dw.com – Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets. They wore pink hats and carried signs to express their disgust towards misogyny, homophobia, racism and intolerance. The day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Women’s March not only took over the streets of American cities like Washington D.C., Seattle and New York; protests of solidarity also took place around the world, from London and Berlin to Nairobi, Tokyo and Sydney.
The images recall the beginnings of the women’s liberation movement in 1970s Germany. Laws that put women at a substantial disadvantage to men drove women into the streets to protest back then – as they do now. In Germany in the 70s, married women were legally required to manage the household, and were only permitted to hold a job if it didn’t mean neglecting their responsibilities as wives and mothers. Men, on the other hand, could quit their jobs without any approval of their wives.
All the while, Germany’s constitution from 1949 maintained that “women and men have equal rights.”