Marchers hope for wave of activism
Women’s protest may lack cohesive message, but eyes are on future
There’s grief over Hillary Clinton’s election loss among the 200,000 women planning to march on Washington the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20, but those organizing the Women’s March on Washington say the event is about far more than that.
For the women coming as far away as California and Hawaii, there’s concern that their rights could be rolled back by Congress and the new Republican White House, some of them rights they’ve been fighting for since the suffragist convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, N. Y.
The women planning to gather in Washington on Jan. 21 are responding to a Facebook event page created by retired attorney Teresa Shook of Hawaii on election night.
They haven’t been corralled by an outside interest group. Various wom-
en’s groups, such as those supporting birth control and abortion rights, are coming to them.
For many, it’s the first time they’ve been involved in civic activism; among the dozens of independent coordinators at the state level are yoga teachers and fashion designers. That spontaneous outburst of activism has posed problems, such as a struggle to find a cohesive theme and organization.
“This is not only historical for us and our generation,” said Carmen Perez, who will turn 40 on the day of the march, “but also the fact that this is the first mass mobilization after a president steps into office.”
The march will begin in front of the Capitol building, and it’s among about 100 taking place across the country and internationally.
The diversity of concerns driving participants to the nation’s capital makes it unclear how much impact they’ll have. Organizers hope the march, bringing together more than 100 interest groups, including the Sierra Club, NAACP and MoveOn.org, will spur a wave of activism on the left, much like the conservative Tea Party’s origin as a grass- roots movement.
“We see this as the first convening,” said Janaye Ingram, the head of logistics. “New alliances will be forged through this effort.”
They enlisted star power and support from a previous generation of activists: labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta joins feminist icon Gloria Steinem and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte as honorary co- chairs.
The march started with Shook and has blossomed into a diverse coalition of women — and some men — coming together to highlight their concern over an array of issues, including criminal justice and climate change. Perez called the event an “entry point” for many women to get involved in their communities. “We hope it will ignite a spark in them to go back to their communities and do something,” she said.
“We’ve been trying to move forward, but at this point, women have to fight just to maintain what they have,” said University of Scranton political historian Jean Harris. “Having this march right now is important to say we’re not going to take this. We’re watching.” The list of women’s concerns is long. For example, the average number of state abortion restrictions passed from 1980 through 2009 was 16 per year, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data provided by the Guttmacher Institute. From 2010 through 2016, the average was 61. These include ultrasound and fetal heartbeat mandates.
Other concerns include Congress rolling back funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides free breast cancer screening and health services. The same goes for contraception coverage provided under the Affordable Care Act, as well as access to mammograms with no co- pay or deductible. Because more women receive Medicare than men, changes to the program would disproportionately hurt them.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.