On January 21, 2017 the international Women’s March took place in towns and cities across the world, the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, in protest of his vitriolic political campaign leading up to the election. Estimated numbers of participants have made it the largest single day of peaceful protests in US history, with approximately five million joining worldwide.[i] From hundreds of thousands of peaceful protestors in cities, to a handful in rural localities, the marches took place on all seven continents. People protested in reaction to potential threats to civil rights, and environmental concerns. Planned speeches and posters held by participants called for protections for women’s rights to body autonomy, immigration, freedom of religion, racial equality, and LGBTQ folks. Across the globe there was a sea of pink, as many of the participants wore hand knit, pink hats upon their heads.
The Pussyhat Project grew out of the 2017 Women’s March. Friends and fellow knitters, Krista Suh and Jayne Zweinman, searched for a way to show support and solidarity with other protestors by collaborating on a project that would provide warmth to marchers during a cold January day, while also aiming to creating a powerful, visual symbol. Turning to Kat Coyle, owner of a Los Angeles yarn shop, they settled on a simple hat pattern to knit, with a goal to have a million pink hats to give out to participants marching in Washington, D.C. The name “pussyhat” was inspired by Trump’s derogatory “grab them by the pussy” comment that was aired publicly right before the 2016 November election. The simple hat pattern included ears, giving the name a double meaning. They chose the color pink, long associated with female gender identity, as a way of reclaiming the color with female strength and power. With the hat pattern available online, there were over 100,000 downloads. “What started as a simple means of protest, participation and solidarity has become an iconic global symbol of political activism.”[ii] After the march, co-founder Jayne Zweinman donated her pink hat to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, joining the ranks of activist history.[iii]
Hopefully, content to be included should come from users who are interested in sharing their memories and recollections from the day. Potentially, users to the website will become content creators by adding text, images and videos that capture the significance and importance of the marches, and the impact it had on them. By employing the geolocation feature, hopefully they will also add where in the world they joined with others in peaceful protest.
Historical questions to ask will include:
- What is your most vivid memory of the day?
- What inspired you to attend a march on January 21, 2017?
- If you were unable to attend a march in person, what actions did you take to stay connected with the spirit and philosophy of the protests?
The website dedicated to preserving the memories of the 2017 Women’s March will be organized using the Omeka Classic software tool. Omeka offers a variety of plugins to expand the services and features their websites can offer to users. This website will utilize the following plugins in order assist users in sharing their memories and pictures of the day.
- Commenting – this allows users to add comments on collections
- Contribution – this allows users to add their collections of photos and memories
- Exhibit builder – this assists the creator in building exhibits on Omeka
- Flickr – this allows the user the ability to import photos or collections of photos from the photo sharing platform, while also preserving the metadata from the site
- Geolocation – this allows the user to share the location and map of which march they attended
- Guest User – this allows guests to participate in the website
- YouTube – this allows the user the ability to import videos from the platform YouTube, while also preserving the metadata from the site.
There are several target audiences for an interactive website dedicated to preserving the memories of the 2017 Women’s March. Potential users include anyone who attended the march in Washington, DC as well as any one of the hundreds of sister marches around the world. It also includes those people who were unable to attend one of the marches in person, but participated from home by watching televised speeches and sharing photos of the marches on social media platforms. It could be anyone who hand knit a pink pussy hat for another participant to wear to a march. It could be anyone who has an interest in or remembers the day, and the significance of the march.
[i] Erica Chenoweth, et al. “This is What We Learned by Counting the Women’s Marches,” The Washington Post, February 7, 2017.
[ii] Krista Suh et al. “Our Story,” Pussyhat Project. 2017 https://www.pussyhatproject.com
[iii] Ibid.