Originally published 2017-01-25.
On 21 January 2017, the day after Donald Trump's first inauguration, millions of people marched in what became known as the Women's March. The main event in Washington, D.C. drew well over 400,000 people, and estimates for the whole United States run from about 3.3 to 5.2 million, which political scientists at the time called the largest single-day protest in American history. Organisers counted roughly 673 marches worldwide, including 29 in Canada, 20 in Mexico and one in Antarctica.
The marchers' causes ranged widely: women's rights and reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, racial justice, immigration, health care and the environment, along with opposition to remarks Trump had made about women during the 2016 campaign. Many people expressed all of that on handmade cardboard. In the weeks before the march, social media filled with "sign-making parties", and some shops in Washington reportedly ran out of poster board.
Below are 20 of the signs that were shared most widely that weekend, with the background that explains the jokes, references and history behind them. A few use strong language, which we have left as the marchers wrote it.
Echoes of earlier struggles
keine_fragen
Three marchers dressed as early-1900s suffragettes, complete with boaters and "Votes for Women" sashes, carry a sign saying the fight is the same, only in a different century. American women won the national vote with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, and the costume links the 2017 march to that long campaign.
iammikedanton
A woman in her nineties declares herself "Ninety, nasty, and not giving up!" The word "nasty" was a deliberate callback to the final 2016 presidential debate, when Trump called Hillary Clinton "such a nasty woman". Supporters turned the phrase into a badge of pride almost overnight.
sophiapsaila
An elderly couple stand arm in arm, each wearing a sign that reads "This is what a feminist looks like". The slogan has been used on T-shirts and placards for decades, and here it makes the point that feminism is not limited to one age or gender. The tweet sharing the photo was retweeted more than 12,000 times.
purplepomp
"My arms are tired from holding this sign since the 1960s", with the decade painted in bright rainbow colours. The sign speaks for the many marchers who had protested for equal pay, civil rights or abortion rights during the second-wave feminist movement and felt they were defending the same ground again.
bejohnce
A Japanese American woman in a wheelchair, wrapped in a fur coat, sits beneath a sign reading "Locked up by US Prez 1942-1946. Never again!" After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them US citizens, were forced into camps. The sign tied that history to fears about policies targeting immigrants and Muslims.
Humour that made people stop
skaufman4050
"So bad, even introverts are here." Posted from the New York march, this joke about people who would normally avoid crowds was shared more than 33,000 times. Its appeal lay in suggesting that the march had pulled in people who would never normally go near a protest.
random_modnar_5
Young men hold up a placard reading "I've seen better cabinets at IKEA!" The pun on a government cabinet and flat-pack furniture took aim at Trump's early nominations for top posts, many of which were still awaiting Senate confirmation on the day of the march.
ShannonDowney
Embroidery artist Shannon Downey stitched her protest on a red hoop: she was so angry she sewed the message just so she could stab something 3,000 times. Downey, who promotes "craftivism", made it for the Chicago march, and it reflects how much handmade craft, from knitted hats to cross-stitch, featured in the day.
foxycloth
"Without Hermione, Harry would have died in book one", lettered in the Harry Potter typeface. Fans will remember that in the first book it is Hermione Granger's logic that solves the potion riddle guarding the Philosopher's Stone. The sign made a lighthearted point about crediting women's work.
TomManatos
A bearded man stands behind crowd barriers with a black sign reading "Not usually a sign guy but geez". The tweet is dated 20 January, inauguration day itself, when protests were already happening in Washington. It summed up the many first-time demonstrators who joined in that weekend.
Famous faces and four-legged marchers
shxrlocked
Actor Sir Ian McKellen joined the march in London, and his placard became one of the most shared images of the day. It was widely reported to show his friend Patrick Stewart as Star Trek's Captain Picard in his famous "facepalm" pose, a wordless comment on the news of the week.
Nick_Offerman
Actor Nick Offerman, best known as Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation, posted this snowy selfie in a pink knitted "pussyhat" with the caption "I'm a nasty girl". He was among the attendees at the march in Park City, Utah. The pussyhat was created by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman of the Pussyhat Project and became the march's defining image.
dog_rates
The WeRateDogs account shared this pale-coated dog at the Toronto march wearing a sign that reads "I march 4 my moms", scoring it 13 out of 10. Toronto was one of dozens of Canadian cities that held solidarity marches.
Lluis Gene / AFP / Getty Images
A spaniel on a lead wears a pink coat declaring it a "strong American bitch", playing on the dictionary meaning of the word for a female dog. The photograph was taken by AFP photographer Lluis Gene, reportedly at one of the European solidarity marches.
Personal and direct
annehelena
A woman in a pink jacket carries a sign that reads "I am the woman who built Trump Tower", with a black-and-white photo of a worker on a construction site. Journalist Anne Helen Petersen, who shared it, noted the picture was taken in 1981; Trump Tower in Manhattan was under construction at the time and opened in 1983. We could not confirm the marcher's identity.
juliaioffe
A young woman with Down syndrome holds a colourful sign telling Trump not to make fun of people who are different, and to be helpful and kind "like me". It referred to a 2015 campaign rally where Trump appeared to mock reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a disability affecting his arms. Journalist Julia Ioffe called it the most powerful sign of the march.
tea_and_ethos
An older woman with white hair holds a sign saying she cannot believe she still has to protest this, with a swear word for emphasis. Versions of the line appeared at marches in many countries, usually carried by women who had campaigned for the same rights decades earlier.
Reenie Carmack
A smiling marcher holds a painted cat with the words "Not my pussy, baby hands". The sign answered the 2005 Access Hollywood recording, released in October 2016, in which Trump boasted about grabbing women, and it borrowed the long-running jibe about the size of his hands.
MirandaKeeling
"Diversity makes America great!" sits above four women of different backgrounds, one in a hijab, all striking the flexed-arm pose of the 1943 "We Can Do It!" poster by J. Howard Miller, later popularly linked to Rosie the Riveter. Remixed Rosie posters were among the most common images at the marches.
onduhray
A young man takes a selfie in front of a cardboard sign that uses a famously crude insult, then adds that the target "lacks both depth and warmth". It is a good example of the barbed, deadpan humour that ran through many of the signs, aimed at a public figure rather than at fellow marchers.
What the march led to
The national co-chairs of the 2017 march were Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Bob Bland. The organisation they led held further marches in later years, though disputes among its leaders and lower turnout followed. The size record set in 2017 was later surpassed by the George Floyd protests of 2020, which drew more people over a longer period.
Researchers and activists often point to the march as the start of a wave of political engagement, with many first-time protesters going on to volunteer, donate or run for office. Whatever one's politics, the photographs above remain a vivid record of how ordinary people chose to put their views into a few words on a piece of cardboard.
Sources: Wikipedia: 2017 Women's March; Women's March (official site); photographs credited under each image to the Twitter and Instagram users and agencies who shared them.
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