In the last two years, people have marched across the U.S. and the world to "show up" and speak out about women's rights, reproductive rights, immigration, and more. In 2017, this march was dubbed "The Women's March." Many of us marched in response to the presidential inauguration, for the initial march took place days after Trump took office. For many women, the march was a protest against Trump as a person and a symbol of a sexist patriarchy.
Before the march, some people decided to come up with a symbol to counteract the one I just mentioned. The Pussyhat Project chose hot pink knitted hats with cat ears as the emblem of the movement. So, pussy cat >> pussy hat. See:
Why "pussy hat"? According to the PP's website, "The name Pussyhat™ was chosen in part as a protest against vulgar comments Donald Trump made about the freedom he felt to grab women’s genitals, to de-stigmatize the word 'pussy' and transform it into one of empowerment, and to highlight the design of the hat’s 'pussycat ears.’" Trump had his "Make America Great Again" hats; women had their pussyhats.
We've seen this kind of linguistic harnessing of power before with women redirecting the negative energy of words such as "bitch." For some people, though, the marchers' use of "pussy" and the wearing of the hats was too shocking. Why? Because it called attention to women's bodies in an unacceptable way--men can joke privately about pussies, but women should not publicly use the word, right? Right? On top of that, there was backlash against these hats as symbols of the movement because they seemed to anatomize the movement: do you have to have a vulva to be a woman, some people wondered. The pussy hats were said to exclude people who are transgender and non-binary in terms of gender. Some people even objected to the color because they said it represented pink genitalia (thus white women's vulvas). The founders of the project said they chose the color because it represents femininity, not the color of anyone's vulva.
In 2018, women at marches were discouraged from wearing the pussyhats. I wonder if we'll see any at the 2019 march.
I bet you're wondering how any of this relates to What Professors Wear. Am I like two years behind and posting about the marches? Nope. I'm about to tell you about a hat I bought a few days ago at TJMaxx. I'm about to tell you that I had no idea that I just bought a pussyhat.
As you know, I am being treated for cancer and am bald. I wear hats every time I go out. Winter's coming, and I thought I'd treat myself to a new one. One of my favorite colors is hot pink. I like its brightness and boldness. I think I look pretty good in hot pink. It's a pop of color that makes my pale skin look less pale. This color gives me some life. When I wear it people tell me I look good. Take for example last Thursday when I decided to wear a pink head covering and pink lipstick to my cancer center. A couple of people were like, "Oh, you look so pretty. You look like you're feeling better!" Well, I just put on some pink!
As I was adjusting my beanie today, I looked in the mirror and saw cat ears:
OMG, I'm wearing a pussyhat! I had no idea that I bought a pussyhat! :D
OK, I'm late to a party that started a few years ago and has since petered out, but I'm going to be wearing this hat for a while. Maybe some people will see it as a pussyhat, maybe not. What do you see?
