【Sex On Phone (2025)】

On Monday,Sex On Phone (2025) news broke that Pantsuit Nation, the secret Facebook group for Hillary Clinton supporters now boasting close to 4 million members, would now be publishing a book.

When Pantsuit Nation founder Libby Chamberlain announced to the group that she'd be publishing some of their stories in book form, she was immediately met with thousands of Facebook likes, then a roar of criticism in the comments section (there are now over 4,000 comments). The Huffington Postcalled the group "a sham," while The Daily Beastidentified the group as "the worst" in their headline, explaining that the group's more privileged supporters were the ones who "screwed up" this election and gave it to Donald Trump.

Oh. Okay.

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Pantsuit Nation is a flawed creature, and hot takes, by their very nature, are declarative (points at self). But by wholly denouncing the wildly popular support group, making unfounded assumptions about the group's founder and referring to the community's members disparagingly as "a lot of safety pin avatars," these writers minimize the real work this group has done and can continue to do -- if it's carefully critiqued, not taken down.

Takedown activism isn't new. It is, however, a problem that feels unique to the left and activists who live on social media, far more skilled at excoriating problematic allies than in becoming thoughtful coalition-builders.

Pantsuit Nation was never meant to take on this role

Pantsuit Nation started off like so many other secret Hillary Clinton Facebook groups, and quickly grew to almost four million members. The group, like so many others, would have disbanded had Clinton won, but instead became a de facto support group after Trump's victory. Disheartened Clinton supporters came to the group to express their grief, celebrate moments of solidarity and highlight small acts of activism.

Members of the group are prohibited from fundraising or otherwise using the forum to promote organizing opportunities (though many do in the group's breakaway state chapters). Chamberlain has kept the group's purpose clean, simple and limited: storytelling.

When news broke that Chamberlain would now be publishing a book of their stories, many were frightened that their private group posts would now be accessible to the public. Others accused Chamberlain of selling out.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Some of this anxiety, however understandable, is misplaced -- in her post, Chamberlain promised not to use anyone's stories without obtaining their consent first. As any good journalist will tell you (and Chamberlain's editor probably well knows) you can't publish someone's story from a secret group without obtaining their consent or otherwise risk a lawsuit.

Even Chamberlain's promise to use some of the proceeds to build a pro-female empowerment nonprofit was greeted with skepticism. Erin Gloria Ryan at The Daily Beastpointed condescendingly to Chamberlain's limited job experience working "part-time in a school administrator’s office" as evidence that she wasn't up to the task.

For what it's worth, I went to school for nonprofit management and can tell you that the degree is worth literally nothing.

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Criticism of the group goes a long way back

While some members of the group were simply anxious about Chamberlain's book deals, tensions had been brewing for months. Much of the griping relied on tired tropes about what work counts as real activism and who gets to define it. Harry Lewis at The Huffington Posthad the most widely shared example:

"Instead of doing tangible work, like running for office or even making phone calls to local representatives, white people treat minorities as props in their self-congratulatory posts about being inclusive, loving people and watch as everyone congratulates them for being decent, passive human beings . . . It purposefully boosts sentimental, apolitical human interest stories rather than focus on policy changes, systemic oppression and even the destruction of the damn patriarchy, which seems to be such an obvious focus that PSN has completely ignored," Lewis writes.

It's 2016, and progressive women are all-too-familiar with radical male activists who come in and mock predominantly female spaces, leaving nothing but anger in their wake.

Over at The Daily Beast, Ryan lobbies a similar criticism, referring to Pantsuit Nation as "slacktivism," and shaming Pantsuit posters for performing symbolic, self-congratulatory acts of activism -- even going so far as to compare the group to a Dove Commercial.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Both of these critiques rely on faulty assumptions, chiefly that these (predominantly) female posters aren't doing anything more. Who's to say, however, that these posters aren't calling their legislators or organizing marches? Where is this data coming from?

While Chamberlain doesn't use to the group to organize in the traditional sense, activism appears to happen organically. Post after post celebrates women who felt compelled to stand up to sexism in their workplace, or in their private lives, precisely because of the support they receive from the group. Harry Lewis at The Huffington Post, however, doesn't celebrate these, and only identifies posts he determines to be "apolitical acts of self-humanizing."

Not only do the authors overlook the activism at work, they fail to see how radical such small acts can be.

No, putting up a pride flag in progressive multicultural New York City isn't a landmark piece of activism. But if you've ever spent any time in Trump country, it's actually a profoundly radical symbolic act, one that cosmopolitan liberals (like myself) too often take for granted.

And there's anything this election taught us, it's that symbols -- more so than policy, definitely more than facts -- mobilize people like nothing else. Whether those symbols are hateful or hopeful is up to us.

Storytelling is the precursor to activism

To be fair, there have been posts in the group that have made me groan, stories where the author is asking for cheap applause or whose display of resistance feels more paternalistic than empowering. Chamberlain does need to do a better job of curating stories that actually resonate with readers, though I'm curious how she could do so without funding (that could come from, *cough cough*, a book deal).

Easily the most legitimate complaint is that some white women have become highly defensive in the comments section, putting down POC who've complained about safety pin activism and expressed other anxieties about the group's curation. This, of all the concerns, is Pantsuit Nation's most critical flaw and one that the group has yet to fully address -- but must continuously monitor -- head-on.

Still, I'd rather spend my time on Pantsuit Nation fixing it, than tear it -- and storytelling -- down. Prior to this position, I spent ten years as a social worker and organizer and learned one lesson: you can't have activism without hope. You can't fight for the betterment of mankind if you think mankind is pretty damn shitty. You probably won't show up at a protest in D.C. if you don't think there's enough people who care enough to come with you. Why bother fighting to protect the lives of others if you think no one is willing to come save yours?

Nothing produces apathy like despair.

As a queer woman, I've found small amounts of solace in the group. I've loved hearing stories of mothers who encouraged others to put up pride flags in their neighborhood, something pretty much no one in my family would ever do for me. It's comforting to know that there other people out there that care, and care deeply, even if they don't know what the word "patriarchy" is, and even if they don't have the right tools -- at least not yet -- to fight it.

I don't expect Pantsuit Nation to become a traditional organizing tool. I have fifteen other Facebook groups, 9,000 Facebook messages and seven other apps for that. One group can only serve so many purposes. I come to Pantsuit Nation for the yes, very cheesy, occasionally frustrating but often empowering stories that make me want to turn those dumb apps on in the first place.

So instead of calling a group that four million people belong to a "sham," or labeling it as yet another "apolitical neoliberal project" -- why not work together to make it better? Instead of shaming our allies, we should be holding them accountable as we build them up. There's not as many as we need, and they're easier to lose than we think.