Photo: Resource. A ribbon of concerned citizens, including students, joined the Feminist March in Wageningen. Student editor Eva de Koeijer (Resilient Farming and Food Systems) joined them and reports.
Call it an activist holiday: the Feminist Festival organised in Wageningen this year to mark International Women’s Day. The activist highlight took place on Saturday, when the Feminist March moved loudly through the city centre.
The sun is out, and about a hundred people gather at the 5 Mei Plein, where enforcers stand ready. Initially, there appear to be few students among the crowd. ‘I don’t experience much gender inequality on the campus. This feeling is perhaps shared by more students, which may be why they don’t feel the need to be here’, Sanne van Lieshout, a student of Forest and Nature Management, speculates. She feels that participating in the march is essential ‘to support the feminist message and to celebrate womanhood.’
Students arrive after all, and by the time the march starts, the crowd has doubled. Judth Rommens, an alumna of WUR and co-organiser, is happy with the turnout. The crowd swells during the march. She explains that local action groups have joined forces to organise the festival and march, motivated by the increasing relevance of feminism in the current political climate. Judith is concerned over the increasing clamp-down on abortion and transgender rights.
Privilege
This message resonates among more participants. Joost, a biology student, says he feels his privilege as a male all too often. As an example, he talks about the immediate help he received from rat exterminators after just one phone call. ‘While she had already called five times’, he says, pointing at his female housemate Jasmijn. Jasmijn, a student of Food Technology, underscores how tragic it is that the world seems to be moving backwards in terms of feminist issues. Xenia, a student of Resilient Farming and Food Systems, also discusses her fear of decline. She fears that people will fail to see the importance of continuing the feminist debate. ‘People often forget that someone else’s rights are very close to your own’, Xenia says.
This statement is about intersectionality, the concept that different types of social injustice are linked and reinforce each other. This is also expressed on the banners, which refer to various social movements. There is a Palestinian flag, mention of transgender rights, and the foremost banner reads: ‘Against war, violence and poverty’. Although these issues spark grave concerns among the participants, the majority see the march as a celebration of solidarity. They can return home with a sense of local unity.
