Early Tuesday morning, between 7:30 and 8 AM, approximately 200 women, some of them wearing cat ears and noses, and a few good men gathered at the corner of Wacker and Wabash. Many of them were carrying handmade signs they’d made out of posterboard. They gathered beneath the statue of George Washington, Robert Morris, and Haym Solomon and stood on the steps facing the street, holding up their signs.
Even now, now that I know better and even have useful words to describe things that happen to me—”sexual harassment,” “microaggression,” “mansplaining,” terms that were invented because these things happen so often they might as well have names—I still don’t know how I could have responded to the boys in Hebrew school who felt so validated because of that stupid prayer.
At 8 AM, Quinn Michaelis, another of the organizers, took control of the bullhorn. “So beautiful!” she said, just like Trump had allegedly said to a teenage girl at one of his rallies. Everyone laughed. She reminded everyone that there were legal observers present who could be appealed to in case of arrest, and that it was best not to engage with counterprotesters. She reminded everyone to register to vote and said that a group would be going to the Loop supersite for early voting after the rally.
“I wonder why they think ‘lesbian’ is an insult,” said one of the Pussy Grabs Back women.
A TV reporter in full makeup and false eyelashes approached a row of protesters. “You’re protesting vulgar language,” she said, “but I’ve heard a lot out here today.” (Most of her report didn’t make it onto the air.) “I’m not offended by the word ‘pussy,’” one protester told her. “I’m offended that he thinks he can just grab anyone.”
About halfway through the protest, Swiz took over the megaphone for the rally’s one and only speech to address the men directly. She teaches introductory classes in gender studies at Harold Washington College; she’s had a lot of practice. “The women in this country have a shared collective experience being diminished and silenced,” she said. “Men ask what they can do. Be a dude who supports women, because we’re people too!” Then she turned her attention back to the women. “Keep bleeding your period all over this country!”
