Women’s March Foundation to host Women’s March this weekend

To recognize the contributions and honor women’s intersecting identities is the vision behind the 2025 Women’s March taking place on Saturday, March 8 at Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles. 

The march, which originated in 2017, is organized by the Women’s March Foundation, a non-profit organization and women-led movement that advocates for issues related to women’s voting rights, women's health care and income equality. 

“This year’s march takes place during the second term of the [Donald] Trump administration,” Emiliana Guereca, Women's March Foundation founder, told CALÓ News. “Women have lost rights, freedoms and protections under this conservative administration. Voting rights are currently threatened. The current budget cuts in various departments will disproportionately affect and harm women. A cut to health care, to Medicare, to Medicaid will affect many people. Immigrants are under attack and that again disproportionately affects women and our families, whose families are the most important thing to them.”

Guereca said that the foundation organized its first march, which took place on January 21, 2017, when Trump first came into office. “We started organizing around the first Trump administration and our first march was the day after his inauguration. The foundation, along with a lot of volunteers and other social justice organizations, put together the Women's March Los Angeles, which was the biggest protest that year,” she said. “After the march, what we knew was that we couldn't just go back to our normal lives and the status quo. We realized that women, specifically women of color, were missing from a lot of the halls of power. That's how I knew we needed a nonprofit to elevate women and demand representation. Work that continues today.“ 

Today the foundation is in solidarity with hundreds of movements across the country, such as the fight for reproductive rights, which were stripped away in 2022 with the fall of Roe v. Wade, the SAVE Act, which, as Guereca said, is threatening women’s voting rights, the budget cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and the Trump administration's efforts to erase protections for the LGBTQ+ community. 

One of the foundation's efforts is its feminist street initiative, which aims to reclaim and rename streets in L.A. and across the U.S. to reflect the legacy of women leaders, trailblazers and social justice advocates. Guereca explained that although there are millions of streets named after men like George Washington and John Adams, among others, it is difficult to find streets named after women, especially women of color. 

In 2019, the Women’s March LA Foundation co-produced, in partnership with Los Angeles Council District 14, dedicated the Dolores Huerta Square to honor the legacy of labor and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta. Since the summer of 2019, the intersection of Chicago and First Streets in Boyle Heights has been home to what is now Boyle Heights City Hall.

Today the foundation continues to advocate for the city to take it a step further and formally name a street after Huerta. 

The march this weekend coincides with International Women's Day, which is also observed and acknowledged as a component of the movement for women's rights, shedding light on issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights and violence and abuse against women. Many towns and cities worldwide host marches similar to the 2025 Women’s March in L.A. 

According to the United Nations, the first International Women's Day was observed in the United States on February 28, 1909. The Socialist Party of America designated it in honor of the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York, where women protested against poor working conditions and sexual harassment and in favor of better living wages. 

Today, International Women's Day is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether geographic, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political.

“International Women's Day has been a celebration, but history tells us that it has also been a sign of resistance. No rights have ever been freely given to women. We have had to fight for them,” Guereca said.  

She also said that marching and rallying are essential as a way to make women's voices heard and acknowledged, asserting that protest, although not the “only solution,” can lead to great change and show the support of allies and other movements. 

“This is our day to stand together, make our voices heard, and show the world that we are not backing down,” she said. “We've got to come out and protest and make sure that we are demanding equality for all women on this day. On March 8th, if you are not honoring women, you are not protesting; you are not a feminist. And we need everyone to be a feminist; we need you to do something for women.”