{"id":234,"date":"2008-03-16T10:23:30","date_gmt":"2008-03-16T10:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=234"},"modified":"2008-03-16T10:23:30","modified_gmt":"2008-03-16T10:23:30","slug":"million-women-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Million Women Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just over a week ago I photographed the London march of the  &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/mylondondiary.co.uk\/2008\/03\/mar.htm#rise\" target=\"_blank\">Million Women Rise<\/a>&#8216; campaign on International Women&#8217;s Day, March 8. The weather was dull but the several thousand women who took part in this all-woman event were generally exultant. The banner at the front of the march proclaimed &#8216;Million Women Rise \u0096 together we can end violence against women &#8230;&#8217; and it was aimed at all forms of male violence against women, and supported by women from a very wide range of groups.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mylondondiary.co.uk\/2008\/03\/08\/20080308-d0803.jpg\" title=\"Million WOmen Rise - Start of march\" alt=\"Million WOmen Rise - Start of march\" height=\"301\" width=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Behind it there appeared to be a remarkable solidarity between very disparate groups, with women from all kinds of organisations (and none), including the WI (Womens Institute) and X:Talk (offering free English classes for sex workers) all taking part in an event dedicated to the dignity of women across the world.<\/p>\n<p>Of course there were many placards, banners and T-shirts from all of the organisations, but what moved me most were those women carrying obviously very strongly personally felt statements against male violence.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mylondondiary.co.uk\/2008\/03\/08\/20080308-d1064.jpg\" title=\"Man Stop to Beat Woman with Belt\" alt=\"Man Stop to Beat Woman with Belt\" height=\"301\" width=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This was an all-women march and to respect this I had to work from the sidelines. Normally I like to photograph from the middle of things as much as possible. I did feel a little of an outsider, though it was good to be waved at and greeted by many of those who knew me from other events I&#8217;ve photographed over the years &#8211; including at previous International Women&#8217;s Day events that have welcomed male support.<\/p>\n<p>I photographed the march as it entered Trafalgar Square, and then decided I needed a rest rather than stay to hear the speeches, and made for a nearby pub, getting there just before it became crowded with marchers. I wasn&#8217;t sure if a &#8216;Shropshire Lass&#8217; was the most appropriate beer for the day, but can report it&#8217;s a very decent blonde bitter.<\/p>\n<p>Later I was dismayed to hear that at least one of those expected to speak had been prevented after the organisers had read her draft text. This kind of censorship didn&#8217;t seem to be at all in the spirit of the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just over a week ago I photographed the London march of the &#8216;Million Women Rise&#8216; campaign on International Women&#8217;s Day, March 8. The weather was dull but the several thousand women who took part in this all-woman event were generally exultant. The banner at the front of the march proclaimed &#8216;Million Women Rise \u0096 together &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=234\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Million Women Rise<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}