Beyond the Pussy Hat: Better Ways to Show Resistance

Op-ed By Rachel Lee
Photos by Meg Wachter & Amanda Stosz

January 21st, 2018 marked the first anniversary of the Women’s March, a march on Washington carried out by a number of women’s rights and activist groups that spread to cities across the country and the world. The March, held in protest the day after President Trump’s inauguration, is happening again this year, and it’s still as important in 2018 – resisting the Trump administration and political agendas designed to oppress marginalized people is still essential when bills that are limiting basic human rights are being passed every day.

With another Women’s March comes the revival of the pussy hat. The pink “pussy hat” became the symbol of the anti-Trump feminist movement in 2017. Just a quick scan of aerial shots from the first Women’s March shows a sea of protesters in pink hats. The hats were designed to be worn for the first March, and it is its own form of passive protest. In many ways, it symbolizes resistance against the patriarchy in its overwhelming femininity: the color pink; being knit, an art form that has historically been carried out by women; and the “pussy” itself, triangular cat ears that stick up from the corners of the hat when it’s worn, that is a representation of a vagina.

Though many feminists are proud of their hats and still wear them one year later, let’s use the anniversary of the march to rethink the pussy hat. I take issue with the reduction of a woman to a vagina. Not all people who identify as women have vaginas, and not all people with vaginas identify as women. The pussy hat is representative of just cisgender women and indirectly focuses the anti-Trump movement, which should be inclusive of women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and people of color, to only represent them.

Regardless of who has one, sharing images of vaginas itself is important work. Phallic images dominate artwork, and penises are normalized in our culture in a way vaginas are not. Normalizing vaginas by spreading images of them is an important way to open up conversation about menstruation, abortion, body image, and other women’s health issues; however, wearing pussy hats doesn’t truly achieve those aims. They’re just cutesy ways to signify, but not truly show, a vagina. Pussy hats are just stand-ins for vaginas that avoid the reality of sexism and the explicitness of showing genitalia.

There are better ways to show resistance than the pussy hat. Frank Ocean’s "Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic when you can just be quiet?” shirt, other anti-racist and anti-sexist apparel, and signs are all great things to bring to a march or a protest, but ultimately, actions speak louder than words. Wearing a pussy hat or bringing a sign to a march means nothing if it is not followed up with activism, resistance, and change in local communities. Activism can be as broad as organizing your own protest or as localized as explaining intersectionality to your family. (Read our round-up of ways to resist in 2018 here!) As we continue into the second year of resistance against the current administration, it’s time to ditch the pussy hat for good and put money where our mouths are.