To the editor:
The 2025 political landscape is another highly charged, noisy environment. We are left unable to decipher fact from rhetoric, to separate biased media coverage from objective, and to feel the joy in being a community of rabble rousers, opposing views, and free-thinkers. Here’s hoping the Marblehead Elections allow us to identify our preferred champions and vote without the noise.
For me, June elections are about equity, gender violence, and empowerment. These topics have never been addressed, nor has there ever been a safe space to address them, until 2024. This is thanks to the champions found on the current School Committee, Select Board, and Board of Health.
For Schools, Sarah Fox has been part of every effort to center menstrual health/equity, empowering young people, and creating safe spaces for all.
Students miss class due to the inaccessibility of menstrual products in school. A simple solution had never been entertained by elected officials (students piloted one at Veterans School!) Sarah and the School Committee collaborated with a nonprofit to arrange for free menstrual products. Thus reflecting an understanding of what it means to have 1 in 7 Massachusetts children live in poverty, struggling to afford menstrual products; how menstruation affects student attendance, stress/mental health, and productivity. If you ever sat in a 45+ minute class, played sports, went swimming afraid of a leak. If you have ever had cramps so debilitating that you could not do class or homework, study for/take a test. Then you know the importance of having a menstrual equity champion at decision-making tables. Sarah is a champion for student education and health.
Every 68 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted, ages 12 and over, the highest risk years (RAINN). By adopting the Proclamation to make April Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Sarah brought critical conversations forward. She also participated in conversations to revise MHS’s YWCA Consent Training, to include Gender Violence Awareness in Professional Development Days, and to form a student-led Gender Equity Group. Sexual violence’s role in the reproduction of multiple, intersecting inequalities is deserving of acknowledgement and action. Sarah will continue these conversations, reduce harm, and create spaces for education, healing, and liberation from violence.
Domestic Violence Shelters are predominantly for women and children. However, they report (like all Homeless Shelters) that menstrual products are the least donated. If you think Marblehead is immune to DV, or our students do not live in a shelter, HAWC reported to the BOH they were involved with 4 emergency evacuations in Marblehead, in 2024 alone. The passage of the I AM Bill would provide free menstrual products in shelters and schools. Sarah/SC’s endorsement of this legislation models how local leaders influence the State House.
Marblehead needs leaders who are radically awake, passionately dedicated, and unified in heart and purpose. Who understands that OLIDARITY is not oneness, it is building bridges and finding points of unity to foster innovation. Cut through the noise. Elect those who will build a more equitable, just, and violence-free world. Vote Sarah Fox.
Megan Sweeney
Beacon Street
