New wave of feminists eager to take message to the streets
On Thursday evening, Nisha Randle will board a bus in Meyerland Plaza, folding herself into an economy seat. The ride to the Women’s March on Washington will be a long one — more than 24 hours of driving each way — but Randle is buzzing with excitement: “This feels like the right thing to do.”
Event organizers estimate that on Saturday, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, 200,000 women and a smattering of men will converge on the National Mall for a peaceful demonstration.
Spinoff marches are also planned across the country Saturday. After being announced only a week ago, the Houston march has drawn more than 10,000 replies on Facebook. And more than 20,000 people have signed up for the protest at the state Capitol in Austin. Many marchers say they’re new to feminism and activism — including Randle, the leader of the Houston delegation to Washington, who began
calling herself a feminist only this past summer. The Women’s March will be the first time that Randle, 45, has participated in a demonstration.
The morning after the presidential election, something in Randle changed.
“I couldn’t go to work that day,” she said. “I cried harder than when my boyfriend broke up with me, and I felt like it was a personal affront.”
She found support online. That same day, a woman in Hawaii created a Facebook event for a march on Washington to protest the election, inviting 40 of her friends. It went viral. Similar events popped up across the country, with thousands of women signing up, and a loosely organized movement took shape.
Soon, a national page was created for the march, along with a subpage for each state. In big states like Texas, chapters were formed for individual cities. And when the opportunity arose for Randle to head the Houston contingent, she dove in.
Glossy-lipped and wellcoiffed, Randle is not a stereotypical feminist. That, she says, is a problem with the stereotype: “People still have that idea that you can’t be a feminine woman if you’re really a feminist.”
Reaction to election
In 2012, a study commissioned by The Feminist Majority Foundation — one of the dozens of organizations
listed as an official partner for the D.C. March — asked female voters if they consider themselves feminists. Among voters under the age of 30, 59 percent said yes. But when read the dictionary definition of the term (“someone who supports political, economic and social equality for women”) and asked
if they align themselves with that mission, the share rose to 73 percent.
“Feminism can encompass so many things,” says Randle. “You just have to agree that women and men have equal rights and should be treated the same.”
Feminism was growing even before the 2016 election, according to that Feminist Majority Foundation report. In 2006, 50 percent of female voters said they were feminists; by 2012, the share was up to 55 percent. Strangely, the election — in which a male candidate toppled America’s first female frontrunner — appears to have given the movement a major boost.
“I’d never considered myself a feminist before. Never,” says Ligia Pesquera Leismer, 59, a grandmother who will join Randle on the bus to D.C. “I thought it had been resolved, that everyone was acknowledging that women had their place at the table.”
Trump’s election convinced her otherwise.
“Instead of just waiting to see that someone else does something about it, I said, ‘No. It’s time for me to do something about it.’ ” Leismer said.
In D.C., she’ll carry a sign that says, “Together we’re stronger.”
In the weeks after Election Day, Randle monitored Houston women’s Facebook posts about trouble finding hotels in the District, or laments that flight prices were nearing $1,000. She booked a bus.
At $300 per rider, the bus offered an affordable option. But with the ride spanning two days each way, it’s less than ideal — especially for working mothers, or part-time workers who can’t afford a long weekend off. Still, it’s at capacity.
Tough to estimate totals
It’s a challenge to estimate how many participants will march in D.C. and around the country. The national group counts 386 sister marches in cities around the world, with more than 700,000 registered participants.
Robin Paoli thinks that estimate is too small. Paoli is one of the lead organizers of the Houston Women’s March, which will begin at Eleanor Tinsley Park at 11 a.m. Saturday, then head to City Hall for a noon rally.
“I’ve heard from more women than I can name and count that they felt disenfranchised in a process that seemed like democracy was taken away from the people,” Paoli said. “That the American people were no longer being heard, and that women are deeply concerned about the future of this country, and what that future is going to translate to for their families.”
For many, Paoli said, the day of demonstration — both locally and in D.C. — is about a chance to be seen and heard.
“The election was a wake-up call,” says Randle. “Hopefully this will be another one — a vehicle for other people to see that we’re not giving up.”
“For me,” she says, “this is just the beginning.”