Students attend second annual Women’s March on Philadelphia

The Women’s March on Philadelphia brought thousands of activists to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the second consecutive year. It was one of more than 600 rallies across the country and around the world that took place on Jan. 20.

This year’s march in Philadelphia focused on the “Power to the Polls” movement with the slogan, “We Persist. We Resist. We Rise.”

Rebecca Rhynhart, who is the first woman to be named City Controller in Philadelphia, spoke about the lack of gender representation in public office, especially in Philadelphia. “Philadelphia has never had a woman mayor.  Pennsylvania has never had a woman governor,” she stated at the rally following the march at Eakins Oval.

Gail Podlesny ’20, who attended the Women’s March on Philadelphia for the first time with a group of friends, emphasized the gravity of participating in a collective rally.

“I think it’s an amazing thing to be surrounded by thousands of people that believe in the same thing as you.” Podlesny said. “It was incredible because as soon as we got on the train it was packed full of women wearing pink and people with signs and you just looked around and everyone was smiling at each other.”

Erin Davison ’19, who attended the march in Philadelphia for the second year, thought that even though fewer people attended this year, there was still the same energy.

“I thought this year was a little more intersectional,” Davison said. “This year the organizers really made an effort to include diverse dialogue.”

Davison is the vice president and communications director of the St. Joe’s chapter of  Coalition for Peace Action (CFPA SJU). Coalition for Peace Action is a national nonpartisan organization that focuses on issues of peace and justice.

“A big part of Coalition for Peace Action is grassroots organizing and getting people on the ground doing things,” Davison said.

Davison wants to bring this political involvement to St. Joe’s through CFPA SJU.

“There are not a lot of super politically active or politically engaged students and there tends to be the belief that being political means being divisive when that’s not the case,” Davison said.

CFPA SJU organized a group of students to attend the march together, however, only about 10 students traveled there together from St. Joe’s. Many students attended on their own. Davison said that she had emailed students information about getting there and what to do after they got there.

“We had noticed that there was no group on campus leading anyone so we figured let’s make it easy, let’s organize a group, we’ll take them, show them how to use the train,” Davison said. “We had a pretty nice turnout.”

Gallery • 4 Photos

Crowds gather at Eakins Oval for the rally following the march (Photo by Luke Malanga '20).

Davison said that in addition to continuing hosting speakers and events on campus, CFPA SJU plans to begin sending out a monthly newsletter highlighting a variety of different issues of peace as a way to promote political engagement on campus.

“I think with anything that is political you should show up, that’s the important first step and then you should listen,” Davison said. “Sometimes we go into things with our own assumptions or experiences and it’s nice to take the time to listen to someone else. The Women’s March is particularly special because [it is] an entire gender and their allies and that is such a diverse community that just showing up you can learn something that you may have not already known.”

One of the reasons Podlesny believes the Women’s March is important is to increase awareness of the ever-present inequalities women face – many of which go ignored.

“There are still a lot of people in this country that don’t realize that there’s a gap between the genders — whether it be in wages, or whether it be in the way that women are treated like in the military or in positions of power and being sexually harassed or assaulted,” Podlesny said, adding, “I just hope that it doesn’t dwindle again until next year. I want this to draw attention from different political leaders and maybe inspire some women to run for office. Inspire people that are in office now to actually create legislation to change things for women — actual concrete changes.”