A few good women

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This article was published 07/04/2017 (3133 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Raging Grannies are funny, but make no mistake: they are no joke.

It’s Friday morning, and the original Victoria, B.C., gaggle — a group of Raging Grannies is a gaggle, by the way — is rehearsing a few of their songs with the Winnipeg gaggle at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR). It’s a big day. The Victoria gaggle’s 30th anniversary is being celebrated with a new Raging Grannies exhibit in the museum’s seventh-floor Inspiring Change gallery.

The women are resplendent in their trademark feather boas and huge hats, which are collapsing under the weight of political pins and flowers. Sure, there’s some incongruity in seeing a sweet granny wearing a pin that says “Stephen Harper Hates Me” on it, but that would be underestimating just how badass these fearless and outspoken women truly are.

Since it began in 1987, the Raging Grannies has become a bona fide social justice activist movement, with more than 100 gaggles all over North America. Their ranks include women aged 60-plus, and their acts of peaceful resistance include everything from singing satirical songs and donning outlandish costumes to staging sit-ins disguised as tea parties. You name it, they’ve probably done it. In March, the Victoria gaggle did a Plunge Against Pipelines wearing nothing but their hats and boas.

Raging Grannies have been arrested — a 92-year-old Granny was arrested in 2015 in Seattle while protesting arctic oil drilling, for one example. They show up to speak their mind, and they have no problem with showing up where they aren’t wanted. They are your grandmother’s activist group and they lay it on the line to create a better world for future generations.

Anne Moon, 75, has been a Victoria granny for 20 years, and she’s thrilled to be recognized by the CMHR. She’s also buoyed by how many people she’s seen engage in protest activism and take to the streets, particularly in the wake of Donald Trump’s election in the United States. “It’s really lovely to have some company now,” Moon says.

Moon says that over the past two decades she’s been raging, the Grannies’ tactics “have gotten more creative, more entertaining, a little less strident and a little more fun.”

The Raging Grannies know first-hand just how powerful a tool humour is when it comes to engaging with people on serious, political topics. There’s a reason clips from late-night shows such as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Full-Frontal With Samantha Bee — and the first decent season of Saturday Night Live in a long time — go viral the next day; comedy provides an accessible entry point into difficult discussions. (And also, sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.)

“There are serious issues out there, but when a little old granny in a funny hat stands up and talks about it, it isn’t as hard to listen to as it might be coming from a news source,” says Marilyn Huska, 69, who is part of the Winnipeg gaggle of Raging Grannies. “Our role is to get people thinking and entertain them a bit, too.”

The Winnipeg gaggle was founded in 2003 by Leuba Franko, who says the Grannies here have stood up and sang for every issue you can think of here in the city. These days, they are focused on standing up as allies for indigenous women. “There’s a big divide in the river in Winnipeg, so we’ve tried to cross the river,” she says. Right now, there are no indigenous Grannies in the group, but Franko and Huska say the door is always open.

The Raging Grannies lend their voices to all sorts of social issues, but the fact they put themselves out there is something of a political act unto itself. This is a demographic that is too often infantilized, medicalized, isolated, or rendered invisible by a society obsessed with youth. As exhibit curator Julia Peristerakis points out, the Grannies are radically visible. “I think their costumes and songs are a way of counteracting that invisibility that older women might face,” she says.

Peristerakis spent a weekend with the Grannies in Victoria as part of her research for the exhibit, attending everything from a senior’s roundtable on health to a flash mob. “The thing that really struck me, they kept repeating that the reason they stay engaged and what gets them out of bed is a concern for the future generations of the world,” she says.

The Raging Grannies are also proof that you can become an activist at any age. To that end, Moon has some advice for aspiring Raging Grannies.

“Get involved in politics. Find a community cause that you believe in. Start small. And, when you get braver, put on a hat and a boa.”

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @JenZoratti