Just days after the Nov. 5 election, the Women’s March Foundation (WMF) organizers and supporters exchanged concerns, raised questions and proposed strategies to continue advocating for women’s rights. Under a second Donald Trump presidency, drastic and grave life-threatening changes are expected for gender equality, women’s reproductive rights and access to health care.
During “Reflecting Forward: A Post-Election Call to Action” – a virtual meeting held by the WMF, a nonprofit based in Los Angeles – the top recurring discussion was whether or not to march. Several participants, including Alexandra Weddell, expressed their desire to help organize and participate in a local women’s march.
“I feel that marches need to happen – and they need to happen now and tomorrow and the next day, and they need to continue to happen so that we can be loud and so that we can be heard,” said Weddell.
Emiliana Guereca, founder and president of WMF – which was launched following the 2016 election, around the same time as Washington D.C.-based Women’s March Inc. – said WMF currently does not have plans in the works 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 of utilizing their time and resources, especially due to the exorbitant costs of organizing marches.
“Marching is incredibly expensive, but, not only that, it is really time-consuming – we’re talking about working 12 to 14 hour days for a one-day event,” said Guereca, noting that planning marches is costly because they require staff, permits, insurance, security and clean-up crews.
“Right now, I do not want to allocate resources to [planning] a march,” she added.
In response to questions about why Trump won, Guereca said she believes Vice President Kamala Harris’ abbreviated campaign period posed a major challenge, emphasizing that Harris “ran a presidential campaign in four months that [normally] takes two years to build – or longer.”
Too many people, she said, still appear to remain unwilling to vote for a woman to serve as president of the United States.
“The devastating part for us was that folks elected Trump and they resoundingly said no to a female candidate and I do think that that needs to be acknowledged,” said Guereca, noting that she believes the widespread dissemination of disinformation was also a big contributing factor.
Looking forward, Guereca said that WMF staff will continue its work supporting women’s rights and reproductive freedoms, and continue “making sure that women are elected into office.”
Mirian Palacios, campaign manager for Women’s March Action – a sister organization 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 “there was more than just the presidency on the ballot.”
They did so by knocking on doors, sending out postcards and making calls to voters, she said.
“We made more than 1 million phone calls, [and] during the last few weeks of the election, we were averaging over 2,000 calls per day, locally and into states like Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin,” said Palacios, noting that they will continue these efforts because, although Harris did not win her bid for the presidency, they did help support successful female candidates in close U.S. Senate races and a key city council race in LA.
“Locally, we got our first woman LA City Council member – [Ysabel Jurado] – to ever serve for our district, where our office is located in Boyle Heights,” said Palacios. Jurado, a self-described progressive candidate, has been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America-LA (DSA-LA). She beat incumbent Kevin de León by just over 14% to represent LA 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, said Palacios.
“That’s our goal here – to continue electing women, but also understanding that our work is to make sure that once these elected officials at every level of government get into office, that they prioritize women’s rights and women’s socio-economic success,” 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, by joining or establishing clubs and coalitions, which can be just as effective and “just as important as marching,” according to Palacios.
“I also think that positive messaging is important,” added Guereca, “making sure that our young girls and women, trans and others understand that we’ve lost rights, and these are the steps that we need to take – being informed and working together – to protect the rights that we have left.”