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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Erin Durkin (now), Mattha Busby (earlier)

Women’s March 2019: thousands around the world march to demand gender equality - as it happened

We’re wrapping up our live coverage of the 2019 Women’s March. Thanks for reading.

A few more images from marches around the country:

Women’s March 2019 - Washington, DCWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 19: Demonstrators display their signs during the 2019 Women’s March on January 19, 2019 in Washington, DC. Thousands of women gathered in the US capital and across the country to support women’s rights and to oppose President Donald Trump’s policies. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images)
Women’s March 2019 - Washington, DC
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 19: Demonstrators display their signs during the 2019 Women’s March on January 19, 2019 in Washington, DC. Thousands of women gathered in the US capital and across the country to support women’s rights and to oppose President Donald Trump’s policies. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images) Photograph: Paul Morigi/Getty Images
Participants in the Women’s March in Seattle, march through downtown, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. Cities big and small across the Pacific Northwest held versions or multiple versions of the Women’s March over the weekend, mirroring a national march in Washington, DC. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Participants in the Women’s March in Seattle, march through downtown, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. Cities big and small across the Pacific Northwest held versions or multiple versions of the Women’s March over the weekend, mirroring a national march in Washington, DC. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP
A participant in the Seattle Women’s March carries a sign that reads “Trumpty Dumpty Fall Off Your Wall” Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019 in downtown Seattle. Cities big and small across the Pacific Northwest held versions or multiple versions of the Women’s March over the weekend, mirroring a national march in Washington, DC. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
A participant in the Seattle Women’s March carries a sign that reads “Trumpty Dumpty Fall Off Your Wall” Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019 in downtown Seattle. Cities big and small across the Pacific Northwest held versions or multiple versions of the Women’s March over the weekend, mirroring a national march in Washington, DC. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP
A demonstrators holds a sign against “Anti-Semitism” as she joins the Women’s March in Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
A demonstrators holds a sign against “Anti-Semitism” as she joins the Women’s March in Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/AP
US-POLITICS-PROTEST-WOMENWendy Jehlen is emotional as she watches a friend on stage during the 2019 Women’s March at Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, January 19, 2019. (Photo by Joseph PREZIOSO / AFP)JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images
US-POLITICS-PROTEST-WOMEN
Wendy Jehlen is emotional as she watches a friend on stage during the 2019 Women’s March at Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, January 19, 2019. (Photo by Joseph PREZIOSO / AFP)JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images
Women’s March 2019 in New YorkNEW YORK, USA - JANUARY 19: People participate in the Women’s March in Columbus Circle in New York, United States on January 19, 2019. (Photo by Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Women’s March 2019 in New York
NEW YORK, USA - JANUARY 19: People participate in the Women’s March in Columbus Circle in New York, United States on January 19, 2019. (Photo by Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Women’s March in Washington DCepaselect epa07300925 Supporters of the annual Women’s March walk down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, USA, 19 January 2019. It is the third time the organization has hit the streets of DC to protest the policies of US President Donald J. Trump. Though this year the organization has come under scrutiny for co-president Tamika Mallory’s association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
Women’s March in Washington DC
Supporters of the annual Women’s March walk down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, USA, 19 January 2019. It is the third time the organization has hit the streets of DC to protest the policies of US President Donald J. Trump. Though this year the organization has come under scrutiny for co-president Tamika Mallory’s association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Women’s March 2019 in New YorkNEW YORK, USA - JANUARY 19: People participate in the Women’s March in New York, United States on January 19, 2019. (Photo by Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Women’s March 2019 in New York
NEW YORK, USA - JANUARY 19: People participate in the Women’s March in New York, United States on January 19, 2019. (Photo by Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Updated

At the conclusion of the Washington rally, indigenous women performed a song for missing women and girls.

The rally in Washington, DC has wrapped up, with a speaker giving the crowd the closing message: “In November 2020, vote for anybody who’s not Donald Trump.”

A snowy backdrop in Vermont for the march outside the state capitol there.

Rep. Katie Hill, another member of Congress who took office with a record number of women this month, spoke to the march in Los Angeles.

“We are women, we are girls, we are lesbian, we are trans, we are Jewish, we are Muslim, we are black, we are brown, and we’re not going back,” she said, according to a video posted by the Press Telegram.

The crowd in Washington, DC today is estimated at about 100,000 people, according to the Associated Press.

The march itself took about an hour and moved four blocks west along Pennsylvania Avenue past the Trump International Hotel before looping back to Freedom Plaza, where the rally remains underway.

The AP spotted a few more signs: “Strong women only fear weak men” and “MOOD: Still pretty mad about Kavanaugh.”

At the Los Angeles Women’s March, demonstrators don costumes from the dystopian TV show “Handmaid’s Tale.”

More from LA:

In Boston, Rep. Ayanna Pressley recalled that at the original 2017 Women’s March, “We raised signs that said, ‘Today we march, tomorrow we run.’”

“I think they thought we were just being poetic,” she said. Instead, a record number of women were elected to Congress last year. Pressley defeated a longtime Democratic incumbent to win her seat. “I have the honor of being your Congresswoman,” she said, according to a video posted by WBZ.

Updated

“Being polite is not the same thing as being quiet,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at a second Women’s March event in New York. “Oftentimes the most righteous thing you can do is shake the table.”

“Justice is not a concept we read about in a book,” she said. “Justice is about the water we drink. Justice is about the air we breathe. Justice is about how easy it is to vote. Justice is about how much ladies get paid. Justice is about if we can stay with our children after we have them for a just amount of time.”

Former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito flips off the Trump International Hotel and Tower in a photo she posted from the march.

Updated

“Donald Trump is a racist madman,” said Christina Jimenez, the co-founder of United We Dream, which represents young immigrants.

She compared Trump’s “white supremacist” views to a “cancer” that has spread throughout the country.

“All of us are going to stop him,” she said. “We are going to stop white supremacy together.”

She said she would oppose any compromise proposed by Trump later today in exchange for his border wall. “We are going to say no,” she said.

Updated

Here’s a video with scenes from marches in Washington, Berlin and London.

Newly-elected Rep. Ayanna Pressley is marching in Boston.

Demonstrators are marching through the snow in Toronto.

Another creative sign out of the New York City march:

Jamie Rodny, a housing discrimination investigator at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said she was speaking out for 800,000 federal employees who are not getting paid because of the government shutdown.

“We are suffering. Our families are suffering financially, emotionally, and mentally because of this Trump shutdown. And I am here to demand that President Trump, Vice President Pence, Senator McConnell, and everyone in Congress end this government shutdown now,” said Rodny, a member of the National Federation of Federal Employees.

She said the workers have been “put on a path to financial ruin” because of Trump’s demand for a wall that “we do not need, we do not want - it is useless.”

Ana Maria Archila, a leader of the Center for Popular Democracy, was one of the protesters who famously confronted Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator, urging him to oppose the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault.

“I found myself face to face with a man who has been invested with so much power in our society,” she told the Women’s March crowd. “I forced him...to listen to our stories, to listen to our rage.”

She urged demonstrators to “join me again in forcing elected officials to look us in the eye.”

“Over the last two years we have been tested, we have been forced to show up and we have done that again and again,” she said. “Democracy does not exist without us.”

Senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand addressed the Women’s March in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Women’s March’s four co-chairs addressed the crowd in Washington, DC.

“The women’s wave is absolutely rising,” said Bob Bland, who brought her two daughters on stage with her. “It’s truly just the beginning, because we just two months ago voted in the most diverse, women-centered Congress in history.”

“To anyone who doubts their place in the women’s march: you are welcome here,” said Carmen Perez, another co-chair.

“No matter what they say, no matter what they write, I will not bend. My back is up straight,” said Tamika Mallory, who has been at the center of accusations of antisemitism in the organization. “I am telling you: I love all people.”

“To my Muslim sisters, I see you,” Mallory said. “To my Latina sisters, I see you. To my Asian sisters, I see you. To my disabled sisters, I see you. And to my Jewish sisters: Do not let anyone tell you who I am. I see all of you.”

Linda Sarsour said American communities are “under attack” by Donald Trump’s administration, condemning a ‘president and administration that cages children, that throws tear gas at human beings at the border.”

She touted the historic firsts among women elected to Congress and addressed Donald Trump’s expected announcement this afternoon, where he is reportedly preparing to offer a deal in order to get money for his border wall.

“We don’t care what you got to offer,” she said. “Our answer to a wall in this country is absolutely not.”

Updated

Nina Turner, the president of Our Revolution, is decrying the government shutdown.

“We have almost 1 million of our sisters and brothers who are not receiving their paycheck, because someone decided to have a temper tantrum,” she said from the stage at the march in Washington.

“Folks need to eat everyday, pay their mortgage everyday, get their medicine everyday,” she said, adding of members of Congress, “They all need to be in a room and never come out until the government reopens.”

Updated

Several trans women took the stage in Washington and declared their role in the movement, saying, “I am a woman.”

A sign in the crowd: “Trans people are not a burden.”

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who announced a campaign for president this week and is visiting Iowa, is at the Iowa state capitol for the Women’s March there, per the New York Times.

Updated

“We are here as Jews and as Jewish women of color marching,” Yavilah McCoy, a new member of Women’s March steering committee, told the crowd in Washington, DC.

“The pain of antisemitism is real, and it cannot be condoned,” she said. “There is not other movement for us to be a part of...We love our people, all of them.”

Updated

Amid controversy about antisemitism, Women’s March co-chairs Tamika Mallory joined Jewish Women of Color at the front of the march, where they sang “We shall build this world with love” in Hebrew.

“Last year we brought the power to the polls, and this year we need to make sure we translate that power into policy,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at the march in New York, according to ABC News.

“That means we will not let anyone take our rights away - in fact we will expand them,” she said.

She listed priorities including the Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay for women workers, and paid parental leave.

Updated

The scene in Los Angeles, where marchers are gathering in Pershing Square.

Demonstrators are unfurling a “blue wave” in front of Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington DC, per ABC.

More creative signs from the march:

“Now is not the time to shrink away from our power,” New York City first lady Chirlane McCray told demonstrators in Foley Square.

She urged participants to register women to vote, and reach out to women different from them.

“Together we will be unstoppable,” she said.

Some of the signs on display: “Feminist dad,” “Trust black women,” “Women are the wall and Trump will pay.”

Updated

The march has gotten underway in Washington, DC.

About 10,000 people are expected to march near Central Park in New York, while another 1,500 are gathered for a rally downtown at Foley Square, the NYPD tells Newsday.

Updated

A sign in New York makes a nod to Donald Trump’s gripes about so-called “paid protesters.”

New York ended up with two competing events today, the result of a rift between organizers. The Women’s March Alliance, a local group, will host the actual march, kicking off on Central Park West. Meanwhile, Women’s March NYC - affiliated with the national Women’s March organizers - is hosting a Women’s Unity Rally in downtown Manhattan at Foley Square, in conjunction with the New York Immigration Coalition.

The same thing is happening in Philadelphia, the Inquirer reports. There’s the Women’s March on Philadelphia, organized by Philly Women Rally, a local group. At the same time, there will be another Women’s March on Philadelphia, this one organized by Women’s March Pennsylvania, a group that is affiliated with the national Women’s March.

Jews for Economic and Racial Justice is among the Jewish groups that have opted to participate in the march, which others have opted out of among accusations of antisemitism.

Updated

The Guardian’s Helena Smith reports from Greece:

Democrats Abroad have organised a well- attended march in Greece – one of the first underway in Europe today. The theme this year is equality and inclusivity said organisers whose central motto “Silent No More” was emblazoned on placards next to Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, reports our correspondent Helena Smith.

“In 2019 it’s no longer just about Trump or American women’s issues,” said Karen Lee, who chairs Democrats Abroad in the country. “The issues that women confront around the world are comparable.”

Despite having to move protest site on the eve of the rally, demonstrators have converged on Klafmonos square.

Women’s March demonstrators in Greece
Women’s March demonstrators in Greece Photograph: Helena Smith for the Guardian

Updated

The scene at Freedom Plaza in Washington, where marchers are gathering:

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Almost March time!

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The Guardian’s Nosheen Iqbal is at the Women’s March in London, where many marchers have spoken out about what motivated them to protest. Here’s what a few of them had to say.

Model and activist Munroe Bergdorf said: “Why am I here today? It’s an opportunity to rally. The main emphasis today is austerity and how it disproportionately impacts women. We’re angry. We need this government to listen and stop making everything that affects our lives a distant sideshow to Brexit.”

13-year-old Izzy Gage said: “We’re here because we’re feminists. And just because I’m a girl, I’m not less.”

17-year-old Nicole Sood said: “I’m here for science. I’m going into a STEM career and I want to prove it’s for everyone even though I’ve already had bad experiences.”

Her pal Isabel Boyle, 18, added: “We went to an all girls school and it was a breeding ground for the best and worst things about being a girl. You weren’t held back or told you couldn’t do something because you were a girl - it was competitive but I’m sick of the pressure that comes with that and having to be all things and constantly worrying about what I look like. We’re marching to change all of that.”

The march is in full swing in London, where demonstrators are singing “We Are Family.”

In Eureka, California, where organizers had opted not to hold a march out of concern it would be “overwhelmingly white,” new organizers have stepped in and are holding a rally at noon.

“What do we want? Intersectional feminism. Why is it this hard?” the group’s event listing says.

Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory sparked more controversy in an interview that aired last night on PBS’s Firing Line, where she declined to say that Israel has a right to exist as a nation.

“I feel everyone has a right to exist. I just don’t feel that anyone has a right to exist at the disposal of another group,” she said.

When pressed, she added, “I believe that all people have the right to exist. And that Palestinians are also suffering with a great crisis. And that there are other Jewish scholars who will sit here and say the same.”

Demonstrators for the main march in Washington, DC are set to gather at 10am at Freedom Plaza, not far from the White House. The march will step off at 11am, and a rally with speeches is set to begin at noon.

Organizers have released an agenda laying out a host of specific policy goals. The 71-page document endorses the universal healthcare program known as Medicare for All, and the Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional amendment that would guarantee full legal equality for women.

Women around the world march against violence

Welcome to our live coverage of the 2019 Women’s March.

On the third anniversary of the first Women’s March in 2017, when millions protested the election of Donald Trump as US president, women in around 30 countries have gathered to protest violence against women, racism, and the impact of policies of austerity.

Marches are underway in London, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe, with demonstrations in New York, Washington DC and other North American cities set for later today.

Alexandra Topping, a Guardian reporter in London, writes:

While the global theme of the 2019 Women’s Wave is ending violence against women and girls, the theme of the London march has been named “bread and roses”, in honour of the Polish-born American suffragette and workers’ rights campaigner Rose Schneiderman and reflects marchers’ “hunger to thrive and not just survive on bread”, said organisers. After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 where 146 mainly female garment-industry workers died, Schneiderman declared: “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”

The UK rally is likely to have an anti-Brexit flavour as organisers accuse the government of ignoring the fact that women would suffer the most severe consequences in a post-Brexit Britain.

Lucia Graves, a feature writer for Guardian US, reports from Washington DC:

This year’s march in Washington DC is shaping up to be smaller and more splintered than before, after several major sponsors withdrew and local chapters disaffiliated from the central organization which leads it, following allegations of antisemitism.

Leaders were slow to deny and condemn allegations they had made antisemitic comments, and recent reporting has revealed deep ties between top officials and the Nation of Islam, whose leader, Louis Farrakhan, is a notorious antisemite.

Major progressive groups which sponsored the first march in 2017 have quietly withdrawn, including leading unions, environmental groups and women’s organizations. Of the many Jewish groups listed as partners in previous years, only a few remain. The Democratic National Committee, which had previously appeared on a list of 2019 Women’s March sponsors, recently disappeared too.

We’ll bring you updates throughout the day from across the world.

Updated

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