Natalie Wright honouring the memory of Desiree Gallagher.

Four days later, a majority of women joined again in solidarity, to march in Toronto’s Downtown East neighbourhood. Reclaim the Streets was about remembering victims of gender-based violence, like Carolyn Connolly, whose 2008 murder inspired the march. It was also a celebration: last year’s march organizers, like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, won their demand for 24-hour women and trans drop-in centres.

SlutWalk Toronto also walked as a contingent in the Dyke March. This reminded me of last year’s march when I was surprised by the barrage of questions asking me why I participated. They asked me: How does a march accomplish anything?

The Toronto IWW’s Women’s Committee providing daycare at Maggie’s rally.

“The problem is what happens after the march. Sometimes it ends in violent confrontation with the police, and more often than not it simply fizzles out,” Moises Naim writes in an April 2014 article Why Street Protests Don’t Work. Naim argues that using social media in the organizing process may skip the more tedious steps, but it also skips the solidarity built in a movement’s infrastructure: “Social media can both facilitate and undermine.”

Yet, the aforementioned example regarding OCAP’s gain of drop-in centres is proof that things don’t always just “fizzle out.” There is also the argument that these rallies, marches, and demonstrations bring awareness to a cause. Still, I’ve struggled—is this enough? Shouldn’t energies be spent on direct actions? That feeling, though—that feeling experienced at the march—is so worth it. When I was marching at Reclaim the Streets, what I was experiencing was not feel-goodism, but community. How refreshing it is to hear, as a survivor of domestic violence, that despite what social and legal places may have said: “You are not crazy. What has happened to you and what is happening to others is wrong.”

My daughter and I after the march.

Building community is very important, and so is taking care of one’s self. Feel-goodism is a superficial, shallow thing; something that requires no sincere effort. Feeling good is different. Sharing joy and taking care of yourself is critical, as the old saying goes, “you can’t take care of others without taking care of yourself.” In a world full of issues and systems that need to be dismantled, it is easy to get tired and down. If something is uplifting and connects like minds, it is just as important as the gritty hard work.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (Bill C-36) is inspired by the Nordic Model of sex work laws; pimps and johns will be held criminally accountable but not the sex workers themselves. At first glance, this seems reasonable—it isn’t the sex worker who will be punished. However his or her safety, critics say, will be in jeopardy.

These new laws will prevent workers from discussing safe sex practices online with clients, Caroline Newcastle, a sex worker and representative with Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau, Work, Educate, Resist (POWER), a non-profit group for current and former sex workers, told the Toronto Star. “It’s essentially full re-criminalization,” she adds, point to the phrasing of  the proposed laws. In the same Star report Valerie Scott—one of the original workers named in Canada V. Bedford—calls the bill “a huge gift to sexual predators.”

“This will simply move sex workers out into more isolated and more marginalized areas of the city,” elaborates Jean McDonald, head of sex worker support group Maggie’s, in an interview with the Globe and Mail.

Today, human rights group Pivot released a press release that links to an open letter to Stephen Harper signed by 200 legal experts from across Canada expressing their concerns: “Targeting clients will displace sex workers to isolated areas where prospective customers are less likely to be detected by police.”

Justice Minister Peter MacKay says the federal government wants to pass the new bill this week, CTV News reports, calling it urgent. However, NDP justice critic Francoise Boivin says she wants the government to slow down and thoughtfully craft a new, Charter-compliant law.

The safety of these women is not something to push through and get over with. Hopefully, the next five months will be spent actually consulting these workers in order to come to a decision with their safety in front of everything else.