Womens March lacks diverse representation

After the inauguration of president Donald Trump last year, millions of women across the country went to the streets to protest in what became known as the “Women’s March.” Women and allies marched in every major city in the country, and even smaller cities such as Omaha had a substantial amount of people protesting as well. And though the idea of the Women’s March is a good one, there are a few flaws present.
One of the major flaws of the Women’s March is a lack inclusivity. Last year during the Women’s March, several women including myself on social media started noticing a trend of the types of signs seen at the march. There was an overwhelmingly large amount of pink signs filled with flowers, vagina puns, pictures of female anatomy, and the list goes on. In a march where we are supposed to be proclaiming women’s rights, we need to include all women in that narrative. Not all women have vaginas. The Women’s March could have been a perfect opportunity to highlight that, but by inferring that all women have vaginas, transwomen are erased from the discussion. White feminism (feminism that focuses on and only benefits white, cis women) has a way of erasing marginalized women, and the Women’s March would have been a great way to combat that. Straight white women’s voices are listened to above that of women of color and queer women, and this would have been a way for white women to use the voice that they have to fight for all women, not just the ones that look like them. This was discussed after the Women’s March of last year, but it was an issue again this year.
Another thing that is noteworthy at the Women’s March is security. Law enforcement knew that in some places, as many as thousands of women were gathering to protest, yet there was no firing squad or over-policing that took place. This is one of the differences between white women and women of color. If thousands of black women were known to be gathering across the country to protest their oppression, it would look completely different, and this is proven. When black women were protesting, peacefully I might add, black children being murdered by police officers, there were military-like squads of police officers present. The news painted the protests and the black people there in a negative light, and the difference between that and the Women’s March is appalling. Women of color protesting their issues is associated with violence, but when there is a majority of white people are marching, they aren’t seen as threat.
The Women’s March isn’t inherently bad. Any time where a group of people can gather to peacefully protest their problems is a good thing. But it becomes a problem when it’s not intersectional. White feminism brings only white women to the forefront, and makes them a face of a movement that isn’t solely about them. Disabled women, queer women, women of color and everyone in between deserve just as much representation and until they get it, any discussion on women in this country is void. If we aren’t fighting for all women, then who are we fighting for?