SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people on Saturday staged the fourth annual Women's March in front of San Francisco City Hall to call for the protection of women's rights and gender equality with the support of the city's Mayor London Breed.
Breed threw her weight behind the Women's March movement by echoing its theme "Together We Rise!" as she encouraged women to safeguard their own rights.
"Today is about lifting each other up," Breed said to the cheers of the energized crowd outside City Hall, who waved banners, placards and signs that conveyed messages of "We Are the 50%," "The Future is Female" and "Strong Women Have Attitude!"
Other city and state officials including California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, and Malia Cohen, chairwoman of the State Board of Equalization of California, also appeared.
"As I stood with the women and men who marched in 2017, my spirit was revived," which encouraged her to run for office and landed her in the lieutenant governorship, Kounalakis said.
San Francisco Assessor Carmen Chu, who is also a Chinese-American female assessor to serve among all 58 counties of California state, urged women to run for public office.
"We came out today because we don't want to be the only, (and) we don't want to be the last. We're looking for the next, and we want all of you to be our next," she said, voicing her support for women in running for public offices.
Shirley Coly, one of the participants and a fundraiser for higher education in Monterey, California, told Xinhua that Saturday's movement is a good opportunity for women to express their voices.
"It is a powerful way for women to come together to share their frustrations and to ask the government for more that they're ignoring," she said.
The Women's March movement began nationwide in January 2017.
