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“Jazmine, why did you march if you truly feel the way you do about the movement?”
The Women’s March was a nation-wide movement on January 21, 2017. The official website for the “Women’s March on Washington” defines the mission and vision as “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.” I would like to focus on the latter part of this mission statement, “our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country”. The official website recognizes the variety of identities that comes with the title “woman”. However, I don’t believe that everyone that marched felt the same way. In fact, I would say most of the women that marched didn’t feel the same way. Which brings me to my first problem with the Women’s March: My friends and I have marched for our lives for years now, where were these women and their solidarity then?
If you watch videos and/or look at photos that were taken during the marches, it will become very clear that the march, as a whole, was very transphobic. “Pussy power”, “grab back”, “our uterus, our decision”, make two things clear: 1) These women don’t appreciate Trump and/or his cabinet’s misogynist comments nor political positions, and 2) Certain genitalia is essential to womanhood. The first point I completely agree with, but the second point is alienating for trans women. Therefore, I believe the Women’s March should actually be labeled the ‘Cis Women’s March’. When I asked my friend Brooks Hosfeld, a Sophomore student here at Butler University, and transmasculine indivudual, what he thought about the march, he replied, “The exclusive association between vaginas and uteruses with womanhood was absolutely trans- exclusionary. “
While looking at the photos, you will probably also realize that there are quite a few white women marching for ‘women’s solidarity’. This is confusing to me. If so many white women truly believed in the sanctity of women supporting each other and were also able and willing to march, then why didn’t I see them at the Black Lives Matter protests, the LGBTQ Pride marches, or even the immigration marches that occurred just a few days ago? Where was their solidarity then? My question is, if you truly marched for me, a woman who identifies with several non-gender specific minorities (e.g. pansexual, black, etc) on the 21st, why did you never march with me? Isn’t it fair for me to think that the ‘Cis Women’s March’ is really just the ‘Cishet White Women’s March’?
This is not to say that only cis gender, heterosexual, white women marched. I am fully aware that the march was a joint effort comprising of women from all different backgrounds and identities. However, I am saying that the majority of people marching weren’t truly marching for the rights of every woman in and out of attendance. I am saying that some women woke up and thought, ‘What will happen if I don’t march today?’ while others thought ‘What will happen when I do march today?’ I am saying that some women didn’t feel any different after Trump was elected because they were unable to fear for their safety any more than they already did. I am saying that there are some women who you don’t even have to ask, ‘why?’.
“Jazmine, why did you march if you truly feel the way you do about the movement?”
Because when you look like me, there is no other way to walk outside.