How the Women's March Made Itself Irrelevant

As the Women’s March gears up for its fourth go on Saturday, the skepticism and disenchantment are palpable. Articles questioning the relevance of the Women’s March in 2020 abound, comparing its expected low number of 10,000 marchers against the estimated 4 million in 2017. I, too, am strongly skeptical of the Women’s March of 2020 — as a feminist, but also as a Jew and as a Zionist. 

There are plenty of reasons why I — and many other feminists — question the relevancy of the 2020 Women’s March that have nothing to do with anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. For one, there’s less of a need for expressive displays in 2020 and a greater one for concrete, pragmatic action — be it registering voters, volunteering for local and national campaigns or writing amicus briefs for the critical abortion case before the Supreme Court this year. As University of Maryland professor Dana Fisher told The Washington Post, “Nobody needs another pink hat.”