The Women's March was an American protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the first inauguration of Donald Trump as the president of the United States. It was prompted by Trump's policy positions and rhetoric, which were and are seen as misogynistic and representing a threat to the rights of women. It was at the time the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, being surpassed three years later by the George Floyd protests. The goal of the annual marches is to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, disability justice, reproductive rights, the environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers' rights and tolerance. According to organizers, the goal was to "send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights".
The main protest was in Washington, D.C., and is known as the Women's March on Washington with many other marches taking place worldwide. The Washington March was streamed live on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. The Washington March drew over 470,000 people. Between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people participated in the marches in the U.S., approximately 1.0 to 1.6 percent of the U.S. population. Worldwide participation has been estimated at over seven million. At least 408 marches were reported to have been planned in the U.S. and 168 in 81 other countries. After the marches, organizers reported that around 673 marches took place worldwide, on all seven continents, 29 in Canada, 20 in Mexico, and 1 in Antarctica. The crowds were peaceful: no arrests were made in D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, or Seattle, where a combined total of about two million people marched. The organization's website states that they wanted to adhere to "the nonviolent ideology of the Civil Rights movement". Following the march, the organizers of the Women's March on Washington posted the "10 Actions for the first 100 Days" campaign for joint activism to keep up momentum from the march.
On November 9, 2016, the first day after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, in reaction to Trump's election campaign and history of sexism towards women, and to his defeat of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Facebook pages created by Evvie Harmon, Fontaine Pearson, Bob Bland (a New York fashion designer), Breanne Butler, and others quickly led to thousands of women signing up to march. Harmon, Pearson, and Butler decided to unite their efforts and consolidate their pages, beginning the official Women's March on Washington. To ensure that the march was led by women of differing races and backgrounds, Vanessa Wruble, co-founder, and co-president of Okayafrica, served as Head of Campaign Operations and brought on Tamika D. Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour to serve as National Co-Chairs alongside Bland. Former Miss New Jersey USA Janaye Ingram served as Head of Logistics. Filmmaker Paola Mendoza served as artistic director and a National Organizer.
During "the first hours of the first meeting for what would become the Women's March", Mallory and Perez allegedly put forward a debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory regarding Jews and the slave trade. No one who was in the room spoke about it for almost two years. Mallory and Bland deny that the offensive content in the conversation took place, but, according to Tablet Magazine, "multiple sources with knowledge of what happened confirmed the story." Several journalists who shared the story were emailed by a PR agency which claimed to be able to disprove the article, but would only share their information on condition of journalists keeping it off the record. Andrea González-Ramírez, a journalist from Refinery29, claimed to have agreed to the PR firm's request, but the PR firm's fact checking failed to disprove Tablet Magazines claims.
According to The New York Times, opposition to and defiance of Trump infused the protests, which were sometimes directly called anti-Trump protests. Organizers stated that they were "not targeting Trump specifically" and that the event was "more about being proactive about women's rights". Sarsour called it "a stand on social justice and human rights issues ranging from race, ethnicity, gender, religion, immigration and healthcare". Wruble stated that "it's about feminism [...] But it's about more than that: It's about basic equality for all people."
Planned Parenthood partnered with the march by providing staff and offering knowledge related to planning a large-scale event. Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said that the march would "send a strong message to the incoming administration that millions of people across this country are prepared to fight attacks on reproductive healthcare, abortion services and access to Planned Parenthood, [which] hopes that [in the future] many of the protesters will mobilize in its defense when Trump and congressional Republicans make their attempt to strip the organization of millions in federal funding". The national organizing director stressed the importance of continuing action at a local level and remaining active after the event.
Vanessa Wruble, co-founder, brought on Tamika D. Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour to serve as National Co-Chairs alongside Bob Bland. The four co-chairs were Linda Sarsour, the executive director of the Arab American Association of New York; Tamika Mallory, a political organizer and former executive director of the National Action Network; Carmen Perez, an executive director of the political action group The Gathering for Justice; and Bob Bland, a fashion designer who focuses on ethical manufacturing. Gloria Steinem, Harry Belafonte, LaDonna Harris, Angela Davis and Dolores Huerta served as honorary co-chairs.
Seven women coordinated marches outside the U.S. The women were: Brit-Agnes Svaeri, Oslo, Norway; Marissa McTasney, Toronto, Canada; Karen Olson, Geneva, Switzerland; Kerry Haggerty, London, United Kingdom; Rebecca Turnbow, Sydney, Australia; and Breanne Butler and Evvie Harmon in the United States. The women organized the international marches through social media and had weekly Skype meetings to plot strategy.
On January 12, the march organizers released a policy platform addressing reproductive rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, religious discrimination (primarily that against Muslim Americans), LGBTQ rights, gender and racial inequities (primarily those that favor men and Non-Hispanic whites, respectively), workers' rights, and other issues. "Build bridges, not walls" (a reference to Trump's proposals for a border wall) became popular worldwide after the Trump's inaugural address, and was a common refrain throughout the march.
The organizers also addressed environmental issues: "We believe that every person and every community in our nation has the right to clean water, clean air, and access to and enjoyment of public lands. We believe that our environment and our climate must be protected and that our land and natural resources cannot be exploited for corporate gain or greed – especially at the risk of public safety and health."
Originally billed as the "Million Women March", Wruble renamed the event to mirror the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the historic civil rights rally on the Mall where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. The rally also paid tribute to the 1997 Million Woman March in Philadelphia, in which hundreds of thousands of African American women are said to have participated.
Because of scheduling conflicts at the Lincoln Memorial, a permit was secured on December 9 to start the march on Independence Avenue at the southwest corner of the Capitol building and continue along the National Mall.
By January 20, 2017, 222,000 people had RSVP'd as going to the Washington, D.C., march and 251,000 had indicated interest. On January 16, 2017, Fox News reported that authorities were expecting "a crowd of almost 500,000 people", and the permit for the march issued by the National Park Service was revised by the head of D.C.'s Homeland Security department to half a million people—significantly more than the estimated attendance at President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony the previous day.