For this week’s Civic issues blog, I want to take a look at how the Women’s March got started and how it has snowballed into such a staple of the feminist moment. The first women’s march took place on the first day of Donald Trump’s presidency, January 21st, 2017.  There were thousands upon thousands of people that congregated in the U.S. capitol to protest against the Trump administration.

This Washington D.C. march was basically the “parent” protest because, at the same time, there were over 3 million other people across the country that were hosting their own marches, protesting the exact same things. The women’s march became the largest “single-day” protest in United States history.

The main event that triggered the entire idea of a women’s march even happening was obviously the election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States, but on top of that were the sexist comments that he had continuously made throughout his career before running for office that had surfaced and made their way around the internet. The most prevalent of which is the whole “grab her right by the p*ssy” which he quickly dismissed as locker room talk and that is was excusable because it’s just what guys do. I don’t think most guys make vaguely rapey comments about women but that’s fine.  There were also comments that Trump had made regarding his elevated status giving him the right to force himself upon any woman he wanted back in 2005.

According to History.com, there was one woman who was responsible for the idea of a woman’s march, Teresa Shook from Hawaii. She created a post on Facebook voicing her opinion “that a pro-woman march was needed as a reaction to Trump’s victory”. After this post was created, over a thousand women signed up for it. This was when organizers started planning for a large-scale event for the day after Inauguration Day.

According to the organizers of the event in question, they had no idea how huge the turnout in Washington D.C. was going to be. They were expecting maybe 200,000 people to be in attendance, but the number of people that were actually there was over 500,000 from all over the country. The unofficial “dress-code” for the occasion was pink clothing and pink knit hats with what appeared to be cat ears on top that were named “p*ssy hats” as a joking tribute to Trump’s locker room quote.

What really made this the largest single-day protest in United States history was the fact that all 50 states were hosting their own individual marches alongside Washington D.C. According to History.com, there were also over 30 countries that also hosted their own women’s marches, all the way to Antarctica. The total attendance of all the women’s marches across the world was estimated to be around 4.1 million. Los Angeles had reportedly the most people in attendance, approximately 750,000 people total. Among those in attendance were many celebrities that came to support the cause, such as Emma Watson, Alicia Keys, Madonna, Nick Offerman, and Halsey.

After the main women’s march that occurred January 21st, 2017, a movement was started by many larger organizations such as Planned Parenthood which I’m sure that many of you have heard of. These organizations are still hosting women’s marches to this day protesting for a number of different causes, such as LGBT rights, reproductive rights, immigrant rights, and many more. I actually attended one of these marches a couple of years ago in the capital of New York, Albany. The group of people that I was with at the march protested the idea of Trump’s administration’s wall, Mike Pence’s outdated ideas regarded gays and lesbians and Trump’s overall administration. The march that I attended had a minimal number of protesters but I know that there were several other marches that were occurring at the same time as ours that had a multitude of people that were shouting at the marchers that were simply trying to peacefully protest for what they believed in.

Overall, I believe that the women’s march was an incredible worldwide phenomenon that definitely occurred for the better since it proved that if given the right circumstances, Americans do have the ability to work together to accomplish huge things.

Sources Cited

“Women’s March.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 5 Jan. 2018, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/womens-march.