According to The Washington Post, this year’s Women’s March will be considerably more low key than in previous years due to dwindling attendance as the organization “struggles for relevance.”
Well, how about that. You say walking around outside in January in a pink vagina hat and screaming about an imaginary oppressive patriarchy and calling for the unimpeded “right” to kill unborn children isn’t a very popular idea? No way.
The now-annual event first began as a one-time massive hissy fit in response to the lawful, democratic election of President Donald Trump back in 2016.
Since then, it has become something of a big production, featuring speeches from leftist celebrities like Madonna and Gloria Steinem, and garnering the support of feminists worldwide.
Three years later, however, the Post says that “the organization once considered the beating heart of the anti-Trump movement seems to be on life support.”
Cue the tiny violin.
The Post continues:
Experts who follow protest movements said the group’s own successes — putting more women on the front line of American politics, inspiring a new wave of progressive groups, encouraging an unprecedented number of women to run for office — have rendered the Women’s March increasingly irrelevant. Others blame the failures on an organization that has struggled to find its purpose amid national controversies, financial mismanagement, accusations of anti-Semitism and a reputation for being unwilling to play nice with others.
Either way, the result is the same.
“Right after the election, it made sense for them to have this big march on Washington, but right now, nobody really wants another march on Washington,” said Dana R. Fisher, a University of Maryland professor who studies protest movements. “Nobody needs another pink hat.”
According to a permit application filed with the National Park Service, the 2020 Women’s March expects about 10,000 people to attend Saturday’s march to the White House. The Facebook page for the event, however, indicates that about 5,700 people plan to attend.
So why exactly is the movement losing so much steam?
Well, aside from the fact that it has lost a huge chunk of its board members over blatant anti-Semitism, it seems it’s pretty tiring to be so emotionally invested in such a hollow battle.
“Burnout is real,” said Jeremy Pressman, co-creator of the Crowd Counting Consortium, which tracks attendance at large-scale protests, in a statement to The Post. “Yes, there is protest fatigue, but it’s also incredibly hard for people to sustain high levels of engagement with a polarized, 24/7 news environment for years at a time.”
We shouldn’t be celebrating this as a victory just yet, however. As Pressman notes, these folks aren’t going away, and they’re certainly not converting to rationality any time soon. Instead, they’re focusing their efforts in more subtle, sustained, and dangerous ways.
“You see more and more activists who are opting to do other things,” Pressman said. “Donating, volunteering, running for their local school board or city council.”
He’s right, folks. The pink-hatters aren’t disappearing. They’re gaining positions in local government, schools, and certainly libraries. This is where they’ve taken the battle, and this is where they can truly do the most damage to society.
The Women’s March may be on its death bed, but by no means should we simply accept that and rest on our laurels. We’ve got to resist this social cancer at every level, or it will only keep spreading.
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