Object Details
- Description
- Following the election of Donald Trump in 2016, many Americans became extremely concerned that women’s rights were under attack. Within a day of Trump’s election, Facebook erupted with women calling for a march on Washington. While the marchers focused on a range of issues including topics such as climate change and police violence, the march had originated in an election which had shone a spotlight on gender inequities. The march was intended to kick off what organizers hoped would be an ongoing push to prioritize women’s rights.
- Tracy Schorn, a journalist as well as a published cartoonist and artist, attended the women’s march on January 21, 2017. Before the event, Schorn created this poster using acrylic paint and white foamboard which she then carried during the march. The poster features an image of herself screaming. Schorn said that when she painted the sign, she “was still spunky, motivated, moved by the millions of other women similarly incensed.” She later carried the sign at subsequent marches advocating for women’s rights.
- In the years that followed that first event, Schorn she felt “like like someone [was] sitting on your chest, punching you in the face every day.” She was especially dismayed “that a man who bragged about assaulting women was elected to the White House” as well as by “the in-your-face vulgarity, the racism, the cruelty, the children in cages” Her interpretation of the image on the poster which she had originally painted in 2017 shifted to reflect her growing anger. Even after Trump’s loss, Schorn described herself as “still furious. Still screaming into the void.”
- On June 24, 2022, some five and a half years after Schorn had created this sign, the Supreme Court released its decisions in the court case, Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization. Roughly seven weeks previously, Politico had published a leaked draft version of the opinion which indicated that the court intended to overturn Roe v Wade, the1973 decision which had legalized abortion.
- By June, tensions were running high and it appeared likely that the official release of the decision would spark protests at the Supreme Court. Although opinions are typically released on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the tensions around the Dobbs case and its leak led to the opinion being released on a Friday toward the end of June (the month when decisions are released). The court released its decision at mid-day and protestors, along with police and news media, immediately descended upon the court. The majority of individuals at the court on the 24th of June were there to protest the decision (as opposed to provide support for the decision).
- When Schorn heard the news, she said “I grabbed that sign (we just moved from DC to the country, it was in a moving box!) and drove into the city. No plan other than to stand in front of the Supreme Court and shriek.” In describing her motivation for protesting, Schorn pointed to her own past experiences of abusive relationships. Her sign reflected not just her anger but also her sense that she, and the country, were trapped in a “sick…abusive relationship.” Noting that she had used her anger to escape previous abusive relationships, she now saw the image on her poster as reflecting a new and more directed wave of anger.
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- The large size and dramatic imagery of Schorn’s poster ensured that it was a focal point during the June 2022 protest (and earlier). The changing meaning of the image on the poster, which Schorn herself has interpreted through an increasingly darker lens over the years, provides an especially unique insight into the ways in which women’s views of the political events of the late 2010s and early 2020s have changed over time.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- maker
- Schorn, Tracy
- date made
- 2017
- associated date
- 2022
- Credit Line
- Tracy Schorn
- Physical Description
- foam core (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 30 in x 20 in x 1/8 in; 76.2 cm x 50.8 cm x .3175 cm
- Object Name
- sign
- Object Type
- Sign
