Women's March on Washington, Jan. 21. Image here.
Initially, President Donald J. Trump was confused. Why the Women’s March?, he tweeted. Didn’t we just have an election? (Yes, Mr. President. And here’s the rebuttal. A representative democracy is not a one-and-done deal but more of an ongoing conversation.)
Later, Trump – or his handlers – tweeted that this was democracy at work blah, blah, blah. But he wasn’t alone in wondering: What gives? Why march, particularly in the United States, where women enjoy such a high standard of living?
Some women, presumably Trump supporters, were mystified, too.
Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to “Make America Great Again” had special resonance in Rust Belt towns like Niles, (Mich.), said Tracy Guetterman, 49, a retail manager, as she stopped to show her 6-year-old granddaughter Melanie an ice sculpture in the shape of “U.S.A.”
“Personally, I’d love to see our country go back to one parent working, like the good old days,” she said. “I want to be able to quit my job.”
Ms. Guetterman saw the marches as nothing more than complaining from liberals. “Quit blaming everybody for your problems,” she said. “Get out there and do it yourself.”
Really? Did she give that advice to her fellow Rust Belters, particularly the men she obviously yearns to have support her? Did she tell them to quit whining and waiting for the return of manufacturing jobs that may be lost forever? Did she tell them to hitch up their big boy pants, go back to school, retrain, relocate (even if it means being away from your family), work two or three jobs or work even harder at a job for less money? Did she tell them to reinvent themselves, even if it means considering a so-called “feminine” job, for which men are paid more anyway when they enter the profession? (OK, so maybe a welder can’t be a nurse or a home health aide. But couldn’t he learn to repair elevators?)
Did she offer all these possibilities, because I got to tell you, these are the alternatives that many women and minorities I know, including myself, were forced to consider and employ when we lost our jobs in the 2008 recession.
I’m wondering, too, if Guetterman told her fellow Rust Belters that the government doesn’t owe them a living – particularly one that returns them to her 1950s fantasy – that you need to confront the bosses of our corporations and small businesses over their lack of Alexandrian leadership in putting themselves first and the workers last?
But in one sense, Guetterman is right: “Quit blaming everybody for your problems. Get out there and do it yourself.”
Which is precisely what the women – and men and children – who marched did. I’m sure they marched for many disparate causes on all seven continents. But mainly they got out there to show that while Gloria Steinem was right when she said “sometimes you have to put your bodies where your beliefs are,” women are more than an anatomy for the president to objectify, as he did throughout the campaign. They’re an anatomy connected to a mind and a heart.
Or as one woman brilliantly put it, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”