Hodgepodge 18/365 - Women's March on Washington DC

March on Washington for Jobs
and Freedom, August 28, 1963

I am not what you'd call a political firebrand. I've only ever participated in one march, in San Francisco in 2003, protesting Bush's invasion of Iraq.

But I am so heartsick over this election and its patent unfairness, over all the rights that will be trampled on or outright taken away. I am, for the first time in my sixty-two years, frightened about the future—and I am not one who succumbs to fear easily.

And so I have decided to take part in the Women's March on Washington (formerly called the Million Women March) next January 21. Part of me thinks I'm crazy (it will be cold, it will be crowded, it will be expensive, I may have to share a bed), but a bigger part of me believes I need to shout out my anguish and anger.

I know that a march isn't going to change anything. But it will let Trump and his cronies know that we're not going to be silent. We will continue to fight for our rights.

I am going not as a woman only, but as a human being, a citizen of this planet, and a proud citizen of this country. I may be afraid, but I will not sink into despair.

And so I will go and march in solidarity with what I hope to be many tens of thousands, hopefully even hundreds of thousands, of women and men who care: about women's health, about women's right to make their own decisions about their own bodies, about equitable pay, about women's hard-fought right to have a say in this country—our right to be heard and listened to and treated with respect. This is very much also about our children, and theirs, and theirs as well.

But I'm also going to march for all of us. Every single one of us. Even those who think that Trump will improve their lives.

We are all in this together. Those who wish to destroy our government are not going to get to do it easily.