The Women’s March of 2016 was the highest-profile protest of Donald Trump’s first inauguration, but just eight years later, the word “women” has been scratched from the event.
The left-leaning feminist group that staged the 2016 march will be out in full force again this weekend on the National Mall — this time under a different name: the People’s March.
Why the branding change? A spokesperson for Tamika Middleton said the Women’s March managing director “sees the need for everyone to be included in the fight against what is coming,” referring to Monday’s inauguration of President-elect Trump.
“That means middle class folks, poor folks; women of all backgrounds; queer, trans, and nonbinary folks; and men,” said the spokesperson in an email.
Replacing “women” with “people” may be more inclusive, but it’s also somewhat tone-deaf, given the backlash against what critics on the right describe as the campaign to “erase women” by equating them with biological males who identify as female.
That includes the Biden administration’s decision to substitute female-centric terms with gender-neutral alternatives such as “birthing people” and “menstruators.”
Carrie Lukas, president of the Independent Women’s Forum, called it a “sign of just how low the progressive movement has sunk that, in the eight years since Trump was first inaugurated and the Women’s March launched, that they have dropped the word ’women.’”
“Presumably this is because the only people who are willing to once again come out to push debunked, alarmist rhetoric about the supposed horrors of Trump 2.0 are also so disconnected from reality that they oppose terms like ’women,’” Ms. Lukas said.
Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, said she was split on the decision to reframe the Saturday protest.
“I think it was so dishonest from the very beginning. To somehow pretend to represent all women, they weren’t really the Women’s March — they were an organization for a few very leftist Marxist women, and they were funded by men,” said Ms. Nance. “I just found the whole thing kind of appalling to begin with.”
On the other hand, “I can’t help but notice that these are the very group of people who don’t know what a woman is,” she said.
“They refuse to have an understanding of the fact that there is a unique dignity of women,” said Ms. Nance. “People who don’t know what a woman is have trouble actually using the name. That’s the world we’re in now, which is absolute nonsense.”
Asked if the Women’s March knows what a woman is, the spokesperson insisted that the Saturday event is “not a Women’s March — Women’s March as an organization is just one of the members who is involved in the People’s March.”
Then again, it would be hard to find a coalition member more dedicated to plugging and organizing the event on its website and social media.
The Women’s March is “anchoring the logistics of the mobilization,” according to the People’s March website, which is copyrighted by the Women’s March.
During a Nov. 8 planning call, Ms. Middleton described the Jan. 18 protest as “our big one.”
“January 18, inauguration weekend, we will be in D.C., and we will be mobilizing, and we will be doing our big one,” said Ms. Middleton, as shown in a YouTube video. “We are trying to do the same thing that we did in 2017, which is [to] overshadow his inauguration, right? We’re trying to pull out numbers, we’re trying to steal the audience.”
The Women’s March annual demonstration in tthe nation’s capital has always had partners, which typically include Planned Parenthood, labor unions and feminist groups, since it burst onto the scene the day after Mr. Trump was inaugurated in 2017.
The first event drew a half-million people to the District, and more than four million at marches nationwide, far exceeding expectations and setting the stage for the anti-Trump resistance during the Republican’s first term.
Since then, however, the Women’s March has seen its influence and prestige plummet, spurred in large part by allegations of antisemitism that saw its first leadership cohort step down in 2019.
Ms. Nance pointed to another blot on the group’s record: The Women’s March led the #CancelKavanaugh fight against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, but the Senate voted to confirm him by 50-48.
“I think Kavanaugh was the beginning of the end for them,” she said. “After that, a lot of that money shifted to BLM [Black Lives Matter]. They became the shiny object, the interesting organization, and a lot of money from corporations went into their coffers.”
The Women’s March has held numerous protests over the years, but no march has come close to matching the numbers of the landmark 2017 demonstration.
In other words, it may be time to rebrand.
The two coalitions teaming up with the Women’s March for the Jan. 18 protest are Time to Act, a left-wing group led by the Movement for Black Lives, and Abortion Access Now, the newly formed heavy-hitter on the reproductive-rights front.
Launched in June with an investment of $100 million, Abortion Access Now’s members include Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Women’s Law Center, and Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity.
There’s nothing on Abortion Access Now’s website about the People’s March, but the Movement for Black Lives has a post on Instagram describing it as a protest for “an end to wars and genocide” that includes a photo of a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
“We know that in order to resist authoritarianism, we have to draw the dots between all of our struggles — from Palestine to the fight to end racist policing, the attacks on immigrants, climate disasters, corporate greed, and more,” said the Jan. 9 post.
Another sign that the march is moving on: On its “frequently asked questions” page, the People’s March urges participants not to wear the “Handmaid’s Tale” costumes popular at abortion-rights demonstrations.
“The use of ’Handmaid’s Tale’ imagery to characterize the controlling of women’s reproduction has proliferated, primarily by white women across the country, since the show has gained popularity,” said the website. “This message continues to create more fragmentation, often around race and class, because it erases the fact that Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women have always had their reproduction freedom controlled in this country.”
Don’t expect to see the “pussyhats” that characterized the 2017 march, either. The pink cat-eared knit caps fell out of favor after being criticized in 2018 as transphobic and racist.
Dozens of U.S. cities will be holding simultaneous People’s March protests, including New York City, Atlanta, Philadelphia and West Palm Beach, although the Los Angeles march has been canceled due to concerns about wildfire danger.
In the District, the march will have three “kickoff” locations based on protester interests: one for “democracy, immigration, anti-militarism and climate”; one for District issues, and one for “bodily autonomy, gender justice and LGBTQIA issues.”
The marchers will then head to the Lincoln Memorial for a rally and “People’s Fair.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.