Why I Marched

Let me start off by talking about my social media circle and why I felt compelled to write this blog post.

Probably 80 percent of the people that I am friends with or follow on media are Mormon, and 90 percent of that 80 are conservative. They're my acquaintances, my friends, my coworkers and even my family. And I love them, even when some posts make me want to scratch my eyes out.

So because of the people in my network I saw way more anti march posts than I did of people who marched. Which is fine, that's my network. If I wanted to only see pro march posts I would have to get rid of a lot of people in my life, and only surrounding myself with people who are like "yes men" to me is not productive.

Anyway, I would say most of these posts were posts that clumped all the people who marched together and overgeneralized us as dumb or ignorant. Overgeneralizing is never a good thing. That's like me saying all Trump supporters hate women, people with disabilities, and want to have no immigrants in this country. That's a very ridiculous claim for me to make, because the reason why YOU chose to vote for him or not vote for him was because of YOUR OWN reasoning. It may be similar to others, but not everyone does everything for the same reason.

And just like how many of you reading this voted for Trump because perhaps he better lined with your politics or he was the lesser of two evils, or you liked that he wasn't a politician, I have my very own reasoning for why I marched.

So I am going to just excuse myself from your over generalizations, and explain to you why I did.

Wow long intro.

The number one reason I joined in was because I do not agree with the rhetoric that Donald Trump has been the face of this entire election. He degraded women, people with disabilities, reporters, immigrants, Muslim and others alike. I think very few of my network would actually condone the words Trump has said, but they were able to overlook it because he was the lesser of two evils. I can't think of one person in my network who would actually encourage their children to speak about people the way Trump has, or tell their sons to treat women the way Trump has. I however have not been able to overlook it. Yes, Donald Trump is my president (although I'm sure quite a few in my network fundamentally misunderstand the #notmypresident... but I digress), and because he is my president I wanted to send a message to the man who now represents me that I do not stand for the way he has treated people in this past election season, and I will not stand for it if he continues to act this way. So I marched.

Now there were a few posts that particularly bugged me from some of my friends.

A couple posts said how this protest is supposed to be uniting and empowering women, and yet there were so many posters that degraded a woman's body.

I'm not sure if these people paid attention at all or maybe tried not to at least to all the things Trump said in the election that degraded women. 99% of the posters were taking phrases and words that Trump has used to describe women, and used them to fight back. Crazy how it's so inappropriate for women to use those words, but a president of the United States is okay. And trust me I HATE the word pussy... I cringe every single time someone says it, but I would much rather women take back the word than a man say they can just grab em any day.

Even more posts talked about how this march is dumb because men and women already have equal rights. Equal pay aside... YOURE SO RIGHT. But for me, this march wasn't about getting equal rights for women, it was about MAINTAINING equal rights for everyone (sex, gender, sexuality, religion; ethnicity included). The things promised in the election and the things implied in this election are a THREAT to equal rights. So I marched to protect what so many other women fought for.

I have seen a lot of opinionated posts about how this was a hypocritical event because these marches were being advertised as inclusive, and yet they were excluding those who are anti-abortion rights. I have been unable to verify if this is true or not, so if you have a reliable link to who did this and where it happened I would actually really appreciate. But let's just say it is true, and it's not just people assuming they wouldn't be welcomed. It saddens me that anyone would have been turned away from this march. I attended one in Phoenix and I saw men and women of different colors, ethnicities, religions, backgrounds and political views. It felt very inclusive. So it saddens me that some people felt they weren't invited to the march. One of my old journalism colleagues said it best in her headline for This Is Tucson "I've never felt so safe surrounded by a million people"

I have fairly thick skin, or at least thick enough to not argue with people on social media, so you must understand how much these negative posts about all the women that marched really have gotten to me, so much that I had to write a blog post about it.

Many others have different reasons as to why they marched, and many of those reasons lean way further left than my own. And that's okay. But this is why I marched. I'm not dumb, I know Donald Trump is my president and I don't think that's going to change because I marched. 

For those of you who didn't want to march; It's okay if you don't think Trump is a threat, but there are many people who do. Be respectful. Don't tell them to just get over it. Talk to them about how they feel and come up with REAL solutions. This election really divided our great country, and we need to find a way to come back together.