Women's March Bellingham

Women's March Bellingham

Yesterday for the first time in my entire life, I attended a march. When I first heard about the Women's March I knew I should go, but I didn't know exactly why. But the more I thought about it, and read about the gal in Hawaii who got the ball rolling on her Facebook page, I knew that I had to go because there is strength in numbers; in this case that ended up having more than one meaning for me.

Strength in numbers not only to send a message to the new president, but also the whole country, and really the whole world. The message that he doesn't speak for millions of Americans when he spews his hateful, sexist, and racist rhetoric. That he doesn't speak for us when he denies climate change, and mankind's role in it. He doesn't speak for us when he wants to ban Muslims and Mexican's.

We had to send the message that he does not represent what the majority of Americans think. He doesn't have our best interests at heart when he wants to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. And he is an affront to all women the way he makes it quite clear that a woman's only value as a person is her physical beauty. He is the embodiment of the attitude that a woman is only here for man's pleasure, and that man has the ultimate control of her body.

The other way that I didn't anticipate that strength in numbers was important, is that my being part of that crowd, let me know that I am not alone in this fight. And that's what it's going to have to be. We are going to have to fight him every inch of the way from making our lives worse, not better. Yesterday was a call to action, and at one point I let out what amounted to a war cry.

I was so encouraged by seeing just as many men as women at the march. Entire families, and generations. Experiencing the energy of that crowd, and knowing I am not alone in my disappointment that such a horrible human being actually got elected to president, was just what I needed. Knowing that I am not alone in this is going to help me face the next four years. And it's obvious already that they are going to be tough ones. So unless that idiot starts World War III, then hopefully we will still be around in another four years to keep progressing as a nation, rather than going in reverse.