Thousands of women have slammed the US president's assault on reproductive rights, climate change and immigration. One protester called Trump the "biggest bully in the world."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo/M. B. Ceneta
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Thousands of women gathered for an annual march in Washington and more than 180 other cities to protest US President Donald Trump's targeting of women's rights.
"I am even more outraged than I was three years ago," said a placard carried by a 40-year-old Washington resident. "We all knew that Trump was going to be horrible, and he has been even more horrible than we realize."
Despite the drop in numbers, with only a few thousand participants on the streets of Washington, activists remained hopeful about the power to organize.
"It is a cold day and it does not matter if its 10 people or 100 people or 1,000 people if our voices are strong," said a 50-year-old woman who said she regularly attends the march that started in 2017. "We are powerful together — that's the most important thing."
The 2017 Women's March drew nearly 1 million people to the streets of Washington, DC, and hundreds of thousands in other US cities one day after Trump's inauguration.
Hot on the heels of the beginning of Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, protesters take jabs at the US presidentImage: picture-alliance/dpa/newscom/UPI/K. Cedeno
Assault on women's rights
Many of the protesters cited Trump's hard-line policy on women's reproductive rights, climate change and refugees as major motivators for joining the march.
"Look what's he's doing to Greta Thunberg," said a 70-year-old climate activist, referring to the teenage Swedish activist who launched the Fridays for Future school strikes to draw attention to the man-made destabilization of earth's climate. She was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2019.
Protesters were critical of the Trump administration's attempts to restrict women's reproductive rightsImage: picture-alliance/dpa/newscom/UPI/K. Cedeno
'Biggest bully'
Trump has regularly targeted Thunberg on Twitter and lamented climate change as a ploy "created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."
"He's the biggest bully in the world," added the 70-year-old activist.
Other protests took place in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities across the US.
Some men joined the march in solidarityImage: picture-alliance/dpa/newscom/UPI/K. Cedeno
Local criticism
But not everyone was thrilled with the Women's March in Washington. DC-based activists criticized organizers for going forward with the march, saying they undermined efforts to highlight local issues.
"Local DC is a domestic colony and the actions of national organizers have to recognize that," said Black Lives Matter DC in a letter for the Women's March organizers.
"Here in DC, these unstrategic mass mobilizations distract from local organizing, often overlook the black people who actually live here and even result in tougher laws against demonstration being passed locally."
Protesters drew attention to marginalized communities, including people of color and the LGBT+ communityImage: picture-alliance/dpa/NurPhoto/A. Samperio
National Archives: 'We apologize'
The march was held the same day the US National Archives apologized for blurring anti-Trump signs in a promotional image for a women's suffrage exhibition.
"We made a mistake," said the National Archives. "As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration."
"We have removed the current display and will replace it as soon as possible with one that uses the unaltered image," it added. "We apologize."
There are 195 independent states in the world — and the vast majority are ruled by men. Female heads of government or state are rare, but those in power are strong leaders. DW takes a look at some powerful politicians.
Image: Reuters/Lehtikuva/V. Moilanen
Sanna Marin
The 34-year-old Sanna Marin was elected by her party in December 2019 to serve as Finland's prime minister after Antti Rinne resigned over fallout from a postal strike. Once she is sworn in, set for mid-December, she will become one of the world's youngest head's of states. She previously served as her country's transport minister.
Image: Reuters/Lehtikuva/V. Moilanen
Jacinda Arden
Since October 2017, Jacinda Arden has served as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand. She took office at the age of 37. She is also only the second woman to give birth while in office. Arden is regarded as one of the world's most powerful women and was praised internationally for her response to the Christchurch terror attacks in 2019.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/S. Keith
Jeanine Anez
After Evo Morales resigned as Bolivia's president in November 2019, the 52-year-old Jeanine Anez became the interim leader of the country. Previously a vice president of the Senate, she has said she would like to try to schedule fresh elections as soon as possible. She is politically right-wing.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/J. Karita
Sophie Wilmes
After serving as Belgium's budget minister, Sohpie Wilmes became the country's prime minister — and its first female one — in late October 2019. The 44-year-old has a tough task before her: scraping together a majority from a highly fragmented national parliament. She belongs to the French-speaking liberal-centrist MR party.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Belga/V. Lefour
Zuzana Caputova
Slovakia elected Zuzana Caputova as its first female president in March 2019. She took office in June, also becoming the youngest-ever president at age 45. Her political views are marked by her strong environmentalism and her determination to weed out corruption in the central European state. Prior to becoming president, she had not held an elected political office.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/D. Gluck
Angela Merkel
The 65-year-old was appointed chancellor in 2005 — the country's first female head of government — and is currently serving her fourth term as Germany's leader. The pastor's daughter from communist East Germany and chemistry doctorate was named "Person of the Year 2015" by Time magazine. Her term is scheduled to end in 2021, and she has said she will not pursue the chancellor position again.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/O.Hoslet
Sahle-Work Zewde
The 69-yeaer-old Sahle-Work Zewde was elected unanimously by the members of Ethiopia's parliament to serve as the country's 5th president. She is the first woman to fill the role, though the role is largely ceremonial. However, as of 2019, she is Africa's only serving head of state. A career diplomat, she had previously held various high-level positions in the UN.
Image: Reuters/C. Allegri
Tsai Ing-wen
Tsai Ing-Wen is the first woman to serve as president of the Republic of China, more commonly known as Taiwan. Her inauguration in May 2016 led Beijing to freeze official relations with the small island, which the mainland claims can never be independent. Tsai has made it clear she will not "bow to pressure" over the issue of sovereignty. She has announced she will run for reelection in 2020.
Image: Reuters/T. Siu
Erna Solberg
Norway, too, is governed by a woman. Erna Solberg took office in 2013. The 58-year-old is the wealthy northern country's second female prime minister, after Gro Harlem Brundtland, who held the position in the 80s and 90s. Her tough asylum policies earned her the nickname "Iron Erna." She also heads up Norway's Conservative Party.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/V. Wivestad Groett
Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila
The 52-year-old, Namibia's fourth prime minister, has been in office since 2015. Kuugongelwa-Amadhila went into exile in Sierra Leone as a young teenager. She pursued higher education in the US, graduating with a degree in economics before returning home in 1994, where she began working in politics. She is the first woman to head Namibia's government and a strong proponent of women's rights.
Image: Imago/X. Afrika
Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina is the 10th and longest serving prime minister in the history of Bangladesh. Before her current term, which began in 2009, she also held the office from 1996-2001. Forbes business magazine listed the 72-year-old on its list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Bildfunk
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
The 51-year-old held several government positions and represented Croatia as ambassador to the United States before she was elected in 2015 as the country's first woman president, and its youngest. Grabar-Kitarovic's position from 2011 to 2014 as assistant secretary general for public diplomacy at NATO makes her the highest-ranking female ever within NATO's administrative team.
