If
the Future is Female Today is the Future
We
took to the streets first.
That
fact should never be overlooked.
We
stood shoulder to shoulder in defiance.
To
be disobedient feels so damn good
and
it caught like a fire because
then
we found our collective voice
and
told our story online where they couldn’t ignore it.
Our
pain
our
humiliation
our
rapes
and
abuses.
Newspapers
said we “toppled” great men
but
we did not.
We
saw accountability for actions.
We
saw justice.
Sometimes.
Still,
some
of us didn’t make it,
shot
by exes with access
to
weapons
gunned
down with families
in
our living rooms
and
churches.
Some
of us were mowed down
by
white men screaming they will not be replaced.
Some
of us were put on display
to
bear our pain to a panel of white men
who
wanted details but not too much detail.
Who
saw a truth laid plain and ignored it
because
they did not and would not believe women.
Afterwards,
some
of us showed up in community centers
in
towns all over the country
empowered
for the first time
to
run for office.
First
we took the streets.
Then
we took the booth.
and
today,
this
little day
passes
into history.
Today
over
100 women
will
be sworn into the 116th Congress
of
the United States of America
Women
with voices and ideas
and
maybe the power to change
what
felt unchangeable.
Women
who said No.
Loudly.
Women
who were called shrill.
Women
who didn’t give up
who
wanted better for their families
and
themselves.
Women
who didn’t wait for power to come to them.
Women
who took it instead.
The
long arc of history, they say, bends slowly
but
today I feel the pull
of
all of those women,
dragging
history
just
a little farther
into
the
future.
--Ally Malinenko
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