On the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, millions of women took to the streets in Washington D.C. and cities around the world to express collective rage about his election and show solidarity for women intent on fighting back against his presidency.
I was proud to be among them, right up front amid a sea of celebrities and elected and civic leaders. It was unforgettable and empowering.
Yet, as Trump’s second inauguration approaches, the call to march again for many of us is landing like a lead balloon.
Multiple women leaders of left-leaning or non-profit women’s organizations who I have reached out to since the election have said they have no interest in participating in the next women’s march, scheduled for Jan. 18, 2025, nor did they know others who planned to participate. All asked for anonymity for fear of alienating funders or colleagues, but responses ranged from a declarative “f-that” to a more thoughtful take that marching would be “performative.”
Overall, the consensus among the dozen leaders I spoke with was that it was a “bad idea.” One person who did speak publicly was Jotaka Eaddy, who organized some of the most powerful Black women in America to support Harris’ candidacy through Win With Black Women.
In her personal capacity, she posted on X that she did not plan to march and felt the funds required to put it on would be better spent supporting organizations run by women of color.
The question is, Why? The issues facing women in a second Trump term are manifold. His cabinet nominations of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general and Pete Hegseth for secretary of Defense are both deeply concerning.
Gaetz is accused of sex trafficking of underage girls and Hegseth of rape. Both have expressed regressive views of women, as have others in Trump’s inner circle and, of course, Trump himself. Elon Musk, who has a central role in Trump world, has said he believes birth control is bad for women.
For feminist leaders, it’s a grim, albeit unsurprising picture of a presidential “manosphere” empowered by both houses of Congress and a belief that they have a mandate. And, alarmingly, it comes when the future of access to birth control, Plan B and abortion rights all hang in the balance.
There appear to be three central issues as to why some women leaders who otherwise have been at the forefront of the contemporary women’s movement for so long are now turning away from the 2025 march.
For one thing, it’s easy to argue that the 2017 march didn’t work. While millions took to the streets and the event inspired a flurry of civic activity in the immediate term, it was not sustained, especially in this year’s election cycle.
To be sure, in the 2018 and 2022 elections, record numbers of women stepped up to run for office, many inspired by rage at Trump, but that number dropped off significantly since. Fewer women ran for Congress on the Democratic side this time than in past years. It may be that a kind of “resistance fatigue” set in, and many women did not feel they could sustain their activism, especially given the significant economic challenges triggered by the COVID pandemic and rising inequality.
Another reason is that fissures in the leadership and strategy of the first march have never been addressed. The 2017 event, which sprung from a call by activist Bob Bland on Facebook, was complicated and divisive from the start, despite the massive show of unity on the march day.
Right-of-center women felt excluded, and even conservative women who opposed Trump felt the agenda embraced by the march organizers was too far left with no space for them.
That issue seems to be especially problematic now. The platform articulated on the Women’s March Foundation website includes 18 “Values and Principals” covering a wide array of issues. It declares that “LGBTQIA Rights are Human Rights,” strongly backs abortion rights, and calls for “cessation [of] direct and indirect aggression caused by the war economy and the concentration of power in the hands of a wealthy elite who use political, social, and economic systems to safeguard and expand their power.” That kind of broad invective seems tone-deaf in the current climate.
Finally, marching does not, in this case, advance the real work that needs to be done to organize and transform electoral politics over the long term. Under the best of circumstances, uniting millions of women around 18 different issues established by a small group of left-wing leaders would be challenging but the 2024 election laid bare the reality that a huge swath of the female electorate, especially white women, is not compelled by that kind of politics. They not only don’t see themselves in the Democratic party but they voted for Trump.
As a result, this time, leaders and potential marchers recognize their goals could be better served by taking time to consider new ways of political organizing, more inclusive outreach, strategy and reflection that seems imperative if Democrats are to regain their majorities in future elections.
That’s not to say that throughout history, marches haven’t played a vital role in the struggles for political progress. The first American women’s march led by suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns in 1913 on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration was profoundly controversial and revolutionary.
It accelerated seven years of activism that ultimately led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving white women the right to vote. Of course, marches were a fundamental tool of the Civil Rights movement, the antiwar movement and more in the 1960s.
There will undoubtedly be another moment when women will be compelled to march en masse for their rights. And the 2025 march may very well turn out significant numbers of people who are motivated to descend on Washington.
But given the reticence of so many women leaders right now, it might instead be a good time to take a pause to think, plan and regroup for what will be the lifetime of activism and advocacy required to achieve the more perfect union so many women yearn to see.
Lauren Leader is co-founder and CEO of All In Together, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan women’s civic leadership organization.
