In that occasion the Democratic Women's Working Group and many members of the Congress, opted for black attire in support of the #MeToo movement and the anti-harassment initiative Time's Up. Members of the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) also wore brightly colored yellow, green, black and red kente cloth matched with all-black clothing as a protest against Trump who referred in January 2018 to Africa and Haiti as "sh*thole countries".
This year US President Donald Trump's State of the Union Speech, delayed because of the longest government shutdown in US history and held yesterday 5th February, was characterised by another shade - suffragette white.
The Democratic congresswomen - among them Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (who became an instant meme for her facial expression when she stood up to clap Trump...) - decided to make a statement with pantsuits, dresses, sheaths, jackets, capes, and accessories in this shade to send a message and tell women in the United States that the elected members of Congress will fight for all people and for advancing women's hard-earned rights. So this wasn't about who wore it well, but about wearing white in sisterhood.
In his speech President Trump highlighted how there is a higher number of women in the 116th Congress - 102 female members of the House and 25 women in the Senate (the vast majority of them are Democrats) - than ever before. This could be deemed as very symbolic as well since this year also marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the constitution, that prohibits states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to US citizens on the basis of sex.
After Trump saluted the record number of women elected to Congress, Democratic congresswomen joyfully stood up and Democrats and Republicans joined in chanting "U-S-A!".
Yet, despite his words of support, Trump's views are still racist (the wall on the southern US border with Mexico is still firmly in his mind) and he still has dubious positions when it comes to women's reproductive rights (the President urged lawmakers to ban late-term abortions), access to healthcare and equal pay.
This wasn't the first time white appeared as a style choice at SOTU: Several female lawmakers wore white to President Trump's first State of the Union address in 2017.
But the neutral shade has a long history in politics and protest: suffragettes adopted it to symbolise purity and because the colour was intended to be a symbol of peaceful protest and look non-threatening. Matched it with purple and gold sashes, the shade also looked striking when it appeared in black and white photographs on the newspapers.
If you look on the Internet for images of suffragettes in white you will find labor lawyer Inez Milholland Boissevain at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade in Washington on March 3, 1913, wearing a dashing white cape and riding a white horse (you can discover more about this event in Rebecca Boggs Roberts' Suffragists in Washington, D.C.: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote).
Shirley Chisholm wore white in 1968 when she became the first African American woman to be elected to Congress; Hillary Clinton opted for the same shade to accept the Democratic nomination for president in July 2016.
The colour worked well on television and on social media for the Democratic women at the 2019 SOTU: they posed in the Capitol in white before the speech and then stood out pretty well among the dark suits favoured by men, so their outfits of protest to show solidarity, resistance and civil disobedience proved a great choice visually and symbolically speaking.
So last night men weren't under the spotlight (even though Democratic male lawmakers, including Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, wore white ribbons on their lapels, while Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota opted for an all-white suit), as the women in white definitely stole the show.
That said, there was actually a male hero of the evening - Joshua Trump - an 11-year-old boy who was bullied at school because he shares his last name with the US President, but he is no relation. Invited to the State of the Union by Melania Trump, he fell asleep winning the approval of the social media. Well, some wear white, others fall asleep, but the most important thing is joining the protest.
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