As the column turned onto Lindsay Street at Hamilton on Saturday, and the crowd chanted along to songs of smashing the patriarchy set to the tune of the Drunken Sailor shanty, and a few locals from the street came out to cheer the march on, there was a sense of hopefulness about the place.
Hollie Enright had brought her two children - Sienna, who is three, and Sophia, eight months - and walked alongside her husband, Matt, and the family dog, Moet, as the chants grew and mingled. It was the girls' first International Women's Day march, Mrs Enright said, and it was important that they were involved in the cause.
