Empowered Women Empower Women

I spent my 58th birthday today in Washington, D.C at the Women’s March surrounded by thousands of like-minded women and men: cis, gay, straight, trans, black, brown, white, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, atheist, young, and old who descended upon Washington and other U.S cities to uphold women’s reproductive rights, demand immigration reform, and fight for climate change legislation.  I saw sign carrying women in wheelchairs pushed by more able bodied sign carrying women, pig-tailed little girls barely out of toddlerhood carried high on shoulders, men marching with pink hats perched on their heads (my husband one of them!), hijab draped women standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Christian women demanding equality for all, and an umbrella carrying woman who blocked counter protesters with her umbrella who were trying to engage a woman holding a pro choice sign.

            I met two other women who were also celebrating their birthdays and another woman whose almost twelve-year-old daughter was turning thirteen next week. I saw tall, gorgeous drag queens, beaded and feathered Indian women and men, and several women dressed as 1920s era suffragettes. I saw a woman who stood in one spot for three hours dressed as a handmaiden from Handmaid’s Tale and a man wearing a Trump face mask and orange jumpsuit holding a newspaper whose headline screamed “Trump Jailed!” I met women from Virginia, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina,  Florida, and even fellow Georgians.  Women who had traveled all night to attend the march and who were heading back out tomorrow so they could be at work Monday morning.  Those thousands of strangers left  me feeling renewed. They gave me a feeling of commonality and community toward a greater purpose. They recharged me.  

           

            I attended my first Women’s March in January 2017 in New York City and I remember the pervading sense of loss and sadness that was thick as fog that day. It was a day where women held one another up almost physically while tears were shed, including my own. We were afraid. Afraid of what this new president would do; a newly electorate college chosen president who had no experience in public service in any way, an ego bigger than his newly opened grandiose Trump Hotel, and deep personal financial connections to Putin, one of  most pro-oligarchy fascist dictators of the 21st century.  Three years later our fears, and more, have been realized. Standing in Freedom Plaza today as the march gained momentum, I didn’t feel that sense of loss or fear. No, today I felt strength and justified anger over children in cages, individual reproductive rights of women being slowly chipped away, and a world increasingly being altered by climate change. Today, standing side-by-side with my sisters (and brothers) in arms, I felt hope that all of our hard work of marching, writing letters to our elected representatives, voting, and being vocal the past three years is paying off at long last. We have proven that we won’t be ignored or dismissed, and with that comes a simmering rage over the audacity and criminalizing hijacking of the White House. OUR White House.

           

            This year, women’s voices were clearer and their voices stronger. There was courage in those voices. Martin Luther King’s son, Martin Luther King II and his wife Arndrea Waters King, spoke to a rain soaked crowd reminding everyone that it was 100 years since women have earned the right to vote and that we must be vigilant to protect the rights that we have gained. Ms. King reminded us that there is yet so much work to be done for the next generation of women.  For my granddaughters. And yes, for my grandsons. The Civil Rights movement and Women's Rights have been closely intertwined every since abolitionists first gathered in numbers. Now we stand together in numbers again and there is hope. Hope for a country that will one day respect individual reproductive rights, a country that will address long overdue immigration reform, and a country that will use scientific data and research to effectively tackle an exponentially alarming climate crisis. Yes, there is hope for 2020 and beyond.

           

            Today as snow lazily drifted over Freedom Plaza and the wind chill factor dipped into the 20s, and a woman standing next to me said, “I can’t feel my fingers,” I listened to the Chilean performance group, Las Tesis perform “A Rapist in Your Path” and the raw emotion nearly blind- sided  me.

And it’s not my fault, not where I was, how I was dressed.

And the rapist was you

and the rapist is YOU

It’s the cops

It’s the judges

It’s the system

It’s the president.

About two hours before the march I told my husband something I’d never told anyone except my daughter: when I was nineteen years old I was sexually assaulted at Keesler, AFB hospital during a routine gynecological exam by two white coated men who said they were doctors. I always felt it was my fault because I didn’t stop them. I was nineteen and it was only my third gynecological exam. The men's laughter and their sneering sexual whispered remarks washed over me and turned to deep shame.  I left the hospital that day and in instinctive flight or fight mode, I put the experience into a mental box and locked it away and I didn’t think about it for over thirty-five years until the #MeToo movement hit with full force. It took the collective voices of women across the United States for me to finally open that box. Today I loudly, sang, “And it’s not my fault!” I couldn’t have done that three years ago.

            Now sitting in my hotel room with my fingers finally thawed and my feet sore and aching, I almost relish the physical discomforts that remind me that, yes, I am 58 years old, and I’m happy and energized and hopeful that tomorrow or tomorrow or the day after will see sanity restored to this country, but even if it doesn’t, I can fight and I can march and I can ignore writers’ cramp as long as needed, even to my last breath because this is MY country and every human being deserves dignity and to live without fear and with truth.