Congresswomen wore pink to protest Trump – but what does it achieve?

Yesterday (March 4), dozens of Democratic congresswomen wore bright pink to President Donald Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress to protest the 47th President.

New Mexico Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, told TIME that the colour choice was meant to “signal our protest of Trump’s policies, which are negatively impacting women and families”. She added, “Pink is a colour of power and protest. It is time to rev up the opposition and come at Trump loud and clear.”

This isn’t the first time the Democratic Women’s Caucus has used fashion as a form of protest. In 2019 and 2020, they wore white to honour the suffragists who fought for (white) women’s voting rights. Last year, at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union, they once again wore white to oppose the rollback of reproductive rights. This year, Fernández says, pink reflects a shift in tone as they see this moment as a critical turning point in American politics.

From Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which could drive up prices on essential goods, to his push for a budget that slashes Medicaid, the largest single payer of maternity care in the US, covering over 40 per cent of births, Fernández argues that his administration’s policies disproportionately harm women, particularly women of colour from working-class backgrounds. “Women have worn pink in opposition to Trump before, and we will do it again,” she said.

There is no denying the damage Trump’s administration inflicts on the most marginalised in society. Yet, the Democratic Party’s brand of feminist “resistance” often feels hollow. The fervour of their actions (if wearing different colours can even be called action) only seems to reach its peak when Trump is in office. Where was this urgency when the Biden administration, backed by US and UK tax dollars, funded Israel’s genocide in Gaza? When pregnant women gave birth without anaesthesia, when starving mothers couldn’t produce milk for their babies, when over a million women and girls were displaced – Democratic congresswomen wore white. Ethnic cleansing in Palestine, it seems, did not warrant a mainstream feminist outcry. But when Trump takes power, and the violence is happening on US soil, that is when the alarms go off. That is when the colour pink comes out in full force.

It feels like 2017 all over again. From the return of the colour pink in protests, reminiscent of the infamous pink pussy hats from the Women’s March, to the resurgence of political slogan tees, as seen on the runways of Ashish, Conner Ives, Willy Chavarria and Egonlab. To be clear, not all these efforts feel performative: Ives, for instance, put his ‘Protect the Dolls’ t-shirt up for sale, with all proceeds going to Trans Lifeline, a US-based trans-led organisation providing emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis. But so much of this political posturing feels stale and performative. Have we learned nothing from the last Trump administration? Are we really still relying on the same tired stunts?

The problem with Democrats isn’t just that their resistance feels shallow; it’s that their words rarely align with their actions. When Trump served his first term, then-Senator Kamala Harris publicly denounced his Mexico-US border wall over 50 times. Yet, while running for office, she pledged $650 million to continue its construction. Time and again, Democrats present themselves as the party of justice and equality, yet when given the power to enact real change, they fall short.

People don’t just want symbols; they want action. They want policies that genuinely protect the most vulnerable, not just well-timed outfits that look good in a press photo. If Democrats want to claim the moral high ground, they must prove they can do more than just wear the right colours.