What’s new, pussyhat?
A casual Wednesday evening knitting group at Deja Brew Pub has been busier than usual lately, with a mission: knitting pink “pussyhats” and plans to contribute more than 45 of them as part of a worldwide “Pussyhat Project” that organizers hope will create a sea of pink at Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington — and maybe waves of pink at sister events planned for Greenfield, Northampton, Boston, New York and elsewhere.
“We’re knitting them like crazy because so many women want them,” said Deja Brew owner Patti Scutari, who said she heard from 10 women requesting hats Wednesday alone.
The project, dreamed up by screenwriter Krista Suh and architect Jayna Zweitman, both in Los Angeles, just before Thanksgiving, is partially a response to Donald Trump’s caught-on-tape remarks about grabbing women by their genitalia. But while the videotape, in which he used the p-word, enraged women everywhere, the “Pussyhat Project” was aimed at taking back the word and uniting women with warm, functional hats of the traditionally feminine color to show their solidarity and strength in fighting for women’s rights.
Using social media, the two spread the idea as well as a boxlike pattern for hats with little kitty ears on top created by the owner of LA’s The Little Knittery, figuring that women marchers would appreciate keeping their heads warm against January’s chill. It would also provide for unity.
“It was just so perfect, not just because of Trump’s comments but because of the shame and emotion in the fight for women’s rights,” Zweiman told The Associated Press recently.
Suh said, “What surprised me about all of this was the depth of emotion of people who are participating. People are reaching out to us, talking about how this project has lifted them out of a depression, that it’s been their way to channel their grief and anger.”
The project sent needles knitting and purling in Wendell, a community where the spirit of activism runs deep and the politics run progressive. When Scutari heard about the project and brought it to her Wednesday night knitting group at the pub, the informal gathering began turning out hats over the past three weeks.
About five or six mostly women knitters, but also crocheters and beaders get together each week, Scutari said.
The original idea had been to send the hats off to the central Reston, Va., address on the pussyhatproject.com website, with attached labels describing the knitters and “a woman’s issue I care about,” she said.
But it soon became clear that so many people from the area were planning to march in Washington, New York, Boston or Greenfield, that they decided to outfit the local marchers and have them bring along the rest to hand out.
“There’s been a tremendous response,” said Scutari, who said she plans to stay closer to home Saturday and attend the rally on the Greenfield Town Common.
Although based on a common pattern, Scutari said, she’s seen postings of women who have improvised with hats that are crocheted of different shades of pink — especially because some yarn stores have reported running out of pink yarn.
Sheep & Shawl owner Liz Sorenson said her Deerfield yarn shop had a 10-percent-off sale on pink yarn all during January after “People kept coming in asking for pink yarn. We’re just about sold out of pink hat-weight yarn, and there’s a shortage of pink yarn nationwide.” (The project’s website has patterns and even video instructions for making the hats.)
In addition to a run on yarn from knitters — many of them making more than a single hat, said Sorenson, who’d been unaware of the Wendell knitters — websites like Esty have also been selling the hats.
Lou Leelyn of Wendell, a member of the Deja Brew knitting group that totals about a dozen women and men, said she’s made six or seven hats so far, some of which have been sent to marchers headed to Greenfield “to equip locals first.”
Leelyn, who has a business recycling plastic bags into wearable art, says she has a passion for crafts that make a powerful statement, like the mission of the hat project.
“It’s something about taking back the color pink,” which she said connotes “gentleness, love and compassion, and turning it into a loud, constructive voice.
“It’s about women’s solidarity,” she said. “It’s not OK to say some of the terrible things that Trump says to women. With the hats, women are just trying to send a message that we’re not going away. It’s not going to get swept under the carpet. We’re not going to be treated with disrespect.”
The hats, which are also being knitted, crocheted and sewn by individuals and groups around the country and around the world, are also “a great idea” for women who can’t afford or are otherwise unable to get to the marches to sound off against the new Trump presidency.
“It made me feel more a part of it, like we contributed, because we contributed to a sea of pink hats” Scutari said.
Some women, she added, were “put off by it” because they thought it was vulgar, but instead, it was a way of turning Trump’s own “grab them by the” vulgarity on its head. “They’re owning it. People are saying, ‘I want to go with a hat!’”
Besides, the play on words, with little kitty ears on the hats, is playful and a way of taking back the power of the word ‘pussy’ and their own bodies.
The project’s website says, “We chose this loaded word for our project because we want to reclaim the term as a means of empowerment. … Women, whether transgender or cisgender, are mistreated in this society. In order to get fair treatment, the answer is not to take away our pussies, the answer is not to deny our femaleness and femininity, the answer is to demand fair treatment. A woman’s body is her own. We are honoring this truth and standing up for our rights.” It adds, “Pink is considered a very female color representing caring, compassion, and love … Wearing pink together is a powerful statement that we are unapologetically feminine and we unapologetically stand for women’s rights.”
The project also tries to send another message:
“Knitting and crochet are traditionally women’s crafts,” Suh and Zweitman’s site says, “and we want to celebrate these arts. Knitting circles are sometimes scoffed at as frivolous ‘gossiping circles,’ when really, these circles are powerful gatherings of women, a safe space to talk, a place where women support women. Anything handmade shows a level of care, and we care about women’s rights, so it is appropriate to symbolize this march with a handmade item, one made with a skill that has been passed down from woman to woman for generations.”
On the Web:
www.pussyhatproject.com
You can reach Richie Davis at: rdavis@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 269