Can the women who took to the streets march into office?
Almost a year ago, TDSB trustee Ausma Malik delivered a rousing speech to tens of thousands of people at the Toronto’s Women’s March. Now, as activists dust off their pink pussy hats for the anniversary rally, Malik is gearing up to run for a seat on city council.
Some are wondering if that’s a harbinger of more female election candidates to come after a year that began with the massive Women’s March on D.C. in January, which Facebook just crowned its largest event for a single cause in 2017, with more than 500,000 people taking part online and in the streets. Some believe it’s the largest protest in U.S. history.
The original demonstration for women’s and human rights occurred the day after U.S. President Donald Trump swore the oath of office. In cities across the globe, tens of thousands marched in solidarity, including in Toronto, where organizers reported more than 50,000 in attendance.
Since then, the movement has evolved, say the activists behind Toronto’s march. The second event is all about answering what many have wondered since the first: now what?
“The reason why we marched last year was resistance to hate, resistance to divisive politics and kind of in response to what was happening south of the border,” said Kavita Dogra, co-organizer for Toronto’s march. “This year, it’s more about where do we go from here and how do we define our future and how do we build the future that we want.”
As such, the Jan. 20 anniversary march will feature younger speakers with an eye to inspiring people to take action and get involved at the local level.
Dogra is hoping turnout is just as high because she says activism has become more “mainstream” — and the Women’s March was the igniting spark.
Co-organizer Deb Parent said that although the movement is rooted in the U.S. political landscape, Toronto has had its share of divisive politics.
For Parent, the march is about bringing progressiveminded people together who might not have connected otherwise. That includes the folks who are just there to take a selfie in a pussy hat, and those that want to take concrete action.
And after people turned out in droves, the march itself may have been a turning point.
“We’ve seen a number of people radicalized . . . who wouldn’t have seen themselves as political or wouldn’t have ever thought that they could see themselves on a march, taking up public space, bringing their children,” Parent said.
Almost a year later, the movement is switching gears and becoming more proactive, she said.
South of the border, more women have expressed interest in running for office since the presidential election, according to Emily’s List, a group devoted to electing more pro-choice Democratic women and was a sponsor of the Women’s March.
Advocates are making similar observations closer to home.
Nancy Peckford, executive director at Equal Voice, a Canadian non-partisan organization that works to get more women in public office, has seen a surge in women organizing. Compared to previous years more women are signing up for Equal Voice’s campaign boot camps, she said. “Anywhere where we have offered women the opportunity to learn about what it means to run . . . we have seen very, very strong interest,” Peckford said. Also, women who may not want to run are more eager than ever to do behindthe-scenes work like fundraising.
She pointed to B.C.’s spring election, which saw the highest percentage of women on the ticket in the province’s history. Forty-six per cent of candidates for the Liberals and NDP, the two major parties, were women, as were 38 per cent of those flying the Green Party banner.
Though it’s unclear if that can be linked directly to the Women’s March movement, Peckford said the impact is being felt at the community level.
“When people start to think about their (desire) to change the way things are — I think that’s been incredibly important.”
Pollster Shachi Kurl, director of the Angus Reid Institute, said an increase in female voter turnout and candidates may help gauge the political efficacy of the Women’s March. But with nearly a year to go before U.S. midterm elections, and two years before Canada’s next federal vote, it may be too early to tell.
“I don’t know that we have as yet seen a concrete result of the Women’s March having a measurable impact on either the American political landscape or the Canadian political landscape,” Kurl said.
What’s more obvious is the rise in discourse around the experiences of women in politics, Kurl said. That includes tales of sexism and harassment, fuelled in part by 2017’s other iconic feminist movement propelled by social media: #MeToo.
Sara Bingham, an executive director at Women’s March Canada, said the organization spent much of 2017 fielding questions from people wondering how to stay active for the cause. (Women’s March Canada is a separate organization from the Toronto march, which it endorses.)
That’s the next logical step “because we can’t march every day,” she said.
On Sunday evenings, the group hosts a Twitter chat to talk about health, economic security, representation and safety of women, to help keep up the conversation and drive.
For instance, during one such chat, a former mayor of Waterloo offered her advice to a young Toronto woman making a bid for city council.
“A young 20-something-year-old in Toronto is probably not going to feel comfortable reaching out to a former mayor using typical ways” of contacting someone, Bingham said.
She is also planning the first Women’s March conference in Kitchener in the spring — something she wants to make an annual fixture.
It was inspired by the inaugural U.S. Women’s March convention in Detroit this fall, reportedly attended by as many as 4,000 people. The aim is to inspire and guide women to get more politically and civically engaged — and perhaps also serve as a litmus test for the movement’s impact.