Kathy Najimy has been a feminist activist for as long as she can remember. That includes protesting at 12 years old against a girls' dress code requiring skirts and dresses ( she won ) ; against a "Bachelor's Survivor Class" at age 14 ( she won—it was changed to "Boys Home Ec" ) ; and even back in fifth grade, she remembers noticing how those in authority expected girls to act differently in class.
Kathy Najimy has never been good at doing what she's supposed to do. But she's been amazing at combining her activism and her career as an actor and comic.
In college at San Diego State, Najimy said she minored in women's studies, and a great teacher there really mentored her political development. While in college, she joined Sisters on Stage, a radical feminist theater collective, where she began to merge her politics and art.
"Frankly, my politics are more important to me than my career," Najimy told Windy City Times Monday, in advance of her appearance at an AIDS benefit in Springfield, and the Personal PAC pro-choice awards Dec. 4 in Chicago.
"I get to be doing the same things I was doing in front of eight people to a million people. I have always cared deeply about these issues. Because of my celebrity, I get to speak at the March on Washington—twice. I say yes to doing talk shows if I have a way to speak about political issues."
One cannot speak about Kathy Najimy to the average 30+ lesbian without most fondly remembering laughing hysterically at the Kathy & Mo Show, which she did with Mo Gaffney many years ago. Two of their shows were taped for HBO, and old tapes make their way across the country.
"We wanted to do something funny and feminist," Najimy said. "Three times a week or so, someone requests a tape." Unfortunately, there is no official video from their Parallel Lives and The Dark Side shows, but Wolfe Video is currently working on getting the rights to release them. "Mo and I are also thinking of doing a greatest-hits show," to be performed in California.
Najimy was asked to present an award to Gloria Steinem in Chicago for Personal PAC, and she did not hesitate. Not just because she is so pro-choice, but because Steinem is a good friend—she officiated at Najimy's wedding.
"Choice has been at the top of the issues I care deeply about. When we think we have rights, they keep getting threatened. I have a five-year-old daughter, so I am more fiercely committed than ever," Najimy said, with her daughter in the background.
"I can't get over the absurdity of this. It is about the choice for our own body, our own life. How close we are to losing everything. All of a sudden, America has awakened to how terrorism is. But for years and years, we have experienced the terror of gay bashing, of attacks on abortion clinics and doctors. We should open our eyes to how horrendous any form of violent terror is—we should rise up for the safety of gays and lesbians, and women, and healthcare workers. We should be just as appalled at that.
"The obvious thing is that it's our body and it's our right and you cannot legislate peoples' decisions about their bodies," Najimy said. "The same people who say they care, are the same people who care nothing about birth control, crack, adoption, women's health, the whole spirit. They should care just as much about terrorizing a women's right to choose."
Najimy just won a Best Actress Annie ( animation ) Award for her role as Peggy on TV's King of the Hill, and she is working on a TV film about Mama Cass Elliott. See www.kathynajimy.com for more info.
