Women Count

We walked nine miles today.  So did hundreds of thousands of others, mostly women, in Washington, and in hundreds of synchronized and sisterized other places throughout the nation and the world. We are not alone.  The marches show we’re ready and cognizant that we have to redirect this calamity.

My daughter made signs at home for this march; a first.  Her sign said: We Are the Future.  Mine, which she made for me, said: Women Count.  Several scientists, people from NASA, stopped to talk to me about my sign because my daughter made an atom symbol for the O in Women, and a summation/Greek E for the E in Women. It was a science inside joke–made by the young musician, on her way to college. Other people had signs reading: Science is Fact.

All the packed streets you see on television are absolutely real, and true.  All were peaceful. Maybe you were there somewhere. Plenty of shouting, plenty of passion, no violence. The police report across the nation that there were no arrests. There were generations of women. Grandmothers, aunts, girls on their mother’s shoulders, girls in Scout uniforms, women breastfeeding while they marched. One of my favorite signs, carried by more than one older woman: I Marched for Women’s Rights 50 Years Ago.  On the reverse: And I March Again.

We chanted all along our nine miles.  This is what democracy looks like. / We’re here, united, We’ll never be defeated.  My favorite chant:  We Won’t Go Away.  Welcome to your first day.

Today, we inaugurated our resistance, for all the world to see. Put your senators and congressmen in your contacts list, so that you can call them on your car speaker, while you drive, or while you wait for coffee to brew.

As Kamala Harris (Senator, CA) said today: it’s going to get harder before it gets easier. As I told my daughter as she started to wilt: protest is work. I plan to rest tonight, and take action, again, tomorrow.

Please, you take action too. We need every one of us. The threat to our democracy and our dignity is clear, present, insidious and illogical. Consistent action is calling your name. I hope you were able to participate in a local march today. If you were in DC today, glad to have marched with you.  I so hope you’ll get on the phone. Especially if you live in a red (or purple) state.  Attend some meetings, or create one.  As our (beloved) outgoing president advised: get a clipboard.

Resist.  It’s up to us now. Looks like our political system may not protect us from this flame-thrower, this narcissist, this bloviator.  We have much work to do.  Our democracy is not perfect, but it does exist.  It’s ours.  Let’s keep our democracy alive, and responsive.  We have to put in the work, we have to save our democracy ourselves. Significant, critical, if unsettling times.

Guest Blogger:  A.J. Verdelle, Washington D.C.