On Saturday, January 21st, women (and men) across the country and world will join in Washington, DC and sister cities to participate in the Women’s March. The mission of the march:
The rhetoric of the past election cycle has insulted, demonized, and threatened many of us – immigrants of all statuses, Muslims and those of diverse religious faiths, people who identify as LGBTQIA, Native people, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, survivors of sexual assault – and our communities are hurting and scared. We are confronted with the question of how to move forward in the face of national and international concern and fear.
In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore. The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.
We support the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities. We call on all defenders of human rights to join us. This march is the first step towards unifying our communities, grounded in new relationships, to create change from the grassroots level up. We will not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society. We work peacefully while recognizing there is no true peace without justice and equity for all.
HEAR OUR VOICE.
Learn more about the mission and principles of the March
Many of our writers and team will be joining in the march in DC and around the US. We want to encourage you to participate in your local march if DC is too far. We also wanted to share with you why we march.
Why TN Marches
NIKKI – Los Angeles March
On Saturday, rain or shine (please El Niño hold off for a few hours), I will be joining the Los Angeles sister march with my boyfriend, my brother and niece along with hopefully meeting up with tons of friends from all over Los Angeles and Southern California. Beyond standing in solidarity with other women and men from my city, I will be marching in honor of human rights, our healthcare, to combat climate change deniers, to shine a light on the ever present wage gap between men and women and minorities and caucasians. More importantly I will be marching for (and with!) my five year old niece so that she knows there are so many people who support her and want her to have a better opportunity. I want her to know that not everyone agrees or CONDONES the sentiments and actions of people like Donald Drumpf, especially not her family, the people who love her the most. We march because my niece and girls everywhere are worthy and powerful.
EMILY – Los Angeles March
I grew up in a square state and among gun-toting conservatives. I even worked for Mitt Romney on his ’08 campaign. It was there, in an office in Boston, where my coworkers explained that you could go to Planned Parenthood and get birth control. At the time, I had health insurance, but after the campaign, I was unemployed, and having some serious issues with the lady parts. I decided I’d head to Planned Parenthood in Santa Monica and forced a friend to come with me. I walked in with preconceived notions, I walked out with a prescription birth control, follow-up care and some answers to what was happening. I joked to my friend, I guess I have to turn in my republican card now, I just donated to planned parenthood. It was the best thing I could have done. Sadly, the reason I went in in 2009 many years ago is still hanging around and is actually preventing me from physically marching.
I am not ovary-acting but my ovaries are actually over-reacting 🙁 If I were marching, this would be my sign.
Amy – Providence, RI March
I am going to march in Providence, Little Rhody. Why? Because I’m a human being who lives on Planet Earth. I am marching with another human being, Ruby age 8, who also lives on Planet Earth. Are you a human being who lives on Planet Earth? You should march, too.
I am marching because It’s Getting Hot in Herre cannot become our new national anthem. Also there is a Pizzeria Uno by the start of the march.
Bekah – Philadelphia, PA March
I hope to make it to the Philadelphia march on Saturday (but will make a game time decision due to the winter plague that has infested my body) because I want to march for one main reason only. And that’s this little girl right here:
She is the fiercest, most independent, determined 18 month old I’ve ever known (second only, maybe, to my 10-year-junior sister). I walk for her so that 15 years from now she can still be all of those things that make her so uniquely her today. And that at age 22 she can decide to become a mother, or become an astronaut, or wait until her 30s to settle down, or chose to adopt 12 cats or raise a family while leading the charge at a Fortune 500 company. I want her to be able to choose the best path for her life and have no one hold her back. And as fiercely as she tears through the house today, I want to see her tear through her life and her future with limited chin scrapes along the way. My niece represents the little girls of the future, and I walk for all of them.
Julie – San Francisco March
I’m marching for my students, especially those who fear that they won’t be able to walk across the graduation stage because they will be forced to leave the only place they have ever called home. I’m marching because almost one hundred years ago, a group of brave women marched to ensure I would have the right to vote. I’m marching because I love this country, and you protect and stand up for what you love. But most of all, I’m marching for them:
I’m marching for two boys who will grow up to be amazing, Godly men who will love and respect women who are strong, fierce, and fabulous. I’m marching for that little girl to show her that her gender does not define what she can be someday, and to be strong and independent is just as beautiful as her spirt.
Laura – Frederick, MD March
I was planning on Marching in Washington, D.C. as it’s about an hour from my house, but then my hometown planned a march and that’s about two miles from my house. So, there you go.
I’m marching for my four amazing nieces, for their futures and their rights. I’m marching for all the times a woman has been told she’s not good enough because she lacks a penis and testicles. I’m marching for my parents. My father who never treated me as though my gender was a limiting factor. Who expected me to crawl through crawl spaces and be his helper on service calls, just like he did with my brothers. Who took me to his “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day”, which allowed me to meet Madeleine Albright and realize that women can be anything they want to be. For my mother who taught me how to voice my opinions (she’s a pro at that), and who runs a business and a crazy family like a total boss. #Goals
I march because I am a human being and I have a heart.
Jamie W- Philadelphia, PA March
Some of my inspiration to march comes from the past: I first read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelly) in college, and I have a copy on my shelf right now. It was written in goddam 1792 and it’s still as relevant today, even more so with the incoming administration. Some of the things she wrote then are things that we’re still saying now, and isn’t that just ridiculously depressing and enraging? In the more recent past, I look to both of my grandmothers, one gone and one still alive, two women with polar opposite personalities, but who both lived the prime of their lives during a time when they didn’t get the opportunities and respect that they should have.
In present day, I march for myself, my mother and sisters, and my niece. But also for my impending nephew, who is due to be here in less than a week, and who I want to grow up in a world where he can see that a huge amount of people don’t accept the behavior of our new President as something that’s acceptable for men in our world.
I’m also marching for my future. I’ve been having visions of my hypothetical future children learning about this time and the coming years, seeing footage of these marches the way we’ve seen images of suffragettes and footage of freedom fighters in the 1960s. They’ll know I was alive then, and when they ask me if I was there, I have to be able to say “yes.” I have to. I won’t be able to live with myself if I can’t. I’m hoping that I’ll have imparted on them the importance of equality and of fighting for what’s right, and how hollow all of that will be if they then find out that I stayed at home when all of those things were threatened.
Beth- Memphis, TN March
These two.
Precious, no? They deserve to see the action of standing up for all girls, all women, everywhere. We may get there late, we may get there dressed in basketball gear, sweaty and tired, but together we will stand up for women.
