More than 500 people attend Women’s March in Idaho Falls
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IDAHO FALLS — Snow and freezing temperatures didn’t slow down the more than 500 women and men who marched through downtown Idaho Falls on Saturday morning.
The Women’s March in Idaho Falls was organized as a sister march to the Women’s March on Washington that took place earlier Saturday. Similar marches were organized throughout Idaho and across the country.
An estimated 1,200 people marched in Pocatello, according to the Idaho State Journal, several hundred marched in Driggs and some 5,000 in Boise.
“It’s very exciting to see this kind of turnout, especially in a place like Idaho Falls,” said Miranda Marquit, the co-organizer of the event.
Marquit said she wants people to see that they can be involved in politics.
“We had a very low voter turnout, as a nation, this election,” Marquit said. “What I really hope, with this march is, I hope that we become engaged as citizens and that we start taking our duties as citizens seriously.”
McKay Frerichs, one of the marchers, said when you realize so many people support you, “it increases the volume of your own voice and increases the volume of everyone else’s voice.”
“I think that a lot of people feel that the government has stopped listening to them,” Marquit said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people who want to know what they’re getting up to in Boise. They don’t understand why our politicians aren’t doing more for us. And I think a lot of them resonate with the idea of ‘Hey, we are your constituency, it’s time to start making legislation — it’s time to start protecting our rights.’”
Marchers carried a variety of signs with captions like “Women’s Rights = Human Rights,” “Our Bodies Our Minds Our Power” and “The Revolution Starts Now!”
“I’m here today because I want my children to be proud that I stood up for their rights,” said Pam Traughber, one of the marchers.
Frerichs told EastIdahoNews.com that after the results of the election she realized she needed to become more involved in politics and get away from the attitude that she needed to be nice and not stir things up.
“That attitude is the reason that, not only have we not made enough progress but that we’ve really taken a step back — a giant step back,” she said. “People are too willing to be bystanders.”
Frerichs said the march was just the beginning.
“I saw and met a lot of people that I have never seen or met before,” she explained. “And now I’ve started a conversation with them. And that conversation will continue and it will bring more and more people into the fold until that conversation gets bigger and bigger and bigger until it’s really hard to ignore.”
