By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) – Thousands of women are rallying in major cities across the U.S. on Wednesday, seeking to highlight their social and economic power.
Coinciding with International Women’s Day, the organizers of the Day Without a Woman protest are asking women to refrain from working and shopping during the middle of the work week while wearing red “as a color of signifying revolutionary love and sacrifice”.
In the nation’s capital, hundreds of women marched up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, seeking to bring their anti-Donald Trump message to the president’s doorstep.
“I feel like this is the only thing I can do to express my contempt for the direction in which he is taking our country,” Pam Schmoll, a Washington, DC-area resident told Anadolu Agency.
“I think we’re going back into the dark ages,” she said. “Seeing what Trump has done to set us back is appalling.”
Outside of the nation’s capital, multiple school districts had to close their doors, citing a likely shortage of staff prompted by the protest.
Some critics have taken aim at the effects of the action on families who will be forced to either stay home with their children or take them to work.
Others, however, have criticized the demonstration for allegedly catering to women of privilege who can afford to take the day off work without fear of repercussion.
Dani Murphy took issue with that position and told Anadolu Agency that doing nothing would have been a “show of privilege in a negative way”.
“If you’re in a place of whatever relative privilege, use it. If the alternative is to ignore it and not do anything, I think that’s more of the show of privilege in a negative way,” said the 28-year-old native Bostonian global health professional.
Several hundred demonstrators gathered in New York’s Central Park to protest, chanting, “Whose streets? Our Streets!”
Police detained 13 people — including well-known rights activist Linda Sarsour — for disorderly conduct after they tried to form a human wall in front of the Trump International Hotel at Columbus Circle.
Meanwhile in Wall Street, an asset management company installed a statuette of a defiant girl in front of the famous bronze Charging Bull sculpture in Bowling Green Park.
State Street Global Advisors said it the statuette represents a call to companies it invests in to increase the number of women on their boards — threatening to use its proxy vote if they fail to do so.
The statuette will accompany the bull — a major photo attraction — for a week, and the company is consulting with the city to extend it to a month.
A separate protest at Washington Square Park near the campus of New York University is set to start later at 4 p.m. local time (2100GMT) and is expected to attract similar participation.
Some businesses and schools were reportedly affected by the boycott. The New School university in lower Manhattan told faculty not to count students absent if they participated.
