By Rae Howe
The third annual Women’s March at the Wisconsin State Capitol Jan. 19 drew around 700 protesters.
The Women’s March is a national organization with marches held in cities across the country.
Attending Madison’s march were a wide range of protesters from the State Treasurer, Sarah Godlewski, and political hopefuls Ali Muldrow, a candidate for the Madison School Board, and State Rep. Sheila Stubbs, D-Madison,; and immigration attorneys, maternal healthcare advocates, anti-gun violence advocates, trans advocates, Jewish activists, and environmental activists.
The Women’s March organizers created a food donation program to help provide for families affected by the shutdown.
According to the Women’s March WI Facebook page, the mission of their march was to “harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.”
During a Jan. 18 interview on the Devil’s Advocates’ Radio show, Sarah Pearson, one of the Madison march organizers, spoke about the changing goals of the marches over the years.
“The first year, 2017, it was all about the values that we objected to that we saw from within the Trump Administration and within American political discourse,” Pearson said.
“Last year was about bringing power to the polls and voting … This year, we have a real opportunity with at least some semblance of power in the House to assert our legislative agenda.”
That legislative agenda includes a focus on diversity and progressive policies. During the same interview, Pearson said.
“This women’s movement can’t just be about equal pay or about reproductive freedom. Those are things that affect all women, but we know that women of color are affected in different ways.”
She listed the special areas of concern: ending mass incarceration, eliminating state violence against communities of color, abolishing ICE, ending the violence at the southern border, and fostering rights for workers, immigrants, and transfolks.
“We have to make sure we’re fighting for the rights of all women, not just the ones that have been represented by the women’s rights movements of the past,” Pearson said.
Pearson highlighted the importance of political action.
“It’s not just about winning elections,” she said. “It’s about what we do after we win an election and holding our leaders accountable.”
Signs at the rally urged a higher minimum wage, policy change that addresses climate change and its effects, immigration reform, and trust in survivors of sexual assault.
The most popular theme among the signs was a critique of President Trump’s actions while in office and his policies, especially the proposed border wall and his inaction toward ending the government shutdown, which has since come to an end.
The marches in New York and Washington D.C. faced controversy over allegations of anti-Semitism in the leadership. Pearson said that the National Organization responded by altering their unity principles and adding three Jewish women to the organizing panel.
Pearson said the march in Madison was not immune to this controversy. The Wisconsin Chapter has put out a “statement saying that we unequivocally denounce all forms of anti-Semitism and hate speech,” according to Pearson.
“We have a really lofty goal here of bringing together women from marginalized communities across this country to create this unified and intersectional movement,” Pearon said, “and when we do that, we’re all bringing baggage, trauma and individual biases. It’s important to recognize that and stay in this movement and work to dismantle our biases and … to seek to dismantle white supremacy in all its forms.”
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