Gordon McIntyre
Vancouver Sun
It’s not billed as an anti-Trump protest, but the Women’s March on Washington wouldn’t exist had it not been for the U.S. president-elect.
Organizers expect between 2,000 to 3,000 to attend a Vancouver march on Saturday Jan. 21 in solidarity with their sisters in D.C., a day after Donald Trump’s scheduled inauguration in Washington.
“I’m very passionate about this assembly of people,” said Bodil Geyer, a U.S. citizen who lives and runs a business in Vancouver and is one of the organizers of the city’s march. “This thing just started to morph. People are doing this all over North America.”
The Women’s March on Washington was simultaneously conceived by a retired lawyer in Hawaii and the creator of the Nasty Woman T-shirts made popular after one of Trump’s derogatory comments during the presidential debates.
Hoping to attract maybe a dozen people to Washington around the time of the inauguration, Teresa Shook posted an invitation to friends on Facebook from her home in Maui after the Nov. 8 election results had come in. When she woke up the next morning, around 10,000 women had signed up.
New Yorker Bob Bland, the woman who came up with the Nasty Woman T-shirts, had the same idea and eventually the two came into contact and co-ordinated their efforts.
So far, almost 200,000 people have pledged to attend the Women’s March on Washington, with another 200,000 indicating they may also head to D.C.
Similar marches are planned across the world, including Victoria, Toronto, Montreal and other Canadian cities, while at least 10 busloads of women from Ontario and Quebec are due to travel to the U.S. capital. (And at least one woman from the Yukon is spending her 2017 vacation budget to attend.)
Open to all, the March’s stated aim is to push back against Trump’s misogynistic remarks and empower women in the current political climate. It is not promoted as a Democrat vs. Republican protest.
“We’ve gone out of our way to make this non-political,” Geyer said. “It’s about all of us, not one of us.”
The Vancouver march is scheduled for 10 a.m.-noon to coincide with the Washington event. It begins at Jack Poole Plaza for speeches before moving to the U.S. consulate at 1075 West Pender, then on to the Trump Tower at 1161 West Georgia, before returning to Jack Poole Plaza.
The Victoria march begins at Centennial Square.
