The fourth annual Women’s March called for more than gender equality

On Jan. 18, an estimated 10,000 activists came together to participate in the fourth annual Women’s March in Washington D.C. This is a lower number than the 500,000 activists who participated in the march in 2017, according to USA Today. Though there has been a steady decrease in the number of people who have attended the Women’s March, those who did participate made sure their opinions were loud and clear.

The focus for this year’s march was not only calling for gender equality and celebrating the centennial of women’s rights to vote, but activists also urged action to be taken for climate change, immigration policies and other pressing issues.

Among the list of issues, protestors called out the opposition of President Trump as many of the chants ordered him to be removed from office. This comes as the ongoing senate trials will determine whether Trump will become the first impeached president to be removed from office.

With the upcoming election, many of the signs protestors waved in the air showed support for electing America’s first female president, though there are only three females left in the Democratic party.

The National Public Radio also reported that this year’s march was different from previous years as it didn’t feature stage performances and celebrity speeches, instead of letting organizers walk alongside everybody else.

As activists chanted “Rise up: immigration justice, Rise up: my body my choice,” some participants would stand in place and point ahead with blindfolds over their eyes as the song ‘A Rapist in Your Path’, which was the protest anthem created by Chilean art collective Las Tesis, was sung in front of the White House.

The song brings awareness to the gender-based violence in Chile where multiple sexual violence cases are reported every day, according to the Chilean Network Against Violence against Women.

Along with the march occurring in D.C., numerous sister marches happened in cities across the nation and throughout the world including Norway, Thailand and Nigeria.

As other cities marched with the participants in D.C., Fargo was not among one of those cities as the Woman’s March set to be held on campus had to be rescheduled due to the recent snowstorm.

Though the Fargo march had to reschedule their plans, Bismarck was still able to hold their march as an estimated 60 activists marched through the cold weather, according to the Inforum.

The march in Bismarck, like the other marches across the country, had a focus on immigration as the marchers not only celebrated women’s rights but also offered their support to refugees. This support for refugees arose because Beltrami county in Minnesota recently became the first county in Minnesota and the second in the country to not take refugees after the County Board of Commission voted to opt-out of the United States Refugee Resettlement Program.

The Women’s March in Bismarck ended with a panel featuring Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Minnesota chapter, who discussed how negative perceptions of refugees needs to be changed.

Since the Women’s March had to be postponed in Fargo, those still interested in attending can mark their calendars for March 8, International Women’s Day, when the march is now planned to happen.