Women's Memorial March

rdf:langString Women's Memorial March

rdf:langString September 2022

rdf:langString incidence is normally used only in the singular form, perhaps incidence, incidents, or instances was intended

rdf:langString The Women’s Memorial March is an annual event which occurs on February 14th in remembrance and in honour of the lives of missing and murdered indigenous women. This event is also a protest against class disparity, racism, inequality and violence. The event was originated and is held in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. The March begins on the corner of Main and Hastings and proceeds through downtown, stopping outside of bars, strip clubs, in alley ways and parking lots where women’s bodies have been found. Each woman’s name is read along with who she is a daughter to, or a mother of before the family and supporters pause to grieve. The Women's Memorial March stands for survival and resilience and symbolizes the reclamation of dignity that has been denied the most marginalized women in Canada. Another important role of this movement is the restoration of public discourses in media. To reshape certain labels, representations, categorizations, and stereotypes of Indigenous women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside used to excuse ignorance and discrimination from the police and the public. Dara Culhane emphasizes a quote from a flyer distributed at the Women's Memorial March in 2001 in the beginning of her essay Their Spirits Live Within Us: Aboriginal Women in Downtown Eastside Vancouver Emerging into Visibility, "WE ARE ABORIGINAL WOMEN. GIVERS OF LIFE. WE ARE MOTHERS, SISTERS, DAUGHTERS, AUNTIES AND GRANDMOTHERS. NOT JUST PROSTITUTES AND DRUG ADDICTS. NOT WELFARE CHEATS. WE STAND ON OUR MOTHER EARTH AND WE DEMAND RESPECT. WE ARE NOT THERE TO BE BEATEN, ABUSED, MURDERED, IGNORED."