Dear Reader,
We have stood here before. On November 8, 2016 we watched riveted as a country as Donald J. Trump won the Presidency of the United States despite numerous allegations of sexual assault. On January 21, 2017 the country responded via the Women’s March, one of the largest protests in the history of the United States, to voice their displeasure with the Trump administration’s policies and treatment of women. It is time to rise together once more as Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court is to be brought before the Senate. It is natural to have divides within our country. It is natural for a diverse population of people to foster various opinions and mindsets on how our country should be run. It is not natural for men who represent the entire body of the American people to possess a history of physical and sexual violence against women. It is not natural to accept abusive men into lifelong leadership roles that will affect my healthcare, my autonomy over my body.
Please join me in taking action anyway you can. Perhaps you join solidarity with the women around you, speaking up for your female neighbor when her voice is not heard, and then silencing yourself to let her speak. Perhaps you vote for female politicians, knowing women only make up 20 percent of Congress. While every way in which you choose to empower women works towards a larger cause, I encourage you to write to your Senators. Cementing the rights of women in law is the only true way to guarantee undeniable rights for our bodies, our education, our future.
Here is a letter I composed to my Minnesota Senator, Amy Klobuchar. I give you full permission to take my words and make them your own as we reach out to our government and let our law makers aware of our passions.
Dear Senator Klobuchar,
Please stand up to the force that is Brett Kavanaugh. As a young person about to graduate college, I worry for the world I am about to enter. As us seniors scuttle from job fair to job fair, our usual merriment is muted as we ponder what life will hold after graduation. Will more of my female classmates drop out before graduation when their claims of sexual assault are not taken seriously? Will I continue to sit the whole semester next to the young man who stalked a close friend, too timid to say a word in her defense? Will young men at various career fairs forever speak over paid female speakers because they believe their thoughts are more valid than her own? Will men in power continue a history of degrading and terrorizing women in every imaginable realm: the workplace, home, an innocent-enough-sounding-party? Please, Senator Klobuchar, continue to defend this country. Give me the same equal opportunities and respect as my male peers. Prevent Brett Kavanaugh from ruling our country in the decades I hope to create my own rich future filled with choices I cultivate for the wellbeing of my body.
With all my trust,
Lily Winter.