How amazing it was to see how the call to a Women’s March in Washington DC was responded to, in reaction to a misogynist, racist, homophobic, and megalomaniac President: half a million women and also men of all ages, races, and economic classes overflowed the originally- designated area in DC.
Marches were also held in other major American cities, and around the world, like in Mexico City, London, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Oslo, Barcelona, Oslo, Athens, Tel Aviv, in Kosovo!, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana and elsewhere. All together, 600 “sister marches,“ mobilizing close to five million people.
These were women and supportive men who felt strongly that they needed to make a public political statement in defense of honored values and principles now under grave threat in the Trump administration.
In fact, the days that followed showed how fast established rights could be unravelled. That is one lesson of this American election and its outcome: rights can be lost, high standards can be brought low.
What stands to be lost: respect for women and their freedom from abuse, respect for non-white peoples and for other cultures, the dignity of people with disabilities, respect for LGBTQ persons, health care for all, family planning services, 50 years of environmental protection efforts, respect for true facts.
Thousands of signs expressed it all: Women’s Rights are Human Rights; Tweet Women with Respect; Women United Against Bigotry, Sexism, Racism; Respeta mi Existencia, Espera Resistencia; This is an Immigrant Nation; Thou shalt not Mess with Women’s Reproductive Rights, Fallopians 1.21; There is no Planet B;
And one that poked fun at Trump’s likely tweet reaction: Hardly Anyone Marched. Failure. Sad.
Which is why there was Fact-Checkers of the World, Unite!
An old lady held up a sign that said: I can’t believe I’m protesting this shit in 2017! Young women said: Fight Like a Girl! And a little boy’s sign said: Boys will be Boys Good Humans.
What happens after the march? This was proposed: Write or meet with public officials on specific issues, set up organizations, run for public positions, volunteer wherever needed, gather people, speak up, protest again, keep fighting the good fight.
Meanwhile, back in the Philippines at the very same time, so many seem rivetted by the tacky and retrograde spectacle of the Miss Universe pageant, an international business enterprise (once owned by pussy-grabber-in-chief Donald Trump) that rakes in enormous profits through the annual display of women.
The constant media coverage and the pictures in newspapers of the country’s President surrounded by pageant candidates, with a dazed grin on his face like a kid in a candy store, merely brings home the point that backwardness and superficiality remain deeply-entrenched here.
While in some of the US marches women celebrities made passionate speeches about the values and principles they defended, beauty queens here were talking of the “hard work“ they had to do to succeed.
One described eating nothing but chicken and asparagus to keep her weight down; another of having to practice the strutting walk to show her body to best advantage in the bikini and gown portions; another of practising answers to possible questions.
Pia Wurtzbach recounted the hard work of participating in one pageant after another until at last she won as Miss Universe, stating: “I want to show the world, the universe rather, that I am confidently beautiful with a heart.“
Wow, how brilliant, what an achievement!
With that example, it’s no wonder that girls here — for example in Mabinay last week — representing the different high schools of the municipality, excitedly competed to be Miss Mabinay.
A sorry contrast indeed with the passionate women around the world who know what’s worth fighting for.
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Author’s email: h.cecilia7@gmail.com
