https://socialistaction.org/2016/11/29/forward-to-the-womens-march-on-washington/
Forward to the Women’s March on Washington!
/ 14 hours ago
By ANN MONTAGUE
A mass march of women will take place in the nation’s capital on Jan.
21, 2017. This is the first full day that Donald Trump will be
president, and will follow demonstrations that are being called for
Inauguration Day. The call states, “We will stand in solidarity with our
partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our
health and our families”.
Although it focuses on women, the march and rally will also include and
speak to the demands of other oppressed groupings: “We support the
advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and
intersecting identities.” This includes “immigrants of all statuses,
those with diverse religious faiths, particularly Muslim, people who
identify as LGBTQIA, Native and indigenous people, Black and Brown
people, people with disabilities, the economically impoverished, and
survivors of sexual assault.”
Women have responded in massive numbers to the call for a march on
Washington. This is in response to decades of attacks on abortion
rights, physical attacks on Planned Parenthood and murder of abortion
providers. We have seen a rise in rape culture and increasing violence
against women. Women continue to struggle to survive on poverty wages at
the same time that many face the increasing burden of unpaid work in
child care and elder care.
On top of all this has been the blatant misogyny waged throughout the
presidential campaign that ended with the election of Donald Trump.
Within days of hearing the election results, a grandmother in Hawaii
invited 40 of her friends to march on Washington D.C. with her. Response
was swift with an outpouring of enthusiasm. Once it hit social media,
within two days 45,000 women said they were coming and the latest figure
is 100,000.
Abortion Anniversary
Anti-abortion Alicia Arbisi, front right, and her group, stand
face-to-face against abortion rights demonstrators as abortion opponents
march in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Friday, Jan. 25,
2013, in a demonstration that coincides with the landmark U.S. Supreme
Court decision that created a constitutional, nationwide right to
abortion. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
“It is the most organic thing you have ever heard of,” noted Bob Bland,
who was one of the first women to start organizing the march. The loose
organizing structure quickly consolidated all the Facebook pages into a
national page and added a page for all 50 states to coordinate
transportation and lodging. This also has assisted many cities to have
their own marches in concert with the actions in Washington.
Three prominent women of color have been added as national co-chairs.
Tamika Mallory is the youngest executive director of the National Action
Network and Carmen Perez is an activist with juvenile and criminal
justice issues. Linda Sarsour is a Palestinian-American Muslim who is
doing outreach nationally to Muslim women. The three of them led a march
from New York City to Washington D.C. in 2015 demanding changes in the
criminal justice system.
The co-chairs issued a statement indicating that the work of the march
will reach far beyond Jan. 21. They emphasized, “The work of this march
is not only to stand together in sisterhood and solidarity for the
protection of our rights, our safety, our families and our
environment—but it is also to mend the divides between our communities,
and it will be ongoing.”
The Washington march will follow on the heels of militant actions around
the world that have resulted in important victories. In October and
November, there were mass women’s strikes in Poland, Iceland, France,
and Argentina. As a result, Poland’s Prime Minister Beata Szudlo, who
had previously expressed strong support for a draconian abortion ban,
told the BBC, “I want to state very clearly that the Law and Justice
government is not working on any legislation changing the rules on
abortion in Poland.”
The bill, introduced by the Law and Justice Party, had strong support
from the Catholic Church. But even the Conference of the Polish
Episcopate, the central organ of the Catholic Church in the country, had
an abrupt turn around. The bill had once been a high priority for them,
but after the strikes they posted a statement on their website saying
they do not support any legislation that calls for punishing women who
have an abortion. Both houses in the parliament voted it down, and there
are no plans for a compromise bill.
In November, women in Turkey won a victory after angry protesters took
to the streets across the country. As a result Prime Minister Binali
Yildirim withdrew a bill that would have pardoned men who have been
convicted of having sex with girls if they have married them. Women said
that it would legitimize statutory rape and encourage the taking of
child brides.
The government had claimed it was meant to free men who had been
imprisoned for marrying an underaged girl even though she or her family
had given their consent to the marriage. Women were particularly
outraged with the word, “consent.” Elif Shafak, one of Turkey’s best
selling novelists, spoke to the BBC about consent: “What does that mean?
We’re talking about children here. So if the rapist negotiates with the
family, if he bribes or threatens the family, the family can withdraw
their complaint and say there was consent, no force involved?”
The bill was withdrawn just hours before a final vote had been
scheduled. One woman tweeted, “As long as there is solidarity among
women, we are powerful”. This was the same sentiment expressed in Poland
when the abortion bill was defeated.
In an article in the New Yorker magazine, Ariel Levy spoke with
Francesca Comencini, who spearheaded the women’s movement against the
misogynist leader of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi. In 2011, she and her
sister created massive feminist “manifestaziones,” a series of
impassioned demonstrations throughout cities and villages across Italy.
Burlesconi resigned nine months after her group, “Se Non Ora, Quando,”
(If Not Now, When) held demonstrations that involved more than a million
people. She believes mass demonstrations can send the message, “women
are the nation!”
In the United States, in 2004, a million people marched on the
Washington D.C. mall in the March For Women’s Lives, which focused on
women’s reproductive freedom. Since that time, however, attacks on
reproductive rights have increased. Misogynists have become further
emboldened by the election of Donald Trump. What were micro-aggressions
and individual attacks during the campaign will likely become magnified
into legal and policy changes that affect the lives of all women—unless
we protest.
It has been 12 years since the last mass women’s march in the United
States, and now it is time for women to hit the streets of Washington
D.C. and other cities across the country on Jan. 21 to send the message
that women will fight for their rights.
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November 29, 2016 in Women's Liberation. Tags: women
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