Unless you’ve been completely hidden under a rock, despite what media platform you turn to for news, you’ve definitely heard about the women’s marches going on across the nation. I’m not here to yell at the women who found it necessary to protest for their right. At the end of the day that is the glory of the Constitution and those are your rights. I’m proud that I can live in a country where we can assemble freely to speak freely.

What I do have a problem with is being told that I’m not a “strong woman” because I didn’t participate in a march and I don’t find it necessary in my situation to participate in one.

What upsets me so deeply with these remarks aren’t that they’re being said. Heck, I write articles about being a conservative college student. Trust me, I’ve had some pretty horrible stuff published about me! Nonetheless, the reason I’m sad is because this movement is about free speech and free thought for women, but what I’ve gathered is that it’s only for women who support their stomping and screaming. That’s where I’m going to draw the line.

Like I said, I’m all for free speech, free thought, free assembly, but it goes against the movement to attack and exclude women that these protestors are allegedly fighting for. Just because I, and many other women, hold a different view on these protests does not mean that I am any less of a strong, free-thinking woman that knows her rights. Actually, it could easily prove that there are women that don’t simply just follow into masses but are able to make informative decisions about policy and judge the society they live in. This isn’t to say that everyone who protested was a follower by any stretch of the means, but it’s unfair to say that those of us who chose to take the backseat on this movement are lesser individuals because we don’t find commonality in problem-solving government based policy problems by screaming in the streets.

Ladies everywhere, didn’t you sit around and watch Mean Girls? When we were 14-years-old didn’t Tina Fey teach us that we shouldn’t expect anything from the way boys treat us unless we figure out how to stop calling each other “whores?” Let’s take our high school lessons and make them applicable in the big-girl world now. If we have women screaming about how we aren’t “strong, independent women” or how anti-feminists are awful people then I promise that this movement will do more to divide our population then mend it. Don’t get me wrong there are some hard-core right-winged nut jobs telling these protesters some pretty petty stuff. And they need to own up too! This article isn't to bash just the protesters who are claiming that we aren't strong independent women, they probably wouldn't be so freaking emotional if the right wasn't sitting there criticizing the hard work that they put into this movmenet.

The point is that as a technically defined “minority” women should be standing together and not divided on this subject. Whether you support these movements or not we should support other women. We should support other women’s ideas, other women’s choices, other women’s ideologies, even if they aren’t the same as yours. Stop calling each other names, this is the real world, NOT HIGH SCHOOL!

If we want some real change, let’s show the men that we can participate in politics better than they can. Let’s show them the love for all women despite our political party affiliations. I truly believe that if we could show that respect for each other as individuals, we would be getting much more respect as not only a movement but as a minority group as a whole.