The second annual women’s march began almost in disaster for me. I inadvertently left my camera bag with camera, lens and several memory cards at the ticket kiosk at Seattle’s light rail station, but didn’t realize I’d done so until I’d reached the boarding level and was ready to hop on the train. I rushed back up but it was gone. I asked a security guard who radioed to his partners, but no one had turned it in. I got an idea to post a call out on the local march’s FB page so did that and hopped the train to the rally, about a ten-minute ride away. There I would try and intercept a speaker at the rally and have them make an announcement for anyone who used that station if they’d found my camera. Before doing that I checked for messages on my phone and low and behold someone had messaged me saying they had my camera and it was safe. She was at the sports stadium just a hop away from the light rail station where I’d lost it. I hopped back on a train and connected with this honest person and got my camera back. Thank heavens for honest people and modern technology or I would have not been able to do this story.
I hopped another train and joined the throngs just as they were ready to march. The march began at the south end of Seattle Central College to head west on Pine Street. A young man stood on the brick wall separating the college lawn from the sidewalk and with a megaphone shouted things like, “the Bible commands woman to submit to the man.” I tried asking him why we all had to follow his interpretation of the Bible when this country was founded on the most fundamental right of freedom of religion. Of course he didn’t answer. He didn’t possess the ability to think. He was nothing more than a programmed robot. As I stood waiting for the go ahead for the march to begin, the guy wouldn’t shut up. Many of those within his earshot started yelling and successfully drowned him out. When he shouted out something about women killing their babies many turned and yelled back at him. I told them to ignore him. He was doing what he was doing for attention. That I worked in special education for twenty years and had worked with many students who did negative things seeking attention. He’s a product of a childhood that lacked nurturing and some predatory church picked him up and brainwashed him. In many ways religion is the same as a drug addiction. But we didn’t have to suffer his rants for long before the march began.
This year’s Seattle effort was organized by the group Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Washington, who led Seattle’s march and performed a drum circle. The march was not as well attended as last year’s. Last year an estimated 100,000 marched. This year the estimates were between 40 to 60,000. It was still an impressive crowd with the procession stretched like a meandering river of pink pussy hats, for about four miles
There were many reasons women were marching. There’s the fact that women are still earning less than men for the same or similar work. There’s the fact that women are still victimized and this has come out in droves just in the last few months. In the entertainment industry, the news industry and in politics, men have been forced to resign when it’s been discovered they sexually harassed and/or sexually assaulted countless upon countless women. The only one who hasn’t been forced out is our president. I refuse to utter his name. Like Lord Voldemort, he who must not be named will not be named. He has been accused by countless women that he sexually assaulted them or forced himself on them. One (now) woman has signed a sworn statement detailing how he raped her when she was only 13. He then threatened to kill her and her family if she told. A witness to this incident has also signed a sworn statement corroborating these claims. No one in congress has had the gumption to put him under oath and make him answer questions to a bi-partisan congressional committee.
I marched because no one should be above the law and no one should victimize anyone. Rape and sexual harassment and sexual assault are violent crimes and should not go unpunished no matter who you are. Our dictator in chief was recorded on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women and he and others brushed it off as “locker room talk.” This recording would certainly put credence on the women accusing him and would most likely be enough to convict him in a court of law. Why is he not being held accountable?
I marched despite having had three knee replacements (one knee was done twice) and now suffering from debilitating bursitis in the right knee. There was one woman making it down that hill using a walker. There were people in wheelchairs. I made it to downtown but didn’t follow them to the end point at the Seattle Center. I’m sorry there wasn’t as big a turnout as last year but I am heartened that so many did participate. If we want to live in a democracy we must all participate. Forty to sixty thousand is how many attend a football or baseball game. Surely if people can get off their derrieres to do that, they should be able to attend a political event. This country is in the throes of fascism with a president’s whose policies are frighteningly close to those that occurred in Europe during the Nazi occupation. This last election we had two candidates who were more similar than different. Both candidates were chosen by the big moneyed corporations because both candidates would keep said corporations in power. The people’s candidate was sabotaged and his supporters alienated. This is not democracy. I was marching for democracy as much as I was marching for women’s rights.
