Hundreds of thousands of activists from across the US and abroad in the "Women's March" following the inauguration of Donald Trump, January 21, 2017, Washington DC. Albin Lohr-Jones SIPA USA/Press Association. All rights reserved.The march of ‘pussyhats’ against Trump signals the dangerous turn of genuine grassroots feminism into social-media engineered groupthink and mass hysteria. The throngs of women that painted towns pink across the globe in protest of the Presidential inauguration did a hard U-turn on the longstanding women’s liberation movement. They came out in record-breaking numbers, but in unwitting defense of something altogether contrary to the fearless feminist project. Too many downed the pink koolaid and donned pink hats and too few stopped to ask about the real purpose behind these demonstrations, which culminated into a collective man-hating, Trump-bashing orgy.
Little did they know, when they set off in their respective city centres, that they would end up reinforcing the status quo they believed they were challenging. Rather than forming a critical mass to push for a clear agenda of reform, the march hurled recycled clichés at a sitting target, and as a result, missed the mark completely. This remarkable pooling of oestrogen, which could have been harnessed to demand actual accountability and change, was instead squandered on political scapegoating. This has had the effect of releasing the outgoing leadership of any accountability and imbuing it almost nostalgically with an ex post facto halo, and its successor with horns, in a collective defensive act of psycho-social ‘splitting’.
The Women’s March conceived of itself as a natural continuation of the Million Man and Million Women Marches of the Nineties. And while it was reportedly five million strong worldwide, forging false analogies with past movements merely rewrites history rather than making it. It also serves to induce amnesia about the actual legacy of the Obama years, which is its actual cause for tears. The net effect of the Women’s March was to let off steam, and to diffuse the righteous rage steadily building amongst progressives still awaiting the change they were long promised. This temporary catharsis has replaced the effort to build an organic and sustainable movement with sweat and tears, even if not with rubber bullets and tear gas canisters.
