They are women, hear them roar

The hundreds of women’s marches that took place around the world last Saturday and Sunday proved a political movement born one year ago is only gaining in momentum and strength.

In the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, hundreds of thousands of women — supported by an impressive number of men — took to the streets demanding equality, inclusion and empowerment.

It was irrefutable evidence that the women’s protest marches held the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as America’s president last January were not a one-time or fleeting phenomenon.

Those first marches largely targeted Trump for his blatantly sexist behaviour and regressive politics.

They were meant to show that although 53 per cent of white, female American voters chose Trump in the 2016 presidential election, American women as a group were saying “No” to him, and that women around the world stood in solidarity with them.

A year later, on Saturday, their message was just as loud and inescapable — and went far beyond Trump.

Some of the demonstrators denounced gender and racial inequality. Many others, reflecting in part the #MeToo movement, blasted sexual harassment and assault.

And others, still, demanded reproductive freedom, workplace fairness and a better deal for migrants.

In Hamilton, rallying women paused to remember Holly Hamilton, who had been stabbed to death just days earlier. Her ex-boyfriend has been charged with second degree murder in connection with that crime.

In Kitchener, Tiffany Cooper marched with her two daughters, aged seven and 10, to involve them in a movement that’s trying to make a better world.

In tiny Sandy Cove, N.S., 32 people marched — half of the community’s population.

It would be a disservice to all these women as well as a serious miscalculation to label their marches as a mere media spectacle or a collective venting of spleen that makes no appreciable difference to anyone’s life.

For instance, Sonia Kont, the communications chair for Alberta’s United Conservative Party, peevishly complained that such “ideological marches” do nothing to advance women’s rights. The facts prove otherwise. If people feel put down, they should stand up for themselves and walk together.

These marches have brought women together, given them a public forum for identifying vital issues and inspired greater political involvement.

In a year of mid-term elections in the United States, a year when voters will judge Trump and when the president’s Republicans could lose control of Congress, a record number of women are indicating they will run for office, either to become a state governor or for a congressional seat.

That desire on the part of women to become active, to participate, to not merely speak out but join the political fray is spreading, too.

For the message of equality they bring, the women’s marches are inspiring.

As harbingers of change, the demonstrators deserve applause. Democracy means government of the people. And the marchers remind us all that roughly half of the people in this world are female. The time to properly hear them has arrived.

(This editorial was published Jan. 23 in the Hamilton Spectator and distributed by The Canadian Press.)