Women’s March still inspiring

Jan. 20--On Jan. 21, 2017, women from West Virginia joined millions of women and men around the globe for a historic march to advocate for legislation on human rights and other issues.

The protest, the Women's March on Washington, inspired 672 more marches worldwide -- including a protest in Antarctica -- and was the largest gathering in the nation's Capitol since the anti-Vietnam War protest.

Some local women boarded buses and headed to the Women's March on Washington, becoming part of the 3.2 million to 5.2 million who attended the rally.

Susan Sniadowski, 62, formerly of Beckley, marched for her daughters' rights and her own, she told The Register-Herald. Sparked to action by misogyny she witnessed from President Donald Trump, who was sworn into office one day before the historic march, Sniadowski, a church secretary who has a degree in business, said the Women's March was the first she had ever attended.

Marchers carried signs -- some hopeful, some humorous, others angry and profane. In the sea of thousands of bobbing signs, Sniadowski saw one that caught her eye.

"This woman won't go quietly," a marcher had posted in bold, black font.

"I didn't realize how relevant that sign was going to be," said Sniadowski, who now lives in Nashville, Tenn. "This woman won't go quietly."

She snapped a picture, she said, without realizing that the sign would be a harbinger of how 2017 would unfold -- a year in which many would fight against oppression aimed at women and girls.

"It was a year for tackling discriminatory laws," U.N. Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka described 2017 to The Japan Times.

In 2017, the international #metoo movement led to millions publicizing their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, de-stigmatizing the victims and forcing assailants to give an account. In America, #metoo sparked a revolution that rocked the media and entertainment industries, leading to several high-profile offenders losing positions for illegal harassment or assault of colleagues and employees. Time magazine named the #MeToo movement founders "Person of the Year."

In December, female voters and African-American men in Alabama showed up at the polls to vote against Roy Moore, a GOP nominee in the 2017 U.S. Senate special election, after women reported that Moore had targeted them for sexual advances when they were teenagers and while Moore was an adult.

Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan all scrapped laws that let rapists escape punishment if they married their victims. Activists hope the law will spread to other Arab states.

Malawi, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, El Salvador and Guatemala all amended national laws to ban the practice of child marriage, which targets female children.

In India, where child marriage is illegal but common, lawmakers ruled in 2017 that having sex with a wife age 15 to 18 is punishable as rape.

Sniadowski sees the changes of 2017 neatly encapsulated in the sign she'd spotted in Washington last January -- "This woman won't go quietly."

"After all that's gone on with the women, they're standing up for themselves," Sniadowski said. "This sign says it all."

----Carol Workman currently heads up the Beckley chapter, or "huddle group," of the West Virginia Women's March.

"I can't speak for all the women in Beckley," said Workman. "But the women I know have been incredulous at what has been happening politically.

"They're depressed and angry but determined to make a difference and keep resisting."

Comments President Trump made about women, immigrants and people of color during the election sparked fear and resolve in those women.

Beckley group spokeswoman Julia Jackson, 35, a college professor and California native who now lives in Beckley, said that policies of the Trump administration threaten the rights of women and others.

"The Women's March is officially nonpartisan, but it grew out of a distrust and fear of the current presidential administration," Jackson explained. "In the past year, our worst fears have been proven true. Trump has done things that have threatened just about everything I care about, and about what the Women's March cares about ... education, women's rights, workers' rights, health care, immigration, the environment, taking care of our most vulnerable populations.

"I could go on and on."

In coal-dependent West Virginia, President Donald Trump won 68 percent of the vote in the 2016 presidential election, despite comments that some religious and moral leaders, along with human rights advocates, had condemned as sexist, racist and immoral.

Trump's message resounded with many white voters in the region, especially those who were concerned that Democratic contender Hillary Clinton would continue President Obama's perceived "war on coal" climate policies.

Residents who had grown weary of feeling that their state was America's castaway -- dismissed, disenfranchised and stereotyped -- found solace in Trump's talk of protecting the interests of hard-working Americans above those of illegal immigrants. To some in West Virginia, Trump's message reassured them that they had a place in America and that their country and region, as a whole, would be protected from changes that immigration inevitably brings.

To many in the rest of the country, West Virginia's staunch support for Trump in 2016 translated as a lack of education, xenophobia and sexism -- more evidence of Appalachia's isolation from the rest of the country.

Jackson, who staunchly opposes Trump's policies while encouraging even those who disagree with her to become more active in the political process, believes portrayals of the state by national media are often misleading.

"I've read countless articles recently about West Virginia and 'Trump Country,' treating the state as though it is some curiousity populated solely by drug addicts and racists," she said. "Trump voters are a part of West Virginia, but our state is so much more than that.

"It's important for me to take part in local politics, because our state deserves better than this simplistic portrayal."

----Jackson is one of a core group in the region who, following the Women's March, organized to fight national policies that threaten West Virginians' economic, health care and environmental rights, along with women's and immigrants' rights.

Robin Feldhake, 53, a Raleigh County teacher, attended the march last year, boarding the bus with Sniadowski and others. Feldhake said that while her participation in the huddle group lagged over the past year, the march left her with a personal mission.

"I have not been active in the local Women's March meetings but active in my own way," Feldhake said. "My thoughts since last year are that life is short.

"We must be bold when given the opportunity, and if one is not satisfied (then) be part of the change. Don't wait for someone else to do it."

Jean Evansmore of Fayette County, a Scarbro native and senior citizen who returned to her home county after years of living out of state, is also a member of the Beckley Women's March "huddle group." A community activist prior to the 2016 election, Evansmore was inspired by the activism she encountered during the Women's March but said the apathy -- toward a slew of issues, from education to women's rights -- in southern West Virginia can sometimes feel overwhelming.

Evansmore, who is black, has seen a difference in how women of color and many white women in the region react to Trump's controversial statements -- including his rants in which he called women "dogs" and his famous boast that he could "grab 'em" by their genitals.

"I attended the Women's March in Charleston," she said. "I thought about going to D.C. but changed my mind because I became angry, realizing it was white females who voted for and put (Trump) in office."

Evansmore was concerned by the lack of outrage among white women in the region who had heard Trump's comments on women -- and voted for him, anyway.

"I simply couldn't and still don't understand that lack of what I call self-respect," she said. "I have concluded that's a big cultural difference.

"My role was to get involved and work to try to change things."

This past year, she found the battle was exhausting.

"The apathy was unexpected," she said. "I get the sense that some women are still holding themselves back from involvement and feel it's for the men to do ... lead.

"I know this is Bible belt country and believe that has a lot to do with it," she said. "There seems to be a quiet fear of getting involved, speaking up, and it results in apathy and lack of knowledge."

She said what she sees as a provincial complacency isn't limited to women's issues, pointing out that Fayette voters failed to pass a $39 million bond to support their schools in 2015.

Jackson made a similar observation regarding immigration, civil rights and support for the economically challenged.

"The thing that really frustrates me is that people don't see that Trump's values are antithetical to our country and state's values," she said. "I love that our country was created from immigrants.

"Our blending of cultures has resulted in so many amazing and beautiful things, from Southern food to scientific advances to rock 'n' roll.

"I'd like to believe that we live in a country where we take care of each other, and that just isn't happening under Trump," she added. "I find him to be particularly threatening when it comes to our status as a democratic republic.

"He has no respect for the importance of the governmental branches operating independently, or for free speech."

----In southern West Virginia, as Workman sees it, many women are just trying to take care of families.

"I see the basic issue for women in this area is just to survive economically, to take care of themselves and their families," Workman said.

The Beckley group spent 2017 addressing issues that are relevant locally.

They held two health care rallies at the Beckley offices of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Congressman Evan Jenkins and sponsored a health care forum in Beckley, in cooperation with other citizens' groups.

"Health care is a major problem, with CHIP due to expire in West Virginia in March," Workman said. "With the new tax bill, there will be cuts to health care.

"I think passage of this tax scam was partly a result of people's not educating themselves well enough on the candidates, and they will suffer the consequences, with all the cuts to come.

"Women's March sees health care as a human right, and we will continue to advocate for this," said Workman.

In 2017, the Beckley group worked with Planned Parenthood and West Virginia Women's March to host a feminine hygiene products drive for Women's Resource Center, a local women's advocacy group that operates a shelter for survivors of domestic violence. Later, they hosted a toiletries drive and they are still working on a clothing drive for WRC.

In July, Beckley Women's March hosted ACLU citizen activist training in "Freedom of and from Religion."

Huddle group members offered a voter's registration table at Taste of Beckley in August and a tax rally in December, she added.

In October, the group hosted American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) activist training in immigration rights and held a postcard and letter-writing session on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and immigration in November.

The Beckley chapter donated money to the local Big Brothers and Big Sisters chapter after local donors stopped funding the nonprofit, reportedly in protest of a training that workers had taken on special concerns of minors who identify as LGBTQ.

They've hosted online training to aid members in talking to those with different viewpoints and formed a partnership with American Rivers to address environmental concerns.

Some group members questioned the contradictory stance that the Trump administration and some in the state have taken on issues related to reproductive rights.

"I don't understand how people can be against abortion and also be against easy access to birth control and not stand up for the well-being of the baby and the mother," Jackson said. "The harmfulness of these contradictions is illustrated in everything from our teen pregnancy rate to our overtaxed foster care system to our infant mortality rate.

"And," she added, "anyone with any decency should be outraged by the things Trump has said about and done to women."

----Since Trump's election, a record number of women are running for office, with at least 79 exploring runs for governor in 2018, possibly doubling a 1994 record for female candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The number of Democratic women set to challenge incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives is up around 350 percent, and about 900 women contacted Emily's List, which recruits and trains pro-choice Democratic women on running for office.

"The ways the current administration is hurting our country are magnified here in West Virginia," Jackson said. "Politicians say they want to help us with the opioid epidemic, yet they try to cut access to affordable health care.

"Politicians say they are going to bring back jobs here, yet they make it more difficult to get quality, reasonably priced education," she added. "We have one of the highest rates, per capita, of children on Medicaid, and our politicians voted to take this essential care away from them."

In West Virginia, where women made up 50.5 percent of the population in 2016, only 15 women (15 percent) are currently elected to the 100-member House of Delegates, while three women (8.8 percent) are serving in the 34-seat Senate, including Sue Cline, R-Wyoming County.

Of the elected female officials this cycle, all except for one House of Delegates member are Republican.

Statewide, of the 231 city mayors, about 24 percent are women, according to data from the West Virginia Mayor's League.

Workman and Jackson urged women -- Democrats and Republicans and others -- to get involved in the political process.

"Women in this area need to become more politically aware and involved, if only in a small way," Workman said. "They need to educate themselves on candidates for office and what is actually going on."

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito represents the state in the U.S. Senate.

In Raleigh County, Linda Epling serves on the three-member Raleigh Commission, while Denise Scalph serves on the three-member Fayette County Commission as the first woman elected to the position.

In Beckley, three women are elected to the seven-member Beckley Common Council: Ann Worley (Ward II), Sherrie Hunter (councilwoman-at-large) and Janine Bullock (Ward V).

Bullock noted that her faith motivates her to fight inequality against women.

"Women joining together for a common cause should always pray first, to ask Jesus Christ for His wisdom and guidance to assist in making decisions and addressing inequalities," said Bullock. "He will enlighten us with words to say and what effective actions to take."

Bullock pointed out that, before the Women's March on Washington, there were marches to address voting rights. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, a historic African-American organization that pushed for women to have voting rights and to run for political office.

"Women have been successful in changing legislative laws," Bullock said, "However, there is always more for us to accomplish.

"Women should stand up and speak out for inequalities. This will make the world a better place, not only for ourselves but for future generations."

She noted that women fight inequality in various facets of their daily lives.

"Injustices toward women need to continue to be addressed in our court system, workplace, organizations and other areas in America," said Bullock. "We are currently living in the legacy of the many women who fought for the equality of women and for others. This is our time to fight for the inequalities of future generations."

She quoted American media mogul Oprah Winfrey, whose recent speech at the Golden Globe awards touched on the #MeToo movement.

"As Oprah Winfrey eloquently stated, 'A new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because a lot of magnificent women ... and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say, 'Me, too.'"

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