‘Hear me roar!’ Women’s March Fresno revs up passion for social justice
OK, so let’s do this together!
I am the daughter coming out of the womb of a mother from Mississippi.
I am the 8-year-old girl, running down the hallway, hearing her father yell, “I am woman!”
Crowd: “Hear me roar!”
I am the 11-year-old girl on the P.E. field being told, “You throw like a girl. You run like a girl. You hit like a girl!”
I am the 14-year-old girl through the 20-year-old girl who’s being sexually abused and harassed by men who are mentors, who are teachers and who are professors.
I am the 20- to-30-year old woman fighting for equal pay for the same work.
I am the 40-year-old lesbian mother being discriminated against as I try to serve my community.
…and I will be the senior woman who will fight back and say:
“I am woman!”
Crowd: “Hear me roar!”
We don’t do this work without remembering that it is the women of color and trans women who suffer most and are the vulnerable women who are most marginalized and attacked in our communities. Trans lives matter. Women of color, their lives matter. And our lives matter as women.
I am woman!
Crowd: “Hear me roar!”
The feminist men who stand here in in support – my father, my brother, the father of my children, and every feminist man in this audience, I say THANK YOU!
I am woman!
Crowd: “Hear me roar!”
I am woman!
Crowd: “Hear me roar!”
YOU ARE POWERFUL! Raise your fist in the air and say, “HEAR MY VOTE, WASHINGTON, I’M COMING FOR YOU!”
“I am woman!”
Crowd: “Hear me roar!”
Central Valley civil rights activist Robin McGehee is the mother of two children. McGehee was the driving force behind Meet in the Middle for Equality, a rally held in Fresno in 2009 to overturn Propositon 8, the ballot measure that banned same-sex marriages. She delivered this speech at the Women’s March Fresno Saturday.
This story was originally published January 24, 2018 at 4:09 PM with the headline "‘Hear me roar!’ Women’s March Fresno revs up passion for social justice."