Mary Cole marches because...

I march because I'm tired of being negated from the time I can remember as being "just a girl." Being told my father wasn't paying for my college education because I'd just get married and have babies and waste all that money. Working in a hardware/auto parts store and being told the (male) customer "would rather talk to a man," as though I didn't have the brains to look up his spark plugs in the book just as the (male) owner would. Told to "settle down" when I was upset. Told by another employer I didn't make as much as a (male) colleague because I wasn't the head of a household as was my co-worker.

What upsets me most is that after being treated in this manner for awhile, one begins to accept it and feel "less than," which perpetuates the treatment.

And don't even get me started on the sexual harassment! My first experience with that was at 4 years old.

I heard someone today talking about educating girls against sexual harassment. Why girls? Why JUST girls? They aren't usually the ones who are harassing, so why are they always the ones given the lessons and warnings, told how not to dress, move, act? Why aren't boys being taught manners, civility and what's acceptable between the sexes as well? Why are girls the ones who bear the brunt of this education, making them wonder what they did wrong when something occurs? 

That's what I questioned when I was assaulted, not even realizing it was what it was. Just asking myself what I'd done to make him think I was that kind of girl; had I flirted or acted inappropriately? Had I been loud and brash? Was it my blond hair, or just because I was smaller than he was?

Am I angry? You bet I am. I look around and see that even in the last 50 years nothing has changed. There's the same locker-room/boys-will-be-boys mentality, the same silence, the same attitudes, the same shame.

That's why I march. To bring awareness that we're still fighting inequality on a personal level and on the economic level. I march and fight to see women validated. To say we have more empathy, more common sense, more energy than men would be asking too much, I fear. I'd just like the fact that we are as important as the men in this country--in this world--to become a mindset that we no longer need to prove on a daily basis. In this day and age this shouldn't even be an issue, much less a struggle.

Unfortunately, as I get older I realize that women go from the cat-whistles stage to being either ignored or barely tolerated, as doddering old fools who know nothing and exist for no purpose. Upon acquiring a little grey hair and/or girth around the middle, men and, sadly, many younger women, treat the older generation of females like they're less than second-class citizens in this country. Men get more "distinguished looking," and are respected for their wisdom, prowess and success; women are generally discarded as used-up fools. Why is this?

Because we were never regarded as anything but low-caste citizens to begin with in this country. Once our "beauty" is gone and our child-bearing years are behind us, what good are we to society? Husbands leave us for younger women, businesses decide we don't have the ability and knowledge necessary to hire us, and if we speak out for ourselves we're considered harpies and trouble makers. (Think of the word "hysterical" and the ways women were treated by the world of medicine in the not-so-long-ago past once they reached a certain age).

As far as I can discern, women don't stand a chance of equality--especially in the current political/governmental situation--unless we make enough racket and piss off enough people, male and female, to demand change and keep doing it, unlike in the 60's, until we're heard. And actual, real change happens.

That's why I march.