We sent a message to the world
A day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, hundreds of thousands of women descended on Washington for a march — a time-honored tribute to our constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly. I was surprised, however, by the number of women who asked me before the march, “What for?”
For me, the agenda was clear. It was solidarity. It was telling the new administration that misogyny cannot rule. Whether the issue is reproductive rights, equal pay, an end to sexual violence, women in combat or the importance of girls’ education worldwide, we are here; we will not give up.
I have spent many years working in international security and business. As undersecretary of State for political affairs from 2011 to 2015, I went to 54 countries. In virtually every meeting, the host government wanted to discuss the status of women. Maybe that happened because I was a woman (the first woman, in fact, to hold my post).
But women also were on the agenda because Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Colin Powell and Condi Rice understood that girls’ education is the single most important factor in increasing gross domestic product, and they advocated for including girls in schools all over the world. Women were on the agenda because Laura Bush had made the cause of Afghan women her own, and Michelle Obama and Jill Biden made concern about military families universal.
Perhaps the most moving meetings abroad were with young women. They are fearless, relentless in their pursuit of a better life. Illiterate women in rural Mali used corncobs to keep track of change deposited in a group collective so they could take out loans to buy a village water pump or books for a school girl. In a Peshawar refugee camp, teenagers told of rape at the hands of the Taliban, but set up schools in a belief that one day, they could become teachers back in Afghanistan. In India, women organize to stop sexual assault and insist that village councils take action.
And we in the United States set the example for them, through our values, our policies and the many women leaders — and good men — who helped promote them.
Some of the young women I work with at home thought we were in a post-feminist era. But since the election, they have realized how much more work there is to do. Millennials and Gen Xers embraced the Facebook posting suggesting a march. My own daughter told me about it before I even knew about it.
Yes, we will have to sustain this effort. We will have to make real change on specific issues with specific outcomes. We will have to organize in villages, towns and cities here and abroad. But for one day, it was enough to stand up and be counted.
That was a statement women and the world, and Donald Trump, needed to see.