People are tired. And frankly, civic action has been overcomplicated and over-glorified for years.
But here’s the exciting part. We’re seeing an uptick. Action rates are rising. Slowly but surely, the muscle is being built.
What we’re hearing most often is: “I want to do something local, but I don’t know what that actually looks like.”
And that tracks. For decades, we’ve disconnected from the most basic parts of community life. (Anyone remember Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone?) We’ve got the stats to back this up, but honestly, you can feel it.
It’s not that people don’t care. It’s that we’ve lost the habit of knowing what showing up looks like in real life. And if you don’t see it modeled, it’s hard to do it yourself.
The 3 Groups Emerging
As the beta unfolds, three kinds of participants are emerging. They’re all essential, and we’re building with all of them in mind:
- The ready-to-lead-crew: These are the women willing to do the thing. They’re not running for office tomorrow, but they are open to the idea someday and they’re ready to lead the project and make the ask. They want to be coached, supported, and connected.
- The right-hand-woman: These folks may not want to take the mic, but they’ll bring the snacks, post the flyer, or watch your kids while you lead the meeting. They want to help meaningfully but aren’t looking to be out front.
- The signal boosters: They’re watching. They might share. They’re not going to make the call or go to the meeting, but they believe in what’s happening and will help amplify it if they can.
We have a hunch on where to focus in the next phase. Hint: it will feel familiar to our She Should Run audience. If we support budding local leaders, they’ll bring Groups 2 and 3 along with them. And that’s how momentum builds.
What’s Next
We’re rolling what we’ve learned into a fall initiative we’re (for placeholding purposes) calling the Local Leader Lab.
This will be a 12-week incubator for a group of women who are ready to go deeper into their civic leadership.
Think of it as the intersection of She Should Run and She Will Fight. These are women who know they want to lead and are taking the steps now to build that muscle. They are not waiting for the midterms to get involved. They’re writing their “what I was doing when xxx happened” leadership stories now.
The Lab will offer coaching, community, and real tools to help you talk to people you disagree with, map local power in your community, and work together to build a model others can learn from. And that’s the key: as Lab participants, these women will help create content for the rest of us. Worksheets. How-tos. Bite-sized videos. These aren’t experts in DC. They’re your neighbors. Your future school board members. Your coworker who just got fed up enough to do something.
We’ll start recruiting later this summer, prioritizing women who are rooted in the communities feeling the strain right now. If this is already speaking to you, sign up to be first to know next steps.
We’re Grateful For You
We’re in the messy middle of this thing. But it’s working.
The response so far has been a reminder that women don’t need to be convinced to care. They need someone to show them a way in. Someone to model what action looks like. Someone to say, “you belong here, too.”
That’s what we’re doing. And we couldn’t do it without you.
We’re still in beta through early August and still learning a ton. If you’ve got ideas, encouragement, or brutally honest feedback, we want it. If you’ve made it this far in the post, you probably have something to offer.
Onward. Let’s keep building.
Erin
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