Ladies, what happened!? Right from the get-go of 2017, you strived to make a name for yourselves. You marched around the White House in protest, wore pink hats to represent our bodies and held signs that read ‘I am a woman and proud. Here me roar’ all for the sake to it be labeled as a hype, a trend, a fluke.
The sun was beginning to turn a shade of hot pink and fiery red until you let the flame burn out. On January 21, 2017, women across the world left their heels at home, went out into the freezing or scorching temperatures and held their heads up high in defiance against the patriarchy, inequality and for basic human rights. Over 500,000 women marched in Washington, D.C. alone with over 4.2 million people marching across 600 cities on the seven continents combined.
It is considered the largest single-day demonstration in U.S history, but like a good party or joke, its time of prominence ceased.
Now the world has moved on and you have placed yourselves back into your seats. You have reverted back to our old, primitive, stable and unchanging ways of looking at life as a woman- the little moment of defiance and rebellion seemed like only a phrase. The wave is ceasing and the hype was died down. The feminist movement has failed to execute a real plan for change.
The spark has faded. And I am really disappointed.
I am disappointed that the phrases of ‘over one million women stood’, or ‘it’s my body and my right’, or even ‘this is for the girls beside me’ has made little to no significant value. Because it turns out that women only care about the burst of national attention, but were never ready to pull through. It’s been over 63 days and not a peep has been made since January. Even the small push on International Women’s day made no real significance- be honest, it was sad to watch unfold. The only actual significance that has come out of the “rebellion” or “feminist movement” is that office supplies and poster sales went up because of how many people went to buy a poster and some markers just to write a phrase that would eventually be thrown away. According to the Business Insider, office supplies sales in January rose 42% and over 6.5 million posters were sold across the United States calling it the ‘Trump Bump’.
The feminist wave is dying and it’s because women have become satisfied with what they’ve already achieved. They have lost the urge to fight. And for that I am disappointed. They have decided to head home after winning just one battle. And for that I am disappointed. They have allowed for small girls to see that history can be made, but women can only make some much of it. And for that I am, again, disappointed.
Should I hang up my sign and let the dust of pain and inequality cover the words that once meant something bigger than myself? Should I tell my future children that I was a part of another version of Woodstock- an event where women actually seemed to want to change something, but accomplished nothing?
Perhaps, I’ve mistaken this movement for just another terminal hashtag- one that I knew would eventually die out. Little did I know that it would only took 24 hours for an entire idea to be thrown out by the very people who started it.
