Women’s Day march kicks off in Oakland

About a thousand people march through the streets during a rally for women's rights in Oakland, California on March 08, 2017. About a thousand people march through the streets during a rally for women's rights in Oakland, California on March 08, 2017. Photo: JOSH EDELSON, JOSH EDELSON / SAN FRANCISCO CHR Photo: JOSH EDELSON, JOSH EDELSON / SAN FRANCISCO CHR Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Women’s Day march kicks off in Oakland 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

They brought their pussy hats and their battered cardboard signs, worn by weeks or months of protesting, and slammed President Trump and gender inequity.

Hundreds packed Oakland’s Frank H. Ogawa Plaza outside City Hall on Wednesday as the sun went down and a series of speakers called on the crowd to “resist” often and to resist well.

Organizers of the International Women’s Day event planned a march through the streets of Oakland after the rally, where a kid’s corner was set up with moms and their children coloring the sidewalk with chalk. There were calls for the march to be peaceful, while forcefully making a point.

That took on a different meaning for each attendee, but they had a few things in common: protecting a woman’s reproductive rights, decrying the gender wage gap and urging more women to be placed in positions of power.

There were chants of all kinds, like “I love my mama,” which struck a particular chord with the crowd, and there were women of all kinds, as well as their male supporters.

San Francisco resident Norma Gallegos, 34, held aloft a sign from her political preference, the Freedom Socialist Party, reading, “Women hold up the world. They can tear down capitalism.”

“Women have been put in this position not just socially but also economically,” Gallegos said. “We need to have discussions on how to change that right now.”

Recognizing that not everyone at the rally leaned as far left as she, Gallegos said it’s crucial for everyone, from socialists to liberals and even “feminist conservatives” to stand together.

Susan Sachen of the Oakland office of the California Labor Federation said that new federal policies were already making it harder to join unions, preventing women especially from using them as leverage to ensure they earn as much as men.

“Anytime there’s a gathering of women, we’re out here fighting,” Sachen said.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: michael_bodley