Thousands of women are expected to take to the streets of Sydney and Melbourne at the weekend to protest against hatred and bigotry they say has been stirred up as a result of Donald Trump's election.
The Women's March events, to be held on Saturday in solidarity with others in more than 40 other countries, will voice support for the rights of women, minorities and immigrants, and against the normalisation of misogyny.
Beginning in Sydney's Hyde Park and the State Library of Victoria, the marches have been organised in solidarity with a grassroots campaign in Washington DC that has spread to countless cities including London, Paris and Copenhagen.
More than 200,000 women and men are expected to march in the US capital alone the day after the controversial US businessman is sworn in as president on Friday (Saturday AEDT).
American Dr Mindy Freiband co-founded the Sydney event four days after last November's presidential election when she realised she would not be able to join family and friends in Washington for the march there.
"I felt strongly that I needed to do something to voice my upset and dissent," she told AAP on Wednesday.
She joined forces with a group of young Australian women on Facebook who had also made plans to march because of their concerns about the ripple effects of "blatant misogyny and bigotry coming out of the US".
"While the first aspect of the mission is to be a solidarity march, we really want to engage the local community and basically ask people to become more active in their local politics, in any way that they feel," Dr Freiband said.
"This isn't really just about women. Trump has managed to offend so many different groups and put forth policies that threaten them.
"If you're not engaged, you're at risk of losing ground like many of us feel we have in the US."
American singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer, OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn, Daily Life's 2016 Woman of the Year Mariam Veiszadeh and Wiradjuri elder Jenny Munro are all set to strap on their boots in Sydney.
Many marchers have already painted placards - circulating on social media under the hashtag #WhyIMarch - with messages including 'Men of quality support women's equality' and 'The future is Female'.
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