March for Women's Rights
Apr. 26th, 2004 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sun_set_bravelyI have a great many thoughts running around in my head about the March on Washington DC yesterday. I'm still trying to process the experience of joining over half a million of my fellow citizens to show our support for something we believe so deeply in -- a woman's right to have control over her own body.
I wish I had stayed longer, for the rally after the march, to see the wonderful speakers and performers (although Amy Ray did walk right in front of me during the morning rally. Yes, I was totally star-struck and excited!). I wish I had gotten more organized, and made a banner with the names of my friends and family who wanted to march but couldn't be there with me. I wish I'd flown my sister and my mom up to DC so we could all march together (if they'd wanted to come). I wish I'd worn a fabulous pink wig and an enormous pink skirt. I wish I'd taken many, many more pictures.
But more than all of these things that I wish I had done, I am so glad that I was there. It was an overcast day, but the temperature was comfortable. It was thrilling to be a part of such an outpouring of social movement. It's amazing to get a taste of the power of the people. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the faces I saw around me -- men, women, children, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, biracial, rich, poor, homeless, middle class, urbanites, country-dwellers, families, celebrities -- you name them, they were there. Dogs, too! So many people speaking out for their beliefs. One little girl held up a hand-painted sign that read: "I want to keep the right to choose" and I almost lost it. I want you to have the right to choose, too. And I will fight for you to do so. I thought about the women at the homeless shelter where I babysit on Tuesday nights, and I wish I'd told them ahead of time that I was coming, and that I want to defend their right to choose, and their greater rights to health care and social support for the incredibly hard work that they're doing. In my head, I marched for them, too.
One speaker (I believe she was from a national rabbinic counsel) at the morning rally said something beautiful, and I'll paraphrase here: "The government wants to make a law that keeps people from the human work of making complex ethical decisions." The human work of making complex ethical decisions. I love that phrase. It captures the full spectrum of what is at stake here. Every human being has the responsibility to do that work, whether it's about family planning, career planning, social activism -- there is no shortcut through that work. This is what makes us human.
There were countless groups of college students there from all over the country. I was so happy to see so many young faces passionately protesting, and vowing to make their mark on the November election. And I was comforted by the bright and beautiful older women there. These women have survived many administrations, many wars, and who knows how much misogynism, on a political and personal level. And yet they were there in groups, with fabulous signs like: "Church Lady for Change," "I'm a Stay-at-Home Feminist!," or, for those marching with their daughters and grand-daughters, "Three Generations for Choice." I wondered about my mother, and my grandmothers, and whether they would join me there if they could. I wondered about my aunt, and if she would be on the other side of the barricades, praying to God for my soul.
Because the counter-protesters were there, too. I think they were, by and large, from Christian organizations. As usual, they had their tasteless banners with gruesome pictures of mangled fetuses (is this a Christian act, I asked myself?). I thought of all the women present who have had to make that most difficult choice to have an abortion, and the anger roiled in my gut when I thought of how shameless and insulting it was to them to be assaulted by those fucking pictures. How dare they come here and hold up those images, judging women they will never know or understand? And the one banner with the pictures of dead Jews in Nazi Germany, then the Twin Towers in flames, then a dead fetus -- how dare you? How dare you come here with your images of hate and your irresponsible comparisons, when we are marching for our own bodies -- not for murder? How dare you try to simplify the argument and call us pro-death, pro-murder? Yes, they have a right to voice their opinion, too. But the use of such smear tactics takes away any of my sympathy for their cause. By and large, the people in the march were carrying positive, non-hateful banners and shirts. We were there to affirm life.
And affirm it we did. Down the line from the anti-choice protesters, I heard the people in the march cheering and hollering. When we reached that spot, I saw two women holding up enormous yellow traffic-like signs that read: "Now Leaving: Fanatic Zone. Maintain Freedom." Yes! In my world, laughter and humor will always win over the bullshit. Often, you'd see small groups of pro-choice women trying to block these counter-protesters from view of the rest of the marchers. They'd split off from the group like red blood cells trying to heal the wound in our flesh. They'd chant beautiful words to cheer us on past the searing negativity of the counter-protesters. Some even snuck behind the police barricades and stood next to the counter-protesters, affirming us, drowning out everything else.
One of my favorite chants, one that I heard at the Code Pink for Peace rally last year, too, is: "This is what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" This is the United States that I know and love. Yes sir. Yes ma'am.
~ ~ ~
By the way, I'm registered to vote. Are you? I want to know that every one of my friends (LJ and otherwise) are exercising their right and responsibility to speak up this election. No matter what party you support. Get out there and speak up.
I wish I had stayed longer, for the rally after the march, to see the wonderful speakers and performers (although Amy Ray did walk right in front of me during the morning rally. Yes, I was totally star-struck and excited!). I wish I had gotten more organized, and made a banner with the names of my friends and family who wanted to march but couldn't be there with me. I wish I'd flown my sister and my mom up to DC so we could all march together (if they'd wanted to come). I wish I'd worn a fabulous pink wig and an enormous pink skirt. I wish I'd taken many, many more pictures.
But more than all of these things that I wish I had done, I am so glad that I was there. It was an overcast day, but the temperature was comfortable. It was thrilling to be a part of such an outpouring of social movement. It's amazing to get a taste of the power of the people. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the faces I saw around me -- men, women, children, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, biracial, rich, poor, homeless, middle class, urbanites, country-dwellers, families, celebrities -- you name them, they were there. Dogs, too! So many people speaking out for their beliefs. One little girl held up a hand-painted sign that read: "I want to keep the right to choose" and I almost lost it. I want you to have the right to choose, too. And I will fight for you to do so. I thought about the women at the homeless shelter where I babysit on Tuesday nights, and I wish I'd told them ahead of time that I was coming, and that I want to defend their right to choose, and their greater rights to health care and social support for the incredibly hard work that they're doing. In my head, I marched for them, too.
One speaker (I believe she was from a national rabbinic counsel) at the morning rally said something beautiful, and I'll paraphrase here: "The government wants to make a law that keeps people from the human work of making complex ethical decisions." The human work of making complex ethical decisions. I love that phrase. It captures the full spectrum of what is at stake here. Every human being has the responsibility to do that work, whether it's about family planning, career planning, social activism -- there is no shortcut through that work. This is what makes us human.
There were countless groups of college students there from all over the country. I was so happy to see so many young faces passionately protesting, and vowing to make their mark on the November election. And I was comforted by the bright and beautiful older women there. These women have survived many administrations, many wars, and who knows how much misogynism, on a political and personal level. And yet they were there in groups, with fabulous signs like: "Church Lady for Change," "I'm a Stay-at-Home Feminist!," or, for those marching with their daughters and grand-daughters, "Three Generations for Choice." I wondered about my mother, and my grandmothers, and whether they would join me there if they could. I wondered about my aunt, and if she would be on the other side of the barricades, praying to God for my soul.
Because the counter-protesters were there, too. I think they were, by and large, from Christian organizations. As usual, they had their tasteless banners with gruesome pictures of mangled fetuses (is this a Christian act, I asked myself?). I thought of all the women present who have had to make that most difficult choice to have an abortion, and the anger roiled in my gut when I thought of how shameless and insulting it was to them to be assaulted by those fucking pictures. How dare they come here and hold up those images, judging women they will never know or understand? And the one banner with the pictures of dead Jews in Nazi Germany, then the Twin Towers in flames, then a dead fetus -- how dare you? How dare you come here with your images of hate and your irresponsible comparisons, when we are marching for our own bodies -- not for murder? How dare you try to simplify the argument and call us pro-death, pro-murder? Yes, they have a right to voice their opinion, too. But the use of such smear tactics takes away any of my sympathy for their cause. By and large, the people in the march were carrying positive, non-hateful banners and shirts. We were there to affirm life.
And affirm it we did. Down the line from the anti-choice protesters, I heard the people in the march cheering and hollering. When we reached that spot, I saw two women holding up enormous yellow traffic-like signs that read: "Now Leaving: Fanatic Zone. Maintain Freedom." Yes! In my world, laughter and humor will always win over the bullshit. Often, you'd see small groups of pro-choice women trying to block these counter-protesters from view of the rest of the marchers. They'd split off from the group like red blood cells trying to heal the wound in our flesh. They'd chant beautiful words to cheer us on past the searing negativity of the counter-protesters. Some even snuck behind the police barricades and stood next to the counter-protesters, affirming us, drowning out everything else.
One of my favorite chants, one that I heard at the Code Pink for Peace rally last year, too, is: "This is what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" This is the United States that I know and love. Yes sir. Yes ma'am.
~ ~ ~
By the way, I'm registered to vote. Are you? I want to know that every one of my friends (LJ and otherwise) are exercising their right and responsibility to speak up this election. No matter what party you support. Get out there and speak up.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 03:01 pm (UTC)I hope the Bush administration took a good look at what a crowd of angry, hopeful, determined women looks like, because WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 03:03 pm (UTC)and just as proud as if you were my daughter.
and yes, i'm registered to vote, and i'm urging
all my friends, LJ and otherwise, to vote this
year. i've often been maddened by the fact that
the media have allowed them to call themselves
pro-life, since they are actually anti-
choice. ~paul
no subject
Date: 2004-04-26 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 10:08 am (UTC)one line from the song i think is great:
respect my body cause thats where you came from
i would say thats appropriate.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 04:17 am (UTC)