Women’s March about the future, our children

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/01/2017 (2930 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Childhood memories of the day we marched come back to me in flashes. They arrive as still pictures captured by my eyes, and from a lofty vantage: my sapling legs dangling over my father’s shoulders, the Golden Boy, white banners.

The doves caught my attention. If I squint my mind’s eye I can still see them, flying in silhouettes painted on white fabric. They had round curves for bellies, and squiggles to suggest tail feathers. They carried olive branches.

“That means peace,” my dad told me, as I watched wide-eyed from his shoulders. “The doves stand for peace.”

So if doves flew over the people marching on Broadway Avenue, I knew then the march must mean peace too.

At the time, the late 1980s, the grinding global politics that animated Winnipeg’s old peace marches escaped me, but peace itself was easy for a child to grasp. Peace was perfectly simple: who, I thought, would not want that?

The tragedy of growing up, perhaps, is how adulthood fogs the crystal clarity of children’s gentle facts.

I thought about that on Saturday, as Winnipeggers spilled down Portage Avenue by the thousands. Through their presence, they amplified a global action that contained the voice of millions: voices full of hope, and resistance.

As the march left Portage Place, two tiny girls toddled beside their father. One wore a crisp white coat, the other a bright pink parka. What images will take flight in their minds, 30 years from now? What will they remember?

If nothing else, perhaps they will keep this picture: on one damp January day, Winnipeggers took to the street as friends and neighbours. They took to the street in groups that bound generations: as grandmothers, mothers and daughters.

The march was led by the drumbeat of indigenous women and elders. It rang with the voices of women of colour. It featured people of all genders, from all parts of the city and all walks of life: students, entrepreneurs, teachers and doctors.

At the heart of it were the children, bundled in coats and packed in strollers, watching wide-eyed as they rolled.

We marched for them, you know. In Seattle, in Washington, in London and Seoul, people took the streets to make a statement about the future. It was about the man in the White House, sure, but it was also about something greater.

The message need not be a complicated one. It can be this simple: we will defend our rights, and in great numbers.

To be sure, a myriad of deeper issues wove through the women’s marches. Much of that was highlighted in the weeks before Jan. 21, as some observers smugly declared internal divisions were tearing the events asunder.

Or, to quote a Jan. 5 headline in the New York Post: “The Women’s March on Washington is becoming a joke.”

As evidence, they pointed to forums where folks were hashing out the politics of resistance. Women of colour critiqued white march organizers on failures to address issues of race; this was invariably described as “infighting.”

But if anyone purports to uphold doing battle with ideas, well, this is what that looks like. It can be messy. And it should be understood not as a bug of feminist debate, but as a feature: this is how we learn to listen to each other.

Indeed, as Saturday’s marches swelled to bursting, it became clear this process did not make them any weaker.

Instead, the Women’s March surged with ideas, both international and local. In the United States, it spurred new projects to increase political engagement; in Winnipeg, folks cheered signs in solidarity with indigenous women.

Above all else, there is value in being seen, and being counted. And that is the legacy of these marches, too: when the streets are clear and the signs are packed away, our friends and neighbours know they are not alone.

One last thing. After the Winnipeg march was over, when there was time to sit and marvel at images flooding in from around the world, I heard a common complaint: “Why protest in Canada? Women here are already equal.”

Setting aside more pointed critiques of that statement, I would like to answer it, because to me it is quite simple. By marching here, we also marched for those who can’t, due to oppression or to circumstance. If women in Canada have rights that our sisters elsewhere do not share, then that only makes it more vital that we did march here.

After all, what use is the right to use our voices if we do not use them? If we are to consider Canada as a beacon for women’s rights, then that beacon must be tended, defended and regularly infused with new and brightened light.

This was not just about one president, or one nation, or one day in January 2017, it was about passing what we have done through generations. It is about showing our children their voices belong in the conversation.

At Portage and Main, as the Women’s March began its return to Portage Place, one woman with steel-grey hair turned to a young woman wearing bright lipstick. She rested her hand on the 20-something’s shoulder.

“This is all about you guys,” she said, laughing. “We’re getting old.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca