On Saturday January 18, 2020, the third annual Women’s March took place on the streets of Washington DC. However, the crowd size did not compare to the first Women’s March. Instead of having hundreds of thousands of people, the march dwindled down to about a fraction of that amount. The decrease in participation could be contributed to the significance of the first march or the lack of inclusivity the feminism movement has demonstrated.
The first Women’s March took place the day after the inauguration of the United States’ 46th President Donald Trump in 2017. The march proved to Trump and his administration that men and women everywhere felt that his platform and policies were a threat to civil and human rights. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the release of 2005 records proved that Trump used his celebrity status to inappropriately touch women. However, this evidence did not stop the United States electoral college from voting Donald J Trump into being the 46th POTUS. The Women’s Match of 2017 proved to be the largest single-day protest in the U.S. history because the American people wanted the government to know how outraged they were with the recent election. The 2017 Women’s March success could be contributed to the newly inaugurated President, however the need for the Women’s March was evident before Trump was elected President. Even though the feminism movement promotes “equal rights for all”, their lack of inclusion for all backgrounds of limited their support for the 2020 March.
The Women’s March has proven in past years to be anti-semitic, as well as having an issue on how to determine what the Women’s March should represent. The Women’s March should represent every woman in every walk of life. The Women’s March should include women of different religions, races, backgrounds, sexual orientations and more. The original purpose of the March was to prove to the government that even though the United States’ president has proven time and time again that he does not respect women, that the women of this country will not take a backseat to the next four years of Trump’s presidential years. However, during the 2017 Women’s March the Black Lives Matter Chant seemed to be the less enthusiastic than other chants. Therefore, symbolizing how the Black Lives Matter did not manifest into the “Feministic Agenda”.
Representation plays a crucial role in how people view organizations they want to support. If every type of woman does not feel represented in the Women’s March then the march will only progressively shrink in size. Even though 2020 is a new election year, women need to band together to once again prove to the government officials that our voices will not be silenced.