Understanding The Idea and Impact of The Women's March

Women’s March

Reason Foundation Senior Analyst, Shikha Dalmia, in her persuasive article, The Pointless Women's March Against Trump, describes what her view of the point of the women’s march in Washington D.C. against President Trump. Damila’s purpose is to persuade the audience that the women’s march was for attention and nothing else. The purpose is to show that the march was all a joke and not a serious matter at all. She assumes a cynical tone in order to convince her non-feminist audience of how feminists act and react by distorting the opposition and making their argument seem absurd, using post hoc fallacy and appealing to ignorance.

Dalmia opens by oversimplified the purpose of by implying that the women’s march against Trump was pointless and believes that it was all just for attention. She appeals to the confused emotions of the audience by admitting that “[t]his particular demonstration is shaping up to be a feel-good exercise in search of a cause” (Dalmia). Dalmia believes that since the women’s march had no point they just wanted to do something for attention and need a cause to do so. She tries to connect with the audience in order to get the reader to understand that because this was for a feel good cause, “Plans to bring together women from all walks of life started surfacing on social media the morning after the election — partly out of disappointment that Hillary Clinton didn't get elected America's first female president, and partly out of revulsion that a loud-mouthed sexist who berated women did” (Dalima). When the women’s march was being planned, they brought all women from different ages and it’s partially because Hillary Clinton didn’t get elected as the first female president of America and partially out of disgust that Donald Trump did. If the march fails it would make it a lot harder to fight the original rights violations under the Trump presidency. This outpouring of emotion from the writer conveys a cynical tone that shows the non-feminist audience that their confusion is understandable and proper.

Dalmia moves to arguing that because Donald Trump being elected president it caused the women’s march. She appeals to the confused emotions of the audience by admitting that, “Plans to bring together women from all walks of life started surfacing on social media the morning after the election” (Dalima). Additionally, not only does she think that they are not taking the march seriously. She believes that because they tried to plan this through social media, and the “bickering over semantics wasn't enough, the Facebook page of the event is rife with arguments about whether an event organized primarily by white women can be sufficiently "intersectional" — or attuned to the issues faced by, say, poor minority women who reside at the "intersection" of class, race, and gender concerns in America” (Dalmia). Even though the women who planned the march over social media, it was not properly planned out and it was poor minority women who reside at the intersection of class, race, and gender concerns in America thought that it wasn’t equally planned out. By saying that because Trump being elected president caused the women’s march and it wasn’t planned well is a valid yet invalid argument.

Dalmia shifts to appealing to the ignorant by saying that the protests were just for fun and wanted all the attention and no one took it seriously. She asserts that the march is also reaching a certain level of stupidity that is ethical to the man. She states that “Everything else about the Women's March, however, is reaching a level of absurdity worthy of the man they are protesting” (Dalmia). Dalmia notes that the women’s march is achieving the same level of the stupidity of Trump who they are protesting against. Additionally, she thinks that it does not matter how many people showed up to march but “whether they have the seriousness of purpose to be taken seriously. And that seems awfully doubtful” (Dalima). She assumes that the women in this march were joking and not taking the march as seriously as they said they were. Dalmia’s shift to appealing to the ignorant is a one-sided argument.

Shikha Dalmia, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst, in her article, The Pointless Women's March Against Trump, tries to persuade the audience that the women’s march against Trump was pointless and she believed that it was a joke and no one took it seriously. She wrote that even though the planning happened through social media it might fail because it was not taking it seriously. She assumes a negative tone in order to convince her audience of that feminists act jokingly by using the rhetorical strategies of the straw man, using post hoc fallacy by saying one event caused another event and appealing to ignorance. There were some arguments that Dalmia made that actually made sense, but overall her persuasive article was not effective.