By the time I finish writing this article, not even a full week will have passed since Saturday’s Women’s March. On January 21st, millions of people across the United States gathered to march against social injustice and hundreds of sister marches echoed America marchers’ concerns throughout the world.
To date, this is the largest protest in American history and its international reception only intensifies how impressive the marches are. During and after the marches, I saw numerous social media posts from friends and family both associating and disassociating with the marches. Out in public, I witnessed strangers discussing the marches—exploring the reasons why and why not to march, disagreeing about the motivations behind the marches, evaluating the legitimacy of marchers’ advocacies, predicting the impact of the marches. People who I knew were not political in any real sense of the word became political. Given the diversity and multitude of opinions concerning the Women’s March, this alone is at least clear: regardless of party and ideological affiliations, the marches are impressive.
And yet, not a full week has gone by and the March feels like it took place a month ago. The massive influx of national and local news quickly distances the March from what happened within the last hour. The marches are no less impressive, but the bombardment of news worthy stories and recent political happenings underscore how tumultuous the American public sphere is currently.
Especially in tumultuous times, reflection on all things—all arguments, all events, all people—is required of everyone so that both collectively and individually we do not forget what is right and what is good. Reflection teaches us something. So, here are my reflections on the Women’s March held in Austin.
I think the most remarkable and impressionable observation I made from the march was the communal effort to preserve the individual protester’s voice. Each protester marched for his or her own reason. From reading protester signs and talking to the protesters themselves, some people marched because they wanted to combat sexual inequality. Others marched because they wanted to express their support of immigrants. Others wanted to rally behind the LGBTQIA community. Some people marched in support of legitimate scientific findings about climate change. Some iterated the dangers of income inequality. Many wanted to embrace racial and religious diversity. The list of reasons why people protested go on and on.
What every protester expressed was a discontentment and genuine concern with the state of modern America. While many protesters marched for the totality of these issues, everyone marched for their own specific reasons. Protesters decided to use their own political voices to rally behind issues they specifically cared about instead of letting the preconceived narrative of the march dictate the boundaries of concern marchers should have. Everyone was free to express their own grievances because discontent and the hope for a better America united the march.
For this reason, when I hear or read a comment claiming that the Women’s march was about one narrow issue, I think that the comment is disingenuous to what had actually transpired. My impression from participating in the march was not that America has only one issue to tackle. America has many issues to tackle, and everyone has an individual duty to identify a pressing problem when they recognize its existence. The millions of marchers did that by representing their own voices in the protests and marching for their specific causes. The Women’s March uniquely preserved the individual’s voice and participation within the united body of marchers. The movement adopted the concerns of its partakers rather than demand protesters to take on a carved out identity of the movement. In this manner, the Women’s March truly felt like a people’s protest because it was directly shaped by the people and by the individual.
During the march in Austin, I remember thinking that this is exactly how political discourse in America should work—people thinking, people caring, people speaking out, and most importantly, people listening. If enough people speak up, then eventually they are heard. Sometimes, public outcry works.
On a last note: To all the people who marched, thank you for caring about what occurs in our public (and even private) spheres. I hope that you all keep fighting.