Organisers say it was a successful event but only the beginning.
Roni Glasthal reports.
Roni Glasthal reports.
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00:00So, good morning women and allies and thank you for coming.
00:05I'm really grateful to have the freedom of expression and the freedom of speech to be here to speak without threat of persecution or reprimand.
00:15I'm grateful to have the right to vote and hold public office.
00:19I'm grateful to have the right to have power over the direction of my own life.
00:24You're angry and you should be too.
00:26Women are not free until all women are free.
00:29This was just part of the official statement released by UK Women's March prior to the countrywide protest on Saturday the 18th.
00:38High streets filled with women and allies marching peacefully for their rights.
00:43This was what Canterbury High Street looked like on that day.
00:47Accompanied by activists, politicians and guest speakers, crowds joined together in Danejohn Gardens in a rally following their march.
00:57Yeah, I just wanted to thank you all for being here.
01:00I'm a little bit blown away and I'm feeling a little bit of, I'll be honest, we're mostly women.
01:05I'm feeling a bit of imposter syndrome right now because I'm thinking, who the hell am I to tell any of you anything?
01:09Like, we all know, don't we? But the trouble is other people don't know.
01:12We have to make ourselves loud.
01:14I think it's a demonstration of the fact that we have a voice and we're going to use it and we can organise.
01:20And we're hoping that just by highlighting it, we're not going to remain quiet.
01:23And we want allies, we want men to get annoyed about this too.
01:26This is not fair for anybody.
01:28Everybody needs feminism because feminism is about equality.
01:32Men are punished for wanting to be a present parent and neglect their career.
01:37Men are punished for crying, for expressing emotion, for talking about mental health.
01:42We're looking particularly to young boys growing up.
01:45Pick your role models. You don't have to be like the men you see around you.
01:49You can choose to be a different kind of man.
01:51In Kent at the moment, I'd say some of the challenges women are facing would be economic challenges and employment challenges.
01:58A lot of people, particularly in the area where I live in Thannock, Ransom in Thannock,
02:02a lot of people are unemployed or are working zero-hours contracts.
02:06Women are left with primarily to sort out things like childcare, looking after the children, juggling work.
02:12We're also the victim, like everyone else in the country, sexual assaults are a huge problem.
02:17Both unreported and the massive number of unreported daily sexual assaults and harassment that women undergo.
02:23And we're just here to say we don't have to put up with this and we're not going to.
02:28Ronnie Glestal for KMTV in Canterbury.