Colleen Lee: Join, don’t dismiss, women who march

Regarding the Jan. 25 editorial “Mocking the march”: The shameful Facebook post by our new Republican N.C. Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey was disgusting! Superimposed on a photo of the Jan. 21 Women’s March was the quote, “Donald Trump got more fat women to walk in one day than Michelle Obama did in 8 years.”

He has since apologized and finally removed the post, but I suspect it was the backlash over the posting that made him realize the “optics” did not look good and deliver that apology.

This post was wrong on so many levels. Not only was it demeaning of women for their body image and for their sincerely held views about women’s rights being human rights, but it was also also very disrespectful of one woman in particular, our former first lady Michelle Obama and one of the causes she worked for.

Obesity is a very real public health problem for both sexes, yet men are not subjected to the same kind of fat-shaming as women. Nor are men (some of whom also marched) the target of the belittling comments made by male Trump “Trolls” on Facebook postings referring to marchers as “snowflakes.”

Causey’s attitude is just the kind that made it necessary for women to march and will continue to inspire us to work together for just causes. Some men are big enough to join us, not try to dismiss us.

This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Colleen Lee: Join, don’t dismiss, women who march."