Museums around the world are working to collect artifacts from Saturday’s Women’s March. What made the protests such a historic event? For starters: the movement’s sheer size. In the United States alone, low estimates suggest at least 3.3 million people showed up to marches. But there are other factors beyond pure numbers.
Stef Dickers, special collections and archives manager at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, told me that the varied motivation of marchers made the protests especially unique. Unlike so many other demonstrations, Saturday’s march wasn’t about one political party or a single subject matter. “We were partly excited because people were telling their own story,” Dickers said. “They went to this for their own reasons.” The global reach of the demonstrations also “brought an extra dimension,” he said.
Dickers and his colleagues put out a call on Saturday for donations of signs, t-shirts, photos, and videos from the march that took place in London. So far, there’s been a slow trickle of contributions, but there’s a sense of urgency to the effort. “We need to do this quickly,” Dickers said. Otherwise, “very soon, this history gets lost.”
While Dickers fears that the historic nature of the march will be forgotten, it turns out some didn’t recognize it to begin with. An analysis by Quartz shows that one out of five newspapers failed to put the event on the front page and the Washington Post argues that in the lead-up to the march, mainstream media largely overlooked its growing momentum.
EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA
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| New blood |
| Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland has named Michelle O’Neill as its new leader, making her the first woman to ever lead the political party there. The move is a break from the party's graying, male-dominated leadership and its ties to the IRA. O'Neill, 40, must lead the party into a snap election in the assembly in early March, which the party's former leader triggered when he abruptly resigned as deputy first minister. |
| Sky News |
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| Co-ed campuses |
| A new book called "Keep the Damned Women Out": The Struggle for Coeducation chronicles the five-year period between 1969 and 1974 when elite university in the U.S. and U.K. began enrolling women. The push sparked historic culture clashes at previously all-male colleges like Princeton, Harvard and Yale, as well as the previously all-male colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. |
| Financial Times |
THE AMERICAS
| Not there yet |
| The $4.8 billion deal between Yahoo and Verizon is closing a quarter later than expected due to the fallout of two massive data breaches at the Internet company. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said opportunities with Verizon “look bright” and she pointed to “continued stability in our user engagement trends.” But the deal is further complicated by an SEC investigation into whether Yahoo should have disclosed the breaches sooner. |
| Wall Street Journal |
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| Global gag order |
| President Donald Trump yesterday reinstated a policy that bans American foreign aid to health providers abroad who discuss abortion as a family-planning option. U.S. law already prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding abortion services, but the order goes further—freezing funding to NGOs in poor countries if they offer abortion counseling or if they advocate the right to seek abortion in their countries. |
| New York Times |
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| Cutting off copper |
| President Michelle Bachelet is trying to do what no other Chilean government has managed to pull off in the last half century: break the nation's copper habit. Bachelet's push is aimed at diversifying Chile's economy and meeting a self-imposed 2018 deadline for reaching developed-nation status. |
| Bloomberg |
| . |
| What gives? |
| In the latest edition of Fortune's MPW OnStage podcast, Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, explains why so many women supported Trump despite his sexist behavior. |
| iTunes |
ASIA-PACIFIC
| All-inclusive |
| Gladys Berejiklian is the new premiere of the state of New South Wales in Australia after running unopposed in an election yesterday. Her win was welcomed by the Armenian community, since her parents are survivors of the Armenian genocide. Berejiklian said she would be governing "for everyone" in NSW. |
| ABC.net |
| . |
| Setting her sights |
| Zhang Lu is a rare phenomenon: a female Silicon Valley venture capitalist from China. The 27-year-old set up NewGen Capital in 2014 and has so far raised two multi-million-dollar funds focusing on early-stage tech companies in the U.S. Her goal now is "to establish a top-tier venture capital fund in Silicon Valley, with China playing a leading role." |
| South China Morning Post |
IN BRIEF
| Angela Merkel hits back at populist wave in defense of refugee stance |
| BBC |
| Why the election of 9 black female judges in Alabama matters |
| New York Magazine |
| The Australian Muslim MP fighting the trolls |
| BBC |
| The dental nurse who became an alligator catcher |
| BBC |
| Chelsea Clinton defends Trump's youngest son Barron against trolls |
| Motto |
| Marriott's chief global commercial officer explains how she climbed the corporate ladder |
| itunes |
PARTING WORDS
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| --Actress Laura Dern, reflecting on her 'feminist' role in the 1993 film 'Jurassic Park.' |
