On Saturday, after officially spending one year “giving the Trump Administration a chance” and finding ourselves angrier and more heartbroken than the year before, my friends and I decided to do our small part standing at Five Corners. Holding signs that said things such as “If you’re not angry you’re not paying attention,” and “Will trade one Trump for 10,000 refugees,” we spent about an hour standing in the wind and went home feeling a little more unified and a little more hopeful.

Luckily enough, we had gotten the attention of Gazette photographer Peter Simon, who got a kick out of our signs and enthusiasm and snapped a photo. Feeling quite proud of our small accomplishment, we checked the website as soon as it went up and laughed about our “washashore” friend finally making the Island paper. It didn’t take long though for our attention to turn to the comments. We quickly realized the comments on the article had become an anonymous space for people against the movement to speak their minds.

Commenting hurtful things, targeting our “young-womanhood” that basically boiled down to something like, “they might be protesting today but they’ll surely be watching reality TV tomorrow.”

Turning to a popular Facebook group Islanders Talk, the comments were all along the same lines. From attacking the validity of the Island’s march to publicly voice their opinions on women’s rights to their own bodies, it became clear that many Islanders have found their critical, sexist, and homophobic voices online.

Unfortunately, I was not shocked or surprised at the lack of shame in posting these offensive words. Something I have noticed, especially in our Island community since the inauguration, is that many people with hateful opinions have finally found a voice and a platform. People are no longer ashamed of their offensive views, especially having a President who openly shares them. I actually soon found myself feeling sorry for the ignorant commenters.

I guess the one thing that has really stuck with me, and that I wanted to share is the understanding that gender roles, biases and misogyny are hurting all genders. This is not about silencing men, this is instead about giving everyone a voice. This is not just about encouraging courageous and powerful women, this is also about allowing nurturing and emotional men. When it boils down to is, the women’s march isn’t even about Trump. It is about what is blatantly right and what is blatantly wrong.

I hope that the people who are so quick to call us “anti-men” for standing out there on Saturday (even though the crowd was probably split 50/50 both genders), can take a moment to understand that we are standing for our own future, and also the future of our male counterparts. None of us will see a proper or just society until we can all have equal opportunity, equal treatment, equal power and equal respect.

Lila Norris
West Tisbury