When Reshma Saujani set out to make a documentary, she was clear from the outset: it would not be released on streaming platforms, or at film festivals.<\/p>\n
Instead, No Country for Mothers \u2013 a new movie about how moms across the US are being failed \u2013 is being screened by hundreds of the subject themselves, nationwide, in person.<\/p>\n
Brittney Walker is hosting a screening at a community poolhouse in Arizona. Joanna Carolina Berry rented out a theater in Georgia. Stephanie Valdez booked a library room in Nevada.<\/p>\n
Saujani, the film\u2019s executive producer, and the founder of advocacy organizations Moms First and Girls Who Code, said moms will often watch or read something at 10pm, after work and chores and parenting, by themselves, then get \u201cpissed off in isolation\u201d. But not this movie.<\/p>\n
She wanted people to watch together, and get inspired to take action.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been intentionally divided and distracted through culture wars, and mostly I think a lot by politicians, and now I would say influencers and tech companies,\u201d Saujani told the Guardian at a screening in Minneapolis<\/a> in June. \u201cAnd so I think that the only way to beat back the culture wars is to get moms to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n The premiere of No Country for Mothers in Minneapolis. Photograph: Jeremy Bloom<\/p>\n The documentary \u2013 focused on how mothers so not have adequate support, leave or childcare \u2013 calls for a unified push for paid leave and childcare funding. It walks through decades of failures to enact policies for families, featuring women across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n Hillary Clinton notes in the film how Congress passed a childcare bill in the 1970s, only for then president Richard Nixon to veto it.<\/p>\n The priority is childcare and paid leave, according to Saujani. Much of the country is increasingly acknowledging childcare as an economic issue, and some states have stepped up to create paid programs, she said. Still, Trump recently said<\/a> it was \u201cnot possible\u201d to address funding at the federal level, and cut off access to payments to blue states over fraud concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t take care of daycare,\u201d he said in April. \u201cWe\u2019re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We\u2019re fighting wars. We can\u2019t take care of daycare. You [have] got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n In another scene, Saujani herself asks Trump about childcare funding<\/a>, an answer he bungled. \u201cThey had no fucking clue how to answer that question,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Introducing the film in Minneapolis, Saujani told a crowd of dozens of mostly women that America makes it \u201cimpossible to be a mom\u201d by pitting women against each other \u2013 working moms versus stay-at-home moms, trad wives versus girl-boss feminists. The goal is to keep moms distracted with culture wars, rather than united over policies they agree on, like paid leave or universal childcare, Saujani suggested.<\/p>\n