I couldn’t stand with you this weekend, and yet I am one of you. It isn’t because I don’t believe in women’s rights and equality. I do. I believe God created men and women with equal value and different roles. I do not think that inhibits you from doing things independently or charging your own trail. I’m 28 and single with a full-time day job, leadership responsibilities, and an author career. That anything you can do gimmick? Yeah, I’m fully capable of that.

None of that is why I can’t march with you.

I simply have a different opinion on womanhood. I don’t believe we are defined by governmental or cultural rights, how loudly we can yell, what protests we’re part of, by our bodies, clothes, capabilities, etc. I truly think we have a bigger issue with our character.

I can be a confident businesswoman and get there by being kind and capable.

I can be feminine and allow a man to be a gentleman without feeling threatened or insulted.

I can dress uniquely yet modestly without feeling the need to make a statement about my body by showing my body.

I can go to baby showers and support the working mom and the stay-at-home mom because I know their jobs are equally as difficult, though not the same.

I can fight and support pro-life without feeling that my person is impeded or invaded. See, I happen to believe that the heartbeat with fingers and toes that grows in there is a life, and the woman in me, the character I hope I’m demonstrating and growing in, says that I value protecting a life over needing to guard my own independence.

See, I think many of the women of America valued being right and loud over being women of character this weekend. And I think if we focused more on our character we wouldn’t feel the need nor would we actually need to defend our rights so vehemently.

Focusing so much on our “rights” reeks more of an attitude of entitlement rather than an ethic of hard work, humility, and confidence. Don’t get me wrong. There are things that need to change. And those matters will receive my voice.

But they won’t receive my voice in the way of a shouting match on Facebook or a picketing line down a downtown street.

No, they can receive my voice in the phone calls I make to congressmen. In the quiet conversations I have with the women in my life. Because if I calmly and confidently communicate where I stand without feeling threatened, I tend to sway more people. And they tend to have calmer, more educated conversations that move the hearts of others, and so on, and so on. Until a movement is started not by yelling but conversations from the standpoint of character not right that begin with listening to understand before hearing and then speaking to be understood.

And if God chooses to bless me with a daughter or a niece, I’m going to teach her that her character and value do not rest in what a government or loud group of people say or do. Her value and character are of infinite worth and begin by knowing who she is and Whom she belongs to.

It’s not really a “rights” issue. It’s a heart issue. And no amount of marching will fix that.