Join the women’s march on Washington, Jan. 21
2016Ann Montague 2016-12Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 12 →
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12 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 2016 A mass march of women will take place in the U.S. capital on Jan. 21, 2017. This is the first full day that Donald Trump will be president, and will follow dem onstrations that are being called for Inauguration Day. The call states, “We will stand in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health and our families.”
Although it focuses on women, the march and rally will also include and speak to the demands of other oppressed groupings: “We support the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities.” This includes “immigrants of all statuses, those with diverse religious faiths, partic ularly Muslim, people who identify as LGBTQIA, Na tive and indigenous people, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, the economically impover ished, and survivors of sexual assault.”
Women have responded in massive numbers to the call for a march on Washington. This is in response to decades of attacks on abortion rights, physical at tacks on Planned Parenthood and murder of abortion providers. We have seen a rise in rape culture and in creasing violence against women. Women continue to struggle to survive on poverty wages at the same time that many face the increasing burden of unpaid work in child care and elder care.
On top of all this has been the blatant misogyny waged throughout the presidential campaign that ended with the election of Donald Trump. Within days of hearing the election results, a grandmother in Ha waii invited 40 of her friends to march on Washington D.C. with her. Response was swift with an outpouring of enthusiasm. Once it hit social media, within two days 45,000 women said they were coming and the latest figure is 100,000.
“It is the most organic thing you have ever heard of,” noted Bob Bland, who was one of the first women to start organizing the march. The loose organizing structure quickly consolidated all the Facebook pages into a national page and added a page for all 50 states to coordinate transportation and lodging. This also has assisted many cities to have their own marches in concert with the actions in Washington.
Three prominent women of color have been added as national co-chairs. Tamika Mallory is the young est executive director of the National Action Network and Carmen Perez is an activist with juvenile and criminal justice issues. Linda Sarsour is a PalestinianAmerican Muslim who is doing outreach nationally to Muslim women. The three of them led a march from New York City to Washington D.C. in 2015 demanding changes in the criminal justice system.
The co-chairs issued a statement indicating that the work of the march will reach far beyond Jan. 21. They emphasized, “The work of this march is not only to stand together in sisterhood and solidarity for the protection of our rights, our safety, our families and our environment—but it is also to mend the divides between our communities, and it will be ongoing.”
The Washington march will follow on the heels of militant actions around the world that have resulted in important victories. In October and November, there were mass women’s strikes in Poland, Iceland, France, and Argentina. As a result, Poland’s Prime Minister Beata Szudlo, who had previously expressed strong support for a draconian abortion ban, told the BBC, “I want to state very clearly that the Law and Justice government is not working on any legislation changing the rules on abortion in Poland.”
The bill, introduced by the Law and Justice Party, had strong support from the Catholic Church. But even the Conference of the Polish Episcopate, the central organ of the Catholic Church in the country, had an abrupt turn around. The bill had once been a high priority for them, but after the strikes they posted a state ment on their website saying they do not support any legislation that calls for punishing women who have an abortion. Both houses in the parliament voted it down, and there are no plans for a compromise bill.
In November, women in Turkey won a victory af ter angry protesters took to the streets across the country. As a result Prime Minister Binali Yildirim withdrew a bill that would have pardoned men who have been convicted of having sex with girls if they have married them. Women said that it would legiti mize statutory rape and encourage the taking of child brides.
The government had claimed it was meant to free men who had been imprisoned for marrying an un deraged girl even though she or her family had given their consent to the marriage. Women were particu larly outraged with the word, “consent.” Elif Shafak, one of Turkey’s best selling novelists, spoke to the BBC about consent: “What does that mean? We’re talking about children here. So if the rapist negoti ates with the family, if he bribes or threatens the fam ily, the family can withdraw their complaint and say there was consent, no force involved?”
The bill was withdrawn just hours before a final vote had been scheduled. One woman tweeted, “As long as there is solidarity among women, we are powerful”.