Women's Rights Means All Women

March is Women's History Month and yesterday was International Women's Day. The reason I have rights as a woman is because women before me got LOUD. They organized, planned, raged, stood up, took risks, did the boring work, did the scary work, did the behind-the-scenes work, did the hard work, and made themselves inconvenient until things changed for the better.

Yet it's still not equal or equitable for everyone. While the average American woman makes 82 cents to the dollar a white man gets, the average Black woman still gets just around 64 cents, and Hispanic or Latina women earn just 48 cents. Trans women in Kansas had their driver's license suddenly revoked without warning and were forced to pay a fee to get a new one. Queer women are five times more likely to be victims of violent crime. Indigenous women still have a harder time accessing quality healthcare due to colonization. Women with disabilities have less access to education and work in disproportionate numbers. Brown women are rarely represented in leadership roles or decision-making processes.

"I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." -Audre Lorde

I will not keep quiet. I will not sit down. I will not "stay out of politics" or keep my opinions to myself because it makes someone else more comfortable. We haven't achieved women's rights until we include ALL women.