NEARLY half a million women marched in protest against Donald J. Trump in Washington, D.C., in a crowd estimated to be three times bigger than those who attended his inauguration as US president.
The women sported rectangular yarn beanies in many shades of pink, making the march in DC and 600 other solidarity marches in cities around the world, even Antarctica, a sea of pink, “a unique collective visual statement,” according to thepussyhatproject.com.
The headgear has cat-ear shaped protuberances on either side of the head. It is called a “pussyhat,” a play on another word for “cat” and in reference to the female genitalia and Trump’s infamous sexist remark on grabbing women by theirs.
While considered vulgar by conservatives, the deliberate use of the word is an attempt to reclaim the term as a means of empowerment, in much the same way women use “bitch” to refer to themselves and friends in a positive manner.
The pussyhat, worn by millions and seen on mass media around the world, has become a symbol of female defiance and the struggle for women’s rights. But unlike another headgear that also became a symbol, but of of conservatism and Christian fundamentalism—Trump’s Make America Great Again red trucker hat—pussyhats were not bought nor sold for profit nor to raise funds, but were made by volunteers and given away for free at the various march venues.
Under “The Pussyhat Project,” co-founded by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman, women marchers and sympathizers to the cause are encouraged to make their own hats and for others by knitting, crocheting, or sewing them in shades of pink yarn and fabric. Patterns were provided for free, and experienced yarnsmiths came up with their own designs. Pink was chosen as the color because “it is considered a very female color representing caring, compassion, and love—all qualities that have been derided as weak but are actually STRONG.”
The play to make the pussyhat a symbol of the Women’s March and what it stands for is so successful that one glance at the artifact, today or in the future, will immediately place the event and the sentiment in its proper historical and cultural context.
Similarly, the “brain hat”—likewise a knitted or crocheted yarn cap but with the addition of loopy, cord-like yarn strands to represent brains—is being touted as the symbol of the March for Science on April 22, Earth Day, in cities around the US and perhaps the world.
At this event, scientists and other like-minded folk will march in protest against Trump’s climate-change denialism, muzzling of scientific government agencies including national parks from issuing public communications, and his administration’s other anti-science policies and sentiments.
However, the brain hat is more difficult to make than the pussyhat. Whether it will be as popular as the pussyhat will be known in the future.
How do we interpret this phenomenon of making a personal, wearable, shareable, symbol of protest, that will last for years if not decades, unlike other protest artifacts such as signs, posters, and placards?
In one word—craftivism.
In her groundbreaking book The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine, psychotherapist Rozsika Parker declares that women’s work has been marginalized for centuries, ever since the arts were hierarchically divided into fine arts and craft. (Although in my opinion this would not quite apply to Japanese and Chinese art, where kimono-making, fabric dyeing, weaving, embroidery, and other textile creations and manipulations were just as much art as craft and practiced by men as well as and women).
In the West, “the movement to break down boundaries between different forms of creative expression, which gathered pace in the 1970s, has undoubtedly intensified,” Parker said in 2010.
This movement was concomitant to the rise of feminism and the taking back of textile craft in a statement of female power. From being instruments of domestic oppression, sewing, embroidery, knitting, and other traditionally “feminine” crafts were now used as a means of creative self-expression and as a way to make cultural and political statements that brought the concept of femaleness to the fore, with the particular issue of the moment to be articulated against the context of women and their concerns.
This gave rise to the term “craftivism”—a “social process of collective empowerment, action, expression, and negotiation. In craftivism, engaging in the social, performative, and critical discourse around the work is central to its production and dissemination.”
The creation of pussyhats comes under this banner because it is social (it is made with and for others), it is performative (upon donning it the wearer becomes ‘protester’ and acts as such), and critical (it is a visual statement for women’s rights and against Trump).
It empowers both maker and wearer, it drives to action and expression by the very act of wearing it, and the mere sight of it may be interpreted as a negotiation for the results desired by the marchers.
“Has the pen or pencil dipped so deep in the blood of the human race as the needle?” (Olive Schreiner, 1926), and, we might add, the knitting needles and the crochet hooks?
During this time of turmoil and uncertainty, craftivism becomes, more than ever, an accessible means to reiterate human concerns and to communicate female struggle against oppression of all types through the creation of artifacts that act as message-conveying symbols.
How powerful and empowering this is. It’s time to learn how to knit and crochet!
Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember