Women’s March organizations in various cities throughout the U.S. are announcing another protest on Jan. 20, 2018, just in time for the one year anniversary of the first Women’s March that brought millions of women out into the streets earlier this year.
As of now, only specific cities are participating in the Women’s March Part 2, and a national protest has not been indicated. The New York branch released its plans for a 2018 march in October, and cities such as Annapolis, MD., Los Angeles, CA. and Philadelphia, PA. followed closely after (for a full list of cities, click here).
The Bay Area Women’s March took to Facebook to announce the upcoming protest, stating that,
“This rally and march is designed to engage engage and empower all people to support women’s rights, human rights, civil rights, disability rights, LGBTQIA rights, workers rights, immigrant rights, reproductive rights, [i]ndigenous people’s rights and social and environmental justice. Our feminism must be intersectional and we must continue to organize as such.”
The organization emphasized the focus on voting as a theme for the 2018 march, aiming to, “encourage participation in 2018 midterm elections and encourage people to organize locally, register to vote… [have] women run for Office (especially WOC), and elect progressive women & allies.”
The 2017 Women’s March was the largest single day protest in American history, drawing a crowd of nearly five million women, girls, and humans who simply believed in rights for all people regardless of gender worldwide. The streets of New York, Los Angeles, Paris and London were filled with strong females donning the iconic pink hat and carrying posters that went viral online. In a world where a man accused of sexual assault (who is no man at all) was somehow elected president, the sight of unapologetically loud and united women outside my window was personally reassuring, and made me believe that not all sense and hope was lost.
A year later, and the injustices against women, immigrants, and minorities have only intensified, the perpetual cycle of scandal after scandal emerging from the White House doors every five minutes is driving the world to the brink of blurred madness, and the enthusiasm and pure power seen in the Women’s March slowly died out.
Social progress remained stagnant in 2017. And with the country currently reeling from sexual harassment accusations that are toppling Hollywood’s hierarchy of disgustingly privileged and despicable men, a march to remind Americans that women’s rights cannot not be reduced to a one-time demonstration is exactly what we need.
However, the Women’s March 2017 did have many problems, including the fact that non-white and non-gender binary females were not represented properly. With the 2018 marches, that issue needs to be addressed and corrected before anything else; otherwise, the true message of the protest will only be overpowered by the lack of inclusiveness.
Ladies, let’s do this (again).
Picture Credits: Flickr
