Huge women's marches a slap in the face for Trump

Yesterday's Women's March on Washington, and the 600 or so affiliated "sister marches", was a resounding, even delirious, success and a veritable miracle of grass-roots organization and protest. It sent a screaming message to Donald Trump and his supporters that they are skating on thin ice, and that they are only there temporarily and on sufferance.

The Washington DC march itself attracted over half a million protesters, hugely in excess of the 200,000 expected, and almost double the number who had lined the streets for Donald Trump's inauguration on the previous day. (Trump himself, in his usual overblown style, insisted that here were "a million, a million and half people" and "the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration", although other estimates put the total at around 250,000, as compared to 1.8 million for President Obama's inauguration in 2009.) Many of the attendees had never attended such an event or rally before in their lives.

The speechifying was the usual mix of impassioned, strident rabble-rousing and heartfelt, thoughtful polemic. Gloria Steinem showed that she still has it, and I was quite taken with actress Amanda Ferrera's lines: "The President is not America. His cabinet is not America. Congress is not America. We are America! And we are here to stay." It sets up a slightly problematic dichotomy between direct democracy and the rather flawed presidential constitutional republic system the country is stuck with, but I know exactly what she means.

Up to 600 other sister matches around the world, including about 300 in the USA alone, were also very well attended. Around 400,000 marched in New York, and several marches in other large American cities like Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and Miami also numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Even outside of the United States, the protests boasted tens of thousands, including an estimated 100,000 in London. Hell, there was even one in Antarctica. By some estimates, up to 3 million may have been involved worldwide.

I attended the Toronto march, where an estimated 50,000 gathered (at least according to the BBC), well in excess of the 6,000 that were initially expected! It was an overwhelmingly middle-class white gathering, I have to say, despite (or perhaps because of) all the complaints from the Black Lives Matter crowd. And, because of the sheer numbers, it was more of a shuffle than a march, but then that is a good problem to have, no?

The pink knitted "pussyhats" were a particularly noticeable addition to the rallies throughout the world, and added a welcome dose of lightness, as did some of the witty signs and placards, from "Fight like a girl" and "A woman's place is in the resistance" to "My pussy grabs back", "Free Melania!", "We shall overcomb", and "Super callous fascist racist extra bragga-docious". A couple of my favourites from the London rally were "I'm really quite cross", and "I make the best signs. They're terrific. Everyone agrees".

All in all, a great day for democracy, and a "yuge" slap in the face for Donald Trump. And the organizers say they are not going away - this is just the beginning.