After a long presidential campaign, filled with slurs, prejudice and insults, followed by an unexpected outcome, certain people feared for the future of our nation. When Donald Trump was elected,
the well-being of many Americans was being questioned, as they woke up the next morning wondering if their lives were going to be threatened due to their race, gender, religion, and/or sexual orientation.
On Nov. 8, realizing Trump had won the election, a retired attorney, Teresa Shook, created an event on Facebook. Her purpose was to gather women and men to march on Washington after Trump’s inauguration. Before she knew it, thousands of people had RSVP’d to participate in the event. What started from a few responses at first from her friends and family resulted in hundreds of thousands of people marching on the Capitol along with many other cities around the country and the world.
Although the Women’s March was first created with the idea to protest the newly elected president, the mission was also to voice issues concerning environmental justice as well as reproductive, LGBT, workers’, civil, disability and immigrant rights.
Trump supporters have criticized the Women’s March, as many of them feel that it was an unnecessary cause. However, issues like women’s reproductive rights and immigration policy were backed by former President Obama.
For example, Obama passed the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), a policy that allowed the children of undocumented parents to attend college for a degree, which Trump is now trying to repeal. Trump and his cabinet have voiced their plans about these issues, such as the travel ban, the border wall, and defunding Planned Parenthood, which will greatly impact the people affected by them.
Whitney Keiter, the development coordinator here at Penn State Abington, attended the march at Washington, D.C.
Keiter said, “Initially, the march was created as a backlash due to all of the misogynistic things [Trump] has said prior to his election, and also all the walls he might enact either in [women’s] workplace or in healthcare. I believed that the message of the march then evolved to include other issues.
“The march was created by a group of women and they started to include other people so that more voices could be heard; then they released their stance on the issues being marched for. The march wasn’t saying: ‘We don’t like Trump’; it was, ‘We don’t like Trump because of these reasons.’”
Liz Janczewski, the staff assistant for the development department, also attended the same march. She said, “I was so impressed that there were so many men with their young sons. They were setting up an example that things really do change when people come together. There were women, men and children of all demographics. It was all truly amazing and inspiring.” Trump’s election resulted in a divided nation, but the Women’s March brought many people together to voice and fight for what they believe in. It was a memorable event that will be talked about for years to come, and hopefully it will inspire future generations to speak up and peacefully protest for what they believe in.
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