'Our voices must be heard': Women in Washington DC on why they're marching on Donald Trump inauguration

‘I’m marching because I want to show those out there who are genuinely afraid of what’s to come in the next four years that they are not alone in their fight’

(Getty Images)

While about 800,000 people are expected to attend the inauguration of Donald Trump, at least 200,000 women will be marching on the streets of Washington DC, standing up for their rights and freedoms.

While 53 per cent of white women voters picked Mr Trump to be President, 94 per cent of black women and 68 per cent of Latina women voters chose Hillary Clinton.

The march is not directly anti-Trump, but it will give women a chance to make their voices heard and to potentially feel empowered by participating in the ground swell opposition.

The date of the march is also no coincidence. As the 45th President enters the White House, it is also the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision, a reminder of what activists describe as the need to remedy this “disastrous” decision and fix the “broken campaign finance system”.

Women’s groups, activists, artists, and many other women besides are expected to attend in what is likely to become the largest global movement since the opposition to the Iraq War more than a decade ago.

The mass crowd includes some of the women who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault, including former Apprentice candidate Summer Zervos, her lawyer Gloria Allred, and Ms Allred’s daughter and lawyer Lisa Bloom.

“On a train to DC filled with people going to the Women’s March because we are a nation that believes in women’s rights and is fired up!” wrote Ms Bloom.

Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in the San Francisco Bay Area, will give a speech at the march, on behalf of the 3.3 million American Muslims and Muslim women around the world, many of whom feel fear and suffer discrimination due to an extreme minority of radical jihadis carrying out terrorist attacks.

Laura Friedenbach, press secretary of democratic activist group Every Voice – an official sponsor of the march – told The Independent that she was looking forward to a positive and uplifting atmosphere, and to see all the people who are willing to stand up for their values.

“I’m marching because I want to show those out there who are genuinely afraid of what’s to come in the next four years that they are not alone in their fight – particularly for women, immigrants, people of colour, religious minorities, and others who may face the most direct threats from the incoming Trump administration,” she said.

Michele Dauber, the Stanford law professor who spearheads the movement to oust Judge Persky – the man who sentenced the Stanford swimmer to just six months for sexual assault – is marching in San Francisco.

She told The Independent that she was marching because she was “outraged” that someone who confessed to alleged sexual assault – the leaked 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which Mr Trump boasted about grabbing women’s genitals – has been elected President.

“I think that both shows how far we have to go in addressing rape culture and how dangerous this man is to women's rights,” she said.

“The idea that I live in a country that rejected the most qualified woman in history for the human embodiment of rape culture is so alienating and upsetting that I feel like a stranger in my country. I’m really glad I live in California where we didn’t elect him, or I don’t know how I would get through the day.”

She added that she was suffering from loss of sleep and panic attacks when she read and thought about Mr Trump’s plans in office, and how women, LGBT people and minorities would be impacted.

Travelling to the march has been act of organisation in itself. Women said they had booked entire train carriages as early as the day after the election to make sure they could travel to Washington DC and bring their families and friends with them.

One woman preparing for a large group of family and friends to descend on her house was Shelley Broderick, the dean of the law school at the University of the District of Columbia and the longest-serving woman Dean in the US. When she spoke to The Independent, she was in her kitchen making large vats of soup for the marchers.

She said she was “deeply depressed” about the risk to women’s rights: the threat of rolling back Roe V Wade, the 1973 law that guarantees a woman the right to an abortion at certain stages of her pregnancy, and the rolling back of Obamacare.

Planned Parenthood, the national family planning clinic that is fighting not to be defunded when the administration repeals the Affordable Care Act – although federal funding is already prohibited from being used for abortions – will be present.

“I hope and believe that President Trump will come to understand that the legal process we have in place will not allow some of the changes that he has claimed he can bring about,” said Ms Broderick.

“It’s just not as easy as he seems to think. I also hope that as he gets into the job and receives good counsel that he will modify some of the changes.”

Many women spoke with uncertainty of the security of the march.

At a time when the country is so divided and protesters have a recent history of violent clashes with the police, some marchers said they were fearful about being targeted.

But Ms Broderick was not going to be put off.

“We can’t live in a bubble. We’ve got to get out. There’s always chance of violence, but we must have our voices heard,” she said.