Women across the country all have their own opinions on recent political events, and the Women’s March is dominating a lot of female discourse. Unfortunately, there are many contradictions when discussing the march.
The most shocking though, is the case of women reproaching other women, then going on to reproach women as a whole.
The trend started on Facebook after the Jan. 21 Women’s Marches, and since seems to be gaining popularity among women who don’t condone the march.
“I don’t feel like these are issues,” or “What about women who have it worse in other countries?” have been the most common forms of reproach. A personal favorite of mine is, “We have these rights. It seems like a waste of time to go and march.”
Something that really sparked a flame was, “This makes me ashamed to be a woman.”
At first, the statement was so brash I had to take a step back.
I started looking into the types of women posting these statements. Many were mothers, many were employed and all of them seemed to wonder why the march was even happening or had false preconceptions that it was an attack on Washington and President Trump.
It occurred to me then that these women didn’t understand why the march happened. The march according, to the official webpage, was meant to be a statement about human rights. It never once mentioned a political party.
It read: “We stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families — recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.”
The Women’s March was a unified movement to remind people of the rights that they have and and to stand together with those who are scared their rights will be infringed upon or taken away. It wasn’t just about women. There were men, people from the black community and the LGBT community.
They have a right to protest. Those who don’t agree have a right to disagree and be irritated at all of the Facebook posts. All of those are freedoms are given by the Constitution. What’s not OK is denouncing the gender of half the world’s population, simply because one doesn’t agree with them.
Denouncing oneself or another person for being a woman is why those people marched.
For a long time, society has been based around men, and to this day I have never heard a man say he was ashamed of his gender. There is nothing wrong with any gender, any group or any person, so people need to stop saying they are ashamed of what they are or ashamed of what someone else is.
People can disagree with each other all they want, but if they really don’t want any issues in America or any other country in the world, then they need to quit wasting their time being ashamed of others.
Mary Emert can be reached at [email protected]