https://socialistaction.org/2018/01/27/womens-marches-get-a-huge-turnout/
Women’s Marches get a huge turnout nationwide
/ 21 hours ago
Feb. 2018 Phoenix Indig. women Lorraine Longhi
Indigenous women gather before the Women’s March in Phoenix, Ariz. Photo
by Lorraine Longhi.
By ANN MONTAGUE
Once again women hit the streets on Jan. 20 and 21. The U.S. marches
were decentralized in nature but the turnout was high. They reflected
the burning anger and determination to resist that many women feel under
the looming shadow of President Trump. Last year, the marches took place
on the first day of his presidency, and the focus was on Washington D.C.
This year, women did not do much traveling but generally marched in
nearby cities and small towns around the country.
From 1.6 million to 2.5 million marched throughout the United States,
according to researchers Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman. Close to
500 separate events took place in the U.S., with 200 other events
worldwide. In many cities, the turnout was higher than a year ago. Some
300,000 marched in Chicago, 200,000 in New York, and over half a million
in Los Angeles. There were around 60,000 in San Francisco, about the
same number in Philadelphia, and slightly less in Oakland, while tens of
thousands marched in Washington, D.C.
But as impressive as the numbers in major cities were all the homemade
signs expressing the anger and creativity of the women and children in
marches in communities large and small. The predominant themes were
anti-Trump resistance and persistence.
The lead organizers for last year’s Women’s March hoped to be able to
influence the independent marches this year with their proposed themes
of “March to the Polls” (i.e., Chicago and Washington) and “Power To The
Polls” (i.e., Las Vegas) as a way to impose supporting Democrats in
2018. On their website they stated, “This will harness the collective
energy to advocate for policies and candidates that reflect our values.”
Undoubtedly, the organizers thought their slogan would catch on, and
women would participate with t-shirts, banners, and mass-produced signs
proclaiming they were simply marching to the Democratic Party’s
drumbeat. But while some signs referred to the power of voting, and in
some areas elected officials spoke, the marches were filled with young
women who were angry at the system and wanted to “Smash Patriarchy.”
They also addressed DACA and immigration, challenged sexual violence and
racism, and supported LGBTQ rights. These issues were also reflected in
signs and chants.
Carole Metellus, an activist in Philadelphia, told WHYY radio that she
showed up in support of immigrant communities. “As a Haitian-American, I
have to be here to protest what the White House is saying about us and
our ‘shithole’ countries,” she said. “It was important to raise my voice
in solidarity.”
Speaking from the stage in Los Angeles, African American actress Viola
Davis reviewed the history of legal Jim Crow in the United States, and
paraphrased Martin Luther King in saying, “I’m not willing to wait 150
years for things to change.” As one who was sexually assaulted in
childhood, she said, “I am in solidarity with all the women who raised
their hands [in the #MeToo movement]. … I am speaking for all the women
who are still in silence.”
In Chicago, a young woman marcher interviewed by CNN also spoke to the
issue of sexual harassment: “I think it’s hard sometimes for our
generation to comprehend the serious of the cases, not just in Hollywood
but everywhere. But I think it is important for our generation to
understand that we cannot be okay with this anymore, and we need to
finally stand up and change the views of what is right and what we will
tolerate.”
Indigenous women missing and murdered
In the Northwest and the Southwest, Indigenous women had contingents
marching and in some cases leading the Women’s Marches. It started in
Phoenix, where they had been organizing since October around “Honoring
Indigenous Women Leading The Women’s March.”
They wanted to focus on the missing and murdered indigenous women in
their communities. More than 4 in 5 Native American women have
experienced violence in their lifetime, with over 90% experiencing
violence at the hands of a non-tribal member, according to the National
Institute of Justice Research Report in 2010. These cases have mostly
been ignored. The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention state that
in 2016 the third-leading cause of death for Native American and Alaskan
American females, ages 10-14, is murder.
Participants were asked to wear red to honor the murdered and missing.
Indigenous women led the march of 20,000 in Phoenix. There were five
other marches in Arizona, with 1500 in Prescott and hundreds in Sedona
and in Flagstaff.
Native American women also marched throughout the sparsely populated
towns in Washington State, where tribal lands are located, and they
joined with non-Native women in cities named after their tribes. In
Yakima they expected about a hundred marchers and 1000 turned out.
Wenatchee saw marches of 1600, and 6000 marched in Spokane.
This year showed that the uprising of women with the election of Donald
Trump has continued and remains strong even in the smallest communities
in the country. The Democratic Party will continue to attempt to
“harness” the movement and drive it into electing their candidates. They
will try to bring women into a political system that has no answers for
institutionalized sexism and racism.
At the same time that women were pouring into the streets all over the
country, the Democrats were betraying the Dreamers and looking for
compromises. Anyone who turned on the television or was watching video
of the news on Jan. 20 saw a split screen, with hundreds of thousands of
women in the streets on one side and politicians on the other. The
choice could not have been clearer.
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January 27, 2018 in Women's Liberation.
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