Since Trump’s inauguration, women in the US and around the world have been organising, protesting and preparing to run for office – and the wave is growing every day

It was towards the end of her seventh decade when Connie Burkhart attended her first protest march. The journey on this icy day from her small, rural community of Hope, Idaho (population 86), to Sandpoint, the city where the Women’s March was being held, wasn’t easy. As she gritted her driveway, she told the friend accompanying her that the Republicans should be scared by the effort they were prepared to make.

Idaho is a Republican state, (“very red”, says Burkhart) but the numbers attending the Sandpoint rally, held at a theatre, spilled over on to the street. The atmosphere was emotional, she says, because for the first time since Donald Trump’s election win in November, people realised they weren’t alone. This is the most dramatic era Burkhart, 68, has lived through. She’s a Democrat, but has voted Republican in the past, “because I vote for the person who I think is best”. “My first thought when the president was elected – I can’t say his name – was that, for the first time in my life, I have no respect for the president of the United States.”

As a result, she has been organising. She attended a meeting of the Sandpoint Indivisible group and knows of two other such groups in the area. Indivisible is a guide to resisting Trump’s agenda, put together by around 30 congressional staffers. The guide went viral when it was published online in December. By the time I speak to Burkhart in mid-February, the guide has been downloaded more than 1m times, and there are thousands of local groups registered on the Indivisible website, determined to “resist Trump’s agenda, focus on local, defensive congressional advocacy and embrace progressive values”. Taking a leaf from the conservative Tea Party movement, to which many trace the start of Trump’s rise, the guide advises people to react to the Washington agenda – bombarding their elected Members of Congress with their objections, whether in person, by letter or phone (making those same politicians worry, in turn, about their chances of re-election). Burkhart has been busy. A retired school administrator, she objected strongly by letter, for instance, to the nomination of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education (DeVos is a long-term advocate of publicly funding private schools).

When we speak, she is about to attend an organising meeting with a group she has formed with 15 other women, and says she recently attended a Democrat function, where a state congressman was speaking. “He said the first time he came to the pizza and politics event in Sandpoint, in 2013, five people showed up, and one left,” she says. “At this event, 160 people showed up. So something’s happening.” She pauses. “Something’s happening.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The protest in Palmer, Alaska, was Kay Bush’s, 65, first since marching for abortion rights in the 70s. Photograph: Kay Bush

Before the Women’s Marches took place, the day after Trump’s inauguration, there were suggestions they would be pointless and ineffective – nothing more than a nice day out. On 21 January, women and men marched on all seven continents (in Antarctica, a placard proclaimed “Penguins march for peace”). With almost 700 marches across the world, and an estimated 4.5 million marchers in all, this was among the biggest human-rights demonstrations in history.

In Palmer, Alaska – another red state – Burkhart’s cousin, retired nurse Kay Bush, 65, went on her second-ever protest (the first was in support of the Roe v Wade abortion rights ruling in the early 70s). In the snow, she marched alongside people dressed as suffragettes and orange-faced parodies of Trump. There was a surprisingly high turnout in general, she says, but she was particularly struck by the number from the city of Wasilla, where former vice-presidential candidate and Tea Party favourite Sarah Palin was once mayor.

Women at many of the marches – including the one I attended in London, alongside an estimated 100,000 others – found themselves in an unusual state of enthusiastic stasis, a sea of people, many in pink “pussy” hats, stretching out around us. Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who attended the main march in Washington, says it was one of the most exhilarating days of her life. “It was also a day of standing for an hour and a half in total human gridlock.”

Kendell says she heard the same story of overwhelming crowds from a friend in Boise, Idaho; her sister in Park City, Utah; and her family who marched in San Francisco, California. “Everyone reported three main things. The marches were far larger than anything they imagined. There was a level of camaraderie and hail-fellow-well-met kind of attitude – we were all family together. And there was just ferocity that we will not allow hate and degradation to triumph.”

Carmen Perez, one of the four co-chairs of the Washington march alongside Tamika D Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Bob Bland, points out that the protests were grounded in the non-violent ideology of the civil-rights movement. Extraordinarily, there wasn’t a single incident of violence on any of the marches, worldwide.

Perhaps the reason the central event in Washington attracted such global support is that Trump seems the face of a broader backlash against women’s rights. It has been two years since the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) formed in the UK, and its leader, Sophie Walker, tells me that in the past six months she has seen a significant shift backwards. Whereas, at first, people would challenge her to make the case for why a party for women’s equality was necessary, she now finds herself being challenged to make the case for why women’s equality itself is necessary. “There is this extreme language of division and hate and racism and sexism and misogyny that is being normalised by Trump and by elements of rightwing populism in our own country,” she says. This has happened since the Brexit referendum, “but increasingly so since Trump, because that has emboldened those similar elements in this country”, she adds.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Carmen Perez, one of four co-founders of the Women’s March, speaks onstage during the Washington protest. Photograph: Theo Wargo/Getty Images

The backlash has prompted a backlash of its own. The WEP saw a jump in membership after the Brexit result, a jump after Trump’s win, and the four days following the women’s march brought a spike of about 1,000 new members. “I’ve had so many conversations,” says Walker, “with people who say: ‘Oh, up until now I would sit and say, Oh God, someone should really do something about this. And now I’ve realised it’s me. I have to do something about this.’”

The march has inspired a wave of action around the world. Vivienne Mayer, a spokeswoman for the Women’s March Global, tells me of the network of local grassroots teams that have formed to enforce the child marriage ban in Malawi, to combat female genital mutilation in Ghana and fight for women to walk the streets safely in India. In Frankfurt, Germany, the Women’s March organisers have developed eight pillars of resistance, including rapid-response actionsIn London, on Valentine’s Day, the Women’s March responded to a call for people to send letters to local MPs and councils, asking them to support the so-called Dubs amendment, which had been expected to enable around 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children to settle in the UK until the government suddenly announced it would be stopping at just 350 children.

Ten actions are being issued by the central Women’s March over the course of 100 days, the second of which was a call for groups to meet up in “huddles” and organise. By mid-February, more than 5,000 huddles had been set up around the world, from Mexico to Madagascar, Morocco to Japan. At the one I attended in London, organised by feminist group Fourth Wave, there was discussion of upcoming protests before they set to work making placards.

Jade Moulds and Sophie Yates, both 28, and members of Fourth Wave since it was set up two years ago, tell me about the work they have been doing in supporting feminists fighting for reproductive rights in Poland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. They are keen to work with Russian activists around the recent decriminalisation of some forms of domestic violence in the country and are determined Trump’s win won’t deprive UK issues of oxygen. “People were really active around austerity, and it hasn’t finished, and nothing’s changed,” says Moulds. “If anything, the cuts are getting harsher and people are distracted.”

Yates says they will also fight for the right of Europeans to remain in the UK post-Brexit. “That isn’t directly a feminist issue,” she says, and Moulds jumps in. “Well, 50% of the people who will be affected will be women, so that’s why we want to be a voice.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An estimated 100,000 people attended the march in London. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

That January day seems to have been the start of a new era of street resistance. Perez says many who attended the women’s marches had never protested before, but after Trump signed the travel ban into effect, they came to airports across the US, “to show their solidarity and support for the refugees coming to this country, and didn’t leave until the refugees were actually released”. In London, the demonstration against the travel ban outside Downing Street was estimated at 30,000 people and had a similar atmosphere to the Women’s March – dominated by homemade signs, and a slight lack of confidence when it came to chanting; a crowd apparently new to protest, but committed and enthusiastic.

For International Women’s Day on 8 March, the Women’s March and the International Women’s Strike are calling for women to go on strike in a major action against economic inequality, male violence and attacks on reproductive rights. On that same day, says Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance in the US, there is going to be a march on the Department of Labor then, in the week of 10 April – spring break for many US schools – families will be taking action together, with plans for a caravan of children to travel from Florida to Washington DC to deliver letters to the administration. Walker is currently organising a Women’s Day Off for 2018 to coincide with the centenary of women first being given the vote in the UK. There are also tax marches planned across the US on 15 April and three upcoming marches in DC: the March for Science on 22 April; the People’s Climate March on 29 April; and an Immigrants March on 6 May.

Hebh Jamal, 17, has been involved in organising two student walkouts in New York so far, one just after Trump’s election, and one in February. The second involved about 700 children, she says, walking out of 20 schools at midday, and marching to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education as they marched, she says, and so their message was about the importance of education, and “also about the Muslim ban, the treatment of African Americans in this country, and of LGBTQ people”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, plans to march on the Department of Labor. Photograph: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

I ask if she is fearful about the next four years with Trump in office. “Of course,” she says. “My younger brother has autism, and I have a lot of friends who are immigrants … For me, personally, going to college soon, and just being a Muslim in general in this era it goes two ways. I’m not necessarily as scared for myself as I am for people around me – I mean I am a citizen, I am American.” But she says that, as a visible Muslim, there is a genuine fear that she could be targeted with violence.

She is currently creating a student coalition, a platform where high-school students across New York City can convene and be a force for political influence. “The idea, and the hopeful goal, is that there can’t be any policy passed without the consent of younger people. And hopefully it could perpetuate coalitions across the country.” This is inspired, says Jamal, by the civil rights movement, with the sit-ins staged at segregated restaurants, commitment to non-violence and determination to stand firm until laws changed. “I look to those examples,” she says, “to see that we have leverage – there’s a little risk, but potentially great gains.”

Signs of resistance are arising everywhere. Kate Kendell is a lawyer and was recently involved in the training of 1,200 lawyers in San Francisco, including Muslim advocates as well as immigrant rights, reproductive justice and queer organisations giving information about what worries them most (for her, it is the rollback of trans rights, and the rights of LGBTQ asylum seekers). “At the end of the day, the lawyers could sign up with the different organisations they wanted to provide pro bono assistance to. It was jam packed and, from my perspective, a wild success.” There are more training sessions planned in other cities.

The Trump administration has threatened to defund reproductive healthcare provider Planned Parenthood, and Dayle Steinberg, CEO of the organisation’s southeastern Pennsylvania chapter, says the local support has been extraordinary. The week before Trump’s election, the organisation has 45 visits to its web page; the week afterwards, 800. “In the week before the election,” she continues, “six people completed volunteer applications; the week after, 135. Right now, more than 700 volunteer applications have been completed … And the donations, both locally and nationally, have been pretty much unprecedented.” The US vice-president, Mike Pence, has long opposed Planned Parenthood and, last year, a wave of donations started streaming in in his name – by the end of January 2017, there had been 83,450. For each, Pence will have received a thank-you note.

Finally, there has been a rush of women pledging to run for office. Between election day and mid-February, Emily’s List, which helps pro-choice Democratic women get into office, heard from more than 6,500 women – nearly seven times the number in contact in the 22 months before Trump’s victory. VoteRunLead, which encourages women to run for office, has recently had 5,500 women sign up for its online course.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest L Joy Williams with Dana Vickers Shelley, who plans to run for office.

On the day after the Women’s March, 500 women gathered at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington for a training session organised by Emily’s List, in conjunction with six other groups, including Higher Heights, which works to support black women’s leadership at all levels. The session was fully booked a week in advance, with 500 more women on the waiting list.

Dana Vickers Shelley, 59, a black woman from Baltimore County, Maryland, was in attendance. A communications specialist, Shelley campaigned for Hillary Clinton and has worked in and around politics for years. She always laughed off the idea of running herself. But the weekend after Trump’s victory, she resolved to do so.

“The one positive thing, for me, about Hillary losing,” says Shelley, “is that all of these women now believe they can make a difference … Maybe if she had won, people would have said: ‘Yes, if she can do it, I can do it too,’ but let’s put it this way, there wouldn’t have been 500 women in a room on 22 January learning about how they could run for office.”

In other words, there is an urgency now, she says. She went to a rally in her state capital, Annapolis, recently; Maryland has a Republican governor, and she says he has made no comment, “on anything that 45 has done”. (Trump is the 45th president – like Burkhart, Shelley prefers not to refer to him by name.) “So we were there saying: ‘No ban, no wall, make the call,’ and the point is that there were all these people who would have been at the mall, or watching TV, or reading books on a Saturday, if Hillary had won.” Now, at rallies, at town halls, in huddles all over the US and beyond, they are organising, protesting and continuing the great march forward.

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