Still protesting after all these years
The moment I decided to just get on the bus.
Somewhere in my bio or about page, I’ve said that I write for (mostly) women about change and resiliency, with a dash of rebellion, as we head into our third chapters.
Welcome to the rebellion.
“I’m here to volunteer,” I told the young woman holding a clipboard. We were standing on the wide granite steps that lead up to the Vermont State House.
“Okay, great. We need those chairs down there.” The harried clipboard woman pointed to the portico and the shoveled-out spot near the main walkway before turning to sound-check the podium microphone.
That January day in 2019 was clear and cold. As I moved the chairs into two short rows, I was glad for my clunky insulated boots—in Vermont, function is fashion. Ceres, the Roman Goddess of Agriculture, cast a shadow on the snow-covered lawn from her perch on the gold-dome.
The clipboard woman was gone when I finished, so I roamed the lawn and checked out the growing crowd and kaleidoscope of hand-drawn signs. “There is no Planet B,” “No More Stolen Sisters,” “Milk with Dignity,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Bans Off Our Bodies.” The 2019 Vermont Women’s March represented (dare I say it?) diversity, equity, and inclusion—an intersectional, whole-hearted protest for humanity.
“I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit,” read one sign carried by a senior citizen. Women who marched in the 1960s and 70s for women’s rights won many battles, yet they are still marching. I thought of Pat Corrigan.
I knew Pat in the 90s. She walked with purpose across the grey and orange carpeted floor of the marketing department— her white hair done, her rings and stacked gold bracelets clattering against the metal top of my half-walled secretarial station. She had impeccable nails that glowed like the end of her Salem 100s when she punched the telephone keypad with the end of a pencil.
One day, instead of her usual smart, slim suit, she wore jeans and a purple T-shirt, the colors of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Pat was getting on a bus from New Hampshire to Washington. She would march, along with 500,000 others, while the Supreme Court heard arguments in Planned Parenthood v. Casey1
“I wish I could come with you,” I said. “Maybe next year.”
“Honey,” Pat spun around on her way out the door. “The point is NOT to have to march again.”
In 1992, I was thirty years old, an intelligent mother of two, and yet I was so goddam clueless about how hard-won my freedoms were or the zealotry of the movement eager to erase them.
All I could think was that I’d missed my chance to protest—funny in hindsight.
Nope. Not funny at all.
Pat passed on, but if she were still here, I’d have no doubt she’d be getting on the bus to march with the same fucking protest signs grasped in her jeweled fingers.
I was 55 when I first attended a protest march. In 2017, I stood on a small hill in Boston Common—a single dot in a pointillist panorama of rage and frustration. The crowd, one hundred thousand strong, pulsed with bright pink hand-knit “pussy’ hats. A parade of ten people, each carrying a giant letter, weaved through the throng chanting —P U S S Y P O W E R—reclaiming the word from a newly inaugurated predator-President.
I screamed along, “My body! My choice!” from my place on higher ground. One in four American women will exercise their right to have an abortion, but I’d never had to face the hard choice.
The closest I’d come to having my reproductive freedom restricted happened when I was 20. A male doctor wanted to know if my husband approved of my using birth control. When I replied, “Not married,” the hand reaching toward his white coat pocket twitched.
“Engaged!” I added quickly, waving the military academy class ring on my left hand. His wrist relaxed, and the prescription pad appeared.
It was 1982. The pill was available in 1960 but only made legal in all 50 states for married women in 1965—and unmarried women in 1972. Read that again. Crazy, right?
Well—
Last year, Senate Republicans voted against a bill guaranteeing the right to contraception nationwide. And, Project 2025 (already being implemented in whiplash Executive Orders) outlines ways to limit birth control access for women and men.
Bring a chair to the table
A few weeks after the Vermont Women’s March, on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I sat with the Planned Parenthood cohort in an overcrowded committee hearing room at the State Capital in Montpelier, wearing a pink scarf my sister had given me. Woven into the fabric were the words, “And yet she persisted,” referring to then-Republication Majority Leader Mitch McConnel’s rebuke of Senator Elizabeth Warren for daring to continue speaking as was her right.
The hearing was on codifying reproductive liberty into the State’s constitution.2 From my seat against the wall, I took notes as State Senators, lawyers, and guests spoke on both sides of the issue. When Mr. Page spoke, I scanned the faces in the room, fully expecting laughter, if not censure, for his fact-less testimony.
“Population control is no longer a driving concern,” said Mr. Page, citing the State’s declining birthrate and lack of “workers.”
Was no one else getting this? Mr. Page was essentially arguing that women must give birth to support the State’s interest.
His credentials to speak for women and their reproductive liberty, by the way, totaled editing a small-town newspaper and fathering three children.
Despite vividly imagining wrapping my pink scarf around his neck until he stopped speaking, he persisted.
This small, pale-skinned man with a tidy white-haired fringe of hair followed up with unfounded silliness like this: “Women aren’t shamed anymore,” he said. “It’s been 27 years since Republican V.P. Dan Quayle targeted a fictional TV character, Murphy Brown, for having a child out of wedlock—but those days are over.”
🥴😠It was then that I decided to get on the bus.
Thank you, Mr.pAGe-A
My rebuttal letter (also entered into the record) included 19 footnotes with academic and data-supported arguments. A week later, I wrote an editorial for the local paper. I phone-banked and knocked on doors.
All the while, I thought of Pat. Not that she’d be proud, but how disappointed she would be that 30 years later, I was protesting the same shit.
Now what?
This first week of the new administration has been overwhelming, intense, emotional, enraging, blood-pressure-raising, hair-on-fire chaos. I cried, pulled the covers over my head, yelled at the TV, and ate too much cheese. None of those things have been particularly effective in meeting the moment, so where to begin?
I wish I had the answers. All I know is, begin we must—again and again and again.
I will start with one small act, which is to continue using this platform to connect, share, and learn with more emphasis on information and actions for our rebellion.
Please share your intentions or ideas for small acts in the comments.
Work hard. Be braver than ever. Believe.
Catherine
P.S. Here are some resources on coping, rebelling, and making change in the days ahead.
Advice and Reading Suggestions for How We Might Survive the Depredations to Come | Lit Hub
Ten Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy | Democracy Docket
6 Ways You Can Make a Positive Change in Your Community | She Should Run
The “undue burden” ruling would be the first of many to weaken Roe v. Wade and lead to its ultimate downfall.
Reproductive Liberty was codified into the Vermont State Constitution in 2022, with 77% of Vermont voters in favor. But with a nationwide abortion ban, this would be meaningless.
Bravura! For your writing, for your dedication and example, for your choice to inspire our faith in the power of a voice informed by courage and courage informed by power of a voice—thank you. I needed to remember those buses.
I started by writing my Senators and Congressperson asking them to insist that the law be followed before Inspectors General could be replaced- that is make sure the administration gives Congress 30 days notice in writing with a justification for each IG to be replaced and to make sure a need for loyalty was not considered a permissible reason.