The Women Are Gathering

On Saturday, January 21, 2017, I was in Cincinnati to speak to a group of active and retired teachers about a historic perspective on human trafficking. In 1885, a coalition of activist women, a prominent newspaper editor, and religious leaders made an impassioned plea to the British Parliament through public demonstrations, advocating for the rights of young women. Because of their efforts, the hearts and subsequent votes of the political leaders of their day were changed, raising the age of consent.

As I recounted this fascinating story of Eliza and the Midwife, the progeny of those nineteenth century advocates were gathering in Wooster and Washington, in the Big Apple and the City of Angels, and in hundreds of other cities and towns around the globe, marching to proclaim that women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights. The guiding principles of these marches, with an estimated four million-plus participants world-wide, were based on the belief that women, all women, must be “free and able to care for and nurture their families, however they are formed, in safe and healthy environments free from structural impediments.”

Later that evening, as I scrolled through the hundreds of posts flooding social media, I was overwhelmed by the images appearing on my computer screen. An elderly woman, wrapped in fur, who’d lived in the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II, marched. Women dragging IV poles down the hallway of the cancer ward, patients and nurses together, marched. A child high on her father’s shoulders marched, claiming the promise: “I vote in fourteen years.” Wheelchairs, walkers, strollers, all bearing their occupants forward amidst waves and waves of people as they marched. They marched in a sea of feline-shaped hats in hues of pink, redeeming an ugly locker room slur into a powerful image of protest. “This,” they intoned, “is what democracy looks like.”

I marched as well this first month of 2017. Perhaps because its organizers were headed to the mother march in D.C., Columbus women marched to the statehouse in Ohio a week early. It was probably the first time since my premature birth that I’ve been early for anything, but I showed up. My friend Judy and I made the trek to Columbus to bear early witness and to silently pray for our country and for the rights of the many vulnerable people who live “from sea to shining sea.”

There we were, our little group of four, bundled up against the cold: myself, Judy, her son, and her young grandson. Judy, a veteran of the sixties and Selma, led us on as we chanted, greeted each other, displayed our signs, documented our presence through our cellphones, and claimed our first amendment right to gather, to protest, to speak for those who have no voice.

Over the course of American history, people of our country have marched to stand in solidarity, and to draw attention to actions which threaten the lives of vulnerable people. The abolitionists marched. The social reformers marched. The suffragettes marched. The civil rights protesters marched. And in 2017, the women marched, and will keep marching.

I was telling the lovely Madelyn Simone a bit about my participation in the march, and she asked if I knew about the lady who sat down on the bus, or about the man who used to march but was killed at the motel. Yes, Madelyn, I know about Mrs. Parks and about Reverend King. I’m grateful for their example of non-violent protest, for their belief that equality, justice and nondiscrimination are American values. I sensed their spirit with us as we marched.

Will 2017’s marchers gaze upon their pink hats with fondness as they crawl back into their privileged lives, as some suggest? Or will these young women, old women, poor women, wealthy women, women of differences and women of sameness (along with the men who joined them), participate in respectful dialogue, get involved in sustained grassroots movements, and continue to speak, for men and for women? If my Facebook feed is any indication, the marchers are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work so our nation might remain indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, women included.