The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
End sexual harassment now, urge demonstrators
#Timesup message aired loud and clear by women, men, and children
Protesters supporting the #Timesup campaign to end sexual harassment took part in a demonstration outside Downing Street in London yesterday.
Hundreds of people carrying signs chanted “Time’s up” after hearing speeches from figures including the great-granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.
Heavy rain did not deter campaigners, some of whom wore pink “pussy hats” like those worn by women at protests at the start of Donald Trump’s presidency in the US.
“It’s this generation’s responsibility to push for change,” said social campaigner Dr Helen Pankhurst.
“It feels so powerful that it’s one issue after another, one statement is built on by another, another woman speaks out, another man is made accountable for his actions.
“I truly hope I’ll see equality in my lifetime.”
Women were joined by men and children to speak out on issues ranging from domestic violence to climate change.
“I think we are taking it for granted that women are abused,” said Amna Abdullatif, a campaigner who spoke at the event.
“We need to be talking about it and educating our boys and girls on how to be safer and how to stop it.”
Campaigners held signs with slogans such as “Women’s rights = human rights” and “Keep crude oil in the ground and crude men out of office”.
In the US on Saturday, hollywood stars celebrated the power of the Me Too movement as hundreds of thousands of protesters joined Women’s Marches on the anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.
Scarlett Johansson, Viola Davis and Eva Longoria were among those to address an estimated 700,000-plus crowd in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday.
The weekend marks a year since more than one million people worldwide rallied on Mr Trump’s first day in the White House and comes at a time of reckoning for many powerful men in Hollywood and other industries over their treatment of women.
Johansson, wearing a Time’s Up top, told marchers how the Harvey Weinstein revelations led her to consider how she was treated as a young actress.
Many of her relationships, both personal and professional, had power dynamics “so off” that she let herself be “degraded”, she said.
“I stand before you as someone who is empowered not only by the curiosity about myself and by the active choices that I’m finally able to make and stand by, but by the brightness of this movement, the strength and the unity that this movement has provided,” she said.
“It gives me hope that we are moving toward a place where our sense of equality can truly come from within ourselves.”