Winthrop women marching on Washington will ‘demand better respect’ from Trump

Jan. 19--ROCK HILL -- As an associate professor at Winthrop University, Jeannie Haubert challenges her students to "show me, don't tell me" their arguments in term papers or essays.

She's holding President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration to the same standard.

Haubert and a group of around 50 other local women will travel by bus Friday night to take part in Saturday's Women's March on Washington in the nation's capital. Haubert is the chair of the sociology and anthropology department at Winthrop.

An estimated 200,000 people from across the country are expected to flood into Washington for a mass demonstration just a day after Trump is officially inaugurated as the nation's 45th president.

The local group consists mostly of Winthrop students, faculty and staff, as well as a few York County residents. The bus trip and march are not sponsored by Winthrop, and all attendees are paying their own way for the weekend.

Haubert said Wednesday that she's hoping to encourage the Trump administration to demonstrate better respect and appreciation for women's issues, including reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work and family medical leave.

"I'm nervous about him as president, because of the things he's said about women, about immigrants, about Muslims, about the black community," she said. "But what we can do now is demand that he do better going forward."

Haubert says she worries about her young children growing up in a "cultural shift" that she says allowed the election of a commander in chief who has been prone to hurling insults on social media and television interviews.

A private tape from 2005 was published late last fall with audio of Trump boasting about groping women to "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush.

And while Haubert says she holds deep reservations of Trump's comments on the campaign trail, she said she and her fellow activists want to give the president-elect a chance to recommit himself to women's issues -- and prove it by his actions.

"We'll expect better over the next four years," she said. "We will demand better respect from the administration. I think the numbers of people there are going to lift a lot of spirits and make people feel part of something important."

Summersby Okey, who holds Winthrop degrees in political science and civic engagement, says she'll attend the march to witness a "meeting point" in several different movements. Okey, who also witnessed demonstrations at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, said there will be a strong connection of viewpoints from race to class to reproductive rights on the streets of D.C.

"Everyone finds common ground on what they're working for," Okey said. "It's meaningful in the movement, because it draws together in one place a lot of different ideologies and motivations."

The bus will leave from Winthrop around 11 p.m. Friday, drive through the night and arrive at a local metro station in Springfield, Va., before the demonstrators head into Washington, D.C.

The group will then depart from Springfield for the ride home on Saturday night.

If the march can turn into a movement, Haubert says, she'll says she'll feel proud of her contribution. The march will give thousands of women a public opportunity to demand more of their elected officials, she says.

"Show me, don't tell me that you respect women," she said of her message to the incoming administration. "I'd like to give him the opportunity to do that."

David Thackham: 803-329-4066, @dthackham

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