The Women’s March on Washington – you guessed it – does not represent all women
Let’s unpack this
In the two month interregnum since Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, viscerally disturbed and crestfallen Americans objecting Trump’s vision for the country have had ample time to cool off, regroup and present a series of concise and unchanging propositions for the President-elect. Perhaps they would capitalize on Trump’s populist leanings or propensity for brokering deals. We all know he’s a fan of tit-for-tat – and especially the former – so why couldn’t an organized movement bargain with an Ivanka-flanked populist president with little-to-no self restraint?
But this would be the pragmatic solution, and if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that virtue signaling and displays of moral superiority will now overtake the drive to actually get anything done.
Out of the ashes of the shellshocked has arisen the incoherent, inconsistent and self-destructive Women’s March on Washington, which as recently as Monday reasserted that, no, they do not actually advocate for all women. Uniting to confront a president who came under nearly universal fire for leaked audio revealing him joking about sexual assault seems like it should be an easy bipartisan effort. Instead of leveraging the apolitical opposition to Trump to hold his character to the fire or making a single, unifying demand, the Women’s March has decided to double down on identity politics, entangle itself in the unending infighting of intersectionality and exclude and attempt to silence millions of women in the process.
First came The New York Times report that the movement was dividing itself on racial lines. Then came the March’s flip-flopping on whether they supported sex workers, because obviously that is totally relevant to the legitimacy and policy plans of Donald Trump’s presidency.
However, most damning was the March’s expulsion of pro-life feminists.
Rather than explicate that the official platform of the March endorsed the legal protection of abortion, the movement doubled down on its culturally Marxist mandate that identity is a prescription for ideology.
This movement is not the feminist equivalent of the legendary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which represented and defending all Americans legally oppressed by Jim Crow laws and other civil restrictions. This movement was never about uniting women. It was never about actually achieving a policy bargain. And it was certainly never, ever about educating the public.
This is what culturally Marxist movements do. They operate under the guise of representing and liberating a demographic and then threatening to denounce and exclude anyone who refuses to conform to their specific set of ideological norms.
Philosophical disputes aside, these protests will lead to nothing except confirming the mainstream right’s suspicion that the left will dial their outrage to 11 regardless of Trump’s specific actions, delegitimizing any actually valid criticism. In addition, all of the Inaugural protests run antitehtical to the basis of Trump’s very ethos. Before being a populist, strongman or even an economic protectionist, Trump is first and foremost, the Troll-in-Chief.
So do you really think that Trump will question his own legitimacy because of a read-in of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish?
How about a poetry reading?
No. None of this is wise organization. We have a volatile president who is inheriting an executive branch with powers which have been expanded more under Barack Obama than any other president in modern history. Congress just passed the largest budget in American history, inflating our national debt by $10 trillion. Before even taking office, Trump has already bullied private firms into losing millions by keeping jobs in the country at the risk of personal punishment.
This is not an indictment of every woman or man who will march over the weekend, but it is a reminder that words are not action. Furthermore, dividing and silencing those who commit thought crime will counterintuitive to presenting a united front against a power hungry administration.
Last but not least, reconsider for a moment how much of a feminist you truly are if you’re willing to gain moral superiority on the backs of delegitimizing other women.