Roxane Gay: The Women's March Was Messy and Imperfect, But a Good Start
January 21 marks the one-year anniversary of the Women's March, the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. All this week, Glamour will be spotlighting the stories, people, and issues that framed the March, as well as where we go from here.
I did not march in the Women’s March on January 21, 2017. I had a long-scheduled event I could not cancel so I actually spent most of the march on an airplane, following march-related events around the world on Twitter. Women, men, and children from all walks of life contributed to a remarkable show of force in the face of the American disgrace that was the election of Donald Trump as president. The sheer number of women participating in so many cities great and small overwhelmed and inspired me. I was unexpectedly moved, and for the first time since the election, I felt a little bit hopeful. The march was messy and imperfect, but it was a meaningful display of what might be possible if women, if people, could come together in a sustained and ongoing way.
I had a prior obligation, but I also had misgivings about the march. Like many black women and other women of color, I had complicated feelings about the march, how it began, and how this newfound solidarity was so long in coming. It took something as drastic as the election of a white supremacist to motivate women, en masse, to march in such a powerful demonstration of unity and repudiation. Somehow, the mass incarceration of black men, the state-sanctioned murders of black men and women by law enforcement, the pay gap between white women and women of color, the health care disparities between white women and women of color, and so many other issues were not drastic enough to inspire the kind of outrage seen in the months up to and during the Women’s March. That was and is disheartening.
Fifty-three percent of white women and a staggering 62 percent of white women without college degrees voted for Donald Trump; they were more interested in protecting whiteness than womanhood. Nearly a year after the fact, I remain stunned by these statistics. Perhaps, instead of marching, white women should have had frank conversations with each other about what a vote for Donald Trump truly meant for so many marginalized people—the working class, the LGBTQ community, people of color, immigrants, the Muslim community, people with disabilities, undocumented Americans—people whose lives suddenly became infinitely more precarious on November 9, 2016.
Like many black women and other women of color, I had complicated feelings about the march, how it began, and how this newfound solidarity was so long in coming.
My initial concerns about the Women’s March are largely the same issues that have always surrounded mainstream feminism. Any movement in support of women has to recognize that women have complex identities. Women are not affected equally by the ways of the world. As Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw put it, “Different things make different women vulnerable.” Intersectional feminism, a term coined by Crenshaw, accommodates this complexity, but not all feminism is intersectional. Certainly, as the march evolved into what it became, the agenda did reflect intersectional values, codified by the Unity Principles.
It was a good start.
The march also presented a significant challenge. What happens after that good start? In the coming months and years, we have to find the best ways to sustain the energy and enthusiasm generated by the Women’s March. It is relatively easy to show up for one day. How do we show up not just in historic moments but in our everyday lives, in our own homes and communities? How do we keep fighting when it feels hopeless to face an incompetent administration, a self-serving and inept congressional body, and a justice system that rarely demonstrates a concern for actual justice? How do we fight for ourselves while also fighting for the greater good? How do we hold ourselves accountable and force ourselves to make the difficult, inconvenient choices that will be demanded of us? How do we take up the fight when some of us are simply too weary to continue the fight alone?
I don’t have answers to these questions, but I know we need to find a way to be imperfect and messy but committed to making sure that what happened in November 2016 never happens again. The Women’s March was a good start, but it was only a start.
Excerpted from Together We Rise: Behind the Scenes at the Protest Heard Around the World, available for purchase now.
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