All out for the Jan. 20-21

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VOL. 36, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018 WWW.SOCIALISTACTION.ORG U.S. $1 / CANADA $2 Last year, the largest protest in the history of this country brought 4 million women into the streets. A march that was originally organized as a women’s protest on the first day that President Trump sat in the White House, Jan. 21, quickly morphed into over 600 marches in cities and towns across the country.

The determination of women in every corner of the country to make a statement against the “Misogynist In Chief” and to exhibit their anger at the ongoing rollback of women’s rights was on display. The na­ tional organizers had no demands for the marches, so every woman made up her own. The shock of the media and the women themselves at their numbers meant they could not be ignored.

Most young women at the march in Washington, D.C., had never before been in a demonstration of 60,000 to 80,000 people. One woman commented, “Early on there was so much wrangling about march permits, but when you have this many women, we just went wherever we wanted. There was no way we could be blocked. I felt so free.”

After the march, many thought it had been a one-time expression of women’s anger that was sparked by the election of a president. But they had not lis­ tened to Angela Davis, who was the last speaker and quoted Ella Baker, “We who believe in freedom can­ not rest until it comes.”

Less than two months later, women hit the streets again on International Women’s Day, March 8. These actions were organized by International Women’s Strike, U.S. in solidarity with over 50 countries where women were planning strikes on that day In the United States the organizers began to explain and popularize their platform calling for a “Femi­ nism of the 99%” and clearly addressed economic inequality, racial and sexual violence plus impe­ rial wars abroad. Thirty cities and towns across the U.S. saw rallies, marches and meetings. There were also strikes of women in paid and unpaid work.

Few people knew that what had started out as a re­ action to an election would soon explode in a com­ pletely different direction.

Tarana Burke: “#MeToo is now a movement”

After millennia of experiencing misogyny exhibited by bullying, sexual harassment, and violence, women started speaking out—and when they did, it became a deluge with no end.

The hashtag #MeToo was started 10 years ago by Tarana Burke. She is program director for “Girls For Gender Equity.” As a survivor of abuse she wanted to find a way towards healing for young girls of color. She explained on “Democracy Now!” that someone had said to her “me too” and it started changing the (Above) Supporters of the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment march in Los Angeles on Nov. 12.

healing process within herself. These two words were “about reaching the places that other people would not go, bringing messages and words of en­ couragement to survivors of sexual violence where other people wouldn’t be talking about it.”

The cascading catalyst was when Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was criminally investigated after dozens of women started coming forward. Burke is not surprised by the outpouring of allegations but, “it is important to realize that for every R. Kelly or Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein, there is an owner of a grocery store, coach, teacher, neighbor. We don’t pay attention ’til it is a celebrity. We need to keep talking, but this is not about a hashtag—it is not a moment, it is a movement.” She encourages people to look at the numbers: “This is a pandemic.”

It soon would become clear how deep and perva­ sive this pandemic is throughout the society. Burke’s hashtag democratized the struggle as it gave voice to all women who had not been heard. The victim or the perpetrator did not have to be famous, it was now all about women speaking and listening to each other.

(continued on page 5, in “Women resist sexual harrassment on the job”)

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Glen Stubbe / Minneapolis Star-Tribune

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