Red, white, and feeling blue: Women are fighting for our Independence this July 4th
This Independence Day feels different.
For women, we were never included in the founding documents or intentions when America first gained its independence, but we always participated in our civic institutions regardless. We then fought our way in and demanded that we be recognized. And now, some of those hard-fought wins are being eroded.
On the heels of arguably the most draconian ruling in American history, the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, celebrating our nation’s birthday while we women lose our rights feels tone deaf. We are expected to smile and show up and celebrate. Well, we’re not. We’re fighting for our lives.
On July 4th, 1776, the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, cementing our legacy as a free nation and marking the beginning of the great American democratic experiment.
We are most familiar with this line near the top of the Declaration:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
While this resonates deeply with the moment in which we’re living, one in which the “unalienable rights” and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” feel like they’re being pulled out from under us, particularly for those of us – women, People of Color, LGBTQ+ -- who have historically been left out and fought long and hard to secure equal rights and protections, there is another line that comes right after that we are less familiar with. This far less invoked line from the Declaration I believe speaks to this moment in which we’re living, one in which the Government has stopped serving the public it purports to represent:
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”
Learning from the abuses of their colonizers, the first Americans understood that government should work for the people and not the other way around. They wrote that acknowledgment into our foundational legal documents and gave the American people permission, urging even, to replace any government that doesn’t represent them with one that does.
We are in that moment our forefathers once feared. Our government is treating the American public like Britain did the colonists some 250 years ago.
When 80% of Americans believe in access to abortion, no government body should act against the will of the majority. The same is true for our legally established right to privacy, to marry the person we love regardless of race or gender, and to retain access to contraception.
Now is the time to act.
We have the power to defend our democracy and take back what’s rightfully ours. We must lift up, fund and elect pro-reproductive rights candidates this November. We must turn out in record numbers not only in the streets, but at the doors of our elected officials’ offices and at the polls.
We must make it toxic for any leader to drag us back in time.
We must apply pressure using all tactics at our disposal and we must push back against forces dead set on eroding our Democracy with partisan gerrymandering, voter purges, and the outright denial of election results.
Marching is one important tactic, but it’s not enough. We must elect, fund, and support candidates at the local, state, and federal levels who will unequivocally uphold a woman’s right to reproductive health.
It’s why we started as the Women’s March Foundation in Los Angeles in 2016 and why we’ve expanded our mission to include advocacy through Women’s March Action and our Defend Democracy Action initiative.
Defend Democracy Action is convening activists and organizers across the country, hosting events, contacting eligible voters, and bringing communities together. Thousands of women have raised their hands to help add voters to the polls nationwide with an eye toward the 2022 midterm elections.
The new campaign leverages grassroots groups on the ground to register voters in their communities, with a focus on the 9 million who relocated during the pandemic across the top 15 states of interest and maximum opportunity to fight for the country, one voter at a time.
Independence Day represents many things to many people. For women, that includes hard-fought victories, the resolve to be free from powers that rule over our bodies and our free will with imprudence, a day for fireworks and barbecues, and celebrating that which is uniquely American.
This Independence Day, it’s not a stretch to remind ourselves that we shouldn’t take our freedom for granted, especially because it is being ripped away from women as we speak. We are here to say much as our forefathers did, “no taxation without representation!”
Let’s take this moment to reconnect with the essence of why this country was founded in the first place and then not waste a moment in getting to work to ensure our future is ours to shape.