Walk like a woman!
*From my facebook post, January 21, 2017
I, like many of you, have a mother. In fact, I come from a long line of people who had mothers. My mother's mother was Ollie Jarboe. A woman who worked hard her entire life in blue collar jobs to raise two kids on her own. She was a tiny woman who was as strong as any person I have ever seen. She was quiet for the most part, unless she, or someone she loved was wronged and then she became a tiger who would stand up to anyone or anything. She was one of the most decent and moral people I have ever known.
Women have always had a powerful influence on my life. They have carried me, raised me, educated me, protected me, loved me, and, in return, taught me how to love.
Today I will try to pay back a fraction of what women have given me over my lifetime. I will join thousands of women; mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, wives, and yes, men like me, in a march on the capitol. This march is not against anyone or anything. It is not a protest or a riot. It is a gathering in support of human beings who happen to make up over half of the population of this planet and to affirm, what a wise and decent women once said, "...that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights." To rise up together in a peaceful way, in the face of unprecedented sexism and misogyny, to remind everyone of the radical feminist notion that women are people.
Today I will walk alongside my 73 year old mother to show her I support her with my actions and that I meant what I said in all those badly hand-written and drug store purchased mother's day cards. Today I walk alongside my sisters in humanity to show them that I support their cause. I support their equality. I support them.
There have been times in my life when I stood by and did nothing while men abused women in my presence; physically and emotionally. As a child I was afraid to take action. I was scared of the consequences to my own physical safety. I shook in fear and did not act. As a man, I will never allow that to happen again. As long as I have breath in my lungs and the ability to stand up against those who would use power and violence to control and intimidate, I will rise up and fight with every fiber of my being.
Although the women in my life are more than powerful enough to fight their own battles, I will proudly walk along side them in this endeavor. They don't need me to fight for them, but I will proudly fight alongside them. For my wife, my daughter, my sister, my aunts, my nieces, my mother, my grandmother and all the powerful women who have influenced me and made me a better man and a better human being, I want you to know that I am with you and support you and will happily hold your purse, if need be, while you take care of business, just like you have since the beginning of time.
