The Women’s March – did it change anything?
The Women’s March, on February 23rd, was the second march I attended in my life. Over two million people marched in cities around the world, in solidarity with the Women’s March on Washington. Despite the hype and turnout, I battled with common questions – will it actually change anything at all? What needs to happen for it to be more than just people walking in the street? I wrote a blog about my experiences for Restless Development.
Throughout history, we have seen protests bring change, one of these was the women’s Suffragette movement. Often history focuses on dramatic acts by Suffragette individuals, but the movement also had some pretty gigantic demonstrations. The first and biggest was in 1908, reportedly 750,000 people attended (The Times). The march was pretty successful at bringing new people into the cause, and in 1918 legislation was passed to give 8.4 million women the vote.
It’s also been proven that people’s perceptions of protests are often negative at the time, then shift to positive viewpoints years later. The civil rights movement is an example of this, often hailed as one of the most successful protests of all time. Martin Luther King Jr is one of the most admired men in American history – but opinion polls about him found that the public’s negative opinion of him grew as the Civil Rights Movement grew, rising from 37 percent in 1963 to 63 percent in 1966. This is important to remember as we think about protests today. Marches viewed today as a waste of time could be changing minds years later.
Back to the Women’s March, why exactly were people on the street? Well, the event was created to send a message around the world that women’s rights are human rights. It was more important than targeting an individual, It’s about fighting inequalities that have existed for a long time. The march had a much broader goal than a simple list of demands that accompany some protests and included many things (for example, freedom from sexual violence) that could not be realistically achieved right away.
