BY LINCOLN ANDERSON AND TEQUILA MINSKY | Uptown to Downtown, East Side to West Side, from art openings to religious services, in store windows and atop heads, “pussyhats” are popping up everywhere. Mostly women are wearing them, but some men, too.
They’re part of the Pussyhat Project, which aims to knit, crochet and sew up to 1.17 million of the pink, cat-eared caps by Sat., Jan. 21, the day of the massive Women’s March in Washington, D.C. The Washington Mall can hold that many protesters. However, so far, more than 200,000 people have already registered on Facebook that they will be participating, and some think as many as 500,000 people actually will march. There will also be a Women’s March in New York on the same day, and it’s likely plenty of pink pussyhats will be there, too.
According to the group’s Web site, pussyhatproject.com, “The idea is to blanket the mall at the Women’s March in a sea of pink pussyhats, a response to the president-elect’s attitude toward women and their bodies.”
The caps will provide the marchers with a “means to make a unique collective visual statement that will allow activists better to be heard,” and also give people who can’t be on the mall “a way to represent themselves and support women’s rights.”
People can also volunteer to knit hats for others. (A pattern and instructions are provided on the site.) And cap crafters can also “register” their pussyhats, then add them to an online Hat Anthology.
The weather for “J21” is predicted to range from a high of 35 to 45 degrees to a low of 15 to 25 degrees, so hats will also be important to keep warm.
The project’s organizers admit that “pusshyhat” is “a loaded word” because it includes a “derogatory” term for a part of women’s bodies, but say they want to “reclaim it.”
Not surprisingly, pink wool has been flying off the shelves at knitting shops, like Purl on Broome St. Villager Stacy Rosenstock both ordered her wool and found a hat pattern online, then went to Purl to buy circular needles. It took her a while to get it right on the first hat. But she figures it will now only take a day to knit a second for her daughter.
