The Worldwide Women's March 2017

As posted by "A Mighty Girl" Facebook page on Jan 17, 2017

 The official numbers for the historic Women's Marches held in 914 cities in over 60 countries around the world are in! And, the political scientists who have been tallying march attendance data all week have reached an incredible conclusion -- that there is "no doubt that this was the largest single-day event in US history." Two political scientists, Erica Chenoweth, a professor at the University of Denver, and Jeremy Pressman, a professor at the University of Connecticut, have developed a massive database tracking Women's March attendance around the world based on analyzing news and attendee reports. Since crowd counting is an inexact science, the researchers developed a low-end and high-end estimate for every march. Yesterday, they announced their final Women's March tally -- on the low end, 3.5 million people participated globally, while on the high end, 5.6 million people marched. While many marches took place around the world, the vast majority of global turnout was not surprisingly at US-based marches. Even using the conservative low-end estimate for U.S. Women's March attendance, the researches made a remarkable discovery: on Saturday, at least one out of every 100 Americans participated in a Women's March, an unprecedented mass mobilization that was the largest ever in US history.

Chenoweth, who studies emerging political movements, says that act of counting is an important one. “It’s a really empowering thing to be noticed and to be tallied,” she observed. “That actually came to be much more evident to me when people started emailing us and tweeting at us, reporting that they had two, five, seven, 12 people in their tiny outpost.” For the US alone, the researches collected data on 653 individual Women's Marches in cities ranging from Abilene, Texas to Zebulon, Georgia. Now, they plan to continue analyzing the data and develop a final "best guess" estimate and rationale, which they say "will involve various adjustments for under/over-reporting and source validation.” They believe that this number will "land us somewhere between the current high and low estimates.”

Thank you once again to everyone who turned out for this immense show of solidarity and support for the belief that women's rights are human rights. And, thank you to Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman for undertaking the significant challenge of capturing the true and immerse scale of this historic day of action -- a day which marked just the beginning of a fight to protect the rights of women and all those who are threatened in days ahead.

If you marched in a Women's March last Saturday, what was the Women's March like in your city? Please share your march photos and stories below.

For books about Mighty Girls who stand together for justice and acceptance of all people, check out our blog post "Standing Together: 50 Mighty Girl Books Celebrating Diversity and Acceptance” at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=13481

For books for young children about courageous girls and women marching for their rights throughout history, we recommend "Marching with Aunt Susan" for ages 4 to 8 (http://www.amightygirl.com/marching-with-aunt-susan), "The Youngest Marcher" for ages 5 to 9 (http://www.amightygirl.com/the-youngest-marcher), "Child of the Civil Rights Movement" for ages 4 to 8 (http://www.amightygirl.com/child-of-the-civil-rights...), "Elizabeth Started All The Trouble" for ages 6 to 9 (http://www.amightygirl.com/elizabeth-started-all-the-trouble), and "A Sweet Smell of Roses" for ages 5 to 8 (http://www.amightygirl.com/a-sweet-smell-of-roses)

For older children and teens, we recommend "Rightfully Ours: How Women Won The Vote" for ages 9 and up (http://www.amightygirl.com/rightfully-ours), "Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom" for ages 12 and up (http://www.amightygirl.com/turning-15), and "She Takes A Stand: 16 Fearless Activists Who Have Changed The World" for ages 12 and up (http://www.amightygirl.com/she-takes-a-stand)

For books for children and teens about social movements that brought lasting change, you can find many books about the Women's Suffrage Movement (http://amgrl.co/1I0xibL) and the Civil Rights Movement (http://amgrl.co/2j2O7H0)

And, to check out our collection of over 150 photos of Mighty Girls at Women's Marches around the world, check out our blog post, "Mighty Girls Rise Up At Women's Marches Worldwide" at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14131 #WomensMarch

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Note: I know some marches have already happened, but it doesn't feel like that is the best use of our energies this time around. The only comment I had when I posted this in 2017 was that the count didn't include those who also gave virtual support.