# So what is the womens' march supposed to accomplish? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 22, 2017, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822 "2017-01-22T13:26:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/81 "2017-01-23T03:57:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Once again, how kind of you to offer leftists your advice! If only the women’s march were more open to conservatives, you opine, and less progressive, it would be able to accomplish your–excuse me, I mean their–goals! Shhhhhh!!! Dammit, **LHoD** , if the man wants to remain complacently inattentive, just **let** him. [stare] Personally, I think **adaher** is probably right that the WMW movement unfortunately isn’t going to accomplish anything politically. Yup. Not a thing. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/82 "2017-01-23T04:16:10Z")
The fact that it’s a leftist march is kinda the point. I wasn’t giving advice to the left, but to the organizers, who wanted something more inclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/83 "2017-01-23T04:24:46Z")
Luckily what **adaher** thinks of the marches has no bearing whatsoever upon the ultimate results. Everyone says “Nothing will ever happen…” Until it does. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/84 "2017-01-23T04:25:18Z")
To be fair, I think that Democrats would be wise not to play holier than thou. We can argue the usual stuff later, but right now it’s normal vs. abnormal. I’m OK with pro-lifers marching against Trump, and they should be welcomed. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/85 "2017-01-23T04:29:09Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I wasn’t giving advice to the left, but to the organizers, who wanted something more inclusive. Where are you getting the notion that the organizers ever wanted to be “inclusive” of anti-abortion groups as partners in the march? It states right there in the WMW fundamental principles that they advocate “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education”. Of course, any abortion-rights opponents could still come to the march to protest other aspects of the Trump administration (since apparently his anti-abortion-rights stance is just fine with them), and for all I know there may have been some who did. But it’s silly to suggest that anti-abortion-rights organizations should have been official partners/sponsors in the march when they were firmly opposed to some of its principles. AFAICT, the only people who “wanted” this pairing were some anti-abortion-rights organizations themselves. Not to make the march more “inclusive”, but just to piggyback on the media attention. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/86 "2017-01-23T04:34:57Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > …The protests in the Vietnam war led to America leaving, and losing that war. Those protests were noted by the leadership in Hanoi and lead to their resolve to continue the fight, knowing that America would tire of it before they did… Excuse? That is several rather broad statements. First off, are you actually asserting that the US might have won the Viet Nam war had it not been for the protest movement? Because the movement was so powerful? I’d sure love to think so, bottom of my heart, I would love to. Even _did_, for a while. Also thought Jim Morrison was a poet for the new age, but got over that quicker, I’ve read autobiographies of NVA leaders, and they mention it in passing, but dismissively. Good to hear, like we might be pleased to hear that iranian youth would like to buy Taylor Swift CD’s, but foreign policy is not decided by such happy events. Now, we must grant that politics might have played a role in their candor, or lack thereof, and Heaven knows, those people were invested in their politics. To a degree most of us would find hard to comprehend. Some of them were fighting from tunnels their grandfathers had dug to fight the Japanese! (A popular saying of the time: “Welcome to Viet Nam, where you will encounter the bravest, most dedicated and resourceful men you will ever meet. They are the enemy, and you are here to kill them.”) The ah, alternative view is that there was _never_ a way to win that war by propping up a corrupt and unpopular regime. So, on that count, I find your assertion…unsubstantiated. (Damn but I’m being polite! I should get some anti-Warning points for this…) > [@](#): > > … In May and June 1966, for the first time, more Americans disapproved than approved… > **[The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison](https://news.gallup.com/poll/11998/iraqvietnam-comparison.aspx)** > > While it is too early to say whether Iraq will be similar to Vietnam in respect to the casualties and protraction, we can compare public opinion about Iraq to see how closely it mirrors the trend in public opinion about Vietnam. If public approval were the fulcrum upon which the war teetered, it would have ended a lot sooner, seems to me. Didn’t. (Remember '66 pretty well, it was the year I turned 18, a significant birthday. Though eighteen years and six months meant a lot more to my generation of young fools.) Maybe one thing I saw did, maybe had a real effect. The fat slobs on the sidelines, yelling “coward” and “traitor!”. They vets against the war showed up, one or two here, and then more. And there was Fat Slop with his mouth, and there was the moment he saw a vet marching with us in his campaign hat and his sleeve pinned up. His mouth shut so hard, so fast, you could hear it _snap_! But I digress. No, we couldn’t have decided it, because our war was lost the minute we sold our dignity to fight it. And because nobody was really listening to us. Not our leaders, not theirs. So why _then_, and why _now_? Well, for one thing, to paraphrase Gandhi, if you’re doing the right thing depends on whether you win or lose, you’re not doing the right thing to begin with. In my case, there is probably an element of sheer cussedness, bone headed stubborn. Can’t help it, abandoned by wolves, raised by Texans. And frankly, your guess is as good as mine. But we _are_ trying. Could use your help, if you’ve nothing better to do. Won’t blame you if you don’t. Just sayin’, is all. ---
**Author:** ![arfurvirus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@arfurvirus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arfurvirus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/87 "2017-01-23T04:37:40Z")
Soro’s and the radicals need some useful idiots to keep the fires stoked. America has had it with the #BLM propaganda and police executions, that’s a good part of what got Trump elected. people are sick of it. so instead make it “women’s issues” which sans being pro murdering your own child as “birth control” (responsibility avoidance) there isn’t much they can really complain about. OH, some locker room talk from 10 years ago, I’m sure women never say anything like that ever. Organizers have insisted that the march isn’t an anti-Trump protest but rather a rallying cry for women’s issues and a range of liberal causes that could be threatened by the Trump administration. The[event’s policy platform](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/584086c7be6594762f5ec56e/t/5877e24a29687f9613e546ff/1484251725855/WMW+Guiding+Vision+%26+Definition+of+Principles.pdf)covers issues such as racial profiling, climate change, abortion and LGBTQ rights. The official website lists 177 partners including Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, the NAACP and Voto Latino. It’s a reason to feed the media and Left’s rhetoric that Trump is “Literally Hitler” and unpopular. We know, (to many of the Left’s shirgrin) that he is popular, as the vote was pretty much split, and a landslide for him if you take out California, NewYork and vote fraud. Heck 47 states went Trump. Ironically it’s been co-opted already, the Black Bloc anarchists were getting violent and scumbags like Madonna were running their filthy mouths. ( doesn’t she still owe half the men in the country oral sex?) It’s a big to do about nothing, a tremendous waste of resources that could be used to real causes, homeless, battered women, education… instead its an anti trump me me me me look at me flash in the pan. pity really. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/88 "2017-01-23T04:39:15Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > I’m OK with pro-lifers marching against Trump, and they should be welcomed. AFAICT, nobody at the march was refusing to welcome any person of pro-life sentiments marching against Trump. **What wasn’t tolerated was using the march as a platform for anti-abortion-rights advocacy**. I find it a bit suspicious that everybody who’s pulling a sad face about lack of “unity” in this case is assuming that it’s the WMW organizers who should have backed off from the abortion-rights principle in order to allow anti-abortion-rights advocates a platform for their position, because it would have been more “inclusive”. Why isn’t anybody saying to the self-proclaimed feminist pro-life groups “Okay, if you’re such ardent feminists and so opposed to Trump, then _you_ deprioritize your stance on abortion for this one event and march with fellow feminists for other reasons, as individual participants?” Why shouldn’t the inclusivity come from **their** side? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/89 "2017-01-23T04:43:32Z")
> [@arfurvirus](#): > > Soro’s and the radicals need some useful idiots… OH, some locker room talk from 10 years ago, I’m sure women never say anything like that ever… and a landslide for him if you take out California, NewYork and vote fraud…instead its an anti trump me me me me look at me flash in the pan. pity really. Soros? Voter fraud? I’m too old for this right now, maybe I’ll get younger tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/90 "2017-01-23T04:45:39Z")
Clearly, this March on Washington counts as a revolutionary coup. Elizabeth Warren is President of the United States now. Also, the American Nazi Party is outlawed. :rolleyes: [/snark] Actually, what I’ve been seeing people saying is that it made them feel less alone in the long, tedious work of calling their Congresshorrors to advocate against the Trump/hardliner agenda. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/91 "2017-01-23T04:48:21Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I think you misunderstand. A movement can work by changing a party from within, or by widening support for a cause. These marches fail at both. The first, because Democrats never translate these movements into actual political action, and the second, because they went out of their way to alienate non-liberal women. Most women in the USA are pro-choice, and many very insistently so. I’m all for working across the pro-life/pro-choice divide, but son, sometimes you gotta go with the party you have. Can you imagine the TEA Party working with an anti-gun sponsor? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/92 "2017-01-23T04:49:42Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The fact that it’s a leftist march is kinda the point. I wasn’t giving advice to the left, but to the organizers, who wanted something more inclusive. OK, this is just nuts, and I have to say I find it surprising coming from one of the more articulate conservative posters here. If this represents modern American conservative thought, then the hope of building any sort of reality-based bridge to it is pretty much nil. To wit, from your prior screed: > [@](#): > > 1. Okay, it looks like rather than a women’s march, this is a liberal women’s march, with a manifesto that is basically the Green Party’s platform. Which means it is doomed to irrelevance politically. Perhaps you’d care to factually support this claim, because the main thing I’ve been hearing from the organizers that has any relevance here is that they accept the scientific consensus on climate change and consider it a major problem, as does basically every legitimate climate scientist on earth. If this is a “Green Party platform”, then I fear that it’s Republicans who are doomed to irrelevance. The momentum of ignorance and denial can only coast so far against the weight of evidence. > [@](#): > > 1. That does not mean the women’s march isn’t an event of great historical importance. As an expression of solidarity among liberal women and their male allies, it matters in a symbolic sense. The march is in support of women’s rights and opposition to Trump – causes that many conservatives have also supported. And it’s a lot more than just “symbolic”. > [@](#): > > 1. It looks like the organizers wanted the march to be a unifying force for ALL women, but it broke down pretty quickly into squabbling over whether one could be pro-life and a feminist. That was a mistake. Those pro-life organizations can bring the marchers and the marches would have been even huger if they’d been allowed to share sponsorship and rally their troops. And it also would have been impossible for conservatives to ignore. Since it degenerated into a strictly liberal women’s march, we are free to ignore it now. It poses zero threat to us politically. So the party of personal liberty that stands against Big Government and government intrusion into private life is so rabidly anti-abortion that it considers women’s rights to be a “strictly liberal” cause that is so extreme that it poses zero threat to the Republican ideology? Because the party of personal liberty that stands against Big Government and government intrusion into private life is going to intrude right into women’s bodies and dictate what they may or may not do with their own bodies based on entirely subjective, religiously motivated articles of faith with zero scientific backing, much as scientists were once persecuted for saying things about creation and the solar system that were deemed offensive to God and contrary to the Bible. “Pro-choice” isn’t a euphemism – it means literally what it says: keep the government and the onerous inflexible oppression of law out of intensely personal, subjective matters. Conservatives hypocritically believe the opposite when it suits them, despite proclaiming their love of liberty. Yes, if this is American conservatism, then as its standard bearer the Republican Party has a terrific future, especially with climate change denial thrown in! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/93 "2017-01-23T04:49:46Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/94 "2017-01-23T05:13:01Z")
WHatever your opinions on abortion (personally I am pro _its a damn medical procedure, please please please stop making it a social issue_), if they have actually prevented people who support them WRT Trump from participating because they oppose them on other issues; then that is piss poor politics and organization. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/95 "2017-01-23T05:23:13Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The march is in support of women’s rights and opposition to Trump – causes that many conservatives have also supported. And it’s a lot more than just “symbolic”. In what way is it “more than” symbolic? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/96 "2017-01-23T05:36:06Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Luckily what **adaher** thinks of the marches has no bearing whatsoever upon the ultimate results. > > Everyone says “Nothing will ever happen…” Until it does. Because Occupy Wall Street made such a difference! Sheesh, you can’t even articulate what might happen! Just. Something. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/97 "2017-01-23T05:39:54Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Most women in the USA are pro-choice, and many very insistently so. I’m all for working across the pro-life/pro-choice divide, but son, sometimes you gotta go with the party you have. > > Can you imagine the TEA Party working with an anti-gun sponsor? You’re right that most women are pro-choice, but it’s a rather small majority, 54%: > **[Americans Choose "Pro-Choice" for First Time in Seven Years](https://news.gallup.com/poll/183434/americans-choose-pro-choice-first-time-seven-years.aspx)** > > Half of Americans consider themselves "pro-choice" on abortion, surpassing the 44% of the country identifying as "pro-life." This is the first time since 2008 that "pro-choice" has been the prevailing view by a significant margin. However, the numbers go up and down, generally staying pretty close to 50-50. It’s hard to say you represent women when you exclude the views of 46%. And often a majority(as recently as 2013). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/98 "2017-01-23T06:10:23Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s hard to say you represent women when you exclude the views of 46%. :dubious: :dubious: And what percentage of women do you think support the Black Lives Matter movement against racial inequities in the criminal justice system? That was part of the WMW Unity Principles too, although only about 40% of all Americans support it. What percentage of women do you think agree that gender expression is nonbinary and should not be governed by gender stereotypes? That too is in the Unity Principles. No, all this tut-tutting about “inclusivity” of anti-abortion-rights perspectives is just hypocritical concern trolling. The WMW principles are intended to be **for** all women (and non-women), but that doesn’t mean that all women have to **agree** with them, or that they need to restrict them to a list that some unspecified supermajority of women already agree with. > [@AK84](#): > > […] if they have actually prevented people who support them WRT Trump from participating because they oppose them on other issues; then that is piss poor politics and organization. In the first place, as I noted, nobody was prevented from participating in the march on the basis of their personal beliefs. **The only thing that was prevented was pro-life groups using the march as a platform for anti-abortion-rights advocacy.** And given that the organizers ended up with about half a million marchers, around one or two hundred thousand more than they had anticipated, it doesn’t sound as though excluding the anti-abortion-rights groups from co-sponsorship was really such a “piss-poor organization” move. Bear in mind that most organized abortion-rights opponents are conservative on other issues as well. The biggest feminist pro-life organization, “Feminists for Life” has IIRC under 50,000 members. The 11-million-member National Right to Life Committee, on the other hand, is a mostly conservative movement. So it’s quite likely that the WMW would actually have **lost** more supporters than it gained by partnering with anti-abortion-rights groups. But don’t let that stop you from getting in touch with the organizers to tell them how “piss poor” their organizational strategy was; I’m sure they’ll be very grateful to have a man explain it to them. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/99 "2017-01-23T06:26:57Z")
You ain’t been mansplained until you been Trumpsplained. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/100 "2017-01-23T06:39:32Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I think you misunderstand. A movement can work by changing a party from within, or by widening support for a cause. These marches fail at both. The first, because Democrats never translate these movements into actual political action, and the second, because they went out of their way to alienate non-liberal women. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been vocal in encouraging their supporters to use the bottom up approach and run in as many local government posts as possible and seem to be having some success. The marches make a good media spectacle and send a message to the new administration. It’s possible to do both at once. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822.md?page=6)