# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/141 "2017-01-23T16:55:39Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > We’ve had this discussion before, and it seemed like the consensus was that “lie” / “liar” isn’t the right term if someone sincerely believes something that’s a mistake-of-fact. Is Trump and exception to that rule? Sounds like a sociopath, doesn’t know right from wrong and doesn’t care. ---
**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, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/142 "2017-01-23T16:58:10Z")
As a fellow lawyer I have to say I sympathise with KellyAnn Conway. “Alternative facts” is one of those killer terms which sound awesome inside your head. And then you say them… ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/143 "2017-01-23T17:00:44Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Sounds like a sociopath, doesn’t know right from wrong and doesn’t care. In the past, when HRC was accused of “lying” about things like whether her server contained classified information, for one example, Dopers here defended her and said we shouldn’t call her a “liar” for that, because, while she said something not true, she believed what she was saying was correct at the time that she said it (I’m not going to bother to dig through the archives to try to find this exchange). Is it your opinion that being sincerely mistaken about a fact makes one a sociopath? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/144 "2017-01-23T17:14:02Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You agreed that “Obama said some things that turned out not to be true, sure, he’s no paragon of honesty.” Because of those “lies” / inaccurate statements, some conservatives felt like they could not “trust anything coming from the White house, until it’s fact checked”. How is that NOT a feeling with a rational basis? Because the overwhelming majority of what came out of Obama’s mouth was true. What you say is true on the most trivial level–that is, you shouldn’t trust anyone on matters of great importance without verifying what they’re saying. If that’s what you meant, then specifying that conservatives (not everyone) felt that way for the last eight years (not for their entire lives) was a silly specification. If, however, you meant that conservatives felt they needed to do extraordinary fact-checking on the White House during Obama’s tenure, as we feel we need to do for Trump, it’s a false equivalence. Obama was dishonest, but dishonest within normal parameters. Trump can’t stop lying. You keep attempting to draw an equivalence between Trump and Obama, or between Trump and Clinton. Do you honestly believe that in the matter of honesty, Trump is in the same league as either of these Democrats? ---
**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, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/145 "2017-01-23T17:19:06Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Which is why the march can’t claim to represent women as a whole, but only a particular subset of women, ie liberal women, or in other words, 25% of the population. In the first place, where are you getting your assertion that the WMW claims “to represent women as a whole” **based solely on demographic percentages of agreement with specific items in the Unity Principles**? Was you there, Charlie? Because _I_ was, and I didn’t see any claims at all from anyone that our claim to be a “women’s” march derived from having majorities of women agree with each, or any, of the specific principles. In the second place, you are conveniently ignoring my earlier question about the various **other** principles that also don’t have majority support among US women as a whole. Why are you continuing to piss and moan about lack of majority “inclusivity” due to the abortion-rights principle **when it’s clearly obvious that even _without_ the abortion-rights principle there would _still_ be principles that majorities of US women don’t agree with, such as support for BLM and gender non-binarism?** In the third place, you seem to be forgetting that **an overwhelming majority of female abortion-rights opponents in the US actually support Trump**. They wouldn’t have joined a march to protest Trump administration policies no matter how “inclusive” it tried to be on abortion issues. Another thing to remember is that an important partner in the WMW, and a very important reason that a lot of women were marching, is Planned Parenthood. Abortion-rights opponents have been mounting and encouraging a series of extremely dishonest attacks on PP, from the deceptive “sold baby parts” videos to propagating false information about the role of abortion in the services PP provides (which is actually quite small). Why should the WMW be expected to make common cause with any of those lying cranks? What we need to do is call them out on their lies and demand their apologies, not beg for their cooperation. (In fact, as I noted, the begging seems to have been all the other way when it came to WMW participation, and I’m glad it wasn’t successful.) As other posters have noted, you would never dream of complaining like this about a conservative protest excluding, say, gun control organizations from co-sponsorship. (Especially if the gun control organizations had deliberately spread damaging lies about the NRA, for instance.) So yeah, all your sighs and head-shaking about lack of “inclusivity” in the WMW go right into the file marked “concern trolling”. Via its convenient circular aperture. ---
**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, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/146 "2017-01-23T17:21:13Z")
In other news, Trump restores ban on[funding abortion overseas](http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/abortion/315652-trump-signs-executive-order-reinstating-global-gag-rule-on). Everything else aside, I find it hypocritical, do you seriously think the Donald has never had to pay for convenient abortion? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/147 "2017-01-23T17:30:45Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Because the overwhelming majority of what came out of Obama’s mouth was true. > > What you say is true on the most trivial level–that is, you shouldn’t trust anyone on matters of great importance without verifying what they’re saying. If that’s what you meant, then specifying that conservatives (not everyone) felt that way for the last eight years (not for their entire lives) was a silly specification. > > If, however, you meant that conservatives felt they needed to do extraordinary fact-checking on the White House during Obama’s tenure, as we feel we need to do for Trump, it’s a false equivalence. Obama was dishonest, but dishonest within normal parameters. Trump can’t stop lying. Let’s recap: Morgenstern said “I will not be able to trust anything coming from the White house, until it’s fact checked, from this point on.” My response was “Most conservatives felt that way for the last eight years too.” You and elucidator and Vinyl Turnip all seemed to jump at that with various forms of ‘Obama and Trump are not equivalent’ arguments. I pointed out that I wasn’t making any claim of equivalence. You said “their feelings had no rational basis” (this is where you really went off the rails). You have acknowledged that “Obama was dishonest”, so feeling like one needs to fact-check the things he says has a perfectly rational basis: He’s said things that were not true. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > You keep attempting to draw an equivalence between Trump and Obama, or between Trump and Clinton. Do you honestly believe that in the matter of honesty, Trump is in the same league as either of these Democrats? Yes, but it’s not the argument I’ve been making here in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/148 "2017-01-23T18:20:50Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > “Speaking their mind” involved pressuring Republicans to do what they wanted, and punishing those Republicans who didn’t. Until a willingness to fire Democratic incumbents is manifested, even at the risk of losing seats to Republicans as a result, nothing is actually going to happen. That will always be Democrats’ weakness. They can’t get people to vote consisently in general elections, and they are afraid to pull the trigger on incumbents in primaries. I think this is right. The principled liberal haven’t stuck to their principles at the risk of losing seats since the Nader voters got blamed for Bush winning the 2000 election. All you have to do is tell liberals that not voting for the establishment candidate is exactly the same thing as voting for the pussy-grabbing Republican. Remind them about Nader voters in 2000 and they will hang their heads and either stay home or swallow hard and pull the lever for the corrupt, cheating plutocrat that masquerades as a Liberal. > [@](#): > > The march organizers also squandered their chance to appeal beyond the liberal base by caving into liberal activist group’s pressure to exclude a pro-life group from sponsorship. That is not an issue on which either party seems willing to expand their tent. The left has an orthodoxy that is every bit as inflexible as the right. How many pro-gun groups do you think the left would embrace? ---
**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, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/149 "2017-01-23T18:28:57Z")
I have a feeling that “alternative facts” is going to be a persistent theme of this administration. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/150 "2017-01-23T19:10:46Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > As a fellow lawyer I have to say I sympathise with KellyAnn Conway. “Alternative facts” is one of those killer terms which sound awesome inside your head. And then you say them… As a non-lawyer, I guess I’m more at liberty to feel she deserves everything she gets, being that nobody forced her to sign on as the Primadonnie’s chief turd-polisher. ---
**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, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/151 "2017-01-23T19:28:53Z")
She is good at it, no two ways around it. Saw her one on one with Rachel Maddow, who is no slouch, and they went to a clear draw. Kellyanne DeVil evaded, slid, ducked and rolled, all unflappable, explaining pure horseshit to Rachel as if they were both a couple of girlfriends, talking in the kitchen over coffee while the kids play outside. There are areas of life where sincerity is a definite handicap. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/152 "2017-01-23T19:34:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Let’s recap: > > Morgenstern said “I will not be able to trust anything coming from the White house, until it’s fact checked, from this point on.” > > My response was “Most conservatives felt that way for the last eight years too.” > > You and elucidator and Vinyl Turnip all seemed to jump at that with various forms of ‘Obama and Trump are not equivalent’ arguments. > > I pointed out that I wasn’t making any claim of equivalence. > > You said “their feelings had no rational basis” (this is where you really went off the rails). You have acknowledged that “Obama was dishonest”, so feeling like one needs to fact-check the things he says has a perfectly rational basis: He’s said things that were not true. Yup. That’s a recap. The bits about where I went off the rails? Ridonculous. When you said, “Most conservatives felt that way,” you were clearly drawing an equivalence between conservative feelings and liberal feelings. It’s a false equivalence, for the reasons I gave, except on a completely trivial scale. If you want to continue bobbing and weaving, that’s your right, but I don’t see much interesting about it. ---
**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, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/153 "2017-01-23T19:41:16Z")
Not trying to win, just refusing to lose. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/154 "2017-01-23T20:16:01Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > In the past, when HRC was accused of “lying” about things like whether her server contained classified information, for one example, Dopers here defended her and said we shouldn’t call her a “liar” for that, because, while she said something not true, she believed what she was saying was correct at the time that she said it… If in fact a person sincerely believes what they are saying is true, that’s correct. They are not “lying.” A lie is the act of deliberately stating something that is false with the intent of conveying the impression that it is true. If you write a math test and get some of the questions wrong despite your best efforts, your answers are not “lies.” Whether Hillary Clinton has never lied or not is a different matter; of course she has lied, she’s a career politician. Perhaps in that case she was lying, or not, I don’t know. Do you think it’s reasonable to believe Sean Spicer genuinely believed that the media were reporting lies about the inauguration crowd, and that in saying the things he said, he honestly believed them to be true? Do you believe KellyAnne Conway actually, sincerely believes that there is such a thing as an “alternative fact,” where two _absolutely_ contradictory things that both be true? ---
**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, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/155 "2017-01-23T20:45:16Z")
> [@arfurvirus](#): > > 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. Bullshit. We all heard what he said, and it wasn’t ‘locker room talk.’ You just decided to rationalize it away. If it were Obama who said that very thing, you’d be screaming to the high heavens. > [@](#): > > 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. So they’re not against Trump, just what he’s going to do. Tell yourself another whopper. > [@](#): > > It’s a reason to feed the media and Left’s rhetoric that Trump is “Literally Hitler” and unpopular. Yet another unfounded accusation twisted from the rational comparison of the German people voting for anyone who promised change to the American people doing the same, and meant to make Trump look like he’s being persecuted by a bunch of cranks. (Of course, Americans were in far less dire straits, and far less dire than the Thunderer-in-Chief portrayed it.) > [@](#): > > 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. The word is _ **chagrin** _. Ignorance isn’t pretty. And maybe you should look at an actual electoral map sometime. Clinton won TWENTY states. Sorry if that doesn’t fit with your ‘alternative facts.’ > [@](#): > > 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. I’m getting really sick and tired of suffering fools gladly, warnings be damned. You’re doing nothing but preaching to the choir. No one here is changing their mind because of your propaganda. ---
**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, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/156 "2017-01-23T20:52:57Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Because Occupy Wall Street made such a difference! > > Sheesh, you can’t even articulate what might happen! Just. Something. Forgive me, I didn’t realize it was my responsibility to explain to you the goals of the protests. But then you’d just spend your time telling us how unrealistic and futile they are, so why bother? Let me know when man walks on the moon. Oh. Right. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/157 "2017-01-23T20:55:06Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > … Do you believe KellyAnne Conway actually, sincerely believes that there is such a thing as an “alternative fact,” where two _absolutely_ contradictory things that both be true? It’s quantum stuff. And people thought these guys were anti-science! ---
**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, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/158 "2017-01-23T21:20:14Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > In what way is it “more than” symbolic? The difference between something that is purely symbolic, like raising a flag, and something obviously tangible like a military invasion, is a pretty broad continuum where the difference is often a matter of degree and of perspective. One may as well argue that all the civil rights protests of past decades were “purely symbolic”. In this case, the magnitude and significance of the event seems to reduce the right-wing claims of “purely symbolic” to the same realm of “alternative facts” as the claim that far more people showed up for the inauguration than for the march. There was good reason that the march spawned at least four different thoughtful and analytic articles in the _New Yorker_, which seems like an awful lot of press for something that’s supposed to be purely symbolic: Sarah Larson’s _Scenes from the March_, Joshua Rothman’s _A Spiritual March on Washington_, Jia Tolentino’s _The Radical Possibility of the Women’s March_, and Roger Angell’s _Me, Too_. As Tolentino said in her preface, “the crowds on Saturday were so enormous, so radiant with love and dissent, that a broader alignment seemed possible.” Angell echoed a similar theme when he characterized the event as “looking and listening for togetherness after Trump’s Inauguration.” And that’s the point. It’s energizing and unifying – rather than sitting at home in despair, it inspires people to take action, like [running for office](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19942419&postcount=102) or continuing to take further action to change public opinion, which incidentally already seems to be changing, judging from Trump’s plunging popularity. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > Argh. I’m pretty sure the Bible\* doesn’t \*say that? Don’t blame the text for the politics of the church, thanks. Instead of literal-minded snark, the question you should be asking is whether the oppressive and intrusive policies of the anti-abortion zealots, which have so many tragic real-life consequences, are reason-based and rationally supportable, or whether they’re emotional and subjective knee-jerk reactions that are heavily influenced by religious dogma. Intolerant authoritarian religious dogmatism straight out of the dark ages has rarely had much respect for human rights and freedoms. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/159 "2017-01-23T21:31:40Z")
for historical reference - > [@adaher](#): > > So what is the womens’ march supposed to accomplish? > I’ve seen this movie many times before. Liberal groups draw huge numbers, make huge headlines, and then they go home and nothing changes. Contrast that to the Tea Party, which had merely okay numbers but sent 70 Tea Party Congressmen to Washington and changed everything. > > If this is intended as nothing more than an expressive gesture, then I apologize and will move on, but the media is reporting this as if it really, really matters and portends something important to come. > > So is something supposed to happen here once the marches end? Or are the marches the end in themselves? > [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Forgive me, I didn’t realize it was my responsibility to explain to you the goals of the protests. But then you’d just spend your time telling us how unrealistic and futile they are, so why bother? (post shortened) It’s not your responsibility, but it is the theme of this thread. **So what is the womens’ march supposed to accomplish?** ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822/160 "2017-01-23T21:35:52Z")
The purpose was to anger and confuse conservatives by showing that women have opinions. Mission accomplished! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-the-womens-march-supposed-to-accomplish/777822.md?page=9)