WMW Edinburgh

So I made it out the house for the first time in over a week today. It was good to get out and get some fresh air and light exercise, but it was better to be able to take part in the Edinburgh demo in solidarity with the Women’s march in Washington.

There were some great speakers and at least 2-3000 people there in solidarity. I was going to go for a photo of the big crowds but it was hard to capture the numbers effectively without a high vantage point, and I thought this one summed up the day well.

The two organisers Leah and Calum are in this shot, both are only sixteen and with young people as passionate and committed as that the future of political protest in Scotland is clearly promising. Also the speaker in this shot is Vonny Moyes who, I think, illustrates quite well why we’re in a position where we still need to be doing stuff like this in the 21st century (which is a ridiculous situation). Moyes has been attacked and ridiculed online and in person for nothing more than being a woman who has, and publishes, an opinion. Whether it’s elements of the cycling community borderline stalking her in an attempt to discredit, and in the process proving, her article that the cycling community has an image problem which needs to be addressed, or even more sinister stuff for daring to be a woman who expresses a political opinion different from her detractors. It’s not just Moyes either a Guardian analysis of 70 million comments showed that the eight most abused writers were all women. It only takes cursory research to see that this is by no means a UK phenomenon either, it’s a global thing.

Anyway the demo today was in good spirits and was a good showing of solidarity against someone who comes across often as a petulant spoilt child, and that’s at best. He campaigned on a platform which was rife with misogyny, racism, homophobia, islamophobia,  discrimination of the disabled, encouragement of sexual assault and condemnation of a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body and attacks on anyone who disagreed with him, whether you believe, as I do, that this was deliberate and reflected his view point or that he was just voicing the opinions of the main groups he was targeting it is unforgivable. He, and those who voted for him, have normalised his behaviour in the minds of extremist groups. I’m sure there are people out there who believe they are none of those things who voted for him, but in doing so, whichever way you look at it they are complicit in the support for the normalisation of that behaviour.

Hopefully if there are any silver linings to come from his election it will be to coalesce and empower the people who refuse to accept any of those positions into making their collective voices heard!