Some reflections on the Women’s March
It was crowded. And when I say crowded, I mean crowded in the sense that you could barely move, that you were literally being held up by the other bodies around you.
It was also joyful, and affirming, and full of energy and determination and acceptance on a level that I have rarely felt.
If I took one thing away from participating in the Women’s March, it is that we can no longer afford to be one-issue persons. The greatest mistake of the First Wave women’s movement was splitting away from the abolitionists; how much more might they have accomplished if they had stood together, determined to win all rights for both groups? Yet racism divided them, and the conviction that their priorities had to be different because they were different. We cannot afford that kind of division again. We cannot let history repeat itself.
There were people of every description at the Women’s March of 2017. Women of color. People of color. African-American, Middle Eastern, white, Asian, and every other ethnicity you can imagine. Indigenous women and men. Jews. Muslims. Christians. Pagans. Men. LGBTQ+ people. High school students. College students. Grandmothers. Little children (including one incredible little girl who led a cheer where I was walking, and who was delighted when all the women around her responded). All of those people were there because they believed that love is greater than hate. They believed that gender equality, economic equality, legal equality, reproductive equality, and religious equality are essential in a country that is so beautifully diverse and full of so many cultures and traditions. They believed that we can do so much more standing together, and fighting for many issues, than we can standing along and only doing one thing at a time.
The next four years are going to be terrible. They are also going to be perhaps the most challenging of our political lives. There are going to be moments where we do our best to be good allies to other groups, and we fail. In those moments, we have to talk to each other and make the effort to understand why we failed. We have to listen to those we failed, and recognize our levels of privilege, whatever they may be. And we must, must keep fighting on every issue that affects all of us. If that means that you are calling your representatives and senators about reproductive rights one day, immigration policies the next, the ACA the next, police brutality the next, net neutrality the next, and religious discrimination the next, then that is what it means. That is what it will take to win our country back and make it a more equal and just place for everyone. Dare I say, that is what it will take to make this country a more loving and compassionate place for everyone. We can do it. Yes we can. And we must say not only #HeForShe and #I’mWithHer, and #BlackLivesMatter, and #LoveIsLove, but #I’mWithThem.
