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[–]MarkTwainiac 31 insightful - 2 fun31 insightful - 1 fun32 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Almost immediately after the big march, the hats became deemed offensive. Why? Because 'not all women have vaginas omg' and also brown people don't have pink pussys (never mind that the color was symbolic of femininity, not literal vulvas).

One of the confounding things about this is that the meaning of "pussy" in this context was never clear. "Pussy" seems like an all-purpose slur for female genitals, and is used to mean either vulva or vagina, or both at once.

I always thought "pussy" meant a post-pubescent vulva, coz vulvas are soft and furry and many liked to stroke and nuzzle them the way we're naturally drawn to do with kittens and cats. But then I'm from an older generation to whom the idea of women removing our pubic hair so our mons and vulvas would look pre-pubescent was and is anathema. So I'm clearly way out of date! I realize that in popular imagination and common presentation nowadays, post-pubescent vulvas are no longer customarily furry.

Also, it seems that in recent years, the way even women talk about our own anatomy has become less precise. Nowadays, it's become common for younger generations to use the word vagina when they mean vulva alone, or when they mean women's genitals generally. For many people, "vagina" has been divorced from meaning a specific part of female anatomy and instead has become a vague catchall term akin to terms like "privates" or "the down there" used in the past.

To make matters worse, many of the TIMs who took over the women's march and have appropriated and redefined "feminism" clearly have absolutely no clue that the vagina is an internal organ separate from the vulva. Nor are they aware that the vulva has many separate parts including the labia, clitoris and urethra.

Prior to the second women's march in 2018, famous UK TRA Munroe Bergdorf, who was a London leader of the second women's march, famously tweeted to tell women not to "center reproductive systems," and particularly not female repro systems, in feminism coz that's "exclusionary" and not "intersectional." Then he informed the world that "not all vaginas are pink" - showing he had no idea all girls & women's vaginas are inside our bodies and they indeed all are the same pinkish color, no matter what our race, skin pigmentation, ethnicity, age etc.

Similarly, after Jazz Jennings had his first genital surgery he kept talking on his TV show about "peeing from my vagina," clearly showing that he'd never bothered to learn the basics of the female anatomy he supposedly spent his whole life from age two dreaming about and wishing for - and which he went to such painful lengths at age 18 to try to simulate through surgery.

Remember you guys? Everyone and their dog was frantically knitting them two years ago.

BTW, not to nitpick - coz in pandemic and lockdown days everyone's sense of time seems to be off - but in point of fact, it was more like four years ago.

The big pussy hat march was on January 21, 2017, the day after Trump was inaugurated. The original design/pattern was done in November 2016. And the release of the video and audio tape in which Trump was heard and shown in 2005 making his infamous "grab 'em by the pussy" remarks was in early October of 2016.

By the time the second march rolled in early 2018, the pussy hats were, dare I say it, old hat.

[–]hmimperialtortie 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It all happened in protest against his “grab ‘em by the pussy” boast, didn’t it?

Tbh I’m glad they’ve disappeared. Not the reason - TRAs being their usual disgusting selves - but because I loathe the term pussy applied to women’s genitals. I love cats more than I’ll ever love any human, and a word that probably goes back to Ancient Egypt, a term of affection for them, is unusable in public. I’d be happy to see vulvas referred to as vulvas, not by any slang term.

[–]MarkTwainiac 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

From the website of the Pussy Hat Project

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’. Leveraging social media and the close-knit nature of the global knitting community, word was spread and the fuse was lit.

https://www.pussyhatproject.com/our-story

The hats originated in response to the shaming of women by Trump, a man who is an exemplar of domineering, blowhard, attention-seeking misogyny in its more traditional form. And the hats quickly went out of fashion coz of the shaming of women by trans-identified men, who exemplify domineering, blowhard, attention-seeing misogyny in its latest and currently most fashionable form.

Website of Krista Suh who says she first came up with the idea: Krista Suhhttps://kristasuh.com/the-pussyhat/

The Pussy Hat Project and Suh say Kat Coyle, owner of Little Knittery, designed the pattern. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pussyhat-project

[–]hmimperialtortie 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the extra info!

I cringe a bit at the “empowerment” bit. Verrrry optimistic, like the whole “reclaiming slurs” idea - we’ve seen how well that went.

It always strikes me that Trump would fit perfectly in the trans movement. He’s already got the misogyny, the addled brain, the perversions, the dreadful hair, the layers of makeup ...

[–]wecandobetter[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you, feminism historian! I greatly appreciate your long view of history and insight.