Just days after the November 5 election, Women’s March Foundation organizers and supporters shared concerns, raised questions, and proposed strategies to continue advocating for women’s rights. Under a second Donald Trump presidency, drastic and serious life-threatening changes are expected for gender equality, women’s reproductive rights, and access to health care.
During “Reflecting Forward: A Call to Action After the Election,” a virtual gathering hosted by the Women’s March Foundation (WMF), a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, the recurring discussion was whether to march or No. Several participants, including Alexandra Weddell, expressed their desire to help organize and participate in a local women’s march.
“I feel like marches need to happen, and they need to happen now and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and they need to continue to happen so that we can be loud and so that we can be heard,” Weddell said.
Emiliana Guereca, founder and president of WMF, which launched after the 2016 election around the same time as the Washington, D.C.-based Women’s March Inc., said WMF currently has no plans for a local women’s march in the near future.
Guereca explained that WMF is trying to determine the best and most cost-effective ways to use its time and resources, especially given the exorbitant costs of organizing marches.
“The marches are incredibly expensive, but not only that, they are also very time-consuming – we are talking about working 12 to 14 hours a day for a one-day event,” Guereca said, noting that planning the marches is expensive. because it requires staff, permits, insurance, security and cleaning equipment.
“Right now, I don’t want to allocate resources to [planificar] a march,” he added.
In response to questions about why Trump won, Guereca said he believes Vice President Kamala Harris‘ abbreviated campaign period posed a big challenge, emphasizing that Harris “ran a presidential campaign in four months that [normalmente] It takes two years to build, or more.”
Too many people, she said, still seem unwilling to vote for a woman to serve as president of the United States.
“The devastating part for us was that people elected Trump and they flat out said no to a female candidate and I think that needs to be recognized,” Guereca said, noting that he believes the widespread spread of misinformation was also a big contributing factor.
Looking ahead, Guereca said WMF staff will continue their work supporting women’s rights and reproductive freedoms, and will continue to “make sure women are elected to office.”
Mirian Palacios, campaign director for Women’s March Action, a branch of WMF that focuses on increasing female representation in government, said they began reaching out to voters at the beginning of the year to remind them that “there was more than just the presidency to them.” the electoral ballot.”
They did it by knocking on doors, sending postcards and making calls to voters, he said.
“We made more than 1 million phone calls, [y] During the last weeks of the election, we were averaging more than 2,000 calls per day, locally and in states like Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin,” Palacios said, noting that these efforts will continue because, although Harris did not win her presidential bid, helped support successful female candidates in close races for the U.S. Senate and in a key city council race in Los Angeles.
“At the local level, we got our first female member of the Los Angeles City Council, [Ysabel Jurado]would serve our district, where our office is located in Boyle Heights,” Palacios said. Jurado, who describes himself as a progressive candidate, has been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America-LA (DSA-LA). He defeated incumbent Kevin de León by just over 14% to represent Los Angeles Council District 14.
Nationally, Women’s March Action also supported the winning U.S. Senate campaigns of Jacky Rosen in Nevada, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, Palacios said.
“That’s our goal here: to continue to elect women, but also understand that our job is to make sure that once these elected officials at all levels of government take office, they prioritize women’s rights and success socioeconomic status of women,” she said, urging others to “stay informed, stay connected” and continue to follow and hold their elected officials accountable.
Palacios, Guereca and several other Zoom meeting participants also emphasized the importance of forming alliances in their local communities, joining or establishing clubs and coalitions, which can be as effective and “as important as marching,” according to Palacios.
“I also think that positive messages are important,” Guereca added, “making sure that our girls and women, trans and others understand that we have lost rights, and these are the steps we must take, be informed and work together, to protect the rights that remain to us.”
