January 21, 2017 several womyn attended the "Women March”. The Womyn Marched happened all over the U.S. from Washington D.C., to New York, to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz. In several places the women's march had a different approach all depending on the people that showed up. Unfortunately, in some places the Women March was not very inclusive and in every state the March could have been better.
On Saturday I attended the "Women March" with my friend in Santa Cruz. As we were heading to downtown Santa Cruz we could not help but notice that there were several Caucasian women attending and less people like us. By this I mean we did not see brown folks -people of color and we especially did not see as much trans womyn out there. Maybe it was because we got there early and not everyone got there on time which probably might explain why there was not enough poc or trans womyn. Or it might have been the fact that we only attended the march for 30 minutes and then left. Leaving soon was the result of not being able to see the rest of the outcome. However, in the first 30 minutes what we noticed was that several white women were portraying white feminism causing there to be a lack of inter-sectional feminism. White feminism does not include my brown skin and trans womyn. Note not all white women in the protest were part of this problem. Yet, this issue still needs to be discussed.
White feminism is a lack of intersectionality meaning it only focuses on fighting for the rights of white women. White feminism does not discuss gender inequality with race inequality. They do not discuss this because the reality is that white women will never experience race inequality because they are white making them privilege.
My friend and I noticed that several white women were wearing pink beanies that were sort of shaped as cat ears. These beanies were a representation of a pussy. The problem with wearing that sort of beanie is that it is excluding trans womyn. Wearing this beanie and just having a march centered on vaginas is leaving our trans womyn without a voice. It is not acknowledging their struggle and we need to get rid of the idea that having a vagina makes you a woman. Women hood is more than physiology.
Another issue that we noticed was in regards to a poster held by a white woman. This poster as shown in the picture is about veganism yet white veganism. This is an issue because being vegan is a choice. This is not a group that is in anyway being oppressed. Also, by stating “all cows & women” is putting the struggle of animals at the same level of women struggles and they’re not the same. Not only are the issues not the same but to also write "go vegan" is ignoring the food insecurities that most people of color (poc) face.
Lastly, the reason why people of color and trans womyn might have opted out of the March especially has to do with the demographic in Santa Cruz . Santa Cruz consist of more white people than POC (people of color). Yet, it was a women’s march so it should not have only targeted a certain group.For those women that organized the march including the one in Santa Cruz it was them who should have made sure that the march welcomed poc women, trans womyn, and disabled women.
How exactly could they have done this? By inviting poc, trans, and disabled women to join their committee or at least making sure that they were included in the march. The lack of representation caused my friend and I to leave the march. We only lasted 30 minutes marching because we felt excluded. We hardly saw people of color & trans womyn marching in Santa Cruz so that drained us. We just could not physical be there anymore. Because of this lack of representation we then realized why several of our friends decided to go march in San Francisco and Oakland and that was because those marches were more likely to be inter-sectional than that of Santa Cruz. Our friends should not have had to go to San Francisco or Oakland but they did and that only comes to show that we still need improvement. Hopefully, for the next women march we will include people of color, trans womyn, and make sure that disabled women can have access to the march.
