When Pantsuit Nation became a viral phenomenon days before the election last November, the private Facebook group was focused on electing the first female president.

Pantsuit Nation (which is technically a Facebook Page, 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and the 501(c)(3) Pantsuit Nation Foundation) remains dedicated to publishing personal stories as a means of social change. The Facebook group has recently been a supportive refuge for, among many others, a mother of a child with special healthcare needs, a transgender Marine, a young woman who works in Congress, and a son proud of his newly naturalized mother.

"If we're incrementally changing the way that people understand the world around them, that's something I'm proud of,"

says Libby Chamberlain, the 34-year-old mom of two who first created Pantsuit Nation as a private Facebook Page for a few dozen Hillary Clinton supporters last October.

And yet, she adds, the women behind Pantsuit Nation can't afford to be driven by the fear of failure, because the group's struggles get to the heart of what building an "equitable democracy" means in the 21st century. That idea is meaningless if it's premised on the guise of liberal inclusiveness as bigotry thrives beneath the surface.

Whether or not Chamberlain and Pantsuit Nation will succeed where other movements have failed to resolve this conflict depends entirely on how the Facebook Page and nonprofit grow into themselves, and whether they can persuade the audience at their command to transform emotions into action while confronting personal bias and privilege.

Read the source article at Mashable