On January 21, 2017, the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency, women took to the streets, dirt roads and stony pathways all over the world to harness their power and create transformative social change. The Women’s March is a movement inspired by women and led by women. The goal was to create a space for new, grassroots female activists to enter and engage in the women’s movement and to take that engagement back to their local communities.

“Women’s rights are human rights are women’s rights” is our tenet. Today we must create space and allow the voices of our Indigenous, racialized, queer sisters, and sisters with disabilities, to lead our conversations and actions. We must teach each other about our struggles and allow others to teach us. We must all listen to all of our voices, and move forward in ways that are meaningful and important to all of us. None of us can impose our understanding of what anyone else’s feminism should look like.

Last year, marches occurred in almost every major city in Canada. Some of those marches, like the one in Toronto, had hundreds of thousands of people attending. Others, like the tiny march in Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia, was attended by 12 women and one man. This year, the Women’s March will happen again in Washington, in Toronto, and in many communities around Ontario. If you cannot make it to Washington, there are many Sister Marches occurring all over the country. You can find a list of those, updated daily, here: www.womensmarch.com/sisters.

This year, in Toronto, Women March On—Defining Our Future, will proceed on January 20 at Nathan Phillips Square, 100 Queen Street West at 12 p.m. Details coming soon at www.facebook.com/events/312043389274448.