It might be tempting to think, given the name ‘Women’s March’, that the protests held on the 21st of January 2017 were voicing, chiefly, women’s issues. It’s true that there is more than sufficient reason for women to be outraged to see a man like Donald Trump, whose misogynist comments and behaviour were exposed by the media throughout his presidential campaign, elected into the seat of power. This may even explain the choice to hold the march the day following his inauguration. However, it was made clear by the demographics of those who attended the women’s march that the problems of race and class are just as important as the problems of sex.
So, if the women’s march is rooted in issues of race, class as well as gender, what did the choice to call it a woman’s march signify? You might recall the greatest Women’s marches in history; the marches of the Suffragettes or the women’s march on Versailles in 1789. These women rose to social battles in urgency, and in solidarity, for political change. Not just for their own rights but the rights of the collective. Audre Lorde, an African-American writer, feminist and activist, expresses the importance of these sentiments in her essay ‘Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference’. She writes:
“We speak not of human difference, but of human deviance. Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is what I call a mythical norm, which each one of us within our hearts knows “that is not me.” In America, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure. It is with this mythical norm that the trappings of power reside within this society. Those of us who stand outside that power often identify one way in which we are different, and we assume that to be the primary cause of all oppression, forgetting other distortions around difference, some of which we ourselves may be practising. By and large within the women’s movement today, white women focus upon their oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual preference, class, and age.”
To assess whether these observations are still true of America today, we should look at the data:
- During the presidential elections in 2016, only 58% of eligible American voters voted, not a record low turnout but substantially lower than the 2008 elections, which saw a 64% turnout.
- According to polling data of a sample of 3,500 people, not only were white voters more likely to get time off work to go vote, two times less likely to be harassed while doing so compared to black and Hispanic voters, they were also two times less likely to patiently stand in line for their chance to vote if it took too long.
- Crucially, during the 2016 elections, women were the most divided of all the identity groups, 53% of white women voting for Trump, compared to 94% of black women and 68% of Latino women who voted for Clinton.
What this tells us is that those with the most privilege and the least prejudice hurled at them are, indeed, the most likely to be apathetic to their situation, ‘forgetting the distortions around difference’. And that the citizens who are the least comfortable are the most active in understanding the importance of using their political power. The organisers of the Women’s march quote Audre Lorde’s essay on their website, to align the march’s mission with that of this Lorde’s (to redefine the distortions of difference).
But whether the women’s march achieved these ideals is arguable. In 2017, an estimated half-a-million people gathered in protest in Washington, and an estimated 3-4 million in the rest of the United States. This alone could be viewed as an accomplishment, gathering twice as many people in Washington as in 1963 for Martin Luther King. It’s also worth noting that no other US president has had such a massive protest held on their first day in office, clearly voicing public discontent. But is it truly convincing to protest an election which was in your power to influence beforehand? Especially given Trump’s continued and uninterrupted presidency…
Micah White, author of the End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution, writes for the Guardian:
“Today’s social activists have succumbed to one of the most enduring myths of contemporary American protest: the comforting belief that if you can get enough people into the streets from diverse demographics, largely unified behind a clear message, then our representatives will be forced to heed the crowd’s wishes” but the reality remains to him that “the only way to attain sovereignty is to use social protest to win elections or win wars. Either we can march to the ballot box or the battleground; there is no third option.”
The lesson to be learned here, as well as with analogous situations such as Brexit, I think, is citizenship is a right that is worthless if unpractised at crucial moments. That to be aware of these ‘myths’ and conventions we are likely to face in our political lives, to organise and use our political power to CAST our votes, to consider the consequences before abstaining from these votes, and to stand together not just as women, but as citizens looking towards a common good.
By Mai Hindawi. Mai is a Politics and International Relations undergraduate student at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Quotes:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/womens-march-washington-occupy-protest
http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/sites/all/pdf/class/Lorde-Age%20Race%20Class%20and%20Sex.pdf
https://www.womensmarch.com/mission/
Sources:
https://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p20-562.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/10/white-women-donald-trump-victory
