A reflection on International Women’s Day

Today I am thinking of women who will never be. Iranian schoolgirls blown up in their classrooms, erased from existence while simply trying to learn. And how women everywhere are impacted when such things happen anywhere — even half a world away. And how I am impacted by it as well. Because my freedom is inextricably tied to the safety and welfare of these girls in Iran, even though I sit in the quiet of my Massachusetts town as their families mourn in a country far away.

So today as we celebrate women’s countless accomplishments, as we give our ancestors their due and our community of strong women their flowers, I am also heartbroken. Heartbroken for girls I will never meet, and profoundly angry at the men who have so little concern for their fate. I am thinking of the countless women and girls whose lives have been cut short or forever changed due to the callousness of men who hold too much power and not enough care.

You likely know the story I am referring to. Scores of Iranian girls were killed last week when their school was hit during the first day of U.S./Israeli attacks on the country. It is now believed that U.S. forces bear responsibility for the strike, though Donald Trump is disinterested in taking any responsibility whatsoever. Take the following exchange, reported yesterday by Politico:

“When asked aboard Air Force One Saturday whether the U.S. conducted the Feb. 28 strike, Trump said, without evidence, ‘No, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran.’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing next to the president, took a more cautious tone, saying the government is still ‘investigating’ the attack but adding, ‘The only side that targets civilians is Iran.’

Following Hegseth’s statement, Trump asserted: ‘It was done by Iran.’”

Trump is refusing to entertain any possibility that the forces he commands could have killed these girls. That is chilling. A man who holds great power to cause great harm does not seem particularly perturbed by the deaths of these girls or the role this country played in it. Mind you, this is a man who once said he would protect women whether we women “like it or not”. His actions, as per usual, do not match his words in any way, shape, or form. What does safety look like when our country’s leader has so little regard for it?

I am thinking about the Iranian schoolgirls and I am thinking about the deaths of women much closer to home. Trump’s response to the killing of these girls evoked another response to a completely unjust and preventable death. It immediately made me think of how our Vice President refused to acknowledge that forces here in the United States had any culpability in the death of a woman whose name we now all know — Renee Good. JD Vance famously insisted that Good was "resisting" orders, that she "viciously ran over the ICE officer", and that her death was a “tragedy of her own making” in spite of the videos that told us otherwise. He was so quick to absolve her shooter that he told the rest of us that Good’s killer deserved a “debt of gratitude” — a painful and incredibly dangerous thing to say about a man who shot a woman in the face.

I am thinking of Trump’s response to the shooting death of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, which at first was essentially nonexistent. While not caused by U.S. forces, Trump’s refusal to offer any condolences after the assassination of a female Democratic lawmaker was jarring, to say the least. His stubborn silence was only to be followed up by his sharing of completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theories blaming Governor Tim Walz and alleged state fraud for her death. Trump lies with impunity and expresses no concern about the shooting or the children left behind. It’s hard to even know what to say, but impossible to not see a pattern.

Separated by months and many miles, I believe these responses are deeply connected and profoundly dangerous. We have a government that is seemingly incapable of compassion, and seemingly uncaring about any of these deaths. What are we to do with that?

I watched the drone footage of graves being dug for the Iranian schoolgirls and my heart shattered into a million pieces. The amount of trauma is unfathomable and I am beyond horrified that my government has caused it. But they don’t seem overly horrified. And that means we can expect this, or some other version of this, to happen again. Maybe in Iran or maybe in another country. Or, given how our government refuses to do anything to stop U.S. children from being killed at school, maybe right here in this country. Again.

I want government leaders who take great care to not kill children, or anyone else for that matter. Who when they do cause harm, stop everything and take whatever steps are necessary to prevent such harm from happening again. I want leaders who hold a core value of caring about the welfare of others, whether they be schoolgirls across the globe or a woman driving the streets of Minneapolis. I want them to care about something besides their own power.

Today I am celebrating women and all that we have accomplished. I truly am. But I am also mourning the preventable and unnecessary deaths of so many women and girls. I lament the additional lives lost since this evil and incompetent administration came to power, and that this evil and incompetent administration doesn’t seem to care about any of them. I mourn their losses and I am clear eyed on what this means for me and the women and girls of this country.

We cannot be safe unless every Renee Good can drive the streets of their cities without fear of being shot by federal agents.

We cannot be safe unless every Melissa Hortman can engage in lawmaking without fear of being assassinated by extremists.

We cannot be safe unless every girl in every country can go to school without fear of being bombed by a rogue government with too much power and not enough conscience.

And we cannot be safe if our government leaders don’t hold safety as a core value.

Today I am thinking of those women who will never be, and dreaming of a world where every girl gets to become who she is and who she needs to be. If I want the right to be who I am, fully and safely, then I have to fight for that right for everyone else too.