Posted on 01/01/2017 12:56:57 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Almost every day for the past few weeks Celia McCarthy has sat down to knit a pink hat. To be specific, a pink hat with ears, colloquially known as a “pussy hat.”
McCarthy has knit 12 pink hats so far, but only one is for her. The rest she plans to send to Washington D.C. where they will adorn the heads of some of the hundreds of thousands of women who are expected to march on Jan. 21, the day after Donald Trump is inaugurated as the nation’s 45th president.
McCarthy is not alone. Thousands of women around the United States (and a few from Thailand and Australia) are busy knitting pink hats for the Washington D.C. march. Some women are knitting the hats in the privacy of their own homes. Some have launched knitting circles. Others are going to yarn stores to knit with strangers with a common vision.
The idea, launched by two women in Los Angeles and the owner of their local yarn store, for the Pussyhat Project is a big “F … you” of sorts to Trump and the values he espouses. They are hoping that the 200,000 marchers all wear the pink hats and send a strong message of resistance.
“If everyone at the march wears a pink hat, the crowd will be a sea of pink, showing that we stand together, united,” the website of the Pussy Hat Project reads. “Pink is considered a very female color representing caring, compassion, and love – all qualities that have been derided as weak but are actually STRONG. Wearing pink together is a powerful statement that we are unapologetically feminine and we unapologetically stand for women’s rights."
The shape of the hat, with its “pussy” cat ears, is also a play on the statement Trump made while filming an episode of Hollywood Access with its host Billy Bush. Trump and Bush were riding on a bus and did not realize they were being recorded. They started talking openly about groping and kissing women. Trump bragged that since he was a star he could do whatever he wanted to women. He could even “grab them by the pussy.” Bush was fired for his comments.
The reference to pussy was just one of many inappropriate comments Trump has made about women. During one of the three presidential debates, Trump referred to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as a “nasty woman.” Since then, many women have embraced those words and used them to describe themselves as a way to refute Trump’s sexism.
“It’s wonderful to see younger women embrace the term pussy, the color pink, and the power of the handmade and take all of those pejorative terms that have been used to put us in our place and use them to form some sort of communal power,” said McCarthy, who lives in Berkeley and is the co-owner of Piedmont Yarn in Oakland.
The Pussyhat Project’s genesis came a few days after the election. Krista Suh, 29, a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles, had campaigned for Clinton in Ohio. She and a friend, Jayna Zweiman, 38, an architect, were devastated by Clinton’s unexpected loss and were spending time at their local yarn store, The Little Knittery, to knit and process the impact of Trump’s election.
Suh had decided to attend the Jan. 21 march and realized that it would be cold. She thought about making a hat, and then, in discussions with Zweiman, realized that having women all wear the same hat could be a powerful statement. Kat Coyle, the owner of the store and the two women’s knitting mentor, came up with a design simple enough for beginners. Suh and Zweiman got up the website the day before Thanksgiving and began advertising the project on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with the hashtag #pussyhat.
Since then thousands of women have posted pictures of the hats they have knit. While it is impossible to know exactly how many people are participating in the project, Suh thinks there are between 30,000 to 100,000 pussy hats already made. Around 60,000 people have looked at that pattern posted on the website, with more looking at the website. There have been thousands of tweets and more than 2,000 Instagram photos. One woman wrote on Instagram about a 99-year-old who was knitting hats for marchers. A Pennsylvania woman has made close to 100 pussy hats and is selling them for $15 on Etsy.
“We are definitely making a dent,” said Zweiman. “We know we have thousands and thousands but we don’t know how many thousands.”
Probably a lot of the women wearing these “pussyhats” would be better named “dumpy divas”....
Hope it catches on. That way I can tell from a distance which woman I want to have no contact with. A real time saver.
This won't help them in attracting any.
Pink is the new purple?
Wearing pink hats at a Berkeley protest. Trump is quaking in his boots.
Whatever.
So I can no longer wear my pink hat?
In the bin with the rest of the clothes co-opted for political statements, grrr.
Symbolism over substance.
Good they will look like the boobs they are.
Sure...right...just the way you did to elect Hitlery. BEYOND STUPID.
I hope whoever wears them gets a rash, or lice.
I shall Prepare Portions of Pink Popcorn to Pop when Perceiving this Pussy Paraphernalia Protest Properly from my Parapet.
Actually he was fired for being in the same van with a Republican.
People in Hollywood not only talk way worse then what he said, they actually do things way worse.
Hollywood is the sex abuse center of the planet.
Is this the feminist equivalent of a d**k-head?
I noticed the phrase “communal power”...the COMMUNISM runs deep with these nutjobs! So really NO ONE KNOWS how many pussy hats have been made, and if they think “hundreds of thousands” are going to show up to protest in freezing weather they are totally insane!!! What’s this about a 99 year old woman making the hats? She must be one that Sen. Joe McCarthy missed! ;)
Lunatics.
What a fulfilling life. (sarcasm)
Childish and futile, but at least (as an isolated event) it’s not violent. Now, if they start wearing those p*ssyhats while
marching with baseball bats, that is more threatening, though still childish and futile. Cats & Rats with Baseball Bats!
I don’t think these women WANT husbands at ALL, if you catch my meaning ;)
some people have a lot of time on their hands. I work six days a week- I wish i had time to sit around knitting pussy hats
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.