Thousands of women gathered in cities across the United States and around the world on the anniversary of the inauguration of President Donald Trump to call for equal rights in pay and health care, to denounce sexual harassment and to encourage women to run for office.
Marchers also addressed such issues as racial equality, gun control, immigrant protections and conservatives’ efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.
Crowd estimates for the march in Washington were down from last year’s gathering. But marches also were taking place in New York; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; Chicago; Denver, Colorado; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Palm Beach, Florida, where the president has a vacation home.
Registering to vote
Las Vegas is holding its rally on Sunday to coincide with a voter registration drive. Organizers of the drive are targeting states where Democrats and Republicans have about an equal chance of winning, and they’re hoping to register 1 million new voters.
The rallies were meant to follow up last year’s women’s march that took place immediately after Trump’s inauguration. Many women at that march indicated their opposition to the current president, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least 19 women.
Trump tweeted Saturday about the march:
Over the past year, stories about unequal pay for women and sexual harassment by powerful men have come to the forefront of the national conversation. Dozens of men, including movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey, NBC morning news host Matt Lauer, and Democratic Senator Al Franken, lost or resigned their jobs over allegations of sexual harassment.
Women also marched Saturday in Rome; Kampala, Uganda; Frankfurt, Germany; and Osaka, Japan, to protest sexual harassment. Marches were planned in Beijing; Buenos Aires and Nairobi, Kenya.
March for Life
On Friday, anti-abortion activists held their own march in Washington, an annual event known as March for Life. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke to the crowd via video from the White House Rose Garden.
“We are with you all the way,” Trump told the anti-abortion demonstrators. Pence told the crowd the president was “the most pro-life president in American history.”
…
