Women must keep fighting for their rights

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Taylor Bullock, Staff Writer

The word “woman” used to sparkle to me. It was this shiny, special privilege I believed I’d earn when I was old enough.

But, we’ve made bad words out of woman, out of female and out of feminist.

I’ve never given myself a label because even though I was outspoken, I shrunk myself to be unnoticed in life. As I got older, it felt as though being a girl was a sin. Hitting like a girl, this like a girl and that like a girl was all I heard. So I abandoned my aspiration to one day become the woman I dreamed I’d be.

Women have been denied rights since the 1700s, or at least since the documents can remember.

In 1777 all states passed the law that took away women’s right to vote. That right wasn’t given back to women until 1920.

We’ve come a long ways since then, so you’d think by 2017 we’d actually be equal. I’m not talking the rich-white-man’s definition of equal, but the dictionary kind.

We’ve had protests, marches, walk-outs and sit-ins, yet at the end of the day there’s some man saying that he doesn’t “get it.” Well, how could he? We are no longer these delicate women that stay at home and tend to the gardens. Women are becoming engineers, pilots, presidents and CEOs of companies. Perhaps, women in power are intimidating? Society seems to portray this.

Sadly, within the first few months of 2017, women are already having their rights threatened again. President Donald Trump’s healthcare plans have began scaring women into birth-control frenzies. Left and right, women are running to their doctors for birth control options ranging five to 10 years. They’re feeling as though with the new healthcare plan their bodies will become vulnerable and there will be no more room for mistakes. Even those against birth control feel as though they have no choice but to give in now.

These same women are fearing the defunding of Planned Parenthood. You may think this is just a place for abortions and women who made bad decisions, but that could not be further from the truth. With the defunding of Planned Parenthood, illegal abortions and secret birth control dealings will rise. Sounds absurd, right? That’s because they’ll be taking something women should have a right to access and making it something completely taboo. These women will be risking the effects of infertility and uterine tears when having to do such things so discreetly.

I’m personally tired of sugarcoating the world for my child. We teach our daughters that they are free, but forget to read them the fine print. We teach them to be strong, but forget to mention that they can’t be stronger than the boy on the playground. We teach them to speak their minds, but to be quiet when the men are talking. I want to bring my daughter up in a world where she can be herself without any limitations on her character.

As a woman, I can feel for any other woman who is tired of asking for what we should be given. It is okay to be tired. It is okay to want to give up. But, the women before us fought for us to be where we are today, and we are here to fight for the women of tomorrow. We can no longer label ourselves as victims. We are stronger than we once were and that’s because we’re sticking together. Through every obstacle and every fight, we stand woman-to-woman and we have each other.