My Women’s March Speech

It was thrilling to speak to the hundreds of people who braved Paris’s abominable winter weather to rally for the second Women’s March yesterday. At Trocadéro! In front of the Eiffel Tower! (How many people get to give their first speech in surroundings like that?) There are bits and pieces of video floating around and a camera crew mic’ed me so I assume my speech will show up somewhere, someday. But for those who prefer immediacy—and reading [raises hand]—here’s what I said:

A lot of people have been asking me lately… Why are you so angry, Maggie? Why are so many women so furious all the time? Aziz is a really funny guy! Catherine Deneuve has a point about witch hunts. Let’s be reasonable here. Let’s calm down. Because what does an angry woman love more than anything? To be told to calm down.

My question is: Why shouldn’t we be angry? In the past year, the Trump administration has done everything in its power to strip away our basic human rights as women, as LGBTQ, as people of color, as immigrants, as refugees. That orange garbage fire has proven himself to be as racist, sexist and immoral as he promised to be. But as Sarah told us, we fought back—and no one is busier than an angry woman. No one is more dedicated and no one gets more shit done. We wrote the letters, we made the phone calls, we gave our time and our money and a year ago today, over five million of us stood together to say we do not and we will not accept this. You are not our President.

Something else blossomed in the past year; a movement called #MeToo began. Our French sisters joined the fight with #BalanceTonPorc. Some people laughed at this hashtag activism. How does tweeting #MeToo change anything? Well this movement is so powerful, it has taken down men who were previously untouchable. Men who ruled Hollywood. Men in the arts, media, music, sports, tech, food, fashion. Men who pretended they were the good guys and men who believe women exist solely for their pleasure. To humiliate, to dominate, to grope, to assault, to rape. But millions of us stood together again and we said #MeToo and #TimesUp and don’t you ever fucking touch us again! We women have changed the conversation and by doing so, we are changing the world.

Men are finally becoming afraid of what angry women are capable of, but what they don’t yet realize is we are not just angry. We are brave. We are fearless. We are strong and we are unstoppable. And that is because behind all this anger and rage, we are fueled by love. Love for our families. Love for our friends. Love for our children. Love for humanity. This is why we women work our asses off to make this a better place for everyone. And this is why we will triumph. Because no one loves harder than a woman.

So let’s stay angry. Let’s love hard. And let’s march forward to this new, better world we angry women are creating.

Photo by Will Fleming

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