Utahns, celebrities turn out for women's march at Sundance Film Festival


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PARK CITY — Becca Stevenson, a recently widowed mother of three young girls, steered a stroller down the middle of Main Street despite a steady snowfall during a women's march Saturday amid the Sundance Film Festival.

"I just feel it's so important for us — and for them — to be involved and not be complacent," Stevenson said, especially since the family is relying on food stamps and other government assistance as well as organizations like Planned Parenthood.

The Orem mother and high school teacher said she believes with President Donald Trump in office, that help is being undervalued and may no longer be available under the new administration's policies.

"I thought it was important for my girls to know that no matter what the political climate is, they're valued and they're important, and these programs are important," Stevenson said. "This is real. My actual security and safety is at risk."

As she and her daughters marched, festival-goers waved and cheered from balconies and storefronts while spontaneous chants broke out in favor of women's rights including, "Hey-hey, ho-ho, misogyny has got to go."

The several thousand marchers circled back to Swede Alley to hear from organizer Chelsea Handler and other celebrities and activists about the need to become more politically active.

The march was one of hundreds around the world organized the day after Trump's inauguration to advocate for women's rights, including Utah marches in Kanab, Moab, Ogden, St. George and Bluff, and a massive gathering in Washington, D.C.

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On Monday, a women's march is planned in Salt Lake City to mark the opening day of the 2017 Utah Legislature, starting at City Creek Park at 2 p.m. and ending at the state Capitol.

"If there a silver lining to be found regarding this past election, it's that it opened our eyes to the work that still needs to be done," Handler, a comedian, actress and host of a Netflix talk show, told the Park City crowd.

She said had Democrat Hillary Clinton won the election, "maybe we would have gone complacent. Maybe we would have thought, 'We did it, we pushed through that glass ceiling.' So the groundswell that we needed before that election is happening now."

Other speakers described their concerns about the impact of the new Republican leader on blacks, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, Muslims and Jews as well as environmental activists concerned about climate change.

Overall, they were upbeat, attempting to encourage political involvement.

"Do not despair. Organize and resist," Aisha Tyler, a comedian, actress and talk show host urged, sparking chants of "Fight like a girl" with her camouflage jacket bearing the slogan.

Many in the crowd wore pink hats, shaped to symbolize a vulgar term Trump used in describing making sexual advances on women in a 2005 videotaped conversation with a TV host.

A few thousand people walk up Swede Alley during a women's march on Main Street in Park City on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. (Photo: Laura Seitz, Deseret News)
A few thousand people walk up Swede Alley during a women's march on Main Street in Park City on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. (Photo: Laura Seitz, Deseret News)

Heather Damiano of New York City, in Park City to attend Sundance, said the event was an attempt at "speaking up so Trump can hear us." She said the new president "is not pro-women."

For Dani Murakami of Murray, the event was a wake-up call.

"I just need to get more involved with the political side," she said. "That's exactly why (Trump) got elected. We all talk the talk. We really need to learn to walk the walk."

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Lisa Riley Roche

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