The women's march took place on Saturday, January 20th, 2018 and since I didn't have the ability to march I thought this week I would focus on women's empowerment. Women's empowerment isn't about slandering men: it is a way to dismantle systems of oppression to create a social change. There are different reasons people march, such as ending violence, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, worker's rights, immigrant rights, and so much more. One voice is hard to hear but by working together each of us can help end the systems of oppression that have constrained women and continue to shackle them as second class. If you need the motivation to get outside and march next year or if you just want a reminder of what strong women are capable of, here are 23 empowering quotes for you:

1. "If all girls were taught how to love each other fiercely instead of how to compete with each other and hate their own bodies, what a different and beautiful world we would live in."- Nikita Gill

2. "Another woman's beauty is not the absence of your own." -Anonymous

3. "I stand on the sacrifices of a million women before me thinking what can I do to make this mountain taller so the women after me can see further." -Rupi Kaur

4. "Love yourself when you talk too much, when you say the wrong thing, when you're sweaty and gross, when you didn't go running all week, when you keep falling into the same patterns, when you don't feel like it. Love yourself, love yourself." -Anonymous

5. "There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish." -Michelle Obama

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

7. "Remembering that I was loved, remembering that I am loved, remembering that I am always full of love and life." -Anonymous

8. "What's the greatest lesson a woman should learn? That since day one, she's already had everything she needs within herself. It's the world that convinced her she did not." —Rupi Kaur

9. "I invite you to step forward, to be seen and ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?" -Emma Watson

10. "For most of history, 'anonymous' was a woman."— Virginia Woolf

11. "I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves."— Mary Wollstonecraft

12. "Say it over and over again: I will not make myself small." -Anonymous

13. "I raise my voice not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard." -Malala Yousafzai

14. "Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don't see it, but because they see it and they don't want it to exist." -Bell Hooks

15. "Your silence will not protect you." -Audre Lorde

16. "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." -Helen Keller

17. "We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back." -Malala Yousafzai

18. "She wasn't bored, just restless between adventures." -Anonymous

19. "The questions isn't who's going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." -Aya Rand

20. "I hope the fathers and mothers of little girls will look at them and say 'yes, women can'."- Delma Rousseff

21. "We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." - Maya Angelou

22. "We all move forward when we recognize how resilient and striking the women around us are." - Rupi Kaur

23. "Women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up." -Oprah

Issues as large as women's oppression can't be solved overnight but with dedicated female icons, peaceful marches, and the help of our male counterparts we will be able to make a difference and end the inequalities between men and women.