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‘Things are getting better, but not fast enough’: Richmond women march for equality

Richmond women joined the third annual Vancouver Women’s March.

Richmondites added their voices to those chanting for an end to rape culture and equality for all genders at the third annual Vancouver Women’s March Saturday.

A crowd of a few hundred gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery around 10 a.m., and a group of Richmond women who had taken the SkyTrain together emerged from City Centre Station carrying bright pink signs.

Violet Battersby
Violet Battersby, from Richmond, said this was her first women's march. Photo: Megan Devlin

Violet Battersby said it was her first women’s march. Battersby’s daughter used to go to them when she was younger, but she’d never tried it before.

“I thought, well, there’s so much going on now about women. We’re still under a lot of stress. We’re still under the glass ceiling,” she said. “I do feel that things are getting better, but not fast enough.”

Women's rights are human rights
Photo: Megan Devlin

Battersby joined a “walking bus” of women who left from Richmond City Hall and took the Canada Line downtown together. City councilor Kelly Greene organized the meetup, and brought her family along.

“I did this in the ‘60s,” Greene’s mother, Margaret Berkyto said. “And so we just got a little complacent. Things haven’t been moving along like they should’ve been. So it’s time to wake everybody up again.”

The first series of January women’s marches were organized in 2017 after U.S. president Donald Trump’s inauguration in response to his anti-women comments.