Last Saturday, thousands of women participated in the Women’s March. This march was a movement that took place in several major cities, most notably Washington, D.C., that was aimed at drawing attention to women’s rights and injustices suffered by all people during the election.
At first, I liked the idea of this march. Feminism is defined by Webster's Dictionary as the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes. I am all about equal rights for women and consider myself to be a feminist in the purest form of the word.
Once I began to research the march, however, I started to reevaluate it. When I first heard of it, I saw it as an opportunity for women to stand together and show America that we are not to be counted out of the big picture. In a country that is currently so divided over issues of politics and morals, any act of solidarity is a good step toward healing.
This march was not entirely inclusive of all women. For a march that was supposed to be about women’s power as one and unwillingness to be ignored, one large group of women wasignored by the organizers of the march itself: pro-life women.
Just about a week before the march, the organizers released a document entitled “Guiding Vision and Definition of Principles.” In this document, the right to “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion” wasstated as one of the rights the march was for. Pro-life women who were interested in joining the march now had a moral conflict of interest and many did not end up participating. That means that a large group of women went unheard and unseen in a march that was supposed to be about seeing and hearing all women.
I am not trying to get people to change their views on the matter of abortion by saying this. The issue that I’m pointing out is that the march, which was meant to create unity among all women and show our strength, divided us once again. We need to be able to come together simply as women, not liberals or conservatives, pro-life or pro-choice, just as women and have our voice of womanhood be heard.
The world already divides and silences us enough; let’s stop doing it to ourselves.