"They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds." - Mexican proverb
A CBC reporter asked me on Friday night why at 61, I would be joining the Women's March on Washington: Toronto the next day. It's a good question. It was my very first protest march. Why did I finally become mobilized now? I tried to explain to him that it is probably because I'm 61 that I couldn't sit this one out.
I've been thinking a lot about history. I've been thinking about what the world was like in the days that Hitler came to power. There were many people in Germany and in the world that knew that the hateful rhetoric he spewed was evil and dangerous. But they stayed silent. I've heard it said that nice people made the best Nazis. They didn't make waves. They didn't stand up for their neighbours. As long as it wasn't them and their families, it was easier to stay quiet, go along and pretend they didn't know. We all know how well that worked out.
I've also been thinking about the world I grew up in, about the struggles I faced as a smart young woman trying to make my way in business. I've been thinking about how the Help Wanted ads in the newspaper were categorized as Help Wanted - Men and Help Wanted - Women. I've been thinking about the hospital where I worked in my 20s. The jobs as cleaners were divided on gender lines with published pay scales for male cleaners being significantly higher than the pay scale for maids. I've been thinking about the myriad of times I was asked in job interviews about the number of children I have, even long after it was illegal to ask that question, about my intentions to have more, about my arrangements for Jacob's care. And I've been thinking about the times I was asked in job interviews, where I was born and what my ethnicity was and whether I was Christian or Muslim. It was impossible to win by refusing to answer the questions or to point out that they were inappropriate or illegal. So I just decided that I may as well go in with full disclosure on all points. If any of who I am was going to be a problem, it was probably better for me to know at the outset or to not end up in a place where those things would rear their ugly heads later. And I've been thinking about the days of fending off unwanted sexual advances that were far more than passes though in those days we told ourselves they were just that. Being grabbed and groped, pinned and once even slapped by my boss.
On Friday, Donald Trump became President of the United States in spite of or maybe because for more than a year he has been spewing racist, sexist rhetoric. He is a self-confessed sex offender, fraud, con-man. anti-Muslim, anti-women, anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant, anti-black, anti-other. He chose an anti-women, anti-LGBTQ Vice President. Since his candidacy, we have seen a terrifying rise in hate crimes not just in the U.S. but here in Canada too.
I don't worry about those things anymore in relation to myself. I am not afraid. But this isn't about me. It's about my cousin Stephanie in Michigan who is the mother to five year old Bella. I marched for Bella and Stephanie. I marched for the young women who have become my kids. I marched for Sara, Katie, Christy, Courtney, Lindsay, Emily, Jenna and Lia. I marched for the young woman who will someday be my daughter-in-law. I marched for my grandchildren.
To stay silent in these times is to be complicit in the same way so many Germans and others were complicit in Hitler's attrocities. So on Friday night, I prepared my sign and put cushioned insoles in my boots and Saturday morning, along with my sisters Cathy and Marg, one of my kids, Katie and my dear friends Nancy and Aivars and 60,000 other women, men and children in Toronto, I hit the pavement. At 1 o'clock, the march paused to honour a moment of silence. Then it was done. I will never be silent again.
