Two million people around the world took to the streets last Saturday united in their concern at the threat they fear Donald Trump’s presidency poses for women’s rights. Yet the diversity of issues on show presented Catholic women with difficult choices

In the words of the mission and vision statement of the Washington organisers of last Saturday’s Women’s March, participants were marching “for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families” – as well as for a host of other, sometimes conflicting, causes. The marches were never officially named as “anti-Trump”, but that’s what they were.

This may be feminism’s coming of age – a grand coalition of women around the world,  forming a peace movement of solidarity and resistance in the face of the dangerous revolution in global politics heralded by the Brexit vote and the recent US elections. Whatever our differences, women have good reason to stand together in the face of a political tsunami that threatens to sweep away all our fragile and hard-won gains in equality and rights over the past half century.

Yet what are these “women’s rights” and how unifying are they? It has been said that the march was dominated by liberal white women, and that it neglected issues of race, disability and gender diversity. Most challenging for some was the conflict between the so-called Pro-Choice and Pro-Life lobbies that dominate US culture wars.