CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – While many people are excited about the new president taking office, some people who live in Horry County are not and plan to leave Friday night for Washington D.C. and make their voices heard at the Women’s March on Washington.
They say with the new administration, they’re worried about women’s rights and want to have their voices heard.
Twenty- three-year-old Coastal Carolina University student Tess Emiroglu spent Friday afternoon packing for what she describes as one of the most important trips of her life.
“Since I was about eight years old, I knew that I wanted to be in politics one day because I figured that was the best way to help the most people possible,” Tess Emiroglu said. “There was a majority of people who did vote for the other candidate, so it needs to be seen and heard that this isn’t widely accepted and we want to make sure that legislation doesn’t hinder women’s rights, LGBT rights, rights of ethnic groups and religious minorities.”
Emirouglu and her friend, Taylor Repp, made the arrangements for 40 CCU students to travel to the Women’s March on Washington.
“Regardless of your political views, this is going to be a historical event. There are going to be hundreds of thousands of women. Not even just women, men too, protesting, not even protesting Donald Trump but just making their voices heard. We’re here, we’re in America, too. We deserve to have our voices heard and our rights protected,” Taylor Repp said.
The two say with the new administration, they worry about the wage gap, the future of Planned Parenthood, paid maternity leave, and rights for women in general.
“A lot of women do have some concerns when the president elect who is being inaugurated today has said absolutely vulgar things about women, he has sexualized his own daughter. I mean, when you are saying things like that, it’s kind of hard for women to feel like they’re going to be protected, like they’re going to be heard, like they’re going to be valued,” Repp said.
They say they realize the election is over and the have to support a new president, but they also insist that the people before them have fought for the rights they have now and they’re not afraid to fight to keep them.
“Donald Trump, congress, everybody hears ‘hey, we care about these issues. We care about the wage gap. We care about planned parenthood possibly being defunded. We care about paid maternity leave’. We care about these issues, and you should, too. You should hear it, and you should do something about it,” said Repp.
Two other groups of students are leaving CCU Friday to head to the march on Washington. A group of local women are also meeting at they Myrtle Square Mall Friday to leave and all plan to meet together Saturday morning in Washington to represent Horry County.
