If They Shake Us, We Need To Shake The World
The fight for women's rights forced people to mobilize in January 2017, during the Women's March on Washington. Photo by Molly Adams via Flickr
Libbed out so hard I forgot that my rights as a woman would be a fun thing for politicians to take away.
In a society where freedoms were meant to be the basis of our country, so free and natural like the air we breathe, I thought that the struggles that the women who came before me faced built a fortress protecting me and my sisters from politicians. I thought I was safe from the politicians and supporters who would trade my autonomy for increased power. But somewhere between my 12-year-old self’s #MeToo poster and the worldwide slogans for supporting women's rights, the ground started to shake.
Donald Trump’s first presidency wasn’t just a shift in the vocabulary towards women, but also a change that made women’s rights political currency. My rights, my mother’s rights and my friends’ rights turned into something tradeable.
You know the State Farm commercial where the man with a fishing pole says “You gotta be quicker than that,” when the woman tries to grab the money? That’s what it feels like to see your rights dangle before your eyes — trying to reach for them, and then they’re gone.
The Trump administration’s rhetoric was loud and very proud throughout the entirety of the four-year presidency. For so many of us, it wasn’t just that the president at the time had little respect for women’s rights; it was the idea of a new system he led that stopped caring about our rights entirely.
He made my rights feel expendable.
The attempts to dismantle Roe v. Wade were political and threatening. This was more than a move to ban abortions — it was a way to tell women that their bodies weren’t their own, that they belonged to the men in power. The goal was not just to restrict abortion access, it was about sending a message to prove that women's rights were, and will be for the next four years, on the line.
Say goodbye to autonomy. Who wants that anyway?
These scares and legal changes will continue into Trump’s upcoming presidency, with a large focus on a national abortion ban. If this is approved by Congress, it would override any state-level protections, even those that were included on seven different state ballots.
To add some hope, Trump has said that he wouldn’t sign a ban like this. To lessen the hope, he has never said he wouldn’t veto one either.
Trump strategically stacked the Supreme Court with conservative justices, one of the most notable being Amy Coney Barrett. This has shifted the judicial branch, one that is meant to be nonpartisan, dangerously to the right. Honestly, she is quite the powerhouse, if by “powerhouse” you mean someone with a lack of amendment knowledge and an ideological track record of limiting reproductive rights. So in the sense of attempting to limit abortion, Barrett’s a powerhouse.
When the Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the reality set in. This was a reminder to women everywhere that rights are not permanent. But setbacks don't have to be permanent either.
Our fight isn’t over, especially a fight against a one-line actor from “Home Alone 2” sitting in the Oval Office in a few weeks.
We have the power to demand for our voices to be heard. We need to vote, organize and protest. But the most valuable thing we can do is become united. Sitting back while we hope for someone else to step up to the plate and get a grand slam is not an option.
We must show up in every way possible.