After the presidential election I, like many of my fellow Americans, felt a profound sense of devastation. Over the past year, I have been in graduate school preparing to enter the federal workforce as a civil servant, and the prospect of going into the Trump administration terrified me. During my time in graduate school, I believed I had found my calling to be a part of a research organization at a federal agency or other organization within the federal government. In our current age, where facts are frequently dismissed and ignored, it felt like my entire career path was being called into question. I also felt an incredible sense of guilt. I believed, and still believe, that I should have done more to advocate for issues and policies that I care about, as well as impact those I love. As a result of these feelings, I was determined to find a way to redirect the intense anxiety I was experiencing into grassroots efforts.
Oddly enough, the first grassroots organizing effort I joined involved pussy hats. For the past year, I have been learning how to sew at a local sewing studio and store, The Stitch Lab, in Austin. In preparation for the Women’s March on Washington, DC, The Stitch Lab provided materials and hosted sewing and knitting circles to make hats for the marchers. Pussy hats, as one may infer, reference a particularly vulgar statement by President Trump and were intended to make a powerful, unified visual statement. Crafters Krista Suh, Jayna Zweiman, and Katy Coyle created The Pussy Hat Project. They posted DIY patterns for others to download, provided an address for individuals to mail the hats to protestors, and cards to attach to the hats. The cards attached to each hat we made at The Stitch Lab included the contact information of the maker and the issue or issues, that are important to the maker. This allowed women who weren’t marching in DC a chance to express which causes were important to them since the Women’s March encompassed issues related to feminism, police brutality, and more. Sewing and yarn-related crafting stores across the US hosted their own crafting circles and acted as drop-off locations for makers to bring their completed hats to be sent to marchers in DC.
I so badly wanted to join the women marching in Washington, but the spring semester for my graduate program started the week before the event. However, being a part of The Pussy HatProject provided the kind of comfort that I needed at the time and helped me feel like I was a part of the history being made in DC. Women of all ages and crafting experience came out to the event at The Stitch Lab. That night, women who had never used a sewing machine learned how to sew, and we created a safe space to express our anxieties. Some of the hats were mailed in to the organizers at The Pussy Hat Project and some went with women from the sewing circle who were riding charter buses with other activists to the DC march. Our combined efforts produced over 140 hats for protesters. The Pussy Hat Projectallowed me, as well as other allies across the country, to play a role in the march that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.
By Ashley Thomas
Pussy Hat Project Info: https://www.pussyhatproject.com & http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-d-i-y-revolutionaries-of-the-pussyhat-project
To learn more about Ashley's activism and interests, contact her at: athomas_1511@tamu.edu