Women from all over America descended on Washington yesterday and uttered a collective primal scream of dissent against their latest rage object: Donald Trump. Women are afraid. They fear for their rights. They believe President Trump will strip them of their birth control, let them get pregnant with no hope to abort the pregnancy or have healthcare and throw them back in the kitchen. Or something.

I didn’t go on the march.

President Obama, and the social justice warriors who fuelled his presidency, divided the country by grievance groups. Men and women. Black and white. LGBQ and straight. And most comically, divided divisions. White, Asian, black and Native American women, some cis-gendered, some transgender, some even vegan – all very, very special.

The Women’s March has had a fair share of internal strife. Who should speak? White women need to sit down and shut up. Black lesbian women should have priority. They get a voice. Privileged people (ie, everyone who is not me) don’t.

This nastiness is inevitable. When there’s a hierarchy of grievance, he (she) who has suffered most gets top billing. It’s a race to become the ain’t-it-awful worst. This negativity forces people not to find solutions but to build bigger problems so they’ll get attention. Solutions diminish emotional fever and media focus. Therefore, issues can never resolve and, if they do, new problems must be created.

Enough, already. In the quest for, and conquering of, equal rights, women have run out of real outrages. They’ve won the battles. What to do now? Consolidate power. The way to do that is shame those who are mostly happy with the advances and want to enjoy their lives. It’s tough to maintain a warlike state. In the absence of an enemy, the elders must keep the acolytes busy being true believers. Those “other” than the most righteous better watch out.

What good does labelling and “otherising” do?

The women who don’t believe liberal orthodoxy include the chief sacrament abortion – “other”. Men (obviously) are the “other.” The worst “other” group: white men who are patriarchal oppressors. Then the biggest, vaguest group of “others”: people of any stripe who do not abide closely enough to the true leftist dogma.

What good does labelling and “otherising” do? Well, there’s been tremendous power in claiming the mantle of the perpetually oppressed. There’s government money and corporate bullying and media attention. It also silences people with different views.

The argument isn’t working with women any more. American women are 47% of the workforce. They enjoy unprecedented choices. Twenty-six per cent of women choose not to work outside the home. They choose to care for their families. That’s a choice.

Women are divided almost evenly anti-abortion versus pro-abortion. Many women are married and like their husbands and sons. They don’t hate men. They don’t want division.

That’s where I find myself. I’m grateful for the advances women have made. Western American women are fortunate, indeed.

The bigger issue American women face now isn’t equality but community. The ceaseless divisiveness and nasty aggression towards men is a problem. The segmenting of people by superficialities, rather than finding common ground, is causing society to stretch at the seams. The constant emphasis on victimhood separates people rather than brings them together.

The point of the women’s movement was supposed to be to elevate women. It’s turned into a systemic attack on all people who don’t follow leftist, feminist orthodoxy.

So I opted out of the Women’s March, thank you. After eight years of separating people, I’d like the country to come together.

We didn’t need a march for women. We need to start seeing human individuals. We need to see Americans. We need to re-embrace the melting pot of cultures, peoples, creeds, colours and religions and see our common ideals and dreams. We need to remember our shared identity. We need to cherish and protect our freedom to become anything – even president of the United States.

Enough division. More e pluribus unum.

Melissa Mackenzie is the managing editor of the American Spectator. She lives in Houston, Texas• Comments will be opened later