More than 200 protestors attended a march and speeches, focusing on women’s rights including abortion and gender therapy, at St. James Park on Women’s Day on March 8.
Many marchers carried signs and chanted slogans criticizing the Trump administration.
Protester Tal Karsten learned about the demonstration from 50-50-1’s social media and joined to advocate for trans and women’s rights, emphasizing the need for government reform.
“The biggest issue right now is the unconstitutional takeover of the government by people who are not elected to serve the public and who are instead serving private interests,” Karsten said. “I’m personally in a pretty safe position compared to some other people, but until we deal with the state of the Congress and the state of the government, none of these issues will be able to be addressed.”
The march organizer, 50-50-1, is a decentralized grassroots organization that rallies against the Trump administration’s executive overreach through peaceful protests.
Nicole Bertucci, a therapist at addiction rehabilitation center Voices of Recovery San Mateo County, disapproved about the lack of opportunities for women in the workforce.
“We are a marginalized community, whether you are a woman of color or not,” Bertucci said. “We’ve never been paid equally. Our voices have never been equal, so giving us just an equal seat at the table and paying us for the work that we do should be a given. We know that women have to work twice, if not more than that, as hard as men.”
Other issues that were discussed were LGTBTQ+ rights and the expanding wealth gap. Speakers gave speeches against these problems and offered lobbying opportunities that could help ameliorate these concerns.
Ieveniia Zlotar, a member of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, disagreed with Trump’s adversarial stance on Ukraine and the withdrawal of military aid. She believed that a lack of American support would lead to a loss of Ukrainian cultural identity and European military consequences thanks to Russia’s unchecked aggression.
“I hope that they’re going to realize that Ukraine is not going to be the last on the way of Russia to conquer all of Europe,” Zlotar said. “What America is not aware of is that the waves of that are going to be felt here too, and to fail Ukraine means to fail democracy on the global scale. If you stand with certain values in your life and as a country, you can’t just pick which battles for democracy you fight.”
