Learning from the Women’s March
Today, International Women’s Day, reproductive rights activists are holding rallies in a handful of cities across the United States. These activists will be drawing on a long history of feminist organizing that uses International Women’s Day, including annual protests by Mexican feminists against femicide and the 2017 Women’s Strike, which involved women across 50 countries.
"The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet." - Adrienne Rich
The Women’s Marches that occurred across the United States faced many of the same difficulties with developing inclusion that have plagued the overall U.S. feminist movement for decades. For example, women of color were not always included as organizing began.
Within my dissertation, I developed comparative case studies of four Women’s Marches — Boston, San Antonio, Pittsburgh and Amarillo, Tex. — using news coverage, social media coverage on Facebook and Reddit, and archived protest signs at Art of the March and the University of Texas at San Antonio. I conducted ethnographic observation of the sites and cities where protests were held, engaged in participant observation as a member of the Boston activist community in 2018, and conducted semi-structured formal interviews with 15 protest organizers in Boston, San Antonio and Pittsburgh. Within these case studies, I focused on learning how these protests engaged with questions of diversity, inclusion and justice within their organizing process.
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