For women’s groups, events of the past year have generated a brutal mix of emotions. Movements like #MeToo surfaced anger and pain from years of physical or sexual abuse, and brought to light pervasive problems like pay inequality and intellectual sexism. At the same time, there was joy in celebrating the solidarity of coming together around a common cause.
No wonder, then, that women have been contacting Katherine Siemionko, head organizer of last year’s New York City Women’s March, asking about plans for a second march.
Siemionko, who heads Women’s Alliance, the nonprofit that grew out of last year’s ad hoc team of march planners, says that Women’s March 2.0 plans have rolled in from networked groups in cities across the country over the past week. New York’s event, to be held January 20, was announced in a press release in October.
“It’s kind of scary how it mirrors last year,” she say, describing how momentum picked up right around this time in 2016. “I’m getting calls from friends in Florida,” says Siemionko, People want to know if marches are happening in their cities and if not, they’re offering to plan one.
Last year, the first Women’s March —with its whimsical pink pussyhats paired with a dead-serious message about sexual violence— was announced for Washington and inspired sister marches in every US state and several cities globally. An estimated 4 million people marched nationwide, far exceeding expectations. Although the march was prompted by Hillary Clinton losing the election to US President Donald Trump (and held the day after his inauguration) it came to be about all the systems that threaten women’s equality, health, and human rights.
Importantly, it was also framed as a debut of a reinvigorated movement, not the culmination of one.
Here’s a look at what’s planned so far, according to a running list maintained by Women’s Alliance on Facebook.
All events are slated for Saturday, January 20, 2018.
*Registration for free tickets will be required in some cities. Check your local event page.
Notably, the Women’s March national team, who were behind last year’s March on Washington and the recent Women’s Convention in Detroit, has not yet made an announcement. Quartz has reached out to that organization and will update this post if we receive a response.
Should you go to one of the January marches, expect to see more tie-ins from other activist and special interest groups. The women’s marches network will kick off an initiative to register 1 million women to vote in conjunction with voters’ rights organizations, for instance. The project will continue throughout the year, ahead of the 2018 National Voter Registration Day in September and November’s midterm elections.
Simienko’s team is also in talks with local businesses in New York about fundraising and networking events, arts groups about a celebration of women in the arts, and the New York Public Library, which will be installing a display about the counterculture in Bryant Park, where that city’s march should wrap up if all goes as planned.
To address the #MeToo movement, organizers have invited nonprofits that support victims of sexual assault and members of the movement to speak on January 20, and are setting up themed live events, such as a panel on women’s rights that will potentially be posted on Facebook Live.
“Even today, I meet with people who left their jobs and started their own company or artists who have started their own product line because of [the march],” says Siemionko. “I’ve met women who have asked for raises successfully, or promotions. And I’ve met women who have found self-esteem that they didn’t know they had.”
Now, she says, she wants to put that positive energy back into the march.