The Los Angeles Women’s March took place in Downtown LA on January 20th, 2018. This year’s event was the 2nd annual march. Its original purpose was to advocate “ending violence, protection of reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, workers’ rights, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, Indigenous people’s rights and environmental justice” (The Women’s March Los Angeles Foundation). Last year, 750,000 people attended. This year, the numbers were lower, yet still significant: 500,000.

Even your favorite celebrities attended for the good cause! Celebrities such as Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lawrence, and Adele snapped and uploaded a selfie together.

Lupita Nyong’o, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Drew Barrymore, Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, and many more attended the march. According to CNN, the long list of celebrity speakers who graced the crowd are as follows: Viola Davis, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johannson, Sarah Hyland, Eva Longoria, Olivia Munn, Rob Reiner, Larry Wilmore, Olivia Wilde, and Yvette Nicole Brown. Each speaker had the opportunity to move the crowd by expressing their appreciation for the march, their understanding of what the march is, and personal experiences. Here are snippets of several of the speeches:

Viola Davis

“I am always introduced as an award-winning actor but my testimony is one of poverty, my testimony is one of being sexually assaulted and very much seeing a childhood that was robbed from me. And I know that every single day when I think of that, I know that the trauma of those events are still with me today. And that’s what drives me to the voting booth.”

Natalie Portman

“I keep hearing a particular gripe about this cultural shift and maybe you have, too. Some people have been calling this movement puritanical or a return to Victorian values, where men can’t behave or speak sexually around dainty, delicate, fragile women. To these people I want to say, the current system is puritanical. Maybe men can say and do whatever they want, but women cannot. The current system inhibits women from expressing our desires, wants and needs, from seeking our pleasure.”

Rob Reiner

“When we all came together last time, we had the power and it’s the women — the women have given us the power. And the women continue to give us the power. We’ve seen it with more women running for office, more women taking the true power that they have and it’s with women that we will take by this country and return democracy to where it belongs.”

Larry Wilmore

“But men, we can’t just reserve our listening for issues that anyone with the smallest amount of decency should lend an ear to. We have to listen to women not just because we’re being indicted, but because they need to be included. We cannot be a great country until women not only have a seat at the table, but — how about this — are actually seated at the head of the table. And so 2017 could be called the year of speaking up. We need 2018 to be the year of showing up at the ballot box.”

The Women’s March was seen to be success. It’s amazing to see how different genders and ages attend. However, one thing about it is that if you’re meeting up with any friend(s), it is a true struggle! With such a vast amount of people, the best approach is to attend as a group, and stay together as a group. In addition, if you missed this year’s march, you’ve got next year; and hopefully the next!