On the day after Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, more than 100,000 people are expected to descend on the nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington, a gathering that is anticipated to bring in many more attendees than the inauguration itself.
While the march has been billed by some as an “anti-Trump” event, march co-chairs have said that the event is intended to be a show of solidarity and strength, rather than protest. Nevertheless, Trump, or what Trump represents, will be the backdrop and context for the march. A mission statement from the national co-chairs reads in part:
“In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore. The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among is defending all of us.”
Other protests will be held in cities across the United States and the world on the same day. Yet, as the march has grown into a sprawling international demonstration, complete with its own app, it has been accused of being too broadly defined, and inadequately inclusive or representative of all women. In response, as the date of the march approaches, organizers continue to refine and modify the mission statement and other principles guiding the march.
At the heart of concerns about the mission and aims of the march are concerns about intersectionality, a concept that posits that individuals experience oppression in varying degrees of intensity. Levels of oppression, under the terms of intersectionality, are dependent on racial, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity. When applied to feminism, intersectionality is intended to check the privilege of White, upper middle-class women who benefit largely from the current system than do their non-White sisters.
Dr. LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant, associate dean of the faculty and associate professor of Africana Studies at Williams College, wrote in the New York Times, “There is a history of black women being overlooked by, excluded from and co-opted into events that profess to be for the benefit of all women but that at their core almost exclusively benefit middle class, straight, white women.”
She added, “The sense of betrayal white women have expressed in the post-election season is at best disingenuous, since we cannot say enough about the ways they turned out at the polls. The impetus of this march — Donald Trump’s election to the office of president of the United States — seems too little too late.”
